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September 4, 2006
Theistic Evolution
A scientist's alternative to ID?
I have yet to read Francis Collins's book, but here's an interview that may give some insight. What I like about it is that it keeps squarely in the realm of science those things that are science and recognizes the "break" in science that enters with Human Evolution, without trying to slap a scientific explanation on it. As I said, I haven't evaluated the theory in any detail, but here's the article
Posted by Steven Riddle at 5:20 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 5, 2006
The Christian Ghetto
In our recent discussion of aesthetics, Zippy referred to the ghettoization of Christian children concomitant with carefully reviewing and monitoring their intake of popular culture. I'm not sure I am articulating his point, but the way I interpreted it, at least in part, is that "Christian" anything is at last partially a ghetto, something apart from the mainstream, and hence not truly "popular culture." My reaction to that was that it was the responsibility of Christians to patronize, critique, and nurture Christian voices that could join the mainstream and alter it.
At one point in time all of the Christian fiction in the market place had a single name--Frank Peretti. I remember reading This Present Darkness and thinking how appalling the state of Christian Fiction that this was the best they could trumpet forth. Peretti's style and handling of material has become much more dexterous, however, it still isn't "mainstream" fiction. One is left to wonder where are the O'Conoors, the Greenes, the Waughs, and the Percys of modern fiction? Are we stuck with the supposedly religious Updike--whose theology seems to be lost in a wash of bodily fluids in ever book?
I have been delighted to discover that Christian Fiction is becoming more prominent, even to the point of clawing its way out of the ghetto. This started with Augusta Trobaugh, whose Resting in the Bosom of the Lamb and Praise Jerusalem! came out under the imprint of a religious book publisher, but whose subsequent work was picked up by mainstream publishing. The remarkable thing about Trobaugh is the way in which religious identity and religion permeate and inform the books without ever being an overt in-your-faith fall on your knees every second paragraph faith. Belief is understood to be part of the world she makes in her fiction and it need not be teased out and present á la LaHaye and Jenkins.
Speaking of that duo, they are probably responsible for religious publishers being willing to take a chance on fiction. Despite being rather poorly written and sometimes utterly indigestible, LaHaye and Jenkins seized the popular imagination with their Left Behind series and created the first breakthrough blockbuster series. This broke the dam that unleashed the flood of Christian Fiction that can currently be found even in such stores as Borders and Barnes and Noble.
Recently I discovered the quiet and beautiful fiction of Charles Martin whose The Dead Don't Dance and Maggie are two books describing a terrible calamity during the birth of a child and recovery from it. The prose is masterful, restrained, and very quiet and hopeful.
Yesterday, while perusing the "Christian Fiction" shelves, I happen on Karen Valentine's The Haunted Rectory. The previous Valentines I have read have been set in a small New England town and did for the Catholic Church what Jan Karon did for the Episcopalian Church in her Mitford series. The Haunted Rectory is another in the series and features the St Francis Xavier Hookers (of rugs, that is) along with the eponymous Rectory.
Also of recent date, I've stumbled upon the blogs of a number of Christian writers, struggling away to produce SF in a Christian vein. Mainstream SF already lays claim to Tim Powers, Gene Wolfe, Stephen Lawhead (whose Byzantium should be read by all and sundry) and other great Christian writers. But there are more, if not quite legions, ready and willing to join these powerhouses in producing entertainment appropriate for a Christian audience (and for all audiences), and one hope to eventually produce the next Narnia or Lord of the Rings.
We owe it to ourselves to be aware of such writers and to support such writers--to seek them out and nurture them and to reward them with our hard-earned money with the hope that they may be promoted out of the backstore racks of "Christian Ficiton" and onto the mainstream racks where their fiction can influence the hearts and minds of readers who are perhaps totally ignorant of Christian reality. We have a certain duty to support the Christian presses that are taking a big chance by publishing authors who are relatively unknown and who have a "reduced fan base" to start with because they will be, at least initially, relegated to the back of the store. (Interestingly, I stumbled upon what appeared to be a very nicely written series of Dragon books--I'll try to supply author and title when I get home, I don't have them with me--on the Three-for-the-price-of-two table right at the front of the store. Only the first book was there--when I went to find the rest, they were solidly immured with the Christian titles at the back of the store.) We owe it to authors who self-identify as Christian authors to let them know that they can rely upon a solid readership--produce readable fiction and you will have an audience, even if we have to go out of our way to find you. Rather than break out of the Christian Ghetto, we should work to expand the ghetto to encompass as much of the publishing world as our buying dollars can make possible.
