From vs. For...

When I was a freshman in Bible college one of my required courses was Theology I. This was essentially an introduction to Christian theology. One of the things that made this class experience unique was the fact that it was in a one-week modular format, and the other thing that made it a little odd was the fact that every single freshman in the college was in this class. Now, I didn't go to a major university for my BTh, but there were still just a little under 200 students in that class which anybody will tell you is a lot. Anyway, during one of the sessions we were having a discussion about baptism and the nature of sacraments in the evangelical church, and the instructor seemed to be pushing on the importance of baptism to the Christian faith more than some in the class were comfortable with. It was at this point that a student raised his hand and asked, "Sir are you trying to say that if a person isn't baptized he isn't saved?" The professor, after a very slight pause, answered, "Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying. I think it's about time for a 15 minute break."

This is only a funny story if you've grown up in a conservative Christian community, because only then do you understand the vital code language involved with the word "saved" and it's cognates. When the professor said this and then dismissed the class there was turmoil and anger like you could hardly imagine. People were talking and arguing and even weeping the in hall during the break, worried about whether or not they or their friends were actually "saved." The problem was, of course, that conservative Christians (and lots of other people interacting with Christian language) very often misunderstand the depth and breadth of the concepts the surround the word "salvation." Such people think of salvation as a cosmic reprieve from the dual evils of death and hell...like a supernatural get-out-of-jail-free card. And this isn't wrong. The Scriptures speak many times about the destruction of death on the cross, and about the everlasting life that awaits those who know Christ. But, is this the sum total of the Christian experience of salvation?

You see this first understanding of salvation is a salvation from, but there is more to salvation in the Christian faith. There is also salvation for. You see Christianity is not about escaping from personal danger or achieving eternal wealth and power. Christianity is about self-sacrifice and submission, it is about service before anything else. Even Jesus, whom Christians think of as God incarnate, saw himself as a servant before anything else (Matt. 20:28). And this must be central to our soteriology, our doctrine of salvation, that we are saved for service to God and his creation. When we begin to think of our lives this way a great many problems with modern living begin to melt around us. The love of money and things becomes empty, the need for appreciation and attention feels mean and small, lust and hatred and self-gratification are robbed of their meaning. There are a great many people who see Christianity as stilted and weak because of this emphasis on subjection and service, or as foolish and puritanical because of the emptying of worldly desire. But when I find the core of these truths in my own life, when I feel like a person saved for service, I discover that I am happy, fulfilled and content. This is where I am most empowered to live in the moment, to drink life in, to laugh and feel as though I am who I was meant to be.

There are a great many things about the Christian faith that are generally misunderstood, and I think that beliefs about salvation and service are among the most tragic of these. Christianity should not be rule based, nor should it be a selfish way to escape pain or destruction. It is instead an opportunity, a chance to be the servant that you have always been called to be. Don't believe that this is important? Imagine for just one moment a world where every single person willingly and intentionally worked for the good of every other person and above all for the glory and praise of God. We call this heaven.

Jack...

I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but one of the lovely luxuries that my current job affords me is the opportunity to listen to books on CD while I'm working. For those of you getting all jealous and up in arms please remember that I basically do data entry for 9 hrs every day, so it all comes out even in the end.

For the last few days I've been listening to C.S. Lewis' The Chronicles of Narnia...all of them. I've always loved these books, ever since my uncle gave them to me as a box set when I was 12 years old. That being said my recent theological and literary educational ventures have allowed me to understand explicitly something that I've known implicitly for a long time: the Narnia books represent some of the very best pure narrative theology that the world has to offer.

Narrative theology, for those unfamiliar with the jargon, is a way of talking about God using stories, parables, poetry and other narrative devices instead of using systematic propositional statements. This is pretty much a reaction to Christianity's all-but-wholesale acceptance of the modern (and particularly positivistic) program of equating fact with truth (this is a crude definition but will serve here). Narrative theology, conversely, drives towards truth using stories. A narrative theologian neither asks nor answers questions that the Christian Story does not itself engage.

