The city is pretty bad tonight. The news channels are saying the city is supposed to have up to 12″ of snow tonight. That’s a lotta snow! The taxis are having a hard time of it. I just saw one practically going sideways.
Ashton and company boarded and set sail today. They are going to have such a great time! Cruising in the warm Gulf while we are stuck here in New York with 12 inches of snow!
Everyone is gone and everything is cleaned up. We had six perspective students over for dinner tonight for the kick-off of the Perspective Student weekend. A bunch of nice folks! Elise and Elizabeth joined us, too. I really enjoyed it, although it literally took all day (10:30 am until now, 10:55 pm). I at least finished a bit of homework this morning at Big Cup!
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Ashton is off on his cruise. He and his friends and a bunch of volunteer fire fighters. He is so funny when he wakes up so early in the morning. The exact opposite of me – he feels totally out of it in the morning and I do in the evening. I hope he has a very good time.
How much have we given ourselves over to the systems of this world. My challenge is different then many of the people’s here. Knee jerk reactions in all directions is a common human trait, but how to do get ourselves out of such responses. Liberal, conservative, Democrat, Republican, dove, hawk – all believe they are doing the best for our country and our citizens, yet there has to be a third way. What is the third way?
Hussein would not be letting weapons inspectors back into Iraq if it were not for the U.S. and Britain’s forceful demands – something lost on the French. As they say, war may be the acknowledgement of diplomatic defeat, but with despots like Hussein there is often no other option but force. Force is what he respects, something again lost on the French. I agree that war is the acknowledgment of defeat for diplomacy, but not everyone is honorable, not everyone is interested in peace, not everyone can be trusted, not everyone is worthy of civil consideration, not everyone is interested in diplomacy. They prove themselves so by their actions, by their history, and by their own lack of civility. What is the third way? Not war, not appeasement, not acting in ignorance or false hope, false expectations.
How easy it is to depend on the formulations of our own minds and emotions. Reliance on our own limited understanding and refusal to allow God to be whomever God is, rather then always attempting to recreate God in our own image and demand God abide by our understanding of things. I have a scientific mind and cannot conceive of supernatural happenings that seem to suspend “natural laws.” Then, of course, I have to explain away any miraculous event or report, whether current or ancient. I don’t believe in a literal embodiment of evil, then I cannot acknowledge the possibility of demons or demonic possession – it is just always mental illness or epilepsy so some such physiological condition. I cannot conceive of a God who does or does not certain things, therefore I demand God be whatever I decide. We rely on our own understanding – to our detriment.
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Tonight, Ashton and I are going to see Les Miserables. The show is closing in March. He kept saying that it is about the best musical there is and wants to see it one more time. I have yet to see it, so that’s good for me! The tickets are a fortune, but as Jason said, if money is going to be spent, this is a good way to spend it. Valentine’s Day is a good day for such a think. Ashton is leaving Saturday morning for a cruise with his friends, so this will be a good sending off! I can’t wait.
Financial aid applications, grants, scholarships, FAFSA stuff, is taking up so much of my time right now. No homework for the weary, or at least the begging for money weary!
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I miss Ashton. I spent the last six hours writing a three page paper. It doesn’t help when I had to finish reading while I was writing. A lousy three page paper – six hours worth. Ugh.
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I bought tickets to Les Miserables, which is closing in March. I bought them for Ashton for Valentine’s Day – he said a few times now that he wanted to see the musical one last time before it closed. That works out well, because I want to see it for the first time before it closes. The tickets are not cheap – $100.00 bucks apiece. I’m thankful that the seminary will reimburse me for half the price of a cultural event, so it won’t be all that bad. I have to quite spending so much money. I’m not that irresponsible, but a couple hundred dollars for one Broadway musical on a fixed budget when I could have probably spent far less and made Ashton just as happy (maybe). Anyway, it is finished.
