Movies: Avatar

Naturally, spoilers ahead. If you don't want to know about the movie, or the plot, don't read this.

We saw Avatar the other night. It was quite an awesome movie to watch! Long, yes, to be sure, but I think it was worth it. An incredibly beautiful movie to watch, there were both times where it was obvious I was watching something that wasn't real, and other times where I was sure I was watching something that they did in real life, just like that. It was very impressive.

As far as plot went, it wasn't particularly unique but I still think it was fairly well done. I figured some key figures would die, and was a little surprised when Norm didn't. I also thought Norm would blast back in to save the day, but I guess we only watched him wander off with a gun so we'd know he wasn't in the facility, not so we could expect him to save Jake. But that's ok, Jake's girl rescued him with the aid of a huge cat, and what could be hotter than that?? But the moment they tried to transfer Grace to her Navi body, I knew they'd do it with Jake. Half expected them to do it then and there. And it was obvious early on that Jake would become "one of them" and side with the Blue's over the Whites. Er, I mean Navi over the Sky-people/Humans.

Felt like Cameron was writing Native American history the way he wished it went: Westerners invade America, Native Americans realize what is happening early enough to band together, and manage to send the invaders packing with the aid of Mother Nature. Eiwa = Gaia/Mother Earth, Avatar = small pox blankets (something that looks friendly but caries the source of destruction), unobtanium = land, gold, whatever it is the White Men wanted, and were happy enough to take. Only unlike most of Earth history, on Pandora the nature-loving, balanced, mostly primitive people manage to kick the bejeezus out of the invaders, mostly because since they are nature-loving and balanced the whole freaking forest bands together to run amok over the marines. Quite cool, but also figured it would be the massive dinosaurs stampeding through the jungle, since the horsemen had failed miserably. The "Company is Evil" theme seemed similar to Aliens, along with the "most military is not to be trusted in the long run" and "scientists mean well, but aren't very helpful" themes.

But despite the themes being very similar to a number of things I've seen (or played! Boy but didn't that feel like a video game), the movie was good. The voice and live acting was solid, and so was the plot. Predictable, but solid, and solid is often lacking (case in point: everyone's complaints about the Matrix and Pirate of the Caribbean trilogies seem to focus on the fact that the plots seem to fall apart and go gooey. Pirates who don't pirate. Trying to end the Matrix doesn't end it. Neo's an Angel? The sexy pirate hero is undead, or immortal, or, um, what? Say what now?). And I like the wounded-warrior theme, Jake was a character who I think believable would switch sides, only after careful experience. And the best choice for someone to be born again into the Navi culture. A Scientist would remain learning. A Healed Warrior would have no reason to switch. But a Wounded Warrior is looking for a way to be remade whole, and Jake found it in the Avatar, and found a new way to experience life with the Navi. He became everything he used to be, and realized he would never attain it to the same degree if he remained with the humans. Or such is my interpretation of it, anyways.

So, unique? In some ways, yes. In many, no. Solid? Very much so. Gorgeous? Stunning beyond imagination! All in all, I loved it.

Good-bye 2009. Hello Weird.

I don't read much news, as far as news goes. I do read headline feeds from a number of sources, including a local paper, CNet and Slashdot (tech stuff), NY Times, BBC, USA Today, and some general sources like Yahoo and Google. Keeps me up on what's generally happening that people think I should know about. It gets repetitive, but sometimes one source will be highlighting something that the others are ignoring.

Today, the last day of 2009, it just struck me how odd the whole collection looks together. Of course a lot of things are reviewing 2009, and the decade. But in normal headlines, we note that 8 Americans died in a suicide attack, 20 people died in a double suicide attack elsewhere, Bali (I think) is warning that they expect terrorist attacks on the New Year, some places are going to start using full body scanners, war here and there, the Sheens are looking to be reconciled (and those all delight in poitning out "despite arrest and assault charges"), and a 22-year old duck died in UK (supposedly the oldest duck in the UK). Some unniversity posted their usual end-of-year list of word abuse, and decided that sexting, and obama-anything, are overused and should be tossed from the lexicon. Apparently people who weren't American, like 5 Canadians, also died in that suicide bombing in Afghanistan.

It struck me that the majority of the news was about war and death. And yet in the same news sources, there was this random junk about ducks and movie stars...

Good-bye 2009. We may miss you. But 2010 promises to be even weirder.

The End of an Era?

I finally did it. I got rid of my old computers. Three computer cases, basically fully tower systems, have been haunting me for years. The first was the first computer that was fully mine, and was upgraded a couple times. Then I upgraded to the second tower, which also saw a number of different upgrades. Finally I bought the third tower. That was last upgraded in 2003. And these towers have stuck with me since then. I had good intentions of doing stuff with them, like getting them in working order and selling them. And then as time passed, I thought of just giving them away. And I never did.

When Luta and I moved in July we decided we needed to get rid of stuff, including our computers (we had acquired laptops for each of us at that point). We tried selling her Dell and my custom PC's at a garage sale, but no one took the bait. We got rid of her Dell to one of her coworkers a month or so after we moved, and I have been trying since then to sell my stuff on Craigslist and Cheapcycle, to no avail. So, finally, I posted them for free, and got a dozen emails over night! Third try found someone who would pick them up (he tinkers with old systems and gets them working, then gives them to people who can't afford new systems).

So tonight he came by, took my three towers, 19" CRT monitor, old printer, and some other archeological finds (like my parallel port Zip drive). And they are all gone. I no longer have computer stuff haunting me. No longer the excuse that I'm going to do something with them someday.

Well, I still have a few cables I didn't want to part with. Never know when you might need some of that stuff! But otherwise, it feels like the end of an era.

No, I don't do that anymore.

I'm not a computer guy, technically. Yes, I like them, and still play with them, and may be smarter than your average bear when it comes to making them do tricks. But I am not really a computer guy: my field is not in computers, I don't get paid to get annoyed by them anymore, and when it comes to actual tech support knowledge I am well behind in the field. To sum up: I do not use my bachelor's degree in Computer Science. And I am very fine with that.

I expect to some degree I will always be tech support for some friends and family (except for those times where I can dump it on my brother). Luta just called me to figure out how to make Gmail stop intercepting mailto: links. I was able to sort that one out, with some nice guesswork. No problem.

But I didn't expect that random people spotting me in a hall at work would think I was the computer guy. I stepped onto an elevator on the first floor, and a couple visitors and a doctor (who probably has to duck when going through doors he is soo tall! Not relevant, but it was quite the impression) stepped on with me. The doctor I've seen before, and maybe he recognized me though we haven't really met. And he said to me (with an accent), "You computer guy?" "No," I responded, "Pastoral Care." And immediately started wondering what it was that made him think that.

I was wearing a white shirt and a tie. I had my BHE name tag that says "Chaplain Resident" under my name and "Pastoral Care" at the bottom for the discipline, but I can understand he might have not been able to see that and for the most part the tags blend together if you can't read them (Blue = doctor, Grey = student, Green = visitor, Red = everyone else such as Nurses, Techs, Food Services, Janitors, Volunteers, Chaplains, etc.). But I wasn't carrying anything, or wearing anything particularly computer-ish (two pagers, but that's not really special around here).

