Happy Birthday, Bach; ogg files

March 21 is the birthday of J. S. Bach, who is right up there in most lists of "most important composers." Bach was born in Eisenach, Germany, in 1685. In checking the Wikipedia article on him, I discovered that there are several sound files of his music that are part of the article. (Bach's compositions, of course, are now public domain. Individual performances may not be. The clips in the article are freely usable.)

Bach was a Lutheran. Most of his music was written to be performed in church. There are a number of web pages dealing with his religious beliefs, and how they affected his art, or listening to it. Here's a one-paragraph statement on this matter. Mark Galli, of Christianity Today, went so far as to call him the Fifth Evangelist.

The Wikipedia uses, for this article, a sound file format I had not seen before, with the .ogg extension. In checking, I discovered that this format has an open source player (Which is why the Wikipedia, an open source encyclopedia, uses it). Other articles in the Wikipedia, including at least the ones on Mozart and Vivaldi, also use this file format. I have no ability, nor wish, to tweak a media player, and you probably don't, either, but the player, for Windows, Unix, and Macintosh operating systems, is available here. (Well, sort of. There is a link from that page to this one, which has a downloadable filter for Windows Media Player. I downloaded that. Then, when I opened an .ogg file from the Wikipedia article on Bach, I had to open it with the Other option, so as to change the program I wanted to open the file with. I browsed to the Windows Media Player, which was in the folder of the same name, in the C: \Program Files folder. Got all that? After that, my computer was "smart" enough to open an .ogg file with WMP without prompting.)

Warning: Like other music files, some of the .ogg files linked to the Wikipedia article on Bach are a few megabytes in size.

There are other sources, besides the Wikipedia, that provide .ogg files. Here's a link to some of them. I haven't explored any of these, and probably won't, as most of them seem to be current popular music, which (sorry) I have little interest in.

* * * * *
Added later: The Wikipedia article on Beethoven includes the entire 5th Symphony, the "Moonlight Sonata," and the 1st movement of his 4th piano concerto, a real treasure! The Handel article includes "And the glory of the Lord," "For unto us a child is born" and "Hallelujah" from Messiah. There are, no doubt, other treasures available.

Four-footed insects?

Leviticus 11:20 “All winged insects that go on all fours are detestable to you. 21 Yet among the winged insects that go on all fours you may eat those that have jointed legs above their feet, with which to hop on the ground. 22 Of them you may eat: the locust of any kind, the bald locust of any kind, the cricket of any kind, and the grasshopper of any kind. 23 But all other winged insects that have four feet are detestable to you. (ESV)

This is yet again an indication that the numbers of the Old Testament are not necessarily meant to be taken literally. Why? For the simple reason that insects have six legs, not four. God knew this, of course (and still does). I think that in this case he allowed the writer of Leviticus (presumably Moses) to accomodate the writing to common usage, rather than require strict literalness. Some of us call spiders, which have eight legs, "bugs," and some include centipedes and millipedes, which have more than eight, in "bugs," too. If the Bible were being written now, in a way that people of our day could understand it, it might use "bugs" for all of these, even though, to a scientist, they aren't members of the same group, and there is a group of insects which is called true bugs.

The point remains that the numbers in the Old Testament were not all necessarily meant to be taken literally.

Diary of an Old Soul: Mar 13 - 19

13. I love thee, Lord, for very greed of love--
Not of the precious streams that towards me move,
But of the indwelling, outgoing, fountain store.
Than mine, oh, many an ignorant heart loves more!
Therefore the more, with Mary at thy feet,
I must sit worshipping--that, in my core,
Thy words may fan to a flame the low primeval heat.

14. Oh my beloved, gone to heaven from me!
I would be rich in love to heap you with love;
I long to love you, sweet ones, perfectly--
Like God, who sees no spanning vault above,
No earth below, and feels no circling air--
Infinitely, no boundary anywhere.
I am a beast until I love as God doth love.

15. Ah, say not, 'tis but perfect self I want
But if it were, that self is fit to live
Whose perfectness is still itself to scant,
Which never longs to have, but still to give.
A self I must have, or not be at all:
Love, give me a self self-giving--or let me fall
To endless darkness back, and free me from life's thrall.

16. "Back," said I! Whither back? How to the dark?
From no dark came I, but the depths of light;
From the sun-heart I came, of love a spark:
What should I do but love with all my might?
To die of love severe and pure and stark,
Were scarcely loss; to lord a loveless height--
That were a living death, damnation's positive night.

