Edito Musico Pentecostalo Vee Dee Oh

The editing in this video is brilliant.

The combination of footage from an evangelistic/pentecostal meeting with euro-techno pop-like music is mildly interesting, but the way the editor put it together is truly amazing. In particular, watch the preacher's mouth and listen to the (dutch?) words that are being sung. Wow.

Go Indexed

I suppose there are lots and lots of blogs and bloggers out there. I don't really spend much time looking around. Most of them probably go on like I do -- blah blah blah blah. Words on words on words.

But then I come upon something else. As the saying goes on Monty Python..."And now for something completely different."

Try Indexed.

Books I Haven't Read

I was looking at the book list I posted recently. It occurred to me that I’m really NOT that well read. It seems that there are a good many books or types of books that I simply have not ever read. These are things that I have always considered that well educated people should have read. I consider myself to be reasonably well educated, and yet my book list has huge holes in it.

For instance, you see nothing of the following authors:

Plato
Aquinas
Augustine
The early Church Fathers
Kant
Hume
Milton
Spurgeon
Dante
Chaucer
Calvin
Locke
Adam Smith
Emerson
Kierkegaard

Just to name a few. They aren’t on my list because I have not read them. This bothers me.

Of course, I know how to fix that. Just traipse on down the library, check them out and read them. And yet…I’m not sure I really want to. These books do require a certain degree of work, don’t they? Right now, I’m not sure that’s work I’m willing to take on.

There are other books by great authors that I have read that have done nothing for me. Moby Dick is supposed to be a great masterpiece. Am I the only one that found it almost unbearably tedious? Is it’s tediousness a sign of it’s greatness? Personally, I think Herman could have used an editor. I have read several by Tolstoy and ended up thinking that I should have been much more affected by it than I was. War and Peace still escapes me after 5 attempts. W&P is not almost unbearably tedious. It IS unbearably tedious. Is this a sign that I am shallow? Or weak of intellect?

I suppose it is good to take a cold hard look at one’s reading occasionally. I think it might be useful to ponder what exactly I hope to achieve with my reading life over the next 5-10 years, and set some goals.

Then again, I really enjoy just having books sent to me, and discovering, to my surprise that they have turned my world around and inside out. Serendipity has it’s advantages.

Blueberries Bottled

While living in Wisconsin, we were introduced to a nice little custom. Some people gather cherries, preferably Door County cherries, and place them in a bottle filled with brandy (or some other strong spirit) with a little sugar and perhaps some spices. This bottle then is closed and allowed to sit for several months so that the cherries are completely steeped and the liquor takes on a delightful mellow sweet cherry flavor. The concoction is called Cherry Bounce and is very simple to make and quite delightful on a cold winter night.

A few weeks ago my bride and I were talking about this, and started thinking about how we could do this with a more local spin. We live in NH, so cherries are not that common. We also live about 5 minutes from a blueberry farm, where we go several times a year in season to pick a pile of the lovely luscious blue globes. Well, you can see where this is all going now, can’t you?

A few minutes spent looking up recipes on the internet, an hour spent picking about 20 lbs. of fresh blueberries this afternoon (a perfect New England September day), another hour or two picking out stems, leaves, bad berries and spiders. Now this evening we shall put up the liqueur. I’ll let you know in a couple months how it turns out.

Also, we are trying to think of a proper name. Blueberry Bounce is adequate, but lacks originality. Blueberry Cordial sounds sophisticated but very serious. Hmmmm…have to think about it.

Most Influential Books

Started thinking lately of what might be the most influential books on my life. Some of them are not single books, but series of books that hang together. Others are the first I’ve read of an author, and it is really the author who is influential. I list the book here as the gateway to the work of the author. They are listed in no particular order.

