Showing posts with label Personal Musings. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Personal Musings. Show all posts

Saturday, March 17, 2012

The Database













Let's quit our jobs.

Let's quit our jobs and spend our lives devoted to creating this new archive.

This archive, or database if you will, would consist of three categories. Each category would be preserved neatly.

Let's devote ourselves to archiving aspects of God's general revelation: that is, the character of God that can be seen through His creation.

  • Category One: People.
    • Every human being is made in God's image. My personal conviction (and therefore, the conviction of this hypothetical database) is that every single individual on this planet can/does reflect God's image in a somehow unique perspective. This Category would document people and their "unique" quality which gives us an added sliver of reflection of God's good beingness. I just experimented with trying to do this on Andrew Kevin Walker.
  • Category Two: Moments in Transcendence.
    • This category captures transcendency in this life of ours -- generally speaking, this would most generally pull from pieces of artwork, but could also be in the form of new discoveries that bear new insight into God's creativity/imagination.
  • Category Three: Miracles.
    • A list of what appear to be bone-fied miracles. Yes.  
So, are we all in? I can't see any reason why we shouldn't be?

Friday, March 16, 2012

The Hitchhiker's Guide to Doggie Heaven


I passed by hitchhikers this morning, two girls stood together with a sign stating their desired locale on one side of the street, while not more than thirty meters away an aged, balding man dressed in an oversized jacket and urban camouflaged khakis leveraged his thumb for cars drivers going the other direction.

Immediately I pitied the man, thinking that the two young girls with an obvious exact destination would, by all means conceivable, receive a ride in no undue time, while the chances that the man would wait all day for a drive that would never come seemed a likely fate.

Because of this preconceived notion, I was taken aback when the man was picked up while still I walked by. The girls were still pining for their destitudinal salvation when my feet carried me out of eye shot of them.

Noting this little incident made me feel a bit sad for the American (or at least, Californian) modern legislation against hitchhiking. My mother even warned me as a child never to pick up hitchhikers, because you never know when they're going to shiv you and steal that which you claim as your own. I've never hitchhiked before, but today I smile at the notion of it. The driver who chooses to pick up the cargo-panted man has very little to gain for their act of service. It is, practically speaking, a sheer act of kindness.

For by grace you have been picked-up, through faith, that not of your thumbs, it is a gift of driver.

You see, grace in this world is in the details.

-------------

It is then another small silhouette of grace's charm that I found amidst the biography, Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy
that the dear saint and a young boy both felt a degree of anxiety and hopeful splendor in the issue of the eschatology of the animal kingdom.

A little chap, whom is described as normally bubbly and cheerful, came to Bonhoeffer one day in a stir of tears and wretchedness. It was a matter of the boy's beloved dog, 'Herr Wolf'. In a letter to his brother-in-law, Bonhoeffer told the story (printed on page 86 of Metaxas' book):
So the boy, inconsolable, sat down on my knee and could hardly regain his composure; he told me how the dog died and how everything is lost now. He played only with the dog, each morning the dog came to the boy's bed and awakened him -- and now the dog was dead. What could I say? So he talked to me about it for quite a while. Then suddenly his wrenching crying became very quiet and he said: "But I know he's not dead at all." "What do you mean?" "His spirit is now in heaven, where it is happy... but tell me, will I see Herr Wolf again? He's certainly in heaven." So there I stood and was supposed to answer him yes or no. If I said, "no, we don't know" that would have meant "no"... So I quickly made up my mind and said to him: "Look, God created human beings and also animals, and I'm sure he also loves animals. And I believe that with God it is such that all who loved each other on earth -- genuinely loved each other -- will remain together with God, for to love is part of God. Just how that happens, though, we admittedly don't know." 
This marvelous response of Bonhoeffer's to the boys suffering over the loss of a loved one, however furry that loved one may be, beguiles me. But equally as rewarding to read is Bonhoeffer's thoughts on the boy's response.

He continues:
You should have seen the happy face on the boy; he had completely stopped crying. "So then I'll see Herr Wolf again when I am dead; then we can play together again" -- in a word, he was ecstatic. I repeated to him a couple of times that we don't really know how this happens. He, however, knew, and knew it quite definitely in thought... This whole affair was as important to the young boy as things are for one of us when something really bad happens. But I am almost surprised -- moved, by the naivete of the piety that awakens at such a moment in an otherwise completely wild young boy who is thinking of nothing. And there I stood -- I who was supposed to "know the answer" -- feeling quite small next to him; and I cannot forget the confident expression he had on his face when he left. 
This, for me is the evidence of a really big man indeed; the sign of a man wholly committed to learning, discovering, and drawing nearer to God. Bonhoeffer allowed himself to be humbled by the young lad's faith. Through his humility he learned to fear God a bit more.