17. But love is life. To die of love is then
The only pass to higher life than this.
All love is death to loving, living men;
All deaths are leaps across clefts to the abyss.
Our life is the broken current, Lord, of thine,
Flashing from morn to morn with conscious shine--
Then first by willing death self-made, then life divine.

18. I love you, my sweet children, who are gone
Into another mansion; but I know
I love you not as I shall love you yet.
I love you, sweet dead children; there are none
In the land to which ye vanished to go,
Whose hearts more truly on your hearts are set--
Yet should I die of grief to love you only so.

19. "I am but as a beast before thee, Lord."--
Great poet-king, I thank thee for the word.--
Leave not thy son half-made in beastly guise--
Less than a man, with more than human cries--
An unshaped thing in which thyself cries out!
Finish me, Father; now I am but a doubt;
Oh! make thy moaning thing for joy to leap and shout.

The above is excerpted from George MacDonald's A Book of Strife in the Form of The Diary of an Old Soul (Public Domain, 1880). For further information see this post. The excerpt above is the readings for March 13 through March 19.

Numbers in Genesis

As Carol Hill points out, some of the numbers in Genesis cause some questions. Among these are the reported ages of the patriarchs. Hill, writing in Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith, presents considerable evidence from scripture, archaeology, and elsewhere, that suggests strongly that these numbers, and others, had more symbolic than literal significance. The article is well written, seems to be authoritative, and does not require any special knowledge to understand, but it is not the sort of thing you are going to be able to read and digest in five minutes.

Here's perhaps the most important passage:

All age-numbers (30 in all) from Adam to Noah are a combination of the sacred numbers 60 (years and months) and 7. No numbers end in 1, 3, 4, 6, or 8—a chance probability of one in a billion. Thirteen numbers end in 0 (some multiple or combination of 60), 8 numbers end in 5 (5 years = 60 months), 3 numbers end in 7, 5 numbers end in 2 (5yrs + 7 yrs = 12), and 1 number ends in 9 (5yrs + 7yrs + 7yrs = 19). All of this cannot be coincidental. The Mesopotamians were using sacred numbers, not real numbers. Therefore, these numbers were not meant to be (and should not be) interpreted as real numbers.

There have been some responses to Hill's article, which can be found here. One of them is a letter from me, which points out that the Bible indicates the number of people that went to Egypt with Jacob during the famine. Only two of those listed and included in the total are female, which is inconsistent with common sense, and also inconsistent with the scripture's own statement that Jacob's son's wives went along. I take this as further evidence that not all the numbers in the Bible were meant to be taken literally.

Here's a link to the ESV Bible, Genesis 46:8-27, which is the passage I was referring to.

Thanks for reading.

January 17, 2006: I have posted more on the subject of the women in Jacob's family.

Is evolution "unguided?"

A post on Panda's Thumb (an anti-Intelligent Design blog), claims, with evidence, that the word "unguided" was put into the Kansas science standards by ID advocates, over the objections of "mainstream" scientists. The key phrase is "Biological evolution postulates an unguided natural process that has no discernable direction or goal."

One of these mainstream (anti-ID) scientists is quoted as as saying:

The majority of the writing committee (of which I am a member) believe that evolutionary theory, or science in general, can only study the physical world in a limited way, and that judging whether there is or isn’t divine guidance (as the word is meant to imply in the standards) is outside the scope of science.

I agree with this person on this! He went on to write that:

. . . if a teacher were to actually explicitly teach the position stated in the line added by the ID Minority (that evolution was a unguided process from a theological view, and that therefore students were accidents with no intrinsic purpose because there is no God), the ACLU would be first in line to support a suit against them, and Kansas Citizens for Science would support them.

I hope that's true.

The reasons that Intelligent Design has so much support include (they are not limited to) a perception that public school biology texts and classes teach that there is no purpose to the universe, or, in other words, no God. I'm sure that that is done sometimes, although I've not seen a text, or heard a teacher, that does it. (On reflection, I take that back -- I had a genetics professor who said that there was no God in genetics class. So it was done, and I did hear it.) If either is done, that would be teaching religion, or teaching against it, and the ACLU should oppose it, and they shouldn't be alone.

Romans 1:20 and Psalm 19 tell us that God is revealed to us in nature. Part of that revelation seems to be that there are aspects of evolutionary theory that seem beyond dispute. To state the obvious, there have been changes in humans -- we now have more than one racial group, but came from a single family. (See here for other evidence of changes in humans.) Selection does work. Most organisms do have a struggle for existence -- far more are born/hatched/produced than survive. Some species, such as cows and bison, or horses, donkeys and zebras, appear to be related. It is unfortunate, on the one hand, that some people reject all this. It is even more unfortunate that others extrapolate from such facts to draw the conclusion that there is no God. These facts don't support that conclusion. To draw it is a faith statement (Hebrews 11:3). To believe that there is a Creator is also a faith statement. If one of these doesn't belong in the public schools, then the other doesn't, either.

