Estonia

Perfect. All was right. Sublime. Actual, ancient order, Sublime (with the capital "S," just as Kant would have wanted it).

Standing on the sand of that Baltic cove, I was on holy ground. The sandbox of a young god. Rubbing hallowed grains between my toes. The sun sank silently while the waves sang a hymn of sweet surrender, and I sang, too. I sang because mine was the only part I'd ever known and everywhere I'd gone, someone was already singing my notes. But, there on the banks of the Bay of Finland, every note in the song was present--every note but mine. I was meant to be there. To stand among elements like mine. And sing.

So, I sang.

I closed my eyes and let the notes take me in high tide, overwhelm me and immerse me in the song I'd been meant to sing all my life. It was like I'd spent each moment learning how to react to that day. My day.

I could have jumped into the waves, head first, eyes and mouth wide open, ready to float away to every port to which the current carried my newly sacred corpus.

I want another day like that. Perfect. sublime. Sublime. When the stars sing a chorus to the gods and they, out of ecstasy and clumsiness, respond favorably, opening, for only a moment, all the colors, sounds, smells, and art with which they entertain themselves. All for us. For me.

occasio perfectus, occasio sublimis, unus sanctum sanctorum

Housekeeping

Yes, it's been a while, but I've had a good reason. My wife and I have successfully caught up on Lost from its beginnings. If you're not watching it, it must surely be because you've just not gotten around to it. It is by far one of the two best television shows in the history of the boob tube (along, of course, with 24).

No, I've not posted the book list yet. I suppose I could just post the titles and let you sift it out. Had I gone through the list in December when there was more time . . . but alas! the lamenting restores nothing but faith in the fact that I'm talking about it. So, here are the titles, in no pre-determined order:

Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte
Blue Like Jazz – Donald Miller*
Through Painted Deserts – Donald Miller
The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown*
The Gospel of Mary of Magdala – Karen L. King
Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
The Engendering God – Carl and Susan Raschke
The Hobbit – J.R.R. Tolkien
Climbing Mt. Cheaha – Various
Facing the Music – Larry Brown*
The Catcher in the Rye – J.D. Salinger*
Dispatches from the Edge – Anderson Cooper*
The Last of the Mohicans – James Fenimore Cooper
Hannah Fowler – Janice Holt Giles
Shane – Jack Schaefer
Sackett’s Land – Louis L’Amour
Slow Learner – Thomas Pynchon*
Billy Ray’s Farm – Larry Brown
An Hour Before Daylight – Jimmy Carter
When God Was a Woman – Merlin Stone*
Mrs. Dalloway – Virginia Woolf
Ulysses (in progress) – James Joyce
Father and Son (in progress) - Larry Brown
Fantomina – Eliza Haywood
My Ántonia – Willa Cather
Everything You Always Wanted to Know About God – Eric Metaxes
Sundance Choice: Short Stories of the American South - Various
Big Bad Love (in progress) – Larry Brown
The Study of American Folklore – Harold Brunvand
The Pursuit of History – John Tosh
Heritage and Challenge: The History and Theory of History – Paul Conkin and Roland Stromberg
Proverbs
Joshua
Judges
Ruth
1 Samuel
2 Samuel
1 Kings

* - Get your tail off the internet and to the nearest bookstore to read this one! It's been waiting on you.

Maybe I'll comment later on a few of them. For now, I'm hungry and I want some breakfast.