Category: Personal

east of what?

What’s a classic book that you think is overrated?

So a book I think is overrated? Let me make sure, I could not get into this book no matter how hard I tried. Well, only one: East of Eden by John Steinbeck. Online claims are that it is the “perfect book” (and I agree that it has merits) but I could not get through it. It simply did not connect with me.

Maybe I should try it again?

der garstige breite Graben

Who are some underrated people in history?

I will not say Jesus because he is a person of faith, for me, more than a person of history. But …

Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (1729–1781) and his ditch (der garstige breite Graben) is highly underrated. Good insight into epistemology! And into faith. Only Kierkegaard, methinks, gives an answer.

In religion, St Mary of Egypt – penitence without the institution.

And maybe me!?

Ascension Eve

The 1928 BCP UK calls today Ascension Eve. The 1662 BCP calls it Rodation Wednesday.


Epistle. Eph. 4.7-13

[But] unto every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ. Wherefore he saith, When he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men. (Now that he ascended, what is it but that he also descended first into the lower parts of the earth? He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens, that he might fill all things.) And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ: Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ.

Gospel. John 17. 1-11

These words spake Jesus, and lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, Father, the hour is come; glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee: As thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him. And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent. I have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do. And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was. I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world: thine they were, and thou gavest them me; and they have kept thy word. Now they have known that all things whatsoever thou hast given me are of thee. For I have given unto them the words which thou gavest me; and they have received them, and have known surely that I came out from thee, and they have believed that thou didst send me. I pray for them: I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me; for they are thine. And all mine are thine, and thine are mine; and I am glorified in them. And now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to thee. Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are.

a rebel

WHAT is a rebel? A man who says no: but whose refusal does not imply a renunciation. He Tho a man who says yes as soon as he begins to think for himself. A slave who has taken orders all his life, suddenly decides that he cannot obey some new command.

Albert Camus

anniversary

Today is the anniversary of my baptism. So here is a collect from the Proposed 1928 Book of Common Prayer:

Almighty God our heavenly Father who hast given us the Sacrament of Holy Baptism that souls thereby being born again may be made heirs of everlasting salvation; we yield thee hearty thanks for this thy gift, and humbly we beseech thee to grant that we who have thus been made partakers of the death of thy Son may also be partakers of his resurrection. Amen.