Hostile Legacy

My New Guitar

Santeyio — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 13:58:09 +0000

My new guitar came in the mail yesterday.

Love

Santeyio — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 17:26:46 +0000

I sure wish I was loving. But I have a long ways to go.

Love is patient,
Love is kind and is not jealous;
Love does not brag and is not arrogant,
Does not act unbecomingly;
Does not seek its own,
Is not provoked,
Does not take into account a wrong suffered,
Does not rejoice in unrighteousness but rejoices with the truth;
Bears ALL things,
Believes ALL things,
Hopes ALL things,
Endures ALL things…
Love never fails.
Ever.
Everything else will fail…
But love will not.
Ever.

Danny Boy

Santeyio — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 00:35:11 +0000

So, Grace asked me to do Danny Boy yesterday night. So I listened to it, practiced it a little tonight and did a rough one-shot recording. Here you are. If anyone else has requests, feel free. I am, by the way, working away on my new CD as much as time allows. The first bit is a little pitchy, but otherwise it turned out ok for the most part.

Download

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Dies Irae

Santeyio — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 03:19:44 +0000

Dies Irae. That's Latin (dee-ays ee-ray with the r rolled). It means the day of wrath. There's a famous old hymn that goes by this title. Perhaps it isn't so famous these days, but if we're speaking historically (and anyone who reads my blog at all knows I'm *always* speaking historically), it's been popular since when it was written in the 1200s. It's extremely long… somewhere around 20 stanzas if I remember correctly. There's also a popular English translation (I think it was written for the Anglican liturgy… again, if memory serves me properly which it very well may not). I'm particularly fond of both versions, and actually one of the new songs on my album uses the Latin for the lyrics. But enough with the unecessary chatter, let me get to the point. The first stanza goes thus:

Day of wrath, O day of mourning,
See fulfilled the prophets warning,
Heaven and earth in ashes burning.

I highly reccomend you read the whole thing, but I'll leave that up to your discretion. Here's a link if you are so inclined to take my humble advice. It would be well worth your while. http://www.cyberhymnal.org/htm/d/a/daywrath.htm

I shall content myself with commentating on the first line of the hymn.

so a few days ago, I was sitting around for a while in a chair with nothing in particular to do. After a while I had the brilliant idea of writing with the pen in my pocket on my arm. So I proceeded to do so. I wrote:

DIES IRAE,
DIES ILLA.

The day of wrath, O that day. As you can perhaps tell from the first stanze I put in here, the hymn is about judgement day. I've been walking around with Dies Irae, Dies Illa written on my arm now for a while. And every time I look at my arm I'm reminded of judgement day. It's actually been a very sobering experience for me… surprisingly so. What a fearful day it will be… and I do so many things every day without thinking about their eternal significance. Will my words justify me on that day? Will my actions? Jesus says by thy words thou shalt be justified and by thy words thou shalt be condemned. Will I have lived a life under grace when that day rolls around? Will I have lived in love to all men with compassion towards all men?

I wonder about that. It's so easy to make excuses in my mind… or to push off responsibility. And yet somehow, despite myself and my weakness, I know that I'm following my master. Perhaps not perfectly, perhaps stumbling and slowing down at various times, but I'm moving after him. And that gives me comfort. I trust that God will and even is now purifying me and shining his light through me, even if only dimly. I put my trust in grace all around me, underneath me, running in a current over me, carrying me. On that day of wrath I hope with all my spirit that God will smile upon me and not frown.

Stars

Santeyio — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 19:18:34 +0000

Life has been interesting lately. I usually make it a habit not to discuss personal matters on this blog… or if I do to keep it to an absolute minimum. Life has been very interesting these days. I feel like I've changed a lot since… well… I don't even know. I guess I feel I've changed a lot over these past months, over the summer and during the beginning of this school year so far. I don't really mean change in a bad way either, I guess I've matured a lot. Perhaps that sounds conceited, and maybe it is, but I don't mean that I've grown smarter, stronger, wiser (though perhaps in an ironic way I have). I think I'm learning how dumb, foolish, rebellious, dissatisfied, selfish, weak I am and always have been. And I don't mean to just bash myself for the sake of humility. I will grant you I've never been the worst of the bad in any of these areas, and that fact holds true to this day.

People will tend to look up to certain people. To a small extent, I've had people looking up to me for most of my life, more so in these past two years or so than before. I think I've realized that (perhaps exaggeratedly), and it's subtly influenced my perception of myself. I think that's one of the things that's contributed to some of my overbearing pride at times… if some look up to me, then aren't I worthy of being looked up to? Mustn't they see something of consequence? I think that's been my reasoning up to now. And in a sense, I need people to value me so that I can value myself, that's something I've definitely found. But I've begun to realize something that's been troubling me more and more.

