Context
My Quaker meeting is reading excerpts from Patricia Loring's Listening Spirituality. One person was particularly struck by this sentence, found in the chapter entitled "Discernment: the Heart of Listening Spirituality: "Both interpretation reflect Friends' felt sense of the Divine as a dynamism rather than as an entity." After some discussion, I added "some" before "Friends'" to my copy of the reading.
Commentary
Quakers are non-dogmatic, which means that although we may spend time talking about what we believe as individuals, we never say that someone else's belief is incorrect. At my meeting, at least, that means that people come to the table with many different conceptions of God. The person who most tends toward the atheistic side of the spectrum like to tease me by asking if I believe God is an old white man in long robes. The completely honest answer to this question is, "Sometimes."
Realistically, I think it's quite a stretch to expect that any human being's understanding of the divine would be entirely accurate. We end up using different language to describe the various aspects we do understand, but those aspects change over time, if only because we choose to emphasize different ones. Even if we decided to remove a great deal of cultural vagaries by talking only about Roman Catholics, a child's idea of her God would vary from a Jesuit's about to graduate from seminary, and his would likely be different from the one held by an elderly woman who's recently been widowed.
So I don't object to people seeing the divine as a dynamism rather than an entity. I even kind of understand where the idea comes from. I think many people prefer this conception because being a discrete entity, or a person, as some of us would have it, would seem to establish inappropriate limits of time and space on the divine nature. On the other hand, I think non-personal language like "flow" or "energy" or, say, "dynamism" is inappropriately limiting as well, in that it takes away the idea the God has a will.
Loring has an answer for this. In the very next paragraph of our reading she discusses a recording of Thomas Merton (referenced in this list) in which he jokes with students about wasting time looking for the map God has planned out for history so they'll know exactly what to do. In Merton's mind, there is no pre-designed map; the road is constantly changing according to the decisions we make and the actions we take.
From my perspective, Merton and Loring are batting .500 as a team. I do agree it's not a good use of our time to try to figure out what God's entire plan is, but that's because the "trying to fit divine-sized stuff into a human brain" problem occurs again, not because the plan doesn't exist. In the final analysis, I feel much more confident living my little Lynn-sized life if I know that God has everything around me in hand (Eeek! A personification!), and everything will work to the good.
What did you see today?
Showing posts with label romans. Show all posts
Showing posts with label romans. Show all posts
2/04/2010
I saw an irate message
Context
A few days ago I received a call from a library patron who was puzzled because she couldn't use our Overdrive service. After investigation, I let her know that was because she held a Green Gold card. These cards are issued to patrons whose home library is in a parish near ours and allow the bearer access to our physical resources, but not our electronic ones.
The patron was dismayed by this for two reasons:
1) The Overdrive service was the only reason she had applied for the card, so she could have saved herself a trip from Minden to Shreveport.
2) Her friend had applied for the same reason, and she wasn't being blocked.
I apologized for our mistake in not explaining the Green Gold restrictions better and, trying to cover all bases, asked the patron if she wanted to rat out her friend so I could block her. The patron said, "No." The next day I received a message from a fellow staff member letting me know who the "friend" was. I had not solicited this information, but I used it to go ahead and block the second woman.
Today this e-mail the friend's husband sent the message to the "support" link on the Overdrive website. Messages sent to this link go to an account that everyone in our department reads.
"Well it seems the rumor is true. We heard that even with the Green Card and a membership in the Shreve Library, we were going to be cut off. You see we live in Minden, and made 2 trips to the Shreve Library with the intent of joining to be able to download E-Books. This was addressed up front and approved and now we are shut off. I am really disappointed. You see we spend probably more money in Shreveport than we do in Minden so its not like we don't support your city. I served 20 years in the Air Force and I don't recall saying I would not help if Shreveport was bombed or in some sort of trouble. I served my country including Shreveport. If us checking out an E-Book puts your system in that much of a bind then God have mercy on your city. Its all about greed from the man on the street to the Mayor and President. Thank goodness I don't live and die for your perfect city. Oh yes, card #[redacted] is the account and good luck on your greed."
