ENTRY LEVEL

a beginner's guide to the humanities

  • A Little Walk with Many Flowers

    To the dear Mark Potter and Henrik Soderstrom,

    I apologize for my very delayed response. I have been meaning to write to you both for quite some time…

    Back in October, we met for a delightful lunchtime conversation. We had talked about the sort of intellectual game-playing that takes place in the secular art world, and (more importantly) the fact that Christians are called to be set apart from worldly patterns. Most of our conversation, then, was about what it might look like for a Christian Artist to engage with a secular landscape without compromising the standard of love that Jesus set forth. After I left lunch, I made a point to write down one “actionable” curiosity for me to pursue. This was that curiosity:

    What does it mean to pursue others by way of parable within the arts?

    After much thought and prayer, I think I have some sort of development…

    See, in the Gospel of Mark, after His baptism and temptation in the wilderness, Jesus comes forth and says, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.” (Mark 1:15) From the very start, Jesus was as honest and open as possible. He was never trying to hide.

    It’s puzzling, then, to consider why so many of Jesus’ teachings exist in the form of parables. As I have prayed about this, I have begun to wonder if the effectiveness of Jesus’ parables is somehow related to the Fall of Man.

    When Eve was deceived, it was because she was seeking some secret thing; some sort of awakening or information that God wanted to keep from humanity.

    But it made me wonder about the nature of parables… As finite human beings, we aren’t always satisfied with the simple truths. We like the idea that the universe is filled with wondrous secrets for us to find. In many ways, then, when Jesus appeals to humans by way of parable, He is sort of allowing us to indulge that impulse. Jesus’ parables allow us to “discover” the Gospel “on our own.”

    And this is a grand illusion. Jesus is the Alpha and the Omega. There is not a grain of sand He does not know. He knows what has been, is, and what will come to be. The “trick” of Jesus’ parables is that there is no trick at all. The Gospel is simple. It does not withhold. It is truly amazing to think that Jesus chose to teach us in such a way that we might feel empowered by our “discovery” of His Truth.

    So, now my question has changed. Instead of trying to figure out how a Christian artist might be able to “play the game” of the secular art world… I have been praying about the following:

    How can I make art that shares the Gospel in a “discoverable” way?

    In some ways, I feel like I am back at square one. But this little walk has been wonderful, and there have been many flowers along its path.

    I would love to hear your thoughts,
    Haley

  • Parmenides of Elea

    “… Just one story of a route
    is still left: that it is. On this there are signs
    very many, that what-is and is ungenerated and imperishable,
    a whole of a single kind, unshaken, and complete.
    Nor was it ever, nor will it be, since it is now, all together one,
    holding together: For what birth will you seek out for it?
    How and from what did it grow? From what-is-not I will allow
    you neither to say nor to think: For it is not to be said or
    thought
    that it is not. What need would have roused it,
    later or earlier, having begun from nothing, to grow?
    In this way it is right either fully to be or not.
    Nor will the force of true conviction ever permit anything
    to come to be
    beside it from what-is-not. For this reason neither coming
    to be
    nor perishing did Justice allow, loosening her shackles,
    but she holds it fast. And the decision about these
    things is in this:
    is or is not; and it has been decided, as is necessary,
    to leave the one unthought of an unnamed for it is
    not a true
    route, so that the other is and is genuine.
    But how can what-is be hereafter? How can it come to be?
    For if it came to be, it is not, not even if it is sometime going
    to be.
    Thus coming-to-be has been extinguished and perishing
    cannot be investigated.
    Nor is it divisible, since it is all alike,
    and not at all more in any way, which would keep it from
    holding together,
    or at all less, but it is all full of what-is.
    Therefore it is all holding together; for what-is draws near
    to what-is.
    But unchangingin the limits of great bonds
    it is without starting or ceasing, since coming-to-be and
    perishing
    have wandered very far away; and true trust drove them away.
    Remaining the same and in the same by itself it lies
    and so remains there fixed; for mighty Necessity
    holds it in bonds of a limit which holds it in on all sides.
    For this reason it is right for what-is to be not incomplete;
    for it is not lacking; otherwise, what-is would be in want of
    everything.
    What is for thinking is the same as that on account of which
    there is thought.
    For not without what-is, on which it depends, having been
    solemnly pronounced,
    will you find thinking; for nothing else either is or will be
    except what-is, since precisely this is what Fate shackled
    to be whole and changeless. Therefore it has been named all
    things
    that mortals, persuaded that they are true, have posited
    both to come and to be and to perish, to be and not,
    and to change place and alter bright color.
    But since the limit is ultimate, it is
    complete
    from all directions like the bulk of a ball well-rounded from
    all sides
    equally matched in every way from the middle; for it is
    right
    for it to be not in any way greater or lesser than in another.
    For neither is there what-is-not–which would stop it from
    reaching
    the same–nor is there any way in which what-is would be
    more than what-is in one way
    and in another way less, since it is all inviolable;
    for qual to itself from all directions, it meets uniformly
    with its limits.
    At this point, I end for you my reliable account and thought
    about truth. From here on, learn mortal opinions,
    listening to the deceitful order of my words.
    For they established two forms to name in their judgements,
    of which it is not right to name one–in this they have gone
    astray–
    and they distinguished things opposite in body, and
    established signs
    apart from one another–for one, the aetherial fire of flame,
    mild, very light, the same as itself in every direction,
    but not the same as the other; but that other one, in itself
    is opposite–dark night, a dense and heavy body.
    I declare to you all the ordering as it appears,
    so that no mortal judgement may ever overtake you.”

