Poem

Hugo Schwyzer regularly posts short poems, which I sometimes read and sometimes skip - today's caught me rather deeply, so I'm sharing it here.

Termination for Cause

Sir,
I had thought the terms of our agreement
Were quite clear.
You were to provide me length of days,
Model children by a docile wife, support for same;
Keep far away all disaster man-made
Or act of your own.
And a death if not quite painless
At least sudden, without humiliation.
I in turn would confess You Creator
Of all things seen and unseen, offering customary
Praise and adoration.
Regarding line four above
Your performance has been marginal at best,
And I have now confirmation
From two physicians
Of what I must deem willful disregard
As to length of days and dying.
I therefore recognize no further obligation whatsoever
To provide the aforesaid praise, etc.
Or, indeed, to acknowledge Your existence.
Any further communication should be directed
To my counsel,
Who assures me that he knows You
from of old.

Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters

If you are, know, or think you might ever meet a girl or young woman, and you haven't already been persuaded to pick up Courtney Martin's new book Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters, go read Hugo's review of it now. I'll try to post my own thoughts about it when a)I finish the book and b)I'm a little more coherent than I'm feeling right now.

Songs to Make Me Cry... For the Wrong Reasons

AKMA has a post today linking to the AV Club's list of songs that make them cry. As a lifelong crier, I don't want to denigrate any such list too much. I'm moved to ask, though, why they all seem to be by men.* Really? even when it comes to tears, men are the only ones worth citing? I thought that was supposed to be women's special domain.

It took 25 comments even to get Joni Mitchell in there at all. Hello? River? the remake of Both Sides Now? her cover of Hallelujah? pick any grouping of Joni's music and you'll find a tearjerker.

Here are my 18 tearjerkers, then, to counter the men's. Yes, they're mostly women. Yes, there are repeat artists. Yes, all that is partly on purpose and partly because that's what I actually listen to.**

1. She's Saving Me - Indigo Girls. This is the song that has most consistently made me cry over the longest period of time.
2. I'll Miss You Till I Meet You - Dar Williams. I'm never sure whether she's singing this for an ex, or a dead friend, or a dead ex. I don't really care - it's heartbreaking either way.
3. Don't Lay Down - Catie Curtis
4. Tangled-up Puppet - Harry Chapin
5. Leavin on a Jet Plane - Peter, Paul, & Mary. I wept for months after leaving camp one summer, listening to this song over and over.
6. Hallelujah (I don't care whose version, really - mostly I listen to either Joni's or Rufus Wainwright's)
7. Fields of Gold - Eva Cassidy's version
8. River - I came to this song on the Indigo Girls' version, but Joni Mitchell's version works equally well
9. Hurt - but again, I don't really care whose version. Cash's and Reznor's are heartbreaking in different ways.
10. Fighting Chance - Melissa Ferrick
11. Don't Cry Anymore - Catie Curtis
12. Fields of Athenry - my version is by One of the Girls, but I'm sure there are more commercial versions out there.
13. Fatherless at 14 - Kendall Payne.
14. Hold On - Sarah McLachlan
15. And So It Goes - Billy Joel
16. American Tune - Paul Simon
17. Untouchable Face - Ani Difranco
18. Language or the Kiss - Indigo Girls

*Admittedly, some of these aren't bands I know at all. Maybe there are women in them; maybe one or two is even primarily/exclusively composed of women, though I doubt it. I still don't see anything that makes women artists visible.

**And, no, I'm not even letting myself use musical theater tunes, which could be their own 18 songs.

What Better Said

I had an inspiration high today looking for a topic for my Anglican Worship paper, and I'm heading into a crash off of it.* So here's another link, one that likely has broader appeal than the last. I stumbled across Kendall's blog yesterday and was favorably impressed (doesn't hurt that she taught at Smith for a while!). I think most readers with any experience of social justice work or any liberal leanings will probably find something familiar in this post of hers.


*For those who're interested, I'm asking "Does the rite of reconciliation have a place in the missional church?" I'm likely to say yes, because of the role of repentance and absolution in Jesus' ministry and that of the earliest apostles, but then look at how the rite itself might better serve a missional church. Input welcome, particularly from those of you with some experience of what a Seabury student means by "missional."

Awesome

Read this. No, really. Read it. You'll love it. (Well, some of you will, anyway. I'm pretty sure all my readers are somewhat geeky, but some of you might not be this kind of geek....)

