beautiful home outside of Laramie, Wyoming
My dear friends, Eric and Gentry Anderson, are selling their home. If you're interested in moving to Laramie or if you already live in Laramie and are looking for an upgrade, please check out this site!
My dear friends, Eric and Gentry Anderson, are selling their home. If you're interested in moving to Laramie or if you already live in Laramie and are looking for an upgrade, please check out this site!
As usual, I have so many things I'd like to blog about, but I somehow don't find or take the time to do it.
During the course mentioned in the previous post, I was also attempting to get my thesis proposal written and approved. In order to get it to the quality necessary for approval, I needed to know more about Soviet ideology from 1960-1990, the main years of Father Alexander Men's ministry. My professor generously offered that I could write a paper for the course on that topic and time period, despite the fact that it was a major step away from the Inter-War time period. When all was said and done, I was not able to get the proposal finished in time for approval (I will finish it this month and turn it in for approval in September), but I did write the paper on late Soviet ideology.
[1] Alexei Yurchak conceived of "performative
shift" in his Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More: The Last
Soviet Generation (Princeton: Princeton
UP, 2006), 19-26. This will be
discussed in greater detail in the essay.
This last semester (Winter 2009), I took a course entitled "Themes in Modern Historical and Political Thought: Europe 1914-1939." The instructor was Sarah Williams, who is also supervising my thesis. This was a small seminar course, with just four students, including my friends Nathan and Susannah.
In July of 2007, I promised you all that I would share my reflections from my time meditating on John 20:1-18 during a course on contemplative listening. I ended up writing a story from Mary Magdalene's perspective. There was much I felt that I needed to research in order to post it here, but a few friends have urged me to share it with you. So here we go!
Hello, blog-reading friends;
Last week, NPR's Anne Garrels did a five-part series on Chelyabinsk, an industrial city in Russia's Ural Mountains. The picture she painted of life there is VERY SIMILAR to the Russia I knew living in Irkutsk and traveling to various parts of Russia from 2002-2006.
What will they then
But force the Spirit of Grace it self, and binde [ 525 ]
His consort Libertie; what, but unbuild
His living Temples, built by Faith to stand,
Thir own Faith not anothers: for on Earth
Who against Faith and Conscience can be heard
Infallible? yet many will presume: [ 530 ]
Whence heavie persecution shall arise
On all who in the worship persevere
Of Spirit and Truth; the rest, farr greater part,
Well deem in outward Rites and specious formes
Religion satisfi'd; Truth shall retire [ 535 ]
Bestuck with slandrous darts, and works of Faith
Rarely be found: so shall the World goe on,
To good malignant, to bad men benigne,
Under her own waight groaning till the day
Appeer of respiration to the just, [ 540 ]
And vengeance to the wicked, at return
Of him so lately promiss'd to thy aid
The Womans seed, obscurely then foretold,
Now amplier known thy Saviour and thy Lord,
Last in the Clouds from Heav'n to be reveald [ 545 ]
In glory of the Father, to dissolve
Satan with his perverted World, then raise
From the conflagrant mass, purg'd and refin'd,
New Heav'ns, new Earth, Ages of endless date
Founded in righteousness and peace and love [ 550 ]
To bring forth fruits Joy and eternal Bliss.
My paternal grandma died yesterday afternoon, a week after suffering a stroke in the right side of her brain. She had been living in the nursing home in Powell for the last five years, in the same room as Grandpa. Each time I said good-bye to her over the last five years, we both knew it could be our last time seeing each other, and both our eyes teared up. I'm glad Grandma is no longer having to suffer through pain and weakness. Update: There will be a public memorial service for Grandma in Powell on December 19.
On Wednesday, a new Metropolitan was elected for the Orthodox Church of America. He has oversight over the OCA in all of the US and Canada. One of my Orthodox friends in Canada was quite pleased with this news. The new Metropolitan has a difficult job ahead of him, as the laity seems to have lost trust in the former Metropolitan and many bishops, due to issues in leadership and corrupt use of money.
On October 22, 2008, the Focus on the Family Action Group wrote a hypothetical Letter from 2012. The letter is sixteen pages laden with the most blatant fear-mongering I have ever read or heard (and I've heard a lot in my short life)!
I wanted to share with all of you some of the better blogs and blog posts I've read in the last little while:
Oops! I was playing around with this post, and in the process it moved from January of 2008 to now. Sorry about any confusion. I've just entered a strengthened version of the first essay on this post into a contest with Canadian Slavonic Papers.
For those who are interested, here are two papers I wrote in the Fall term of 2007 about a doctrinal controversy between Constantinople and Rome in the ninth century. I received an A on each of these papers.
If you're wondering what I've been up to the last six weeks, feel free to check out the blog of my friends, Nathan and Bronwyn, who have provided an update on their lives and my life (which is quite convenient for me, since I haven't had a lot of time to update my blog of late).
As I type, fireworks are exploding off in the distance. I technically should be in bed, since I have an early Hebrew class tomorrow morning. Instead, I am sitting at my computer.
Back in 2005, I highlighted some interesting statistics about Russia. One of those statistics had to do with the number of abortions done in Russia annually. This article highlights the current realities. Whatever one believes about abortion in North America, this article is a cause for concern.
Yesterday, I finished reading Fyodor Dostoevsky's book The Brothers Karamazov. Though it is nearly 800 pages in length, I found it very readable. It is broken up into small chapters (and the translation I read was excellent!). I read the novel as I was researching the same time period within which it was set and written; this deeper understanding added to my enjoyment of the book.
I spent some time with Dave and Frannie Medders this weekend. At lunch yesterday, Dave asked me four good questions:
Perry Botkin, Jr. just made another video, and I'd like you all to see it. I chuckled a few times as I watched it. Here's what he says about it:
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