May Day

Small, kind words, from pure, innocent souls are never lost. They are the seeds of rare flowers, whose blossom we shall know beyond the grave.

Percy Wynn
I was biking along the river road the other day when something suddenly caught my eye. It was a small bush on whose branches were arrayed the most delicate five petaled blossoms, all in clusters of pale pink and white. I stopped in my stride, even though the rain was coming down heavily, and examined the shrub, witnessing to its beauty. I was reminded of a passage in Hind's feet on High Places, where Much-Afraid sees a small beautiful flower in the crevices of a rocky cliff. All alone, this blossom exists where no people tread, and has no one to exude beauty towards. So Much-Afraid bends down and asks; "Little red flower, why do you extend your petals and send forth fragrance on the little trodden path, where none will behold it?" I don't remember the flower's answer, but I have one of my own. That nothing done out of Beauty, or Truth, or in Goodness, will ever be forgotten, or lost, or passed over. It's the same concept with redemptive suffering. Our actions and words have meaning beyond the passing earthly image, because humans are transcendental beings. We have both the spiritual and the physical intertwined within us, and constituting our nature.

Reflections before the day

It is now 1:29 in the morning, and I have stayed up very late to finish some reflections on the Brother's K. I usually use this time to pray and think about how my day went and how I can make the next day better. Well, first I must praise the Lord for an absolutely amazing day yesterday (1 hour ago).
I wish I could have biked to school yesterday morning, but I thought that the weather would be detrimental to my voice, and State is *gasp* TOMORROW! So I opted to take the carpool. The morning opened with one of my classmates inviting me to a class Tea Party at the end of the year. That set off my day pretty well! I proceeded to have a pleasant day, during which I read probably the most amazing chapter of Brother's K, and I had to just soak it all in. What beauty! My Humane class discussed it together, and though we didn't see quite eye to eye on many a things (I see suffering as good thing depending on circumstances) our discussion was lively and well thought. Calculus was intriguing, as usual, and then we had the etiquette lunch, during which we learned a whole lot of fancy and useless rules. I agree that chivalry and manners need a revival, but quite sincerely, I could care less about tasting my food before I salt it. Well, then we had Physics, in which we watched a hilarious video on the Space-time diagrams (which are AWSOME), and did problems relating to Initial Reference Frames. Then Drama, which was DEAD-PAN boring. Stinklangweilig! But there was light, because I was offered an additional role on my off-night as a back round mime! this may not sound like much, but it can be really fun if energy is put into it. Well, after that, there was a Mass and Volunteer dinner at St. Marks for all us volunteers. During Mass, I don't know, but I must have been particularly acute today, because everything was tying in and I was hearing what God was speaking through the scriptures. And then, right as Communion was ending, the last ray of the setting sun pierced the Western Stained glass window of the Resurrection. The ray of light fell directly on the alter, and in that moment the passing earthly image and eternal truth here touched each other. Beauty incarnate. Well then, at the Volunteer dinner, the entertainer (who coincidentally knows many families from my school) played while I sang "the Piano Man" and he was so impressed he offered to help me get a singing career going! Praise the Lord! God, you are just too much! What is a girl to do with all this Love?

My perspective on Ivan's Dilemma

For those who know Dostoevsky, Ivan Karamazov confronts his little brother, Alyosha, on a dilemma he is facing concerning life.
Ivan begins his conversation with Alyosha with an acknowledgement of his own “greenness”, his own youthfulness which is his thirst for life. Ivan is convinced that even if he were to loose everything, and be confronted by the bestiality of man's worst crimes, even then he would not loose faith in life. In his own words, he has bent to the cup and will not stop until he has drained the cup. (It is interesting to note the imagery of the cup as reminiscent of the torment of Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane. ) Such passionate attachment is quite common in youthfulness, yet Ivan also calls this thirst for life a feature of the Karamazovs, and this is painfully true, both in it's sensualist deprivation so apparent in Fyodor, and less in Dimitry, and also in the extreme love and acceptance dwelling inside Alyosha, the “lover of mankind”. However, even as Ivan proclaims his love for life, he concludes that he will most likely toss the cup away from him around his thirtieth year. This thirst for life, he claims may become old to him, and he may drain any form of nobility from the thirst for life, leaving behind only sensuality and licentiousness. Perhaps this resignation to some sort of predestined fate to wallow in the same pit as his father now finds himself is built out of fear of this very possibility. If so, Ivan is setting himself up for failure. And yet, even still, he claims the “sickly green leaves” and blue sky are dear to him, and he loves them, not with his mind, but with his “gut”.

