Robotics

I'd like to make one of these, or one similar by the end of this summer.

The Translation of the Relics of St. John Chrysostom

January 27, 2013 is the feast of the translation of the relics of St. John Chrysostom from the place of his exile and death back to Constantinople in 438 A.D..

For this particular feast there were extra readings from the Old Testament at Vespers the night before.  There was something about the third reading in particular which stood out to me.  It was from the Wisdom of Solomon (selections from Proverbs and the Wisdom of Solomon actually).

(Prov. 29:2; Wis. 4:1, 14; 6:11, 17-18, 21-23; 7:15-16, 21-22, 26-27, 29; 10:9-10, 12; 7:30; 1:8; 2:1, 10-17, 19-22; 15:1; 16:13; Prov. 3:34)

"When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice; but when the wicked rule, the people groan. Better than this is childlessness with virtue, for in the memory of virtue is immortality, because it is known both by God and by men. For his soul was pleasing to the Lord; therefore He took him quickly from the midst of wickedness. Therefore, set your desire on my words; long for them, and you will be instructed. The beginning of wisdom is the most sincere desire for instruction, and concern for instruction is love of her, and love of her is the keeping of her laws, and giving heed to her laws is assurance of immortality. Therefore, if you delight in thrones and scepters, O monarchs over the peoples, honor wisdom, that you may reign forever. I will tell you what wisdom is and how she came to be, and I will hide no secrets from you, but I will trace her course from the beginning of creation, and make knowledge of her clear, and I will not pass by the truth; neither will I travel in the company of sickly envy, for envy does not associate with wisdom. May God grant that I speak with judgment and have thought worthy of what I have received, for He is the guide even of wisdom and the corrector of the wise. For both we and our words are in His hand, as are all understanding and skill in crafts. I learned both what is secret and what is manifest, for wisdom, the fashioner of all things, taught me. For in her there is a spirit that is intelligent, holy, unique, manifold, subtle, mobile, clear, unpolluted, distinct, invulnerable, loving the good, keen, and irresistible. She is a reflection of eternal light, a spotless mirror of the working of God, and an image of His goodness. Though she is but one, she can do all things, and while remaining in herself, she renews all things; in every generation she passes into holy souls and makes them friends of God, and prophets. She is more beautiful than the sun, and excels every constellation of the stars. Compared with the light she is found to be superior.  Wisdom rescued from troubles those who served her.  When a righteous man fled from his brother’s wrath, she guided him on straight paths; she showed him the Kingdom of God, and gave him knowledge of angels; she prospered him in his labors, and increased the fruit of his toil.  She protected him from his enemies, and kept him safe from those who lay in wait for him; in his arduous contest she gave him the victory, so that he might learn that godliness is more powerful than anything. It is succeeded by the night, but against wisdom evil does not prevail. Therefore, no one who utters unrighteous things will escape notice; and justice, when it punishes, will not pass him by. For they reasoned unsoundly, saying to themselves, “Short and sorrowful is our life, and there is no remedy when a man comes to his end, and no one has been known to return from Hades. Let us oppress the righteous poor man; let us not spare the widow nor regard the gray hairs of the aged. But let our might be our law of right, for what is weak proves itself to be useless. Let us lie in wait for the righteous man, because he is inconvenient to us and opposes our actions; he reproaches us for sins against the law, and accuses us of sins against our training. He professes to have knowledge of God, and calls himself a child of the Lord. He became to us a reproof of our thoughts; the very sight of him is a burden to us, because his manner of life is unlike that of others, and his ways are strange. We are considered by him as something base, and he avoids our ways as unclean; he calls the last end of the righteous happy, and boasts that God is his father. Let us see if his words are true, and let us test what will happen at the end of his life. Let us test him with insult and torture that we may find out how gentle he is, and make trial of his forbearance. Let us condemn him to a shameful death, for, according to what he says, he will be protected.” Thus they reasoned, but they were led astray, for their wickedness blinded them, and they did not know the secret purposes of God, nor hope for the wages of holiness, nor discern the prize for blameless souls. But Thou, our God, art kind and true, patient, and ruling all things in mercy. For Thou hast power over life and death; Thou dost lead men down to the gates of Hades and back again. Toward the scorners He is scornful, but to the humble He shows favor."

The section in bold draws out the attitude of secular authority towards St. John Chrysostom during his life time.  It is also applicable to our own times in that we are being constantly persecuted.  Monies are taken from us by force and used to fund social programs that violate our Christian conscience.  Granted, many of the things that our taxes support are good and should be paid for, but the government forces us to give a portion of our income to support things in our society that  we know are wrong.

Our freedom of speech is trampled upon.  It is frowned upon to question abortion, forms of birth-control that abort the child, and the modern definition of what constitutes a married couple among other things.  In some cases this questioning of society can be defined as hate-speech and result in severe fines.  That being said, mutual respect and clean language go a long way to facilitating dialogue, however, simply because one side or the other is verbally caustic does not mean that their right to free speech should be curtailed.  The right to free speech is one of the bases upon which democracy rests.  It has been thrown out of the window and replaced with the tyrannical rule of the majority in these cases.  This situation causes me no little anxiety.

