I posted a new article on the silhouette website. Check it out.
Peace,
Matt
Showing posts with label Link. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Link. Show all posts
Monday, May 19, 2008
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
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
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
Thursday, February 28, 2008
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
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
Monday, January 28, 2008
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
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
Thursday, January 24, 2008
Links!
Here's some random links for ya'll to check out:
*Larry Lessig has put his book out on the internet for free. It is called The Future of Ideas and I would highly recommend that you download and read it. To understand who he is and what he is about, you can check out his blog or watch his incredible presentation at ted.com.
*Brian McLaren was recently interviewed by the Sierra Club. It's a great listen.
*I don't know if I ever put a link up for this or not, but it is a letter from local Catholic bishops written in 2000 to defend the Columbia River Watershed, which the PNW needs to start doing.
*Naomi Klein has a new book out titled The Shock Doctrine. The premise sounds amazing. There is also an awesome short video to go along with it that you can watch on her website.
*I have been listening to the mp3's of a class on Heidegger at Berkley. If you want to really get to know and understand one of the most important thinkers in the past 100 years, and you have a lot of time on your hand, start listening (and taking notes)!
*Arrested Development the movie?!
Peace,
Matt
*Larry Lessig has put his book out on the internet for free. It is called The Future of Ideas and I would highly recommend that you download and read it. To understand who he is and what he is about, you can check out his blog or watch his incredible presentation at ted.com.
*Brian McLaren was recently interviewed by the Sierra Club. It's a great listen.
*I don't know if I ever put a link up for this or not, but it is a letter from local Catholic bishops written in 2000 to defend the Columbia River Watershed, which the PNW needs to start doing.
*Naomi Klein has a new book out titled The Shock Doctrine. The premise sounds amazing. There is also an awesome short video to go along with it that you can watch on her website.
*I have been listening to the mp3's of a class on Heidegger at Berkley. If you want to really get to know and understand one of the most important thinkers in the past 100 years, and you have a lot of time on your hand, start listening (and taking notes)!
*Arrested Development the movie?!
Peace,
Matt
Sunday, January 06, 2008
My New Favorite Website
I don't know if I am ahead or behind on this, but either way you must go to ted.com. Some of the most brilliant/important people in the world coming together to share their thoughts? Priceless. I just listened to two messages from the Steven Pinker and am going to listen to Isabel Allende after I'm done writing this entry. Check it out, listen to any of the speakers, and be blessed.
Peace,
Matt
Peace,
Matt
Monday, October 15, 2007
Martinson Baby Blog
Effie, my wife, is officially due tomorrow with our first child. We don't know the baby's gender (trust me, we tried, but it's not as exact of a science as everyone seems to think), and it looks like it will probably be late. We have a doctor's appt today, which will hopefully shed some light on where we are at right now.
We will be baby blogging in the coming days, months, and possibly years. You can check it out here. I suppose it goes without saying, but my blogging may be a bit more sporadic in the coming days. But keep looking, because Baby Martinson will be here soon!
Peace,
Matt
We will be baby blogging in the coming days, months, and possibly years. You can check it out here. I suppose it goes without saying, but my blogging may be a bit more sporadic in the coming days. But keep looking, because Baby Martinson will be here soon!
Peace,
Matt
Wednesday, October 03, 2007
The World We Live In...
...is totally messed-up. Apparently the horrors of the 20th century are still holding on into the 21st.
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