Agents of SHIELD - A Structural Analysis - Part 2

For Part 1 of this post, which explores the character-driven structure of Agents of SHIELD, see this post. Part 2, below, explores how the showrunners experiment with differently structured plots each season.

2) Gradually More Complex Narrative Arcs

Part 1 demonstrated that the Agents of SHIELD showrunners have been playing with the structure of their seasons since the beginning, largely through the dynamics of protagonists and antagonists. The reality of “pods” for each season can also be determined through the actual plot that the seasons run through. Sometimes these pods are defined by subtitles (as in seasons 3 and 4). Other times they can only be seen through particular turns in the overarching plot. Within each larger pod the showrunners, even from the very beginning, have inserted “mini-arcs” that pay off particular characters, themes, and questions while pivoting to new ones. These pods and mini-arcs can best be discerned through outlines of the plots for each season. Those outlines are below. The titles for the Pods and mini-arcs (except for some for seasons 3 and 4) are my own.

Agents of SHIELD - A Structural Analysis - Part 1

My partner and I only watch one or two TV shows. With two kids and a lot of other things going on, there isn’t much time for anything else. One of our current must-see shows is Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (and that’s the last time I’ll use the periods). ABC recently renewed SHIELD for a sixth season. In both the week leading up to that decision and in the days since, many have written about SHIELD’s remarkable transition from a show that shed viewers like a molting starling into a vital (but little-watched) phoenix program, renewed every year.

One article on the subject caught my eye both for its attention to one of the show’s much-heralded innovations -- the use of “pods” in its creatively rich season 4 -- and for the ways in which I realized that the articles’ analysis of the seasons missed the mark. The article traces a trajectory of development from a mostly procedural first season, through a serialized second season, into a subtitled third season, and a “pod-ed” fourth season. What this narrative does not see is the way that the showrunners -- Jed Whedon, Maurissa Tancharoen and Jeff Bell -- have been playing with structure and narrative since the very beginning. In reality, SHIELD has been doing "mini-arcs" with internal, compounding climaxes since the very beginning. It's just experimented with seasonal structure in several different ways.

SHIELD's experimentation with structure can be observed through two lenses: 1) the use of protagonists and antagonists; and 2) gradually more complex narrative arcs from season to season. Let’s explore both lenses. In order to reduce the amount of scrolling, I've divided this into two posts. You can access the second post through a link at the end of this first one. Obviously, there are spoilers for all five seasons of Agents of SHIELD.

The Gift of Not Being Needed

It's been ages since I last posted here. Much has changed. I'm now halfway through my final semester of PhD coursework at Princeton Theological Seminary. My wife and I now daily step back in awe that we are parents of a beautiful, vibrant baby girl. I'm twenty-eight years old.

Image from Greg High:
www.greghigh.com

Somehow, in those twenty-eight years, I had not yet come to the fundamental insight that my "worth is not the same as [my] usefulness." I found this quote this morning during daily devotion. I've been reading Henri Nouwen's lenten collection Show Me the Way. Nouwen has always been one of those writers whose words cut through all my defensive barriers. Yet his is a gentle sword. His words are so simple, his thoughts so concrete and clear. He writes without pretension and, in doing so, plumbs the profound depths of our relationship to God and our relationships with others.

I can't help quoting most of this morning's reading:

When we start being too impressed by the results of our work, we slowly come to the erroneous conviction that life is one large scoreboard where someone is listing the points to measure our worth. And before we are fully aware of it, we have sold our soul to the many gradegivers. That means we are not only in the world, but also of the world. Then we become what the world makes us. We are intelligent because someone gives us a high grade. We are helpful because someone says thanks. We are likable because someone likes us. And we are important because someone considers us indispensable.... (52)

A Brief Life Update

And now, for those interested, a life update.

Sarah and I still live in Princeton, NJ. I’m heading into my final year at Princeton Theological Seminary. I added a second masters to my degree program, so it’s taking me four years to graduate instead of three. When I walk down the aisle of the University Chapel next May I’ll have both an MDiv and a Master of Arts in Christian Education.

