faire du ciel part 2

Just arrived in Memphis last night for the Christmas holidays. Travel again was not so bad: I got here about 23 hours after I woke up in Marseille, which was only a couple hours later than originally planned. The fog in London was extremely thick, and I’m grateful we weren’t delayed further. The ciel is still a pretty nice place to be. Despite the delays, the ground was, too.

London’s Gatwick airport gets pretty crowded during these times of travel trouble. The waiting lounge (full of duty-free shops of all kinds and a few restaurants) had nary a seat open. I had breakfast at Garfunkle’s, which advertised itself as “legendary and loved.” I was impressed with how they manage such a hectic time. Service was prompt; food was good. I had the vegetarian British breakfast. Two things struck me about this meal: first, it’s hard to find places in Europe that specifically make options available for vegetarians, so that was nice to see. Second, I think this is the first restaurant I’ve ever seen to declare on their menu that their eggs are free-range. Excellent. It was pricey, of course. Just the previous night at dinner I had been hearing from one of the Hubbards’ children, who lives in London, just how expensive life there is. Apparently for $10 one can usually only expect a mediocre meal, and if one wants to eat well, one has to consider the $50 range. I spent $14 on eggs, beans, toast, hash browms, mushrooms, a tomato, and a cappuccino, which in light of the dinner discussion seems entirely reasonable. I’m just glad I didn’t have to stay there longer.

I was intrigued by a poster I saw, advertising all the destinations you could reach from the airport via rail. “The easiest way to get to and from Gatwick is by train,” it declared. Unfortunate, I thought, that it’s an airport and not a train station, then.

a constant sense

I have a feeling this is going to turn into another series of posts… It’s also another topic I didn’t really think I’d broach in this forum. But the love and dating essay didn’t bring me any flames, so I figure I’ll take another shot at something potentially controversial.

Let’s talk about faith and religion. Except not much in depth right now; I’ll get to that later. What I really want to talk about—or rather, share with you directly—are some of my favorite hymns. These are hymns that keep coming to mind as I plan a larger essay. Once I had three or four in the queue, I realized they merited their own entry.

One observation is that faith has two meanings in this context, which I think sometimes gets forgotten. (And I’ll definitely be oversimplifying for now. I’ll oversimplify less later.) A person can have faith in God, which is some kind of belief in the existence and trustworthiness of God. She or he can also be faithful to God, meaning they abide by that belief through the various hardships and joys of life. And this sort of faithfulness is carried out by God, too; God is faithful to us, in ways we can’t fathom.

Great is Thy faithfulness, O God my Father;
There is no shadow of turning with Thee;
Thou changest not, Thy compassions, they fail not;
As Thou hast been, Thou forever will be.

Great is Thy faithfulness!
Great is Thy faithfulness!
Morning by morning new mercies I see.
All I have needed Thy hand hath provided;
Great is Thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me!

Summer and winter and springtime and harvest,
Sun, moon and stars in their courses above
Join with all nature in manifold witness
To Thy great faithfulness, mercy and love.

Pardon for sin and a peace that endureth
Thine own dear presence to cheer and to guide;
Strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow,
Blessings all mine, with ten thousand beside!

The text above is by Thomas Chisholm. It reminds me a great deal of Psalm 90. That psalm was written by Moses, which is really rather amazing. I’m particularly struck by his testimony to God’s faithfulness “in all generations”, when Israel had just come out of four hundred years of slavery. Isaac Watts wrote a deliberate versification of Psalm 90 (in fact, of most of the psalms), which is another perennial favorite:

Our God, our help in ages past,
Our hope for years to come,
Our shelter from the stormy blast,
And our eternal home.

Under the shadow of Thy throne
Thy saints have dwelt secure;
Sufficient is Thine arm alone,
And our defense is sure.

Before the hills in order stood,
Or earth received her frame,
From everlasting Thou art God,
To endless years the same.

Thy Word commands our flesh to dust,
“Return, ye sons of men:”
All nations rose from earth at first,
And turn to earth again.

