Comments for Doug Talks Torah

Comment on Singing in the House of Sojourn by Ben Taylor

Ben Taylor — Sat, 18 May 2013 23:13:31 +0000

Beautiful, Doug! You reminded me of the Gerard Manley Hopkins poem “As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame.”

AS kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies dráw fláme;
As tumbled over rim in roundy wells
Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell’s
Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;
Each mortal thing does one thing and the same: 5
Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;
Selves—goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,
Crying Whát I do is me: for that I came.

Í say móre: the just man justices;
Kéeps gráce: thát keeps all his goings graces; 10
Acts in God’s eye what in God’s eye he is—
Chríst—for Christ plays in ten thousand places,
Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his
To the Father through the features of men’s faces.

Comment on Text to Speech with Accent by Kluck Taylor

Kluck Taylor — Thu, 16 May 2013 10:41:11 +0000

bring me the finest winch from thou dungeon and let us drank the wine from the grapes of wisdom while we blow glasscloudz in the middle of thy desert with a broken navi.

Comment on Living in the Ordinary by dougfloyd

dougfloyd — Sun, 05 May 2013 03:00:08 +0000

Excellent question Ben. As always, you’re penetrating insight challenges and provokes me. GK Chesterton in His Everlasting Man explores this question from various angles. The book is asking what is man? who is man? He tells the story of man as in mankind and then tells the story of man as in Jesus Christ. While Chesterton is responding to a range of ideas that were popular in his day (and only went on to grow in popularity over the coming century), he is specifically responding to HG Wells “Outline of History,” where Wells sees us as a development in the evolutionary cycle of animal life. Chesterton suggests that there is a thought you can think that ends all thought. If we are not distinct and our minds are simply evolutionary process, we cannot trust our observations of the world and ability to process those observations because of the hidden evolutionary motives that override our supposed trust of rationality or the rationality of the cosmos. Our thoughts become untrustworthy thus we can no longer think but are merely insane trapped in a closed rational loop of our own making. Chesterton sees the modern world continuously falling into closed rational loops that border on insanity. For him, we need new eyes to see, we need to somehow recover wonder. As Chesterton describes his understanding of wonder, I have come to believe he is discussing a true scientific discovery not bound by the “a prioris” of scientism but open to discover the absolute oddity, surprise and delight of the commonplace world around us. Oddly enough, many of of modern inventions further remove us from wonder and eyes to see. Now we look at GPS Applications on our smartphones while missing the glory of exploring the world around us. Chesterton even has a quote about that. I must look for it and post it!

Comment on Living in the Ordinary by Ben Taylor

Ben Taylor — Sat, 04 May 2013 03:26:29 +0000

Very thoughtful, Doug. While “the malaise” is undoubtedly an historically pervasive feature of the human condition, I wonder to what extent the peculiar features of the modern outlook have aggravated it to a pitch never before experienced in human history? The question that drove Walker Percy’s literary project: “Why do people often feel bad in good environments and good in bad environments?” While an argument could be made that this applies to any period in human history, it is also a uniquely late modern question. Modern humans, after all, take a kind of democratic pride in regarding themselves as just another species of organism in the environment, “no different than any other.” We’re even rather eager (perhaps anxious?) to prove it. But this is problematic because no other species of organism goes around anxiously trying to prove it’s no different than all the others, and all the others feel appropriately good in good environments and bad in bad environments. In the animal kingdom there are no Binx Bollings who in the prime of their lives, at peak physical and psychological health; when they’ve been fed, clothed, loved, and protected all of their lives; when they serve a useful and rewording role in their communities and their talents are put to good use; and when their needs for religion, sex, friendship, culture, and entertainment are met, nevertheless acutely feel this “malaise,” this sense of being cut off, closed off from everything and everyone around them. Any other creature under analogous circumstances would feel appropriately good, or would at least evince behaviors indicative of well-being. Not so us humans, says Percy. I often wonder if more than any other single event in recent history, more than, e.g., industrial capitalism and the breakdown of the traditional agrarian ethos, if it is this peculiarly modern outlook, this insistence that we’re “just organisms in environments,” that has intensified the malaise of the human condition, marking it out as the single defining feature of the Western individual in the 20th and 21st centuries. Any thoughts on this? .

Comment on Living in the Ordinary by dougfloyd

dougfloyd — Wed, 01 May 2013 20:45:41 +0000

That is poignant David. We must see those falling through the cracks and embrace them even when we cannot make all their problems go away.

Comment on Living in the Ordinary by dougfloyd

dougfloyd — Wed, 01 May 2013 20:44:16 +0000

I have not read Peter Rollins. Thanks for the heads up. I will check him out.

Comment on Living in the Ordinary by David Legg

David Legg — Wed, 01 May 2013 20:07:18 +0000

Ordinary people living ordinary lives are ordinary, I would say. To live outside the box may I suggest that you find a homeless person dying under a bridge. Hold their hand. Bathe their forehead and their feet, all the while speaking to them of the love of GOD until they breath their last breath.
Then help load their body onto the garbage truck and go find another dying soul to minister to as they pass on.

Comment on Living in the Ordinary by Eric Minton

Eric Minton — Wed, 01 May 2013 16:27:01 +0000

Brilliant. The work of Peter Rollins is a nice (albeit somewhat nihilistic) companion to this kind of militant commitment to the mundane realities of life. This piece is earthy in the best kind of way. Thanks for inviting us into a poetic embrace of the everyday.

Comment on Text to Speech with Accent by owen

owen — Sun, 28 Apr 2013 21:47:15 +0000

i love you

Comment on Knowledge as Call and Response by Ben Taylor

Ben Taylor — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 20:48:37 +0000

I love it, Doug! Keep it up. I especially appreciated the following: “There is a connection between knowledge and love. Just as the corrupt knowledge separates and violates relational knowledge at some level, there is a knowledge that reverses this corruption. Deuteronomy will connect knowing Torah with loving God and man.” It reminded me of a couple of Ray Anderson sayings: 1) “There is no truth apart from reconciliation.” 2) “Love does not fear doubt, for love is from reality, not from reason.” Looking forward to more.