On Truth, Beauty, And Death

I died for beauty but was scarce
Adjusted in the tomb,
When one who died for truth was lain
In an adjoining room.

He questioned softly why I failed?
"For beauty," I replied.
"And I for truth, the two are one;
We brethren are," he said.

And so, as kinsmen met a night,
We talked between the rooms,
Until the moss had reached our lips,
And covered up our names.

-Emily Dickinson, "I Died For Beauty -but was scarce," in , The Poems of Emily Dickinson, ed. Bianchi and Hampson (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1937), 161.

On The Pill, Family, And Society

When thinking about "the Pill" consider the contradictions:

It was the first medicine ever designed to be taken regularly by people who were not sick. Its main inventor was a conservative Catholic who was looking for a treatment for infertility and instead found a guarantee of it. It was blamed for unleashing the sexual revolution among suddenly swinging singles, despite the fact that throughout the 1960's, women usually had to be married to get it. Its supporters hoped it would strengthen marriage by easing the strain of unwanted children; its critics still charge that the Pill gave rise to promiscuity, adultery and the breakdown of the family.

- Nancy Gibbs, "Love, Sex, Freedom and the Paradox of the Pill," in Time 175.17 (2010): 40.

On The Depravity Of Man, God's Mercy, And The Freedom of Man

Today I was reading through Psalm 81 and came across vvs. 11f. Needless to say, my mind immediately thought of Paul's words in Romans 1:24-27. Consider:

So I gave them over to their stubbornness of their heart, to walk in their own devices

- Psalm 81:12

Therefore God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, so that their bodies would be dishonored among them.

- Romans 1:24

For this reason God gave them over to degrading passions; for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural.

- Romans 1:26

Needless to say, if one desires a practical illustration of Psalm 81:12, one only has to read Romans 1:18-32. It also raises the question, "What is the natural state of the heart of man?" Scripture seems to be clear, the devices of man are sin, and the heart of man appears to be naturally stubborn and in a state of rebellion against the Lord.

Lord as I read your word, Father, help me to have a repentant and soft heart. That, when I hear your Word that Your Holy Spirit would grant my heart faith, hope and love that would spring forth obedience in order to walk according to Your ways living by faith in the Son of God, Jesus, who lives in me.

On The Ego And The World

'The world is my idea:' - this is a truth which holds good for everything that lives and knows, though man alone can bring it into reflective and abstract consciousness. If he really does this, he has attained philosophic wisdom.

- Arthur Schopenhauer, The World As Will And Idea, Vol. I, trans. R.B. Haldane and J. Kemp (Boston: Ticknor and Company, 1888).

On Religion, Government, And Utility

[A prince] who fears and hates religion is like the wild beasts who gnaw the chain that keeps them from throwing themselves on passer-by; he who has no religion at all is that terrible animal that feels its liberty only when it claws and devours

- Charles de Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws, ed. Anne H. Cohler, Basia Carolyn Miller, and Harold Samuel Stone (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989).

On God's Foreign Policy

Ever wonder what trash talk in the OT was like? Well wonder no more. Thinking that "David cannot enter [Jerusalem]" The Jebusites said:

"You shall not come in here, but the blind and lame will turn you away"

-2Sam 5:6

David responded by capturing the stronghold and then naming the city "The City of David." And of course, David became greater "for the LORD God of hosts was with him" (2Sam. 10 c.f. 2Sam. 5:12).

On Reality, Relationships, And Technology

I was watching the movie Up In The Air and the movie has many profound messages about our society and the current trends concerning the substance of relationships in a technology age. People no longer are face-to-face and even when a video can project your face -it isn't the same as it loses a sense of dignity and reality that exists when one is present. Moreover, the film challenges serious questions as to what really constitutes a relationships of substance. Here are some profound quotes:

Alex: Pricks are spontaneous unpredictable and fun and then we are surprised when we find out they're pricks

Natalie: I just don't want to settle

Alex: You're young; right now you see settling as some as some sort of failure

Natalie: It is, by definition

Alex: But by the time you are old enough for it to be right for you it won't feel like settling and the only person to judge you is the 23 year old girl with the target on your back

Alex: I thought our relationship was perfectly clear. You are an escape; you're a break from our normal lives; you are a parenthesis

- Up In The Air (2009)

On Time, Expectations, And Smiles

In talking about expectations as you get older, not looking at deadlines, and the necessity of relationships for happiness Natalie (Anna Kendrick) and Alex (Vera Farmiga) give their takes one what is important. While, it isn't exactly perfect or absolute truth, there is an element of wisdom in that time can make the important things clearer:

Youthful Naiveté

He really fit the bill: white collar, college grad, likes dog, likes funny movies, 6'1", brown hair, kind eyes, works in finance but is outdoorsy -you know -on the weekends, I always imagined he would have a single syllable name like: matt, john, or dave, and in a perfect world he drives a four runner and the only thing he loves more than me is his golden lab…. and a nice smile

Elderly Wisdom

By the time you're 34 all the physical requirements just go out the window. I mean like you secretly pray he is taller than you, not an a-hole would be nice, just someone who enjoys my company, and comes from a good family because you don't think about that when you're younger. Someone who wants kids, likes kids, wants kids, healthy enough to play with his kids, please let him earn more money than i do -you might not understand that now, but one day believe me you will otherwise that's a recipe for disaster, hopefully with some hair on his head but even that's not a deal breaker these days and a nice smile -yea -a nice smile, a nice smile might just do it

- Up In the Air (2009)

On Snakes, Shipwrecks, And The Pope

A friend of my quoted this:

"The Holy Father [Pope Benedict XVI] is currently on an Apostolic Visit to Malta. St. Paul also took a trip to Malta. He was shipwrecked and bitten by snakes. I hope the Pope has a better journey."