This is what the Narnia books accomplish so well. Though often described as allegory they are not. Allegory is a device that creates an essentially exact relationship between two narrative worlds or systems in order to comment on the one by means of the other (usually using either imagery or personified concepts). What Lewis does with his world is to create a symbolic universe that does not mirror our universe precisely but instead demonstrates the nature of God as he might interact with a different Story. In other words not everything that happens in Narnia has happened here, and not everything that has happened here happens in Narnia. What is common to them both is the fact that God interacts with both stories. To be more precise he tells both stories. The importance and the truth of Aslan's story is found less in precise theological formulations or provable facts. It is found in the resonance of the story with our story, in that intuitive place between emotion and cognition where all that we are is involved and engaged in the experience of the narrative.

This is a fairly verbose way of saying that even now Lewis' children's stories have the ability to say more than much of the most complex systematic theology, and to say it better. Do you still wonder why almost the entire Bible is written either in narrative or in poetry?

On the Fritz and a New Blog on the Side-Bar

So I haven't posted in a few days, even after my great proclamation about posting more regularly. There is, however, a very good reason for this. My Internet has been on the fritz since last Thursday or Friday. But I'm back, and I have news. I have, in my blog link travels, come across a blog belonging to a guy I knew both in college and later while I was pastoring at Heritage in Regina.

His name is Jon Coutts and he is one of the brighter and more articulate guys I've known in my life. He also appears to be doing graduate work in theology, though I haven't a clue where (last I heard he was pastoring in Manitoba). Anyways, his blog is linked on the sidebar now and you should really go check it out. My very favorite thing that I found on his blog is his thesis work. It looks like a fun little number on natural theology and Chesterton's The Man Who Was Thursday. If you've never read any Chesterton you need to, because he's fantastic (I was gonna say awesomer than ten awesome things, but that has the unfortunate quality of both sounding and being dumb). I don't know whether to tell you to start with Thursday or Orthodoxy, because they are both wonderful in their own very different ways. Of course you could also start with something a little lighter like his Father Brown books (e.g. The Innocence of Father Brown). Jon also has a great title for his thesis: This Side of Sunday. Man that's great. I really do believe that the ability to develop an interesting or engaging title is a litmus test for how good a book is likely to be. This, I suppose, is yet another proof that nobody will ever read my thesis, lovingly titled "White Bulls and Wild Goats: A Literary Examination of the Function of Animal Imagery in Early Jewish Apocalyptic Literature." I think the subtitle is where I really ride it off the rails, but I don't have the time or energy to think of anything better, so there ya go.

All of this to say, go and read Jon's blog. Oh, and I really am back and blogging, the hiatus wasn't my fault. Time for sleep now, cheers all.

Brand New Feelings...

So for those of you who don't know yet, I'm gonna be a daddy soon. Jin is about 20 weeks pregnant right now with a little boy (we haven't named him yet, but even once we do I won't be passing it on until he's born...though suggestions are always welcome). This is a new thing for me. A really new thing. There is nothing in my life that has ever felt like this. I've never been this stressed and scared about something I'm this excited for. It's weird, in both a good and a bad way. It reminds me of the feeling I usually get right before a big test. The only difference is that this feeling seems to be pretty permanent at this point.

For the past little while I've been frustrated about these brand new feelings. They have been tiring and trying most of the time. I still feel a little like that (sometimes a lot like that), but I'm beginning to come to terms with the fact that the way I'm feeling might be just fine.

The single most prevalent metaphor for God's relationship with humanity in the Bible is the Father/Child relationship. All of Jesus' teachings, indeed his entire life, are bound up in this metaphor. I am only just now beginning to realize that the way I'm feeling is another point of connection between my experience of the world and God. He felt this way. He was worried and frightened, anxious and excited, proud and exhilarated all at once. That's how I feel, though not all at once. For me it's more like a wild whirl of variegated emotion...kind of like an affective kaleidoscope or something. But he felt this way, and that makes me feel much better about all of this. It's good to be in good company.

When it Rains...

That's right, it's an obvious cliche so I'll leave it to you to add the apodosis (just trying to balance out the cliche with some technical language...it's like literary karma...even though I'm using apodosis incorrectly as it's really only applicable to conditional sentences...plus this is an incredibly long parenthetical statement...with far too many ellipses to be tolerable...by now you should be cottoning on to the fact that I don't believe in literary karma...suckers).

