i AM indigo

thanks to my GMail account's sponsored ads, i have discovered my true identity: i am an Indigo Child. [this works better if you intone said title in a reverent, thundering tone]. this could come in handy for my world domination planning, i think. Are you an Indigo Child?

If you want to help as many people as possible evolve and get better then why do you charge for your services?

..."there is something called Divine Right Order that needs to be taken into account and respected here in this universe. In Divine Right Order, which is how the universal physics operates and is totally related to the concept of karma, it is appropriate for a healing facilitator to accept payment for the personal time and energies invested in learning and developing facilitation skills...The time and expertise offered by a facilitator to assist the client in stimulating their own healing energies allows them a legitimate right to honor their own worth as a being by requesting reasonable payment in fair energetic exchange for the service that they offer. I believe that seeking to find one's personal Divine Right Livelihood in sincere service to others by providing client service via healing facilitation, IS a spiritually legitimate motivation."

the great thing is, via the mighty power of the internet, you don't actually have to meet Toby--you just Paypal him $100/session and your schedule, and at the appropriate time he thinks himself towards you and "aligns" his uber-consciousness with yours, then proceeds with a Karmic Cleansing and whatever else is necessary to re-align your DNA with the appropriate pre-Babel perfection. Lovely.

and here I am actually trying to find a job to pay off college debts...

the bean sets forth

hello world. this is me. it's time to set out again, and i have no idea where i'm going. yet. by my feet are itchin' to get there.

here i'll post notes from the road, pictures (soon'z i get a camera--i'm hoping to do a picture a week to help keep in touch), and ideas.

in the meantime, here's a good idea: watch Garden State (not with children or those with weak consciences, please, even though it's an amazing movie) and ponder a few salient quotes--

Large: "Hey Albert? Good luck exploring the infinite abyss."
Albert: "Thanks. Hey--you too."

and

Large: "This is my life, Dad. This is it. I spent 26 years waiting for something else to start. So no, I don't think it's too risky because it's everything there is. I see now it's all there is."

I'm really sorry to bring toby the rabbit back up again, but on my latest visist to the effort to protect this most fragilist and cutest of creautres, I found this (it's an actual screenshot...just imagine the little brown bunny scampering back and forth across the screen while the letter blink bright yellow and sordid red...)

cheers!

please, please, please do not think i am a monster, but this is quite possibly the funniest and best way to cover my college debts. if anyone would like to donate a charming dwarf lop bunny to my cause, see my mailing address in the righthand column.

Save Toby

tonight

i am happy because two of my hosuemates have that look in their eyes and rather silly grins on their faces

i finally finished Lord of Chaos(ouch, does it look as silly as it sounds? sigh, i'm always a sucker for adventure...) so i can get on with important things like writing the last paper of my undergraduate career

i went swimming in the icy grip of wiscoy creek today; the rock bed is still covered with a slick blanket of silt, and the current off the falls is so strong that standing up one cannot help but slide downriver as if wearing wool socks on a kitchen floor. with a torrent of water rushing by. and numb toes.

i did my laundry!

i am now listening to great big sea's "old black rum." in a few weeks i will finally be able to truly appreciate the glory of a good solid Irish drinking song while simultaneously raising a toast to my alma mater! perhaps i could burn that old Statement of Community Responsibilities.

BusinessWeek Online, October 10, 2002 "Why 'Trade, not Aid' Isn't Good Enough"
Question and Answer Session with Jeffrey Sachs.

Q: Why can't countries in these regions pull themselves out?
A: One characteristic of the historically poorer performers is they're farther away from the major markets, so they don't have market forces pulling them. So Mexico is better than Central America, and Central America is better than central South America. Central Asia does much worse than coastal Asia.

For a lot of the poorest places, I don't think we have an economic theory for getting a lot of growth going. I challenge anyone to debate me on how you are going to make Mongolia prosper. I've been there many times, and I haven't had a good idea yet. It's basically 1,500 kilometers away from big population centers and has a few million people.

Half of the people live in yurts. Their connectivity is low. They have no viable industry right now. They sell some camel hair but can't process it because they get a higher price by selling it to China, which processes it at much lower costs and gets it out of the ports cheaper than they can do by having a knitting factory in Ulan Bator. The real economic answer for Mongolians is to leave. But that's not the answer for Mongolia.

That's an extreme example. But let me put the positive side on that. No Mongolians need to die of extreme deprivation. Africans do not need to die of these pandemic diseases. Everyone should be able to have a basic education. But in some places, it can't all be paid for out of local resources. And my belief is that we ought to have a global system that enables a Burkina Faso or a Mongolia to have a shot at the future, rather than dying.

Now the really interesting thing to do is look internally; look locally. What happens when you replace "Mongolia" in the previous conversation with, say, farming communities in America? Textiles manufacturers? Inner-city Detroit for crying out loud? The cost of capitalism is the worship of efficiency. It doesn't matter if a way of life is desireable for social stability or cultural heritage--if you aren't efficient, you must change. We don't want local farmers, local musicians, local artists, local flavor, neighborhoods--we want everything mass-produced and available at Wal Mart.

And when you've become inefficient, you're laid off and sent to a nursing home.

If it were just us--just America--I'd say fine. But we're changing--some would say demolishing--the rest of the world. We're demanding free trade, mass market capitalism, and the destruction of incompatible lifestyles. It's the Western conquest of America all over again: become a consumer/producer or watch yourself become marginalized and die.

One time I taught my little sister a card game. And then I proceeded to annihilate her at it time and time again. I was better at the game than my little sister; she didn't know the tricks, the ins and outs. If we had been playing for money, soon she would have had none. And I would have it all.

One time in Russia, they decided to privatize the state industry. But no one had played that game before. Now 80% of the wealth is concentrated in the hands of 20% of the population. The rest live with what they can to get by. With interest rates hovering around 18%, business investment is difficult to come by. Those with money, make money. Those without cannot generate the capital to begin. Marx's capitalist oppressors are back!

And now the US wants the world to play a new game, a game called free trade. Long-developed, efficient American businesses want access to less-developed markets. Who will win this game?

Five Reasons I Am Loving This Semester:

-starting the day at one a.m. watching "Boondock Saints" and a short documentary on the sociological impact of growing up in American ad-driven consumerism and the unchecked creation of needs and insecurity, with all the fervor of eight angry young hairy men fomenting revolution (why is it that revolutionaries are always hairy?) Why has Christianity become a program of social control? How can we say we are free when we are slaves? We will change our world.

--sleeping and then doing a little honest labor with happy social interactions

--trying all day to study for my Foreign Policy exam tomorrow and succeeding only in having six amazing and varied learning conversations: Confusion and Hope with Musser, Basic Pottery with Rachel, abstract art with Hnatiuk, Community and Wholeness with Cheryl, photography and third-world life with Adkins, and great movies with Dave Lilley.

--by the time you reach senior year, your professors are your friends and your friends are your professors. i a priveliged to be surrounded by people like Cheryl, the Adkinses, Hnatiuk, Kanski, Farrow, Brautigam, Halulko, Mitchell, Nafziger, Musser, Alex, the Arensen Ladies--the discontented and passionate.

--writing a little free-form poetry

--listening to loud Irish drinking songs

--eating delicious Big Al's food

--my bank account is back to three digits!

--a good email from my brother

--a chat with two old RA's

--and finally, a fifty-minute brainstorming session with my housemates to generate creative ways to abuse the fact that the main source for Ben's next paper is a man with the unfortunate last name of "Butt."

This year rocks.

conversation of the day:
Paul: [munching on a fortune cookie leftover from the ISA banquet] "My fortune cookies says 'Now is the time to ask that special someone on a date.' "
Me: "Dude, who's that special someone?"
Paul: "Man, I don't know!"
Me: "Ahhh, that's horrible! Now is the time, man, you gotta get working!"
Paul: "But I don't know who she is!" [opening another fortune cookie]
Me: "Dude, that sucks."
Paul: [reading the next fortune] " 'Do not desire what you do not need.' "

Rush Limbaugh makes money because people listen to him.
So does Dr. Dobson. Sean Hannity. Anne Coulter. Bob Jones IV. and Marvin Olasky.
On the nightly news, they have a slogan: if it bleeds, it leads.
People campaigning for office--campaigning for influence and furthering their ideologies--know that the best way to secure a vote is to scare a voting bloc. Things like wars and terrorists, social security and disintegration of society get people's attention.

Because we grew up watching movies and reading stories about heroic, last-ditch attempt victories against all odds against the forces of evil, we tend to try to structure the world that way. The evil fiscal liberals want to tax and spend our economy into oblivion; the gays and lesbians want to steal the souls of our children and eat them; the atheists want to silence and contain Christians; the public educators want to indoctrinate our children. Fear drives us to desperate, valiant action against the faceless hordes.

Reading the Internet Monk brought a lot of these thoughts to the forefront. They're thoughts that have been growing for a long time--Michael Moore helped me with his insightful "Bowling for Columbine," and Dennis Miller's brilliant "Blue Like Jazz" was an inspiration, among many others, including Father Anthony Ugolnik, who visited our campus two weeks ago.