Amen. 


Sunday, February 12, 2012

Like Tears in Rain

Today I discovered that Blogger has upgraded their infrastructure for these blogs -- which led me to discover that I've left a rather lump sum of unfinished drafts of blog entries. As I was purveying, with an air of amnesiac wonder, the fountain of  un-blog-ed souls, I came to a curious entry entitled Verse One.

This particular entry started with what sounds now like a very cliched phrase, It began like any romance... What was I doing writing some crappola like that!? I had no idea. The draft date says July of last year, but for the life of me, I could not conjure up a recognition of this multi-paragraphed fable. So I read on.

The story I wrote was indeed the beginnings of some sort of romance. Through reading, my memory revved up enough to note a vague comprehension that this was supposed to be part of something much larger. Surely, I told myself, I would only ever write the phrase, It began like any romance, as some sort of clever ploy to fool the doldrums of the audience's calibrated ear. Surely!

But nothing was striking. I couldn't wrap my head around what this blasted document was supposed to be introducing! Perhaps, I inquired of my inner man, 'tis a ditty I wrote whilst mostly asleep. Surely this, and nothing more.

Slowly and slowlier still, I found myself a man apart from my own being! Who was this chap that a merely seven/eight months ago wrote this off behind my back!
What sort of man was I??!!!

And by the grace of God, I found another lost draft simply named, outline. It was quite simple. It stated:
Verse One: Romance
Verse Two: Daughter
Verse Three: Death
Verse Four: Obsession
Verse Five: Inception
Verse Six: School
Verse Seven: Evolution
Verse Eight: Faith
Verse Nine: Doubt
Verse Ten: Conquest
Verse Eleven: Other Science
Verse Twelve: Non-Transferable
Verse Thirteen:Epilepsy
Verse Fourteen: Romance
Verse Fifteen: Betrayal
Verse Sixteen: Death Again
Verse Seventeen: Starting Point
Ah yes! Sweet relief rushed in! Everything flooded back. Last Summer I pondered an idea for writing something of a chapter novel on this here blog. The rough story was that of a very devoutly religious computer geek who creates an artificially intelligent computer who convinces the nerd's daughter that there is no God. Ah by jove -- hooray! It's regularly ol' mega-purpose-of-life-questioning me, yippee!

At any rate, for posterity's sake, so that I don't again fall into the wretched pit of self-doubt and Kafkaesque metamorphosis, here lies the original unfinished first chapter of my unnamed chapter novel. *photos from Short Circuit were added today, for good measure*

OH -- BTW -- This is a gratuitously boring read. I wouldn't actually recommend reading it... see the title above? -- this is a post which exists only to not-exist. Understand? Are we on the same page yet? I hope so... 

Really, don't read it. 



VERSE ONE: ROMANCE

It began like any romance, though perhaps one could say the roles were reversed. Jennifer Brighton was the type of woman who was undeniably pretty and indisputably extroverted, yet she had the type of face that lesser folks ridiculed as bitchy. This insult was to set right the injustice of the world. Beautiful women had enough luck to be beautiful, they ought not also be gifted with genius as well.

Desmond Dore was skinny and blended in. This was about as far as any casual acquaintance could get while trying to harvest up a description of the young scientist. He was not shy, nor did he particularly make choices in life to remain the observer rather than the center stage actor, it just so happened that life seemed to prefer him to be a sideline character. Once in fifth grade he accurately guessed the exact weight of a pumpkin, and won the right to take it home. As far as he could remember, that was the only time he garnered much attention from the outside world. He often vividly remembered the envious looks on his classmates faces when he was announced the estimator champion. Desmond could never be too sure whether soaked in those jealous glares with joy or fear. Somehow, it was both. Trembling glee.
College, being a natural ghetto of young, fertile fleshy minds, was a ripe environment for the rumor-mill of how a guy like Desmond Dore could end up with a chick like Jennifer Brighton. This question bounces through the mind of any single man who spots a couple in which the woman is more than two inches taller than her lover. Desmond was not a short man. He was, once again, quite average in the height department. A sure 5'10", no doubt. Maybe a 5.10.5 on a clear day. With a sombrero he could fake six feet, sure. But Miss Brighton, taught by her mother, father, and subsequently grandmother, branched over Desmond with her 6'2" measure. Being the elegant, studiously domineering woman she was, Jennifer would seldom skip an opportunity to execute her beauty to the utmost with the utilization of only the finest heels. And so the incredulous looks and questions abounded, "What on earth did Desmond Dore do to garner the affection of the brilliant bombshell?"