After a little sidetracking, Ivan returns to the thread of his dilemma, with the observation that Russian boys sit together and talk about the “big questions” of life and death, and God, and other such things. Ivan puts himself in with them and claims that he accepts God, pure and simple, (slightly shocking, considering his prior declarations of atheism) but he can not accept his world. Ivan has a “childlike conviction” that the sufferings of all mankind will be smoothed over one day, and that all the irreconcilable things of this world will be reconciled, but he refuses to accept it. He doesn't care what may happen, he even wishes to see this take place, but he will not accept what lies before him. Ivan even acknowledges his incompetence in understanding God's will, and isn't put off by that. He understands, through analogy, that to his Euclidian mind, two parallel lines never meet, and yet in Eliptical Geometry, they do. Ivan challenges the two parallel lines to meet, even before his eyes, yet still he will not believe it. This ties back to the beginning of the book, where Dostoevsky inserts a passage on the realist. “A true realist, if he is not a believer, will always find in himself the strength and ability not to believe in miracles as well, and if a miracle stands before him as an irrefutable fact, he will sooner doubt his own senses than admit the fact.”

Ivan believes, in his heart of hearts he does. He believes in the sickly green leaves and the thirst for life. He believes in the resurrection and the smoothing over of human sufferings and loss. He believes in all these things, and yet he will still throw down the cup. Ivan believes, and has a conviction about these issues which are entirely compelling and attractive, but he throws these notions back in God's face, crying “I accept you, but not your world.” Ivan is caught is a web of a rebellion deep and blasphemous, but why is he caught? We must wait for him to tell us.

Fyodor Dostoevsky. “The Brothers Karamazov” Trans. Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, p 25

Senior Pictures

Yay! I finally found the disk they were on! I'm not so sure I like many of them, but hey, at least I have them.


Probably my favorite

Biking to Work

Well, I finally figured out my route to work.
It is 23.9 miles one way, and I cross over three bridges to do it. I charted it out on Thursday, when it was in the 70's and the sun was blazing down on me. I got sun-burned, to say the least, and I was really stupid to not pack any water. Well, it can't be helped. I was biking over the 494 bridge, which is really close to the water, and I just wanted to jump right on in, for a moment, I even thought I would do it. But I went home and ran through the sprinkler instead. I was very proud of myself, making almost 24 miles in an hour and fifty minutes. The hardest part was going up the Fairwiew hill, which is twisty and curves at a steep angle, so you can't see if there are cars coming around the bend. And some of the drivers just don't stay in their lanes.

The Senior Play

I am SOOOO excited! I get to be Dromio of Syracuse in our production of "A Comedy of Errors" on the Saturday night performance. EEEK! My heart is just about bursting out of my chest right now, I am so excited. I hoped and prayed for this role, and I got it! Happiness is mine, and I will relish it dearly today.

John Stuart Mill...

"The truth of an opinion is part of its utility. If we would know whether or not it is desirable that a proposition should be believed, is it possible to exclude the consideration of whether or not it is true? In the opinion, not of bad men, but of the best men, no belief which is contrary to truth can be really useful: and can you prevent such men from urging that plea, when they are charged with culpability for denying some doctrine which they are told is useful, but which they believe to be false? Those who are on the side of received opinions, never fail to take all possible advantage of this plea; you do not find them handling the question of utility as if it could be completely abstracted from that of truth: on the contrary, it is, above all, because their doctrine is "the truth," that the knowledge or the belief of it is held to be so indispensable. There can be no fair discussion of the question of usefulness, when an argument so vital may be employed on one side, but not on the other. And in point of fact, when law or public feeling do not permit the truth of an opinion to be disputed, they are just as little tolerant of a denial of its usefulness. The utmost they allow is an extenuation of its absolute necessity or of the positive guilt of rejecting it."


I hate you Mr Mill

I hate you

For your terrible words against Truth

You slander with words most uncouth

The very most basics of logic

in reasoning most demagogic

And I for one can not abide

The way that your arguments slide