A solo venture--hopefully my last

Watching helmeted and wetsuited "experts" capsize their specialized whitewater canoes in rapids that I'd just paddled up (in a beat up oldtown) was quite satisfying. The solitude and physical exertion helped me forget final exams.
But I wished for a bow paddler, someone to carry the backpack while I portaged the canoe, someone to appreciate my effort and laugh at my mistakes, someone to share the adventure.
Happily, I have just 21 days to wait...

Pictures of Petra

much more attractive than my hair cut debacle

Hair Cut

Balancing Rocks

T R on Lawyers

“Now the shyster, the barratrously inclined, the ambulance chase, the member of the Bar with a system of runners, pursue their nefarious methods with no check save the sand rope of moral suasion.”

Lewis v Howe

C.S. Lewis once stated:

"Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up save in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket--safe, dark, motionless, airless--it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable."

That sounds sweet, but I disagree.

If we have truly died to self there is nothing left to be vulnerable.

Soup

ingredients
one or two mid sized red cabbages
one or two cans of Fri Chik
one or two onions
a small number of carrots
a large amount of peanut butter
generous hand with the red pepper
salt (varied according to blood pressure)
enough water to prevent fire

directions (for February)
turn on stove and warm hands in front of the glow. This should restore enough function to permit chopping. turn off the stove (to save on the electric bill). put everything on a large chopping board. hum "Nearer my God to Thee" in French, going up a half step after each time through. this step allows time for the ingredients to right their wrongs, write their wills, and perform last rites. when the entire piece is in falsetto, switch to "God rest ye merry gentlemen" (whistled with Texas accent) and flail savagely at the ingredients with a large knife. continue this process until your heart rate is over 120. stop chopping and dump all ingredients into a large kettle. turn on the stove, put on the kettle, and start listening to Rutter's Requiem. stir between movements. start eating as soon as the cooked cabbage smell trumps the peanut butter smell.

Ice Storm

Petra spent last week visiting me in Lexington. We experienced a serious icestorm last Tuesday night. School was delayed Wednesday morning, so we drove up part of the Blue Ridge Parkway to survey the situation. Fallen limbs obstructed the road and eventually blocked our passage. We continued on foot. The wind come up suddenly, with gusts reaching 60 miles per hour. Trees starting falling. After a close shave with a mean spirited tree top, Petra and I ran for the car. It felt like we were under fire. Gettysburg itself could scarcely have been louder.

Rice and Light

Greens are good for the body. I'm too poor to purchase them regularly, so I've taken to sprouting cast off rice. My first attempts involved sticking the rice in a dark cupboard. It didn't do very well. At Dad's advice, I tried putting it on the window sill. It perked up nicely, and I've been feeding on it ever since.
Christ is the Light of the world. We can't do anything apart from the power He provided through His death. Focusing on Christ's sacrifice at Calvary will give us the perspective to make the sacrifices that He asks of us. It wouldn't do to take up the wrong cross.
Sadly, we rarely consider the Cross. The Beatitudes are a more frequent sermon topic than Golgotha, and when Christ's last hours are mentioned, we often spend more time considering Peter's sin than the Cross. Christ gave us communion so we'd remember His death, but we only celebrate it once in 13 weeks. What's so special about 13? It seems foolish (not to mention unlucky) to relegate communion to the sidelines. When we do go through with it, we don't share the cup, pair off instead of washing everyones feet, and keep on all our fancy duds instead of donning simple towels.
Our public failings are often a reflection of personal emptiness. EGW says that the cross should be the focal point of our devotions, but we usually read a few parables, a Psalm, or the prayer of Jabaz and leave the Cross for Easter weekend.
Like my rice, we're supposed to die, but we can't expect our sacrifice to produce anything unless we are looking to the Light of Christ's sacrifice. Let's get out of the cupboard and start growing.

