My friend Miwaza just told me about Blurb, where you can publish your own books and photos in softcover or hardcover. (Guess which I’m getting. LOL.) I’m so excited! I wanted to make a baby book but I’ve never done scrapbooking before and I’ve thought what a pity to put all that work into making a scrapbook and only have one copy to show for it in the end. Here’s the perfect solution!

Even better, I can publish my own books for my babies to study from instead of writing everything out by hand onto notebooks and sketchbooks. I’ve been planning and laying out a scrapbook for Rinah with all the basic stuff we’re working on now (like Genesis 1, 10 Commandments, Apostles Creed, Te Deum, Magnificat, etc., etc.) and trying to practice calligraphy with a little tot running around the room or squirming in my lap and it was NOT working.

Now I just need to upload pictures and text and hit “publish” and I’m done! And it will look better than anything I try to do by hand. And I will be all done before the next baby is here! And my babies will each have their own copies! Ooooh, maaaan. I can’t wait to start! Thank you, Miwaza!

Nausea has been making its rounds. Friends, my husband, and I have been feeling sick, but in the midst of gagging and retching, I’ve been laughing. I can’t count the number of times I’ve been asked, “Are you feeling nauseous?” or heard “I’m nauseous.” ROTFL.

There has been a lot of discussion about this in recent decades, and many American dictionaries flag the disputed senses in usage notes. As you say, the distinction that has been taught is that nauseous means “causing nausea” but nauseated means “feeling or suffering from nausea”. So if a person says “I am nauseous”, a purist might reply “Yes, you are; misusing words like that makes your listeners feel sick”. (This comment is best relayed from a distance.)

Read the rest.

LanguageHat is always comforting to read. LH brightens my dark days and makes bright days even brighter. Today, he posted a strange but beautiful poem by a poet I’ve never heard of before, Stanley Kunitz.

The Thing That Eats the Heart

The thing that eats the heart comes wild with years.
It died last night, or was it wounds before,
But somehow crawls around, inflamed with need,
Jingling its medals at the fang-scratched door.

We were not unprepared: with lamp and book
We sought the wisdom of another age
Until we heard the action of the bolt.
A little wind investigates the page.

No use pretending to the pitch of sleep;
By turnings we are known, our times and dates
Examined in the courts of either/or
While armless griefs mount lewd and headless doubts.

It pounces in the dark, all pity-ripe,
An enemy as soft as tears or cancer,
In whose embrace we fall, as to a sickness
Whose toxins in our cells cry sin and danger.

Hero of crossroads, how shall we defend
This creature-lump whose charity is art
When its own self turns Christian-cannibal?
The thing that eats the heart is mostly heart.

Somehow, it reminds me of Proverbs 13:12.

Hope deferred maketh the heart sick; but when the desire cometh, it is a tree of life.

Reddish bronze highlights reflected off his hair in the candlelight. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps … whatever, whatever.

The salad arrived and, smiling, he motioned for her to start, so she slowly raised her fork and then stopped suddenly, eyes transfixed on her plate as the salad moved, and through the lettuce and onions and olives and tomatoes, out walked a frog in slow motion, one leg at a time, till it reached the middle of the table right between them and looked straight at her with a twinkle in its eye, opening its mouth for a croak, long and loud, which was cut short as its neck-bubble burst, its back split open, and a black scorpion walked out from inside the frog.

She looked up at him from the pulsing frog’s heart and saw his hair and his eye-whites had turned to blackest black, the warm friendly lips widening to a mocking leer. She was hungry, the emptiness growing inside, all-consuming, threatening to swallow her up, but she knew there would be no filling of it, because the scorpion began clicking its way towards her and across the table he started to stand, so she closed her eyes and waited, without surprise, remembering she had believed it would not happen but had known all along that it would, so she waited, sinking, soaring, flying, falling.

If you’re reading this, chances are you know the rush, the thrill that you drown in when you realize someone you love feels the same way about you. Tingling, intoxicating, it feels so good it’s almost painful. That silly stage when the two stare at each other like besotted fools and believe everything they say to each other is profound, when the boy promises the world and the girl believes him

Such is the way of a man with a maid … or some men with some maids. Even the complete cynics among us have felt it at one time or another, and the loss of it is probably what made them cynics in the first place.

Poets and musicians have waxed lyrical about this feeling for I’d say, approximately 6,000 years … but what is it? When is it right or wrong? It’s been called passion, lust, love. It’s so easy (ahem, at least in certain circles), to think that “passion” and “falling in love” have to be wrong, because they are of Hollywood. But the most powerful lies are the ones that contain mostly truth and that there are stories aplenty in the Bible about people falling madly in love … not to mention the Song of Solomon. Passion just is another gift from God that people abuse. Passion might be love. But not necessarily. There are also stories we like to forget about, though, about arranged marriages. Did they have passion? I don’t know and I guess it doesn’t matter for us to know. I suppose we’ll find out in heaven after we’ve been dead for a while. It does seem that arranged marriages can generate passion, though. Like Isaac and Rebekah.

