Check this out!

I've gotten so terrible about writing on this blog. But that's about to change. Ladies and gentlemen, if anyone is actually interested, I present Matt's Nerdy Book Blog. The site is still pretty basic, but I am already posting on it and plan to continue doing so on a much more regular basis. My goal is to write at least one post on every book I read, which means there should be one or two posts a week. See ya there!

M

Some Recent Books

I now blog when I am not bike riding, watching my daughter, cleaning, or spending my blessed one hour per night with my wife when Eleanor is asleep. Which means, hardly ever. But here goes...

Lately I've managed to read a few good one:

1. I'm almost done with Thomas Pynchon's Slow Learner. It's obvious from the intro that he doesn't think much of the work, but it's an easier introduction to one of the most difficult writers alive today. I hadn't read a book of short stories for a while, so that's nice as well.

2. Last week I finished Sarah Vowell's Assasination Vacation. Great book, especially if you feel a little pathetic when it comes to knowing your U.S. history. Interestingly, Vowell spends the last few pages talking about faith, which has nothing to do with the rest of the book. I found this in Omnivores Dilemma as well; these strange endings having to do with God even thought the rest of the book is on a subject that is seemingly unrelated. I would love to blog about this, but probably won't have the time. Anyways, it was a fun, good book.

3. David Sedaris' new one, When You are Engulfed in Flames is fun, but definitely not his best book.

4. Falling Man by Don Delillo is brilliant. I'd been meaning to start reading his work, and happened upon this one as an intro. He is a genius, and it is a painful look into one family in the wake of 9/11.

5. I read Starlight and Storm by Gaston Rebuffat. It was fun, even though I am definitely not a mountain climber.

6. I am nearly done with Edward Abbey's Desert Solitaire. What a wonderful book! I don't know why I'd never heard of it sooner...

7. Oh yeah, I also read Silences by Tillie Olson, and A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf. They were both important books for their time, but not so fascinating to me to read now. But still, I don't regret looking into them.

Okay, I think that's it. Talk to you sometime in the far-off or near future.

Peace,
Matt

Oh yeah...

...I forgot to blog for a few weeks. Oops.

The truth is that I am beginning to rethink how and why I blog. I was thinking of erasing it all together, but instead I might start to transform it. Okay, the reality is that it has slowly been changing for over a year anyways. I guess it just changes as I change.

Anywho, the content of this blog was originally 90% theology/church and 10% on life and books. Basically, I think I will be flipping these statistics around starting now. It's funny, but now that I am done working in a church I just don't care about a lot of the things I cared about at the time. I don't want to argue or gripe or feel let down about any of that any more. I want to focus on what is good and beautiful and true, so I'm going to spend a lot less time talking about the church (yes, that statement was meant to be provocative) and more time talking about life and books.

LIFE: I just finished week three of landscaping. It is hard work. Some days it's a lot of fun. Other days it makes me grumpy. But every day I go home feeling like I have accomplished something. And, to sound archaic, I feel like a man. It is refreshing to do manual labor rather than sit in an office all day staring at a computer. Nobody at work knows I have a masters degree either, which is especially fun to keep under my hat. I spend my days thinking about a variety of things, though two recurring themes are stewardship (I wonder if well manicured lawns are what Genesis was referring to...) and Karl Marx and the absurdity of class distinctions (working hard to take care of rich people's stuff, while they lay out in the sun and look at the ocean...I shouldn't have read Nickle and Dimed right before I started this job).

Being a dad keeps my non-work hours especially busy. I come home from work and parent for most of the evening until Eleanor goes down. After she's asleep we clean up the house a bit, and on a good night I may get a full hour with Effie before bed. I don't read as much anymore, or watch as many movies, and rarely call people back, but it is a blast. Parenting is amazing. I regret not starting earlier.

I've been riding my bike to work at least four days a week (25 miles round trip). Plus, I go on long rides every Saturday morning. Last Saturday I did the three steepest hills I know in Bellingham. By the third, my legs were shaking so bad I couldn't go any further. But I need to keep pushing, because I only have two months until the Baker Hill Climb. I just found out they planned it to have 10,000 feet of elevation gain. Which translates into: much suckiness. I can't wait.

BOOKS: I recently read The War of Don Emmanuel's Nether Parts by Louis De Bernieres. He also wrote Corelli's Mandolin and is one of the best storytellers alive today. I think I might even put him in my top five favorite all-time writers. This story is amazing and tells the truth about South America in a completely fictional narrative. If you want to know what that means, read the book and be blow away.

Currently I am almost half through The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. It is fabulous, especially for a former comic book enthusiast like myself (yes, I just admitted that I like to read comics). This is, quite frankly, a GOOD book. What more can I say?

Also, I am making my way through David Sedaris' new one, When You are Engulfed in Flames. Of course it's great; it's Sedaris! And lastly, I just started The Omnivore's Dilemma. I'm only 10 pages in, and it's already been quite thought-provoking.

That's it for now. I'll try to put something up again a little quicker than my current blogging rate.

Peace,
Matt

Matt News

Okay, so I haven't really been posting much lately. The truth is that I've been job hunting, fathering, and not really putting much thought into anything else. But tonight while I have a few minutes, I'll share what's new with me:

• I got a job. It starts next Tuesday. The only issue: it's landscaping and I have a back that likes to go out. This should be interesting.
• Sunday will be my first father's day. Cool.
• I wrote another article for the silhouette page, and it should be up by tomorrow.
• I signed-up for the Mt Baker Hill Climb (Ride 542). It is a brutal hundred mile bike ride and I am pumped! I'm going to climb some hills outside of Yakima on Saturday to help me train.
• I traded-in some books and got a stack of sweet used ones last week. I'll fill you in as I read them.
• Yesterday I almost had a fateful meeting with Bill Lincoln, who founded and runs CRI. It didn't work out and we are now rescheduling, but I tell you: Google search CRI and see for yourself how cool this guy is.

That's the news from me. I'll try to blog something worthwhile soon.

Peace,

Matt

Kim and Kipling

The other day I randomly picked up Rudyard's Kiplings somewhat famous book Kim. First of all, my copy happens to be an amazing hardback from 1901, with some beautiful artwork included within it and a very extraordinary cover. I bought it at a book sale for 25 cents a few years ago.

The story, at least 100 pages in, is about a young Indian boy named Kim who decides to join a Tibetan monk/yogi who is traveling through India on a pilgrimage of sorts. I am really, truly enjoying the story. Beyond the story itself, here are some of the things I have been thinking about as I read:

1. Kipling doesn't seem as racist as I had been told he was through the years. In fact, he seems far ahead of his time. There have hardly been any white characters at all!
2. It's so cool to see somebody writing about Tibetans at a time when few had heard or likely even cared about Tibet. There were no Brad Pitt movies about it yet, or Free Tibet stickers on the backs of cars. I can't help but think somebody like Kipling did a lot to open the eyes of people in the West to how vast our world really is.
3. There is an amazing sort of plurality in Kipling's India. Muslims and Hindus worship at the same shrines, and everybody is anxious to learn from a Tibetan holy man; especially the religious leaders! I'm fascinated by this, especially knowing how tensions have been high there for a number of years where divisions lie along religious grounds.
4. Last night an old friend was telling me how they are planning to go to India on a religious pilgrimage of sorts and it made me think of The Brothers K and The Darjeeling Limited, both of which bring up a lot of questions about spiritual seeking in India. I wonder if this book will do the same? I wonder what my friend will discover? I wonder what the Beatles really discovered when they went there?

I'll try to let you know what I think of the book when I finish... Maybe I'll read all the Mowgli stories afterwards.

Peace,
Matt

Martinson Church Tour '08 (2)

Last Sunday I finally bit the bullet and went to a Mennonite church service. Why am I saying "bit the bullet," you ask? I say that because I was very nervous that I would get together with my fellow Mennonites and discover that although I agree with them theologically, I feel weird or awkward around them. In a word, I was afraid of being let down.

Effie, Eleanor and I somehow managed to make it on time to Birch Bay Bible Church on Sunday for their one service. There were a lot of elderly people, but here's the thing: it actually had a fairly impressive mixture of young and old! Aaaaaaaand, the first thing they did was recognize a member of their congregation who was moving. She was not a pastor, elder or whatever, just a member of the family who apparently was worthwhile enough to stop the all-important Sunday service and recognize for who she was... What that told me: this church truly cares more about the people than the show.

