Just watched "The Fountain" with Brandy, and am struck
1.) With Eve's name "Chavvah" meaning "Life", "Living"
2.) With Oswald Chambers' definition of Love: "We have defined love, in its highest sense, as being the sovereign preference of my person for another person."

He develops this saying:
"The surest sign that God has done a work of grace in my heart is that I love Jesus Christ best, not weakly and faintly, not intellectually, but passionately, personally and devotedly, overwhelming every other love of my life."

Love is the sovereign preference of my person for another person, and we may be astonished to realise that love springs from a voluntary choice. Love for God does not spring naturally out of the human heart; but it is open to us to choose whether we will have the love of God imparted to us by the Holy Spirit. “. . . the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us” (Romans 5:5; see also Luke 11:13). We are emphasising just now the need of voluntary choice. It is of no use to pray, “O Lord, for more love! give me love like Thine; I do want to love Thee better,” if we have not begun at the first place, and that is to choose to receive the Holy Spirit Who will shed abroad the love of God in our hearts.
Beware of the tendency of trying to do what God alone can do, and of blaming God for not doing what we alone can do. We try to save ourselves, but God only can do that; and we try to sanctify ourselves, but God only can do that. After God has done these sovereign works of grace in our hearts, we have to work them out in our lives. “. . . work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure” (Philippians 2:12-13).
The love of God is the great mainspring, and by our voluntary choice we can have that love shed abroad in our hearts, then unless hindered by disobedience, it will go on to develop into the perfect love described in 1 Corinthians 13.
We have, then, to make the voluntary choice of receiving the Holy Spirit Who will shed abroad in our hearts the love of God, and when we have that wonderful love in our hearts, the sovereign preference for Jesus Christ, our love for others will be relative to this central love. “We preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord; and ourselves your servants for Jesus’ sake” (2 Corinthians 4:5).

A Rabbi talks about Avatar.
http://rebfred.blogspot.com/2010/01/jewish-reflection-on-spiritual-message.html

Watched "Joe Vs. the Volcano" for the first time last night. It's the first film I've really liked Meg Ryan in, and I was struck by a lot of the lines in it.

"I start thinking about myself, and I get bored out of my mind."

"Only a few people are awake and they live in a state of constant total amazement."

"Dear God, whose name I do not know, thank you for my life - I forgot how BIG...thank you, thank you for my life."

The whole movie made me think of the times I've thought I might die, and how at those times I realized how silly most of my hopes/fears/concerns really are and how little really important things I do, mostly because like Joe in the movie, because I'm afraid of what the world might do to me, afraid, in part, of death and the suffering that leads up to it. Why is it that it seems to take actual dying to wake people up to how much they've been ruled by the fear of death, and how most of their lives they've done neither what they should have or what they wanted to because of that fear? I don't want to live like that!

It all brings to mind the verse in Hebrews that says that Jesus shared in our humanity and in his flesh by his death destroyed the one who had power over death (the devil) so that free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.

My Lord Jesus, you've bought us a free pass out of fear, but I don't always feel it. Please put it in me as a conscious thing, and let your Spirit within me burn away all my fear.

DOG POOP, OR CHICKEN BONES?

I don't agree with the Dog poop brownies theory. It states that watching/hearing/seeing something that contains sin is the same as eating brownies laced with dog poop. A good rendering of the story can be read here. If this was true, then we wouldn't eat pretty much anything due to the trace amounts of whatnot in it (Have you checked out what's allowed in our food recently?), and we wouldn't go outside for fear of seeing sin, and we wouldn't go to work for fear that our employer might be involved in something sinful, and if we got really picky we probably wouldn't read our bibles for fear that some transcription or translation error would shipwreck our faith.

I think the main thing the Dog Poop model of mental ingestion disregards is the faculty of discernment. So I would like to propose an alternate model, the "Chicken Bone" model of mental ingestion. most people, especially mature people, are capable of eating meat with bones out of it, and realizing that the bones wouldn't be too healthy to swallow, they learn to separate the meat from the bones and spit those naughty bones out. Some foods are so bony and bereft of meat that they aren't worth eating. Some people, for example children, are unable to safely remove the bones, and so we don't try to feed little kids, say, a bony fish. Anytime we eat something with bones, it requires a degree of care and alertness to make sure we don't choke on a bone. But as we do it it eventually becomes second nature. So, I would say, with the faculty of discernment as regards entertainment and art. Some of it's to full of "bones" to be worth the trouble, some of it wouldn't be safe for immature ingestion, and all of it requires something more than thoughtless absorption.

Watched Avatar a couple weeks ago.
I came out of it feeling like I haven't felt for a decade or so, that old feeling I used to get after reading a really good sci-fi or fantasy book. It's a mix of excitement and low-grade melancholy produced by the fact that the world we live in is much more boring than the one I'd just been immersed in. The melancholy wasn't near as bad as it used to be though, since I was thinking about the New Earth, and how likely there would be comparable landscapes in my future.

