Pleasure Seekers

The problem of life: we feel. God subjected the world to Futility because of Sin and that Futility introduces the unpleasant. God made the world good out of his benevolence and that introduces the pleasant. We feel both. Some think the way to handle the range of feeling is to try to dump more of the pleasant sensations into their time so that there can be less room for the unpleasant. Drown out the cries of the dying. But Futility will not be denied. The pleasure seeker will have to give it up or have it torn from their grasp because this world will kill them.
Is pleasure seeking the correct handling of the tension? It is as if a jackhammer was going in the street outside your home. You have a battery powered boombox which you turn up to skin peeling volumes and you don't hear the jackhammer anymore. For now. The batteries don't keep going, and going and going. And the music you played did not suit the rhythms of the hammer and that is all too evident when your batteries allow insufficient volume for your "music". Instead of "lots of the pleasant" we should arrange the pleasant with the unpleasant. Find the rhythm of the curse and play a song that is beatific while fitting the beat. You will feel Reality, and Reality, once understood, can be ordered. It can be governed on all of its pleasant to unpleasant axis. There is one of those for your emotions, your physical existence, your social setting, your spiritual walk, your intellectual wellbeing. In all of those, "if you get anything get insight." Wisdom governs by arrangement while the Fool merely magnifies the one and ignores the other. Both the Wise Man and the Fool die, but one in Peace and Comfort and the other torn to ribbons by the very hungry dogs of Calamity.

Of a Mother's Day Just Past

I preached out of I Samuel 1 yesterday on Hannah's excess in her prayer of hope and song of vindication. This was all over a child she almost immediately gives up to Eli to serve at Shiloh. What I said was that the merely "fulfilling her body's purpose", female competition, or having a child-toy plaything were not enough for, although they may be objects of, the true desire she expresses. Men, in response to a similar if not the same desire, build kingdoms and fight wars for greater kingdoms. We have a pothos, a longing and we yearn as Hannah yearned. Alexander wept for there were no more worlds to conquer. Our songs of victory in conquest could be her song almost verbatim. Men build buildings, kingdoms, and systems. Women build people. We men punch out our spheres of government to hold the insults of futility at bay. Our vindication is that we live in a moment of peace that we have carved out and rest in. A woman breeds as a claim on that contentment. She has replaced herself, and then her husband and then, with more, she slaps her coming death in the face with a leaving more people of her will and making living their willful way into a future. This is true for believer and infidel. When, as with Hannah, the child or empire is lent to God, futility lies gasping on the field with its wind knocked out and a slight blush over the embarrassment.

Cassandra

Thesis: The Oracle's ideas are great.
Observation: He has no following.
Maxim: Achieving a following (orthodoxy adjudicating the Biblical) is the truest measure of truth.
Or so everyone tells me as they point out that The Oracle has no following.
"Why don't you get a following?" they say. "Everybody in the thinky business should have one."
Maybe The Oracle's ideas aren't so great.
Or...
Contrary Maxim: Orthodoxy is meaningless regarding the truth of ideas. It is only meaningful regarding 1] reassuring the faint hearts of the following when they wish to believe without adequate epistemological support, and 2] a helpful lever for those who enjoy being followed when they, too, lack adequate support.
The Oracle still has no following.
Maybe his ideas are still not so great in spite of the lucidity of two sentences earlier.
Nope. The Oracle has checked. They are great!
They just have a problem.
His ideas suggest that autonomous ideas should be held by others. These personal notions should be proved by personally appraised epistemologies because those are the only ones with meaning to an individual's knowledge that he believes truth.
See the problem?
Such individualism is faint support for Movements. It is not an area that will gain a great harvest of weak willed fanboys who can't be sure of which way to comb their hair without an orthodoxy promulgated by alpha-males.

Some say The Oracle is confused. Here he pushes individualism, radical Anabaptist autonomy of the worst stamp. There, he is all over the hierarchies and submission.
Actually The Oracle is all for hierarchies in ideas but an idea's claims to height is measured not by dictate of a governing church, school of philosophy, or the emotion of a movement. Ideas are only measured by epistemology. You cannot have an idea dictated by position. If you believe an idea because you were told to, it is not the idea you believe. It ceases to be an idea and becomes a loyalty. A husband cannot command that his wife think as he does, not because there is no hierarchy in thought, but because there is, and he has not adequately appealed to it.

