Oddments

So maybe this should happen over Christmas break? I really liked the book when I read it in high school, and I'm really, really curious to see what Tom Stoppard (Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead) and Joe Wright (the 2005 Pride & Prejudice) do to it. Auntie Seraphic seems to approve.

And, on an utterly unconnected note, St. Hildegard of Bingen is going to be declared a Doctor of the Church on Sunday. Cool stuff.

Better Off Outside than In

Personally, I've always found "Baby, It's Cold Outside" to be one really creepy song. The guy in the song deserves to have the snot beaten out of him by an older brother. Here is a rewrite of the song, sans creeper-ness.

Heavenly Music

During the Christmas season the masses are bombarded with a multitude of jingles, ditties and songs that abound in good cheer, merriment and roasting chestnuts. However, the glitter and gayety of these songs that blast merrily away in shopping malls and on the radio lack what makes this season truly joyful. While it may make us all wriggle with delight that “Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town”, it cannot fill our souls with the joy and awe of Christ’s birth. ‘Christmas cheer’ and ‘gifts of the season’ are glorified and celebrated for their own sake without the slightest hint toward the greatest gift that was granted to mankind, that of salvation from our sins and the gift of eternal live with God. Without the birth of Christ, there would be no Christmas season. Without the joy and grace rendered to us by Christ and his birth there would be no cause for celebration. In the hustle and bustle of Christmas preparations, buying gifts, putting up decorations and baking cookies we all too often forget to prepare our souls for this holy season. The Savior of the world is born, let us all raise our voices in joyful praise.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MS3vpAWW2Zc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXkgqpVVpTg

Advent: Week I

Subtitle: How God's Really Good About Telling You What You Need To Hear When You Need To Hear It.

Today I walked into Mass feeling frustrated and disoriented. There's so much in my life that I'm not excelling at, that I want to happen now, events and situations that I want to occur instantly. My perpetual impatience was getting the better of me again. I went in, thinking: "How long, God? Why does everything in this life take forever?"

I was wrapped up in my own self-pitying interior monologue, when the priest started his homily with the sentence: "We are here to engage in subversive activity." I snapped out of my trance and paid rapt attention from then on-I was intrigued. What subversive activity were we engaging in exactly? His answer: Advent. Essentially, his homily was about the absence of Advent in our society. Our American society is in an obesity epidemic, yes, but the real epidemic, the root of all these problems, is the epidemic of perpetual adolescence. We have lost all sense of self-control, of self-denial, of delayed gratification. We have to have whatever we want and whenever we want it-a.k.a. NOW. We have an awful difficulty telling ourselves "no" or even "not now, later."

Clearly, he continued, a culture that has this attitude has no use for Advent. And a culture that lacks the foresight to look to the good in the future, even when the present is glum, lacks hope. When he said that, the sadness of our current cultural situation struck me. How awful and how true-our culture is a culture that lacks hope. We grasp onto whatever immediate pleasure we can because all too soon the moment will pass and we'll be left empty again. Human beings simply can't live hope-it's human nature to always be able to look down to the end of the dark tunnel and see that light. Our culture has lost the light of hope-we're lost in the darkness of the tunnel. What an awful idea-a life void of hope.

As I listened to these words, I realized they were exactly what I needed to hear. My own outlook had been sadly lacking in hope, trust, or any sort of virtue besides adolescent impatience. God's timing is the best timing, and although it may be difficult for me to always follow, He knows best. Thus, my new Advent resolution is to join the subversives, and cultivate an Advent-like attitude of patience, trust, and hope. Engage in subversive activity: celebrate Advent!

Countdown to Christmas Day:

22 days

A Dim Dream...

