"It is time to stop pretending that Europeans and Americans share a common view of the world, or even that they occupy the same world. On the all-important question of power — the efficacy of power, the morality of power, the desirability of power — American and European perspectives are diverging. Europe is turning away from power, or to put it a little differently, it is moving beyond power into a self-contained world of laws and rules and transnational negotiation and cooperation. It is entering a post-historical paradise of peace and relative prosperity, the realization of Kant’s “Perpetual Peace.” The United States, meanwhile, remains mired in history, exercising power in the anarchic Hobbesian world where international laws and rules are unreliable and where true security and the defense and promotion of a liberal order still depend on the possession and use of military might. That is why on major strategic and international questions today, Americans are from Mars and Europeans are from Venus: They agree on little and understand one another less and less. And this state of affairs is not transitory — the product of one American election or one catastrophic event. The reasons for the transatlantic divide are deep, long in development, and likely to endure. When it comes to setting national priorities, determining threats, defining challenges, and fashioning and implementing foreign and defense policies, the United States and Europe have parted ways."
-- Robert Kagan: "Power and Weakness," Online Policy Review
http://www.policyreview.org/JUN02/kagan.html
The hydrangeas were indeed brittle.
And how can one blame them?
The frost had sucked their sap
from ovary and leaf deep down to roots.
Stems, therefore, stems
snapped and broke despite my care.
Apologies for careless rake!
Sorry for my feet which break
your limbs, and for my blood
which pumps more warmly
than your own!
But how can one apologize
to a hydrangea?
They snapped, I raked.
Their shattered visages testified
to my clumsy vandalism,
and me, me wondering how come.
a list of women in the Biblical narrative who don't seem to fit traditional gender norms. Do they behave appropriately? I'm thinking about poetry, gender, and Europe these days. This would be a gender post. Yes. Hmm. Specifically, I'm wondering about a friend who says that gender roles aren't laid forth in the Bible's teaching about family, per se. This friend says they're laid out in the created order, not limited to the family sphere but influencing in a normative way the spheres of family, church, and state. This makes me uncomfortable, so I'm thinking.
Eve, mother of mankind
Sarah, mother of Isaac
Rachel and Leah, sisters who marry Jacob
Tamar, daughter-in-law of Judah
Rahab, survivor of Jericho
Deborah, judge of Israel
Naomi, mother-in-law of Ruth
Ruth, wife of Boaz
Abigail, wife of Nabal, then of David
Esther, queen of Persia
Elizabeth, mother of John
Mary, mother of Jesus
the woman of Luke 7
Mary and Martha
Priscilla
Going to work
I passed a house
with sirens, lights, policemen
and paramedics.
Something was not right:
no one was urgent:
no one was talking.
Run, man! Leap past those bushes and thwart!
Run, oh! Please rush through that door and heal!
The cold, dull sense
of too late
of too bad
of detached insufficiency
curled around my belly.
I drove on.
Coming home from work
we meet again,
this house and I.
This house is grand
but hiding behind white siding
not grand when it was new,
and it is no longer new.
Upstairs a light
behind pale curtains,
out back furniture
made of green plastic,
towards the front
one solitary satellite dish
collecting signals
from a man-made moon:
these are the trappings
of a life that was ended.
Whoosh. I turn
up a familiar street and the house retreats
into rearview mirrors.
I am in a trance:
hearing violins where there are no violins,
tasting ashes where there are no ashes,
thinking someone has died,
but no one I know.
Wondering who was left behind
with the weathered siding,
the sad lamplight,
the still furniture,
the oblivious dish.
I just read
Parliament members are thinking about changing the system. Towards the end of the article, however, someone attempted to put things in a positive light by reminding everyone that at least the hearings had rejected vertain nominees from Latvia and Hungary. What?! It seems to me that the real issue uncovered here might not be the faulty process, but a different application of that process to France as opposed to Eastern European nations. Perhaps this reflects a western bias – it would be no surprise if this were true. Then again, the EU parliament may very well be so out of touch with the EU that it doesn't reflect anything significant at all.
This is part of a new blog focus for me: understanding Europe. Feel free to jump in the conversation with both feet, since you most likely know more than I do about Europe. It's politics are something that will become important for me and also something that most Americans don't really care about. (Also, I'm not sure I made that hyperlink at the top of the page correctly. Here goes nothing.)
Got back Monday night from West Virginia - tired but happy. I worked eleven hours yesterday and will work ten today, so forgive the scarsity of these blog posts. :)
I'm learning to just pick up the phone and call people. Isn't that a strange lesson? I never realized how intimidating (and yet how rewarding) staying in touch with people can be. It's like standing on your chair in a crowd of nervous people and saying something ridiculous. Loudly. Very intimidating, but it puts people at ease.
Hmmm. I think there's something to that, actually. Technology and long-distance relationships make a lot of older people nervous, because they oftentimes aren't used to them. Their frame of reference involves close community, letter-writing, home visits, going into town. My frame of reference involves international calling cards, email, and cell phones. These things are scary, but what are we to do? We've got to embrace 'em in order to cope with a rapidly globalizing society.
This one comes from J, upon seeing me having an after-work snack:
"Beer and pie? Why? Why?
"...
"Beer and me? Whee! Whee!"
So I took a walk today. I've been thinking and talking a lot lately about the different emphases our traditions place on different aspects of the Christian walk. I walked all across St. Elmo via Florida, mostly: from the south side where I live out past the St. Elmo cemetery towards Alton Park. Seems like we really have to emphasize something (like personal piety) in order to start putting our money where our mouths are. Funny thing is, the more we emphasize it, the more we risk excluding other areas (like social justice or sound doctrine). And vice versa.
