Personal

  • Moved into our house with a lot of help from our friends.
  • Taught the Life of David in Sunday School.

My Thoughts

  • Omnilector: an omnivore of books
  • Sketch: gameshow called, "Hottentot or Huegenot?"
  • Absinthe makes the heart grow fonder.
  • The belief that everything must be spiritual (for example, you should only listen to Christian music) is utilitarianism with "utility" replaced by "spirituality". Both try to optimize in a single aspect of life to the detriment of the others. But we're called to live good lives, not optimal lives.

Writing, Links, Podcasts

Notes

  • Jonathan Pageau
    • Pattern of Genesis is Eden on a mountain, clothes, thorns, pride. Repeats at Babel, Jesus walking on water. Most stories have death-resurrection.
    • Monsters lie at the edge and borders. They are extremes (giants, leprechauns) or mixtures (dog-headed men, chimera, dragons (lizards + birds + mammals)). Amazons.
    • Gargoyles are outside the church.
    • Monsters on the border guard against bigger monsters: Cerberus guarded against worse monsters in hell. X-Men guard against other mutants and cosmic monsters.
    • St. Christopher (Easter Orthodox saint) was a giant or dog-headed man.
    • Carnival celebrated monsters, spinning, opposite day.
    • Purim: Jews dress in costumes, get drunk, spin till they fall down.
    • Rainbows are fluid. They are the breakdown of light.
    • Eastern Orthodox baptize babies by immersion because baptism is a picture of death.
    • Medieval Byzantine kings had their star charts and knew their place in the cosmos. Astrology for soothsaying was forbidden.
    • Christian history is not linear. Genesis cycle repeats, Jesus fulfills, continues to Revelation when the City caps the mountain, fulfilling Eden.
    • Okay with martial arts but would not do yoga.
    • Eve comes from Adam, all mankind comes from Eve. Christ comes from Mary, the Church comes from Christ's side.
    • Lilith is the mother of the prehistoric monsters.
  • Jordan Peterson: Nietsche thought it a tragedy that God was dead
  • Doug Wilson: the line between good and evil is vertical, cutting through sex, class, race. Ideologies like socialism and CRT make the line horizontal.
  • Anthony Dodgers: We must give our children a Christianity to grow into, not a Christianity to grow out of.
  • Oscar Wilde was always interested in the Catholic church, and the priest attending him at his death says he converted.
  • The name "Cholmondeley" is pronounced "Chumley".
  • Tolkien said Hobbiton was at the same latitude as Oxford.
  • The Golden Age mystery writers started the Detection Club. They asked Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to be the first president, but he declined due to poor health. Chesterton was the first president. Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers, Baroness Emmuska Orczy, Hugh Walpole, Margery Allingham were all members.

Quotes

  • "Those who say our thoughts are not our own because they resemble those of the Ancients may as well say our Faces are not our own because they resemble those of our fathers." -- Alexander Pope

Words

  • Brown study: state of deep thought, melancholy with deep thought, mental abstraction or serious reverie
  • Den: cave used for concealment, shelter, protection; lair of a wild animal; secluded room for study or relaxation
  • Fuligin: a color darker than black (Wolfe's Shadow of the Torturer) (from Italian for soot)
  • Ham-handed: clumsy, tactless, having large hands
  • Hamfisted: clumsy handed
  • Lector: reader (Latin)
  • Mountebank: one who mounts a public bench selling fake healing elixirs
  • Paramount: superior to all others; possessing the highest title, as lord paramount
  • Quillon: arm of a sword's cross-hilt
  • Sumpter: pack-horse