First off, I want to thank all of the people who messaged me or left comments wishing me a happy birthday. I know MySpace gets a lot of bad press (just do a Google News search) but as for me, it's been a great way to keep in touch with people.
Second, I got one of the coolest presents ever today. At least I hope it's going to turn out to be a cool present. Miles gave me a gift certificate to get a massage at this massage school in Pearl City. A 50min massage.
Now I've never had a massage before, and although I'm almost always up for a new experience, I have a few small fears regarding this gift. First, I've heard of people getting addicted to massages because of how good they make them feel. I'm on a super tight budget and I don't want to have to start finding ways to fund my next hit of massage. Second, because this is my first massage, I've probably got more knots in my muscles than a commercial fishing net. I'm thinking this might hurt. Third, I have no idea what massage etiquette is. I mean, what if after getting all relaxed I pass a mean fart? Lastly, I'm going to a massage school and while I trust instructors will be there to supervise, I don't want to end up as a star in Brokeback Randall.
I'm sure it'll be fine...although if they make me sign a waiver I'm going to think twice.
Last thing. This past Sunday at my home church, they presented me with an ice cream birthday cake. Just before I blew out the candles, a thought hit me: I didn't want to wish for a girlfriend. See, for as many years as I can remember, I've used my birthday wish to ask for a girlfriend, but not this year. And that was somewhat of a surprise for me...I guess I really have found contentment as a single person (see blog 162). So what did I wish for? Well if I share it then it doesn't come true right? Aren't those the rules? Truth is, I can't remember what I wished for.
Okay, short blog tonight. It's been a long day. I only had to work 1/2 day at ALTRES but after that I was recording the amazing singer/songwriter Laine (formerly of the band Pennylane). I love running Pro Tools on my new iMac (see blog 150), but still, recording can be quite a brain drain.
Tuesday, February 28, 2006
Sunday, February 26, 2006
171. loner
The other night a friend of mine asked me what I was planning on doing that night. And I told him I was going to cruise at home and read and write. And then he asked me what I had done the weekend before and I told him the same thing - that I had read a bit and written a bit. And then he asks me, how come you don't call people and go out?
I explained to him that I just kind of wait for people to call me. And it's not because I'm afraid of imposing on people or because I'm afraid that they'd be busy already and so wouldn't want to hang out. It's just that I don't mind being alone and I don't mind just staying at home. And even when I do go out, a lot of times I'm seeing some artsy fartsy movie that most of my friends wouldn't be interested in (see blog 145).
And then it hit me. I've become kind of a loner. I mean I don't see myself sequestering myself in the woods a la Ted Kaczynski but still, it got me wondering if I was on the road to being the eerie loner guy on the street. Of course I still live with my parents, but what about when I move up to Seattle in July? What about after that? Should I resist my recent new urge to start raising kittens?
I don't know, I'm not all that worried about it. I don't think I'm antisocial, at least not in the psychopathic sense. If anything, I'm kind of the opposite. Antisocial personality disorder is characterized by an extreme lack of empathy. Sometimes I think I have too much empathy.
Take this weekend as an example. My birthday is on the 27th and so I was thinking about calling all my friends and organizing some swinging soiree. But I nixed that idea pretty quick. Here's why. I don't know how many of you know this, but I like to dance. But not just any kind of dancing. I like dancing to good house music. I don't like going to places where they play a lot of hip-hop or top 40 or (worst of all) booty music. But most of my friends aren't into house music. On top of that, a lot of my friends don't like to go to clubs to dance.
I suppose some would say, "it's your birthday, go do what you want to do," and I suppose that's true, but if I were to invite my friends to some club, I'd be too worried about whether they were having a good time or not - wondering if they were only there because I lured them there playing the birthday card. And that's kind of what I mean by too much empathy. I'd be too worried about them to enjoy myself.
And I'm not quite sure what to make of that. Is that weird?
I suppose I could have played the loner card again and checked out some club by myself but compared to a night at home with a good book or working on a blog entry, the time spent trying to find a place playing good house music that isn't too expensive or too chichi just isn't worth it ((and this is unfortunate because one of the reasons I used to like clubs that played house music was because it used to be about just getting out on the dance floor and getting lost in the music. These days, good house music has become the soundtrack to parties of the rich and famous and soul-less). And so I stayed home.
Don't cry for me Argentina. I really, truly, honestly don't mind hanging by myself at home, even on my birthday. That might sound like Swahili to some, but it's the truth.
But...(seems like all my blog entries have buts in them these days)
But I'm writing about it because there's a part of me that wonders if I should be this way. I mean as a single 34yo, should I be getting myself out more? Am I too young (and too single) to spend my weekends alone?
Anyone care to opine?
I explained to him that I just kind of wait for people to call me. And it's not because I'm afraid of imposing on people or because I'm afraid that they'd be busy already and so wouldn't want to hang out. It's just that I don't mind being alone and I don't mind just staying at home. And even when I do go out, a lot of times I'm seeing some artsy fartsy movie that most of my friends wouldn't be interested in (see blog 145).
And then it hit me. I've become kind of a loner. I mean I don't see myself sequestering myself in the woods a la Ted Kaczynski but still, it got me wondering if I was on the road to being the eerie loner guy on the street. Of course I still live with my parents, but what about when I move up to Seattle in July? What about after that? Should I resist my recent new urge to start raising kittens?
I don't know, I'm not all that worried about it. I don't think I'm antisocial, at least not in the psychopathic sense. If anything, I'm kind of the opposite. Antisocial personality disorder is characterized by an extreme lack of empathy. Sometimes I think I have too much empathy.
Take this weekend as an example. My birthday is on the 27th and so I was thinking about calling all my friends and organizing some swinging soiree. But I nixed that idea pretty quick. Here's why. I don't know how many of you know this, but I like to dance. But not just any kind of dancing. I like dancing to good house music. I don't like going to places where they play a lot of hip-hop or top 40 or (worst of all) booty music. But most of my friends aren't into house music. On top of that, a lot of my friends don't like to go to clubs to dance.
I suppose some would say, "it's your birthday, go do what you want to do," and I suppose that's true, but if I were to invite my friends to some club, I'd be too worried about whether they were having a good time or not - wondering if they were only there because I lured them there playing the birthday card. And that's kind of what I mean by too much empathy. I'd be too worried about them to enjoy myself.
And I'm not quite sure what to make of that. Is that weird?
I suppose I could have played the loner card again and checked out some club by myself but compared to a night at home with a good book or working on a blog entry, the time spent trying to find a place playing good house music that isn't too expensive or too chichi just isn't worth it ((and this is unfortunate because one of the reasons I used to like clubs that played house music was because it used to be about just getting out on the dance floor and getting lost in the music. These days, good house music has become the soundtrack to parties of the rich and famous and soul-less). And so I stayed home.
Don't cry for me Argentina. I really, truly, honestly don't mind hanging by myself at home, even on my birthday. That might sound like Swahili to some, but it's the truth.
But...(seems like all my blog entries have buts in them these days)
But I'm writing about it because there's a part of me that wonders if I should be this way. I mean as a single 34yo, should I be getting myself out more? Am I too young (and too single) to spend my weekends alone?
Anyone care to opine?
170. a very cool dream
I'm not one who has a lot of dreams when i sleep, and when I do I usually don't remember them. But last night I had a really short bit of a dream and it was a super cool image/idea. Thought I'd share it here (any thoughts on what it might mean Kelli?).
Here's how I remember it.
First off, there were two squares side by side, left and right. In each square it was like I was watching two different scenes from above - not directly above but at an angle, and not super high up or far away, more like looking down from a third floor balcony.
The scene in each of the squares was different but similar. The details were similar but the colors and lighting were slightly different - like looking at the same event held in two different locations.
It looked like a park. It was a large paved area. Sprouting out from the surface, there were what looked at first like turnstiles, like the kind you pass through to enter a stadium or subway. But when I looked closer, they were actually large (maybe four feet high), vintage porcelain faucets, kind of like this one
only without the spout. There were a whole bunch of them and there were people mingling among them. But these weren't real people, more like virtual people like you'd find in The Sims.
So here's the really cool part. The people start randomly gathering around these faucet turnstiles and start turning them, some clockwise, some counter clockwise. And then rain starts to fall, sometimes hard, sometimes soft. And then I realize that the strength of the downpour is directly related to the faucets that the people are turning - when more faucets are turned open, it rains harder but when more faucets are closed, the rain slows.
And then the dream ended.
Isn't that a fantastic idea? What a cool image. Would make for a great bit in a Hayao Miyazaki movie.
Here's how I remember it.
First off, there were two squares side by side, left and right. In each square it was like I was watching two different scenes from above - not directly above but at an angle, and not super high up or far away, more like looking down from a third floor balcony.
The scene in each of the squares was different but similar. The details were similar but the colors and lighting were slightly different - like looking at the same event held in two different locations.
It looked like a park. It was a large paved area. Sprouting out from the surface, there were what looked at first like turnstiles, like the kind you pass through to enter a stadium or subway. But when I looked closer, they were actually large (maybe four feet high), vintage porcelain faucets, kind of like this one
only without the spout. There were a whole bunch of them and there were people mingling among them. But these weren't real people, more like virtual people like you'd find in The Sims.
So here's the really cool part. The people start randomly gathering around these faucet turnstiles and start turning them, some clockwise, some counter clockwise. And then rain starts to fall, sometimes hard, sometimes soft. And then I realize that the strength of the downpour is directly related to the faucets that the people are turning - when more faucets are turned open, it rains harder but when more faucets are closed, the rain slows.
And then the dream ended.
Isn't that a fantastic idea? What a cool image. Would make for a great bit in a Hayao Miyazaki movie.
Saturday, February 25, 2006
169. on spirituality (part 3)...ideas from both ends
I got some really interesting responses to my last blog (see blog 168). Some of the most interesting were left on this blog (as opposed to my MySpace mirror blog). You can see the comments here. Now I'm not prepared to go quite as far as m does in saying that he "is unconvinced that Satan even exists," but his perspective did help me get to some satisfying conclusions.
M talks about how this discussion about demons and possession is kind of moot because ten times out of ten, we want the sin whether there's a little red pitchfork man whispering in our ear or not. Take that idea one step further and you get to why the whole demonic influence idea is so appealing (not appealing in a, "ooh, I want that" kind of way, but in a "I want to believe that" way). Because, isn't it much more acceptable to blame your sin on something apart from yourself than to acknowledge that it's all on you?
Let me explain. I'll use myself as an example. Left to my own devices, I'm a pretty lazy guy. Get me in front of a television set with cable and a remote control, and you can pretty much write off the next five to six hours of my life. I'm wasting my potential, sitting on the gifts God's given me. Wouldn't it be nice to blame that laziness, not on a lack of discipline but on some outside influence - like the demon of the fat-ass? Because then I'm not lazy, I'm a victim, and it's not my fault.
Again, i have the utmost respect for T and I don't write these things without regard for his feelings, but I'm trying to understand something and writing is the way I sort things out.
"Yeah, but you don't have to share it with the world."
But again, I'm lazy, and (I hate to admit this but) sometimes the only thing that gets me writing is the fact that people are reading. On top of that, comments like m's get me over the mental hump and help me towards a better understanding. And I'm not saying that what T went through wasn't real, I'm just (as m put it) unconvinced (I like that word...I'm going to use it more often. Thanks, m).
Bottom line: I'm unconvinced that what I witnessed last Sunday was a demonic presence at work within T. And this should be a satisfying answer for me...
but...
But I'm still left searching for an experiential kind of Christianity. And I think of my friend, the lovely Kelli (her blog here). She's got some crazy, amazing stories about creepy things that go bump in the night. She's a Christian now but before that she was involved in New Agey, paranormal, Tarot card reading kinds of activities. And it's not just that she dabbled in these things recreationally, she was heavily invested and studied in them. Because of that, she has detailed stories about presences physically pressing in on her and spiritual entities moving through rooms and being able to sense them. And I can't put my finger on exactly why, but her stories have the ring of truth to them. I think it has to do with the details she includes, and I wish I could share some examples but my memory (as usual) fails me.
After she became a Christian, there was a time where she kind of lost her ability to see and sense the spiritual realm. It's like her gift was taken away for a time so that she could focus on the facts of what it is to be a follower of Jesus, but after a while she was able to discern things again, only now it was from the perspective of one who holds Jesus as Lord.
Anyway, because she's someone who is sensitive to happenings in the spiritual realm, it's a trip to hang out with her. And I'm not sure I want to see with the same acuity she does because she can paint a pretty scary picture sometimes, but at the same time I kind of envy the fact that for her, Christianity is a palpable, tangible reality as opposed to my more abstract, conceptual belief system.
In response to the exorcism blog (blog 168), she challenged me to ask God specific questions about what I was unsure of. Well, one of my questions was, "were we dealing with something truly demonic or something else?" I think it's pretty clear from the first half of this entry that the answer I ended up with was "something else."
