Ignorance

You know how you listen to great music, the kind of song you have heard 38 times before, and then you hear a lyric that smacks you between the eyes? (That's a strange mixing of metaphor, I know.)

I've been paying attention to ignorance lately, particularly intentional ignorance. I listened to a great podcast on the topic today: Maxie Burch from rhinocrash.org. In iTunes, the date is 8/17/09 (and followup on 8/23/09, titled Tensions weeks 3 and 4). Maxie's theme is elephants in the room. He notes the very real spiritual aspect of them and how damaging ignorance is when we avoid issues/problems out of fear, anger, or pain. I highly recommend you listen to them.

So the song. I'm listening to Ben Folds, hoping some driving piano will help me feel motivated to work on my final papers for Amos and Hosea. In the song "Bastard," the relevant ignorance lines play:

Close your eyes, close your ears, young man;
You've seen and heard all an old man can;
Spread the facts on the floor like a fan;
Throw away the ones that make you feel bad.

That's a fascinating insight. While I think age brings valuable observation and experience, I believe it's true that most of us ignore the stuff that makes us feel bad. There are a lot of old men out there who could have become wise, solid characters through facing pain and processing reality. Instead, they anesthetized themselves by any number of means. Intentional ignorance. Ignoring the elephant in the room. So, young man, face the facts as they present themselves. Struggle through the pain, and you will grow into great character that can change the world, or at least the worlds of those around you.

One other line from the song that is helpful is, "It's okay if you don't know everything." That's an interesting juxtaposition with the idea of intentional ignorance. But if we process knowledge and life as they come, the passage of time will yield wisdom. And one of the keys to wisdom is recognizing that we will never know everything, or anything close to that. Know-it-alls (of whom I try my hardest not to be) tend to try to control knowledge. And another theme of life I've been contemplating is how destructive the impulse to control can be.

It's best to hold knowledge loosely, but it's destructive to hold your hands up saying, "No thanks."

Animals and the new creation

In the last 24 hours, I've become much more aware of the coming concord of the animal kingdom. We've been reading Isaiah, and the last quarter of the book treats the topic of the new creation quite extensively. The most famous reference occurs early in Isaiah and at the very end: the wolf and the lamb will lie down together without any chewing on the other, and the lion and the calf will be cool.

So the awareness I mentioned is odd. It comes from popular culture. I saw a commercial yesterday during K-State's sweet win over UCLA that had all sorts of "natural" enemies drinking from a watering hole together. It's a beautiful image. (The commercial was a failure in that I don't remember the advertiser, but at least I'm looking to find out who it was.) The other reference is in Cake's "Frank Sinatra," where they sing "the flies and spiders get along together." It's an odd choice of animals, but brilliant in its freestyle on the Isainic theme.

I eagerly anticipate the new creation, and it's fun that pop culture brings my spirit back to the idea in a moment when I'm not particularly paying attention to it.

Campaign flyer

For whatever reason, people think it's time to waste money and start trying to garner votes for November. I mean, yes, campaign season is warming up, but I hate it so much.

Campaign flyers come to our mailbox, and I think they follow a template. I'm sure both parties have the same template; it doesn't matter who.

They read something like this (always accompanied by a shot of the family, and especially grandchildren if possible):
Proven results!
Effective leadership!

Then for the Republican flyers, they proceed to say, "Down with big government! Lower taxes!" Since it's primary season, the Democrats aren't paying attention to these flyers. If they were, they'd say, "What the f*** are they talking about!" But they would still talk about their proven leadership or something.

If these people think that platitudes gain votes, it makes me shiver. Doesn't anyone see there's nothing substantive going on here? Cake's wacky morning DJ deservers more credit than I ever gave him for saying "Democracy's a joke."

I guess what I'm reacting to is that we don't have real options. The more shrill the parties get, the more I realize what distinguishes them is how loud they shout catchphrases. When it comes down to votes, the only thing that matters to most is money. I have to give it to them though, they do seem committed about the abortion debate. You could take a vote on something abortion related every week, and you'd get actual opinions coming out. But when it comes time to vote on spending, everyone has to protect their constituency regardless of whether they hate ballooning spending.

Okay, I'm done. I need to study.

G8 summit

I was just talking with a co-worker about the Netherlands–Brazil match, clarifying whether it was in the quarterfinals or semifinals. He said, "Well, it's the group of eight, so yes, quarterfinals." To which I commented, "So the World Cup is like the G8 Summit for Third World countries."

Insensitive, maybe, but the World Cup is truly a place where a nation can invest merely millions of dollars and gain a high profile on the world stage. The other G8, your GDP has to be in the hundreds of billions or trillions.

Cash

If you're promised some money, is it called a financée?

Destiny

I've not posted in an inordinately long while. I'll write about that in another post.

It seemed appropriate to talk about destiny in my 200th post.

I'm discussing historic America with a co-worker, and I discovered that the best question to ask our fervent founding fathers would be "Can I see the shipping manifest to find out where your destiny came from?"

To be reconciled

The cross for Christians is often a symbol of atonement. It’s the means whereby people are reconciled with God through the shedding of blood. It’s a beautiful event full of implications for today and the age to come. But honestly, it can be a bit hard to grasp why it had to happen and how it worked.

Thao and Sue are young and bright. They need a bit of direction, but otherwise they are on their way to good lives. However, they live in a gang-ridden neighborhood, which almost guarantees they won’t arrive at the good life in one piece.

Don Miller—a foremost advocate of story and how we each need to be a part of one—offers this succinct definition of story: “A Character that wants something and overcomes conflict to get it.”

Gran Torino points toward the future and “getting it” for Thao and Sue. But the key character in the story, Walt, is seeking his own atonement: reconciliation with himself and peace in his soul from the demons of war. In the process of connecting with his new Hmong neighbors, the trenchant racist Walt finds his elusive peace and helps them overcome the conflict, almost against their wishes. It is obvious that they won’t be able to do so themselves. This variation on classic story resonates well with the Christian message: We all need help to overcome conflict to get that something.

Crosses and blood are ubiquitous symbols in Gran Torino. At times they are mocked by characters; other times they are employed quite reverently by unlikely characters. These lead to one of the most beautiful stories of reconciliation I’ve seen—one that helpfully illustrates an answer to the questions of atonement above.

When the movie began, I feared I was in for a long two hours. Walt is such a crotchety, foul character, but as the story progressed, I felt a certain fondness for him. Clint Eastwood worked a fine masterpiece producing, directing, and acting this film. His Walt is a strong character whose development we see in fine detail. The plot is not as intricate as the characterization, but there is a strong one. Sometimes the music felt a bit obvious, but it was certainly a foreshadowing cue.

Gran Torino is not a movie for the faint of heart. I know some who would not be able to sit through the language and racism that suffuses this film. But if you can stomach these, there is a rich payoff as you let yourself live in this story of reconciliation and redemption for two hours.