The future of Christianity in American lies in this question: will we embrace the fear of the people around us and continue to construct safe ghettos for the kingdom of heaven to stagnate, or will we embrace the unquenchable life and love embodied in the indescribable, unstoppable kingdom of heaven? I think we have forgotten that the kingdom is here--among us--living in all its mustard seedy, yeasty, salty power. It's not a kingdom of fear--it's a kingdom of laughter that's never afraid to share common life with outsiders, even the socially dangerous ones. Its inhabitants aren't scared by sin or by schemes--it's amused at their pathetic attempts to thwart heaven and saddened by the condition, their misunderstanding of heaven. It is not afraid or disdaininful or dismissive of sinners, because it is made of sinners who identify with the sinners walking around them.

It embraces people no matter who they are, just how they are: bitter, jealous, gluttonous or homosexual. It's not afraid to laugh with, to relate to, the ones society calls the lowest of the low, the inhuman ones: perverts, monsters, murderers--because everyone in the kingdom knows they began as freaks, perverts, lustful angry pitiful murderers.


I will not stand with a church that cuts itself off from the people it was called to. I will not fellowship silently with a church that discriminates among sinners. I will not be called a Christian if that means despising homosexuals, women trapped in prostitution, and the poor. I will not call myself one with a church so afraid of the people around it that it builds walls to keep the honest out. I will not worship with a church that is so afraid of unpredictability and the possibility of screwing up that it ostracizes and cripples its artists and refuses to attempt or commit to any venture that is not a sure-proven thing, already safely mapped out in a book available at the local Christian bookstore.

I will not reject the church in its many, flawed forms. But I will not stand within its tragic walls, and I will not be silent. The Kingdom of Heaven and the fellowship thereof is for all and equally so, and it is for now, and it is the only kingdom worth living and dying for--the only kingdom where you can have life, and the only kingdom where death makes sense.

Hah! Back in action! This weekend is merely a sore throat and persistent cough now, and film class has given me impetus to be excited once more. This week we are watching Lawrence of Arabia and The Third Man--both British films. I love Brits! Especially exciting is The Third Man, written by the same author as the book The Power and the Glory, the amazing Graham Greene who does an astounding job taking evil out the realm of the fanstastic or fairy tale and into the mundane where it lives every day. Want to watch them with me?

Film class also has the power to disturb. Joining The Last Laugh and Battleship Potemkin, not to mention M and Citizen Kane, Ladri Di Biciclette ("The Bicycle Thief") has reminded me again that bad things happen to people who cannot find jobs: society is a pitiless machine that rolls over people's dignity with its iron cogs. The closer I meander to the ranks of the unemployed, the more I am convinced that a society that does not provide people with meaningful place is no society at all. And I take too many people to the hospital from the nursing home to believe that American capitalism concerns itself with meaningful social relationships.

If I'm lucky, I'll manage some meaningful place riding a camel across a large desert, discovering a shady haven in a rocky outcrop just in time for afternoon tea.

observations on the passing scene, in no particular order:

-just chilled a little with Dave Pascoe, of Tanzanian fame. good times! i sure am scared to graduate and leave this wonderful school, but on the other hand i love reminiscing, so there's something to look forward to...

-i hate being sick. it makes me wish i lived at home still.

-i just found a trove of Animaniacs songs on the network. here's to the bestest cartoon show ever!

-i love ibuprofen. it keeps you from biting people's heads off.

-i need tea. now. it's a good thing it's almost lunchtime. i think i'll abscond with some from the cafeteria. perhaps i'll cache some teabags surreptitiously for later.

-

yet one more log on the burning bonfire that is my ambition to travel:
the see-thru loo

as if to spite my passionate resolve to write only good and beautiful things, only literature, life or fate or awful cockup (in the words of the nutty British rock star from love actually) would have it, the times demand a news flash:

*as i was resigning myself to call around Rochester for a good eyeglass shop to shell out a few hundred bucks to get my vision back, i opened an innocuous anonymous intracampus mail envelope to find the lost lense for my glasses. fifteen minutes of work with a leatherman and a twist-tie and you can't even tell they were broken! I CAN SEE AGAIN!!!!!!

(and I can buy coffee at the coffee shop and food at the Jube again!)

and now for something completely different

*to take advantage of someone else's misery for a moment of sheer integrative studies genius, let us all pause and offer our sympathy to Katrina Lao, that pioneer of bloggers, who suddenly and without warning lost her three-years running blogspot site to what Dr. Oakerson would only call the vagaries of having only an imperfect property right. perhaps if she was a Peruvian street vendor she could have called a voluntary organization to protect her pitch, but alas it is gone without even a chance to redirect her vast network of friends, family, admirers and stalkers to her new address at msafiri-k.blogspot.com.

additionally, for those with free time

*my alternate site for more literary/creative/depth of thought projects now has another long stream of semi-disjointed thoughts coopted from my journal. see deadmoosetalking.

this broadcast brought to you by bad sleeping habits, Tikka headlamps, Compaq "Comcrap" computers, and glow-in-the-dark SPAM boxers which are currently glowing for all they're worth. and my roommate, the Russian Faire Princess, who is blissfully snoozing the night away. and my new and super-cool discman that reads a massive collection of mp3s i burned freshman year. and Sting for "Desert Rose" which is either incredibly cool or very patheticly cheesy. or both. like me. :)

if, you cannot guess from the last, slightly garbled post, this new year has brought a significant personality change. it's hard to blog when i really don't understand why exactly i'm blogging (the inveterate sorrow of the purpose-driven life).

(the real issue is that my writing style is sickeningly stale, inspite of incessant thesaurical expeditions for adjectives).

but, good news breaks the gloom. My brother just got a job! At an international school, to boot! In TANZANIA!. To quote said brother, "We're shaking the dust of this continent off our feet come August!"

This lends itself to several cheerful conclusions:

1. Holcombs are internationally desireable workers.

2. Dreams can happen!

3. ...if you diligently work on making them happen, and...

4. you patiently fish for the right connection.

5. God makes things happen through surprises

6. According to the standard laws of kinship and sharing, I now have a place to crash in Moshi, Tanzania! :)

having bloggered consistently for over a year and consistently tired of my stylistic quirks and quibbles tendencies and influences not to mention grammatical constraints
i almost decided to quit blogging altogether
because even stream-of-consciousness blogging has become self-aware
--it seems i have created a monster

temptation strikes&%)#resort to DADAism
from a text"all that was left to the intellectual was sardonic laughter."
Brunel and Dali cooperate on a film: Le Chien Andalusian (The Andalusian Dog), a series of random unrelated shots whose guiding principle: no shot, sequence or placement could be logically explained
no dogs, andalusian or otherwise, are featured

assauling a paper god of reason
a rebellion against the bare logic of Metternich, Clausevitz

?the beginning of postmodernism
burning idols to the human mind

so I was in the checkout line at Wal-Mart tonight, sheepishly holding a bottle of Suave Passion FLower Extract Shampoo and a pink loofah, and I look over at the magazine rack, and what do I see?

A headline reading: "First Humans were Gay!" accompanied by a picture labeled "Adam and...Ed?"

Now, these sorts of magazines are known for stretching credulity, but, really...think about this for a second. Just for a second. I mean, it really, really, really REALLY doesn't make sense. At all. Even allowing the sort of suspended disbelief enjoyed by the X Files. I think perhaps even Mulder would have taken umbrage at that one...

check out this amazing poem on Moeller's blog.

i'm sitting at home playing with my new toy: a walkman that plays MP3s off CD. amazing how much meaning a new toy can add to life. :)

So I've had this conversation several times with various friends over the course of the past few months. It generally degenerates into discussions as to the relative hotness/homeliness of British actors and the fact that Keira Knightley is an amazingly gorgeous exception.

The discussion starts out like this: British people are homelier than American ones (to all of my British friends--I apologize for the crassness of this statement. it will perhaps make more sense later). I back up this assertion with a simple test: name three British actors and three British actresses who are unquestionably good-looking. Then name three Americans for each. It's quite simple...British cimena is strangely (in comparison to America's tendency to cast models in ugly duckling roles and the corresponding legitimacy crisis) full of realistically imperfect people. Gap-teeth, normal body weight for women, moles, less-than-impressive hairlines...REAL people!

Imagine my horror, then, at reading the following from Donald Miller's Blue Like Jazz.

"Television drives me crazy sometimes because everybody is so good-looking, and yet you walk through the aisles of the grocery stores, and nobody looks like that. Somebody told me that in London people don't judge you as much by the way you look, and I think it is true because late night on PBS they play shows out of England and the actors aren't good looking, and I sit there wondering if anybody else is watching and asking the same question: why aren't the actors in London good looking? And I already know the answer to that question, it is that America is one of the most immoral countries in the world and that our media has reduced humans to slabs of meat."

Crazy! Where does this Miller go off stealing my idea? Ooooh...vindication...someone who had that same idea published it. Hmmmm.....

"The problem with Christian community was that we had ethics, we had rules and laws and principles to judge each other against. There was love in Christian community, but it was conditional love. Sure, er called it unconditional, but it wasn't. There were bad people in the world and good people in the world. We were raised to believe this. If people were bad, we treated them as though they were either evil or charity: If they were bad and rich, they were evil. If they were bad and poor, they were charity. Christianity was always right; we were always looking down on everybody else...

