Over-exercising

This post talks about overexertion and the dangers of conflating our cultural workaholism w/athletic improvement as opposed to athletics just for the joy of doing it. Here's key paragraph, but do read the whole thing:

Of course, athletes and their coaches have known about this sort of thinking for a long time [the necessity of recovery time]. Maybe, if I had been less of an indoor cat, I would’ve learned it as a teen. Or maybe it would have been warped by the lens of competitive organized sports, and I would’ve burned out entirely and developed even worse disordered eating habits, and never have been able to do something exercise-related without feeling like I had to win, and an old and devastating injury would haunt every movement. I truly don’t know. I do know that I wasn’t ready for sports, mentally or physically, at that age. And that right now, this year, this week, I am arriving at this feeling of a very certain sort of athleticism — of being an athlete! — entirely on my own terms.

I recall one time, about 17 years ago now, being on a long 60+ mile bike ride, fighting the clock for a better average speed. I felt God nudging me and asking me if I was enjoying the ride. I wasn’t. I wasn’t noticing the world around me, which was beautiful. That’s the day I stopped recording mileage and average speed. And I started enjoying bike riding again.

That’s also why I got the Fitbit this year, to keep me from working too hard. As anyone who knows me can attest, I’m pretty intense : ) And Debbie was concerned (rightfully) that I was pushing myself too hard again. So now, I watch the heart rate, but for a different reason. And surprise, my resting heart rate has dropped because I’m not overexerting myself. There’s a parable there, I’m sure…

About plagiarism, and more…

Via Publishers Weekly, some very good thoughts that start w/plagiarism, but go into the whole process of writing and publishing. Mainly relevant to fiction writing, but transferable to writing/publishing in general.

But how to fix it?

The new Anxious Bench editor/contributor Malcolm Foley has a very good post up today: https://www.patheos.com/blogs/anxiousbench/2022/07/but-what-do-i-do-on-race-and-political-economy/

Here's an excerpt, but please, as always, read the whole thing—as a seminary professor of mine used to say, "You owe it to yourself":

The primary historical point that must drive coalitional work for racial justice is this: racism’s foundation is neither hate nor ignorance. Its foundation is the desire to dominate and exploit. Even when we do see racial antipathy manifested in hate, it is often a symptom of deeper political and economic anxieties. Because this is the case, communities ought to consider racism not in terms of thought nor in terms of discrete, hateful actions, but in terms of political economy. For the Christian, that means that recourse to the Apostle’s language about Christ breaking down walls of separation by His incarnation and resurrection is good but incomplete; it must also be coupled with the Old Testament calls to Jubilee and debt forgiveness. It is not enough for me to say that I love my neighbor; I must actually invest in their material well-being.

<idle musing>
I just finished editing an article for this fall’s Vergilius (a Classics journal about all things Vergil—what a surprise!) that takes a look at the reception of the Aeneid in the South via a novella entitled Eneus Africanus (link to Project Gutenberg). I’d never heard of the book before, but it was eye-opening.

Once the article gets published I’m going to be recommending it with evangelistic zeal (I'll post a link to it here). The bibliography alone is invaluable. even though I lived in Kentucky for six years and saw a lot of systemic racism—I worked for a moving company in the summer and on breaks among genuine rednecks (or as they were called in Kentucky, “white socks” because they always wear white socks, even with dress shoes)—this opened my eyes to places I hadn’t noticed it before.

Back to the Anxious Bench post, that was just the first in an installment. I highly recommend that you subscribe to it via your RSS feed or however you keep track of blogs. It should be highly informative, hopefully convicting!

Remember, the North was complicit to much of this—remember "sundown laws"? Basically, get out of town by sundown. And where I grew up, in the Indianhead of Wisconsin, the KKK was extremely strong in the 1920s through 1940s… There are more than a few skeletons in people's closets!
</idle musing>

A warning

Editing an article for a Classics journal (to appear later this year), and ran across this statement, which I think could also be expanded to include intertextual references (and allegorical allusions, as well!):

and the acrostic catcher always runs the risk of reeling in one too many.

