Leonard Cohen - Suzanne

Rachmaninoff : Sonata for Cello & Piano in G minor by Camille Thomas & Beatrice Berrut

Another masterful performance by these two lovely ladies. I haven't been so moved by a cello since the first time I heard Jacqueline du Pré play, and I felt like I'd found the door to Aslan's country. Camille Thomas is now officially my favorite living cellist.

"For this is habitual to the wicked, to wish to overbear what is true by disbelieving it."

-- Empedocles

Clement on True Beauty and Love

"He who in chaste love looks on beauty, thinks not that the flesh is beautiful, but the spirit, admiring, as I judge, the body as an image, by whose beauty he transports himself to the Artist, and to the true beauty." 

"And the happiness of marriage ought never to be estimated either by wealth or beauty, but by virtue."

-- Clement of Alexandria

Yes. Yes, yes, yes. This is what I've tried so often to express about my admiration for a woman's beauty. It's not until you see her inner beauty that you begin to truly appreciate her outer beauty. It's the beauty of her spirit that makes her external person beautiful. And it's His beauty shining through her that makes her spirit beautiful. She's like a clear bottle filled with colored liquid, set in the windowsill for the sun to shine through. The bottle is pretty, the color makes it prettier, but it's the sunlight that really brings it all to life and makes it shine.

Things Jesus Didn't Say

"By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have correct doctrine."

"By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you are more righteous than everyone else."

"By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if your liturgy is rightly ordered."

"By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if your worship is emotional and sensational."

"By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if your preaching is powerful and inspirational."

"By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you are in communion with the Bishop of Rome."

"By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you follow the teachings of John Calvin."

"By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you are prosperous, healthy, and successful."

"By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you work hard and live a virtuous life."

"By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you are politically and socially active in the right causes."

"By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you are nice to everyone all the time."


What Jesus did say:

"By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another." -- John 13:35

Sheepdog Speech from American Sniper

This is too weird. This is EXACTLY what I used to tell my sons.

Except I would add that the dog actually has, in some ways, more in common with his enemy, the wolf, than with the sheep: you can't train an attack sheep to protect the flock; you have to tame a wolf. And the dog loves the sheep, but the sheep are almost as afraid of him as they are of the wolf. So being a sheepdog is a lonely life.

"Jesus is going to take all the stuff that was done to us and all the stuff we wish we never did."

-- Todd White

Yeah. Exactly.

Doing the Work of Christ

I spent last week with my friends from India: first Peter and Helen, whom you've seen before here, and then Devan, who, if you remember, is the one to whom Jesus appeared while he was living in Mother Theresa's orphanage.

A week or so before Devan arrived, I had a dream that he was going to be attacked. I won't give the details, except to say that it was gossip and slander by a third party, whom I don't know, haven't met, and had never heard of. But I wrote to him and warned him, and when he got here he told me that exactly what I had warned him of had happened, but it seems that the damage has been minimized by our prayers, which is, I think, the reason I received the warning (Thank you, Lord). Also, just after I had the dream, a cobra tried to get into his house back in India where his wife and children were.

Then, while he was here, he told me that his wife had called him and told him that the Lord had told her that he should ask me to pray for the money to put the roof on the first level of the new orphanage they are rebuilding after losing the old building in a flood. So I did. We prayed, and I said I thought that somebody was going to just write him a check for the $5000 he needed. Well that night, I dropped him off for a meeting with someone here in Charlottesville, and someone wrote him a check for $5000.

It's very important that you understand that this isn't a story about me: it is about how God works all things together, through his servants, for their good and for the accomplishment of his will. Not unto us, O Lord, but to thy name be the glory.

It's no wonder the enemy wants to destroy brother Devan, when you look at the good work he's doing: feeding orphans and widows, caring for lepers, educating the poor, providing medical care for the sick, showing love to the outcast and the untouchable: in other words, actually doing all the things that Jesus told us to do.

Incidentally, if you're interested in helping someone less fortunate than yourself, all these children need sponsors:

These children are found wandering literally naked and starving on the streets. They are untouchable, and so Hindus believe that they are living out their bad karma from a previous life by being born to suffer, and consequently good Hindus are doing their religious duty by not helping them. Not to mention that if they touch one of them, they have to bathe seven times, and wash their house, their clothes, and everything they own seven times. And what a nuisance! Right? Some of them have been rescued out of the sex trade. Funny, how they can be touched as prostitutes, but not with compassion.