The visitors exited. Doctor and I continued on to sixth floor. "Pastoral Care. So, that's like Pastor..?" he asked. "Chaplain," I said. "Oh." And after a pause "You're young."

I never know what to say to that. And I don't think a doctor has told me that yet, though I'm sure plenty have thought it. "I think people hear 'Pastor' and would expect someone older." Sure. Just like they hear "Nurse" and don't expect all these women who look like they aren't old enough to graduate from college. Or "Doctor" and not people who look like they were partying at the Frat House last night. But that doesn't mean we aren't skilled, or trained. Oh well, appearances matter, I guess. I wonder about some of these teenage-looking people who are shoving needles in patients...

So was it my age that made him think "computers?" Or something else? I left the elevator laughing, but also confused.

Final Evaluation

CPE is more than just doing chaplain visits in a hospital. In fact CPE can be done in settings other than hospitals, though medical settings still seem to be the most common. But the main goals involve developing the person of the pastor, and helping the pastor become better suited to give care to other people. And one of the key ways this is done is by helping the pastor explore his-/her-self, and interpersonal interactions with other people. It can be hard to explain how this works, since it's pretty emotional, touch-feely, and relationship oriented, which I find are things that I have a hard time explaining in words.

The end of our first unit has arrived, and with the end of the unit comes the final evaluation. I thought maybe if I posted the questions that we have to answer, it may help reveal a bit of the process. Though they may need some clarification, so go ahead and ask!

1. Give a brief biographical description of yourself
2. State your progress toward your learning goals and the CPE Outcomes.
3. How did you use your own religious heritage to minister in this setting? What new pastoral skills, resources or other religious traditions have been helpful? Include clinical material and critical incidents.
4. Describe your ministry to patients and staff this unit. How did your presence affect them? What did you learn from them?
5. State your understanding of how this experience has impacted your theology.
6. Discuss your understanding of how your personal strengths and weaknesses are utilized in your ministry. How does your personal story (including your family background and relationships) impact your pastoral identity and ministry?
7. What have you learned about yourself from each of your peers? Describe these relationships. How have you used your peer group for support, clarification and confrontation?
8. Evaluate your relationship with your supervisor. How have you used supervision? What have you learned about the way you relate to authority figures?
9. What are your future learning goals and how will you work toward your goals?

Each CPE student is required to write a report answering all of these questions. Then on our final group day, we will gather together and go over them. This is from the memo about that meeting:

The goal is to give your evaluative impressions, ideas and feelings about each person including you and the supervisors. Please include your assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of each person. This can be done directly, or through the use of images or under the umbrella of "Blessings" and "Hopes" for each person. You may include what the person has meant to you and your learning or growth. Base your assessment on whatever context or ways that you have observed or experienced each person. Please share briefly how you have worked on your goals as part of your group evaluation.

Remember...

Tonight at the hospital there was a memorial service for all of the people who died on the palliative care unit in the past year. It was a nice service: ecumenical, short, but meditative and meaningful. As I was listening to all of the names listed off, I thought it was nice to remember people and how they were loved.

But then I looked around, and realized how many people were in the audience compared to how many people were on the list. And remembered that many people die alone, or with hardly anyone to remember them. Or perhaps something that happened during their life estranged everyone who knew them. So how did I know they were all loved? Maybe some of them weren't.

And then as I thought about that, I remember that I believe that there is someone to love everyone. Everyone has at least someone who loves them, even if they don't love that someone back. And that is the beauty of God's love: no one dies without Someone loving them.

So each of those names, even if I couldn't see someone in the audience, was loved. And it was a long list.

The Hardest Part

I think the hardest part of being a chaplain, so far, is that it has become very difficult for me to deny the fact that I am going to die someday. So will my family, and friends. So will everyone. Very obvious, I know, we all know that everyone dies. It's part of life: you are born, you live, you die. That's just how it goes, and there are all kinds of cute sayings to remind us of the inevitability of death.

But at the same time I go through life not thinking about when I might die, and I don't think I'm alone in this. Spending every living moment thinking about how I could die, and what to do about it, does not seem to be a very pleasant way to live. So I go through life trying to pretend I'm invincible, along with most everyone else. We drive aggresively, making that lane change even when the sun is in our eyes and we might have missed the car there; or maybe we roll through that stop sign, not really paying attention to what or who we might risk hitting. We don't exercise and eat the food pyramid, because there will always be time later to recover from that extra hamburger. We avoid the doctor unless we really need to, because visiting the doctor admits we might not be invincible after all. We put off fixing relationships, or saying the things we think we need to say, because there will always be time later.

But then when we're perfectly healthy, we catch the flu or some other unexpected disease and end up in ICU, barely hanging on, and our family wonders what happened. Or we drop suddenly from a heart attack, or an aneurysm, or an embolism, or a clot, or a stroke, and it isn't when we're 95 and ready to go and even somewhat expecting it, but when we're out jogging at 35, having sex at 26, swimming at 18, sitting watching TV at 47. Or we get in a car accident, or an act of violence we never saw coming, or a building collapses, or some other accidental event that we were no part of and never thought would happen to us, but it does and that's the end for us. Or cancer shows up when we least expect it, turns our own cells into assassins, and destroys us before we could finish doing whatever it was we thought we wanted to do. Or we come to the hospital for a surgery, procedure, or medication to make us better, but for whatever reason we don't make it through and what should have been a simple trip to get better ends in a surprise funeral.

And just like that, life ends. There's no predicting it, and in the end there's no stopping it. The easiest thing to do, at least for me, is to not dwell on it too much. To try and live without regrets, to correct the things I have to, and to try and remember that I'm not actually invincible. But watching people die on a regular basis is the hardest thing for me as a chaplain, not because it's sad (though it is often that), but because it reminds me that though I may never see death coming, death might still be lurking right around the corner. And I often think that it would be easier if I didn't have to remember that.

How do you do it?

So far, in my few months as a hospital chaplain, a number of people have told me some variation of "I could never do what you do." Which is fine with me, because if everyone could do what I do then there wouldn't be much of a job market for me. But more importantly, there's plenty of things they do that I couldn't, or won't, do, so I think it's good we can't all do everything. I can't imagine cleaning up after people for a living (which is a lot of what nurses seem to do); or risking my life regularly (like firefighters); or any job where there is a serious chance of getting shot; or being on the road weeks at a time as a trucker (I told a husband of a patient that when he was telling me about his life away from home as a trucker, and he laughed since he had just said he couldn't do what I do).

Common corollary questions are "How do you do it?" or "Why do you do it?" I don't usually have a very good answer to either of those questions, partly because it doesn't often occur to me to ask those questions myself. Sometimes it does, so I do have some answers. As to "why," I do it because I think that's what I'm supposed to do. Simply put, I think God has asked me to do this. "Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted." Perhaps sometimes it is people who are to do the comforting, not only the mourning, so I am here. Jesus said that visiting people who are sick is important. These days, visiting sick people has to include visiting people in the hospital, so I do that. Visit enough people in the hospital and you will be supporting people through the process of dying, so I do that too.

