Spreading the Martyrs Mirror

A student decided she wants to write her research paper on acts of love. After blinking for a moment, I decided to let her do it. I cannot argue for the false division between high and low culture if I'm going to exclude certain topics just because they're "affective" instead of "analytical." I can't argue to my students that ethos and pathos matter just as much as logos if I'm going to restrict them from writing about the emotional/psychological/personal side.
So she started out with analyzing Do the Right Thing. Of course, I have a special attachment to that film because Sue taught it to us, then I taught it at Northeastern. I began to understand that by "love" she really meant "emotional conviction in the face of adversity"--her other examples come from Martin Luther King Jr and Gandhi, a pacifism beyond passivism.
So of course I mentioned Dirk Willems. And set her off on the Great Martyr Search. She's surprisingly enthusiastic about the story. And kinda creeped out by all the Martyr books out there. She ran into the Mennonite Quarterly, and I saw Gerald's name appear in one thing she printed out. I tried not to giggle. Nothing like showing your students wood carvings of execution to make them think you've lost it.

The cold days have eclipsed

Lent
The cold days have eclipsed at last and the God who Is strikes down Ra just for me. The inevitable brightness of days is upon us, illuminating so I can't see. Each face turned skyward, leeward at the rain, looks like his in the glaring grey of March. Warm eternal twilight holds itself close to the buildings, to the humming machines, to the swiftly failing people. The lion lays down with the lamb and the waters are not divided, the light has not escaped the dark (the dark has not fled the light), the land has not emerged from the sea. All the creatures creeping along the ground have paused: will the earth give birth again this April?

There is a pleasure of the text in dystopias: To revel in the spectacle of degeneracy and say, "And I thought my life was bad."

You scored as Babylon 5 (Babylon 5). The universe is erupting into war and your government picks the wrong side. How much worse could things get? It doesn’t matter, because no matter what you have your friends and you’ll do the right thing. In the end that will be all that matters. Now if only the Psi Cops would leave you alone.

From quizfarm.com