A History of Caedmon’s Call and a Review of Their New Album, Raising Up the Dead

It took a Caedmon's Call album to break me out of my blogging silence. Go figure. Of course. Sometime soon I'll update on my life and other things, as well as, hopefully, begin a secondary blog on the Psalms that I've been working on over the summer. What follows is a history of my interaction with the band and a review of their most recent album. If I get some historical facts about the band wrong, it's all my fault (and possibly wikipedia's, which really means mine for using wikipedia).

I have been listening to Caedmon’s Call for nearly a decade. A late-comer to the CC fandom, I only started paying indepth attention to them during my senior year of high school and first year of college (2002-2004), when I was learning to play guitar. For those unfamiliar with the band and its history, this two-year time period was one of dramatic change for the group. Their first three wide-release albums, My Calm, Your Storm (Storm), Caedmon’s Call (CC), and 40 Acres (Acres), were characterized by folk-rock sensibilities, introspectively philosophical lyrics with obscure biblical references, and a deeply Calvinist theology. Their fourth album, Long Line of Leavers (Leaver, 2000), represented a musical experiment, with horns and a more “electronic” sound. It also marked a slight shift in the balance of writing between the two primary lyricists – Aaron Tate (who had always written for the band, but only played with them in the very early days of their formation) and Derek Webb. Tate’s work had dominated Storm, and they had shared about even duties on CC and Acres. Webb’s work became more dominant in Leavers, and Cliff and Danielle Young, two of the band’s lead singers, contributed more explicitly to the lyrics of a couple songs. Webb, rightly or wrongly, became known for his songs about relationship and young adult feelings of alienation.

By the time I started listening, their earlier albums could not be easily found in stores and Amazon.com was not yet in my ken. Caedmon’s also never played in my home state of Utah, as far as I know. Leavers was, therefore, the first album of theirs that I owned. It was followed by In the Company of Angels: A Call to Worship (Angels 1), an album that their record label required in lockstep with the early 2000s worship fad, but which emphasized the band’s unique musical and theological take on praise music. It also marked the beginning of Aaron Tate and Derek Webb’s departures. The group’s next effort, Back Home (Home, 2003), was basically devoid of any of Tate’s work and included only a few songs by Webb. This writing gap was filled by Randall Goodgame, Joshua Moore (who had taken over keyboard and general crazy instrument duties from Randy Holsapple back in the Leavers era), and Webb’s wife Sandra McCracken. Tate’s mythological, philosophical and biblical introspection was replaced by hymn-like language and folk storytelling. Webb left the band at this point to pursue a solo career. This also happened to be the exact time when I first went to see a Caedmon’s Call concert. They had hired an up-and-coming singer-songwriter to fill in for Webb – Andrew Osenga, who had formerly fronted the group The Normals.

I now owned Acres, Leavers, Angels 1, and Home, which meant that my exposure to Caedmon’s basically extended only slightly across the divide between Old Caedmon’s and Emerging Caedmon’s. Some fans of the band see Angels and Home as the band’s low-point. The lyrics were simpler, the sound formulaic and the band’s heart didn’t seem in the music. For me, it was all I knew. Yet I still longed for the tighter lyricism and acoustic sound of Acres. I was thrown for a loop, then, when I purchased the first album in which Osenga had a hand, Share the Well (Well, 2004). At first I hated it. This wasn’t Caedmon’s! Their earthy guitar sound had been replaced by tenor-heavy rhythms and picking, sitar-sounding electric riffs, strange drums and atmospheric background noises. Despite all of this, I decided to acclimate myself to the new sound by playing the CD over and over again. It formed the backbone of my study time for nearly a semester. Soon I fell in love with the “New” Caedmon’s. The urgency of the story in the lyrics, and the otherworldly beauty of the music captured my heart. I learned that the band had actually travelled to India, Brazil and Ecuador, recording and writing on the road, including instruments and vocals from the people and cultures they encountered. Whereas many of their previous efforts had focused thematically on God’s grace, human sin, and the individual soul, Well turned its gaze to God’s love for the whole world and justice for the poor and oppressed. But these were not faceless poor, not statistics. Instead of slamming the message through with overwhelming numbers, Caedmon’s simply told the honest, beautiful stories of the people they encountered. While Home had seemed, in some ways, directionless, a meaningless collection of one-off tales and generic do-overs of the band’s previous themes, Well utilized the same storytelling sensibilities to paint a coherent picture of parts of the world that most folks in America have never seen. Well quickly became my favorite Caedmon’s album. The strange sounds that had been off-putting now became windows into the souls of my fellow brothers and sisters, children of God.