So I still haven't found what I'm looking for. But Kelli told me about a conference coming up in a few weeks called Maturing In The Prophetic. From what I can tell, it's geared towards full on fueled by the Holy Spirit types of Christians. Something like this is way outside my comfort zone but there's a phrase in the business world that goes, "if you want to be rich, hang out with rich people." And that makes quite a bit of sense because what's the point of learning about how to make money from a professor who probably ended up teaching after failing in his own business ventures? To summon another cliche, "those who can, do. Those who can't, teach."
With that in mind, I signed up for this prophetic conference thing because if I want to experience the spiritual side of life, I should go where they spiritually on it are going. And despite all the skepticism I write about, I really, truly do want to know/experience/understand things of the spirit. I know it's out there, but I'm not going to just turn my brain off and let my emotions get the best of me. And I'm not saying that that's what people at these conferences are doing, I'm just saying that I have a mind as well as a heart and I want a Christianity that's big enough to encompass them both. But if I have to choose, I chose to worship and to serve and to believe with my mind.
But really, I want both.
M talks about how this discussion about demons and possession is kind of moot because ten times out of ten, we want the sin whether there's a little red pitchfork man whispering in our ear or not. Take that idea one step further and you get to why the whole demonic influence idea is so appealing (not appealing in a, "ooh, I want that" kind of way, but in a "I want to believe that" way). Because, isn't it much more acceptable to blame your sin on something apart from yourself than to acknowledge that it's all on you?
Let me explain. I'll use myself as an example. Left to my own devices, I'm a pretty lazy guy. Get me in front of a television set with cable and a remote control, and you can pretty much write off the next five to six hours of my life. I'm wasting my potential, sitting on the gifts God's given me. Wouldn't it be nice to blame that laziness, not on a lack of discipline but on some outside influence - like the demon of the fat-ass? Because then I'm not lazy, I'm a victim, and it's not my fault.
Again, i have the utmost respect for T and I don't write these things without regard for his feelings, but I'm trying to understand something and writing is the way I sort things out.
"Yeah, but you don't have to share it with the world."
But again, I'm lazy, and (I hate to admit this but) sometimes the only thing that gets me writing is the fact that people are reading. On top of that, comments like m's get me over the mental hump and help me towards a better understanding. And I'm not saying that what T went through wasn't real, I'm just (as m put it) unconvinced (I like that word...I'm going to use it more often. Thanks, m).
Bottom line: I'm unconvinced that what I witnessed last Sunday was a demonic presence at work within T. And this should be a satisfying answer for me...
but...
But I'm still left searching for an experiential kind of Christianity. And I think of my friend, the lovely Kelli (her blog here). She's got some crazy, amazing stories about creepy things that go bump in the night. She's a Christian now but before that she was involved in New Agey, paranormal, Tarot card reading kinds of activities. And it's not just that she dabbled in these things recreationally, she was heavily invested and studied in them. Because of that, she has detailed stories about presences physically pressing in on her and spiritual entities moving through rooms and being able to sense them. And I can't put my finger on exactly why, but her stories have the ring of truth to them. I think it has to do with the details she includes, and I wish I could share some examples but my memory (as usual) fails me.
After she became a Christian, there was a time where she kind of lost her ability to see and sense the spiritual realm. It's like her gift was taken away for a time so that she could focus on the facts of what it is to be a follower of Jesus, but after a while she was able to discern things again, only now it was from the perspective of one who holds Jesus as Lord.
Anyway, because she's someone who is sensitive to happenings in the spiritual realm, it's a trip to hang out with her. And I'm not sure I want to see with the same acuity she does because she can paint a pretty scary picture sometimes, but at the same time I kind of envy the fact that for her, Christianity is a palpable, tangible reality as opposed to my more abstract, conceptual belief system.
In response to the exorcism blog (blog 168), she challenged me to ask God specific questions about what I was unsure of. Well, one of my questions was, "were we dealing with something truly demonic or something else?" I think it's pretty clear from the first half of this entry that the answer I ended up with was "something else."
So I still haven't found what I'm looking for. But Kelli told me about a conference coming up in a few weeks called Maturing In The Prophetic. From what I can tell, it's geared towards full on fueled by the Holy Spirit types of Christians. Something like this is way outside my comfort zone but there's a phrase in the business world that goes, "if you want to be rich, hang out with rich people." And that makes quite a bit of sense because what's the point of learning about how to make money from a professor who probably ended up teaching after failing in his own business ventures? To summon another cliche, "those who can, do. Those who can't, teach."
With that in mind, I signed up for this prophetic conference thing because if I want to experience the spiritual side of life, I should go where they spiritually on it are going. And despite all the skepticism I write about, I really, truly do want to know/experience/understand things of the spirit. I know it's out there, but I'm not going to just turn my brain off and let my emotions get the best of me. And I'm not saying that that's what people at these conferences are doing, I'm just saying that I have a mind as well as a heart and I want a Christianity that's big enough to encompass them both. But if I have to choose, I chose to worship and to serve and to believe with my mind.
But really, I want both.
Wednesday, February 22, 2006
168. on spirituality (part 2)...with all due respect
So the other night, I was a part of something pretty gnarly...and I'm not quite sure what to make of it. Okay, so these past couple of weeks, I've been sharing about how I want to have a more experiential kind of Christianity rather than just a clinical, intellectual one. Now I don't know if some of you have been praying for this to happen for me or if God reads my blogs as prayers themselves, but last Sunday night I had an encounter with...well, I guess the only way to really put it is to call it an exorcism...sort of.
I've been going to this house church that a friend of mine started. It's pretty simple. We get together, share a meal, and then talk about the Bible and what God's been doing in our lives. And we call it church (old school, Book of Acts style). Anyway, after church, we have a time of prayer and healing and this past Sunday, one of the members asked to be rid of a personal problem that had resurfaced lately.
No sweat. So we start praying, and this guy (let's call him T) starts to growl. I don't mean his stomach started to growl, I mean HE started to growl. And my first thought was, "oh no, not again."
BACKSTORY:
Months ago, maybe a year ago (I'm not good with history), T asked me to go with him to a Monday night healing service at a church in Moanalua Valley. See, T had been going through a rough time in his life and one night he got so frustrated that he kind of decided to switch sides from being a Christian to being a tool of Satan. He got so frustrated he prayed to the devil and said something like, "take me, I'm yours, do whatever you want."
The next day, T is kind of freaked out by what he did so he talks about it with someone who worked at the church he was attending at the time. This guy tells T that he's messing with things that shouldn't be messed with - opening doors and inviting some really bad (basically demonic) spirits to come into his life. He suggested that T go to this Monday night healing service thing.
So I meet up with T at this church and we sing some songs and then the healing service begins. Basically the people who want prayer team up with one or two of the people who are there to pray for them. All these little groups sit in little circles around the room. T met up with two of the prayer people and they said it was cool for me to sit in and to pray along with them. I'm thinking, "no sweat, we're just sitting around and praying."
T tells these guys what he did and they all agree that that wasn't a good idea and that he needed prayer. So we start praying. And for the first few minutes it's just prayer. They pray for T and ask God to forgive him for what he did and for protection and some other nice prayer type things. And then the shit started to hit the fan.
I don't remember how it began exactly, but I started to hear all kinds of strange noises coming from T. We're praying so I have my eyes closed, and when T starts growling and gnashing his teeth, I keep my eyes closed because I don't want to see - what I'm hearing is freaking me out just fine, thank you very much. Then the guy who's praying for T starts going off about "demon come out" and "you have no authority" and "in the name of Jesus I bind you" and all kinds of other exorcism type phrases.
At this point, I'm hearing other strange noises from around the room but the bit that's going on in our little group is quite enough freak out for me so I don't pay them much attention. T keeps making these animal, almost unnatural sounds. Occasionally he bursts into laughter - not like a witch's cackle or like a diabolical villain, just a gently mocking laughter. This gets the guy who's praying for him even more worked up and he starts commanding, "in the name of Jesus, stop laughing. Demon, stop laughing." And sometimes that would work and T would stop laughing and go back to just growling, sometimes he would just keep laughing.
Well, this goes on for what must be ten or fifteen minutes, and then T kind of peters out and snaps out of it. He becomes plain old T again. They let him rest for a moment, give him some water, ask him how he's doing. T sounds groggy like he just woke up from a long, deep nap. When it looks like T is ready, they go at it again, the same as before.
Now, I've known T for four or five years by now and he is not one of those flaming Pentecostal types. He was kind of the opposite. Like me, he had trouble experiencing his faith. What I'm trying to say is, this isn't someone who had ever wigged out like this before. Honestly, when he first started making those strange noises, I almost laughed because I thought he was playing some kind of joke. But he wasn't.
We do this little cycle of prayer and resting about five or six times that night. In the end, there wasn't any kind of demon expelling itself from his body like the alien in Alien. It was more of a gradual release. And here's the bit that really freaked me out. Walking out of the church, I asked T what it was like, what he remembered, and he said he couldn't remember a thing. I asked him about growling and about laughing but he didn't remember. It was like someone had flashed one of those MIB memory sticks in his face and filtered out the last few hours.
END OF BACKSTORY
So we're praying for T after home church and he starts growling. There were four of us (including me) praying for T, but I was the only one who had seen him wig out before. It pretty much went the same way things went at the healing service except for one crucial difference. The people praying at the healing service had seen this type of thing and had studied it and knew what to do. We did not.
And here's the bit that I'm reluctant to admit because I really respect T and the other people who were praying for him at this home church. I wasn't buying it.
Now before I go on, let me be clear about what I mean by that. i don't mean to say that T was purposely making up those noises. I'm just not as sure that they were from a demonic source. So where did they come from? Well, with all due respect, there's a part of me that thinks it was a kind of psychosomatic response. See, shortly after T went to the first healing service, he started going to a church that had a pretty heavy charismatic flavor to it, and so he's much more familiar with teachings that talk about demonic influence and strongholds and spiritual inheritances. With that in mind, it wasn't as much of a surprise for me to see T act out in this uncanny way.
I wasn't super freaked by what was going on but the other guys praying certainly were. And they had reason to because while T was in the grip of whatever had hold of him, he started talking back to those praying for him, calling them weak, calling them sinners, accusing them of not knowing what they were doing. He even turned to one of the guys who was praying and said he was going to leave T and enter him instead.
Now here's the bit I don't understand. He spoke specifically to three of the people praying for him, but he didn't say anything to me. I suppose one reason could be that because I wasn't buying it, I wasn't a threat to it. I mean I was praying, but it was a weak prayer along the lines of, "Lord, if this thing is real, help T and help my friends who are praying for him." I didn't have any of myself invested in that prayer whereas the other three guys were verbally praying their guts out, trying to drive this thing from T. Why should it have paid any attention to me.
And see, this is part of why I have such a hard time with this whole spirituality thing - because it reads like a bad fantasy novel. And I don't like the fantasy genre (I was bored through most of the LOTR trilogy, especially the first one).
But at the same time it troubles me because I feel like I'm dissing T by not believing in this manifestation and by extension, I'm dissing the other guys who were praying because they certainly believed it was serious and real. Not only that, but what if it was real and what if I really was such a non-threat to whatever it was that it didn't even bother to acknowledge me. Now I don't mean to say that I wish it had spoken to me, I'm glad it didn't, but if it didn't because it didn't give a shit about me, well that makes me a pretty pathetic Christian doesn't it?
Bottom line? I don't know what I saw.
I've been going to this house church that a friend of mine started. It's pretty simple. We get together, share a meal, and then talk about the Bible and what God's been doing in our lives. And we call it church (old school, Book of Acts style). Anyway, after church, we have a time of prayer and healing and this past Sunday, one of the members asked to be rid of a personal problem that had resurfaced lately.
No sweat. So we start praying, and this guy (let's call him T) starts to growl. I don't mean his stomach started to growl, I mean HE started to growl. And my first thought was, "oh no, not again."
BACKSTORY:
Months ago, maybe a year ago (I'm not good with history), T asked me to go with him to a Monday night healing service at a church in Moanalua Valley. See, T had been going through a rough time in his life and one night he got so frustrated that he kind of decided to switch sides from being a Christian to being a tool of Satan. He got so frustrated he prayed to the devil and said something like, "take me, I'm yours, do whatever you want."
The next day, T is kind of freaked out by what he did so he talks about it with someone who worked at the church he was attending at the time. This guy tells T that he's messing with things that shouldn't be messed with - opening doors and inviting some really bad (basically demonic) spirits to come into his life. He suggested that T go to this Monday night healing service thing.
So I meet up with T at this church and we sing some songs and then the healing service begins. Basically the people who want prayer team up with one or two of the people who are there to pray for them. All these little groups sit in little circles around the room. T met up with two of the prayer people and they said it was cool for me to sit in and to pray along with them. I'm thinking, "no sweat, we're just sitting around and praying."