It is a reality not just of Christianity, but also of philosophers.  Those who question society have a history of being persecuted, and in many cases killed.  Socrates comes to mind.  If this situation persists and a militant form of atheism becomes the guiding force behind our society we can only expect more of this in greater severity.

And what response should we offer to this testing of our patience?  St. Paul says in his second Epistle to the Corinthians 4:7-12, 16-18

"But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us.  We are hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not foresaken; struck down but not destroyed- always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body.  For we who live are always delivered to death for Jesus' sake, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh.  So then death is working in us, but life in you.  ...Therefore we do not lose heart.  Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day.  For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen.  For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal."

This suffering is but for a moment and it will pass away.  Through our suffering we are able to die to the world and come alive to Christ thus entering into His suffering, death, and glorious resurrection.

Pride and Prejudice

Yesterday I began reading Pride and Prejudice for the second time.

One thing that I noticed that I thought interesting this time is the way in which Jane Austen compares the two romances of Jane-Mr. Bingley and Eliza-Mr. Darcy.  

Mr. Bingley has a tendency to be uncritical of people and situations.  Some might call it naive, but I noticed something several years ago that led me to question that assumption.  In situations where a person is constantly treated as if they are flawed, it tends to increase the severity and occurrence of that flaw.

The situation that I noticed was a marked influence on a person's behaviour based on the expectations of the people around them.  The way in which it manifested itself was that if Earl had some character flaw and all that Bob ever expected from Earl was that flaw, it created a moral vortex from which it was almost impossible for Earl to escape from.

Any small step that Earl might take towards fixing his character flaw (or small stumble as is more likely) would immediately be either laughed at by Bob thus creating a negative experience for Earl whenever he tried to break his habit.  Earl in the face of this unrelenting pessimism would focus his attention on his brokenness and tread-water in an ocean of guilt and shame.

The previous example is a hyperbole and does not happen to that degree of severity very often.  However, it would not be hard to associate a constant negative and generally pessimistic attitude by another person to one's flaws to result in a certain amount of apathy and unwillingness to try to improve one's condition.

The opposite is also true.  If someone encourages and is generally optimistic about one then it can be incredibly motivating to try and better oneself.  

Don Quixote Part 1

So begins the study of the classics.

Don Quixote was not the type of book that I had thought it would be.  I had imagined that he and Sancho Panza waltzed around the countryside wreaking havoc with little harm to themselves.  The reality is that whatever damage they do to others, after most of the adventures in this first part they are thrashed within an inch of their lives.  Even Don Quixote's miserable horse Rozinante is not spared, being drubbed with staves until he could not remain standing.

The beginnings of these rather inauspicious adventures is the reading of many books on chivalry by the esteemed Don Quixote of La Mancha.  He becomes increasingly obsessed with the subject to the point that he sells parcels of his land to obtain and read more books. He was particularly taken with the writings of one, Feliciano de Silva.

One day, at 50 years of age, he decided that he must become a knight-errant and roam the countryside righting wrongs.  He cobbled together a pitiful helmet, an ancient set of armour and lance, and a flea-bitten horse.

The first wrong that he "rights" ends up in the person he saves being flayed three times harder than he originally was going to be.  This is a recurring theme in Don Quixote.  The people he helps either end up being in a worse situation then they would have been in or they are unjustly attacked by Don Quixote because he has mistaken them for vile villains.

Throughout his travels he repeatedly mistakes inns for castles, innkeepers for lords, and innkeepers' daughters for beautiful damsels.

Eventually, after wreaking havoc across the countryside he travels to a deserted valley to escape from the Brotherhood (a religious organization responsible for maintaining law and order).  While in this valley Don Quixote decides to do penance until the woman of his amorous intentions, a lusty maiden whom he names Dulcinea de Toboso, releases him from his self-inflicted punishment by promising to be his beloved.  To make Dulcinea aware of his predicament Don Quixote sends Sancho Panza to bring a letter to her.  Sancho promptly forgets the letter and sets off without it.

When Sancho is about halfway to the the "damsel" he meets with two men from their village.  When he tells them of Don Quixote's predicament they immediately set out to find him.  Many adventures and some fairly interesting subplots later, they arrive at Don Quixote's home.

There they decide to leave him until he recovers from his delusions.  Unfortunately this is not to be.  Don Quixote is as mad as ever and plans to leave with Sancho Panza if they are afforded the meagrest  of opportunities.

This madness of Quixote's is a curious form of delusion.  The effects of it to distort reality in his mind occur only where knight-errantry is involved.  In everything else he is very well reasoned and articulate.  Indeed, he is so erudite as to be the superior in knowledge and wisdom to all other well-educated people in the story.  It is this one fantasy he has that corrupts and complicates his life: that he is a knight-errant and must right wrongs.

Thus ends the first part of Don Quixote.

