Part Three

Oy, this story is long.

Right. So, I met the Roises, and they are all very nice. I enjoyed the few days I had with them. They had an appointment in Portland for Nelly, so they left Monday morning. They let me stay at their house while they were gone. That first night was not so great; it hit me all at once that I was alone and far away from home. I was tired out from travelling and I didn't know anyone there. And I was hungry. That tends to make everything worse. So I ate some dinner, drank some beer, and went to bed.

Next day I was feeling better, and I had a good time at the conference. The speakers were hilarious and very good. I met a nice lady from Texas and she took me under her wing for the rest of the trip. She's six feet tall, so we got along very well. We ran around all over downtown Moscow; we saw the Kenworthy Theatre, NSA, Mark Beauchamp's bookshop, Bucer's, the local Greek restuarant, West of Paris...it was fun. I met some people from NSA, and they were all very kind. They were genuinely interested in me and my plans. Moscow is a nice little town; I'm really looking forward to living there for a couple of years.

I caught a ride up to the airport in Spokane and flew home on the ninth. It was so nice to have such a short trip. Even my layover was pleasant! I met an NSA student in Virginia (Alexander) who was there for a short visit. I saw him again in Idaho, and he gave me a ride to the airport. His brother, Nate, was on the same flight as I, so we got to hang out a bit. We had dinner and beer together in Colorado and talked about school and the Lord of the Rings. It was nice. It was nice to finally get home, too. I was home in time for my birthday, and I get to sleep in my own bed now, in my own room with my own books.

Quite a journey, eh? I don't know if I'd like to ever do that again, but it was interesting. And it makes for some great stories.

There it is. Questions?

Part Two

Oh, goodness! I didn't realise that I'd left you all hanging for so long! I'm terribly sorry. I know how awful it is to be waiting on the edge of my seat, as it were, for the end of a story. So let's see, then....where was I?

Oh, yes. Lisping Hippie. My train left Havre, Montana at around two o'clock in the afternoon, and was scheduled to arrive in Spokane, Washington at around what-the-devil-am-I-doing-awake o'clock. Spokane at two a.m. What fun! But before I got to Washington, I got to spend hours and hours sitting next to Lisping Hippie. He told me all about Jesse James and how misunderstood he was. He told stories of his bike-riding adventures. He stole my camera and took a picture of me with it-- I kid you not. Thankfully, I didn't have to spend the entire ride with him. God was merciful to me and for a while, I got to sit in two empty seats out of LH's sight. I think he was one of those people, you know, the kind that have your insides shuddering and trying to run away? One of those.

Another one of God's mercies is that trains serve alcohol. It tends to dampen the shuddering-and-running feelings for a while.

When I finally (and forever!) got away from Lisping Hippie, I had a nice long wait in the Spokane bus/train station. It was there that I slept(ish) on a very uncomfortable bench (they try to make it as uncomfortable as possible, you know) for a nine-hour layover. I met a nice(ish) girl there, Girl Who Can't Say Three Words Without Cursing. She had just had a miscarraige. She was a strange person. Sad and apathetic at the same time. It's odd to write this part of the story, after so much of it has been tongue-in-cheek, but there it is.

It was an uneventful (yay!) ride to Moscow from Spokane. I finally got to Moscow at about 11:30 on Saturday morning (the fourth). Claire Roise picked me up and she was a very pleasant person to meet after all of the crazy people I met while using public transportation.

I am going to stop once more, but I promise I will continue tomorrow. I promise. If I remember.

Just kidding! I really will. Really.

Sorry, Mrs. Badgermum!

I'm sorry I haven't finished the story of my trip...I'll try to finish it tonight when I get home from school!

In the Fine Tradition...

...of Miss Valerie, I am expanding a comment into a whole new blog post. Mrs. Badgermum asked how my trip was; I can tell you in one word...but I won't. It wouldn't make a very long post, would it?