Thanks for reading.

Sunspots 48

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to someone else:

From a recent Christian Carnival, I found musings on alien plants.

Rebecca writes about why those who use only the King James Bible of 1611 are wrong.

Bonnie writes about time management. Take time to read her post.

Several sources comment on recent research that shows that some human genes have changed recently. Here's one such source.

A good post by Joe Carter on God and gaps in our knowledge.

Thanks to Parableman, a solid comment on the Dover Intelligent Design decision from Alvin Plantinga, philosopher. Plantinga concludes that Judge Jones's opinion, namely that ID is not science, was based on errors in the Judge's philosophy.

Tip for Firefox users: The search box in the upper right includes a drop-down list of search engines, and you can add alternatives, such as weather and a couple of dictionaries. Warning: You'll have to go back and drop Google down again after using, say, the weather.

I'm not making this up! Here's a map of the Americas, made out of DNA, no less.

Brady has photos of newly hatched praying mantises here. He also says that there's a better plural than mantises . . .

Tip for Flickr users, or those wanting photos about a particular topic: You can subscribe to an RSS feed of all Flickr images with a certain tag, such as daisy. Do a photo search (bottom of any page), then enter a single tag in the Search Tags box, on the left, and subscribe from the resulting page. (One weakness of this is that Flickr users can be idiosyncratic about tags, either not using them at all, or using them for various weird purposes, but it works, with that limitation. Another weakness is that you can't subscribe to the results of a search for a combination of tags.) You can also subscribe to a Flickr group (if you want just the photos, go to the page for the group, then click on the Photos link) or to any other Flickr page with the RSS 2.0 in blue at the bottom.

This week's Christian Carnival is here. (For information on locating these Carnivals, see here)

When I don't tell where I found an item above, I either found it directly, or was probably pointed to it by the Librarians Internet Index, SciTech Daily, or Arts and Letters Daily. All of them are great.

Image source (public domain)

Greg Keyes: The Charnel Prince

This book is the second in a planned series of four books, in the sword and sorcery fantasy genre. I posted on the first one here. As I mentioned in that post, I got the second book from the library so I could find out what happened to the characters. When I did, I checked the author's web page, and discovered that there are two more books to be published, so it will be a while before I find out what happens in the end.

All of the characters I mentioned in the previous post are around at the end of the second book, although the empress, Muriele, has been arrested by her late husband's brother, Robert, and all of them have gone through considerable difficulties. I should have included Princess Anne's best friend and servant, Austra, in this list of characters who have something admirable about them. She was an important character in both books. Another character I didn't like much, Cazio, the swordsman, shows considerable bravery, loyalty, and determination in the second book. In the first, he seemed mostly a braggart.

A new character, the composer, Leovigild Ackenzal, appears in this book. He is a good man, in many ways. The empress commissions him to write a piece of music to give all of the people, whatever station they have, some hope, as terrible things are happening. He does so. There is a fair amount of conversation on the role of music in people's lives in the book.

The Charnel Prince is Robert, who murdered his brother, the emperor, in the first book. The emperor killed him as his final act. However, Robert is brought back to life, inadvertently, by sorcery. This relates to one of the themes of both books, namely the law of death: Dead things should stay dead.

The church of this subcreated world is presented as evil indeed. The central rite of the religion, as perverted by the current church hierarchy, involves human sacrifice, and invocation of evil spirits.

I'd like to know what happens next. Perhaps I will read the next book (not published yet) and find out.

Bibliographic information: Greg Keyes, The Charnel Prince. New York: Random House, 2004.

(Normally, I post a Sunspots on Wednesday, mentioning the week's Christian Carnival. It's time for me to go to bed, and no Christian Carnival yet, so I'm posting this instead.)

Thanks for reading.

Water on another world? Implications

Water may have been discovered on Saturn's moon Enceladus, encouraging speculation about the possibility that there may be life there. Slate's Explainer has a good column on how water is related to life. The column has links to sources about the discoveries on Enceladus.

Water has a number of unusual properties. It is the only common substance that exists in gas, water, and solid at common temperatures, and that's important. It is the only common substance with a solid less dense than the liquid -- ice floats. Without water vapor, there would not be rain. Without layers of ice on top of bodies of water, they would freeze solid, but ice insulates. Fish and other organisms in water in cold parts of the earth are able to survive because of this.