He needed help. Desmond was by no means a physicist, but his interests required some leverage in that department, so it was on his conscience to familiarize himself with that genre of information. The problem was, he was flailing in the subject, nearing failing. So he enrolled to get free tutoring. It just so happened that earlier that semester, Jennifer, due to an unfortunate happenstance, found herself refusing to grovel at the mercy seat of the dean. For a lesser student, the dean would have found a harsher punishment, but being privy to her academic potential, not to mention being cheered by her magnanimous beauty, doled at a simple sentence -- 15 hours a week of tutoring. And so they met.

Desmond never tried anything fancy with Jennifer -- he was, from the very beginning, oddly confident that he didn't have to. Say what you will about the man, but his memory is immaculate. He could, at any struggling moment, bring to mind at demand the moment he knew he won her.
-----
She was notably upset that day. No tears. But her nose dripped with consistent volume.
He wanted to know what was wrong. She so seldom should any vulnerability, that the thought of something tarnishing her day was something of a mystery.

P.S. Man alive! That robot Johnny 5 & Ally Sheedy dance sequence is creepy! I watched Short Circuit all the time when I was a wee-chap! Gross. 

Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Last Wish

 As I lay dying,
I turned to the Father of my Father.
I asked;

Lord, you know all things,
and I know that you love me.
You have blessed me with a life abundant.
All my ways have been blessed,
my efforts never waged in vain. 
But this still I hold in wonder,
and bring to you now;

I am old now, 
and all I want is to drink from the cup of memory,
to dwell in my many merry moments gone by.
Why do they remain hidden from me?
Forever it has been this way. 
I know I was once born from out of my mother, 
but where is that experience, 
where is that charm?

Long ago in time it was lost to me. 
Maybe from the beginning it was so. 
I long to reflect upon the day I met my bride,
to observe the smile on her face, 
to touch the fabric that covered her body,
to smell her youth and joy,
but this too you have hidden from me.

Why?

Therein I waited on my back. Helpless.
In mercy, the voice of the one I love 
came to me.

Such a voice echoed in my ears.
Saying:

Little child,
do you remain still so blind, 
still so lacking in discretion?
Are you so stupidly brave,
as to believe they were yours to take hostage?
The day of your birth,
do you dare claim its ownership?
Did your mother not weep at your coming?
Did your father not falter in his knees?
Did your brother not boast to his friends?
Did your sister not pester to see your form firsthand?
Should you steal away the day from them,
in your greed do you dare keep it for yourself?

I sighed, knowing in my heart the words soon to follow.
The voice continued,
Saying:

Little child,
I gave you life, 
why are you not yet content?
The world 
and all that is in it 
is mine. 

My ears went deaf then. 

Knowing my time was running short, I dared further,
Asking:

Lord, you know all things,
and I know that you love me. 
Time and tide are not mine,
they are not pieces for purchase.
Knowing this now,
I ask,
I plead,
I beg,
Would you give me just one memory?
One to know completely 
-- in and out and between --
Can I hold just one moment in my soul,
so that I can 
hear
see
touch
taste
smell 
once again
that beauty which I knew?
I beg for this mercy from 
the Keeper of Promise
and Holder of all Reason.

I exhaled and waited. 

Many nights I waited longingly.


Then I smelled his presence.
My ears heard nothing,
but my mind perceived the message.

Little child,
I love you, 
and to this I shall always remain.
If you received what you ask for,
if a moment you could embrace,
if time was a compass in your hand,
if the sun set on your command,
so that you could fully know the breadth of one instant,
then you would cease to see
cease to hear
cease to taste
cease to touch 
cease to smell.
You would be devoured, 
precious child
you would not survive. 
You would be master of that place,
and your soul would grow ever dim.
Above all, you would love the moment,
and although you thought you were its arbiter,
of this idol you would never cease to worship. 

