Batyah

Showing posts with label School. Show all posts

Waxing Poetic

So, I should be finishing the touches on my PowerPoint for my ancient history presentation for tomorrow.
...And translating Ruth 3 for Hebrew.
........And translating and reformatting Isaiah 14 - 18 for my parallelisms class.

And, yet, here I am. Talking to you wonderful people the cosmic void. What's sad is that I don't even have anything that earth-shattering to discuss. Nevertheless, here are the two topics that I can't get off of my brain: 1) Autumn is here almost. 2) I love what I am studying.

I have already waxed poetic about the latter of those two subjects, but I feel the need for just a little bit of redux. I sat in a class this morning, which was really not a class that I eh-vurr thought that I would be taking; and yet, as I sat there, listening to a professor who wasn't saying anything too monumentally profound, I discovered within myself a truth: deciding to follow the prompting of the Lord to enroll in that class wasn't just an exercise in obedience or faith, it put me - very literally - in the exact right place at the exact right time. And what a blessing that is. Listen, I'm not saying that these days haven't been long or that there haven't been times when I have asked myself 'Can I even cram one more second into this day?'* But there is an undeniable wholeness in knowing that the Lord has brought me here to learn these things, and that makes each and every day exquisitely wonderful.

And that's all I have to say about that.

Now, onto the topic that has been burning a metaphorical hole in the back of my mind (oh, my bad, I'm mixing metaphors). This past Labor Day (which, I'm telling you, feels forever ago), some friends and I were able to have one last summery shindig at the community pool totally gratis compliments of a kind stranger. I know, I know, the very words "community pool" call to mind shrieking babies and slightly yellow pool water, but in all reality, it was awesome. Complete with legit water slides! (That I didn't go on!) We spent a few hours there playing Marco Polo (there was an unfortunate handful of a stranger's boob incident that we're not really going to delve into here) and generally laughing so hard it was hard to swim.

But then! THEN, we came home and dried off and something almost palpable in me flipped the switch from Summer to Autumn and I immediately began dreaming of bobbing for apples, and picking apples, and lighting fires in the fireplace, and cozying up in a really big sweater.

So, my friends, I'm here to tell you that autumn is here. Please don't burst my very delicate bubble.

I wore my (classy) knee-high boots yesterday.
I made a pumpkin pie from a real pumpkin. (And Madie's begging me to bake another.)
I made pumpkin creamy polenta.
I even layered a (thin) sweater with a(n airy) blazer and I wasn't sweltering.

It got me thinking about this poem that Austin sent me last year, which is, in my estimation, the pinnacle of autumnal perfection:

The Autumn, Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Go, sit upon the lofty hill,
And turn your eyes around,
Where waving woods and waters wild
Do hymn an autumn sound.
The summer sun is faint on them —
The summer flowers depart —
Sit still — as all transform’d to stone,
Except your musing heart.

How there you sat in summer-time,
May yet be in your mind;
And how you heard the green woods sing
Beneath the freshening wind.
Though the same wind now blows around,
You would its blast recall;
For every breath that stirs the trees,
Doth cause a leaf to fall.

Oh! like that wind, is all the mirth
That flesh and dust impart:
We cannot bear its visitings,
When change is on the heart.
Gay words and jests may make us smile,
When Sorrow is asleep;
But other things must make us smile,
When Sorrow bids us weep!

The dearest hands that clasp our hands, —
Their presence may be o’er;
The dearest voice that meets our ear,
That tone may come no more!
Youth fades; and then, the joys of youth,
Which once refresh’d our mind,
Shall come — as, on those sighing woods,
The chilling autumn wind.

Hear not the wind — view not the woods;
Look out o’er vale and hill —
In spring, the sky encircled them —
The sky is round them still.
Come autumn’s scathe — come winter’s cold —
Come change — and human fate!
Whatever prospect Heaven doth bound,
Can ne’er be desolate.

Guys, get ready for me to start saying 'autumnal' all. the. time.

Nerd City.

Guess what I woke up to? A bouquet of freshly sharpened pencils and a sweet note from Mad.

