Keeping up with reading

So, what have you been reading? I've been trying to keep a lively reading schedule. Last week I read Wendell Berry's Life is a Miracle which is broadly sympathetic to my own view of science. I'm also half-way through Ernst Mayer's One Long Argument, a primer on the development of Darwinian theory. I'm about to finish up Augustine and the Catechumenate, a study on the education of those seeking baptism in the fourth century church. In those days it took roughly three years of instruction in the life and liturgy of the church before one petitioned for baptism. How easy we have it these days. Biblically speaking, in addition to the readings from the lectionary read at prayer, last week I read Esther and Ezra once each and then Romans about four times (I find Paul troublesome).

I just picked up a copy of Hendry's Theology of Nature which I sampled earlier today (the chapter on "Science of Nature") and look forward to consuming and digesting it in its entirety very soon. In addition I got a collection of William Blake's poetry and Harold Bloom's introduction to Blake's poetics entitled Blake's Apocalypse - both just to satisfy curiosity. And when there's time I'm looking for an excuse to delve into Michael Polanyi's Gifford Lectures (published as Personal Knowledge).

Besides that I don't really have much time. I'm trying to work on my Ph.D. (which means also reading scientific literature, at present that on the mathematical theory of intermittent dynamics in nonlinear systems), keep up with my wife, and train the dog (whose behavior has become demonstrably worse... I think we have to re-establish our disciplined routine). In the yard: our tomato plants are starting to produce. Our two-year-old vine (that's right, we kept it alive all winter in the attic) has between 7 and 9 tomatoes at various stages of development. The vine that our Italian friends gave us seems to have one or two very small fruits, and the other four tomatoes still need time to mature. The squash plant has 3 or 4 more squashes developing, and the pepper plants are starting to make their upward thrust. A new sport we're developing in the yard is training Jax to stalk rabbits, for which he seems to have some intuitive grasp.

That's all for now.