"Fearless" is just another way of saying "Stupid"

I am fairly certain that I am somewhere in the range of five feet, six inches tall. I also weigh one hundred and eighty pounds, and am fairly athletic. So, when the call went out for a game of pumpkin rugby, I was delighted.

For those of you who are not in the loop, rugby is kind of like soccer with tackling and no forward passing (and you carry the ball), or like football without the full suits of body armor or thirty-second breaks every ten seconds.

It is, in short, death. And a lot of fun at that.

We were playing with thirteen people per team (usually fifteen), and it is called pumpkin rugby because you use pumpkins instead of rugby balls.

The twenty-six people form some rough semblance of two lines facing each other, just like in football, and then the game starts.

Well, our "team" was playing the actual rugby team (motto: "many deaths, one life"), so we were slaughtered before we started. I had more rugby experience than most people on our team, so I was a starter, and I am both decently fast and decently strong, so I was put on the far right wing.

Trouble started immediately, when ten of our thirteen people began rushing the ball carrier. This happened a few times, and possessions were going back and forth, when it happened. Patrick Swanson. He literally has fourteen inches and about a hundred pounds on me, and generally just carries those who try to tackle him as far as he feels like. He lined up right in front of me, and I have one other person within twenty feet.

So, they passed him the ball.

My whole team now begins to run this direction, but it's a bit late for me: I have two options. One, I can just get out of his way, or two, I can attempt to tackle him the way a bowling pin tackles the ball.

I chose the latter, figuring I could at least slow him down enough to prevent their team from getting a try (goal).

I did. I hit him low, just below the waist, and as hard as I could. I was literally thrown backwards, landed on my head and then on my feet, and by the time I had re-oriented myself, he had been tackled by the loyal (if belated) rat-pack of ten teammates, and there was thunderous (or at least somewhat loudish) cheering, I presume for my suicidal charge or for his Kevorkianesque assist.

I figured, due to rather severe nausea, that something was wrong, so I subbed out. By that time, I realized that it wasn't my knee, but rather my shoulder that was hurting. I had full sensation and motion and all of that jazz from the elbow down, but I had no ability to move my arm from the shoulder to the elbow.

So, Gretchen Rice (using my shears, I might add) cut my shirt off, and I literally saw that my shoulder was quite dislocated (qua: forcefully ripped from its socket and less than pleasantly relocated in the vicinity of my armpit). A friend offered to put it back in the socket. I had just landed on my head at an uncomfortably rapid rate of transit, so I agreed. When I woke up, I was seated in a chair and about to vomit from the pain (did I mention that this hurt?).

So, I went to the hospital, where I was given four mg's IV dilaudid by a staggeringly beautiful nurse, and was then shown the location of the head of the ball of the ball and socket joint, which I could feel just between the deltoid and the pectoral. The doctor said that it was a "rather horrific" dislocation, and the nurse placed me at a ten on the pain scale, though I would have done Holly proud and never went above a six.

So, they put me under a general anesthesia, and put the shoulder back in. I woke up quoting John Donne and asking Holly if she wanted a tingle touch. I'm still trying to get some more of whatever drug they used.

So, here I am, typing with my left arm on a swivel sling (I undid the body-strap), and in retrospect I have to say, I wouldn't have changed a thing.

Rowling is slightly queer...

J. K. Rowling, authorette of the famous Harry Potter series, just held some type of press conference in Carnegie Hall, announcing that yes, Dumbledore should have been played by Ian McKellan. He is gay.

This is what lay behind the deep angst at overthrowing whomever that evil wizard was (not Voldemort, the one who had the wand): they were lovers.

Deeply touched as I am at this new depth of feeling and complexity within one of the greatest characters of this story, I cannot restrain an odd sense of glee at how much I disliked the last book when it finally came out. As well as being disappointed that I'm still going to go see the movies when they come out, and will probably enjoy them.

Oh well. C'est la vie.

Jerusalem Term Grades

Grading system (low to high): M, MCS, CS, SCS, MCH, CH, SCH, CL, SCL.

