Emergence and Krispy Kreme

The strangest dream... I was vacationing in a city (can't remember which) with my wife and my parents. The last morning, a Sunday, came, and I decided that I'd go grab some breakfast before we had to go to church (for whatever reason, I was teaching Sunday school). But as I wandered the streets, I came to realize that I had no idea where I was going. I happened upon what looked like a ferry terminal for crossing the river (the city did have quite a big river), and hundreds of teenagers were pouring into it while booming bass, sounding vaguely like dance music, poured out. It was six o'clock on a Sunday morning. After backtracking a bit, I found what appeared to be a mall food court, and I ate a Krispy Kreme before finding my way back to the hotel. Then we went to the church, "The First Emerging Church" as the sign would have it, and I taught something about Isaiah.

Didn't do any more reading on Cavanaugh yesterday, though I did get ahold of a copy of America: The Book from the public library. Funny stuff, but as is often the case, too much non-mother-friendly stuff for many in my circle. I think Ryan is full of crap on this one, as he often is: one of the vices of certain comedians, according to Ryan, is that they don't offend anyone. I say that just makes them accessible. Snobbery, I've come to think, is at least part of the drive to riddle comedy with obscenity.

Imagined Communities

I'm about two-thirds of the way through Torture and Eucharist now, and I think it's going to trouble me more than any book I've read recently. Not because of the graphic visuals--Cavanaugh is actually pretty sparing with the blow-by-blow, preferring instead first-person testimonials and general notations that torture happened. The really troubling notes are the histories of Chile from 1970 to 1990. They resemble so much the state of America right now that I'm actually starting to believe the John Ashcroft conspiracy theorists. The strategy of the Pinochet people involved pitting the theological resistance against the "real" Christians, the nationalists who didn't question their leader. Their increasing secrecy in the early seventies led to a state in which nobody trusted anybody and anyone opposing the governing party was labeled treasonous. Their military became the national symbol, considered far more "Chilean" than politicians or intellectuals or workers.


Three voices were competing to define the people's imagination. On the one hand, the left wing painted a picture in which the peasants of Chile and the factory workers in Southeast Asia and the poor farmers of Cuba were all one, the "other" people being the Chilean oligarchs, the international capitalists, and the fat cats of the world. Against them the Pinochet regime leveled charges of "class warfare" (sound familiar?) and held that all Chileans, whether the impoverished or the multi-millionaire, were part of a whole in ways that a Chilean and a Cuban could never be one. And finally, the Church, after it had flirted with both of those sides, eventually declared that the body of Christ was no invisible thing but a real political body, one that pointed to the eternal but was constituted by a discipline here and now. Until the eighties, the Pinochet people won out, and anything done for the good of the nation-state (including torture) was considered good because if Chileans weren't protecting Chileans, nobody would. And the government maintained a perpetual "state of emergency" to justify any abuses that they "absolutely needed" to inflict on the people (sound familiar?).

I really don't remember what I dreamed about last night, by the way. I'm showing a video to my substitute class today, so I might get some more reading done. Who knows? All I know is that one candidate is looking more and more like Pinochet as the pages pass, and I'm going to be stepping into a booth come Tuesday...

Spookier by the Minute

I've still been reading in Torture and Eucharist, and I just finished the section in which Cavanaugh runs down a history of Chile from 1930 to 1988, and where I expected a history that runs parallel to Afghanistan's or Iraq's, I see the Reagan, Clinton, and Bush years in America. Spooky. When time affords itself, I'll go into more details there.

I can't remember what I dreamed, but I do feel better since I forgot to set my alarm and overslept by almost an hour. I wasn't nearly as productive as I'd hoped this morning, but I feel great. I wonder whether I'll say the same in six hours.

Cutting Cactus

I dreamed last night that I was going out to some kind of lake to visit my little brother Ryan (he's 23) on the job. I found him using a weed eater to cut down hillsides full of grass. For whatever reason (I guess just because I'm a good guy) I offered to take it from him for a few minutes so he could rest. He proceeded to jump in his truck and drive away, pointing to a field growing as dense with cactus as a field might grow with wild grass. I woke up this morning still spraying cactus parts all over myself with a weed eater.

