Cathedrals

...It is not the purpose of cathedrals simply to make people feel small (there is no virtue in feeling small) but rather to help people understand that they are located within the vast and orderly architecture of creation. We are indeed small, but a small part of something glorious, in which we can participate, find out place, find our purpose. Cathedrals are celebrations of all that God has made, and they embody in their stone and glass the history of God's dealings with his world and people made in his image.

 -Alan Jacobs, Wayfaring: Essays Pleasant and Unpleasant, 51.

Too Many Books...?

I'm usually reading a couple books at the same time - one on my nightstand, and maybe something else during lunch at work or in the evening. And then there are the books I pick up for a night and then put down, fully intending to come back sooner or later (sorry Dr. Zhivago and Paradise Lost). But the following are all books I've been consistently dipping into over the last couple weeks, probably as a result of spending too much time at the library and owning a Kindle. I should also mention that a couple of these are stretches. So far, Augustine is very nice bedtime reading (i.e., it only takes a couple of pages before my eyes start to blur). And Paterson is almost totally incomprehensible, but I enjoy reading it out loud to myself on walks. City of God, Augustine The Art of Travel, Alain De Botton The Memory of Blood, Christopher Fowler Wayfaring: Essays Pleasant and Unpleasant, Alan Jacobs The Tough Guide to Fantasyland, Diana Wynne Jones Eat This Book: A Conversation in the Art of Spiritual Reading, Eugene Peterson I Shall Wear Midnight, Terry Pratchett (Audio Book) Night Watch, Terry Pratchett Paterson, William Carlos Williams

Homeless

The twenty-four-hour diner, the station waiting room and the motel are sanctuaries for those who have, for noble reasons, failed to find a home in the ordinary world...

-Alain De Botton, The Art of Travel, 51.

Good

The word 'good' has many meanings. For example, if a man were to shoot his grandmother at a range of 500 yards, I should call him a good shot, but not necessarily a good man.

-G. K. Chesterton (quoted by Jonah Goldberg)

Wherever You Go...

A momentous but until then overlooked fact was making itself apparent: I had inadvertently brought myself with me to the island.

-Alain De Botton, The Art of Travel, 19.

So Much for Feng Shui

We are sad at home and blame the weather and the ugliness of the buildings, but on the tropical island we learn (after an argument in a raffia bungalow under an azure sky) that the state of the skies and the appearance of our dwellings can never on their own either underwrite our joy or condemn us to misery.

-Alain De Botton, The Art of Travel, 25.

Telling Secrets

Revealing a secret is a bit like releasing air from a balloon: the secret spirals around and makes a fun noise—and if you aim right, it might even hit somebody in the nose—but afterward it always falls to the ground, and everyone is left with that sad, after-the-balloon feeling of loss and abandonment.

-Pseudonymous Bosch, You Have to Stop This, 12.

A Woman of Virtue

Good old Sybil, he told himself...Her female forbears had valiantly backed up their husbands as distant embassies were besieged, had given birth on a camel back or in the shade of a stricken elephant, had handed around little gold-wrapped chocolates while trolls were trying to break into the compound, or had merely stayed at home and nursed such bits of husbands and sons that made it back from endless wars. The result was a species of woman, who, when duty called, turned into solid steel.

-Terry Pratchett, Thud, 230.

People in Trouble

Prayer is the language of the people who are in trouble and know it, and who believe or hope that God can get them out...Issac Bashevis Singer once said, "I only pray when I am in trouble. But I am in trouble all the time, and so I pray all the time." The recipe for obeying St. Paul's "Pray without ceasing" is not a strict ascetical regimen but a watchful recognition of the trouble we are in.

-Eugene Peterson, Answering God: The Psalms as Tools for Prayer, 36-37.

Cold

The world awaits in barren splendor
For someone to stir the embers

-Bill Mallonnee, "Extreme North of the Compass"

Courage

You can't have brave without scared.

-Linda Urban, Hound Dog True, 92.

