Taking Off and Landing
The Super Bowl I Have No Vested Interest In
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Ben Rothlisberger has a blog. He’s the QB for the Steelers, who are playing for the Super Bowl title.
Again.
That is all.
For the record, I’m happy to see both teams in there, but frankly, given that I don’t really care about pro football all that much, I’ll hang out and be with friends. Here’s the Saints in 2007!
An Open Letter to the Kid Crossing the Street With His Ipod Plugged Into His Ears
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TAKE THE MUSIC OUT AND LISTEN TO THE CAR APPROACHING THE INTERSECTION!!!!
I NEARLY RAN YOU OVER!!!
AGAIN!!!
P.S. I really like your shoes. I just don’t want to see them embedded in my bumper.
All the best,
Myles Werntz
Mandolin Mania
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I should have asked for the mandolin for Christmas, not the Ipod.
Just got back from Austin seeing Chris Theile, the genius behind Nickel Creek, and Mike Marshall, a brilliant mandolin player in his own right. Standing room only for two hours of mandolin genius. You could barely see his hands moving, a blur on the strings.
You’ve never heard Bach’s Goldberg Variations until you’ve heard it torn up in 25/16 time. Brilliant. In a couple of months, Bela Fleck is making a stop over in Dallas/Austin if anyone’s interested for more of the same kind of genius.
Let me rephrase the last statement: if you’re not interested in seeing the Fleck, shame on you. You should be rejoicing at the chance to see a living legend in concert.
Peace On Earth
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I don’t know how much you keep up with events in the Middle East. Adam most likely will have something to say soon, having spent a summer in Palestine, but I can’t help but see the events that have unfolded as deterimental to the Sharonian peace process which was inaugurated less than year ago. In recent democratically held elections in Palestine, Hamas won nearly sixty percent of the seats in the Palestinian parliament.
Hamas, the party which in the past has openly called for the destruction of Israel and claimed responsibility for numerous civilian attacks in Israel, finds itself in a driver’s seat of sorts, having a political vehicle from which to operate now. This is what I have long feared with regards to Iraq’s elections: when you bark about the process by which candidates are elected, you can’t complain when the outcome is the opposite from which you hoped for. When the process is one that America agrees with, I fear that it will be hard to say that the results aren’t legit just because you hate the outcome.
Just the same, Condaleeza Rice’s statement today underscores that despite a political process of democracy, America will not condone working with a government whose primary party demands the abolition of its neighboring nation. Issues of irony aside, how this will unfold in coming months will be worth keeping track of. Since 1948, the legitmacy of Israel is one that America has firmly thrown its lot in with and one which American religion in particular has taken up. I need only reference Pat Robertson’s remarks on Sharon to highlight that point again.
My fear is that with Palestinian becoming more legitimated in its political process with the prominence of a party so eager to destroy its neighbor that American churches will lose their sympathy for the real losers in this: the people of both Israel and Palestine, who are overshadowed by their government. In their zeal to preserve Israel, the American church will take a hard right turn away from Palestine, including her people, and forget the important rule that governments, while generated from among the people, are ultimately not the people. Governments are one expression by which people live, but when substituted in our thinking for the people themselves, allow us to ultimately demonize not faceless institutions, but women and children.
Mark my words: in six months…
**You will find more pro-Israeli rhetoric in American churches
**You will find, in the speaking of Palestine, not the speaking of Palestinian people, but governmental Palestine, as if the two were one and the same.
**The efforts towards Palestinian relief will slow down significantly.
**More and more strongly, the identification between Palestine and Islam will lead to a new wave of Israeli nationalist sentiment in the American churches.
I only remind us that it was this kind of nationalist thinking that got Israel in trouble in the first place. The people of God were meant from the beginning to live as those powerless, called to be witnesses of grace and not strength, empowered to suffer and not to overpower. And so, if the church stands with Israel, let it stand with it only to the extent that it might live as the people of God. And if the church stand with Palestine, let it stand not blushing over the violence and anger, but in witness to a God who desires that all would know the glory and weakness of the Gospel. Let the church stand with the people who will suffer in this, on both sides, and rejoice that our Lord knew no other way than to suffer.
For in Christ, there is no Jew.
And no Gentile.
Reading List, Vol. 1
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So, Myles, what do they have you reading these days? What does a theology student read?