I shuddered. 
Another presence entered. I could taste its odor on my tongue. 
My breath quivered and I began to gasp for air. For strength. 
I could feel the second presence pressing in on me,
decaying the last of my being. 
I shuddered.
I could then see him,
the Father of my Father.
and he comforted me, 
Saying:

If I gave this to you,
if you really had it,
you would feel everything that could be felt.
This burden is too much for you, 
O' Little Child. 
So 
I have forever kept time in motion, 
for there is not a point in time's turning, 
that a child does not go hungry,
that a heart does not break,
that a soul does not turn dark,
that the earth does not groan. 
Yes
I have hidden deep memory from you,
My Son, 
so that you could know mercy,
accept grace,
and be reborn
again 
and 
again.

Beloved,
rest now.
I closed my eyes

and died.

Friday, September 23, 2011

Titus Ronet


The patient, Titus Ronet, is the most amazing creature I've ever encountered. I am humbled by his intellect. He reads my motivations, intuitions, my every poise, long before I can consciously guard them.

How can I help a man whose grasp of this world is far beyond my own imagination's compass?

 How can I help? 

How can I help?

Despite his intellectual fortitude, he does not appear to hold it as a thing to be weighted. He doesn't seem to reckon its very presence. The pity is I can't even hold tightly to that observation, for he may well be playing me by some hidden methodology of appearance over substance. He could very easily be doing that to me.


Our job is to help, to shine a light in the dark recesses of a plagued mind. We build up. We tear down the impure. We build up. But Titus will only ever be convicted by his own rationale.

Maybe that is the trick; I should let nature speak for itself. Let him convict himself by the functioning craft of this natural world. I can't do that work. Something greater than I and greater than him will have to.


He's experienced the darkest of nights. He's felt reams of pain, physical, mental and spiritual, in a manner I will never know.

After 10 hours of sessions, I told him directly. I said plainly, Titus, you are a broken piece of equipment. Surely you know this.

He stared right back at me. There was no fear in his eyes. No shame. All I could catch was the slightest inch of smug certainty.

He replied, And what would my machinery be used for, if it was never broken?

I, of course, had no answer. 
Mercifully, he cleared me of any duty...

Titus spoke. There's nothing to be done. Here, in this room, or there.

Can I really give an answer? Love my wife. Work hard at my job. Raise a family. Do those things add up to meaning?

If Titus Ronet cannot be unbroke, then I believe it is the world entire that lay in shards.

Tuesday, August 9, 2011

Moneyball: a post about money and baseball but not about the baseball movie, "Moneyball"

The first girl I ever asked out was on the last day of seventh grade at the last minute of lunch break. 

I remember her very courteous response,

"Umm... maybe next year."

Somewhere between the All-Star game and October, I hear the same line. Every year. It's either a silly hope I whisper to myself or worse yet, the management itself tells me so.

There is something rotten in Baseball, my friends. 

The underseen underdogs, the 2010 Padres, managed to win 90 games during the season. They held onto first place until the very last game of the season, Game 162. They lost to the San Francisco Giants. Those same Giants went on to win the World Series. 

Okay. Life is tough. Okay-okay, I ain't here to make no claims about what life ain't and ain't not!

But Oh Lord, have mercy! It's the hope that kills. It's the hope that burns.


After our 90 win failure, our perspective dogs salivating from the hope of a better tomorrow, the Padres management did what they inevitably had to do. Our star, our lone run-producer, Adrian Gonzalez, was traded to the Boston Red Sox for three prospects who everyone hopes will make a splash by around 2013. 

Adrian Gonzalez was involved in 24% of all the runs the Padres scored in 2010. He was a legitimate superstar, the only Padre ever invited to take part in the Homerun Derby... and now...


Now it's pretty much agreed that Mr. Gonzalez will be awarded the MVP award for his incredible run production. He's also on-track to end the season with the highest batting average (.350) in the major leagues. As a member of the Boston Red Sox. Not as a Padre.

We lost him because we couldn't afford him. 

It's one thing to never have a Babe Ruth or a Willie Mays -- but to have it and then be forced to let him go -- it's just brutal.


I got over my seventh grade crush. After all, I never dated her. What's happening in Baseball these days is as if I dated the girl, and then on the last day of school she kissed another boy, only to sweetly turn to me, ever so calmly. She pulls me in. We embrace. She brings her mouth to my ear ever so softly. I shiver from the warmth and beauty of her lips tickling my ears. Then the words. They puncture my earlobe, tumbling through my body. The words. Like daggers. 
Maybe next year. 

Oh, cruel fate, why have you teased me with such fantasies! 

If only we could hold onto the ones that grow near to us. Instead the silver spoons of the New York Yankees, the Boston Red Sox, and the Philadelphia Phillies seduce the moon away from us. 