T tells these guys what he did and they all agree that that wasn't a good idea and that he needed prayer. So we start praying. And for the first few minutes it's just prayer. They pray for T and ask God to forgive him for what he did and for protection and some other nice prayer type things. And then the shit started to hit the fan.
I don't remember how it began exactly, but I started to hear all kinds of strange noises coming from T. We're praying so I have my eyes closed, and when T starts growling and gnashing his teeth, I keep my eyes closed because I don't want to see - what I'm hearing is freaking me out just fine, thank you very much. Then the guy who's praying for T starts going off about "demon come out" and "you have no authority" and "in the name of Jesus I bind you" and all kinds of other exorcism type phrases.
At this point, I'm hearing other strange noises from around the room but the bit that's going on in our little group is quite enough freak out for me so I don't pay them much attention. T keeps making these animal, almost unnatural sounds. Occasionally he bursts into laughter - not like a witch's cackle or like a diabolical villain, just a gently mocking laughter. This gets the guy who's praying for him even more worked up and he starts commanding, "in the name of Jesus, stop laughing. Demon, stop laughing." And sometimes that would work and T would stop laughing and go back to just growling, sometimes he would just keep laughing.
Well, this goes on for what must be ten or fifteen minutes, and then T kind of peters out and snaps out of it. He becomes plain old T again. They let him rest for a moment, give him some water, ask him how he's doing. T sounds groggy like he just woke up from a long, deep nap. When it looks like T is ready, they go at it again, the same as before.
Now, I've known T for four or five years by now and he is not one of those flaming Pentecostal types. He was kind of the opposite. Like me, he had trouble experiencing his faith. What I'm trying to say is, this isn't someone who had ever wigged out like this before. Honestly, when he first started making those strange noises, I almost laughed because I thought he was playing some kind of joke. But he wasn't.
We do this little cycle of prayer and resting about five or six times that night. In the end, there wasn't any kind of demon expelling itself from his body like the alien in Alien. It was more of a gradual release. And here's the bit that really freaked me out. Walking out of the church, I asked T what it was like, what he remembered, and he said he couldn't remember a thing. I asked him about growling and about laughing but he didn't remember. It was like someone had flashed one of those MIB memory sticks in his face and filtered out the last few hours.
END OF BACKSTORY
So we're praying for T after home church and he starts growling. There were four of us (including me) praying for T, but I was the only one who had seen him wig out before. It pretty much went the same way things went at the healing service except for one crucial difference. The people praying at the healing service had seen this type of thing and had studied it and knew what to do. We did not.
And here's the bit that I'm reluctant to admit because I really respect T and the other people who were praying for him at this home church. I wasn't buying it.
Now before I go on, let me be clear about what I mean by that. i don't mean to say that T was purposely making up those noises. I'm just not as sure that they were from a demonic source. So where did they come from? Well, with all due respect, there's a part of me that thinks it was a kind of psychosomatic response. See, shortly after T went to the first healing service, he started going to a church that had a pretty heavy charismatic flavor to it, and so he's much more familiar with teachings that talk about demonic influence and strongholds and spiritual inheritances. With that in mind, it wasn't as much of a surprise for me to see T act out in this uncanny way.
I wasn't super freaked by what was going on but the other guys praying certainly were. And they had reason to because while T was in the grip of whatever had hold of him, he started talking back to those praying for him, calling them weak, calling them sinners, accusing them of not knowing what they were doing. He even turned to one of the guys who was praying and said he was going to leave T and enter him instead.
Now here's the bit I don't understand. He spoke specifically to three of the people praying for him, but he didn't say anything to me. I suppose one reason could be that because I wasn't buying it, I wasn't a threat to it. I mean I was praying, but it was a weak prayer along the lines of, "Lord, if this thing is real, help T and help my friends who are praying for him." I didn't have any of myself invested in that prayer whereas the other three guys were verbally praying their guts out, trying to drive this thing from T. Why should it have paid any attention to me.
And see, this is part of why I have such a hard time with this whole spirituality thing - because it reads like a bad fantasy novel. And I don't like the fantasy genre (I was bored through most of the LOTR trilogy, especially the first one).
But at the same time it troubles me because I feel like I'm dissing T by not believing in this manifestation and by extension, I'm dissing the other guys who were praying because they certainly believed it was serious and real. Not only that, but what if it was real and what if I really was such a non-threat to whatever it was that it didn't even bother to acknowledge me. Now I don't mean to say that I wish it had spoken to me, I'm glad it didn't, but if it didn't because it didn't give a shit about me, well that makes me a pretty pathetic Christian doesn't it?
Bottom line? I don't know what I saw.
Tuesday, February 21, 2006
167. on spirituality (part 1)
spirituality.
n.
The state, quality, manner, or fact of being spiritual.
(I hate it when definitions use word you're trying to get the definition of in the definition.)
spiritual
adj.
1. Of, relating to, consisting of, or having the nature of spirit; not tangible or material.
2. Of, concerned with, or affecting the soul.
3. Of, from, or relating to God; deific.
4. Of or belonging to a church or religion; sacred.
5. Relating to or having the nature of spirits or a spirit; supernatural.
So lately I've been thinking about spirituality. The Bible makes it pretty clear that the physical world is not all that's out there. And I've shared before about how I have no handle on that side of life (see blog 148 among others), but I'm tired of my Christianity being just an idea, something I hold in my head more than in my heart, because living a life without spirit is like the difference between learning color theory and actually painting. I'm tired of theory. I want to paint.
But...
But in my early twenties, the formative years of my faith, I was introduced to a rather rigid, intellectual version of Christianity that was heavy on apologetics and absolutes and reason. Spirituality didn't figure heavily in our discussions, and I don't know if it's what they intended, but I left there with a heavy dose of skepticism towards spiritual explanations and experiences.
And that's stuck with me to this day. Even with some of the miraculous things that I've seen, I still tend to try to find clean, clinical explanations for them, rather than just accepting that I had witnessed something spiritual.
Here's an example:
Six or seven years ago I went on a mission trip to Okinawa. Our missions director at the time was a lady named Chisako. She was born in Okinawa and even though she had lived in Hawaii for years, it was her goal to return to her home town, Gushikawa, and plant a church there. To prepare for that, she organized short-term mission trips to Gushikawa to kind of scope out the area and make connections and to pray for the city.
During my second mission trip there, we went to put on a Hawaiian show in Gushikawa. The team that had gone before us got us into the brand new Gushikawa Citizens' Performing Arts Theater. Now this isn't just some rinky dink ghetto stage. This is the premier stage in Okinawa, and ranks among the best in all of Japan. The annual Red and White Festival was held there once. It's hosted orchestras, artists, and productions of all kinds from around the world. Oh, and it also hosted a free, all volunteer hula group from a little church in Hawaii.
The fact that we got in there was amazing. And we only had to pay something like $300 to pay for the staff that night. I mean, that's a miracle in and of itself, but I wasn't part of that mission trip so I'll just talk about what I know.
I was part of the lucky group that got to perform in the actual theater. But there was a problem. The only night we could hold the event coincided with Obon, the largest religious holiday in Okinawa (it's where we get Bon Dances from in Hawaii). It's like Christmas in America and holding a Hawaiian show on the night of Obon is like...well, it's like holding a Bon Dance on Christmas Eve. Everybody there said we should cancel the event because no one was going to show up.
Long story short, the night of the event turns out to be an amazing success. I don't remember the final head count, but I do know that we went there with something like 300 shell leis and we ran out well before the night was over. Final estimates were in the 400 - 500 range.
So at first this looks like a genuine hand-of-God miracle. Months later, I find out that one of the local relatives of one of the people on our team rented one of those vans that they use for political rallies in Japan - the kind with the bull horns on the roof. On the day of the Hawaiian show, they drive through town all day advertising the event, talking about how it's free and how great it's going to be.
And in the end, I suppose there are a couple ways to look at the success of the event. One could say that it was still a miracle that we had such a great turnout - that even the relatives advertising the show with the bull horn van was an act of God. Or one could say that the relatives saved our asses. Saving face is a huge thing in Japan and the relatives did what they did, in part, to make sure that we didn't lose face by having a poor turnout.
I don't know that I ever shared this with any of the people who made up that mission team, but when I found out about what the relatives did, it kind of took the wind out of the miracle balloon. It looked like a miracle for a while but in the end, there was a rational explanation behind it.
And that's such a cynical way of looking at it. I mean, maybe God prompted the family to advertise the event, maybe people would have come even without the bull horns. I don't know, but my mind tends to see the success of the event as a product of reasonable, natural events rather than a divine act of God. And it embarrasses me to admit that. But that's what goes through my head.
I think of the movie Signs (dir. M. Night Shyamalan) and how Mel Gibson's character (a former priest who lost his faith after his wife died) has this big of dialogue:
"People break down into two groups when the experience something lucky. Group number one sees it as more than luck, more than coincidence. They see it as a sign, evidence, that there is someone up there, watching out for them. Group number two sees it as just pure luck. Just a happy turn of chance. . . . See what you have to ask yourself is what kind of person are you? Are you the kind that sees signs, sees miracles? Or do you believe that people just get lucky? Or, look at the question this way: Is it possible that there are no coincidences?"
I guess for most of my life, I've just believed in coincidences more than signs. And that's a sad way to live life as a Christian. And that's why now I'm looking for something more. I want to experience the spiritual side of life.
But...
But how do I get over the cynicism that was drilled into me?
n.
The state, quality, manner, or fact of being spiritual.
(I hate it when definitions use word you're trying to get the definition of in the definition.)
spiritual
adj.
1. Of, relating to, consisting of, or having the nature of spirit; not tangible or material.
2. Of, concerned with, or affecting the soul.
3. Of, from, or relating to God; deific.
4. Of or belonging to a church or religion; sacred.
5. Relating to or having the nature of spirits or a spirit; supernatural.
So lately I've been thinking about spirituality. The Bible makes it pretty clear that the physical world is not all that's out there. And I've shared before about how I have no handle on that side of life (see blog 148 among others), but I'm tired of my Christianity being just an idea, something I hold in my head more than in my heart, because living a life without spirit is like the difference between learning color theory and actually painting. I'm tired of theory. I want to paint.
But...
But in my early twenties, the formative years of my faith, I was introduced to a rather rigid, intellectual version of Christianity that was heavy on apologetics and absolutes and reason. Spirituality didn't figure heavily in our discussions, and I don't know if it's what they intended, but I left there with a heavy dose of skepticism towards spiritual explanations and experiences.
And that's stuck with me to this day. Even with some of the miraculous things that I've seen, I still tend to try to find clean, clinical explanations for them, rather than just accepting that I had witnessed something spiritual.
Here's an example:
Six or seven years ago I went on a mission trip to Okinawa. Our missions director at the time was a lady named Chisako. She was born in Okinawa and even though she had lived in Hawaii for years, it was her goal to return to her home town, Gushikawa, and plant a church there. To prepare for that, she organized short-term mission trips to Gushikawa to kind of scope out the area and make connections and to pray for the city.
During my second mission trip there, we went to put on a Hawaiian show in Gushikawa. The team that had gone before us got us into the brand new Gushikawa Citizens' Performing Arts Theater. Now this isn't just some rinky dink ghetto stage. This is the premier stage in Okinawa, and ranks among the best in all of Japan. The annual Red and White Festival was held there once. It's hosted orchestras, artists, and productions of all kinds from around the world. Oh, and it also hosted a free, all volunteer hula group from a little church in Hawaii.
The fact that we got in there was amazing. And we only had to pay something like $300 to pay for the staff that night. I mean, that's a miracle in and of itself, but I wasn't part of that mission trip so I'll just talk about what I know.
I was part of the lucky group that got to perform in the actual theater. But there was a problem. The only night we could hold the event coincided with Obon, the largest religious holiday in Okinawa (it's where we get Bon Dances from in Hawaii). It's like Christmas in America and holding a Hawaiian show on the night of Obon is like...well, it's like holding a Bon Dance on Christmas Eve. Everybody there said we should cancel the event because no one was going to show up.
Long story short, the night of the event turns out to be an amazing success. I don't remember the final head count, but I do know that we went there with something like 300 shell leis and we ran out well before the night was over. Final estimates were in the 400 - 500 range.
So at first this looks like a genuine hand-of-God miracle. Months later, I find out that one of the local relatives of one of the people on our team rented one of those vans that they use for political rallies in Japan - the kind with the bull horns on the roof. On the day of the Hawaiian show, they drive through town all day advertising the event, talking about how it's free and how great it's going to be.
And in the end, I suppose there are a couple ways to look at the success of the event. One could say that it was still a miracle that we had such a great turnout - that even the relatives advertising the show with the bull horn van was an act of God. Or one could say that the relatives saved our asses. Saving face is a huge thing in Japan and the relatives did what they did, in part, to make sure that we didn't lose face by having a poor turnout.
I don't know that I ever shared this with any of the people who made up that mission team, but when I found out about what the relatives did, it kind of took the wind out of the miracle balloon. It looked like a miracle for a while but in the end, there was a rational explanation behind it.