When people find any thing or person with some good qualities, they will tend to distort its goodness and cover over in their mind it's faults and imperfections. It's almost random the things that get chosen to be looked up to. And somehow, after the dice were rolled, I got chosen as one of those people. It's something that's been bearing heavily on my shoulders, because I've begun to realize that I'm responsible for a lot more than just my actions, thoughts, and behaviors. I'm also responsible for the ways that all the former affect those around me. And that can be a very heavy burden to bear at times, especially when it's not merit that's deciding who to elevate.

I wonder sometimes how much responsibility we bear for our actions. I guess my conclusion as of now has been that practically speaking, we all have to shoulder the full weight of our actions and choices. I guess that's when God's grace takes on a new meaning. I find new meaning in grace as I see my own failure more clearly. I guess that sounds horribly cliche. Maybe it's because it is cliche. But it's true. And I guess maybe it can be hard to understand until one actually experiences it. But when all seems dull and gray, despondent and cloudy, downhill and depressed, I guess I have to believe that there is hope. I go outside before I go to bed at night, and I stand out back in the field and look up at the stars. On a clear night they're so bright and radiant and full of hope, I can almost hear them singing. After watching the stars for a few minutes, I can't help but feel hope stealing over my heart, no matter what I've been feeling the rest of the day. There's something indescribably beautiful about them. It feels like I can almost see God… and I know beyond any doubt that he's present everywhere, sometimes silent, but still there. Watching softly. Smiling.

Television

Santeyio — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 03:30:06 +0000

Here's a brief not well-worked over essay I wrote just now… it's about that book I quoted from a few posts ago, "Amusing Ourselves to Death."

    Aquaducts can carry water, but not mud or electricity. Dump trucks can transport mud, but while they might be able to carry water as well, they cannot do so nearly as efficiently as aquaducts. Postman makes the case that different media or mediums (for example speech, typography, television) in a culture affect what he terms 'public discourse.' Public Discourse is essentially the culture-wide discussion, dwelling upon, and debating of ideas, so Postman argues that the main media of communication that a culture uses will define the ideas that can be discussed.

    While the fact that aquaducts can carry water and not mud seems fairly obvious, it is far less obvious in my own mind that TV, the media on which Postman centers his discussion, can communicate some ideas while having severe limitations communicating others. Television carries entertainment, Postman says, and backs this up with several valid reasons. When spiritual, religious, political, social, or other ideas that are very serious in nature are attempted at being conveyed through the medium of television, which is one of entertainment, these things must become watered down, chopped up, cooked down before they can be viewed as entertainment. This is desensitization at its very worst. Because serious ideas are distorted by the main media of a culture into entertainment, the general public conception of these things, the 'public discourse' if you will, becomes one of triviality. For that is what entertainment is: trivial. It does not affect our lives practically, besides eating up time, when we seek entertainment in ideas and institutions that are meant to be practical in influencing the way we live, think, walk, talk.

    I very much appreciated Postman's words and insight on TV and media and how they affect public discourse. I'm very much fascinated by the idea that different media can communicate different things and not others… it makes me wonder about the internet and what sort of a media it's turning out to be. Granted, Postman's discussion about American society heading down irresistibly towards the depths of a TV saturated culture are somewhat outdated in that society is no longer heading in that direction. But I still see value in his discussion of media in general and the huge affect they have on culture and public discourse. It is a good thing to be aware of what sorts of things shape our minds and how they work and what sorts of affects they have on our thinking and ability to process and percieve.

Sin

Santeyio — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 00:21:38 +0000

This was posted on the rebelution blog, which I'm subscribed to in my blogger. I don't usually read their posts, but if they post a video I'll start it. His illustration is very good. I don't normally post videos, but this one was pretty good.

Are Clocks Evil?

Santeyio — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 16:42:21 +0000

"so do you think it is wrong to know the time? would it be better not to have clocks? how do you think it would be better if we did not focus on time so much?"

In response to my previous post, a friend of mine asked these questions (that's a direct quote from the email). First off, I hope it was clear that the entire previous post was a quote… the blockquote is actually the author of the book quoting another person. I guess I probably should have added some commentary to it… but I was too lazy to do that. I don't necessarily think what I was quoting was correct… necessarily. I just found it thought-provoking.

Do I think it's wrong to know the time? Well… no… I kind of hope it isn't wrong to know the time, because most of the time I *do* know the time, and I'm in fact even concerned with time. That said, I don't really know if knowing the time is wrong. I believe many times culture blinds us to certain faults and sins, and I am not exempt. Perhaps I'm blind to the fact that keeping time by minutes and seconds is sinful. But if that is the case, then I am blind to it, because I can't see that there's anything particularly wrong about knowing the time.