This weekend I finished books eight and nine of Paradise Lost. I can see why people are fascinated with Satan--his character does generate the most interest--but I still don't think that Milton was of the devil's party without knowing it. (I've got to practice using that line--it seems to be a requirement for Milton conferences. I'd probably better find it in Blake as well.) His venom has reached full boil by the time book nine rolls around, and the evil with which he wrestled in book four has become all-consuming. It's terribly interesting to me that even the Prince of Hell struggles against evil in Milton, pointing to a definite privative notion of evil--it's always deviant from a good, and it's always a choice. And now that I've read Augustine's City of God, I know that Milton's strong emphasis on free will isn't incompatible with the old African either. Man, I love this theology and literature stuff!

I also started reading Torture and Eucharist in earnest yesterday. The accounts of physical cruelty are horrifying, but more enlightening is Cavanaugh's strong sociological and theological analyses of how premodern physical punishment differs from modern torture. It's certainly calling into question, at least for me, the complacency I've turned towards what's happening in Gitmo. As I read the book, I'm sure I'll have even more thoughts on the government's dealings with its enemies.

The Apocalypse is Here

Like so many bloggers in the last eight hours, I'm sure, I have to tip my blue hat with the red "C" to the Boston Red Sox. Nobody's ever come back from three and 0, although the Marlins did similar to the Cubbies last year. It always does my heart good to see the Yankees lose.

I've forgotten the plot line to my dream last night, but I do remember reaching between couch cushions and pulling out a handful of rubber bands. Weird, eh?

That "angel sex" passage in book eight of Paradise Lost is overrated, I'm afraid. I remember Dr. Doyle making a big thing of it, but it's about the least erotic thing I've ever read. But I suppose that's my sin-numbed, postlapsarian mind trying to take it in. On the other hand, I'd forgotten Satan's speech at the beginning of book nine. I was fairly tired when I read it last night; I'll have to give it another run today. I'm certain it isn't as good as his book four speech; otherwise I'd remember it. But it deserves another read.

I'm substituting for an ESOL class today. Mary thinks I'll be fine, but I wonder whether this is going to be one of those harsh lessons in saying no.

Too Many Footnotes

Hauerwas's book is good, but every page is about half text and half footnotes. I suppose I should expect that from a book based on a lecture series, but it's slow going nonetheless. In Paradise Lost I'm up to book eight, where Raphael tells Adam that astronomy is a noble profession but always subject to revision. Or at least that's how I read it.

Can't remember precisely what I dreamed about last night, but I do know that Mary decided to start anew the fight against canine tyranny. When I started to get up to take the dog out, she told me not to and just yelled at the dog to "go lay down." Sabrina did not go outside between ten o'clock last night and five thirty this morning--I suppose Mary wins round one.

Now that I know the context behind "I voted for the money before I voted against it," I've actually gained a degree of respect for Mr. Kerry. My hunch is that most people aren't going to look it up, so Karl Rove's gambit will likely work. By the time the election rolls around, my hunch is that ninety percent of Americans will be familiar with the one-liner but will have no idea that Kerry was trying to push for some responsible policy by voting for one but not the other of two Iraq funding bills. Oh well.

Deadline Today

I can't remember what exactly I dreamed about, but I know it involved Sabrina's behaving herself in an animal hospital, so I should have known it wasn't real.

I haven't covered any more ground in Paradise Lost, but I did pick up Hauerwas's With the Grain of the Universe where I left off, and I finished the William James section and started the Reinhold Niebuhr section. I think I'll try to knock that one out as my next theology book.

Today's the application deadline for the library job in Lawrenceville; I hope not too many people applied. I hope even more that nobody super-qualified applied. I suppose we'll see how this pans out over the next few days.

Another short one, I know. I don't suppose I've quite recovered from sleeping in this weekend. I'm hoping I'll have some good stuff to talk about tomorrow.