The beauty of God's kingdom is shown in the fact that my one friend, Peter, was born a Brahmin, in the priestly caste on the very top of Hindu society and the other, Devan, was born Dalit, or untouchable, at the very bottom. And now they are friends and brothers, and living very much the same life, as pastors and missionaries for Christ. Incidentally, brother Peter gave up his caste and all the privileges associated with it when he became a Christian: Christians have no caste at all, being in some ways below even the untouchables. Peter was obviously not his birth name: he took that after his conversion.

Anyway, for $47 a month, a living human child can be fed, clothed, housed, educated, and sent to the doctor when he or she is sick. This isn't one of those giant "children's fund" organizations: brother Devan actually lives and works with these orphans every day. And, incidentally, only eats one meal a day because he is surrounded by starving children. If you're interested, contact me and I will put you in touch with Devan and with the American organization which processes his donations (the president of which I know personally, and can guarantee you that 100% of your money goes to support the child). I'm currently supporting two myself.

"Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: For I was an hungered, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me. Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungered, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink? When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee? Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee? And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me." -- Matt 25:34-40

Clement on the True Gnostic

"Such patience will the Gnostic, as a Gnostic, possess. He will bless when under trial, like the noble Job; like Jonas, when swallowed up by the whale, he will pray, and faith will restore him to prophesy to the Ninevites; and though shut up with lions, he will tame the wild beasts; though cast into the fire, he will be besprinkled with dew, but not consumed. He will give his testimony by night; he will testify by day; by word, by life, by conduct, he will testify. Dwelling with the Lord, he will continue his familiar friend, sharing the same hearth according to the Spirit; pure in the flesh, pure in heart, sanctified in word. 'The world,' it is said, 'is crucified to him, and he to the world.' [Gal 6:14] He, bearing about the cross of the Savior, will follow the Lord's footsteps, as God, having become holy of holies." -- Clement of Alexandria, Stromata, II, xx

Clement uses the term "Gnostic" here in opposition to those heretical cults who thus called themselves, and who have received so much renewed attention in recent years (but with a curious absence of mention of the outright silliness of their doctrines, whose metaphysics and cosmology exceed the absurdity of the deepest secrets of Dianetics or Mormonsim). The word is from the Greek "gnosis" meaning knowledge or wisdom, specifically mystical enlightenment and insight, and his argument, as that of other Church Fathers who strove against these doctrines, is that the true Gnostic is the man whose wisdom comes from God, through the Scriptures and the Holy Spirit.

So, what he is getting at here is that "the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance" [Gal 5:22-23]: that such character and behavior as was taught by Jesus, i.e., blessing when cursed, loving when hated, praying when despitefully used, is the result of a real, mystical, supernatural relationship with the Holy Spirit of God, in which we have died to ourselves and now live in Christ.

"Assimilation to God, then, so that as far as possible a man becomes righteous and holy with wisdom"
-- Clement, Stromata, II, xxii

"Almost the main work of life is to come out of our selves, out of the little dark prison we are all born in. The danger is that of coming to love the prison."

-- C.S. Lewis

The Big Bang Theory - Superpowers

This is the real reason I love this show. Pay attention when Sheldon tells what his superpower would be and why. This is exactly what life is like for me. Always has been. And it seems, always will be. I identify powerfully with Sheldon and his struggle to navigate life in a world he doesn't quite understand, despite his great intelligence. And I love the sweet little platonic friendship between him and Penny.

The Waters above the Heavens

I was thinking today about the first chapter of Genesis, and how there were truths buried there that would have been impossible for a bronze-age shepherd to have come up with, even though he had been given the best Egyptian education: compare Egyptian cosmology and creation accounts, which are typically crude and absurd by our standards, to that of Genesis. For example, consider the fact that plants are created and growing on the third day, yet the sun is not set in the heavens over the earth until the fourth--which would have been absolutely illogical for any human mind to have conceived as the order of creation--everyone knows plants have to have the sun to grow. So here's something in what purports to be a divinely-inspired account of  the origin of the universe, which from the time of its writing around 1500 BC seems directly opposed to all knowledge and observation--seemingly impossible. Until 1965 AD, when cosmic background radiation was discovered, proving that the universe during the ages following the big bang had been filled with what was once visible light, which through the doppler effect later faded into the infrared background radiation we can now observe only with instruments. In other words, the story in Genesis: that first God said "Let there be light" is supported by modern astrophysics--plants grew on the earth in the universal created light, and it was only as that light faded that the sun was necessary to light the earth.

