Synthetic Genomics

So we learned in microbio about this group working on synthetic genomics: trying to 'create' a synthetic microbe based on a minimal set of genes. Here's a news item from just a few months ago:

ROCKVILLE, MD—January 24, 2008—A team of 17 researchers at the J. CraigVenter Institute (JCVI) has created the largest man-made DNA structure bysynthesizing and assembling the 582,970 base pair genome of a bacterium,Mycoplasma genitalium JCVI-1.0. This work, published online today in the journalScience by Dan Gibson, Ph.D., et al, is the second of three key steps toward the team’sgoal of creating a fully synthetic organism. In the next step, which is ongoing at theJCVI, the team will attempt to create a living bacterial cell based entirely on thesynthetically made genome.

http://www.syntheticgenomics.com/

Is this ethical??

There's something a little unnerving about us trying to 'create' a living cell. But at the same time, there could be a lot of benefits to people come from this (see Venter quotation below). We shouldn't play God, but as a Christian I don't need to worry about the human race getting totally out of hand because God just won't allow it. I mean, sin can and does abound but God's not going to be caught off guard by us and accidentally let us figure out his inscrutable mysteries...

So in learning about bio and organic chemistry and cases like this, I'm thinking about the dividing line between chemicals and life... it gets kind of blurry! Obviously, human life is different, because we have minds and souls, but we are also instilled with a certain respect for life in general, which is pretty cool. (Even these scientists value the living over the non-living, to they think this is only because of the potential benefit to themselves and/or the human race?) So if we do eventually manage to create a synthetic living cell, will we lose some of that respect? Will it be a loss only of respect to microbes, or will it start creeping up the chain to plants, animals, people...? One thing is for sure, it would definitely boost our already disgusting confidence that the 'unknown' is really just the 'not-yet-known' (to use Wendell Berry's idea).

But we could turn the idea back around and say that if we even were able to 'create' life, it ought not to decrease our respect for life but increase our respect for the inanimate world. Increase our love for the minerals, as it were (of which, we must remember, we are stewards). If we don't praise God, the rocks will cry out... maybe God is laughing at us for making such a thick line between the 'living' and the 'inanimate'. Maybe the final lines are between things such as existence and non-existence, or good and evil (We could think about the connections here between good-existence and evil-non-existence... see George MacDonald and St. Augustine).

Anyway, if our final achievement in science is to realize that the natural world can all be put into one category, well, we've circle back to Genesis: "And God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good." (Gen. 1:31).

Here is a statement from the founder of the synthetic genomics company, Craig Venter (who has done lots genomics):

"Work in creating a synthetic chromosome/genome will give us a better understanding of basic cellular processes. Genome composition, regulatory circuits, signaling pathways and numerous other aspects of organism gene and protein function will be better understood through construction of a synthetic genome. Not only will this basic research lead to better understanding of these pathways and components in the particular organisms, but also better understanding of human biology. The ability to construct synthetic genomes may lead to extraordinary advances in our ability to engineer microorganisms for many vital energy and environmental purposes."

- J. Craig Venter, 2003

and some history from the website:

The Genesis of the Company

In the mid 1990’s Drs. Venter and Smith in collaboration with Dr. Hutchison, began work at The Institute for Genomic Research, (now the J. Craig Venter Institute), on what was termed the “minimal genome project.” The research centered on the very small genome of Mycoplasma genitalium, a bacterium that primarily causes urinary tract infections in humans. With only 517 genes, the research team led by Dr. Hutchison surmised that perhaps they could ascertain which of these were essential to sustain the life of the organism. After using a technique pioneered by Dr. Hutchison called global transposon mutagenesis, the team was able to knock out non-essential genes and get to a core set of 265 to 350 genes that were needed to sustain life. However, most of those genes were of unknown function. The results were tantalizing both for what was learned and for how much still remained to be learned. In 2002, Dr. Venter established a new organization with a synthetic genomics and biological energy group, led by Dr. Smith at the J. Craig Venter Institute, to continue this and other follow-on research...

...

more Annie Dillard

"Scholarship has long distinguished between two strains of thought which proceed in the West from human knowledge of God. In one, the ascetic's metaphysic, the world is far from God. Emanating from God, and linked to him by Christ, the world is yet infinitely other than God, furled away from him like the end of a long banner falling. This notion makes, to my mind, a vertical line of the world, a great chain of burning. The more accessible and universal view, held by Eckhart and by many peoples in various forms, is scarcely different from pantheism: that the world is immanation, that God is in the thing, and eternally present here, if nowhere else. By these lights the world is flattened on a horizontal plane, singular, all here, crammed with heaven, and alone. But I know that it is not alone, nor singular, nor all. The notion of immanence needs a handle, and the two ideas themselves need a link, so that life can mean aught to the one, and Christ to the other.

For to immanence, to the heart, Christ is redundant and all things are one. To emanance, to the mind, Christ touches only the top, skims off only the top, as it were, the souls of men, the wheat grains whole, and lets the chaff fall where? To the world flat and patently unredeemed; to the entire rest of the universe, which is irrelevant and nonparticipant; to time and matter unreal, and so unknowable, and illusory, absurd, accidental, and overelaborate stage.

... (here she talks about a substance talked about in esoteric Christianity called "Holy the Firm" which is at the deepest parts of planets and in touch with the Absolute, at base... you need to read this part yourself!)...

Time and space are in touch with the Absolute at base. Eternity sockets twice into time and space curves, bound and bound by idea. Matter and spirit are of a piece but distinguishable; God has a stake guaranteed in all the world. And the universe is real and not a dream, not a manufacture of the senses; subject may know object, knowledge may proceed, and Holy the Firm is in short the philosopher's stone." (p. 69-70)







and a little later....


"How can people think that artists seek a name? A name, like a face, is something you have when you're not alone. There is no such thing as an artist: there is only the world, lit or unlit as the light allows. When the candle is burning, who looks at the wick? When the candle is out, who needs it? But the world without light is wasteland and chaos, and a life without sacrifice is abomination.

What can any artist set on fire but his world? What can any people bring to the altar but all it has ever owned in the thin towns or over the desolate plains? What can an artist use but materials, such as they are? What can he light but the short string of his gut, and when that's burnt out, any muck ready to hand? His face is flame like the seraph's, lighting the kingdom of God for the poeple to see; his life goes up in the works; his feet are waxen and salt. He is holy and he is firm, spanning all the long gap with the length of his love, in flawer imitation of Christ on the cross stretched both ways unbroken and thorned. So must the work be also, in touch with, in touch with, in touch with; spanning the gap, from here to eternity, home." (70-71)


what an exciting read!!

I'm reading a book by Annie Dillard: Holy the Firm. I could quote and go on quoting till I got to the end of the book, but I'll try to restrain myself...

"A blur of romance clings to our notions of "publicans," "sinners," "the poor," "the people in the marketplace," "our neighbors," as though of course God should reveal himself, if at all, to these simple people, these Sunday school watercolor figures, who are so purely themselves in their tattered robes, who are single in themselves, while we now are various, complex, and full at heart. We are busy. So, I see now, were they. Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? or who shall stand in his holy place? There is no one but us. There is no one to send, nor a clean hand, nor a pure heart on the face of the earth, nor in the earth, but only us, a generation comforting ourselves with the notion that we have come at an awkward time, that our innocent fathers are all dead-- as if innocence had ever been-- and our children busy and troubled, and we ourselves unfit, not yet ready, having each of us chosen wrongly, made a false start, failed, yeielded to impulse and the tangled comfort of pleasures, and grown exhausted, unable to seek the thread, weak, and involved. But there is no one but us. There never has been. There have been generations which remembered, and generations which forgot; there has never been a generation of whole men and women who lived well even for one day. Yet some have imagined well, with honesty and art, the detail of such a life, and have described it with such grace, that we mistake vision for history, dream for description, and facy that life has devolved. So. You learn this studying any history at all, especially the lives of artists and visionaries; you learn it from Emerson, who noticed that the meannes of our days is itself worth our thought; and you learn it, fitful in your pew, at church." (pp.56,57)

is art only for the initiated?

