Late Night Haiku XX

LV. Wind blows, blows and blows,
Winter's desires are swept
Away by Spring's march

LVI. Truth. What is this thing
That slips through my hands like sand
Or a startled bird?

LVII. A bird perches there,
Quietly observing the view,
As all else goes by.

Still the One: I'm Barth!

I took this quiz almost a year ago. When I ran across it again, I decided to see if things had changed. I ran through it once and it had, Barth was second to Calvin. I tried it again, this time doing it all at once and reading closely rather than fooling with it while doing something else, and I ended up having to pick a tie breaker between Barth and Calvin. The first time I read a few things wrong, I realized. I seem to be less Anselmic these days. Maybe I need to go read about the being that than which none greater can be conceived again. Otherwise, this is unsurprising. Barth loved Anselm and is reformed, so it makes sense that these three rank at the top of my list.

My only qualm about it would be that some of the questions are nearly direct quotes from theologians. Hence, I can respond in one of two ways: (1) select what I think about the doctrine, (2) select how I feel about that theologian's interpretation of the doctrine. I favored the second method, rejecting statements not so much for the doctrine behind them, but the particular manifestation of the doctrine. Is God the Ground of All Being? Well, sure. But, is He the Ground of All Being in the Tillichian sense? No, if I can figure out what Tillich really thought (which would be no small feat), I suspect I'd say no. It seems I was fairly anti-Tillich today, whereas I was feeling a bit more Lutheran after spending a few weeks studying the Reformation, I guess.

You scored as Karl Barth. The daddy of 20th Century theology. You perceive liberal theology to be a disaster and so you insist that the revelation of Christ, not human experience, should be the starting point for all theology. Karl Barth 87% John Calvin 87% Anselm 73% Martin Luther 67% Jonathan Edwards 67% Augustine 53% Charles Finney 47% Friedrich Schleiermacher 40% Jürgen Moltmann 20% Paul Tillich 0% Which theologian are you? created with QuizFarm.com

Writer's Blo

With the start of seminary, I've fallen pitifully behind on Open for Business. My big problem is that it is a small operation: there are only four writers on the masthead. While Ed carries a lot of the load of keeping fresh content on the site, I really need (and want) to keep posting my voice on OFB's esteemed pages as well.

The problem is that I seem to have a case of writers blo. Not writers block, but writers blo. Now, you might ask, “what in the world is writers blo?” So, let me tell you: it is hitting the equivalent of writers block about half way through each article. I have a whole bunch of stubs of articles, where I get a really good idea, but seem to lose momentum and cannot seem to come up with the supporting themes to make the piece work. As I write this, I have two partial articles sitting on my desk, yearning to be finished. One of them hopefully will be done for a Monday publication. But, right now it sits there, just taunting me.

Hey, maybe I should have written an article on writer's blo!

New Look

Well, it was not intentional, but asisaid celebrated its fifth birthday with a new look. Last night I was feeling rather worn out, and so decided I needed to do something different — doing a little web design hit the spot. As I was finishing up, I realized it was a perfect thing to be doing to recall that my personal web site became blogified on February 21, 2002.

Yes, the internet somehow has put up with me opining for five whole years here. Open for Business celebrated its fifth year last October. I'm starting to feel like a regular internet fixture!

Let me know if you see any bugs in the new design. I'm still tweaking it, and it may adjust a bit more, but after two years with the last look it was time for something new. About every year or two I alternate between a green and a blue design, and staying true to that trend (which I do not follow on purpose) we are in the blue era again.

Hat Tip to Carl Jung

For my Spiritual and Ministry Formation class, we did a packet of “diagnostics tests” to determine our personality type, evangelistic style and other interesting things. Later this semester, Dr. Douglass will then talk with each of us and help formulate an idea of where best to aim in ministry.

At any rate, one of the first tests was none other than the famous Myers-Briggs test. I know I've done that before, but I cannot recollect what my personality type was. Whatever it was, this time I came out INFP. I was probably something similar before. I had always been skeptical of the personality type test, although listening to how well Dr. Douglass seemed to be describing me when he talked about typical INFP traits, I've gained a new respect for the test. Here's the actual breakdown of my “score:”

If you'd like, take the test here and then post what result you received.

This Is Just To Say

I thought I might try to start regularly picking out bits of poetry and commenting on them here. Here's a fun one I haven't read for awhile, “This Is Just To Say:”

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast.

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold.

— William Carlos Williams

I think Williams had a unique gift for “picturesque poetry,” or, more properly, “Imagist poetry.” Unlike much of the poetry of the last century that aimed more at painting a scene than telling a story or arguing a point, but failed to do much of anything at all, Williams's works actually seemed to succeed in being primarily a sensory experience. This one always makes my mouth water as if I really have missed out on a cold, sweet plum.

Thoughts?

Spam Wars

A couple of days ago, I noted an increase in blog spamming on asisaid. Now, generally speaking, asisaid was ignored by blog spammers in the past, so I'm not sure how long it has been broken, but I've discovered the blacklists I checked against were no longer in service. No wonder the filter wasn't blocking spammers!

I've switched my filters around and merged in more of Brad Choate's SpamLookup (the official spam filter for MT, which, since it is written in Perl, can be easily integrated with SAFARI) so that I check not only the links but also the IP address of the poster. Hopefully this will work. If not, I plan on requiring authentication for commenting (e.g. you'll link your e-mail address with a password and verify that e-mail address), unless any of my regular readers object to that.

Geeky Bible Jokes

OK, these two jokes were passed along to me this week, so I figured I'd share them.

• Abraham decided to upgrade his computer to Windows Vista. As he headed to the computer store with Isaac, Isaac asked his dad, “Father, how are we going to upgrade such an old computer?” Abraham looked at his son and replied, “Don't worry son, the Lord will provide the RAM.”
• Jesus is talking with his disciples. He tells them, “The Kingdom of God is like x² = y + 2.” One disciple leans over to another and says, “there he goes with another one of his parabolas.”

Thank you, thank you very much. Yes, I'll be here all week.

The Slippage...

The meaning of this post was lost from the slippage of the signified from the signifier. That's all.

Early Mornings

I have early morning commitments three days, but as someone who is somewhat of a night owl (though not to an extreme, I usually go to bed between 12 and 1), I find it hard to actually fall asleep earlier every other night or so.

Now, I must go try, at least.