New Orleans

Hey! If anybody's out there in blog-land, I should have sent you here earlier.

I went to New Orleans a few weeks ago as part of a mission trip. You can read our teams' adventures (or not) by going to the blog. Click here! We split up writing duties to the team: I wrote day one, Greta wrote day 2, Tom wrote day 3, Katherine wrote day 4, Jaye wrote day 5 and Heather wrote day 6. Chris, being lazy, didn't write anything.

Knowing God

...or, "Why You Should Study Theology"

When I was four years old, I met my best friend. I didn't know at the time that he would become my best friend; he just the kid who sat two tables over in preschool. That was almost seventeen years ago.

I met God the same way. I wasn't four; I was 44 days old and I was baptized on a Sunday morning in front of my congregation. So I suppose God entered my life then, for baptism is the washing of sins (Greek baptizo="to wash") and the gift of God, that is, His Holy Spirit. I was hardly cognizant of that fact, let alone anything else—few infants are. I attended preschool at St. Luke’s, where I’m sure there was prayer, and most definitely sure there was singing; singing seems awfully important for preschoolers. Somewhere in all that, I learned the mantra “Jesus died for me” because I was “sinful”—and it was obvious that I was sinful, because everyone is sinful, whatever that means, because the teachers told me so, and teachers do not lie.

I fell into a realtionship with God by degrees, just as I did my best friend. Not only can I tell you my best friend's name and God's name, but I can tell you facts about my best friend: his birthday, what his favorite color is, his blood condition. If I didn't know any of these things, he would be the same person and I would love him immensely. But can you imagine someone turning to you and asking "What's your best friend's birthday" and you answered "I'm not sure." Gasp! What a terrible best friend! You don't know that and you're best friends!?

So why do we accept that from people who get into God? I can tell you His name, but I can't tell you anything else about Him--His nature, His habits. I know facts about my best friend that are way more inane that what his birthday is, but this is a mark of our friendship.

I can't tell you when I learned that he talks in his sleep or when I learned he had claustrophobia. This is knowledge I stumbled into; a relationship I fell into by degrees--but I pursue that relationship. We go bowling together, we go to the movies, we just sit and talk. I learn new things about his life as, though we are best friends, our relationship becomes stronger and stronger the more love, trust and time we invest in it.

We should treat our Creator, our Lord, our Savior the same way. We should spend time learning about Him. We should ask Him His greatest fear, whether He talks in His sleep. What is the nature of God? He is loving, yes, but how does that affect church doctrine? Why is baptism designed a certain way? If God is Truth, and we pursue Truth, we are then pursuing God. I want to know God like I know my best friend. I want to know facts about Him as much as I know Him. His hair color, the way He smiles.

A phonecall doesn't do that. Studying Him does. Committing His nature to memory, knowing His history of interacting with people does.

That's why you should study theology--to know God more perfectly, you must know about Him all the more. You don't know God's birthday!? What kind of best friend are you?

Modern Times

Wrote this piece a while ago for a film studies class. It's a thematic look at Charlie Chaplin's quintessential Little Tramp film Modern Times. Enjoy.

The Catholic writer G. K. Chesterton once remarked that the problems of the world could be condensed into two root issues: the recognition of man as an animal and the rejection of such a fact. The opening act of Modern Times hews closely to the former issue. The Little Tramp's employment in a factor assembly line is closely linked to the efficiency ideals of Andrew Carnegie, a social Darwinist. As a sight gag, the continuously accelerating production belt, upon which Chaplin's character endlessly and evermore hopelessly tightens bolts to widgets intended for God-knows-what provides humor at the expense of human ineptitude. However, as the indignities increase, including a pre-Orwellian (and yet undeniably Big Brother-esque) video screen upon which an apparent superior appears to chastise and fire the Little Tramp, the viewer is asked to participate in his sorrows—sorrows created by an impersonal, demanding job.

At present, it is difficult to imagine a person in the job market with no prospects. In our highly mobile society, experience and education lead to prospects across the country. It is easy to forget that no more than, and quite reasonably less than, 50 years ago, people still tended to remain in a regional job market. The melancholy of Chaplin's character is easier to understand with this in mind. Absentmindedly getting caught up in a communist political protest, the Tramp is arrested by the local police. In an era when people were looking so much for an alternative to the dog-eat-dog capitalism, the hold on capital by the upper echelon insured likewise social enforcement by said echelon. It is sad to see the Tramp imprisoned for what is an honest mistake, and sadder still to see his naïveté also be the reason for his release.

Chaplin's interaction with the street waif (apparently named Ellen, cf. IMDb) throughout the movie is a demonstration of the inability to initiate and maintain upward mobility in the early 20th century. When Ellen introduces the Tramp to a shackwork home on an empty lot, she dismisses it as "not Buckingham Palace," and yet it suffices for them as a home. Chaplin subtextually requests that the viewer be satisfied with this happy home established after so much hardship, but, this story is a tragicomedy, and of course it cannot last. The Dust Bowl displaced hundreds of Midwest farmers, and bank foreclosures put many families out on the street during the era. These long-established simple family homes were of course replaced with the commercialized megafarm. Thematically, it is little wonder that Modern Times relates to its contemporary audience.