The music, powerpoint and message were not as well produced as what I am used to, and I was thankful. The pastor who shared hit it on the head in his sermon: their priority is on following Christ, not entertaining themselves. Amen.

I really don't know if we'll find ourselves back there again, but either way I'm glad we checked-out our first Mennonite church. Who knows what next Sunday may hold...

Peace,
Matt

New Article By Me

I posted a new article on the silhouette website. Check it out.

Peace,
Matt

Odd Jobs

Being unemployed for more than two weeks now, I have started actually doing some bits of random work for friends. Last weekend I hosted at The Little Cheerful, an awesome little breakfast place in downtown B'ham, for one day. Today I sanded wood floors for my friend Colin, and am helping finish up tomorrow. I gotta say, I really enjoy this kind of living. These bits of work are a blast, and dare I say it, actual fun work! Too bad it probably won't pay for a house payment/insurinance for an infant. Alas.

Still...I am unemployed and loving it!

Peace,
Matt

Martinson Church Tour '08

Last Sunday Effie and I began our Church Tour '08. I decided just now (without consulting her first) that we needed to call it a tour, so it felt like we were cool rock stars rather than nerdy Christians. Anyways, for two Sundays in a row we have gone to church services in places that are not "our home church" as people would say, and it has been an thought-provoking experience already. Here's what I am discovering so far:

• I love getting up in front of people and talking, but am annoyed when I have to listen to somebody else do it. What kind of messed-up stuff does this say about me? Honestly, I just want to push back a little when other people are talking, to ask questions, throw in my two cents, disagree, or whatever. But when I'm stuck in a seat as a listener, I get frustrated. Worst of all is that this is partly for my own learning, and partly me and my ego wanting attention. Sad, huh?
• I am realizing that there is probably no church group that I agree with 100% theologically. Does this say something bad about me? About them? Or am I supposed to pull something else entirely from all of this? Or do theological opinions really even matter that much?
• I like being anonymous. I slip in, talk to a few friends, and slip out, without having any responsibility or conversations with people who corner me and want to talk about nothing for 20 minutes. This is a horrible thing to say, but I'm being honest at least.
• I really have no clue what the point of a Sunday gathering is! I am not bashing it, or even disagreeing with it, but honestly I am just kind of at a loss on the whole subject. I've heard the arguments (have taught them a million times), but am still a bit confused on all of this stuff.

I'll try to start giving weekly Church Tour updates, but no promises. And no, I will not be giving some sort of church review like somebody does for restraunts or movies. That is just wrong. This is more for me to explore my own experience and shifting views of Church as I visit different expressions of the Church throughout Whatcom County.

Oh, and PS, today I visited Ron's church (aka, the Brown Kid) and had some fun talking with him and a few other old friends. And last week we went to Oikos church, which was pretty cool, but is also an Acts 29 church, so I have a feeling I will not be calling it home.

Peace,
Matt

Current and Recent Reads

Although I have been trying to be more consistent with this blog over the course of the past few months, I realize that my posts can be somewhat sporadic. Although I now have more time on my hands (view last post if you don't know what I'm talking about), I will say as an excuse that my wife and I still live in the mid-90's, in other words...we use dial-up internet. Which keeps me off the "information superhighway" most days. But I do get on and do one thing all the time: I update the Current and Recent Reads section of this blog.

The CARR is meant to show you what is influencing me currently, to alert loyal blog readers/lurkers (you know who you are!) to books that they might find interesting, and maybe even to generate some discussion. Also, being the total spaz I am, it is there to give a shout-out (told you I'm stuck in the 90's) to some great titles and authors. Lastly, you might notice that there are always at least four books on the list. That's how I read. I love overlapping books and seeing the random interconnections between them. That is also why I read a wide variety of books.

Currently I am slowly moving through Prayer by Han Urs Von Balthasar. It is a profound work of spiritual contemplation by one the biggest Catholic theologians of the twentieth century. Eugene Peterson and Scot McKnight mentioned it at different points in their works, so I figured it was worth a read.

At the same time I continue to slowly press through Gerhard Von Rad's Old Testament Theology. I became interested in this work after realizing how often Walter Brueggemann cited it. It has been intense, but worth the effort (though it will ultimately only cause me to sound even more heretical when pushed on my view of scripture).

I am also reading Martin Heidegger's Introduction to Metaphysics. I found this book cheap and used, and nabbed it right away. I first read Heidegger in a class I took from Carl Raschke, and realized that I needed to know Heidegger if I was ever going to understand post-modern thinkers. I started into this book as my last Heidegger title before I get into his major work, Being and Time. Yes, I know he was a Nazi. I'm not saying I like the guy, just that I am trying to gain some understanding of what he was saying.

In my spare moments I am also working through Indian Killer, one of Sherman Alexie's least impressive books, but still a worthwhile read. As always, I would say that every PNW resident should read at least one Alexie book. He has shook my world and my understanding of the compexity of dealing with the Other.

Welcome to the Desert of the Real is the first Slavoj Zizek work I have read. I am half-way through and I am amazed by it and very interesting in Zizek's work. Great...another person to read...

Deadeye Dick...is one of two Kurt Vonnegut books I checked-out from the local library. Vonnegut is quite possibly the best author from the second half of the twentieth century. I am working on reading everything he ever wrote. I honestly suggest you being doing the same.

Peace,
Matt

Unemployment

Today is day three of being without a job. The most commonly heard phrase in my house during those past three days: "this is great...we should never work again." I have gone for a long bike ride every day, went for long walks around Bellingham, watched two movies (including Juno, finally, which lived-up to it's praise), read, spent time with my wife and daughter, spent time with friends, rode my skateboard, taken both cars in for long overdue work, and did some bicycle repair as well. I feel as if I let go of the world and regained my soul. It is marvelous. Honestly I am tempted to get a part-time job, sell my house, and choose a life of freedom over work. It is great!

Peace,
Matt

Last Day

Yes, today is officially my last day of work. It is weird. I am trying to finish cleaning out my office, write a truly inspiring final message, and somehow process the strange reality that the last decade of my life is coming to a very definite close, with no idea of what is next. Wow.

Peace,
Matt

Very Little, Very Late

The theological implications of the two cartoons above may or may not be implying something from this blogger...
.
In a typically *brilliant* move, W has proposed voluntary emission cuts by big businesses within the next 20 years as the way to really put a stop to global warming. Big business volunteering to do something for the rest of the world. Hmm. I'm sure they'll be all over that, since they are our friends and protectors. Sarcasm never comes out as well on a blog... To be fair, I am tainted, as I have always been anything but a fan of this particular person. In fact, he represents some of the worst things I see in everyday life. Nevertheless, vague goals about some far-off goal are not even worth bringing up in the first place. This is the political version of cheap grace, trying to promote change without sacrifice. Why is it that nobody in our nation wants to sacrifice a darn thing? Why is it that we continue to live within this reality and pretend that it doesn't matter how horrific our decisions and lifestyles really are for future generations? Will somebody please let my daughter know that I tried really hard to fight against the ignorant stupidity of this generation for her sake?
.
Peace,
Matt
.
P.S. - If there are any of those Christians reading this who think global warming is an Al Gore conspiracy, could you do me a favor and please not even bother leaving a comment? Thanks.

Voltaire Quote

"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities."
-Voltaire

Book Review: The Writing Life

I've been meaning to write this for over a week, but life has been extremely hectic (week long mission trip, quitting my job, and planning a massive 30th birthday extravaganza, among other things). But without further ado, I give you...another book review.

.

The Writing Life is typical Dillard. How so? Every line is a gem, but not in an easily definable, cliched way. She does not reduce life's complexity into naive, simplistic answers, and the same can be said for her description of the writing life in particular. The truth is, I am writing this review not because I want to review the book, but so I can convince you to literally read every single book Annie Dillard has ever written. If I had to read only one person's writings for my entire life, it would be hers. She is that good. If you have not read her already, you need to leave your computer right now and buy or check-out one of her books right now. If you have already read her, you know what I'm talking about.

.

Here's a couple of my favorite parts of this offering:

.

How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour, and that one, is what we are doing... There is no shortage of good days. It is good lives that are hard to come by. A life of good days lived in the senses is not enough. The life of sensation is the life of greed; it requires more and more. The life of the spirit requires less and less; time is ample and its passage sweet. Who would call a day spent reading a good day? But a life spent reading - that is a good life.

.