As she walked away, so pretty her poise, I stood dumbfounded. I knew not what to do. As the words reverberated through me as a blood-stained hope, I could do nothing but quote Major Bennot Marco...

Hell. Hell...



This concludes my moment of sobbing self-pity.


Thursday, May 19, 2011

Before the Dawn


On Monday we had a thing. An event. A thing we invited people who were interested to come to. An event. We held the thing in a classroom. Or maybe it was just a study room. It lasted about an hour. We had hoped (or maybe just I), that since the thing, the event itself, was being held in a university setting, the thing would attract a young skewing audience. That didn't so much happen. But it did happen; it did go through, us and those who came each. All of us together.

The line from The Dark Knight runs through my mind often, "The night is always blackest just before the dawn." I wander if that is true. Conceptually and practically. Is the night really most bleak just before dawn strikes? That doesn't seem likely. But I don't study such things. I cannot say. Is it also true, I ask, if things in general are most bleak, most insurmountable, just before the uprising, before that which was previously inconceivable becomes surmountable? Is that true?

For Jesus and the greatest story ever formed, it seems like it is true. And if that is true of our Lord's story, then perhaps He has fabricated the world to pivot on such an axis as that. Perhaps.

No matter the case, the dawn and dark analogy is too murky for me to comprehend well...

At the thing on Monday, the event, a elderly woman's phone rang. Like so many other similar public occasions, the kind lady was full of embarrassment while she scratched through her purse desperately to put a quick end to the repeating annoyance. The funny thing was, that as she unburied the phone, as she brought it out from the cavernous depth's of a woman's purse, the noise got louder. At the same time, of course, as the noise got louder, the expectation was that the noise would cease all the sooner. I learned there and then that cell phones are loudest just before they are turned off.

------


I feel like it's been awhile since I have been enraptured by a profound thought. At this moment I am of the mood to seek out and interact with such things. I've stumbled over a few prospects, but nothing seems to be hitting as of yet. As of yet...

Sunday, May 8, 2011

Personal Audience

Of late I've found myself much more attracted to music than usual.*

It's hard not to see this musical inclination as a tonal problem in my life. Music delivers near instant gratification as far as delivery of mood goes, but it rarely has been as transcendently rapturous as the longer mediums of story have been for me in my life. You see, the name of the game for me always ends up being the story. I surely can appreciate Brahms, Rachmaninoff, Mozart and the like, but they only create backdrops for me to scurry around within. They create climates for my imagination to roam about through. Non-lyrical music doesn't allow for escape from self, it merely lets my mind ride inflated currents.

Of late I've wanted quick escapism.

Realizing such an atmosphere in my life, I turned off the inevitable self-critique to wonder at what specific songs it is that I find most pleasing. Generally speaking, I think my taste portfolio is quite diverse (though admittedly naive and green). I can make no claims to knowing what makes 'good music'. None whatsoever.

Screening through mine own itunes collection, one theme keeps popping up -- that of audience.

An unusual amount of my beloved cache of songs include verses that trade off between a male vocalist and a female one. Why is this so? I think the answer is that I love songs that are directed at a specific character. In the case of guy/girl songs, the story can commonly be constructed as a dialogue between the two people. This would also explain why I tend to like songs sung from heartbreak -- the singer has a specific person they want to hear the lyrics. Worship songs also fall into this category, and perhaps can be the most personally moving for me, when the hymn creates a discussion between Creator and the singular, personal creation. Me and Him.

When I was in High School I went to a Christian summer camp. These days I'm not too darn sure how I think of the concept of 'the re-committing your life to Christ' idea that is so popular among such camps, but as a sloppy, attention deprived, acne-ridden relative loner it was a big deal to "re-commit". That decision all those years ago came after I was moved to my knees by a song called "Overwhelmed" which focused on a description of meeting Christ in Heaven. Me and Him. My God. Redeemer of my life. Redeemer of the broken.

*Interspersed through this article are three songs by the superb band "Stars". They feature a guy/girl duet thingy, and are heavy on nostalgia, so, ya know, right up my neck of the woods. The only thing they're missing is some good ol' spiritual angst! But then they'd be too perfect. Can't have that.

Saturday, April 23, 2011

Beautiful Beauty and Not-so Beautiful Beauty

A few weeks ago, a man named Nick Vujičič came to town. Actually, he came to five towns in Slovenia. He is a motivational speaker. He is a planter of seeds. He is a lover of Jesus.

