12.28.2009

End Of The Zeros


Before the year ends, I thought I should leave a new entry.

This will also serve to test whether blogger comments are now operative, since haloscan is done.

Year of our Lord two-thousand ten holds out the promise for new things, including more frequent content here.

All the best to you, dear reader.

6.15.2009

The Past Half Year

Let me catch you up. 2009 started out with a party (at 2640 & the Windup), as my lifelong friend, Keenan, was married. Friends and family are all happy that Rebecca is his wife. The bestman's toast I gave went something like this:
I've heard it said there are two kinds of love: the love of delight and the love of goodwill. We find each other delightful, but when that delight wanes we are resolved to continue behaving in the other's best interest. And marriage, among other things, is a sworn commitment to that effect, to will the other's good, even when there's less to delight in. We love Keenan and Rebecca, and we wish them the best. So here's to their mutual delight & goodwill, and a future of more joy than sorrow, more health than sickness, more plenty than want, more 'better' than 'worse'.
photo credit

Slightly didactic, but concise --don't you think? I reproduce it here because I gave it a lot of thought, and by the time the bubbly was swallowed it is likely my composition was utterly forgotten by everyone.

Later in January my brother Jeffrey entered Clear Creek Monastery, near Tulsa, Oklahoma. This was a grievous occasion. Besides the fact that, being an old school Reformed Confessionalist, I believe Romanist doctrine and Monastic-ascetic piety are contrary to the gospel... besides all that, it's hard to lose contact with the person closest to me. From my vantage point, it's very similar to him serving a life sentence in prison. We write letters and I can visit him for a few hours once a year or so. But the shared experience of life is now over. I wasn't ready for that.


If you're a friend of Jeff, you can write him too:
Br. Anthony Baus
Clear Creek Monastery
5804 West Monastery Road
Hulbert OK 74441-5698


February offered some cheer. My librarian and I enjoyed a Valentinesday local café tour, including the Choc-O'-Latte in Millerstown and the Espresso Yourself in Newport. We had a good time at the combination Hunting Shop & Family Restaurant in Thompsontown, the name of which escapes me somehow. Middle Pennsylvania was made for day-tripping.

In March I attended a regional ETS conference, where James Skillen spoke about political responsibilities and social justice. The part that most stands out in my mind is when he implied that all a state's coercive actions must be legitimized by satisfying something like the criteria for Just War. This seems right to me, and the interesting thing about it is that such a view can hardly be squared with the idea that civil government has responsibility for "administrating" a broad 'public' sector. (This latter idea is already refuted on the basis of a properly conceived notion of societal sphere sovereignty, of course).

Perhaps Gideon Strauss will be in a position to take the CPJ in a new direction as its new President. One can only hope that he might read and be persuaded by the New York Time's Bestseller Meltdown by Tom Woods. Here's Woods on C-SPAN BookTV.

In other news, Darryl Hart, paradoxical Luddite that he is, now blogs at OldLife.org.

I enjoyed my 36th birthday in early May with dinner at Brasserie Louis (a fancy restaurant in Lewisburg) and a meditative stroll through Shamokin Cemetery (an exquisite graveyard on a sweeping hill, lying above a Tim Burton-esque coal mining town).

I'm leaving out a mention of an early Spring traffic citation incident. I have nothing redeeming to say about it, although I am certain that even suffering under tyranny is effectual unto my salvation.

G.K. Beale was recently hired by Westminster Philly. Listen to his lecture on Christology and Scriptural inerrancy here. View a video interview with Beale here.
And John Fesko was recently hired by Westminster California. Listen to an interview with him by the Reformed Forum on justification here.

1.31.2009

25 Revelations
various things about my life and self
1. While riding a moped I was once hit by a car driven by a handicapped guy who had become paraplegic by being hit by a car while he was riding a moped.

2. As a kid I was strongly suspicious that I was adopted and had latent superpowers yet to manifest.

3. Regrettably, I still cannot read music.

4. I'm dating a librarian.

5. In late high school I often skipped classes to read philosophy in a file closet.

6. I once waterskied in the South China Sea off the east coast of Malaysia.

7. I strongly dislike in-house pets, watching or discussing sports, celebrity news, and hip-hop culture. I somewhat dislike pineapple on pizza.

8. My body weight has been consistent most of my adult life, except one year when I inexplicably gained 30 lbs and lost it the next year.

9. I first ate pimento cheese on a sweetbread sandwich in a county jail when I was 19.

10. The commute from my house to church is about an hour and a half.

11. As a Calvinist, I don't celebrate Christmas or any religious holidays except for the weekly Lordsday sabbath.

12. I have two younger brothers; one is a Benedictine monk in Oklahoma, the other is a jazz musician in Ireland.

13. As an adult (past 17 years) I've never had health insurance, I've never made more than 12k a year, and I've never taken government welfare.

14. During 2008 I became an anarchist (or an "anti- coercive monopoly, pro- polycentric public law order'ist," to be more specific).

15. Recently, one of my favorite authors is Frank Key.

16. I remember the 1979 Iranian Islamic Revolution and Iranian hostage crisis.

17. I'm working at a bank.

18. I admire mid-19th century facial hair styles, particularly walrusy mustaches.

19. I sued my high school.

20. When I first heard about the burning of the ancient Alexandrian library, I cried.

21. As a kid I had two uncles named Bob who both lived in Alaska.

22. I recently bought 100 one-ounce silver bullion coins in anticipation of eventual hyperinflation and destruction of the US dollar.

23. I have no excuse for not yet having a concealed carry permit.

24. The room temperature is usually lower than I'd prefer.

25. If you consider yourself a Reformed Christian or a Calvinist, I really want you to read Recovering the Reformed Confession by R.Scott Clark.

This meme was going around facebook, and I've been meaning to do something like this for a while. Just for kicks, leave a comment and tell me how many of these facts you knew (or didn't).