Following this stellar music masterpiece, Caedmon’s record label forced them to produce another worship album, In the Company of Angels II: The World Will Sing (Angels 2, 2006), which also coincidentally fulfilled the band’s contract with the company, allowing them to break ties with a corporation that had pressured them to do things with which they were not comfortable. Very little of the unique, multi-cultural sound that the band had fostered while overseas had been allowed to suffuse the album, most likely do to Well’s underwhelming sales and reception. After all, above everything else, large corporations want consistency and a safe bet (see the recent penchant for sequels and reboots in Hollywood). Despite the album’s compulsory nature, I still found songs to love amidst the general dross. Most of these favorites were written by Osenga, who has become one of my favorite storytellers.

Free of their fetters, the group cast about for a year, while also dealing with the fact that many of their members were now married with children. Touring became more and more difficult and some of their earlier themes of introspective alienation did not resonate in their new family-oriented lives. At this critical juncture, Webb, who had been absent from the band for nearly four years, found himself pulled back into their music-writing field. He had grown as a writer, and as a music producer, finding his voice in social and political criticism as a musical prophet of sorts. His insightful and cutting lyrics paralleled the sense of God’s justice for the oppressed that Caedmon’s had found overseas, but directed their gaze toward the injustice in the United States in a more biting way. In a strange turn, Webb and the rest of the band had gone different routes to arrive at a similar place, which allowed them to come together again to create Overdressed (2007). This album marked another shift for the group. Musically, it was a complete mish-mash. Osenga’s spare rock sensibilities mingled with Webb’s sparse new propheticism and the world music traits from Well. Once again, I found myself put-off by the album at first. Once again I played it non-stop for weeks. Soon I found a beauty in the collision of styles and themes and sounds.

The album title described the place of our souls before God. Trying to hide our sinfulness in our good works and a thin veneer of cultural Christianity, we are overdressed. Yet it also acted as a counter-theme to the state of the band. Utterly fearless and stripped of the constraints of their label, they were laying themselves out for everyone to see. The music was messy and unrefined, yet paradoxically more pure and alive than ever before. Many of the songs ended in unstructured jam sessions, or began with odd snippets of conversation from the recording process. Lyrically, the album laid bare the personal lives of the band members in a way that had been missing since their earlier works. Issues of lust and doubt were placed alongside a recognition of God’s work in the everyday life of laundry and parenthood. Social criticism was coupled with a realization of our culpability in injustice. A grand view of the world and the recognition of the smallness of our efforts at changing it lead to a realization of God’s largness and ability to change the world’s brokenness by the slow, careful work of healing the brokenness of every soul through openness and honesty with each other. Our imperfections become clear in the light of God’s grace and love, which makes us painfully ashamed of our nakedness yet also purifies and cleanses us.

