Fides quaerens

To Blog or Not to Blog

2011-02-09T14:42:00.002Z

Probably no one checks this blog anymore. I nearly forgot it existed myself! Most of my little thoughts are on Facebook these days. But I've noticed that they are indeed little thoughts. Skimming and skipping over the surface. Blogging may not be much better, but it might be thought of as paragraphs as opposed to soundbytes. Full blown essays and chapters and book-length ruminations? A bit beyond that. My mind, however, needs stretching and a bit of calisthenics to get it back into sustained thought. Perhaps blogging again can be a bridge from 'posting' to productivity.

This term I'm teaching via one-on-one tutorials (ah, the Oxford system!) Augustine (circling around the Confessions and topics of theological anthropology, marriage, sexuality--as per the student's request), and Medieval Philosophy. The latter has been a bit of a challenge, as I normally don't have any deep thoughts about much past 500. But... 'medieval philosophy' usually includes a sizeable bit of Augustine (hurray!), and the student was happy to do that. We'll spend the other half of the term on Aquinas, rather than surfing our way through a different philosopher/theologian each week. It's nice having the freedom to go 'off piste' (off trail skiing in the trees, as the locals would call it). Most Oxford tutorials have to follow a pretty strict curriculum based on the B.A. exams they take at the end of three years of undergraduate study. But the two students I have are with an American Junior Year Abroad program, so they have the freedom to study whatever they want--pending approval from their home universities. They are bright and capable, even the ones coming from less prestigious colleges, as they go through a vetting process, and sometimes must be in an honors program to begin with. And it challenges me to get down to academic reading (and gosh maybe writing!) again.

This afternoon I have a seminar on Stoic philosophy and patristic thought, particularly in reference to cosmology, being led by a friend. I have some reading to do for that--and I should be doing reading for my tutorials tomorrow. Or at least remember what I assigned!

New Identity

2008-09-30T14:13:00.001+01:00

Blogger somehow co-opted my toddler's identity for my posts. It merged accounts somehow, and I couldn't get them unmerged. Hence, the previous couple of posts were by 'JoMo' but were really written by me. Then again, I write MOST of his posts on his blog. Whatever.

I'm back.

Left and Right

2008-09-30T14:06:00.002+01:00

Just a little test on whether I'm left or right brain dominant.

Right Brain/ Left Brain Quiz
The higher of these two numbers below indicates which side of your brain has dominance in your life. Realizing your right brain/left brain tendency will help you interact with and to understand others.
Left Brain Dominance:	(10)
Right Brain Dominance:	(9)
Right'>http://www.intelliscript.net/test_area/questionnaire/questionnaire.cgi?q=right_brain_left_brain_2">Right Brain/ Left Brain Quiz

Looks like neither half dominates! No wonder I get confused.....

Move on down

2007-06-11T11:44:00.000+01:00

Need to add another post or two to move this map down.....

Boy, it seems like I've been to more than 20% of the world's countries, but I'm just not very good on Africa and South America.... and most of Asia, actually.

Now's not a great time to travel, since we have an 18 month old!

Maybe I'll write some more soon, but I'm pretty busy maintaining my son's blog!

I'm baaack!

2007-06-11T11:43:00.000+01:00

Not sure for how long, but here is a map of where I've been (approximately... I think I've been to more US states actually).

What's your worldview?

2005-06-01T22:44:00.000+01:00

A quiz shared by my friend Kim on her blog.

Here are my results:

You scored as Cultural Creative.

Cultural Creatives are probably the newest group to enter this realm. You are a modern thinker who tends to shy away from organized religion but still feels as if there is something greater than ourselves. You are very spiritual, even if you are not religious. Life has a meaning outside of the rational.

Cultural Creative 75%

Postmodernist 63%

Fundamentalist 44%

Romanticist 25%

Existentialist 19%

Modernist 13%

Materialist 0%

Idealist 0%

A bit bizarre, but hey! The only problem: you have to wade past all the truly off-the-wall "quizzes" (most of which seem to involve deviancy-de-jour) to get to this one.

English Quiz

2005-05-26T12:00:00.000+01:00

This is an amusing one, especially if you're British! It tests to see what proportion of various American dialects are prevalent in your speech.

American English Test

Here's how mine came out:

Your Linguistic Profile:

55% General American English

20% Yankee

15% Upper Midwestern

10% Dixie

0% Midwestern

What Kind of American English Do You Speak?

