Random Bits

Like the title says, this post will be a collection of random bits of thoughts--it seemed an appropriate way to end out the year 2007, by writing a few things which I've had on my mind recently.

First, in a previous post, I discussed the sometimes ambivalent relationship between LDS scholarship and the Song of Songs, in sort of an attempt to illustrate some of the challenges in being an LDS scholar. However, there are a number of high points to being a scholar in the Church, one of which is dealing with topics which the rest of the world doesn't care about. Book of Mormon scholarship, for example. Now I am not necessarily talking about apologetics establishing the ancientness or the uniqueness of the Book of Mormon record (neither, however, am I denigrating apologetics; they serve a valuable purpose). I am talking about social scientific readings into kingship ideology in the Book of Mosiah, or wondering what the text really means when it calls someone a Nephite or Lamanite. This is the kind of scholarship that would bore somebody not invested in the Book of Mormon to utter tears, but is really fun otherwise. I used to sort of poo-poo Book of Mormon scholarship, but being at Oxford has helped me see that I will probably try my hand at it (after I get a little better established), because I discover that I am very interested in the topic.

Second, as my wife said, we traveled to the Tower of London last week, and had a wonderful time (although schlepping my daughter up down Norman stairs in the White Tower got a little old). Ah, how I wished that I had my brother with me then. The White Tower had been used as an armory for a long time, and so currently worked as a museum of arms and armor. There was some pretty cool stuff. Swords and guns and arms and armor and any number of really nifty things. I told my wife that my brother and I used to pick out items in museums like this, with which to outfit ourselves. She, however, seemed unwilling to do the same, so I had pick a pole-arm for myself from the spear rack with nobody to consult. It was sad. I hope someday to properly train up my little daughter so they we can discuss finer points of swords. In the meantime, I had an imaginary dialogue with my brother, in order to establish the proper types of the equipment.

The rest of the Tower of London was pretty neat, too. The Crown Jewels themselves were just stones, but the real neat part was feeling the full weight of the history and the symbolism of the British Monarchy. My wife and I were discussing that often times in the United States we dismiss the Monarchy as being merely a figure-head. What we forget, I think, is the meaning that the figure-heads can have. Partially we are dismissive because we have nothing like in the States, partially because we are taught from a very young age to distrust kingship in any form, equating it with tyranny. However, watching the videos of the coronation of Elizabeth II while waiting in line to see the Jewels themselves, I was struck with the majesty of the office of the Sovereign of the United Kingdom, which, in some ways, the pageantry of coronation and the glitz of the crown jewels are but poor substitutes for. I am not talking, of course, only of the British Monarchy, which is not at all my favorite monarchy. I am only using it is an example, because these musings were inspired by feelings engendered in my breast by contact with the kings and queens of England. I felt somehow, the weight that Elizabeth must have felt when the crown was set upon her head. My close friends are aware that in my heart I am a monarchist (although not necessarily a British monarchist), and so these musings must be taken in that spirit, but suffice it to say that I felt something while waiting in line to see the Crown Jewels (by the time I actually saw the Jewels, the most moving part was over).

Once again, I feel like I've been chasing a thought around my 'blog, without being able to pin it down, but I hope you take it for what it is worth. This is why I have such difficulty writing, because what ends up on the paper is not what is chasing around my head. Neither this 'blog, nor my scholarship, nor my poor essays into fiction are ever as good as I think they ought to be, nor do they shine with the light they do when I try to grasp them at the edge of a dream. I expressed previously that one of the reasons I love Professor Tolkien is because of his belief that writing was an act of sub-creation, that we are exercising the creative power given us by our own great Creator. However, one of the things that I am realizing is how imperfect our ability to create is, when compared with His wonders. As much as I try to capture the beauty of stars, or the power of rage or the excitement I feel from history, or even the majesty I felt in the Tower of London, it all falls short, and I am left to confess that I am only His humble servant, and leave at that. And while thoughts of that sort do wonders for my relationship with my Creator, they don't always leave me wanting to write. But like Jeremiah, I have a fire pent up in my bones, and so I persevere.

I hope you all have a wonderful time these next few days, and I will write again after the turning of the year.

Until then, Excelsior!