Easily Worth Two Bucks

No dream recollection this morning, as I snooze-buttoned whatever I was dreaming right out of my memory.

Mary and I went to see Spider Man 2 at the second run cinema last night, and I feel like it was a good two dollars spent.

This morning and early afternoon I really have to devote to getting my study on Acts ready; I don't think we're actually going to get past the first couple verses of chapter one just yet, but setting things up ought to be fun.

Short entry today; perhaps tomorrow will prove more fruitful.

Two dreams, one Senator

It's Saturday, and it's not early morning, but what the heck? Sabrina (the cocker spaniel, for new readers) woke me up at one o'clock in the morning while I was in the middle of one dream. In it I was walking in Indianapolis with my mother, grandmother, and wife, when we came across a service pit, the kind covered with grating that keeps one's feet up but still allows a view into a twenty-foot pit. But this one had a three-foot-by-three-foot hole in the middle, and my grandmother was walking straight towards the hole. I told her to stop, but she insisted that she could step over it, took an eighteen-inch step, and plunged straight down. I ran to the edge of the hole to see her land on both feet, Matrix-style. She looked up and told me that the landing had hurt a little. So, being the dutiful grandson, I began to climb down, using the electrical conduits and water pipes as handholds. Then Sabrina bopped me in the face to let me know that the vast mass of kleenexes she had consumed yesterday had reached the digestive terminal.

In the second one, I was a student in a college classroom. The class turned to the presidential election, and people started spouting Republican slogans ranging from "Kerry is no leader" to "God wants Bush reelected." From two seats behind me, I heard somebody say, "Shut up." I turned around to see John Kerry sitting at a desk two seats behind me. I told him, "Don't worry, John. I'll vote for you." He said, "Thanks, Nate." Then Sabrina barked in my ear. Apparently she had found some more toilet paper, and it had found its way through.

No big thoughts today, but I'll be back Monday with some more good stuff. Shoot, I might come back tomorrow.

First Day

In about two hours, my first day of substitute teaching commences. I'm still eagerly anticipating any word about the library tech support job over in Gwinnett, but nonetheless, today I actually start contributing to the family money situation again.

Abdiel's story in Paradise Lost always seems both too long and too short. Too long because by the time he makes his speeches against Satan, returns to Heaven, makes speeches there, makes speeches against Satan again before the heavenly war commences, and deals the first blow to Satan, I get the feeling that he's too minor a character to warrant such attention (though I know why Milton did so). Too short because I know why Milton makes him so important, and some more treatment would highlight further that importance. I'm up to the beginning of book seven, halfway through the epic, and I'm enjoying it more than ever.

No political or medical updates today. I've been turning over in my head a manifesto of sorts dealing with the double-standards that teachers and doctors live in, but that can wait. The dog has to pee, after all, and the look she's giving me tells me that this pee stop has cosmic implications that should not be ignored by any mere mortal (she gets that look two or three times a day).

Vagary and Brilliance

I can't exactly remember last night's dream because I took a shower, did some laundry, and edited Mary's social studies test this morning--just too much activity. But I do remember it had something to do with my being a politician--watching these presidential debates has really screwed with my head. Incidentally, I thought Kerry probably did better in all three debates, while Cheney pretty clearly cleaned Edwards' clock in the veep debate. My primary criteria are apparent preparation and who caught whom most visibly in distorting things. Bush was caught in whoppers at least once per debate, while Cheney had statistics in his evil bald head that made Edwards' party-line statements seem entirely unconnected with reality. Fun to watch all around.

