TheLionRampant.net

I cut my hair again.

Questions of the day:
Why do you watch movies (relax, food for thought, nothing better to do, etc)? What is a favourite movie you’ve watched lately? (I ask these because we’ve watched two movies in a week, which is quite a lot for me, *and* I’ve suggested we watch ‘em; so obviously my own opinion on movies is changing - at least practically).

Just so you all know that we don’t study all the time, I’m posting what we did this weekend (actually, we’ve done a lot more “not studying” lately than proper studying!).

Friday Bryce and I stayed in and rented “Big Fish”. It was a funny and endearing movie and it was great to get cozy and relax to a film! Saturday, we spent the morning sleeping, relaxing and doing a bit of work. We then met the Hays and Randalls for Doors Open Day - a day in which a lot of private buildings open up to the public for the day, and it’s free! We met Andrew and Kay at 1 and then once the Hays showed up (at 2 - Sarah was getting her hair cut), we saw a number of things by the University - the central mosque, McEwan Hall (an amazing circular building with three tiers, old wood, domed ceiling and wall paintings; coincidentally it’ll be where I graduate), Surgeon’s Hall (where we got to see what Kay calls “all the gory bits”), Greyfriar’s Kirk, and Magdalen Chapel (which has the only pre-Reformation stained glass in all of Scotland). We then went over to the Hays for a lovely Mexican dinner and a few rounds of Cranium!

Sunday we went to church in the morning (the Stubbs’ newest baby was baptized!) and had a relaxing afternoon: Bryce worked some on trying to figure out the new program for our blog and I took a nap. We then went to the evening service where David’s preaching through Mark (that morning he finished his series on Ecclesiastes). We chatted a bit after the service and then were invited to the Randalls for a quick supper; it was lovely to hang out with them and not have to cook for another time that weekend!

This week I’m determined to get a lot of work done; it’s hard not having classes with things I ‘have’ to do. Anyway, I’m going to sit in on a seminar this term to keep me up to date on transatlantic theory and besides that I’ll be spending a lot of time in the National Library of Scotland. Bryce is off with David at the Rutherford House for a talk this morning. Then he’ll be spending lots of time studying for licensure and working on his sermon for next Sunday evening. I’ll be at the seminar and then the STAR seminar; we’ll have about 40 minutes to eat dinner together and then he’s off volunteering at a Christian cafe which ministers to international students. And I thought we’d be spending our Mondays together…oh well.

My student loan check for $7,000 was apparently mailed to me (at our Scotland address) about 2 weeks ago. It has yet to arrive, so I called today to check what the deal is. They said that according to their records the check has been cashed! Well I think I would have remembered cashing a check for $7,000 (even if that is only about 20 pounds :)) Just to be sure I checked our bank balance, and the combined balance of our checking and savings accounts is less than $7,000. So basically I owe the US governement $7,000 that I haven’t seen. Which sucks. Seriously. We have enough educational debt without having to pay back money we never spent. The people told me they were going to get a copy of the cashed check and endorsement and call me back. All I can say is they’d better have some good news!!!

Ok, Ash is gonna laugh at me for saying that, but it’s true. Now that autumn has sprung in Edinburgh, it’s pretty cold. Which means going around our flat barefoot is not an option. Wearing socks every waking hour irritates my ankles after a while, and my slippers don’t have heels, which means I can’t really get by with just those. So yeah, some UGGs would be a good option. Sorry to complain.

I know, another post in one day, what will happen next?

I just heard some interesting details about my first real teaching job, which shall remain nameless to protect the innocent. (I quit because I was moving to Scotland, but would’ve quit regardless…):
–The principal (who was the owner’s 26-year-old daughter with a business degree and no teaching experience) is “on vacation”
–The assistant principal (probably the only person who’s got her act together there) is now the principal
–The PE teacher (who my students said didn’t really teach them much and when I did a Taebo workshop one day, the students probably got more of a workout there than in her PE class) was fired. This is also the scary makeup lady!
–The computer teacher who couldn’t speak anything besides ghetto-ized English quit. She also wanted to take over the school, so her leaving is a good thing.
–My friend, Jim, who is smart and didn’t fit in at that school either (an English major in college who taught math) moved to New York - maybe to teach - I must track him down.
–The science teacher and Spanish teacher have stuck it out, as well as the English teacher (who replaced my replacement [who was fired]).

As you can see, the school wasn’t so great; but it provided me some experience and hopefully I brightened some lives in my year there. All in all, I’m more thankful than ever to be far away from all that mess!

Okay, so I have had two weeks of class and I have to say that this year looks to be much more enjoyable than last year. First of all, the social scene at the Free Church College has improved considerably, mostly due to what Spurgeon would have called ‘blessed subtractions’. Additionally, my lectures this year are very good. I have Principal Donald Macloed (who is the main reason to attend my seminary) for 2 lectures: Church History 2 (focusing on the church in Scotland beginning with John Knox) and Systematic Theology. His lectures are very enjoyable, and never cease to make me think. In addition to those 2 classes I have New Testament 1 and Hebrew. Hebrew is tough, I have to say. It’s written backwards and it’s all dots and squiggles. And it’s weird. And hard. But I’m enjoying it so far.