Those of us here in Koper that knew of Nick's gifts and faith were quite excited for his coming. To our knowledge, no person like Nick had ever come to the Slovenian coast. The few weeks before Nick came, my team stood outside of stores passing out fliers getting the word out as best we could about Nick's coming. For several of those days, we had a tv set-up in the mall. On the screen a 3minute promo video played in a perpetual loop. I watched that promo hundreds of times.

What makes Nick's message so potent is the immediate authenticity he brings to the table. Nick was born without arms or legs (well, he has two very small 'chicken-feet' as he calls them). In a society that promotes authenticity above all -- in a world that is quick to doubt the motivations of anyone bearing a message -- Nick levels the field. He has accomplished an incredible amount in his life. This is obvious. And he credits it all to Christ's work on the cross for him. Grace. Listen to him, and you'll believe him. He has no ulterior motive. He is as he says he is: a man made rich by God's love.

On the video we played continuously, one line caught my attention. Nick said, "You are beautiful just the way you are, no matter what you think."


Nick's point was getting at self-esteem/self-love. The line comes amidst a monologue about girls who struggle with anorexia and the destructive things young teens do for acceptance and the hope of love. God loves you and made you precious. You are beautiful whether you believe it or not. That is the point.

With that line repeating into my ears every three minutes, I couldn't help but compare it to a very similar statement.

In 2002 Christina Aguilera came out with a song and accompanying music video, "Beautiful". I remember at the time how the song was praised as a delightful vision and dream of the way things should be. In general, I have a toxic response to mainstream visions of perfection. John Lennon's "Imagine" makes my stomach roll. Why would I ever desire to dwell in a world with no hope of Heaven?

Christina's song has a peculiar 'us vs. them' mentality. This is most prominently on display in the chorus line, "You are beautiful no matter what they say..."

Nick's line: 
You are beautiful no matter what you think.

Christina's: 
You are beautiful no matter what they say.

The difference is slight, but the contrast immense.

Both lines presuppose your beauty. Great. Huzzah! But then it also appears that both lines imply a problem. That's the kicker. They allude to entirely different problems. Christina implies that the problem is them. They are the ones that need to change. They are trying to bring your beauty down... whoever they are. Nick speaks differently. The implication is that we ourselves undersell our value. We distort our own beauty by thinking we are not highly prized. The problem starts with us. We, the beautiful, make a mockery of our own worth.

Today is the Saturday before Easter. I'm not sure if this day has a special name (I assume the high church denominations have some slick term for it). Historically speaking, I can't imagine a sadder day than the one experienced two thousand years ago in Palestine.

This is the day of dread. Our Savior was dead.

He died because we thought so little of ourselves, and so little of the One who made us beautiful.

I often try to envision what this day was like for the twelve. What did they do? I imagine it would have been too soon for out-an-out mourning. Shock would still be king.

The Long Day.  The day that beauty appeared dead.

You are beautiful because there was a Sunday. The next day came. Tomorrow comes.

He is risen indeed. You are beautiful because of it.

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Wherefore art Thou Heaven?


This evening I was cleaning my apartment. In the collection of dirtiness I swept into a pile, arose one of those little rollie pollie bugs.

Those little guys don't hurt anything!

They just make themselves into little balls when they're scared. That's it! That's all the good Lord gave them in this world.

Instinctively repulsed by the prospect of my residence being inhabited by any form of buganoid vermin, I smashed the helpless li'l creature.

Then came the sweeping regret. Like a miniature title wave of petty heartbreak -- like a paper cut in that most annoying place.

I'm becoming one of those literal, "He wouldn't even hurt a fly" type of fellas. This is not a masculine trait. My desire to relentlessly offer the world the musk of manliness is surely defied by my emotional remorsefullness.

The thing is this... I don't know if there's a Heaven for that little rollie pollie. I don't know if the animal kingdom gets the privilege of an Afterlife. All I know is that I ended this little creature's existence. Sure, he's a tiny little nothing, but to him, his life was everything!

Sure, you can say I'm anthropomorphising the little buggard, but really, we are unable to know what life is like for a rollie pollie. Maybe it is something actually precious for them. They matter enough for God to create them, right? The Lord is pleased by His creation, is He not? So who am I to take the life of this little God-servant????

And now I recall StrongBad on homestarrunner.com, and his sickly sweet drawing, "Li'l Brudder". Sigh...