  • January 2, 2026

    As I reflect on the past two years, it is apparent that the vast majority of people do not have the time to get to know me a little–if at all. People only seek out others so far as to meet their needs and nothing more. My boss couldn’t tell you where I went to college. My coworkers misspell my name. Everyone is so wrapped up in their own little world that asking to be known by them is asking too much.

    I get it. The life of the individual is simpler when it is free of social responsibility and obligation.

    But something needs to change.

  • J. Harker’s Journal: May 1 – May 3

    TIMELINE NOTES

    1. J.H. left Munich, Germany at 8:35 p.m. on May 1st

    2. J.H. arrived at Vienna, Austria on the following morning, May 2nd. He was supposed to arrive at 6:46 a.m. (His train was an hour late, so he actually arrived at 7:46 a.m.)

    3. J.H. left from Vienna to travel through Budapest, Hungary that same day.

    4. After nightfall on May 2nd, J.H. arrived at Klausenburg, Romania where he would stay the night at the Hotel Royale.

    5. J.H’s train to Transylvania was supposed to leave a little before 8:00am. He was, almost, late to the train station – arriving at 7:30 a.m. on May 3rd. He sat in the train carriage for over an hour before the train “began to move.” (This would have him leaving the station at 8:30 a.m., at the earliest.)

    6. J.H. arrived in Bistritz, Romania after nightfall on May 3rd. He was instructed to stay at the Golden Krone Hotel, and so he did.

    Seeing as though Johnathan Harker is writing in a journal -a format that can only be created after an experience or upon reflection- it is interesting that he makes such a fuss about punctuality. As the reader, we are “experiencing” his story with some delay for time has passed between (1) the actual story taking place, (2) the time/date that the story was written, and (3) the reader’s reading of the text.

    In many ways, our experience of J.H.’s story is untimely… Almost like a cascading set of train delays…

    EAST V WEST

    The East and the West are different in many ways. The specific cultural difference that has piqued my attention, however, is the underlying relationship that Johnathan Harker has with knowledge/the methods of learning that are endorsed by the West.

    As the story is told, it is obvious that the Western methods of knowledge aquisition -or learning- are (1) formal and (2) intitutionalied.

    When wanting to learn more about Transylvania, J.H.’s instinct was to look for information about the country in the British Museum of London. When a Western man desires to learn of the East, he looks to the institutions known to him: Western institutions, built by Western men with a Western sense of what it means “to know.” What complicates this epistemic issue, then, is how little was “adequately” documented in the British Museum regarding Transylvania. Per J.H. the Carpathian Mountains are “one of the wildest and least known portions of Europe.” Of course, “known” in this application is to be known in the Western sense of the word.

    The Carpathian Mountains are not unknown, it’s simply that the parts that are “known” are limited by the West’s conception of what it means to know.

    So, then, what does the West know of Transylvania?

    The first detail provided about this region is the distinction between the four nationalities that live ithere: the Saxons (in the south), the Wallachs (descendants of the Dacians), the Magyars in the West, and the Szekelys in the East and North (descended from Attila and the Huns). There is no particular insight offered by the descriptions of these people, aside from the fact that J.H. will be traveling among the Szekelys. Presumably, this puts him at risk. Attila was not known for his hospitalities, after all.

    The second detail, as noted by J.H. regarding Transylvania, is the following: “I [Johnathan Harker] read that every known superstition in the world is gathered into the horseshoe of the Carpathians [mountains surrounding Count Dracula’s castle], as if it were some sort of imaginative whirlpool; if so my [J.H.] stay may be very interesting.”

    Considering that this claim comes from the Western perspective -from a culture interested in facts, logic, and formal studies- it is interesting to ask whether the lack of knowledge about Transylvania stems from (1) an actual knowledge gap or (2) an inability of the West to describe the mysteries of the East. “Superstitions,” by Western standards, do not have the same sort of credibility as facts. “Superstitions” are evidence a local mythology or lore, something that is to be taken as part of the imagination and nothing else.

    This highlights an implicit hierarchy of knowledge. If facts are more reliable than superstitions, then to know of a place is to have studied its facts. Objective truths about a place are discovered in that place’s maps and books; its texts and language; its history and people. This is how a place is “made known” to us… Right? There is no factual truth found in superstitions? Is there?

    OTHER OBSERVATIONS
    – Paprika & Thirst
    – The Western Urge to gather and document information (J.H.’s journal, the various recipes that J.H. mentions wanting to acquire, etc.)
    – Shorthand