John Barnett has had his photography online for some time; last night he added a blog. Michael Collins has his photography online. Philip Eoute has his photography online.

Ambrose Bierce defined perseverance as “the lowly virtue whereby mediocrity achieves an inglorious success.” Because the term mediocrity could well apply to us, Scott and I determined that perseverance was indeed the virtue missing in our previous failed adventures. This weekend, Scott and I determined to make not one but two attempts at “inglorious success” as we embarked on The Continuing Adventures of Scott and Lincoln.

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Because I don’t have the sources necessary to write on my former topic, I am working to select a new topic. The possibilities seem strong that I might write about sermons printed in the colonies, perhaps limiting the scope of the topic by region and by time period. By limiting the topic to sermons printed in the colonies rather than sermons preached in the colonies, I should have all the necessary sources in Early American Imprints. There are probably many manuscript sermons extant that not printed during the colonial era and may still not have been printed, but I’ll have to rely on secondary sources to provide the needed comparison to colonial preaching in general. I’m hopeful about secondary sources; there are several articles and perhaps a few monographs on the subject. It seems that there are enough secondary sources to provide needed context, comparison, and confirmation of my analysis, but not so many that the possibilities for research in colonial sermons has been exhausted.

The first three hundred words of the paper are due in a little over a week, so I need to obey Samuel Eliot Morison and “get writing.” But I must still search for sources before I can search the sources to have something to write.

In a post a few weeks ago, I implied that Microsoft was evil for cooperating with Chinese political censors and that Google probably wasn’t. But according to an article in the New York Times, Google is just as complicit.

Woe unto me for not doing my preliminary research diligently enough. For the senior research paper, I had intended to write about the sharing of information between colonial newspapers. Since the Mack Library at BJU has the series Early American Imprints, a microfiche collection of everything printed in the United States from 1639 to 1820 still extant, I assumed that it would have all the newspapers as well. All the early American newspapers are cataloged in Early American Imprints, but all the microfiche that I thought would have the newspapers reproduced instead read, “Please see the Readex collection Early American Newspapers.” The Mack Library does have part of that collection, but not all of it. Therefore, I must either shift my paper topic or somehow get all the sources. In sum, to date I have no topic and very few sources. It will require an extraordinary amount of diligence to recover from my incompetence.

On a more cheerful note, the collection Early American Newspapers is on rolls of microfiche, not microfiche cards. The rolls are more convenient to use, and the whirring sound of the microfiche reader winding them up is ever so enjoyable.

Several days ago, I was having great difficulty making a decision, and so I went to Master Kellen to ask him his advice. I laid out the reasons for and against my proposed course of action, and said, “Master Kellen, my wisdom is too small for me to choose rightly between these many paths. I am not even sure which path I wish to tread. Please, sir, I beg of you, explain to me which is the true path that I ought to follow.”

“My son,” quoth he, “give me a coin.” I was taken aback, for my wise mentor had never before asked for payment. Nevertheless, I gave him the coin. He took the coin in one of his hands of wisdom, flipped it into the air, caught it, and turned it over onto the back of his other hand of wisdom. I was eager to see what result the coin had selected, knowing that it could not fail to be correct when flipped by Master Kellen. Master Kellen held out the concealed coin and said in a voice resonating with true sapience, “What answer do you wish from this coin?” Hoping that he would then unveil the coin, I answered quickly. Master Kellen heard my answer, put the coin in his pocket without showing it to me or looking at it himself, and said, “You have your answer.”

My wise master was correct; my reply to his question was indeed the right choice. Once the coin was in his pocket, I knew which path I wanted to take. Thus he taught me with his simple act of wisdom; may a benison be upon him for his kindness in teaching me and others like me.

I’m generally reluctant to make recommendations of books, sermons, etc. for two reasons. First, invariably the work in question has some error mixed with whatever is commendable, or its author has errors in his other works, and any recommendation is usually construed as a recommendation of the errors as well as the good. Second, if enough people know about my recommendation, invariably someone will be offended by it. Please understand, then, that my recommendations are limited.

I heard an good sermon by John Piper via his website: “God’s Pursuit of Racial Diversity at Infinite Cost” (part one | part two). It is the best sermon on race and ethnicity that I’ve heard, if only because it’s the only sermon on race and ethnicity that I’ve heard. For example, as of this afternoon SermonAudio.com offers 78,035 sermons for download. With a few minutes’ search, I was able to find 17 sermons about euthanasia, 19 sermons about head coverings, 20 sermons about the Baptist Confession of 1689, 36 sermons about Iraq, 79 sermons about reprobation, 97 sermons about hurricanes and tsunamis, and 149 sermons about the pope, but at most 4 sermons about race. It seems to me that one needn’t be a liberation theologian to notice that conservative Christians talk about many subjects but are rather silent about race.

I started work today in the editorial department of BJU Press as a proofreader. I was given a desk in a cubicle, bookshelves containing my very own copies of the fifteenth edition of the Chicago Manual of Style, the fourth edition of the American Heritage Dictionary, and documentation on the Press work flow and house styles. After watching safety videos, getting a tour of the facility, meeting coworkers, and signing a bunch of papers, I was given my assignment for the week. For most of the rest of this week, I’m reading the manual for the editorial department and the Chicago Manual of Style to make sure I know what I’m doing. Having worked on three yearbooks with the work flow being recreated and the documentation written from scratch, I appreciate the precision and detail of the documentation at the Press.

Working at the Press is an opportunity for another kind of education: learning a trade. A trade isn’t something to live for, but to have a trade is to possess a valuable skill. The question will probably be asked, “Aren’t em dashes and syntax and commas and semicolons really boring?” No, they’re not. Proofreading is a contribution to order. The whole universe tends to disorder, but proofreading helps make at least a little part of it more orderly. That contribution is worth something to me.