Water is transparent. If it were not, we couldn't see -- light comes through the liquid in our eyes, which is mostly water, to the retina at the back of our eyes. If water wasn't transparent, plants couldn't carry on photosynthesis under it, and fish and crustaceans couldn't see. While we're on photosynthesis, water is one of the raw materials plants use to manufacture the food we need by this process. (Using food for energy is mostly the reverse -- re-creating water in our mitochondria.)

Water will dissolve many things. Thus, it is useful in carrying food and other substances in the bodies of organisms.

There are other important and unusual properties of water. Many people suspect that water was specially designed by God. I am one of these. However, this can't be proved.

What are the theological implications of life on other worlds, should such exist? I don't see any particular significance to such a discovery, as such, unless this life is sentient, intelligent, and able to communicate with us. Nowhere in scripture does it say that this is impossible, so far as I know. (Nor does the Bible say unequivocally that life elsewhere exists.) Some science fiction writers (C. S. Lewis, in Out of the Silent Planet and Perelandra, and James Blish, in A Case of Conscience, and probably others) have written about intelligent non-human organisms that have not experienced the Fall. Now that would have some interesting theological implications. So would evangelizing extraterrestrials.

An omniscient creator doesn't need to be bound to have created life on only one world, or on many. Nor is He bound to have created only one kind of life, the Carbon-based life that we know of, requiring water.

The SETI institute is dedicated to finding life elsewhere.

In his Out of the Silent Planet, Lewis criticized the view that humans have a right, or destiny, to spread ourselves to other worlds.

Thanks for reading!

The Spies and Rahab: Joshua 2

Joshua 2 tells us that Joshua sent two spies across the Jordan River to spy out the land, especially Jericho. I'd like to pass on a few musings about this story.

Joshua had been told, in Joshua 1:5, that "No man shall be able to stand before you all the days of your life. Just as I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will not leave you or forsake you." (ESV) Why, then, did he need to send out spies? He had just been told, by God Himself, that he would not be defeated. One reason is that what God really meant was that Joshua would not be defeated, but he, and his army, would still have to do the work needed. Joshua had already prepared the people, in Joshua 1. God may call, and enable, but we need to work, and do our part.

Another possible reason is that God wanted to rescue Rahab, who was, by her own testimony, in Joshua 2, a believer, not only in the power of God, but in the possibility of deliverance. Hebrews 11:31 says that "by faith Rahab the prostitute did not perish" (ESV, emphasis added). God cared for individuals, and not just individuals from the chosen people. Rahab became one of the ancestors of King David, and, therefore, at least legally, of Christ Himself. (Matthew 1:5)

When Jericho fell, it fell, not because of the work of spies, but because of a miracle. The Israelites walked around it, for several days, as prescribed by God, then shouted, and it fell. It would seem that no spies were needed for that conquest, which strengthens my guess that the main reason the spies went into Jericho was to make a way of rescuing Rahab, who had become convinced that God was powerful, and wanted to be on His side. I don't know this, of course.

I also note Rahab's occupation. (I know that some have said that the translation is not correct, and that she was an innkeeper, but most Bible scholars seem to hold with the translation as quoted in the previous paragraph.) I do not condone prostitution, and, much more importantly, God doesn't, either, but sexual sin does not prevent God's redeeming grace from working.

I had the responsibility and privilege of teaching my Sunday School class yesterday, and Joshua 2 was the assigned material.

Thanks for reading.

Diary of an Old Soul, Mar 6 - Mar 12

6. This day be with me, Lord, when I go forth,
Be nearer to me than I am able to ask.
In merriment, in converse, or in task,
Walking the street, listening to men of worth,
Or greeting such as only talk and bask,
Be thy thought still my waiting soul around,
And if He come, I shall be watching found.

7. What if, writing, I always seem to leave
Some better thing, or better way, behind,
Why should I therefore fret at all, or grieve!
The worse I drop, that I the better find;
The best is only in thy perfect mind.
Fallen threads I will not search for--I will weave.
Who makes the mill-wheel backward strike to grind!

8. Be with me, Lord. Keep me beyond all prayers:
For more than all my prayers my need of thee,
And thou beyond all need, all unknown cares;
What the heart's dear imagination dares,
Thou dost transcend in measureless majesty
All prayers in one--my God, be unto me
Thy own eternal self, absolutely.

9. Where should the unknown treasures of the truth
Lie, but there whence the truth comes out the most--
In the Son of man, folded in love and ruth*?
Fair shore we see, fair ocean; but behind
Lie infinite reaches bathing many a coast--
The human thought of the eternal mind,
Pulsed by a living tide, blown by a living wind.