Besides all my normal class work I am writing my 10,000 word dissertation this year on Ecclesiology in the Scottish Reformed Tradition, and I am studying for licensure exams for the PCA, which I will sit when we are home in January. It all makes for a very busy year. I think my reading will be strictly limited to what I actually need to read for my essays, etc.

I am meeting with Prof. Macleod tomorrow to talk about my dissertation. He gave me a book to read last May and told me to come back and talk with him about it. Because of everything I was doing over the summer, I have only read the 1st chapter. Plus I’m supposed to give him a 500 word summary on what I plan to research and a preliminary bibliography. Good thing there was a lot of info in that 1 chapter I’ve read.

Aside from academic stuff, er, um…there’s not too much happening. I’m preaching at church in about 2 weeks (I’d better get on that). I’m planning on doing a redesign of our website, when I get to it. I think that’s about it for now. Leave us some comments so we know there’s someone out there.

Cheers!

Thoughts on America from the French thinker, Jean Baudrillard, in America (first published in French in 1986):

-”And that smile everyone gives you as they pass, that friendly contraction of the jaws triggered by human warmth…they certainly do smile at you here, though neither from courtesy, nor from an effort to charm. This smile signifies only the need to smile. It is a bit like the Cheshire Cat’s grin: it continues to float on faces long after all emotion has disappeared…but it keeps you at a distance…The smile of immunity, the smile of advertising…” (p 34, America)

-”The confrontation between America and Europe reveals not so much a ‘rapprochement’ as a distortion, an unbridgeable rift. There isn’t just a gap between us, but a whole chasm of modernity. You are born modern, you do not become so. And we have never become so. What strikes you immediately in Paris is that you are in the nineteenth century. Coming from Los Angeles, you land back in the 1800s. Every country bears a sort of historical predestination, which almost definitively determines its characterisitcs” (p 73, America)

-”Yes, California (and America with it) is the mirror of our decadence, but it is not decadent at all. It is hyperreal in its vitality, it has all the energy of the simulacrum. ‘It is the world centre of the inauthentic.’ Certainly it is: that is what gives it its orginality and power.
…
What is new in America is the clash of the first level (primitive and wild) and the ‘third kind’ (the absolute simulacrum). There is no second level. This is a situation we find hard to grasp, since this is the one we have always privileged: the self-reflexive, self-mirroring level, the level of unhappy consciousness. But no vision of America makes sense without this reversal of our values: it is Disneyland that is authentic here! The cinema and TV are America’s reality! The freeways, the Safeways, the skylines, speed, the deserts - these are America, not the galleries, churches, and culture…” (p 104, America)

What do you think about these observations? What are your thoughts on America?

you, dear reader, may now be privy to my wandering, stream of consciousness:

why i seem to need to sleep so much
why i have a cough like a smoker though i’ve never smoked (must be asthma)
why Christians forget about Jesus (well really I know, we’re sinful…)
why my eyes get tired
why i am a grammar snob (you can read this as deconstructing itself as i type without capitalisation; apparently late at night i also pull out lit theory, which no one understands)
why i think literature is amazing

if i’m smart enough to do this thing called a phd
if it’ll ever be ‘hot’ in scotland
if i’ll ever learn how to reflect the gospel in my day-to-day
if we’ll have kids ever
if i’ll put the effort in to maintain contact with old friends

where i’ll be in 3 years
where we’ll go on some vacation sometime
where friends and family will move to
where i’ll live–am i a city or a country mouse

what it will be like to go home for a month
what difference it would make if Christians lived out their faith in the west
what would happen to the western church if it were persecuted
what happens to those urbanites who never see the stars or nature for the city lights
what difference literature makes
what i’ll wear tomorrow (depending on sun, rain, wind–or all of the above)

who will hire me once i complete this phd in three years
who my life-long friends will be
who cares about talking, thinking, reading, writing
who will win the usa election
who reads our blog

I’ve been thinking lately how many people don’t live intentionally–they go to school, college, graduate, get a job, get married, buy a house, have kids, grow old, die–without too much thought about how we have one life to live. And if you’re a Christian our every thought, word, and deed should be directed somehow to glorifying God. Now, we’re sinners at heart, so we obviously don’t live up to this; nevertheless it is the purpose of our lives.

For instance, how does how you vote matter because you’re a Christian? How will buying a bigger house, relocating, pursuing further study, changing jobs, having kids, help you to get one step closer to having your heart and mind transformed into the likeness of Christ? And if these things won’t pull you to Christ, there’s not much point to them ultimately. Seeking to glorify Christ and see things based on a Christian worldview, we often make decisions that look stupid from the outside–choosing suffering and servanthood instead of success in its various guises.

And there’s obviously lots of things of life that we overlook and get into a rut of routine without considering an action’s wider impact. But, do you think about your life and how your actions fit into something larger than yourself? And what is it that you do without thinking?