As to "how," that is a bit harder to answer. I do it with a lot of support from other chaplains, first. But something that a chaplain much wiser than me has said points out a key reason how I can do this: "Remember, it is their crisis, not yours." Very true. I can stand with a family and watch as their mother and grandmother slowly stops breathing over the course of a couple hours, and they have to struggle themselves to remember to breath, because she is not my mother, or my grandmother. I can sit through multiple attempts to revive someone when the children and lovers can't bear to watch and have to leave the room because I am not his child, and I am not her lover. I can handle watching people grieve over the inexplicable death of a child without it rending my own heart into minuscule pieces because he is not my son, and she is not my daughter. They are not my siblings, or family, or friends. In fact most of the people here I hardly know at all, and that is how I do it. I can empathize and support, and I can feel the sorrow and pain, but I can also reasonably step aside from it, because it is not my crisis. The people I support cannot do this, because it IS their crisis: to step aside would be to deny what is happening, and in the long run they will most likely be healthier if they face the pain and sorrow now than if they avoid it. It is precisely when I do have a stronger connection to the patients or their family and friends that it becomes much harder to do the task of chaplain. But those moments also help remind me of what it feels like, so in the end they are beneficial.

So I leave the hospital, and step away from it all at the end of the day. I think and pray about the people I serve, but I do not continue to grieve the same way they do. And I turn up the music and let it cue my emotions, and feel the release wash over me. And I remember that it's not my crisis after-all. That's how I do it.

Grief

One of the books I am reading for CPE is My Grandfather's Blessings by Rachel Naomi Remen, M.D. (Riverhead Books, New York, 2000). I encountered this on p. 38, and found it to be a wonderful and freeing word on grief, and I have nothing to add to it.

Every great loss demands that we choose life again. We need to grieve in order to do this. The pain we have not grieved over will always stand between us and life. When we don't grieve, a part of us becomes caught in the past like Lot's wife who, because she looked back, was turned into a pillar of salt.

Grieving is not about forgetting. Grieving allows us to heal, to remember with love rather than pain. It is a sorting process. One by one you let go of the things that are gone and you mourn for them. One by one you take hold of the things that have become a part of who you are and build again.

.....

      Grief.
      I pull up anchor,
      and catch the wind.

Safety First!

If the next time you see me I look like I was looking for a cat in a bramble bush, face first, it is because I recently switched to a safety razor for shaving purposes. I hate having to switch cartridges in my razors all the time. And even though we have Preserve razors which are pretty good and relatively inexpensive (and recyclable! Always a plus), I still found it very annoying when on the second or third day of using a new cartridge, I was missing spots on my face. Multiple directions, multiple strokes, nothing I could think of could get me a clean shave! So, I decided to try out safety razors. Mine just came in the mail, and I saw it as a good excuse to practice constructive procrastination, and just tried it out! I should have read this first, but I still managed to not kill myself.

And even though my face burns (really, don't apply pressure! Lesson learned), I finally have a close shave! It's wonderful, though a bit bloody.

Racism, Coexist, and who needs Peace?

Apparently the UN is having talks on racism, and had to kick some people out. That didn't surprise me at first, since the people were kicked out while Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was speaking, and the people exhibited unacceptable disruptive behavior. One article mentioned them wearing clown wigs and throwing red noses at him... Yeah, sounds disruptive. And mature to boot!

But that was only what caught my attention at first. What really hooked me when it was mentioned that COEXIST had members there who got kicked out. Ok, so, it's possible that someone wants to deal with racism, but isn't interested in peace. But the concept of COEXIST, I had assumed, would include peacefulness. Living and coexisting together is more than just not hating each other, we need to know how to get along, work together, like one another to a degree, or so I had thought. But apparently there is a limit to their tolerance.

I'm not entirely sure if the COEXIST that was there is connected to the two things I've seen, but if not then that means there are at least three COEXIST's out there, and frankly that's a little ridiculous. The first I saw came from Bono: Looks nice. Focused on Jerusalem, make sense. A bit idealistic I thought, but not too bad. The second I saw looked like the first on steroids: You can also find it at www.PeaceMonger.org, a site that actually strikes me as a bit obnoxious. As one site called the sticker, it represents "systems of thought," a nice way of saying we can all think differently and get along, so what's the big deal? Be eclectic! I did find a third, called the "Coexist Foundation," but they don't have a nifty bumper sticker to show off. And then there's a microagency...

Ok, so I have no idea who the COEXISTers were who got kicked out!

But in any case, the name to me just doesn't seem to match the kind of obnoxious, inflammatory behavior that was exhibited. Yes, there were reasons to be upset with the person who was speaking. Yes, things need to be done. But it seems a bit hypocritical to be all about coexisting, saying we can all get along, but not being willing to deal with bigots and racists. Hey, there are a lot of bigots and racists out there! There's no avoiding them! And I'm not convinced that it's possible to erase that from people entirely, so if you really want total coexistence, either you need to figure out how to erase bigotry/racism from those people, or learn to live with them anyways. Or, as I'm more assuming, realize that you can't really have total coexistence so long as people are broken and imprefect, and change what your goals are.

Rainbow

I'm sitting in class, not paying a whole lot of attention, just enough to know that the prof is still going through the chapters we read two weeks ago. It has been raining most of the day, though the sun has finally come out strong. I glanced out the window, and saw a huge, gorgeous rainbow. And realized, that it has been a while since I saw such a gorgeous thing, not some small thing in the rain on the road, or in a sprinkler, but painted powerfully from red to purple all across the sky. The thing is huge! Solid! Wish I had a camera!

Now it's fading... But I'm very glad I glanced out the window.

Almost Prophetic, I was

If I had written out my story thoughts, I would have almost been prophetic. I have sci-fi plots in my head that included weather altering satellites, though in my case they will end up going horribly wrong. There's just not as much plot in things that go right. And now, the solar feed satellite thing, which will solve all our energy concerns (or at least I'm betting someone thinks so), can apparently kill hurricanes.

Nifty, if it works. Sucks, if it ends up making worse weather problems...

Movie Thoughts: Stranger Than Fiction

I decided to add "movie" to titles so you don't have to accidentally read a spoiler in order to find out that I'm talking about movies. But remember, if I'm talking about a movie, there will probably be spoilers! Hard to discuss the philosophy of a film without discussing the plot, or more particularly key plot points like, say, the ending.

I love Stranger Than Fiction. We saw it in theaters, and I've seen it twice since, and I love it more each time. The clever graphics were great, and I loved the commentary for of the watch: "His wristwatch thought the single Windsor knot made his neck look fat, but said nothing." And it's cute and funny and romantic all around. Many great lines for great characters. I'm not usually a fan of Will Ferrell, but in this one I am.

But more than that, I love some of the thoughts in the film. At first it seemed to wander into the "live your life like it's your last day" genre, whereby people do ridiculous things and prove that all of us should live our lives wantonly, forgetting about responsibility or the future. But in the end, that's not the message of how to live one's life. Sure, by doing so he finally learns how to play guitar, and also starts a relationship with a woman he falls deeply in love with, but by the end of the film he goes back to work. Part of life is work, and work is not always fun. But the message of the film is not that life is having fun and a blast and living dreams and not doing work, but rather that life is in the accessories. Bavarian sugar cookies, wristwatches, good books, rock music, and the like can, literally, save our lives. Why? Because they add the accents and enjoyments to what otherwise all too often becomes a life mired down by the every day routines we have to suffer through. Granted this is a USA film and speaks to the USA situation, which may be avoided elsewhere. However I think the point still holds: if you can't find something to enjoy in life, you probably aren't really living. This doesn't mean quitting jobs until you find one you enjoy (because most of us never will find that job), but it does mean having something in life that you enjoy.