Commentary
I could of course make many, many comments about the e-mail message above, and I'd be lying if I said we didn't pass the message around and make several of those remarks this morning, to general hilarity.
However, I'm more interested in talking about my immediate response when I saw the message. I started thinking of several replies I wanted to make to the patron and I could feel my pulse racing right along with my brain. In other words, a fight or flight response (as is customary for me, I was leaning toward "fight").
This was irrational. First of all, I'm a religious pacifist (yes, I'm reusing links from previous entries, cope!). Also, under no conceivable set of circumstances was I facing a threat. Truthfully, the circumstances should have provoked no other response but laughter and pity, but there it is. I didn't behave violently, but my body wanted to. My pacifist principles only go so far; they don't completely change my makeup. In fact, the Bible says my subsequent snarkiness does constitute violence.
Where does that leave me? Mindful of how wrong my immediate reaction to a situation can be, for one thing. Glad to be a Christian for another. I can say, along with the apostle Paul, that the good I would do, I do not do (another version here). Some people may think of this as a cop-out; I think it's just a realistic assessment of how badly we need the grace and love of our Father.
What did you see today?
A few days ago I received a call from a library patron who was puzzled because she couldn't use our Overdrive service. After investigation, I let her know that was because she held a Green Gold card. These cards are issued to patrons whose home library is in a parish near ours and allow the bearer access to our physical resources, but not our electronic ones.
The patron was dismayed by this for two reasons:
1) The Overdrive service was the only reason she had applied for the card, so she could have saved herself a trip from Minden to Shreveport.
2) Her friend had applied for the same reason, and she wasn't being blocked.
I apologized for our mistake in not explaining the Green Gold restrictions better and, trying to cover all bases, asked the patron if she wanted to rat out her friend so I could block her. The patron said, "No." The next day I received a message from a fellow staff member letting me know who the "friend" was. I had not solicited this information, but I used it to go ahead and block the second woman.
Today this e-mail the friend's husband sent the message to the "support" link on the Overdrive website. Messages sent to this link go to an account that everyone in our department reads.
"Well it seems the rumor is true. We heard that even with the Green Card and a membership in the Shreve Library, we were going to be cut off. You see we live in Minden, and made 2 trips to the Shreve Library with the intent of joining to be able to download E-Books. This was addressed up front and approved and now we are shut off. I am really disappointed. You see we spend probably more money in Shreveport than we do in Minden so its not like we don't support your city. I served 20 years in the Air Force and I don't recall saying I would not help if Shreveport was bombed or in some sort of trouble. I served my country including Shreveport. If us checking out an E-Book puts your system in that much of a bind then God have mercy on your city. Its all about greed from the man on the street to the Mayor and President. Thank goodness I don't live and die for your perfect city. Oh yes, card #[redacted] is the account and good luck on your greed."
Commentary
I could of course make many, many comments about the e-mail message above, and I'd be lying if I said we didn't pass the message around and make several of those remarks this morning, to general hilarity.
However, I'm more interested in talking about my immediate response when I saw the message. I started thinking of several replies I wanted to make to the patron and I could feel my pulse racing right along with my brain. In other words, a fight or flight response (as is customary for me, I was leaning toward "fight").
This was irrational. First of all, I'm a religious pacifist (yes, I'm reusing links from previous entries, cope!). Also, under no conceivable set of circumstances was I facing a threat. Truthfully, the circumstances should have provoked no other response but laughter and pity, but there it is. I didn't behave violently, but my body wanted to. My pacifist principles only go so far; they don't completely change my makeup. In fact, the Bible says my subsequent snarkiness does constitute violence.
Where does that leave me? Mindful of how wrong my immediate reaction to a situation can be, for one thing. Glad to be a Christian for another. I can say, along with the apostle Paul, that the good I would do, I do not do (another version here). Some people may think of this as a cop-out; I think it's just a realistic assessment of how badly we need the grace and love of our Father.