Well, I stopped by the post office and turned around, thinking about the friends I have who are very concerned about loving post-monderns and about the global church in our global society, but who don't score highly at all on personal piety. There ought to be some kind of mutual edification between these groups, instead of competition and judgment, doncha think? Or is it better to emphasize one thing and get the others wrong, rather than to be faced with the immensity of holiness and right living and be consequently overwhelmed, all the time?
I went to China Express and ordered some take-out, since I never know who might drop by when I'm not working. I started thinking a bit about the friends and friends-of-friends I know who are in the hospital right now. By now, the sun had set and the night was turning cooler. Being cooped up in a hospital for tests and surgery feel like being in a time capsule: it's awful. You miss out on seeing the sun run its course, feeling the seasons change, sensing the passage of time in the lives of important people. I hope time is kind to those folks I know in medical stir.
There are some houses in St. Elmo that belong on some cheap beach, somewhere. You know, the wooden facades, the party lights that never come down off the porch but that are rarely turned on, the belongings strewn across the front steps beach-bum style? Then there are some that belong on some shady, quiet avenue lines with Tennyson's immemorial elms. I think the Halls' house is one of these. Some need repairs and some don't. Some are new. Some are old. And we have such a variety of trees! I love living in such a diverse neighborhood.
I'm realizing that most lf the things I pondered and prayed about on my walk are private things. I guess that's all I have to say about them, right now. I ought to take more walks, more often.
breakfast again
time's turning
beyond the point of last departure
unscheduled stop
for bran flakes
this morning cold sunshine arrives
time to turn over my cold engine
felicity expounded
holy Spirit, come
...or maybe worth giving as Christmas gifts? Hmmm.
Think the Dancers Mad, by Madison Greene
Share the Well, by Caedmon's Call
Piano Solos, by Dustin O'Halloran
I went running this morning. Since I didn't take a watch, I was focusing on other details (trees, children, breathing) and my run ended up being much shorter. Nice and double-nice.
As a result, I came around the home stretch of Alabama after chatting with Rachel and stopped dead in my tracks. There's a whole line of Bradford pears that haven't changed one whit! I mean, they're the color of July grass! What gives?
This is a comment posted in response to another coment posted on another guy's blog. So there is context, but it isn't neccessary...
Ok, I'm offended. Here's why:
"Hey, in eternity, you won't be married or marry, and life is a whiffe of time, a mist, so it won't be long till eternity comes, on the other hand, eternity is a long time, so why not be married while on the earth, and raise a bunch of God loving children to make a ministry and help fill up the lambs book of life like you when you leave this earth? filling up the book. that is what it is all about."
It certainly is all about filling up the book AND testifying to the coming of the kingdom whether people get saved or not (I'm not sure this person would agree). But it is a COP-freaking-OUT to say, "Oh, I do this by having children. I don't actually reach out to hurting, hungry, or heathen people in Jesus' name. I just reach out by bearing kids and raising them up to be privileged, insular, holy people who are successful."
No, it's not a cop-out. It's a sin. And saying that implies that I am in the wrong because I'm choosing singleness right now. There are godly women dripping like sap from pine trees up at Covenant right now and I'm choosing the poverty-stricken world of Islam, for crying out loud. Officially offended I am. Mental image: Yoda at his angriest.
Minus the ears.
Thanks for letting me rant.
Here's what I gathered from BBC online news. None of it inspires much hope. Pray harder than you are right now. Love, Bob.
* Rebels take up positions in the heart of nearby Ramadi, after US troops withdraw from the city, a former insurgent stronghold
* Iraq's largest Sunni-led political party, the Iraqi Islamic Party, pulls out of the interim government in protest at the Falluja assault
* The main association of Sunni clerics calls for a boycott of elections due in January
* The United Nations refugee agency and the International Committee of the Red Cross express concern about the civilians in Falluja
* A suspected car bomb hits an Iraqi National Guard base near the northern city of Kirkuk
* Rebels attack police stations in Baquba, north of Baghdad, wounding a number of officers
* Two US soldiers are killed in a mortar attack at their base in the northern city of Mosul, the US military says
If you could pop in my kitchen right now, you could tell that j.krue was here this weekend. I just slipped two pies in the oven and am currently blogging on an iMac while jamming to Tori AMos. Right now Tori's singing Happy Phantom.
The pies are a new recipe, mostly pumpkin and evaporated milk. Also all the regular spices in more or less standard proportions, plus dry mustard, cocoa, vanilla, hazelnut syrup, and some cognac. Woohoo! I hope it turns out.
By the way, does one or does one not glaze pumpkin pie crusts with egg yolk?
Yes, I have returned from Hotlanta. It's nice coming home to Chattanooga, kindof like a wife. I was thinking of a great post last night, entitled "Ain't Love Grand?" But somehow I ended up posting a to-do list for myself, forgetting in the process what the post was all about. Ah, the absentmindedness of the Bob!
Today I'm making some very intimidating calls to pastoral folks. Think of me.
And we're back. I'm back. Back in the saddle.
Here's my current to-do list:
Go get the police report for Mike's insurance company.
Write three poems for Natalie
Call my WV pastor
Drop by and visit my new pastor
Earn $350 this week
Exercise
Do the dishes
Pick clothes up from dry cleaning
Write letters to at least a score of people I know who've gotten married in the last year
Make Jello
Organize MTW papers
Write bio and take digital picture of self
Clean my room
Get my Bible re-bound