Guess I'm a bit of a mutt, in that my mom is from PA, my father from VA, I was born in DC, but moved to Long Island, NY, when I was 2, then back to VA when I was about 8, then went to school in MD and university in NJ, followed by 14 years in CA, and 7 years now overseas--5 in the UK--before marrying a man from TX and OK! Phew! Just not sure where the "Upper Midwestern" came from....? Maybe the few years my father spent as a child in MI??

More geography madness!

2005-04-04T22:42:00.000+01:00

Sorry I haven't posted in a while.... Things have been hectic around here! Life has really changed now that Mike has a job. We be adults now.

We did manage a lovely break over the Easter long weekend in North Wales. Mike and I visited several castles--Harlech, Caernarfon, and Conwy, and also my hometown of Llanberis! They have a fascinating Welsh Slate Museum there. I know that sounds odd if you haven't been there, but the town is surrounded by slate quarries. My ancestors left there the middle of the 19th century and moved to ... Slatington, Pennsylvania, to start a slate quarry there. So for me, it was a bit of family history. Mike thought it was very cool. We visited a graveyard and found lots of my family names -- Hughes, Williams, Parry -- and... GRIFFITH! Lots and lots of Griffiths.... ! We found several John Griffith's (Mike is really John Michael). We found tombstones with his brothers' names on it too. And tombstones which indicated that Griffiths had married Williamses and Hugheses.... So I guess we are just in a long tradition!

We also visited Portmeirion, the village and gardens which inspired our dishes (they're actually made in Stoke-on-Trent) and where the 60s cult TV show "The Prisoner" was filmed. We also, thanks to a great deal on LateRooms.com stayed in Ruthin Castle, where I stayed with my family when I was 10!

One last little tidbit.... My friend Peter led me to this site, where you can take a geography quiz and 'represent' your country (and state, if from the US) in a global competition. It's fun, for the geekier among us! Just go here to play.

Where is the shredder?

2005-03-18T12:16:00.000Z

When I was growing up in DC, there were, as you've no doubt heard, various scandals. Some involved documents that either were shredded by the guilty or . . . weren't -- to their mortification. Shredders were a bit of a new phenomenon then. I don't think many of us had seen one. But this atmosphere produced a saying among my peers, "Where's the shredder?" which could be provoked by all sorts of situations (not least of which was getting essays back and SAT results...).

Now shredders are all grown up. You can watch some of their work on this website. (Hat tip: TigerHawk.) Just tell it what you want to see shredded. Personally, I liked watching the couch disappear, although that brought to mind some weird sci-fi flick.

Purpose-Driven Hostage

2005-03-16T14:06:00.000Z

I doubt that Rick Warren will expand his range to include this title, but it could serve as the title for the story of the woman held hostage by Atlanta murderer Brian Nichols. She won his trust by, among other things, reading to him passages out of the Purpose-Driven Life.

Read it in the Guardian, or the more complete transcript on CNN.

UPDATE:
A remarkable editorial in the Wall Street Journal by the marvelous Peggy Noonan on the same topic: "Flannery O'Connor Country."

Why I don't have a webcam....

2005-03-15T19:18:00.000Z

Oh - My - Gosh.

Just go there.

And for even more fun, here is the original Numa Numa Dance site. Click on 'Watch this movie' in the upper right. The big advantage here is that you can turn subtitles and translation on or off. But for first time viewing it's funnier without. On the original page, just below the video link, is his story. He's been on CNN and VH-1. The guy was apparently wanting to try out his webcam and send something to his friends, but didn't want it to be 'too boring' of a test. You know, "Testing 1, 2, 3...." This is some 'sound check'! According to the, uh, creator of this little clip, 'the song is entitled "Dragostea Din Tea" by the Romanian pop [er, I would call it technopop] band "O-Zone".'

My Dad

2005-03-12T13:57:00.000Z

I suppose lots of little girls grow up thinking their dad is a hero.

I grew up watching promotional films of my dad's test flying for North American (which is now part of Boeing, I believe). Over and over again as a child I watched him take off in an F-100 with a solid fuel booster rocket strapped to the fuselage, and over and over I watched him punch out the one time the rocket didn't drop off but dangled below the landing gear. I thought every kid's dad bailed out of aircraft at work. I suppose a lot of people WISHED they had ejection seats at work . . . .

You can watch him take off from the "World's Shortest Runway" in a short video clip here and read an article about it in Air & Space Magazine.

There's also a video produced by Air & Space, called, like the article, "Runways of Fire," but it's hard to find now. I've got a copy, but it's in NTSC format--not much good to my British friends unless they have a multi-region video player.

