February 22, 2011

Just occurred to me this mornings: Protestantism is beautiful, but shallow. (We watched BABETTE'S FEAST in Creative Writing yesterday.) Not entirely human, but more faithful than most of us. I guess when God looks at us "it's always something"!

February 21, 2011

Went to Texas A & M this last week. What a delight. The students were great, the reading went very well, and I got to spend some time with Chuck Taylor, Janet McCann, and Bedford Clark. And what a blessings, to be able to talk about Jesus and humility at a big secular place--no venal concerns for church/state stuff. Just another open forum, which is what university life is supposed to be about.

The other big thing was a dear priest friend got convicted of some kind of imposition. My wife caught some of it on the local news: a history of drinking problems. I didn't see it, but it sounded like the usual media job. The priest said it was a cultural misunderstanding in a letter. (He's African.) I really don't know about any of it, but loved the guy as a priest and intellectual. So if you think about it, keep both him and the poor girl in your prayers.

As an old girl friend once put it to me: "Well, your track record isn't so good." I didn't get married until I was forty, so though I never got involved with anyone anywhere near the age of the girl in question, I did lots of stupid. Too often. (Once would be so.) I tell my kids and students: do things God's way.

Young people are squeezed for all sides on the sexual matters. The media tries to whisper "gay" in their ears; sex as commodity is everywhere. (A student of mine--and my son--just turned me on to FIREFLY. Well-written sci-fi, but it clearly pushes "sex-workers.") I'm glad I'm not young these days. We all have enough to repent of.

Pray, pray, pray.

February 8, 2011

Just did "The Dream of the Rood" in class yesterday. A great poem: unvarnished mercy, and need. I really like the Anglo-Saon stuff so far. "The Wanderer" "The Seafarer," "Wulf and Eadwacer," no attendant nonsense. Nothing about "hard view of life," just the goods, brother. Contemporary Christian poetry is so afraid of need and mercy and answer: what would they look like, on the ground like that? So they jazz with language, too often anyway. Give me a sword (and a bigger body), and I'm hacking on the North Sea.