Edible

Edible: Good to eat and wholesome to digest, as a worm to a toad, a toad to a snake, a snake to a pig, a pig to a man, and a man to a worm.
-Ambrose Bierce
The Devil's Dictionary

That Strength is Here

All homes have places where discipline occurs. As I was growing up, it was the basement. When we were "sent to the basement," this is where my father would admonish us, discipline us, pray with us afterwards, and graciously invite us to rejoin the fellowship of the family. In other homes, the place varies according to convenience—it may be one of the back bedrooms, or the bathroom. But I have never heard of a godly home where the point of discipline was the dining room, during the course of dinner. Sometimes during dinner a child has to be taken from the table for discipline, but no one that I know of brings a child to the table for discipline. We bring our children to the table for food.

Discipline is important. Confession of sin is important. Working through hard issues of sin and restitution is important. But this Table is the place for fellowship, kindness, laughter, and joy. So come, and receive the gracious nourishment offered.

Some might object to this as too casual. They might say that Jesus said that if your brother had something against you, leave your gift on the altar, and go, put it right. Yes, and we really should do this. But notice that He said we should not give in this condition, not that we should not receive in this condition. So stop tithing, stop putting your gifts in the offering box in the back until you have put things right with your brother (as far as it is possible with you). Let this be your reminder to get things right. Leave your gift envelope in Your Bible until you get things right. But churches rarely tell the saints to stop giving them money until the donor is back in fellowship

But this is a radical gospel message. Until you put things right, we will not stop offering the grace of God to you. But if you have the power to do so, and you do not put things right with your brother, then stop tithing. Stop bringing your offerings. God would rather have your obedience than your money. Is the obedience hard? Do you need strength to undertake it? That strength is here.

Douglas Wilson, May 2006

Equality

We learnt that equality is about equal worth, not equal outcomes. Today our idea of society is shaped around mutual responsibility; a deal, an agreement between citizens, not a one-way gift, from the well-off to the dependent.

~Prime Minister Tony Blair, Brighton, October 2, 2001

Equality, rightly understood as our founding fathers understood it, leads to the liberty and to the emancipation of creative differences; wrongly understood, as it has been so tragically in our time, it leads first to conformity and then to despotism.

~Barry Goldwater, 1964

Inequality will exist as long as liberty exists. It unavoidably results from that very liberty itself.

~Alexander Hamilton

Ignorance Moving Machines

We are told, ad nauseam, that a computer has to go into every classroom to prepare us for the twenty-first century. We have not yet realized that the computers may simply be moving our ignorance around the planet at incredible rates of speed. As one wag put it, "We used to think that a million monkeys typing away at a million keyboards could produce the works of Shakespeare. Now, thanks to the Internet, we know this is not the case." A fool in the back of a cart bumping along the road five hundred years ago is, today, a fool in the backseat of a Lexus. Certain things are not changed by the computer dashboard.

Douglas Wilson, Angels in the Architecture, 176.

Fat-souled Children

We want fat-souled children. We want them to have full, faithful lives--joyful, balanced, and lovely. But wisdom doesn't happen passively. It takes a diligent household and constant prayer, but with that He promises that "the soul of the diligent shall be made fat" (Prov. 13:4). That should be our prayer: Lord enable us to raise children with fat souls. "He that putteth his trust in the Lord shall be made fat" (Prov. 28:25).

Doug Jones, Angels in the Architecture, 125

Stories

Stories frame a child's interior life for living in this world. Fiction is far more realistic than we realize. Fiction and poetry mysteriously transfer truth in a far more powerful way than anything else. God Himself chose to write in passionate poetry and narrative and parables rather than in the bureaucratic style of a systematic theology.

Doug Jones, Angels in the Architecture, 124.

Sacrificing for our Children

We talk of our willingness to die for the children, but are we willing to sincerely sacrifice careers and vacations and personal talents for their sakes without bitterness? The whole orientation of our household must be focused on sacrificing for our children. This is a sign of deep love.

Doug Jones, Angels in the Architecture, 123.

Learning to Celebrate

Part of learning to celebrate includes learning how to splurge and not be so tightly utilitarian. Our culture is so wicked in its neglect of savings and its slavery to plastic credit cards that we, with some right, run the other direction. But if your house is in order, it's time to learn how to splurge at times. Beauty isn't cheap, and neither are artistic meals and good wines.

Doug Jones, Angels in the Architecture, 84.

