[Rough Draft]

A weblog about god, doubt, insomnia, culture, baseball

12.29.2004

psychotherapy 001

"super" new year's resolutions

need a little motivation w/ the day o' commitment just about 48 hours away? this was pretty much all it took for me.

12.24.2004

ho ho ho, and all that


i just had one of the most delightful evenings i can recally having had in a long, long while. we leave oxford to make the rounds to see the fams, so tomorrow is ellie's "home christmas." that meant that tonight is santa claus! renee' and i had so much fun setting up all her little santa stuff (note well the fabulous beanbag displayed so prominently to the right there). i always remember getting up on christmas morning to a room full of stuff santa had left whilst i slept, but i never knew just how much of a kick that "santa" and "mrs. claus" got from the whole gig. i feel more like a kid tonight than ellie does, i think! i know i'm more excited, even though she's been yelling "santa claus" and "merry christmas liiiiights" every time we drive down the bright and shiny (and quite wintry) oxford streets. if ells gets half as much joy out of her first 2 hours tomorrow as i got from my last 2 tonight, all will be well.

merry christmas to you all! thanks for being here during the first year of [rd]. i don't take any of you for granted, and i appreciate your readership. peace be with you. Posted by Hello

12.22.2004

mission to miami: miserable miasma

last night's debacle in miami was, uh, a debacle of biblical proportions. the weather in new england kept us in boston an extra day, which delighted me so i'd get to watch the "mission to miami" (what the tv stations were calling the clash b/tw the mighty pats and the woeful 'fins). but the woeful ones tend to play us hard, the intangibles weighed against us (interim coach for the orange-jersied gridironers, the aforementioned orange jerseys, nothing to lose for the dolphins, a certain lame-duck offensive coordinator), and belichek's suspicion that the good guys might have been walking into one on monday night, made the stat of the day dead on: the pats have lost 4 games the last 2 seasons; they had 4 t/o in each. as dale and neumy said: "end of story." patriot nation was up in arms today, as anticipated, but they speak some chilling words if you listen to them. a shot @ home field throughout was a long one, and it's now certainly off the table; and now the pats are fighting for a bye, which would be salve to the wounds they've been licking for some time and the new wounds after monday night's game. did i mention it was a debacle? why, oh why, couldn't the game have been in foxboro: 7 degrees w/ -11 wind chill @ game time. either that scenario, or some better play and less t/os in south florida and we'd be singing a different tune this day. alas, it was not to be (and didn't you just know it about midway through the 2nd quarter?) i'll cop to being a pessimist when pessimism isn't necessary, but this time i got it right. now next week's trip to the jets is freakin' huge.

some thoughts on godparenting

from dappled things -- i am one (2x), my daughter has two, so i'm interested.

12.16.2004

2004 story of the year

as i reach the end of [rd]'s first calendar year, what did i consider to be the biggest story of 2004? no contest -- "seven words that changed my life"
update: told 'ya so

12.15.2004

why am i relieved?

i hate the turnover in pro sports these days. would roger staubach have retired a cowboy in today's nfl? could boston have kept williams, or would he have shuffled off to the bronx? i'm all for bringing back loyalty and player identification with a particular team, but i confess i'm ambivalent about pedro going to the mets. i'd like to see pedey retire @ fenway, but i'm actually a little relieved that the $40.5 mil deal w/ boston fell through. sounds like gammons is, too.

12.14.2004

st. john of the cross

Stanzas Of The Soul

1. One dark night,
fired with love's urgent longings
- ah, the sheer grace! -
I went out unseen,
my house being now all stilled.

2. In darkness, and secure,
by the secret ladder, disguised,
- ah, the sheer grace! -
in darkness and concealment,
my house being now all stilled.

3. On that glad night,
in secret, for no one saw me,
nor did I look at anything,
with no other light or guide
than the one that burned in my heart.

4. This guided me
more surely than the light of noon
to where he was awaiting me
- him I knew so well -
there in a place where no one appeared.

5. O guiding night!
O night more lovely than the dawn!
O night that has united
the Lover with his beloved,
transforming the beloved in her Lover.

6. Upon my flowering breast
which I kept wholly for him alone,
there he lay sleeping,
and I caressing him
there in a breeze from the fanning cedars.

7. When the breeze blew from the turret,
as I parted his hair,
it wounded my neck
with its gentle hand,
suspending all my senses.

8. I abandoned and forgot myself,
laying my face on my Beloved;
all things ceased; I went out from myself,
leaving my cares
forgotten among the lilies.

st. john of the cross, "the dark night" (from the collected works of st. john of the cross)

12.13.2004

seth?

this is for you (if you're still reading).

12.10.2004

helmet project

i don't think i've mentioned this on here before, but the guy who compiled the helmet project had way too much time on his hands. and performed a spectacular service to humankind. since i'm listing favorites in threes the last couple of days, i'll go w/ princeton (designed before michigan's winged helmet), the cleveland browns and, of course, the domers (i've a replica on my office bookshelf).

12.09.2004

songs that make me happy, vol 1

today's list shall be three:

(1) biz markie's cover of "bennie and the jets"
(2) "hash pipe" (weezer)
(3) "come to jesus" (mindy smith)

12.06.2004

kiduage

there's nothing quite like a william safire compendium of modern teen slang

12.03.2004

a christian: converted and confused

in an interview with cara davis for an upcoming issue of relevant (i said i wouldn't read it anymore, but they still send me emails, and this one actually sounded interesting), patton dodd, author of my faith so far: a story of conversion and confusion, described himself thusly:
this will come as no surprise to anyone who is at all in touch with trends among young religious people, but at the moment i'd say i'm a schizophrenic christian in search of orthodoxy. i'm an evangelical by virtue of my past and the basic structures of my belief, but i'm not entirely comfortable there. as the book makes clear, i'm not comfortable rejecting it either. i'm middled. (emphasis mine)
i read ktb when it first came out, and i stop by killingthebuddha.com (found an excerpt from dodd's memoir there) periodically. can't say as how i was all that impressed w/ the 1st book, but i look forward to reading the new one b/c dodd's complaints are becoming increasingly common in the church, or @ least the portion of the church w/ which i'm familiar. i've even got some of them myself -- please, god, i'd like to feel something for once! maybe i'll just have what the charismatics are having, thank you. but then again, all things being equal, why in the world did you make all this "following you" stuff so confusing? the thing is, orthodoxy does save us from the tyranny of experience and the confusion of comparative religion; it's just that i think when the train arrives @ orthodoxtruthland, and jesus says "everybody off," some people hide under the seats.

2 of my favorite characters


ellie teaches dennis to read Posted by Hello

12.01.2004

today's sign that the kingdom of heaven is here

the mere existence of dunkin' donuts cards gives me goosebumps (even though i'm cut off from a fix while i'm down here in the southland).
 
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