Slow

When I complained about the limitations still put upon me by a healing knee and 24-hour brace, a friend pointed out that a forced slow-down might not be altogether a bad thing. How right she was.

My ponderous walk and lack of stamina is frustrating, but because of it I've shunned places like Safeway and Target, sticking to small shops for necessities and avoiding other purchases. You don't know how intimidating are endless stretches of wide aisles until you have to traverse them one slow, sore step at a time. I find now that I don't care if I ever set foot in Safeway or Target again. Whole shelves are full of useless consumer trash anyway, another lesson that the economy of handicap reinforces- it is especially frustrating to have to hobble around to find the few truly useful items hidden amongst the overly marketed claptrap. Noticeably fewer plastic bags bursting out of cupboards is another clue that this "fast" has been a good thing.

Rather than reading or web browsing, a therapeutic walk around the half-block with an icepack chaser has proven to be not a bad way to spend a lunch hour.

Then there are Saturdays. I have always loved Saturday mornings: A leisurely lie-in followed by reading over a cup of coffee with the sun streaming in (if the sun isn't shining, so much the better for the sake of Gemütlichkeit), and eventually maybe getting around to cooking something. Since the surgery, I have especially tried to keep Saturdays quiet, since it is my only day to keep the knee elevated and iced. In the background are the sounds of my husband's presence, a special joy for this newlywed. (Have I mentioned, now at eight months of marriage, how much I love my husband and love being married?) It has taken some discipline to lie around, especially as my limitations have also allowed housekeeping tasks and errands to back up, yet I find I treasure these quiet hours all the more.

In a discussion recently on the Jewish Sabbath, I was reminded that the Orthodox do not consider the Lord's Day to have "replaced" the sabbath, and that in fact Orthodox Christians are still encouraged to rest and worship on Saturdays even though the Lord's Day is the greater day. Thinking of my forced resting as a kind of sabbath has put a new light to it. In some sense, being slow has always been a sacrament.

American gargoyles

Mostly I find the medieval mind to be infinitely more sensible than the modern one. However, even medievals sometimes did things that, as Mrs. Gump liked to say, "don't make no sense." Putting figures of grotesque animals or demons on buildings to ward off evil spirits is one of these things. Actually I am not so sure they really felt the statues would deter evil spirits- that sounds like something the (ahem) creative minds of the Enlightenment made up. I imagine that they were simply following the older classical tradition of fashioning water outlets out of lions, comical faces and the like.

Copycats that we are, Americans have also included gargoyles on some of our buildings. When you're visiting an older American city, it's something to look out for.

Riverside Church in New York City (photo: newyorkcarver.com)

Irving Place and 19th Street, New York City (photo by Dabs at virtualtourist.com)

Garment District, New York City (jitterbuzz.com)

Mission San Luis Rey, California (California Missions Studies Association)

University of Chicago (DK Images)

Philadelphia Fire House (North Star Gallery)

Star bright

In case you haven't heard, this weekend- specifically Sunday night around 11pm Pacific Time- is the peak of the Perseid meteor shower, or what's called "St. Lawrence's tears." St. Laurentius was a deacon in Rome who was martyred in 258AD, and whose feast day is August 10th. So if you can get away from the streetlights this weekend, look up.

An interesting view of the night sky, more educational than beautiful, can be found at Night Sky Live. Here, three cameras positioned in different places around the globe- one of them in Phoenix- show a live view of the sky. What you see when you click on a location is the circular image of viewing through the camera lens. It is what you would see if you were at that location and were to lay down on your back looking up. I say this, because I was a little disoriented at first about what I was seeing. Not all of the cameras are on during the day, although the Phoenix one is and will thus at this hour will show you a cloudy sky with rain pooling on the lens. If you position your mouse over the view, it may bring up a star map to identify various points of interest in what you're seeing (this may only be for archived images?).

This site will give you a nightly star map by location, which can help you identify specific things that you might see from a flat-on-your back view of your own night sky. Note that while "up" is north on a star map, the western sky is shown at the right of the star map while the eastern sky is on the left. This makes sense if you think of standing facing north and holding the map above your head. Click on the link at the top of your star map for explanations about this and a legend for the planet symbols.