During the tour for Overdressed I was finally able to see the band in concert with both Webb and Osenga. I also purchased their first two albums and one of their Guild CDs, which are fan-centered recordings of special concerts and studio rares from their early career. I began to truly understand what had upset people about Home and the worship albums. “Early” Caedmon’s was a thinking person’s Christian folk-rock group. Their lyrics were labyrinthine and obscure, yet their music was catchy and simplistically rich. You could listen to them and simply enjoy the tight three-part harmonies, thrumming layered guitars and percussive drive. Yet, if you paid attention at all to the lyrics you were nearly forced to look up matters relating to random Old Testament texts, Greek mythology and philosophy, and Reformation theology. New testament metaphors and verses were also reinterpreted in ways that made them fresh and interesting. Take, for instance, this restatement of John 3:16: “For you so loved the unlovable/That you gave the ineffable/That who so believes the unbelievable/Will gain the unattainable,” which not only restates the the verse in terms of rhyming “able” language, but also adds some reformation theology and sets you running toward the dictionary to figure out what “ineffable means.” Or, try this mixture of mythology and hymnology: “I mount up with waxen wings/High to reach the sky/But I am no further than/Than when I first begun.” Icarus and Amazing Grace in one stanza.

After the creative explosion of Overdressed, the band focused once again on their families. Andrew Osenga left the band to pursue his own solo career, much as Webb had done five years earlier. I wondered whether there would be another album. At the end of 2009, I heard whispers that Webb had rejoined the band for another upcoming album, which he was producing, and that the songs were being written by Webb, along with Cliff and Danielle, who had written only a few before, and the bassist Jeff Miller, who had one previous writing credit. For the first time in the band’s history the songs were all being written by people who were actually performing with the band. I was stoked. Raising Up the Dead was to be a unique album. Only 1000 physical copies of the work were being produced, and were going to be sold as collector’s items. Most people would have to download the album off of the group’s website, not even through channels like iTunes. In subtle and not-so-subtle ways, then, this was bascially a “fans-only” album. Unless you already knew about Caedmon’s, you wouldn’t know about this album.

In early August 2010, I downloaded Raising Up the Dead and even purchased the $50 deluxe edition, which included a t-shirt, the Guild CDs that I had missed, a Guild DVD and a physical copy of the CD, signed by the band, with lyric sheet. All of the physical materials wouldn’t arrive until September 14, so I simply listened to the CD on my computer. As with Share the Well and Overdressed, I was initially extremely disappointed. The album felt slow to me, with only medium-tempo songs. The world music influence had been laid completely by the wayside, along with some of the rock orchestration that Osenga had brought to the group. As much as I could tell from trying to catch the lyrics, much of the focus on God’s justice had also faded away. Essentially, the Caedmon’s that I had known for much of my experience with the band was gone.

Yet, once again, I decided to work through repeat listens. Once again, I was rewarded. In many ways, Raising Up the Dead feels like the Caedmon’s album that should have followed Long Line of Leavers. Themes of sin and grace have returned in strength as well as obscure lyrics and slight references to verses of scripture and even mythological notes. Despite the inclusion of some of Webb’s recent experiments with electronica and production, the album is also much more acoustic and folksy than the last few. And yet. And yet it is also feels like their most mature output to date. Instead of viewing sin and grace through college-age alienation and singleness, the songs focus on finding grace in imperfect community. Family comes through as the most important hermeneutical lens through which the band contemplates theology. The music is also extremely dense. It is not showy. It is not “radio-single” worthy. Instead it is intimate music, pondering music, music that makes you think as much as the lyrics do. It is music that requires the listener to work. It isn’t music to be memorized, like the earlier hits that hooked themselves instantly into the brain. It is music that engenders relationship. It is not the exuberance of first love, when every moment is alive and bright and memorable, but the slow beauty of marriage, when even the subtle moments mean something and the quiet rest of the other’s arms means more than flashy jewelry. It is music made of mystery, whose beauty is that you will never fully understand it, but every day you will want to learn more.

In these and numerous other ways, Raising Up the Dead represents the culmination of Caedmon’s Call’s wandering journey. Once again the title expresses both the themes of the work and the state of the band and its music. The introspection and theological heft of their early albums is combined with the themes of honesty and family from their later years. The old acoustic sound is filtered through the patience and naked dedication of Overdressed and the intricate musicality of Share the Well. The comfortable three part harmony is now sung through voices that are rougher, grainier and more expressive than the pop sound favored in their middle work. I want to follow up this post with one going through each song and what I'm currently experiencing through it. Look for that possibly tomorrow.

