In a Castle by the Sea

Here written are the names of the kings and queens of Narnia who vanquished the army of the White Witch:

Queen Lucy, called the Valiant. How true it is that this young queen and healer should have such a name. Though she is small, and frail, none of the Pevensie's love Aslan more than she, and there is no truer friend in all of Narnia. Who more than she could rightly be afraid of harm from the witch or her servants? Yet by trusting Aslan, her fear melts away, and she would be by his side even as he is surrounded by all the armies of hell. This smallest one is indeed the strongest ruler of them all.

King Edmund, called the Just. He is the traitor to his family, bought from the blade of the White Witch with the mane and blood of the Lion. Who better than he knows the demands of justice, or the blessing of mercy? He has shattered the wand that turned men to stone shall become a king of great wisdom and truth. He will deal with the creatures of Narnia as rightly as Aslan dealt with him. Would that every king could have so great and understanding.

Queen Susan, called the Gentle. Always trying to be smart and practical, looking after her self, hesitant to help any creature about her when she first enters Narnia. Yet with the tears she shed over Aslan's shaved and shamed body, her stoniness was broken. Who knows compassion greater than she who has seen it lived out before her eyes in the blood on the stone table? Great is the queen who can set aside the bow and raise her hand to care for the poor creatures of her realm.

King Peter, called the Magnificent. What can be said for this man, once blown about by circumstance, who is now the protector of all Narnia? He was once harsh and sarcastic with his brother and sisters, yet as soon as danger came he accepted responsibility for his error towards Edmund. He is Aslan's man, High King of Narnia, wolfsbane, and dear friend to all who know him. In his rule more than any other, Aslan's kingship is reflected. He is like Aslan's mane, a brilliant and regal symbol of all that the true king should be.

Once a King of Queen in Narnia, always a King or Queen!

Winter is Almost Over

I went to see The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe at the premier, but am only now getting around to commenting on it. And really, what could I say? The work of the filmmakers was good, which is to say the screen expressed beauty, honesty, fear, joy, peace, and above all longing. I long to be guided to the camp of the King by a creature, like myself, lowly and faithful; and to stand with my brothers and sisters at the tent when the Lion steps out to meet us, face to face. I long to bend the knee on that great day.

But something that moved me much more than I expected was the coming of Father Christmas. What does the coming of Father Christmas mean?

Standing in the snow, with a hand on his sleigh and his warm breath visible in the muted sunlight, Father Christmas is an angel of hope. His brow is wrinkled, weathered with struggle and waiting. She has kept him back a long time, a long time. For 100 years there has been the Witch's winter, always winter but never Christmas. But as surely as Father Christmas stands before the children, this winter belongs not the the queen of narnia, but to the King. Aslan's thaw has begun. As he visits the woodland creatures, I can imagine him saying something like this:

My dearest of friends, welcome. For all these years she has kept me back, but now the time is at hand. Take these gifts, to celebrate with joy the coming of the Lion to His land. These icy drifts can not muzzle Him, nor shall any craft of the witch. Aslan will seat his kings and queens at Cair Paravel. Tell it too all the woodland creatures; to driads and niads, and all manner of dwarf; shout to all the mountains and lands and stars from here to Aslan's Country: Happy Christmas to all, in the name of Aslan the true King!

That is why I was made weak at the sight of Father Christmas. His presence describes where we are right now, where I am. I cannot see him, and much snow still lays upon the earth. But the Lion, who is not tame, yet is so very good, the Maker of Kings and bringer of the thaw, has come at long last.

Like Butter Scraped Over Too Much Bread

I've just submitted my first graduate school applications, and it scares the hell out of me. Don't get me wrong, I'm looking forward to grad school. But there's something very humbling about the process. No matter how good a face I try to put forward, no matter how I spin my past mistakes or emphasize my accomplishments, I still feel like I am saying "please tell me I am worthy of your program." All of these fancy protocols for admission elevate the prospect of affirmation or rejection to a new level. My pride and ambition are laid bare for complete strangers to see. I know this would be an ideal time to turn my cares over to Christ, but of course it's easier to know that than to really do it.

