Category: Uncategorized

I thought this roundtable was helpful in thinking through the recent controversy caused by the TGC article. The real lesson of the whole event is that it’s a bad idea to process thoughts about race in public. It’s a perilous topic to broach and there are no rewards for failure that aren’t overwhelmed by the likely punishments for failure. You’re better off serving your immediate neighbors or making your garden a more beautiful place.

I overheard a guy talking to a Russian acquaintance of mine who has a thick accent. The guy said, “where are you from?” My acquaintance said,”Russia.” The guy said, “Oh, I lived in Europe for two years- nice area.”

A few that I identified this afternoon with a new app that someone suggested to me:

California Vervain (violet flowers)
Largeleaf Lantana (yellow flowers)
Largeleaf Lantana (yellow and reddish orange flowers)
Climbing Euonymus
Japanese Spindle Tree

Let me assure you from recent, foolishly obtained experience, that while 4 O’Clocks are technically edible, this fact should not sway you to try so much as a tiny piece of a leaf unless you truly want to learn what the “marvel of Peru” entails.

On Tuesday, I saw:

1. A black bear
2. Elk, including a suckling baby Elk
3. Butterflies in droves, hanging out together
4. Wild turkeys
5. Either grouse or pheasants

I also saw:

1. Chestnut oak
2. Sycamore
3. White oak
4. Black-Eyed Susan
5. Bee Balm
6. Milkweed
7. Various Rhododendron
8. Blackberries
9. Muscadine

I thought I understood Maximus to have posited the existence of two kinds of wills: a will that pertains to nature (natural will) and a will that pertains to person (gnomic will). This was a distinction designed to enable theological talk about Jesus’ having only the gnomic will of the second person of the trinity but having fully harmonious natural wills from both human and divine natures. What I can’t remember is whether this implies for Maximus that each person of the trinity has his own gnomic will yet his natural will is the one natural will of the divine nature. It would seem to follow, but I can’t remember if he made this implication explicit.

I know this is an artificial construct, but doesn’t it imply three wills of a sort and do justice to the biblical data? Would the anti-hierarchical guys in the current debate grant the orthodoxy of this position or are they looking for a single divine “will” simpliciter?

Man, I love this plate that I ran across on a gallery website:

The colors are like the grecian pottery – red, yellow, black, etc.

There’s a contemporary artist, Cleon Peterson, who must be saying something about violence, who uses these very powerful, simple colors in his series of paintings, murals, and sculptures:

Man, these coconut fizzy waters from Kroger are amazing. Even coconuttier than the Lacroix ones.

I had a conversation on Saturday with a lady who owns a small antiques store here in Starkville. She was telling me about how some relatives of hers found a coffin in their attic when they bought the house. The conversation was precipitated by another customer’s question about a large, hinged box for sale that was coffin-shaped. He joked with her that it was a coffin and she deadpanned “yes” and then they both speculated it was probably a quilt storage box. Then I told her what Ann told me about Catherine Tucker Windham, the famous columnist in Alabama who kept a coffin in her house and had her assistant/yard man/friend promise that when she died he would wrap her in a Gee’s Bend quilt and place her in the coffin before the coroner arrived. She hadn’t heard of Windham and, at the time, I couldn’t think of her name, but it reminded the store owner of her relative who found a coffin in her attic. I asked, “how did someone get a coffin into an attic?” It’s the natural question, right? And she said that it wasn’t a full-sized coffin. Ominous. Then she said that they probably made it for someone and it was decided that it wouldn’t be used for that purpose.

The store was open on a Saturday, about the only time I can ever be a looky-loo, and she said it was the only Saturday she could remember that they opened. Usually they travel to Memphis on Saturdays to buy things at estate sales. I suppose there is an estate sale->antiques store circle of life for furniture and household items.

This particular antiques store is right across the street from the best pawn shop in town that has an amazing selection of guitars and musical equipment. I’ll have to tell you about the owner of the pawn shop some time.