I regret that many will not know about this album. If you're reading this, download it from their website (caedmonscall.com). Tell your friends. Listen to it five times in a row at least. Let yourself fall in love with it. This is an album worth putting on repeat.

Thanks, as always, for your time and love, faithful readers.

The Beginning of a New Blog Cycle: Thoughts on Issues in the Theology of Scripture

Well, it has been a long time since I've blogged. Life became extremely crowded last semester, what with a 15-hour a week job, a 15-hour a week internship and three intense classes (oh, and living life and loving my wife as well). Right now I'm taking a month-long course on Issues in the Theology of Scripture, which meets for three hours in the morning, leaving a little bit more time on my schedule. I've decided that this class, which so far has been wonderfully thought-provoking, might provide some good fodder for blogging. What I'm proposing to do is to post thoughts on the course (which began on Monday and so far has involved writing a 1500 word essay) every day that I can. I've asked my professor -- who will be referred to as Shane in the posts -- if I can quote him, or refer to his ideas if they are the seeds of my thought for these posts, and he has agreed that I can refer to him as long as the references are not wholesale transcriptions of his lectures or audio files (which they won't be) and that I accurately represent his views.

I hope to ponder the theme of the course, which Shane put before us on Monday, of wandering around in the gap between theology and biblical studies. I will go more into detail of what this gap entails and why it exists as Shane explains it to us in class, but in brief, let's just say that in higher education there exists a separation of disciplines. In most higher ed institutions divisions are placed between the sciences and the arts and the humanities, and also within each of these between history and english or philosophy, for instance. In Seminary, you often see this division of disciplines into: Biblical Studies, Practical Theology, Theology and Church History. The difficulty that sometimes arises in pursuing these studies is that the folk in the Biblical Studies department take very seriously the questions that have come from a historical-critical way of looking at the Bible: reading texts in original languages, studying their cultural, historical and political contexts, trying to work out how the texts were written, formed, passed down, etc. This method is a product of the Enlightenment. Meanwhile, the Theology department spends perhaps a class period on a theology of scripture, often avoiding questions that deal with the difficulties presented by the historical-critical method. These problems sometimes involve the inerrancy or infallibility of the Bible, the contradictions that can be found in the Bible (or seeming contradictions, I'm sure we'll get into this later), the grammatical differences between different copies of the Bible, what it means for the Bible to be divinely inspired and how this bears out when the Bible gets into human hands or when it is translated into different languages. So, the Biblical Studies department takes these questions seriously, but they are often in the background and understanding why these questions are important and what they mean for the life of faith and everyday living is not considered. Or, on the other hand, the Theology department discusses briefly a theology of scripture but does not consider how this might come to bear in practice or what a theology of scripture that takes into account the questions might look. This course tries to put these background questions into the foreground and to address them in a thoughtful and sensitive way.

It also attempts to equip students with tools to read what Shane calls the "Barnes and Noble School of Theology and Ancient Scriptures." By this he means the popular books that are widely available in major bookstores and have entered the general culture and conversation: Bart Ehrman's Misquoting Jesus, or Dan Brown's The DaVinci Code, for instance. While these books bring up interesting points that speak to the Historical-Critical method, the outcomes of their discussion can be misleading and they do not always speak to the theological or practical outcomes of the difficulties they mention. If you want a good introduction to this debate, check out Stephen Colbert's interview with Bart Ehrman, which Shane used as a catalyst for his initial lecture. The video is embedded below:

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Bart Ehrman
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Economy

So, now that you know a bit about the course, you can follow along on this blog for the next few weeks as I share with you what I'm learning and what I'm thinking. I'll begin with the essay that we had for the course, which answers the question: "What do we mean when we say that the Bible is true, and what methods of Biblical interpretation help us to appreciate its truthfulness." This essay will be revised at the end of the semester. I'll post it in a separate post from this.

Thanks, as always, for sticking with me faithful readers!