Why are we reading, if not in hope of beauty laid bare, life heightened and its deepest mystery probed? Can the writer isolate and vivify all in experience that most deeply engages our intellects and our hearts? Can the writer renew our hope for literary forms? Why are we reading if not in hope that the writer will magnify and dramatize our days, will illuminate and inspire us with wisdom, courage, and the possibility of meaningfulness, and will press upon our minds the deepest mysteries, so we may feel again their majesty and power? What do we ever know that is higher than that power which, from time to time, seizes our lives, and reveals us startlingly to ourselves as creatures set down here bewildered? Why does death catch us so by surprise, and why love? We still and always want waking. We should amass half dressed in long lines like tribesmen and shake gourds at each other, to wake up; instead we watch television and miss the show... And if we are reading for these things, why would anyone read books with advertising slogans and brand names in them? Why would anyone write such books? Commercial intrusion has overrun and crushed, like the last glaciation, a humane landscape. The new landscape and its climate put metaphysics on the run.

.

Peace,

Matt

Book Review: A New Earth

Somebody I know recently loaned me this book and asked me to read it and tell them what I think. So I did. And it turned out to be a very interesting experience that told me more about myself than I expected it to. Here's my thoughts:

.

A New Earth is Eckhart Tolle's follow-up to his book The Power of Now. The book has gotten a lot of press and is selling like crazy, thanks in large part to the power of the Oprah cult. But regardless of the how's, this is a book that has to be discussed and understood, because people all over our country are reading it, and I'm sure this includes a fair amount of church attenders.

.

A main focus of the book is the ego, and our self-obsession. So far so good. Much of the book focuses on this and for that I am thankful. Tolle is right that we, especially Westerners, are far too self-centered, if not self-obsessed. With a consistent mixture of misinterpretations of both Buddha and Jesus, Tolle tells his reader to let go of self, selfhood, etc. But this is the limit to the letting go for Tolle.

.

For Jesus, letting go of self was for the sake of grabbing hold of God and caring for our neighbor. For Tolle, letting go is for the self. In other words, it is still all about oneself and one's spiritual awakening. Tolle's premise is that if everybody does this, the world will be a better place, mankind will reach a new stage in its evolution, and we will enter into a new earth. Sounds nice.

.

So the big problems are these:

.

1. This is Platonic spirituality, where the forms rule and disembodied spirituality rules over here-and-now, Eugene Peterson types of spirituality. It is pie-in-the-sky, mixing religions, spirituality with no take home and no challenge for real selflessness that causes sacrifice in the here and now. In other words, it has to do with feeling good on the inside without having to neccesarily give up our possessions or our live for our God. It is gnosticism or zen, both of which Tolle even claims are the correct forms of Christianity and Buddhism, whereas the other ways are the results of people who "got it wrong."

.

2. This also screams out Nietzsche and his Darwin-inspired notion of the superman. I am no Nietzsche scholar, so I always tread lightly in this area, but the correlations seemed all too obvious. The letting go or twisting of old forms of morality and religion to make way for a highly evolved sort of person who looks a lot like the author. It is self-centered to the highest degree and causes us to see our selves as the highest thing to aspire to in this world.

.

3. This is a short-cut religion. That is always the most disturbing thing to me. Whereas real spirituality is slow, quiet, often taking a lifetime, this is basically your five steps to enlightenment (or 1-2-3 sanctification if you like). A person taking this book seriously could come to the end and declare themselves officially enlightened. But they are not. Not in any true sense. I'm sorry, but to be blunt, Oprah is not walking around showing-up the Buddha, Jesus and the Dalai Lama in the department of wisdom and sage-like abilities. Nor is Tolle or any of the Oprah-cult members of our sad nation. Why do we treat religion like we treat our food? Why do we want it our way, right away, without realizing the violence we do to our own faith traditions in the process?

.

4. Like I said earlier, this is disembodied spirituality. This is the return of Platonism and its surreal mix with Christianity (not to mention Buddhism). Honestly, what I would love to see at this point is Eugene Peterson writing a short, concise book that brings people into a here-and-now faith that is more faithful to the teachings of Christ. I guess I will just keep my fingers crossed and continue hoping that "the universe will open that path up."

.

Peace,

Matt

Matt 3.0

[Imagine The Final Countdown playing right now, with Gob Bluth moonwalking across your computer screen...]

Yes folks, this is my last week working as a youth pastor. Do I have a job lined up for after this week? No. Am I concerned about that? Only occassionally. Am I excited? Yes. Am I sad to be leaving my students? Most definitely.

My plan is this... I am taking 10 whole days off to do whatever I want. I will spend time with my wife and daughter. I will go hiking and cycling. I will read and write. I will pray. I will sleep. I will (hopefully) recover from years of being mega-churched (yes I made a noun into a verb, be impressed).

For the future, I am looking into a job running heavy machinery, which is what I used to do. Honestly, it sounds a lot more rewarding to me right now than working in a church for one more day. Also, my wife and I are looking into the possibility of me going back to school for another Master's degree, this time in English Lit. So just so you know, it is a possibility. But of course, only a fool counts on any of his own plans. I will explore options, take some leaps, and try to trust God with Matt 3.0 (as in, I'm turning 30 and leaving a career on the same day, so I am moving into a new, different life).

But for now I have to try to finish strong. I'll tell you, it is a strange feeling to be leaving. I am trying to tie up loose ends, set volunteers up for success, meet with people one last time and clean out my office. It's a lot! But it is good. Bring on that third decade, I ain't scared!

Peace,
Matt

Book Review: The Corrections

I am new to Jonathan Franzen, having unfortunately not yet read any of his other books. But I will say that The Corrections was an amazing introduction to a new-found favorite author! It is in these pages that Franzen tells the story of the Lambert family, but also the story of modern-day America in so many ways. Franzen deals both seriously and satirically with such issues as sexuality and repression, self-diagnosis and treatment of mental illness, hands-off parenting, and the continual issue of old-world ideals and modern morality. Oh, and there is also my favorite part, where American greed and pathetic understanding of third-world countries is put on display.

.

I will just say up-front that I loved this book. I love the way Franzen tells a story, going back and forth through time and characters in a way that brings both to life, similar to David James Duncan's The Brothers K. Also, I love satire, though I am always reminded that most people don't understand satire when it is aimed at them, unless it is even more blatant that Franzen's. Regardless, the mirror he holds up for us to look at is stupendous and timely. At the same time, it was sometimes hard for me to look at the satire in this book, as it adversely effected characters whom I had grown to love despite their perverse and selfish lives.

.

All I can say to finish this up is that this is a great book to read for understanding modern-day America, as well as for just getting into a great piece of fiction. Read it and enjoy it!

.

Peace,

Matt

Gone for the Week

I am at a camp with my high schoolers this week. There is a chance that I'll get to see my site a couple of times, and a very small chance that I will update it, but most likely I will continue some form of silence for at least 5 more days. This ought to be a fun, but veryveryvery long week.

Peace,
Matt

It's Official

Last night I stood up in front of my students and leaders and let them know that I will be done being a youth pastor on April 20th. It was extremely difficult to say, and the shocked looks didn't help either. But it also felt good to get it out there.

Please be praying for me. I spent my whole adult life wanting to be a youth pastor, but now that I realize it's not where I belong, or even want to be, it leaves me kinda hanging.

Peace,
Matt

My Roubaix

Above is a picture of the Specialized Roubaix, the bicycle I now ride. I know this will interest few if any of my blog readers, but it's my blog and I'm excited, so I'm telling you about it!
.
The Roubaix gets its name from the French town of Roubaix, located in the North of the country. More specifically though, it gets its name, as well as its reason for being created, from the Paris-Roubaix race, also known as The Hell of the North. This is a race over cobblestones that break bones, puncture tires, and make even the best racers throw in the towel. This bike helps by eliminating a lot of shock from the road. And its light, fast, and freakin' awesome. I went on my maiden outing with it today, riding 25 miles to Birch Bay in near-freezing rain and it was tremendous! I have never rode a bike that was even half as good as this one. I went up hills as if they weren't even there. I went so fast down some larger hills that I was actually frightened (especially when I started catching up with traffic)! All I can say is that I have never been into having the best stuff, but am learning that quality really does make a difference. Not to sound totally materialistic, but I love it. This is a great bike!

.

On a side note, I will say that I got this bike from my mom. It was my dad's. I had a series of weird feelings taking it, but now, when I ride it, I just think of him constantly and it feels good. I feel like we can share this connection and it is awesome.

.