10. Thou, healthful Father, art the Ancient of Days,
And Jesus is the eternal youth of thee.
Our old age is the scorching of the bush
By life's indwelling, incorruptible blaze.
O Life, burn at this feeble shell of me,
Till I the sore singed garment off shall push,
Flap out my Psyche wings, and to thee rush.

11. But shall I then rush to thee like a dart?
Or lie long hours æonian** yet betwixt
This hunger in me, and the Father's heart?--
It shall be good, how ever, and not ill;
Of things and thoughts even now thou art my next;
Sole neighbour, and no space between, thou art--
And yet art drawing nearer, nearer still.

12. Therefore, my brothers, therefore, sisters dear,
However I, troubled or selfish, fail
In tenderness, or grace, or service clear,
I every moment draw to you more near;
God in us from our hearts veil after veil
Keeps lifting, till we see with his own sight,
And all together run in unity's delight.

*According to this source, ruth can mean "1. Compassion or pity for another. . ."

**According to this source, aeonian is an adjective meaning "lasting for an immeasurably or indefinitely long period of time."

The above is excerpted from George MacDonald's A Book of Strife in the Form of The Diary of an Old Soul (Public Domain, 1880). For further information see this post. The excerpt above is the readings for March 6 through March 12.

Cisterns: musings

Be thy heart a well of love, my child,
Flowing, and free, and sure;
For a cistern of love, though undefiled,
Keeps not the spirit pure.

From Phantastes, by George MacDonald. (1905)

Proverbs 5:15 Drink water from your own cistern, flowing water from your own well. 16 Should your springs be scattered abroad, streams of water in the streets? 17 Let them be for yourself alone, and not for strangers with you. 18 Let your fountain be blessed, and rejoice in the wife of your youth, (ESV)

A cistern, as I understand it, is a reservoir, usually dug into the ground, for holding water.

This post is, in part, one of an occasional series, based on my daily reading from the ESV Bible.

The Turing Test and Computer Intelligence

A recent article in The New Atlantis discusses the Turing Test and related issues dealing with intelligence in computers.

Allan Turing was one of the pioneers of computer theory, perhaps the greatest. In 1950, he wrote an article which begins with this sentence: "I PROPOSE to consider the question, 'Can machines think?'" Hardly a modest beginning.

Turing stated that he did not believe in an all-powerful God, or special properties of human immortal souls. Nevertheless, he attempted to consider his question theologically, in particular this objection: "Thinking is a function of man's immortal soul. God has given an immortal soul to every man and woman, but not to any other animal or to machines. Hence no animal or machine can think." He concluded that "In attempting to construct such machines we should not be irreverently usurping His power of creating souls, any more than we are in the procreation of children: rather we are, in either case, instruments of His will providing mansions for the souls that He creates."

As to the objection stated by Turing, I'm not sure it's completely true. I don't find any scriptural evidence that rules out some thinking by animals (or machines, for that matter). Although humans are in the image of God, perhaps other entities (even rocks) have at least a little of God's image in them, too, whatever the image of God is, just as an artist or composer leaves something of herself in all of her creations. And, whatever it is, I don't think that the ability to think is all there is of God's image in humans. I suspect that it includes creativity, the ability to form relationships, the ability to make moral choices, and emotions.

Turing went on to attempt to dispose of eight additional arguments against the possibility of machines being able to think. Perhaps the most important argument, historically, was originally made by Lady Ada Lovelace, also one of the great pioneers of computing, in notes to an article which she translated, and which was published in 1842:

The Analytical Engine has no pretensions whatever to originate anything. It can do whatever we know how to order it to perform. It can follow analysis; but it has no power of anticipating any analytical relations or truths. Its province is to assist us in making available what we are already acquainted with. (from note G) [emphasis is Lovelace's]

Turing said that new types of machine were now available, which hadn't been available in Lovelace's time, which was true, of course.

Toward the end of his article, Turing wrote: "We may hope that machines will eventually compete with men in all purely intellectual fields."

The Turing Test, proposed by Turing, is to communicate with an unknown entity -- carry on a conversation, such as by instant messaging, (which was not available in Turing's day -- back then some sort of typing would have been used) and see if you can tell if the unknown is a human or a computer. Turing said that, if we cannot be sure, then the computer has achieved intelligence.