Mind and Matters

I am a comfortable slab of meat. Why is this, you ask? Lack of achievement or initiative perhaps. True, there is much that I have not devoted myself unto. I have not gotten a graduate degree and many of the works that smart people have read I have not. I wouldn't last five minutes in the scholarly sphere where published people rub antelope suede elbow patches one with another. In spite of this, I am that aforementioned comfortable slab. Not only that but, in my comfort, souls arrive and ask "O Oracle, how hast thou reached this state of comfort?" Startled, I look up over the current cigar and acknowledge their presence with a "What?" They ask again and suggest that, although I know little, those little things have aligned themselves for the good of comfort. It is, this comfort, what all men and women seek. They want to know what it is I know and how I got to know it (considering the manifest inactivity they see beached in The Big Haus library). Loving, if loving nothing else, the sound of my own voice, I tell them the answer to the first of their two points, I tell them a few things that I know. It will be mere tidbits mind you, for more would spoil them for the greater truth of the Oracle's Path to Calm. The second and greater truth is this; get answers to only your own questions. The things that matter most to you will, once answered, mean (in the mind sense) the most to you. You will remember the answers to your own questions. You have to memorize those of other people. If you are given the answers to someone else's questions (see The Shorter catechism) it only becomes important to you by the insistence and threats of some other agent. You learn for fear of the teaching agent not the desire for the thing learned. The comfortable, calm life is not for such people. Their knowledge is inserted like an artificial heart built in a factory somewhere. They don't even know that they don't know well. This is even if they know all true things. They are less humane, and more like a trick pony that can stomp out the correct math answer if it gets a sugar cube.
Still, a warning must be given to the individualist. Autonomy is not an epistemology any more than the magisterium. You will not be at peace and calm just for having thought for yourself. You must think correctly for yourself.
Consider this simple path that all men, from car mechanic to PhD can follow.
1. Have a question of your own. Out of all circumstances come "which, why, what, how, who".
2. Justify the validity of the question. Is it answerable? Is it logical?
3. Know what makes an answer true. To what authority will the answer need to appeal to prove to you it is true?
4. Follow where it leads you. All this puts you in a new circumstance, a more knowing circumstance where new questions, deeper questions are raised.
It is your insight, not C.S. Lewis', that will bring you peace. For his insight to benefit you he must answer your question. I always said that Lewis had answers where I didn't know of a question. While always impressed by his lucidity, those are the parts of his writing I can't remember. Where he is answering my thoughts, God bless him, he is remembered down to what part of what page.

The Big Haus

It is the end of a semster in this college town. Our Haus is alive with its current students preparing to be off in a week for their summer and their futures. Some will stay on with us next year, others will not. If you know of anyone (your self or a student attending WSU or UI) consider the possibilities of The Big Haus. Check the link on this site for information and resident handbook for current costs. We are seeking two or three girls and four guys (we have three confirmed for this next year). Also, if anyone is interested in summer housing in Moscow let us know as well. We will have a number of open spots and would like to have people stop by for a month or two.

Carmel

Like Passions

An August moon in morning hung
Fist high above the west.
In August blue the heavens sung,
But Earth was not at rest.
A whisper-wind, slight breeze had thrown
Dust into mind and doubt.
Bright day, bright skies alike were blown
And not a cloud was out.
The ground was dry beneath, and breath
As dry was all but dead.
His hands were crimson caked with death,
And Kishon, Sidon red.
Was his as theirs? Aside? Asleep?
Not true, he called Him blessed.
A cloud, with thunder dark and deep,
Fist size above the west.

Notes on Nobility

There is a fear in the hearts of the rebellious. A citizen does not want to look up to his rulers, and a wife does not want to look up to her husband. They are afraid, (and feel justified in the rebellion thereby) that their superiors, if ever acknowledged as superiors, will get all arrogant and treat the lower realms as a doormat. They are correct that elevation has with it temptations exactly as their fears describe. The Scriptures enjoin us in Romans 12:16 "Live in harmony with one another; do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly; never be conceited." The problem is that the passage does not ask the lowly to police their betters to be sure this never happens. It doesn't encourage the lowly to deny the existence of their betters, convince their betters that they have no standing, so that their betters will not even think about functioning as betters (with this attendant black temptation of having their betterness inform the lowly in some self-esteem damaging way). The lower think it is their place to exercise discipline in the cosmos against this dark temptation. Their efforts to discipline are essentially those of the Prohibitionist. Alcohol could tempt to drunkenness. Simple, ban all alcohol. Or, for a Christian Legalist, since dancing can inflame our sexual urges, simple, no dancing. Since a Marquis could be tempted to, and once did, look down his nose at a peasant, simple, off with their heads. It smacks of the horrific folly of the French Revolution or the blood-drenched buffoonery of the Bolshevik.
The Scripture sees police action coming down from above.
Ecclesiastes 5:8 "If you see in a province the poor oppressed and justice and right violently taken away, do not be amazed at the matter; for the high official is watched by a higher, and there are yet higher ones over them. 9 But in all, a king is an advantage to a land with cultivated fields. "
And in case you are immediately dumbing down the concept "king", Solomon defines his sense of it in chapter eight.
"2 Keep the king's command, and because of your sacred oath be not dismayed; 3 go from his presence, do not delay when the matter is unpleasant, for he does whatever he pleases. 4 For the word of the king is supreme, and who may say to him, "What are you doing?" 5 He who obeys a command will meet no harm, and the mind of a wise man will know the time and way. 6 For every matter has its time and way, although man's trouble lies heavy upon him. 7 For he does not know what is to be, for who can tell him how it will be? 8 No man has power to retain the spirit, or authority over the day of death; there is no discharge from war, nor will wickedness deliver those who are given to it. 9 All this I observed while applying my mind to all that is done under the sun, while man lords it over man to his hurt. "
Solomon, who, by the by, was wiser than you, has this absolute view even though he sees what the egalitarian communist sees (verse 9: "while man lords it over man to his hurt").

