My 3 favorite poems

Since I asked everyone else to do it I figure I better as well.. So here they are.

1. The Good Rich Man - by G.K. Chesterton
"Mr. Mandragon the millionaire he wouldn't have wine or wife
he couldn't endure complexity, he lived a simple life." (click here for more)

2. Birches - by Robert Frost
"So was I once myself a swinger of birches. And so I dream of going back to be." (click here for more)

3. Seven Against Thebes - by Aeschylus
"Up to the citadel rise and clash and din, The war net closes in..." (click here for more)

Tagged by Johnny D - 5 books etc.

Mr Embiggen Fever Tagged me with the challenge to blog about the following:

How many books do you own: Around 300 give or take 100 (probably give).

The last book you purchased: Essential Russian Grammar by Brian Kemple.

The last book you read: The Ballad of the White Horse by GKC. If epic poems within an anthology don't count.. then, Scribbling in the Sand by Michael Card

5 books that are important to you: I've chosen to define "important to me" as meaning a book that has shaped me significantly.

1.) Digger Dan the Steamshovel Man by Patricia Lynn
In this children's book I learned the importance of trying hard even if you don't feel like it.
2.) Biography of Lenin that I read in 9th or 10th grade
This book taught me that ideas are really important, and he who controls the ideas is boss. Another book that reinforces this truth to me is Soul Tsunami by Leonard Sweet. It didn't make the list but I did consider it, and would likely put it in a list of top 20 books important to me.
3.) Basic Christianity by John R.W. Stott
When looking at the bookcase last night thinking about writing this I couldn't find Basic Christianity on the shelf. Later I discovered it was on my nightstand. I love this book. I read it often. It is a really great basic apologetic and firm summary of the key doctrines.
4.) A Godward Life Vol. 1 & 2 by John Piper
In the last 3 years these books have pointed my heart toward Christ more than any other. It is written as a series of short chapters with a point intended to make you want Christ more. It works. I return to these volumes often. They get me reading the Bible.
5.) Orthodoxy by G.K. Chesterton
This was hard to put on the list because I have only read this book once all the way through. However I have read parts of it many many times. Also it represents all of the books by GKC that mean a great deal to me. The reason that it stands in their stead is that many of the lines of his other books are reflected in a more codified version in Orthodoxy. For example in the Father Brown Mysteries, more times than not Father Brown's insightul dialouge is just a paragraph out of Orthodoxy that GKC has revamped to fit the situation. I know that is not really what happened but the flow of ideas can easily be seen. The Man Who Was Thursday almost made it in Orthodoxy's place, because it is so much fun to read and is one of the few pieces of fiction that I have returned to again and again for either a laugh or to find something to make me think. Nevertheless Orthodoxy stands at number 5.

Books that get honorable mention are Basics of Biblical Greek by William Mounce, and The Confessions of St. Augustine. The best computer book I've read is Steal This Computer Book byAllan Wang, and the scariest book I've ever read is Biohazard by Ken Alibek

Along with this offering I would like to give a TAG back to John and anyone else who will bite . I want to know what 3 poems are your absolute favorites, and why. Don't tell me in the comments tell me on your blog.

Russian is a humbling language

I count myself a bright fellow. I know the parts of speech and could probably diagram a sentence if someone threatened me with something sharp. Generally I can keep my subjects and verbs in agreement, and participles need not dangle at my hand. However I have now discovered that if you want to feel like a low rung on the ladder of civilization, start to learn Russian!

For example I find the following challenging:
No articles - none - nada - nunca - нэт! (a misspelled nyet - I couldn't find the correct key on the Russian layout)
Different alphabet with lots of vowels,,, lots like twice as many as English.
Everything inflects. Now this isn't that different from Latin or Greek except this is a living language not a dead one, and you can put down the book and look up the paradigm for making something a part of the instrumentive case, Instead you are actually speaking and no one wants to leave their conversation partner crocheting an afghan, whilst you feverish skim a tome for the correct way to say Jane built the bridge. (As I understand it Jane would be in the nominative case, built would be a simple past time, and bridge would not be support by an article but instead would take the instrumentive case showing that it was the direct result of Jane's industriousness. Now if Jane were not building but instead crossing the bridge it would be in yet a different case, the case of the direct object AKA the accusative case....

