jason | re | campbell

Different Kinds of Sermons

2012-01-11T11:16:00.000-08:00

I'm preparing for a sermon series starting on January 15th. I've preached a few times since Cascade Hills, but it's been a while since I've put this much into a single run of preaching.

I'm remembering that there are a few different kinds of sermons in terms of how they "feel" to put together and deliver.

There are the textual sermons, driven solely by the content of a particular Biblical text and then contemplated in the context of a particular dimension of congregational life.

There are topical sermons, a particular idea on the congregation's mind upon which the biblical witness is brought to bear. I don't do a lot of these, but some of the ones on marriage, friendship, and financial matters have been challenging to put together.

There are the medicinal sermons, words of hope and comfort spoken directly to a major event in the life of the congregation, where we acknowledge the excess of feelings in the room and allow God's Word to do its work in comforting and drawing us forward in the midst of that experience.

There are of course the rallying cry sermons that call for a specific action on the part of the congregation, preached sparingly but earnestly to move toward some desirable goal or change.

This week, I'm preparing a series of what I'd call stirring the pot sermons, broad-reaching treatments of biblical themes that help put individual texts and topics in their place. I'm approaching the inexhaustible, mysterious, prevailing, astonishing Kingdom of God. Pray that I make much of the Kingdom and Her King.

MI4: Three Things They Nailed

2012-01-02T19:42:00.000-08:00

Mission Impossible 4 is a Hollywood first for one very important reason. Never in the history of cinema has the fourth installment in a very tired series been leagues better than all its predecessors. In fact, I'm looking to buy tickets now for MI5 because of the trend (1 = terrible, 2 = really bad, 3 = barely watchable, 4 = quite good, 5 = ?).

The filmmakers got three things right in this movie:

Bad Guys are bad guys, but physics is much, much worse

There are busloads of bad guys in this movie. You've got Russian prison inmates, foreign police with automatic weapons, arms dealers, femme fatale assassins, body guards, rogue agents, and the list goes on.

Aside from the obligatory strung out fight scene with an old dude who shouldn't be able to fight his way out of a paper bag, the fight scenes and gun battles are very short and very deadly in this movie. Every single agent who gets into a fight finishes it in a few seconds and races to the next challenge. There is only one occasion when someone is "grazed" and it puts her out of commission for the rest of the movie. Everybody else who is shot dies, painfully and badly.

As usual, the agents are godlike in their martial prowess. No foe (again, except for the old dude at the end) stands a chance against these superheroes. The foes the script throws at them are at best speedbumps burning up precious seconds while the agents race to stop the Big Bad Guy's plans.

While the fight scenes are excellent, they are nothing we haven't seen before. Yet the film reminds us again and again that these superheroes--while unfazed by mere human antagonists--did not stand a chance against ordinary physics.

There is a scene where Tom Cruise is standing on a ledge a measly three stories up looking down into a dumpster filled with large trash bags, while his pursuer looks at him from the window and shakes his head. "Not a good idea." To our amazement, Tom looks down, realizes that if he jumps, he's dead. And he carefully works his way back down the ledge. In any other MI movie (or most anything else churned out by the Hollywood machine these days), he would have jumped, limped for a few steps, then been on his way to the next scene. We see the look on his face and we know the rules are different here.

Ropes break, gear fails (sometimes spectacularly), debris from explosions actually causes damage, guys who jump out of moving cars limp until they get medical attention. A car's side mirror makes the audience wince when it catches the supposedly invincible protagonist in the face while he's falling.

This went a long way toward making an otherwise throwaway action movie so much more enjoyable. These agents aren't invincible. Somehow, they got me to believe they lived in the same world I do.

You can't account for stakes this high

Mission Impossible is a story franchise that was once built on the premise that guys this good don't need guns. They are so adept at controlling the environment and planning for every eventuality that they can get the results they want with a minimum of chaos or bloodshed.

MI4 is a major break with this tradition. Unlike most of the rest of the breaks made earlier in the series, this is one that makes for much more compelling drama. The movie plays out a mini-script over and over:

Dire situation crops up.
Canny, ultra-capable agents with magical gadgetry set up their plan in an attempt to avert disaster.
Something unexpected ruins the plan.
Canny agents pull off superhuman alterations to the plan in flight.
Everything STILL goes wrong.
Rinse and repeat.

