Favorite Student Blunders and Bloopers 2023-24

 It's that time again--time to revel in the slips and the slops, the misunderstandings and the falling short, the errors and the mistakes. Here are my favorite moments from my students of the last school year--and if you don't get it, make sure you read it again! Enjoy, and don't forget to chuckle!

“Rage—sing, goddess, of the rage of Peleus’s son Achilles,/Murderous, doomed, that cost the Achaeans countless losses,/Hurling down to the house of death so many sturdy souls,/Great fighter’s souls, but made their bodies carry-ons…”

“The storm eschewed rage, and the ship drowned in that rage.”

Build Up David's Throne

 The 89^th Psalm:  Maschil of Ethan the Ezrahite. I will sing of the mercies of the LORD for ever: with my mouth will I make known thy faithfulness to all generations. For I have said, Mercy shall be built up for ever: thy faithfulness shalt thou establish in the very heavens. 

 

Lord, we love to sing of your mercies in this gathering. You are indeed faithful to all generations, from Adam down to the infant born this very morning. You have given your Word on the cross and in the Scriptures, and we are to spread that good news as far as we can. So first we thank you for an organization doing just that: Huguenot Heritage, for Francis Foucachon and the other members of that organization, working to bring your mercy to French-speaking lands. We ask that you bless their work with startling success and bring your wonderful covenant to even more of your chosen.

But evangelism is not the only method you have chosen to build up David’s throne. You have sworn to establish it “for all generations”—and in order to have those generations, you must grant us new ones to replace the old. And godly generations are most numerous when they are the fruit of godly marriages. So thank you for our marriages here at King’s Cross. In a Western world where most have never even seen constant, day-to-day faithfulness lived out between a man and a woman, you have made us abound in it. We do not thank you enough for that. So when our spouse delights—or frustrates—us this week, remind us to praise your wonders in marriage.

We bless your faithfulness to the congregations of the saints. Who can compare with it? Particularly we bring before you Covenant Presbyterian Church of Alberta, Canada, and their pastor Chris Cousine. We are grateful that lockdowns gave them the spark to gather together—establish their lampstand firmly.

And in all our other, unspoken blessings, help us to fear you as we ought, and not grow in easy contempt through out closeness.

 Amen.

Thanksgivings, King's Cross May 26th, A.D. 2024

Commonplaces: March/April 2024

“These people have only two categories, and one of them is Nazis.”—Jon Harris, Conversations That Matter Podcast

“So like a painted battle the war stood/Silenced, the living quiet as the dead,/And in the heart of Arthur joy was lord.”—Tennyson, Idylls of the King 

“Feeding on the air of entitlement of fading upper-class institutions that accomplish “little with a lot” of other people’s funds, the Harvard initiative reflected the increasing inebriation of elite American education. Focusing on stopping the world is full of books; But there are multitudes which are so ill written, they were never worth any man’s reading: and there are thousands more which may be good in

their kind, yet are worth nothing when the month for year or a progress, barring new power plants, dismantling chemical facilities, mobilizing against Israel, and other reactionary pursuits, Ivy institutions are pursuing the fancies of a declining intellectual and business elite, full of chemophobic nags and Luddite lame-ducks quacking away on their miasmic pools of old money as the world whirls past them.”—George Gilder, Life After Google

“Noise: interference in a message. Any influence of the conduit on the content: an undesired disturbance in a communications channel. Noise is commonly the distortion of content by its conduit. A high-entropy message (full of surprise) requires a low- entropy channel ( with no surprises). Surprises in the signal are information; surprises in the channel are noise.”—George Gilder, Life After Google

A Fusillade of Federalist

 Rather than overload a commonplaces post with the massive number I pulled out of my reading of the Federalist Papers (which I finally finished last month, after twelve years of attempts) I have decided to put them all in one place. Even if quote lists are not your thing, I think you will find some of these enlightening. Enjoy!

“Have we not already seen enough of the fallacy and extravagance of those idle theories which have amused us with promises of an exemption from the imperfections, weaknesses and evils incident to society in every shape? Is it not time to awake from the deceitful dream of a golden age, and to adopt as a practical maxim for the direction of our political conduct that we, as well as the other inhabitants of the globe, are yet remote from the happy empire of perfect wisdom and perfect virtue?”—Hamilton, Madison, or Jay, The Federalist Papers No. 6