What did you see today?
9/06/2009
I saw a passage in a Stephen King book
Context
Stephen King is my second favorite author, after C.S. Lewis. Because I've read many of his books several times, sometimes I just go back and read passages again, revisiting certain concepts rather than taking in the whole work. I did this today with Pet Sematary, and found a passage describing the horror (well, it is Stephen King, right?) of leaving a young child alone in the house with a dying relative.
Commentary
This is my 100th blog entry! Hope it's worth it.
The Stand is my favorite Stephen King novel; in fact I've already blogged about here and here. But Pet Sematary is hands-down the scariest Stephen King work I've read, right up there with The Silence of the Lambs in terms of "don't read it before you go to bed" creepiness.
The passage about the little girl left alone while someone passes away is horrifying not in a scary way, but more in the "What were these people thinking?" sense the protagonist muses to himself for our benefit. One of the qualities of childhood should be the nurturing presence of adults when dealing with the harsh realities of life.
In the New Revised Standard Version of the New Testament, people are referred to as the "children of God" 14 times (yes, I have a concordance), mostly in this passage in Romans. By contrast, there are only ten reference to the "people of God" and those are all in the Old Testament, where the "children of God" never make an appearance.
What's going on here? Did we suddenly become less mature with the coming of Christ? Did we come to realize that we needed more protection and nurturing than originally thought? Or is it just a translation quirk between Hebrew and Greek? I don't know; I just know I'm more likely to think of myself as a child of God than a woman of God.
If we're children now, do we ever grow up? Maybe. In fact, that may be what happens in heaven. I've been thinking about heaven lately, inspired by a fellow Friend in my meeting. She has little patience with mainstream Christianity, and I believe some of that is because of what she considers the ridiculous imagery associated with it. So she'll ask questions such as, "Do you really believe God is an old man with a white robe?" or "What is heaven like, really?", possibly referring to the "sitting on a cloud all day playing the harp" idea.
My current view of heaven (could change any minute, my ideas on matters like these tend to be capricious to put it charitably) thinks of it as where we get to become the adult children of God. And so our views of heaven now are often similar to the ways children think about growing up. There are plenty of "I'll get to stay up as late as I want and eat candy bars all day!" visions. The harp-playing idea may come from what children often see of adult behavior in church, mindlessly mouthing praises to God and not really doing anything useful. There are also people who are horrified by the prospect of heaven: "If I can't have my whiskey and tobacco, I'm not going!" These are like children who cannot conceive of being sexually mature: "I'm going to like boys? EWWWW!"
The point is, as children we really have no idea what being a grown up is like. We get glimpses, we have hope and fears, but the reality is that not only do our circumstances change as we mature, we do as well. We'll probably even see different things.
What did you see today?
Stephen King is my second favorite author, after C.S. Lewis. Because I've read many of his books several times, sometimes I just go back and read passages again, revisiting certain concepts rather than taking in the whole work. I did this today with Pet Sematary, and found a passage describing the horror (well, it is Stephen King, right?) of leaving a young child alone in the house with a dying relative.
Commentary
This is my 100th blog entry! Hope it's worth it.
The Stand is my favorite Stephen King novel; in fact I've already blogged about here and here. But Pet Sematary is hands-down the scariest Stephen King work I've read, right up there with The Silence of the Lambs in terms of "don't read it before you go to bed" creepiness.
The passage about the little girl left alone while someone passes away is horrifying not in a scary way, but more in the "What were these people thinking?" sense the protagonist muses to himself for our benefit. One of the qualities of childhood should be the nurturing presence of adults when dealing with the harsh realities of life.
In the New Revised Standard Version of the New Testament, people are referred to as the "children of God" 14 times (yes, I have a concordance), mostly in this passage in Romans. By contrast, there are only ten reference to the "people of God" and those are all in the Old Testament, where the "children of God" never make an appearance.