At this point, sometimes the entire plan fails and somebody dies. Sometimes the plan turns out not to matter. Sometimes, they manage to adjust enough so things don't fall completely apart. The chaos factor is a major appeal in this kind of movie. No matter how good you are, you have to deal with reality on the ground and with stakes this high, bad things happen and you simply cannot stop all of them. This turns out to be one of the main themes the filmmakers set out to explore (see below).

It's not about you, Tom Cruise

When the series of Mission Impossible movies first came out, many fans of the original series complained that the movies failed to capture the criticality of teamwork. As the movies went on, they added a sort of "team", most of which was there in a support role (or worse, as comic relief).

This film centers around the action of Tom Cruise's character, but makes it abundantly clear that if Cruise loses his team, the mission is over. Not merely at the climax of the film, but at several important junctures, Cruise attempts to jettison his team, partly because he doesn't trust one of them, partly because he doesn't want to further endanger them. But in each of these cases, he runs into a brick wall. He simply cannot function without his team.

Gadgets fail. Plans derail. All you've got are the people with you, and they aren't perfect either.

The filmmakers even managed to give each of the other agents subplots and interesting roles to play, even while Cruise gets the best action sequences (which also means he takes the biggest beatings, see above). At the end of the movie, when the dust has settled, Cruise comes out and says it. "Nothing went right during any of our missions. In fact, the only thing that did work properly was this team."

Good stuff, Hollywood. If you can't come up with anything original, then I suppose I'll take this instead.

Quote: G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy

2011-12-28T19:34:00.000-08:00

From G. K. Chesterton's Orthodoxy:

Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, “Do it again”; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, “Do it again” to the sun; and every evening, “Do it again” to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we.

What is strength?

2011-12-12T11:18:00.000-08:00

A prayer from Paul in Ephesians 3:

I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources he will empower you with inner strength through his Spirit. Then Christ will make his home in your hearts as you trust in him. Your roots will grow down into God’s love and keep you strong.

I love these verses. I love inspiring prayers written by guys who planted churches that changed the world. I love the imagery that pops into my head when I imagine just for a moment what the huge warehouse of God's "glorious, unlimited resources" might look like glimpsed from the door. And I love the idea that as I learn to trust Jesus that he will make his home in my heart and that somehow through that process, I will gain inner strength and deep, strong roots.

Except that the more I thought about it, the less I understood what Paul was trying to say.

At first, I thought I'd peek over into a different translation, given the fact that the New Living Translation (from which the above is drawn) might be a little too free with its word choice. Only that just made things worse. From the New American Standard, the most literal and technical of the usual English suspects, says this:

...that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man...

Strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man... What does that feel like on an ordinary day? What exactly is the inner man, in relation to the rest of me walking around? What sort of strength does Paul have in mind? Strength to do what? And what relationship does this have with the "God's strength is made perfect in our weakness" theology?

"Who's In Charge Here?"

2011-10-18T10:48:00.000-07:00

Pop Quiz: you find out that your kid has put some wildly inappropriate photos on their Facebook stream. What's the first thing you do? Followup question, more difficult and worth twice the points: your kid's friends post wildly inappropriate pictures of themselves with your kid. What do you do then?

Fascinating article that raises the question, just who is in charge in this kid's life? What do we teach them about how to handle problems, what does responsibility look and feel like, and what role do we play in their lives, especially as they're about to leave the nest?

Excerpt:

The true social implications of this case aren't about the girls' behavior, but the parents'. To what extent are they allowed to impose their values on their kids, and, separately, what is the proper structure to impose these values?

This popular reading of this case is that the school (i.e. government) doesn't have the right to reach into the private home and control the speech of students, but that evades the important cause of this case: the parents want the government to control the kids because they aren't willing to do it. See? It's not just black kids. Parents all over the U.S. have checked out, can't be bothered and anyway don't really know how to bother. How can I explain to my daughter that this is bad? I know: Tinker v. Des Moines Indep. Cmty. School Dist. Yeah. That'll show her.