- Cardinal Sean O'Malley, O.F.M.

On Glocks And Love

Mindy: Daddy I'm scared

Damon: Cmon mindy, honey, be a big girl now -there's nothing to be afraid of

Mindy: Is it gonna hurt bad?

Damon: Ah child... only for a second, sugar. A handgun bullet travels at… more than…

Mindy: ….700 miles an hour

Damon: 700 miles an hour. So at close range like this, the force is going to take you off your feet for sure. But it's really no more painful than a punch in the chest

Mindy: I hate getting punched in the chest.

Damon: You're gonna be fine, baby-doll

[BANG]

Damon: How was that? Not so bad? Kinda fun huh? Now you know how it feels. You won't be scared when some junky a-hole pulls a glock.

Mindy: I wouldn't have been scared anyways

Damon: That's my girl...

- Damon and Mindy, Kick-Ass (2010)

On Demystification

"With no power comes no responsibility."

- Dave Lizewski, Kick-Ass (2010).

On Hegelian Dialectic, Levinasian Infinite, And Bananas

Lol of the day: When talking about Hegelian dialectic in relation to Levinas' concept of the face of the other and the infinite concerning the necessary tension between the value of the individual and value of the institution, Dr. R. Wood states:

"Consider a 6'6" basketball player. He was so tall he could jump and get a quarter off the top of the backboard. But what is that without the institution of basketball -getting more bananas?"

On Baseball And Life

Jimmy Dugan (Tom Hanks), the coach of the Peaches, explains to Dottie (Geena Davis) why it is not enough to quite playing baseball because it is too hard. His words, by way of appropriation and ignoring immediate context, can illustrate an important truth about the Jesus Christ and the cross and, in so far as we too are to imitate Christ and bear our cross thereby reflecting Christ, the Christian life. Dugan states:

"It's supposed to be hard. If it wasn't hard everyone would do it. The hard is what makes it great."

- A League of Their Own

On Punctuality, Church, And Korean Dramas

Lol of the Day: on why he is late to church:

"I leave when my mom leaves. I can't leave any earlier. She sits on the couch like this , with curlers in her hair, watching korean dramas."

On Feminism, Women, And Phenomenology

It is only in a human perspective that we can compare the female and the male of the human species. But man is defined as a being who is not fixed, who makes himself what he is. As Merleau-Ponty very justly puts it, man is not a natural species: he is a historical idea. Woman is not a completed reality, but rather a becoming, and it is in her becoming that she should be compared with man; that is to say, her possibilities should be defined.

In the upper classes women are eager accomplices of their masters because they stand to profit from the benefits provided. We have seen that the women of the upper middle classes and the aristocracy have always defended their class interests even more obstinately than have their husbands, not hesitating radically to sacrifice their independence as human beings. They repress all thought, all critical judgment, all spontaneous impulses; they parrot accepted opinions, they confuse with the ideal whatever the masculine code imposes on them; all genuineness is dead in the hearts and even in their faces.

- Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, trans. and ed. H.M. Parshley (London: Picador, 1988).

On Plato, Ethical Theory, And Ships

Lol of the day: whenever my professor talks about the analogous relationship between Platonic mousike in the Republic to Aristotelean philosophy education in the Politics he gets really excited and said:

"I bet if I keep reading in the Republic I will see Plato talk about the necessity of action in. So I kept reading and said to myself 'holy crap! There it was.'"

But he didn't use crap; he used a word analogous to crap -like ship. At first I thought it was an accident, but then he did it five more times.

On Husserl, Phenomenology, Descartes, And Augustine

When discussing Descartes and Phenomenology in his Cartesian Meditations Husserl quotes St. Augustine stating:

"Noli foras ire, in te redi in interiore homine habitat veritas."

(Do not wish to go out; go back into yourself. Truth dwells in the inner man)

- St. Augustine, De Vera Religione, 39 n. 72.

On The Regenerate Life

Thought of the Day:

Just a thought: Plato, putting words into Socrates' mouth states, "The unexamined life is not worth living" (Apology, 38a). Yet, it seems as fitting to argue that the Spirit filled, regenerate life is the only life possible of worthy living.

On Sin, Atonement, And The Resurrection

For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that He appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. After that He appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time, most of whom remain until now, but some have fallen asleep; then He appeared to James, then to all the apostles; and last of all, as to one untimely born, He appeared to me also.

For I am the Least of the apostles, and not fit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me did not prove vain; but I labored even more than all of them, yet not I, but the grace of God with me. Whether then it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed.

Now if Christ is preached that He has been raised from the dead, how do some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, not even Christ has been raised; and if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is vain, your faith also is vain.

Moreover we are found to be false witnesses of God, because we testified against God that He raised Christ, whom He did not raise, if in fact the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, note even Christ has been raised; and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless: you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If we have hoped in Christ in this life only, we are of all men most to be pitied.

But now Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who are asleep. For since by a man came death, by a man also came the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive.

- 1Corinthians 15:3-22

On March

March Statistics:

Points: 1,980

Segments: 8

Miles: 3,168

Total Points: 6,138

Total Segments: 26

Total Miles: 10,296