Anyways, just wanted to say that I saw a really great movie tonight. It's called Stranger Than Fiction and it stars Will Farrell, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Emma Thompson (who rules!) and Dustin Hoffman. This was a truly exceptional film, particularly the writing and direction (though the actors were no slouches). It's also one of those movies that just gets better the more you know about literature and literary theory, a kind of second level of code. I won't say any more here, don't want to spoil it for you. But if you're looking for a fascinating and powerful film, this is a good bet. But if you like Farrell's normal fare (e.g. The Ballad of Ricky Bobby) this might not be the show for you...less with the farting noises and sex jokes and more with the subtle humor and quirky writing.


Have a good night all. Blessings.

On Writing...

So I've been gone for awhile. Okay, more than awhile. There are good reasons for that I assure you. Jin and I bought a house for one thing. We purchased our first home this past October and spent a couple of months renovating. Actually we're not done the renos, but we've slowed down an awful lot since the new year. This leads me to another good reason for the lax blogging, which is that we're expecting our first child this summer, a little boy!! Woohoo! We're both pretty stoked about all of that and life has been an awful lot of fun for the last little while.

The unfortunate drawback to all of this is that I haven't been blogging, nor have I been thesis writing. After a meeting with my supervisor this week I now know that I'm not going to be graduating this spring. Sigh. Oh well, not much to be done about that now. I can't say I'm not frustrated by the seemingly interminable delay with this bloody degree, but a lot of the fault is my own. Which brings me to the actual subject of this post. I need to write more.

I have discovered recently that writing is cathartic and meaningful to me, even if my writing is neither of those things to people who read it. I need self-expression to fight off the demons of frustration and doubt that seem to plague me. Cheery hey? So I'm trying to start writing again, and I'm trying to do it a lot and all at once. I'm writing here, I'm writing my thesis (sort of) and (please don't snicker here) I'm trying to write a little bit of this and that all on my own and all for myself. Don't worry, that last bit will almost certainly never see the light of day and you will consequently not be burdened to lie to me about how much you like my mediocre attempts at writing real prose.

Having said all of this there is still a problem. Writing is hard. It takes time and effort and the ability to tap that well of creativity from whence expression and meaning come. The last part is the hardest. I'm busy like everyone else and I'm tired too, but those aren't the things that have hindered my ability to express myself over the last few months. I've been away from the well. That's been the problem, and indeed is the problem still. But I'm back looking for it again, wandering around in the twisting labyrinth of my own mind, divining rod in hand. I haven't found that well yet. I'm sure I will, but I hope it happens soon. I'm getting very thirsty.

Scholarship...

A couple of things via Dr. James Davila at Paleojudaica, both on the subject of scholarship in the world of Theology and Biblical Studies.

First Davila makes note of the...well, vindication is probably an overstatement, but we'll call it the slight rehabilitation of Norman Golb's theories about the nature of the Qumran community and its famous library (the Dead Sea Scrolls). Golb has long theorized that the Scrolls are not a single sectarian collection (more or less the common view) but instead a collection of many varied Jewish writings collected and preserved at Qumran during the 1st century CE. I have very little to say about either theory. Though I am very interested in the Scrolls and I've read them all and read a good deal about them, the questions involved are far beyond my own expertise (which means they differ not at all from most areas in Biblical Studies). What I wanted to comment on is the beauty of Golb's insistence on his theory in the face of all but universal disparagement. I suppose you could just as easily call his attitude pig-headedness, but it's the kind of pig-headedness I love. It reminds us that scholarship is not a democratic venture and just because the majority endorses an idea, that doesn't give it automatic credence. All theories must be weighed carefully and considered with as much honesty, openness and curiosity as we can find.

Which leads me to the second note on scholarship via Paleojudaica. Stephen C. Carlson (check him out at Hypotyposeis) has recently released a book called The Gospel Hoax, which I understand to be a rather scathing attack on the authenticity of a putative Gnostic text called Secret Mark. I haven't read the book, and I have even less experience with Gnostic texts and Secret Mark than I do with the DSS, but that's not what I want to comment on. In his review of Carlson's book the well-known biblical scholar Bruce Chilton reminds us of one of the great dangers of any form of scholarship. I quote from his article:

No literature has suffered more from this problem [popularization] than that of the second century of Christianity. In the case of "the Secret Gospel," a modern researcher ( Morton Smith himself, or someone whose forgery duped Smith) has made up a Gnostic document in the attempt to manipulate scholarly discussion and public perception. The fact that this attempt succeeded for so long stands as an indictment of American scholarship, which prides itself on skepticism in regard to the canonical Gospels, but then turns credulous, and even neo-Gnostic, when non-canonical texts are concerned.