I am truly enjoying my Patristics class, as well as my Philisophical Foundations for Theology. This semester, many of the classes support and inform one another – New Testament and Patristics and Philosophy all add to an overall understanding of what was going on during the development of the early Church. So much reading, but it is good reading. As much as I applied myself this past week, and especially this weekend, I have not even finished all the Patristic reading for tomorrow, let alone any of my Old Testament reading. All I can do is what I can do.
Even though there is so much more work this term, I am in such a better frame of mind. I have an idea of what is expected and most of the transitional issues are settled. I suppose I am much more at peace! I even went to all three chapel services on Thursday, which was a first. It was so odd being at Morning Prayer last Monday. It just felt good, comfortable, like I was supposed to be there. There was a familiarity with the experience that seemed right. I’m glad of that. I still have a way to go before I am able to say truly that the services feed my soul, like a regular quiet-time does for me, but I hope I am getting there. Everything in its own time, I suppose.
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As many are writing this morning, the second shuttle has been destroyed. At 9:00 am or so, the shuttle Columbia exploded on its re-entry over Texas. I can’t imagine how it is for the families, who were waiting in Florida for the shuttle to land, when they see it happen live – finding out through the media rather then a visit from an official.
I’m wondering of all the anti-American elements throughout the world, especially the Muslim fundamentalists, including the radical Palestinians, and whether they will be cheering – proof that Allah is judging American and Israel. Will there be cheering and celebration in the streets?
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Listening to the radio this morning, NPR, the local station news reported a big increase in the cases of Syphilis in the city. The largest increase was in gay men living in Manhattan. As the announcer said, this proves that a segment of the population is not practicing safer-sex, after a decade of decreasing incidents of infection. The segment just isn’t gay men, but certainly a large segment of the gay population. Of course, if there is an increase of Syphilis due to unsafe-sex, that means the HIV infection is also increasing.
The “free-sex” hedonism has to stop. If this type of behavior truly does makes its way into the straight male population – if the social strictures that keep straight men in check fall – we truly are in trouble. I understand how in-the-moment we all do things we would otherwise not do, but when the sub-culture encourages this type of behavior and ridicules anyone or group that champions against such behavior, it is just stupid. It is insane, because what is being encouraged means sickness and death. It isn’t that gay relationships are sick or insane or in themselves cause sickness, as many prohibitionist religious people proclaim, but the actions of and sexual-obsession of the overall gay subculture brings nothing but emotional pain, psychological disfunction, and too often physical sickness and now death. The things we do keep us from the very thing our heart yearns for – to be loved and to love deeply, to be known and to know another intimately. So many gay men are unable to bond with another, are unable to form close, emotionally stable, and intimate lifelong relationships, are enable to mature emotionally and psychologically because we stay in an irresponsible sexual and emotional adolescence. And, the sub-culture just perpetuates this.
It has to end, else I wonder whether the anti-gay people could be right – not with regard to God’s view of same-sex relationships, but in the immorality of the behavior of so many gay men. Immorality because what we are doing is counter to what we yearn for, what is emotionally and sexually healthy, and what is truly the best for our own lives – all of which God says is sin. Immorality because what we continue to do brings destruction. Of course not all gay men are in that place, but too many of us are, and the general sub-culture perpetuates such notions.
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Way too much reading! The problem is, everything is really interesting. I want to read it all, carefully, in order to absorb everything, but it is going to be impossible. I haven’t finished my first week yet, and already I’m a book behind – not even counting all the reserve reading and handouts. Yet, it is great stuff! Plato’s Timaeus is the most difficult to wade through right now, and I can’t just skim it.
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A quote from Father Wright’s handouts for our Patristics class: “To comprehend and assess the fundamental elements and basic positions of the Anglican tradition and its relationship to the wider church… And, as an Anglican, to be able to distinguish tradition, ‘the living faith of the dead,” from traditionalism, ‘the dead faith of the living.'”
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I went for the interview at NYU Medical Center, and got the position. This summer, I will be at NYU MC for CPE!
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