The article in The New Atlantis basically says that Lady Lovelace was right, at least so far. The Turing Test criterion, says the author, has not been met. Computers, so far, seem only able to do what they have been programmed to do. Mark Halpern, the author, concludes that ". . . we have not yet achieved artificial intelligence, and have no idea if we ever will." This in spite of Turing's affirmation that we will achieve this. Halpern discusses some attempts to apply the Turing Test, and related matters.

Note: The New Atlantis article is readable by any reasonably intelligent person. The article by Turing is also mostly readable, but considerably longer. The article translated by Lovelace, and most of her notes, are not for the faint-hearted.

Note: This post was revised somewhat on March 13th. Thanks for reading!

Sunspots 47

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to someone else:

From a recent Christian Carnival, a link to a post on 101 ways to get opportunities to witness. This is written by a wife and mother, so some of the ways aren't practical for those of us who aren't in that category, but there are plenty that fit you and me.

An article, by Kathryn Lindskoog, on Till We Have Faces, by C. S. Lewis. This page has a link to other articles by Lindskoog, some also on Lewis.

Bonnie wonders why she is so fond of a goldfish.

Sara, new mother, ponders her ability to care versus God's.

"Human genes involved in metabolism, skin pigmentation, brain function and reproduction have evolved in response to recent environmental changes, according to a new study of natural selection in the human genome." (from an article in New Scientist)

Kevin is unhappy about a violent (he says) video game associated with the Left Behind book series.

Thanks to Antabaka, I've seen a photo of a new genus of crustacean (crabs, lobsters, etc.) that is white and "hairy." Weird looking, but clearly a crustacean.

Wired reports that it is possible to have your appearance altered more drastically than by "ordinary" plastic surgery, for example, by having ridges put in your forehead, like those of some of the Star Trek aliens. Lest there be any doubt, I'm just reporting this, not advocating it.

This week's Christian Carnival is here. (For information on locating these Carnivals, see here)

When I don't tell where I found an item above, I either found it directly, or was probably pointed to it by the Librarians Internet Index, SciTech Daily, or Arts and Letters Daily. All of them are great.

Image source (public domain)

Diary of an Old Soul, Feb 27 - Mar 5

27. I would not have it so. Weary and worn,
Why not to thee run straight, and be at rest?
Motherward, with toy new, or garment torn,
The child that late forsook her changeless breast,
Runs to home's heart, the heaven that's heavenliest:
In joy or sorrow, feebleness or might,
Peace or commotion, be thou, Father, my delight.

28. The thing I would say, still comes forth with doubt
And difference:--is it that thou shap'st my ends?
Or is it only the necessity
Of stubborn words, that shift sluggish about,
Warping my thought as it the sentence bends?--
Have thou a part in it, O Lord, and I
Shall say a truth, if not the thing I try.

29. Gather my broken fragments to a whole,
As these four quarters make a shining day.
Into thy basket, for my golden bowl,
Take up the things that I have cast away
In vice or indolence or unwise play.
Let mine be a merry, all-receiving heart,
But make it a whole, with light in every part.

MARCH.

1. THE song birds that come to me night and morn,
Fly oft away and vanish if I sleep,
Nor to my fowling-net will one return:
Is the thing ever ours we cannot keep?--
But their souls go not out into the deep.
What matter if with changed song they come back?
Old strength nor yet fresh beauty shall they lack.

2. Gloriously wasteful, O my Lord, art thou!
Sunset faints after sunset into the night,
Splendorously dying from thy window-sill--
For ever. Sad our poverty doth bow
Before the riches of thy making might:
Sweep from thy space thy systems at thy will--
In thee the sun sets every sunset still.

3. And in the perfect time, O perfect God,
When we are in our home, our natal home,
When joy shall carry every sacred load,
And from its life and peace no heart shall roam,
What if thou make us able to make like thee--
To light with moons, to clothe with greenery,
To hang gold sunsets o'er a rose and purple sea!

4. Then to his neighbour one may call out, "Come!
Brother, come hither--I would show you a thing;"
And lo, a vision of his imagining,
Informed of thought which else had rested dumb,
Before the neighbour's truth-delighted eyes,
In the great æther of existence rise,
And two hearts each to each the closer cling!

5. We make, but thou art the creating core.
Whatever thing I dream, invent, or feel,
Thou art the heart of it, the atmosphere.
Thou art inside all love man ever bore;
Yea, the love itself, whatever thing be dear.
Man calls his dog, he follows at his heel,
Because thou first art love, self-caused, essential, mere.

The above is excerpted from George MacDonald's A Book of Strife in the Form of The Diary of an Old Soul (Public Domain, 1880). For further information see this post. The excerpt above is the readings for February 27 through March 5.