A thousand ages in Thy sight
Are like an evening gone;
Short as the watch that ends the night
Before the rising sun.

The busy tribes of flesh and blood,
With all their lives and cares,
Are carried downwards by the flood,
And lost in following years.

Time, like an ever rolling stream,
Bears all its sons away;
They fly, forgotten, as a dream
Dies at the opening day.

Like flowery fields the nations stand
Pleased with the morning light;
The flowers beneath the mower’s hand
Lie withering ere ‘tis night.

Our God, our help in ages past,
Our hope for years to come,
Be Thou our guard while troubles last,
And our eternal home.

Another hymn by Chisholm, but less well known, starts towards what I’d like to discuss about religion—namely, that it’s about relating to God, not about beating people over the head with one holy book or another. This one is much less well-known. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever seen it outside of a Church of Christ hymnal. (The composer of the tune was L.O. Sanderson, whose son Leon was the song-leader for the church in which I grew up in Memphis.)

Be with me, Lord, I cannot live without Thee;
I dare not try to take one step alone.
I cannot bear the loads of life unaided;
I need Thy strength to lean myself upon.

Be with me, Lord, and then if dangers threaten,
If storms of trials burst above my head,
If lashing seas leap ev’rywhere about me,
They cannot harm or make my heart afraid.

Be with me, Lord, no other gift or blessing
Thou couldst bestow could with this one compare:
A constant sense of Thy abiding presence,
Where’er I am, to feel that Thou are near.

Be with me, Lord, when loneliness o’ertakes me,
When I must weep amid the fires of pain.
And when shall come the hour of “my departure”
For “worlds unknown,” O Lord, be with me then.

To close, we come to my absolute favorite hymn, another by Watts. Whatever religion one subscribes to, I think there has to be some heartfelt recognition of the goodness of the God one worships. That’s a pretty general statement; more precisely, I find in this hymn an expression of one’s utter disbelief and gratitude at the work God has done for our sake.

When I survey the wondrous cross
On which the Prince of glory died,
My richest gain I count but loss,
And pour contempt on all my pride.

Forbid it, Lord, that I should boast,
Save in the death of Christ my God!
All the vain things that charm me most,
I sacrifice them to His blood.

See from His head, His hands, His feet,
Sorrow and love flow mingled down!
Did e’er such love and sorrow meet,
Or thorns compose so rich a crown?

His dying crimson, like a robe,
Spreads o’er His body on the tree;
Then I am dead to all the globe,
And all the globe is dead to me.

Were the whole realm of nature mine,
That were a present far too small;
Love so amazing, so divine,
Demands my soul, my life, my all.

The last verse says, I think, why faith and religion are so important: they draw from us the most profound recognition of meaning and duty in life. In the end, however, when we recognize it, we follow God not from duty, but from love.

world-travelers, we

Sarah just left this morning for the States. I was going to drive her to the airport, but the car we were borrowing wouldn’t start. She took a taxi because her flight was at 6:45 and the first bus from the train station doesn’t arrive at the airport until 6:00. I’ll have this same problem next Thursday when I go home. I’m not sure I’ll take the same solution, but we’ll see.

I tried to go back to sleep after she left, but didn’t quite manage it… partly I was thinking about things I need to write and post here. So I signed on, and found that Blogger has been updated (it’s better integrated with other Google services now), and discovered that there’s a blog being written by a current Peace Corps Volunteer in Togo. Excellent! I thought. It’s even better than I thought, because he has videos! Here’s the latest one, of the market in his town.



From YouTube, you can look at “More from this user” to see other videos. I highly recommend watching the school visit. The conditions of the schools in West Africa are often hard to describe to Americans. Somehow learning gets done, despite the remarkable challenges and lack of resources.

I haven’t read through all the archives yet, because he’s been there for almost a year and a half. But I’m always in favor of resources that can give people a better idea of what it’s like to live there. This (the ability to blog easily) would indeed have been awesome six years ago when I was there. He mentions in a few early entries that there’s far too much going on to effectively choose what to write about. It’s true; every single week, every single day of Peace Corps is charged with experience and activity. For the first several months of our service, Annie and I would meet for dinner every night to debrief and decompress. I’m looking forward to reliving some memories through Aaron’s online records.

