forever young
everyone's out crabbing, or something. what i know is they went off to the lighthouse to get mussels and they'll be using them to catch crabs. in light of their decision, i've decided to stay here. something about having a whole bucketful dumped on my back when i was younger created an irrational fear. the part it being an irrational fear is the fact that it never actually happened. it was a dream. so i'm staying at the house because i don't like crabs.
california
it's been fun being here. were staying with mikes parents.today we went on. day trip, we drove to Carmel with my patents to visit some beautiful spots overlooking the ocean. we went to a village there and got the best salt pretzel I've ever had. it tasted like it was baked with sweetbread. were going on another daytrip tomorrow.
I guess we weresupposed to go to a mountain house, but they got FIVE feet of snow. guess that plan died. it's fun to bop around on short trips either way.
I've gotten a little homesick being here, mostly because I enjoy having my own space, and I miss some friends. it's been great being able to be with adrienne so much, its such a special time for us.
anyways, hope all is well with you all.
-steve
:)
i'm engaged. so is adrienne. if i ever find him, i'll kill him.i said that yesterday...
now there's about 16 broken mirrors and my hand is bleeding.
at a protest
this protest sign caught my attention.ecclesiates 10:19
A feast is made for laughter,
and wine makes life merry,
but money is the answer for everything.
i'm famous
or infamous. whichever you prefer. but onto the original intent of this message. i love it in television shows when i spot an actor wearing clothes i own, or clothes from gap... cuz they're one in the same. anywho, check it out ya'll.
:)
i haven't done a lot of posting on this blog because i've been doing a lot of writing for my other blog recently.the semester is coming to a close... i still have a lot of stuff to do, and procrastination is oh so sweet.
life in technicolor ii
the video may or may not go down in the future, but youtube search it or buy the album. i'm really digging it... it's great without the lyrics, but i enjoy having something to sing along with. :)
civil religion
i wrote this essay in the beginning of november about american civil religion. there's a lot more i could expound on... and probably will in the future, but for now, i think it's a decent base. the first paragraph is about an illustration we had to write something "sensibly sociological" about.The illustration from PostSecret, which reads: “I pretend to be religious because I want my life to have meaning,” speaks volumes to living within the nomos, the need to feel meaningful ongoingness in the face of meaninglessness, and externalization. There is also a corollary statement: “I pretend my life has meaning because I want to be religious,” which should also be considered because it speaks of the human-conceived cosmos as something that requires alienation in order for theodicy to offer explanation of the cosmos, which serves as a guardian against anomy, and promotes world maintenance to sustain the nomos.
Bellah places significance on the locations Kennedy chooses to reference God in his speech: in the two opening paragraphs and in the closing paragraph, which he argues provides “a sort of frame for more concrete remarks that form the middle part of the speech.” The references are found in many presidential pronouncements. Because they are not usually found in the draft stages, it is safe to assume they are added later, thereby bringing to the forefront that it is not part of the president’s agenda to push private religious belief, but rather demonstrates the saturation of civil religion.
Entering into Berger’s shade under The Sacred Canopy, one senses that there is a need for meaningful ongoingness in the face of meaninglessness. In response, Bellah states, “Though the will of the people as expressed in the majority vote is carefully institutionalized as the operative source of political authority, it is deprived of an ultimate significance. The will of the people is not itself the criterion of right and wrong. There is a higher criterion in terms of which this will can be judged; it is possible that the people may be wrong. The president’s obligation extends to the higher criterion.” (Emphasis added) The will of the masses is deprived of ultimate significance and it is the president’s duty to point to a higher criterion of significance. Uniquely, the presidential role provides allegory for theodicy: “the dimension of political life as recognized by Kennedy not only provides a grounding for the rights of man that makes any form of political absolutism illegitimate, it also provides a transcendent goal for the political process.” (Emphasis added)
The sacred text of the cosmos, the Declaration of Independence, is the fuel of presidential theodicy, witnessed through Jefferson: “All the political sentiments I entertain have been drawn, so far as I have been able to draw them, from the sentiments which originated in and were given to the world from this Hall. I have never had a feeling, politically, that did not spring from the sentiments embodied in the Declaration of Independence.” In fact, Bellah points out that the declaration mentions God four times: first, “’Laws of nature and of Nature’s God’ that entitle any people to be independent.” Second, “all men ‘are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights.’ Here Jefferson is locating the fundamental legitimacy of the new nation in a conception of ‘higher law’ that is itself based on both classical natural law and biblical religion.” He goes on to talk about the constitution saying that God will both “protect the divine Providence,” and judge the world for its actions. More accurately, the Declaration of Independence is theodicy, and the president is a physical embodiment of that theodicy. A theodicy with feet.
Starting with the president as the theodicy with feet, other parts of the metaphor must naturally follow, namely, the cosmos and the nomos. The nomos of civil religion consists of individuals who, while they may participate to a small extent in the exercise of government, they are very much a part of every day civilian life, influenced by governmental changes. The government in civil religion plays the part of a “sub”-cosmos. While they recognize that there is a higher authority governing them, Kennedy referenced in his speech, they operate as a sub-cosmos underneath the greater cosmos.