In short, I'd far prefer the subtext and hidden message of a Charles Martin or a Karen Valentine to that of a Dan Brown or, more insidiously, a Philip Pullman.
(If you want to visit some of these up-and-coming writers--just look left and scroll down my blogroll until you come to the entries labeled SF-something. Each of these in turn will take you to others--a wonderful network of lively, intelligent, fun, and interesting people.)
Posted by Steven Riddle at 9:01 AM | Comments (6) | TrackBack
This Little Light of Mine
I think I found this article about the marvels of the fluorescent bulb at Semicolon. We've had a few for several years now and love them. I just didn't realize that they really were that energy efficient. However, if you put your hand near one you should be able to tell--there's nothing like the heat given off by the typical resistor bulb. So, check it out. It's simple, it's easy, and it apparently does help.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 5:09 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Ukiyo-e As of Today
Ukiyo-e I--Before Bed
Blue shadows spill from the unseen new moon. The eaves etch navy ridges against the milk-lit stucco walls and the thick grass is no-color-at-all.
Three lights flashing, an airplane lumbers across the field of pinpoint white stars. The warmth of the summer night fills my lungs with each breath. If only I smoked or drank or took interest in women other than my wife I could be standing here in my boxers in my screened porch cradling a world-weary scotch, or stirring my Sangria with a finger, or puffing away on my little black filterless belgians, or lightly rolling my Ybor City mock Cuban between thumb and forefinger, or stroking the taut but silky smooth stomach and lower breasts of this week's love while waiting for my dog to do his business. But I'm not. I'm standing here thinking how wet this heat feels, and watching the plane vanish across the sky above the pink sodium lights of the neighborhood pool.
Ukiyo-e II--Arriving
Sun-faded pink fabric walls catch the trickle of sunlight that passes mylar shade and mini-blind. Dusty rose makes so much more pleasant a cell compared to the gray walls of just a few years back.
The windows drip with the dew of too cold a building just emerging from Florida night, blurring the figures of the live oak, hedge, elephant-ear philodendron, and the gray strip of pavement that through the crawl of countless cars separates us from the dolphin-pools and tourists that throng in these summer months.
Ukiyo-e III--Junk Mail
Yellow and black, bright red, Sale! Sale! Sale! Letters fan out in stationery blue, clear plastic windows crinkling as the mail is sifted. Two tan envelops fall, the paper equivalent of a rock slide, as they tumble toward the black mouth of the abyss that yawns wide to receive all that falls, or is hurled into it.
A brick of a book of beads, bright beryl and malachite and hematite and onyx, rolled out against a calla-white cover. And here a craft catalogue, a litany of linen, threads and yarn.
The chunk, chunk, chunk of paper fall, the dark pull of the black.
Ukiyo-e IV--Clouds
A
The eye of Horus, huge and blank and blue stares down at me from between two banks of cloud-blanched sky. The eye of the son of the sun reminds me just in time that providence rewards the wise eye and I tap on my brakes to avoid the bumper of the car driving free-form in planck-space.Waiting now in the slow-crawl-stop of the turn lane. Trees, wires, telephone poles, ibis-necked street lamps transform the eye from merely blank to baleful or beautiful. I make my turn.
B
Have you ever stood connected to the sky watching the convecting clouds? The boundless yearning upward surge, the penetration of deepest blue by rising white. The cloud cap expands and then subsides, vanishing entirely into the growing bank.You expected the water to be blue, but nothing had prepared you for this shade. You had expected sapphire but had no idea that the sun off the sand in the shallows yields turquoise. In fact, when you first see it it is so gorgeous you're certain that only terrible chemical pollution could have resulted in such a color.