Busy-ness

Life has been great, busy, but great. This past weekend, Sarah and I went down to Cape May, New Jersey (or, THE SHORE, as they say in the Garden State) for a belated Second-Anniversary relaxation weekend. Thanks to a gift card donated by Sarah's parents, we were able to stay in a beautiful bed and breakfast for four days. The trip was like a warm shower after a long day's work. We truly felt rejuvenated, both relationally and physically. It was such a gift to just spend time together, without having to worry about deadlines or work, or anything else.

Other than that, we've both been busy at work, Sarah at Staples and the Seminary Chapel and I at the Seminary Bookstore (where, when answering the phone, we have to spit out the mouthful: "Thank you for calling Cokesbury, the TBA at Princeton. This is Marcus speaking. How can I help you?") I've also been working like a bee, trying to construct the hive that is my new website, Puddleglum Theology. I've been putting up a quote a day, and adding other articles and features. If you want to see what I think about daily (ie, what I'm reading), you should definitely check out the site. I'm hoping to start a theological commentary series on the book of Genesis there soon, based on the premises of the website: grounded hope and such.

So, that's the update for now.

Thanks for sticking with me, faithful reader!

Testing, Testing

Testing, Testing. *taps the microphone* Is anyone out there?

Despite all appearances to the contrary, I have not abandoned this blog, though I could be charged with severe neglect. Unfortunately, time (and life) have gotten away from me in the past few months. Consider this post, however, my triumphal return (or my slow walk of shame, tail between my legs).

I hope only this, that I can improve my blogging to at least once a week (a feasible goal, and a definite improvement over once every three months!).

So, here's to blogging!

Thanks for sticking with me (if you have, and even if you haven't) faithful readers!

Poetry Series: Part 1 of 11 - The Collector

Greetings faithful reader.  I apologize for my long absence, time has not been my friend (see the poem below)!  Also, I started this post almost two weeks ago, and only finished it now.  I have three posts 3/4 composed, waiting to be finished and published.  So, finally, here's one.  Hopefully the other ones will be posted soon.  

I hope that you are well.  I'd like to move back in this blog to some thoughts on writing.  In fact, I'd like to present a miniature series of poems.

I'm taking a class right now entitled Writing as Faith Practice.  One of our requirements is to write three pieces, two of which can be academic papers, and one of which must be creative.  Or, we could simply write three creative pieces (which is the option I chose).  I started out this bold endeavor in my favorite realm: the short story.  Unfortunately, after a few weeks of writing nothing solid was coming on a story.  So I decided to try my hand at poetry.  What came out was a series of eleven acrostic poems, using favorites quotes from the Bible as the spine of each poem.  The poems are named after either the writer of the quote, the person speaking the quote, or the person about whom the quote was written.  I'll present each of them here, in the order that I wrote them, and then discuss the writing process below.  I hope you enjoy.

The Collector

Even eternity used to seem small,

Tucked in my heart like a toddler in my arms,

Eyelids drooping, breath running slow,

Resting its rosy cheek in the crook of my chest.

Now I wonder if my fear of the unknown is lack of love,

If infinity is rendered harmless when you hug it like a child.

Time marches like a two-year-old trying to run,

Yielding to the gravity of my mind.

I used to gasp when it fell down hard;

Now I know it's more resilient than I am to its changing.

The truth of the matter is I don't understand

How it works; I stand in wonder of it, winded by its

Embrace as it rushes to hug me 'round my hips.

Helpless, I watch it grow, coming slowly to understand that

Eventually I'll have to let it go.  I'm

An unwilling parent of an unruly child,

Remembering the good old days when it used to

Take my hand as we walked together and

Squeeze it tight.

Or maybe I'm the child, the prodigal son of

Father Time, running from home with my inheritance.

Maybe eternity waits with a fatted calf, arms outstretched to

Embrace me.  And maybe, instead of holding it tight, I

Need to rest in its arms and let it rock me to sleep.