Finally, as an indictment of capitalism, there is little else to point to than the Tramp's employment at a department store. Though trusted with responsibility, Chaplin has his signature character freely open the store to his fellow riffraff. The distribution of goods to the general populace is the definition of the proletariat revolution. We are to take this act of subversion as an act of altruism, and our sympathy for the Little Tramp is only meant to increase when he is once again arrested and fired from a job. And for what? Being compassionate? And so Chaplin's character, perhaps acknowledging that it was his final film, walks off into the sunset, but in so doing he is leaving behind the town that has brought him nothing but trouble and indignities in a social Darwinist work model. Of course, he is not alone: the heroic prince gets his pauper beauty—Ellen, of course, goes with him.

War is Peace

I took up writing web devotions for my church. My first batch isn't due up 'til the week of June 22nd, but since I'm here, and like to imagine that my writing is fairly clever, I decided I'll be sharing them with you. The title here is the title to the devotion for June 22nd. This devotional is on the passage of Jeremiah 28:5-9. Read the text, and proceed:

It’s easy to predict trouble. We tell children “life isn’t fair” and “sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.” These phrases assume that we encounter unfairness and that hurtful words are spoken to us. Jesus Himself told His disciples: “In this world you will have trouble” (John 16:33a). But what he said after that is more important. He uttered this command: “Take heart, I have overcome the world” (John 16:34b).

Hananiah was a false prophet who came to the Jews in exile claiming that God was going to “break the yoke of the king of Babylon” (Jeremiah 29:4). It sounds familiar. Politicians tell us that they will fix our lives, end our wars and stabilize our economy. They’re going to free us from all the troubles of the world. And this is what we love to hear—that someone, be it God or Congress—will make life easier.

Jeremiah’s responses to Hananiah were probably some of the most heartbreaking the Jews ever heard. He went back soon after this reading to relay a message from God: “I will put an iron yoke on the necks of all these nations to make them serve Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and they will serve him” (Jeremiah 28:13, 14). God promised Israel a life of struggle and of hardship. Hananiah promised the Israelites another life of struggle and of hardship. How did he think the rule of Babylon would be broken, because Nebuchadnezzar grew fond of daisy-picking?

When something sounds too good to be true, it probably is. The Christian life is full of the hardships that the prophets and Jesus talk about, as Jeremiah reminds us. But the prophet who prophesied peace has come. And we should take heart, for He has overcome the world.

Prayer:

Dear God, This life is full of hardships. Sometimes it’s easy to put my hope in the promises of people. Help me to remember that Jesus has overcome the world, and that the life of peace has come. Amen.

White People, Terrorism...

...and what it is

Engadget.com has a nice little news story about some Malaysian telecom company linking mosques together with a 224Mbps Internet connection at the low, low price of $1.57 (US) per month. Of course, someone was quick to observe "terrorists" at Muslim mosques, which prompted another commenter to ask why "white people" call other people terrorists. I had no idea terrorism was a race thing. I also had no idea that Islam was a racial group. I was pretty sure it was a religion.

I consider a lot of tactics employed by the IRA to be "terrorist" in nature. They're white folks. Timothy McVeigh? Terrorist. Ted Kazynski? Terrorist. White folks can be terrorists, too. And this white guy ain't afraid to say so.

But let's be straight for a minute. "Ethnic cleansing" genocides are markedly different from terrorism. Morally disgusting, straight-up wrong, reprehensible? Yes, but not the same. "One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter" is a tired, tired cliche, and more importantly, a patently ignorant one at that. "Terrorism" describes tactics--the use of violence against a civilian populace in order to inflict fear (or "terror," if you will) and therefore coerce a governmental power to acquiesce to a set of wishes. A freedom fighter is one who fights for freedom, and his tactics need not be terrorist in nature. A freedom fighter can be a politician, a soldier in a regular militia or, yes, even a terrorist. But one man's freedom fighter can also be his terrorist, because it's about tactics, not ends.

Do genocides inflict terror? Absolutely. But the goal of genocide is rarely to inflict terror. NAZI germany looked to "purify" themselves. Absolutely wrong, and their leaders and followers deserve whatever punishment is due such despicable actions in Hell. Communist Russia looked to remove political enemies and establish a stronger central government. The establishment rarely, rarely seeks to inflict terror as an end in and of itself. I see your 6 million Jews, and I raise you one million Chinese. QED.

Why do we call others terrorists? I call it like I see it. Call me when American churches network and encourage suicide bombings in Egypt. I don't think I'll ever get that call. The simple fact is not every Muslim is a terrorist, but in terms of a percentage of the group, Islam is far and away a more violent religion than any other in the world.

