Great Quote

Among so many great quotes:

"Precisely because resignation is antecedent, faith is no esthetic emotion but something far higher; it is not the spontaneous inclination of the heart but the paradox of existence. If for example, in the face of every difficulty, a young girl still remains convinced that her desire will be fulfilled, this assurance is by no means the assurance of faith, even though she has been brought up by Christian parents and perhaps has had confirmation instruction from the pastor for a whole year. She is convinced in all her childlike naivete and innocence, and this assurance ennobles her nature and gives her a supranatural magnitude so that like a thaumaturge she can invoke the finite powers of existence and bring the very stones to tears, while on the other hand in her perplexity she can just as well run to Herod as to Pilate and move the whole world with her pleas. Her assurance is most captivating, and one can learn much from her, but there is one thing that cannot be learned from her-how to make movements-for her assurance does not dare, in the pain of resignation, to look the impossibility in the eye."

Explanation: Kierkegaard is talking here about the movement of Abraham's faith. Abraham must be resigned to the impossibility of having Isaac (both before he is born and when asked to sacrifice him) and then at the same moment believe the absurd, that he can have Isaac. This movement between the a) resignation to the impossibility of a desire and the b) belief in the absurd, (belief that for God all things are possible) is Kierkegaard's account of faith. I just thought this was really cool.

Found out that I am in Ms. Arsenault's Jung precept. This is excellent news because Jung sounds cool and I know that Ms. Arsenault is really wonderful. Ben is reading Brothers K for precept with Mr. Thompson. Yay precepts! Also, a thaumaturge is a magician and I still have no idea what to write me senior essay about.

I went over to the College of Santa Fe for an after school session with the Breakthrough kids from this summer, and it was intense. It was so weird to see them again after a couple of months. I think they were excited to see me, but I can already see that their schools have had a negative effect on them. It's hard to see kids swear and fight and act totally out of control. After a half hour they settled down, but they hardly have any homework and the homework they did have was really easy and soooo boring, so it was tought to keep them occupied. Poor, poor, kids.