Has your brain exploded yet? Mine did. However, I'm a nerd so all this is fun. However, I am not yet convinced that I will be able to communicate even one word while on my journey. Wow this was a riveting post. What did you expect the name of this thing is "Because I like Hearing Myself Type."

There are more things that I find challenging however I have bored myself to death so I will stop. As my wife will attest, sometimes I bore even myself while talking; this usually results in great laughter. Because nothing is quite as funny as someone who has completely tuned out there own monotone and then realizes what they have done. I'm almost crying right now I'm laughing so hard thinking about it.

The Ballad of the White Horse

I read GK Chesterton's The Ballad of the White Horse this weekend. Previously I had played around reading it, but yesterday I sat down and read the whole thing. Wow! To say that I like it would be weak.

As I read I could feel it shaping me, sculpting, molding my opinions and feelings. Honestly, I didn't get every allusion (there were a lot) I didn't know the places about which he was talking, but still his words were like blows. Rich once said about Bible stories; "Stories like that make a boy grow bold, stories like that make a man walk straight" I know he wasn't talking about Chesterton's poetry, but I could feel that same sentiment welling up more and more from stanza to stanza. It was an amazing feeling to ride with King Alfred and his cheiftans, to be swelled by there words of valor and taste the curses of the enemy bards and kings. My favorite thing about the poem was the way Alfred grew in wisdom every few pages. I started out likely him and thinking a lot of him but by the end he was a Wessex Solomon. The climax of the story in my view was when he prophesied that the heathen would never be beaten back from England and that in the generations to come his warfare against Christendom would morph. I don’t want to give away too much lest you spring away from this blog and read the poem. Straight away, is what I would recommend. What? You’re still reading, STOP NOW and go read the Ballad of the White Horse.

A blog down memory lane

Today as I sat slogging away at my job, fiddling with something I didn't entirely understand, I get this bizarre email. The subject was something like "Flikr: The Lester has added you to his contact list". So I thinks to meself.... Les, Les Dart is that you!!! SOoo I click the link and it is by golly. Les is my best high school friend and was a groomsman in my wedding. While we have fallen out of touch, it is clear to me from reading his blogs and web writings that our spirits are still very kindred.

You see: About 9 months ago I was googling around and found Les's Flikr (online picture album) Page. So I blathered out a hello. I had completely forgotten about it, until today when I received the message. So I goggled him again, and found half a dozen blogs about his wonderful life.

So now I've made real live email contact with him and can't wait to find out what I've been missing for the past 7 (sheesh has it really been that long) years. More like 10 since we've had a conversation of length, and recurrance.

Also I can't wait to tell his fiance all the great stuff I'm sure he hasn't mentioned yet. Or that he never would mention unless an old high school friend brought it up.

Now if I somehow make contact with Jamey Tracey (2nd best high school and grade school pal) via email/ internet in the next week I will know that some strange "Truman Show" conspiracy is happening, and that my secret fear that the world really does revolve around me and I am the star the world's most popular tv show, secretly, in some sort of biodome with really good holograms, has proved to be true. - How's that for a run on!

εν αρχη ην ο λογος

Verses of the day: John 1:1-5

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made, without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it."

Facts from these verses:
1. Word = God
2. Word = with God
3. The Word has been around since the beginning of the world. (compare the Greek from John 1:1 to the Greek that the 70 scholars chose to use when translating the LXX:
^1:1 ἐν ἀρχη̨̃ ἐποίησεν ὁ θεὸς τὸν οὐρανὸν καὶ τὴν γη̃ν
now with John 1:1
ἐν ἀρχη̨̃ ἠ̃ν ὁ λόγος καὶ ὁ λόγος ἠ̃ν πρòς τòν θεόν...
It seems to me they are talking about the same beginning, they use the same phrase to kick off the books.
4. Word = He
5. Word = creator (through him all things were made. The second restatement seems to drive home the point in kind of a literary way, "without him nothing was made, that has been made."
6. Life is in the Word
7. the aforementioned life in the Word = light of men (ἀνθρώπων- mankind, humankind, the realm of people)
8. The light shines in the darkness.
9. by association of previous facts: the the life of the Word shines in the darkness, the life of God which = the Word shines in the darkness, The creator of all that has been made shines in the darkness.
10.darkness doesnot understand light, therefore doesn't understand the life of the Word

I'm sure there is much more.