Yep. Or two too many…

Divine Christology

Richard Bauckham, arguing against a late Christology that

supposes that a Christology which attributed true divinity to Jesus could not have originated within a context of Jewish monotheism. On this view, divine Christology is the result of a transition from Jewish to Hellenistic religious and, subsequently, Hellenistic philosophical, categories. Nicaea represents the triumph of Greek philosophy in Christian doctrine. This way of reading the history seems to me to be virtually the opposite of the truth. In other words, it was actually not Jewish but Greek philosophical categories which made it difficult to attribute true and full divinity to Jesus. A Jewish understanding of divine identity was open to the inclusion of Jesus in the divine identity. But Greek and Platonic understanding of the relationship of God to the world made it extremely difficult to see Jesus as more than a semi-divine being, neither truly God nor truly human. In the context of the Arian controversies, Nicene theology was essentially an attempt to resist the implications of Greek philosophical understandings of divinity and to re-appropriate, in a new conceptual context, the New Testament’s inclusion of Jesus in the unique divine identity. (Jesus and the God of Israel: God Crucified and Other Studies on the New Testament’s Christology of Divine Identity [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008], 58)

Cited in a book I'm currently editing (not yet posted on the web).

Hymn for today

1 *All creatures worship God most high,
lift up your voice in earth and sky,
alleluia, alleluia!
Thou burning sun with golden beam,
thou silver moon with softer gleam,
O sing ye, O sing ye, alleluia, alleluia, alleluia!

2 Thou rushing wind that art so strong,
ye clouds that sail in heav’n along,
alleluia, alleluia!
Thou rising morn in praise rejoice,
ye lights of evening, find a voice,
O sing ye, O sing ye, alleluia, alleluia, alleluia!

3 Thou flowing water, pure and clear,
make music for thy God to hear,
alleluia, alleluia!
Thou fire so masterful and bright,
that givest all both warmth and light,
O sing ye, O sing ye, alleluia, alleluia, alleluia!

4 Dear mother earth, who day by day,
unfoldest blessings on our way,
alleluia, alleluia!
The flow’rs and fruits that in thee grow,
let them God’s glory also show,
O sing ye, O sing ye, alleluia, alleluia, alleluia!

5 And ev’ryone, with tender heart,
forgiving others, take your part,
alleluia, alleluia!
Ye who long pain and sorrow bear,
sing praise and cast on God your care,
O sing ye, O sing ye, alleluia, alleluia, alleluia!

6 And thou, most kind and gentle death,
waiting to hush our final breath,
alleluia, alleluia!
Thou leadest home the child of God,
as Christ before that way hath trod,
O sing ye, O sing ye, alleluia, alleluia, alleluia!

7 Let all things their Creator bless,
and worship God in humbleness,
alleluia, alleluia!
To God all thanks and praise belong!
Join in the everlasting song:
O sing ye, O sing ye, alleluia, alleluia, alleluia!

*Or, “All creatures of our God and King, / lift up your voice and with us sing” (this is the version I grew up with, from the Methodist Hymnal of 1964 [published in 1966])

Lyrics from Hymnary.org, a wonderful resource for hymn lyrics and background information on the composers, authors, and translators of hymns.

The Internet Archive vs. the American Association of Publishers

This is a case to watch. The AAP says that the IA controlled digital lending (CDL) program is a violation of copyright. IA disagrees. This one will go all the way to SCOTUS—unless one side blinks or runs out of money. Given the stakes, I doubt either will blink and the librarians are definitely able to find funding.

You can read the summary on the Publishers Weekly website.

Personally, even though I work in publishing, I’m w/the IA on CDL. And I’ll lay you money that those who work in publishing for the companies filing suit use CDL. I use it all the time to check references when I can’t find what I need in Google books or on the open internet (or don’t own it). And as much as I hate academia.edu’s commercial exploitation, it’s a wealth of information that I use all the time, as well.