So, "go out and live the life you wish you had" doesn't mean "be irresponsible." Instead, it means "do things you love," which may often mean adding them to the things you don't. But hey, rocking out with classic guitars can make any job seem better, right?

But that's only part of why I love this movie. The other part is when Harold reads the book, and tells Karen to finish it. It's a good book, but I don't think he's sacrificing his life for the sake of career. I think he's doing it because it will save that boy. When Karen is asked why she changed the book, knowing it would not be nearly as good as if she had left it alone, she explains that it is because now Harold knew the ending. Before it was about a man who died at the end but didn't know he was going to die (the inevitability of death being one of the themes). Once he knows, it changes everything, because now the story is not about his death, but about how he handled facing his death. If I leap out in front of a bus on a spur of a moment to save someone, it says something about me: brave, "a bit stupid," loving of that person, caring of others, selfless. It will most likely affect how others interpret my life in general when they reflect back on it, hopefully adding a positive spin, or increasing it.

Everything changes, however, if I get up that morning knowing that by the end of the day I will leap in front of a bus to save a kid. In The Matrix: Revolutions, the Oracle points this out, saying that the real test of a choice is, having made it and now fully knowing the consequences, would one make the same choice again. By knowing in advance that I was going to die by leaping in front of the bus to save the kid, I now have a chance to process the impact. It's not a spur of a moment thing, a reflection on my character through snap judgment, but now it's a reflection on who I am when I have time to plan. And I could plan, and plan to not be there, to not have to save a kid, to not get killed. But if knowing all that, I still decide that saving that kid is more important, and I walk to work, and get smashed, well, that seems to say something very deep about my character.

And that is what Harold does. He reads the end of the book, and knows how his life will end. And yet despite that, he wraps up his life and chooses to let the book finish, chooses to die for the sake of some boy he has never met. And I love the movie because of how Karen puts it. If the book was about some guy dying without knowing it, well fine, kill him, I guess. But now it's about a guy who dies knowing what's coming, who willingly walks into death for the sake of someone else, and Karen says, isn't that the kind of person we want to keep alive?

Yes! Exactly! And so Karen writes a ridiculous ending that saves him, because such a person's life is worth far more than an excellent novel, even one that would mark a career's best work.

I love this movie.

Credit Crisis Visualized

A friend had this linked in his google chat status message. I think it's awesome! Reminds me of the visualizations of the Hitchhiker's Guide in the movie.

The Crisis of Credit Visualized from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo.

Open During Renovation

I'm fiddling with the colors and layout of the blog. Please excuse the mess.

Also, feel free to let me know what you think. I'm especially wanting to make sure it stays readable.

Implications of What We Say

Today in chapel it was announced that "Lament and Repent" groups will be forming. Not a whole lot of information was given, just enough to encourage people to contact them for more, but the idea is that these groups will form around a particular subject to help people cope with that topic. Sounds like healing and/or accountability groups. I was frustrated, however, by what could be inferred from what was said. Ironically Dr. Minger then proceeded to preach on how the words we use as Christians often pose a problem, because of what could be meant by what we say (she highlighted as an example the phrase "And then God showed up.")

Here are the groups that were mentioned (I didn't write them down so I may have the wording a bit off, but they get as close as I can to what was said):

• A group on abortion: healing from abortion, post abortion care, etc.
• A group for single men struggling with pornography and addiction
• A group for married men struggling with pornography and addiction
• A group for women who have internal wounds that need healing, growing more open to God...

I have a problem with this. I do not have a problem with focusing on men with pornography issues, because we still seem to be the focus population. But the way these groups were listed excludes 1) women, married or single, who have struggles with pornography and 2) men with internal wounds that need healing, or need to open up more to God. Why is it that only women have internal wounds? Or need to grow closer to God? Why is it that only men have sex problems? Well of course that's not true, so the real question is: why is it socially appropriate only for men to have sex/porn problems, and only for women to admit internal woundedness? It appears to me that these group boundaries enforce the idea that only certain things are allowed to be talked about by certain people. They appear to continue supporting Christian social taboos about what we are and are not allowed to admit, which supports ministers of all types and genders from being able to admit their struggles, which supports ministers failing fantastically and creating mass havoc when they do, which supports people ostracizing those with problems from the church, and on and on and on...

I wish they had said:

• A group on abortion: healing from abortion, post abortion care, etc.
• A group for those struggling with pronography and addiction. Groups will be formed according to marital status and gender (or whichever term is deemed most communicative here)
• A group for those who have internal wounds that need healing, growing more open to God... Groups will be formed according to gender (or whichever term is deemed most communicative here)

If the gender comments seem to also be too troublesome, leave them out! Put in something about if you are considering a group, but have questions about format or privacy or support, ask us. These seem more open. The others say: if you have certain struggles, we're here for you. If you have other struggles, sorry, better luck next time. To me the modications say: whatever your struggle is, we're here for you.

Slumdogs Don't Get to be Millionaires

Or at least that's what most of the characters in the film suggest. A recurring theme is that slumdogs stay slumdogs, and are only allowed to do certain things. Seems to be a focus upon karma: if you are a slumdog, there must be a reason for it, and you don't really get to try to be something else until the next life. Know your position! But this comes into conflict with another thought: what is written is our destiny, and God determines what is written. Hence "God is good" being the dying words of Salim (though I'm still trying to figure out all of what's going on there). And hence the reason Jamal becomes a millionaire and finally the girl of his dreams: not karma, but rather, because it is written.

I loved the movie. Found it extremely sad and depressing and could hardly control my bawling through the credits, but it was wonderful. Though next time I watch it I might skip the latrine scene...

It's the Money, Stupid!

I believe that there are very few policies or structures or even just plain normal things that go on in the USA (or the rest of the world, for that matter) that are not primarily motivated by economics and economic security. Luta has been advocating against rising cesarean rates for a while now, and sent me an article on repeat cesareans and the problem with them. There's a few things in there that tie into making money, but here's one quote that boils it down to money: ' "It's a numbers thing," says Dr. Shelley Binkley, an ob-gyn in private practice in Colorado Springs who stopped offering VBACs in 2003. "You don't get sued for doing a C-section. You get sued for not doing a C-section." ' There are health concerns either way, and no one should be saying that all we need is one option. But what they are saying is that people need choices, and they need to have the right information to make an informed choice. Leaning on people and skewing information so that they make a particular decision that benefits the provider more than the reciever should not be a practice in health care. I think that the decisions should be made based on what is best for the health of the reciever, not what makes the most money.

Character vs. Story Arc

Or "Why I like more than ."