While you're looking up there, if you see anything you can't explain...

Islamic Republic of America?

I rarely post on political topics, but Rod Dreher's post on the activities of the Muslim Brotherhood behind "legitimate" Muslim organizations in the US and elsewhere is a must-read. If you haven't read the Chicago Tribune article he links to, it's worth a look, too. The article describes the secretive recruitment of Muslims into prayer groups:

"After Saied attended numerous prayer sessions, a fellow Muslim student took him to a quiet corner of a campus cafeteria and asked him to join.

'It was a dream, because that's what you're conditioned to do--to really love the Ikhwan,' Saied says, using the Arabic term for Brothers or Brotherhood.

After he joined, he learned the names of other local members.

'I was shocked,' he says. 'These people had really hid the fact that they were Brotherhood.'

He says he found out that the U.S. Brotherhood had a plan for achieving Islamic rule in America: It would convert Americans to Islam and elect like-minded Muslims to political office.

'They're very smart. Everyone else is gullible,' Saied says. 'If the Brotherhood puts up somebody for an election, Muslims would vote for him not knowing he was with the Brotherhood.'"

The article goes on to describe the other organizations started by the Brotherhood (as in the Muslim Student Association) and fronts for them (Muslim Society of America):

"Part of the Chicago [MSA] chapter's Web site is devoted to teens. It includes reading materials that say Muslims have a duty to help form Islamic governments worldwide and should be prepared to take up arms to do so.

One passage states that 'until the nations of the world have functionally Islamic governments, every individual who is careless or lazy in working for Islam is sinful.' Another one says that Western secularism and materialism are evil and that Muslims should 'pursue this evil force to its own lands' and 'invade its Western heartland.'

In suburban Rosemont, Ill., several thousand people attended MAS' annual conference in 2002 at the village's convention center. One speaker said, 'We may all feel emotionally attached to the goal of an Islamic state' in America, but it would have to wait because of the modest Muslim population. 'We mustn't cross hurdles we can't jump yet.'"

OO/EO: The relationship of two wills in Christ

I found this discussion at Monachos particularly interesting, especially as I've encountered the same priest in another online venue. Peter Farrington is of britishorthodox.org, and far more able to address these questions than I was or am. If any of my own blog readers have an answer to his questions, or other thoughts to add, I'd be interested to hear more (feel free to post here or there).

For those unfamiliar with the issue, it relates to how the divine and human natures "interact" in the person of Jesus Christ. It was over these questions that the Oriental Orthodox (Coptic, Armenian, Ethiopian and Syriac) and the Byzantine Orthodox (Greek, Russian, etc.) split in the 6th century.

Medieval garden at PSU

My German department alumni letter prompted me to browse the department's website and that of the Center for Medieval Studies (a new animal at Penn State since I was there, thanks largely to the work of a favorite former professor, Dr. Vickie Ziegler). I was delighted to see that they've built a medieval garden on campus. It has what is thought to be the only collection of medieval field crops in North America, as well as a kitchen garden, pleasure garden, and contemplation garden. Don't the following descriptions just make you smile to read them?

The meadow, in the middle of which is a bench, is full of hollyhocks, wild strawberries, English daisies, Sweet William, and other flowers. A more decorative type of wattle fencing, appropriate to the more elegant nature of this section, combines with hawthorn trees to form an enclosure on three sides. The fourth side is bounded by beds containing medieval flowers, including calendula and columbine, as well as the daisies...

A grape arbor made of saplings links [the contemplation garden] to the kitchen garden. The formal garden is contained on three sides with wood fencing and a stone wall. There is a raised turf bench, flowering beds with period plants, as well as an apple tree and strawberries underneath... At the entrance to this section, and the entire garden, is a medieval cider and a Lady apple tree...

I can't wait to visit, whenever next I get back to Happy Valley. Or should I call it Gladsome Vale? :)