And that's such a cynical way of looking at it. I mean, maybe God prompted the family to advertise the event, maybe people would have come even without the bull horns. I don't know, but my mind tends to see the success of the event as a product of reasonable, natural events rather than a divine act of God. And it embarrasses me to admit that. But that's what goes through my head.
I think of the movie Signs (dir. M. Night Shyamalan) and how Mel Gibson's character (a former priest who lost his faith after his wife died) has this big of dialogue:
"People break down into two groups when the experience something lucky. Group number one sees it as more than luck, more than coincidence. They see it as a sign, evidence, that there is someone up there, watching out for them. Group number two sees it as just pure luck. Just a happy turn of chance. . . . See what you have to ask yourself is what kind of person are you? Are you the kind that sees signs, sees miracles? Or do you believe that people just get lucky? Or, look at the question this way: Is it possible that there are no coincidences?"
I guess for most of my life, I've just believed in coincidences more than signs. And that's a sad way to live life as a Christian. And that's why now I'm looking for something more. I want to experience the spiritual side of life.
But...
But how do I get over the cynicism that was drilled into me?
Friday, February 17, 2006
166. searching for Pastor Morpheus
In the movie, The Matrix, the main character, Neo, learns that the world that he thought was real was actually an elaborate computer simulation. But even while living in this virtual world, he had a sense that there was something more, something behind it all. Morpheus describes it this way:
". . .you know something. What you know you can't explain, but you feel it. You've felt it your entire life. . . . You don't know what it is, but it's there, like a splinter in your mind, driving you mad."
This is kind of how I feel about spirituality. See, I've never been one of those people who possessed (no pun intended) the ability to sense, sometimes even see, the spiritual half of life. And I know there are all kinds of people who read this blog, but let met tell you, I've not only read stories about people who were in touch somehow with things of the spirit, I've actually hung out with Christians who were in touch with something paranormal.
For example, once I was in the Philippines with a pastor. One of the village locals was giving us a tour of their town and time and time again, this pastor would point to a house and say things like, "do they sell drugs out of there?" Our guide had this ashen look on his face and with some reluctance, he confirmed that drugs were made and sold through that house.
Now I suppose this could have been the guide just trying to be nice to the pastor from America, but later in the tour, we're walking down the street and this pastor stops in his tracks and bends over like he's trying to catch his breath. After a few seconds, he asks us, "did you feel that?" I didn't feel anything and neither did our guide but he continued, "the whole spiritual mood of this place just shifted, something's coming." And as soon as he said this, around the corner a silent parade comes marching down the street carrying a large statue of the local patron saint (not that this pastor or I have anything against the Catholic church, it's just that in the Philippines, the Catholic church is pre-Vatican II which means they still practiced the old school, oppressive style church - heavy on guilt and indulgences to pay for church building projects). And there was no warning, no sounds signaling its approach. The pastor says the spiritual mood changed and then, surprise, the parade comes around the corner.
And there are a few other instances (one even in my own life) but I want to get to my point which is that I believe that there is a spiritual realm to the world and to life. I also believe that some people have the ability to tap into and/or sense this world while others lack this ability, or at least don't have as much of the ability as others do. I'm one of the latter. I'm about as sensitive to things of the spirit as a can of Spam is with its feelings.
But...
But I have to believe that it's possible to break through, to learn, to develop the ability to know God on something more than an intellectual level. Because I'm tired of it, and I need something more. And I want something I can share with people hurting and in need. People like that don't need an intellectual argument, they need comfort for the heart and that is mainly a work of the spirit.
I know its there. I know it like Neo knew about the Matrix. I can tell there's something there beneath the surface, something that wants me as much as I want it. I know it's there and I want in.
So if anyone knows where I can find Pastor Morpheus, let me know.
". . .you know something. What you know you can't explain, but you feel it. You've felt it your entire life. . . . You don't know what it is, but it's there, like a splinter in your mind, driving you mad."
This is kind of how I feel about spirituality. See, I've never been one of those people who possessed (no pun intended) the ability to sense, sometimes even see, the spiritual half of life. And I know there are all kinds of people who read this blog, but let met tell you, I've not only read stories about people who were in touch somehow with things of the spirit, I've actually hung out with Christians who were in touch with something paranormal.
For example, once I was in the Philippines with a pastor. One of the village locals was giving us a tour of their town and time and time again, this pastor would point to a house and say things like, "do they sell drugs out of there?" Our guide had this ashen look on his face and with some reluctance, he confirmed that drugs were made and sold through that house.
Now I suppose this could have been the guide just trying to be nice to the pastor from America, but later in the tour, we're walking down the street and this pastor stops in his tracks and bends over like he's trying to catch his breath. After a few seconds, he asks us, "did you feel that?" I didn't feel anything and neither did our guide but he continued, "the whole spiritual mood of this place just shifted, something's coming." And as soon as he said this, around the corner a silent parade comes marching down the street carrying a large statue of the local patron saint (not that this pastor or I have anything against the Catholic church, it's just that in the Philippines, the Catholic church is pre-Vatican II which means they still practiced the old school, oppressive style church - heavy on guilt and indulgences to pay for church building projects). And there was no warning, no sounds signaling its approach. The pastor says the spiritual mood changed and then, surprise, the parade comes around the corner.
And there are a few other instances (one even in my own life) but I want to get to my point which is that I believe that there is a spiritual realm to the world and to life. I also believe that some people have the ability to tap into and/or sense this world while others lack this ability, or at least don't have as much of the ability as others do. I'm one of the latter. I'm about as sensitive to things of the spirit as a can of Spam is with its feelings.
But...
But I have to believe that it's possible to break through, to learn, to develop the ability to know God on something more than an intellectual level. Because I'm tired of it, and I need something more. And I want something I can share with people hurting and in need. People like that don't need an intellectual argument, they need comfort for the heart and that is mainly a work of the spirit.
I know its there. I know it like Neo knew about the Matrix. I can tell there's something there beneath the surface, something that wants me as much as I want it. I know it's there and I want in.
So if anyone knows where I can find Pastor Morpheus, let me know.
Thursday, February 16, 2006
165. the best Valentine's Day ever (part 1)
Yeah, last night I posted part one (see blog 164). See, the event that I'm going to be blogging about below (which I'm calling part one) happened before the event I blogged about last night (which is why I called it part two).
"Randall, only you would go out of your way to do something backwards like that."
Don't like it? Hey, there are lots of other blogs in the blogosphere. And it shows personality, no?
Anyway, the reason I held off on talking about what I'm about to talk about is because I was hoping that there would be press coverage for the event that I could link to so that you could get an outsiders perspective of what took place. There was television coverage, and I actually got my mug in the Honolulu Star Bulletin (Page D2 of the evening edition) but I guess the newspaper websites are slow to update non-breaking news. To turn the cliche around, if it doesn't bleed, it doesn't lead. But (as usual) I'm getting ahead of myself.
Valentine's morning around 11AM, I took part in what I think is one of the most brilliant works of public performance art ever put on in Hawaii. Now I know that's a grandiose statement to the extreme, but that's how highly I regard the event.
It was a simple thing, really. Nate Chung designed a bunch of signs, taped them to wooden poles and got a bunch of his friends to volunteer to hold them up along one of the busiest intersections of downtown Honolulu. The signs had his face on them (in gregarious, humorous, utterly joyful poses) and when three or four signs were put together they spelled out phrases like, "You're great!" or "Mahalo" (thank you in Hawaiian) or "You're appreciated." The event was called, "Downtown Love."
In simplest terms, the goal of the event was just to cheer people up as they were walking or driving by. Held in the heart of Downtown, the event put us among the movers and shakers (as well as the grunts and the cogs) who keep Hawaii going. These are people who spend hours on the phone, in meetings, staring at computer screens, massaging the carpal tunnel out of their wrists. From the lowliest file clerk to the Type A CEOs, a lot of the work they do on a daily basis goes unnoticed and unappreciated. These signs were a way for Nate and his volunteers to thank these people for all that they do.
That's face value goal of the event. Now here's why I think this was such a radically amazing, brilliant work of art: it really messed with people's heads, but in a good way. As one of the sign wavers, I got to see first hand, what the reactions were. The two most common were ignoring the signs and looking at them with a kind of uncomprehension (I just invented that word, you like?). No comment on those who ignored the signs, but I loved watching the people who were trying to figure out why the hell we were holding up these silly signs with near-obsequeous messages on them.
And that's the genius of the signs. It's a stinging, subversive critique of the cynicism that is so pervasive that people don't know how to react when confronted with a message that says, "you're great!" - a sign that doesn't have any advertising agenda, that isn't trying to direct you to a website, that isn't trying to further a political figure or ideology - a sign that's just trying to cheer people up. And judging by their initial reactions, people didn't know how to take that.
Now I can understand that because it seems like everything today has strings attached to it. A free car wash isn't really a free car wash, it's either trying to collect "suggested donations" or it's trying to promote some kind of cause, like a church trying to show its community that it cares. And what a sad world it's become where when someone comes up to you and gives you a compliment, defenses go up and you start asking yourself, "why did they do that? What do they want from me? Did they really mean it?" When did we become so jaded and defensive? Why is it so hard and awkward and weird to be nice to one another? I mean do you see how utterly screwed up that is? It's easier and more socially acceptable these days to be selfish and self-centered than it is to be generous and empathetic.
Downtown Love is an open challenge to what we've become. Even now, I picture some of those grouchy faces that walked by the group of signs I was a part of (our five signs read, "you're ap-pre-cia-ted) going back to their office trying to figure out what we were trying to sell or what we were trying to get them to sign up for. And I wonder if this person will consider, just for a moment, that it truly was a simple expression of kindness and thanks. And I wonder if that moment will get him to see how distrustful and dysfunctional our society has become. And ultimately, I wonder if this newfound understanding will cause him/her to be a bit nicer to those around them - not to kiss ass, but just for the sake of doing something kind.
Most amazing of all, this subversive critique came in the form of life-affirming, cheerful little signs. It came out of a heart so overfull with love that it couldn't help but spill out into the streets.
I wish you could have been there. I wish you could have seen the reactions. We heard from some people walking by that they came down to check us out after hearing their co-workers say something like, "there are a bunch of people waving these signs and they're saying stuff like, 'have a great day.' You should go check it out." And I wonder what kind of conversations got started in offices all over downtown.
When Nate Chung held a similar event at the University of Hawaii (where he was a student at the time), one girl walking by literally broke down and started to cry, saying that she couldn't believe that anyone would do something so unselfish and kind. I wonder if there were people similarly bewildered. I wonder if some will go on to question a society that's almost hostile to selfless acts of kindness. I wonder if a few will come up with their own way of blessing others with no strings attached.
I don't know. Even if it never goes that deep for anyone, we made people smile, not through sarcasm or a tricky cynical phrase or some cruel joke but out of sheer joy. And in today's world, that's quite an accomplishment.
Nate Chung is a genius, just the kind of genius Christianity needs right now...but that's a topic for another day.
"Randall, only you would go out of your way to do something backwards like that."
Don't like it? Hey, there are lots of other blogs in the blogosphere. And it shows personality, no?
Anyway, the reason I held off on talking about what I'm about to talk about is because I was hoping that there would be press coverage for the event that I could link to so that you could get an outsiders perspective of what took place. There was television coverage, and I actually got my mug in the Honolulu Star Bulletin (Page D2 of the evening edition) but I guess the newspaper websites are slow to update non-breaking news. To turn the cliche around, if it doesn't bleed, it doesn't lead. But (as usual) I'm getting ahead of myself.
Valentine's morning around 11AM, I took part in what I think is one of the most brilliant works of public performance art ever put on in Hawaii. Now I know that's a grandiose statement to the extreme, but that's how highly I regard the event.
It was a simple thing, really. Nate Chung designed a bunch of signs, taped them to wooden poles and got a bunch of his friends to volunteer to hold them up along one of the busiest intersections of downtown Honolulu. The signs had his face on them (in gregarious, humorous, utterly joyful poses) and when three or four signs were put together they spelled out phrases like, "You're great!" or "Mahalo" (thank you in Hawaiian) or "You're appreciated." The event was called, "Downtown Love."
In simplest terms, the goal of the event was just to cheer people up as they were walking or driving by. Held in the heart of Downtown, the event put us among the movers and shakers (as well as the grunts and the cogs) who keep Hawaii going. These are people who spend hours on the phone, in meetings, staring at computer screens, massaging the carpal tunnel out of their wrists. From the lowliest file clerk to the Type A CEOs, a lot of the work they do on a daily basis goes unnoticed and unappreciated. These signs were a way for Nate and his volunteers to thank these people for all that they do.
That's face value goal of the event. Now here's why I think this was such a radically amazing, brilliant work of art: it really messed with people's heads, but in a good way. As one of the sign wavers, I got to see first hand, what the reactions were. The two most common were ignoring the signs and looking at them with a kind of uncomprehension (I just invented that word, you like?). No comment on those who ignored the signs, but I loved watching the people who were trying to figure out why the hell we were holding up these silly signs with near-obsequeous messages on them.