1. The Bible – well, this had to make the list, didn’t it? I would have to say that this is the single most influential book in shaping my life, through and through.
2. Creation Regained (Nicholas Wolters) Wolters gave shape and biblical support to ideas that had been developing in me for some time. He helped me to break down the Gnostic sacred/secular distinction. Creation is more than what we think of as nature. It also includes human work and institutions. A biblical worldview comprehends that all creation is good in structure. Not everything is good in it’s orientation or direction. This book helped me to understand my freedom to enjoy all of life as a gift of God.
3. The Hobbit/Lord of the Rings/The Silmarrillion (JRR Tolkien) I lost track of the number of times I have read these, and I still return to them every few years. They provide a well of deep water that refreshes my spirit in a way that I cannot quite articulate.
4. Chronicles of Narnia (CS Lewis) Lewis’s picture of Aslan is a flawed allegory if you get too picky, but one that I found incredibly helpful and useful in understanding my relationship to Jesus.
5. Christ and Culture (Rienhold Niebuhr) Culture is part of creation. Alongside Creation Regained, this book helped me to understand that the problem lies not in creation itself, but in how we react to the world. We are not victims, but are called to agents of redemption and transformation of culture, bringing the Kingdom of God closer. We are little redeemers, in the footsteps of Christ.
6. Dandelion Wine (Ray Bradbury) This book opened up to me the power of writing with powerful imagery. I remember being entranced by not only the sights, but the smells and sounds and sensations that Bradbury created inside of me through words on a page. It was a powerful experience in the glory and weight of language.
7. Nature I Loved (Bill Geagan) Bill Geagan spent a year living by himself in a small rundown cabin on backwoods Maine. To this day, I dream of such a place and such an opportunity. This book strongly influenced my love of the outdoors and wild places where most people never go.
8. Structures of Scientific Revolutions (Thomas S. Kuhn) Science is another branch of philosophy, not the final arbiter of ultimate truth. This book helped to be understand how our understanding of truth and reality develops and is shaped by our underlying paradigms.
9. Appalachian Odyssey (Steve Sherman & Julia Older) I read this book many times as a teenager. The tale of Sherman and Olders 2000 mile trek of the Appalachian Trail was very influential on my dreams of thru-hiking the AT.
10. Angels in the Architecture (Douglas Wilson & Douglas Jones) Our medieval forbears get a bad rap. All they were trying to do was to live out the Kingdom of God on earth. Did they fail? Surely. But in making the attempt, they lived much closer to the kingdom in many ways than we arrogant moderns do today. Wilson and Jones unfold a powerful vision of value and power of returning to the medieval spirit and worldview.
11. Recovering the Lost Tools of Learning (Douglas Wilson) This book was very influential in our decision to home school our girls. It sets forth a model for classical pedagogy that stimulated us to attempt to take on a job that has too often been left to the professionals.
12. The Unsettling of America (Wendell Barry) Just the tip of the iceberg in my Wendell Barry collection. This book started me thinking about the powerful connections between humans, the natural world, agriculture and environment. I’m not always sure what to do with the things Barry writes. I am almost always moved and challenged by his work. He writes as one with a powerful sense of both place and history that resonates deep within me.
13. The Ancient Future Faith (Robert Webber) Again, the first of several books by Webber that could be on this list. Challenged me to remember that 20^th Century Evanagelicalism has a tendency to want to float rootlessly along, as if no one came before us. Yet, our faith is ancient, and we ignore those roots to our peril. This is especially important in a day when our culture chatter is becoming much more polyphonous – like the time of the ancients. How did our early church fathers deal with competing pagan voices? We must learn from them and draw deeply from the wells the strove so hard to dig.
14. Reaching out without Dumbing Down (Marva Dawn) One of the first of several penetrating critiques of modern evangelical worship theology and practice. The problem is that most evangelical churches have no intentional theology of worship. Instead, they try to model their worship on current entertainment and marketing trends. But is it biblical? Is it Godly? This book really helped me to frame the questions and categories to change the way I worship and lead others in the worship of the One True and Living God.
15. Evangelicals on the Canterbury Trail (Robert Webber) Can an evangelical go Anglican? I’m tempted myself, although I’m sure I’m not sure what I’d be getting into. God has not thus far led me there, but I have been shaped by Webber’s account of his journey.
16. Men and Marriage (George Guilder) This controversial book lays it out. Women need men to build their homes and cities and civilization where they can raise their children. Men need women to motivate them to curb and channel their energies into useful pursuits that build and create rather than destroy. Makes common sense to me, but many “modern” thinkers find it to be a highly offensive hypothesis.
17. Perelandra (CS Lewis) What would have happened if Eve had chosen differently. Lewis once again takes our deepest myths and transforms them through new stories so that we can examine them from different angles. The whole “Space Trilogy” series has actually deeply influenced my cosmology and understanding of how God works in the world.
18. That Hideous Strength (CS Lewis) Lewis’s fictional treatise on the ultimate end of modernism. I was especially influenced by certain scenes involving Merlin, whose pure and unadulterated ancient/medievalness makes me think of how wan, weak and emasculated are modern males.
19. An Offering of Uncles (Robert Farrar Capon) This is a very recent read, but I put it on this list because I can already feel it reshaping my thinking. Capons discussion of knowing the shape of the world through Place and History, and our roles as priests of this creation is providing a newer deeper framework for my engagement with creation.
20. The Appalachian Trail (Ronald M. Fisher) This is the first book I ever read about the AT. I remember seeing it and feeling this little explosion in the back of my head when I realized that their was such a thing as the AT for the first time. I knew very little about it, but I knew that I wanted to hike it.
21. Dune (Frank Herbert) All the Dune books have been very influential. Explorations of the nature of religion, culture, politics and power. Rollicking reading, full of thought provoking dialogue and discussion. More philosophically modern, and less influenced by Christian thought than Tolkien or Lewis for sure, but powerful influences on my nonetheless.
22. The Vampire Chronicles (Anne Rice) The entire library of vampire books by Rice took me by surprise. Her skill as a storyteller is enormous and makes worthwhile reading for that alone. As with any great literature, there are many lessons about life and the world included for free. You also find Rice wrestling with many religious questions throughout the series. Come to find out, the process of writing these books was strongly influential on her return to Jesus through her Roman Catholic roots. Proof again that if God wants you, He will have you.
23. All the Pretty Horses (Cormac McCarthy) Like Dandelion wine, this book powerfully affected me simply with the language. To read McCarthy is to be fully present in the moments of his story with all your senses.
24. Legends of the Fall (Jim Harrison) I am a fan of the epic and the heroic. Jim Harrison is a writer of the epic and heroic couched in stories of places we know now, or times not long past. This is a tragic novella, made into a movie. I saw the movie first, then sought out the novella. The themes still haunt me.
25. Rich Dad Poor Dad (Robert Kiyosaki) RDPD changed the way I view money. I’m still working on bringing that change of meaning into reality in my life. Nevertheless, everything starts with a change of thinking.
26. The E-Myth (Michael Gerber) E-myth influenced how I understand the structures of organizations and the differences between technicians, managers and entrepreneurs. A valuable work for anyone who wants to own or operate a business.
27. The Greatest Salesman in the World (Og Mandino) Along with The Power of Positive Thinking, this was one of my first introductions to American Success Literature of the 20^th Century. It was introduced to me while I worked summers in college selling books door-to-door to earn money for school. That experience, and this book, literally changed the entire trajectory of my life.
28. Body for Life (Bill Philips) - Picked up this book after completing the 2000 Green Bay Marathon, looking at myself and realizing that although I ran the race, I was still lacking in overall fitness, muscle tone, and strength. The program in this book introduced me to weight training. In 12 weeks I lost 10 lbs of fat, put on 13 lbs of muscle and dramatically redistributed everything into a much stronger healthy package. Since then I have always included a strength resistance component in all my physical conditioning activity. It has served me well.
    