It was, you see, the very first day of school after a long, dreadfully school-less summer. Madie, knowing my absolute love for school supplies, classes and You've Got Mail, planned quite the surprise. And, you must believe that it kept me smiling all day.

So, I guess that classifies me as a total dork.

Other signs:

I have been waiting for this day since four days after classes ended in May. For reals.
While others have been complaining all around me today about professors and syllabi, each class just made me actually sigh - out loud - with satisfaction.
I could. not. wait. to get home from FHE to do my translations. I even left a bit early so I could sit out on the lawn and make my Greek flash cards.

In all honesty, though, the reason I'm writing is this: yes, I confess to be guilty of succumbing to my nerd-ocity. Yes, I know, that I should be only begrudgingly engaging in using my head again, preferring instead the carefree days of summer...

Yet, here I am, tired, but happy. I have to think that I am just so blessed by the Lord to have found the one discipline in this life that ignites me - head, heart and whole soul. The knowledge that I was brought here, where Deity clearly had different ideas than I about my trajectory, is, perhaps, the greatest gift I have been given since finding the Gospel itself. But perhaps that's why I love it so much: I find the Gospel in a new way each and every day.

I spent the majority of last semester grappling with how to balance the spiritual with the intellectual. One of my professors made it a focus to help her Ancient Near Eastern Studies students faithfully find the balance between the two. With all of our talks about Q and historical analysis and the like, I understand that her role as a BYU professor was in part to help us navigate the information faithfully. One of the big questions asked in the class was How do I participate in this scholarly debate from the framework of a believing, faithful Latter-day Saint?

The dialogue presupposed that the intellectual was opposite the spiritual; that the two exist on a teeter totter that must be balanced–or better, tilted toward the spiritual. It was helpful. Really. It was. But now I have found myself growing past the either/or paradigm.

The line between the two–intellect and spirit–have become much more blurred for me; on that teeter totter, they have come to sit much closer to the fulcrum. It's such a Greek idea, this thought that knowledge and faith are on opposite ends of the spectrum.

In studying the Scriptures–their history, their languages, their foundations, their context–I have found great joy. As I have previously posted, I truly feel this is what I am called of God to do. As such, everything I do to gain understanding and advance therein is a spiritual matter. My bias is absolutely, then, a spiritual one. I say this because I have begun to think of my intellect, of the things I learn intellectually, as a method of exercising my spirit. Knowledge has become one modality of my faith.

My knowing faith has empowered me to take my hoping faith to more grandiose horizons.

What is "knowing," anyway? Isn't there an element of choosing to believe involved in even the most concrete things? Maybe what we term 'knowledge' is in part what is true and in part what we choose to believe as true. I don't mean to imply that 'fact' or 'truth' is subjective. I wholeheartedly believe that there is Truth (with a capital T) separate from what I choose to believe is true. What I am trying to say is that the incorporation of truth into our beings requires us to say, "Yeah, okay, that's plausible and I'm not going to question it." Even 2+2=4. You have to say to yourself, "Sure. 2+2=4, I can get behind that."

Nels L. Nelson said that

knowledge is only half of intelligence. To stop here is to be falsely educated. If, however, the truth perceived becomes a dynamic fact in a man's character; if it is incorporated into his mental attitude, and reacts immediately upon his life; if, in short, it ceases to be something in a man, and becomes the man himself, changing the very . . . [character] of his soul, then knowledge has passed over into power—or character—or wisdom—or, to adopt the term used by Joseph Smith, has passed over into intelligence; and it is such a process alone that represents true education. (Scientific Aspects of Mormonism)

I think that knowing faith is the process of taking Truths and testing them for ourselves, but also choosing within ourselves to say "Okay. I've tested this principle and it holds water. Now, I'm going to trust myself, trust God and accept it. I'm going to make it dynamic fact. I am going to choose to let it incorporate itself into my person. I'm going to accept this as fact."