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This is a beautiful book that perfectly captures what it's like to be 10 going on 11 and afraid of so many things - recess and lunch (the "lawless times"), teenager-looking 12-year-old girls, not belonging. Highly recommended for your inner shy kid.

The Fullness of our Manger

He is the fullness of our manger because 'the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us.' So that man might eat the Bread of angels, the Creator of the angels became man...

...But, what eye has not seen, what ear has not heard, and what has not entered into the heart of man He promised to show to those who love Him. Until this favor is granted to us, until He shows us what will completely satisfy us, until we drink to satiety of that fountain of life, while we wander about, apart from Him but strong in faith, while we hunger and thirst for justice, longing with an unspeakable desire for the beautiful vision of God, let us celebrate with fervent devotion His birthday in the form of a servant. Since we cannot, as yet, understand that He was begotten by the Father before the day-star, let us celebrate His birth of the Virgin in the nocturnal hours. Since we do not comprehend how His name existed before the light of the sun, let us recognize His tabernacle placed in the sun. Since we do not, as yet, gaze upon the Son inseparably united with His Father, let us remember Him as the 'bridegroom coming out of his bride-chamber.' Since we are not yet ready for the banquet of our Father, let us grow familiar with the manger of our Lord Jesus Christ.

-Augustine, "Sermon on the Nativity"

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Ah, how had I missed the symbolism of the manger - filled, not with the bread of beasts, but with the Bread of angels, the Bread of life! Merry Christmas, and may your manger be full!

Thou Hast Enlarged Me...

Hear me when I call, O God of my righteousness: thou hast enlarged me when I was in distress; have mercy upon me, and hear my prayer.

-Psalm 4:1, KJV

Philadelphia Highs

1. Arriving (despite my navigational shortcomings)!
2. Slot car racing fanatics at the local hobby store
3. Introducing Mikr to major chain restaurants (P. F. Chang's, Chipotle)
4. Watching Say Yes to the Dress
5. Creepily monolithic architecture in Harrisburg
6. Used book shopping at the Midtown Scholar Bookstore and Harvest Book Company
7. Banjo-playing accompaniment to used book shopping
8. Beautiful stone architecture in Philadelphia environs
9. Church with Mikr's landlord / college roommate and family
10. Bill Mallonee concert...
10a. BYOB
10b. Presbyterian bonding
10c. Meeting Bill!!!
11. Making it home (despite my check engine light and alarming car misbehavior)!

Other People's Heads

Other people's heads are too wretched a place for true happiness to have its seat.

- Alain de Botton, Status Anxiety

The Wrong Things

If we cannot stop envying, it seems especially poignant that we should be constrained to spend so much of our lives envying the wrong things.

- Alain de Botton, Status Anxiety

Howling and Stubborn Characters

Babies cannot, by definition, repay their caretakers with worldly rewards. In so far as they are loved and looked after, it is therefore for who they are, identity understood in its barest, most stripped-down state. They are loved for, or in spite of, their uncontrolled, howling and stubborn characters.

- Alain de Botton, Status Anxiety

Hedera

Behold the hedera: ❧

According to a recent article in the Wall Street Journal, "[the hedera] appears in 8th-century manuscripts, separating text from commentary, and after a period out of fashion it made an unexpected return in early printed books. Then it faded from view."

Just the punctuation mark I've been searching for—bring back the hedera!

Regrets

-Bill Watterson, Calvin and Hobbes

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Click on this comic for a sharper, easier-to-read image.

Two Love Stories

Every adult life could be said to be defined by two great love stories. The first--the story of our quest for sexual love--is well known and well charted, its vagaries form the staple of music and literature, it is socially acceptable and celebrated. The second--the story of our quest for love from the world--is a more secret and shameful tale. If mentioned, it tends to be in caustic, mocking terms, as something of interest chiefly to envious or deficient souls, or else the drive for status is interpreted in an economic sense alone. And yet this second love story is no less intense than the first, it is no less complicated, important or universal, and its setbacks are no less painful. There is heartbreak here too.

-Alain de Botton, Status Anxiety