29. The Russian Kettlebell Challenge (Pavel Tsatsouline) Pavel introduced me to kettlebells, the old time russian instrument of torture and conditioning. A kettlebell is an iron ball with an intergrated iron handle. The offset center of gravity, and the use of full-body ballistic movement make kettlebell training very challenging and extremely effective. This book helped me to leave behind the pretty-boy body building emphasis of Body For Life and pursue a more gritty old-time approach to strength training.

30. Combat Conditioning (Matt Furey) Furey introduced me to the power of body-weight exercises for strength and conditioning. We used to call them calisthenics. Now I don't need no stinking gym. I am my gym, wherever I go. There is good reason why gymnasts and wrestlers are among the strongest and best conditioned athletes around. And most of the training they do involves simply using their own bodyweight. I love the freedom of not paying for, or having to go someplace special to train. More people should eschew the marketing, and just start moving.
    

.

Useful Advice - Tip #78

If while mowing the lawn you find yourself approaching a nerf-foam soccer ball, and you are tempted to save time by simply continuing forward, allowing the lawn mower to push the ball aside, so that it rolls away, you may want to reconsider.

Beer and Shrapnel

My office is in the basement. Just outside the door is a set of industrial shelving that serves as our pantry. This afternoon, as I was finishing up my work, I was startled by the sound of an small explosion with wet spattering fizzing sounds and tinkling glass. It seems that a beer bottle exploded, spewing and yeastie goodness several feet. We had stored a bit of Old Brown Dog and Shoals Pale Ale from Old Smuttynose brewery, some Old Thumper from Ringwood Brewery, and Shipyard IPA. I believe it was the Shipyard that blew. I just realized how much brewers like to put the word "Old" in the names of their beers. What's that about?

The Bride narrowly missed getting a faceful, as she had been kneeling in front of that shelf seconds before. Small graces in short moments.

Our musty basement now smells rather brewery-like. I think it's an improvement. Time will tell. Even so, it's a sad waste of good beer.

As my Bride and I cleaned it up, we remarked upon how nice it was to spend a few minutes together, even it if was to clean up wasted beer. At this stage, I think we will just take our moments where we can find them.

The Original Dragon

Speaking with a friend today about dragons and our proper response. Our conversation moved around to the original dragon, that one that spoke so smoothly to our Mother Eve in the Garden. It is a testament to the charm and beauty of the dragon that he was allowed to live. If he had not been so beautiful, and so attractive, and so seductive, would not Adam have seen him for what he was, grabbed a stick and beat the living crap out of him?

Why didn't he? Did he even notice that Eve was talking to a worm? Why did he not notice? And if he did, why did he not act? I'm afraid I'm not much different. I don't notice lots of things. And when I do notice them, if they are seductive, and feel good, I do nothing about them. I am indeed Adam's son. This is how we all got screwed up in the first place. Dragonslayers are not allowed to fall in love with their mortal enemies. But we want to.

So who has the bigger part of me? The first Adam, who didn't know a dragon if it bit him? Or the Second Adam, who kills all dragons without mercy, and restores both the garden and the city back to the full weight of their glory?