Ideally, publishers would publish books at a reasonable cost so real people could afford them; they would publish e-books for libraries at a reasonable cost; and publishers would establish a 12–18 month window on posting offprints on the open web (Lockwood has an 18-month window).

No. I take that back. Ideally, information would be free and society would recognize the value of knowledge and begin to transform that knowledge into wisdom! OK, that’s probably too idealistic. But if we spent as much on non-defense-related stuff … I won’t go there.

just the idle musings of an underling in the publishing world.

Thought for the day—on education

Great post on what's going on in the perennial "education wars" on the Curmudgucation blog. The penultimate paragraph is a good riff on a (misattributed) quotation from Alexis de Tocqueville:

A nation is great because its people—its persons—have the chance to become great. Not just the ones who believe The Right Thing, not just the ones who come from The Right Background. Education is not a commodity sold to parents, but a public good and a societal responsibility shared by us all because we all have to share in the results. That's the promise of public education that I believe in and that I will continue to argue for—that it is a debt we owe to every young human in this country to provide each and every one with a free quality education that empowers them and builds a better nation for all of us (not just the fortunate few).

Getting rid of resentment

I just ran across this again as I was looking through some things. It seems appropriate for the times. It's by E. Stanley Jones; I think it's from one of his devotionals. I forgot to write down the reference, though.

THE STEPS OUT OF RESENTMENTS

We now come to the steps we are to take to get rid of resentment. Breathe a prayer. You are not just reading a page; you are ridding yourself of a plague.

1. Remember that resentments have no part nor lot with a Christian. You cannot hold both Christ and resentments. One or the other must go. Do you want to go through life without Christ, chewing on resentments, a bitter, crabby, poisonous person? That’s what you are headed for if you allow resentments to fester within you.

It may be that your resentments are justified: someone has mistreated you; you have been disappointed in a life plan or ambition; you have met with a bitter calamity; there are those who rub you into soreness; you have to live in an uncongenial environment—al1 of these things may be very real and apparently justify your resentments. But whether justified or unjustified, resentments are disastrous to the inner life——they are poison. The probabilities are that the resentments are not justified, that they are rooted in a touchy self-centered self, a self that is full of self—pity. Those who harbor self-pity haven't the key, for life will back good will and only good will. Decide that resentments are going to have no part nor lot within you.

2. Remember that no one has ever treated you worse than you have treated God, and yet He forgives and forgets. God isn’t asking you to do something He himself is not doing. Here is one of the most wonderful passages in literature, “Treat one another with the same spirit as you experience in Christ Jesus.” (Phil. 2:5, Moffatt). He forgives you, graciously and without reservation. You must do the same. If not? Then Jesus tells what happened to the man in the parable who was forgiven a debt of “three million pounds” and then went out and refused to forgive a fellow servant who owed him “twenty pounds”—he was handed “over to the torturers, till he should pay him all the debt. My heavenly Father will do the same to you, unless you each forgive your brother from the heart.” (Matt. 18:21–35, Moffatt). The “torturers”? They are within you—resentments mean inner conflict, division, unhappiness, torture.

O Christ, I know how Thou hast treated me: forgiveness, gracious and undeserved. Help me to treat others with the same spirit. Only as Thy spirit takes the place of my old spirit can I do it. Amen.

AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: Today I shall treat everybody as Christ treats me.

How much time are you willing to give?

From the Curmudgucation blog:

I see this thread from time to time, this insistence on denying that students are bad at something. "No, you just weren't taught that well" or "Your teacher lacked the right tools" or "You are the victim of too-low expectations" or "You just needed more opportunities to master the material and concepts." Sometimes these ideas make it all the way into policy: if you are a teacher of a Certain Age, you may well remember sitting in a PD session in which you were told earnestly that "All can learn all."