"Hatred seemed, to me, the product of ignorance. I was tired of biblical ethic being used as a tool with which to judge people rather than heal them. I was tired of Christian leaders using biblical principles to protect their power, to draw a line in the sand separating the good army from the bad one. The truth is I had met the enemy in the woods and discovered they were not the enemy. I wondered whether any human being could be an enemy of God...

"On the other hand, however, I felt by loving liberal people, I mean by really endorsing their existence, I was betraying the truth of God because I was encouraging them in their lives apart from God...I felt like there was this war going on between us, the Christians, and them, the homosexuals and hippies and feminists...By going to a Unitarian church and truly loving those people, I was helping them, I was giving joy to their life and that didn't feel right. It was a terrible place to be..."

"It is always the simple things that change our lives. And these things never happen when you are looking for them to happen. Life will reveal answers at the pace life wishes to do so. You feel like running, but life is on a stroll. This is how God does things. My realization came while attending an alumni social for Westmont College...

"Mr. Spencer asked us about another area in which he felt metaphors cause trouble. He asked us to consider relationships. What metaphors do we use when we think of relationships? We value people, I shouted out. Yes, he said, and wrote it on his little white board. We invest in people, another person added. And soon enough we had listed an entire white board of economic metaphor. Relationships could be bankrupt, we said. People are priceless, we said.

"The problem with Christian culture is that we think of love as a commodity. We use it like money...If somebody is doing something for us, offering us something, be it gifts, time, popularity, or what have you, we feel they have value, we feel they are worth something to us, and, perhaps, we feel they are priceless...

"With love, we withheld affirmation from the people who did not agree with us, but we lavishly financed the ones who did."

Donald Miller, Blue Like Jazz

done.

(sleep!)

"Political realism refuses to identify the moral aspirations of a particular nation with the moral laws that govern the universe. As it distinguishes between truth and opinion, so it distinguishes between truth and idolatry. All nations are tempted-and few have been able to resist the temptation for long-to clothe their own particular aspirations and actions in the moral purposes of the universe. To know that nations are subject to the moral law is one thing, while to pretend to know with certainty what is good and evil in the relations among nations is quite another. There is a world of difference between the belief that all nations stand under the judgment of God, inscrutable to the human mind, and the blasphemous conviction that God is always on one's side and that what one wills oneself cannot fail to be willed by God also.

"The lighthearted equation between a particular nationalism and the counsels of Providence is morally indefensible, for it is that very sin of pride against which the Greek tragedians and the Biblical prophets have warned rulers and ruled. That equation is also politically pernicious, for it is liable to engender the distortion in judgment which, in the blindness of crusading frenzy, destroys nations and civilizations-in the name of moral principle, ideal, or God himself.

"On the other hand, it is exactly the concept of interest defined in terms of power that saves us from both that moral excess and that political folly. For if we look at all nations, our own included, as political entities pursuing their respective interests defined in terms of power, we are able to do justice to all of them. And we are able to do justice to all of them in a dual sense: We are able to judge other nations as we judge our own and, having judged them in this fashion, we are then capable of pursuing policies that respect the interests of other nations, while protecting and promoting those of our own. Moderation in policy cannot fail to reflect the moderation of moral judgment."

--Hans Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations

or in the name of democratic capitalism.

have just rediscovered grits. amazing. am currently bobbing head like an idiot and tapping my foot. and mouthing the lyrics at blazing speed. in the middle of the coffee house. boo yah! also found street-brit hip hop group The Streets. good stuff.

six pages of my last fifteen pager done. i'm going to bed. tomorrow is writing day. and after that comes a lot of finals. i am very tired.

i want to eat real bananas. do you?
i want to fly to tanzania. do you?
i want to swim in might rivers. do you?
i want to sit on a warm rock. do you?
i want to talk about hippos. do you?
i want to jump off waterfalls. do you?
i want to sip chai with maziwa. do you?
i want to eat at the HastyTasty. do you?
i want to make music with Mike. you too?

let's go!

sigh...why did we let it go by so fast?

---

p.s. but...!
i'm sitting in Houghton's brand-new and very charming coffee house, listening to my friends Jon and Jon and Alan and Blaine and Mike and Aileen play improv jass Christmas tunes. that's incredibly cool :) now all i need is some caramel apple cider...who wants to buy me a caramel apple cider?

Went and saw the Nutcracker last night, performed by a rather impressive Russian ballet troupe. Very cool. The world is full of beauty. Sometimes that beauty takes the form of fairy tales, and the beauty is the excitement of mystery and possibility that fills every day.

In another note, a friend of a friend double majored in ballet and AIDS relief and education at a major ivy league school. good grief.

I am listening to Five For Fighting's "America Town" album. In spite of all the scorn certain women have heaped upon the band in general and "Superman" in particular, I'm increasingly impressed and thinking, hmmm...

I think I'd like to buy this CD. Perhaps its the stress...


--Recipe for Futility:
One 15 page case-study on Imperial Japan through the eyes of Robert Jervis' Security Dilemma.

One 5 page paper on political theory in Herman Melville's Billy Budd, for the charming and harsh Herr Doktor Meilaender.

One 8 page paper on East African Folklore, for my favorite professor. Except it's several months overdue.

One 8 page paper. For my senior seminar. hmmmmmmm...

And four finals. Four blue-book finals.

An ominously sore throat and swollen lymph nodes and achy head.

Blurred vision.

I am going to die...

but not yet. not today. today, Hans Morgenthau and John Mearsheimer are on my side. and if not, Thomas Merton will always be my friend.

"Oh, you are sick of self-love, Malvolio, and taste
with a distempered appetite. To be generous,
guiltless and of free disposition, is to take those
things for bird-bolts that you deem cannon-bullets..."

-Lady Olivia, Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare

Shakespeare may have been a dirty man, but he was brilliant too, and he knew human nature. Nothing makes you a prisoner like self-centered pride or arrogance, and nothing makes you free like laughter.

with a satisfied smile, i clicked the little spell-check button at the top of the night's effort. i wrote nine pages of reflection on Tanzania and me and philosophy about life and culture and it was a pleasure to write and hopefully just as pleasant to read. oh, i am immensely satisfied. it's good to write something and feel like a competent writer again.

i was skipping along quite nicely, telling the dictionary to ignore words like "Arensen" and "homestay" and "Wasafwa" and "intercultural studies" when suddenly my spell checker popped up the word "Kenote" which is really strange because Anne Kenote had absolutely nothing to do with my Tanzania experience; she hadn't even learned to say "Hujambo" and kupiga "Hodi! Hodi!" yet. How did she get into my paper? and then I remembered seeing her near my computer with that mischevious little smile on and I thought, wait a minute...

and here's what I read smack in the middle of a paragraph about Dr. Arensen's old friend the Commissionary (and his wife) in the Sudan and his avid love for checkers:

"Right in the middle of important, pressing business or entertaining visitors they would stop for an hour of games and tea and cheerful, inane banter. Then they would up and get back to business, filling both with ample gusto. And I think that Anne Kenote is the coolest, whatever I was writing about, I now count as rubbish because the thought of the illustrious Anne takes over all previous thoughts a man can entertain. So that’s all. Grade me as you will but I refuse to recant. I will die with these last words on my lips..."

And I'm very glad that I spell-checked this document before printing it up and handing it in. And Anne Kenote is a hilarious and creative individual (by the way, in case you run into Anne, make sure you say it like "Comma", not "Can" or "Fanny." She hates that.

Josh Miller got up and read this poem at tonight's poetry reading in the beautiful atmosphere of our new coffee house. It's beautiful. It's a fight every day to try and reach out past the common alienation and loneliness and make the connection and find some sense of shared humanity, and some days the fight goes better than others.

Tigger's Lament

No one understands me, I tell you

I'd quit bouncing if I had the choice;

but I'm imbalanced, hyperactive

why don't you try being

the sole representative of your species, and see

how you turn out?

Instead of sympathy

I get Owl's platitudes, Rabbit's constant nagging

Pooh's too stupid, and Piglet's too worried

to really listen; Gopher's too busy,

Eeyore's depressing, and I'm tired

of invading Roo's family life.



Sometimes I wish

Christopher Robin would take me out

of the Hundred-Acre Wood

and put me back where I belong

where the gods weren't so cruel to leave me

isolated--a place with she-Tiggers to marry

that feels like home.



But that's just story-book thinking.

So I'll keep bouncing through fields and trees,

trample Rabbit's garden, singing my songs

of feigned happiness hoping that someday

the lie becomes truth.

by Josh Miller

a little moment of Shakespearean greatness from the weekend.



'the making of the madman' and a look I like to call 'blue steel,' for the latest 'derelicte' show.

Here's an interesting thought from my old friend Tracy's blog:

"Saturday, December 04, 2004
We went to see The Gondoliers yesterday because our friend Dan Walter was performing in it. Janelle makes these signs that spell out "SEXY DAN" so we could hold it up during curtain call. However, I lost the "N" that I was supposed to be holding during the second act. Next thing you know, we were jumping up and cheering and holding up a huge sign spanning an entire row that spelled out 'SEXY DA!!!' "

hmm...as some of you know, I'm performing in Shakespeare's Twelfth Night tonight...just a thought.

