From an article about some scientists who are really, really sure that the planet is serious danger from our careless human activity, like, I don't know, breathing and stuff. And they think another report has badly underestimated the danger and they explain why with all the transparency of, say, concrete.

'The latest assessment of the IPCC published earlier this year predicts little or no contribution to 21st century sea level from Greenland or Antarctica, but the six scientists dispute this interpretation. "The IPCC analyses and projections do not well account for the nonlinear physics of wet ice sheet disintegration, ice streams and eroding ice shelves, nor are they consistent with the palaeoclimate evidence we have presented for the absence of discernible lag between ice sheet forcing and sea-level rise," the scientists say.'

Thanks for clearing that up, guys.

"Forgiving and forgetting is one thing, but honouring the man who has blood on his hands, sort of, because of what he did, I think is going a bit too far."  --Labour's Lord Ahmed, on the knighthood of Salman Rushie.

SORT OF???

The best line in this astounding article is this: "the man spilled his soda pop but he wasn't upset." The worst line is this: "Police at first believed the calls were pranks." Hello?! If there's even a CHANCE it's true, don't you go check it out??

Some of us love cemeteries. They're peaceful places, and full of hope -- for Christians, that is. The Moravians used to call them "God's Acre", because cemeteries are gardens where God sows the seed, the bodies of the righteous, in order to raise a harvest at the Resurrection.

A "cemetery" is an area devoted to burial apart from a church, whereas "graveyard" refers to a burial ground attached to a church property. The distinction is not much maintained anymore, more's the pity. The word "cemetery" itself comes from a Greek word meaning "sleeping place" -- it is the exact equivalent of the word "dormitory", which comes from Latin and means precisely the same thing, a sleeping place. The first letter of Paul to the Corinthians contains the famous passage on the resurrection (chapter 15) in which he argues that "Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who sleep", and the Greek behind the words "those who sleep" is the same from which we get "cemetery". In the Latin Vulgate, those words are translated with the same word from which we get "dormitory". So, but for an accident of linguistic history, we might have called college on-campus housing "cemeteries" and burial grounds "dormitories" instead of the other way round!

Burial grounds are called "cemeteries" because of the influence of Christianity in western civilization whereby its attitude that the death of the body is sleep, not extinction, prevailed; the Church has always taught that the body will be raised someday just as Christ's was, and that to deny the resurrection of the body is heresy. The great hope of the Christian is not immortality of the soul (even the pagans believe that) or floating around ethereally in clouds (only readers of The Far Side believe that), but rather the great hope of Christian is the resurrection of the body (Apostle's Creed), the resurrection of the dead (Nicene Creed).

In old cemeteries you often see verse on tombstones -- less frequently on modern ones, unfortunately -- and many are full of glorious hope. Recently I wandered through a cemetery in southern Ohio and found an obelisk of pink marble on which is written this quattrain:

Life's labors done as sinks the clay,
light from its load, the spirit flies,
As heaven and earth combine to say
How blest the righteous when he dies.

Blest not because he is free from the body (the Platonic heresy) but because he's free from the corrupt one and will soon be raised, physically, in glory. Another low marker from the early twentieth century says simply, "Because I live, ye shall live also" -- a verse from John 14. Another says, "I am the resurrection and the life."

Another marker in the same cemetery is a bit bleaker:

Remember, friend, as you pass by,
As you are now, so once was I.
But as it is, we all must die.

Bleak, perhaps, but this is a most salutary sentiment, the kind St. Jerome was known for, and you might remember the skull that often appears on his writing desk in paintings of him. We need to meditate on our mortality in order to appreciate the doctrine of the resurrection. As another prophet says (the movie What About Bob?): you're going to die. We're all going to die. There's no escape. What the movie left out, though, is that we will not stay dead, if we are in Christ when we die.

A good way to do this reflecting on our mortality and consequent need of the gospel is to wander through a cemetery. Sit and think. Read the epitaphs. Read the dates, especially noting how short some lives are. And think of the cemetery as a garden full of seeds; God's Acre.

The first great Church historian Eusebius tells us that during the persecutions in Gaul in the third century, the Roman persecutors would sweep the ashes of the martyrs into the river to prevent their resurrection. Of course this shows how little they know of the power of God but it also shows how well they were aware that the hope of God's people is the resurrection. The early church made a huge, noisy point of declaring that. Even some of their practices which later became subject to gross distortion, like keeping relics of dead saints, or venerating icons, were originally laudable and physical arguments for the goodness of the material world (Genesis 1), the Incarnation of the Word (John 1), the resurrection of the body (I Corinthians 15) and God's consequent love for and care for the dead bodies of His children. When we stand by Grandma's grave and the little child says, "why are we here? I thought you said Grandma is in heaven with Jesus?" we might very properly answer, "that's right, but God still loves her body, because it's part of who she is and how He made her, and this is its resting place until He raises it and gives it back to her."

How unlike the modern church where we tend to talk only about dying and "going to heaven", as though that were the ultimate goal. If it were, and if God cares nothing for the dead bodies of His saints, then we have no good answer for the child. But as the Lord lives, it is NOT the ultimate goal.

Being apart from the body is a temporary state and the ultimate goal is to be raised, as Christ was raised. Paul says, again in I Corinthians, that "if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised; and if Christ be not raised, then your faith is vain: ye are yet in your sins.... But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept."

God has my Dorm Room ready. But college is not forever; there will be a Graduation Day.

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20070418/D8OJ2NI80.html

But Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg took exception to the ban on crushing babies to death. Ginsburg said the latest decision "tolerates, indeed applauds, federal intervention to ban nationwide a procedure found necessary and proper in certain cases by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists." Justice's Ginsberg's perception that the College is infallible shows that she's confused them with her own court. That is the only infallible institution we have. </sarcasm>  And until the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists is willing to show us how necessary and proper this procedure is by submitting to it themselves, I'm hesitant to accept her assertion of their deity.