Herp Dinner

The first Herp Dinner, in 1977, was an outstanding success... The final spread was magnificent and included sautéed alligator tail...; legs of bullfrogs, leopard frogs, and green frogs; snapping turtle salad, (excellent on crackers); slider turtle stew; crispy fried mole salamanders; baked canebrake rattlesnake (a 4½-foot specimen coiled around tomatoes and green peppers); and deep-fried strips of cottonmouth moccasin.

Whit Gibbons, Their Blood Runs Cold - Adventures with Reptiles and Amphibians, 12

The Sacraments

He feeds our bodies through bread and other foods, he illumines the world through the sun, and he warms it through heat; yet neither bread, nor sun, nor fire, is anything save in so far as he distributes his blessings to us by these instruments. In like manner, he nourishes faith spiritually through the sacraments, whose one function is to set his promises before our eyes to be looked upon, indeed, to be guarantees of them to us.

Jean Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book IV, Ch. 14.12

Chastity

The first degree of chastity is sincere virginity; the second, faithful marriage. Therefore, the second sort of virginity is the chaste love of matrimony.

- Chrysostom, quoted in Institutes of the Christian Religion, book IV, ch. 12.28

Emoticons

As for our writing personally to each other, how often do you hear people complain that emails subtract the tone of voice; that it's hard to tell if someone is joking or not? Clicking on "send" has its limitations as a system of subtle communication. Which is why, of course, people use so many dashes and italics and capitals ("I AM joking!") to compensate. That's why they came up with the emoticon, too--the emoticon being the greatest (or most desperate, depending how you look at it) advance in punctuation since the question mark in the reign of Charlemagne.

Lynne Truss, Eats, Shoots & Leaves, 192 :-)

It's the Itses

Getting your itses mixed up is the greatest solecism in the world of punctuation. No matter that you have a PhD and have read all of Henry James twice. If you still persist in writing, "Good food at it's best", you deserve to be struck by lighting, hacked up on the spot and buried in an unmarked grave.

Lynne Truss, Eats, Shoots & Leaves, 44

Amen!

Jerome commented that in the early church, when visitors used to come, they were commonly frightened at the amen--it had the sound of thunder, said by people who understood it.

Blessed be the Lord God of Israel from everlasting to everlasting: And let all the people say, Amen. Praise the Lord. (Ps. 106:48)

- Doug Wilson, Mother Kirk, 152

Go, Preach the Gospel to Every Creature

The nature of the apostles' function is clear from this command: "Go, preach the Gospel to every creature" [Mark 16:15]. No set limits are allotted to them, but the whole earth is assigned to them to bring into obedience to Christ, in order that by spreading the gospel wherever they can among the nations, they may raise up his Kingdom everywhere. Accordingly, Paul, in desiring to prove his apostleship, recalls that he did not gain any one city for Christ but propagated the gospel far and wide, and did not put his hands to another man's foundation but planted churches where the name of the Lord was unheard [Rom. 15:19-20]. Apostles, then, were sent out to lead the world back from rebellion to true obedience to God, and to establish his Kingdom everywhere by the preaching of the gospel, or if you prefer, as the first builders of the church, to lay its foundations in all the world [1 Cor. 3:10].

John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, book 4, ch. 3.4

The Miracle of Wine

Wine itself is quite a miracle. It's something like the birth of a child. A man and woman mix and then create a being wholly distinct from themselves, yet with deep family traits--new and yet the same. A ripe grape contains two parts, unmarried--an interior sugar juice and an exterior skin full of yeast. But if you marry and mix these parts by crushing a grape, it will start toward creating wine, a third distinct thing, new and yet the same--a "wine that maketh glad the heart of man" (Ps. 104:15).

Doug Jones, Angels in the Architecture, 83

Even the English Know that for Good Food You Have to Leave the Country

God has surrounded us with so many amazing tastes, and yet we Americans are barely scratching the surface. The Anglo streak in the American heritage has certainly put a tight squeeze on the breadth of our palates. American food is really so bland and tame we don't even recognize it anymore. And we pass on our picky eating to the next generation. Pure criminality. But even the English know that for good food you have to leave the country. They like France, but the entire world awaits us. We have much to learn from the feastings of Asia and the Latin countries, especially that land of feasts--Italy.