Peace,

Matt

Book Review: Disturbing the Peace

I recently finished devouring Disturbing the Peace, a book that is really an extended interview with Vaclav Havel. If you don't know who Havel is, read the wikipedia link that goes with his name, or else you will never believe how incredible he really is. An artist turned president is slightly uncommon in any age, yet that is exactly who we are talking about. I first ran into him reading The Truth about the Truth, but knew I needed more. Fortunately this book happened to make an appearance at the local Goodwill and I snatched it up. I've decided it is too brilliant to have me actually review it, and instead am going to share my favorite quotes. Do yourself a favor and read all of them:

.

The period you grow up in and mature in always influences your thinking. This in itself requires no self-criticism. What is more important is how you have allowed yourself to be influenced, whether by good or by evil. (8)
.
I’m a writer, and I’ve always understood y mission to be to speak the truth about the world I live in, to bear witness to its terrors and its miseries – in other words, to warn rather than hand out prescriptions for change. (8)
.
I too feel that somewhere here there is a basic tension out of which the present global crisis has grown. At the same time, I’m persuaded that this conflict – and the increasingly hypertrophic impersonal power itself – is directly related to the spiritual condition of modern civilization. This condition is characterized by loss: the loss of metaphysical certainties, of an experience of the transcendental, of any superpersonal moral authority, and of any kind of higher horizon. It is strange but ultimately quite logical: as soon as man began considering himself the source of the highest meaning in the world and the measure of everything, the world began to lose its human dimension, and man began to lose control of it

.
We are going through a great departure from God which has no parallel in history. As far as I know, we are living in the middle of the first atheistic civilization… [M]odern man, who is convinced he can know everything and bring everything under his control, is somewhere in the background of the present crisis. It seems to me that if the world is to change for the better it must start with a change in human consciousness, in the very humanness of modern man.
Man must in some way come to his senses. He must extricate himself from this terrible involvement in both the obvious and the hidden mechanisms of totality, from consumption to repression, from advertising to manipulation through television. He must rebel against his role as a helpless cog in the gigantic and enormous machinery hurtling God knows where. He must discover again, within himself, a deeper sense of responsibility toward the world, which means responsibility toward something higher than himself. (10-11)
.
The most important thing is that man should be the measure of all structures, including economic structures, and not that man be made to measure for those structures. The most important thing is not to lose sight of personal relationships – i.e., the relationships between man and his co-workers, between subordinates and their superiors, between man and his work, between this work and its consequences, and so on. (13)
.
[Answering the question: What exactly is absurd theatre? How would you define it?]
[I]t demonstrates modern humanity in a “state of crisis,” as it were. That is, it shows man having lost his fundamental metaphysical certainty, the experience of the absolute, his relationship to eternity, the sensation of meaning – in other words, having lost the ground under his feet. This is a man for whom everything is coming apart, whose world is collapsing, who senses that he has irrevocably lost something but is unable to admit this to himself and therefore hides from it. (53)

.
A play is bound, to a far greater extent, to the “here” and a “now.” It is always born out of a particular social and spiritual climate, and it is directed at that climate. (68)
.
The abyss between life and the system grew deeper. (94)
.
They [the bureaucrats] wanted reform, but only within the limits of their limited imaginations. (95)
.
[S]ociety is a very mysterious animal with many hidden faces and hidden potentialities, and…it’s exremely short-sighted to believe that the face society happens to be presenting to you at a given moment is its only true face. None of us know the potentialities that slumber in the spirit of the population, or all the ways in which that population can surprise us when there is the right interplay of events, both visible and invisible…one must be careful about coming to any conclusions about the way we are, or what can be expected of us. (109)
.
[A] purely moral act that has no hope of any immediate and visible political effect can gradually and indirectly, over time, gain in political significance. (115)
.
Here [a series of unjust arrests] power had unintentionally revealed its own most proper intention: to make life entirely the same, to surgically remove from it everything that was even slightly different, everything that was highly individual, everything that stood out, that was independent and unclassifiable. (129)
.
By the “self-momentum” of a power or a system I mean the blind, unconscious, irresponsible, uncontrollable, and unchecked momentum that is no longer the work of people, but which drags people along with it and therefore manipulates them. It’s obvious that this self-momentum is in fact the momentum of the impersonal power that Belohradsky talks about. (166)
.
Either we have hope within us or we don’t; it is a dimension of the soul, and it’s not essentially dependent on some particular observation of the world or estimate of the situation. Hope is not prognostication. It is an orientation of the spirit, an orientation of the heart; it transcends the world that is immediately exerienced, and is anchored somewhere beyond its horizons…Hope is definitely not the same thing as optimism. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out. In short, I think that the deepest and most important form of hope, the only one that can keep us above water and urge us to good works, and the only true source of the breathtaking dimension of the human spirit and its efforts, is something we get, as it were, from “elsewhere.” It is also this hope, above all, which gives us the strength to live and continually to try new things, even in conditions that seem as hopeless as our do, here and now. (181-182)
.
Every work of art points somewhere beyond itself; it transcends itself and its author; it creates a specific force field around itself that moves the human mind and the human nervous system in a way that its author could scarcely have planned ahead of time. (198)
.
Our [playwrites] mission is to warn, to predict horrors, to see clearly what is evil. Face to face with a distillation of evil, man might well recognize what is good. By showing good on the stage, we ultimately rob him of the possibility of making such a recognition himself – as his own existential act. (199)

Peace,

Matt

Prince of Peace II(a): Jesus' Teachings

To understand Jesus, I want to take the two-track approach and look at his teachings, then examine his life and how he lived-out what he taught. I have no idea how many posts it will take to move through his teachings, which is why I have included an (a) to the title of this post. Let’s see where this takes us…
'
The first teaching from Jesus I would like to examine is his command to love our enemies. We find him saying this in Matthew 5:44 as well Luke 6:27 (the Sermon on the Mount and the Sermon on the Plain, respectively). Simply put, to understand this we need to seek some idea of what Jesus means by love and what he means by enemies. Both of these seem like silly notions, like revisiting the lessons one might have heard in Sunday school. Yet I think the results of such a project are potentially mind-blowing, so will shamelessly move forward with my study.
'
First of all, let’s look at love as Jesus might have understood it. The word for love in both passages is the Greek word agape, a word used in countless sermons and focused on by such great teachers as C.S. Lewis or even Martin Luther King Jr. To this day it is a word with power and emotion behind it, and here we find it in the Sermon on the Mount/Plain. Dallas Willard says of Matthew 5; “in this crucial passage, where the rightness of the kingdom is most fully displayed, there is a sequence of contrasts between the older teaching about what the good person would do – for example, not murder – and Jesus’ picture of the kingdom heart. That heart would live with full tenderness toward everyone it deals with. This passage in Matthew 5 moves from the deepest roots of human evil, burning anger and obsessive desire, to the pinnacle of human fulfillment in agape, or divine love. In this way the entire edifice of human corruption is undermined by eliminating its foundations in human personality” (The Divine Conspiracy, 137). Willard describes the love we are called to have for our enemies as divine love!
'
The love we are called upon to have for our enemies is a divine love, a love that comes from God and was displayed by God in the flesh. After all, it was agape love that caused God to send his son to earth (John 3:16), and the Bible tells us that we know what love is because Jesus gave his life for his enemies (1 John 3:16). So we know that this love is the same kind of love God showed us, people who deserve death but were instead given life.
'
As for enemies, the word Jesus uses is echthros, a Greek word for an enemy, hostile neighbors or individuals, the hated or hateful, those who hate or oppose God, or even the devil himself (see Luke 10:19 or Acts 13:10, for example)! This is not a gentle word. This is not describing the person who cuts you off in the parking lot or gossips behind your back. We are looking at a word that describes the people we fear the most, those who wish to take our lives or even destroy our very souls! This is the other at his/her worst, the epitome of all that is evil and bad and wrong in your world. Jesus says this is the person you must love with a divine love.
'
I do believe that this is a love that can only come from God, that we cannot love our enemies without the Holy Spirit moving in our hearts and transforming us into the likeness of Christ. It is divine love in this respect most of all: that is must come from God because we are incapable of loving in this way on our own. Yet it is what we must do. We must love our enemies in the way God loves, which involves giving our own life rather than taking theirs. But we’ll get to that later. For now, take some time to think on these things and meditate on the pictures below, which came from here.

Peace,
Matt

BTW, Silhouette is Back

How do you like my trendy use of btw? Pretty hip, right?