:)

John Leo, in "The Loudmouth Emmys" (US News and World Report, December 6th, 2004 edition), a hilarious and yet very, very sad synopsis of the worst in American political rhetoric.

"Natalie Mains, apparently surprised that many Dixie Chicks fans hated her famous anti-Bush comments of 2003, said, 'I realize I'm just supposed to sing and look cute so our fans won't have anything to upset them while they're cheating on their wives or driving around in their pickup trucks shooting small animals.' Then she complained that the political climate is 'so the opposite of me as a person and what I believe in.' It's just about opposite my personhood too, Natalie."

there's nothing like grace to make a bad day rock. now...back into the foggy mystery.

Dustin
Lindsay
Chris Jones
Cheryl
Rachel :)
me

for the rest

much thanks to jonathon gitelson

now...who do you think of?

'Till shade is gone, till water is gone, into the Shadow with teeth bared, screaming defiance with the last breath, to spit in Sightblinder's eye on the last day' ... that is how long the Aiel say they'll fight.
-- Ingtar, The Great Hunt, by Robert Jordan

and that's how long, it seems, i'll be writing this paper.

jonathan gitelson is impressively artistic...

"I have already explained the nature of civil liberty: and, with respect to equality, the word must not be understood to mean that power and riches should be equally divided between all; but that power should never be so strong as to be capable of acts of violence, or excercised but in virtue of the exercisor's station, and undert he direction of the laws; and that, in regard to riches, no citizen should be so sufficiently opulent to be able to purchase another, and none so poor as to be forced to sell himself. (Footnote: 'If you wish to give consistency to the State, bring these two extremes as near as possible towwards each other, and allow of neither excessive wealth nor beggary. These two states, naturally inseparable, are dangerous alike to the common welfare; the one gives birth to the favourers of tyranny, the other to tyrants, and they traffic between them with the public liberty; the one buys it, and the other sells it.') This supposes on the side of the great, moderation in wealth and position, and on the side of the lower classes, moderation in avarice and greed.

"This equality is deemed by many a mere speculative chimera which never can be reduced to practice. But, if the abuse is inevitable, does it follow that we ought not try at least to regulate it? It is precisely because of the force of circumstances tends always to destroy equality that the force of legislation must always tend to maintain it."

Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract

thoughts:
rebuttal of Adam Smith's invisible hand?
based on the idea that a society in which one person is not free is a society in which no one is free?

it reminds me of the principle put forth in feminist theology, whereby a people deny and lose their humanity when they deny the humanity of another. in objectifying and demeaning women, we objectify and demean ourselves, losing our place in the created order...

i want to be a connoisseur of life

so, downright one of the best movies ever: "As Good As It Gets."

best thing about it? the sheer unpredictability--it feels like real life and yet it's still beautiful.

best quotes: while, the dog has the best ones, and they're all untranslatable. How about Melvin Udall, "I'm drowning here, and you're describing the water!"

best simple symbolism ever in a movie. and best demonstration of trust and betrayal, confidence and forgiveness.

okay...time to study for East Asian History and Politics' one question blue book exam tomorrow. hoorah!

friends, i have bad news.

i was perusing TIME, which someone had kindly left in the basement restroom of the library, when his smiling face leapt out at me from the obituaries page.

Howard Keel, star of the most amazing musical movie ever to have graced the silver screen, died of colon cancer. The dapper, courageous, visionary Adam Pottamie of Seven Brides for Seven Brothers is no longer with us. But his inspiration and model will live on for all buckskin-clad bearded men with hearts of gold fearlessly trying to find their way (and a wife) in this all too harsh world.

we pause for a moment of silence.

in honor of Eli Knapp and Timothy Inge, it's time to try a haiku. this one is called "Honda" and it's about a little feisty unpretentious prancing beauty of a bike with a big 600cc heart.


wind whips sharp--playful
empty road beckons and yawns
alone, alive--free


and a little free verse

my own red rocket
would go with me.
spread out our wings and
blur this scenery away.
too much anxious power
wrapt up purring in
too little a frame
calls to the itch
aching in my bones
to give speech in speed--
with deep cry to deep--
and run and run
in wind and road and sun
as sunset calls to sky
burning in the day's end.


well. a bike would be really nice right now.

For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his sould? Or what will a man give in exchange for his sould?

Don't run from suffering; embrace it...What good would it do to get everything you want and lose you, the real you? What could you ever trade your soul for?

-Jesus of Nazareth

The Franciscan friars visiting our campus this week bubble over with life; I feel like a pale shell next to them, to the life they have. What does it profit a man to spend his entire life running after the impulses dangled in front of him if his entire frenzied, frenetic, restless life is soul-killing suicide?

What are the things that give us real life? Their joy comes from the simple fellowship of poverty: no television, shared meals, communal possessions, shared manual labor, shared ministry--that coveted hiking fellowship that I remember so dearly from the trail. Their spiritual wholeness comes from hours spent daily in prayer, communal celebration, solitude, meditation, study, submission to authority and worship--carefully examining the soul and by grace pushing back the self-destructive habits and ideas that strangle out the life of the soul.

All this for the price of poverty, chastity, and obedience...

"The only container into which grace and mercy are poured out is that of trust. We ought to be leaning so heavily on Christ that it is plainly evident that if He were not there supporting us, we would fall." --Brother Columba

want to read something truly amazing? Check out Anna Letton's poem of the day. very true and amazing thoughts.

"The Pearl Harbor attack has, until recently, been regarded as the supreme act of treachery and no words were vile enough to describe its perpetrators, The facts which are available today indicate that it was not, perhaps, such a "day of infamy" as it seemed. The dastardly Japanese villian made lots of warning noises before he broke into the American maiden's bedroom, and there was really no excuse for her having left her chastity belt undone." --Mosley, Hirohito.

[wince]

wow. you have to love British wit.

[comment on the incredible wealth of information on matters of state in antebellum Japan gleaned from personal diaries]

Statesmen in Japan must have nothing in the way of personal lives, be incredibly sleep-deprived, and think upon their daily actions and conversations with such hubris as to believe their every conversation worthy of memorialization. How could they have gotten any sleep or relaxation if they spend every minute running back to their rooms and scribbling down conversations verbatim, every day. Holy crap! No wonder they went to war--how are you expected to make rational decisions when you spent all night carefully annotating and analyzing and scribing the actions, conversations, menus, circumstances, and demeanors of the day before?

And historians must have absolutely no experience in diary-writing themselves, to take at face value for historical evidence everything said statesmen pen in their diaries. Good lord, there is no one to whom it is more important to appear reasonable, grand and just that to one's self--diaries are notoriously generous to the authors. Of course you think Hirohito was a kind, helpless, doddering old gentleman who fought hard for peace but was surrounded and railroaded by corrupt and evil army politicians into starting World War II in the Pacific--all that we know about him comes from diaries from his most loyal, devoted servants, people who loved him. Geeesh!

Well...anyone want to talk Japanese politics, 1848-1945? Anyone?

ps--the following piece of poetry, written by Japan's Meiji Emperor, was read by his grandson, Hirohito, and the Showa Emperor, in one of the final Imperial Councils in the last tense days of summer, 1941 (if devotedly loyal and tragically sad diarists writing to memorialize the Showa Emperor to posterity can be believed...)

"Yomo no uni
Mina harakara to
Omou yo ni
Nado namikaze no
Tachisawagaruramu"

("The seas surround all quarters of the globe
And my heart cries out to the nations of the world.
"Why then do the winds and waves of strife
Disrupt the peace between us?)

Robert Mosley, Hirohito: Emperor of Japan.

i had a big idea
i had a crazy eye
i broke the sacred seal
i told a lazy lie
i've had my conscience bent
i've had my patience tried
i've been up in the desert and
down by the riverside

will the eagle fly
if the sky's untrue?

do the faithful sigh
because they are so few?

remember when i cried?
remember when you knew?
remember the look in your eyes?
i know i do

and count the stars to measure time
the earth is hard, the treasure fine
to the sea, ill crawl on my knees

feel it coming in
feel it going out
water covers sand
blood covers doubt
so i begin again
again, the healing bow
there was a time when i might have surrendered, but not now

consult the cards to measure mine
the earth is hard, but the treasure fine
at the sea, ill wait on my knees
at the sea, ill wait on my knees
at the sea, ill wait on my knees

Dig, Jars of Clay

****

so I took this week off from people because i needed perspective. it's a strange thing to detox yourself of entanglements--to pull yourself (or just be pulled) out of all the little hectic social constructs and demands and games and remember who you are away from everyone else, and especially away from the ambitions you have when you are with people. it's like i've become someone completely different, and i'm starting to question a lot of the choices i've made this semester, this year--choices of priorities and goals and worst of all, i think, ambition and and the choice to take a stance of control.

i don't really know what to think; just that it's too easy to get lost in the sea of demands and the conflicting claims of a thousand games and obligations that come in community; i needed to gain some perspective and God gave me the chance to do that this week. it's odd sometimes how only being crippled or broken can make you do that.

well. i'm back. sort of. you never know when i'll get that crazy glint in my eyes and escape to the hills with a pack of ramen and a sleeping bag. or just take a vow of silence. now there's an idea...