sacrificial evangelism

As Christians, we are to love God with all our hearts, and love our neighbors as ourselves. We love God by showing kindness to those in need. See Matt. 25: 34-46. Masochists aside, we want food and shelter, but we usually pretend that “needy neighbors” don’t exist outside our circle of friends.
Thanks to globalization, we are all each other’s neighbors. The Good Samaritan crossed ethnic, social, and political boundaries to patch up a wounded Jew. How dare we turn a blind eye to Sudan and the Congo?
Our offerings are often measured by the amount we have to spare. We act like a two-week mission trip with a weekend at the beach is what Jesus meant by “going the second mile”. Will God hold us guiltless if our brothers and sisters starve while we buy cars, computers, and Ipods?
There are two ways to motivate people, promise them more toys or ask them to sacrifice for a greater cause. As good politicians know, the latter is more effective. Would we still remember Churchill if he’d said, “I offer you warmth, comfort, joy, and peace” instead of “blood, toil, tears, and sweat”? What if Kennedy had said, “don’t worry about your country, it’s supposed to meet your needs”?
Like “Someone” in my last post, we usually witness by telling folks about our blessings and trying to persuade them that they’d be better off if they were more like us. What happened to those crosses we were supposed to pick up? Are we following the wrong Jesus?
Sacrifice creates growth—just look at suicide bombers and the proliferation of Islam. Are we ready to die for what we believe? Most of us haven’t even gone hungry for it.
God told us to spread His Word by loving our neighbors. Isn’t it about time to start?

call to arms

Last Sabbath, I heard a heard a rather important and well known SDA someone speak about a meeting he'd recently attended. The keynote speaker, a methodist turned baptist, had focused on "making the gospel relevant". The central theme, as regurgitated by "Someone", was "people are tired of hearing about God and the Bible and are only interested in our personal experience". "Someone" then stated that the methodist/baptist had used the just mentioned strategy to turn a 25 member wheelchair and cane congregation into a vibrant 400 member youth Church. "Someone" next urged us to follow suit, then publically prayed that we would do so.
God calls us to be faithful, not successful. When Jesus won the victory on Calvary, everyone deserted Him. Noah preached for 120 years and saw no tangible results. The number and age of Benchwarmers is not a relevant measure of God's blessing, and it should never be our goal to increase this crowd. Our job is to lead the people to the water of life, not persuade them to drink by dumping in kool aide.
Personal experience can be a useful evangelistic tool, but each person's life walk is different. Without the Bible as a common denominator our experience has limited utility. More to the point, how can a true Christian share their experience without spending the whole time talking about God and the Bible? If self is dead, what else is there to talk about?
SDA's have a special God given message. Nothing against our Baptist and Methodist brothers and sisters, but God has given us a unique light. Why should the pilot ask a member of the ground crew to teach him how to land the plane?
The Devil is alive and well, and I fear he's working on the sly to dilute the power of our message. He is a defeated foe, but we can't even resist unless we recognize what he is doing.
If we are connected to God, we will talk about what He has done for us, but we must avoid sharing the results without the power. BMW's are beautiful cars, but they can't move without gas. We aren't doing people a favor if we show them a religion that looks and feels comfy and grand but will leave them on the ground at the second coming.

Poor Paul is presently plunged in piles of perturbing preoccupations,
forthwith fiendishly finagling his fiancee into fending the fort for his fans. He
blames his busy-ness on books and bequeaths the blogging to bystanders:
meaning myself. He maintains that he may
materialize when his mobs of mental marauders have
abated their attack. After that awaited anticipation, he'll arrive anew and
script something significantly superior to this silly, sorry,
pretty pathetic post. -Petra

While you were at GYC...

I was climbing Tumbledown with Petra. (Yes Christy, I do exist). As we left home, I informed Petra that my infallible sense of intuition warned of approaching doom. The drive to the trailhead was rather boring--until we reached the final dirt road. A half-inch of freezing rain had fallen over night, followed by several inches of snow. I could have skated the last three miles. The steel studs on the tires of the family van worked wonders, but the success of our traverse trembled in the balance on many a hairpin turn and steep hill. The mercury philandered between 10 and 25 degrees, but a sharp west wind made up for any inconsistencies and necessitated two sets of long johns. The trail proved as slick as the road, and Petra and I rapidly acquired a rainbow of bruises (admired late that night in the hot tub). All went reasonably badly until the final pitch--usually an easy scramble assisted by iron rungs. This time, the rungs were hidden in a frozen waterfall. In prior winter climbs, I'd tied a rock to the end of my rope, tossed it around a tree at the top of the pitch, and so secured assent. But a considerable amount of water was flowing down the face, and the rope rapidly took on the character of rebar. in the end, I took a rock and bashed a series of steps into the ice. Next time I'm bringing an ice ax...
We managed to get off the steepest section before sunset, but we still faced a long plod in the dark. Just before reaching the car, I was forced to follow Nature's call, and ended up frozen to a birch log. Suffice it to say that I was rather chilled when I finally unlocked the van. At which point I realized that Petra's doubts of my intuition's veracity were groundless. I had left the headlights on (by mistake!). We were about 6 miles from the nearest habitation. We'd been the first car on the dirt road that morning, and it looked like only one other hardy soul had passed that way. I was tossing the bullet between building a bonfire starting the long jog when a pair of headlights appeared in the distance.

