Irish Dancing

There's a group called Léim at my home school of U of M that does Irish Dancing. I have loose ties to them: I kinda know one or two of the dancers, I did sound and lights for them one year, and sometimes they rehearsed underneath my dorm room; the music, though more pleasant than any other music that came from those depths, could still be a little distracting for studying. Now, I've found out there's a You-Tube video about them, so have a look! I don't think it's the best of their repertoire, but it's still cool.

Watching the Irish dancing gives me some sort of connection with a deep mystery that I am still pursuing, that relates to the Celtic and to fantasy.

CS Lewis

Some of you have probably seen this already, but I found a cool documentary of Lewis's conversion to Christianity. It was linked to from here.

To me, it was a reminder that I still have deep quests about my self, there are things still locked up and confused. It was also a reminder that people do convert to Christianity, and evangelism is an endeavor that carries hope.

I also got a hint that Lewis may have found in the Greek works some of the same mystery that I find in fantasy, and there is a passage in Hippolytus about something worth desiring that moved Lewis and I might want to read myself.

Also, it sounds like GK Chesterton's "The Everlasting Man" might be a cool God-centered view of history.

More about the Pope's Lecture

My father said in a comment that he was still wondering how we knew that God is a God of reason. I thought I remembered a couple of reasons, so I thought I'd go back and look for them:

1. In the beginning of John, the word we normally translate for "Word" is "Logos", which also means "reason". This is not the first time that I've heard that translating that as Word strips away some of its meaning. When Jesus is a concept which reflects both "reason" and "word", and He is one with God, we know that those things are important to God's nature. Language, with which we structure concepts not only for communication, but also for our own thinking. Reason, thinking in ways that fit together and make sense, perhaps? I find Reason much harder to define than Language. Anyone have any ideas about that? Regardless, Language and Reason are similar: they both bring order and structure to thought. Perhaps that reflects some of the meaning of Logos. In the beginning was the Logos, and the Logos was with God, and the Logos was God.

2. The Pope refers to some other church writers, in particular Lateran. No idea what Lateran says.

3. In general throughout the talk, the Pope refers to this union of reason, represented by the Greek spirit, with faith, as something that came about in the very dawning of the church. He seems to be saying, "You may not be able to find a great deal about this in scripture, but it has been with us from the beginning, and that is not an accident. Christianity belongs with that Greek tradition of reason." Not so much an attempt to prove, I don't think, as an appeal to the roots of the faith. Not the same as an appeal to tradition, as tradition tends to accrete and build up as the centuries go by. Rather, an appeal to foundations, to the original form of the faith. I think that this makes it worthy of serious consideration, but it is nothing like finding it in Scripture. I have always thought that God was rational, but I don't know how I was taught it. I do recall that his foolishness is greater than our wisdom... Rationality is easy to accept, but I'm not sure what value I'd assign to Greek culture and its links to us.

4. The New Testament was written in Greek. This serves as an example of how tightly bound Christianity and Greek were at the time the scriptures were written. Perhaps there is something to be learned about God here, that He brought things to such a pass that the New Testament was not written in Hebrew, not written in Latin, but in Greek. I'm not sure. I think it's more about the tightness with which the roots of Christianity hang to Grecian soil.

I do not thing that the points I have given above are enough to establish the rationality of God on their own, nor enough to establish the importance of the link between Christianity and Greek thought. I'd appreciate more thoughts on this, in either direction.

Birthday

Does anyone know the normal way to tell people it's your birthday without sounding like your fishing for presents or surprise parties? I don't, but I figured a blog post was vague enough that nobody could feel obliged. :-) My birthday is on the 23rd of this month, a day which will also be graced by the presence of my mother. I had a family birthday party a week ago when I was in Michigan, but I don't have anything else planned at present. If anyone feels like helping me plan a birthday party sometime after the birthday, let me know, b/c I don't feel inspired to do it on my own. :-)

Greek

As you may know, the Pope made some comments in a lecture last week that may make him quite unpopular with Muslims everywhere. I hear that he is going to Turkey in a few months, and I've prayed for his safety. My parents hunted down the full text of this lecture, and reading it, I found it quite interesting, and not because of the parts about Islam. Here's some of the interesting stuff:

• The Pope discusses the bonding of rationality with Christianity, and how this relates to the scientific view of reason. This is always a good thing to read about, since it comes up when talking with nonbelievers.
  
• He also talks about relative morality, which is interesting for some of the same reasons.
  
• The Pope says that Christianity is linked with Greek philosophy, and that the current theology and philosophy that is part of the religion was born there. This may be old news to some of my readers, but it was fresh for me, and it means that next time I have a reason to read Greek philosophy, I will see a bit more relevancy in it.
  
• On a lighter note, the word "rapprochement" appears three times. This is not the original text, it is a translation. Does this mean that the translator needs a smaller vocabulary? I don't think I'd ever encountered this word before, and it requires a French pronunciation to boot.
  

The Afterlife

I was thinking about the afterlife today. It's easy not to. And it's easy to think of it mostly as what comes after the important stuff. Here in life is what matters. Even if that means giving to the poor and saving souls, it's natural to think that what we do in this world is the central feature of our existance.

I was thinking about comparing this to a game. When playing a game, it sometimes seems like the game is all that matters. Even though it is not a very large or important thing, we aren't thinking about anything else, and we care about winning the game. However, once the game's over, we see the rest of life again, and we remember broader goals and priorities. Fortunately, games aren't always that enveloping, but it happens enough to serve as an analogy. I am thinking that leaving this life might be like leaving a game. We would be leaving this sphere for a grander sphere, a narrow life for a broader life, a life which is just as rich as ours and then some, a life which is every bit as interesting, but works in different ways. This sphere we live in now might seem a disk compared to the sphere we are entering! Not central at all, just a stepping-block!

The Bible doesn't say a great deal about what exactly goes on in heaven, and as I'm going a little further than it says, I may be missing the mark on some points. Apply salt as desired.

Fitted Feet

I have been praying some tonight, and I've been looking at the armor of God passage in Ephesians 6. I think I may have just made a little more sense out of 6:15 than I had before. "And with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace." I've normally been puzzled by this, but now I see it not exactly as 'readiness', but as urgency. We have the Gospel, and the world is thirsty parched in need for it. Shall we not rush out to act as agents of mercy and grace? Shall we not hurry forth to serve them? Since the actual passage is about "standing firm", I may be stretching a little beyond the original meaning, but I think what I am saying is still well within the pale. Anyone care to disagree? :-)

Hallelujah to God!