I am also feeling overwhelmed by the last of my assignments. I am studying for my capstone test tomorrow, which I really have to do well on since my last test was a D. I am also trying to get my senior paper written, which you would think would be easy since I have an outline. It's not. On top of which, I am still desperately hoping to pull an A out of Linear Algebra, although I'm pretty sure that's a lost cause at this point. I guess this is my chance to prove I work well under pressure.

I realize this is a really boring post, so I won't make it drag on. I'm still trying to figure out what exactly the theme of this blog should be. I plan to start one up that's oriented toward economics, but this one needs to be a little more interesting than that. Movie reviews? Axiological musings? My latest Scripture readings? What I made for supper? I'm just not sure yet. What would Gary Lee do?

I Came Into This World Fat And Bald,...

This is the sample I submitted to the OU Daily in my application to be a columnist for next semester:

They say there are only two things men can do that women can’t, and only one that can be seen in public. Yet demonstrating masculine solidarity through follicular development has been remarkably unpopular for years, leaving men with nothing to show off. Why should men need a special month to identify with our lumberjack forebears? What could convince us to give up our manly manes?

The shortest answer is this: we like women. And most women do not like facial hair. One woman said to me just last night that if her husband does not shave, she refuses to kiss him. “It’s like sand paper,” she said. That’s motivation, friends.

Women have not always thought this way, though. Despite our current assumption that members of the gentler sex were daintier back when it was kosher to call them the gentler sex, the repressed women of the middle ages found a beard to be attractive, a sign that they were dealing with a grown man with testosterone to spare.

Why did women change there minds so thoroughly? Maybe it is related to the feminist movement, since now women finally have the chance to turn the tables on men. Women can now work in almost any job a man can and get paid nearly as much as a man, even vote for a different guy than their husbands do, so maybe they are trying to take away the one manly thing we can do in public. Women love sticking it to the man.

But I doubt that is the reason for it. It seems just as possible that Clive Staples was right in the first place. The Screwtape Letters makes a lot of profound points amidst Uncle Screwtape’s devilish rants, mentioning that the forces of darkness have made secondary characteristics like the beard more important to the human search for companionship than whether we actually make good companions. You may not believe in demons, but I do, and this could easily be something Satan might do in a desperate, meaningless attempt to stick it to the real Man.

Not that he is. I am not sure what the devil does for kicks these days, but I cannot imagine the dark denizens of the deep staging an anti-stubble demonstration. Prohibition did not work for whiskey, so why would it work for whiskers? I think in the end it comes back to the middle ages. Back then, women were raised to be attracted to men instead of boys, and men were raised to be attracted to women, not girls. But that is no longer the case. Women are trained to like men who are boyish—emotionally unsure, constant risk takers as long as there is a perfect safety net, and smooth-faced. Men are just as bad, desiring women to perpetually retain girlish youth in looks and needs; children are easy to keep happy.

We need to let ourselves grow up. When I was young I could not grow a beard, and when I am old I will not be able to grow hair on top of my head. For now, I intended to enjoy both. Maybe this means a lot of women won’t be stopping to admire my obviously fantastic physical condition. But then, wanting to be the hottest dude around and the constant center of attention is something of a middle-school hang-up, too.

Which Action Hero Would You Be? v2.0

You scored as Batman, the Dark Knight.

As the Dark Knight of Gotham, Batman is a vigilante who deals out his own brand of justice to the criminals and corrupt of the city. He follows his own code and is often misunderstood. He has few friends or allies, but finds comfort in his cause.

