Nicholas Carr of the The Atlantic has an interesting article on what the internet is doing to our brains.

And what the Net seems to be doing is chipping away my capacity for concentration and contemplation. My mind now expects to take in information the way the Net distributes it: in a swiftly moving stream of particles. Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski.

True or not? How has instant access to vast stores of information changed your expectations? your way of life?

Popularity: 15% [?]

Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

Writing to “average people” about Christianity, Dorothy Sayers wrote:

The only letter I ever want to address to average people is one that says: Why don’t you take the trouble to find out what is Christianity and what isn’t? Why, when you can better yourself to learn technical terms about electricity, won’t you do as much for theology before you begin to argue?

Why do you never read either the ancient or the modern authorities in the subject, but take your information for the most part from biologists and physicists who have picked it up as inaccurately as yourselves? Why do you accept mildewed old heresies as bold and constructive contributions to modern thought when any handbook on Church History would tell you where they came from?

Why do you complain that the proposition that God is three-in-one is obscure and mystical and yet acquiesce meekly in the physicist’s fundamental formula, “2P-PQ equals IH over 2 Pi where I equals the square root of minus 1,” when you know quite well that the square root of minus 1 is paradoxical and Pi is incalculable?

What makes you suppose that the expression “God ordains” is narrow and bigoted whereas the expressions “nature provides” or “science demands” are objective statements of fact?

You would be ashamed to know as little about internal combustion as you do about beliefs. I admit that you can practice Christianity without knowing much about theology, just as you can drive a car without understanding internal combustion. But if something breaks down in the car, you humbly go to the man who understands the works, whereas if something goes wrong with religion you merely throw the creed away and tell the theologian he is a liar.

Why do you want a letter from me telling you about God? You will never bother to check up on it and find out whether I am giving you a personal opinion or the Church’s doctrine. Go away and do some work.

Yours very sincerely,

Dorothy L. Sayers

I found this letter attributed to Dorothy Sayers in a 1964 paper by William Greenlee on “Reference and Research in a Theological Library” (American Theological Library Association Summary of Proceedings. 18: 70-79). I may post some observations in the coming days about how research in a theological library has changed in the last forty years, but today I thought I would reproduce this letter to “average people.” Greenlee attributes Geddes MacGregor, Introduction to Religious Philosophy, (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1959), pp. 11-12, which I have verified, but MacGregor in turn gives no citation of his source.

Popularity: 18% [?]

Quotes, Uncategorized | No Comments »

The LibraryThing Blog turned up at #991 on the Bloglines Top 1000 RSS feeds today. “Movin’ on up… to the big time…”

Popularity: 75% [?]

Uncategorized | No Comments »

Warning: shameless plug to follow.

Our library will be hosting a 2-hour seminar and demonstration on advanced searching with Google and other search engines on November 7, at 10:00am. This is the first of many such seminars on topics ranging from database usage to research methods, but we thought we would start with something that would draw students in. If you are a student in the Boyce College or Southern Seminary community, please feel free to attend. Please respond via the Facebook event or send me an email so we can plan accordingly.

Popularity: 46% [?]

Uncategorized | 5 Comments »

I’ve seen a lot of fences in the last few days. Those pretty fences one only sees in Kentucky’s horse country: flat stones stacked waist-high, with perpendicular ones laid along the top. Something about that is attractive to me: permanence, boundaries, strength.

One of my favorite poems by Robert Frost is his “Mending Wall,” which begins with the famous line, “Something there is that doesn’t love a wall.” He’s right. Walls deteriorate and require work to keep up. I think, though, that when it comes to human relationships, even the most intimate of relationships, walls are natural and require continuous work to tear down.

In Frost’s poem, two neighbors meet every Spring to walk the length of the fence that divides them and, keeping the fence between them, they repair the stones that have fallen from the wall over the course of the year. One neighbor is convinced that “good fences make good neighbors.” The other, however, is not convinced:

Before I built a wall I’d ask to know

What I was walling in or walling out,

And to whom I was like to give offence.

Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,

That wants it down.

We can debate the extent to which walls make good neighbors. There can be no debate, however, that they make for terrible marriages. My wife and I have just returned from our yearly retreat with the sole purpose of toppling walls, and I am reminded that I have the most patient and longsuffering wife on the planet. Here’s to open fields, sweetheart. May it always remain so.

I promised Barbara Napier, the host and incredible gourmet of the beautiful, relaxing, and ambrosial Snug Hollow Farm Bed and Breakfast, that I would offer some cyber-kudos for her hospitality. Thanks, Barbara!

Popularity: 36% [?]

Poetry, Uncategorized | No Comments »