What's going on here? Did we suddenly become less mature with the coming of Christ? Did we come to realize that we needed more protection and nurturing than originally thought? Or is it just a translation quirk between Hebrew and Greek? I don't know; I just know I'm more likely to think of myself as a child of God than a woman of God.
If we're children now, do we ever grow up? Maybe. In fact, that may be what happens in heaven. I've been thinking about heaven lately, inspired by a fellow Friend in my meeting. She has little patience with mainstream Christianity, and I believe some of that is because of what she considers the ridiculous imagery associated with it. So she'll ask questions such as, "Do you really believe God is an old man with a white robe?" or "What is heaven like, really?", possibly referring to the "sitting on a cloud all day playing the harp" idea.
My current view of heaven (could change any minute, my ideas on matters like these tend to be capricious to put it charitably) thinks of it as where we get to become the adult children of God. And so our views of heaven now are often similar to the ways children think about growing up. There are plenty of "I'll get to stay up as late as I want and eat candy bars all day!" visions. The harp-playing idea may come from what children often see of adult behavior in church, mindlessly mouthing praises to God and not really doing anything useful. There are also people who are horrified by the prospect of heaven: "If I can't have my whiskey and tobacco, I'm not going!" These are like children who cannot conceive of being sexually mature: "I'm going to like boys? EWWWW!"
The point is, as children we really have no idea what being a grown up is like. We get glimpses, we have hope and fears, but the reality is that not only do our circumstances change as we mature, we do as well. We'll probably even see different things.
What did you see today?
9/03/2009
I saw a question
Context
First United Methodist Church has an electronic sign in their parking that flashes a variety of messages about events, upcoming sermons, etc. Today one of the messages said, I think, "How does God guide us? Romans 12:1-2."
This is the text of Romans 1:1-2, according to the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible: "I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God--what is good and acceptable and perfect."
Commentary
I sometimes get concerned about the ways churches market themselves, believing that they sometimes work too hard to be the "cool kids," instead of the people of God, but I honestly like First Methodist's sign. I really feel like I've learned a lot about their faith community just by my almost daily observation of the sign.
That being said, I'm not sure what they were trying to say with today's question and quote. Maybe it's a preview of an upcoming sermon, because I don't think Romans 12:1-2 answers the question "How does God guide us?" More like, "How do we prepare ourselves for God's guidance?", which is an important question in and of itself.
As for the original question, I got to thinking about it right away. Not having the Bible memorized, I didn't know until I got home what Romans 12:1-2 said, but my answer to "How does guide God me?" (I wouldn't dream of speaking for anyone else) is, "By how I feel, as long as I'm wiling to examine those feelings closely."
As mentioned previously, my conscience is very active. I generally know when I've done wrong because I feel bad. Not always right away, because most of my sins involve anger and arrogance, and those emotions give a nice little adrenaline rush, but when I start to come down I realize, "Wow! That was bad behavior!" Conversely, when I do the right thing, I feel good. Again, not necessarily immediately; an onerous task in the pursuit of righteousness is still an onerous task, but eventually I find I'm given a generous measure of both peace and joy.
These "not right away"s and "eventually"s are the reason I make examining my feelings closely part of the formula for discerning God's will. I can't just take an "If it feels good, do it!" attitude, because being evil can feel awfully good at first. I believe we have a lot of lower instincts and sin appeals to all of them. I also think we have a tendency to tell ourselves we're happy or content or even justified when we're not, and can carry on that way for quite a while. But my experience is, if I really examine what's going on I feel unsatisfied if I've been unjust or callous or dishonest. My conscience is saying, "You've got unfinished business. And you can cover your ears and say, 'la, la, la' all you want. It doesn't change a thing."
What did you see today?
First United Methodist Church has an electronic sign in their parking that flashes a variety of messages about events, upcoming sermons, etc. Today one of the messages said, I think, "How does God guide us? Romans 12:1-2."