What!? But Islam means peace! Actually, no it doesn't. It means "submission." It is etymologically linked to a Semitic word meaning peace ("Salem"), but the idea of Islam is to bring peace by bringing all the world under the hegemony of Allah, represented on earth by his political caliphate. They want us to submit. Their idea of religious freedom is the jizya, a tax all non-Muslims must pay while living in a Muslim country. I have to pay to be a Christian? I'll pass, thanks.

Finally, dear God, can we stop being political? This post was about the tech, as its engadget, not "en-politic." I want 224Mbps broadband, please.

A Short Post...

...for the Mariners fans

Fire John McLaren. Yesterday would have been fine. That is all.

The Most Inglorious Return

...of the Most Glorious Blogger!

It has been over a year since I updated this precious little trove of my ramblings, and somehow I feel like I've cheated the reading world of a few things. It is not that I suddenly ceased having thoughts over the last year; I simply desisted typing them up with a flare of sarcastic panache. I'll spare you my fully ramblomatic thoughts on all that has been going in the past year for some other time--namely the next several days when I'm posting such thoughts--for a thought I had today.

I read. A lot. Fiction books I've read over the last year:

• Emma by Jane Austen
• The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky
• Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
• A laundry list of Star Wars books
• Last Days of Summer by Steve Kluger
• The Hunchbak of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo
• Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
• After Dark by Haruki Murakami
• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J. K. Rowling
• Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman
• American Gods by Neil Gaiman
• Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett
• Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer

I've only listed books that a) I hadn't read prior to 2007 and b) readily came to mind while typing up this list. I generally finish a new book in about 3-4 days, over about 10 hours of cumulative reading time. There are more than this list, along with some non-fiction.

I digress, though. This post is entirely about Murakami's After Dark. I finished reading it at about 12:30 this afternoon. I don't know what made me check out the book from the library. I recognized the Murakami's name from somewhere at the time (since, I've come to realize it was from Ananth Panagariya's blogging on applegeeks.com), and the local library had his novel South of the Border, West of the Sun on display.

Murakami is, apparently, hailed as a modern master. I haven't read his other works (I'm reading South of the Border... right now), so I cannot attest to or deny this label. I can understand the praise, however, in that he is a talented writer. He knows how to vary sentence length and select words appropriate to the tone he is trying to capture, often using screenplay-esque sentence fragments ("The Skylark. Big neon sign. Bright seating area visible through the window.") to set up a primarily descriptive chunk of the book. He displays a great range of voice.

What he doesn't do, however, is finish his story. My creative writing teacher from fall quarter intimated that a story, whether it be in a novel, a piece of short fiction, or even a trilogy, does not convey a life story. It only presents something that happened within a specific window of time in a specific place to specific people. The one caveat I add to this is that a story has a conclusion. I'm sure everyone saw something like this in elementary school. Note the final part: resolution.

Murakami weaves a multi-thread narrative up until the final few chapters. He ends the story when daylight comes, so that the entirety of the book takes place, as the title says, "after dark." There's one problem though: it doesn't conclude any of the narratives.

A Chinese prostitute is mugged, and the organized crime group she works for promises to hunt down the assailant.

A damn-she's-fine Japanese girl has been sleeping for two months and gets sucked into a nightmare reality inside her TV.

Said damn-she's-fine Japanese girl's younger sister runs into some guy who plays trombone.

The publisher's summary, found on the front flap of the dust jacket, reads thus:

These "night people" are haunted by secrets and needs that draw them together more powerfully than the differing circumstances that might keep them apart, and it soon becomes clear that Eri's slumber--mysteriously tied to the businessman plagued by the mark of his crime--will either restore or annihilate her.

Okay, fine. Except we never learn how Eri's slumber is tied to the businessman, only that it is. We don't know if it restores or annihilates her. We dont' know what becomes with this businessman. The novel ends (it doesn't resolve or conclude, it just stops): "The night has begun to open up at last. There will be time until the next darkness arrives."

Murakami, "modern master." Let's take a look at the "old" masters: Shakespeare, Dickens, Hugo, Austen. Or the great legends: The Odyssey, The Aeneid. You know what? Shakespeare's plays have a final act. Dickens' novels have a definitive conclusion. Hugo's books finalize the social injustice. Austen's novels resolve the love disputes. The Odyssey doesn't end with Odysseus landing on Ithaca; it ends with him banishing the vulture suitors to his "widowed" wife. The Aeneid doesn't end when Troy falls; it ends when Aeneas kills Turnus--but we know that Virgil didn't finish the poem, 'cause he died.

The masters resolve their loose ends, tie up their conflicts. Murakami is a great writer, but a master he is not. So the fact that he garners such high praise baffles me when you put him next to the standards. Clearly the standards have been lowered or completely schucked aside. Somewhere, we stopped caring about standards, and it leads to a disturbing dissatisfaction with the world. We, as people, crave a complete story. Story is what drives us in everything, even in a day-to-day job, it is the story of tasks assigned and completed, the triumph of providing for a family. When we ignore our deepest desire because someone once told us that there is no end, that is something wrong with the world. We need to seek an end.

I'm usually not so crass as this, but when I boil everything away, all that needs to be said is this: f*@! postmodern literature.