Now, I think that Dr. Chilton's suggestion that American scholarship is neo-Gnostic might be a bit much, and from what I've read I'm not entirely convinced that this problem is any more prevalent in America than in other milieus. That being said the general timbre of his comment strikes a chord with me. As a young (hopefully) future biblical scholar I do indeed feel the inclination of some in the scholarly community to default to a belief in the radical and fascinating for its own sake and the consequent pressure to follow this trend. This is, I'm sure, an inevitable consequence of the "publish or perish" rule. Interesting and edgy will always outsell strait forward and predictable. I'm not trying to imply that scholarship must be dull in order to be accurate, or that unorthodox ideas are necessarily poorly constructed. What I am saying is that even in the academic world the marketplace is often driving the bus.

All of this to say that scholarship, regardless of the precise form it take or it's exact scope of inquiry, should be an attempt to know more. That may mean the defense of the indefensible (or at least the wildly unpopular) or it may mean coming to terms with the less than sexy results of your thorough research. But we seek on regardless. So, here's to the seekers, be they edgy or pedestrian, mainstream or maverick.

Best Quote...

I came across one of the better quotes I've ever read in a friend's email recently.

"The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong."
-Mohandas Gandhi

I got the quote from the email alone so I can't give a better reference than this or personally guarantee the attribution (though I do trust my friend), but it sure sounds like Gandhi doesn't it? I'm by no means an authority on the Mohatma (saw the movie, read a little about him here and there) but from what I know it seems to me that Gandhi understood the ethical truths about which Jesus spoke better than most. This quotation is the kind of thing that could just as well have been spoken by the Christ himself. Check out the Sermon on the Mount and the Beatitudes in particular, and you'll see that one of the key elements of Jesus' message was the reversal of expectations. He came to invert the world as we see it or, as the Apostle Paul put it, to make "foolish the wisdom of the world" (1 Cor. 1:20b NRSV).

Gandhi's quote about forgiveness reflects this inversion perfectly. It is natural to believe that asking for forgiveness weakens us and that offering forgiveness makes us look pathetic. Neither of these things is true. A person who forgives does what a weak, prideful, self-involved person can never do. He or she sets aside the right to be angry or vengeful not to keep peace, but to create peace (I would suggest that there is a phenomenal difference between the two). A person who asks for forgiveness also does what a weak, prideful, self-involved person can never do. He or she sets aside the desire for self-justification, the desire to think of oneself as righteous, again in order to create peace.

What we perceive as greatness is not, what we conceive of as power is not. We have been deceived. Though many of us don't know it and those of us who know so often forget, the world has long since been set on its head.

Rest and Peace...

It seems that a great many people in my life are in the midst of severe pain and struggle. Not everybody to be sure, but more than seems usual to me. I'm not talking about angst or frustration here, I'm talking about pain. Family members in the hospital, businesses in serious distress, the disruption and even destruction of life...pain. We all know that it's very hard to know what to say when somebody hurts, especially when there is little or nothing that you can do to help. That being said I think that our words can help, even if it is just a little. I write the rest of this in that spirit.

During the shabbat meal it is my understanding that Jews bless one another with the words shabbat shalom. These are Hebrew words, found many times each throughout the Hebrew Scriptures (aka the OT if you're a Christian like I am). Like every language there are some Hebrew words that are more pregnant with meaning than others, and these two words are among them. Simply translated shabbat means "rest" and shalom means "peace." This rest is most clearly exemplified when God completes his work of creation and then rests on the seventh day (cf. Gen 2:2). It doesn't simply mean to cease being active but carries the sense of respite and even celebration. I can't think of an act or event in Scripture that exemplifies the total meaning of shalom, but suffice to say it means more than an end to violence. It also connotes safety (Ps. 4:8), prosperity (Ps. 35:27), calmness and comfort (Is. 26:3), and is among the characteristics of the future rule of God that we call Heaven.

Rest and Peace. These are the things that I wish and pray for my friends. Rest and respite from pain and toil and celebration when pain and toil cease. Peace, comfort and calmness within trials and joyful relief when those trials come to an end. And so to all of you who read this may these two great words, these pregnant words, these words that bend and groan under the weight of their own meaning be made real in your life. As I write this it is both the end of the Jewish Sabbath and the beginning of the Christian Sabbath. It's also thanksgiving weekend. I can't think of any better blessing to offer on this holy day than to say this: shabbat shalom.