I'm up to book five in Paradise Lost, and I think that Satan's book four speech has to be the best piece of tragic writing in English. Nothing in Lear or Hamlet measures up, not even to speak of anything in Marlowe's plays. I think Satan is the ultimate Aristotelian tragic hero, his flaws clearly named and operative as the narrative unfolds. Nobody is born higher than Satan who falls; nobody sinks into such a low state. In previous readings, I took "Evil, be thou my good" to be some kind of bold Promethean stand. This time, taking more careful note of the speech's direction up to that point, I realize that it's a resignation, a realization that God is gracious enough that he could resume his service as Lucifer at any time. Satan realizes in that proufoundest of speeches that not only did he choose to become Satan before he was expelled but that every moment for the rest of time, he is going to continue to choose to be Satan. Nowhere else can I think of a character whose singular vice is so deliberately chosen and thus so singularly torturous. Also, the book four speech throws into absurdity all the tough talk in the Hellish council from book two; Moloch's violent overthrow would never work, and as long as their disposition is towards rebellion, they continue to be their own Hells. Belial counsels sloth while never addressing the chosen character of their Hellish imprisonment. Mammon takes it a step further, pretending that their Hell is some kind of neutral place that can be made good of or bad.

Satan's book four speech breaks through all of that; his exposure to the beauty of earth brings out of him the most honest moment he has in the epic, a clear-sighted confession and perhaps even some contrition, but never repentance. It also qualifies some people's easy claim that "we've all got Satan within us." Perhaps, but the intensity and the degree of Satan's fall has none of Hannah Arendt's banality; this is the most rarefied rebellion against the divine possible, and it leads places that human rejection simply cannot lead. I'm salivating over book five even as we speak. I think I'll go read a while.

The Void

I had perhaps the creepiest kind of dream last night, namely the empty set. I closed my eyes not long after ten thirty. I opened them, and it was five thirty. I've read that such voids are illusory, that my dreaming brain just created a facsimile of my last waking hours, but even that's a little weird, I think.

I'm in the process of applying for a school tech support job, and I'm as nervous as can be. If I should land it, it would mean that Mary and I would have sufficient money not only to make it through her pregnancy but probably to get ahead while she's pregnant. If I don't, no big changes, save that I'll probably be quitting the library come January. Of course, if I do get the job, I'll probably be quitting anyway, but that's a separate issue.

Paradise Lost still has not disappointed. The text is so complex, so open yet so compelling, that it feels like I'm reading something new even as I go over familiar passages. Very cool. Anyway, I have to write a cover letter.

Double Header

This morning, I woke up actually remembering both the dream I was having when Sabrina (our cocker spaniel) woke me up at 1:30 this morning and the dream I was having when the alarm went off. Pretty cool, eh?

To set up some background for the first one, sometimes my dream-making faculty will contextualize stimuli that would otherwise wake me up, keeping me asleep and making me odious to Mary if she's trying to sleep. This morning at 1:30 was one of those times. Sabrina had detected either a squirrel or another dog or a cat or a deer out in the yard, and she had jumped up on the bed and taken her place right next to my head to scratch at the window and bark and carry on. Incidentally, she once cut the right side of my face open in one of these frenzies. But this morning, my dreaming brain created a scenario in which Sabrina had read a sign out by the street that said it was election day, and she was protesting the fact that we wouldn't let her go vote. Eventually Mary woke me up for real, and I took the dog out to pee.

In the second dream, I discovered that I had a hard lump in my right palm and a socket like a headphone socket in my right wrist. Moreover, I was at Circuit City, and they were trying to sell me various cyber-punky devices to plug into my wrist or to interface with my palm sensor. I shaved and showered before I sat down to write this morning, so I don't remember much else, but just having those cyborg parts was trippy enough.

I began my fifth wall-to-wall reading of Paradise Lost yesterday, and Milton's great epic gets better every time. Each time I attempt it, I get more involved in the imagery, the theological import, and especially the rhetorical tricks and ironies that Milton uses both to keep me, the reader, at a distance from the things going on and to let me in on the cosmic joke as the demons attempt to convince themselves of their importance. I'll attempt book two today, and if I keep it up, I'll have completed my fifth read well before November.