Monday night I was talking to a friend and fellow student about TV shows that we like (apparently we like many of the same ones), and I started wondering what it is about some shows that annoy me while others don't. I assumed "Lost" drove me crazy because the story doesn't actually go anywhere, and there's certainly some truth to that (I gave up after season 2. If it got better after that, sorry, but I'm waiting until it's done). But I assumed that was the main reason, and that since J. J. Abrams seems to have a very hard time telling a whole story, "Lost" could end very much like "Alias," which is to say, in a very dissatisfying and totally not closed way. But then it occurred to me that I love "Firefly" (and others like the new "Battle Star Galactica") despite the fact that the story line moseys about. And then there's shows like Bones where a consistent story line isn't the main point at all (well, i guess that's Firefly too). On the other hand much of the anime I like runs for one or two seasons (a few dozen episodes), has a set story, and often is judged based on the quality of the ending. "Spaced" and the original "Office" are also examples of this, and in my opinion demonstrate well that if you're going to tell a story, tell it clearly and get to the point.

So what is it about some shows that I can tolerate a lack of storyline, but with others I won't? I think it's about character. Some shows start off presenting a character or set of characters, with an initial conflict that we as viewers can assume will develop and progress but generally remain throughout the show. Buffy had vampires and various demons to kill, Firefly has the oppressive ruling jerks to avoid and various people to steal from... And then there are situational shows that have some underlying character development connected to particular character plots, but in general they address a particular situation, solve it within one episode (occasionally continued on to a second) and move on to the next topic: Bones, CSI (though I'm not the biggest fan of melodrama by any means), Law and Order, Criminal Minds, most comedies, and so forth. But when the show begins, it tries to hook viewers with characters in a setting and story. On the other hand, shows like Lost seem to focus on hooking viewers with a setting and story that has characters in it.

May seem like semantic hair-splitting because of course both kinds of characters and stories, but to me it is about where the primary focus lies. I'm OK with story focused shows, like I said, I love shows like Spaced or the British Office that do that. But they do it quickly, focused, and get to the point. With Lost, frankly, I don't care about the characters. It's true that I find most of them to be weak and annoying and pointless, but more importantly the show hooked me with its story and mystery and intrigue (just like Alias did), not with the characters. On the other hand, Firefly hooked me with characters right from the first show (by first, i mean first on the DVD's as they were meant to be seen. I missed the actually airing on TV fiasco), and I still remember Jayne counting his share of zero profits... wonderful! hilarious! I'm hooked! and guess what, Joss Whedon kept the good times rolling with wonderful characters throughout. And when the show got slammed early, finally they put out the movie to wrap things up, and he proved that he can tell a story as well. J.J. Abrams, on the other hand, moseys into season 2 of Lost and promptly axed the story, pouring molasses all over it and freezing it in place, and chose to air pointless episodes of morons trapped on an island being more concerned with their own petty needs for entertainment than basic survival. Yawn. Sorry, what now? Pthbt and moving on to better things, like Battle Star Galactica...

If you're going to tell me a story, then do it already (I think Abrams should watch "The Lookout" and "Secret Window" because they make good points: in order to tell a good story, you gotta know the ending). If you want me to be interested in characters, then start with that. But don't try to re-hook me after the show begins with lame characters in order to pointlessly prolong the airing of your show just for money. Because then I'll go around making sure that everyone knows I hate your show. And refuse to watch anything else you make. Sorry, but when you greatly disappoint me, that's what I do.

God and Perfection

God, at least from the perspective of the world's major monotheistic religions, is considered to be perfect. Actually others would agree with this it seems, since Aristotle is the one who came up with the idea of God being the Unmoved Mover. This Unmoved Mover is conceived as "being perfectly beautiful, indivisible, and contemplating only the perfect contemplation: itself contemplating." (Check out wikipedia for a bit more) This Unmoved Mover is the beginning of all movement and action in the universe, and yet never moved it-/him-/her-self. In other words, nothing and no one ever moved the Prime (Unmoved) Mover. Probably not hard to see where some could have then concluded that the Christian God is the Prime Mover, first cause of everything.

One reason for imaging a Prime Mover as Unmoved is because everything in motion needs something to have set it in motion. Eventually something needs to never have moved, or else it is just turtles all the way down, and western-type thinkers go nuts. But also wrapped up in this are concepts of perfection. A perfect being never changes, because a perfect being has no need to change into anything. After all, things only change in order to improve, right? And what improvement can a perfect being have? And if one is to never change, one cannot move, because movement involves change of posture, shift in space and time, and other seemingly inconsequential and yet very real changes.

A bit of a problem here, I think, when it comes to God. Because if God is not moving at all, then it raises some questions as to how God is involved in our lives. There are some ways to answer this, but it seems to get very abstract and complicated very fast. And there's a much simpler solution: prefection does not require immobility. If the Trinity tells us that God has been loving and giving from before all time, then we know that even in perfection, God is doing things other than contemplating God's self contemplating (leave it to Aristotle to come up with that anyways). So then, God is ever-loving and ever-giving, not ever-not-moving. In fact it seems that if God is anything, it's ever-moving. Of course if God is everywhere at once then God doesn't really need to move in a human sort of way or by passing through space, but at least God is certainly active. And if God isn't active, God isn't much use, in my opinion. Great, we have something that started us, but that's not love, because love involves interaction and caring, at the very least.

So instead of perfection and unchanging meaning unmoving, what if perfection and unchanging means "not changing in essence?" God can move around, and make things move, but God's essence and character is never changed. God doesn't need to grow or mature or learn new things: That's perfection, I think. But that doesn't mean God isn't involved. And if our human emotions are some reflection upon God, perhaps God can respond to humans. In a sense, we can move God. But only in a certain sense, for God has to have set it up in advance that we can do that. God didn't make us and then say "Well crap, now I can be moved. Boy that sure messes up my vacation." Instead, I think God might have said "If I make people, I want them to be like me so they can know true love and be able to truly worship me. Wellt hat means they have to be able to feel the relationship... and if it's only one sided, it doesn't really count. So, I'll let them spark my emotions." And then God dug hands into the dirt, and molded out Adam. And next thing you know there's messy emotions flying about all over the place, and sure enough, Abraham is working on God's emotions to get him (at least at the moment he was dressed up as a guy) to relent from burning Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes. And while God did still burn the place down, it wasn't because he was unmoved by Abraham's plea, but instead because Abraham didn't get the number low enough (or Lot didn't evangelize enough people, however you want to look at it).

God is not emotionless. I'm not quite sure how God could be love and good without emotions. I know those aren't emotions, but it's hard for me to figure how they can be known and measured and expressed without emotions, and if they aren't known and measured and expressed then are they really there at all? So, if God has emotions, or at least is capable of expressing reactions to people, then Unmoved Mover God isn't. God seems to be some other kind of perfect.

These ideas are not purely my own as much as my own ramblings on other people's ideas. Rodney Clapp I think is the first author where I bumped into this, but I could be wrong about that. I'm sure you could find other philosophers who are actually using footnotes writing about this. But hey, it's a blog, so I can just ramble, right?

Stereotypes

I know they are unavoidable, but it still strikes me when I detect stereotypes being blatantly used. Perhaps they aren't blatantly used, perhaps the user is not fully aware of the fact that it is a stereotype being employed, but lately I ran into two being used to communicate a broader message and it made me pause.