Sunspots 46

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to someone else:

Through last week's Christian Carnival, I found this post on a Christian radical (and/or eccentric, but weren't Christ and Paul?) named Ammon Hennacy. I also found a shorter post quoting Thomas Merton on peace.

Catez has a long post on being a Christian in the blogosphere, and associating with non-Christians there (and elsewhere).

Mufana, who has an interest in such things, suggested that I look up The Hunger Site, and mention it here. I've looked at the site, and it seems to be a legitimate way to help others get food, at least some times, at no cost to you, if I understand it correctly. If anyone knows anything else, please say so. Thanks. (I think Mufana overestimates my readership!)

I heard from one of my graduate school professors, the best one I had, and a good man overall, over 40 years after I finished. He is 90, still active, and said that he was surprised to learn now (which was my fault then) of my interest in Christian matters. He said that he was then, and is now, an atheist. My response is to pray for him. I suppose his response, should he see this, would be to say that is foolish. Maybe so, but I'll try, anyway. Perhaps some of you would, too.

In Wal-Mart's "Women of Achievement Timeline: Black History Month 2006," a photo of Bernadette Locke-Mattox, first African-American woman on the coaching staff of a major college basketball team. I remember her on the bench with Rick Pitino at Kentucky, but had forgotten, or never knew, her name. I think she was the first woman of any ethnic background so placed, perhaps the only one. This site indicates that she was in this position for four years. This one indicates that she is now the head women's coach at Kentucky.

Joe Carter on the beauty of being ugly.

Kevin Wright questions Pat Robertson's unquestioning support of Israel (Robertson isn't the only one.)

An article on Flickr Mashups (none of which I have tried yet, at least not for quite a while, except the Colr Pickr, which I couldn't resist) with links. One of them is Flickr Sudoku. Don't ask me what Sudoku is, but I do know that it's popular.

Earthlink Newsletter on what makes a computer fast (or not). In other words, a nice introduction to hardware.

This week's Christian Carnival is here. (For information on locating these Carnivals, see here)

When I don't tell where I found an item above, I either found it directly, or was probably pointed to it by the Librarians Internet Index, SciTech Daily, or Arts and Letters Daily. All of them are great.

Image source (public domain)

Goodbye (headed back)

Psalm 20:1 May the Lord answer you in the day of trouble! May the name of the God of Jacob protect you! 2 May he send you help from the sanctuary and give you support from Zion! 3 May he remember all your offerings and regard with favor your burnt sacrifices! Selah

4 May he grant you your heart's desire and fulfill all your plans! (ESV)

This is our prayer (one of them, anyway) for our grandson. It has been our privilege to assume part of his care for four months, while his mother was on duty six hours away, and his father took several extended trips with his work. His mother has been transferred back to a location near their home, and we feel that it is time to go back to South Carolina.

We will miss our daughter and son-in-law, their church, the Southern California weather, the plants, their church, and, especially, our grandson.

God help them, and help us, as we travel, and re-adjust to life back in upstate South Carolina, including, of course, our church.

I don't expect to post anything for a couple of weeks or so, except for one Sunspots, on Wednesday, March 1, God (and web connections) willing. I probably won't have time to read your blogs, either. Keep up the good work.

God bless you.

George MacDonald's Diary of an Old Soul, F21-26

21. 'Tis--shall thy will be done for me?--or mine,
And I be made a thing not after thine--
My own, and dear in paltriest details?
Shall I be born of God, or of mere man?
Be made like Christ, or on some other plan?--
I let all run:--set thou and trim my sails;
Home then my course, let blow whatever gales.

22. With thee on board, each sailor is a king
Nor I mere captain of my vessel then,
But heir of earth and heaven, eternal child;
Daring all truth, nor fearing anything;
Mighty in love, the servant of all men;
Resenting nothing, taking rage and blare
Into the Godlike silence of a loving care.

23. I cannot see, my God, a reason why
From morn to night I go not gladsome free;
For, if thou art what my soul thinketh thee,
There is no burden but should lightly lie,
No duty but a joy at heart must be:
Love's perfect will can be nor sore nor small,
For God is light--in him no darkness is at all.

24. 'Tis something thus to think, and half to trust--
But, ah! my very heart, God-born, should lie
Spread to the light, clean, clear of mire and rust,
And like a sponge drink the divine sunbeams.
What resolution then, strong, swift, and high!
What pure devotion, or to live or die!
And in my sleep, what true, what perfect dreams!

25. There is a misty twilight of the soul,
A sickly eclipse, low brooding o'er a man,
When the poor brain is as an empty bowl,
And the thought-spirit, weariful and wan,
Turning from that which yet it loves the best,
Sinks moveless, with life-poverty opprest:--
Watch then, O Lord, thy feebly glimmering coal.