I realized that I don't have photo’s to back up the ice climb section of this post, but Petra's hands were too cold to work the camera, and mine were far too busy.

Seriously, I did plan to attend GYC. I've always been blessed by attending in the past. But with relations hounding us for wedding plans, and little time for relationship building, I took an extra dose of Petra's TLC instead. I hope you'll forgive me and believe that I exist...

Introducing Three Tramps

Three Tramps specializes in synergizing the traditional forms of classical and bluegrass with interpretive dance, creative culinary delights, and dramatic readings of great literature.

Martine plays oboe, viola, and chopsticks. Petra plays violin, piano, and French Horn. Paul makes up for his general lack of musical talent by a dent of hard work and sheer creative genius

Christmas Light

Christmas is supposed to be a season of gladness and joy, but it can be marked by fear, depression, and loneliness. The Spirit of Christmas may get lost in the Santa suits and tinsel. When the wrapping paper is in the trash, and the credit card bills are in the mail, we sometimes feel more tired and stressed then ever. The lights of Christmas are frequently followed by greater darkness.
Tonight, we grieve with the families of the climbers who were lost on Mt Hood, and those of the thousands of soldiers and civilians who have died in Afghanistan and Iraq. As we celebrate Christmas, much of Africa is starving and naked. Yes, darkness settles deeply over some parts of our world, and it’s cold fingers touch us through death or illness of friends or family, or through the invidious doubts and fears John Bunyan called “the giant Despair”

My mother loves hunting for good out of print books. One of her greatest finds was “Just David”. David’s mother died when he was four, and his father, a world famous violinist, took David to an isolated mountain hut. Over the next six years, far from the corrupting influences of wealth and power, David became a brilliant violinist. Father and son lived in peaceful secrecy to avoid the public eye. In fact, David never learned his father’s name. Then David’s father became deathly ill. He tried to take David back to civilization and the musical world they had left, but died in a remote village. Before he passed on, he gave David a large amount of money and wrote a note to David’s relations, and signed his name. The villagers were familiar with the name, but failed to associate it with the sick man’s illegible signature. An indebted farmer took pity on David and gave him bed and board in exchange for David’s daily labor. Months passed. Weeding and stacking wood left little time for the violin, and the villagers mocked David’s music. David dreamed of escaping the village and using his father’ money to start a musical career. Then the mortgage on the farm came due. Not knowing the value of money, David used all his father’s money to redeem the farm. As winter approached, David seemed doomed to spend his life cutting wood . One day, David happened upon an old sundial. Its face contained this inscription: “I count no hours but unclouded ones”. David stopped counting clouded hours and started living for light.
Focusing on sunny times and sunny people brings us light and happiness. I remember watching Petra during orchestra rehearsals. At first, it was just an occasional sidelong glance. By the semester’s end I was having trouble reading my music. Two years ago last Thursday, Petra agreed to accompany me to a concert at the Kennedy center. I spent most of that Christmas break weaving her a basket and making plans. February 14 found me waiting for her to go to Greek class, sneaking into her dorm room, and writing my name in glow-in-the-dark stars above her bed. Several canoe trips, dozens of fruit smoothies, and a series of duct tape notes later, she agreed to be my girlfriend. Last summer, sometime between June 3 and 4, I asked her to marry me. She said yes. It was the happiest moment of my life.
Christmas should be the happiest time of year, but sometimes it’s so full of junk that we don’t have time to look for light. What does Santa have to do with baby Jesus? What does black Friday have to do with the stable? Why do we limit our gifts to those who reply in kind? God gave His Son to us, knowing that we could never repay or understand the sacrifice. Shouldn’t we spend part of this Christmas feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, caring for homeless, and visiting those in prison?
David didn’t keep the sundials wisdom to himself. He couldn’t. His newfound joy infected the village, and shadows of wealth and pride gave way to the light of kindness and love.
This hasn’t been an easy year. My grandfather was nearly crippled by a bungled back surgery, my grandmother died in September, and law school has eaten my best time, energy, and most of my hair. I’m sure that each one of you has suffered as well. Looking to the light can be difficult. Sometimes everything seems dark.
We often lack the time to meet our needs, never mind reaching those of others.
David’s hours were mostly cloudy, and he had plenty of sorrows without bothering about those of the people around him. But he chose to live for light, and carried its joy to the rest of the village.
It is my hope and prayer that during this Christmas season, we, like the Wise Men of old, will look for light, look to the Christ child, the source of all light and warmth, and reflect His love and care to those less fortunate then we.