No. Some students are bad at some things. This should not come as a surprise; all human beings are bad at something.

…

We have a finite number of hours to invest, and we all make choices about how to invest them. It's a weird brand of age-ism to imagine that students do not make similar choices. I don't believe in lazy students, but I absolutely believe in students who will sit in your class and make a rational decision that they do not want to invest the kind of time in your subject that judge would be necessary.

Go read the rest for the full scope of what he is saying. It's worth your time.

<idle musing>
Yep. Time and energy, as well as innate capabilities. In graduate school, with two kids, I had to budget my time, so at the beginning of each term, I decided which class I would settle for a B in. If I had the extra time after assuring an A in the other ones, then I would attempt for an A in that one too. I rarely did, and sometimes I didn’t get an A in some of the ones I was aiming for an A in.

And when it comes to Akkadian, I suck at the signs. Never could wrap my head around the multivalency of them. I enjoyed Hittite because the multivalency was much more limited and the sign list was manageable. I did fine in the grammar and reading of Akkadian once it was transliterated, but the signs? Yuck.

And when I was in engineering, before seeing the light and becoming a humanities major, I hit a brick wall in linear algebra. I just couldn't wrap my head around the concept of six, seven, or nine space. Matrices just blew my 20-year-old mind. Now, I understand the concept, but I'm forty-six years older…
</idle musing>

So, what's the answer?

Maybe you want to know the question first? What's the best way out of the current high degree of wealth inequality? The Atlantic takes a look at how we got where we are. Hint, it started back in the late 1970s, but the real problem was our response in the 1980s and beyond. Read the whole article for context. Please! Read the article. Here's the penultimate paragraph, but please read the whole article for context.

The answer to our unequal age lies not in better monetary policy. It lies in better fiscal and regulatory policy. The central bank has enormous influence, but primarily over borrowing costs and the pace of economic growth. The power to alter the distribution of wealth and earnings—as well as expand the supply of child care, housing, energy, and everything else—lies with Congress. It could spend huge sums of money to hasten the country’s energy transition and make it less vulnerable to gas-price shocks. It could overhaul the country’s system of student-loan debt, helping Black families build wealth. It could break up monopolies and force companies to compete for workers and market share again. It could task states and cities with increasing their housing supplies, so that regular families could afford apartments in Queens and houses in Oakland and condo units in Washington, D.C. It could implement labor standards that would mean the middle class could afford to buy into the stock market too. Yet it remains hamstrung by the filibuster, and by a minority party dedicated to upward redistribution.

Strawberries!

OK, one strawberry, but it is the promise of more to come. I picked our first strawberry of the season yesterday, and it reminded me of why fresh strawberries, not even an hour from the plant, are the best. We'll get another one today and for the next few days until the main bunch starts ripening. Meanwhile, we savor that one strawberry each day.

I also picked the first peas of the season yesterday. A handful of them and more will be ready each day. The second crop, from a slightly later variety will come in when the first plants are done. And the snow peas will be starting soon, too.

Meanwhile, I've been chomping down on fresh chard and radishes for a couple of weeks now. The kale is pickable, but I'm trying to use up the stuff I have frozen from last year, so I'm letting it get bigger.

And the raspberries are blooming and the bumblebees and honey bees are thoroughly enjoying them. You walk by the patch and you can hear their contented buzzing.

And, something I forgot in the initial posting, I've been enjoying summer pita sandwiches, consisting of broccoli raab, chard, chive blossoms, and Mustard Girl garlic mustard. Delicious and the sure sign that summer is here!

About those celebrity bookshelves

Via Publishers Weekly, an article on books by the yard, from The Millions: "Is It So Wrong to Accessorize with Books?"

I had read about it a few years back, but it seems to be a real thing now.