The Extraterrestrial Talking Diamond

Okay, last night's dream was a weird one. There was a reality show being taped in the town where I lived (not sure where, but for some reason it seemed like Winslow, IN). The idea was that a carpenter's family would live in a homeless family's car while the homeless family lived in a house that was being built. Now that I'm awake, I realize that this setup would ruin any surprise that might come with the new house, not to mention the difficulty inherent in living in a not-yet-built house. No matter. My difficulty was that the twenty-six pound talking diamond, which had told me I was the chosen one (not even sure what I was chosen for at this point) had somehow ended up wrapped in a blanket in a corner of the house and refused to move. I told the carpenter exactly what was going on while he negotiated selling prices with the homeless father, but that just made everyone want to see a twenty-six pound diamond. But when we got there, Lionel Luthor from Smallville had Clark Kent kryptonite-poisoned in a corner (right next to the diamond, which apparently nobody had noticed), and Lois Lane from Smallville captured. So as the carpenter, the homeless father, the carpenter's son, and I entered the room, so did Smallville's Lana Lang, brandishing two pistols, Matrix-style. A verbal exchange turned into a fight scene, with about six of Luthor's guards going down, and then the alarm rang.

Still haven't had a chance to watch the debate, but that's no big deal. Mary and I now have even more baby paperwork filled out, but I still have tasks to complete before I take off for work this morning. Much to do. Much to do.

I've covered about the first ten chapters of Acts, and once I've read it all the way through, I can start planning the next Bible study series. I'm also going to make a run of Paradise Lost again. I think I'll use a Vonnegut novel as my casual, in-bed-while-Mary-suddenly-gets-chatty reading.

Series Finale

Mary woke up with my alarm today and told me she was hungry, so I've got no recollection of what I dreamed about. I do remember dreaming, though.

I finished up my Bible study series on the Psalms last night, and as a whole I was pleased with the series. I suppose I can add that one to my list of books taught. Now I've got a little less than two weeks to plan my series on Luke-Acts. It amused me last night when they asked whether I really wanted to continue; they were worried that only having four people in the group would feel like a waste of time. I suppose they don't know that what I do on Wednesday nights is keeping me sane, given that I'm not planning lessons and teaching elsewhere. Perhaps if/when substituting picks up it'll be somewhat fulfulling, but really, I'm not sure.

I Could Do Better than That

Wow. The debate was so lopsided last night that I actually dreamed that I was debating Dick Cheney. And in my dream, I was laying out a case for a rapid withdrawal from Iraq, point by point, without any recourse to talking points. I can only wish Edwards had done the same. It was clear last night that Cheney had studied for that debate and studied harder than Edwards. While little John attempted to use Kerry's talking points, Cheney talked fluently about policy, records, and all sorts of things. I never really believed the conspiracy theory that Cheney was secretly running things behind the scenes, but after last night, it's hard to deny. I say we let Cheney and Kerry debate from here on out and have an American Gladiators-style contest between Edwards and Bush on a jumbotron between questions. Then, whichever wins a given giant Q-tip match or obstacle course run earns his running mate ten extra seconds on the next rebuttal. Then we can see the brains behind each operation discuss politics and the young, dim ones do something entertaining, apparently the best that either can do lately.

I'm nearly finished with Niebuhr, and I can see now the accusations that he gives the "Christ transforming culture" an unfair advantage. It's clearly his favorite of the five, and his main critique of Augustine is that he's not fully a transformationalist, that he puts too much emphasis on the difference between the saved and the unsaved. I ought to be able to knock the rest of it out today and start planning the Acts Bible study.

My friend Alex Fitzner visited here about a week ago. Here he is sitting in his house-on-wheels.

No Picture

I know I dreamed something last night, because I woke up remembering it. But I lay in bed for too long afterwards, and now I can't remember a thing.

Tonight is the vice presidential debate, and I fear that I'm going to end the night wishing that Edwards were the Democratic nominee and knowing that Cheney is in fact the sitting president. Why this presidential race is not Dean-Edwards, or even Edwards-Kerry, is still a mystery, and as I told my little brother, it just goes to show that the Democratic party isn't taking this very seriously. I'm certain that a check of my email will reveal scads of messages from the Kerry campaign asking me to vote in online polls tonight. I might, and I might not.