Latin: MCS
Rhetoric: CH
Math: SCH
Lordship: SCH

MCS is the lowest passing grade offered, which did not surprise me in the least, but I am slowly improving, and hope for an SCS to a CH this term.

CH is roughly a "B", and SCH is a high "B".

In our Rhetoric class (Nate Wilson's), we had one SCL, which is a high "A", no CL's, six from MCH to SCH, and twenty-seven M's. The other's (maybe twenty?) were in the CS range. At the fall banquet (where we received our grades), the upperclassmen put on a news-style presentation of the various absurdities of the year: "In other news, Nate Wilson flunked yet another class of Freshman Rhetoric Papers, stating that: 'They smelled funny.'" A couple Freshman laughed, but never will again.

In Lordship, I almost got a CL, but I missed one of three oral questions (ten minutes for each question, so you are expected to know City of God, Confessions, On the Incarnation, The Institutes, and all class discussions inside out.).

Math, there is really nothing to report. I aced the midterm (about one hundred and six percent) and got a high "C" on the final.

So, Latin is the great enemy to be conquered this term.

Blessings,
Jesse Broussard

Christ and Abram

Genesis 12 contains the story of Abram visiting Egypt and claiming that his wife was his sister. I don't want to get involved in the morality of his half-lie (for which/in spite of which he was blessed), but rather to look at the reversal of this in the life of Christ.

Abram had a beautiful wife and he claimed that she was his sister so that he would not be killed. Christ had a hideous bride, and she, pining for slavery, claimed that He was her brother (human), not her groom (God). When He would not go along with her lie, she killed him so that she could run off with the Egyptians.

The Bloodless Covenant of Marriage?

O. Palmer Robertson has a book (that we are reading) called The Christ of the Covenants. In it, he defines a covenant as "an oath in blood sovereignly administered", the blood referring both to the gravity of the covenant and to the fact that it is usually accompanied, usually initiated, by a sacrifice.

The point that I want to get to is the covenant of marriage, as it is one of the few "bloodless" covenants in Scripture, or so it is labeled.

In my opinion, this nomenclature is absurd.

One of the points that Robertson raises in this book is that the phrase "to make a covenant" would more appropriately be rendered "to cut a covenant". The first marriage covenant was accomplished by God (the sovereign administration) cutting open the side of Adam and creating the necessary (don't tell the Episcopals) component for marriage. The archetypal marriage--that of Christ and the church--is the same thing: the side is opened, and out flow the two sacraments, the two signs of the church, blood and water. And we refer to marriages as bloodless?

"The life of the flesh is in the blood", and the life of the one flesh union is in the one blood that is shared. If there is no one blood, the union is death and merely joins rotting flesh.

Suicidal Love and a Proper Response

There is an absolute and glorious security (yes, it's a Calvinistic doctrine) in the fact that we cannot fail God: before He laid the foundation of the world, He knew, indeed, He ordained every sin and flaw within us. He could have made us otherwise, but He did not. Not only did He not make us otherwise; He died for us as we were so that we might one day be as He is.

There is an element of truly suicidal fearlessness in this Love. It is a Love that not only looks at the hammer poised to drive the nail into its hand, but also designed the hammer, the nail, the one who wields them, and in such a way that there could be no doubt as to the end of the story.

Why? For His own Glory, Love has done this.

So, when we again raise the hammer, let us repent in proper awe. Let us realize that God knew an eternity before we did that we would raise the hammer and that we would lower it as well, and, far from reconsidering creating us, decided to honor us by glorifying Himself through our sins as well as our sanctification. Let us glorify Him as God, and let us give Him thanks.

Incomplete Raw Emotion

'Tis but one voice I long to hear, and it alone can speak
Of hospitals and ice chips, or home, a cup of tea;
Tingle touches, sleepless nights, chapstick and the beach,
Looney Tunes and Tortoise Shell, my hands upon her feet:
Hiraeth
is dead.

Were you not told? Go home. It's over, All has died.
God's tomb we cannot find, for out of reach of mortal man,
Beyond earth, sky and sea it lies.