I do have things I want to write. All in good time. I hope the Advent season (Christmas shopping season, end-of-fall-semester season, whatever applies) is treating you all well.

Friday mix

Original post: November 11.
Reposted with photo: December 5. (Cheap way of making it look like I’ve worked on the blog, huh?)

In the academic world, each semester brings its own rhythms, which depend on classes, seminars, who’s around, and numerous other small factors. Sometimes we feel the standard workweek tides, but more often we just get together whenever seems appropriate and settle down to work or socializing. (Contrary to popular stereotypes, most mathematicians really enjoy social activities. It’s possible that in a large fraction of cases they only know how to socialize with other mathematicians, however. It’s difficult to avoid making math jokes through an entire meal or party.)

This fall Friday is the fullest day of the week, normally. It begins at 9:00 in the morning with the course Dr. Hubbard is teaching on Teichmüller theory. This is aimed at a broad graduate student audience. It meets just once a week for two hours. From a review of the definitions of manifolds, differential forms, and cohomology, we have progressed through the proof of the uniformization theorem for Riemann surfaces and are now studying plane hyperbolic geometry (one of my favorite parts of the whole theory), which can be transported to Riemann surfaces (with only a few exceptions) via uniformization (most Riemann surfaces have the unit disk, i.e., the hyperbolic plane, as their universal cover). Most of the students seem to like Hubbard’s teaching overall; he almost certainly teaches in a way they’ve never seen before.

After the class we go to a seminar on Teichmüller theory (loosely speaking; other areas of interest to the participants pop up from time to time). This is where Douady and Roland spoke while visiting Marseille. The audience is quite active. It’s more or less a lecture format, but the peanut gallery is quite happy to interject with questions or points they feel should be clarified. I’ve spoken with some of the organizers, and they claim that they try to encourage an atmosphere where questioning is permitted, because it’s so incredibly frustrating to sit through an entire lecture and have no idea what the speaker said after the first couple of minutes. Apparently at some universities (especially in France, according to their accounts), questioning is actively discouraged. Only the most distinguished attendees may dare to make a remark before the end of the seminar. (In truth, it’s often helpful to younger or less bold audience members if one of the senior members asks a question, because it makes them feel more at ease—you mean there were others for whom that wasn’t totally clear? Oh, that’s a relief.)

If those morning activities weren’t enough fun, then just wait until lunch. We all hike over to a pizza restaurant called Le Racati. It’s run by a matronly woman who is known simply as “la patronne” (the boss). Various members of the seminar vie for her favor. She takes good care of “les garçons” (as the seminar members are called, since until this year it’s been almost exclusively men). There are usually ten or twelve of us, and we go through four or five pizzas, four or five carafes of wine, a bowl of salad, and whatever other gifts la patronne bestows (sometimes fruit, sometimes desserts). Conversation usually centers around upcoming seminar talks, current mathematical topics of interest, and cultural exchange. This week, following the U.S. elections, politics was a hot subject. Whether any more work gets done by any particular individual the rest of the day depends on how many glasses of wine he or she had. Friday lunch is a highlight of every week. Here’s a photo of la patronne with Prof. Hubbard:



I haven’t quite figured out Friday nights in Marseille. For the first few weeks, we were having dinner with the Hubbards. One week soon after we finally moved into our apartment I took a stroll by myself and treated myself to a nice couscous dinner. There was the party at our place the night before I left for Ithaca a month ago. Twice Sarah and I have gone out to the cinema. There’s nothing consistent, like the choir rehearsal / contradance combination I had in Ithaca. But it hasn’t been bad, for the most part. Movies are relatively inexpensive, fine restaurants are plentiful, and it’s a chance (as always, in any location) to break from the demands of work. I think we should have another party soon. And I should find someplace to dance.

Just to let you know that we do actually work around here, at least for four hours a week on Friday mornings. :-) Now we just need to work on finding folk in the office in the middle of the week, too …