Wednesday, March 31, 2010

How to Train Your . . .

Today's blog post brought to you by blind assertions. Why not? Everyone else is doing it. [blind assertion]

Okay, so my wife and I are planning a time to go see a movie. First time to a theater since the baby was born. A little bit of a big deal. As she was scrolling through the local showings, she came across film after film we will NOT see. "She's Out Of My League" Nope. Sounds like a movie predicated on cheap sex jokes about a hot girl a dude really wants. I've lived that description, including the occasional season of life featuring the indiscreet sex joke. Yeah, there was a season change ten days ago, so? "Hot Tub Time Machine" [chirp chirp chirp]

The first movie she noted (and the one we will likely see) was "How to Train Your Dragon." She asked what it was about. I've only seen trailers for it about three times when I wasn't really paying attention (I was breathing through a paper bag during a TV timeout), which uniquely qualifies me to summarize a movie for a picky potential viewer and decide the fate of twelve bucks (um, yeah, we're going to a matinee) relative to a movie studio bean counter.

My summary started thus: "I think it's about a somewhat medieval culture where most of the people are averagely stupid and they are plagued by dragons, so everyone lives in fear, and there are some tough guys who make a name for themselves by fighting off the dragons, and then some smart kids come along and say . . ." With each passing clause I became more and more afflicted with present-time-narrative-telling-déjà vu. It actually caused me to ask whether the screen writers were presenting a blatantly moralistic tale about what we should do with terrorists.

This movie looks entertaining. I'm excited to see it, if only because we get to go to a movie. Well, actually, now I'm curious to see if my blind assertion that this movie should be titled "How to Train Your Terrorist" (only if you're an American, not Osama bin Laden, silly) can be upgraded to "assertion with slightly advanced glaucoma." Please share your non-spoiler insights if you've seen the movie.

Sunday, March 28, 2010

Words

I wrote in my very first post on this blog that I like to get the meaning of words right. I like to quibble a bit to make sure that people are using the same lexicon. This ensures that misunderstandings are kept to a minimum.

However, I read through 1 and 2 Timothy today, and toward the end of each letter, Paul says not to quarrel over words. I understand that there were some sh'nanigans going on with false teachers trying to get believers to follow certain practices that didn't have a place in the assembly of Jesus. But I wonder what these quarrels over words were.

From 1 Timothy: "They have an unhealthy interest in controversies and quarrels about words that result in envy, strife, malicious talk, evil suspicions and constant friction between people of corrupt mind, who have been robbed of the truth and who think that godliness is a means to financial gain" (all references TNIV).

From 2 Timothy: "Warn them before God against quarreling about words; it is of no value, and only ruins those who listen."

Again I ask: What are these words? Surely we need to be able to define our terms, especially when we're trying to figure out what a third party is saying.

A prophet or dreamer

As we were reading in Deuteronomy tonight, the Pharisees reaction to Jesus that we commemorate this week came into sharp relief. And it made sense.

These days, we have the benefit of never having watched an animal larger than a squirrel be killed (by a car, for instance), let alone killing the animal ourselves. We lead a very sanitized existence, and we're not trying to fit our unruly selves into a community with rather strict, and very serious standards. To the Hebrews, taking the life of an animal meant something. The Law meant something. And I only use the sacrifice picture to illustrate the bigger idea of the Law. The Sabbath was important. Somehow Jubilee seems to have been edited out of the larger consciousness of the Jewish nation, but let's be reasonable. So when Jesus came along and said people didn't need to keep the Sabbath the way they always did, the Pharisees flipped. Were they overreacting? I don't think so.

From Deuteronomy, about 1/3 of the way through:
"If a prophet, or one who foretells by dreams, appears among you and announces to you a sign or wonder, and if the sign or wonder spoken of takes place, and the prophet says, “Let us follow other gods” (gods you have not known) “and let us worship them,” you must not listen to the words of that prophet or dreamer. The LORD your God is testing you to find out whether you love him with all your heart and with all your soul. It is the LORD your God you must follow, and him you must revere. Keep his commands and obey him; serve him and hold fast to him. That prophet or dreamer must be put to death for inciting rebellion against the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt and redeemed you from the land of slavery. That prophet or dreamer tried to turn you from the way the LORD your God commanded you to follow. You must purge the evil from among you" (TNIV).

Granted, Jesus didn't say, "Worship this idol." But he might as well have. He was performing signs and telling the people to not follow the religion they had been taught. I now have a bit more sympathy for the Pharisees. Despite the wrong way they went about it (asking the Romans to execute justice, saying "We have no king but Caesar," thereby running as far from their God as possible), they were trying to purge the evil from among them.

This is another instance where the spotlight is turned right back on my heart. How often do I think I see things perfectly clearly, only to be shown that I only know about 58 percent of what's going on? I see the action that's necessary, and I run after it, never stopping to ask if God's trying to do something different. Yep, I'm the Pharisee. God forgive me.

Life verses

For a few years now, my life verse part has been Numbers 21:16a: "From there they continued on to Beer" (all references TNIV).

As I was reading Torah at our baby's bedtime feeding tonight, I found a verse that means almost as much to me. Deuteronomy 12:20: "When the LORD your God has enlarged your territory as he promised you, and you crave meat and say, 'I would like some meat,' then you may eat as much of it as you want." AMEN!

I see my life like this. I say to a friend or a relative, "I would like some meat." We eat as much as we want. Then we continue on to beer. And my territory has been enlarged, to boot.