This is the text of Romans 1:1-2, according to the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible: "I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God--what is good and acceptable and perfect."
Commentary
I sometimes get concerned about the ways churches market themselves, believing that they sometimes work too hard to be the "cool kids," instead of the people of God, but I honestly like First Methodist's sign. I really feel like I've learned a lot about their faith community just by my almost daily observation of the sign.
That being said, I'm not sure what they were trying to say with today's question and quote. Maybe it's a preview of an upcoming sermon, because I don't think Romans 12:1-2 answers the question "How does God guide us?" More like, "How do we prepare ourselves for God's guidance?", which is an important question in and of itself.
As for the original question, I got to thinking about it right away. Not having the Bible memorized, I didn't know until I got home what Romans 12:1-2 said, but my answer to "How does guide God me?" (I wouldn't dream of speaking for anyone else) is, "By how I feel, as long as I'm wiling to examine those feelings closely."
As mentioned previously, my conscience is very active. I generally know when I've done wrong because I feel bad. Not always right away, because most of my sins involve anger and arrogance, and those emotions give a nice little adrenaline rush, but when I start to come down I realize, "Wow! That was bad behavior!" Conversely, when I do the right thing, I feel good. Again, not necessarily immediately; an onerous task in the pursuit of righteousness is still an onerous task, but eventually I find I'm given a generous measure of both peace and joy.
These "not right away"s and "eventually"s are the reason I make examining my feelings closely part of the formula for discerning God's will. I can't just take an "If it feels good, do it!" attitude, because being evil can feel awfully good at first. I believe we have a lot of lower instincts and sin appeals to all of them. I also think we have a tendency to tell ourselves we're happy or content or even justified when we're not, and can carry on that way for quite a while. But my experience is, if I really examine what's going on I feel unsatisfied if I've been unjust or callous or dishonest. My conscience is saying, "You've got unfinished business. And you can cover your ears and say, 'la, la, la' all you want. It doesn't change a thing."
What did you see today?
6/17/2006
I saw an article in the Texarkana Gazette
Context
I go to Quaker meeting in Texarkana, even though I live in Shreveport. Today someone brought a copy of the Texarkana Gazette to meeting, and it had an article about people protesting a home for recovering drug addicts being planned in their neighborhood. This is a quote from the article: “'I don’t know of anybody who really gets off drugs and they come with all that baggage and we don’t want that around our children,' said Sheila Oates, who lives on Stipp Lane not too far from the location."
Commentary
NIMBY-type protests strike me as the worst possible kind of hypocrisy, because the people involved almost always agree that the activity in question is necessary or even desirable, but they don’t want to have to live near it. They’re not anti-nuclear power; they’re pro-making someone else live with the consequences. I suppose I should be happy that some of the protesters in this case are at least being consistent enough to say they don't see any point in attempting to rehabilitate drug users anywhere.
I'm not happy, though. In fact, I find this case particularly irksome, because of something the members of my meeting keep hammering into my head: “everyone around here is a Christian.” The members of my meeting who are not Christian sometimes feel ostracized and persecuted because they don’t believe “correctly.” Or they just don’t bother to tell people and save themselves the grief. So we have a whole city full of Christians which includes at least one neighborhood where they don’t want to have to be around drug addicts. Interesting.
Now, don’t get me wrong. My Lutheran upbringing makes me a strong believer in “saved by grace through faith alone.” There is no action one can take (or not take) to ensure one’s salvation except believing in the Gospel. But I always hope for myself and my brothers and sisters in Christ that after we’ve been saved we will be of some benefit to the rest of the world. Rejecting people at the very moment when they’re trying to turn their lives around doesn’t seem beneficial to anyone, including the Christian children you’re trying to raise.
I think this is a hazard to being a Christian in the South. When being a Christian is the norm, then “normal” behavior, like shielding your children from people with problems, becomes equated with Christian behavior, so it doesn’t need to be examined or questioned. That’s one of the reasons I’m strongly in favor of the separation of church and state. Once we have a “Christian” government, then everything it does will be, by definition, Christian. Yeah, right.