Oh foolish earth! Why do you turn? Did you not hear?
She's dead.
Do you think it matters now, the moonlight and the green?
Her eyes are shut, the moss and clay eclipsed forever be;
Why do you turn?

Accursed sun! I saw you die; are you blind that you don't see?
I held her hand at world's end,
So stop! It's done, complete.

No more her flaming hair to light; why shine you still?
Her eyes you will not find, her smile you cannot see.
Her cat-scarred hands and dappled face we buried on a hill,
Bared feet facing you each morn, midst rivers, sky and sea.
Did you not hear?
She's dead.

Yet, should you hear, should you go black, yet still you would not see;
For God has died, but is not dead: so Holly too shall be.
Have you not heard?
Two voices still I long to hear, that soon, to me, shall speak.

Christ as David

All of this is stolen from Leithart (you can use my link to browse his site).

The genealology in Matthew is vastly different from the somewhat more literal one in Luke, and and one of the reasons is that it is showing Christ as the new David: the name "David" in Hebrew has three letters, daleth, vav, and daleth again, which adds up to a total numerical value of fourteen (Jews didn't use our Hindu-Arabic numeral system, or Roman numerals. To them, Alef was one, Bet was two, Gimmel was three, Daleth four, and so on, so any word was also a string of numbers). The genealogy has three sections (the three letters) of fourteen generations each (the numerical value of the name): fourteen generations from Abraham to David, from David to the captivity, and from the captivity to Christ (note that it is a genealogy of kings, and that the entire family of Ahab is missing, to the third generation).

Kline and Zechariah

In his highly anticipated (by the NSA oppressed among me) book Glory in our Midst (a commentary-ish thingamabobber on Zechariah), Kline, after a series of brilliant points, missed the one central point that I have ever gathered from that particular book.

When the rider (Christ) is mentioned as being among or between the trees, there is a ton of symbolism. Yes, the trees represent the people of God in front of the sea of their enemies, and no, I didn't see it. Yes, the trees (Myrtles are evergreens) represent the verse in Revelation speaking of the trees of life. Don't recall seeing that one either. Yes, the menorahs, yes the olive trees, and no, I didn't see any of these either.

However, the central theme of God between trees in all of Scripture is when He Is on a tree, and that is a symbol that Kline inexplicably (and almost inexcusably) misses in this vision.

We Long for Life but Cling to Death

The people of God tend to grow in a very set and formulaic pattern (this is obviously vastly simplified): a shadow of life, its death, and life born out of that death. The problems come when we attach ourselves to the shadow of life, and after its death constantly return to it, seeking its resurrection, instead of accepting the loss (however devastating) as a gift of God, bestowed upon us to make way for something new and better.

No intelligent farmer digs his seeds up daily to reminisce with them: they exist for death, and that death exists for life.

Homeward

I am finished with all of my finals: two rhetoric, two math, two Latin, and two and a half Lordship. I believe that I passed all of them, but only time will tell.

I head home tomorrow morning, and will see you all very soon.

I can hardly wait.

Just waiting for the oral...

Passed the Latin written final. Not well, but I passed it, which is (currently) all that matters. Studying for math, gotta go.

Plans

I will be heading home with another NSA freshman, Stephen Sproul (not rhyming with "roll", but pronounced, as Nate Wilson will never let him forget, "Sprowl"), on Thursday morning, leaving around 5:00 A.M.

I should arrive home that night, and will be available for fish tacos and beer, wine and poetry, movie nights and church that weekend and the following week, but will most likely leave Saturday to return to NSA.

That is my most recent set of plans, as they change, I will know, and may inform someone else should I feel so inclined.

Evil

We had a nice discussion on the origin, nature, and end of evil today (Declamation in Lordship), and I have come to slightly modify my view.

The end of evil is nothingness, which I have held for a long time. The nature of evil is always progressing towards its end, the only variation being the rate: amble downhill or swan dive off a cliff?

