December 08, 2012

Perils of a Liberal Arts Education When Cutting Firewood

Every year it happens: I cannot swing the Monster Maul(TM) without thinking of Saying 77 of the Gospel of Thomas.

It was the topic of my first halfway good religious-studies paper, written in my sophomore year at Reed.

I even translated one theological term on the spot into German, and the professor did not blink at it, so either I put one past him or the expression actually existed in works that I had not read.

Everything is a web of textual allusions.

The tree itself I cut on Thursday, with snow in the forecast. A beetle-killed pine — the chainsaw skated through its trunk, cutting the hinge, and down it fell.

Perfectly dried, and bearing the fatal blue fungal stain, the logs go into the wood stove, as a light as an old person's limbs.

Who was there?

1 comment:

Anthony Hopper said...

You were there. :)