A Wednesday in September

It's a lot later than I want it to be. In place of some cohesive post, here are some tidbits from the day.

• The Quest class finished up our reading of Plato's Gorgias this morning. Like Jesus, Mohammad and Confucius, Socrates never wrote anything, but he appears as the central figure in the work of his student Plato. The dialogues in this book present Socrates arguing with three "orators"--Gorgias, Polus and Callicles--in an attempt to understand what constitutes the good and just life. One of my favorite ideas comes from near the end of the book where Socrates makes the argument that in a bad government no individual who is unlike the government can prosper. This is something like Henry David Thoreau's idea that in an unjust society the only place for a just individual is in jail.
• The afternoon was filled with a lot of administrative stuff--enough said.
• The evening brought a chill to the air, making the soup served for the church's Wednesday Night Live! meal seem so appropriate.
• The WNL! class on Speaking of Faith was an interesting one. The particular program--"Conservative Politics and Moderate Religion"--inspired a good deal of discussion. The concern former Missouri senator John Danforth expresses in one part we listened to has to do with the fact that one party, the Republican Party, has allowed itself to be aligned and identified with conservative Christianity. While conservative Christianity in and of itself isn't bad--it keeps a lot of real social ills before us, although Danforth wishes it would do so with more "humility"--its tendency when blended with Republican politics is toward a conservative politician's claiming, "My position is God's position." Certainly in the United States people with other belief systems--Jews and Muslims and atheists, for example--support the Republican political agenda. Where does this party alignment with conservative Christianity leave them? Perhaps the most powerful statement in the program is that "the love commandment"--the commandment regarding love for God and neighbor--"trumps rules." The show ends with the quote from yesterday's blog pointing out the difference between the public display of religion and the private practice of it.
• After a short rehearsal of Sunday morning's music, I came home and flopped in front of the television to watch CSI: New York and Criminal Minds.

Lots more happened today: "Life's a long song" (Ian Anderson and Jethro Tull).


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