Here’s my problem, though. When is it right for the fires to be lit? What should one do if they seem to have come ablaze on their own?

The point is the desire to share everything, absolutely everything you have with that other person. But that’s not really possible.

For some, it comes and goes. For others, it stays gone. But whatever happens, it doesn’t last. It never does. Some people think that finding someone to share everything with means you’re not lonely anymore. But that’s not true. You’re just lonely in a different way. Because sin cuts you off from people and so does finiteness. As sinners we can never be wholly united with anyone and being finite (to varying degrees) keeps us from understanding each other completely.

It’s fun have to get merry on beer and wine and cocktails, it’s fine to go to the amusement park, but confusing passion with love is grievous for everyone involved.

The worst is passion and love without God.

There can be love without passion, passion without love, neither is necessarily better. But there is no love without perseverence, or love without longing.

From Gen-chan. phobialist.com

I believe in the One, Triune God: Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

I believe in the inerrancy of the Bible.

I believe that God created the heavens and the earth in 6 literal days.

I believe that man was created to build the city of God and that mandate was passed on to the Church. Christians must build the kingdom of God on earth.

I believe that man is totally depraved, that God has chosen the elect through no merit of their own, that Christ died for them, that they cannot resist the work of the Holy Spirit, and that they will persevere in the faith.

I believe that Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and buried. He descended into hades, rose again on the third day, ascended into heaven, sits on the right hand of God, and rules history from there.

I believe that children of believing parents are born into covenant with God, and that they should receive baptism and participate in the Lord’s Supper.

I believe churches should administer the Lord’s Supper weekly using bread and wine.

I believe that after all people of all nations bow the knee before Jesus Christ and praise His name, He will come again to the earth to end history and judge all men, living and dead.

I believe that those who love God and obey His Word will have everlasting life in heaven, and that those who do not love God and obey Him will burn in everlasting hell.

It is said a man is happiest with an American house (because they are comparatively spacious and comfortable), a Japanese wife (because they are supposedly quiet and submissive), and a Chinese cook (because those who have had real Chinese food know it is the best in the world).

Late at night, she is sitting at the kitchen table with books and papers spread all around: a Japanese Bible, a Chinese Bible, various English translations, a Hebrew Old Testament, Greek New Testament, Septuagint, numerous lexicons, dictionaries, and commentaries, and stacks of pages with handwritten notes, charts, and schedules. As her husband walks in, they hold a discussion, the decibels rising and falling with their excitement as they go over iddiest biddiest word roots and stems, which somehow relate to themes overarching all of History and the Bible.

In the morning, she is still sitting there, still writing furiously. As husband and children start to wake up, everything on the table is put away and she cooks. While she cooks, the discussion from last night resumes.

But all that isn’t really the point. What she does is not all that she is. What is she really? “Eaten up with zeal,� perpetually on fire, but never burned up, absolutely uncompromising on the essentials.

A man can be happy with American … um … citizenship? … a Japanese apartment the size of your living room (no kidding!), and a valiant Chinese wife.

There is a place where love is free and death is forever, its people so innocent, honest, and earnest they are content and happy. The women walk the streets in sunlight and moonlight, free from fear of harm, hands hiding perpetual giggles. The men, hairless and three feet tall, wear somber suits, serious faces, shy smiles. The children worship parents and revere teachers. Everyone lines up in single file everywhere and lives in metal boxes in the sky.

They are studious and literate, their books the best bound, resumes always handwritten with colour photos. The ones with neatest handwriting and the meekest faces are chosen.

Lacking in imagination, they are incapable of invention. In their humility they never cease to learn as much as there is to be learned from others. Through perseverance and precise mimicry, they end up improving on others’ inventions making them their own and are finally too proud to admit to borrowing anything.

They welcome aliens (especially those blond, white ones, but half-white is more than sufficient for adoration), and give them minimum wages of $2500 a month, even for those with absolutely no credentials whatsoever.

It is heaven for animal-lovers, with all varieties of pigeons, crows, sparrows, and cats. Pigeons spread respiratory diseases, crows eat the pigeons, overweight cats groan through neighborhoods gorging on free food … and the sparrows? The sparrows fall to the ground like all the hairs of our heads.

God has blessed them with the blessings of His covenant for they keep it quite faithfully. There are no starving children with distended bellies, no enemies within or without their borders, no crime or criminals, nothing distressful or distasteful but the free love of licentiousness and the eternal death of ancestor worship.

They live in a vacuum of highest prosperity, oblivious to the Light all around them, for there are no beautiful feet, none to preach the gospel of peace and bring the glad tidings. Their love is death, and there are none to show them otherwise.

My second article, written for the New Christendom Journal.

Alexander the Great died in the year 323 BC, Cleopatra in 30 BC. — both were struck by the same hand. But that is not what we are usually taught. The textbook view of history is very different.

Whether the subject is history, math, or science, teachers present truth as an “objective” statement of fact. As one writer puts it, “History is an account of things that actually happened.”

