http://www.acton.org/publicat/occasionalpapers/rocco.html

"... a person needs quite a lot of human virtues to be able to see resources. First of all, one needs a certain passion for theoretical thought; that is, contemplation. Consider this example from the story of Ulysses and the giant cyclops Polyphemus in Homer's Odyssey: Ulysses and his companions are imprisoned in a hole by the cyclops and are overwhelmed by fear, becoming so passive that Polyphemus is able to take and eat a few of them. Ulysses speaks to his heart-believed to be the organ that controlled passions-and asks it to help. Ulysses then becomes calm as he is freed from the debilitating fear over his personal safety, and when he regains mastery over himself, he is able to see that a nearby pole, when sharpened, may become a weapon against the giant and that the sheep can be used as instruments to get out of the hole. Ulysses can now struggle against the giant-a symbol of nature-because he sees clearly and is no longer blinded by his passions. He can see because he was able to recover his contemplative attitude."

"Browning ... tells us that what won him for Christ was this, that while others tried to soothe his angry conscience, and kept urging that, really, things were not nearly so bad as he was making out, Christ looked him in the eyes and told him bluntly that he was a desperate sinner, worse, much worse, even than he realized. And that, queerly enough as you might think, the man was not discomfited but heartened. Here at last, he felt, is one who understands and knows the facts. And since His desperate diagnosis is so accurate, may not His optimism also justify itself even in me. Well does He know what is in human nature, and yet, knowing the worst, He still has confident hope." --A. J. Gossip (1873-1954), The Galilean Accent (1926)

Indeed, Christ is the ultimate realist, and the ultimate optimist, for he, and he alone, is able to change our sordid reality into glory.

Off to teach in a moment in the city of Guaratingetá, about an hour and a half away, where our brother Jorge has been teaching family members and neighbors. We hope it will develop into another congregation for our region, the third, after SJCampos and Taubaté, to reach the millions between São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro.

As a distraction from work and relaxation, I read works not related to what I do. In the past, I've read Clancy, Grisham, and others of their ilk. Lately, for lack of more modern fiction, I've turned to older authors.

A few weeks ago, I read through the original Alice in Wonderland. Then a play of Ibsen's. Now I'm over halfway through Don Quixote, but I stopped for a while to zip through C.S. Lewis's A Horse and His Boy, which I finished yesterday.

This morning I picked up DQ again. Joel had read an excerpt of his for his school, so I started the unabridged edition, which we have in our home collection. Shortly after that, Joel rented the video, and we watched it at home. That dampened my enthusiasm to finish the book, but I plod on, like a valiant knight errant.

"Here is what we put on the church sign

God made Adam and Eve
Not Adam and Steve

'Nuf said, Manly"