I've applied

That, as they say, is that. I finally got my head into the game and finished the seminary application, and sent it out this evening. And now God and the good Bishop take charge. Who knows what'll happen?

Curriculum Vitae Futurum

Curriculum Vitae
Full Name: Kenneth Richard Michael Augustus Percival MacAlbion Kirkman (a bit of an exaggeration, but in keeping with the new and exciting field of creative nominology)

DOB: Prid. Id. Maii, Anno Domini Nostri IHS XCI MCMLXXXVII, Ab Urbe Condita MMDCCXL

Likes: Puppies, Latin, palaeography, Latin palaeography, the collecting of stamps, wool socks, and tedious sermonizing on the autoapocolocyntosis of Western civilization.

Dislikes: Broccoli.

Academic History: SUNY Geneseo- TBA. Tentatively, BA in History, with significant readings in topics totally unrelated either to major field or non-major courses taken.

Publications: In progress: Germanic Phonology and Laical/Ecclesiastical Lexical Oppositions in the History of the Word "Lewd"
Past: Discourses of Aurescence: Ornamentation in the Dream of the Rood; Monarchy- Not Tried and Found Wanting, but Found Difficult and Usually Abandoned or Summarily Executed; The Fallacy of Vernacularism- How Bad English Translations Have Impaired the Liturgical Sense of the Vast Majority of Roman Catholics; A Møøse Once Bit My Sister- A Study of Nervous Disorders Induced by Freak Alcine Attacks; The Leek: Friend or Foe?

Conferences
2007: Keynote Speaker at the Society for the Promotion of Anachronistic Behavior. Keynote Address: The Hat- a Lost Art.
2008: Annual meeting of the American Association for Politically Incorrect Perspectives on Ecclesiastical History. Presented paper: Innocent III- the Master of Papal Diplomacy and Guardian of All Christendom. Subsequently expressed desire to the Vatican to lead the cause for sainthood of afore-mentioned pontiff. No response as yet.

Current Occupation: Self-Declared Expert on Every Subject At Hand; Pretensions to academia.

END





See what happens when I'm bored?

Is the honeymoon finally ending?

If anything, Gibbsy seems to be doing the most to help it along. I really don't get this Administration. They said they were going to put politics behind them. They said they were going to be open to new ideas and criticism. So why is it that every time someone comes out and lands a nice hit at the expense of Obama's policies, they send out Gibbs to insult them?

There is one thing this so-called "administration" has done plenty of so far: deal out payback.

I wonder if Cramer and Santinelli are going to be investigated like Joe the Plumber? Rush isn't going to have to wait for very long, Obama has already shown himself to be a failure. Thus far, he has shown himself to be nothing more than an imperious, self-promoting git who has his yes-men dig up dirt on anyone who puts the screws to him. He is a failure in the realm of ideas, and a failure in being anything like a true leader.

Some Lenten reading

Ever since I first heard of it, I have thought very fondly of this discipline. It really ought to be more widely encouraged than it is. This year's reading is Dom Hubert van Zeller's Spirit of Penance, Path to God , and it's quite a read. He puts a lot of thought into everything in there, and it's a topic that's naturally suited to Lent. That it is brief is also a point in its favor, as there is a significant (okay, really significant) amount of reading for classes that I can't blow off. I also have Fr. Adrian Fortescue's The Mass: A Study of the Roman Liturgy, but I'm afraid I won't be able to give the work the time it deserves, with round about 40 books on the Crusades piled on my desk.

One comment for Lent that was monastic in origin, but really has a much wider application to the Christian life, has really stuck in my head lately. I'll paraphrase: "We have all these rules and restrictions put in place, these things that are seen almost as bars on a window- those bars on that window are the gateway to true freedom." Having the courage to admit that we are all in some way broken and ill, and then taking steps to correct it is necessary. We might not like the medicine, but it will cure the sickness, which is what will make us happier in the long run. And after all, we have a good model to follow- who better than the One who bore the punishment due to everyone and was Himself innocent?

La Fin du Carnivale

I really do love this painting:


A picture really is worth a thousand words. The fool is still dressed in his Carnival finery, but his head is down, and he's in a bare, unadorned cell. But from the window, high up in the wall, light streams into the darkened room. Simple, but powerful- and profound.

Erinyes, Ordo, et Chaos

An interesting thought crossed my mind today in thinking about the Oresteia, our current reading in my Athenian history course, and Greek art. J.J. Pollitt, in his classic (ha!) Art and Experience in Classical Greece, points out that one of the major themes in Greek art, science, philosophy, and culture, was the attempt to discover order in, or indeed impose it upon, the seeming chaos of nature, "the flux of physical and psychological experience". One of the major problems seen was the incredibly sudden reversal, metastasis, of the human condition, particularly in such a mutable, fallen world. I don't think, of course, that the Greeks ever had the idea of a fall until it was brought to them, but there is a keen awareness within Greek art and literature that the world is, in a real sense, broken- there is something wrong with it, we have lost something important. And the way in which the Greek attempted to respond to this was by seeking out order in nature, or by imposing order upon nature.

In reading the Oresteia, then, the idea suddenly struck me that much the same impulse is at work. The primal force of the Erinyes, the Furies, drives the action of the play. Klytaimnestra murders Agamemnon in retaliation for the sacrifice of Iphigeneia, Orestes murders Klytaimnestra in retaliation for the murder of Agamemnon his father, and is then driven mad and pursued by the Furies, who hound him for matricide.



But after the trial before Athena, the Erinyes, once the drivers of vengeance, who would by their very nature perpetuate the self-destructive murderous miasmos of the Atreidai, became the Eumenides, the guardians of Athenian law and justice. The move from Erinys to Eumenês, from vengeance to civic justice, seems to fit very well into the motivations of Greek art and experience which Pollitt has posited. Interesting stuff.

Boy, do I hate being right all the time....

Well, maybe I was a little off on the exact tally. The two incidents mentioned in my previous post are pretty evidently indications of a foul wind blowing about lately. And now it seems that fellows who are supposed to be on our team are trying to undermine the authority of the captain. Not cool.
So the Austrian bishops are misbehaving, the Spirit of Vatican II crowd are getting bolder and more strident, the Ecumenists At All Costs are becoming outright intolerant, and the Bitter Pill does a hit piece on Fr. Finigan. With friends like these, who needs enemies?