We are taught that in order to learn history we must commit names, places, dates, and events to memory. If we have the time and the inclination, we should perhaps dig a bit deeper: analyze the cultural, linguistic, economic, philosophical, and emotional backgrounds of major historical characters in order to understand the motives behind the actions that have molded history as we know it. We can trace the rise and fall of dynasties and kingdoms, the currents of politics and philosophy, the effects of economics, trade, and even weather upon various cultures. If we somehow manage to digest all that, we think we have grasped the objective facts and are now equipped to explain history.

Textbooks give the impression that there is a separate plane of reality where facts exist in themselves, self-sufficient truths, innumerable points floating in a vacuum waiting to be memorized and connected by objective logical reasoning. Christian textbooks are not immune to this tendency.

When a person has covered the points deemed necessary by the board of education, he is considered an “educated” man. He has learned the alphabet, 2 + 2 = 4, the multiplication tables, the periodic table, the dates of world history, and maybe (if he were taught with a Christian curriculum) the books of the Bible, the Ten Commandments (abridged version, of course), even some creeds and catechisms.

This is simply the wrong approach. Facts do not exist in an impersonal, objective, odourless, colourless, emotionless vacuum. They cannot, because all so-called facts, whether mathematic, scientific, or historic, have existed from eternity past in the mind of God, predestined by the Tri-Personal One. As such, objective facts do not exist in themselves on a pure, pulseless plane. They can only “be” in relation to the One who planned them. Pure objectivity exists only in the mind of God.

When viewed from God’s perspective, history is not an endless litany of names and numbers but the unfolding of a plan in which each person holds an eternal significance and purpose. History is a story of love: the love of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit for each other and the love of God for man.

Instead of teaching students bare facts, divorced from the Tri-Personal One who conceived them before the beginning of time, we must teach them how to think from a Trinitarian perspective. However, we cannot enter the mind of God or see things precisely from His perspective. Our feeble, finite minds cannot fathom the mind of our infinite God. But as creatures created in His image, we can understand Him to a certain degree and we can see the Trinitarian flow of history He has revealed in His Word. It is our duty to “think His thoughts after Him” and teach our children to think three dimensionally about our diverse universe.

Not only should we ask, “What happened?” and “How did it happen?”, we must also ask, “What did God do?” and “Why did He do it?”

Regardless of eschatological position, Christians believe the Bible tells of the beginning and end of time. History fills in the blanks as it unrolls. Contrary to the non-Christian view that history is grounded in the past, Christians must see history as flowing from the future, through the present, to the past. Therefore, all things must be understood in terms of the end. We only understand the beginning of a story when we reach the end.

Never does yesterday turn back in its flight and become to-day, or to-day become to-morrow. Never does the past pass into the present, or the present into the future. No. It is the other way. To-morrow becomes to-day. To-day becomes yesterday. The future becomes the present. The present becomes the past. The present is the narrow strait, is the living instant, it is the flashing reality, through which the vast oncoming future flows into the endless receding past….

The Future is logically first, but not chronologically….

(Rousas J. Rushdoony, The One and the Many, p. 145, quoting from Nathan R. Wood, The Secret of the Universe, pp. 43-45)

So what about Alexander and Cleopatra?

We could say that Alexander the Great conquered more than anyone else before him because he was a military genius, or because he had an inferiority complex and wanted to outdo his father, or maybe both. We could say that he died from overdrinking, or if you prefer the other version, that he was poisoned. But that’s not enough. In the “real” picture, the Invisible Hand can be clearly seen: God used Alexander the Great to spread the Greek language so that the missionaries of the New Testament would be able to spread the Gospel more easily. He struck Alexander down when his purpose in history was fulfilled, as Daniel prophesied in the third year of Belshazzar (Daniel 8), over two hundred years before the event.

We could say that Cleopatra lost the Battle of Actium because Octavian’s general, Agrippa, was better than her general, Mark Antony. But I have yet to see any historian suggest that God destroyed Cleopatra because she wanted to establish a hybrid Greco-Egyptian religion with herself as god. She did not tolerate other religions. In her consuming passion to rebuild the Ptolemaic empire, she wanted to reacquire the land of Israel. It is said she even wanted to annihilate the Jews. So God struck her down, just three decades before the birth of Christ, using Octavian to pave the way for the Pax Romana, which enabled the rapid spread of the Gospel.

There are so many blanks to fill it seems an overwhelmingly daunting task at times, especially as we must rethink our approach to history. Viewing history as unfolding according to a perfect plan, we come to a better understanding of that plan, and the blanks become easier to fill.

But knowing history is not merely filling in blanks. Those who understand history work for the future.

God created the heavens and formed the earth to manifest His glory. As His people, it is our duty to glorify Him, to make history happen as He planned it. He knows every hair on every head. He has known every name, every place, and every event from eternity past. Some are more important than others, but each has its own place and purpose in His plan. God is the author of history and reveals Himself through it. When we seek Him, we ought to look at history as what He has brought to pass.

Christ, the King of Kings, reigns from on high at the right hand of the Father. The Holy Spirit dwells in us and guides us. The LORD has sworn to us that one day, every knee will bow before Him. With that in mind, we can fulfill our own roles in history with joy and confidence.