While we're at it, I guess I should mention my dad's book Aces Wild on the race for Mach 1 (also known as breaking the sound barrier). Surprise, surprise--it wasn't necessarily Chuck Yeager who did it first. Oooo, I shouldn't spoil the plotline!

Next, I should do a tribute to my mom....

Fore!

2005-03-08T15:20:00.000Z

...i.e. time for some links...

Fascinating article on 'spirituality' and 'relevance' by Eugene Peterson here. (Hat tip: my friend Peter.)

The Times (of London) did an article on different expressions of church in the Church of England, particularly Oxford diocese, which mentions a congregation within our church, St. Aldate's, called 'hOME'. Article title: "Blessed are the Frisbee Throwers"-- one of hOME's cellgroups plays Ultimate Frisbee in the University Parks as a way of entering the culture. Wonder if they have their eyes on the cheesemakers?? (hat tip: Matt Rees, who leads hOME.)

And, in a show of solidarity, some articles and photos about women protesting for and demonstrating their rights in various Islamic countries-- in Kuwait, Pakistan, and, of course, Iraq and Iraq and Iraq and Iraq (click on Photo 2 of the slide show of Picture of the Week).

"The crumbs from Your table"

2005-03-07T16:07:00.000Z

Last night, Mike and I were confirmed in the Church of England. I'm still trying to think through all that that might mean, but mostly we decided that it was a pragmatic decision, given our involvement at St. Aldate's, so that we can help out with things like serving communion, and the fact that we're leading a group there. Also, if Mike does decide to pursue ordination, this would be a required step. So... there we were, kneeling before a bishop whose theology I don't fully agree with, but who is, by all accounts, a 'good man.' I had to call to mind Augustine's arguments against the Donatists to remind myself that the Bishop's theology didn't have anything to do with the efficacy of the act of confirmation or communion for that matter (which he, of course, presided at that evening).

Some of us confirmands were called upon ahead of time to prepare a short testimony of how we came to faith and why we were being confirmed. I was one of them. Immediately after me, a young woman spoke with an incredibly moving testimony, involving her struggle with an immune disorder that meant she missed ten years of school; how with just a few GCSE's she managed to get a place at Oxford (normally, she would have needed three strong A-level exams.... sort of very vaguely like the difference between Achievement tests (SAT-2s) and AP tests...). Then last year her beloved dad died and she went through a dark night of the soul. She spoke beautifully (well, she is studying English literature!) and deeply of how Jesus came into that darkness. I was relieved that she spoke after me, because I don't think I could have physically spoken. Plus, I have to admit, I would have felt foolish with my not nearly as deep story....

Later, during the communion, I noticed that as she received the wine from our rector, Charlie, he gently laid his hand on her shoulder to pray for her. As he lifted his hand, it left behind a fine dusting of crumbs in the rough shape of his hand.

Christ comes to us in his body, through our ministry to one another, in the Bread and Wine, in quiet ways that we aren't always aware of. She turned and walked away, covered by the crumbs from his table.

A high-church sacramentalist would have been scandalized. They would never use a loaf of bread precisely because it crumbs so easily and pieces of it can fall and get lost or stepped on or . . . fall onto sweaters. A part of me even was a bit surprised. But mostly I felt the sweetness of God's grace and this very outward and visible sign of it.

New Beginning

2005-03-07T16:03:00.000Z

Mike started his new job today. It was such a change from the past year and a half.... The alarm going off just before 7am, for one thing! Then, I made him my Southwest fritatta for breakfast, along with tea and toast with our homemade blackberry jam. We don't normally have toast, but hey, he has to last until lunch! :-) Then off he went at 8, with a kiss (or two) at the door, and the acknowledgement that I would make dinner, since he still has to finish reworking his talk for CrossCurrent tonight before we leave at 7.... Wow. It felt like a timewarp to the 50s! Not a bad thing, just amusing!

Chicken-fried Bible translation

2005-03-03T14:46:00.000Z

An old friend (or should I say, a friend I haven't seen in awhile!), Beth Keck, checked in to my last post and left a comment which I figure combines that post with thoughts on the TNIV debate: "Everyone should leave their car at home..." Which got me thinking....

Yes, everyone should leave his/her/their car at home, or as they say in the South, "Y'all leave y'all's cah righchair!" Maybe we should have more Southerners on the Bible translation teams--thus Rev 3:20 could be rendered, "If any y'all opens the door, I'd be much obliged to have some of y'all's chicken-fried steak." Everyone in the South knows that "y'all" is singular, and is gender neutral. For the plural, you have to use 'All y'all.' My brother-in-law taught me that. I reckon it might could work for Bible translation.