Thursday, April 7, 2011

With Apologies to Mr. White

Dear Reader(s),

Blogs are fascinating creatures. They often resemble the diary, that secret place where one spills out thoughts, memories, and incalculable moments simply for the sake of grasping at a sense of permanence. But the blog is public. It is often the id set alight onto the world. I guess that makes sense in this postmodern world, where authenticity is praised far above anything else. Sometimes I think that blogs are a bad thing, particularly for me, in that it further breeds thoughts of self-importance and self-adulation, crimes I surely am perennially guilty of committing. More on this below...

I've been a wuss when it comes to film watching of late.

Last week I happened upon a Hallmark channel-esque made-for-tv movie that was playing at like 2pm on a Tuesday afternoon; popcorn drivel at best. The story followed this 40-something dude whose business deal brings him back in contact with his first love from High School. Inevitably, the ridiculously telegraphed plot and corny as hell dialogue all led up to the former lovebirds reuniting in wedded bliss. Nevertheless, right at the tail end of the soapcapade, a scene starring the woman's 'current' fiance (the 'good, safe and comfortable' guy she's with before her High School love comes back into the picture) somehow got to me. The fiance-man accidentally walked in on the former lovebirds sharing a difficult conversation. Later that night, he and the girl are out for a nice dinner. He tells her that he saw the way she looked at the other guy, and that she never looks at him that way. Then, with an air of cool that I could never hope to attain for myself, he tells his fiance that it is alright. He tells her that all he wants for her is for her to be happy. The situation has proven itself that she would be happier if she could be with her childhood sweetheart. And so he breaks up with her.


Just like that I found myself all disconfigured in my inner being. I got all emotional alone in my apartment at 2pm on a Tuesday. Damn Hallmark films! This character, this 'fiance', was only ever a plot devise. He was created by the writer to be an obstacle for the lovers to get around. If this were Shakespeare, he would have had to have been undermined and slain by our protagonist. But here, in this gentle, predestined universe, he simply slays himself. Once he tells the girl to break up with him, she does, (in fact all she says is "thank you") and promptly runs out to chase her 'real' man. The camera follows her, and we never see this selfless 'fiance' again.

What got to me about this framework of a character is that no matter how shallow a plot device he was, he committed a selfless act that I probably will never live up to. If I were in that dude's shoes I would fight. I would beg. I would plead. I would do anything to try to keep the girl -- telling myself that because I loved her I should try my darndest to be with her.

Shoot, I was hoping that writing that story out would somehow make it hold more weight. Nope. Still sounds dorky.


Another incident of my wussy responses to art of late is a bit more legitimate. Rabbit Hole. The film's title alone had me committed. I had no idea how a title like that could relate to a movie about parent's dealing with the accidental death of their only child. I wanted to know what exact rabbit hole these characters were going to fall through. The well-crafted film plays much in vain of To Kill a Mockingbird*, relying heavily on moments of innocence to get us through the unthinkable. The film is driven by this child's death; he ran into the middle of the road chasing after his dog. He is killed by a teenage driver that didn't respond quickly enough. We then are given a first hand lesson in grieving. Perhaps understandably, the mother of the dead child, and the teenage driver who killed him, form a bond. It makes sense. Both have had their lives irreplaceably altered by the same cataclysmic event. Both feel responsible for the death of this innocent child. Both are damaged. To be clear, their relationship is never sexual, not remotely, but perhaps in some way they fall in love with each other. They love each other because of the bond they share.

We all love based on experience. We love because we are taught to love. We love because we share life together. We love because we feel bond to other by commonalities. Christians historically call one another brother and sister because we acknowledge that we share the same Father. St. Francis took this to an extreme by calling all of creation by familial terminology, for no where in creation can you find a being created by God who is not our mutual Father Creator. Even the Lord Himself, bond not only in His choosing to be incarnated as the Christ, also chose to create man "In His image." We also share that bond with God.


A recent Scientific American article gives me further physical evidence that it is by our rite-of-binding one another together that bridges us to love. The article talks of experiments and studies that suggest that we have 'concept neurons' devoted to specific memories, specific things, and specific people. In one of the experiments an assortment of pictures of Jennifer Aniston are shown to a testee that is familiar with the actress. No matter what the photo: swimming, posing, twenty years old, whatever --- whatever the case, a core bundle of neurons fired off in recognition. The idea then is translated as this: our friends, our family, anyone who makes an impression on our lives, literally change who we are.

Little Platonic Ideals of everyone we ever remember are running around in our brains. We each are imprinted by one another. That kinda strikes me as a heap of obligation. Every impression I make, every friendship form, every love pursued -- those actions of mine are subtly molding the physical make-up of another person. Yikes!