Would it be better not to have clocks? Perhaps, yes… it seems like that might be a beneficial thing. Obviously culture would completely fall apart in first world countries if we did not have clocks and precise time-keeping. So I don't propose that it would be a good idea to just get rid of clocks and distance yourself from society (although that whole monastic idea might be good I guess… but that's a different topic). I don't think it's something that can be changed, or that we can do anything on our part do really remedy the evils of precise time keeping, and I don't think in themselves clocks are absolutely evil. It's just the things that tend to result from a culture keeping exact time that can tend to be negative or bad.

how would it be better if we didn't focus on time so much? Well, I think focusing on time so very precisely makes us incredibly busy, and completely fragments our lives. Because we have to run here, then at exactly this time we have to move there, then at exactly that time we have to do this, and so on and so forth. It fries the mind and takes us away from thoughts of eternity. It disconnects us from God and puts a sense of urgency upon the now, the world. It encourages obsession with worldly things, because time *is* a worldly thing. You can see how this could be very detrimental to a Christian… becoming caught up in the here and now is not conducive at all to setting one's sights on eternity. So I think one of the benefits of not focusing on time so much would be to make getting caught up in this world harder, and getting caught up in eternity easier.

Those are the thoughts off the top of my head. Take them for what they're worth.

Time.

Santeyio — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 13:25:37 +0000

"As Ernst Cassirer remarked:

Physical reality seems to recede in proportion as man's symbolic activity advances. Instead of dealing with the things themselves man is in a sense constantly conversing with himself. He has so enveloped himself in linguistic forms, in artistic images, in mythical symbols or religious rites that he cannot see or know anything except by the interposition of an artificial medium.

What is peculiar about such interpositions of media is that their role in directing what we will see or know is so rarely noticed. A person who reads a book or who watches television or who glances at his watch is not usually interested in how his mind is organized and controlled by these events, still less in what idea of the world is suggested by a book, television, or a watch. But there are men and women who have noticed these things, especially in our own times. Lewis Mumford, for example, has been one of our great noticers. He is not the sort of a man who looks at a clock merely to see what time it is. Not that he lacks interest in the content of clocks, which is of concern to everyone from moment to moment, but he is far more interested in how a clock creates the idea of "moment to moment." He attends to the philosophy of clocks, to clocks as metaphor, about which our education has had little sto say and clock makers nothing at all. "The clock," Mumford has concluded, "is a piece of power machinery whose 'product' is seconds and minutes." In manufacturing such a product, the clock has the effect of disassociating time from human events and thus nourishes the belief in an independent world of mathematically measurable sequences. Moment to moment, it turns out, is not God's conception, ornature's. It is man conversing with himself about and through a piece of machinery he created.

In Mumford's great book Technics and Civilization, he shows how, beginning in the fourteenth century, the clock made us into time-keepers, and then time-savers, and now time-servers. In the process, we have learned irreverence toward the sun and the seasons, for in a world made up of seconds and minutes, the authority of nature is superseded. Indeed, as Mumford points out, with the invention of the clock, Eternity ceased to serve as the measure and focus of human events And thus, though few would have imagined the connection, the inexorable ticking of the clock may have had more to do with the weakening of God's supremacy than all the treatises produced by the philosophers of the Enlightenment; that is to say, the clock introduced a new form of conversation between man and God, in which God appears to have been the loser. Perhaps Moses should have included another Commandment: Thou shalt not make mechanical representations of time. "

~Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death

New CD

Santeyio — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 01:52:16 +0000

As most of you who read my blog know, I love writing music. I've done three cds so far… at least I've collected the songs I've done into three different albums. I've been working on this new one and posting the songs as I go, but I've been rather inspired by my friend Josh putting out an actual CD for people with a case and physical CD and stuff. So I'm going to start working on wrapping up my album and getting case design work done and printed, getting physical cases and CD's, and writing somewhere around 6 more songs. I'm also going to re-work the other songs on the album a little. Maybe re-record some of the singing and stuff to get it a little more on pitch and strong.

I kind of need to know if this is all going to be worth it… I don't want to go to all this work if only five people are going to want a CD, lol. I'm thinking the CD's are going to cost somewhere in the general vicinity of $7, including shipping (i.e. $2 shipping for shipping so $5 if you live around here and can get one directly from me). The price might change depending on how much cases and CD's and printing and whatever other productioni costs I come across. But I'm fairly sure it will be pretty close to $7. Probably it would be paid to my dad's paypal account (or I guess you could mail a check if that was easier).

So if you would be interested in getting a CD at all, send me an email at s-a-n-t-e-y-i-o at gmail dot com so that I can build an email list and keep people updated. I'm thinking the release date is going to be late September or November, depending on how everything turns out.

(Oh, and another incentive would be that I'm not planning on posting the last half of the album's songs on my blog… at least not until after the album is released. I'll keep the ones I have up already there of course.)