Hearing someone talk about Olivier Messiaen on the radio the other day, I started thinking about this again. I'm ready to admit that Messiaen is a good composer, but I can't say I really want to listen to it much. I have a feeling, however, that it's one of those things that will grow on you the more you're exposed to it. That definitely happens with opera and other classical music. Exposure to classical music gives one a greater appreciation for it, and some great works get better and better the more you hear them (as opposed to the top forty, which tend to get worse and worse). Training in music technique and theory make it even more enjoyable. I can't really speak about the visual arts because I've had so little experience with them, but what little I have learned has made a world of difference in how I think during my visits to the art gallery. (Mind you, even when all I can do is stare at the visual stimuli, being completely ignorant of everything else going on, I always like the art gallery) All I'm trying to say is that it really does appear to be the case that some kind of 'initiation' creates a different taste for art.

Questions: Does all good art 'improve' for us the more we're exposed to it. Do we all have this inner knowledge of what is good? Where does taste fit in? Is something definitely good if ppl who've been around a lot of art say it's good?

I think that the idea of the 'initiated' that I don't like involves some sort of secret inaccessible gnosticism. This is totally different from just having been around art a lot. It's even different than talking and thinking a lot about that art. That's not some cliquey club it's just something that gets more enjoyable and plays a bigger part in forming you if you've put a little work into it.

But we always have to be willing to think and make a judgment call. You have to be willing to say that some art is bad. If there is such a thing as truth and right and wrong then it has to apply not only to whether or not you have to pay your taxes and tell the truth but also to whether something is good to look at or listen to.

prayers I like.

Thanks be to Thee, our Lord Jesus Christ,
for all the benefits which Thou hast given us,
for all the pains and insults which Thou has borne for us.
Most merciful Redeemer, Friend and Brother,
May we know Thee more clearly,
Love Thee more dearly,
And follow Thee more nearly,
Day by day. Amen
(Richard of Chichester 1197 - 1253)

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace,
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy;
O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

(Francis of Assisi)

Make us worthy, Lord,
To serve our fellow men
Throughout the world who live and die
In poverty or hunger.
Give them through our hands
this day, their daily bread;
And by our understanding love
give peace and joy. Amen
(Mother Teresa, Calcutta (1910 - 1997)

Grant to me, O Lord,
to know what I ought to know,
to love what I ought to love,
to praise what delights thee most,
to value what is precious in thy sight,
to hate what is offensive to Thee.
Do not suffer me to judge according to the sight of my eyes,
nor to pass sentence according to the hearing of the ears of ignorant men;
but to discern with true judgment between things visible and spiritual,
and above all things to inquire what is the good pleasure of thy will.
(Thomas A Kempis)

Be present, O Merciful God, and protect us through the silent hours of this night, so that we who are wearied by the changes and chances of this fleeting world may repose upon thy eternal changelessness; though Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen.

(Book of Common Prayer)

Show me your ways, O Lord, teach me your paths; guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my Saviour and my hope is in you all day long.

Remember, O Lord, your great mercy and love, for they are from of old. Remember not the sins of my youth and my rebellious ways; according to your love remember me for you are good, O Lord... For the sake of your name, O Lord, forgive my iniquity, though it is great.

(King David ~1000BC (Ps 25)

a night off.

I'm sitting on the couch listening to a Frank Sinatra and friends show that I happened to find on tv. It's truly quality entertainment- why don't they do things like this anymore??
I'm getting used to being at home. My parents have been in Calgary this week so I've had some time to myself. This afternon after my shift I made some of Emily's chocolate-orange-chocolate cookies. I wasn't needed at work tonight, so instead I had a little visit with my grandparents and my aunt who is here visiting, delivered some of the cookies to the people who were working at Boston Pizza, then came home for a walk out in the yard. I picked some crocuses and walked down through the coulee. The sunset was pretty, the wind was cleansing, the quiet was restoring, and the light...! The light was that which can only be seen on the prairies. Every twig and blade of grass and dip in the land is illuminated in a clear and easy light and contrasted with soft blue shadows. Everywhere you look is a stilling and glorious image. Pairs of geese honked their way overhead, ducks flapped up from the coulee, and a prairie chicken squawked in the neighbour's yard. The wind had blown its fierceness out and the air was just the right temperature to make you feel alive right through to your lungs. I love this country.

academics week March 31-April 4

I just wrote a whole blog, and then it accidentally deleted!!!!! boo. It was intense with the philosophy too. I refuse to write it all again, sorry. Today is a BEAUTIFUL day so I went for ice cream and a long walk. Also, we went to the Eastern Orthodox church this morning where our classmate Landon attends, it was very beautiful!
We had two philosophy classes this week, went to the Art gallery, and wrote a bunch of papers! One week of classes left- I can't believe it!
I have all my rough drafts done for this week's assignments. I'll be handing in two research papers and one creative piece for lit which we'll read out loud to the class. There are also two other presentations, in Science and Scriptures (the scriptures one is no big deal though). Somehow, I have to find time to start studying, since we have 7 exams the next week....

I'm going to eat supper and read my book!

love love love love love,
S

encouragement

God moves in a mysterious way

His wonders to perform;

He plants His footsteps in the sea

And rides upon the storm.

Deep in unfathomable mines

Of never failing skill

He treasures up His bright designs

And works His sovereign will.

Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take;

The clouds ye so much dread

Are big with mercy and shall break

In blessings on your head.

Judge not the Lord by feeble sense,

But trust Him for His grace;

Behind a frowning providence

He hides a smiling face.

His purposes will ripen fast,

Unfolding every hour;

The bud may have a bitter taste,

But sweet will be the flower.

Blind unbelief is sure to err

And scan His work in vain;

God is His own interpreter,

And He will make it plain.

-William Cowper.

I could comment on what this means in my life right now, but maybe I'll just let you apply it to your own life.

Academics week March 25-28

"If you knew Time as well as I do," said the Hatter, "you wouldn't talk about wasting it. It's him."
"I don't know what you mean," said Alice.
"Of course you don't!' the Hatter said, tossing his head contemptuously. I dare say you never even spoke to Time!"

Caspar David Friedrich- Monk by the Sea.

"God sits in the chamber of our being in which the candle of our consciousness goes out into darkness... All drams are not false; some dreams are truer than the plainest facts. Fact at best is but a garment of truth, which has ten thousand changes of raiment woven on the same loom. Let the dreamer only do the truth of his dream, and one day he will realize all that was worth realizing in it." -George Macdonald

"The rational man will adapt to his environment, The irrational man expects to alter his environment to suit his needs. Therefore all progress depends on irrational men. " -George Bernard Shaw

Isaiah (finger in the air and somewhat oblivious of the historical superiority of the modern audience): The voice said, Cry. And he said, What shall I cry? All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field…

Edward O. Wilson (somewhat impressed, but nonetheless determined to do his bit for "evolutionary progress"): But… But sir! Are you aware of the existence of the electromagnetic spectrum?

CURTAIN
-Wendell Berry, Life is a Miracle

I highly recomment reading Wendell Berry's Life is a Miracle, it's fantastic. There were no classes on Easter Monday, so we missed philosophy and one Latin class. We'll be having two philosophy classes this week to make up for it- it's gonna be intense!