What did you see today?
I go to Quaker meeting in Texarkana, even though I live in Shreveport. Today someone brought a copy of the Texarkana Gazette to meeting, and it had an article about people protesting a home for recovering drug addicts being planned in their neighborhood. This is a quote from the article: “'I don’t know of anybody who really gets off drugs and they come with all that baggage and we don’t want that around our children,' said Sheila Oates, who lives on Stipp Lane not too far from the location."
Commentary
NIMBY-type protests strike me as the worst possible kind of hypocrisy, because the people involved almost always agree that the activity in question is necessary or even desirable, but they don’t want to have to live near it. They’re not anti-nuclear power; they’re pro-making someone else live with the consequences. I suppose I should be happy that some of the protesters in this case are at least being consistent enough to say they don't see any point in attempting to rehabilitate drug users anywhere.
I'm not happy, though. In fact, I find this case particularly irksome, because of something the members of my meeting keep hammering into my head: “everyone around here is a Christian.” The members of my meeting who are not Christian sometimes feel ostracized and persecuted because they don’t believe “correctly.” Or they just don’t bother to tell people and save themselves the grief. So we have a whole city full of Christians which includes at least one neighborhood where they don’t want to have to be around drug addicts. Interesting.
Now, don’t get me wrong. My Lutheran upbringing makes me a strong believer in “saved by grace through faith alone.” There is no action one can take (or not take) to ensure one’s salvation except believing in the Gospel. But I always hope for myself and my brothers and sisters in Christ that after we’ve been saved we will be of some benefit to the rest of the world. Rejecting people at the very moment when they’re trying to turn their lives around doesn’t seem beneficial to anyone, including the Christian children you’re trying to raise.
I think this is a hazard to being a Christian in the South. When being a Christian is the norm, then “normal” behavior, like shielding your children from people with problems, becomes equated with Christian behavior, so it doesn’t need to be examined or questioned. That’s one of the reasons I’m strongly in favor of the separation of church and state. Once we have a “Christian” government, then everything it does will be, by definition, Christian. Yeah, right.
What did you see today?
5/29/2006
I saw a movie hero
Context
I saw X-Men 3: The Last Stand yesterday and Mission Impossible 3 today. The first X-men movie is among my all-time favorites, and I think Mission Impossible gets better each episode. Spoilers for both movies abound in the commentary below, so if you haven’t seen either of them and you’re interested in them, you might want to give this entry a bye.
Commentary
I didn’t care much for the latest X-men movie. It wasn’t a total wash, but I had a lot of problems with it. On the other hand, I loved Mission Impossible 3. I think some of my reactions to both movies hinge on what I think of as the “hat theory of heroism and villainy.” The ideas in this theory are not new, but I think the hat colors might be.
Anyway, I think of movies as having two types of villains, black hat and navy blue hat. Black hat villains are just plain evil. They have no redeeming qualities; you know exactly where they’re coming from; they’re bad people and they do bad things. Navy blue hat villains don’t necessarily look like villains at first blush. They sometimes talk a good game, or they have some lofty principle in mind, but after a while you realize that hat is actually pretty black after all. I tend to prefer navy blue villains, although I can admire the acting craft behind a good black one.
The X-Men series of movies has a pretty good navy blue hat villain in Magneto. You can almost believe those crocodile tears he sheds over having to hurt people in pursuit of his noble cause. But in the end, he’s just rotten. That principle remained in place in the The Last Stand, and I liked that. Mission Impossible 3 had an outstanding black hat villain and a somewhat unconvincing navy blue one. Oh well, nothing’s perfect.
Heroes also have two potential hat colors, white and dingy. Your white hat hero believes in something and fights for whatever that thing is without compromise. In fact, he’s pretty anal about it. Your dingy hat hero is usually on the right side of the movie conflict and ends up doing good things, but not because he has any particular lofty ideal in mind. He spends the majority of the time looking out for himself, and if pressed, a small circle of friends.