Conversation of the Day and Amazingly Profound Person of the Day go to Lindsay Musser, delivering these gems in complete snappy Musser (c) deadpan:

Dan: You're right, I had a great day yesterday.

Musser: Do you know why you had a great day yesterday, Dan?

Dan: Gee, I dunno, Lindsay--because Jesus loves me?

Musser: No Dan. Jesus loving you has nothing to with good days or bad days. Believe me. You had a good day yesterday because you saw me while doing laundry.

Yup. Thank you Musser and Brautigam for making lunch so much more than really, really bad Chinese food. (Brautigam's comments are of so shockingly out of place and inappropriate a nature as to be unprintable, even with the low, low publishing standards of waybread.blogspot.com--but if you really want to know, just ask me why I fell off my chair laughing at lunch today).

"In the meantime, as a sop to the masses, as well as the the Diet and the press, they recommended the election as the new prime minister of one of the grand old characters of Japanese politics, Marquis Okuma. Okuma was well into his seventies, lived in great luxury, and liked nothing better than to relax with a jug of sake and an armful of beautiful young concubines. He was known as the Sage of Waseda becaue he has founded the university of that name, but was apt to make light of learning. The same young fanatic who had killed Viscount Mori had also thrown a bomb at Okuma and blown off his leg, but the new premier was so eccentric that he had cheerfully subscribed to the building of the assasin's memorial: 'He was a great patriot. He meant well.' "

--Leonard Mosley, Hirohito: Emperor of Japan.

Nothing makes the joy of studying early twentieth century Japanese political life more enjoyable than the fact that is it written with that peculiar British flair for droll wit, compelling narrative and a seemingly careless precision in word choice.

Have you ever had the feeling that someone else is living your life?

In a moment of random curiosity, I did a google search on my name. (trumpet fanfare) "dan holcomb" brings up waybread.blogspot.com as the first result. wayyyyyyyy cool. (other interesting results: some guy named Dan Holcomb was shot and killed in West Virginia, and his case went all the way to the Supreme Court there...whoa...)

but to continue. I saw a site with my name on it (no shocker, common names...there's a Daniel Holcomb who sells real estate in Lansing, Michigan...shudder. I will never sell real estate). I did a double take. The title of this site was in Kiswahili...strange. There aren't that many people in the world choosing website titles in Kiswahili. It's not exactly a language that everyone gets a chance to learn. I had to check it out. After all...I also speak Kiswahili.

Voila'!

I ended up at publicpixel.com, on a page entitled "matunda ya macho," which featured a number of short films including one entitled "The Dan Holcomb Experience."!!! Can you believe it...there is another white Dan Holcomb out there who cannot dance but refuses to admit it, speaks swahili, and says things like "baba yangu ni mulevi." And is an internationally aware Christian!

AND...this publicpixel.com, I discovered, is a meeting place for internationally-minded individuals with commentary on international happenings and links to hundreds of webpages, including one on "Ukimwi"--the Swahili word for AIDS. Aware of social justice issues...I'm beginning to feel a kinship here...

Well, further research discovered (I get excited just thinking about it)...

www.danielholcomb.com

I'm serious. Try it out.

Well, I had to learn more. One of the other links off of publicpixel.com was RVA's (That's Rift Valley Academy, to those of you non TCK-savvy individuals) graduating class of 1997 webpage. A quick search revealed the incredible truth:

In 1997, I graduated from the Rift Valley Academy, in Kenya (!?!), with Heath Arensen. The brother of Blake Arensen, my Swahili teacher last year here at Houghton College, and the nephew of Dr. Jonathan Arensen, my anthropology professor with whom I studied in Tanzania for four months earlier this year. Who taught me most of the swahili that I know. Do you want proof? here. Check for yourself.

So let's recap. Daniel Holcomb grew up in Africa, went to the Rift Valley Academy (a name that lives on in reverence by all jealous non-TCKs) during the Arensen/Adkins dynasty, speaks Swahili, loves rock climbing, works at a camp, has a bitter sense of anti-pop-Christianity evidenced through humor, and now travels the world including Egypt. Wow. That's stinkin amazing. Throw on top of that the fact that publicpixel is his webpage, and he is a much more incredible photographer and web designer than I ever will be. And he's chillin' out and doing pretty cool-looking things in the northwestern United States. I'm a little in awe...

So the real question is now...

do I email him?

Cheerful people are continually telling depressed people to buck up; who knows what God may do. This is positively worthless to a person who is broken by what God has not done: what has slidden into the past. It needs to be rephrased: who knows what God has already done, secretly, smilingly, that remains to be revealed.

Sometimes hope is revisionist history.

dang
so once you finally acknowledge the persistant meddling existence of this God guy, and you grudgingly admit to needing him, and you just open your life a crack and let him start tinkering with "just this one thing," the next thing you know...

all the bets are off. it's cliched because it's true: THIS changes everything. it's like some perspective shift in a movie when the camera spins 180 degrees, then spins another 180 degrees, alters color perception, whirls again, and all the old black and white blurry pictures take another dimension of focus, and then another, and then another, and the pace of the film has picked up so incredibly much and every five seconds there's an "oooh" or an "AHHHHHH" or an "oh, ouch..." or a "look out!" and the changes are coming so fast it's impossible to keep up, and you don't know whether to be scared or excited or laughing or what because something so much bigger than any pattern you've ever imagined is beginning to emerge and you've just seen one itty bitty corner that is so tremendously bigger and shocking than you've ever imagined...

it's like kayaking. and the river just surged to flood stage. it's class five with no eddies and no place to get out and nothing to do but paddle impotently and scream. this nice controllable walk with God has become something alive of it self...

raging
breathtaking
shocking
ripping
roaring
full of loss
full of grandeur
wild beyond what is reasonable
horrifying
totally past high-stakes
terrifyingly
heartrendingly
beautifully
exhilirating.

and really really scary. because everything stable and secure (even if a bit angst-inducing) just got tossed and the dice are rolling and only God (if he does) knows what will emerge from the maelstrom.

everything i thought about myself and about life is being totally reevaluated.

reborn.

"I think Bush deserves this victory because he fought a war for the USA. I don't know why Muslims grieve at his victory because there is no difference between Bush and Kerry. And US polices towards the Muslim world will never change." [emphasis added]
Yasir, Mirpur, Pakistan

"The people of the USA have proved that despite the atrocities in Abu Ghraib jail and the murder of thousands of people in Iraq, they will keep supporting injustice. This election result is a nightmare for the whole world."
Hilal Bari, Lahore, Pakistan

"I am shocked how America couldn't select such a genuine and passionate leader as Senator Kerry. God bless our world. How would the founding fathers of America feel about their land becoming such a Christian fundamentalist country?"
Tim Karman, Singapore

"Well I'm in the minority I guess but I'm so happy. These difficult times require clear leadership, dedication and strength. Kerry didn't have any of those qualities. Bush is the only one who could lead America."
Fiona, Paris, France

"Bush's victory has made the world quite clear. It is all of us now, Europe, Africa, and Asia, against them."
Irgi, Jakarta, Indonesia

"Well the right man won, that's for certain. Mr Kerry was a worthy opponent and the country is evenly divided. But only one of the two men is committed to the vision that the only long term answer to the powder keg of the Middle East is to clear the scene of tyrants and allow the people there to grow decent, lawful, representative governments. For his courageous stand on "other" people's freedoms, not just that of Americans, President Bush is among our greatest presidents."
Joseph Stern, New York, New York, USA

"Many Canadians are dismayed to see Bush stay for a second term in the White House. George Bush doesn't know how to deal with the rest of the world and thinks the stick and the carrot policy is the most appropriate, especially with Arabs. His policies have turned many people against America."
Wael, Toronto, Canada

"After Bush's victory, I think the US forces will withdraw. But not before they have passed through Iran or Syria!"
Ali Mohammed Jum'aa, Kirkuk, Iraq

From the BBC webpage of responses they have recieved from accross the world, via email, concerning the George W. Bush's reelection. (thanks for the link Katrina!)

to bounce off of flicker, the biggest question that I am accustomed to answering without even thinking is the simplest and most fundamental of all:

Who is my neighbor?

When I am hiking with STEP or Highlander adventure trips, the answer is incredibly easy: it's something I have no choice over. My community is my kids, and their neighbors are the eight other people arbitrarily assigned to that group. You cannot ignore them, clique them out, or simply choose to spend your time with someone else. And you most certainly cannot ignore what is increasingly becoming obvious to you: their amazing beauty as human beings in the image of God, and their needs and faults as ordinary people.

But when I am not hiking, my neighbors are my choice. They are the people that live in my suburban neighborhood, the worshippers in my upper-class church, the parents at my private school or in my homeschool support group, and the coworkers in my office. If I want, I can spend my entire life around people who are easy for me to live with, relate to, and love, without even making a conscious choice to do so.