Seriously though, Silhouette is back in action and I totally forgot to mention it. Silhouette is a site my friend Justin put together where a group of folks could share essays, stories, artwork, poetry, etc and get feedback. Also, he submits them to different websites, which is how I've gotten put into Bohemian Alien and Relevant, as I am too much of a wuss to ever try to publish something on my own. But check out the site and read a little. This month I stepped out from my usual form (essays) and wrote my first short story. I'm no Flannery O'Connor, but I'm practicing.

Peace,
Matt

Prince of Peace I: Jesus Binoculars

I have been delaying the writing of these posts as I tried to systematize my thoughts before spewing them out. Unfortunately I’m not sure I am up to it still, but am going to attempt it anyways. For who knows how long, with an unknown amount of posts and words and hopefully many generous exchanges with you, I am going to share why I believe in nonviolence and why I believe this is the only course of action for anybody who wants to follow Jesus.

The first premise I would lay out for this discussion is that a follower of Jesus has to begin their understanding of following Jesus by listening to Jesus first. This sounds obvious, if not absurd, but regardless it is necessary to say. This means we read and interpret Paul, Revelation, the prophets, Moses, the taking of the Promised Land, exile, etc, through the lens of Jesus and his revelation of the Father.

The way I can best describe why this is important is to liken our Biblical hermeneutics to binoculars. Growing up I loved to play with my dad’s binoculars. It was fun to spy on my brothers or try to spot animals from great distances away. It was even more fun to turn them around and make things feel smaller and further away.

What I see in the church far too often is a spinning of the binoculars. We interpret Jesus through the Old Testament and Paul, shrinking Jesus in the process. If we try to disregard something Jesus says or does in the New Testament by saying “but the in the Old Testament…” we are forgetting that Jesus has fulfilled and expanded the Law. That is why he came teaching “You have heard it said…but I tell you…” The same goes with Paul (or any other NT writer for that matter), who was interpreting Jesus’ teachings for specific situations, but was nonetheless trying to follow Jesus.

If we flip our hermeneutical binocular, starting with Jesus, the Old Testament comes into focus, the epistles of the New Testament are read with more understanding, etc. What I am saying is that we have to start with Jesus not just with lip-service, but truly interpret who God is and what the Bible teaches through Jesus. If we cannot start with this common assumption, I cannot move on.

Agree? Disagree?

Peace,
Matt

Books, Books, Books!

Yesterday morning I met Wayne for coffee in downtown Bellingham (thanks for meeting up Wayne!). Walking to my car I passed a local used book store and decided to dig through their free book boxes out front. Usually I can find a book or two I like on a good day. Instead, I discovered that they had decided to dump piles of amazing books! I left with a good 20 to 30 books! Here are some of the titles I picked-up that I can remember right now:

The Last Temptation of Christ by Nikos Kazantakis
The Imitation of Christ by Thomas A'Kempis
Principles of Sacred Theology by Abraham Kuyper
Basic Writings of Jonathan Edwards
Listening to Your Life by Frederick Buechner
Christianity through the Centuries by Cairns
Velvet Elvis by Rob Bell (already own, giving away as a gift)
The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene (already own, giving away)
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
The Best Known works of Flaubert
A Preface to Paradise Lost by C.S. Lewis
For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemmingway
The Chosen by Chaim Potok
Selected Poems of Robert Browning
The Aeneid by Virgil
A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking
China's Cultural Revolution: not a dinner party
White Man, Listen! by Richard Wright
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
The House of Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne

There were more, but my memory is not that swell. That my friends is what I call a productive morning!

Peace,
Matt

Really?

Apparently Seattle is one of the greenest cities in the U.S. That's cool, and gives me some pride in the area in which I live, but I have to ask; really? I mean, there are some people working hard and doing some cool stuff for the environment here in the northwest, but whenever I drive south I avoid Seattle because the traffic is so bad. And if traffic is bad, that means emissions are not pretty. Which means, if a gridlocked city like Seattle is #3 on the list, how bad are the other cities in the US? Ouch.

Just a thought/question...

Peace,
Matt

What's Next?

When I first started getting involved in the church, it seemed like everybody was talking about how to reach the Gen Xers. It was all anybody seemed to be talking about in the church. There was a new "must-read" book put out daily, along with a monthly conference on how to reach Generation X people.

Funny how we don't really hear about Gen Xers anymore.

Of course, it then became the Postmoderns. It took me a bit of time before I realized I had been sucked into a marketing scheme. What finally tipped me off was when I was reading a particular book and it kept talking about what Postmoderns believe, what they want, etc, without really producing any evidence as to how these conclusions were reached. That's when I realized Postmoderns were the new Gen Xers for the church, which means the new way for twenty somethings to feel cool and trendy within the church as they talk about what their church is doing on Sunday mornings.

Lately I've noticed a decrease in the amount of Christian books being published with the word postmodern anywhere on the cover. Which is great, but feels like the calm before the storm. Right now I am wondering what is replacing postmodernism for the cool thing for churches to talk about. Do you have any ideas? Have you seen anything trend-wise going on? I don't want to be caught off-guard again and so would love your input!

Peace,
Matt

Book Review: The Willow Field

My goal for a very long time has been to review every book I read on this blog. But I have not even come close. Regardless, I still try to add one here or there, and today I happen to have some strange desire to do so with William Kittredge's The Willow Field.

.

First, a few facts that you may or may not know. I grew up reading a lot of Western books, especially Louis Lamour paperbacks. Also, as an English Lit major at Western Washington University my culminating class and thesis was on literature of the American West. I focused specifically on A.B. Guthrie Jr's The Big Sky. Since that time I have spent a lot of time with my nose in books based in the American West, especially when written by folks like Wallace Stegner, David James Duncan, Norman Maclean, Sherman Alexie, Jim Welch, or even Ken Kesey, Raymond Carver or Douglas Coupland. Although we don't seem to have the same recognition as Southern Gothic, the writers of the West have made a name for themselves and I include my name on the list of their followers.

.

The Willow Field, though Kittredge's first novel, fits right into the genre of modern Western literature. It deals openly and honestly with the violence, contradictions, and evolution of life in the West. Rossie, the story's protagonist, begins the book as a hard-headed young man out to make a living riding horses and being a good ol' fashioned cowboy. In other words, the story begins and the reader quickly falls into a panic, thinking this is going to be a cliched Western with quick-draw cowboys, hard drinking, tough talking, and big brawls. But Kittredge honors the American West. Rossie's life mirrors the times and locations in which he lives. He starts wanting to be a classic, cliched cowboy, but he matures and changes with experience and with the help of varied relationships. He becomes the classic Western sage; practical, independent, stubborn, opinionated, and displaying a strange mixture of book-knowledge and everyday wisdom. As his life progresses, he changes and grows. Some of the people around him do the same and others do not. Which is what I think this book is about: change and how to adapt and respond to it in the West. The kind of changes I am talking about have to do with outsiders coming in, the West's correspondence with the larger world, land use versus exploitation and conservation, public lands, private lands, big and small governments, race, etc. Kittredge presents these issues and more with only one or two soap box messages (having to do especially with mines, which if you've never read about mining in Montana, you should know that somebody definitely needs to get on a gigantic soap box to talk about it).

.

Here's my issue, and it really has little to do with Kittredge or The Willow Field, at least directly. Why does Western Literature always seem to be based in Montana and Wyoming? I'm a bit confused as to how places like Western Washington and Western Oregon fit into this genre, because supposedly our literature fits into this category as well. So often I read books like this and I feel forgotten, poorly represented. I wonder if we should have our own genre, maybe call it Far-Western Literature or something of that sort. Because honestly, a story like Snow Falling on Cedars or Sometimes a Great Notion speaks about this region in a much better fashion, yet seems to have little to do with books like The Willow Field. Just a thought.

.

Peace,

Matt

Two Posts in One

These two things on my mind are really quite connected, so I am making the blog version of a run-on paragraph...

First off, a friend (thanks Shauna!) was listening to a Rob Bell sermon and heard him mention Banksy. She looked him up, then convinced me to do the same. Spend at least twenty minutes on his site. Then check him out on youtube. This guy is awesome. I want to be him. But instead I'll just continue to look at his artwork and be glad.

Randomly enough, "Banksy" did a series of images on the wall put up by Israel to keep the West Bank out of sight, along with the Palestinians living there. This of course continues to prove why the nation of Israel is one of the worst in the world, and doesn't make us look good supporting it. But I digress. The fascinating thing was one particular image shown below, which is Mt Shuksan (at least I'm 90% sure it is) randomly enough, painted in Palestine.