Perhaps this help explains why death is so painful for those left behind. You see, when someone we know dies, well, then physically, a little part of ourselves is physically dying as well. Likewise, those neurons of that dead now are altered as well. It's probably then literally true to say that parts of us die too when our loved ones die.

What I fail at most in life, I reckon, is not any one little sin like lying or lusting. Sins of that ilk are of course crude and insidious in their own light, but honestly, I think more often then not they are merely signals of the larger sin.
"Teacher, what is the greatest commandment in the Law?"

Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”**
Too often I love myself more than my God, and more than my neighbor. These are my arch sins.

Sometimes I think that writing a blog is a bad thing. Sometimes I think that maybe it's a by-way for self-worship. Sometimes I think. 


I also think about this idea of 'collective experience'. Movies are very much separated from books because of this collectivity. Books generally are experienced by individuals, but movies! Nay, they can be experienced simultaneously by hundreds -- millions if you count television and the like. Yes, my reflections on art, film, and life in general can be an exercise (and from time-to-time undoubtedly will be) in futile self-absorption, but it is also a concerted effort to find those things that bind us together. My exercise of bloggingness helps me digest that with which my eyes have already inhaled, with the aspiration that through consideration something tangible can come forth, a thought, moment, or insight that can harness what I've experienced and make it something that can be used to build bridges between my conscious thoughts and someone else's. Hopefully, that bridge is formed through conversation in real-time (!!!), but if it also happens here online, then the benefit is amplified. 

Dear Reader(s), 
I pray that the words you read here connect you and I in such a way that we are bonded by thought, and that this bond strengthens us collectively to further love our neighbors and love our God. May your words, deeds and thoughts be lifted up for the same cause. Amen***

Peace be the Journey,
Dante Stack

*Though it lacks the profundity and heroicism that cements Mockingbird as a forever loved classic.
**Matthew 22:36-39 NIV
***I feel a tinge of weirdness in writing all this, and am slightly concerned that my whole neuron shtick came off as some sort of mini-pantheism. For the record, I am not asserting pantheism, nor do I mean for this particular blog entry to seem uber-self-important. Good day.

Monday, November 29, 2010

Winter is Coming

This blog brought to via a slick stream-of-conscious...
Something feels right about the idea of winter. It makes more sense to me than summer (and really, all that really exists is summer and winter, everything else is just a byway to the two poles). What do I do with summer. People vacation, stay out late, start 'summer projects'; all the while the sun suddenly acts all friendly and warm and stuff...

There was a world, once, you punk.  

The problem with the changing of the seasons is this: it, by necessity, cannot be always congruous with the meta-narrative going on.


The Bible tells me of a great story arc. In that story, we are bumbling somewhere between the second and third act. In the monomyth, that is, Joseph Campbell's term for the hero's journey, there is a stage referred to as "The Belly of the Whale". This is the stage in which the protagonist enters a new world that seems quite dark, and even deadly, but it is the road in which he may emerged changed and ready to overcome his oncoming obstacles. This appears to be the stage of life that our planet is in.

Why, in my day, you could buy meat anywhere! Eggs they had, real butter! Fresh lettuce in the stores.

Christ has died for us, and God's Kingdom has begun already to take root... but I read about the endgame, and I hear that it's a pretty bloody affair.


Speaking of bloody affairs, what fun all this Wikileaks stuff is, eh? How is it possible in this day and age for a little website to suddenly get access to secret information that incriminates in some way and form nearly half of the world's civilized governments? It is astounding, i.e., I can't help but feel like this is one of those 'birth pains'.  Matthew 24:7-9,
   Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of birth pains.
   Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me. 

Anyway, the crisp air and the short days; it feels right. It feels like the world is heading towards an end. In a weird way, it feels like progress.

And if progress is what is happening, if the metanarrative is lurching ever so slowly forward, then a direct consequence is that we are all players currently on the scene, in the playbill. We are performing.

What role, then, are we performing?  

The best part of the X-Men movies is the relationship between Professor X and Magneto. They are great friends. They have mutual respect for one another. Unfortunately for their friendship, they are on opposing sides of the war. They don't shy away from this fact. They fight each other with everything they have. 

I will be prudent with my words now, and yield my tongue before I dig my own grave... it's Advent season, after all... the season of anticipation.


Last Holiday season I discovered a song entitled, "This Is War" by Dustin Kensrue. Listen Now! It's a Christmas song.

You tell everybody. Listen to me, Hatcher. You've gotta tell them!... We've gotta stop them somehow!   

Goodnight.