Rev Camerer : God in the Grammar

Rev Camerer gave a great sermon this week and I think this is as good a place to record what I've learned as any. This is all from memory - he held my attention so I didn't manage to take any notes. He actually managed to hold the entire audiences' attention while explaining a few daunting grammatical terms like "relative and objective genitive." The passage is Romans 4:13-25, and the question in the sermon is basically, what is it about faith that saves? Is it the faith? How deep the faith is?

And here is how the question was answered. Two men stand by a frozen lake. The ice may be able to support them. One is very confident the ice will support him. The other is very doubtful; he imagines he is likely to fall through. They both step out onto the ice. And here is the point:

Does it matter whether they think the ice will support them?

No it doesn't matter. The amount of their belief isn't really that important. The important thing is the object of that faith: the ice. The ice will support them whether their faith is monumental or miniscule. Or conversely, if the ice is thin, the sincerity of a man's faith in that ice will not prevent him from falling through. It is not the greatness of our faith that saves, but the object of our faith: Christ. We don't need to be faith-giants. We only need enough to step onto the ice.

And he made a very strong point that the sincerity of faith of other religious groups won't be a huge factor in the end; the object of faith is still what is going to count in the end.

Well I thought it was pretty good; the ice illustration has been indelibly printed into my brain, so hopefully it will be useful for someone else as well, later.

Seasons

We're just a few hours from a new month. And I suppose summer will be officially starting soon. It pretty much feels like summer now here in Greencastle. I see a lot of sun, and we get a lot of warm days. Everything is green. And I love this.

One thing makes me a bit sad: it won't last. Fall will come. And I don't mind fall. I like it more than I used to. But after fall comes winter. And I really hate winter. It's possible that I could learn to enjoy it. Someday I will have to make a decision. Do I hate cool climates more than I enjoy the season changes?

If one day I moved someplace warmer, I might be pretty happy. But I might really miss the seasons. I suspect that I would. Who knows, maybe all I need to get through winter is to feel some uv rays on my skin - I could just go fry in a tanning bed every week. Maybe once I had that, I would feel fine! I don't know. I know that winter is when I have the most depression and when I'm most likely to up and move somewhere. November is bad, as is February.

But if I did move south, things might feel kind of dull without seasons. If I was close to a beach, maybe I wouldn't care. But maybe this is one of those "fantasy is better than reality" kind of thoughts. I'll have to think more on this later.

Reality TV

Has anyone else ever watched reality TV in which the participants act as if there is no camera? That is SO ANNOYING! How are these people COMPLETELY IGNORING THE CAMERA! In many of the television shows, we suspend the reality of the camera-man, and that is okay - we expect to and accept it. That should not be the case on reality tv. The more hints I get that the whole thing is scripted, the less interesting I find it.

I've seen something funny on both Hulk Hogan's show (the Hulk Life or something) and the Bachelor. On both of those shows, I've seen characters do something and then say "We need to keep this a secret from mom and dad" or Hulk "I'd better keep this a secret from my wife." HELLO, YOU'RE ON TV!?! .... I mean... COME ON! How am I supposed to respond to that? "Scripted!" Boooooo. If you act as if the camera doesn't change anything, we know it is completely fake, because a camera would add a lot of tension in any emotional situation. I would like to see a show that actually embraces that tension a little bit.

Reality TV has been around for a long time. It's called "Game Shows." Survivor? It's a game show. The Bachelor? It's a game show. America's Top Model? Game show. Instead of "guess the word in time" it's about accomplishing a task, making fireworks with some random bachelor, doing an incredible photoshoot. It's a more interesting game show but it's still a game show.

A few shows try to pull of total reality tv, like the hulk hogan show. Those are still far from interesting because they aren't even slightly believable. I have no reason to believe what I'm seeing is really showing me anything true about these people. That's not compelling. Maybe people can't be candid outside of simple things like game shows and sixty second candid camera blips, but if you can't be a little more daring I'm not even going to bother watching.

Due

Tax return: $955
Amount Due this month (college loans, car insurance): $948
Phew!

Now I just need $80 for my phone bill. (Counts remaining 20s...)

Fortunately I will be in Greencastle in a week and hopefully will quickly land a job or two, maybe even something I like!