The first portion of my trip was spent in Virginia, with R & C, and it was very enjoyable. While I was there, I met a young man who goes to NSA. He was visiting one of his friends for the summer. I was able to talk to him and ask him some questions about the school, and everything sounded peachy. I was there for two-ish weeks, at the end of which time I got on a bus and stayed there for four days. Cross-country bus trips are....eventful. I spent as much time sitting in the station(s) on layover(s) as I did on a moving bus. It was quite a relief to reach Denver, where I had some obscure relative named Vera, who picked me up from the station and took me away. She took me out to eat (twice) and to a bookstore and she let me take a shower and a nap and everything. I was exhausted.
When I left Denver, I only had a short trip up to Montana. I was very glad to leave the bus station for good. I met such interesting people, though. For instance: Marijuana Man Who Got Arrested at Two O'clock in the Morning Somewhere Between Knoxville and Nashville, Truck Driver Who Wants to Buy Me Food, Charismatic Christian Who Converses By Yelling from the Front of the Bus, Mr. Moocher (he has no money), Girl Who Can't Say Three Words Without Cursing, Nice Old Ladies, Miss Moocher (she has no money and hasn't eaten in three days), Hick Going to the City for a Job, and so many more. Quite an Adventure, you know.
I spent a week in Montana, cooking and cleaning and watching small children. They are very entertaining. I left Montana on the train, which is better than the bus. Don't worry, though! It has Interesting People, too. I met Lisping Hippie on the train. He was reading Love Comes Softly and he kept delicately brushing back his bangs from his forehead. He had some interesting social theories. He was...what's the word? Oh, yes. Creepy. And weird.

Anyway, I'm hungry, so I'll finish my Saga of Travellingness later. (oh, the suspense!)

“Let us blow trumpets”

Ritualism will always attract much of healthy humanity, merely because ritualism is emphatically wearing your heart upon your sleeve; that excellent practice. It says in essence, “Wear your heart upon your sleeve; wear it blazoned in crimson and embroidered in gold. Break out into songs and colours as lovers do. Let others pretend to an inhuman delicacy and a quite sophisticated silence. Let us cry out as children do when they have really found something. Let us blow trumpets and light candles before the thing that we have, to show at least that we have it. And let them keep a decorous silence and a moderate behaviour, let them raise a wall of stone and draw a veil of mystery across something that they have not got at all.”
- G. K. Chesterton, The Illustrated London News, 28 July 1906.

I'm back!

Howdy.

So long, farewell....

This will be my last post for a month or so. I'll be leaving tomorrow morning at 4 am to go to Virginia. I'll be there for a while before moving on to Montana and Idaho for short visits, then I'll be coming home. I'll be home again around the second week-end in August.

I'll be sure to keep some paper handy, so I can write up some posts about my trip when I get back. I leave you now with one of my favourite poems:

Resolution

Love, You have struck me straight, my Lord!
Past innocence, past guilt,
I carry in my soul the sword
You buried to the hilt.

And though to eyes in terrible pain
Heaven and earth may reel,
For fear You may not strike again
I will not draw the steel.

:Charles L. O'Donnell (1884-1934)

We will drain our dearest veins, but we shall be free!

George Grant writes on the victory of the Scottish over the English at Bannockburn, on the 24 June, 1314. (See the two posts written on 24 June)

Justification and Baptism

Rev. Peter Leithart has been writing on justification and baptism recently. I enjoy reading what he posts, but sometimes I can barely understand what he's saying! It takes too much brain power to muddle through all of that scholarly language. I'm glad he's posting these now; they're more easy to read and understand than usual. I recommend reading them; they clear up a few issues that people seem to be debating lately.
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What's this I hear about the Anglican Communion giving the Episcopalians a deadline for straightening up before they're excommunicated?

Too late!

One thing she prays for every day: "I pray not to cause scandal or bring shame upon either of my traditions."

This part in particular made me laugh: "I am both Muslim and Christian, just like I'm both an American of African descent and a woman. I'm 100 percent both."

I don't even know what to say to that. It is such a preposterous statement that it doesn't deserve an argument.

Epiphany Ahead!

An epiphany not unlike my last one ("God is better than humans!").

From WilburBlog, a quote from Robert Capon's Bed and Board:

“The reason the headship of the husband is so violently objected to is that it is misunderstood…the Bible does not say that men and women are unequal. Neither does the Church. There are no second-class citizens in the New Jerusalem. It is husbands and wives that are unequal. It is precisely in marriage…that they enter into a relationship of superior to inferior—of head to body. And the difference there is not one of worth, ability or intelligence, but of role. It is functional, not organic. It is based on the exigencies of the Dance, not on a judgment as to talent. In the ballet, in any intricate dance, one dancer leads, the other follows. Not because one is better (he may or may not be), but because that is his part. Our mistake, here as elsewhere, is to think the equality and diversity are unreconcilable. The common notion of equality is based on the image of the march. In a parade, really unequal beings are dressed alike, given guns of identical length, trained to hold them at the same angle, and ordered to keep step with a fixed beat. But it is not the parade that is true to life; it is the dance. There you have real equals assigned unequal roles in order that each may achieve his individual perfection in the whole. Nothing is less personal than a parade; nothing more so than a dance. It is the choice image of fulfillment through function, and it comes very close to the heart of the Trinity. Marriage is a hierarchical game played by co-equal persons. Keep that paradox and you move in the freedom of the Dance; alter it, and you grow weary with marching (53-54).”