The way it should have worked is that one concerned mother calls the other mother, and she opens up with, "I just want to bring something to your attention" or "Jesus, do you know what your wenchy daughter is up to?!" and they work it out and stuff gets handled, and if it doesn't it gets kicked to the fathers, who freak out on their daughters and then reluctantly agree to talk to the other father about it and settle it once and for all, and if that doesn't work they can agree to meet in the Woolworth's and Woolco parking lot and punch each other like girls. I recognize this is all quite sexist, but that's the way it should have gone down. That's the way it has always gone down.

But the parents couldn't handle this as parents, i.e. as the ultimate arbiter of a controversy, because they are not practiced at being the ultimate anything. Stripped of all power as children, and never given either power or responsibility, they drowned in freedom and looked for a practical solution to their existential crisis: everything always has a higher authority. Call the school, call the cops, call the government. The joke used to be, "hey, lady, don't make a federal case out of it!" but that's no longer a joke, it's the preferred method.

The idiocy of such parents is mind boggling, certainly, but even more compounded by the message that it sends to their own kids: higher authorities always exist for everything. Just not God. That's for stupid people.

Full article here if you're interested.

David Whitley’s Thoughts on the Unreal

2011-01-05T07:23:00.000-08:00

For me, the most ethereal faerie enchantments have just as much charm as a solid piece of sci-fi hardware. I love the unreal: the power, and wonder, and delight of worlds where nothing can be taken for granted, and everything is new.

The only question is...why?

What is it about fantasy that is so beguiling? I mean, one of the cardinal rules of fiction is supposed to be the possibility for the audience to identify, to sympathise with the characters and recognise their own lives. In Poetics, Aristotle suggested that the purpose of fiction was to purge emotions, to let us experience all the joy and grief that, were it real life, might otherwise overwhelm us. (Whitley’s article)

What do you think? Why do you love the unreal in fantasy?

Heaven is Poetry

2011-01-04T07:06:00.001-08:00

This morning in the rush of my morning routine I heard a snippet of a song. It was coffee shop music both literally and in its nature. The indie songstress crooned out a line that struck me, something like, “From here, I can’t use words anymore, they don’t mean enough.”

How true that is. Have you ever gotten to the point where words are inadequate to capture something that is happening to you or that you feel? That any words you might choose, no matter how artfully chosen, would fall short of the reality you wish to communicate?

There is poetry merely in the claim that an experience or sentiment is beyond words; such a sentence points beyond itself indicating a uniquely human experience yet untouched by the materialism and pragmatism of our age. When the point is made, people nod, knowing exactly what is meant.

But what if this well-known parlor trick of the poet disguises another glaring but taken-for-granted fact of our existence? What if our words themselves are less than they once were? Imagine for a moment that “in the beginning” words were larger, fuller, more expansive and real than they are now—imagine that “in the beginning” there were no experiences that were beyond words because words themselves were simply bigger? Isn’t it possible that words were a gift given so that every vicissitude of human experience could be artfully and perfectly shared?

Taken from another perspective, have you ever thought a word has lost something that it had once possessed? Ever been told something and then felt cheated by the experience of what the word promised? Ever been told “I love you” and then wished the reality of the experience held up to the promise of what you thought the word meant? Love loses a little (perhaps a lot)in actual use by us who have fallen from grace.

What if Jesus (“the Word”) came also to redeem words? What if Jesus came to take the fragile remnants of what you once thought “love” and “friendship” and “joy” meant and resurrect them to a state even higher and more beautiful than your original imagination?

Heaven is poetry because there is a taken-for-granted reality to which it points that we know instinctively for truth. However fallen our words and our imaginations, the sentiments that leap to mind upon the mention of “heaven” are not more than what God intends for us, but rather imperfect metaphors for a reality which Jesus came to proclaim and then firmly establish.

I suppose there is mission here as well. Aren’t my actions supposed to point beyond me to the one who has called me? Couldn’t God use me to elevate words? Not because words themselves have intrinsic value, but because God is elevating me and my deeds as I submit my ways to the Way Jesus came to reveal. What if I could help heal the word “love” because of the way I loved?

That would be poetry.

Back in the Bin

2010-12-07T08:00:00.000-08:00

I did it again. Just like I did with Terry Goodkind and Ben Bova (and should have done with R. Scott Bakker), I took a book back to the library after reading about 20% of it. I don’t plan on ever looking up anything by the author again.