The problem is, the most challenging and fulfilling relationships I've ever had were on the trail with people I either couldn't stand, or was sure I would never feel comfortable or loved around. They were so alien and often intimidating that I never would have chosen them for my neighbors. But the richness that came out of a whole group of radically different people with no other choices for fellowship was so beautiful compared to the blandness of my little homogenous groups that I was awed and brought to tears at the beauty of God's diversity. I was humbled before a God who's creativity so shockingly and refreshingly transcended my comfortable space.

It is unquestionable that once we have chosen a neighbor, and become involved in their community, it is almost impossible to not love them and minister to their needs. The question we will either embrace or ignore for the rest of our life is, simply, who will we choose to be the neighbor to?

After seeing the needs of Latin America, Cuba, Africa, the inner city, the outcasts, the poor, the trafficked humans, will I make them part of the patterns of my life--living in their neighborhoods, shopping in their markets, going to their churches, living in their world--or will I carefully or unconsciously allow myself to be insulated from their lives and their needs, avoiding their presence so that I will not stand condemned for failing them as my neighbors?

Who is my neighbor? For the best missionaries and happiests Christian I know, that answer is the people of the Rukwa valley of Tanzania.

whoa...

so I didn't have enough writing to do with a blue book exam and all today, so i spent the last hour or so (maybe two...sheepish grin) writing what for all intents and purposes is a paper. an essay. good lord. to save you having to scroll through it, i put it up at another blog of mine. be warned...it's really really long. and probably not worth reading.

"From an organizational perspective, it is not surprising to find evidence of serious accidents in the Indian nuclear and missile programs...On January 4, 2001, Indian defense secretary Yo gendra Narain led a special inspection of the Milan missile production facility in Hyderabad. The Milan missile00a short range missiel normally armed with a large conventional warhead--had failed in test launches and during the Kargil War, and Narain was to discuss the matter with the palnt's managers and technical personnel. For reasons that remain unclear, the electrical circuitry was not disconnected and the live conventional warhead was not capped onthe missile displayed for the visiting dignitary from New Delhi. Wehn the plant manager accidentally touched the start button, the missile launched, flew through the body of one official, killing him instantly, and then nose-dived into the ground, catching on fire and injuring five other workers. The defense secretary was shocked, but unharmed. The official killed was the quality control officer for the Milan-missile program."

Scott D. Sagan, Indian and Pakistani Nuclear Weapons: For Better or for Worse?


"To be clear: none of this is meant to deny that the sheer horror of nuclear war is impressive and mind-concentratingly dramatic...It is simply to stress that the sheer horror of repeating World War II is not all that much less dramatic or impressive, and that powers essentially satisfied with the status quo will strive to avoid anything that they feel could lead to either calamity. World War Ii did not cause total destruction of the world, but it did utterly annihilate the three national regimes that brought it about. It is probably quite a bit more terrifying to think about a jump from the 50th floor than about a jump from the 5th floor, but anyone who finds life even minimally satisfying is extremely unlikely to think about either."

John Mueller, The Essential Irrelevance of Nuclear Weapons.

the real disadvantage of deconstructing your culture is that you end of like Socrates. you criticize, ridicule, and the way everyone else does things in herds without thinking about them, but then you have to admit that you don't really have any better ideas...still working on those...yeah.

as a side note, John Locke views the conjugal society (that's marriage) as the product of a social contract between a man and a woman. In Lockean political theory, social contracts take shape according to their purpose; the only rational purpose that can be derived for such a union from the Laws of Nature is that of procreation. Why procreate? In order to propogate one's genes, according to Darwin, but Locke insists that we procreate because in return for birthing and governing children until they become old enough to reason for themselves, children will honor their parents and take care of them in their old age (not from any inherent altruism, but because they want the inheritance from the parents).

Soo...that's a pretty cold look at the world. And it means that the marriage, according to Locke, is only solvent as long as it is needed for the procreating, protection and education of children to maturity.

One might instead take the functionalist sociological perspective and say that marriage is an institution carefully socialized into the members of a society in order to provide a stable unit for the procreation and enculturation of children, thus ensuring the survival of the society. Status as an adult, romantic notions of love and marriage, sexual legitimacy, and religious obligation and emotional attachment are tools (lures as you will) to bring men and women into this arrangement.

Sigh. All of this deconstruction just rips right through beauty.

Most recent political theorists emphasize the depravity and individuality of mankind. They don't talk a lot about loneliness, the need for fellowship, community, and belonging, affirmation, laughter, celebration, beauty. and romance. In reducing life to the material essentials of survival, they often forget the reason for survival: for people who no longer have to struggle to live often surrender all that progress and kill themselves.

Yes, the men and women of mankind are dirty, fearful, self-serving individuals who will subordinate pretty much everything to surviving feared threats. But once survival has been achieved, we go right back to those other things: we need them. Too many theorists miss that very real aspect of other human needs and desires than just survival; so Locke misses a very many good reasons for conjugal society.

Not the least of which, according to CS Lewis, is laughter.

So...questions. Just for kicks and giggles.

What is the purpose of marriage?
What criteria does one use to find a partner for this joint endeavor?
How does one persuade this partner to enter into this agreement?
Do these processes make sense in light of their goal?

And why is it that fifty percent of these ventures fail in our society? Why do we do things the way that we do them, as a society? What are our motives, conscious and unconscious, as individuals, for playing these games?

And my favorite:

Taking into consideration a lack of knowledge about the future, a lack of understanding of the opposite sex, an impossibly wide field of candidates (in this very small world), a complete inability to predict personal changes in self and other over the next sixty years, clumsy and ill-advised courtship institutions, the sheer overwhelming power of arbitrary notions such as physical beauty and romantic attractiveness, not to mention undiscovered psychological preferences skewed by positive and negative interactions with members of the opposite sex over the course of life, and the individual's ingrained and sometimes dysfunctional social behaviors from years of living in sometimes painful and sometimes rewarding social systems, the inevitable build-up of the presented, social self...

is there any way you can expect twenty-somethings to make intelligent decisions about these sort of things? it's a wonder than fifty percent of these marriages do survive.

1. eating donuts is good

2. eating free donuts: priceless

3. celebration is the lifeblood of community

4. community is essential to faith

5. faith and laughter are very good friends

6. if you aren't laughing or crying, you aren't listening.



ps--to whom it may concern, I now declare a change in theoretical orientation. I used to be a realist with a grim dash of constructivism. i can no longer justify that perspective, helpful and formative as it may be. i am now a feminist/radical/marxist. yes, you heard that right. i am a feminist. and a marxist. and a radical. maybe a liberation theologian, in my own special way.

why? because as the astute Ms. Winter observed, realism, liberal thought, and constructivism are not about people; they are about nation-states and ideas in conflict. They are about power, coercion and control. They are about systems, systems to which the theorists are too fond of and too comfortably attached. They are the view from the inside.

So it is that we see nations fighting nations, comfortably directed by the ideas and men at the top, who are kept quite safe. Why is it that we are willing, for the security of "my innocent six-year-old son," to cheerfully and righteously bomb some poor Iraqi woman's six-year-old son? How is it that one child is a casualty of war while the other is a tragic loss?

It is because theory sees states, nations, people-groups, and ideas in conflict--but not people. Individuals. War is not the clash of nations but people killing other poeple and burning their houses, usually poor and defenseless people.

History written by the victors is not complete; nor is political theory by the powerful, nor is economics by the rich. And if you look for my king, you will find him with the lepers, the slaves, the sexually exploited, the desperate poor, the broken, the lame, the blind, the crippled...

it is true you will find him with the rich, the healthy, the joyous, the redeemed and those whose lives have been in one sense or another rescued from the wrack and ruin of the world, of the state of nature. For truly, nothing is more alienating and soul-killing than the state of nature. but he does not stay there.

his eyes are constantly outward; they look over the walls of good institutions where a semblance of hope has been carved out of the despair of the world, to those who are outside, or worse, underneath. he ever looks to bring the outsider in, and the troubled to peace. he is not content with security and peace when those outside do not know these things.

and if the walls by which we know peace and prosperity are built on the insecure and poor, he humbles them. if the gates are shut and locked, he blows them down.

the view from the inside is incomplete; in that sense it is a lie until it joins the view from the outside and the view from underneath. then it comes closer to the perspective of Christ. and that is my goal as a Christian: to see the world as Christ sees it, to celebrate when he celebrates and to mourn when he mourns and to smite with angry wrath when he...

we'll work on that.

Tony Campolo: "Francis Fukiyama was wrong; democratic capitalism is not the last great idea of history. The Kingdom of Heaven will be the last great idea of history--The true End of History is Christ."

The Alpha and the Omega.

----

I don't care if it's an anarchic international system with competitive securtiy interests and unavoidable conflict. I don't care if we live in a Hobbesian state of nature.

There is no peace without justice, and there is no justice without shalom and reconciliation.

End of discussion. There will be no compromise on this definition. Completion of conquest and subjugation will no longer be tolerated as an alternative definition of peace. Yes, I know that's how we did it in America...

But there must be a way for the peoples of the world to still the discord without silencing the discordant voices themselves.