Now, this acrostic comes from one of my favorite lines in the book of Ecclesiastes: "I have seen the burden God has laid on men.  he has made everything beautiful in its time.  He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end." - Eccl. 3:10-11  This passage, by the way, comes right after the long litany made famous by the Byrds: "A time to be born; a time to die..." etc.  If you've never heard the song before:

The reason I love this passage is that it says, yes, there is a time for all of these things, for even death and war, but that these things, too, will pass away and that everything will be made beautiful in its time.  God has, therefore, set eternity in our hearts, has given us a hope beyond ourselves, beyond our understanding.  Derek Webb put this whole passage into song much better than I think I ever could in poem:

This Too Shall Be Made Right
Derek Webb

Appears on: The Ringing Bell

Lyrics:

people love you the most for the things you hate
and hate you for loving the things that you cannot keep straight
people judge you on a curve
and tell you you’re getting what you deserve
this too shall be made right

children cannot learn when children cannot eat
stack them like lumber when children cannot sleep
children dream of wishing wells
whose waters quench all the fires of Hell
this too shall be made right

the earth and the sky and the sea are all holding their breath
wars and abuses have nature groaning with death
we say we’re just trying to stay alive
but it looks so much more like a way to die
this too shall be made right

there’s a time for peace and there is a time for war
a time to forgive and a time to settle the score
a time for babies to lose their lives
a time for hunger and genocide
this too shall be made right

I don’t know the suffering of people outside my front door
I join the oppressors of those who i choose to ignore
I’m trading comfort for human life
and that’s not just murder it’s suicide
this too shall be made right

Also whistling around in my head while I wrote this poem was a quote from one of my favorite old-timey theologians: St. Augustine: "You have made us for yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in you." from Augustine's Confessions.

The idea of comparing time to a child came to me through the idea of having something tucked into our hearts, even something like eternity.  How can something that large fit into something so small?  A mystery.  And a welcome one.

Blessings to you, dear faithful reader.

In Which I Confess My Utter Lack of Sense

My wife and I have spent the last hour and a half trying to figure out how to change text from the internet into a printable book format.  Here's the story:

So, I have to read Anselm of Canterbury's Cur Deus Homo - Why God Became Human - for my Systematic Theology Class.  Although I am very adept at reading blogs and news articles online, I hate reading works of theology online.  Go figure.  Our professor decided to save us money by having us read the text on the internet.  I was grateful for the saving of money, but dreading reading nearly 100 pages of a dense, theological text off of a bright computer screen.  This afternoon, while steeling myself to spend hours staring at a screen, I hit upon the idea of turning the text into a book.  After all, the text was in an online, printable format, and the copyright information said that it could be printed and used for educational purposes, just not for sale.  Perfect!  So, I went to our campus's nearby computer lab and downloaded the text into Microsoft Word.  Now, I could have just printed it as it was, but I'm also a stickler for durability, portability, readability and paper-saving.  So, I spent an hour and a half formatting the text into "book format," which, conveniently, Microsoft Office for Windows XP on the school computers/printers has readily available.  Anyway, I ended up printing the text on 55 pieces of paper, front and back, two "pages" per side, meaning that it looked like the pages of a regular paperback book.  Then I took it to Staples, where my wife was working this afternoon, had her cut the pages in half and then put them together with a card stock cover and spiral-binding.  All for only $2.50.  Not bad.

Now, there are a few other things that I would like to read/turn into books, such as old public domain hymn texts online, christian classics online, etc.  All in the public domain, no copyright.  I decided I wanted to work at home and try to format it all on my Mac.  No dice.  The Mac did not have the pleasant "book format" option.  So, I tried to emulate it with formatting.  No Dice.  And that was how I spent the last hour and a half.  Sigh.  All of that time when I should have been reading the book that I so nicely formatted and had bound this afternoon.  Welcome to my nonsensical life.

Other than that, life is good.  I'm busy and a little sleepy now, but I'm good.  Sigh.  Cur Deus Homo here I come!

