Thomas Whitley

This is what you shall do:
Love the earth and sun and the animals,
Despise riches, give alms to everyone that asks,
Stand up for the stupid and crazy,
Devote your income and labors to others,
Hate tyrants, argue not concerning God,
Have patience and indulgence toward the people,
Take off your hat to nothing known or unknown,
Or to any man or number of men,
Go freely with powerful uneducated persons,
And with the young and with the mothers of families,
Read these leaves in the open air,
Every season of every year of your life,
Reexamine all you have been told,
At school at church or in any book,
Dismiss whatever insults your own soul,
And your very flesh shall be a great poem,
And have the richest fluency not only in its words,
But in the silent lines of its lips and face,
And between the lashes of your eyes,
And in every motion and joint of your body.

- Walt Whitman

In a recent class discussion, the question came up of whether sin was culturally defined or not. I’ve created this poll to get your responses. Feel free to add your own answer in the poll and to comment on this post.

Is sin culturally defined?
(polls)

Photo by George Eastman House

The GRE is at the heart of the preparation process for most who wish to do graduate study. For those of you who don’t know, I typically describe the GRE as the SAT for graduate schools. It’s a test that supposedly measures one’s ability to perform at the graduate level. All I can tell that it actually does is measure one’s facility with 7th – 9th grade mathematics and 2nd, 3rd, or 4th level definitions of many obscure and/or arcane words. Tomorrow at half past noon, this test and I will battle.

I have taken the GRE before and faired well, but since I am currently applying to PhD programs to hopefully start in the fall of 2010, I am retaking it to attempt to inch my score up, because, hey, every little bit counts, right? I have been preparing for this test for a while now, using flashcards, reading GRE books, blog posts and taking practice tests.

Alas, the day is finally upon me and I have, I think, a much better disposition toward the test than I have at other times during this process. I have been bitter because of how poor of a measurement of my ability to perform in a PhD program I think the GRE is. At other times, I have been quite downtrodden, feeling that I am going to be wasting my time and money, namely after a few of my practice tests.

For the past few days, however, I have had a different perspective. Ken Brown posted about his GRE Preparation and Approach a few days ago and he ended his post with the line:

it’s a battle you can win.

Hence, the title of my post. So, that’s my attitude toward the GRE now. I’m going to battle tomorrow and I fully believe it’s a battle I can win. The GRE is not the war (the whole application process is the war), it is merely one battle along the way; a battle that I intend to win.

I have updated my resources page. You can visit it by either clicking here or on the Resources tab at the top of the page. If there are any resources that you think should be added to the list, put them in the comments of this post or e-mail me. They do not necessarily have to fall into the categories listed above, but they need to be reputable and something that I find interesting and helpful.

I would like to begin a series of posts on this site and I have a few ideas, but I would like to hear what you, my faithful readers, would be most interested in. Hopefully you know, to some extent at least, the areas that I have an “expertise” in and that I am interested in. All of those areas are fair game as are other interests that may be a bit more peripheral.

Reply in the comments with your ideas for a new series.

I am finishing Obeying the Truth: Paul’s Ethics in Galatians by John M. G. Barclay tomorrow morning (this morning by now). I will be leading part of the discussion tomorrow in class. This class period will be my last one of this semester and then I have a few weeks until Summer classes start. I have a busy summer, but I will spare you the details for now.

The export and name changing all worked wonderfully. I will be here full-time now (unless of course I learn of something that works better for my uses in the future). Thanks for bearing with me.

Many thanks to Sam Harrelson for walking me through the steps and sending me an insanely easy to use “tutorial” of sorts.