This becomes two posts in one because the image within an image seen above is where I spent last weekend. I was up in the mountains and it was BEAUTIFUL! I was the Northern Lights for the first time in my life and all I can say is that I was reminded once again that the PNW truly is the most beautiful place in the world. End of story.

I took some teens up there on a retreat. I am thinking that sooner or later I am going to have to do some writing/thinking about what a retreat is and why we have them. But that's for another day.

Peace,

Matt

Six Months

It was six months ago today that my dad passed away. He fought so hard right up to the very end. The only person I knew who had died from cancer had finally ended up in a drug-induced coma for over a month. Dad hated taking any of the drugs and chose to fight to the end instead. And he did it.

I told Effie this morning that time just feels like a growing band-aid. It covers the wound more and more each day, but that doesn't mean it has actually healed at all. Until you see somebody go through that much crap you just can't understand how hard life can be. Seriously messed-up stuff.

Miss you dad.

War, Borders, Prisons, Torture and the Gospel

I have been trying not to rant lately, and overall have done very well, especially because I have stuck to my Lenten fast from political campaigns. But today too much is in my head and heart and I have to let a little bit out or I will explode.

A few days ago I had lunch with a person from my church, who I had a nagging suspicion was a neo-con. Truthfully, I think a majority of my brothers and sisters who I attend church with fall into this camp, but I try not to think about it or engage in any sort of discourse that relates directly to politics (though I am consistently subversive on matters). At my lunch, though, my fellow diner brought up his love for Bill O'Reilly and Fox News. Oy. I am a calm person, and tried to remain so as I asked a few probing questions, such as: "Doesn't O'Reilly support slaughtering innocent Iraqi's by the truckload?" or "Isn't he a big fan of torture?" or "Is it true that he wants to force illegal immigrants out of the country?" The truth is that I really don't know, as I don't have a television and if I did, I would never watch a moment of his show, after once seeing 3/4 of an episode. But apparently I had opened the floodgates. My fellow diner gave strong reasons why everything O'Reilly says is true and good. It was hard to listen to him.

The problem is that none of his reasons were supported by the Gospel. I'm sorry, but I am just plain sick of this. You cannot follow Jesus and say that it is okay to kill people. You simply cannot do it! You cannot love your enemy while blowing him to bits or torturing him. You cannot love your neighbor as yourself when you are killing innocent civilians so you can feel safer at night. You cannot force people back into their impoverished countries, chanting all the while "it's illegal for them to be here," and claim to love your neighbor. If you are willing to punish these men and women just because of where they are born, I have little doubt what you would have done with Jews in Germany in the 40's or escaped slaves in the U.S. After all, it was illegal to hide them as well. And don't get me started on prisons, which were initially meant to house people as we get them on the right track, but are now meant to punish, punish, punish. Should we be at all surprised at what happens when the average prisoner is released?

The Gospel of Jesus is impractical. It does not provide earthly safety. It does not punish but forgives. It is gentle and kind and forgiving and full of mercy and love. I see few fruits of the spirit showing when a neo-conservative talks about living in America. It saddens me. How about a consistent ethic of human life, where we care about all people and are concerned about nothing other than their complete salvation? Salvation in the Bible is not just about eternity after you die, but about how you live right now. How you are cared for and care for others. All others! This requires forgiveness, hospitality, gentleness and understanding. And it is desperately needed in this country today. No more hate. Please!

That's my rant. It was written on the fly, with little in the way of systematic thought, so I hope you can forgive me. I needed to get all of that off my chest.

Peace (and I really mean it!),
Matt

The Darjeeling Limited

Last night I finally watched The Darjeeling Limited. If you haven't seen this, you should at least have a good idea whether or not you will like it...all you have to do is look back on every other Wes Anderson movie you have seen, and you will like it as much as you like those.

.

This is Anderson's best movie yet, in my humble opinion. Beyond the fact that I truly enjoyed this movie soley for the sake of the story it told, I also loved the message it conveyed. Three brothers traveling through India looking for a "life-changing experience," trying to find something powerfully "spiritual." Not surprisingly, they fail. I won't give away what happens next, but I will say that as they move away from their desperate attempt to experience the profound, the profound finds them. It reminds me in many ways of Eugene Peterson's writings on spirituality, where he reminds us that the spiritual is rooted deeply into the everyday. It is in relationships, both new and old, and in the everyday world around us.

.

Last note on the movie, then I will shut up. Two of my favorite images in the movie are the train and the baggage. The train is where everybody is, searching for something more without seeming to really be looking. When the brothers finally leave the train, while everybody else remains, they finally begin to find answers, or at least better questions, as well as themselves and a way to be brothers and friends once again. The bags seem to be representative of past baggage (maybe a bit of a cliched read, so I apologize), as the brothers attempt to hold onto the past. Holding onto the past keeps them out of the present, and when they finally toss the bags on their way back to the train at the end of the movie I wanted to stand up and cheer! They were back on the train, but they were not the same people anymore, nor was their relationship the same. Hallelujah. Perfect movie.

.

Peace,

Matt

.

Oh yeah, and the soundtrack was awesome. Again, not surprising. But still cool.

What I'm Excited About

There is a lot coming up in my neck of the woods and I am getting excited to attend at least some of these events/lectures. Check these out!

March 1: Dr. Darrell Bock will be giving a free lecture at 7pm at Bellingham's Mt. Baker Theatre, put on by Logos Bible Software.

March 4: Metropolitan Kallistos (aka Kallistos Ware) will be speaking twice in Seattle, once at 9:30 am and again at 7:30 pm. I haven't quite figured out how to attend both, but I will. It is also free, put on by SPU, and hosted by First Free Methodist Church.

March 12-15: Trinity Western University is having a symposium titled Politics and Religion. It is free (yes!) and includes Richard Kearney, Simon Critchley and Paul Gottfried among the lecturers.

April 11-12: Brian McLaren's Everything Must Change Tour hits Seattle's First Free Methodist Church. Boy, that church sure hosts a lot of events. I won't be able to afford this one, though I am not opposed to sneaking in if I am in the area...

April 12-13: Seattle Green Festival. I think this would be awesome to attend. Nuff said.

Alright, those are my tips on what to do if you live in the PNW and want to have your world changed for the better. Hope it helps.

Peace,
Matt

Flannery O'Connor on Writing

The following comes from a lecture Flannery O'Connor once gave titled The Fiction Writer & His Country. I liked it a lot:

“The writer who emphasizes spiritual values is very likely to take the darkest view of all of what he sees in this country today. For him, the fact that we are the most powerful and the wealthiest nation in the world doesn’t mean a thing in any positive sense. The sharper the light of faith, the more glaring are apt to be the distortions the writer sees in the life around him.”

Peace,
Matt

Cornel West in Bellingham

On Tuesday night I had the privilege to listen to a lecture (of sorts) from Dr. Cornel West hosted by Western Washington University. I had no idea what I was getting into. It's not often these days that we are allowed to hear from a prophet. Yet that is what it felt like to me.

West, in my opinion, explained Christianity and invited others into it, without hardly ever mentioning anything that sounded "religious." He stood before a packed house of professors and students, telling them they need to die to themselves or they will never live. He declared that our professions are not always our vocations, but that we need to seek out a vocation that looks out for the poor and marginalized and victimized in our world. He reminded us that violence and revenge never solve anything. He went back to the fear that enveloped us after 9/11 to state that terrorism is not new to our nation, but just new to the white people. He pointed out the sins of arrogance and structural violence and called for repentance. Like most prophets, the religious folks were just not there to listen, as they continue to bless the status quo, but I believe the folks who were there were changed and challenged in profound ways. In other words, it was freakin awesome. Thank-you Dr West, and WWU.

Peace,

Matt

Lent

I guess since Ron and Brad both mentioned their Lenten decisions, I will follow their lead and say a word or two.

First of all, I decided to give up following politics for Lent. I know most people would gladly do so anyways, but I actually enjoy following what's going on and offering my two cents as they continually put their feet in their mouths. But for the next month and a half I will not seek out speeches or try to find out who is ahead, etc. I am taking a break. This should also help me become more positive for a while.

Second, I am picking something up during Lent. Specifically, I have begun fixed-hour prayers again, with the help of Phyllis Tickle's wonderful The Divine Hours. I plan to at least follow the prayers through Easter.