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo mama
i know more about Japanese feudalism than i ever...
wait a minute: i mean, yeah, that exam did pretty much consume my every waking moment this week...but it was fun!

hmmmmm....four years into schooling, and i'm actually getting into the spirit of higher education. for one, i can still remember (i still want to remember!) the stuff i studied for the exam AFTER the exam is done. weird...

well, it's good that that's done, because we're heading off to DC this weekend, to visit rafiki zetu Mike "Mickle" (shudder-vomit) Diercks, the happily engaged one. And we'll go to the North American Christians in Social Work Convention. And we're leaving tonight, so I don't have classes tomorrow! Booo Yah, think I'll go visit Georgetown and check out their masters program, on the odd chance that I can find someone to cover the tab!

In other news, I found the perfect yearbook quote, mangled it down the required size (how can you seriously expect anyone to say anything significant in 275 characters or less? really? I should definitely bring in Dr. Oakerson on supporting arguement there...if you can't do anything worthwhile in your lifetime, how are you supposed to say anything worthwhile in 275 characters, and that's counting punctuation and spaces too--better use long words.)

Here's a quote that didn't make the cut sheerly due to length, but is in fact very very awesome:

"Are you not thirsty?" said the Lion.

"I'm dying of thirst," said Jill.

"Then drink," said the Lion.

"May I--could I--would you mind going away while I do?" said Jill.

The Lion answered this only by a look and a very low growl. And as Jill gazed at its motionless bulk, she realized that she might as well have asked for the whole mountain to move aside just for her convenience.

The delicious rippling noise of the stream was driving her nearly frantic.

"Will you promise not to--do anything to me, if I do come?" said Jill.

"I make no promise," said the Lion.

Jill was so thirsty now that, without noticing it, she had come a step nearer.

"Do you eat girls?" she said.

"I have swallowed up girls and boys, women and men, kings and emperors, cities and realms," said the Lion. It didn’t say this as if it were boasting, nor as if it were sorry, nor as if it were angry. It just said it.

"I daren't come and drink," said Jill.

"Then you will die of thirst," said the Lion.

"Oh dear!" said Jill, coming another step nearer. "I suppose I must go and look for another stream then."



"There is no other stream," said the Lion.

--CS Lewis, The Silver Chair

so I have this little private blog where I dump all the posts that are too rambling/raging/personal/inane/depressive and I feel good because it's just a scribbling board for myself. until I realized today that under my profile is a handy listing of my most recent posts, including the "FOR DAN'S EYES ONLY" ones. Ooops. glad I rectified that! it's kind of like making faces at yourself in the mirror and then remembering that the mirror is really a store window and everyone is watching...

"Almost invariably Western leaders claim they are acting on behalf of "the world community." One minor lapse occured during the run-up to the [First] Gulf War. In an interview on "Good Morning America," Dec. 21, 1990, British Prime Minister John Major referred to the actions "the West" was taking against Saddam Hussein. He quickly corrected himself and subsequently referred to "the world community." He was, however, right when he erred." --Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations?

Jon Stewart did a brilliant job yesterday, on the Daily Show, critiquing a statement by George W. Bush in which the President indicated that Iraq was the logical next choice in the war on terrorism. Stewart noted that actually, there is more evidence for terrorist backing from Saudi Arabia (most of the 9-11 hijackers were carrying Saudi passports) and Iran. There is, actually, very little linkage between Iraq and terror.

"Experience suggests that the prevention of state failure depends almost entirely on a scare commodity: international political will." [emphasis added]

Robert I. Rothberg, Failed States in a World of Terror.

This, of course, applies to most instances of international intervention. In the American discourse, Iraq is an enemy, Saudi Arabia is a friend, and Iran is not a threat. In the American discourse, Iraq is feared and Israel is not; one is allowed to posess weapons of mass destruction stolen from America, and the other is sacked at the mere speculation of seeking the ability to build such weapons. The fact of the matter is, even the war on terror is subject to and directed by questions of political feasibility.

Iraq found itself at a critical juncture in world history: the American public was spoiling for a fight, Iraq was already percieved as an enemy, America had economic interests in the area, intervention was justifiable for humanitarian reasons, and the legitimacy of her government was publicly questioned. Iraq's main mistake was not belonging, like Saudi Arabia, North Korea and China, to gentleman's club of world politics.

so...my blogs are beginning to look increasingly like my papers, and my papers are beginning to sound increasingly like long blogs.

i think somewhere between Tanzania and hiking philosophy I completely lost the ability to be anything like a disciplined academic.

Once More, this is a brilliant, brilliant individual who happens to also be thinking just what i'm thinking but so much better:

hansypansy

"Hi Mum and Dad,
It seems like a long time since I've written. I've been waiting for some things to coalesce, and waiting, and waiting, and studying madly (yes, I really am--not just covering up lots and lots of procrastination) and so far nothing really has coalesced except for the grace of God and a growing sense of confused wonder.

one of my favorite books is called To Say Nothing of the Dog. Connie Willis wrote it, and I feel like Ned the protagonist: I have to get shuffled off and stuck in the middle of a nighttime thunderstorm in a half-complete cathedral in the 12th century so that whoever's in charge can actually fix the problem I've been trying to solve since the beginning of the book and have only been mucking up.

except that the Grand Designer is using my fixation with one problem to muck around in all sorts of wonderful ways in my life and teach me all sorts of important things and fix tons of internal stuff i didn't know was broke...without actually doing anything to make things better in the one problem i'm fixated on. all that other stuff is really nice, boss, but [edited] is what i wanted you to help me out with, dagnabbit. :)

i really am smiling right now. so, i think, is that mysterious presence out of the corner of my vision with the just-possibly-mischevious twinkle in his just-barely-visible eye.

the only thing that's coalescing right now is the grace of God and my growing realization of its all-encompassing presence. i feel like i jumped off one skyscraper to another, missed, am now hovering strangely in midair, midleap, and just found out that i'm in my underwear and now i'm desperately hoping that no one miles below will look up and find me out until i can sort my way out of this strange limbo. but i'm getting used to the limbo, too, and it's a heck of a lot better than plummeting to a messy, and embarassingly unclad, end. and maybe whatever it is that's holding me up here has some kind of master plan that involves...staying in this odd unresolution for a while.

well...that's wierd. but i'm a wierd guy. and in celebration of that wierdness, check out the lovely picture of me on my friend tagan's bloggything.

Robert Jervis, "The Compulsive Empire" (Essential Readings in World Politics, Karen Mingst and Jack Snyder, 2nd Edition.)

"Put simply, power is checked most effectively by counterbalancing power, and a state that is not subject to severe external pressures tends to feel few restraints at all. Spreading democracy and liveralism throughout the world has always been a U.S. goal, but having so much power makes this aim a more realistic one. It is not as if the Middle East has suddenly become more fertile ground for American ideals; it's just that the United States now has the means to impose its will. The quick US triumph in Afghanistan contributed to the expansion of Washington's goals, and the easy military victory in Iraq will encourage an even broader agenda. The Bush administration is not worried it's new doctrine of preventative war will set a precedent for other nations, because US officials believe the dictates that apply to others do not bind the United States. This is not a double standard, they argue; it is realistic leadership." (emphasis added)

The United States is criticized for intervening all over the place in order to advance their own interests. I contend that the United States, in order to do any good in this world, must marry humanitarian interest to the realism of world and domestic politics. If President Bush capitalizes on public outrage against terrorism to meet humanitarian goals in Iraq and finish a job that was left undone after the Persian Gulf war, then so be it. Even humanitarians have to be opportunists.

Heres another thought. When you need someone to get the job done, someone you can trust, you turn to your friends. Of course, if those friends happen to be old colleagues, such as Halliburton & Co, well, that's immediately construed as dirty politics. So this begs the question: I know nothing about VP Cheney and the Halliburton scandal. But isn't it a bit odd to immediately assume wrongdoing in the awarding of contracts? Maybe Halliburton happen to be the men for the job...

Tonight's inspirational thought is taken from John Mearsheimer's "Anarchy and the Struggle for Power," an essential text in international relations.

"Bedrock Assumptions:
"The first assumption is that the international system is anarchic...There is no 'goverment over governments.'
"The second assumption is that great powers inherently possess some offensive military capability, which gives them the wherewithal to hurt and possibly destroy each other. States are potentially dangerous to each other, although some states have more military might than others and are therefore more dangerous. A state's military power is usually identified with the particular weaponsry at its disposal, although even if there were no weapons, the individuals in those states could still use their feet and hands to attack the population of another state. After all, for every neck, there are two hands to choke it."

"Now, as our Lord above says, 'Everyone who commits sin is sin's slave', and that is why, though many devout men are slaves to unrighteous masters, yet the masters they serve are not themselves free men; 'for when a man is conquered by another he is also bound as a slave to his conqueror.' And obviously it is a happier lot to be a slave to a human being than to a lust; and in fact, the most pitiless domination that devastates the hearts of men, is that exercised by this very lust for domination, to mention no others."
St. Augustine, City of God

There's just two ways to lose yourself in this life
And neither way is safe
In my dreams I see visions of the future
But today we have today
And where will I find You?

In the economy of mercy
I am a poor and begging man
In the currency of Grace
Is where my song begins
In the colors of Your goodness
In the scars that mark yur skin
Is where my song begins

These carbon shells
These fragile dusty frames
House canvases of souls
We are bruised and broken masterpieces
But we did not paint ourselves
And where will I find You?