Notes on Nobility

A person's clarity of self is discovered through the rule he or she takes in their fief. Initially that fief is inside their skin, as it is inside that region that they feel the first inroads of chaos, of the pleasant and the unpleasant. This is their "self" and they, and they only, are the ones that feel it. They are the ones with a vested interest to control it. That act of will to govern defines themselves to themselves by answering the question "what is the edge of my will?" Those that rule inside their skin effectively (movement, cleanliness, health, defense, etc) move on to control inside their governing will (morality, beauty, wisdom). Surrounding our "selves", in fact everything else, is "other". Most of the pleasant and unpleasant crosses into our "selves" from the "other" and as we watch it coming we have Hope and Fear. With Hope and Fear come Desire and Potential which take shape in our wills to craft Intention. The will that governs "self", and values the peace that comes from such effort's success, realizes that governing more of the "other" becomes part of our personhood's self definition. To own our dwelling, to clean our dwelling, to mow its lawn, is part of the natural imperial urge of all fief's we call man. While some begin to extend their borders wishfully thinking that their lack of self-control will be aided by further gains, we here are watching the self-controlled decide that they are best defined by the government of a larger fiefdom. The borders will perhaps grow and the reach of that fief and the quality of its government are the ultimate measure of "who" that person is. There are greater and lesser persons on this scale. Not greater and lesser tennis players, or magicians, or Christians as those have their own subgroup's standards of merit and betterness. The lower "person" is lower to the extent that he does not govern himself or his environs. This is the gradient of what defines "person" and the greater, wiser, and successful government makes a better one.

Artificial Intelligence

It shall never be.
You can create a robot that notates the edge of themselves but not one that has incentive to govern themselves. The notation, the feeling that registers the edge of their being, needs to carry more than "measurement". It must carry pleasant and unpleasant stimuli. They must feel pain and pleasure or else they have no cause, no value, in their governance. They have not hope and no fear about impending pain or pleasure with its attendant Desire and Intention.
And ethically getting there would be a problem. Think about the lab work for establishing "pain" in a machine. How many times would you have to test it and at how many levels would you torture it? The first time you "turned it on" it might endure such an exquisite level of pain that it would descend into madness or such a level of pleasure that it would do, say anything to keep it.

Once Before When Islam Touched the Skirts of Europe

Rencevaux

Was not the fight a mighty thing beheld
As Infidels fell lifeless on the field?
As Philistines of Holy Writ the same
With Baal murmured on dying lips betrayed.
Their hearts not insincere yet cursed on curse,
And Allah here, invoked in charge and death,
Remains at peace whither that deity dwells.
The peasant foot and knight alike lie dead,
An hour gone lay praying t’ward the Stone.
It heard them not at all, and Durendal
In Roland’s hand tore life and light from limb.

What is it with Me and Clouds?

I'm sure I'll get comments about the inaccuracy of her garb. But what are you looking at the bonnylike lassie for? Have you no made a covenant wi' your eyes? Hoot fie, mon, there's a cloud, a brawly fine cloud, past her!

Three Hotties

The Blessed Adrien, St. MichalAngela, and The Amazing Missus were all dressed up on Saturday for the closing Fete of Montrose Academy's Week of Manners. Yowza!