-Doug Jones, Angels in the Architecture, 82

And, I might add, France. :)

Those Pesky Architects

Every new $900,000 summer house in the north woods or on the shore of Long Island has so many pipe railings, ramps, hob-tread metal spiral stairways, sheets of industrial plate glass, banks of tungsten-halogen lamps, and white cylindrical shapes, it looks like an insecticide refinery. I once saw the owners of such a place driven to the edge of sensory deprivation by the whiteness & lightness & leanness & cleanness & bareness & spareness of it all. They became desperate for an antidote, such as coziness & color. They tried to bury the obligatory white sofas under Thai-silk throw pillows of every rebellious, iridescent shade of magenta, pink, and tropical green imaginable. But the architect returned, as he always does, like the conscience of a Calvinist, and he lectured them and hectored them and chucked the shimmering little sweet things out.

- Tom Wolfe

Our Forgotten French Heritage

Article temporarily removed. Will post later with more author information.

Nothing Like a Good Locking Up

I am somewhat pleased when I occasionally hear of a brother's being locked up by the police, for it does him good, and it does the people good also. It is a fine sight to see the minister of the gospel marched off by the servant of the law! It excites sympathy for him, and the next step is sympathy for his message. Many who felt no interest in him before are eager to hear him when he is ordered to leave off, and still more so when he is taken to the station. The vilest of mankind respect a man who gets into trouble in order to do them good, and if they see unfair opposition excited they grow quit zealous in the man's defence.

Charles Spurgeon, Lectures To My Students, 264.

It looks like all the fuss the Intoleristas are making about Doug Wilson is creating a similar type of phenomena here in Moscow. :)

True Happiness

The true Christian is the only happy man, because he has sources of happiness entirely independent of his world. He has something which cannot be affected by sickness and by deaths, by private losses and by public calamities, the "peace of God, which passeth all understanding." He has a hope laid up for him in heaven ; he has a treasure which moth and rust cannot corrupt ; he has a house which can never be taken down. His loving wife may die, and his heart feel rent in twain ; his darling children may be taken from him, and he may be left alone in this cold world ; his earthly plans may be crossed ; his health may fail: but all this time he has a portion which nothing can hurt. He has one Friend who never dies ; he has possessions beyond the grave, of which nothing can deprive him: his nether spring may fail, but his upper springs are never dry. This is real happiness.

J.C. Ryle, Practical Religion, 250.

Happiness and Work

The most miserable creature on earth is the man who has nothing to do. Work for the hands or work for the head is absolutely essential to human happiness. Without it the mind feeds upon itself, and the whole inward man becomes diseased. The machinery within will work, and without something to work upon, will often wear itself to pieces.

J.C. Ryle, Practical Religion, 239.

Mock On, Voltaire, Rousseau

Mock on, mock on, Voltaire, Rousseau;
Mock on, mock on, 'Tis all in vain.
You throw the sand against the wind,
And the wind blows it back again.

And every sand becomes a Gem
Reglected in the beams divine;
Blown back, they blind the mocking Eye,
But still in Israel's paths they shine.

The Atoms of Democritus
And Newton's Particles of light
Are sands upon the Red sea shore,
Where Israel's tents do shine so bright.

-William Blake

Approval of the Body

Christianity is almost the only one of the great religions which thoroughly approves of the body--which believes that matter is good, that God Himself once took on a human body, that some kind of body is going to be given to us even in Heaven and is going to be an essential part of our happiness, or beauty and our energy. Christianity has glorified marriage more than any other religion: and nearly all the greatest love poetry in the world has been produced by Christians.

C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, ch. 5

Believing on Authority

Ninety-nine per cent of the things you believe are believed on authority. I believe there is such a place as New York. I have not seen it myself. I could not prove by abstract reasoning that there must be such a place. I believe it because reliable people have told me so.

C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

Those He Justifies, He Sanctifies

For we dream neither of a faith devoid of good works nor of a justification that stands without them. This alone is of importance: having admitted that faith and good works must cleave together, we still lodge justification in faith, not in works. We have a ready explanation for doing this, provided we turn to Christ to whom our faith is directed an from who it receives its full strength.

Why, then, are we justified by faith? Because by faith we grasp Christ's righteousness, by which alone we are reconciled to God. Yet you could not grasp this without at the same time grasping sanctification also. For he "is given unto us for righteousness, wisdom, sanctification, and redemption" [1 Cor. 1:30]. Therefore Christ justifies no one whom he does not at the same time sanctify. These benefits are joined together by an everlasting and indissoluble bond, so that those whom he illumines by his wisdom, he redeems; those whom he redeems, he justifies; those whom he justifies, he sanctifies.

John Calvin, Institutes of Christian Religion, Book III, Ch. XVI

The Art of Copiousness

I know of people who had the habit of learning lists of synonyms by heart, so that any one of a set of words could be brought quickly to mind, and also, if they used one, and found they needed it again soon after, they could avoid the repetition by selecting another with the same meaning. This is a childish occupation, a mark of effort ill-spent, and not even particularly useful; it simply assembles a crown of words, out of which the speaker can snatch the nearest without any discrimination.