God Is

Even during exams

Thanksgiving Tumbledown

Several years ago, John and I started a turkey day tradition. Thanksgiving dinner invariably degenerates into orgy of chow, so we figured we'd balance it with a savaged pre dinner hike. Tumbledown Mountain is accessible, steep, and offers great views, so it was the natural choice. This year, John is in Peru, but Barry and I carried on in his honor. We were joined by my cousin Mark, Elissa, Julie, Jenny, and Wayne--a very convivial group. We followed our trademark route, an unused trail blocked by a rockslide. Mark introduced us to a more technical style of belaying. Barry and Wayne provided common sense. We played on the partly frozen summit pond and pondered the view. The return journey was marred by Mark and Jenny's constant efforts to tempt the more abstemious members with snacks. They were creative, but we held out for the feast.
After dinner, Mark and I inaugurated a new tradition, a post dinner swim in the ocean, followed by a soak in the hot tub.

What I was trying to say in the last post...

Life is like an LSAT problem—tricky, complex, and never enough time to figure it out. We survive by making assumptions and taking risks. We assume that the primary ingredient in our breakfast cereal is wheat, not arsenic; we assume that smiles are not death threats, and we (sometimes wrongly) assume that the other cars will stop at red lights, and go at green ones. Society moves too fast to require strict proof. It hasn’t always been this way.
Aquinas explained life by “proving” God’s existence in painful detail, but he never managed to account for the unmoved mover. Descartes famous “I think, therefore I am” proved some level of human rationality, but suddenly weakened in its explanation of God. Kierkegaard made a blind leap of faith away from logic and towards an unknown and unknowable God, but his ethereal explanation was notably detached from the verifiable observations which grounded Aquinas and Descartes. Jefferson left philosophical perambulations to continentals, and adopted a world view that fit the world he viewed. He assumed rationality, made careful note of the world around him, and plugged in various explanations until he found one that fit.
In our post Jeffersonian world, we seldom bother to make fully informed choices. We assume, observe, and act—unless of course, we’re talking about God. Suddenly, every warrant is subject to strict scrutiny. Full explanation is required, and Christianity is held to a standard that Aquinas could not have surmounted. Given enough time and energy, it’s possible to figure out what’s in those Cheerios, and green or red, it’s always smart to look both ways. But as Kierkegaard would argue, God isn’t susceptible to this type of proof. Jefferson’s deistic beliefs seem quaint in light of current science, but that doesn’t mean his methods were flawed.
Like an LSAT problem, life is a high stakes game. Pascal’s Wager shows that the odds favor a belief in God. Why don’t we leave complete proof to Aquinas, apply Occam’s Razor, and look for a God that would explain our world?

Solving for God

"Plugging in the numbers" is one of the best ways to solve complex algebra problems and logic games. This morning, while solving some Evidence problems, I wondered if it might be a good way to solve for God.
Assume God's existance, then evaluate the corollaries. Assume Atheism, then evaluate the corollaries. Compare the corollaries. Occam's Razer is one place to start. The second law of thermodynamics is another.
Thomas Jefferson and a host of likeminded deists followed this logic to a belief in a distant higher power, but this is as foolish as settling for a workable plugged in number without solving the rest of the problem. IF God existance is a simpler and better explaination for life (observable sociology) then Atheism, the next step is to plug in different values for God's character and reapply Occam's Razer. Which God explains life in the clearest terms?

Inspirational distraction

Relationships take time and money. I’m desperately short of both, but, as this photo demonstrates, my time with Petra has been, is, and will continue to be, the best investment I’ve ever made. Unlike most girls, Petra is smarter than me:-)--and more stubborn. I win most of our verbal skirmishes, but somehow we usually end up doing what she wants—which often talismanically translates into what I want. Maybe it all comes back to the photo—I end up following her lead because I’m trying to keep her in view:-)...