What you have to bear in mind is that Paleo-Hebrew, the language which Moses spoke and in which he first recorded the scriptures, did not have words, nor did the mind of the people of that time have concepts, for the things which God revealed to him regarding the history of time before there was any man to observe it. We don't know how it was done: verbally or through visions, or even by God transporting Moses across space and time to observe the events of the Beginning first-hand, as he did with John regarding the End. But however it was, Moses was forced, when he was writing it down, to use the language and ideas which existed in his mortal brain. So for instance, if you look at Gen 1:7 where it talks about the "firmament" which has always been interpreted as "sky" and the waters above the firmament being divided from the waters below, you have to eschew simplistic, crude interpretations and allow for the fact that Moses could have been using the Hebrew word for "water" as the best approximation for what he saw, having no other word to serve. Similarly to how "day" is used to represent the incomprehensibly long periods of change and growth in which these things occurred.

So with this in the back of my mind, I came across the theory today by chance that hypothesizes that space-time is actually a superfluid. (http://phys.org/news/2014-04-liquid-spacetime-slippery-superfluid.html) And there it is: that verse which has always puzzled me makes perfect sense. Moses saw the cosmos from a vantage point other than our human one, and observed the superfluid of space-time filling the void of space, and expressed it the best way he knew how. Bronze age Hebrew didn't have words to express "zero viscosity superfluid".

Think about that. The Bible, after being ridiculed by centuries of "intellectuals" is still proving that it contains knowledge that was hidden until the most recent discoveries, and was recorded 3500 years ago, when the pinnacle of human learning was all about cosmic eggs, divine scarab beetles, and dismembered deities' genitalia.

My Secret Vice

I have a shameful habit I've never admitted to you: I love "The Big Bang Theory". I don't have television service, but I watch it online. It's the only sitcom I've watched since "Friends" ended.

There's a character in the show, Amy, who is the butt of continual mocking because she's such a nerd. She's a virgin, dresses modestly, plays the harp, loves Mediaeval literature, throws Victorian-themed Christmas dinners with traditional dishes and parlour games, and has all sorts of hobbies and interests which everyone thinks are lame. It's all supposed to be funny because she's so un-cool, but I keep thinking that she's just about perfect.

Clement on Faith

"'Except ye believe, neither shall ye understand.' [Isa 7:9] For how ever could the soul admit the transcendental contemplation of such themes, while unbelief respecting what was to be learned struggled within? But faith, which the Greeks disparage, deeming it futile and barbarous, is a voluntary preconception, the assent of piety--'the subject of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen,' according to the divine apostle. [Heb 11:1] 'For hereby,' pre-eminently, 'the elders obtained a good report. But without faith it is impossible to please God.' [Heb 6:1-2, 6] Others have defined faith to be a uniting assent to an unseen object, as certainly the proof of an unknown thing is an evident assent. If then it be choice, being desirous of something, the desire is in this instance intellectual. And since choice is the beginning of action, faith is discovered to be the beginning of action, being the foundation of rational choice in the case of any one who exhibits to himself the previous demonstrations through faith. Voluntarily to follow what is useful, is the first principle of understanding. Unswerving choice, then, gives considerable momentum in the direction of knowledge. The exercise of faith directly becomes knowledge, reposing on a sure foundation. Knowledge, accordingly, is defined by the sons of the philosophers as a habit, which cannot be overthrown by reason. Is there any other true condition such as this, except piety, of which alone the Word is teacher? I think not. Theophrastus says that sensation is the root of faith. For from it the rudimentary principles extend to the reason that is in us, and the understanding. He who believeth then the divine Scriptures with sure judgment, receives in the voice of God, who bestowed the Scripture, a demonstration that cannot be impugned. Faith, then, is not established by demonstration. 'Blessed therefore those who, not having seen, yet have believed.' [John 20:29]" -- Clement of Alexandria, Stromata, book II, ch. III

"As, then, he who is fond of hunting captures the game after seeking, tracking, scenting, hunting it down with dogs; so truth, when sought and got with toil, appears a delicious thing."

-- Clement of Alexandria