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.