EDIT:

Hilary Clinton, Barack Obama, and John Edwards have expressed their disagreement with the Supreme Court decision in no uncertain terms. They realize that it's a complicated issue, and that women's right must be upheld, and this reverses a thirty-year tradition of court rulings, and such a reversal must be taken seriously. They have the interests of law, justice, and women at heart. And you know, I'm starting to be persuaded by them. Perhaps we ought to move much more slowly and cautiously before we commit ourselves to such a drastic step as shutting down Auschwitz and Dachau. After all, there are complications and subtleties and traditions at stake here. Calling the gassing of millions of Jews "murder" is so inflammatory, so unsophicated, so insensitive to the rights and needs of the Nazis, who after all have feelings too.

The European press, taking the high moral ground (the only high ground they know about taking) is blaming the Virginia Tech shootings on lack of gun control. The lone expression of sanity in it all is from the German daily Bild, where the editor writes, "But we have little reason to point an accusing finger at the Americans. Despite strict gun legislation, we (in Germany) have experienced the school shootings in Erfurt and Emsdetten. We have to consider the problems in our society."

Yeah. Like the fact that most of Europe's utter abandonment of the Christian culture that made it is bringing upon them a far, far worse problem than the period outbreaks of violence in American locales. They point their finger at us with moral indignation while allowing their culture to be taken over by the sort of religion that flies crowded airplanes into skyscrapers. Oh sorry, Europe, we'll try to do better next time.

I doubt that Europe is any less violent than the U.S. We generally only know what the media reports (and if I could properly express the contempt I feel for the media, my language would prompt my elders to pay me a visit). But if it is, it's only because there's still a war going on here in American, whereas Europe has already surrendered. Should we who are fighting a war listen to lectures by those who have lost?

"We know of no spectacle so ridiculous as the British public in one of its periodic fits of morality." --Lord Macaulay.

Is there anyone who is a devout lover of God?
Let them enjoy this beautiful bright festival!
Is there anyone who is a grateful servant?
Let them rejoice and enter into the joy of their Lord!

Are there any weary with fasting?
Let them now receive their wages!
If any have toiled from the first hour,
let them receive their due reward;
If any have come after the third hour,
let him with gratitude join in the Feast!
And he that arrived after the sixth hour,
let him not doubt; for he too shall sustain no loss.
And if any delayed until the ninth hour,
let him not hesitate; but let him come too.
And he who arrived only at the eleventh hour,
let him not be afraid by reason of his delay.

For the Lord is gracious and receives the last even as the first.
He gives rest to him that comes at the eleventh hour,
as well as to him that toiled from the first.
To this one He gives, and upon another He bestows.
He accepts the works as He greets the endeavor.
The deed He honors and the intention He commends.

Let us all enter into the joy of the Lord!
First and last alike receive your reward;
rich and poor, rejoice together!
Sober and slothful, celebrate the day!

You that have kept the fast, and you that have not,
rejoice today for the Table is richly laden!
Feast royally on it, the calf is a fatted one.
Let no one go away hungry. Partake, all, of the cup of faith.
Enjoy all the riches of His goodness!

Let no one grieve at his poverty,
for the universal kingdom has been revealed.
Let no one mourn that he has fallen again and again;
for forgiveness has risen from the grave.
Let no one fear death, for the Death of our Savior has set us free.
He has destroyed it by enduring it.

He destroyed Hades when He descended into it.
He put it into an uproar even as it tasted of His flesh.
Isaiah foretold this when he said,
"You, O Hell, have been troubled by encountering Him below."

Hell was in an uproar because it was done away with.
It was in an uproar because it is mocked.
It was in an uproar, for it is destroyed.
It is in an uproar, for it is annihilated.
It is in an uproar, for it is now made captive.
Hell took a body, and discovered God.
It took earth, and encountered Heaven.
It took what it saw, and was overcome by what it did not see.
O death, where is thy sting?
O Hades, where is thy victory?

Christ is Risen, and you, o death, are annihilated!
Christ is Risen, and the evil ones are cast down!
Christ is Risen, and the angels rejoice!
Christ is Risen, and life is liberated!
Christ is Risen, and the tomb is emptied of its dead;
for Christ having risen from the dead,
is become the first-fruits of those who have fallen asleep.

To Him be Glory and Power forever and ever. Amen!

Last night I stared at my Xanga and thought, "I have nothing to say anymore. All my students are positively carbonated, bubbling over with interesting thoughts to post, but I have nothing to say anymore." Part of the problem, of course, is that the older I get the less I know; the more I read the more ignorant I feel; the more of the wisdom of the past I study the less I feel anything I have to say is worthwhile except to keep telling people to read the wisdom of the past. The other part is simply that my brain is just plain dull and I'm embarrassed to write anything after reading all the smart and witty stuff my students write.

But Deaj has posted something that stirs me up. Dan Neil writes an interesting and entertaining article about how Hollywood is our history teacher and I enjoyed reading it, but he ends this way: "I can't help but smile when I think of all those teenagers poring over dear, dead Herodotus in search of a story that, when found, will be better than the movie. If this is America's version of a classical education, it works for me." In spite of his confused style, what he means is that those teenagers will not find that story in Herodotus to be more interesting than what they've already gotten in the theater, and so the theater is a good substitute for classical education.

I have a question: is there anything we're losing by getting the story through a movie instead of through reading it in Herodotus, especially through reading it in the original Greek? Even if the movie gets the story one hundred percent right? And I don't just mean that reading lets you make your own mental images.

Schola students, check the Student Forum for news about Schola Summer Academy 2007. It's on.