Communing with Nature 4: Jenny Jump Beauty

Dear faithful readers, I can only apologize for my absence with excuses: the beginning of the school year, my duties as a deacon, and general laziness.  I am sincerely sorry for my absence.  Of course, maybe some of you are simply bored of this whole Jenny Jump review and are waiting for me to return to something more substantial.  Well, have no worries, I will.  In fact, I will try to post two quick final Jenny Jump posts and then finally post a third, general update of my life.  So, with all of that written, prepare yourself, dear reader, for a virtual (ha, because we're on the internet) glut of posts.

First of all, let's think about the beauty of Jenny Jump.  If you've never been camping, I really cannot adequately describe to you the musky, cloying smell of decaying leaves and the freshness of the air.  I cannot match the glory of a bright blue sky, the color of a baby's eyes, clear as sight will allow.  I cannot even broach the subject of a midnight sky with a few whispy clouds and the comforting sight of familiar constellations far from home.  Camping brings me to my roots, makes me wonder how afraid our tent-dwelling ancestors must have been, surrounded by the bark of wild animals and the twinkling sounds of insects.  Every motion teasing their nerves.  How insulated we are in our cities full of human noise.  I feel more awake and alive when I'm camping.  I feel more aware.

And the art of camping itself, well, how can I describe to you the success of a fire made only with a few pieces of newspaper, a match and some dry wood?  How can I tell you how satisfying it is to sleep in a tent erected with your own hands and sweat (even though Eddie Bauer helped with the design)?  How, if you've never been camping, can I possibly manage to evoke the weary pride that comes from hiking for five or six hours, the refreshing feeling of slick sweat pouring from your pores, the knowledge that you have worked and you have achieved something as you stand at the cliff edge on the summit of a mountain, surveying the terrain before you?

All of that to say that my deepest wish for you, dear reader, is that you know this joy, you know this pride, you know this radical experience (radical meaning "going to the root").  My heart aches for you to go camping for yourself if you never have.  Meanwhile, these brief descriptions, I hope, encourage you to go.  And now these brief descriptions will be supplemented by pictures.

The eponymous fire, built with my own hands.  It was a quick fire, meant to burn out before we went to sleep.

Just one of the spectacular views from our many hikes.

A Jenny Jump Sunset.  Wild bats were flying around in the gathering dusk.  I tried to capture them with the camera, but they were fluttering too fast.

I love pictures of paths.  Maybe it's my current preoccupation with a search for a vocation, but I think I've always been fascinated by a good path picture.  Not to say that this is a particularly good path picture, but something about the dappled light on the brown dirt and the golden sun striking the green undergrowth caught my eye.

And finally, the satisfaction of a successful hike.  And a beautiful woman by my side.

Stay tuned for the final Jenny Jump update and then a life update.  Thanks for sticking with me, faithful reader.

Communing with Nature 2: Jenny Jump Review

Greetings faithful reader!

I apologize for not updating over the last few days.  Obviously, Sarah and I were camping for the first three days of the week, and I've been recuperating and watching the Republican National Convention for the last two.  So, now I'm back and ready to be posting.  I think I'm going to do a short series, perhaps three separate posts, on our camping trip.  It was so amazing and so many great things went on, that I don't want to overwhelm you with a huge, long, unreadable post.  So, I'll start off with a review of Jenny Jump State Forest, continue onto a discussion of beauty and all that we saw at Jenny Jump, and finish with thoughts and experiences that came from our trip. Part 1 - a review of Jenny Jump State Forest will be appearing either tomorrow (Sunday, September 7) or Monday, and then each following day I'll post about the other two topics.

So, thank you again, faithful reader, and I'll leave you with a teaser of our adventures.

Sarah and I sitting outside of our tent.

A home away from home, complete with uno cards, a word puzzle book, and, if you look closely, my guitar.

At the end of our adventures.  Both of us look a little sleepy, and I'm pretty greasy from two days without a shower, but I'd say we're a pretty handsome couple.  (Side note, isn't it interesting that the word couple, which is essentially gender neutral, is often paired with the word handsome, which is often connotative of a masculine trait?)