I am not thirsty.

What with Kombucha, Kefir, raw milk, and fresh tomato juice, not to mention water...I've never had so much to drink in my life!
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So, the PCA GA made their decision to approve the FV/NPP report. Reformed News has this summary of the effects:

"The Assembly's adoption of the recommendations has the following effects: 1. The assembly commends the committee's report to the PCA for consideration, 2. The assembly reminds the PCA of the role of the Westminster Standards "as standard expositions of the teachings of Scripture in relation to both faith and practice", 3. The assembly commends the 9 declarations of the report to the denomination as "a faithful exposition of the Westminster Standards" and calls upon ruling and teaching elders to inform "their courts" (i.e., sessions, presbyteries) of any differences between their views and the 9 declarations, 4. The assembly reminds Sessions and Presbyteries of its duty to exercise doctrinal oversight, and 5. The assembly dismisses the study committee with thanks. ...

"Two questions confront Presbyteries as they examine elders who are either accused of holding suspect views or elders who submit their views to Presbyteries for consideration: a. do their views in fact fall under one of nine disallowed views, and b. if so, will their views be considered allowable exceptions or become grounds for further discipline. Currently the PCA does not have uniformity with regards to what exceptions are allowable or disallowable by every presbytery."

Has anyone heard anything else?

I am now the proud owner of...

a Kombucha mother! I felt it appropriate to name her, since she is the Mother of my Kombucha tea. I have named her Eve-- it seemed the best fit. Kombucha is almost like very mild tasting, slightly carbonated apple cider vinegar. That's really the best description I can give. You should try it for yourselves! It warms you right up.

I also have been given some Kefir (keh-FEER) grains with which to make cultured milk! It is tasty, and it takes less time than Kombucha. I had some Kefir of my own making this morning. It is deliciously tangy and resembles very liquid yoghurt.

Fermented beverages...they're more tasty than you might think!

Miscellany

Sorry for the lack of posting; our poor computer died, and I had to wait for Dad to fix it.

I've got a couple of jobs lined up for August: house-cleaning (part-time, $30/hour) and teaching (part-time, $9/hour). I'll have those two for the school year, at least. I'm hoping to save up for my first year's total expenses at college. I e-mailed NSA a while back and they never responded-- I did manage to e-mail at the busiest time of year, though. I'm going to call them later this week, and get more information about scholarships and such things.

I stopped by Borders today and read Leepike Ridge, Nathan Wilson's newest book. It was an excellent story. If you don't have it yet, I highly recommend buying it. Or you could do what this poor girl does, and read it in the bookstore!
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"Beer, if drank with moderation, softens the temper, cheers the spirit and promotes health."
Thomas Jefferson

Andrew Lang

Andrew Lang, author of the many-coloured Fairy Books, also wrote poetry. Here is one of my favourites:

The Odyssey

AS one that for a weary space has lain
Lull'd by the song of Circe and her wine
In gardens near the pale of Proserpine,
Where that Ææan isle forgets the main,
And only the low lutes of love complain,
And only shadows of wan lovers pine—
As such an one were glad to know the brine
Salt on his lips, and the large air again—
So gladly from the songs of modern speech
Men turn, and see the stars, and feel the free
Shrill wind beyond the close of heavy flowers,
And through the music of the languid hours
They hear like Ocean on a western beach
The surge and thunder of the Odyssey.
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He wrote letters to dead authors as well. Here's one of interest: a letter to Jane Austen.

It must be the Scots-Irish in me.

I had the strangest dream last night: a villian held one of my first-graders hostage; he was going to kill her. So I shot him in the head. I told her I loved her, and then I shot him.

Chesterton again.