Heard some christians complaining about the "occult" or "new agey" themes in the film. I used to do the same thing (quickly criticize movie philosophies that I didn't think were "christian"). But I've found it slightly annoying this time around, partly because I think it's silly to expect pagans to make a "christian" movie, but mostly because I didn't see what was un-scriptural about most of the movie's themes. I think concern for creation should be a christian trait, and it's irritating when I see and hear christians ridiculing compassion for animals or conservationist actions that really are just good stewardship. I don't think it's christian at all to kill animals for fun, or to slash and burn, mine, or otherwise ruin swathes of earth for convenience's sake. I think a big theme in "Avatar" was a critique of destructive greed - covetousness. Scripture says covetousness is Idolatry.
If it wasn't for covetousness, there would be almost no abortions, since abortion rates are driven by a covetous desire for "reproductive freedom" and a unfettered lifestyle full of things and opportunities that a child would get in the way of, as well as the covetous desire of the abortion industry for the cash kickbacks of their dirty business. Covetousness is the root of most other sins, the Lord Jesus even said "be on your guard against all kinds of greed, a man's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions". I think this is one of the biggest things christians need to hear today in wealthy countries like America. I know I need to keep hearing it. I have about 20 shirts, and more books than a third-world library. I have a computer that costs more than many people make in a year. It's too easy to buy stuff online that I don't need, it's too easy to feel like my life consists in the abundance of my new purchases.

I also think it's good for people to have their imaginations expanded, to see beautiful things. It's too easy to let the grind convince you that it's all there is, and to get too wrapped up in the trivialities of the here and now. So a sub-theme of biological pantheism doesn't really scare me. Especially when the pantheism functions more like theism, and the "god's" name is an phonetic anagram for Yahweh. It scared me to hear christians laughing about torturing animals, or talking about deforestation and strip mining like it's a scriptural mandate.

All that to say, I really liked the movie. It's the best story I've watched onscreen in a really long time, it ended just like I wanted it to, and it made me happy to live in the great state of Washington where we have a rainforest just a couple hours away!

A Day in the Life of Me.

Today, I counted to 1,000 for Josiah. Well, now that I think of it, it was 1,020. I can't remember why we got on the subject, but he asked me how you counted to 1,000, and I told him it's like counting to 100 ten times. Then he asked me to show him. I started, expecting him to get bored at about two hundred, but no - he sat there watching me, sucking his thumb on and off, for the whole ten minutes or however long it took. Then I counted to 20, to make sure he knew that 1000 wasn't as high as I could count. Which doesn't really make sense, but it made him happy. For most of the time Jaelle was annoyed because the sound of me counting was interfering with her watching the "Planet Earth" DVD. But it ended when I hit about 700 so she went into the bedroom to look at books. (She can't read yet, but she'll just sit and look at books)
After counting to 1,020, Josiah wanted to gunfight. So we did, with these Nerf guns we got him for his birthday. He's a really good shot, he shot me just as much as I shot him - I guess I'm a larger target, but still, that's pretty good. But that's also what he spends most of his time doing, shooting. He got to be a really good shot with his little toy bow too.
Then Brandy came home, and after stuffing the kids with sandwiches and me watching a few gunfighting scenes from westerns or john woo movies with Josiah at his request. The last one was from a movie I've never seen in Chinese with Chow Yun Fat, and I got really into it but then it cut out at the crucial moment. Then the kids took a nap after getting me to pray for them, and Brandy and I sat down to watch the third disk of "Lost" with some cheesy bean dip, chips, and a couple glasses of wine, but not before Brandy sent off the application for the apartment in Queen Ann that we're going for. Then I took my one and a half hour nap, & Brandy was able to snuggle with me for the first five minutes which was nice. Then I woke up to go to work, listening to "Enter the Worship Circle" #2 and thinking again that I should really start picking up the guitar again. And also thinking and praying that I really want to feel what I'm singing and wondering why I don't always and in what areas my relationship to Jesus Christ and the Father is deficient - and wondering about the nature of faith and how C.S. Lewis said that what pleases God most is when a man feels utterly abandoned by God but keeps on believing and obeying, and how O. Chambers says (over and over again) that we aren't meant to live in the "mountaintop experience" but to live in the light of it in the valley, where we spend most of our time. Then I thought about that song I love by Derek Webb "Wedding Dress", and thought about the most recent music by him, how he's become a little too cool for me, all anti-war pro-gay and S-word saying. Then I wondered about Martin Luther and the lawfulness of saying such words, and Then I thought about that mini-sermon "Others May, You Cannot" thing and about my conversation with Nate Musson the other day.
And now, I'm at dispatch refreshing my memorization of Titus amidst incoming calls and manning the reception desk.

I got my acceptance letter in the mail from SPU today, it reminded me that last night (morning? I don't sleep at night so it must've been yesterday morning after getting home) I had a dream where the current president of SPU was voted out and was getting very surly while being forced to pack up and go. An unlikely and interesting dream, since it has very little chance of coming true and since I know so little about Pres. E. that I am surprised he featured in my dream.