The second question is unanswerable, faithful reader. That depends on the methodology of the profs, how the progam understands the work and task of theology, etc. etc. etc. So, for that answer, I’ll default to the standard: “Your guess is as good as mine.” Or rather, “Everything that can get their hands on, starting with St. Irenaus and working up to Kathryn Tanner or Sarah Coakley.”
As to the first question, that’s easy. To give you an idea of the life of the PhD student, I’ll give you a partial list of what I’ll be reading this semester:
St. Origen–On First Principles
Karl Barth–Church Dogmatics, Vol. IV, Pt. 1 & 2
Pseudo-Dionysius–The Complete Works
Dietrich Bonhoeffer–Discipleship
G.B. Caird–New Testament Theology
St. Thomas Aquinas–selections from Summa Theologica
John Calvin–Institutes of the Christian Religion
Graham Ward–Cultural Transformation and Religious Practice
Hans Frei–Eclipse of the Biblical Narrative, Types of Theology, Life of Christ
St. Gregory of Nyssa–Life of Moses
St. Bonaventure–Journey of the Mind to God
Frederich Neitzsche–Birth of Tragedy, Ecce Homo, and so much more
Paul Lakeland–Liberation of the Laity
Multiple miscelaneous articles
Anyway, Faithful Reader, hope that helps. I’m off to party with Origen. Questions?
#222: Thankful Entry
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Confession time again: I have friends who I miss like I’d miss my left kidney were it to suddenly be gone. They are two people who, having lived with them for five years, I now have no idea where life will take them. But I can only hope that in some way, my life and theirs find some kind of holding pattern.
Can I mention that these two serve as the unofficial conscience? That when I veer off the tracks and head towards Egoville, I have two people who knew me when I was stupid and absent-minded and a well-intentioned moron? Can I say that I miss them? Tonight, I talked to the two of them together on speaker-phone. In her normally self-depricating way, LeAnn says, “Yeah, if I were halfway across the country, I’d miss me too.”
When I first met LeAnn, she told me she had lived in Africa. I thought that was the coolest thing I’d ever heard in my life. And so I asked her to coffee and to watch the Cosby Show. And so forth. And what have you.
When I first met Amy, I thought she was the quietest person I’d ever met. This was before I heard her infectious laugh and the way she can get tickled about pretty much anything. And yet, when my mom went missing, she was nothing but there and quiet when words had no meaning.
***
Behold, Amy and LeAnn, two of the three roommates of 618 N. 30th, and two of the reasons that Waco for so long was home. Both left this year for the East Coast, and both leavings marked passages in my life that can only be described as a paradox of fullness and abandon. When you really care for someone, it’s both a wellspring of joy and an inexplicable desert when they’re gone.
If you have those friends who can call you up and say, “You know, I think you’re being a real turd”, hang on to them for all you’re worth. Anyone can find people who tell you’re the best thing to ever walk the earth or that you can do no wrong, or that you didn’t really hurt their feelings, or that you’re absolutely right about Garden State.
Not everyone finds people that tell them that other people really like Garden State, or that it really hurt their feelings when you unwittingly used them. Not everyone lets you be privy to their feelings and thoughts and hopes. Not everyone lets you in whenever you knock, even when you’ve stolen the key.
They are not saints. They are not perfect. They can be grumpy in the morning, moody, inexplicable, impossible to read, and tell you exactly the thing you didn’t want to hear.
And I love these women.
And I miss them.
And the fact that I ever met either one is a mystery of grace that I pray never stops unfolding.
An Open Letter to Kanye West
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Dear Kanye West,
I think I saw you on campus today, and I just have to let you know, friend to friend: it’s no longer cool. Not the music. Gold Digga is about as smooth as it gets, and I’m still working on the first album. Frankly, if you can get an un-crunk dude like me to sway to Through the Wire, you’ve pulled off a modern masterpiece. Seriously: I’m a fan. You rap with class, style, and substance that doesn’t have to do with rims. What’s no longer cool, though: the popped collar. It has to stop.
With all due respect, Mr. West, you’re the Louis Vuitton Don. You’re style exemplified. But, you’re setting a terrible example for the kids. Come to think of it, it wasn’t you I saw today: this cat was white. It was the collar that threw me off.