Art- "Impressionism and other 19th Century 'isms'" was the title of the lecture. We started the class talking about Caspar David Friedrich who painted at the beginning of the 19th C. He was a Christian artist, and Dr. Tingley's hypothesis is that he was a "painter of relationships". You can see communication with nature and with others in his work. I really liked his stuff, its interesting that a lot of them show people in the foreground with their back to the viewer, it kinda brings you into the relationship, you know? The mainly talked about one called "On the Sailingboat" that is a picture about marriage. Instead of just being focused on each other they are focused on a shared goal that they're moving towards.

"On the Sailing Boat"

"The Wanderer above the Mists""Woman Before the Rising Sun""Two Men Contemplating the Moon"

"Abbey in the Oakwood"

Then we moved on to modern art. We mostly talked about realism and naturalism in Manet and Courbet, then on to impressionism, mostly looking at Monet and Renoir, and then with post-impressionism we looked at Gaugin and Van Gogh. Whew, we are just flying!

Monet- self portraitManet- Luncheon on the Grass. This caused quite a stir; he was using classical subjects and forms in a painting set in the present. Was this appropriate?


Renoir- luncheon. "Impressionism was a celebration of the pleasures of middle class life. Did it not play beautifully into a consumerist relation to the world?"

Dr. Patrick was gone, so we had a researcher friend of his come in to tell us about molecular biology. It was okay, but he just talked about his research when I think Dr. Patrick was hoping he would explain something to do with how molec. bio relates to evolution. Oh well. I have to start writing my paper for this class this week, and I'm terrified that it's going to be very hard...

We're still doing the passive system in Latin, but I think there's a whole new verb system coming up tomorrow. It'll be the last chapter though!

Music-We talked about and listened to opera-Verdi, Wagner, and Puccini! Prof. Warren had a great time listing off German words for Wagner such as 'Gesamtkunstwerk' (which means 'a complete work of art'). He also played along to Verdi's Anvil Chorus on the dinner triangle we use to call people to class and meals- the man is hilarious. After class we listened to Anna Russel's version of the Ring Cycle, which was hilarious of course.

We talked about Annie Dillard in lit. after reading the first two chapter of Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. She sees herself as an aeolian harp- lets the wind just blow through her and produce what it may. The book alternates between scrutinous observation and reflections on those observations- the main theme is seeing. Prof. Tucker gave us yet another assignment- we are supposed to go out at find 5-10 objects (not from our appartment of school) and then 'write an Annie Dillard style anecdote' using them as inspiration. I think there is potential for this to be fun, I mean it allows us to be creative and stuff, but there are a couple of problems, like the fact that none of us can just write like a Pulitzer winning author on demand, and also the objects we use are supposed to be ones we can bring in to class, which pretty much excludes nature (trees, light on the water, icicles melting etc.) and limits us to the garbage we see on the street on our walks to and from school. Annie Dillard is all about nature, and although I've no doubt she could talk about garbage, I'm a little more inspired by other things... anyway, I started writing my paper for his class yesterday so I'll get that done first. I'm talking about a the emphasis on relationships in Lilith by George macdonald. There's an interesting article by him called "The Fantastic Imagination" on writing fairy tales (he had a huge influence on CS Lewis). You can read it at: http://gaslight.mtroyal.ab.ca/ortsx14.htm.

Scriptures- John Wesley. Hearing the history about the Methodists was interesting. We had read A Plain Account of Genuine Christianity (1753) and Covenant Service Directions for Renewing our Covenant with God (1780).

John Wesley

Science with Dr. Metelski was about electricity and magnetism, Maxwell equations, how these advancements affect our lives...

Trivium was great again. We read and criticized some more little apologetic paragraphs we'd written, and then we talked about socratic dialogues (which Peter Kreeft uses in most of his books). Since our science paper is supposed to be written in a dialogue, this was very helpful.

Today is beautiful and sunny, and things are melting but I am feeling rather exhausted so I think I'm going to stay in and read. We have some people coming over for supper tonight, and then we're going to go sing karaoke! I'm looking forward to it.

Academics week March 17-20

We had a short week because there were no classes on Good Friday. Also, we have Monday off, so that should give us a chance to get caught up a little bit on some work and also keeps us from having Philosophy and latin homework (although I'm sad there'll be no philosophy lecture!).

Here are the highlights from last week:

Philosophy

We continued to talk about John Stuart Mill and utilitarianism. It differs from past ethical systems in that it says actions have to be decided on with regards to their outcome, but the only way to know their outcome is from human experience. There is no set end like Aristotle's "Man of Virtue", Mill simply determines right and wrong by way of a test: since the aim is to increase pleasure and decrease pain, only do things which do this. To decide between two pleasures, ask someone who has experienced both and is endowed with an appreciation for his 'higher faculties' (i.e. reason) which is the higher of the two. Mill is also differend from Hume who said our judgements of right and wrong are feelings within us. Mill says we can have no sensory instinct informing us of right and wrong. He also objected to Kant, because he says Kantian ethics "does not logically rule out the adoption by all rational beings of the most outrageous immoral rules of conduct." Kant doesn't give us any list of what is right/wrong, he just gives us a standard to apply to actions:If people are universally in agreement about an action, it is acceptable. It is an ethics of what you should do in trying to figure out what to do, but not an actual ethics of what you should do. Is it not possible that people might be able to universalize things that are not good? So Mill thought he'd really come up with something in utilitarianism that would make it impossible for this to happen: do that which brings the greatest happiness. This sounds quite sensible, even in agreement with Aristotle and Aquinas where the good man is the happy man. But we know that it all depends on your definition of happiness. For Aristotle happiness=excellence, a state of being in accord with what your function/purpose is. This is very different from a feeling. But Mill talks about happiness in relation to pleasure. So his argument that his ethics would not give rise to immoral conduct is doesn't make much sense- for example, the sexual immorality of our day has been in "pursuit of happiness and pleasure"! Mill's problem with Kant comes up again in his own ethics.

We talked about various other problems with the system:

-there is no recognition of absolutes, such as absolute rights like the right to life

-it's implicit metaphysical materialism. It is committed to materialism, even though of course the presumption materialism is not a question of facts but of faith, because its not provable.

-it has a reductionist view of evil. Evil (for example, the holocaust) is seen only as a wrong calculation of consequences.

-it can hardly be called 'ethics' at all, because it doesn't anser the basic ethical question: Why be Good? He says 'we should all be concerned for the happiness of all" but doesn't give any backing to his 'should'.

J.S. Mill

We also started talking about Martin Buber's I and Thou. More on him next week...

Art

We had a really great class on Romanticism, although I was a little tired since I'd stayed up late finishing my paper. Since artists weren't under patrons anymore but were vying for popularity at the salons and in the art academies, their aim was to stand out and make an impression. The idea of avant-garde came in, and instead of portraying "the good" artists started to focus on losses and human failure. Romantic culture accepts the middle class, but it also has a streak of disaffection with culture altogether.

This is "Marengo", Napoleon's horse. People had seen Napoleon's horrific reign that so utterly failed to live up to expectations.

Fransisco Goya was drawn to macabre subjects. He painted terrifying images of war and nightmarish subjects.

Humor entered art, and Blake started making images of his own fantasy world. In the last part of the class we looked at Kenneth Clark's claim that "Landscape was the chief artistic creation of the 19th Century".

J.M.W. Turner saw meaning and beauty in everyday scenes.

Latin

We had a test on relative pronouns and subordinate clauses, we're now only the passive system and have a whole load of memorizing to do, once again.

Music

Berlioz, Franck, Bruckner and Tchaikovsky! We heard the last movement of Berlioz's Symphony Fantastique (the Dream of the Witches' Sabbath- which funnily enough we'd seen Goya's paintings of on Tuesday), some choral music by Franck, a bunch of orchestral stuff by Tchaikovsky and the Os Justi motet by Bruckner which is really pretty. It sounds almost like Renaissance, Palestrina-esque. He adds a little bit of chant at the very end, which was being recalled during his day. "The mouth of the righteous man utters wisdom, and his tongue speaks what is just. The law of his God is in his heart; his feet do not slip."