The origin is somewhat new. I hadn't considered it until I hit the later portions of City of God, in which Augustin(e) discusses it to some rather considerable length. He was still obfuscating "round about a meaning" a hundred pages after my attention span had begun dwelling upon exactly what our carpet might taste like (rather dry; needs vacuuming).

It's somewhat of a chicken or the egg quandary, so let me try out a few axioms, a la Euclid, though it will probably work as well as a la Descartes: "cogito, ergo sum. Cogito? Cogito cogito, ergo...um...ergo cogito? Ita. Cogito, ergo cogito. Cogito. Cogito? Sed..." This is why Descartes started using heroin.

Axioms:
1). God freely and unalterably ordained whatsoever comes to pass.
2). Evil came to pass.
3). "aardvark" is one of the great words of the English language.
4). Creation was "all very good".

And here is one that I would propose, but may or may not fly with all of you. If you can disprove it, I'll think of something amusing to do when I feel like it.

5). All that exists is for the glory of God.

So, we know that God is responsible for evil, and we know that He is not the author of it.

We also know that it came to pass sometime between the initial creatio ex nihilo of Genesis 1:2 and the 2nd chapter of Genesis.

If we accept axim #5, and we go by Isaiah 14, then this is what we can say so far as Satan is concerned: He was created to glorify the infinite God, and chose, in the perfect plan and will of God, to glorify his finite self.

He failed.

The chicken or the egg (obviously the chicken) is here: God created Satan, and all of God's creation was all very good. Evil comes from evil desires (namely pride), but where do the evil desires come from? A shift of focus from God to self. Is that not evil in itself? Then where did it come from? Evil desires. And so on and on it goes. At this point, I'd like to mention that my brain is full, and Satan sinned, so tace, and we'll move on.

The movement of evil from infinite good to the absolute negation that it ends up with is not surprising, considering what the first movement of evil is: a decision to glorify the finite self over the infinite God.

This is all I feel like writing at the moment; interesting things to dwell upon are the distinctions between different types of evil: "natural" disasters, evil objects, evil actions, and evil desires.

Blessings.

Schedule

I have my final exams scheduled, and my last one appears to be over at 9:00 am on Wednesday. It is my hope to make it to church on Sunday at the Pierce's, and it looks quite feasible.

All other things are going well, save choir and Latin, which are going--well, which are going. I should be caught up in Latin by Monday, but, I shouldn't have ever gotten behind. If only learning didn't take work, I, well, even if it didn't take work I probably still wouldn't bother with it, but I need something to complain about. Gotta have a scapegoat. I learned that one from Girard, but it wasn't on purpose, so it doesn't count.

Sublimely Blessed

I would not have thought it possible, but I currently appear to be holding between an SCH and a CL in all of my classes, though Latin will take a great deal of work to maintain.

The readings I have not found to be too difficult; this week was the hardest yet with just under 500 pages in the City of God (now finished), along with 250 in rhetoric and another 100 or so in math, all within the same week, most within the same two days, one of which was an unpleasant day regardless.

I will be posting my rough draft on Augustine's view of Genesis 1:1-2 pretty soon.

All in all, I am delighted. I have rarely had as purely glorious a time as I have been having as of late. The one complaint is that I am here without all of you, instead of here with all of you. This can be easily solved, however. Just move.

Please continue to keep me in your prayers, and I thank you that you have done so thus far. My desire is to glorify God in my life, and He is Gracious and Compassionate in giving me this desire. Pray that I learn to be faithful and disciplined, so that I may be a better reflection of His Son. Also join my roommates in praying that I learn how to cook.

What more to say? This culture is a different world, one that glorifies life, joy and wisdom. It is very much like the church family in Ferndale, just a lot more people, all of whom slaughter me in basketball.

I love and miss you all more than I can say. I hope to be returning about Friday of finals week; I'm done a bit earlier than most. Four more weeks, and I hope to see my church again.

Thank you all again.

In Him,
Jesse Broussard

One for Brooke

This is a sample of my Rhetoric Professor's words of wisdom. Just pray that he never finds them...

