affidavits, Aunt Dot, and grace

thought one: the reason i could never go into law...

Applicant's Affidavit:

"I, Fulano de Tal, do hereby agree, consent and direct that any person or entity maintaining information in any form relating to my criminal history shall release all such information upon the request of the Magistorium.

I do further hereby agree and permit the Magistorium to obtain from any person or entity information relating to my personal background, my moral character and my worthiness to instruct the youth of this empire, including by medically suspect neuroimaging, and do hereby expressly direct that any such person or entity, including my subconscious, release such information upon the request of the Magistorium.

I do hereby release, discharge, and exonerate the Magistorium, its agents or representatives, and any person or entity so furnishing information from any and all liability of every kind arising therefrom.

I do furthermore hereby refuse to engage myself or my students in any activity that could be termed subversive by the Magistorium. I agree to subject every declarative statement or rhetorical interrogation on my part by the benevolent statements and intents of the Official Code of the Magistorium which I carry firmly imbedded in my mind. I understand that failing to recite and committ to rote memory no less than three statements diurnally the Official Code of the Magistorium can result in my expulsion from the empire and in revocation of my license of instruction.

The foregoing consent and release is valid and binding so long as I hold or seek any certificate, license, permit, or other credential issued under the authority of aforementioned Official Code of the Magistorium or am living within three hundred light years of the Empire.

I understand that any credential issued to me by the Magistorium is the property of the Empire. I agree that I will tender my credential and/or life's blood to the Magistorium if I am ordered to do so by the Magistorium.

I understand that a copy of this affidavit shall have the same force as the original. I have reviewed this application and I affirm that all of the information which I have provided on the application is true under a fairly rigid definition of true."

... is because i have no sense of decorum....


thought two: ...thusly must i turn to education...

For we let our young men and women go out unarmed, in a day when armor was never so necessary. By teaching them all to read, we have left them at the mercy of the printed word. By the invention of the film and the radio, we have made certain that no aversion to reading shall secure them from the incessant battery of words, words, words.

They do not know what the words mean;
they do not know how to ward them off or blunt their edge or fling them back; they are prey to words in their emotions instead of being the masters of them in their intellects.

We who were scandalized in 1940 when men were sent to fight armored tanks with rifles, are not scandalized when young men and women are sent into the world to fight massed propaganda with a smattering of "subjects"; and when whole classes and whole nations become hypnotized by the arts of the spellbinder, we have the impudence to be astonished.

We dole out lip-service to the importance of education lip service and, just occasionally, a little grant of money; we postpone the school-leaving age, and plan to build bigger and better schools; the teachers slave concientiously in and out of school hours; and yet, as I believe, all this devoted effort is largely frustrated, because we
have lost the tools of learning, and in their absence can only make a botched
and piecemeal job of it.

~ Dorothy Sayers, The Lost Tools of Learning


Ladies and caballeros, that is writing.


thought three: let us pray

ALMIGHTY God, we beseech Thee, with Thy gracious favour to behold our universities, colleges, and schools, that knowledge may be increased among us, and all good learning flourish and abound. Bless all who teach and all who learn; and grant that in humility of heart they may ever look unto Thee, who art the fountain of all wisdom; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

ALMIGHTY God, our heavenly Father, who hast committed to Thy holy Church the care and nurture of Thy children; Enlighten with Thy wisdom those who teach and those who learn, that rejoicing in the knowledge of Thy truth, they may worship Thee and serve Thee from generation to generation; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

ALMIGHTY God, who dost embrace children with the arms of Thy mercy, and dost make them living members of Thy Church; Give them grace, we pray Thee, to stand fast in Thy faith, to obey Thy word, and to abide in Thy love; that, being made strong by Thy Holy Spirit, they may resist temptation and overcome evil, and may rejoice in the life that now is, and dwell with Thee in the life that is to come; through thy merits, O merciful Saviour, who with the Father and the Holy Ghost livest and reignest one God, world without end.

notes:
~teaching to involve rejoicing
~education to involve strengthening

~teaching...to involve humility
~education... looking to Almighty God
~teaching to link generation to generation with a certain telos
~The Holy Church responsible!