Long before I knew what it meant to have style, I was a wreck. I tight-rolled my jeans a year after they were no longer cool. I wore hiking boots and tried to convince myself they were the same as Doc Martens. In short, I was a voiceless minion, unable to speak my mind on what was good, because I had no mind, no heart, no swagger in my step, no junk in my trunk. I was slightly ahead of the first wave of popped-collar and couldn’t stop you then.
**
But I can stop you now.
So, I ask you, Mr. West, to stop the madness. Thanks for the great tunes, for your mix mastery, but for the love of all that is holy, stop the collar. Turn down the collars; they’re way too loud and drowning out my Ipod. You’re convincing college kids that the way to coolness is through abandoning the purpose of shirts. Next, the gold chain on hairy chests will come back, and let me tell you from experience, that’s bad news all the way around.
Thanks for listening. Good luck on the next album. Seriously: you make me dance. Take it easy on the Kristal, and we’ll see you when we see you.
Myles Werntz
Life in Coffee: Bloody L
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Once upon a time, I went to the UK for a summer. No, I don’t have a single picture, because that was my reason for going: to take pictures for an unnamed missions agency who still owes me a ton of photographs. That aside.
I love the Brit culture for their music, for their moody weather, for their blanket honesty in the more rural parts, and for their frothy beverages. I do not, however, love them for what they do to their coffee.
For two months, I struggled to find a single cup of coffee worth peeing into, and failed miserably.
**
It had been three days into the sojourn, and I was jonesing for a cup of coffee. I mean, I was willing to sell my travelling companions for a summer’s supply of beans and a grinder. I’d strain it through chicken wire and drink it out of my shoe, but I was DYING for a cup of something resembling coffee. And then, on my first shopping trip in Ireland, I came across…instant coffee.
Any port in a storm.
As fate would have it, water still boils in the UK, and spoons still stir, and ten minutes after getting back to the hostel, I had myself my first steaming cup of coffee. Friends, it was some of the most grotesque stuff I’d ever put in my mouth. Nescafe, despite what the cool kids tell you, really is ridiculous. It was then and there that I resolved to never put past these lips anything that I didn’t know for sure was a bean at one time in its existence. If you have to work that hard to make a thing drinkable, give it up and go with intraveneous drugs.
One side benefit to this trip: an undying affection for hot tea. Tonight, I had a venti almond concoction courtesy of my friend Celina, the newest employee at the Barnes and Noble. Quite tasty, if I do say so myself. So, thank you, British Isles, for never realizing that coffee is a delicacy to be enjoyed, and leaving the good stuff to your compatriots across the way. Viva la revolucion!
Confessions of a College Senior Business Major
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Holy crap, I’m so glad it’s Friday.
Wait, wha…it’s Saturday? What happened to Friday? Oh, right, that was….yeah.
John, if you’re reading this, I’m sorry about the tablesaw. I didn’t know you needed that for anything.
Dude, in class on Wednesday, I was sitting next to Andrew Shivnesky, and you would not believe how loud he was snoring. If ever I had a guy working for me, snoring like a tornado, it’s over. Aside from that, stats was way crunk. Ashley was uber-hot.
I’m getting tickets for the Coheed show next weekend. Who’s in?
I don’t know how people drink that crap coffee. Common Grounds is a joke for philosophy majors who’ll come crawling to me for a job in five years. While I’m learning how to fake a spreadsheet, you’re searching out the meaning of life. But that don’t pay for the Benz, do it? It’s all about the HAMILTONS, BABY!!!
Take that in your existentialist bong and smoke it.
Confession
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In case you haven’t noticed, or in case you never noticed before and didn’t really care…
Some of the links on the left are dead: bloggers that I know who never post, or links that I thought were fun for a little wihle, but lost interest in, or what have you. Same story on the right. It’s been months since Devils and Dust was spinning. I’ve come back around the horn and started listening to the Flaming Lips, but mostly, the book and CD recs are way overdue. I’ll get to those later.
But, first things first. I have two new links you should find: The John Laroquette Project and my friends, The Dominicans.
Maybe it’s the Shiner Dunkleweisen I’m finishing while I compose the last four pages of a paper, but these sites set me laughing like a dead hyena. A DEAD ONE, I tell you!
Check it out.