Ukiyo-e V--The Trip to Lover's Key
Another beach I have not seen on a thread-thin barrier island that connects Bonita Beach to Fort Myers and Sanibel.
Ukiyo-e VI--The God-Shaped Hole
I got back to filling the God-shaped hole today. I can't tell you what a nuisance it has been, what with people and things falling in all the time. Last week two vintage Ferraris, the week before my mother and my aunt. And the hole keeps growing.When I first found it, a smoldering pit in the middle of my best field, I called the fire department and paid to have sea-water helicoptered in to fill it. Thought perhaps I could make a pond of it. But the water just kept on running and the hole got no fuller and no cooler.
So then I realized that I needed to line it. Started with quikcrete and figured I cover it with gunite smooth it out and line it with white Carrera marble, from that quarry that gave us David and Moses. It's a good thing I'm a man of means because six million cubic yards of quikcrete later and still no sign of an end.
If I couldn't fill it up, perhaps I could cover it over. That's what we're trying today. Three different ways. I figured I could span it with chicken wire and then plaster it over. When that's done, we'll drape it with crêpe de chîne and silk streamers--make it at kind of neo-Cristo pavilion type experience.
So we'll see. One way or the other, we'll find a way to fill it. With rocks and sand, with books and paper, with long dark alcoholic nights, with prada shoes and Givenchy and Chanel, with polo clubs and yachts, with coq au vin and curry poulet vindaloo with a Dom Perignon '65, with Picasso and Matisse and Gaugin and Brancusi. Cover it up, fill it in, one way or another we'll close that gap and I'll feel whole again, my perfect field restored.
Ukiyo-e VII--RashomonA-Two Older Women in a Corner Booth
Look at that man, a book and all alone. Where's his wife? How do you know he has one? He's wearing a ring. But is it on the right hand? It's been so long I don't know. Look at that, he's reading while eating, not even looking around..Oh dear. Look at that. What? What he's reading. What is it, how do you know? Sh. . . I saw it on the suggestion shelf. Well, what is it? Breakfast at Tiffanies. Ohhhhh. Yes. Yes. Well we know why there's no wife.
B- Two..Men of a Kind at a. Center Table
I don't care what he's reading--he's gay like I'm getting married. Just look at that shirt. When was the last time that shirt saw an iron? And who told him he could wear either silk or yellow? And those shoes! Can we say lumberjack? I've known a few lumberjacks and they wouldn't be caught dead in those, what, two years ago Rockport knockoffs.. But it's Holly Golightly. I don't care if he walked through the door with Madonna, Barbra, and Cher. He's just not one of us.
C- The Man Himself-Window Table
This has to be the longest book ever written. I've been reading it forever. Where's the fabled charm?Ukiyo-e VIII-Centerpiece
A spray of Dendrobium in a stocky blue-glass bottle that yields a stroboscopic flash of bright blue light where the sun alternately shown and hidden by overhead fan blades stir the light, all this at the point where smooth bottle joins twist-top neck. Velvet purple petals shade to magenta throats and fade to white where white and lavender stem join the blossom to the green mainline of the spray.
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September 6, 2006
Ukiyo-e as of Yesterday
As you could tell, the piece needs work, and I'm not certain that even at this it is finished. There may be other pieces to add. The chief difficulty is to express what I meant to say for part V. Another difficulty is a certain vagueness of language in some parts that may not be something I can overcome due to the subject matter. For example, what is the proper word for the part of a bottle that has a twist-top cap where the threads run? And what is the name for the little piece of remnant metal left on after the twist-top is removed?
Anyway, it is a work in progress, and it may be a much larger work by the time I'm done. The point is the poetry need not be about matters poetic, nor prose about matters prosaic. Ukiyo-e, "Pictures of the Floating World" are images out of daily life that help to expand the meaning of the everyday when looked at closely enough.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 8:45 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
Our Next Step?
Patient Loses Right to Food Case hat tip to The Western Confucian.