But seriously, English as spoken by a significant portion of the population, be it Southern, or youth, or those without a prescriptive approach to grammar, have known for years that 'they' (or the handy second person pronoun 'y'all') can be singular or plural, depending on context. While I have spent most of my life as a prescriptivist, fighting the tides of 'bad' grammar, correcting my students' English, Greek, Latin, French, whatever, I have to admit that the grammatical descriptivists (i.e. those who deal with grammar as it is, not as it should be) on the TNIV translation team have a point.

That said, I might have opted for the first person plural: "If anyone opens the door, I will come in and we can share a meal together." Or the second person (which in standard English is quite ambiguous as to number): "I will eat with you and you with me."

I still hear nails on the chalkboard with the anyone/they shift, or the anyone/you shift, even though I realize very very few people share that twitchiness! I came to the realization some time ago that due to huge cultural shifts, the English language has become genderfied, or genderized, or gendered. Thus what used to be heard honestly as a neutral term (anyone/he/his) is now heard as a gendered term. I don't know if we can go back to the days of innocent ears and people who didn't hear 'him' as 'not her.' There truly was a time when 'he' could function as a singular of the neutral 'they.' Sadly, I think those times are gone. I think in large part the politics of gender is to blame. In some ways, we have been taught that we ought to hear things through a gendered filter. So even I now hear "brother" and think "not sister," or "son" and hear "not daughter."

But how do I deal with my grammarized ears? I wince whenever I hear the shift from singular (anyone) to plural (they). But I say it . . . .

Irony?

2005-03-02T23:23:00.000Z

After writing very enthusiastically about the prospect of driving our new (new to us--4 years old) car to the grocery store, I grabbed my keys and the shopping list and some coupons from the store's "loyalty card" program (aka club card in US-English), and went out to the car. What a thrill--a bit of trepidation as I am still getting used to driving a 4-wheeled motorized vehicle on the left side of the narrow road. (A two-wheel bike--no problem!) The remote didn't work, but I managed to unlock the door the old-fashioned way with the key. I settle into my seat, fasten seatbelt, insert key in ignition, and... the car wouldn't start. It sort of turned over, and over, and over. But no engine roaring to life. I stopped trying, sat there, and tried again. Nothing. Maybe I had flooded the engine? So I give up for now and decide to try later, or ... wait until Mike gets home! What a weird thought! I have only been married a year and a half, and after years of independence and knowing how to change my own oil thank you very much, suddenly I am falling back on that lamest of get-out clauses.... Mike is mechanical. He'll know what the problem is. He'll figure it out. Feeling sheepish and distinctly unliberated, I slouch back inside.

But really... Mike is VERY mechanical. And sure enough, several hours later, he thinks he has it figured out. I should have tried another key! Clearly, the battery in this one must be dead. And therefore, the engine immobilizer wouldn't have gotten switched off by the key in the ignition. I have never had a car with engine immobilization (to my knowledge...), so this is new territory. We go to Boots (chemist, er I mean drugstore) the next day to get a battery for the remote. We replace it and ... it still doesn't work.

So much for mechanics!

But maybe Irony is too strong a label for this event (or non-event). I reckon that is just the blogification of an ordinary life-bobble.

Yes, I did get the groceries in the end. I used Mike's key.

While the cat's away . . .

2005-02-26T10:31:00.000Z

. . . the mouse goes "Click, click, click!"

I read a funny story on Mark Roberts blog recently, in which he tells about rehearsing animal sounds with his young son. "What does a cow say?" "Moo!" "What does a cat say?" "Miaow!" What does a mouse say?" To which is 2 year old replied, "Click!" No kidding!

By the way, Mark Roberts was one of my lecturers (American speak: professors) for a New Testament class at Fuller Seminary . He's an excellent teacher, very intelligent (Harvard BA and PhD), very faithful, pastor of a good church (Irvine Presbyterian in Orange County, California). I commend his blog to you. He does some great series on it -- currently looking at the TNIV translation.

Mike is at Wycliffe Hall all day at a "Could it be you?" event. I.e. could you be called to ministry, specifically in the Anglican church and more specifically training at Wycliffe. We had decided he should go to this event before the job offer came up. It's part of the exploration of the larger question of God's call in his/our life.

