In its travels, the jay came across a bear, also dining on a bull buffalo calf. “And I suppose you are another one of these who dislike buffalo for some reason,” the jay observed.

“A little,” the bear said. “They are harder to hunt. Their flesh is less sweet.” (more…)

After more wanderings that same jay came across a pack that was nipping at a large herd of buffalo. They darted in and then darted out again before the thundering hooves could annilihate them. The jay watched for a bit and saw that, for all their effort, the wolves had not seemed to bring down any of the buffalo. When one wolf trotted out of the press for a breather, tongue lolling, the jay struck up a conversation. “I suppose,” he said, “that you are another one of these packs that resent the buffalo as interlopers and hope to drive them off your range.” (more…)

From President Monson (more…)

I had a dream where I saw an adobe wall.    It was a little scene.  The dream called my attention to the fact that there were three live things and three things not live.  The inanimate things were a rough pine ladder against the wall, a niche in the wall, and a stone on the ground.  The three live things were a santo in the niche (it talked), a bird on the ladder, and a flower by the stone.  The dream was pretty insistent on there being the three inanimate things and the three live things.  And that was it.  That was the whole dream.  It was very peculiar.

Wanted: Daniel.  Joseph would also do.

The allegory:

Mr. Romantic married Miss Practical.  She became Mrs. Romantic.

(more…)

Mr. Romantic married Miss Practical.  She became Mrs. Romantic.

Curious to see what you think this means.  I will post my explanation tomorrow.  It would be cool if someone had a good meaning that isn’t the one I intended.

Inspiration from thermodynamics for understanding the problems with p*rn

Fap entropy was particularly good

Alasdair MacIntyre rejects the idea that God knows what we do until we have done it.  Because, he says, we are free agents.  What we choose cannot perfectly be predicted.

Until the agent finally makes her or his decision her or his future action is undetermined. There is no fact of the matter about what she or he is going to decide or to do, nothing to make any statement about, true or false. Not only does she or he not know what she or he is going to do, no one else can be said to know this either, including God. . . . So, even if an omniscient God does exist, there have been and will be numerous occasions on which he cannot be said to know what will be done or happen, until it is done or happens.

Lecture video here.  A Catholic argument against MacIntyre from where I borrowed the above text transcription here.

(more…)

There was a certain city in the valley whose offenses against Heaven were rank.  Three Immortals met to vow that they would end the city’s crimes.

The first immortal went to the city to lead them away from their evil ways by the purity of his example.  They mocked him in the marketplace and though his example was great and his soul was strong, for a long time he did not even grimace when they did their abominations in front of him, his spirit weakened from their horrid displays.  Spirit weakened, he succumbed to a poison and died. (more…)

Your means should be proportioned to your ends and no matter how reasonable or practical or achievable your means are if they will not accomplish your ends they are inadequate and if means that are difficult or nigh impossible or even impossible are the only way to achieve your right end then that is the means.  The beauty of Christianity is that we do not lie to ourselves about our ends.  Restoration Christianity allows you to rip off the mask and say, yes, I was meant to be a GOD, instead I’m a gross humdrum niggler, Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on me.  Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy.

Everyone almost automatically adjust their ends to fit their means.  We do not have the right end of beingMan until we let ourselves know from the inside the full nobility that a human spirit should be able to achieve, until we let ourselves admit that we have tasted something true and pure, and we say that is the end even if our means are wholly unable to achieve it.

Though he slay me, yet will I praise God.

Friends,

in respect for Vader I didn’t post last week.  I miss him a lot.  Consequently I now have a galloping horde  of posts to unleash at you, just when everyone is going to be occupied at the holiday season.  Great gems of beauty will go unread, profound truths uncommented on, pearls of wisdom left to languish in digital print.

Good news, though.  I am reliably informed that our badinage quota has been increased from 100 grams to 80.

[Editors: we have perused the galloping horde.  None of them contain winning lottery  numbers.  You may ignore them at your turkeyed leisure.]

This is a companion post to JM’s announcement.  Comment there. (more…)

Kent died Thursday, November 10. The last entry on his Wanderlusting the Jemez blog, entered Sunday four days earlier, expressed hope in the progress of his recovery from his accident. Tuesday, though, he suffered a pulmonary embolism, and his body failed.

Death holds another captive until the resurrection frees us all.

A wandering jay perched on a stone near where a straggling wolf was gnawing the last scraps off of the bones of a young buffalo calf.

After polite inquiries as to the health of the pack–all fine, the wolf said, they having trotted off earlier after having eaten–the jay observed that surely this calf was from the herd he had seen on his flight in and he was glad that the rumors the jay had heard that this pack disliked buffalo meat were unfounded.

“No such thing,” the wolf asserted. “We vastly prefer elk. Its just that this small herd of buffalo wandered into this area a few years ago and displaced many of the elk. We tried to drive them off directly but in a herd they are too strong. Instead,” the wolf said, “we are whittling them down bit by bit, picking off strays and calves and relentlessly diminishing their numbers.” “It’s a fabian strategy!” the wolf concluded proudly.

“Indeed,” the jay said, “from what I could observe for every animal you have whittled down, they seem to have given birth to two more. You have diminished their numbers so greatly that what was once a small herd is now a very big one.” Then he flew off with a chattering laugh.

Moral: When picking a strategy, first do the math.

It’s a weird experience to gear yourself up for a strong temptation and then it doesn’t happen.

Almost a disappointment.