Which is a shame. Ian McDonald’s River of Gods holds so much promise that I hated to put it down, but put it down I did.

To bring you up to speed: McDonald’s near future (2047) collage is set in India on her 100th anniversary, a moment of great unrest for the country and the world. Of course man-made global warming has brought about unprecedented changes and unpredictability in earth’s climate, here actualized by a drought leaving India with a waste of her heartland rivers. India (and the United States) have fragmented into conflict-ridden sister-states, and of course the novel is set on the brink of war.

Add into the mix a generous helping of late-late scifi chrome: aeai’s (AIs) are core to the plot, having been outlawed in the US because of Bible-thumping moralists, are springing up everywhere in India, such that enough go bad to cause the creation of a branch of law enforcement, the “Krishna kop”. User interface technology piques in the “’hoek”, a straight-to-the-brain Bluetooth device that rich people use to beam in their diets of information. Huge remote-controlled combat robots (the only ones we see are the ones created by the US, remote controlled by cowardly pilots half a world away, or stolen from them and put to more personal purposes) roam the humid streets destroying randomly (at least from the point of view of the plot).

And then, into this weave of technology, add a generous helping of social scifi—genetically engineered “Brahmins”, physical children who have the sexual appetites and financial resources of 14th century French aristocrats; “nutes”, surgically modified people with no external sexual organs, but with sub-dermal control panels that allow other intimate nutes to do much more with them than any mere physical genitalia ever would. All the modern and post-modern obsession with personal consumption and sexual license.

Stir and set into motion.

I found myself interested in where things were going, but increasingly tired of the usual dystopian tropes. Even 20% in I could see the nihilism and bracingly cold scientism teasing out the strands of the plot. And to top it off, the real deal-breaker was the relentless ultra-graphic sex scenes. I mean the kind that couldn’t be filmed without an NC-17 rating. Every five pages. Even if I wanted to see where this went, I’d have to wade through all that muck. And the America-is-the-devil-ism. And see-I-told-you-so environmentalism. And the gleeful abandonment of the human family at every level.

So back in the bin it went.

According to the web, this is the sort of book the people award highly (the author has a number of prestigious awards to his credit). Clearly this is forward thinking, progressive scifi at its best.

Fine, whatever. But who is writing good books in the genre these days?

Eleven Wireless: A Little of What I Do All Day

2010-12-02T07:46:00.000-08:00

I'm now officially one-quarter of the way through my first year of a new job. For those of you that have had new jobs anytime recently, you'll recognize this as the part when you are competent enough to know your way around, who to ask for help, and how not to embarrass yourself at the company meeting. It is not long enough to really know how to do your job well or to know what to expect of the job's long term prospects.

Just what is it that I do? It's complicated, so I'll start simple and build from there. I work for a small company in downtown Portland called Eleven Wireless, whose primary business is helping companies generate extra sources of revenue from the growing demand for ubiquitous Internet access, computers, printers, even iPads. Those little business centers cropping up in hotels, medical centers, banks, and the lobby of your posh downtown condo? Yeah, that's us.

We make money by "monetizing" access to these technologies: $5.95 for 15 minutes of wireless access at a high-end hotel on the beaches of Maui, for example. $0.69 for black and white copies or prints on that all-in-one device. Or an as-yet-unknown fee to rent an iPad for the weekend when staying at a fancy hotel just off Broadway.

What’s my part in all this? Also complicated. My title is “technical support engineer”. The people who work at our building downtown are all “tier 3” support technicians. Meaning you have to have a really nasty problem with one of your business center computers before you ever talk to me. The vast majority of my daily contacts with customers are with IT staff that work for hotels. In the last week, I’ve seen a hotel lose the ability to bill service to their guest rooms because somebody decided to unplug a single hidden cable from an innocent looking black box among a forest of such boxes in the hotel’s phone room. I’ve used SQL queries to generate thousands of internet access codes for hotels to supply to their guests as incentives. I’ve sat on the phone with the support teams of other technologies we touch, getting help to make their stuff play nice with our stuff. I’ve remotely logged in to hundreds of computers, network switches, and printers (yes, you can remotely control most printers nowadays from a simple web interface) to check, configure, and fix a myriad of things.