Third, I am teaching about Lent with my youth ministry, which I have never done before. I am using the Desert Fathers to guide us through it, which I at least will find enjoyable.

Peace,
Matt

Popalyptic VI: Choose Your Own Apocalyptic Adventure

"To be human we need to experience the end of the world. We need to lose the world, to lose a world, and to discover that there is more than one world and that the world isn't what we think it is. Without that, we know nothing about the mortality and immortality we carry. We don't know we're alive as long as we haven't encountered death: these are banalities that have been erased. And it is an act of grace...loss brings as it takes away."
-Helen Cixous, Three Steps on the Ladder of Writing, p. 10

Adding to the last post, with the helpful thoughts coming from Helen Cixous above, I add a fifth thesis, which is that every person and culture needs some sort of belief concerning how it will all end. This will help lead us into today's post.

Part of the current issue in America is that there are competing eschatologies, with a lot of crossover between different camps. Nobody really knows what or how they believe, and there are a plurality of religious and secular options, many of which are mixed and mingled in a similar fashion as our creation narratives are mashed together.

One apocalyptic message I have been noticing tells us that things are coming to a cataclysmic end. This story is full of fascinating characters, strange events that are both natural and seemingly too fantastic for nature as we know it. There are truly ancient apocalyptic touches to these modern apocalypses, but with one large difference: human beings are in control of how things will end, or even if they will end. This takes us into some fictional worlds.

One of the worst movies I ever had the misfortune of seeing ends up being a good example of this: Armageddon. The name alone is meant to conjure images from Revelation. But it is a modern-day Americanized version. Yes there is the cosmic rock cruising towards earth, which seems very apocalyptic. But then things turn in a different way. With the help of technology and a lot of determination, a group of Americans (of course) are able to stop Armageddon and save the earth. Armageddon, in other words, is avoidable. And all it takes is us and our own strength and ingenuity.

The story lines of movies/books such as Cormac McCarthy's The Road, Mad Max (all of them), and I am Legend are similar (though some are much better than others). We determine how or if things will end. For these storylines, though, the end comes. But not completely. There is a remnant left (we will wait for a later post to discuss the rapture and Mr. Lahaye) who have to survive in conditions that cause some to resort to animal-like behavior and others, like the father in The Road, to choose to be the "good guys."

Of course, we cannot end without also noting Al Gore's Inconvenient Truth, as well as Ken Kesey's Sailor Song, which Kesey literally described as "post-apocalyptic" in an interview. This apocalyptic story-line, which I assume you are familiar with, tells us that the world is ending and we are causing it to do so. If we clean-up our act, perhaps we can still be saved. If not, many will die, and the world could revert in a Mad Max, The Road sort of way. Again, this is a story in which we are in control.

I bring up this variety hoping, beyond anything else, that they will bring out themes and ideas as to what sort of eschatology America is moving into and to decide if any of these stories can be referred to as modern-day apocalyptic literature. If so, our new version really does have very little to do with God and a lot more to do with ourselves. Although they differ as to how and when and if things will end, in all of these it is always about our strength, understanding, and technological powers. Seems very Modern, now that I think about it. I suppose all of this is leading us to the next post where we'll have to see what Tim Lahaye has to say about all of this. Oh boy.

Thoughts? Other titles? Disagreements? Is anybody reading these?

Peace,
Matt

Popalyptic V: Apocalypse Now

Microsoft Word on my computer uses the Encarta dictionary. When asked to define apocalypse, it gives two definitions:
1. the destruction or devastation of something, or an instance of this
2. a revelation made concerning the future
The thesaurus goes on to list words such as disaster, catastrophe, day of reckoning, Judgment Day, end of the world, and destruction. Living in America at this time, I do not find this definition very surprising, though it is more than a little strange when compared to the historic usage of the word that we talked about two posts ago.

I believe a fundamental shift has occurred in how apocalypse is understood and defined in modern-day America. Consequently all apocalyptic literature is often read in a very different way than originally intended, depending upon the reader. The reader’s socio-economic standing, religion, era, and location all make a drastic difference as to how they will read and understand (or not understand) apocalyptic literature. Gadamer said “A person who is trying to understand a text is always projecting.” What is projected onto an apocalypse depends upon the reader. Or, to borrow from post II; when the soup is unveiled, each of us will try to add his or her own seasoning upon it. Some of us will change the taste a lot, while others will change the entire meal. Reading ancient apocalyptic literature across time, continents, and cultures causes us to read it entirely differently than how it was intended. Meanwhile, we begin to change it or even to create our own new stories.

One thesis I would throw out with these posts is that we are beginning to create our own modern American apocalyptic literature, and it is far different from what the ancients wrote, as are the reasons behind the writing. Past apocalypses were by oppressed peoples, with the intention of bringing hope and reminding the powerless that those who find comfort in thier oppresive ways now will find pain, suffering and judgement in the future. This is hard to deal with in a nation that is more often than not the cause of suffering and oppression. So we have simply redefined the word and begun coming up with our own versions.

I suppose a second thesis for these posts, then, is that we have redefined apocalypse in a way, to borrow from liberation theologians, that comforts the comfortable and forgets the afflicted. That means it forgets all about oppression and focuses on destruction and future-telling. Like the Israelites when they began following false prophets, we want to know the future, specifically the future that tells us how blessed we will be because God loves us so. The fact that we ignore what he asks us to do is inconsequential. How does this work? Like this: my third thesis is that we do this by eliminating God and the bible from our eschatology. Sometimes we do this literally, sometimes both make an appearance, but I believe they are more often than not forgotten. I think, for instance, of the man at church who told me how he looks forward to Heaven, where he will ride a Harley around all day, every day. Hmm. So (thesis four), instead of listening to the Bible or believing in God's power within our world, we are the ones who are in control of the future in modern American apocalyptic literature.

I will give some examples and add some meat to this in the next post(s). For now, I ask if there are any questions, clarifying thoughts, or contradictory opinions? Or even better, is there another thesis you would add to these? Please let me know!

Peace,

Matt

Popalyptic IV: Wind in the Fists

Today, before we get to my next post, Apocalypse Now and Later, I want to visit a song I absolutely love from Neko Case. Case, if you don't know, is from The New Pornographers, a band I avoided for years because of its name. But it turns out I like them, love her, and really enjoy her song John Saw that Number (as a sidenote, I just found out she's from Tacoma, near where I grew up, and went to school in Vancouver, near where I went to school...maybe we can be friends). Anyways, here's the lyrics:

Old John the baptist, old John divine
Leather harness round his line
His meat was locust and honey
Wild honey lord, wild honey

John saw that number
Way in the middle of the air
Cryin' holy, holy to the Lord

Old John the baptist, old John divine
Frogs and snakes are gonna get John this time
God told the angel "go see about John"
So he flew from the pit with the moon round his waist
Gathered wind in his fists so the stars round his wrists
Cryin' holy, holy to the lord

Read the revelations, you'll find him there
Third chapter, fourth verse where he said unto me
"There's a beast that rose out of the sea"
Ten crowns, ten crowns
On his horns write "blasphemy"
John couldn't read it (John couldn't read it)
Get on repeat it
John couldn't read it
Holy, holy to the Lord

There was a man, a pharisee
Who came by night to meet him
Said "I know thy teacher came from God cause no man can do such miracles
Without the lord to entreat him

"God told the angel "go see about John"
So he flew from the pit with the moon round his waist
Gathered wind in his fists and the stars round his wrists
Cryin' holy, holy to the Lord
Holy, holy to the Lord
Holy, holy to the Lord...

Aside from her naming John the Baptist as the John of Revelation fame, I do think these lyrics have grasped onto another important part of apocalyptic literature. Case has worked herself into the style of apocalyptic! Listen to these amazing lyrics about "moon round his waist" and "stars round his wrists" and you are suddenly beginning to picture those images that we have let grow stale in books like Revelation and Daniel after too much literalist reading. This is imaginative, even psychadelic, imagery folks!

My desire with today's post was to share that the imagery of past apocalyptic literature can still be celebrated today. I hope lyrics like these brings helps to bring those ancient books back to life for you in the same way they have for me.

In his book In God's Time, Craig Hill brings up what is missing from a Neko Case apocalypse. He says that "Where there is an emperor with divine pretensions, there is need of an apocalypse." Case's apocalypse seems more historical than for the here and now but I'm getting way too far ahead of myself...

Have you seen apocalyptic imagery used or expanded upon anywhere?