Literature

We talked about two short stories by Wendell Berry: Pray without Ceasing and A Jonquil for Mary Penn. These are beautiful pieces, really well written and all about family and home and although they are realistic they are hopeful, unlike a lot of 'realistic' writing that is really depressing. We also watched the first half of a film called "The Apostle" which kinda relates to Frederich Bueckner somehow... (obviously I wasn't listening very well). Its a super uncomfortable film about a preacher from the south who goes around doing tent revivals yet his personal life is super messed up. We'll watch the rest of it next week...

Scriptures

We had a small class since a lot of people had gone home for Easter by this time. We finished up with Calvin, talking about the sections in his institutes on the Ministry of Christ, the Holy Spirit, and Eschatology, and also his commentary on Romans 8. Even though he saw people as very rotten to the core, he was able to hope in the fact that Christ is our Head and God would not sever the Head from the Body. Doubts will assail us but they will not overwhelm us. Next week we start on John Wesley. I've started writing my Sciptures paper on the Resurrection (appropriate for this time of year, I think) and what Augustine, Aquinas, and Calvin say about it, especially with regard to what it means for us. We are assured of the victory of our faith and our God over death, we can have new spiritual life and live righteously, and we can wait in hope for the resurrection of our bodies in the last day.

I get really frustrated with myself for struggling as I do with writing papers. It takes me so long to get my thoughts into ordered and coherent paragraphs! I also have a hard time knowing how to get just the right thesis, not trying to cover too much. 'm definitely better at grasping concepts like in math or physics, but I'm grateful for the practice I'm getting with all of this and I'm trying to remind myself that my grades here don't actually count for anything, so its nothing to stress about. Am I better at thinking than I was in September? Absolutely. Am I better at producing those thoughts in the form of a paper? Probably, but as the papers get more challenging and I deal with stuff I haven't thought about much before it feels like I'm not making a lot of progress. Also, my roommates are both really quick and good at writing cohesive and coherent papers. I'm thankful that I have them for inspiration and for their editing ability haha but I do fell a bit of an inferiority complex some times, especially in busy times like this when I realize how much longer I have to spend on everything than they do. So while my roommates take a four day weekend, I am only taking today off and hope to have things somewhat out of panic mode for next week.

There are 3 papers and 3 presentations left for the next 3 weeks. Time is flying and I'll be so sad when its over, although there is no way I could keep the frantic pace up for very much longer. I bought my bus ticket home this week- it was only 147 dollars to get from here to Regina! I'll have to pay a bit extra for the extra baggage I'll have, but still, so cheap. Surely it'll be worth the 50 hours of travelling, right???

We've been invited out to the Tucker's once again tonight for Easter dinner and a film night. I plan on reading a little this afternoon and playing some guitar. I wish I could be in Vancouver this weekend to hear Robyn's opera, be with the fam, and see some green. Tonight will be fun, however. We'll get to see the Tucker's kids who are soooo much fun!

peace and love,

Starr

Seder Supper and Easter Services.

Happy Easter!!!

The sun is shining brightly today, and even though it's cold the bright light is warm and encouraging. Susan and I just got in from church, where we got to enjoy the lovely Easter liturgy of the Anglican tradition. We did, I must admit, sneak out during the last hymn because the choir that usually only sings in the 11 o' clock service had stepped in to sing the Halleluia Chorus for us 9:15ers. Now I have heard this choir before, and let's just say it was less than angelic? Their hearts are in the right place, but they really do butcher the music. So what would Handel have done? Susan gave me the option of sneaking out to avoid hearing the massacre and I accepted... if they practiced hard and ended up delivering a wonderful and perfectly in-tune performance, well I guess I'll never know. Anyhow, the service was good and very joyful.

Another great part about my Holy Week was the seder supper Susan and I attended on Thursday evening. (Jenny is in Texas this week). I'd never even heard of this before this year, but the seder is the Jewish Passover meal, like what Jesus and the disciples shared in the Last Supper. The Christian Passocer Seder is to remember the Pasover meal Jesus had with his disciples and to retell the story of how God rescued the Israelites from slavery in Egypt, and to remember how God in his mercy passed over the Israelits' homes in Egypt and saved the Israelite children.

So its starts with the women lighting the candles on the table ('the festival lights'- symbolizing the coming of the Messiah, the Light of the World)

The women pray (of the mother would be the one doing this if it was done in a home):

"Blessed are you, O Lord our God, Ruler of the Universe, who has set us apart by His Word, and in whose name we light the festival lights."

There are four cups/toasts of the Passover. The first is the "Kiddush" (Sanctification) where the feast is blessed and the words of Luke 22:17-18 are read: "take this and divide it among yourselves. For I tell you that from now on I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes."

Next is the "Urehatz" (washing), where you wash your hands in a bowl on the table to remember how Jesus washed his disciples' feet at the last supper. (I think sometimes there is actual footwashing involved).

Then everyone eats the "Karpas" together, which is a green herb (we used parsley). It represents life. But you dip it in salt water before eating it to remember that life in Egypt for the children of Israel was a life of pain, suffering, and tears. "Blessed are you, O Lord, Our God, King of the Universe, Creator of the Fruits of the Earth."

Next is the "Magid", the Recital of the passover story. A child asks questions and parents answer the questions:

"why is this night different form all other nights?" (the parents answer with the story of the exodus and the plagues- then everyone eats the Matzah, the unleavened bread)

Why are there bitter herbs on the table?" (life was bitter and hard for the Israelites)

"Why is there something sweet as well?" (this is the Charoseth, a fruit and nut kind of relish. It reminds us of the mortar the Egyptians used in slavery under pharaoh, but is sweet to remind us of the hope the Israelites had).

"Why is there a hard boiled egg of the table?" (Pharaoh hardened his heart towards God and his people)

"What is the bone for?" (the meaning of the paschal lamb for Jews and also to remember Christ the lamb of God)

Then you drink the second cup which is a cup of thanksgiving to God for His salvation: "This cup which is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood"

Next comes the meal. We ate lamb and potatoes and carrots and salad.

The Third cup is accompanied by a thanksgiving prayer. Everyone prays:
"We will bless the Lord,
From this time forth and forever.

The Lord is my strength and my song,

And he has become my Salvation.

The stone which the builders rejected

Has become the chief cornerstone..... etc."

The last cup is "Elijah's Cup". In the Jewish tradition there was an empty place left for Elijah and the door is left open for him to come in and announce the coming of the Messiah. But as Christians we know that Jesus is our messiah and he is here with us already, so the cup of Elijah is a sign of hope for salvation for everyone who doesn't know this.

"In Christ's death, there is life

In the shedding of blood,

There is atonement for sin.

In the coming of Jesus,

Our Passover is complete."

It was a lovely experience and I hope I get to do it again.
After the supper there was a Maundy Thursday communion service upstairs. Did you know that 'maundy' comes from the Latin 'mandatum' which basically translates into 'mandate'? So basically, its about the new commandment Jesus gave his disciples at the last supper: "A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another." (John 13:34). As the service ends and a hymn is sung, the all the decorations are taken down and the altar is stripped bare to symbolize how Christ was totally abandoned on the cross. The lights slowly go out and the service ends in darkness.

