happy freakin' halloween to me

thanks a lot, shaughnessey. now ellie can't wear her "in theo we trust" t-shirt anymore. here's the globe's coverage (password required, i think), and here's dan the man's sunday column.

• update: fantastic column from bill simmons; makes me feel a good deal better

drunkin'

disturbing sight upon awakening this halloween morning. i swear there was more liquid in the maker's bottle when we went to bed last night. i shall investigate and report back immediately upon naming a suspect. i think there's a clue in there somewhere, but i just don't see it yet.

facing east

read quite a bit this semester about development of the mass, church architecture, nuances of liturgy like the priest facing east during the eucharist. i happen to be doing field work @ an eastward-facing parish (different from my past two parishes), and i love it. but i understand the "let's circle up" mentality. it just happens that it usually makes me feel like i'm @ camp. anyhoo, there's an interesting (and very short) post @ whitehall (via dappled things) arguing that east is best. check it out, tell me what you think. if it intrigues you, follow up. there's lots of stuff out in the 'sphere about it.

can't. stop. vibrating.

i'm in the seminary library w/ nobody but you to talk to, but help me, god, i may be a motion city soundtrack fan.

perhaps it's just the eleven cups of coffee.

it's punkin' times!

@ last! it's time to carve elmo's punkin! there's honestly nothing i'd rather do than hang out w/ this little girl and find ways to make her happy.

happy halloween from the woodses!

tom wright makes a funny

from the transcript of a lecture by n.t. wright in may 2005:

we have this thing in the anglican church where no service is complete without one of these wretched little microphones, and we have the line at the beginning of the service where the bishop is struggling with the equipment and the congregation has a service sheet that they are expecting to follow through, and the bishop says, “there’s something wrong with this microphone,” and the congregation obediently responds, “and also with you.” it could almost be a definition of postmodernity, actually, that, where something comes back at you revealing your own inadequacies.

for the article, hat tip to rick @ world of your making

why not to read mcsweeney's lists in the library

the first one made me laugh aloud in my little cubicle: methods other than song by which one can be killed softly

i read it somewhere

the brazilian ruben alves writes:

technology creates a false man, a man who leans how to find happiness in what is given to him by the system. his soul is created as the image of what he can have.

alves -- and others who share his point of view -- is more interested in men
as bearers of freedom and dignity than as consumers of goods.

(from alves' "a theology of human hope" (1969), quoted in john macquarrie, paths of spirituality (morehouse, 1993), a wonderful book in its own right and one i heartily recommend)

the greatest

oh, my dear lord.

that was the single greatest football game i think i've ever seen. and the irish lost. imagine how excited i'd be if nd would've stopped the 4th down play. i'm sure i jinxed them when i started videotaping the tv during the last minute. tragic, i say. my daughter, who got to stay up late to see the end of the game and has yet to go to sleep, was just heard to say from her bed: "i am notre dame." man. that, and an 18th inning walk-off in one week (on top of the sox bowing out). makes me want to stop watching sports.

but then the pats play . . .

archbishop williams and the city

remember that conversation we had, oh, several months ago about the city? here's a link to an article rowan wms wrote for the c. of e. newspaper that touches on some of the same issues. he's not touching on exactly the same issues i raised, but the guy is freakin' brilliant and i'm not. so there.

and i am officially mourning tonight. please, no mean emails about the red sox gettin' swept right out of the playoffs on their rear ends. allow me to grieve in peace. for that, i thank you, and my children thank you.

"the agony"

philosophers have measured mountains,
fathomed the depths of seas, of states, of kings,
walked with a staff to heav'n, and traced fountains:
but there are two vast, spacious things,
the which to measure it doth more behove:
yet few there are that sound them; sin and love.

who would know sin, let him repair
unto mount olivet; there shall he see
a man so wrung with pains, that all his hair,
his skin, his garments bloody be.
sin is that press and vice, which forceth pain
to hunt his cruel food thorugh ev'ry vein.

who knows not love, let him assay
and taste that juice, which on the cross a pike
did set again abroach; then let him say
if ever he did taste the like.
love is that liquor sweet and most divine,
which my god feels as blood; but i, as wine.

("the agony" from george herbert, the complete english poems (ed. john tobin) (london: penquin, 1991), 33-34; reflection during vts quiet day, 27 sept 2005)

a.l. beasts

you know, waking up on a saturday, 160 games into the season, in a dead tie w/ the evil empire, and finding these guys waiting for you makes finishing 2nd 8 years in a row not that bad.