Too Big...

I've been thinking recently about big problems. I've posted about some of them on this blog...things like Canadian foreign policy in the middle east and such. Today it was the rather terrifying reality of global warming. Jin and I watched bits and pieces of a televised discussion forum on the dangers of pollution and global warming, and in particular Canada's approach to these problems.

The environmental issue is, I think, one of the best examples of problems that are too big for us to grasp. I'm not entirely convinced that any group can honestly say they've wrapped their heads around all of the economic, social and environmental consequences of various theories on the environment. If we do X, then all of our grandchildren will have three arms, but if we do Y we'll all starve to death because we won't have jobs (another scenario that doesn't turn out too well for the grandkids). The globalization effect is the same kind of thing. Is Wal-Mart evil or just a natural by-product of the best system we can come up with? The list of these big problems goes on and on and I continually ask myself how I should react to them.

Very often when I was growing up I heard people say that no problem is too big for God. I think that's true, but also has the potential to be a tremendously dangerous idea. This is where many Christians (and conservatives from other religious traditions as well) get into trouble on the environmental issue. "If this is God's world," some say, "then He will take care of it and it will end when He decides no matter what I do" (yeah, I know it's grammatically incorrect to capitalize the pronoun "he" in that sentence, but evangelicals do it all the time in an attempt to show respect for God using grammar so I thought I'd do it for the sake of authenticity). That kind of thinking scares me. We are responsible for the way we live in this world, including the way we live on this world. That being said, however, I think there's a kernel of truth in this kind of pseudo-christian fatalism.

The are problems that are too big. They are too big for me or for you or for any one person (including, I think, individual world leaders like presidents and prime ministers). There are God-sized problems in the world. This does not mean, however, that we are not responsible. We have parts to play, even if they are small. I don't buy the dichotomy that either God will save us or we must save ourselves. God will save us and we must save ourselves. There are things that we cannot do. We cannot alter hearts, we cannot be responsible for the nature of death and the next life, we cannot imbue to world with love and grace, we cannot be responsible for judgment and cosmic justice. Those things God must do. We can respond to God's lead, we can allow our hearts to be altered, we can behave lovingly, gracefully and responsibly. Those who think that only God is responsible and those who think that only people are responsible are fools both.

God is responsible, and so am I.

Welcome Back...

Studio 60 On the Sunset Strip premiered tonight...or to be more accurate is premiering as I type. So far I only have one thing to say. Mr. Sorkin, Mr. Schlamme...welcome back.

Devil Games or Man that Takes Me Back...

Wandering about on Heimy's blog I ran across a post that took me back to my college days (damn, thinking about the fact that I have "college days" sure does make me feel old). Heimy makes note of the wonderful, fantastically low-tech video game X-Com. This game is a Devil Game. Now before any of my conservative readers get bent out of shape (something that is unlikely to happen as I have almost no readers anyways, and most of them aren't all that conservative, see last post) let me explain. A Devil Game is a video game that does certain things to one's life. There are very specific criteria that make a game a Devil Game. They are as follows:

1.If you play a game for more than 6hrs in one sitting, it is a Devil Game.
2.If you intentionally choose to play a game over spending time with other human beings, it is a Devil Game.
3.If you neglect pressing matters like homework, work, bathroom breaks, etc. in order to play a game, it is a Devil Game.
4.If you play a game instead of sleeping, it is a Devil Game.
5.If you spend your time away from home thinking about playing a game, it is a Devil Game.

Anyways, Chris has recently discovered a new video game with the same essential concept as X-Com. I hate to burst his bubble, but there have, in fact, been at least three evolutions of X-Com itself over the past decade or so. I once very seriously considered buying one for Chris as a b-day present, but thought that it would be cruel to expose him again. Like buying a dime bag for a heroin addict or bringing some Johnny Walker Blue to an AA meeting.

Anyways, Chris' post brought me back to the old days and I felt the need to ramble. Night all.

Absence Makes the Heart...