We didn't make it to any good Friday services, but we did watch the Passion of the Christ, which I hadn't seen before. Something in me doesn't like the idea of 'hollywood-izing' the Passion. And I was worried that just showing all the physical suffering of Christ would overshadow His spiritual suffering and fail to clearly show the reason for and effect of his death and resurrection. I have to say, though, although it was extremely hard to watch (or not watch, in some cases, I couldn't) I think it stayed Biblically accurate (within the Catholic tradition, anyway, there are apocryphal stories included) and with flashbacks and such really does connect the events with salvation. Of course we don't like to see the gruesome reality of what Jesus went through, but He did it for us and sometimes its good to get out of our comfortable sunshine-and-daisies kind of Christianity and realize how serious a thing our sins are and how high a price was paid (and is still paid) for them.

So today is Easter Sunday. Christ has risen!

"Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. (Colossians 3:1-4)

Alleluia, Amen.

week 10?

This afternoon is wonderfully sunny and warm- such a nice change from last week! I've decided not to do any homework on Sundays, and I've discovered its an amazing thing to have a guilt-free day to rest and do non-school related things, even though I do enjoy my schoolwork (for the most part). They gave us palm crosses at church today, to celebrate palm sunday. This afternoon my goal is to back up my files only cds, since Susan's computer quit working this week and I figure I should take the hint. Susan and I plan on going to a Seder Supper on Thursday at St. Alban's church, a commemoration of the Last Supper that uses the Jewish Passover traditions with Christian readings. It should be really cool! Jenny is taking off for sunny Texas on Wednesday, spending Easter there and partying with her med. school classmates.

The birds have started to come back. I heard crows on the way to school on Friday, and there've been few times when that sound has come as a bigger relief.

I came down with a cold this week, but it wasn't too bad and its starting to go away. Yesterday and Friday night I managed to get a first draft of my Rembrandt paper written, so I'll finish that up tomorrow and get started on my Scriptures paper Tuesday.

We continued to talk about Kant in philosophy this week. His system managed to remove the threat to science caused by Hume but it posed a serious threat to metaphysics, and therefore to ethics. He based his ethics on duty, he talked about categorical and hypothetical imperatives, the former being things that are determined by duty. His ideas did bring in some positive things, like the idea of respect. We also started talking about John Stuart Mill who wrote about utilitarianism. Unlike Kant, his philosophy was based on empirical knowledge, we have to always keep the consequences of actions in mind. We'll do more on him tomorrow.

Tuesday was a Student for a Day, day. There were probably about 7 kids there, who of which have already applied and had interviews so it looks promising for enrollment next year; they always get most of their applications over the summer. We're up to the 18th Century in art class, so we talked about Rococo a little bit and then moved on to neo-classicism, the academies in Europe, and Jacques-Louis David in particular.

There wasn't much for new material in Dr. Patrick's class, I think he was catering more to the parent and student visitors than to us... anyway it was good to get a bit of review for once instead of pouring yet more new information into our heads.

Prof. Blaedow surprised us all in the quiz this week by giving us sentences to translate from a few weeks ago... I had to dig to the dregs of my memory to remember what the latin word for barber was!

We had a busy music class- Brahms, Mendelssohn, Chopin, and Liszt! We listened to a ton of music, and my list for what we need to know for our listening exam has gotten ridiculously long! We got our midterms back, so we're definitely on the final stretch now!

We continued to talk about Frederick Bueckner in Lit. class, and for next week we get to read a couple of essays by Wendell Berry, which should be beautiful.

We talked about Calvin in Scriptures. Being made in the image of God, the Nature of the Soul, Original Sin, Regeneration and Free Will...

Dr. Metelski taught us calculus in science class- he has no idea that most people get completely lost when he does this kind of thing. He has the best intentions- he said several times that he doesn't expect us to be able to do any calculus, he just doesn't want us to have any fear of it. I don't mind the review, but I felt kinda bad for the girls who've never done any calculus at all....

We've begun to do rhetoric in Trivium class, which will be more specifically focused on apologetics. Some of us read out assignments we wrote giving reasons for why we are Christians, and we talked about the way non-christians would hear them and what problems they would see in it. Its really great and challenging to do this, and also good to be reminded that apologetics isn't about winning an argument, its something you do for the sake of the other person.

We just found out last night that we're supposed to have a big section of Martin Buber's "I and Thou" read for philosophy tomorrow, but since I'm not working today it'll have to wait till our break tomorrow. In the evening we plan on having an essay editing/green beverages party in honour of St. Patrick's day, our lack of funds to allow us to go out, and our paper due tuesday. I'm actually really enjoying the lack of topic sentences and endnotes/references in this blog post. I only have 5 more weeks with my classmates, which makes me really really sad, but I'm trying not to think about it. For now, we're just taking things one day at a time, learning lots, writing lots, reading lots, talking lots, and laughing lots. (and sneezing lots, at the moment)

Happy Holy Week,

Starr

snow on snow...

...on snow on snow on snow! It's been going since about 11 this morning, and shows no signs of stopping. There was also a little wind this afternoon, which is uncommon here, but not really a wind by prairie standards so it could be worse as far as blizzards go. Its actually kind of fun to walk in, provided you don't care about getting wet and being slow. We'd had 11.69 feet so far this winter. Think about how much snow that is. And they're forcasting another 50 cms with this storm. It's beautiful but... I've been catching myself daydream of tulips and crocuses.

Today I've been trying to do research for my art paper. I had a frustrating time, since we need at least one good primary source and no one seems to have written on the things I'd like to talk about. I think I've decided on Rembrandt and something to do with Protestant art... its just too bad that a lot of the scholarly articles on him are written in Dutch! I was at the U of O library... I'll try the public one tomorrow.

Speaking of art, we got to go to the national gallery for class this week- it was great! Time was a little short, of course, but we'll be heading back there next month so I'm excited. Dr. Tingley is totally in his element at the gallery, he worked there as a curator for a few years.

All this just hours after he lectured for 2.5+ hours on Immanuel Kant. I understand why people say "Kant changed my life". I haven't thought through it enough yet, but basically he developed his philosophy because he was disturbed by Hume's, who de-objectified ethics, causality, metaphysics, the self... He said all our ideas come from sensation and are justified by sensations. There can be no such thing as a moral argument because ethics is not rational- he gets rid of the because in 'good because'. He says ethics doesn't need to be rational, it can just rest on our feelings. Just as he got rid of the 'because' in morality he took the 'because' out of causality (which destroys causality completely) (Causality: the necessity that a thing that happens was brought about because of another thing.). There is no foundation for the belief in necessities in nature in this thinking, which is what disturbed Kand because it made SENSE, but it threatened to totally undermine Scientific thinking!
SO Kant said that there is objective reality but that we can have no idea of what exists apart from how we see in and eventually came up with the idea that instead of the mind conforming to reality, reality conforms to the mind. Space and time and truth are judgments, but all humans have the same framework of mind so we usually perceive the same world. Anyway I'll stop confusing everyone with my incomplete and probably incorrect philosophy synthesis...

The rest of the week was fine. In Science with Dr. Patrick we learned that in 1952 a guy names Toynbee in 'An Historian's view of Religion' made a list of indicators that a society is dying (from looking at all past cultures in history) :
-Schizm of the Soul (which leads to cultural suicide- no coherence)
-A growing sense of antinominalism (lack of respect for the law)
-Escapism (retreating into private lives)
-Drift yielding to inevitable determinism (fatalism)
-Guilt and self-loathing (no more repentance/ forgiveness)
-General promiscuity- intellectual as well as sexual

yeesh, our culture fits into all of those! But Dr. Patrick thinks that our generation can be hopeful and that a change is completely within reach- he's a big advocator of starting with the family.

We covered Schubert and Schumann and part of Brahms in music. PLUS we wrote our midterm (which went well, i think).

In Literature we talked about Godric (by Frederick Bueckner) which is a really really cool book- completely different from everything else we've read. It makes you squirmy in a few places- its about this guy who lives a totally ascetic lifestyle and everyone else thinks he's this great saint but he is the narrator and is totally aware of all his sins... I had to madly read it since I didn't have much time to do so, but there are definitely a lot of passages to re-read and meditate upon.