I think a lot of the best movies have one of each type of hero. For example, in the original Star Wars trilogy, Luke Skywalker has the white hat, and Han Solo (who really did shoot first, no matter how much George Lucas tries to change “history”) has the dingy hat. In the original Battlestar Galactica series, Apollo wears the white hat, while Starbuck wears the dingy. If you’re around my age, I think you can tell a lot about yourself by which of those characters you prefer. I’m a white hat lover myself.
X-Men 3 started off with a white hat and a dingy one, then killed off the white hat in the first few minutes of the film. And no, it wasn’t Professor Xavier. So the film pretty much lost me early. Mission Impossible 3 was much more straightforward: one hero, very white hat, good triumphs over evil in the end.
If it seems odd that I prefer my villains somewhat shaded and my heroes straightforward, perhaps I can muddy the waters even further by saying that I like my villains to be realistic and my heroes to be true. Realistically, I believe (and I think I have plenty of evidence on my side) that people don’t think of themselves as villainous. They put on that navy blue hat and say, “I did what was necessary for the greater good.” “You can’t make an omelet without breaking some eggs.” Or my personal favorite, “the ends justify the means.” Not to put too big a burden on my entertainment, but I appreciate seeing this kind of villainy because I think it helps me recognize it better in real life.
On the other hand, I don’t want heroes to reflect what I see every day. I want them to show me there’s something transcendent to strive for. In Christian terms, reality tells me that this world is mired in sin. The ultimate truth, however, is that good always triumphs over evil, and never needs to compromise in order to do so.
What did you see today?
I saw X-Men 3: The Last Stand yesterday and Mission Impossible 3 today. The first X-men movie is among my all-time favorites, and I think Mission Impossible gets better each episode. Spoilers for both movies abound in the commentary below, so if you haven’t seen either of them and you’re interested in them, you might want to give this entry a bye.
Commentary
I didn’t care much for the latest X-men movie. It wasn’t a total wash, but I had a lot of problems with it. On the other hand, I loved Mission Impossible 3. I think some of my reactions to both movies hinge on what I think of as the “hat theory of heroism and villainy.” The ideas in this theory are not new, but I think the hat colors might be.
Anyway, I think of movies as having two types of villains, black hat and navy blue hat. Black hat villains are just plain evil. They have no redeeming qualities; you know exactly where they’re coming from; they’re bad people and they do bad things. Navy blue hat villains don’t necessarily look like villains at first blush. They sometimes talk a good game, or they have some lofty principle in mind, but after a while you realize that hat is actually pretty black after all. I tend to prefer navy blue villains, although I can admire the acting craft behind a good black one.
The X-Men series of movies has a pretty good navy blue hat villain in Magneto. You can almost believe those crocodile tears he sheds over having to hurt people in pursuit of his noble cause. But in the end, he’s just rotten. That principle remained in place in the The Last Stand, and I liked that. Mission Impossible 3 had an outstanding black hat villain and a somewhat unconvincing navy blue one. Oh well, nothing’s perfect.
Heroes also have two potential hat colors, white and dingy. Your white hat hero believes in something and fights for whatever that thing is without compromise. In fact, he’s pretty anal about it. Your dingy hat hero is usually on the right side of the movie conflict and ends up doing good things, but not because he has any particular lofty ideal in mind. He spends the majority of the time looking out for himself, and if pressed, a small circle of friends.
I think a lot of the best movies have one of each type of hero. For example, in the original Star Wars trilogy, Luke Skywalker has the white hat, and Han Solo (who really did shoot first, no matter how much George Lucas tries to change “history”) has the dingy hat. In the original Battlestar Galactica series, Apollo wears the white hat, while Starbuck wears the dingy. If you’re around my age, I think you can tell a lot about yourself by which of those characters you prefer. I’m a white hat lover myself.