Brandy & I also tried to watch Fight Club which Netflix had sent us because they didn't have the next item on our list readily available. I say "tried" because there was something wrong with the DVD that caused it to get all unbalanced in the DVD player and make an odd sound like a washer on spin cycle. So I took that as a sign of God's displeasure over us trying to watch that particular movie, which I wasn't at all surprised at because I was kind of wondering whether or not we should be watching it in the first place. I mean, I liked it when I watched it as a pagan, I appreciated its critique of American commercialism and inhumanity, but there's just so much to strain the conscience in it too, and I hesitated even trying to watch it. So when its imbalance cause the rumbling of Divine Wrath to emanate from our DVD player, I embarrasedly explained to Brandy my interpretation of this "sign", and we ended up reading Psalms and Proverbs instead, and the first couple chapters of Romans. I'm glad we did. Then I read her a little bit from where we left off in the "Fellowship of the Ring" and had dinner.

And now I'm @ work, praying that no one in Robbins or the Wesleys decides it would be a good idea to get drunk and noisy, and filling out an incident report about a "No Parking" sign that someone ran over.

Recency


It's snowing here in Washington. As I left for work the flakes had started coming down. The kids caught a glimpse of the shallow white ground cover as I was headed out the door and yelled "It's Christmas!!!, can we open our presents?!?" I told them their education had been neglected and that it wasn't christmas every time it snowed, and Brandy explained that Josiah had asked before "when is christmas?" and she had told him that it was christmas when it snowed, as she hadn't expected to see snow anytime soon. So I smilingly told her she's been miseducating our children and we laughed about it as she had the kids come look out the door at the snow falling as I headed for the car.
We'd watched the first half of "Amelie" before I left, as that was all I had time for. It's very funny so far, and like all french films I've seen it's also very existential.
The definition of existentialism (according to that wonderful cauldron of common knowledge which is wikipedia) is "the belief that philosophical thinking begins with the human subject – not merely the thinking subject, but the acting, feeling, living human individual. In existentialism, the individual's starting point is characterized by what has been called "the existential attitude," or a sense of disorientation and confusion in the face of an apparently meaningless or absurd world."
At first I would think that existentialism would be totally Christian thinking, but it's really not. There's a huge existential element in christianity, on the personal level: we're addressed by God and Jesus as feeling, acting humans, and God Himself seems to be the same. Overall something very hard to put in a graph or a diagram. But at the same time we're given a stability that pure existentialists don't have, since we have things that never change (The promises of God), and we know some basic answers for basic questions like "Who am I, where did I come from, where am I going" but between all that there's still a huge realm of unknowns that to us seem absurd/meaningless except in the light that they're part of the divine plan somehow.
Speaking of absurdity, I've been feeling somewhat out of touch with reality lately. I think in part because I'm working nights, and haven't gotten out of the house in fully conscious mode in a while. Also I think it's the isolation; as I have no believing friends (the kind of friends I can hang out with I mean, I acquaintances galore, but I miss having friends, and I miss my friends back in MN.) - Except, of course, Brandy, who I am grateful for, but without babysitters our times together have been between the hours of 10pm-3am, not the best time for hanging out. Lord willing we've got some potential babysitters lined up for the near future (some girls from church). Then again, all my ethereal-ness could just be brain chemistry gone awry, in which case this too shall pass soon enough.
Meeting w/ a faculty member from SPU Monday morning, he read my letters to the editor and has a group of people he meets with who want to change the course of SPU in a somewhat more scriptural direction. I pray that goes well, and I pray it's not political.
My role in youth group is interesting... I haven't seen or talked to any of the guys for about three weeks for more than a few seconds, because Sun. grp has been cancelled for the past three weeks (well, one of the weeks there was a guest speaker) and with my kids running underfoot it's impossible to have any real conversation after service. We end up going to the church coffeeshop and sitting down to watch them for half an hour or so til we go home. So my plan of getting to know the guys @ Youth Group has thus far flopped.
On the upside I'm going to be off work for over a week during Christmas Break, that's going to be very nice. We're planning on going down to Centralia to visit w/ the relatives down there. We'll also most likely go up to Nate and Marielle's at some point then too.
Read "The Spiritual Brain"-a book on non-materialistic view of the brain/mind connection which confirmed my earlier theories, but it was written by a neurosurgeon of the Teilhard De Chardin variety. (kinda cosmically new agey). Also read "Napoleon of Notting Hill", which although it has its moments isn't as good as the other Chesterton I've read. Finished Isaiah and am on Jeremiah 11, listened to "Hood" by Stephen Lawhead and am now listening to CH Spurgeon's autobiography on MP3. And reading through A.E. Wilder-Smith's Autobiography as well. Plus, if anyone feels like passing it along to Paul back in St. Cloud, the puritan devotional he gave me had been a constant encouragement.
Well, I think that's it for now.