Surprised By Joy Quotes

I'm finally reading C.S. Lewis' Surprised By Joy all the way through for the first time. Granted, I'm only in the middle of the second chapter, but it's farther than where I was the last time I picked it up (first chapter). And I've got my American Scholar HB 2 pencil with me. Not as cool as Dixon Ticonderoga, but hey, it's got a lead and an eraser, along with the added bonus of that cheerful yellow colour.

And so, without further ado, I give you the words of Clive Staples Lewis.

"From a very early age I could draw movement - figures that looked as if they wre really running or fighting - and the perspective is good. But nowhere, either in my brother's work or my own, is there a single line drawn in obedience to an idea, however crude, of beauty. . . . Once in those very early days my brother brought into the nursery the lid of a biscuit tin which he had covered with moss and garnished with twigs and flowers so as to make it a toy garden or a toy forest. That was the first beauty I ever knew. What the real garden had failed to do, the toy garden did."

"The charm of tradition and the verbal beauty of Bible and Prayer Book (all of them for me late and acquired tastes) were [my father's] natural delight, and it would have been hard to find an equally intelligent man who cared so little for metaphysics."

"As Owen Barfield once said to me, "The trouble about insects is that they are like French locomotives - they have all the works on the outside." The works - that is the trouble. Their angular limbs, their jerky movements, their dry, metallic noises, all suggest either machines that have come to life or life degenerating into mechanism. You may add that in the hive and the anthill we see fully realized the two things that some of us most dread for our own species - the dominace of the female and the dominace of the collective."

"My father bought all the books he read and never got rid of any of them."

On praying for a miracle to save his dying mother: "I had approached God, or my idea of God, without love, without awe, even without fear. He was, in my mental picture of this miracle, to appear neither as Savior nor as Judge, but merely as a magician; and when He had done what was required of Him I supposed He would simply - well, go away."

At his school in Hertfordshire: "I was already doing Latin exercises (as taught by my mother) when I went there in 1908, and I was still doing Latin exercises when I left there in 1910; I had never got in sight of a Roman author."

I can feel the frustration of this last sentence coming through. My father has always said the point and purpose of going through Latin grammar (or the grammar of ANY language, in this case) is to read an author in his native tongue, to understand his words.

Down With Down Syndrome

A few weeks ago I read an article in the local paper about some family who had surgery done on their daughter who has Down Syndrome. The surgery was to keep her from growing bigger than her 9 year old size (I believe she is a few years older now), and it was successful. Her growth stunted, her parents now feel they can take care of her better without her gaining the natural weight and length of an adult. The hassle is cut in half.

Obviously, this article bothered me, and I didn't really know how to respond to it, even though I was immediately distrubed by the idea. Albert Mohler recently wrote an excellent post about aborting children with the possibility of having Down Syndrome.

http://www.albertmohler.com/blog_read.php?id=856

It's definitely worth the read; it's short, concise, and to the point. I know lots of families with children afflicted with Down Syndrome, and I have seen how well they handle and train up their children. Sure it's difficult, but does that mean we should shrink from the challenge of having Down Syndrome people in America? What is so threatening about it, after all?

Totally LOST

Dr. Leithart has an excellent post about the second season of LOST. Click this post's title to get to it.

I agree completely with what he has to say about the main characters. They are all complete psychos. I do appreciate some of the newer characters, like Eko. And I've like the Korean couple for a long time, they are fun to watch. They keep it together better than the rest of the survivors.

Let the record show that Sayid is indeed the best character: cool, calm, brave, strong, intelligent, the middle eastern good looks, and the best hair on the show. Unfortunately, he has bad taste in women.
In short, I'm glad he doesn't have mental and emotional breakdowns every 5 minutes like Jack, Kate, Michael, Shannon, Charlie, and Hot Lips (aka Analucia).

Oh, and the dialogue is idiotic. Let the record show that the screenwriter ought to be drug out into the street and shot. It's cruel and unusual punishment to give the most annoying characters a limited vocabulary. Michael keeps spouting the same things over and over again. "They took my son!" Yes! Alright, you pathetic, so-called man! We heard you the last 20 million times you said that.

I'm only watching the rest of season 2 because 1) I appreciate Sawyer's dry humor, even though he is dirty, crude, and a bad sort of 'hickboy' and 2) I think Sayid is simply the bees knees. (And I'm not one to go crazy over actors. Good ones are far and few between, especially these days.)

Psalm of the Week

This is the psalm we are memorizing in Theology for this week. But, since we didn't have class, I forgot to memorize it by Tuesday, so I'm working on it now.

Psalm 129

1Many a time have they afflicted me from my youth, may Israel now say:

2Many a time have they afflicted me from my youth: yet they have not prevailed against me.

3The plowers plowed upon my back: they made long their furrows.

4The LORD is righteous: he hath cut asunder the cords of the wicked.

5Let them all be confounded and turned back that hate Zion.

6Let them be as the grass upon the housetops, which withereth afore it groweth up:

7Wherewith the mower filleth not his hand; nor he that bindeth sheaves his bosom.

8Neither do they which go by say, The blessing of the LORD be upon you: we bless you in the name of the LORD.

Psalm 20

Psalm 20 has been running through my head all day, particularly the version in the Cantus Christi. I claim it as my own, my battle cry for today; a request for rescue not only from my enemies but also redemption from my sins.


1The LORD hear thee in the day of trouble; the name of the God of Jacob defend thee;

2Send thee help from the sanctuary, and strengthen thee out of Zion;

3Remember all thy offerings, and accept thy burnt sacrifice; Selah.

4Grant thee according to thine own heart, and fulfil all thy counsel.

5We will rejoice in thy salvation, and in the name of our God we will set up our banners: the LORD fulfil all thy petitions.

6Now know I that the LORD saveth his anointed; he will hear him from his holy heaven with the saving strength of his right hand.

7Some trust in chariots, and some in horses: but we will remember the name of the LORD our God.

8They are brought down and fallen: but we are risen, and stand upright.

9Save, LORD: let the king hear us when we call.