First is in The Shack (yes, that again). This one is definitely a spoiler, so if you haven't read it and don't want it ruined, go away. Otherwise, you probably know (or don't care to be told) that one of the persons of the Trinity is portrayed as a heavy set African-American woman. There are some good literary reasons for this, such as breaking the idea that God the Father is white, or necessarily male. But my purpose here isn't to go into whether or not it is valid to portray Papa as anything other than a man, but rather to point out that once the initial break from the stereotype from God is made, the author moves smoothly into another stereotype. Namely, heavy set black women 1) love cooking as much if not more than they love eating 2) love mothering people and caring for them, especially when they hurt 3) are sassy 4) speak their mind and 5) do things that no one expects or that are perhaps considered mildly socially inappropriate. I've seen this on TV, in movies, in books, frankly it just isn't impressive anymore. Those mediums often use stereotypes to set a character, it's just easier that way. What bugs me is that people seem to be wow'd by Young's use of this image for God, but Young is stereotyping just in a different way. I mean, that stereotype I learned in "How To Think Like A White-Boy 101." They offered that in high school, I think. Collard greens, fruity chicken, please. Try a little harder. She doesn't quite talk right to match the stereotype, but I don't know if that's because I'm missing the boat here or because Young doesn't actually know how his stereotype talks. I dunno.

Second one that bugged me recently was in a Newsboys song ("He Reigns") that we sung in church last Sunday. I like the song, not sure it works in our church because I think it takes a certain style and energy to pull that off, but the theme was appropriate for the occasion and it's not a bad song. Luta reminded me what I'd noticed in the past, however: it relies on stereotypes. Asian believers are, of course, on fire with the Holy Spirit. Duh, right? And it's naturally the plains in Africa that sing out redemption (slaves maybe?), because duh, Africa is nothing but plains, right? And 1) the Amazon is the only place with heavy rain and 2) The amazon best summarizes South America. Guess they ran out of space, either that or figured mentioning their home continent of Australia would look self serving, and those of us in the so-called West don't need to be referenced because we all assume we're the standard for comparison anyhow. And the song is all about the variety of God's People worshipping God, so mentioning the people who are assumed normal just doesn't do it. Like I said, I do actually like the song. But it seems a bit ridiculous to rely so much on stereotype. Simple artistry and imagery, yes. And apparently they aren't painting a picture of the depth of variety in each culture and each place, but instead highlighting the shallowness of variety across the Earth. Why not drop the location-worship connection? List the worship verbs, and then the geographic nouns, separately? And list a few more, please, because I love the mountains in Africa, and I'm sure someone somewhere loves the plains elsewhere.

I Don't Live In Lexington

I don't have anything against Lexington, KY, but I don't live there. I live in Wilmore. This seems straightforward to me, but apparently some people have a hard time with this concept, and it bugs me. There have been a number of times where people on campus have encouraged us to get involved in Lexington, because that's our city. Well, it might be the closest thing to what most consider a city, but as far as communities where ministry is needed, Wilmore has needs, as does Nicholasville (which most people drive through on their way to Lexington). Lexington may have a greater amount of needs, I don't deny that. But if the point is to be working in our community, why call Lexington our community when not all of us (maybe even most of us) don't live there? Just seems like it encourages draining this community: if we live in Wilmore, but serve elsewhere, we're basically just a sleeper community for ministry, draining Wilmore of housing resources but not adding anything back. That sounds bad to me.

So the latest in this series of frustrations occured in church last Sunday. The guest speaker was speaking on missions, and was explaining that according to one commentary (Rick Warren), the Great Commission could be interpreted as the following:

• Jerusalem means your community that you live in.
• Judea means your state or country as a whole.
• Samaria means your country, but a culture other than your own.
• And the ends of the earth means, well, everywhere else.

Sounds good to me. No problem. Until he said "well I guess in a town like Wilmore your Jerusalem would be Lexington." What??? Ok, so Jerusalem is a city, a relatively big one. Is that what he means, that it has to be a city? Then the definition should be modified from "your community" to "the biggest city near you." But that seems a bit odd, since that could very well be Judea or Samaria depending on where you live. I mean for areas of Appalachia (which is where the mission this guy was representing is located) Jerusalem then could be hours away, and certainly in a different culture. But if that's what Jesus meant, why bother with the distinctions? Or, if people insist on finding different meanings and interpretations for each place in the list, why give them one that could mean nothing?

I was annoyed. I don't live in Lexington, I live in Wilmore. Please, it's not hard to tell the difference.

Blue is the new Green?

For all you earth-lovin'/creation saving/treehugger/eco-defender types who are also addicted to your portable technology, you may now rejoice: Samsung has released a solar powered phone! Guess they're tired of "green" because they've called it "Blue Earth." There are some skeptics out there, and they do make some good points, but apparently we have to wait a while to get this phone anyways so there's some time to get our hopes up. Oh, and by "eco friendly" they don't just mean "we won't suck juice out of the wall" but also "we won't poison you with our products." I always like that. Consistency people, it's a good thing.

New dream list: phones I don't need to charge, cars I don't need to charge, backpacks that charge the things I do need to charge... Who needs grid, anyways, right?

Violence and Video Games

Violence in video games is a hot topic. Some try to get it banned, some say it has no impact. Many studies suggest that violence in video games and movies and media in general does in fact have an impact on the people consuming it, and that this impact is negative. However, a new study put a bit of a new angle on the problem. This one, instead of proving that violence makes people violent, decided to determine how much violence plays a part in gamer satisfaction. What they discovered was, gamers are happy playing games even without graphic violence. I'm not sure how accurate this study is, and I'm sure more need to be done, but I could have told them that. Granted, it sure is fun to blow the hell out of a BigDaddy with lightning bullets, or slash some rogue demon to pieces with a fire-enchanted sword, but the fun of the game is in winning, completing the story, not getting blasted myself. Or, as the research says, control and competence. That sure is it. I've gotten in to some violent games, but they often leave a wierd feeling. Pure puzzle games don't always attract me, but then there's Puzzle Quest to make somewhat of an exception to that. Sure, part of the story involves killing varmints and demons and other things in the player's way, but violence is not depicted. The player matches gems, and "kills" the opponent, but all you see is points being reduced to match certain actions.

So, we gamers apparently are not in it for the gore. We're in it for fun and competence and because we're suckers for control, apparently. But then this seems to raise the question: Why is violence such a major part of so many new games? Why the focus on realistic violence? If that's not what we're playing the games for, what is it even doing in there?

Bionic Body Armor, for Real.

Slashdot.com always has some interesting news on it. A recent tidbit linked to an article on bullet-dodging body-armor. No joke. IBM filed for a patent on it. Seems that it will work primarily on long range fire, so its usefulness would be for high profile people, like presidents. The common foot soldier probably won't be benefiting from this. Next I predict we'll be seeing bullets that suppress the ability of the armor to detect them, and perhaps assassins will go back to the up-close-and-personal approach. After all, this won't protect from bombs, close gun fire, knives, etc. So, maybe it's good that we can defend ourselves from snipers. But maybe it will just change the face of violence once again, and war will go from long-range and impersonal to up close and personal again. Complaints have been that with so much technology in war, we can kill by using a computer screen; taking away the personal element makes it easier to kill, and easier to make the decision to do so, and this can lead to a dangerous slippery slope. But if new armors prevent long range killing, maybe we're on the way out of impersonal killing... or maybe it will just all change.