Batman, the Dark Knight	71%
James Bond, Agent 007	67%
Neo, the "One"	63%
Indiana Jones	63%
Captain Jack Sparrow	54%
The Amazing Spider-Man	54%
Lara Croft	54%
William Wallace	50%
Maximus	50%
El Zorro	42%
The Terminator	38%

Life does go on

I suppose, if ever I were to blog about something on my blog which has no real subject, being in Oxford, England, and especially being here during the London bombings, is as good a reason as any. First off, let me say that Oxford is a couple hours from London, so I was no where near the bombs yesterday morning. Everyone has been a bit shaken, especially yesterday. Hopefully the news filtered out most of the rumors by the time you heard about it. There were various and wide reports about the extent of the attack, the worst (and therefore most circulated) at one point was 4 explosions on the train system, and 3 buses bombed. As you all know by now, there were 3 train explosions and 1 bus destroyed, but the rumors were flying wild for a while.

The American students here were all rather concerned, especially those planning to travel later in the day or the next morning. One of my classmates left Oxford for London shortly before the first bomb went off, but she was not anywhere close to any of the attacks. Transportation went crazy yesterday, and is still recovering today, although the Tube system is up and running (mostly).

Everyone around here is taking this seriously, and yesterday the news was on all day in the bar, but life goes on. In Oxford people still turned out to watch the England/Australia cricket match on the big screen, and there were still plenty of shoppers filling Cornmarket street. Everyone seems to have a silent sense that our activities won't be governed by violence. I wish I could say I saw the church active in all of this, but I haven't seen much of the church since arriving. But God will use this, as he does every tragedy, for His kingdom and glory; I for one am not afraid.

Please pray for those injured by the attack, and for the families of the dead. And please, please pray that God would enable the church to minister in these times.

A Few Things I Believe

The combination of the Terry Schiavo case, the advent of the feminism section of one of my classes, the coming of Easter, and an inexplicably high level of stress has prompted me to assert a few things about the way I think about and relate to life.

In particular order:

1. I do not believe in the power of women. Nor do I believe in the power of men. In fact, I think it is the fixation on such 'power,' and the distribution thereof, which has led to much of the oppression of 'minorities' throughout history, and winning power back through the same fixation only purpetuates the nature of oppression and separation.

2. The intelligenzia, of which I am a part, has placed too much importance on our analytical categories. We have artificially defined which categories of people are important, artificially defined which rights/powers the members of these categories should have, and artificially defined the measures of whether these rights are being sufficiently supplied, yet we cling to a ridiculous lockean/rousseau-esque idea that these rights are deserved by human nature. I tend to think that focusing on who gets what rights when and how, ignoring the associated resposibilities, has caused more harm than good. Understanding the world through the categories of its Creator may lead to rather valuable conclusions.

3. Responsibility does not require capability. A father gives his son two instructions--do not go near the 10 foot ditch, and mow the lawn before the end of the day. When the father leaves home, the son promptly goes to look in the ditch, and falls in. The father returns home, finds the son in the ditch, and after pulling him out asks why the lawn is not mowed. Rendering himself unable to fulfill the second command by violating the first does not absolve the son of responsibility for both.

4. Freedom to choose is less valuable than freedom to fulfill. Modern American society, both Christian and non, is obsessed with having the freedom to make choices unhindered by influencing factors. The absence of influence is a fallacy of the human conceit, and all things equal should be ignored in favor of a more important freedom: the freedom to fulfill your God-directed purpose. These are two fundamentally different ways to deal with issues of ability, preference, and decision. The mindset of purpose fulfillment is, I tend to think, a much more realistic and God-centered way to deal with the world than trying to eliminate all possible influencing factors.

5. 'Power' is subordinate to authority. 'Free' choice is important when the question is regarding a person intervening by strength of force who does not possess the authority to wield it. At the same time, no matter how strong one may be, that power should be set aside when faced with the influence of a proper authority, and power should always defer to righteously executed authority. Many have the power to take life because it seems unbearable; no one has the authority to take life except as a matter of retributary justice, and a just cause must be present.