So I'm pretty sure that after my long thesis hiatus I'm back to a readership of none (or one if you count my own narcissistic perusal of my blog). That's a bummer cause at my height I actually had a few regulars. Oh well, not much to be done about it I suppose. I'm gonna keep blogging regardless, mostly because this blog was always about self-indulgence and self-gratification anyways. So, for those readers who do happen across me once again, cheers and welcome. And to my one true regular, at least I'll always know that you agree with me.

Apologies...

Jin and I went out tonight for a nice little date. Saw a show, went for a walk, ate dipped cones from Dairy Queen. The movie was Click starring Adam Sandler. It was a pretty standard romantic comedy with some good Sandler brand humor. I won't give too much away but suffice to say that this is an "I wasn't a good enough person and regret that I wasted my life on work instead of family." There was, however, one quite touching bit in the middle. Sandler, on his death bed, gives advice and love to each member of his family, ending with his estranged wife. To her he says only one thing, "I'm sorry."

I don't know exactly where my life will take me. I have some dreams and goals and ambitions, but in the end I'm pretty much okay with the fact that there are some things that I think I'll do that I won't ever end up getting to. But even knowing this there's at least one thing that I don't ever want to have as a part of my life. I don't ever want to die apologizing. I'm sure I'll have regrets, and I'm sure I'll be disappointed with some parts of my life, but I pray that my last words will not be "I'm sorry."

To die being sorry is to die believing that you have truly squandered your life. Though I vacillate on the exact nature of what will happen when I die, I think that at least part of it will be an encounter with God, a judgment of sorts. I wonder if I could ever face God, the one who gave me the opportunity to live, and tell him that the opportunity was wasted on me.

What Does Winning Look Like?

Jinny and I were out in B.C. this weekend visiting her family. It was her grandparents' 60th anniversary, very cool. While I was there I saw the cover of a recent Maclean's magazine with the title "What Are We Dying For?" I didn't get a chance to read the article (busy weekend) and I don't have a subscription (thus no link to the article either), but I'm pretty sure that I know the general tenor of the question. The picture over which the title was laid was of a coffin being carried out of a military transport with a Canadian flag draped over it. My guess is that this article was asking the same questions that I hear friends and family and people in supermarkets asking...why are we involved in a shooting war on the other side of the world and is our presence there accomplishing anything positive at all? Before I go any farther let me just say that I have absolutely no answers to these questions, or to any questions that have to do with these questions.

Winding down this evening I was watching TBTVSAT and came across a short exchange with some powerful words. The character Leo McGarry (played by the late John Spencer), the Chief of Staff in President Bartlett's White House, was discussing the problem of western involvement in the Middle East. Though the immediate context of the conversation had to do with events surrounding Sorkin's fictional country of Qumar, the basic principles certainly apply to the real world. McGarry asks whether the only way that the conflict between the West and the Middle East will end is with "the American flag flying over Mecca?" In the same conversation he says that he "doesn't know what winning looks like anymore."

What does winning look like? Is it found in total withdrawal from the region or in total commitment to military action? The first option would, I think at least, be the most likely way of ensuring that western nations (Europe, Canada, the US, etc.) would cease to be targets for jihadists. It would also, however, mean leaving allies like Israel to their fate, to say nothing of millions of people still living under the oppressive thumb of religious dictatorships (I'm thinking particularly of women in countries like Iran). The problem with the second option is, obviously, its imperialist tendencies. If modern history has taught us anything it is that telling people how to be better people at the point of a gun doesn't work very well (and is more than a little bit arrogant). So what does winning look like? I haven't got the faintest idea. But I have one question to ask about that question.

Is "winning" the right metaphor?

Back in Black...

So I'm back into the blogosphere!! I figured I'd change up the old template a little bit to celebrate (plus it gives me the chance to use this cool/cheesy title). The first chapter of my thesis is done (draft one at least) and I've moved on to research on chapter two. One of the nice things about getting beyond literary theory and methodological concerns is that I can get back into ancient languages and literature. So much more fun than literary theory...and also much closer to anything that I might call an area of expertise.

Not a whole lot to natter on about in my first post back. I've been spending most of my time either working on a translation of Daniel 7-8 or reading books by one of my new favorite authors, Patrick O'Bryan. O'Bryan is the author of the series of books that the film Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World was based on. Though the film is wonderful it's not exactly an accurate portrayal of the books. Hell, there are 21 books, you can't really blame the film-makers. The books are tremendously fun, very historically and technically accurate and contain some of the best written characters I've ever come across. I recommend them highly.

