Walking in the Light

Musings from a son of the Father

Just dropping in an update. Life is good, everything is going well. Here are some highlights:

Though the scale infuriatingly refuses to acknowledge any loss of actual weight, I am fitting into clothes I haven’t fit in since Freshman year of college, which feels good. The workout plan I’m on is Nate Green’s Built for Show, and I highly recommend it for guys. It’s not the gimmicky, “6 weeks to being Adonis!” crap that most workout books advertise (*cough* Mackie Shilstone *cough*). Instead, it’s a legit, year-long workout plan. I suspect that the beauty is not so much in the workouts themselves as getting you to the gym 3 days a week for a year. In any case, his workouts are fast, hard, and effective. Furthermore, I just switched to phase 2 and did the first phase 2 workout last night and today I’m so sore I feel like I just had rough sex with a wild stallion. In this scenario, I was the woman.

Work has been work. Come in, handle some claims, make some phone calls, strike some deals, then spend the day reading Fall of Giants on my Kindle, waiting for those golden LSAT scores to come in. Speaking of which…

My current book is Fall of Giants by Ken Follett. Some of you may recognize him as the author of one of my all-time favorite books, The Pillars of the Earth. The man is a master of storytelling and character development. I’m not quite halfway through the book and I am totally enchanted by the characters and their lives. As a boon, the novel is historical fiction set during WWI, and it’s been fascinating to learn more about the real-life circumstances surrounding “the other world war”.

Anyway, this blog is the result of an utter lack of topic ideas. Hopefully my muse will return soon and I’ll be able to pump out something interesting. Until then, stay strong guys.

So I know not that many of you (read: none of you) who read this blog are very familiar with Magic: the Gathering, but I was so excited about this card that I had to write about it. But before I get to the card, let me rewind it back a little bit.

This card that I’m about to talk about came out of the gates with a moderate amount of hype before it was generally agreed that the card was not very good. It’s value plummeted from $15 a piece to $2 a piece on a good day. I have always loved this card and have ALWAYS tried to find a way to play with it, but in the previous format, the consensus was right – the card just wasn’t good enough.

In response to the new format after the last block rotated out, I decided to try my hand at brewing a deck of my own. This was my first real foray into the world of deck building, and I was really anxious to try to put one together that was both entirely of my own devising and actually good. Of course, given the wide-open nature of the game currently, I thought this would be a great time to try out my girl, Admonition Angel:

She is the stone nuts. I won’t get into the specifics of why she’s so great within the context of the game, but just the picture will be enough for me to explain that Admonition Angel represents pretty much everything I love about Magic: the Gathering.

I mean, look at her. Have you ever seen a more badass angel? That girl is b-core (that’s Baumgartner-core, for those not in the know). The art is super epic, and the flavor (fantasy element) of the card is really winning.

Check it – first off, she’s in a Cathedral. Home girl is Catholic. Score. Second, see that halo AROUND her head? In the story, the angels of Zendikar have these halos because the bright light shields them from seeing anything impure. It does, of course, allow holiness to shine through. Third – check out that sword. Need I say more? This one has taken down countless hordes of demons with that sword. Like I said, guys – Stone. Nuts.

I’m pretty sure Admonition Angel boasts my absolute favorite art in the game.

Finally, this is one of the really interesting elements of Magic: the Gathering. I know this is lame and corny and incredibly dweebish, but sometimes, Magic actually helps call me to holiness. Art like Admonition Angel really stirs something in me – that deep and ingrained desire to participate in this epic fight. It helps to remind me that the fight we’re all in *is* epic, in the first place – and that’s something that I know I forget about a lot of the time. This stuff calls me to prayer. What more can you ask from a game?

By the way, in case you were wondering, my deck actually is sick. I’ve top 4’ed the last 3 weeks with it. Pro Tour, here I come!


So, as most of you are no doubt aware, I’ve taken the LSAT. It’s been a long road and a long time coming, but this Saturday I actually showed up on time and took that behemoth down. I won’t know my scores until January 10, but I’ve experienced a strange phenomenon that began immediately, despite the delay in the receipt of my scores:

I have senioritis again.

Okay, so it’s technically not senioritis since I’m not a senior in any sense of the word, but it feels *extremely* similar to senioritis. Let me explain.

I’m really tired of my job. I’m tired of coming to work every morning, and being chained here for 8-9 hours a day while I listen to people whine about some little inconvenience for which they want to be unfairly compensated. It’s tiring. It’s frustrating. And it makes me feel like I’m wasting my time. Working 8-5 like this has really made me realize how valuable my time is, and spending each day watching it burn away is really, really hard for me. It’s even worse knowing that this is so temporary – I have no intention of sticking with my current job for any length of time. In fact, I don’t plan on sticking with it past this summer. But I have to stay with it, or else I’ll be totally broke. I’m beginning to understand what it means to be a slave to money, and it sucks, guys. It sucks bad.