What we have to do is to acquire our stock with judgement, aiming at forceful oratory, not the patter of a street trader. And we shall achieve this by reading and hearing the best models. By taking this trouble, we shall learn not only the words for things but which words are best in each place.

- Quintilian, The Orator's Education, Book 10, 257.

We are God's

We are God's: let us therefore live for him and die for him. We are God's: let all the parts of our life accordingly strive toward him as our only lawful goal. O, how much has that man profited who, having been taught that he is not his own, has taken away dominion and rule from his own reason that he may yield it to God!

John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book III, CH. VII.1

Calvinism and Capitalism

Christopher Hill summarizes thus the difference between Protestant and catholic attitudes: 'Successful medieval businessmen died with feelings of guilt, and left the money to the church to be put to unproductive uses. Successful Protestant businessmen were no longer ashamed of their productive activities whilst alive, and at death left money to help others to imitate them.' Protestantism, then, generated the psychological preconditions essential to the development of modern capitalism.

A Life of John Calvin, Alister E. McGrath, 224

The Beauty Within

If you have beauty it has passed me by;
I take but slightest interest in such things,
But rather I possess the keenest eye
For what's inside - a mind unwavering,
A rich intellect, and greater than mine,
Though I feel no jealousy, but adore
A beautiful wit; amazing design
That warms my heart and cuts it to the core.
Now I clearly see your handsome features,
And fool was I to ignore such brilliance
As becomes glad nature's finest creatures;
Now will I seek your heart with every sense.
If I ever your great beauty ignored,
Let now my dull senses return restored.

By Paul Vest

The Power of Oratory

I cannot imagine how the founders of cities would have made a homeless multitude come together to form a people, had they not moved them by their skillful speech, or how legislators would have succeeded in restraining mankind in the servitude of the law, had they not had the highest gifts of oratory. The very guiding principles of life, however intrinsically honourable they are, nevertheless possess more power to shape men's minds when the brilliance of eloquence illumines the beauty of the subject.

Quintilian, The Orator's Education, book II, ch. 16

Espoire d'Azûre

Ah! Quelle regard d'un azûre si intense
Ces yeux hypnotiques qui me tente, me tourmente
Un océan si profond--ah! je m'y perd!
Mais son sourire doré me ramène sur terre.

By Deborah R. Foucachon, 2001

Pleasure in Good

It was a gift of Providence to mankind that the truly good should give us the greater pleasure.

Quintilian, The Orator's Education, book I

Love Will Ascend

Love will ascend in unexpected ways
Like the heart-throbbing gleam of the moon's
Bright rays, as it touches your
Heart... slowly... the flame starts to glow as
Your heart starts to know of a growing
Devotion that will transform and transplant
You; to become one in soul--a rare treasure
Most forgotten, to share common passions
And share the same view, and sharing one
Father; these things will fast mend any
Disparity between me and you.
The outwardly perfect match is irrelevent
Indeed when two hearts remain forever divided
In two. But if each heart may be willing to
Give unhindered to the other, then those
Two shall forever be true.
Such love remains my oriflamme;
This is my wish--it is now what I am.

by Deborah R. Foucachon, 2001

Quintilian Quote

Give me a boy who is encouraged by praise, pleased by success, and who cries when he has lost. He is the one who will be nourished by ambition, hurt by reproof, and excited by honour. In him I shall never have to fear laziness.

Quintilian, The Orator's Education, book I, ch. 3

Tragedy in perspective

Have you ever noticed how close laughter and tears are to one another in little children? They can shift straight from one to the other without any transition. Rather than living on opposite ends of the spectrum, comedy and tragedy are close neighbors. Comedy is just tragedy in perspective.

Ben Merkle, credenda Agenda; weather

Not a Tame Lion

"Then he isn't safe?" said Lucy.
"Safe?" said Mr. Beaver. "Don't you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? 'Course he isn't safe. But he's good. he's the King, I tell you."

The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, ch. 8

Picture of Christ

"In the home, the husband is a picture of Christ. But if he shows no initiative in loving, teaching, or admonishing, he is a lying picture of Christ. In other words, each husband, every day, is talking about Christ through his behavior. What he says is either a truth or a lie, but he cannot be silent."