And that's the genius of the signs. It's a stinging, subversive critique of the cynicism that is so pervasive that people don't know how to react when confronted with a message that says, "you're great!" - a sign that doesn't have any advertising agenda, that isn't trying to direct you to a website, that isn't trying to further a political figure or ideology - a sign that's just trying to cheer people up. And judging by their initial reactions, people didn't know how to take that.
Now I can understand that because it seems like everything today has strings attached to it. A free car wash isn't really a free car wash, it's either trying to collect "suggested donations" or it's trying to promote some kind of cause, like a church trying to show its community that it cares. And what a sad world it's become where when someone comes up to you and gives you a compliment, defenses go up and you start asking yourself, "why did they do that? What do they want from me? Did they really mean it?" When did we become so jaded and defensive? Why is it so hard and awkward and weird to be nice to one another? I mean do you see how utterly screwed up that is? It's easier and more socially acceptable these days to be selfish and self-centered than it is to be generous and empathetic.
Downtown Love is an open challenge to what we've become. Even now, I picture some of those grouchy faces that walked by the group of signs I was a part of (our five signs read, "you're ap-pre-cia-ted) going back to their office trying to figure out what we were trying to sell or what we were trying to get them to sign up for. And I wonder if this person will consider, just for a moment, that it truly was a simple expression of kindness and thanks. And I wonder if that moment will get him to see how distrustful and dysfunctional our society has become. And ultimately, I wonder if this newfound understanding will cause him/her to be a bit nicer to those around them - not to kiss ass, but just for the sake of doing something kind.
Most amazing of all, this subversive critique came in the form of life-affirming, cheerful little signs. It came out of a heart so overfull with love that it couldn't help but spill out into the streets.
I wish you could have been there. I wish you could have seen the reactions. We heard from some people walking by that they came down to check us out after hearing their co-workers say something like, "there are a bunch of people waving these signs and they're saying stuff like, 'have a great day.' You should go check it out." And I wonder what kind of conversations got started in offices all over downtown.
When Nate Chung held a similar event at the University of Hawaii (where he was a student at the time), one girl walking by literally broke down and started to cry, saying that she couldn't believe that anyone would do something so unselfish and kind. I wonder if there were people similarly bewildered. I wonder if some will go on to question a society that's almost hostile to selfless acts of kindness. I wonder if a few will come up with their own way of blessing others with no strings attached.
I don't know. Even if it never goes that deep for anyone, we made people smile, not through sarcasm or a tricky cynical phrase or some cruel joke but out of sheer joy. And in today's world, that's quite an accomplishment.
Nate Chung is a genius, just the kind of genius Christianity needs right now...but that's a topic for another day.
Tuesday, February 14, 2006
164. best Valentine's Day ever (part 2)
(if you're looking for part 1, it hasn't been written yet. Why not? Well I'll explain why not after I've written it. Until then...)
I've never really minded Valentine's day all that much, even as the most single person to ever walk the streets of Oahu. As a single person, Christmas is the holiday I hate the most (see blog 125). I'm not sure what I did with myself on Valentine's days of yore, but tonight was really cool. I went over to a friend's house and watched Swingers - the one with Vince Vaughn and Jon Favreau.
Now I don't know what movie single girls get together to watch on Valentine's Day (if I were a woman, I'd want to get together with my single girlfriends and watch "Before Sunrise" - the one with Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy) but I think Swingers is the perfect choice for guys. It's so money.
That movie is an inspiration for single guys. In fact, I remember once I watched that movie at home, then later that night, I actually met a woman at Borders waiting in line for the pay phone (yeah, it was that long ago, so what?). We went out a couple times but it was a no go. But I mention that because Swingers is just that kind of movie where you almost feel invincible as a single person (as opposed to sappy and inadequate and awkward).
I don't know if women like the film, but as a guy, if you haven't seen this movie, rent it, buy it, borrow it. You'll laugh, you'll...well, you won't cry, but you'll laugh a lot. And who knows, maybe it'll give you the confidence to approach that hottie in the cereals aisle in the grocery store.
I've never really minded Valentine's day all that much, even as the most single person to ever walk the streets of Oahu. As a single person, Christmas is the holiday I hate the most (see blog 125). I'm not sure what I did with myself on Valentine's days of yore, but tonight was really cool. I went over to a friend's house and watched Swingers - the one with Vince Vaughn and Jon Favreau.
Now I don't know what movie single girls get together to watch on Valentine's Day (if I were a woman, I'd want to get together with my single girlfriends and watch "Before Sunrise" - the one with Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy) but I think Swingers is the perfect choice for guys. It's so money.
That movie is an inspiration for single guys. In fact, I remember once I watched that movie at home, then later that night, I actually met a woman at Borders waiting in line for the pay phone (yeah, it was that long ago, so what?). We went out a couple times but it was a no go. But I mention that because Swingers is just that kind of movie where you almost feel invincible as a single person (as opposed to sappy and inadequate and awkward).
I don't know if women like the film, but as a guy, if you haven't seen this movie, rent it, buy it, borrow it. You'll laugh, you'll...well, you won't cry, but you'll laugh a lot. And who knows, maybe it'll give you the confidence to approach that hottie in the cereals aisle in the grocery store.
163. sex and the Bible
I wonder how many Christians have never read Song of Solomon? Well here's a link to a Christian who created a CD around the book. A fun read:
Sex and the Bible, and you can sing along by Cathleen Falsani.
Sex and the Bible, and you can sing along by Cathleen Falsani.
Friday, February 10, 2006
162. an ode to my readers
I'm turning 34 this month. And only within the last few months have I been content as a single person. Now I don't mean I'm glad I'm single or that I'm enjoying my singleness, what I mean is, I'm not anxious or depressed or very much concerned about being single. And I call that being content.
Many of you know this (some of you don't), but I've been single every one of my 34 years on this planet. But ever since I recognized that there were two sexes, I've been fascinated by women (and baffled by men, and I'm not sure what that means). I never went through that phase in childhood where I thought girls had cooties. They've always seemed like this deep, beautiful mystery. So wanting to have a girlfriend has been a perpetual monkey on my back.
I think if I had more confidence when I was younger (and I could still use some now), and if I had game (the ability to talk to women so that they're charmed and attracted instead of confused and mildly repulsed), I think I'd be one of those guys who went from girl to girl, who was never single for more than a couple weeks. And I wonder what that would have been like, but that's not how things worked out for me. Instead, I was nerdy, awkward, and shy as a teenager; nerdy, shy, and clueless in my early twenties; depressed, angry, and confused in my late twenties. Now that I'm in my early to mid thirties, all I can say is that I'm relatively sure of myself - well, sure enough that I don't think I'd be the co-dependent, wreck that I might have been had I had a girlfriend(s) earlier in life.
It's only been in the last few years that I've really felt comfortable in my own skin. For example, the other night I went to a funeral for a coworker who had died after a long battle with cancer. It was an Episcopal memorial service held at the beautiful St. Andrew's Cathedral, and it was one of those strange events where you're not quite sure how to act. I mean at work, we kid around as coworkers (when the nose is not to the grindstone), but in this somber, formal setting, it's awkward. And in the past, I'd be a wreck at something like this because back then, if I was in a setting where I didn't know how to act, I'd freak out and think that I was the only clueless one and that everybody was staring at idiot me - doing, saying, thinking all the wrong things. But that night at the memorial service, I didn't care that I didn't know precisely how to act (luckily, I had been to liturgical services before so I wasn't completely clueless), I just went with the flow.
I think the two are linked - the being comfortable with myself and the contentment at not having a girlfriend. I confess that one of the (many) reasons I wanted to have a girlfriend was as a kind of support, someone who would be there to reassure me when confidence waned. What I wanted was a kind of safe harbor, a shelter, someone who would love me even if I screwed up. And I thought that would free me to take more risks with my writing and with how I expressed myself and with how lived. I thought that without this safety net, that I'd never have the confidence to think, speak, and act freely.
See, it pains me to say this, but as a Christian, there's a subtle but sure pressure to conform to the herd mentality (see blog 157). Step outside too much and you risk getting dissed, maybe even shunned. And it won't be so obvious as excommunication, it's more subtle - it's in they way people look at you askance, they way they mistake tolerance for acceptance. It's like being a Mac user in a PC convention. Sure you're a computer user, but you're one of those OTHER computer users.
And the Mac/PC analogy is useful here because just as I think the PC platform is bankrupt and corrupt and outdated (while Macs are elegant, innovative, and forward-thinking), I think a lot of mainstream Christianity is missing the point of the Gospel and the kingdom of God (see blog 161). And as a Christian, I wanted to stop hiding the fact that I was tired of the PC monopoly and I wanted to share my frustrations and point towards something more practical and useful and Biblical. But taking a stand like that can be a lonely venture and I wanted someone there at the end of the day who would tell me that I was okay even when others were rejecting me.
But then at some point I stopped caring what people at church thought. I stopped caring what people outside the church thought. There was no epiphany, no defining moment that led to this change of heart. It was a slow shift into this new (tougher) skin. And now that I don't care anymore, it's like I don't need the girlfriend safety net anymore and thus the newfound contentment in being single.
But the safety net wasn't the only reason I wanted a girlfriend. I like seeing artsy movies and going to art galleries, but one thing that always bothered me was not being able to talk about what I'd seen. It was frustrating because the better the movie or the more engaging the art, the more I wanted to talk about it with someone - I wanted to know how someone else reacted to the work and to share my own reactions and in so sharing, to find a deeper appreciation of the art. I wanted someone to share the world with, to remember the world with, to boldly-go-where-no-man-has-gone-before with. I wanted someone to share, to debate, to spar intellectually with. I wanted to try and see the world through another's eyes.
And now? Hmmm...well, now I have this blog where I can share my thoughts and people seem to like reading it and I get some interesting, affirming comments. And it's not the same as what I thought having a girlfriend would be like, but it sort of fills a need. Hmph...I never really thought about it that much, but I suppose blogging has really been good for me. I mean, it's something that takes up a lot of time and I try to post on a somewhat regular basis and I guess I wouldn't go through all the trouble if it wasn't doing something good for me.
Wow, that's kind of a revelation for me. I mean I've always appreciated all the hits I get on my blog, and I especially appreciate the comments that get left, but I always thought this was just some novelty thing I did on the side, not something that was helping me be a bit more whole.
And maybe it's apropos that as my MySpace blog passes the 4,000 hit mark and my blogspot mirror blog just passed the 1,000 hit mark, that I formally thank my readers and let them know that the very act of reading (and more so commenting) has made a difference in my life.
And so, thank you.
Many of you know this (some of you don't), but I've been single every one of my 34 years on this planet. But ever since I recognized that there were two sexes, I've been fascinated by women (and baffled by men, and I'm not sure what that means). I never went through that phase in childhood where I thought girls had cooties. They've always seemed like this deep, beautiful mystery. So wanting to have a girlfriend has been a perpetual monkey on my back.
I think if I had more confidence when I was younger (and I could still use some now), and if I had game (the ability to talk to women so that they're charmed and attracted instead of confused and mildly repulsed), I think I'd be one of those guys who went from girl to girl, who was never single for more than a couple weeks. And I wonder what that would have been like, but that's not how things worked out for me. Instead, I was nerdy, awkward, and shy as a teenager; nerdy, shy, and clueless in my early twenties; depressed, angry, and confused in my late twenties. Now that I'm in my early to mid thirties, all I can say is that I'm relatively sure of myself - well, sure enough that I don't think I'd be the co-dependent, wreck that I might have been had I had a girlfriend(s) earlier in life.
It's only been in the last few years that I've really felt comfortable in my own skin. For example, the other night I went to a funeral for a coworker who had died after a long battle with cancer. It was an Episcopal memorial service held at the beautiful St. Andrew's Cathedral, and it was one of those strange events where you're not quite sure how to act. I mean at work, we kid around as coworkers (when the nose is not to the grindstone), but in this somber, formal setting, it's awkward. And in the past, I'd be a wreck at something like this because back then, if I was in a setting where I didn't know how to act, I'd freak out and think that I was the only clueless one and that everybody was staring at idiot me - doing, saying, thinking all the wrong things. But that night at the memorial service, I didn't care that I didn't know precisely how to act (luckily, I had been to liturgical services before so I wasn't completely clueless), I just went with the flow.
I think the two are linked - the being comfortable with myself and the contentment at not having a girlfriend. I confess that one of the (many) reasons I wanted to have a girlfriend was as a kind of support, someone who would be there to reassure me when confidence waned. What I wanted was a kind of safe harbor, a shelter, someone who would love me even if I screwed up. And I thought that would free me to take more risks with my writing and with how I expressed myself and with how lived. I thought that without this safety net, that I'd never have the confidence to think, speak, and act freely.