Another random note, I recently read what is maybe the single best blog title of all time on Kat and Chris's blog. It's called David, Destroyer of Worlds and is (not surprisingly) about their newborn son David. Very very funny. Teehee.

That's it for now, though I have a couple of posts in the hopper that I might get out soon. Cheers.

Even Better than the Real News...

I've been thinking for a while now that The Daily Show with Jon Stewart is a better source for information about the world than the real news. For those of you unfamiliar with The Daily Show...well first of all buy yourself a damned television...the show it is a spoof based on real news programs. It's probably the funniest thing on television right now and is my favorite thing to watch after the Greatest Television Program of All Time. Some of the wonderful things about the Daily Show include: a fantastic sense of irony, interviews with people who are actually interesting and influential, George Bush being mocked (not hard, but still hilarious), and a very well executed marriage between subtle political humor and crass low-brow jokes. When it comes to the Daily Show, however, the greatest irony of all is that this fake news show happens to be a far more accurate window to the world in which we live than the real news. This is true for two principle reasons.

First of all the Daily Show is entertainment and we all know it. What many of us don't know is that every regular news show on television (particularly US television, but it happens here in Canada too) is also principally about entertainment. Neil Postman pointed out a long time ago that television is a communication medium that has more to do with entertainment than anything else (cf. Amusing Ourselves to Death). That's how the news works in North America. Note the catchy music, cool graphics, and the way anchors bounce from profoundly distressing events to the local dog that can water-ski. But because the news promotes itself as "real" and "serious" it makes many viewers think of it as actually real and actually serious, when it is in fact neither. The Daily Show, on the other hand, is so blissfully and self-consciously absurd that nobody who is even semi-intelligent can fail to realize that entertainment based on reality is what is being offered.

Secondly the Daily Show does a great job of deconstructing itself, the mainstream news media and the world at large. When you watch Jon Stewart commenting on the news of the day you get essentially the same actual information as you would on the regular news (I suspect that any given news program only contains about ten minutes of actual information about what is happening in the world). The other thing that you get, which is absent in most real news, is ironic (though usually accurate) commentary on that actual information. By doing this Stewart and his crew continually point out the inconsistency and insincerity of politicians, pundits, reporters and public figures (and private figures sometimes too) as well as the spectacular (and perhaps frightening) idiocy that is pervasive in the world in which we live.

It's important to note that though I say that the Daily Show is a more accurate window into the world than the real news, I certainly do not mean to say that it is truly accurate. All that I'm trying to say here is that it's time for us to stop thinking of the regular evening news as "real" and start thinking about it as pre-packaged, entertainment based, news-like programming. Perhaps Stephen Colbert's word "truthiness" would best describe what I'm talking about.

It Has Begun...

Though my profile has been saying for a couple of months now that I am writing my master's thesis, until now this has only been partially true. I haven't been writing so much as researching (which in my case basically means a whole lot of reading). As of last night, however, all of that has changed. I am now actually writing my thesis (5 pages in as of this afternoon). I'm in the process of creating the first draft of my second section (the first major section after the introduction) which is basically an elaborate argument in favor of Paul Ricoeur's interaction theory of metaphor followed by a slightly less elaborate argument attempting to explain how allegorical (as in 1 Enoch) and symbolic (as in Daniel, though I'm not sure I'll keep this terminological divide between symbol and metaphor) systems function in essentially the same way as interactive metaphors. All of this to say that blogging will likely slow down considerably over the next little while as I will be trying to expend the lion's share of my creative energy writing my thesis. If anybody cares (which I frankly kind of doubt), my apologies. May I recommend the vastly superior blogs on my sidebar for your reading pleasure? Paleojudaica and Slacktivist are particularly worth regular visits. So, cheers all, and I'll see you again when I'm done writing the absurdly arcane and never-again-to-be-read product of months and months of work.

I Hope Not to Fail...

I read the words of a dead man today. In truth I read the words of dead people every day. Philosophers and theologians, apostles and prophets, all men and women who have passed through the veil. This was different. The man who penned these words walked with dead feet, breathed with dead lungs, saw with dead eyes and wrote with a dead hand. His name was Colin Mackay.