Juno is about....

(Before you start reading, you have to play the video at the bottom of this post so you are in the right mood. It's not a video, just the song, so scroll down and go "click!".) So I just saw a movie called "Juno" which everyone seems to love. For the uninitiated it's about a 16 year old high school girl who gets pregnant and the year which follows. The movie is mostly made of scenes with Juno talking to friends, talking to potential adopters, talking to parents, and sometimes Juno narrating her thoughts. So it makes for a very straightforward, intimate little movie. We get a decent feel for some of the strange moments a girl like Juno might actually go through.

The whole movie feels sorta indie or at least anti-blockbuster-ish. It's got tons of great little folky songs which are catchy and sunshiney and fun to play on my uke or guitar (bonus!). The whole thing feels like it could have played out in my hometown or somewhere like it. I like it, and need to think about it a tiny bit more, but for now I'm feelin like, "Hey, good stuff!" And hopefully you enjoyed this little ditty by Barry Louis Polisar: "All I Want Is you." I'm going to go play it on my uke, bye.

Fast Car - excellent, watch it

A catchy dave matthews ditty

I <3 Pinback

Cleaning my room

I've been cleaning for awhile, things are coming along. I can't make up for a few months of not cleaning in a couple hours but it's more livable for sure. Even if paperwork drives me crazy, at least I can get my clothes organized and neat and get a clean floor. My bird still is in desperate need of a cage cleaning but it's not going to happen tonight. I'm going to the grocery store to buy some food cuz I'm starving, and thence to relax for a bit. My room is a bit dark at night and it doesn't motivate me to do any more heavy duty cleaning.

I'm going to return my guitar looper, but first will write out the guitar parts - I have no way to permanently record the music. Lesson learned; if I get a looper again, I'll buy one that can output the loops into my computer or onto SD card or something. Speaking of SD cards, I haven't seen my digital camera in a couple months now. There's a slim chance it is with my friends Pete and Emily but I doubt it. I still think it will turn up, I just can't believe that I would lose it.

Stinking guitars...

Music seems very fruitless right now. The way electric guitar works, there are always a million toys you need to get the right sounds and stuff. But it's pretty dumb because I am playing by myself and that is very unmotivating. I am going to set the electric aside and focus on acoustic songs for awhile (the acoustic has some TERRIBLE fret problems which make bad buzzes or even make certain notes impossible, but I'll live with it). I might return the looper, that's two hundred dollars which I need (or someone needs it if I don't).

Music is pretty frustrating because for the most part the music I am listening to is infinitely more beautiful than anything I could play on a guitar. Music from the Black Stallion soundtrack or Joann Newsom's harp playing or Last of the Mohicans or anything on the violin are infinitely greater than most anything on guitar. Piano or harp or even violin all transcend it in their tones: the violin has infinite sustain because of the bow; pianos and harps have incredibly large soundboards. Plucked guitars cannot compete.

But there are a few really beautiful bits I can think of, like one track on Black Stallion which uses guitar (although it wouldn't sound the same on my guitar even if I tried to play it). Off the top of my head I can only think of two that are really "wow that's beautiful" pieces. Joanna Newsom produces more gorgeous stuff on her harp than Phil Keaggy can on his guitar, maybe simply because it's a harp. (Harps are expensive, I just looked). There is still some good stuff from rock / punk bands - Sunny Day Real Estate, Bloc Party, Death Cab for Cutie, even some normal rock like Foo Fighters ("My Hero"). The stuff I want to imitate right now is the acoustic stuff from Derek Webb, John Fahey, and Iron and Wine.

I lost all interest in blues (bleh) or any other instrument centric music right now. That means I'm not crazy enough to be a good composer or instrumentalist, but in all honesty I don't care. I'll probably never fully appreciate Coltrane or insane composers or what sets apart the tone of all the blues guitarists, but that's okay. I think that's fairly sane of me. Music is nice, especially the really pretty stuff, but I don't need to worship it (although I probably have in the past). This attitude keeps my life simpler, more balanced. Sometimes it's fun to make music, and it's also nice to have things quiet now and then. Making music by myself is almost never fun, which is why at some point I hope I can start a band with like minded individuals.