See, it pains me to say this, but as a Christian, there's a subtle but sure pressure to conform to the herd mentality (see blog 157). Step outside too much and you risk getting dissed, maybe even shunned. And it won't be so obvious as excommunication, it's more subtle - it's in they way people look at you askance, they way they mistake tolerance for acceptance. It's like being a Mac user in a PC convention. Sure you're a computer user, but you're one of those OTHER computer users.
And the Mac/PC analogy is useful here because just as I think the PC platform is bankrupt and corrupt and outdated (while Macs are elegant, innovative, and forward-thinking), I think a lot of mainstream Christianity is missing the point of the Gospel and the kingdom of God (see blog 161). And as a Christian, I wanted to stop hiding the fact that I was tired of the PC monopoly and I wanted to share my frustrations and point towards something more practical and useful and Biblical. But taking a stand like that can be a lonely venture and I wanted someone there at the end of the day who would tell me that I was okay even when others were rejecting me.
But then at some point I stopped caring what people at church thought. I stopped caring what people outside the church thought. There was no epiphany, no defining moment that led to this change of heart. It was a slow shift into this new (tougher) skin. And now that I don't care anymore, it's like I don't need the girlfriend safety net anymore and thus the newfound contentment in being single.
But the safety net wasn't the only reason I wanted a girlfriend. I like seeing artsy movies and going to art galleries, but one thing that always bothered me was not being able to talk about what I'd seen. It was frustrating because the better the movie or the more engaging the art, the more I wanted to talk about it with someone - I wanted to know how someone else reacted to the work and to share my own reactions and in so sharing, to find a deeper appreciation of the art. I wanted someone to share the world with, to remember the world with, to boldly-go-where-no-man-has-gone-before with. I wanted someone to share, to debate, to spar intellectually with. I wanted to try and see the world through another's eyes.
And now? Hmmm...well, now I have this blog where I can share my thoughts and people seem to like reading it and I get some interesting, affirming comments. And it's not the same as what I thought having a girlfriend would be like, but it sort of fills a need. Hmph...I never really thought about it that much, but I suppose blogging has really been good for me. I mean, it's something that takes up a lot of time and I try to post on a somewhat regular basis and I guess I wouldn't go through all the trouble if it wasn't doing something good for me.
Wow, that's kind of a revelation for me. I mean I've always appreciated all the hits I get on my blog, and I especially appreciate the comments that get left, but I always thought this was just some novelty thing I did on the side, not something that was helping me be a bit more whole.
And maybe it's apropos that as my MySpace blog passes the 4,000 hit mark and my blogspot mirror blog just passed the 1,000 hit mark, that I formally thank my readers and let them know that the very act of reading (and more so commenting) has made a difference in my life.
And so, thank you.
Wednesday, February 08, 2006
161. the Kingdom of God
This Sunday at the Home Church I attend (yeah, a church that meets at a home…more on this church in another blog), we had a guest speaker named Kawika. As far as I could tell, he’s a world-hopping, church planter dude (dude as in ex-pro-boarder-who-hits-surf-spots-worldwide dude) and he was talking (once he got to the point) about the Kingdom of God.
Funny thing, today I met up with my friend Blake who runs this Home Church and he told me that he and some others at church that night were asking about me because I dug out right after the guy got done speaking. They were wondering if the dude’s message had tweake me because they said I looked all intense while he was speaking. Funny thing is, I agreed with most of what the dude was saying (I’ll get to that in a bit). The thing that was tweaking me was how long he was taking to get to his point, and then once he got there, there wasn’t a lot of there there.
His whole message that night was a kind of buildup to the idea that as Christians we need to be about seeking the Kingdom of God. But I already kind of know that and so I was waiting for him to get into what exctly he thinks the Kingdom of God is. But he never gets there. So in a way (with all due respect to the dude), his whole message was, “we need to be looking for and building towards something he can’t fully define yet.” Which is not unlike saying, “the answer is we need to be looking for the answer because it’s the answer.”
To be fair, I’m kind of at where he’s at but in a different way. We’re both trying to reformulate our belifs about Christianity apart from the unnecessary baggage that church tradition and doctrine has laid upon it. And it’s not easy because we’re 2,000 years removed from the life of Jesus and there’s a ton of church culture that’s accumulated, some of it good, some not.
See here’sthe thing. So much of modern American Christianity has to do with the economics of salvation. The merit of any church program is usually based on either how many people can get saved through it, or how many people they can get to stay saved. And they’ll use any kind of bait and switch, hard sell tactic to weasel people into a confined space where they need to make a choice between praying this magical prayer or forsaking the grace of God and remaining an unrepentant bit of walking charcoal destined for the fires of hell. Of course they don’t put it that way, but sometimes that’s what’s motivating them to get people saved.
And there are different root causes as to why this is how Christianity gets played out in so many different churches. One root cause is the consumeristic culture we live in. In this culture, numbers mean a lot and the bigger the number, the more the worth. It doesn’t matter if the numbers relate to how much money you have or how much money you make or how many cars you have or how many square feet your house has or how high your (or your kids’) GPA is/was, etc. Numbers matter and the church has subconsciously (and sometimes consciously) adopted this numbers scheme. The more members on the mailing list, the more successful the church. The more people you’ve led to Christ, the more faith-filled and dovoted the believer.
Another root cause is this whole Left Behind, the end of the world is near, dispensationalist view of the world. I won’t go into it a lot here because I’m still making my way through a book about this called _The Rapture Exposed_ by Barbara R. Rossing. Basically, the doctrine of the rapture as outlined in books like the Left Behind series is a fabrication. Although it seems ubiquitous, especially in evangelical circles, the term “rapture” (and the system by which current events like the reformation of the nation of Isreal are placed on a end-times time line, aka dispensationalism) is a recent development. This way of thinking leads to just the kind of “just-get-them-saved” mentality that I mentioned above. It also allows for destructive environmental attitudes because if the world’s going up in smoke, why not exploit its resources while we can?
And then there’s the problem of the church itself – how many Christians seem to be more concerned with serving the church than with serving God (not necessarily the same thing). At the same time, some churches are more concerned with the needs of their congregation than they are with the needs of the community (and the world) around them.
I think Christianity in America has ended up with all of these problems because we’ve forgotten that Jesus was all about bringing about the Kingdom of God here on this earth. He wasn’t just talking about where we’re going after we die. The Lord’s prayer contains the line, “. . .thy kingdom come, thy will be done ON EARTH AS IT IS IN HEAVEN.” That means that the kingdom is something that’s for today for this earth. We’re not supposed to just wait to get to heaven, we’re supposed to be praying that heaven would be made manifest here and now.
So what is the Kingdom of God? What does it look like?
Some of you know the book _Blue Like Jazz_ by Donald Miller (and if you don’t know, stop reading this blog - go out and buy this book!). Well Miller attends a church called Imago Dei and if you go to their website you can download Rick Mckinley’s (pastor of Imago Dei) sermons. One of the message series archived at their site is called The Kingdom of God and it’s an amazing series, highly recommended. Anyway, he uses the sermon on the mount as a kind of launching point for discussing the kingdom, and it’s a strategy that makes sense because it was Jesus’ first sermon and it makes sense that he’d make his debut talking about what he’s going to be about for the next few years.
And one of the things he busts out is the beatitudes – a kind of ode to the uncool and the forgotten – the poor in spirit, the sad, the meek, the freedom fighters, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakres, the persecuted. He goes straight to the kinds of people religious systems let fall through the cracks and he tells them that theirs is the kingdom of heaven, that they will be comforted, they will inherit the earth, they will be filled, they will be shown mercy, they will see God, they shall be sons of God. Throughout the rest of the sermon on the mount, Jesus describes a world that’s upside down, that’s counterintuitive, that’s subversive and beautiful and driven by love.
It’s not the final word on what the Kingdom of God is, but it’s a great start.
Funny thing, today I met up with my friend Blake who runs this Home Church and he told me that he and some others at church that night were asking about me because I dug out right after the guy got done speaking. They were wondering if the dude’s message had tweake me because they said I looked all intense while he was speaking. Funny thing is, I agreed with most of what the dude was saying (I’ll get to that in a bit). The thing that was tweaking me was how long he was taking to get to his point, and then once he got there, there wasn’t a lot of there there.
His whole message that night was a kind of buildup to the idea that as Christians we need to be about seeking the Kingdom of God. But I already kind of know that and so I was waiting for him to get into what exctly he thinks the Kingdom of God is. But he never gets there. So in a way (with all due respect to the dude), his whole message was, “we need to be looking for and building towards something he can’t fully define yet.” Which is not unlike saying, “the answer is we need to be looking for the answer because it’s the answer.”
To be fair, I’m kind of at where he’s at but in a different way. We’re both trying to reformulate our belifs about Christianity apart from the unnecessary baggage that church tradition and doctrine has laid upon it. And it’s not easy because we’re 2,000 years removed from the life of Jesus and there’s a ton of church culture that’s accumulated, some of it good, some not.
See here’sthe thing. So much of modern American Christianity has to do with the economics of salvation. The merit of any church program is usually based on either how many people can get saved through it, or how many people they can get to stay saved. And they’ll use any kind of bait and switch, hard sell tactic to weasel people into a confined space where they need to make a choice between praying this magical prayer or forsaking the grace of God and remaining an unrepentant bit of walking charcoal destined for the fires of hell. Of course they don’t put it that way, but sometimes that’s what’s motivating them to get people saved.
And there are different root causes as to why this is how Christianity gets played out in so many different churches. One root cause is the consumeristic culture we live in. In this culture, numbers mean a lot and the bigger the number, the more the worth. It doesn’t matter if the numbers relate to how much money you have or how much money you make or how many cars you have or how many square feet your house has or how high your (or your kids’) GPA is/was, etc. Numbers matter and the church has subconsciously (and sometimes consciously) adopted this numbers scheme. The more members on the mailing list, the more successful the church. The more people you’ve led to Christ, the more faith-filled and dovoted the believer.
Another root cause is this whole Left Behind, the end of the world is near, dispensationalist view of the world. I won’t go into it a lot here because I’m still making my way through a book about this called _The Rapture Exposed_ by Barbara R. Rossing. Basically, the doctrine of the rapture as outlined in books like the Left Behind series is a fabrication. Although it seems ubiquitous, especially in evangelical circles, the term “rapture” (and the system by which current events like the reformation of the nation of Isreal are placed on a end-times time line, aka dispensationalism) is a recent development. This way of thinking leads to just the kind of “just-get-them-saved” mentality that I mentioned above. It also allows for destructive environmental attitudes because if the world’s going up in smoke, why not exploit its resources while we can?
And then there’s the problem of the church itself – how many Christians seem to be more concerned with serving the church than with serving God (not necessarily the same thing). At the same time, some churches are more concerned with the needs of their congregation than they are with the needs of the community (and the world) around them.
I think Christianity in America has ended up with all of these problems because we’ve forgotten that Jesus was all about bringing about the Kingdom of God here on this earth. He wasn’t just talking about where we’re going after we die. The Lord’s prayer contains the line, “. . .thy kingdom come, thy will be done ON EARTH AS IT IS IN HEAVEN.” That means that the kingdom is something that’s for today for this earth. We’re not supposed to just wait to get to heaven, we’re supposed to be praying that heaven would be made manifest here and now.
So what is the Kingdom of God? What does it look like?
Some of you know the book _Blue Like Jazz_ by Donald Miller (and if you don’t know, stop reading this blog - go out and buy this book!). Well Miller attends a church called Imago Dei and if you go to their website you can download Rick Mckinley’s (pastor of Imago Dei) sermons. One of the message series archived at their site is called The Kingdom of God and it’s an amazing series, highly recommended. Anyway, he uses the sermon on the mount as a kind of launching point for discussing the kingdom, and it’s a strategy that makes sense because it was Jesus’ first sermon and it makes sense that he’d make his debut talking about what he’s going to be about for the next few years.
And one of the things he busts out is the beatitudes – a kind of ode to the uncool and the forgotten – the poor in spirit, the sad, the meek, the freedom fighters, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakres, the persecuted. He goes straight to the kinds of people religious systems let fall through the cracks and he tells them that theirs is the kingdom of heaven, that they will be comforted, they will inherit the earth, they will be filled, they will be shown mercy, they will see God, they shall be sons of God. Throughout the rest of the sermon on the mount, Jesus describes a world that’s upside down, that’s counterintuitive, that’s subversive and beautiful and driven by love.
It’s not the final word on what the Kingdom of God is, but it’s a great start.
Tuesday, February 07, 2006
160. insects...oh, and one more thing
I was about to go to bed, but I couldn't. Something wasn't right, I was not at ease, and then it hit me. I haven't blogged in over two days. And I've never made blogging a daily thing, but people (for whatever reason) read this thing and I feel a bit of an obligation to put something out there. And there are times when there's more going on in my head than I have time to get down. And then there are other times (like tonight) where I just didn't have anything I wanted to write about.
And again, I was about to get into bed and then I realized that there was something I wanted to share even though it's rather mundane. And so I bring you, the insect story.