There is a sacred partnership between the intellect and the spirit, then. Or, maybe they are not two separate entities at all. The soul, as Joseph Smith put it, is the body and the spirit. Not mind, body and spirit (as some yoga retreats and spas would have you think), even if I have been taught to value my mind over my body and over my spiritual notions.

A professor of mine, on the last day of class, read significant portions of an article entitled "Go With God" by Stanley Hauerwas (originally published in First Things). Particularly poignant sections appear below, some with my own commentary, some without. I highly recommend reading the full article; it was inspiring and helped me to refocus and recontextualize my own studies.

Please read the rest of the article. It's inspiring and a call to a higher, nobler idea of studenthood.

Ritual Renewal

In one of my classes, we spoke in-depth about the concept of ritual renewals – of those rituals that we perform the renew us, give us strength, give us power, give us hope. As we discussed these rituals, I found myself realizing that I had fallen into a bit of a slump, each day only a slightly different facsimile of the day before. I found myself in need of renewal.

So, I girded my loins (metaphorically, of course) and set forth to renew my perspective. I spoke with an old friend.

   Wrote a handful of handwritten letters.

   Watched a woefully incredible sappy movie.

   Painted.

   Read Hugh Nibley (that always does the trick).

   And delved deeply into the Scriptures.

Each action was cleansing; each scrubbed me clean of the cynicism I have developed over the past few months. Thus refreshed, I am finding myself (re)newly able to stand against the waves of life.

Just what I need to get through finals.

Collegiate

I love the word 'collegiate.' More than that, I love the feel of 'collegiate.' Now that it's fall, there have been numberless times I've glimpsed a scene that I could have sworn were staged for some future BYU prospective student catalog. I've been snapping pictures here and there like a total stalker, because they make me feel so....affirmed in my existence here at the Y. What I will not show you are the tens - nay, hundreds - of students sleeping I see everyday...in the floor, draped over benches, snuggled up at the base of the tree.

Here are some beauties:

Love. It.

A Ridiculous Ode of Love

Last night was almost…magical.

I know, I know. How could an evening spent in the library be magical, of all things?

Here’s the thing. I’m in the midst of falling in love. The object of my rose-colored glasses? Provo.

Again, I know! Provo, of all places, is not a location with which to become enamored.

As I left the library at midnight (still don’t have the internet chez moi, unfortunately, hence the late-night library sessions), I walked out into the cool autumn air and looked up to see the faint silhouette of the mountains in front of me. The Y gleamed in the moonlight.

I walked across campus toward my car listening to Neko Case, and all the time allowing the joy that I have in my heart for this life that I’m living fill the whole of my being.

I jumped into a couple of puddles leftover from the evening thunderstorm.

I skipped down the long stairs toward Ernie, singing love songs to myself.

I thought of that scene in L’Auberge Espagnole where Xavier says, “After you’ve lived here, crossed this street 10, 20, 1000 times – it’ll belong to you…”

I belonged here. And here belonged to me.

The Most Enjoyment I’ve Ever Had from Football

No. This is not a post about how “like, totally awesome” the BYU football team is. And it isn’t a post about how I have learned to love a sport with which I have only ever had even the most tepid passing interest. It is something far greater than that. In class the other day, we read the following (stick with it, it’s long but it’s worth it!) – and my enjoyment for football has never been and likely will never be rivaled again. The spoof is entitled, “Freud, Football and the Marching Virgins,” written by Thomas Hornsby Ferril.

As I look back over the intellectual caprices of the past quarter century, I am amazed that the Freudians never took out after football. There’s not a single book on the subject. Let me set down some findings that might have been made.

Obviously, football is a syndrome of religious rites symbolizing the struggle to preserve the egg of life through the rigors of impending winter. The rites begin at the autumnal equinox and culminate on the first day of the New Year with great festivals identified with bowls of plenty; the festivals are associated with flowers such as roses, fruits such as oranges, farms crops such as cotton, and even sun worship and appeasement of great reptiles such as alligators.