To Know

Merriam-Webster has this to say about the word "know":

know
Pronunciation: \ˈnō\
Function: verb
Inflected Form(s): knew \ˈnü also ˈnyü\ ; known \ˈnōn\ ; know·ing
Etymology: Middle English, from Old English cnāwan; akin to Old High German bichnāan to recognize, Latin gnoscere, noscere to come to know, Greek gignōskein
Date: before 12th century

transitive verb
1 a (1): to perceive directly : have direct cognition of (2): to have understanding of (3): to recognize the nature of : discern b (1): to recognize as being the same as something previously known (2): to be acquainted or familiar with (3): to have experience of
2 a: to be aware of the truth or factuality of : be convinced or certain of b: to have a practical understanding of
3 archaic : to have sexual intercourse with
intransitive verb
1: to have knowledge
2: to be or become cognizant —sometimes used interjectionally with you especially as a filler in informal speech.

In The Shack, the argument is made multiple times that if people really knew God's love, and knew God's nature, then we wouldn't doubt God's goodness when bad stuff happens. God tells Mack that the reason Mack is mad at God, has distance in his relationship with God and others, and keeps getting hung up on the brutal murder of his young daughter Missy, is Mack's lack of understanding of God's love. If Mack just knew God loved him, Mack would be cool with the whole thing. Not to say Mack wouldn't hurt at all, or miss Missy, but he'd understand that God was still good and in control and wouldn't be so upset about it. It seems in part that Mack would be ok because he'd also know that God was hurt by the whole situation as well.

I'm hung up on this "knowing" God loves us. Seems that Young is using it in the sense of 1-a-3, 1-b-3, or some sense of 2. In other words, "knowing" is connected to experience, and is a deep and profound trust in the knowledge. In this case knowing God loves means truly trusting God loves. This is a fine definition of "know" which is often used. I think it was Plato who said that people who know what is good, do what is good; those who don't do good don't really know it, because anyone who knows it, does it.

Call me postmodern, but I have problems with this. "Know" seems like it can be a looser term than that. I think this use of the term places too much reliance on the idea that knowledge based on fact or experience is somehow very solid and reliable. However, someone can come along and debate the truth of that knowledge; a new experience can alter one's perception and interpretation of prevoius experiences and thus question the reliability of former knowledge; memory can get distorted, screwing up one's sense of knowledge... over reliance on "know it means you trust it" drives me nuts. I'd prefer to just throw "trust" or "belief" in there and clear up the whole mess.

Why? I think it's just cleaner than talking about multiple kinds of knowing, like "head knowing" vs. "experiential knowing." A common example uses a chair: I may declare that I know the chair can hold me, and yet not trust it enough to sit in it. On the other hand, I can choose to sit in it, and find through experience that it really can hold me. I think to clarify "knowing" in this case just is confusing. Call the first "think" or "think I know" and the second "trust" or "believe" or "experience." Just drop knowing right out of it. Try this out: I may declare whatever I want about my cognitive acceptance of the chair's ability to hold me, yet until I park my behind in it and let the chair keep me from crashing in embarassing manner onto the floor, I leave room for others to doubt that I trust or believe the chair can actually hold me. If I refuse to sit in it, because I fear crashing, then I don't believe it will hold me.

And now I think we can talk about why it isn't as simple as "knowing" God loves us. Here's the problem: if God loves me, why does bad stuff happen to me? Young's answer is: See, idiot, you don't know God loves you, or you wouldn't ask such a stupid question. Sorry, forgive me, but I'm human. When I think a human loves me, I think that other person 1) won't hurt me and 2) will try to prevent harm from happening to me. When I percieve that person to hurt me, or to fail to protect me, I often question his or her love for me. There's many ways to reconcile this, including: recognizing that people aren't perfect, but that doesn't mean he or she doesn't love me as much as s/he can; recognizing that people are not powerful enough to stop all harm, but again that isn't always a reflection on the reality of love; realizing that my perception may be off, and this spanking could actually be for my good and an act of true love. Thus, my trust in their love may temporarily fade, but I can correct that as I realize it wasn't an issue of their love or lack of it, but something else.

This, however, becomes sticky when I relate it to God. Because if God is perfect, and God is powerful enough to accomplish anything, that leaves only the problem of my perception. But it is incredibly difficult to reconcile certain pains with anything good or loving. Say, the murder of a little girl: how is eternity going to be better because she got raped and slaughtered than it would have been had she led a long, fulfilling life? Sure, people can attempt to answer that question, but the most predictable response to most answers will be a solid fist to the face, delivered by the wounded parent. "How dare you suggest that my daughter would have caused damage enough that her death now is better?" "How dare you suggest that God can love my daugher more than me?" or something along those lines. So, the issue, for me, becomes less a matter of knowing God loves me than God loves me. Somewhere in there, I need to figure out how I can continue to trust and believe in the love of God, when God doesn't demonstrate it the way I expect a human with God's powers were. Or, to put it more personally: I need to figure out how I can continue to trust and believe in the love of God when God doesn't do what I think I would do if I had God's powers in that situation.

Know whatever you want to know. Trust, however, is harder. And in a postmodern world where the ability to know becomes more and more debated, perhaps we should switch the conversation to Trust. Maybe if Mack quit trying to figure out how he could know God loved him even when Missy got killed, but instead decided to trust God anyways, he'd have gotten over it sooner. Not blind trust, but perhaps putting the testing aparatus on hold until the pain quieted down enough to allow a careful inspection of God. Then, perhaps, trust can return.

Endless Energy?

Cnet posted news that MIT undergrads developed a shock absorber that generates electricity. Whenever a car equipped with these absorbers hits a bump, it would generate electricity. This reminded me of an article I read a few years ago, I think in either Times or Newsweek, that mentioned someone working on a backpack for the military that would do something similar. Apparently the modern army can be tracked by following the trail of spent batteries. If a foot-soldiers backpack instead generated electricity, they could charge all of their electronic gear while they marched. The idea wa thtat there would be a device in the backpack that generated electricity by absorbing the impact of a person walking, similar I think to these shock absorbers. Even though this stuff is often first developed by or for military use (I've been told Ray Ban sunglasses and velcro were developed first for the USA Airforce), they can be put to use for many other purposes: imaging charging your laptop by walking across campus.

I know it would take energy and resources to make such things, but the idea of being able to generate usable electricty simply by walking is fascinating. I don't know how much energy it could create, but my sci-fi imaginings conjure ideas of electric cars that would rarely need to be charged by an external source, or being able to charge all of one's personal electronic devices without plugging them into an external source. Capturing electricity from people walking would be as renewable as solar or wind, and perhaps might motivate people to move around a bit more: if walking 30 minutes to work meant saving money on electricity at home, it might just motivate people.

Neat idea. I hope more sci-fi starts using this...

A note on Movies and Books

I love movies. And I love reading. And I love discussing movies and books with other people. I hope you will engage in that here with me. However I think I must warn you, that if I put up a post about a movie or a book, there very well may be plot spoiler information in the post. I'm not going to warn you each time, because I'm going to assume that you're smart enough not to read things you don't want to read. And how can I completely discuss something if I can't talk about the plot? So, consider yourself warned: spoilers ahead.