Last night I was shutting down my new iMac (see blog 143, 147, and 150) after backing up some files. The computer goes to sleep and then I hear this strange scratchy sound. At the same time I see something out of the corner of my eye. I turn towards the sound and the something and I see a centipede slithering across the floor.
Now to say that I saw a centipede implies that I looked at it with calm, clinical, detachment. Truth of the matter is, I took one glance and once I saw what it was, my spinal cord did its best impersonation of a fish out of water, taking the rest of my body for the ride. Had you been in the room you might have thought I was going into convulsions.
See, I hate insects. Ugh, I mean I really hate insects. I could be watching television and maybe it's a documentary about a rain forrest and they do a cut-away to some bug crawling on the ground and I nearly jump out of my seat. And that bit in the new King Kong where Naomi Watts' character is crawling through the log with those CGI insects...I'd almost rather peel my fingernails off than have to watch something like that.
If I react that way to television and movie bits, you can imagine how freaked I was when I saw the centipede. In my recording studio. Where I work at night. Alone.
So it crawls across the floor and hides under my guitar amp. And then I think about what to do. My first thought is to forget I ever saw it and hope it just starves to death. My second thought was to get one of those room fogger insecticide things (I think they're called bug bombs) and blast out my whole studio just to get rid of one little disgusting bug. My third thought was that I needed to get rid of this thing while I knew where it was because as much as I hate insects and as much as I want to avoid them, working in my studio knowing that there was a centipede somewhere in the room starving would not allow me to fully concentrate. And so I went and got a dust pan and a broom.
Now why a dust pan and a broom? Why not a big shoe or a phone book or a hoe or a shotgun?
Because the only thing more disgusting than an insect is all the gooey pus that oozes out when you smash them. Capturing and releasing this insect is not an act of mercy on my part, I'm just too scared and grossed out to kill it...but I'm getting ahead of myself.
I forgot to mention that in order to get the dustpan and broom I had to leave the studio for a couple minutes (studio downstairs, dustpan/broom upstairs). So I get back to the studio and I spend ten minutes just staring at my guitar amp trying to figure out how to flush out the centipede. But I'm not just trying to figure this out, I'm also trying psych myself up for the task at hand. And I'm also still considering the bug bomb idea.
Finally, I figure I don't have to move the amp, I can just bang it a bit with the wood end of the broom and scare it out. Of course the easy, sane thing to do would be to just pick the stupid amp up by the handle and move it but I was too freaked that I'd grab the handle and the centipede would crawl out on to my arm and then I'd drop the amp and break it and the centipede would bite me and I'd be allergic and I'd die instantly while the centipede ate boogers out of my dead nose.
Long story short ("too late for that, dude") I bang on the amp, nothing. I move the amp with the stick end of my broom, nothing. And then I realize that while I was gone it probably crawled in to some other strange corner. But it was too late to go hunting for it and I was more than happy to get away from the thing even if I'd have to work in the studio knowing it was around somewhere.
Fast forward to tonight. I'm working on some audio editing and every once in a while I stomp my feet hoping to keep the centipede from crawling up my toe nails. I'm working for about three hours and finally, after I'm done, I turn to walk out when it I see it again. But this time I'm ready - I kept the dustpan and broom downstairs for such a time as this. Again, it made a run for my guitar amp. I saw it run under there but didn't see it crawl out anywhere. I get the dustpan and broom combo ready and flush the bastard insect out. And I though it was going to be some grand struggle to get it in the dustpan but it actually crawled right in. I took it outside and let it go. I didn't have to use the broom at all.
The end.
Oh, and one more thing. My MySpace blog counter just hit 4,000 over the weekend. I just wanted to thank all of my readers for...well, reading and commenting.
And again, I was about to get into bed and then I realized that there was something I wanted to share even though it's rather mundane. And so I bring you, the insect story.
Last night I was shutting down my new iMac (see blog 143, 147, and 150) after backing up some files. The computer goes to sleep and then I hear this strange scratchy sound. At the same time I see something out of the corner of my eye. I turn towards the sound and the something and I see a centipede slithering across the floor.
Now to say that I saw a centipede implies that I looked at it with calm, clinical, detachment. Truth of the matter is, I took one glance and once I saw what it was, my spinal cord did its best impersonation of a fish out of water, taking the rest of my body for the ride. Had you been in the room you might have thought I was going into convulsions.
See, I hate insects. Ugh, I mean I really hate insects. I could be watching television and maybe it's a documentary about a rain forrest and they do a cut-away to some bug crawling on the ground and I nearly jump out of my seat. And that bit in the new King Kong where Naomi Watts' character is crawling through the log with those CGI insects...I'd almost rather peel my fingernails off than have to watch something like that.
If I react that way to television and movie bits, you can imagine how freaked I was when I saw the centipede. In my recording studio. Where I work at night. Alone.
So it crawls across the floor and hides under my guitar amp. And then I think about what to do. My first thought is to forget I ever saw it and hope it just starves to death. My second thought was to get one of those room fogger insecticide things (I think they're called bug bombs) and blast out my whole studio just to get rid of one little disgusting bug. My third thought was that I needed to get rid of this thing while I knew where it was because as much as I hate insects and as much as I want to avoid them, working in my studio knowing that there was a centipede somewhere in the room starving would not allow me to fully concentrate. And so I went and got a dust pan and a broom.
Now why a dust pan and a broom? Why not a big shoe or a phone book or a hoe or a shotgun?
Because the only thing more disgusting than an insect is all the gooey pus that oozes out when you smash them. Capturing and releasing this insect is not an act of mercy on my part, I'm just too scared and grossed out to kill it...but I'm getting ahead of myself.
I forgot to mention that in order to get the dustpan and broom I had to leave the studio for a couple minutes (studio downstairs, dustpan/broom upstairs). So I get back to the studio and I spend ten minutes just staring at my guitar amp trying to figure out how to flush out the centipede. But I'm not just trying to figure this out, I'm also trying psych myself up for the task at hand. And I'm also still considering the bug bomb idea.
Finally, I figure I don't have to move the amp, I can just bang it a bit with the wood end of the broom and scare it out. Of course the easy, sane thing to do would be to just pick the stupid amp up by the handle and move it but I was too freaked that I'd grab the handle and the centipede would crawl out on to my arm and then I'd drop the amp and break it and the centipede would bite me and I'd be allergic and I'd die instantly while the centipede ate boogers out of my dead nose.
Long story short ("too late for that, dude") I bang on the amp, nothing. I move the amp with the stick end of my broom, nothing. And then I realize that while I was gone it probably crawled in to some other strange corner. But it was too late to go hunting for it and I was more than happy to get away from the thing even if I'd have to work in the studio knowing it was around somewhere.
Fast forward to tonight. I'm working on some audio editing and every once in a while I stomp my feet hoping to keep the centipede from crawling up my toe nails. I'm working for about three hours and finally, after I'm done, I turn to walk out when it I see it again. But this time I'm ready - I kept the dustpan and broom downstairs for such a time as this. Again, it made a run for my guitar amp. I saw it run under there but didn't see it crawl out anywhere. I get the dustpan and broom combo ready and flush the bastard insect out. And I though it was going to be some grand struggle to get it in the dustpan but it actually crawled right in. I took it outside and let it go. I didn't have to use the broom at all.
The end.
Oh, and one more thing. My MySpace blog counter just hit 4,000 over the weekend. I just wanted to thank all of my readers for...well, reading and commenting.
Saturday, February 04, 2006
159. the blog entry I've been avoiding
Okay, so I try to pride myself in being pretty open and honest in my blog, but there's one post that I've been meaning to write for a long time now. I've been putting it off for months (for reasons that will soon be obvious and if not I'll explain) and it's time I stopped hemming and hawing and got down to brass tacks ("what's up with the southern idioms all of a sudden?").
And here it is.
Ready?
Are you sitting down?
Maybe you want to go wash your car or bake some cookies.
You know, the Super Bowl is this weekend (something I didn't know until this week...I thought it was in the summer), have you called your bookie yet?
"Randall..."
And if you live in Hawaii, the Punahou Carnival starts tonight.
"Stop stalling."
Funny thing, the carnival is here but it's not raining.
"Damn it!"
Okay, okay.
But they're not going to like it.
"Like that's stopped you from writing before."
Okay, here it is:
I don't want to have kids.
"There, don't you feel better now?"
No.
I'm rather embarrassed to admit that I don't want to have kids because it feels selfish and odd. And so it's something that I don't share a lot except to my close friends ("and everyone who reads your blog"). The desire to procreate seems to be so natural to so many people that my not wanting to have kids feels abnormal and strange and so I keep it under wraps - like my toe nails...I have ingrown toenails on both of my big toes and it's ugly and so I almost always wear shoes so I can wear socks so if I go to someone's house and have to take off my shoes, I can keep my ugly toenails concealed ("you know, that makes two embarrassing admissions now").
"Why don't you want to have kids...you sick freak?"
Okay, the nice answers first and then the brutally honest answers.
1. The world, as I've seen it, is a pretty messed up place. Why would I want to bring another life into all of this injustice and uncertainty and frustration?
2. I hear most people end up parenting the way they were parented. There's a scene in The Breakfast Club where they're all sitting around talking about their parents. One of them says, "I'm never going to be like my parents." And then another replies, "you can't help it, it's inevitable," or something like that. And to a degree, I agree with that - that you end up parenting like you were parented.
And it's not like my parents were bad parents, they're actually pretty outstanding in a lot of ways but my father never talks much. Three, four, five days going by without me and my father sharing a single word is nothing out of the ordinary. In fact, what would be completely out of the ordinary would be my father and I having an actual conversation - something that lasted longer than "can I borrow your drill?"
"You need the bits to go along with that?"
"Yeah, thanks."
It's always been that way and I don't mind because I've never known anything else. But there's a part of me that fears that if I were to have a children, that I wouldn't know how to talk to them. That thought sends chills up my spine. And this isn't just some untested theory of mine. A lot of my friends are having kids and when I go over to their house, I don't know how to interact with them. I mean, I try, but it's stressful and I'm confused and I feel awkward and clumsy and lost.
Some people say, "don't you remember what it was like to be a kid?" And I don't remember. I have very few memories from childhood. I just remember not fitting in and wishing I could be like the cool kids but never knowing how.
3. The world has finite resources. By not having kids, I'm doing my part to conserve these resources so that other people's children will be able to enjoy the earth.
This isn't really an excuse I use, it's just something I keep in my back pocket because it sounds hippie and globally correct and out of all my reasons, this one sounds the least selfish.
4. It's just too big of a responsibility.
Raising a child? Bringing up a human being? Teaching him/her how to behave, how to act around others, how to share? How the hell do you do that? And if you teach the wrong thing or aren't able to discipline them or discipline them too much, that affects them for the rest of their lives. And it's not like there's a reset button or even an undo button.
That just seems like way too much pressure.
Okay, those are the nice answers. Here are the ugly ones:
5. I've lived a pretty generous life. It's just part of who I am, and I keep on giving even though sometimes it's exhausting and heartbreaking. And kids are just so needy and it's not like they understand or appreciate how much you give them until years later, and even then there's a chance that they'll hold some grudge against you for something you did wrong - for raising them with too much/too little discipline for giving too much and spoiling them/for not giving enough and making them feel unwanted.
The very thought of those years from babyhood to adolescence, all those years of needs and wants, all that money and all that time. I'm feeling exhausted just writing about it, let alone living it.
6. It's just not in me.
I've never wanted to have kids, ever. I've never understood the impulse. I look at my friends who have kids and I literally think to myself (with all due respect), "why on earth would you want to have one of those things?" I mean, I just don't get it. They whine and they break things and then they whine some more and they spill things and they want to listen to those baby songs and watch the same cartoons and they don't want to pick up their toys and they fight with one another, etc. I don't get it. Why would I want to bring that kind of chaos into my life?
7. What if they turn out to be lame?
I mean, really. What if they grow up to be dorks? What if they're one of those contestants who get eliminated from American Idol during those first episodes like William Hung? What if they end up listening to lame music or reading shallow books. More seriously, what if, despite your best efforts, they rebel and live a life of drugs or theft or worse?
Well, there they are. I may have other reasons but those are the main ones. And I'm not saying that I never ever want to have kids. Maybe once I fall truly, madly, deeply (oh shit, I can't believe I just quoted a Savage Garden song) in love, I'll understand what love is and want to share this love with offspring. Maybe I've just had really bad luck and have yet to hang out with kids that I can get along with. I don't know. I've learned never to say never. I just don't expect my mind to change on this point anytime soon.
And I've held off writing this because it's not cool, and it's not something women like to hear (most women, anyway). I remember in college I was actually writing this woman. Sadly, this is probably the closest I ever came to having a girlfriend. We met on-line and we exchanged e-mails (she lived in Pennsylvania). She was great. She was whip-smart (way smarter than I) and she had short hair and she was funny. We exchanged long e-mails on a daily basis. This went on for a few months and right when we were about to start calling one another, I told her about my not wanting to have kids thing. And then it was over pretty quick after that.