I have no motivation to perform at work anymore. I get here in the morning and try to figure out how I can entertain myself until work is out, all the while doing enough “work” to seem productive. To make matters worse, I’ve address the issue of my lack of work with my supervisor, who has done nothing to change anything.

Every minute that I spend writing a pointless claim review, every minute that I spend talking on the phone to a moron who cut his own finger at a restaurant and wants money for it – all I can think about is that every minute is one minute closer to being out of this job forever.

Don’t get me wrong. I definitely feel a certain amount of gratitude for the fact that I even *have* a job in times like this. And as jobs go, this one is definitely not the worst. It’s just not for me. Nothing about it makes my heart feel fulfilled.


So I’m counting the days, guys, until I can get out, say goodbye to this place, and start the new chapter of my life – the one that actually leads somewhere.

The Blessed Virgin Compared to the Air We Breathe

Wild air, world-mothering air,
Nestling me everywhere,
That each eyelash or hair
Girdles; goes home betwixt
The fleeciest, frailest-flixed
Snowflake; that ’s fairly mixed
With, riddles, and is rife
In every least thing’s life;
This needful, never spent,
And nursing element;
My more than meat and drink,
My meal at every wink;
This air, which, by life’s law,
My lung must draw and draw
Now but to breathe its praise,
Minds me in many ways
Of her who not only
Gave God’s infinity
Dwindled to infancy
Welcome in womb and breast,
Birth, milk, and all the rest
But mothers each new grace
That does now reach our race—
Mary Immaculate,
Merely a woman, yet
Whose presence, power is
Great as no goddess’s
Was deemèd, dreamèd; who
This one work has to do—
Let all God’s glory through,
God’s glory which would go
Through her and from her flow
Off, and no way but so.

I say that we are wound
With mercy round and round
As if with air: the same
Is Mary, more by name.
She, wild web, wondrous robe,
Mantles the guilty globe,
Since God has let dispense
Her prayers his providence:
Nay, more than almoner,
The sweet alms’ self is her
And men are meant to share
Her life as life does air.
If I have understood,
She holds high motherhood
Towards all our ghostly good
And plays in grace her part
About man’s beating heart,
Laying, like air’s fine flood,
The deathdance in his blood;
Yet no part but what will
Be Christ our Saviour still.
Of her flesh he took flesh:
He does take fresh and fresh,
Though much the mystery how,
Not flesh but spirit now
And makes, O marvellous!
New Nazareths in us,
Where she shall yet conceive
Him, morning, noon, and eve;
New Bethlems, and he born
There, evening, noon, and morn—
Bethlem or Nazareth,
Men here may draw like breath
More Christ and baffle death;
Who, born so, comes to be
New self and nobler me
In each one and each one
More makes, when all is done,
Both God’s and Mary’s Son.
Again, look overhead
How air is azurèd;
O how! nay do but stand
Where you can lift your hand
Skywards: rich, rich it laps
Round the four fingergaps.
Yet such a sapphire-shot,
Charged, steepèd sky will not
Stain light. Yea, mark you this:
It does no prejudice.
The glass-blue days are those
When every colour glows,
Each shape and shadow shows.
Blue be it: this blue heaven
The seven or seven times seven
Hued sunbeam will transmit
Perfect, not alter it.
Or if there does some soft,
On things aloof, aloft,
Bloom breathe, that one breath more
Earth is the fairer for.
Whereas did air not make
This bath of blue and slake
His fire, the sun would shake,
A blear and blinding ball
With blackness bound, and all
The thick stars round him roll
Flashing like flecks of coal,
Quartz-fret, or sparks of salt,
In grimy vasty vault.
So God was god of old:
A mother came to mould
Those limbs like ours which are
What must make our daystar
Much dearer to mankind;
Whose glory bare would blind
Or less would win man’s mind.
Through her we may see him
Made sweeter, not made dim,
And her hand leaves his light
Sifted to suit our sight.
Be thou then, O thou dear
Mother, my atmosphere;
My happier world, wherein
To wend and meet no sin;
Above me, round me lie
Fronting my froward eye
With sweet and scarless sky;
Stir in my ears, speak there
Of God’s love, O live air,
Of patience, penance, prayer:
World-mothering air, air wild,
Wound with thee, in thee isled,
Fold home, fast fold thy child.

Gerard Manley Hopkins

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