Monday, June 19, 2006

Costa Rica 2006

I just started a parallel blog to document and publish our trip to Costa Rica this Saturday, for 29 days. I hope to include lots of pictures throughout the month, but that will depend on our ability to connect our camera and other computer stuff to the internet when in the country.

I've never done a trip like this. Looking forward to it.

This blog will probably be somewhat dormant while we travel, but keep updated by linking to the Costa Rica 2006 blog.

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Monday, June 12, 2006

X3

I was skeptical because X2 was so good. How could they match it? But they did.

I particularly liked the opening scene with a young boy, about 10 years old. He is a mutant and growing wings. In the bathroom he is desperately trying to scrape his wings off when his father bursts through the door. Sensing the disgust of his father, the boy is horrified, cries and apologizes for being a mutant.

A powerful image, and a great beginning scene to clearly identify the meaning of the movie's central struggle.


This series is terrific! Two huge issues of our day: 1. How do we deal with our own power? and 2. How do we approach those who are different?

Wednesday, June 07, 2006

WIR

Rereading one of my favorites, Chameleon Christianity by Dick Keyes.

Some years ago I received two letters in the same week. One was from the Moral Majority and the other was from Katharine Hepburn, writing for Planned Parenthood. The messages were almost exactly the same. Both could be paraphrased,

"There is a well-funded and powerful minority in this country that is trying to take away all that America stands for, as well as your own personal freedom. But there is hope -- we are here. Your contribution will help us stand against this group and the destructive legislation that they sponsor at this critical moment in our nation's history."

The rhetoric was identical although the political perpectives were violently opposed. Neither group made an argument but rather each fed off their followers' fear of the other.

Tuesday, June 06, 2006

WIR

Søren Kierkegaard, Works of Love

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To love one's neighbor means, while remaining within the earthly distinctions allotted to one, essentially to will to exist equally for every human being without exception . . .

Consider for a moment the world which lies before you in all it variegated multiplicity; it is like looking at a play, only the plot is vastly more complicated. Every individual in this innumerable throng is by his differences a particular something; he exhibits a definiteness but essentially he is something other than this -- but this we do not get to see here in life. Here we see only what role the individual plays and how he does it. It is like a play. But when the curtain falls, the one who played the king, and the one who played the beggar, and all the others -- they are all quite alike, all one and the same: actors. And when the death curtain falls on the stage of actuality . . . then they also are all one; they are human beings.

...The stage of art is like an enchanted world. But just suppose that some evening a common absent-mindedness confused all the actos so they thought they really were what they were representing. Would this not be, in contrast to the enchantment of art, what one might call the enchantment of an evil spirit, a bewitchment? ...the distinctions of earthly existence are only like an actor's costume or like a travelling cloak and that every individual should should watchfully and carefully keep the fastening cords of this outer garment loosely tied, never in obstinate knots, so that in the moment of transformation the garment can easily be cast off, and yet we all have enough knowledge of art to be offended if an actor, when he is supposed to cast off his disguise in the moment of transformation, runs out on the stage before getting the cords loose. But, alas, in actual life one laces the outer garment of distinction so tightly that it completely conceals the external character of this garment of distinction, and the inner glory of equality never, or very rarely, shines through, something it should do and ought to do constantly.

Friday, June 02, 2006

Pop, Soda, Coke, Other

The Great Controversy

One of my favorites.

Thursday, June 01, 2006

Hurricane Season Begins

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June 1, 2006. Warm waters in the Gulf. Is suffering around the corner for us?

I heard a quote secondhand. Darrin Patrick said that John Piper told him, "Suffering is a great hermeneutic." Indeed.

Lord, help us.