Bookshelves for Bachelors

Being a bibliophile often leads to hardship in the form of limited space.  Bookshelves become an essential part of our lives.  This can easily lead to large expenditures of capital for inferior bookshelves that do not stand up to moving very well.

There is also the further problem that if you are a bachelor, like yours truly, you will probably be leading a semi-nomadic lifestyle until you cease being a bachelor.  This transient form of existence can lead to difficulties when moving as financially affordable bookcases are also notoriously flimsy not to mention being large and bulky.

The link below describes the construction of a modular bookshelf that, while fairly expensive in materials, would be very handy for moving.

Woodwright Bookshelves

Some thoughts on the subject of Art

One of the books that I am reading at the moment is called "The Story of Art" written by E.H.J. Gombrich.  It is an introductory history of art starting from around 15,000 B.C. until present day and so far it has been very interesting.

There is one point that Gombrich makes in his introduction that I found slightly odd though.  The point that he is trying to make I agree with, but the illustration was poorly chosen.

His argument is as follows.  Art is often rejected because it is unconventional.  The illustration that he uses for this is a situation that arose in 1602 A.D. over the work of a young Italian painter by the name of Caravaggio.  He had been commissioned to write a painting of St. Matthew for the wall behing the altar of a church in Rome.

The first painting that he did can be seen below.  It depicts St. Matthew anxiously grasping the book with his left hand while his right is being guided by a boyish angel.  This painting created quite a stir in Rome at the time and Caravaggio had to paint another version along more "conventional" lines.

(The original was burned in WWII.  We only have black and white photos of it now.)

The replacement painting that Caravaggio made can be seen below.  It follows the conventional tradition of religious painting that was prevalent at that time in Rome. 

 Gombrich holds that for this second painting "the outcome is still quite a good picture... but we feel that it is less honest and sincere than the first had been." (pg. 31, "The Story of Art" by E.H.J. Gombrich)  According the him, something was lost in forcing Caravaggio to conform to conventional ideals rather than to fully express his creative abilities as an artist.

The reason that I do not agree with Gombrich's use of this illustration is that there is something else at play in it that he either does not know about, or has chosen to ignore.  Religious art is something quite different from art proper, and serves a different purpose.

Religious art exists to teach theology, to raise humans hearts and minds from earthly things to contemplate heavenly things.  Therefore, art which does not exemplify heavenly things is not worthy of putting into a church.  It does not perform the purpose for which it is intended.

The rejection of Caravaggio's first painting had nothing to do with its unconventionality, but rather with its lack of appropriateness for use in church. 

There are several possible reasons for the author's apparent blunder.  He does not know of the nature of religious art and the purposes for which it is used, particularly several hundred years ago.  However, this I think is unlikely given the amount of knowledge which this author has of art in general.

Another possible reason is that he does not believe that religious art needs to, or should have any other purpose than art in general.  Therefore anything that rejects it because it is unconventional is committing an error, even if those reasons are legitimate religious concerns.

These are simply speculations though.  Until I read more of his work I will not be able to understand why he used Caravaggio's St. Matthew to illustrate his point.

Carvaggio's first painting is quite nice and beautifully executed, as is his second.  The first is simply inappropriate for use in a church, while the second has those qualities necessary that the first lacked.

I do agree with Gombrich's basic premise though. Art, in general and not including religious art, is often rejected because it is unconventional. Art should not be rejected simply because it is unconventional. It should be rejected if it is obscene, ugly, chaotic, and of no purpose other than to elicit a gag reaction.

P.S.

From an Orthodox perspective, even his replacement painting lacks the essential qualities of a religious painting or icon.  Orthodox iconography is a completely different form of art than any other.  The focus of the icons, the way in which figures are portrayed, and the colours are all different.  This is for a very specific reason, partially because many people were illiterate, and the icons were a way of educating them, and many because an icon is a manifestation of something eternal, of something beyond human experience.  Therefore it is necessary to use art forms that are different to allow the mind to transcend the human experience and contemplate eternity.

A good explanation of the various functions that Orthodox iconography can be found at the link below:

The Functions of Icons

Ginger Wine for Christmas

Today my grandfather and I bottled our first batch of wine together.  It is a fairly small batch of 8 gallons or so.  Originally we had planned on making blackberry wine, but it did not turn out well.  We must have not properly cleaned some of the equipment, and as a result, it failed to ferment and grew some fairly funky looking mold.

Undaunted by early failures we soldiered ahead with ginger wine, and it has turned out quite nicely.  The recipe we followed used a large ginger root, chopped raisins, and corn sugar.  Apparently, the raisins are used to give the wine some body otherwise it tastes quite weak.

My grandfather has memories of his grandmother, my great-great-grandmother, making different types of wine (ginger being a Christmas favourite).  So we decided to make it for this Christmas as the maturation period is only two to three months.

I have been considering growing my own ginger plant this coming year as the fresher the root is, the better the wine is (and probably more potent as far as its medicinal properties are concerned).

Here's link to the recipe that we used:
Ginger Wine Recipe