I discovered Colin Mackay at an online publication house called Originals Online. He wrote a book chronicling the final nine weeks of his life, the nine weeks just prior to his suicide. I haven't read the whole work yet, and I'm not sure that I will, but I have read an excerpt from the first chapter. It is here that he explains the reason for what he calls his calm and rational decision to kill himself. I quote:

I did not think, "“Why?"” I knew the why. For years I have known it. For years it has walked beside me, whispering in my ear. It is my fury, my shadow. Its name is failure, I think. Failure to become fully human, to give life, and save life. Failure to do more than observe the passing of the world. Failure to return my thanks for the gift of breath, and leave the world a richer place than I found it. It is what I see from the corner of my eye, the thing that always vanishes whenever I turn to face it. I cannot enter a room without wondering if it is waiting for me, if it has finally tired of the game and is going to let me meet it, face to face.
(Colin Mackay, Jacob's Ladder, downloadable at Originals Online).

I believe that we can fail. I don't know if Colin Mackay actually failed, but I'm sure that failure is possible. He strikes, I think, the core of failure when he laments his "[failure] to do more than observe the passing of the world." This is my fear, to do no more than watch the world as it passes, an observer in what should be an interaction. This is, unfortunately, precisely what the culture in which we live encourages: passivity. But I hope not to fail.

I hope to interact, to involve my life with the lives of others. I hope to engage with other knowing subjects and change and be changed by them. I hope to be a friend and husband and son and brother and father and teacher and student and on and on and on and on. I hope never to sit before a blank sheet of paper contemplating my suicide diary. I hope to, as the poet says, rage against the dying of the light; not for fear of death, but because there is yet good for me to do.

I hope not to fail.

Good Guys and Bad Guys...

Jin and I (along with my sis and some friends) went to check out Superman Returns the other night. It was a much better movie than I had heard (I think Roger Ebert was particularly hard on it), though by no means Oscar material (or even watch for a second time material for that matter). But it was fun and things blew up, so no worries. There is one little tidbit that I found to be insightful in (I assume) a completely unintentional, and therefore highly ironic and amusing, way.

There's this bit in the movie where Superman is just beginning to reclaim his role as the great protector of humanity. This comes, apparently, after a few years of backpacking around Europe (read here: traveling distant regions of space and the depressing ruins of his home world of Krypton) trying to find himself. In what is seemingly an attempt to settle into his new environs Superman flies up into the thermosphere (or maybe it was the mesosphere, this point was never made clear) and begins listening carefully to all of the noise of pain and suffering on planet Earth. As we listen along with Superman we hear crimes as they occur. I can't remember much that is distinct among the wave of noise, but I am sure that at one point I heard a little girl's voice crying out for help. On hearing this cry Superman, of course, rushes down to the planet below to save this poor, defenseless child...or not. Instead the little girl's cry is immediately drowned out by the sound of, you guessed it, a bank robbery. Superman's eyes snap open and he launches himself down to a large metropolitan bank somewhere in the continental United States (really where the hell else are you going to find a bank worth robbing? Switzerland I guess, or maybe the Caribbean, but they have much stricter gun-control laws which may have hindered the thieves in obtaining their boom-mounted gatling gun).

Are you kidding me? In a world of 6 billion people he couldn't find a potential rape or murder victim to save, a woman being abused by her husband, a pedophile kidnapping a child? A bank? Seriously? What the hell kind of superhero is this guy? People are dying, pain and suffering everywhere, the world is on the brink of coming apart at the seams, but let's make sure that our property is safe. Let me clarify that I have no problem with personal property, and I really hope that nobody ever robs me (I am setting aside the fact that robbing a bank only really hurts the bank and their insurance company), but given Superman's crime fighting assets I really think that he could have done better here.

I doubt that Bryan Singer or any of his co-producers are actually trying to say that possessions are more valuable than people, but this subtext seems to jump out at the viewer regardless. Either way the spectacular irony (and indeed hypocrisy) of this subtext is the fact that the film's villain Lex Luthor is presented as evil precisely for engaging in this sin of valuing wealth over people.

Is there, then, a real difference between Superman and Lex Luthor? Between hero and villain? In the structure of the story as a whole the difference is immense, but in this small instance of subtext I think that we see with far more accuracy the truth of human nature. At the core the difference between "good guys" and "bad guys" is much more slight than most of us wish to believe.