Not sure what I think, but I lean toward this sentiment: “But this kerfuffle is not about the use—or misuse—of books as fashion accessories, home décor, or branding tools. Call me Pollyanna, but I don’t think that Ashley Tisdale and Dior and Gigi Hadid are trivializing books. They’re doing precisely the opposite: they’re reminding us of books’ outsize power to shape our perceptions of their owners. You want to understand someone? Peruse the contents of her medicine chest, her garbage can, and her bookshelf. One’s literary tastes can reveal not just aesthetic preferences but aspects of character. This is because of the investment books require—not only of money, but of time and psychic energy.”

Or, as I read many years ago, our bookshelf tells people what we want them to think we are. I hope my bookshelves do more than that, though. I hope they are an actual reflection of who I am—or am trying to become anyway. I certainly don’t read Ethiopic or Coptic, and my Syriac is terrible, but maybe someday… that’s what those books on my shelf are for. They beckon me and someday, someday, yes someday I will answer the call. Or at least, I hope I do.

Train up a conscience…

OK, an intentional misquote of the proverb.

Not sure where I ran across this link, so if you’ve seen it, apologies, but it is well-worth your time. The title of the post doesn't do it justice: Secret Tentative Intimation

For me, these two paragraphs/lines were the heart of it:

What I learned from my time at Guantanamo is that the time to deliberate, seek advice, and reflect for long periods of time in prayer so that we have a conscience that can stand on solid footing “just when it matters” exists only ahead of time, when one can’t foresee the curveballs. Conscience is, after all, not a rabbit one can suddenly pull out of a magic hat. It is something that must be cultivated and developed over time so that it is available and ready to go when one of those “just when it matters” moments comes our way.

and

Textbooks are important, but we cannot expect them to do the long, hard work of awakening and forming the consciences of the young (and the not-so-young as well). Our Catholic [and not just Catholic!] institutions need to prepare students for real life, not just for careers. There will always be curveballs.

I’ve run across a few curveballs in my life, and only by God’s grace gotten through them. And I firmly believe it was because of intentional cultivation of an internal spiritual life training me to depend on God. I’ve still got a long way to go on that, but God is patient, even when I’m not!

Plant a garden!

This excerpt from Braiding Sweetgrass stands on its own and is too good not to post:

People often ask me what one thing I would recommend to restore relationship between land and people. My answer is almost always, “Plant a garden.” It’s good for the health of the earth and it’s good for the health of people. A garden is a nursery for nurturing connection, the soil for cultivation of practical reverence. And its power goes far beyond the garden gate—once you develop a relationship with a little patch of earth, it becomes a seed itself.

Something essential happens in a vegetable garden. It’s a place where if you can’t say “I love you” out loud, you can say it in seeds. And the land‘ will reciprocate, in beans.—Braiding Sweetgrass, 126–27

<idle musing>
Indeed! That's been true in my own life. Do yourself a favor, plant a garden. Start small, though or you will be overwhelmed.
</idle musing>

What's happening here?

I've been silent here for a few days, and it's likely to continue. Right now I'm in the process of reading Braiding Sweetgrass, a fascinating book. It's a collection of short essays by a Native American biologist trying to integrate her ancestry with the scientific approach. Well, actually, it's much more than that. Fascinating book and challenging at the same time. It appeals to my gardening instincts and my mystical bent in Christianity (she's not Christian, but some of her insights are very easily adapted).

The essays are short; the storytelling is great. But, it doesn't lend itself to extracts because that would destroy the narrative that makes them so powerful.

All that to say, this blog will be relatively quiet for a while until I pick up the next book that lends itself to extracts, which could be as soon as today or as late as a month from now.

Meanwhile, we have a pileated woodpecker attacking a stump outside my study window. It's doing a great job of scattering wood chips all over and grabbing grubs. But, it kind of wreaked havoc with the marigolds I had planted there, so I transplanted them : )

Here's a picture that Debbie took yesterday. Enjoy!