So "civilized" Europe goes, so lickspittle American intellectuals are in hot pursuit. Don't be surprised to see it coming to a hospital or doctor's office near you--funded, of course, by the hard-pressed record-profit-making insurance companies whose interest is not your health and well being, but their bottom line--wihich is deeply disturbed by keeping you alive. Hideous.
I was at a lecture a few weeks back which began with the prediction that few people in that room would likely be allowed to live out their natural span if things continued in this way. I can see it coming very, very rapidly. Efficiency and profit uber alles.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 9:12 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
September 7, 2006
Some of this Summer's Stock
Attempting to take Mir's advice in the comment's yesterday, I came upon a couple of things I thought worth sharing. What may be worth noting here is that the poem is written in slant rhyme/imperfectly rhymed couplets, for the most part. Imperfect spacing in html does not allow me to set it exactly as it appears on paper. Where you see two very short lines together, think of the second of those lines starting a new poetic paragraph immediately beneath the space after the end-stop of the line above.
Ruins Awaiting the Tide
What seems solid is shifting-- waterside
shapes that stand in heaps and mounds between tides.
Castle and moat, mere sand, but the solid
matter of dream. Inner life now amid
the salt and sand and sun. Green water now
blue, now darkened by clouds, all serves to show
the limits of this light-brown world--alone.Whose inner life is here displayed? No one
remains, no one lingers nearby, the beach
is empty. And yet these lone ruins seek
a ruler, a Lord, a central being
whose breath and life and vision give meaning
to laying lonely in the wash--to here
and now.
Five mounds--towers against the fear
that made them tall, that tears this uncanny
place each day. A world now water, now land,
never even momentarily the same.These ruins stand for now, awaiting rain,
portended in the clouds, awaiting tide
to wash away the memory, to slide
into the sea without a trace. Ruins
that crumble with a breeze, and vanish in
salt spray and morning rime stand for a time,
the lesser mirror of not-yet-ruins
that glower down the beach-front, challenging
the elements to find them so wanting
as these small sand mounds. Sheer hubris, in less
time than tide would take to take away these
idle thoughts, monuments to a beach-trip
the wind and waves and sand and sun could rip
calm disdain apart and spread its remains
as far as sea stretches and tide touches
the land.What thought itself grand is made less
by nature and by One at whose command
nature takes its form.
This castle now stands,
or slumps the perfect monument to this
morning's moment of thoughtlessness, a space
that brings light and shape and meaning to this place.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 8:55 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
A Poem of Parting
Don't know where this came from (in terms of inspiration), but rereading it, I like it.
Green and White
I dream of a green room
where all is painted white;
of rivers in wheels that roll
like a wisdom of wild-cast weeds.I swim to the surface
of bubble-white air.
And inhale the green scent
of milk-fresh peonies.Where are you, the one
I have never loved?
Never have I dallied
in your langorous embraces,Never smelled the green apple smell
of your pearl-white hair.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 8:58 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
A Repeat
A repeat, one of my more deliberately Carmelite poems--but I needed the reminder. Written in a form of japanese linked verse, often used as a court game--I had wondered at its structure when I read it again because it was so regular and then I realized where the form came from. Sometimes I surprise myself with the influences that have taken so firm a hold without real consciousness. And what a pleasure such surprises are.
