Welcome to the next age. Our terms of service to the various pow'rs completed, our indentures to the Angels of the University having lapsed, we stand upon the threshold, in a way the followers of Dagon never can, and we consider.

In a rather peculiar manner of considering, of course. Occasionally, this contemplation will even rise to a verbal level, in order to communicate necessary and/or non-obvious information pertaining to the matters at hand. A marker on our financial situation, for instance, may be transmitted, or a mention made of the possibility of moving halfway across the continent to move on to the next phase of graduate studies. No one's done much about the 'parlous' state of the house, but, hey, it's still early. Another weekend is about to be devoured in the maw of relentless time, so we could get lucky.

Happily, I have re-discovered making pizza by dint of a cheat's shortcut -- pre-made pizza crusts. Since making the crust has always been the time-consuming and tricky bit for me, I can now fulfill the saying, "the best is the enemy of the good." This is my third pizza in about 3 weeks -- more than the previous 2 years, I'd guess. No beef on this one, either, just a few pepperoni slices. I'm such a cheat.

Now, you might think I'd take all this time I'm saving and do some work... heh

i'm a slut with a mission
a singular vision

For one who claims to be a witness, it is often somewhat surprising and depressing to reflect upon the fact that no acquaintance of mine has, to my knowledge, become a believer in God. I know no way to convey, convincingly, the depth of my conviction that in Jesus's death and resurrection the myriad and apalling sins of me, us, all, sundry, world+dog, have been and are being made right, a restoration of the world to be a "good" creation. Witness of a reasonably (and imperfectly) just life, with due attention to my own grave shortcomings as an example of Christ's love, apparently doesn't bat an eye. I think this is why piscis fears my martyr impulse -- I might resort to an ultimate gesture to communicate what I can never say, what is at least worth dying for as living for.

i'm a slut with a mission
a singular vision

I want to demonstrate that coherence of good and evil, the good, the bad, and the ugly, the sublime and ridiculous, "of some hilarity beyond all liking and happening," as Capon quotes Auden. If He is lifted up, He draws everything to Himself. All things come of thee, o Lord...

And he confessed, he did not deny, but confessed.

My singular vision is in fact not all that singular, I've found; many share it, in variants, in shades, in flavors not quite the way I cook, but all good things. And although Synthesis, I was taught, was not the Highest, next to Creativity, I am well pleased to be guided by the hands of past masters, both giants and mere fellows like me.

We tire of distraction or concentration, we sleep and are glad to sleep,

Controlled by the rhythm of blood and the day and the night and the seasons.

And we must extinguish the candle, put out the light and relight it;

Forever must quench, forever relight the flame.

Therefore we thank Thee for our little light, that is dappled with shadow.

We thank Thee who hast moved us to building, to finding, to forming at the ends of our fingers and beams of our eyes.

And when we have built an altar to the Invisible Light, we may set thereupon the little lights for which our bodily vision is made.

And we thank Thee that darkness reminds us of light.

O Light Invisible, we give Thee thanks for Thy great glory!

-- T. S. Eliot, "Choruses from 'The Rock'", X