I'm still struggling with what to do for my Scripture paper. Ugh. We have no Latin homework this weekend, however, which is a blessing indeed, especially since my phil. assignment on utilitarianism took longer than I would have liked.

We had the Weston Lecture on Friday- Craig Gay from Regent College in Vancouver came and talked about Dialogue, how its being lost in today's culture, and how it is very important for us as humans. It was interesting!

My roommate just informed me that its time-change day, so we're losing an hour of sleep! :( i guess that means its time for bed. Our house may well be buried in the morning, so I'll need lots of energy to tunnel out!

xox
S

March Madness

Good Evening!



I just got in from snowboarding with Peter, Ben, and Stephen from my class. Harold, who has loaned us his van while he's away, will be getting back this week so it was now or never. There is a pretty decent hill only half an hour away and on saturday night the student 2 for 1 price is $11.50! So sweet. I was really tired but I perked up eventually and I'm really glad we went! My eyes aren't focusing very well though so this will be short.



It was actually kind of a crappy week. Nothing bad happened per se, which was why I was getting really frustrated with myself for feeling sad and irritable. I think the fresh air and excercise and lack of thought about school was definitely the best thing for me tonight.



Speaking of school, I haven't done an update for a while so here's an abbreviated version:







In philosophy we've covered Descartes, Pascal, and Hume. This week is Kant. Its super cool to be getting into modern philosophers!!! I wrote my paper on pascal and really enjoyed it. As research I read a book by Peter Kreeft called Christianity for Modern Pagans which was really good. Its basically just a heavily footnoted version of Pascal's Pensees. (I also used a paper by a local professor but I think it would only be good if you'd read the Pascal first).







We're up to 17th C catholic art in Art History (yes, I know we're slow!) and next week we're going to the national gallery for class which i'm so excited for!!! I'm also going to have to start writing that paper this week...hmmmm I don't know what to write it on. Maybe Dutch/Flemish school? Or maybe something about the High Renaissance. Raphael and Michelangelo et al are so huge that he kinda skipped over them quickly, I think since he knew we could learn about them on our own if we so wished. (this Picture is of the 'wheel of fortune'. Its more connected to philosophy, when we studied Machiavelli and such... but I think its really funny!

The Inspiration of St. Matthew. He had to repaint this, (you're looking at the second version) because the first one he did made Matthew look too homely and pitiful (the angel was pushing his hand and he had big gnarly feet- it offended the Church people)

Anyway, our science classes have been pretty good. People are doing presentations about evolutionary arguments and they've been doing a really good job so far. Mine will be on DNA, but later on in the semester. And Dr. Metelski lectured on Galileo and Newton this week... we're getting close to Einstein where things really will start to get interesting! :)



Latin is latin. I'm trying to not spend a ridiculous amount of time on it even though you easlily could if you wanted to know everything. Its just not worth it, especially since I can do fine with just a decent amount of work! haha.



We heard presentations this week in music class as well. Kendra talked about the French Revolution, Susan talked about Napoleon, and Stephen talked about the Industrial revolution. Prof. Warren said we needed historical background and he though it would be nice if he didn't have to teach it for once haha. THen he talked about the transition to the Romantic era from Classical and it was a super long lecture with no break and we hardly listened to any music but at the end of class he remembered that we have our midterm this coming wednesday and he had questions on there he hadn't lectured on yet so he quickly did so- basically handing us answers to two of the questions that will be on there! It was great.



Napoleon 'the schmuck'




We talked about G.K.Chesterton's THe Man Who Was Thursday again this week- such a great/weird book! Now I have to read Brueckner's Godric for this thursday...



GK Chesteron was a huge, huge man.

Scriptures was scriptures. we looked at Luther's introduction to the new testament.

'nuff said.


We began the official Rhetoric section in Trivium. He talked about why it is kind of a lost skill today and should be taught at school, and then we started watching a video called 'the Four Horsemen" of a conversation between four really well-known atheists: Dawkins, Hitchins, Dennet, and Harris. For next week we need to watch the first hour of it, because its important that we keep in mind what we sound like to non-christians when we're trying to say something about religion. Then we have to write a bit about something that is important to us, defending it. I think this section will be really awesome but its kinda hard to know how much work to put into it since its only a pass/fail class. I guess there's "always time for more homework at Augustine College" (that should be their motto. "Semper tempus mas homeworkus in Collegia Augustina est" if you want to Latinize it).

Here's the link to that Dawkins et al conversation:

http://richarddawkins.net/article,2025,THE-FOUR-HORSEMEN,Discussions-With-Richard-Dawkins-Episode-1-RDFRS

Okay that's enough about school. Since I took today off as my 'sabbath', I'll be hitting the library tomorrow after church, so lets hope for some productivity! There are about 5 books I need to read, 2 papers to edit, and 2 to write. yipee!!





peace and love


Starry

Toronto

Reading week was an overall sucess- for the first half I pretty much just immersed myself in work. I finished my music paper, did research and wrote the first draft of my philosophy paper (on Pascal and restlessness), and read our book for Book Club (Charles Williams' All Hallow's Eve-its creepy but i like it). Then on Thursday Jenny and I went to Toronto and stayed with our classmate Rosie and her family. It was much needed and so much fun!!! We went snowboarding, toured the city, went cross-country skiing, ate at a nice restaurant, did some karaoke, sauna-d, and overall just relaxed! I loved seeing the city- its really cool and although I would never want to live there forever, for a short time while you're young I can see how it would be really fun.

Anyway now we're back at the grindstone at school. Dr. Tingley extended the deadline for our philosophy paper but we have many other assignments right on its tail so I'm going to hand mine in on the original date, I think.

I've been doing research on George McDonald tonight, I hope to write something about him for my lit paper which i just found out is worth 60% of our mark!!! eek, scary. The rest of tonight will be spent trying to find something to write on for our Scriptures paper (which is only worth 40%...). I can hear Jenny whispering Augustine outloud, so I'm assuming she's trying to do the same thing!

Last night Ben and Martine and I went skating on the canal- the ice is completely done. It didn't help that it had been snowing all day and hadn't been cleared, but even the ice itself is super soft and it was painfully slow- glide time was about 1 second. :( too bad. But on the other hand, I am definitely ready for spring....anytime... seriously...

love,

S

week 5, semester 2

Wow, week 5 already! Its no wonder things are getting busy. Only one more week, however, until reading week! I'm hoping to use the time to finish up at least a couple papers and start on a couple more! Also, I'll be going to Toronto on Thursday with a few other classmates to stay at Rosie's house for the weekend. It's very exciting!

This week was yet again busy, but I've really been enjoying the work. We also had our Restless Hearts Cafe on Tuesday, where we all got up and contributed various little performances, and on Thursday I went to young adults' at the Met and got to hang out with people there. At the cafe Rosie and I sang a song called 'heal over' by KT Tunstall, and also the song Popular from the musical Wicked. (I sang it to my roommate Jenny, it was great fun and everyone seemed to enjoy it.) Our administrator Harold and his wife sang a hymn; Trevor gave us his long and alliterated ode to the Pun (of which he is undoubtedly king); Jenny and Susan and Jasmine did a skit where they performed neuro-analysis on Jasmine, a girl suffering from social rejection after 6 months at Augustine College; Rosie and her sister Michelle did a hip hop dance, and Michelle also performed a ballet piece she choreographed; three girls sang 'twas in the moon of wintertime; and Landon played us a couple songs with his guitar, ukelele, harmonica, and whistling ability. Dr. Patrick read us some stories, one was a comedic version of an anglican priest's sunday address that went off on a million tangents and has already provided our class with several phrases for inside jokes. Professor Blaedow read us a poem about the College which he wrote that was very good; Stephanie read us a story she wrote from Horatio's (from Hamlet) point of view; and all of the boys got up to do a rousing version of 'like someone in love', which they sing every morning at their house, apparently. Emily provided excellent biscotti and banana bread and fruit along with tea and coffee. All in all, it was a very successful and entertaining evening!