Peace,
Matt

Popalyptic III: Dolorean

I can't really contain myself any longer. I want to get into the "pop" part of these blog posts. There may not be a lot of order to them, but I'm going to start unloading some of these, and I don't know where we'll stop. For the moment I do not want to actually try to define pop culture because, honestly, I don't really know where to say it stops anymore. I do know that books, movies, music, and television fit into this category. This of course is what makes it so difficult; where doesn't TV go nowadays? Regardless, we're going to dive in and see where this takes us.

Dolorean

Last Spring I went on a long road trip with my parents and my little brother. He kept telling me to listen to this band on his iPod and I finally consented, and fell in love immediately with Dolorean. Maybe you don't know who they are, or maybe you just aren't into their music, but I really enjoy it. It's pretty mellow with somewhat strong lyrics. I was immediately struck by the obvious faith elements in the songs, though lyricist Al James does not claim to be a Christian. Today's song in particular shows obvious Christian roots, and provides an easy point to jump in to the mixture of pop culture and apocalyptic literature. It is called Violence in the Snowy Fields, and although you can't hear the song, hopefully you can still enjoy these lyrics:

"I’m quittin and givin' up on bein' good enough
My body is bones and blood, my heart is pure
And when the rider comes and tells what I have done
I’ll gladly sing along, won’t change my tune

And in the end St. John says all things shall be revealed
Like violence, like violence
Like violence in the snowy fields

And on a night like this when nothing stirs about
If I hear the hoof beat pounds I will not turn
I will not be afraid of how I spent my days
I may go down in flames but I shall not burn

And in the end St. John says all things shall be revealed
Like violence, like violence
Like violence in the snowy fields

And in the end St. Johns says all things shall be revealed
Like violence, like violence
Like violence in the snowy fields"

What I enjoy about this song, and why I chose to start with it, is that at least in a basic way, they get it! The first four lines are ambiguous, and can be taken a number of ways. Which I enjoy, considering final judgment is not as easily predicted as many in the evangelical world believe it to be. Beyond that, though, is the fact that Dolorean appears to realize that the end is a revealing, as is the book of Revelation in general. It is an unveiling, a show of reality as it really is.

The following comes from an interview done with frontman Al James. You can read the entire interview here. This is an entry point for understanding where he is coming from:

I think that a point of particular interest is your lyrics. You often refer to Biblical themes, and in general I feel a kind of spiritual mood in your words. What about it? How do you consider Christian religion in your life and in our present society?

I am a spiritual person and I was raised in the Christian faith. I don’t really know what I believe right now. I don’t attend church, but I still cling to the teachings of Christ – humility, kindness, love, patience, sacrifice, honesty and generosity. I fear that in general the essence of Christianity that I find in Christ’s teachings has been massively perverted by social-political organizations that claim to be churches. It makes me very, very sad, but I know that this has been happening throughout history. Since I am a spiritually complex person, it seems natural that those themes would appear in my music. I work to avoid alienating anyone by lyrics, but they may hit closer to home for some people. Ultimately I want to make music that connects with people, not divides folks.

What are your ideas about this presumed fight between Muslim culture and Catholic culture that also is generating the war in Iraq? Personally, I think that the only God that the West of the World is trying to safeguard is the Money...

I basically agree with you. I am disappointed by the West’s plans to “democratize” and “Christianize” other cultures. It’s utterly repulsive and makes me sad beyond belief. We’re living in dark times right now and I hope that change comes soon. I agree that money and power continues to be “God” in most cases. Self-righteous western leaders who occupy other countries and promote massive genocide will be accountable for their actions. If not in this lifetime, there will be some sort of spiritual accountability I am convinced of this.

Revealing, future accountability for the powers that be; I would say that Dolorean puts out some lyrics that mix pop and apocalypse, and fortunately, do so in a way that is true to the text.

Your thoughts?

Peace,
Matt

Popalyptic II: Apocalypse Then

First things first, before this post really begins... Effie and I have been updating our daugter's blog if you are interested. She is now three months and cute as usual. Secondly, this strange new site called Bohemian Alien has published an aritle I wrote many months ago on Kafka. You can check that out here. I titled it A Kafka Kick to the Face, so you know it has to be good. Okay, now on to today's post...

Before we can get into the meat of where these posts are going, I feel the definite need to define our terms. Pop and the idea of pop culture will have to be fleshed out in future posts, but of course the most important thing to start with is apocalypse and apocalyptic literature. Although I am not a scholar on this, I do have some understanding that I would like to share and use to move us into the heart of this conversation.

The first for us to do, then is to find some definitions of “apocalypse.” I want to share a variety, look for themes, but leave it somewhat open as to exactly what it is, because I believe what it was historically and what it has become are not necessarily the same thing. Today we will look at apocalyptic literature from history, setting us up for the next post, which will (if all goes according to plan) focus on how our understanding of apocalypse has changed over time. So here goes…

In How to Read the Bible for All it’s Worth, Fee and Stuart list five common characteristics of Apocalyptic literature:
1. “Apocalyptic was born either in persecution or in a time of oppression [for the Bible, think how apocalypse is seen during the exile and during persecution of the early church]. Therefore, its great concern was no longer with God’s activity within history. The apocalyptists looked exclusively forward to a time when God would bring a violent, radical end to history, an end that would mean the triumph of right and the final judgement of evil.”
2. “Apocalypse is a form of literature. It has a particular written structure and form.”
3. “Most frequently the ‘stuff’ of apocalyptic is presented in the form of visions and dreams, and its language is cryptic (having hidden meanings) and symbolic.”
4. “The images of apocalyptic are often forms of fantasy, rather than of reality.”
5. “Because they were literary, most of the apocalypses were very formally stylized [think of the use of numbers, time, neat arrangements of these and more].”

Leland Ryken, in How to Read the Bible as Literature, calls this visionary literature, which “transforms the known world or the present state of things into a situation that at the time of writing is as yet only imagined.” The apocalyptic author writes in such a way because “visionary literature, with its arresting strangeness, breaks through our normal way of thinking and shocks us into seeing things are not as they appear.” Think of how awesome these combined statement are; an apocalyptic writer uses wild imagery for the sake of the readers, so they can have their eyes opened and realize the world is not as everybody around them assumes. As Bob Dylan sang, “There’s something happening here, but you don’t know what it is.” To have eyes opened, the jarring style of apocalypse becomes necessary.

The online etymology dictionary, one of my favorite places to dink around online, points out that the word apocalypse comes from a root that means “to uncover.” The way it was once described to me was that it is similar to coming into a room where somebody is cooking an amazing soup. You can smell it and you are desiring whatever it is that is setting your tastebuds off. Then, suddenly, the cook takes the lid off and lets you see what is inside and, BAM, apocalypse.

Last one, then we will move on. Craig Hill, in his book In God’s Time (which I consider the best book I have ever read about apocalyptic literature), lays out 12 characteristics of apocalyptic literature, which are as follows:
1. Division of History into Old and New Ages.
2. Dualism: full of good and evil, with little in between. Or, as Hill puts it, “short on grays but copiously supplied with black and white.”
3. Determinism: “history is moving forward to its inevitable conclusion.”
4. Exclusivism: there are “few insiders” and “many outsiders.” Guess who gets in.
5. Portrayals of Judgement.
6. Expectations of the End: “to such a mindset, bad news is good news.”
7. Code Words, Numerology, and Cryptic Symbols
8. Means of Revelation: visions, dreams, and archangels reveal God’s plan.
9. Transportation of the Visionary: author taken away, most often to heaven or the heavenly realm.
10. The Heavenly Realm: highly involved with what happens on earth.
11. Exhortations to Endurance.
12. Demonstrations of God’s Justice.

Okay, that’s a lot to ask blog readers, known for their short attention spans, to digest. I hope you can see that even when it comes to reading ancient apocalyptic literature, there is not perfect agreement as to what defines it. We can know what it is when we read it, but it is not so easy to define. Which is what makes it tricky, but also what makes it so wonderful. Eugene Peterson, in his wonderful commentary on Revelation, Reversed Thunder, says that the Christian community needs teachers, apologists and “masters of the imagination… [who] keep us awake and aware before the living God who speaks to us…to remind us that we are living beings who are being spoken to.”

We could go further today, especially to listen to some other scholars and their opinions on apocalyptic literature, but I’d rather let Peterson’s words ring out for us to end on. “We are living beings who are being spoken to.” Let us listen for those words.



Peace,

Matt