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Reflections on a Wandering Life.....

Thursday, January 22, 2009

Lush 

I'm sitting here in Lush at one thirty in the morning, eating a bowl of granola, and reading Burkoff's Systematic Theology:"Tertullian was the first to use the term "Trinity" and to formulate the doctrine, but his formulation was deficient, since it involved an unwarranted subordination of the Son to the Father. Origen went even further in this direction by teaching explicitly that the Son is subordinate to the Father in respect to essence, and that the Holy Spirit is subordinate even to the Son. He detracted from the essential deity of these two persons in the Godhead, and furnished a stepping-stone to the Arians, who denied the deity of the Son and of the Holy Spirit by representing the Son as the first creature of the Father, and the Holy Spirit as the first creature of the Son." Ordinarily, I would not be sitting in this place at this time of the night. It would just be too noisy. But this is a week night, and the universities are closed because of the Chinese New Year, so the place is practically deserted. Unfortunately, the music here is really not geared for studying, but believe it or not, right now I can actually hear the words. I can tolerate a wide variety of music if I can distinguish the words. Otherwise, shut it off. The song is called, This Train is Bound for Glory: "...the stone that the builders refused will always be the Head Cornerstone." Remember that, people.

This place could be a small truck stop in Middle America. Well, except for the Turkish water pipes. Don't see them at truck stops much. Just a run of the mill bar and grill I guess. Except that they don't have such things in China. But this isn't China. This is Wudaokou.

Been thinking about heading up to Heilongjiang for the Spring Festival holiday. I have some friends in Harbin who used to be my neighbors in Tempe, and I have always wanted to see the Ice Lantern Festival. One of my students invited me to visit her hometown, which is north of Harbin. The problem is that train tickets are very hard to get during the Spring Festival holiday. It's especially bad this year, because the lunar New Year is early this year, so students and working people are traveling at about the same time.

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