Now onto what I learned this week:

Latin- we had to translate a passage from Luke 2, which we'll correct tomorrow... it took forever and I'm sure I got most of it wrong, since it employed a lot of perfect passive and subjunctive verb tenses that we haven't learned yet...

Philosophy- We 'romped through' both Luther and Machiavelli. Its too bad we couldn't get into them too deeply because of the time constraints, but this week we've read Descartes and Pascal who are really interesting, so I'm happy to carry on. On Luther we talked mostly about Determinism and how he had a different ethics from Aristotle. His writings signified a big shift in our culture.
Machiavelli stresses virtu and fortuna: power and fortune. Basically, the individual is the ultimate social unit and power is the ultimate concern. He wants to call justice and abstraction and impossible to attain so it shouldn't even be tried for. Real, for him, does not include good and evil which are only in our imagining, thining, willing, or feeling. Rules are artificial, written by the winners, and there is nothing good or bad but thinking/be powerful makes it so. His advice is practical, but this doesn't make it true. He assumes there is no authority over him and makes the metaphysical assumption that there is no God. We talked in class about whether it is possible to avoid metaphysics by being purely factual.

Art- we carried on with Northern Renaissance art (1420-1550), looking especially at altarpieces and other religious art. Lots by Memling. We talked about the use of legends and their way of communicating. Heronimus Bosch is crazy weird and hilarious- I can't believe his 'garden of earthly delights' triptych was used for worship at church! The Ghent altarpiece by van Eyck is fascinating. As is the Isenheim Altarpiece by Grunewald- this is the piece Dr. Stewart, the former art teacher, gave us a little lecture on when we went to their house before Christmas. Anyway, its amazing how much art changed in just a hundred years!

Science- Talking about the Sermon on the mount, he talked about how chapter 6 starts to deal with our practice of the Faith. Since we can't control everything, we invariably make our objectives do-able by reducing things to a series of rituals. But Jesus sets the standards much higher. We talked about prayer, Jesus tells us to go into your room and shut the door to pray. Don't babble in prayer, and don't presume in prayer that God doesn't already know what you need. We won't understand how God takes care of us until we're in a situation where we cannot depend on ourselves in any way.

Then we went over more stuff on evolution, reviewing the week's chapters in Denton and learning how Darwin himself probably wouldn't have believed his theory if he'd been presented wth the scientific data we have today. He was committed to the idea that nature does not jump, and insisted that evolution would be a very gradual progression over a long period of time. More and more, we have seen that there have to have been at least some jumps...

Dr. Patrick also talked about a book called The Fourth Greak Awakening by Robert William Fogel, who says that "the future will be limited by spiritual resources" a.k.a. virtues. THis guy is an atheist, but he says that the deprivation of purpose is widespread, but that we are starting to go through a revival of these resources such as a strong family ethic, solidarity within families and communities, benevolence, work ethic, discipline, capacity to remain faithful to commitment and to resist temptations to hedonism, a desire for education, and self-esteem. We need to find these things from among the two extremes on either side of them (sounds like Aristotle!).

Music- we talked about Mozart and got to listen to a ton of music, including the Queen of the Night aria , some sonatas, some Eine Kleine Nacht Musik, and the Ave Verum Corpus.

Literature- Chesterton said that "man is comforted by paradoxes". I read his book "The Man who was Thursday" today, and it is indeed full of paradoxes- I can't wait to talk about in on Thursday. It's very allegorical and confusing but really well written and I hope professor Tucker can shed some light on it.
During class we talked about Lewis' Till We have Faces. How we have such an ability to delude ourselves and how being in the presence of God has a silencing effect on us. We talked a lot about the use of myths in stories like this- read from a book called The Narnian. Lewis says that the fairytale form of literature "permits or compels you to throw all the force of a book into what was done or said. It checks the expository demon in me".

Scriptures- we went over some more Aquinas. Talked about the importance of the resurrection, hope, two-fold death (separation from the soul and separation from God) and two-fold life (Life of nature and life of grace). Since Christ never went through the second death, and never needed the second life, by his bodily resurrection Christ is the cause of both the bodily and the spiritual resurrection in us.

Trivium- We did some more essay writing- looked at Matin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech.

Alright, that's the week in a nutshell. I wrote the first draft of my music essay on Friday but its going to need serious revision. Yesterday I did Latin and Science homework and today I've read Chesterton, we're goign to the 5:00 service at church tonight. Susan had organized a 'father-daughter tea' around the valentine's theme at church, so we helped out with that yesterday afternoon. It just keeps snowing, but today is very warm. I made my first purchase on eBay today: headphones, since mine are broken and I'm going crazy with only these tinny computer speakers! Tonight I'm goign to make french onion soup and rest up for another busy week ahead! I got to talk to Kristen on Friday night, who is in New Zealand, and I have to say I'm a little envious, but not as much as I would have been a couple months ago- I get really excited with being able to learn so much here!!!

love love love
Starr

Week 4, semester 2

This week we got a whole bunch of work piled on us:

Latin- i stem nouns of the third declension (yipee!) and also we translated the first few verses of John 1, which was cool.

Philsophy- we finished up with Aquinas. Talked about man's last end, love and hate, happiness and how to get it (how we can't get it from wealth, honours, fame, glory, power, bodily good, pleasure, or a good of the soul, or any created good, but only from seeing God, the "beatific vision". Then we talked about virtue and what part the soul has in being virtuous, in correcting sin and about the 7 deadly sins and 7 cardinal virtues.

Art- We started talked about the Northern Renaissance artists, mostly Jan van Eyck. We read from an essay by Erwin Panofsky, an art scholar who wrote about the 'levels of iconography', as in how to 'interpret' a work of art. It was pretty interesting, the focus is on not looking for the meaning and exact people shown in a painting right off the bat, but just to look at what you see without any guessing and to see what you can learn just by observing. The thing with him is that after he does all this observation of what the painting actually shows, he extrapolates and the 'last level of iconography' is "intrinsic meaning", where you can learn the philosophy of the artist himself. But we wondered if an artist's deepest goal is always just to portray his own outlook on life. Maybe the artist actually wanted to portray a universal truth, something about God. I think we often do look at a painting in hopes of figuring out exactly how the artist's mind worked, but that's not necessarily what the artist wanted, or what is the best thing to do.

Science with Dr. Patrick- we got our papers assigned, we have to write a dialogue where the pros and cons of evolution are discussed. Also, we each will do a ten minute presentation on something that relates to the theory of evolution- mine will be on DNA. So I started reading the parts of our textbook relating to that. Then we talked about how Darwinism has become an orthodoxy, a dogma, and how it eliminates teleology. An american Jewish bioethicist names Kass makes 4 points when talking about teleology and why we can't do without it:
-organisms are organized wholes (Dr. Patrick says the most important ideal for dealing with end and beginning of life issues is central organization)
-our parts have specific functions
-we behave on purpose
-we heal
So inductive reasoning has done very well but we shouldn't have thrown out teleology completely, we just need more sophisticated versions of it. (I'm not sure what he would suggest, exactly.) Within what God has created there is teleology evident everywhere. Even "Struggling for survival" is a teleological metaphor! And the fact that our world built on delayed gratification- that's teleological too.

Book Club- the chapter of the week was on Eros. It wasn't that earth-shattering, I liked the chapter on friendship much better, but that could be because I'm not madly in love with anyone. haha.