(Speaking of some girls) They seem to think: "I don't really have to do well in my classes. I'm just here to find a mate".

and: "If you watch stupid movies, listen to stupid music, write a stupid blog, congratulations, you are stupid."

The last time I laughed in class as hard as I do in rhetoric class every week, I was bodily escorted from the room.

More from my commonplace book

If you haven't read "The Importance of Being Earnest" in the past week or so, your life is truly being wasted. Live a little. The movie is great too, save the momentary glimpse of the female nether regions being tattooed.

Here are a few snippets from the book. Enjoy!

I believe it (marriage) is a very pleasant state, sir. I have had very little experience of it myself up to the present. I have only been married once. That was in consequence of a misunderstanding between myself and a young person.

I don't really see anything romantic in proposing. It is very romantic to be in love. But there is nothing romantic about a definite proposal. Why, one may be accepted. One usually is, I believe. The excitement is then over. The very essence of romance is uncertainty. If I ever get married, I'll certainly try to forget the fact.

To lose one parent, Mr. Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.

For Heaven's sake, don't try to be cynical. It's perfectly easy to be cynical.

"Your brother Ernest is dead?"
"Quite dead."
"What a lesson for him! I trust he will profit by it."

A couple from Augustin(e)

You stir us up to take delight in your praise; for you have made us for yourself, and our heart is restless till it finds its rest in you.

...seeking to gain nothing through my disgrace but disgrace alone.

Through my desires I suffered the most bitter struggles, and you looked mercifully upon me--all the more so in that you did not allow me to find sweetness in anything that was not you.

Woe to my reckless soul, which hoped, if it departed from you, to gain something better! It tossed and turned on to its back, its sides, its stomach, but the bed was hard throughout, and you alone are rest.

Free will (is) the reason why we commit evil, and your righteous judgment the reason why we suffer it.

Let no man say to him, "What is this?" or "Why is this?" Let him not say it. Let him not say it. He is a man.

All that is, then, is good. As for evil, whose origin I was seeking, it is not a substance, since if it were a substance, it would be good.

Virtue and vice are not the same, even if they undergo the same torment. The fire which makes the gold shine makes the chaff smoke; the same flail breaks up the straw, and clears the grain; and oil is not mistaken for lees because both are forced out by the same press...the wicked, under pressure of affliction, execrate God and blaspheme; the good, in the same affliction, offer up prayers and praises.

I am certain of this, that no one has died who was not going to die at some time, and the end of life reduces the longest life to the same condition as the shortest...The only thing that makes death an evil is what comes after death. Those who must inevitably die ought not to worry overmuch about what accident will cause their death, but about their destination after dying.

Thus you refuse to be held responsible for the evil that you do, while you hold the Christian era responsible for the evil which you suffer!...Prosperity depraved you, and adversity could not reform you...you have become the most wretched, and you have remained the most worthless, of mankind.

Stupidity glories in never yielding to the force of truth.

"Grant me chastity and continence", I had said, "but please, not yet."

How sweet it suddenly was to me to be deprived of all the sweets of frivolity, and what a joy to throw away what I had feared to lose.

And woe even to men who live a praiseworthy life, if you should sift them without mercy! But as you do not enquire relentlessly into our sins, we hope and trust to have some place in you. Bit if one should enumerate before you his true good deeds, what is he enumerating but your gifts to him? Would that men would learn that they are men, and that "he who boasts would boast in the Lord!"

We may pass over the speculations about the nature and origin of the human race that have been put forward by men who do not know what they are talking about.

No one therefore must try to get to know from me what I know that I do not know, unless, it may be, in order to learn not to know what must be known to be incapable of being known.

Couple racist jokes

Please forward these to Jonathan Ashbach. They are from the Foucachon family here at NSA.

"You've never heard of a French Army Knife? It has a dinner fork, a dessert fork, a cheese knife, and a napkin that doubles as a really small white flag."
--David Foucachon (he's 1st gen. French, so complain to him)

And a comment to the aforementioned Frenchman:

"You can't give blood. What if they gave it to a person who caught a cold? Every cell in their body would give up and die as soon as your blood touched them."