Jobs, Fulfillment, and Wall-E

I recently watched Wall-E. I love Pixar films, being disappointed only by Cars. And I totally loved Wall-E. I was cracking up, and though it was not only cute but somewhat profound. Sure, it might have beaten the "save the earth" message to death, but since I think we should preserve the earth, reduce our trash and footprint, and not be so lazy and depending on automated technology I don't really have a problem with that message.

I was intrigued by the personalities of the robots in Wall-E. From what I can tell, each bot has a task, or directive. Each bot must fulfill this directive, and in this they find fulfillment. Some directives occur constantly (picking up trash), others from time to time (EVE and M-O, for example, only performing when certain other parameters are met). Sometimes it is one bot acting solo, other times one bot activates another that activates another and so on until all tasks are performed. From a programming perspective, this is pretty simple: integrated loops and functions. In any case, the point is, bots have jobs.

And bots are only happy when they fulfill their job. The more they cannot fulfill their job, the more frustrated and angry and perhaps despondent they become. EVE is angry with Wall-E, not because he is lovestruck and she's not, not because he tags along like a puppy, but because she thinks he's preventing the completion of her task. This is not to say that there aren't other emotions involved (she does seem to actually like him and be sad when his escape pod blows up), but that a bot cannot be happy if the task is not done. Over time or if left alone, it appears that one of two things can happen: 1) the bot modifies the task 2) the bot becomes obsessed with the task. (1) is exemplified in Wall-E: he (i think it's a he) starts collecting interesting junk instead of just disposing of it, and becomes curious about other possibilities in life. But he still performs his job. (2) is exemplified in the psycho ward, and in M-O. The task must be done, and all the time, even if it violates the parameters for the job. The tennis ball server should only serve tennis balls in certain circumstances, presumably on a tennis court and when asked; however, the obsessed one serves tennis balls all the time, at everything. This is a malfunction. Yet M-O begins to border on this when he makes the decision to leave his assigned electro-path in pursuit of "foreign contaminant." He is doing the job assigned, but not within the parameters assigned, thus he's not truly fulfilling his programmed duty.

How much do our jobs determine our happiness? And is it when we do them the way we're told to, or the way we think they should be done? Should our psychological security really be wrapped up in task fulfillment?

The Shack and the Problem of Evil

I just finished reading The Shack by William P. Young. WilmoreUMC, the church we attend, is doing a book club as part of the Wednesday night programs, and this is the first book being discussed. I'd heard about the book before a few times. The first time was at the Community Life Interns retreat when students who were taking classes that had the book as a required text were talking about it (the class was Christian Psychodynamic Therapies, which may give credence to criticism that the book is more about using counseling/therapeutic language than it is about making a theological argument). They also were talking about the fuss created in a Christian bookstore where one of them worked, all over whether or not this book should be on the shelf. Personally, I think it should just stay on the shelf! Let people decide for themselves.

In any case, I enjoyed the book. Not the best I ever read, and when it comes to literary style, it was good, but not great. Fairly predictable, and for all the talk in the "forward" about Mack being such a bright guy, he sure was dense. Show me, don't tell me, please. I don't have major beefs with the theology/philosophy laid out, though it definitely relies more on personal relationship and feelings than it does on scripture to make its points. I don't think this has to reduce the strength of the argument, rather I think Young does an excellent job of discussing what are often thorny and confusing theological issues in a way that is very down to earth and understandable. At the same time, however, I was a bit frustrated with how easily he blows by disagreements with his theology. Not that I disagree with him, but the other ideas about God are not formed soley by people trying to control others, but sometimes people have struggled long and hard, and developed strong Biblical proofs for their positions. Doesn't mean I agree with them, but I think certain respect to their intentions should be made.

However when all is said and done, I don't think The Shack is about soteriology, ecclesiology, or anything like that; and only barely about theology. Instead, I think it's about theodicy, that is, the Problem of Evil. What do we do with God in the face of horrible evil? Is God good? Strong? Powerful? Trustworthy? When little girls get brutally murdered, the answer to some or all of these questions may seem to "no, definitely not." Young definitely explores how God can be good and love and powerful, and yet evil can happen. The exploration of the relationship of the Trinity certainly is a good way to do this. But in the end, the answer is the same as it often is: from Human eyes, on this side of eternity, we can't know what's truly going on. So just trust and believe, already! While I understand this argument and think it has strength, I still find it profoundly personally unsatisfying. It is hard to consider how eternity will be better because little girls get raped, or millions of people get executed, or because we have had two miscarriages.

Ok, fine, Young says it isn't; that's not God's plan; God is just letting us be free humans. Yes, the freewill argument does hold strength. But the question on God's character remains because of this: God says pray and ask and we shall receive; Jesus says that God is a good Father who loves us and gives us good gifts. Yet when we pray, people still die. Yes, I understand the point of prayer is relationship (Young hammers the relationship point to death) and not a cosmic vending machine. Yes, I understand that God gives good gifts, but doesn't always intervene. But when we know God can intervene and does intervene, it makes it hard to understand why certain evils remain while others do not. If that family was blessed with healthy pregancies, why not our family?

Yes indeed, it is about trust and belief. But that becomes hard because humanly we expect trust in a relationship to mean that it benefits us. Utilitarian, I know, but I think it is true. People intentionally build relationships that benefit them. The benefit may be through building community, through learning more about love, through satisfaction in helping others, or in knowing that when hard times hit, I have loving, caring people who will help me. We can't go it alone in this life, we definitely need others, and we fill this need through building relationships. That's not bad, it's God ordained. Yet with God, we ask for protection and don't always get it. We ask for good things, and don't always get them. I do not doubt that in eternity, questions will be answered, we'll see the greater picture, and understand why it all happened the way it did. But here, now, in the midst of pain, that answer fall short, sounds horrible, and seems to suggest that our job in life is to quit asking questions and engage in blind faith. I do not think that The Shack successfully combats this shortfall.

Stolen Identity! Who am I?

No, not really. Only in a virtual sense. Online, I am usually Aquajag. My oldest email address has that, and nearly every game I've played my name has been Aquajag. If you've blown off Aquajag's head, that was me; if you got chopped to pieces by Aquajag, that was me; if you're currently embroiled in an intergalactic war for universal military dominance with Aquajag, that's me. Only when trying to get "aquajag" on MSN or AIM have I had problems. Until, that is, I tried to take "aquajag.blogspot.com" and found that some other dude took it! My Identity! Lost! Who am I?? Now when Agent Smith calls me Mr. Welch (cause inevitably he'll be a moron and not realize that if I'm anything, I'm Mr. Garbat-Welch) I won't be able to say "My Name... is Aquajag!" because some other dude took it. Once, anyways.

But despite that, I insist that I am Aquajag. Even though I'm not aquajag.blogspot, I refuse to let go so easily...

Ramble Ramble Ramble

From time to time (meaning anytime my mind is idle) I find myself pondering things. Arguing in my head, more like. Philosophical, theological, sometimes just plain ornery. I get frustrated not having anyone to bounce back thoughts at me. Maybe this will help? Of course, one problem is that I often find I can't actually put the thoughts down in print. But I'll try. Enjoy, and pull apart my thoughts.