X-Men 3 started off with a white hat and a dingy one, then killed off the white hat in the first few minutes of the film. And no, it wasn’t Professor Xavier. So the film pretty much lost me early. Mission Impossible 3 was much more straightforward: one hero, very white hat, good triumphs over evil in the end.
If it seems odd that I prefer my villains somewhat shaded and my heroes straightforward, perhaps I can muddy the waters even further by saying that I like my villains to be realistic and my heroes to be true. Realistically, I believe (and I think I have plenty of evidence on my side) that people don’t think of themselves as villainous. They put on that navy blue hat and say, “I did what was necessary for the greater good.” “You can’t make an omelet without breaking some eggs.” Or my personal favorite, “the ends justify the means.” Not to put too big a burden on my entertainment, but I appreciate seeing this kind of villainy because I think it helps me recognize it better in real life.
On the other hand, I don’t want heroes to reflect what I see every day. I want them to show me there’s something transcendent to strive for. In Christian terms, reality tells me that this world is mired in sin. The ultimate truth, however, is that good always triumphs over evil, and never needs to compromise in order to do so.
What did you see today?
4/20/2006
I saw my sin
Context
Shreve Memorial Library, where I work, held a Staff Development Day yesterday. One of our speakers came to talk with us about the Fish! Philosophy. Fish! has four basic components: play, be there, make their day, and choose your attitude. After I’d been back at work for a little over an hour today, I had a conversation with a coworker that caused me to mentally convert “choose your attitude” into “slam their attitude.” A little while after that, I recognized how wrong, wrong, wrong that was.
Commentary
It is my perception, correct or not, that I have a more sensitive conscience than other people. My sins are like Cole Sear's dead people; I see them all the time. This is one of those traits that some people think must make me unhappy. On the contrary, I consider my conscience a huge blessing from God for a couple of reasons:
1) I’m really, really aware of other people’s sins, too, as you can tell by my comment about this morning. I’m already pretty insufferable about it; imagine if I didn’t see the log in my own eye.
2) I cannot be a Christian without it. People have many different definitions of Christianity, but mine, which probably owes a great deal to my upbringing in the Lutheran Church, is this: it’s the religion that exists because people sin and they need to be saved from it.
I believe in Jesus Christ is the person who saves me from my sin. Having a tender conscience reminds me of my sin and so, perhaps somewhat ironically, reminds me of everything Jesus has done for me. So every time I see myself sinning, I see Jesus. Yay! St. Paul has something to say about whether we should continue sinning so grace can abound, but that’s a topic for another time.
What did you see today?
Shreve Memorial Library, where I work, held a Staff Development Day yesterday. One of our speakers came to talk with us about the Fish! Philosophy. Fish! has four basic components: play, be there, make their day, and choose your attitude. After I’d been back at work for a little over an hour today, I had a conversation with a coworker that caused me to mentally convert “choose your attitude” into “slam their attitude.” A little while after that, I recognized how wrong, wrong, wrong that was.
Commentary
It is my perception, correct or not, that I have a more sensitive conscience than other people. My sins are like Cole Sear's dead people; I see them all the time. This is one of those traits that some people think must make me unhappy. On the contrary, I consider my conscience a huge blessing from God for a couple of reasons:
1) I’m really, really aware of other people’s sins, too, as you can tell by my comment about this morning. I’m already pretty insufferable about it; imagine if I didn’t see the log in my own eye.
2) I cannot be a Christian without it. People have many different definitions of Christianity, but mine, which probably owes a great deal to my upbringing in the Lutheran Church, is this: it’s the religion that exists because people sin and they need to be saved from it.
I believe in Jesus Christ is the person who saves me from my sin. Having a tender conscience reminds me of my sin and so, perhaps somewhat ironically, reminds me of everything Jesus has done for me. So every time I see myself sinning, I see Jesus. Yay! St. Paul has something to say about whether we should continue sinning so grace can abound, but that’s a topic for another time.
What did you see today?
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