Counter-factual

Suppose Abraham had not been silent. Suppose he had been so sure of the mercy of God that he could wrestle with God, arguing back, challenging God—interceding for his son. Or suppose Abraham wasn’t sure of God’s mercy but took the risk to lament anyway. He might have come to know the compassion of this God, who hosted (and affirmed) Job’s complaint——which brought job comfort in the end.

Yet despite Abraham’s failure to lament, God was gracious and kept faith with Abraham, continuing to work through this fractured family——ultimately to bring redemption to the world.

And the God of Abraham continues to welcome lament even today.—Abraham's Silence, 240 (emphasis original)

<idle musing>
Well, that wraps up this book. It's been an interesting ride, hasn't it? I found lots to mull over. And I'm sure I'll be thinking about some of this for a long time.

Not sure what's up next. Right now, the book I'm reading doesn't lend itself to excerpts, but I said that a while back and ended up pulling stuff from it.

We'll see what happens. Meanwhile, I might write an excursus on a section of Naming Neoliberalism: Exposing the Spirit of Our Age that I found troublingly inaccurate. Again, we'll see...
</idle musing>

A make-up exam

Yet Abraham finally did come to understand that God didn’t want him to sacrifice his son. If we consider his sacrificing the ram as analogous with a make-up test given by a generous professor, might we say that in this sense Abraham just barely passed the test of the discernment of God’s character? Or is that conceding too much?—Abraham's Silence, 223 (emphasis original)

<idle musing
I keep asking myself how well I would have done on this test. I fear I would not have passed…
</idle musing>

Did he pass?

Yet the fact that he did eventually look around could be taken as a point in his favor. Perhaps Abraham is to be commended not simply for looking around but especially for offering up the ram “as a burnt offering instead of his son” (22:13) on his own initiative. This was not something actually commanded by God. In one sense, it was too little, too late. In another, it was better than nothing, in that it signified that Abraham finally understood that God did not want him to sacrifice his son. Evidence of his coming to this understanding is that Abraham names the site “YHWH sees/provides” (22:14).

I am inclined to think that Abraham did not pass the test in Genesis 22. His silent obedience indicated that he did not discern God’s merciful character (until the angel called off the sacrifice); and he did not show love for his son by interceding on his behalf.—Abraham's Silence, 222–23 (emphasis original)

<idle musing>
Unfortunately, I'm inclined to agree with him that Abraham failed the test. But, I wonder if I would have done any better. Do I understand the character of God? Or do I have various lens that distort my view? I suspect the latter is true.

May God remove the distortion that I might see him as he truly is!
</idle musing>

Speak up!

If I were to construct a hierarchy of possible responses that Abraham might have made to God’s request to sacrifice his son, I would put protest and intercession on behalf of Isaac at the top of the list, as the optimal response. Through such protest/intercession, Abraham would have demonstrated his profound discernment of God’s character, that YHWH was merciful and compassionate. Or his intuition that God was merciful would have led him to prayer; and this intuition would have been confirmed and expanded by such prayer, resulting (I believe) in God rescinding the request. Such protest and intercession would have also demonstrated his love for Isaac, perhaps strengthening the tenuous bond between them.

But Abraham didn’t speak out on behalf of his son.

Somewhat below this optimal response would be Abraham’s genuine belief that God would provide a substitute—that is, he might have remained silent (against the general tenor of Scripture, which encourages bold prayer), yet trusted that somewhere along the journey or on the mountain itself, he might find an animal to sacrifice instead of his son. Yet when he arrived at the spot for the sacrifice, Abraham did not give even a cursory glance around the vicinity to see if God had provided a substitute; he simply bound his son and placed him on the altar. He did not look around until after the angel called off the sacrifice.—Abraham's Silence, 222

<idle musing>
Don't you want to take Abraham by the shoulders and shake him, yelling, "Wake up! Look around you! Speak up!"

I know I do. But, what about the injustices around you? Are you interceding with God on behalf of those? Asking God to be merciful?

If not, then why not? Maybe you believe in a different god than the biblical one...

Just an
</idle musing>