Aftermath

     I know it's August, so don't judge me. But I'm listening to Alan Jackson's Let It Be Christmas CD right now. (I also have an entire Pandora channel for Christmas music.) But August is almost over; so seems like the right time to listen to Christmas music if you want to. And it's calming. And it's been a really, really long week. And a hard one, too. So I could use some calm-ness.

     College is in full swing everywhere, pretty much, now - and all the routine and mundane routines and hassles that entails. Facebook and Twitter are full of "Oh, help..." posts. Biology is not going to be my favorite class ever. It's tiring and frustrating and there's no scope for imagination in it. And that lack-of-imaginative-qualities is a real problem.
      I'll try to sum this up quickly as best I can, but for a better argument, read Martin Cothran's  article The Rhetoric of Amazement, or, even better, read G.K. Chesterton's Orthodoxy; specifically the fourth chapter, "The Ethics of Elfland". He speaks much against the "learned men of science in their spectacles" who say "'Cut the stalk, and the apple will fall", but he says it calmly, as if the one idea really led up to the other. The witch in the fairy tale says, "Blow the horn, and the ogre's castle shall fall", but she does not say it as if it were something in which the effect rose out of the cause...She does not muddle her head until it imagines a necessary mental connection between a horn and a falling tower. But the scientific men do muddle their heads, until they imagine a necessary mental connection between the apple leaving a tree and an apple reaching the ground. They really do talk as if they had not only found a set of marvelous facts, but a truth connecting those facts. They do talk as if the connection of two strange things physically connected them philosophically. They feel that because one incomprehensible thing constantly follows another incomprehensible thing the two together somehow make up a comprehensible thing. Two black riddles make a white answer."
     But on the first quiz I scored 32 out of 36, so that's a good start.
      There's another good passage I came across reading it over again the other day, in chapter six, I think: "It is very hard for a man to defend anything of which he is entirely convinced. It is comparatively easier when he is only partially convinced. He is partially convinced because he has found this proof or that proof of the thing, and he can expound it. But a man is not really convinced of a philosophic theory when he finds that something proves it. He is only really convinced when he finds that everything proves it. And the more converging reasons he finds pointing towards this conviction, the more bewildered he is when he is asked to sum them up."
     That's why I have so much trouble expressing what, exactly, felt so off-kilter when it came to NSU. (And not an artistic, nice-looking off-center, either.) And also, in a much more pleasant vein, why it's difficult to sum up exactly what and why I love SGYC so much.

     Church was very good today, Sunday School in 1 John 2 and another sermon from the first chapter of 2 Corinthians, verses 12-22. (Last week's sermon can be found here, look for "Dennis Gundersen, 2 Cor. 1:8-11".) It's hard to know what to say to people, though, when they ask how I'm doing. But I'm making it, I guess. Prayers are very valuable things.

     Finished reading Jan Karon's Light From Heaven again this afternoon, which was nice. Her new book is coming out next Tuesday, it's called Somewhere Safe with Somebody Good. (Very nice title. Sounds like a perfect description of Father Tim's life in Mitford with Cynthia.) Hope it'll be good.
     I can't find where I put my Bible, which is mildly irritating. I know I packed it somewhere when moving my stuff out, but I just haven't found where I set it yet.
     And the Okmulgee library book sale is coming up soon, on the 18th. Mom's really looking forward to that. I am, too. And that's also the weekend of GBC's annual mission conference, which Courtney is pretty excited about. And then the 23rd is the season two premiere of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

     Spent a lot of time on the phone this week, it seems like. Besides annoying hassle-ey financial aid stuff to deal with, I called Ash last Saturday afternoon and we talked for about an hour and a half, and then I called Jon Wednesday night and we talked for an hour. Good to catch up with them.

     Felt kind of sick this morning and the last couple days, which fits perfectly with the new semester and everything else. Pandora is useful. If there were an instrumental piece of music that captured what a semester felt like, this would probably be close. (Jed played this one year during the talent share.) And this would also work.
     It's been an unbelievably slow week as far as assignments and stuff go, yet somewhat productive. My guess is that this week will pick up a little faster.