Music- the Classical era and Haydn, who we compared with Mozart although we'll talk more about Mozart later. Prof. Warren played us a few piano sonatas in the living room (it was fun- he's so good!) and we talked about sonata form. Then we listened to a bunch of Haydn's symphonies.

Literature- we had read the last chapter of Paradise Lost- so we talked about that. Some people have criticized the last two books, but I really liked them and thought they were well-written. Here are the very last lines of the epic:
In either hand the hastning Angel caught
Our lingring Parents, and to th' Eastern Gate
Led them direct, and down the Cliff as fast
To the subjected Plaine; then disappeer'd.
They looking back, all th' Eastern side beheld
Of Paradise, so late thir happie seat,
Wav'd over by that flaming Brand, the Gate
With dreadful Faces throng'd and fierie Armes:
Som natural tears they drop'd, but wip'd them soon;
The World was all before them, where to choose
Their place of rest, and Providence thir guide:
They hand in hand with wandring steps and slow,
Through Eden took thir solitarie way.

We also started discussing Till We Have Faces, by C.S. Lewis. I loved this book, I'm excited to talk more about it. There's always a lot of discussion around gender issues in our Lit. class, since Milton makes some pretty blood-curdling comments and there are a lot of things in Lewis that relate to it as well. I'm getting kind of tired of the discussion, frankly, because we never seem to get anywhere or talk about anything that is going to change my life.

Scriptures- we talked about Thomas Aquinas' Compendium again. Mostly stuff about original justice, the fall, and original sin and how Adam's sin affects us all, but his repentance could not. Then we talked about reasons for the incarnation:
- To Recall man to spiritual things from material things.
-To show the dignity of human nature- we're not just spiritual beings 'trapped in a physical world'. Christ didn't become an angel, he became a man and was lifted up above the angels.
-God showed his love so that men might serve him not out of fear but out of charity. The pagan relationship with the gods was one of fear.
-There is a possibility of the intellect and the spirit having unity. The incarnation is the completion of what God began.
-Man can be united to the First Cause . We have hope of that restored union, of Him completing his purposes in us.

Then we had chapel, and I went to the MET on Thursday night where we heard a presentation by people from Wycliffe Bible Translators- it was really well done and interesting, although a little long after sitting in class all day. They have a program where you can go to a village for two years that has no written language, learn the language, and help them develop 40 bible stories that tell the Gospel for them to have in their oral culture. This seems really interesting, although I wonder whether there might end up being problems with the stories changing and becoming untrue if they were never written down, but I guess these oral cultures are used to it...

In Trivium we've been learning about essay writing, I think it'll be really useful.

Yesterday we went to the Metelski's for dinner, it was really nice. Today after Church we went to Winterlude and looked at all the ice sculptures that have been entered into the competition- they are amazing! We also listened to the 'junkyard symphony'- some guys who put on a little show where they drum on trash cans and such (kind of STOMP style) whilst doing funny circus stunts (jugling and balancing and such) and bringing kids up to be a part of it and do silly things. It was really cute. The weather was gorgeous- actually too warm because the ice sculptures were starting to melt. Some heads and arms were falling off!

Okay I'm going to eat.

peace out.
S

Week 3, semester 2

My roomates are home from their weekend retreat in Quebec and I'm filled up on cookies from Jasmine. I'm listening to KT Tunstall's "Heal Over" since I think Rosie and I may do it for the Restless Hearts Cafe next Tuesday (if I can learn it, that is).

So the week. Latin was full of ipse, ipsa, ipsum (which means himself, herself, itself) and all the variations of that, we got sentences like "He himself must truly look inside himself by himself", its ridiculous but apparently these Romans liked emphasis and redundancy. In philosophy we talked about Thomas Aquinas some more- the nature of evil, the impossibility of its being a nature since existence is in itself a good thing, what we can call evil, its cause... and also about the soul (appetitive and intellectual parts) and man's last end. Here's a bti from my notes that I found interesting:

"Christianity has often failed to eliminate a Manichaeism that sees the body as sinful. The body is an instrument of righteousness. That mistake can be made about the mind as well, which happened when the attention of Christians moved from the body to the mind. We have seen the mind as an instrument of wickedness, not of righteousness. To see reliance of the mind as a sinful refusal of reliance of God is not have a disdain for God's order. Aquinas does assert the power of the intellect."

Dr. Tingley is (of course) very big on the importance of reason, which is cool because I know a lot of Christians do disregard it. Anyway, moving on...

Art class was cancelled, because Dr. Tingley's slide show was erased from his computer. Which sucks for him. I use the time to get all my Latin done though, so it was great and saved me staying up super late that night.

In Dr. Patrick's class we talked about William Harvey, John Ray, Robert Boyle, and Robert Hooke. Ray especially is interesting, he was a hardcore Christian and that is why he doesn't get a lot of credit these days, even though he was the 'father of botany' and Linnaeus gives him the credit for starting taxonomy in a serious manner. We also learned about the Royal Society which still exists in Britain, and then we talked about the "four levels of happiness": animal, intellectual, charity, and knowing God (I don't have the actual names for them but there is a book by Robert Spitzer called "Healing the Culture" where he talks about this, although the idea has been around for ages.)

Oh and we talked about the sermon on the mount section where he says "unless your righteousness exceeds that of the Pharisees you will not enter the kingdom of heaven." He talked about how this is emphasizing how important grace is, as it is the only possible solution to a righteousness of that standard. Jesus then deconstructs the legalistic approach to righteousness with 5 examples, one of which is: anyone who kills will be judged, anyone who dismisses his brother is in danger of hellfire. This standard is impossible for us to meet on our own, it brings us, once again, right back to the first beatitude: poverty of spirit.

We had bookclub on Tuesday evening (the friendship chapter of the four loves), and afterwards had a prayer service for Gideon, Jasmine's little brother who has cancer and was going in for surgery on Wednesday morning. Apparently surgery went well, they removed most of the lower lobe of his left lung. We're praying hard for him and the whole Stairs family!

Wednesday was Latin again and Music, where we talked about Handel (listened to a bunch of his oratorio Israel and Egypt) and the transition to the classical period. We're cruising through history! We got our research paper topics this week as well- I'm going to do mine on the operas of Puccini, so I'm pretty excited for that!

In Literature we talked more about George McDonald and his novel Lilith, and also about a short story we read called "Life in the Iron Mills" by Rebecca Harding Davis. It was a really sad story set in the industrial revolution. As much as Dr. Patrick talks about how degraded today's culture is, I'm glad I didn't live back then.

Scriptures class was about Augustine on recreation (a sermon on Romans 8) and original sin, and also we started on Thomas Aquinas' Compendium on Theology. I did a synopsis this week on part of this work where he talks about hope, which I thought was really great (the Aquinas, not my synopsis haha). Oh and we got the topic for our research paper in that class as well- we have to compare three of the writers we've studied and write 10 pages on something to do with them. haha its pretty vague but I'll probably look either at how they all see a particular passage of how they see a theme (the theme might be easier). Here's a link to the Aquinas Compendium, he talks about hope in part two, chapters 7-10 (the last three chapters, he died before he could finish the rest): http://www.diafrica.org/kenny/CDtexts/Compendium.htm#B7

Prof. Tucker taught us about essay writing on Friday. We don't have science class with Dr. Metelski for a couple of weeks (this is a scheduled thing, they are trying not to overload us with classtime since they're giving us more homework).

I went to a birthday/baptism party on Friday, and also to a concert of a friend of a classmate. On Saturday I baked bread (yay!) and made crepes and banana bread, I was feeling very domestic! This morning i went to Church, Timothy's coffee shop, and then skating on the Rideau canal!! I'll put pictures up next week. In the meantime, here's a picture I took at the young adults retreat last weekend.

love,

Starr