But technical support is only one of my three major responsibilities. I am the lead support engineer for our entire line of Windows-based solutions (as opposed to the other lead engineers for Mac-based solutions and for network operations), which means that I’m the one who knows the Windows product in and out. Not only am I the lead support engineer for this product line, I am also responsible for deployments—we hire technicians who physically fly to the hotel to unbox and plug in the computer, printer, and networking hardware, but most of them know nearly nothing about our products. That means that once the stuff is unboxed and plugged in, they call me and I go to work, usually for 4-6 hours, configuring the equipment remotely while plugged in to all kinds of fancy IT support infrastructure. Once I do my thing, the technician has to verify that my test prints came out of the printer and then he can leave. If we could install swiveling webcams on the computers we’re installing (and maybe a Roomba with a mechanical arm and a wireless internet connection), then I really could do everything myself.

This is the first technology job I’ve had that really doesn’t require my physical presence. 99% of everything I do I could do sitting at a bench in a park. With technologies like LogMeIn, web-based CRM, email, instant messaging, ssh, the iPhone, and Clear, there isn’t much that I do on a daily basis that isn’t purely digital. Even my phone voice flies over IP.

So I do technical support, product deployments, and also QA (quality assurance). As the lead support engineer for my product line, I also provide QA services to our engineering team. When they finish coding up a new product, they shove me in a room with new product and a clipboard and I’m supposed to find all the ways that its broken (or borked, which I commonly hear around the office) and then itemize the pain for the engineers. So far, the engineers don’t hate me. Never quite understood how the relationship between engineers and QA works on a personal level, I guess I’m finding out.

STEEP learning curve around here. Still learning where they keep the coffee and toilet paper and 401k paperwork. Having a lot of fun with my coworkers. More on all that later.

Campbell Multimedia is live...

2010-04-29T10:53:00.000-07:00

Need web or graphic design work done? I know a guy...www.campbellmultimedia.com.

"Jesus is standing on the broken doors of hell..."

2010-04-04T07:57:00.000-07:00

"Jesus is standing on the broken doors of hell. The massive portals lie crossed under his feet, a reminder of the cross that won this triumph. He stands braced and striding, like a superhero, using his mighty outstretched arms to lift a great weight. That weight is Adam and Eve themselves, our father and mother in the fallen flesh. Jesus grasps Adam's wrist with his right hand and Eve's with his left as he pulls them forcibly up, out of the carved marble boxes that are their graves. Eve is shocked and appears almost to recoil in shame, long gray hair streaming. Adam gazes at Christ with a look of stunned awe, face lined with weary age, his long tangled beard awry. Their limp hands lie in Jesus's powerful grip as he hauls them up into the light.

"Behind Christ stand King David, King Solomon, the prophet Isaiah, and the prophet Jeremiah, all in gorgeous robes, clustered tightly like a standing-room-only crowd to see this marvelous event. Among them is an air of joy, even conviviality. John the Baptist is in the throng, still clothed in camel skin, now in full repossession of his head. Behind them are ranks and ranks of the righteous dead, who are dead no more, for Christ has set them free.

"Beneath Christ's feet is a black receding pit with floating silver shards of metal, chains, locks, and ominous instruments of pain. These instruments are broken and shattered, and the locks are unhinged, except for one set, still intact and in use. These locks bind the body of that vicious old Satan, who grimaces in his captivity, bound hand and foot and cast into his own darkness."

When you consider images of the resurrection, what do you imagine?

From Proclaiming the Scandal of the Cross: Contemporary Images of the Atonement, Frederica Mathewes-Green contributor.

Lent 2010: the darker passages of the Christian walk

2010-02-26T08:20:00.000-08:00

For the last few years, I've been doing Lent along with some of my friends and each time I grow in my appreciation for its value in the journey of faith. At its core, Lent is an identification with Jesus on his way to death. Along the way, we discover the depths of our own sin, the effects and repercussions of sin in the world around us, and how essential God's grace and transforming Spirit is in our salvation from sin.