So what am I doing? Trying to figure out how to post links to other websites in the text of my post and not just in the title of the posts. Then I'm going grocery shopping IN THE CAR!! This is a first for me, as I've never driven to a grocery store in the UK yet. Okay, Mike and I have done some grocery shopping with friends who had cars and also in a rental car. But I was never the one driving. It's been 6 1/2 years since I've driven to the grocery store, shopped, put groceries in the car, and driven home. Uh, other than some trips back to the US . . . I know this sounds wacky to some people, but I just can't tell you how different it will be from getting groceries home any other way -- on the handlebars and basket of my bike, walking a mile or so, or walking and taking the bus.

Well, I guess I better get to it!

Oxford Aviation Training

2005-02-24T18:35:00.000Z

Here's the link to the company that is offering Mike a job. Just click on the title of this post.

They train not only airline-pilots-to-be for BA, bmi, and all sorts of European airlines, but also regular private and commercial pilots, and . . . the Algerian Air Force transport pilots, Omani and Kuwaiti police pilots (I guess that probably means helicopters), etc. Given the demographics of a good portion of their clientele, they have a mosque at the airport.

Still no word from the other company, which is (oddly enough) near Heathrow Airport. It would be about 45 minutes further each way to commute, but quite a bit more salary. Quality of life vs. quantity of cash! Back to the old prayer, "Lord, open and shut doors."

Great news!

2005-02-23T23:34:00.000Z

My husband Mike will be getting a job offer from Oxford Aviation Training!!!! He's been looking for work since he married me and moved to England over a year ago. They haven't sent the formal letter yet, but it's coming at the end of the week, according to their HR manager. He's still waiting to hear from another job possibility that was presented to him by a headhunter. All in all, a very interesting week! And, by the way, it's snowing! It almost never snows in Oxford--it's too much of a swamp. But it has been snowing since Monday, when we bought our car and Mike had his second interview at OAT. Mike opened a bottle of Amarone tonight after we got back from a meeting and we had some Boursin on oatcakes (which would be sort of oat crackers in the US) in celebration of the good news. Oatcakes, OAT... I can't help eating punny food!

Just need some space

2005-02-22T12:07:00.000Z

Well, I've published the world map and the US map, but can't figure out how to resize them so that they don't block the sidebar on the right of the blog! So I am creating another post just to try to scoot the maps down the screen a bit so that they pass the sidebar and settle into the wider lower half of the page.... I haven't a clue how to do HTML, so this is all a bit ad hoc for me. I would like to figure out how to add in more sidebars with links to other blogs and websites, maybe a "Books I'm reading" column, that sort of thing. Or maybe I should just go do my work! (Ooooh, I heard an "Amen!" out there!)

Mike's just gone off in our new car (well, new to us!). It's the first car I've had in 6.5 years. Okay, I did have a car that I lent and then leased to some friends while I was in Croatia, finally selling it to them at the end of two years of the more temporary arrangement. So technically I owned a car 4.5 years ago. I just didn't get to drive it very often! The new car is a blue (very important detail to Mike, who gave up a blue Jeep Grand Cherokee to marry me!) 2001 Peugeot 306. For Americans, I might have to explain that that is a French car, a brand not sold in the US. Before you boo hiss us for buying French, I ought to explain that the car was actually manufactured in the UK and we bought it from some very nice English people! So that makes it only vaguely French.... Mais c'est vraiment belle, notre petite voiture!

Where in the US is Fido?

2005-02-22T11:48:00.000Z

That seems to be 40 out of 50. I'm pretty sure I've been to some of the other states too, but can't quite remember which ones, as I was a child! We made a three-week trip around the States when I was about 6 years old, for example, as well as various other journeys. I'll have to doublecheck with my mom, who has an amazing memory for that sort of detail.

create your own visited states map

Where in the world is Fido?

2005-02-22T11:42:00.000Z

Maybe I should start by looking in the countries I've been to.

It supposedly adds up to 41 countries, or 18% of the total. But they counted the Channel Islands as a country, for example. And the only place I was in Japan or Fiji was the airport for changing planes or refueling! Nowhere in South America or Africa yet.... The islands of French Polynesia, where we spent two weeks for our honeymoon, barely show up at all, swallowed up in the ocean of blue.

create your own visited countries map

Where's Fido?

2005-02-18T02:49:00.000Z

Welcome to my blog! I've recently discovered some friends of mine have blogs, and wondered where my blog was.... I'm not sure how this will go, but I thought I would give it a whirl.

Has anyone seen Fido?

- Susan