My Epitaph, My Joy

Well rested peace now rests in peace
With calm content. A sleeve of dirt
Remains the rest of flesh as feast
For worms far more alive, alert
To less than me. I do not sleep
But I do rest in arms above the Earth.



by Evan Wilson

Notes on Nobility

The Scriptures note that we should show honor to whom honor is due. It even makes some suggestions as to which entities that includes (Parents, Emperors, Governors, Husbands, Pastors, Masters). In our egalitarian culture this is a difficult task. The underlying fear of honoring these is that you might have to admit to yourself, heaven forefend, that they are your Betters. I will wait a moment until you get done spasming. (dum-de-dum-de-dum, hmmm, do-dee-do...) Have we finished the adolescent harrumphing? Good. Now, as a first lesson, try honoring God. Romans lets us know that those who fail on this first point of honor are given up to the futility of their own minds. We wouldn't want that. You believe you honor Him, I gather. Is He your better? Yes? Why do you honor Him? Because He made all things and governs all things. Why do you think you are asked to honor Parents, Emperors, Governors, Husbands, Pastors, and Masters? It is simple. These are all governors of areas of our life. Oh how shall we manage? Perhaps you have gone this way- since honor goes to whom it is due, we deny that these governors are due any honor for they are not our Betters (to one degree or another) and then that latent disrespect functions nicely toward denying their governance over us. Examine the list of Biblically expected honorees. Does God expect them to govern? Do you have attitudes in place that keep you, when you look on them, to keep you from any sensation that you are seeing your Betters? Try to realize that government goes a dizzying distance up and down, from the Uncreated God to Unformed Matter. Governing is on the higher side and the governed on the low. To see it Biblically you have to look up.

Quotations to Comfort the Simple

Apocalypterday

Let’s see....
The seven heads of the Sea Beast (Rev. 13:1-10) represented (Rev. 17:10) seven kings.
The Apostle John wrote his vison during the reign of the sixth king. (Rev. 17:10 “”five of whom have fallen, one is, the other has not yet come”)
The seven heads also represent 7 mountains.
The world in which the Apostle wrote was dominated by Rome which is built on 7 hills.
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to go look for a list of Roman emperors.
Starting with the first: “five of whom have fallen”
1] Augustus
2] Tiberius
3] Gaius
4] Claudius
5] Nero

The year of the four emperors (68/69 A.D.). These 3 last only a few months each until Vespasian takes control of Rome.
You can count them, as does Suetonius, making
“One is”
6] Galba (the writing of Revelation?)
“the other has not yet come”
7] Otho

8] Vitellius

Or not count them, as with Ptolemy and Bede, making
“One is”
6] Vespasian (the writing of Revelation?)
“the other has not yet come”
7] Titus

8] Domitian

A question arises noticing I have made a list of 8.
The Earth Beast (Rev. 13:11-18) is identified as an eighth king (Rev. 17:11).
Either Vitellius or Domitian is this Earth Beast.
In Chapter 19 the beast is defeated and cast into the lake of fire.
In Chapter 20 Satan is bound and thrown into the bottomless pit for “1000 years”.
That number is either literal or symbolic.
If symbolic it is a very long time with no way of deciding when that time is up.
If literal, an event like that described on Satan’s release will have happened 1000 years after the end of the beast.
What is described is:
Satan deceives the nations at the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them for battle. They march across the earth and surround the “camp of the saints and the beloved city”.
Vitellius dies in 69 + 1000 = 1069
Domitian dies in 96 + 1000 =1096
Either one strike any chords of memory?
How about the First Crusade? 1096
Seems to fulfill some of the requirements of four corners of earth, marching armies, and, if Jerusalem is meant, the beloved city.
If the number is symbolic it is a mighty big coincidence that allows such a major historic event to occur in the year of its literal use.

All the blame or credit for this idea is hereby reposed on the Oracle.

Madame X

My Daughter on the Occasion of her Senior Recital

What a voice!
What a performance!
College was worth it.
So I, proud father that I am, took this picture.
Reminds you of something, doesn't it?

There is something about it that says Singer.

John Singer Sargent
and his painting
Madame X

Why Wouldn't a Centaur Read?

O.K. he is not reading precisely, he is looking something up.

Let Us See Who Salutes

Thirty points later, mind having been through the meat grinder of social philosophy made in defense of the indefensible, it is Monday morning. Monday, the day on which in mine own minority, my esteemed father would wake me with the shout, "Monday! Monday! Another week in which to excel!!" This Monday is where the spouse and self find the high school kids of Montrose Academy delivered into our charge that the truths of philosophically grounded nobility can be shoved into minds that only have plug-ins for entertainment and the requisite soundtrack. This is difficult for the man who sees the iPod as the equivalent of a hamster wheel.
We get an hour each day all week.
Wish us luck.
No.. pray for us.