26. I cannot think; in me is but a void;
I have felt much, and want to feel no more;
My soul is hungry for some poorer fare--
Some earthly nectar, gold not unalloyed:--
The little child that's happy to the core,
Will leave his mother's lap, run down the stair,
Play with the servants--is his mother annoyed?

The above is excerpted from George MacDonald's A Book of Strife in the Form of The Diary of an Old Soul (Public Domain, 1880). For further information see this post. The excerpt above is the readings for February 21 through 26.

C. S. Lewis and biology, scooped

Back in November, I posted some criticisms of the biology in the Narnia books, by C. S. Lewis. To put it concisely, where did Tumnus shop?

I recently read Alan Jacobs' The Narnian: The Life and Imagination of C. S. Lewis, an illuminating treatment of Lewis's life and work. (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2005) Ruth Pitter, a good friend of Lewis, recorded a conversation between the two of them on this subject (Warren Lewis, the brother of C. S., was also present). According to this account, she pointed out that Narnia was in perpetual winter, with no foreign trade allowed by the Witch, and asked Lewis: "Then how could the Beavers have put on the splendid lunch?" Lewis attempted to explain, but Pitter pressed on. Warren said "Nonsense, Jack; you're stumped and you know it." (pp. 268-9) Jacobs cites Walter Hooper's C. S. Lewis: Companion and Guide by Walter Hooper (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1996, p. 721, as his source.

So obviously I'm not the first to think of this. Hardly a shock.

Why animal predators, parasites, and death?

The question of animal suffering and death may not seem important, but it is. If God's creation was good, then how do we explain predatory animals, or animal suffering? If God designed the world, how do we explain malaria (which lives in human blood cells) and the mosquitoes that transmit it? Did He design them to make people sick?

The only serious article on these topics that I am aware of was published in the June, 2004 issue of Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith. The article is "Why Were Dangerous Animals Created?" by David Snoke, who has scientific credentials (although he is not a zoologist) and is also licensed to preach. The article has numerous references to scripture, and any educated person (such as you) should be able to understand it. In .PDF form, it is 9 pages long.

The answers to the questions posed by the title of this post have implications for one's view of origins (or the reverse), for God's goodness and sovereignty, and one's view of existence in general. I don't expect all who may read Snoke's article to agree with him, but he concludes with a high view of God, and His creative ability.

If you want to read more on parasites, here's Carl Zimmer's discussion of a wasp that turns its cockroach host into a zombie. Really!

Thanks for reading this post.

Race and Basketball

Slate recently posted a good article on replacing Larry Bird as the great white basketball player. Rather, it's about the seeming need to do so, and the racial subtext of looking for a replacement for him. In other words, needing another great white player. (What's the matter with Dirk Nowitzki?)

Larry Bird, in case you don't know, grew up in the small town of French Lick, Indiana, and went to Indiana State University, hardly a college basketball power. His team, however, went on to the national finals in his senior year, losing to a Michigan State team starring Magic Johnson. Bird (and Johnson) went on to have great careers in the National Basketball Association, leading, respectively, the Boston Celtics and the Los Angeles Lakers, both great teams during their tenures with them. (By all accounts, they became good friends. Johnson, like most NBA players for the last few decades, is African-American).

I was going to see Glory Road, but never got around to it. No doubt the DVD will be out soon. This movie is, as they say, based on a real event -- an all-black team from a small college in Texas won the national championship, beating Kentucky, an all-white team (Pat Riley was a player on that team). George F. Will's column of Jan 22 (archived Jan 23) suggests that Glory Road is much too simple -- there were black players on several teams already, and the team with all blacks was highly ranked. San Francisco had won the national championship with four blacks some years earlier, for example, including Bill Russell. He's probably right. But there's still a point. There is, at least for some of us, a racial subtext to basketball. We tend to root for, or identify with, people who, more or less, look like us, and that we think are like us. Dirk Nowitzki wasn't born in the USA.

I try not to do this. Sometimes, when I succeed, I congratulate myself, and that's as bad, or worse. God help me to be truly race-blind, whether it's in basketball or the grocery store. I think that's the way it ought to be.

By the way, even in the NBA, the best teams are almost always coached by whites. (There have been, and are, some excellent African-American CEOs of NBA basketball teams.) Is that because whites are better coaches? I don't think so. At least part of it is to put a white face on a mostly black sport, I'm sure, which is not to say that, say, Rick Carlisle isn't a really good coach. But so are some blacks.