I'm going home.  Say 'hi' to everyone for me...

     I've been to Denver, and Warren Zevon's the only songwriter who's done it justice...

     Forgot to mention that I'm back to work, at least a few hours a day.  We more or less shut down in the last week of November, and don't start up full time until Spring.  For now, I'm just collecting on outstanding accounts and planning the next season.  
     With that in mind, I'll spend a few hours at the home office in Chicago in mid-February, getting a bit of help from the Boss.  While there, I'll see some fine fellow bloggers - namely Tripp, Jennifer, and Clifton - for the first time, wander about the city a bit, and in the end, write off half my expenses...  Moving on...
     I need to hire someone at some point in the season, and don't know how to do that, at least, not how to work out their pay and taxes and what-not.  I've also set some ridiculous goals for this coming year, and need help in managing my time.  I can tell you that every eight weeks or so I plan to fly away somewhere and just sit for around four days, staring at an ocean, say, and reading and drinking... 
     Speaking of reading and drinking...well, at least drinking...I no longer like Maker's Mark bourbon.  It's not, well...let me think now...I've no technical vocabulary for this...I just don't think it's...you know...smooth...
     Oh, and have you yet paired creme brûlée with a bit of bourbon served neat?  Now that's a consolation on the way, my only friends...and, it's quite Lenten...
     Lessee, what else, what else?  I know...bought a chef's knife...a Shun eight inch with a granton edge to be precise...it and my enamelled dutch oven are among my Favorite Things.
     I need a nap.
     Peace out.
    

     Lent fast approaches.  It's a fine time of the year, my friends, a fine time of the year.  That's all I'll say about it.
     Oh, you want to know what I'll be reading?  You mean, by way of spiritual stuff?  Well, lessee...

     You know, I've been looking over some books on Reformation history I read many years ago...folks like Oberman and Muller and Kolb...damn fine scholars who'll hip you to what the hell's going on...I recommend 'em all...  Still, after a while I realized...I'm just not into it any more...I just don't care to go through any fuss and bother to repristinate or reform or renew or otherwise tilt at the reality that it's over, so over...

     Thanks for the comments.
     Had Wendell around for thirteen years, my friend, and all that time I've lived in three apartments on the same alley and walked a half-dozen streets countless thousands of times.  Rootedness can be overrated...
     The Praise Band Collective, by the bye, seems to follow me aboot.  Over the past few years I've taken us to a number of parishes, with different logos on the shingle out front, only for 'em to catch Praise Band Fever hard upon our arrival.  The latest was that little Anglican church I kind of liked for a few weeks.  Now, granted, they're not going All The Way, with Powerpoints and the like, but the thought of a so-called 'Contemporary Service' at this tiny church in the Anglican Continuum just sent me over the edge.
     I have only one real objection to membership in an Orthodox church at this point - it's likely that were I to join, the particular parish would become the first in Orthodox history to install a Powerpoint Machine and hire an Emo Guitarist for their New Informal Praise And Worship With A Bagel Eucharistical Fling... 

     I've made a decision that will annoy a lot of folks.  Some will laugh at me.  Some will be pissed off.  Most will just scratch their heads and stare in bemusement.
     I have no grand reason, no global point to make.  I don't care if anyone else would make the same decision.  It's the best I can do in my place and time - that's all.  Somewhere else, some other time and...who knows?  I might just go another way.  To be honest, it's like that Warren Zevon song - 'I appreciate the best/ But I'm settling for less/ I'm just looking for the next best thing'.
     That's all I'm going to say on the matter...

     Has it occured to anyone that it would have been far more scandalous had we discovered that Tiger Woods cheats at golf?  Think about it, dear reader, think about it...

     ...others say he shills for Bacardi in his spare time because he likes the way the happy water smells...
     All we know is, everything said about The Stig is untrue...unless it's true that is...
     By the bye, it pleases me to think that The Stig is a priest from near the border with Scotland...don't know why...

     Gombrowitz as overstayed his welcome.  We all need a primer in the annihilation of cant - Byron's good here - but Gomby's saturation in Husserl and Sartre, and his smirkish condemnation of all that smacks of nobility and beauty as an expression of the irrepressible upupienie of anyone so unfortunate as to not be born Gombrowitz, has grown tiresome.

     Love Milton, need Milton, but come now, let's reason together - for Milton matter must needs be eternal, and because all manner of hideousness follows from this, he made matter an attribute of God himself.  Coleridge has some things to say about this.  What's more, for Milton the Son is indeed coeternal; he's just a product of will.  I leave to the gentle reader the proof of the following proposition - in this, Milton, who is such a wonder and a genius and a damn fine poet to boot, a man who grasped as it were intuitively the snares of falleness, the man who made Satan at once a tyrant and a gnat drawing down derisive laughter while appearing to the fallen senses of readers everywhere a beautiful proto-Byronic hero - that man was a moron when it came to simple metaphysics.

     Finished the book purge yesterday by selling off eight more boxes of the things.  Lots of 'em were quite thick and heavy.  Also sold off half of our DVD's and two thirds of our CD's. 
     I'm suffering Excessive Book Clutter Withdrawal, but other than that things are fine.
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     You know, the only thing wrong with seminaries is that they're full of s-s-seminarians...
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     I've a couple pair of new eyeglasses - one of 'em prescription sunglasses.  Never had those before; always used the clip on thingy.  Anyway, this time bifocals were optional but strongly recommended.  Next time I'll need 'em for sure.  That's just three short years away, dear reader.
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     Been blogging now for six years.  ER's sixth anniversary comes round again mid-March.  How the hell did that happen?
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     You'll notice I've said nothing about the earthquake in Haiti.  That's because I've nothing to say.  Just give what you can and pray all the time - anything else is a waste of time.
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     Paul Griffiths thinks plagiarism is just fine.  I'll test that by reproducing his entire book under my name.
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     The Praise Band Collective has powers of surveillance and coercion that rival those of the CIA and the NSA combined.
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     I sometimes wonder if Shakespeare's 'Phoenix and the Turtle' doesn't tell you all you need to know about the Church's Trinitarian confession.
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     Found a Bible given to me thirty years ago by a friend of our family.  It's full of underlining and annotations in my early adolescent scrawl.  From what I gather, I never once read anything by Paul.  Genesis, the Prophets, the Song of Songs, Job, Ecclesiastes, the Gospels, 1 & 2 Peter, 1, 2, & 3 John, and the Revelation, all got a good once over at least, but I ignored Paul.  Funny, that.
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     The twenty-sixth anniversary of my baptism comes round in five days.  I want cake and lots of presents...
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     Insert something witty here for a conclusion. 

     Over the next year or so I'll also pick up a few good commentaries on various books of that there Bible the kids make such a fuss about...

     Okay, this is cool, and so is this.