What can they mean when they say that we must not put militarism into boys? Can we by any possibility get militarism out of boys? You might burn it out with red-hot irons; you might eventually scourge it out as if it were a mediaeval devil; but except you employ the most poignant form of actual persecution, you certainly will not prevent little boys thinking about soldiers, talking about soldiers, and pretending that they are soldiers. You may mortify and macerate this feeling in them if you like, just as you may mortify and macerate their love of comrades, or their love of wandering…
A child’s instinct is almost perfect in the matter of fighting; a child always stands for the good militarism as against the bad. The child’s hero is always the man or boy who defends himself suddenly and splendidly against aggression. The child’s hero is never the man or boy who attempts by his mere personal force to extend his mere personal influence… To put the matter shortly, the boy feels an abysmal difference between conquest and victory. Conquest has the sound of something cold and heavy; the automatic operations of a powerful army. Victory has the sound of something sudden and valiant; victory is like a cry out of a living mouth. The child is excited with victory; he is bored with conquest. The child is not an Imperialist; the child is a Jingo – which is excellent. The child is not a militarist in the heavy, mechanical modern sense; the child is a fighter. Only very old and very wicked people can be militarists in the modern sense. Only very old and very wicked people can be peace-at-any-price men. The child’s instincts are quite clean and chivalrous, though perhaps a little exaggerated.
But really to talk of this small human creature, who never picks up an umbrella without trying to use it as a sword, who will hardly read a book in which there is no fighting, who out of the Bible itself generally remembers the ‘bluggy’ parts, who never walks down the garden without imagining himself to be stuck all over with swords and daggers – to take this human creature and talk about the wickedness of teaching him to be military, seems rather a wild piece of humour. He has already not only the tradition of fighting, but a far manlier and more genial tradition of fighting than our own. No; I am not in favour of the child being taught militarism. I am in favour of the child teaching it.
- The Illustrated London News, 20 October 1906.

Thanks to The Hebdomadal Chesterton for the extended quotations.

G.K. Chesterton, of course:

I opened a paper only ten minutes ago in which it was solemnly said, in the fine old style of such arguments, that there was a time when men regarded women as chattels. This is outside the serious possibilities of the human race. Men never could have regarded women as chattels. If a man tried to regard a woman as a chattel his life would not be worth living for twenty-four hours. You might as well say that there was a bad custom of using live tigers as arm-chairs; or that men had outgrown the habit of wearing dangerous snakes instead of watch-chains. It may or may not be the fact that men have sometimes found it necessary to define the non-political position of women by some legal form which called them chattels; just as they have thought it necessary in England to define the necessary authority of the State by the legal form of saying that the King could do no wrong. Whether this is so or not I do not know, and I do not care. But that any living man ever felt like that, that any living man ever felt as if a woman was a piece of furniture, with which he could do what he liked, is starkly incredible. And the whole tradition and the whole literature of mankind is solid against it. There is any amount of literature from the earliest time in praise of woman: calling her a mother, a protectress, a goddess. There is any amount of literature from the earliest time devoted to the abuse of woman, calling her a serpent, a snare, a devil, a consuming fire. But there is no ancient literature whatever, from the Ionians to the Ashantees, which denies her vitality and her power. The woman is always either the cause of a wicked war, like Helen, or she is the end of a great journey, like Penelope. In all the enormous love poetry of the world, it is practically impossible to find more than two or three poems written by a man to a woman which adopt that tone of de haut en bas, that tone as towards a pet animal, which we are now constantly assured has been the historic tone of men towards women. The poems are all on the other note; it is always “Why is the queen so cruel?” “Why is the goddess so cold?”

- The Illustrated London News, 6 April 1907.

Guess what I learned to do today?

New St. Andrew's College

Right, here's the deal. I have wanted to attend NSA for years. Yes, really. Miss No-I-won't-go-to-college-and-you-can't-make-me has kept this hidden and is now sheepishly bringing it out into the open. The desire is too great. My parents are still urging independence. And I'm not in danger of getting married any time soon (not from what I can see, anyway). What to do?

I post this is because I know you all will tell me exactly what you think. I've said over and over again, repetitively and redundantly, that I don't want to leave my family if it's possible for me to stay. They, however, are getting closer and closer to pushing me out of the nest. Can I, in good conscience, move to Idaho to go to college when they finally do the deed? Would I even have the money to go to school? Could I withstand the rigours of NSA?

My parents want me to go to college- they always have. I have consistently said no. Can I finally do what they want only because I want to do it too? That seems a silly question.

Advise me, O Counsellours. I need help to think this through.