In these rites the egg of life is symbolized by what is called “the oval,” an inflated bladder covered with hog skin. The convention of “the oval” is repeated in the architectural oval-shaped design of the vast outdoor churches in which the services are held every Sabbath in every town and city, also every Sunday in the greater centers of population where an advanced priesthood performs. These enormous roofless churches dominate every college campus; no other edifice compares in size with them, and they bear witness to the high spiritual development of the culture that produced them.

Literally millions of worshippers attend the Sabbath services in these enormous open-air churches. Subconsciously, these hordes of worshippers are seeking an outlet from sex frustration in anticipation of violent masochism and sadism about to be enacted by a highly trained priesthood of young men. Football obviously arises out of the Oedipus complex. Love of mother dominates the entire world. The churches, without exception, are dedicated to Alma Mater, Dear Mother. (Notre Dame and football are synonymous.)

The rites are performed on a rectangular area of green grass oriented to the four directions. The grass, symbolizing summer, is striped with ominous white lines representing the knifing snows of winter. The white stripes are repeated in the ceremonial costumes of the four whistling monitors who control the services through a time period divided into four quarters, symbolizing the four seasons.

The ceremony begins with colorful processions of musicians and semi-nude virgins who move in and out of ritualized patterns. This excites the thousands of worshippers to rise from their seats, shout frenzied poetry in unison and chant ecstatic anthems.

The actual rites, performed by 22 young priests of perfect physique, might appear to the uninitiated as a chaotic conflict concerned only with hurting the oval by kicking it, then endeavoring to rescue and protect the egg. However, the procedure is highly stylized. On each side there are 11 young men wearing colorful and protective costumes. The group in so-called “possession” of the oval first arrange themselves into an egg-shaped “huddle,” as it is called, for a moment of prayerful meditation and whispering of secret numbers to each other.

Then they rearrange themselves in relation to the position of the egg. In a typical “formation” there are seven priests “on the line,” seven being a mystical number associated not, as Jung purists might contend, with the “seven last words,” but actually with sublimation of the “seven deadly sins” into the “seven cardinal principles of education.”

The central priest crouches over the egg, protecting it with his hands while over his back quarters hovers the “quarterback.” Behind him are three priests representing the male triad. At a given signal, the egg is passed by sleight of hand to one of the members of the triad, who endeavors to move it by bodily force across the white lines of winter. This procedure, up and down the enclosure, continues through the four quarters of the ritual.

At the end of the second quarter, implying the summer solstice, the processions of musicians and semi-nude virgins are resumed. After forming themselves into pictograms, representing alphabetical and animal fetishes, the virgins perform a most curious rite requiring far more dexterity than the earlier phallic Maypole rituals from which it seems to be derived. Each of the virgins carries a wand, which she spins on her fingertips, tosses playfully into the air and with which she interweaves her body in most intricate gyrations.

The virgins perform another important function throughout the entire service. This concerns the mystical rite of “conversion” following the success of one of the young priests in carrying the oval across the last white line of winter. As the moment of “conversion” approaches, the virgins kneel at the edge of the grass, bury their faces in the earth, then raise their arms to heaven in supplication.

Space does not permit interpretation of football as related to dreams, or discussion of the great subconscious reservoirs of thwarted American energy that weekly seek expression through vicarious enjoyment of ritualized violence and infliction of pain. To relate football to the Oedipus complex alone would require, as it well deserves, years of patient research by scholarly men such as we find in the Ford Foundation.

I only regret that these studies were not undertaken a quarter century ago, when the Freudians were in full flower. It’s just another instance, so characteristic of our culture, of too little and too late.

Priceless Quote

So, I'm in the midst of studying for the most major test of what is by far my most overwhelming class. I, therefore, should not be fiddling with my blog.

And yet, here I am.

Just a quick quote, from a professor who shall remain nameless, but on whom I have a serious Gospel crush:

"Joseph [Speaking of Joseph of Egypt] was far and away the most conceited prophet in the Bible. Really! He should have just keep his mouth shut, but, no. He had to tell all of his brothers that they were going to bow down to him. Arrogant, conceited prick."

Six Words I Will Never Tire of Hearing...

"Oh, wait, let's read Hugh Nibley."