Take for example, the cosmos-given rituals of the nomos: Memorial Day, Veterans Day, and Independence Day. The annual practice of these rituals gives light to the ongoingness of the nomos. When disaster strikes, these rituals say planted as beacons of hope that everything will go back to the way it should be. The most interesting note to point out about these rituals is that they were created, just as the seats of power in government. The individuals of the nomos collectively forget what they had created, and exist to provide function for. These rituals work because of alienation.
Civil religion is a religion, not because of the beliefs and rituals contained within it, but rather because it fits into the explanation of what religion does: it provides comfort in the face of shattering events through world maintenance.
won't embed
youtube won't let me embed this. but you should watch it anyway.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hksil-KkebQ
coldplay
although their album is way better, i very much enjoy coldplay's new follow up ep to their album viva la vida. nice guys... nice. :)prospekt's march
awards
i don't often win contests... but today in my civil rights class, our professor asked the students to nominate both a girl and a guy who they thought were the best contributors to the class discussion. i was nominated. outstanding. i enjoyed all of my classes this semester, they were a lot of hard work, but well worth the time and effort. i learned a good amount this semester, both inside my classes and outside.our professor gave me a book with a personalized note in it. the book is titled "leading with soul." he explained to us that he always likes to have us leave the class learning more and hopes we will. i know i won't stop. it seems cliche to say that we never stop learning, but it is true. and i mean it.
faith
i just had a new thought about faith. it's when something:hits the head, hits the heart, hits the streets.
what do you think?
open question:
can faith be socialized and still be legitimate?stay tuned as my answer is in development, but i'd like to hear your thoughts if you have them.
today
i was asked a question: how could i be a devout christian and fit into berger's model of defining religion? as you may recall, or follow the link to read - which would be far more helpful - berger basically says that we can sustain meaningful ongoingness is because we forget that we created the means by which meaningful ongoingness is sustained.in essence, the question asked: is berger's model self-defeating? does it ultimately collapse because the believer of the model has to forget that the model exists in order for it to be successful?
to some degree: yes. but ultimately, the answer is no. especially in the case of someone like me.
i subscribe to berger's model - yes, i believe humanity created religion - and remain, i hope for the most part, non-heretical. hear me out.
we have this being who ultimately cannot be described, who is ultimately unknowable. we say this being is personal, and we attribute qualities to this being, such as omniscience, omnipresence, and omnipotence. we also declare that this being has a name: God.
what we are doing is describing something that cannot be described in the best possible way we know how - through language - but still fail to come to grips as to what this being is. our language and descriptions create a picture of God, similar to the way a picture of a soda can is not the actual soda can. to be concise, the word "God", is not actually God. the word God is a human construct. it is the way we attempt to define the unknowable.
however, God does exist, even though our construction of God may not exactly match up, we try our best. but now consider that this God, of whom the depths of which cannot be fully known, chose to build his image (we'll use a personal pronoun in light of the christian tradition) inside of us. the full gravity of that choice, we will likely never understand, but it has something to do with us being able to know God. not only do we have the image of God inside of us, but God stepped into our time and defined what he was doing and continues to do, in the language of society and culture. God said to moses: "I AM." God stepped into our time as the form of Jesus, at the very least, to show us what God looks like in our skin.
even in the creation story at the beginning of the bible in the book of genesis, we have God in the beginning who speaks creation into existence. and God said, "let there be light." and there was light. now it may not actually be that God spoke words, but it's the best way we can describe what it is that God did when he created the heavens and the earth. it makes sense that God would speak things into being. we have a God who through his story, uses our language so that we may know him better and more fully, that we may glimpse what it was that he did.
at the end of the day, i realize the need to develop these thoughts more. i consider it nothing but a miracle all the incredible things that God does. it makes God feel so big. that he could take a system so inadequate for description and tell a story through it... in ways that we can understand. he takes broken things and uses them for his purposes. imagine, if God can use our language... how much more can he do with us?
everything is okay
because i love you very much.The Pilgrims' Menu
Foods That May Have Been on the Menu
Seafood: Cod, Eel, Clams, Lobster
Wild Fowl: Wild Turkey, Goose, Duck, Crane, Swan, Partridge, Eagles
Meat: Venison, Seal
Grain: Wheat Flour, Indian Corn
Vegetables: Pumpkin, Peas, Beans, Onions, Lettuce, Radishes, Carrots
Fruit: Plums, Grapes
Nuts: Walnuts, Chestnuts, Acorns
Herbs and Seasonings: Olive Oil, Liverwort, Leeks, Dried Currants, Parsnips
What Was Not on the Menu
Surprisingly, the following foods, all considered staples of the modern Thanksgiving meal, didn't appear on the pilgrims's first feast table:
Ham: There is no evidence that the colonists had butchered a pig by this time, though they had brought pigs with them from England.
Sweet Potatoes/Potatoes: These were not common.
Corn on the Cob: Corn was kept dried out at this time of year.
Cranberry Sauce: The colonists had cranberries but no sugar at this time.
Pumpkin Pie: It's not a recipe that exists at this point, though the pilgrims had recipes for stewed pumpkin.
Chicken/Eggs: We know that the colonists brought hens with them from England, but it's unknown how many they had left at this point or whether the hens were still laying.
Milk: No cows had been aboard the Mayflower, though it's possible that the colonists used goat milk to make cheese.
Source: Kathleen Curtin, Food Historian at Plimoth Plantation.
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