Hey, I respect anyone who has children. I don't know how you do it, but I'm glad you do. It's the hardest job on the planet, and it's a beautiful thing.
And I don't think I'm up for it.
(let the flaming commence)
And here it is.
Ready?
Are you sitting down?
Maybe you want to go wash your car or bake some cookies.
You know, the Super Bowl is this weekend (something I didn't know until this week...I thought it was in the summer), have you called your bookie yet?
"Randall..."
And if you live in Hawaii, the Punahou Carnival starts tonight.
"Stop stalling."
Funny thing, the carnival is here but it's not raining.
"Damn it!"
Okay, okay.
But they're not going to like it.
"Like that's stopped you from writing before."
Okay, here it is:
I don't want to have kids.
"There, don't you feel better now?"
No.
I'm rather embarrassed to admit that I don't want to have kids because it feels selfish and odd. And so it's something that I don't share a lot except to my close friends ("and everyone who reads your blog"). The desire to procreate seems to be so natural to so many people that my not wanting to have kids feels abnormal and strange and so I keep it under wraps - like my toe nails...I have ingrown toenails on both of my big toes and it's ugly and so I almost always wear shoes so I can wear socks so if I go to someone's house and have to take off my shoes, I can keep my ugly toenails concealed ("you know, that makes two embarrassing admissions now").
"Why don't you want to have kids...you sick freak?"
Okay, the nice answers first and then the brutally honest answers.
1. The world, as I've seen it, is a pretty messed up place. Why would I want to bring another life into all of this injustice and uncertainty and frustration?
2. I hear most people end up parenting the way they were parented. There's a scene in The Breakfast Club where they're all sitting around talking about their parents. One of them says, "I'm never going to be like my parents." And then another replies, "you can't help it, it's inevitable," or something like that. And to a degree, I agree with that - that you end up parenting like you were parented.
And it's not like my parents were bad parents, they're actually pretty outstanding in a lot of ways but my father never talks much. Three, four, five days going by without me and my father sharing a single word is nothing out of the ordinary. In fact, what would be completely out of the ordinary would be my father and I having an actual conversation - something that lasted longer than "can I borrow your drill?"
"You need the bits to go along with that?"
"Yeah, thanks."
It's always been that way and I don't mind because I've never known anything else. But there's a part of me that fears that if I were to have a children, that I wouldn't know how to talk to them. That thought sends chills up my spine. And this isn't just some untested theory of mine. A lot of my friends are having kids and when I go over to their house, I don't know how to interact with them. I mean, I try, but it's stressful and I'm confused and I feel awkward and clumsy and lost.
Some people say, "don't you remember what it was like to be a kid?" And I don't remember. I have very few memories from childhood. I just remember not fitting in and wishing I could be like the cool kids but never knowing how.
3. The world has finite resources. By not having kids, I'm doing my part to conserve these resources so that other people's children will be able to enjoy the earth.
This isn't really an excuse I use, it's just something I keep in my back pocket because it sounds hippie and globally correct and out of all my reasons, this one sounds the least selfish.
4. It's just too big of a responsibility.
Raising a child? Bringing up a human being? Teaching him/her how to behave, how to act around others, how to share? How the hell do you do that? And if you teach the wrong thing or aren't able to discipline them or discipline them too much, that affects them for the rest of their lives. And it's not like there's a reset button or even an undo button.
That just seems like way too much pressure.
Okay, those are the nice answers. Here are the ugly ones:
5. I've lived a pretty generous life. It's just part of who I am, and I keep on giving even though sometimes it's exhausting and heartbreaking. And kids are just so needy and it's not like they understand or appreciate how much you give them until years later, and even then there's a chance that they'll hold some grudge against you for something you did wrong - for raising them with too much/too little discipline for giving too much and spoiling them/for not giving enough and making them feel unwanted.
The very thought of those years from babyhood to adolescence, all those years of needs and wants, all that money and all that time. I'm feeling exhausted just writing about it, let alone living it.
6. It's just not in me.
I've never wanted to have kids, ever. I've never understood the impulse. I look at my friends who have kids and I literally think to myself (with all due respect), "why on earth would you want to have one of those things?" I mean, I just don't get it. They whine and they break things and then they whine some more and they spill things and they want to listen to those baby songs and watch the same cartoons and they don't want to pick up their toys and they fight with one another, etc. I don't get it. Why would I want to bring that kind of chaos into my life?
7. What if they turn out to be lame?
I mean, really. What if they grow up to be dorks? What if they're one of those contestants who get eliminated from American Idol during those first episodes like William Hung? What if they end up listening to lame music or reading shallow books. More seriously, what if, despite your best efforts, they rebel and live a life of drugs or theft or worse?
Well, there they are. I may have other reasons but those are the main ones. And I'm not saying that I never ever want to have kids. Maybe once I fall truly, madly, deeply (oh shit, I can't believe I just quoted a Savage Garden song) in love, I'll understand what love is and want to share this love with offspring. Maybe I've just had really bad luck and have yet to hang out with kids that I can get along with. I don't know. I've learned never to say never. I just don't expect my mind to change on this point anytime soon.
And I've held off writing this because it's not cool, and it's not something women like to hear (most women, anyway). I remember in college I was actually writing this woman. Sadly, this is probably the closest I ever came to having a girlfriend. We met on-line and we exchanged e-mails (she lived in Pennsylvania). She was great. She was whip-smart (way smarter than I) and she had short hair and she was funny. We exchanged long e-mails on a daily basis. This went on for a few months and right when we were about to start calling one another, I told her about my not wanting to have kids thing. And then it was over pretty quick after that.
Hey, I respect anyone who has children. I don't know how you do it, but I'm glad you do. It's the hardest job on the planet, and it's a beautiful thing.
And I don't think I'm up for it.
(let the flaming commence)
Wednesday, February 01, 2006
158. the problem when it comes to Christian art
I saw the Woody Allen movie, Match Point, today after work. As a film, I think it's pretty (though not quite) great. But, it is also a deeply, darkly cynical film. It's like a horror movie for the thinking mind. It states its premise right at the opening voiceover, which basically says, sometimes it all comes down to luck - implying that there is no order, no justice, no design to the world. And this premise is hammered home again at the end of the film.
As a Christian, I found this message frightening, not just because of its hopeless nihilism, but also because I found myself agreeing with it. I mean, look at the world and all of its decadent depravity. Look at Las Vegas and how people flock to its artificial facade with its sidewalks littered with flyers advertising strip clubs and porn shops. Look at the lives of celebrities in their cribs, rolling in their Maybachs. Look at the executives at Exxon Mobil whose company posted a record setting quarterly profit of $10.71 billion. That's a quarterly, not a yearly, figure which comes out to something like $117 million every day.
Then spin the globe around and look at children in Africa dying of AIDS, surviving alone because their parents have died of AIDS already, living in an orphanage (if they're lucky) with other kids living (barely) with the disease, watching their friends disappear one by one, wondering if their turn is next. Look at the warlords hoarding relief food supplies donated by countries who don't care enough to make sure their aid gets to those who need it. These warlords dine in luxury while their people starve in the streets.
Then look closer to home. I read about men who abuse their wives, twisting loyalty and need into a noose. I see reports about the military dumping tons of hazardous waste off the Waianae coast - and of course it's no coincidence that the dumping happened in the backyard of some of the poorest people on the island. And I think about how I'm living, driving, working on lands stolen from the Kingdom of Hawaii in 1893.
It's been said that the fact of suffering is the most profound argument against the existence of a good and loving God. And I watch a film like Match Point and its ideas about chance and injustice. And I think about the world and how right Woody Allen seems. He seems to be right because the world does look random (an idea verified by theoretical quantum physics) and justice does seem to be in short supply. And I suppose that's why critics are raving so about this film - because of it's piercing portrait of the human condition.
But.
But I cannot agree with that assessment of the world - that civility in any given society is maintained solely by empty, hollow restraint. Despite what seems like evidence to the contrary, I have to believe that there is some kind of grand macroscopic order to the cosmos, that what seems like injustice and disorder is actually a problem of perspective, that if we could see creation as God sees it (infinitely and intimately), we would be able to see suffering as something other than mere suffering.
And again, this is something that seems to be confirmed in the area of cutting edge theoretical physics. Superstring theory (and the more recent M-theory) puts forward the idea that the foamy sea of quantum randomness calms down and becomes ordered when the mathematics that describes quantum interactions is expanded to describe a universe that exists in eleven (rather than our familiar three) dimensions. And here I think God is trying to tell us something (because he reveals aspects of himself through creation - Romans 1:20).
And finally to return to the title of this blog, "the problem when it comes to Christian art." Movies like Match Point are powerful precisely because they tap into our suspicions about a brutal, unjust universe. They call neat, happy, fairy tale endings into question and we deem this profound because it seems like Woody Allen is courageously showing us the world unvarnished, and also because it seems to be an accurate portrayal of life as we know it. But the claims of Christianity stand against such hopelessness stating, instead, that there will be justice - if not in this life then in what follows.
The problem then, for Christians who want to portray a more Biblical, hope-filled view of the world, is how to do so without seeming false or overly sweet or blindly optimistic? How do we point towards hope and order, joy and love in a world so tuned into dark despair that it's the light that seems foreign and offensive?
I don't know, but it's a big problem and one that needs to be looked at and overcome if we want to use art as a conduit through which the Kingdom of God can continue to seep in.
Well folks, I've done it again. I've written past my bedtime and I'm still working the early shift at work tomorrow. I can't believe it's February already.
As a Christian, I found this message frightening, not just because of its hopeless nihilism, but also because I found myself agreeing with it. I mean, look at the world and all of its decadent depravity. Look at Las Vegas and how people flock to its artificial facade with its sidewalks littered with flyers advertising strip clubs and porn shops. Look at the lives of celebrities in their cribs, rolling in their Maybachs. Look at the executives at Exxon Mobil whose company posted a record setting quarterly profit of $10.71 billion. That's a quarterly, not a yearly, figure which comes out to something like $117 million every day.
Then spin the globe around and look at children in Africa dying of AIDS, surviving alone because their parents have died of AIDS already, living in an orphanage (if they're lucky) with other kids living (barely) with the disease, watching their friends disappear one by one, wondering if their turn is next. Look at the warlords hoarding relief food supplies donated by countries who don't care enough to make sure their aid gets to those who need it. These warlords dine in luxury while their people starve in the streets.
Then look closer to home. I read about men who abuse their wives, twisting loyalty and need into a noose. I see reports about the military dumping tons of hazardous waste off the Waianae coast - and of course it's no coincidence that the dumping happened in the backyard of some of the poorest people on the island. And I think about how I'm living, driving, working on lands stolen from the Kingdom of Hawaii in 1893.
It's been said that the fact of suffering is the most profound argument against the existence of a good and loving God. And I watch a film like Match Point and its ideas about chance and injustice. And I think about the world and how right Woody Allen seems. He seems to be right because the world does look random (an idea verified by theoretical quantum physics) and justice does seem to be in short supply. And I suppose that's why critics are raving so about this film - because of it's piercing portrait of the human condition.
But.
But I cannot agree with that assessment of the world - that civility in any given society is maintained solely by empty, hollow restraint. Despite what seems like evidence to the contrary, I have to believe that there is some kind of grand macroscopic order to the cosmos, that what seems like injustice and disorder is actually a problem of perspective, that if we could see creation as God sees it (infinitely and intimately), we would be able to see suffering as something other than mere suffering.
And again, this is something that seems to be confirmed in the area of cutting edge theoretical physics. Superstring theory (and the more recent M-theory) puts forward the idea that the foamy sea of quantum randomness calms down and becomes ordered when the mathematics that describes quantum interactions is expanded to describe a universe that exists in eleven (rather than our familiar three) dimensions. And here I think God is trying to tell us something (because he reveals aspects of himself through creation - Romans 1:20).
And finally to return to the title of this blog, "the problem when it comes to Christian art." Movies like Match Point are powerful precisely because they tap into our suspicions about a brutal, unjust universe. They call neat, happy, fairy tale endings into question and we deem this profound because it seems like Woody Allen is courageously showing us the world unvarnished, and also because it seems to be an accurate portrayal of life as we know it. But the claims of Christianity stand against such hopelessness stating, instead, that there will be justice - if not in this life then in what follows.
The problem then, for Christians who want to portray a more Biblical, hope-filled view of the world, is how to do so without seeming false or overly sweet or blindly optimistic? How do we point towards hope and order, joy and love in a world so tuned into dark despair that it's the light that seems foreign and offensive?
I don't know, but it's a big problem and one that needs to be looked at and overcome if we want to use art as a conduit through which the Kingdom of God can continue to seep in.
Well folks, I've done it again. I've written past my bedtime and I'm still working the early shift at work tomorrow. I can't believe it's February already.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