My assessment of Niebuhr's categories, based on some online summaries, seems to be on so far. Although Christ against culture, the Christ of culture, and Christ above culture were compelling, Christ and culture in paradox is so far the most adequate of the stances that Niebuhr has laid out. I don't know whether I'm going to be even more convinced by his Augustinian/transformational model, but I suppose therein lies the joy of reading a good book.

Won't Leave Me Alone

I dreamed last night that we had a girl, but the girl was about the size of a June bug, small enough to cradle in my palm. The problem was that we were with Mary's family, and all the women were horrified that I was holding the baby. They kept trying to take her away. Irritated but not wanting to offend, I started hiding behind things when the women came around. Then my alarm went off.

I finished my little abridged Malory last night, and I was right--not even Gawain, who becomes fiendishly strong as the sun rises, could beat Launcelot. Instead, the flower of knighthood fasted himself to death upon the death of Guinevere. By the end of things, all the knights were either dead (mostly by the hand of Launcelot), monks, or fighting in the Crusades (no mind that they were six hundred years away when the Welsh warlord Arturus was alive). I have no doubt, now having read two hundred fifty pages of Malory, that he finds some clear faults with medieval chivalry, not just any given practitioner of it. In Malory's world, might truly makes right, and a knight who denies a crime narrated mere pages before as clearly committed by said knight is innocent in the final sum of things so long as he can kill his accuser in a joust. By the end of my little abridged version, Launcelot has slept with Guinevere at least four times, but because he's so good in a fight, he stands innocent on all counts.

I've got an eight hour shift at the library today, so I'm going to wait until the eleven o'clock lull to start reading over at the Ooze. Between that and Niebuhr, it ought to be a good day.

Lost again

I dreamed last night that I was in college and that my schedule was made up entirely of high-level math classes. I never attended any class in the context of the dream but instead wandered around a labyrinth-like building, never being able to find my class but somehow running into thirty business majors in every hallway that I traversed.

I'm back in Malory for the moment, trying to finish it off before I launch into "Christ Above Culture" in Niebuhr's book. All of Gawain's brothers and nephews are now dead, and Launcelot killed most of them. For that matter, Launcelot has killed, in the last twenty pages, most of the knights of the Round Table. Apparently he doesn't age, because his son Galahad by this point is dead and gone, having retrieved the Holy Grail. The next section is called "Gawain's Revenge," but I imagine he'll kill some of the knights who have joined Launcelot's faction--I just don't think Launcelot can be killed.

End of the Line

I had one of my recurring dreams last night. I'm in college, and it's finals week. All of a sudden, I remember I've been enrolled in a class that I forgot I was in about the third week of the semester, and my final is coming up. The stuff of the dream never includes the final itself or anything like that; it's always just the anxiety that comes from having to explain myself when I show up to take the test.

I watched the first presidential debate last night, and if the rumor is true that Nader is off the Georgia ballot, I suppose I could vote for John Kerry. I actually found things out about his policy proposals last night. From Bush I found out that questions not leading naturally to recitations of the party line are ignored so that Bush can recite the party line. But then again, I know that pretty well from the scant press conferences he's done over the years. I was trying hard not to focus on body language so that I could hear what the candidates were saying, but Bush's smirk will not be ignored. When asked whether he lied to get his invasion of Iraq, he smirked as he denied knowing any better. When asked which pre-emptive war will be next, he smirked as he claimed to hope that there would be no need for any more. When asked to account for the deaths that the Iraqi invasion has caused, he smirked as he claimed that every life is precious. I tried to give him the benefit of the doubt, but when asked questions that confused him (this happened a couple times), the smirk disappeared instantly. Likewise, when Kerry was calling his policies into question, he traded the smirk for his "he took my candy" look. I'll be in substitute teacher training during debate number two, but I might have Mary tape it for me.

Niebuhr's book continues to impress. Again, I think that some of his categories are too dependent on the categories of nation-state and modern church, but his descriptive power is nonetheless impressive. If I can pull a political thread away from the trolls for a little bit (and this close to an election!), I think that a discussion of his work would be quite good.