Chains of Desire
Desire-memory
of heaven painted on things
as we see them now.Object of desire--sure sign
of its maker--Lord of life.In not holding on
to things we know, need, and love,
we grow heavenward.The sky is His-promise-blue--
beyond blue--no clouds--no rain.Learn now how to be--
see--autumn sky, fall leaves--cool
promise of winter.Desire--good as it seeks He
who is end of all desire.Desire--ill wind that
keeps blowing as it is fed--
seeking self alone.Desire teaches us good, shows
us how to see, be, and want.I want the ocean
broad salt, the great rivers, I
want and do not need.Desire stretches want into
need. It doesn't know its end.Stalk the white egret
for its plumage finery
for a woman's hatwhatever we want becomes
the end to which we will go.The heart's home, the warmth
of the breath breathed at the start,
Holy Spirit's flame.How then can we know the line--
want and need, shadow and light?Seek first the kingdom
and His righteousness, all else
comes to you through these.But the human heart is trained
to want far beyond its means.Trained to desire, chained
to desire--the will gives way
in the face of it.So we must learn to not want
to have without having now.To enjoy all things
both for themselves as they are
God's own goodly work.But also to see within
them God's shadow. Taste God there.Desire would hold you
bound, pining, dying not
for itself but for want.Desire is the spur, the goad, God's
direction arrow pointed home.Love without keeping,
take without taking, gold chips
in the chilly stream.Glint for those who come after,
for you, the moment God spoke.Hear Him in every word,
see in every motion, not one
thing is without Him.Desire calls us home-answer
and discover where home is.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 9:13 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
A Poetic Invitation
It occurred to me as I posted the previous poem that I would like to run an experiment in blogging linked-verse. I don't know how many poets there are out there who would be willing to go along, but let me explain what I have in mind.
In a couple of days, I will post a haiku that will be the "seed" of the linked verse experiment. I will also remind everyone that the theme will be "Autumn" or "October," wherever you happen to be. What I hope we can create through the linked verse is a celebration of my favorite season from people in different places (Sorry Aussies and Kiwis, to join in you'll just have to remember what Autumn is like where y'all live while those Northern Hemispherer's are actually experiencing it.)
The rules of linked verse are very simple. The person who wishes to add completes the Haiku by making it a tanka. That is, two seven syllable lines are added to the original haiku that complete that thought and begin the transition into the next thought. Then you also add the new haiku--as a reminder that is a poem of syllable pattern 5-7-5.
Thus each addition will take the form 7-7/5-7-5.
Now here's what I will do. As you post these in comments, I will choose the two or three that most appeal to me and post them along with the original, thus making the linked verse, and I'll add the author's name to the author list. No matter how often you add, you'll be on the author list once.
If you post additions to the linked verse, you are allowing use of that work here or anywhere else someone wishes to carry on a variant of the verse--in short a creative commons license limited to this work alone.
What I hope will happen is that others will be inspired and moved by other connections than I was, they will take those to their own sites and become their own author/editors of linked verse. I'm hoping that here we will have at least one continuation on the theme of autumn and that we get other variations that give rise to other poems.
No previous poetic experience required. Help provided upon request. Enjoy. I'd like this to be a fun and interesting game that engages people in the creation of simple works of beauty. Together we'll discover that linked verse cannot be forced into a channel and allowed to run wild, it will emulate the season and the theme of nature. At least I hope that's what everyone will discover.
I hope you all feel open to participating and enjoying the experience. And remember, given where I live, my Autumn imagery is likely to be quite different from what the rest of you all see. Mir can vouch for that.
Of what I've explained is unclear, please ask questions so we can clarify all points before we begin. There are no prizes and no right answers, the object is to enjoy and to see how many different things can grow from a simple seed.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 6:59 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
A Certain Sadness
Today we took Samuel to Tampa to the Florida Aquarium because they were having a home-school family day. It was, overall, a wonderful trip. But in the course of it I was overcome with a certain sadness that has affected me from time to time. I looked around me and saw families of two, three, four, five, six, seven, or more children and I wondered why it was that Linda and I could not have been so graced.
Don't get me wrong, I am deeply grateful for the one child we were able to grab onto and keep. God certainly blessed us beyond blessing with Samuel. And had we had our own children, I don't know if we would have been as open to adopting as we had been--and so in a sense, this was a fulfillment of our particular vocation.
But, like Tevye, I find myself asking, "Would it have foiled some grand eternal plan, if I'd been a larger family man?"
God bless all of you who have been given so many to cherish. Cherish them a little for me and count your blessings, even as I count mine. God is good in all that He does, and perhaps my own desire is thwarted to good purpose. Whatever it may be it is want, not need, and following my own advice, I need to know the difference.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 7:26 PM | Comments (8) | TrackBack