*DISCLAIMER*
Of course, I don't encourage misusing God's word this way. I think my three readers know this. But if you're just happening by, I encourage more and better Bible reading. Read large portions, such as whole books. Understand the historical context. Find yourself in God's great, big story of creation, uncreation, and recreation. And try my favorite beer, New Belgium's 1554. Wow, it's good.

Red Lobster

My wife and I both detest seafood. I mean, look in Leviticus; it seems that most of it is detestable to God too. Well, her parents came to visit and generously offered to take us to lunch today. The options were Olive Garden or Red Lobster. We both adore Olive Garden, but we both know that Red Lobster has options for people such as we. The geniuses there know that they select out a portion of their clientele if they don't provide decent food for those with good taste.

We selected the Cajun Chicken Linguine Alfredo and Baked Potato Soup. The soup was incredible. We ordered the full portion of the former, which comes with almost a pound of pasta. I was a bit hungry, but I didn't realize they had those awesome cheesy biscuits. So I ate a bunch of the biscuits, and we had a quite a bit of the pasta left over. The cajun spice was just the right amount of spicy (I do like spicy). Here's the thing: There was almost as much chicken as there was pasta. We all marveled at the exceedingly generous portion of chicken. It was a wonderful meal.

I can't believe I'm saying this, but if we had money to eat out, I would actually go back to Red Lobster. But only for the meal we had; not for the stuff they specialize in.

Saturday, March 27, 2010

Moderation

Our favorite breakfast on the weekends is to fetch drinks from Starbucks and donuts from the grocery store. This morning was one of the times that this worked out. As we were perusing the donut selection, a mom and her four-year-old son stepped up to select their donuts.

The boy asked, "Are these good for us to eat?"

Mom replied, "In moderation, they're okay."

"Are the chocolate ones moderation?"

Friday, March 26, 2010

The End

I'm having an immensely productive afternoon (for a Friday, no less!) listening to Eef Barzelay, formerly of Clem Snide. My friend Paul will tell you that both artists/groups are incredibly depressing, and that you should have at least three means of slitting your wrists handy so that after you bleed out, you can continue the process. The music is that depressing. (I'm sorry; I do know how serious both depression and suicide are, and I don't intend to make light of them. Rhetorical point.)

Oddly, if I'm really in a funk, I put this most depressing of music on, and I am energized in a way that almost nothing else provides.

In Barzelay's "Songs for Batya" he says, "Death is just the moment when the dying ends." In a real sense, this is true. The inexorable process of decay (whether of the telomeres or other systems) meets a point when there is no longer sensation of decay. Then the corpse really begins to decay.

Theologically, however, I believe the dying continues. Death, as in the moment, isn't a digital 1 or 0. After the Fall, death = 1. It's always on. It suffuses the creation, and even for the disembodied spirit resting, waiting in the presence of God, death is a very present reality. The spirit has no body for [not] God's sake!

But if there is any hope whatsoever, it is looking forward to the time when death = 0. The zero point is the resurrection. When all things become new, death is off. It can no longer impact God's good, new creation. We do see that for Jesus, death = 0, and through the Spirit, we can begin to experience a sort of brownout of death. But it's obviously still present, arcing across the circuit gate so 1 > death > 0. But for the fullness of creation to be present, death must die completely.

A better line, and perhaps one to poke into your consciousness as Holy Week approaches, is "Resurrection is the moment when the dying ends!" Thanks be to God.

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Prophetic

I had a conversation with a co-worker today about the cultural situations into which prophecy is spoken. I often think of it being shouted to evil, arrogant folk who must repent or be destroyed. While that certainly happened from time to time in the First Testament, there is an equal opposite. Isaiah says,
Comfort, comfort my people,
says your God.

Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,
and proclaim to her

that her hard service has been completed,
that her sin has been paid for,

that she has received from the LORD’s hand
double for all her sins. (TNIV)

That set me to thinking about physics. Or, more specifically, the fact that I've seen a picture of a sine wave before.


What if, simplistically, the red line above the middle dotted line shows the portions of culture that are arrogant and judgmental? And the red line below shows those who feel guilty all the time and show it on the outside? Maybe these are the ones Jesus called poor in spirit.

What if the prophet is always calling people to that dotted line? I would call people around this axis self-reflective, humble, and pliable. I like to think of myself as those three things, so maybe I'm poisoning the well by creating this mythical culture in my own projected image. But bear with me.

We see in Israel's history the times when they were pretty self-confident, and God needed to bring them down a notch. Then they were way too down on themselves, and he had to say what I quoted above. But if they hadn't gotten too arrogant, they wouldn't have needed to be brought down to begin with.

A healthy self-concept where God is God, and we are his servants/stewards/image, is a good place to start. The role of prophet in a culture that lives this way would end up being more priestly; indeed, the writer to the Hebrews says Jesus's followers are a kingdom of priests. But in the meantime, prophets will always be necessary to help people tread the middle line of balance.

While I like to see myself treading this middle axis, the truth is every person and community balances around an infinite number of axes. We are not capable of keeping track of all the axes. Therefore, we humans are more susceptible to modeling ourselves after heros (or anti-heros) in stories. We can look to how YHWH and Jesus and the prophets behaved in their movements of the big story, and perhaps that will help us to learn to truly live.

Thanks to Omegatron and Wikipedia for the sine wave.