How do you take your tea?

When Albert Einstein's wife was asked: "Mrs. Einstein, do you understand your husband's theories?" She replied, "No, but I know how he likes his tea."

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I won't unpack what I think the beauty of this is, but I will say that I like this quotation very much, and that I think it speaks to the essence of a good marriage.

Hey Tony Blair - Bully for You!!

Tony Blair Wins Absolute Majority! - Xinhua News

LONDON, May 6 (Xinhuanet) -- British Prime Minister Tony Blair's Labor Party won an absolute majority of parliamentary seats in Britain's general election on Friday, passing the required 324-seat mark for the 646-member House of Commons.

The election victory means Blair has won a historic third consecutive term in office.

Irish Labour Party Praises Blair

The re-election of Prime Minister Tony Blair marks him out as one of the successful British political leaders of the past century, the Irish Labour Party said today.

The party has been watching the British general election with keen interest, as it seeks to win power at the next Irish general election.

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Ok, Ok! Those of you who know me are pretty much aware that no one can mention Tony Blair without me standing up on a chair and saying "That guy's really sharp!" So, Needless to say I am quite pleased that TB will be the PM for another term.

I think it is impossible to listen to this man speak and not be impressed. If you don't like his content you have to love the "Hugh Grant in Nottinghill" quality that his voice and inflection have. However I don't imagine that TB would sound anymore eloquent saying "Whopsy Daisies" than William Thacker did.

From a blog called "My Worst Call of the Day"

I don't usually click the "next blog" link after reading a friend's blog. However today was an exception. I stumbled on to the following, and it is too hilarious not to post here. ENJOY!

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"My Worst Call of the Day - From the dozens of idiotic calls I take each day as a customer service representative, I humbly submit the winner."

>>Double Trouble

Today, gentle readers, you’ll be getting two for the price of one. Neither one of these calls is substantial enough to merit an individual write-up, but it seems wasteful to just toss them aside. Submitted for your amusement, then, are my two worst calls of the day.

My first nut-job was an old lady who yelled at me because I had the audacity to call her “ma’am.” “Do you know what that word MEANS?” she howled. “It’s the same as calling me a prostitute!” Baffled by her interpretation of this very polite form of address, I nonetheless apologized and told her I wouldn’t use the word again.

Bear in mind, however, that customer service reps have been trained to use the words “ma’am” and “sir” when speaking to people. Because of this, I accidentally called her “ma’am” at least two more times, which resulted in her hurling a most unladylike curse at me before hanging up. I was crestfallen, as I wanted to reassure the old crone that illicit sex was the furthest thing from my mind while listening to the harsh, crackling squawk that passes for her voice.

My second bizarre call came from a husband and wife who insisted on speaking at the same time, and at a volume usually reserved for hog-calling. After the ringing in my ears stopped, I informed the clamoring couple that I could not understand them when they spoke in tandem, and suggested that one of them remain silent while the other speaks.

I had little idea of the controversy this would generate. Both parties apparently wanted to play “alpha dog,” and the fur began to fly:

“The gas bill is in MY name.”
“Well, if you had called about this THREE WEEKS AGO like I asked, I wouldn’t have to be involved.”
“For XXXXXX’s sake, just let me handle this.”
“You don’t know how to talk to these people.”
“Remind me again, WHICH one of us has a degree in communications?”

And so it went for the next couple of minutes, until they had the good sense to disconnect and continue their spat in private. Or maybe they heard me frantically scribbling notes, and muttering, “my readers will LOVE this!” I guess some people are just sensitive about being blog fodder. Go figure.

American Tolerance & Divorce Statistics

Something Baffles me, how can a nation that preaches tolerance as the highest of all virtures have such an alarming divorce rate? I will be researching this and posting a little piece of investigative journalism here in the future weeks. If any readers want to chime in their views, that would be great, in that I will consider them when looking for sources to answer the following questions:

1.) What is the divorce rate in the US
a. collect data
b. find out what people think about divorce, public opinion.
2.) What is tolerance in the US
a. collected definitions
b. my analytical definition
3.) The reason that these two things bother me, or why I see a logical / ethical fallacy here
4.) What tolerance should be in my humble opinion
5.) What I believe marriage to be
6.) What do the major religions of the world teach about marriage?