Theology, while saying that a special illumination has been vouchsafed to Christians and (earlier) to Jews, also says that there is some divine illumination vouchsafed to all men. The Divine light, we are told, "lighteneth every man." We should, therefore, expect to find in the imagination of great Pagan teachers and myth makers some glimpse of that theme which we believe to be the very plot of the whole cosmic story-the theme of incarnation, death, and rebirth. And the differences between the Pagan Christs (Balder, Osiris, etc.) and the Christ Himself is much what we should expect to find.


The Pagan stories are all about someone dying and rising, either every year or else nobody knows where and nobody knows when. The Christian story is about a historical personage, whose execution can be dated pretty accurately, under a named Roman magistrate, and with whom the society He founded is in a continuous relation down to the present day. It is not the difference between falsehood and truth. It is the difference between a real event on the one hand and dim dreams or premonitions of that same event on the other. It is like watching something come gradually into focus; first it hangs in the clouds of myth and ritual, vast and vague, then it condenses, grows hard and in a sense small, as a historical event in first century Palestine. ---- C.S. Lewis, from "Is Theology Poetry", and essay from The Weight of Glory.

P.S.
Coming Soon from Desi and Portia:
Pan's Labyrinth and
Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day reviews!

Christmas Photography!!

Subtitle: Desi discovers the macro feature on her camera... :)

Stealing Rose's Idea...

Rose did this on A Rose in Bloom (an excellent blog that you should all visit, by the way.) And I can never resist stealing a good idea when I see one. Thus, I continue:


Date... Sunday, January 10th, 2010 (2010 already-eep!)

Starting time... 2:10 AM (I have no idea why I'm up at this hour...)

Mood... Decidedly overwhelmed

Outside my window... Snow, snow, snow, snow, snow, oh and yes, more snow. (Maybe there's some ice thrown in there for variety. Love winter. Can't you tell? :) )

I'm thinking... Break is over :( ... I've gotta do columbinus research...scholarship apps...how on earth am I going to schedule Monday...Shakespeare paper? GAH!...interview...cinnamon rolls...blog posting...facebook...sleep? Naaaah... But, Hallelujah, praise the Lord! Return to Cranford is airing at 8:00 PM tomorrow evening! Mark my words, I will be glued to the telly as long as that delicious vision of a show is on the screen. Yes, that will definitely allow me to get through the week.

I'm reading...Re-reading Sense and Sensibility (It just gets better and better!) Red, by Ted Dekker-slow so far, not as compelling as Black, but I'm sure it'll pick up.

I'm listening to... The water seep through the aquarium filter...

I'm wearing... Green t-shirt, and lovely, warm, cozy fleece pants.

Yesterday, I... Had coffee with some lovely young ladies, went to work, then Mass, then played Trivial Pursuit with my family. Good day. :)

I'm excited for... Return to Cranford!!!

I'm sad because... Break is over and people are going back to college...This is simply not okay. :(

I'm hungry for... cinnamon rolls, gingerbread, or a corn dog.

The song stuck inside my head is... Invisible, by Taylor Swift

I want... Scholarship application essays to write themselves. Please.

I love... life, love, laughter, Balderdash and SNURGES!!!

I loathe... people who put up fronts.

This week, my goal is...to pray the Liturgy everyday. No slacking. And to get scholarship apps done. And to make it through the week.

Did I meet last week's goal?... Thankfully, I didn't set any for last week. :)
Ending time... 2:20 AM

"Merry Marketing"

I read this in the Wall Street Journal this morning and had to share it with y'all. It's gooooood. I think he and Rev. Know-It-All are brothers. :) Their sense of humor is identical to a fault. :)
Read the full article here.


By Fr. James Martin, S.J.
...And this year what's been irking me are the slogans that companies are deploying in their December ad campaigns that hope to have it both ways: They're using religious themes without actually being religious. Call it faith-based advertising.

...The cover of the Land's End catalog, which is bursting with preppy families who apparently divide their time between laughing dementedly, drinking steaming mugs of hot chocolate and petting horses, says: "Make it Merry!" Make what merry? Celebrating the birth of Christ or petting a horse? ...