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"I've searched all the parks in all the cities and found no statues of committees."

G.K. Chesterton

Happy New Year

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Pope Benedict XVI writes a beautiful reflection about the concept of "time" and about how the end of the year offers us hope, peace, and an opportunity for change and conversion:

The year is ending. This means, as always, that we spend a few minutes in reflection. We draw up balance-sheets and make an effort to anticipate what the future may bring. For a moment we become conscious of the strange thing called "time," which otherwise we simply use without thinking about it. We feel both the melancholy and the consolation of our own transiency. Much that caused us distress, much that weighed us down and seemed to make progress impossible, has now passed and become quite unimportant. As we look back, difficult days are transfigured in memory, and the now almost forgotten distress leaves us more peaceful and confident, more composed in the face of present threats, for these too will pass. The consolation of transiency: Nothing lasts, no matter how important it claims to be.

But this consoling thought, which gives patience its character of promise, also has its discouraging and saddening aspect. Nothing lasts, and therefore along with the old year not only difficulties but much that is beautiful has passed away, and the more we move beyond the midpoint of our lives, the more poignantly we feel this change of what was once future and then present into something past. We cannot say to any moment: "Stay a while! You are so lovely!" Anything that is within time comes and then passes away.

Our feelings toward the new year show the same ambivalence as our feelings toward the old year. A new beginning is something precious; it brings hope and possibilities as yet undisclosed. "Every beginning has a magic about it that protects us and helps us live" (Herman Hesse) ... What can we say at this moment of transition? First of all, we can do the very human thing the moment urges upon us: we can use the time of reflection in order to stand aside and widen our vision, thus gaining inner freedom and a patient readiness to move on again.

Paradox...

"There is but one answer, and I am sorry if you don't like it. If Innocent is happy, it is because he is innocent. If he can defy the conventions, it is just because he can keep the commandments. It is just because he does not want to kill but to excite to life that a pistol is still as exciting to him as it is to a schoolboy. It is just because he does not want to steal, because he does not covet his neighbour's goods, that he has captured the trick (oh, how we all long for it!), the trick of coveting his own goods. It is just because he does not want to commit adultery that he achieves the romance of sex; it is just because he loves one wife that he has a hundred honeymoons. If he had really murdered a man, if he had really deserted a woman, he would not be able to feel that a pistol or a love-letter was like a song-- at least, not a comic song."

-Manalive by G.K. Chesterton

Friday Quote

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There will be a new post soon, but for now I leave you with a quote:

"Nothing shows a man's character more than what he laughs at."
--Anonymous (I.C.)

What I Wanted To Be

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Meyers-Briggs testing has made its way into the blogosphere and has dubbed this blog an ISFP otherwise known as your melodramatic artisan. Now, I have nothing against artistry, in fact I happen to be a lover of certain movements within art. However according to them, I am:

The gentle and compassionate type. They are especially attuned their inner values and what other people need. They are not friends of many words and tend to take the worries of the world on their shoulders. They tend to follow the path of least resistance and have to look out not to be taken advantage of.

Well, the mind baffles.

So in a hope to clarify my personality for Mr.'s Meyers and Briggs, I thought I might add a short list of what I wanted to be, lets get started!
1. Cowboy Up - When I was little, growing up on the farm lead to a yearning to ride into glory on the top of a full grown bull. That hope was soon dashed by my 3.2 seconds of fame the top of a half-grown steer at the county fair. Alas, I was forced to pursue other career tracts.
2. Archeologist - After the short despair following my dreams of bull riding I watched my first Indiana Jones movie and hope returned. He was a man's man, who got play in the mud, fight off bad guys, and get the girl. I'm actually still holding out for this dream.
3. Football Star - It was after my sixth grade year that I realized my calling to football. I had but to gain about a foot of height and a hundred pounds in order to play - and too God's credit He did in fact give me the foot. However, this dream too was dashed by an utter lack of athletic ability, so I moved on.
4. Professor - By my high school days I realized that it was not athletics that would lead me to glory, so I switched stratagies. I began committing myself to being a physics professor, you see I really aspired to wear tweed jackets and rejoice in the beauty of disheveled hair. (Picture is from the movie I.Q.)

For me this turn toward being an artist is a bit of an existential crisis, nonetheless, I hope for you this list clears up my blog personality a bit - but for now i'm going to go paint. Peace.

Religion and Beer

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We are about to begin the ninth week of classes out of our ten week quarter, thus it is once again time to begin more intensive preparations for finals. However, in an attempt to remember the joy and leisure of true study I wish to share a few insights that I have gained through study in my life (some taken from Ironic Catholic, enjoy):

INSIGHT #1
Why Religion Is Better than Beer:

* Too much religion does not induce vomiting.
* Jesus is free; beer starts at $2.50 a six-pack.
* Religion has a lot fewer calories.
* Holy water doesn't affect your sense of balance.
* How many fistfights do you see in a church?
* Religion won't give you a hangover.
* Your spouse won't complain that your breath stinks of religion.
* You can have as much religion as you like, and still drive home later.
* Your religion won't shatter if you drop it on the ground.
* You can shake up your religion, and it won't explode.
* You don't have to get your stomach pumped for overdosing on religion.
* The day after going to church, you can remember everything that happened.
* You don't have to worry about getting religion stains on your clothes.
* Saying "Oh, God!" is much more fun in church than kneeling over the toilet.
* The police won't arrest you for accepting Jesus under age.
* It's okay to drive and be open to Jesus.
* Jesus was crucified for our sins -- beer is just pasteurized.
* Jesus comes in a handy one-pack.
* Jesus is who you need in emergencies -- beer often causes emergencies.
* Try driving a nail through a can of beer and see what happens.
* Beer just doesn't have the same after-sales service that you get from religion.
* Too much religion won't kill you, Perhaps just the opposite!

INSIGHT #2
Wine is helpful when taken from a medieval German perspective

*Drink wine, and you will sleep well. Sleep, and you will not sin. Avoid sin, and you will be saved. Ergo, drink wine and be saved.

INSIGHT #3
G.K. Chesterton wisdom
*We should thank God for beer and Burgundy by not drinking to much of them.

INSIGHT #4
Root Beer
*Enough said!