Dog Days

Colin Smiths Next Chapter

Dr. Colin Smith died yesterday - it's totally unexpected to everyone. For Colin Smith, and maybe for someone else who will be leaving this world soon:

"And for us this is the end of all the stories, and we can most truly say that they
all lived happily ever after. But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover
and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on forever: in which every chapter is better than the one before." (the final words of CS Lewis' "The Last Battle")

Now I hope someone compiles a lot of Colin's recorded messages and lectures for us.

For awhile I thought Colin might be someone I would interact with once I reached a stage where I could do graduate studies, particularly if I pursued Semitic language studies at all. That won't happen now, but today feels like a wake up call for my life. I'm moving in the right direction, but I'm going to have to move a lot more if I'm going to redeem some of my short time on earth. Maybe I am going to be teaching Hebrew for a group of interested individuals soon...

Approaching Undistraction

"As I weed out distractions I begin to miss them. They kept me from feeling so unsatisfied with my existence."

The "big clean" is coming along. My life is already more organized than it has ever been, and it really didn't take more than a little helpful instruction from David Allen's "Getting Things Done." My computer has no random folders or documents sitting around. My paperwork is approaching something akin to organization. My email inbox is empty. I got through an entire list of things to accomplish.

And I feel two things as I come closer to something I will call "undistraction." The first thing I am feeling is a returned ability to focus. Meaning, maybe I can finally finish those papers, and get my diploma. It is all beginning to seem possible. In a sense I was right all along - I have had too much mental baggage to ever focus on any really challenging projects.

The second thing I am feeling is a bit more immediate. It is a somewhat unsatisfied feeling. Some of my life's difficulties are beginning to disappear, and yet I feel bored and unsatisfied all the same. Things are a bit cleaner, which is nice, but down at the bottom not a whole lot changes. It's like a room that was filled with random junk and seemed sorta wild like maybe there was something exciting happening, and then the junk gets cleaned out and you realize it's just a silly old room like any other room.

Well I am exhausted (at 9:22 PM!) thanks to my new 3 AM fedex job so I'm going to sleep.

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.