-Doug Wilson, Standing on the Promises, 17

No Time

"We are always falling in love, or quarreling, looking for jobs or fearing to lose them, getting ill and recovering, following public affairs. If we let ourselves, we shall always be waiting for some distraction or other to end before we can really get down to our work. The only people who achieve knowledge are those who seek it while the conditions are still unfavorable. Favorable conditions never come."

-C.S. Lewis

Hill Abbey

The Holiday of Stuff

This is the first Lord’s Day of Advent, the year of our Lord, 2005. This is the beginning of the church year, marking annually, as we do, the beginning of our salvation in the Incarnation of the Lord Jesus in the womb of the Virgin Mary.

We are marking our days, building up to one of the great Christian holidays. This is a potent holiday, one that secularists appear to understand better than we sometimes do. They want to stamp out any vestige of the historic Christian faith in this, and their secularist jihad is not irrational. They know how powerful this story is. This being the case, let us make a point of telling the story right, and very loudly.

In the first place, do not fall for the lie that the spirit of Christmas is an ethereal kind of thing. This is the celebration of the Incarnation, when the eternal Logos of God took on a material body, which He still has. Do not, therefore, join in the general lamentations about "materialism." This is a celebration of God taking on a material body. It is therefore a holiday that should focus on stuff.

By stuff, I mean ribbons, decorations, fudge, wreaths, cider, presents, feasting, toasts, shopping with joy, putting up a tree, sending cards, learning a Christmas piece on the piano, and more fudge.

Of course, we all know how to sin with stuff—we were living in a pretty earthy state of sin before Christ came. But He did not come to whisk us out of this world in order that we might go celebrate some kind of Gnostic holiday in heaven. We are to honor the Lord Jesus with our stuff. So do not drink too much, do not run up your credit cards, and don’t try to buy friends with presents.

But God’s answer to sin begins with the Incarnation. We do not escape from sin by denying, or trying to deny, His method for saving us. Our salvation lies in receiving, resting, accepting, and imitating. And how do we imitate? One thing we must do is use stuff.

- Doug Wilson, 11/27/05

Encore un peu de Cyrano

Ah! non! c'est un peu court, jeune homme!
On pouvait dire. . .Oh!.... . .bien des choses en somme. . .
En variant le ton,--par exemple, tenez
Agressif 'Moi, monsieur, si j'avais un tel nez
Il faudrait sur-le-champ que je me l'amputasse!'
Amical 'Mais il doit tremper dans votre tasse!
Pour boire, faites-vous fabriquer un hanap!'
Descriptif 'C'est un roc!. . .c'est un pic!. . .c'est un cap!
Que dis-je, c'est un cap?. . .C'est une peninsule!'
(keep reading...)

-Cyrano de Bergerac

Un Grand Nez

"Attendu qu'un grand nez est proprement l'indice
D'un homme affable, bon, courtois, spirituel,
Liberal, courageux, tel que je suis, et tel
Qu'il vous est interdit a jamais de vous croire..."

-Cyrano De Bergerac

Thus Whatever we have...

Now this consecration ought to be such that we should dedicate ourselves both in body and soul to God as temples and spiritual sacrifices, so that our minds should be God's (to know him), our wills to worship him, our affections to love him, our eyes to contemplate his wonders, our ears to hear his voice, our mouths to celebrate his glory, our hands to do his work and all our members to be instruments of righteousness unto God for his glory. Thus whatever we have either good or honorable or wise or virtuous ought to be devoted to the glory and worship of God.

-Francis Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology Vol. II, 183-4

Educated Wits

What intelligence! What scholarship! It takes educated wits to believe such things about Christ, while refusing to believe in Christ.

-St. Augustine, City of God

(b. 18, ch 54)

Beware Young Women Who...

“Beware of young women who love neither wine nor truffles nor cheese nor music.”

-Colette

Drunken Poet

A despot doesn't fear eloquent writers preaching freedom--he fears a drunken poet who may crack a joke that will take hold.

-E.B. White

What Faith Does

The Lord's Table

The Table of the Lord humbles the honest, comforts the distraught, forgives the repentant, nourishes the hungry, establishes the church, preaches the gospel, summons the world, and overwhelms the devil.

And of course the Table as a mere set of physical objects does none of those things—any more than the Word of God, considered simply as paper and ink, does such things.

When the preached Word pierces the heart of a treacherous or hypocritical Christian, and he repents, no one thinks to attribute the power of the Word to the fact that it was leather-bound, and When some poor forsaken sinner picks up a Gideon Bible in a hotel somewhere, and turns to Christ, no one thinks it was the power of the binding, or paper, or publishing house. We attribute it all to t