Where was I when the world was made?
Where was I?

--Swithfoot, The Economy of Mercy

Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet,
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams

--William Butler Yeats

very, very happily, it is time to pack up and leave. packed up i have already, to leave is tomorrow. it's interesting to pack up with the speed and sure thorough efficiency of routine, with the perspective of a short vacation added to the exhiliration and depression of leaving the intimate, laughing, safe STEP community into the bigger, bustling, blurring depths of college life. i'm not really that eager to get lost in the Houghton crowds again.

but we have no control over the seasons; rather, they sweep us along, and we are caught up once more from our happy eddies into the currents, with no inclination if we will ever find place to eddy out again and rest. it is good that there is joy in challenge and above fear as well as joy in safety and rest.

the next challenge: Highlander. 12 days in the woods with a select brave few from this year's incoming freshman class. it'll be good to work with college age kids for a change; one of my friend's little brothers is in my group, and the others look promising too. we'll go rock climbing, play around on the ropes course, do all sorts of challenges, play games, go swimming, hike, hike, hike, canoe, canoe, canoe, and probably talk a lot too. and sing super-fun songs.

and afterwards, when it's college time...i'll have fun freshmen to sit with in the cafeteria, too! because when you're an old senior, no one loves you anymore...

so...hi. how's life? good... good...glad to hear it. the kids? all right, nice, nice...business good? right, of course...so...ummm...how about the Tigers, yeah? the Tigers...good stuff those Tigers.

pish tosh. i cannot hold a conversation for the life of me, unless it's about food, lighting campfires, or the many strange and wonderful things that happen on the trail and are only comprehensible to those truly strange people who drive three hours in order to climb out of the van, eat bad food, carry thirty or forty pounds of said food and gear on their backs for forty miles in a big circle to climb into a waiting van and drive right back to the beginning of the trail in order to run three stinking miles. for the sheer pleasure of it. to quote "Dad" from the immortal "Calvin and Hobbes," after a long bike ride through hail, rain, smog, potholes and dangerous roads for no suitable, practical or even emergency purpose:

"I love the sheer hedonism of the weekends."

And now it is off to more hedonism. Today we prepped gear and planned routes (hiking, canoeing, and emergency evac). Tomorrow...we prep even more. Sunday is go-day: we abscond with our seven young, impressionable incoming freshmen back to the only place i feel comfortable anymore: the woods. soon every stroke of my paddle and every mile under my forty-five pound backpack with take me farther from all those strange-smelling people living in boxes and always changing their clothes and hiding from the sun all day.

it will be good to go back even if only because i own no deoderant and am very sensitive to my armpit reek when the people around me have covered their God-given pheromones with chemicals.

school afterwards? oh boy...i think i might stay in the woods...

so, in random bored browsing, discovery can happen.

"Beware the glamour of internationalism!! Internationalism is just as bad as nationalism. That lure of wanting to be or being proud that one is a citizen of the world and making that one's whole identity is a big mistake. An internationalist has access to all cultures and countries but does not have any accountability to live in accordance to the rules and laws of that country. They sit and observe peoples and cultures without any thought to their own--like a fly on the wall. They may say a lot and offer advice and criticism but not actually do anything to change the situation. They may be well-read, well-travelled and have tasted a variety of food all over the world, but their love for these places don't deepen, in fact their relationships are the same way--meaningful on the surface with painfully shallow roots."

thankyou, hansypansy, God bless your little anonymous self, and save me from a horrifying life of detatched observation.

Home. I am going home. Finally. Let the road stretch out long and open and wild and free in front of me and I will show you the meaning of speed.

"But the more I think about loneliness, the more I think that the wound of loneliness is like the Grand Canyon--a deep incision in the surface of our existence which has become an inexhaustible source of beautiy and self-understanding.

"Therefore I would like to voice loudly and clearly what might seem unpopular and disturbing:  The Christian way of life does not take away our loneliness; it protects and cherishes it as a precious gift.  Sometimes it seems as if we do everything possible to avoid the painful confrontation with out basic human loneliness, and allow ourselves to be trapped by false gods promising immediate satisfaction and quick relief.  But perhaps the painful awareness of loneliness is an invitation to transcend our limitations and look beyond the boundaries of our existence.  The awareness of loneliness might be a figt we must protect and guard, ecause our loneliness reveals to us an inner emptiness that can be destructive when misunderstood, but filled with promise for him who can tolerate its sweet pain...

"Perhaps the main task of the minister is to prevent people from suffering for the wrong reasons.  Many people suffer because of the false supposition on which they have based their lives.  That supposition is that there should be no fear or loneliness, no confusion or doubt.  But these sufferings can only be dealt with creatively when they are understood as wounds integral to our human conditions.  Therefore ministry is a very confronting service.  It does not allow people to live with illusions of immortality and wholeness.  It keeps reminding others that they are mortal and broken, but also that with the recognition of this condition, liberation starts." 

--Henri J. M. Nouwen, The Wounded Healer

hah!  after purloining the enemy vehicle, raiding General Dollar's supply depot ("Salute the General!"), and awaiting the appropriate moment while honing our combat skills on the X Box, John-Mark "That Darn Cat" Kane and Danny Lee "O'Malley the Alley Cat" Holcomb began their preparations:  under cover of darkness they armed their weapons, deftly hoodwinking enemy spies into thinking that all was calm on the Western Front.  When the perfect moment was at hand (3:00 am, naturally) we boldly penetrated behind enemy lines, armed with merely one Z-290 Glade Air Bomb, Six M-49 Toilet Paper Grenages, 84 Diversionary X33 Air Balloons, 23 Stealth Water Bomb Mines, a Princess Leia/Amidaala puzzle-poster to confuse the enemy, 4 A130 Crepe Paper Rolls, one sinister Z-10092 Spider-Man Blowup Chair, one bottle of C39 "Irish Spring Body Wash" Floor Lubricating Booby Trap, one bottle of F458 Extra Sudsing Dish Soap for the enemie's Bathing Facilities, and a brightly colored fishy shower curtain because we are, after all, in touch with our feminines sides.  

They never even stirred from their peaceful slumber...which was a pity because we went through all that effort to tie their doors shut, employing admirable stealth and the sort of incredibly complicated knots that would make Captain Jack Aubrey himself green with envy...

Some doubted our resolve.  Some doubted our intelligence.  Some touted the never-ending vigilance of the female race.  They thought we could never enter and exit unnoticed with so much equipment and so few soldiers.  They feared none would come out alive. 

Mission:  Impossible, they called it...

but we say...

Mission:  Accomplished.

--General Katsparoff 

Rukwa Valley, March 2004:
this is how you do the hokey pokey, little children.

"Introductory books and teaching materials on missiology or anthropology or the history of some non-Western area of the world never fail to make me laugh. There will be a few introductory paragraphs, describing the general features of the country or people-group to be discussed--and then there will be an earnest, po-faced explanation to the student or initiate that 'family is very important to the Mbongo people' or that 'Chinese culture is highly collectivist' or that the 'swamp dwelling Mudscratchers put the needs of their community above personal preferences'. Such facts are presented in a way that implies that this is somehow a noteworthy distinctive of the people about to be studied. Perhaps it is less painful to the audience to speak this way, and to allow the truly shocking realization, namely that only one culture has ever thought or acted in any other fashion, to remain, like the truth about Father Christmas, an undiscovered, dreadful secret...
"When did we Westerners start to change into individualists and why?"

--Meic Pearse, Why the Rest Hates the West

in a moment of rare editorial genius, the puzzled moose decides to return to the original intent of this blog: bringing to mind thoughts worth thinking.

"No matter how ruined man and his world may seem to be, and no matter how terrible man's despair may become, as long as he continues to be a man his very humanity continues to tell him that life has a meaning. That, indeed, is one reason why man tends to rebel against himself. If he could without effort see what the meaning of life is, and if he could fulfill his ultimate purpose without trouble, he would never question the fact that life is well worth living. Or if he saw at once that life had no purpose and no meaning, the question would never arise. In either case, man would not be capable of finding himself so much of a problem.
"Our life, as individual persons and as members of a perplexed and struggling race, provokes us with the evidence that it must have meaning. Part of the meaning still escapes us. Yet our purpose in life is to discover this meaning, and live according to it. We have, therefore, something to live for. The process of living, of growing up, and becoming a person, is precisely the gradually increasing awareness of what that something is. This is a difficult task, for many reasons."
--Thomas Merton, No Man Is an Island

okay, so if your STEP co leader lofts extra tabs of superstrength laundry detergent into your room from the safety of the kitchen and refuses to come any closer because you just unpacked your dirty wet wool socks which you wore for six days of a ten day hiking trips...

is that a bad thing?

:)

I'm baaaaaack!

and I'm wearing a manskirt and a clean t-shirt and I can't smell myself or last night's campfire! wooooohooooo! I just read Tanzania emails and it's good to know there's someone else out there who shares memories and experiences that no one else does...there's nothing like knowing that someone else just ate at the Hasty Tasty Too!

for those of you who actually communicated with me over the past ten days while I was gone...you have no idea how much it meant to come home and hear from you. it pretty much made my night (that and the fact that we're watching the Last of the Mohicans!)

peace!
dlh