Why the Germans are confused

When I lived in Germany, one of the things that I got asked about was the pledge of allegiance. The Germans didn't understand, in the wake of World War II, how we could require American schoolchildren to stand and pledge blind allegiance, not even to the country but to a symbol thereof.

Today, Rosynic doesn't understand either, and I'm with her. If we're going to require or expect kids to say the pledge, can't we at least allow ESL teachers to explain what the pledge means? And if we're going to be that fussy about using the word "God" in classrooms even for discussion, then maybe we really shouldn't have it in the pledge. At any rate, I'm definitely against requiring anybody to say something without allowing them the option to learn what it means.

Yes

What she said.

***

(Actually, what I wish she'd said at the beginning, is that she doesn't understand the "argument" of "If x is true, the following horrible things will happen; therefore x is false." But otherwise, I think she's spot-on.)

Confessions of a Teenage Lizard

Oh. My. Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen? So bad. So incredibly hilarious. You can read the liveblogged version over at Pastor V's. As he says, the movie has true contemporary resonance.

Not quite the same sort of resonance as Godzilla, though. He's from France. You know how the French are. Very resonant.

This might or might not have made more sense if I'd blogged it live. Next time we'll try to liveblog in sync. Or something.

(Ok, I've had too much pizza and ice cream and laughter, and I'm a little loopy. But it's a happy loopy.)

We interrupt this orientation obsession...

My preaching professor just pointed me to this comic strip from Sunday. Said it reminded him of me.

Link

Those who follow debates over interpretations of Scripture, particularly in the current Anglican climate, may find this Sermon on the Current Dispute Over Turning Off Cellphones in the British Library Reading Rooms more amusing than those who don't follow such debates, but it's worth reading either way.

For my part, I've already read it, so I'm heading back to Rory and Ryan and Kate's house to shower and iron and warble in preparation for Hope and Andrew's ordination to the priesthood tonight.

Cabbages and Kings

Center of Gravitas has an excellent post today about misogyny, from the recent Burger King ad to disgusting behavior by a local classroom king. It's worth a read.

(By the way, does anyone else find it odd that the fast food chain airing that ad is also the only one with a decent veggie burger?)

Go. Now.

Many of you will already have seen this link on AKMA's blog, but if you haven't, go now and read Holyoffice's Very Short Guide to Christianity. Don't miss the christology addendum in the comments. (2005 GOE takers will be pleased to note that he begins by defining premillenialism.)

Silly

One of the perks of being a reasonably competent grad student with no teaching responsibilities is that I can giggle freely right now at student responses/comments on others' blogs. I particularly like these from jane in the academy's spring term student comments (listed under "weaknesses):

~The assignments were confusing because we had to have our own ideas in the papers. I don't have ideas. (It's a good thing you're in higher education, then. That sounds like just the right place for you.)

~If you didn't read the readings you would be lost on the assignments. (Hunh. Who'da thunk it?)

~Make sure students are aware of the work load and that work piles up if you don't plan for it. (You think? Which part of life doesn't pile up if you don't plan to take care of it?)

Yes. well. For now, I choose to giggle.

Oh, well...

The Seabury Saints lost their playoff game tonight. We got pretty soundly whupped, actually, but I guess that's what you get when you pit seminarians against Navy ROTC undergrads. I'm sad that the season is over (except for an all-Seabury game), but pleased that we made it to the playoffs at all - a first in Seabury history, I think. And we made up for it afterward with a team pizza party and fire circle, which was lots of fun.

The weekend as a whole has been a lot of fun, actually. I've gotten appallingly little done, but I really will buckle down tomorrow.

On a side note: Community Church of Wilmette has a new Senior Pastor! Yay, Tripp!

Copyright comics

Duke law professors have their first comic book, apparently - a development I thought might be of interest to some readers. I'm linking you there via BlogHer, because why wouldn't I send you through BlogHer if I could?

Thoughts?

The Happy Feminist has a post today considering what responsibility women bear for men's lust, particularly as it affects the way they dress.* This is a topic I've gone over and over in my mind without ever coming to a satisfactory conclusion, and I'd be interested to hear what y'all think about the issue. (I surmise that Happy Feminist and I have some overlap in reader demographic, but some major distinctions there too.) So go, read what she has to say and check out the comments thread, and let me know how you might reconcile feminism and Christianity on this one.

*I'm very aware that women lust after other women, too, and that some of the problems of dress carry across gender boundaries, but I'm not quite ready to broaden the conversation just that far at this moment. Right now, I'm interested in the M-F interaction - which is at least somewhat pertinent no matter what one's sexuality, I think.

I heart

this post.