6. Death = Separation of cutting off; Holiness = Separation of intimacy. One might define Holy as "set apart, separate, distinct, different;" the separation of death is of a different nature. A holy thing or person possesses an especially strong relationship with another thing or person (usually God), while a dead thing or person has had his relationship with another thing or person completely cut off. Physical death is to be completely cut off from the physical world, incapable of reconnection (without outside intervention). To be dead to someone is to be so utterly separated/cut off that you two are beyond reconciliation (again, without outside intervention). Conversely, holy separation is to have a special uniting bond, a formal intimacy. A husband is separated to his wife, a holy covenant. A king is separated to his office and duty, also in many ways a holy covenant. The high priest of Israel was once a year separated to the Holy of holies, a final example of a holy covenant. Understanding these relational separations makes human interaction far easier to comprehend.

7. Mind, emotion, will, body, and spirit are equal parts of being human. They must grow together, face strain together, relate to others together, and rest together. If any one of these is emphasized far beyond the others, or neglected far more than the others, the human being is not whole. Having one part of being human separated from the others is a kind of cutting off. It is a kind of death.

8. Real change is generally characterized by definitive, progressive, and consumative actions, in that order. The definitive is the point in time where a change is sparked, and from that point it is certain or definite that the change must occur. The progressive is the process by which the concequences and implications of the definitive act is worked through all things affected, changing different elements at different rates, yet without a doubt as to the teleological end. The consumative is the burst that brings all things to completion, not just completing but also sealing the progressive activity as final and binding, confirming the certitude of the definitive act.

9. The body is generally consumative by nature. It was the death of his physical body that finalized Jesus' life of obedience and salvific work. It was the resurrection of his physical body and his bodily accention to heaven that finalized his authoritative restoration of his people. It will be his bodily return to earth that destroys death and shatters sin forever. It is the physical union in marriage which should confirm and complete the covenantal intimacy. Thus the physical is the "caboose" of human action: always connected to the others, it should be invested in an action when all other parts are firmly set on it, and then it may be invested utterly.

10. Creation, fall, redemption, restoration. These are the concepts that shape the course of history, govern sub-creation, and guide the life of man. God is the creator of all things, with full authority and power over them. Adam, the first man, in his freedom of choice, being created as a perfect representative of man with authority (and responsibility) to represent all of his decendents, fell. By violating God's commands Adam earned a cutting off from God and all that is good for himself, and all those under his authority.
God did not leave mankind in this state, but instead became the man Jesus of Nazareth, in all ways both God and man, not naturally born of Adam's line but born of a virgin, thus not under Adam's authority. Under Jesus' authority were placed a people, God's flock plucked from the separation they had earned, who place their trust in Jesus' as their authoritative representative. Jesus obeyed God with his whole person, to the point of being cut off from God on behalf of his people, to satisfy the Just nature of God.
Jesus was resurrected bodily as a consumation of his redemptive work, itself the definitive act of history which now is now being worked out by the Holy Spirit in God's flock and in His world, over which Jesus has been given all power and authority. Those members of the flock await the consumative restoration of all of creation, down to their own physical bodies, at which time they will again be perfectly free to fulfill their purpose in holy separation to intimately relate to God.

Resurrection

The other day Andrew, who is taking a women's studies class on the Church and is understandably frustrated, asked me the following question: Why did Christ have to be resurrected for his atonement to be complete? Isn't his death enough to pay the debt own God?

We pondered that for some time, batting things back and forth. At first glance it seems that simply giving up his life should pay the life-debt; after all, no sacrificial animals ever came back from the dead. It took me a while to realize that was the whole point.

Death, separation, is the chief consequence of sin. As long as Christ was in the grave, death still had enough power to separate Him from from the body and from God. If Jesus of Nazereth is still in the grave, then death still has power and sin is not conquered fully. But with a resurrected Christ, death is overthrown. Sin is not just payed for, every effect of it has been covered over by a triumphant sacrifice. The punishment due for the sin of Christ's people has run out, and can no longer bind him. And if it cannot bind him, it will not bind us. We are truly set free from sin and death; if we turn to Christ to pay our deficit of perfect obedience to God, He has it covered. Good to know, don't you think?