This year, I came across a group called CRM that publishes a daily devotional designed around the themes of Lent and I've been blessed so far by many of the readings and meditations. Today's meditation seemed the perfect microcosm of the Lenten journey, so I thought I'd share it with you. Links to read more and sign up for the devotional yourself follow.

SCRIPTURE READING - DAY 10

Hosea 5:15 - 6:2

Then I will go back to my place until they
admit their guilt. And they will seek my face; in their misery they will earnestly seek me.

Come, let us return to the LORD. He has
torn us to pieces but he will heal us; he
has injured us but he will bind up our
wounds. After two days he will revive us;
on the third day he will restore us, that
we may live in his presence. (NIV)

MEDITATION

Some of the Russian leaders I work with were hungry for more of God and decided to go through the prayer exercises of St. Ignatius. One of the most difficult weeks is summarized by this prayer: “Lord, give me a growing and intense sorrow for my sins.” That prayer also expresses the essence of Lent.

Vladimir recently complained to me about his journey through this exercise: “Who wants to spend a whole week meditating on his sins? I’m just digging up all this dirt. Where is God’s presence in all this? I’m used to feeling guilty, or sensing the Spirit’s conviction of sin. But I hate dwelling on it all the time! I can’t wait for this week to be over!” “What were you praying for this week?” I asked. “Did God answer that prayer?” As we unpacked Vladimir’s experience of the exercises, we saw that God was indeed answering his uncomfortable prayer.

Vladimir had gone beyond seeing how his behavior hurt others and offended God’s holiness. He was realizing how his attempts to find comfort and fulfillment apart from God are self-defeating, how pervasive his pursuit of control is. Both effectively push God and his love away.

Hosea’s prophecy is a blistering litany of Israel’s misplaced search for control and comfort. God’s strategy is not simply to punish Israel; he wants to wean them from their false dependencies. He does that in love by leaving Israel alone with its sin.

The life God longs to give me in his presence is free of my dependencies. Something essential within me needs to change, and I cannot change it myself. Though God is the only One who can change me, my response is still important. Like Israel, we usually have to be left alone with the depth of our sin before we will voluntarily welcome the grace of true repentance.

When I spend enough time with the depth of my sin, I learn just how unconditional God’s love for me is. Guilt is not healing. At best, it produces behavior modification. Love is transforming. And when we are absolutely convinced of his love, we can cooperate with the uncomfortable convicting work of the Spirit.

As we learn to welcome the grace of conviction, he will accomplish the deeper work in us of developing a revulsion to sin and a repulsion from sin ahead of time. And it is in that transformational process that we learn to receive the deeper, life-giving streams of his presence flowing in and through us.

REFLECTION

How has God been showing you your dependencies and your grasp for control? How have you responded?
How can you receive the latest revelation of your sinfulness as a demonstration of God’s love for you?
Pray: Lord, I am willing to be left alone with my sin, so that I can be transformed.

Here's a link to CRM's introduction with options to subscribe (for free) to the daily devotions. May God be at work transforming you this and every season!

Reading lately

2009-12-19T20:22:00.000-08:00

I've finally gotten back to a regular reading habit and I've hit upon some real gems (as well as sifting through the colored glass).

Chris Roberson's Paragaea: I wanted to like Roberson's Paragaea. It is marketed as coming from the adventure tradition of E. R. Burroughs (Tarzan, a Princess of Mars) but is very much out of touch with such works. While it shares a fast-paced plot across a pleasantly unbelievable landscape, the driving characters are so shallow and motive-less that I ended up trying to read around them. I liked the world they explored, the characters they interacted with, and some of the action sequences and mysteries were involving. Ultimately, though, the characters had no good reason to strive for much of anything at all and the ending seemed forced and abrupt. 2/5 stars.

Lars Walker's Erling's Word: Easily the best historical fantasy I've ever read. Takes actual historical figures (Erling Skjalgsson) and treats the spirit-haunted world they lived in as tangibly real. Somewhat brutal (as those times were) and not afraid to dive straight into the complicated relationships between religious traditions of the time, this book isn't for the faint of heart. If you've ever wondered if a story could treat the Christian faith as fairly as the indigenous populations' religious traditions, here's a story that does so marvelously. Pure genius. 4/5 stars. FYI, getting a hold of Erling's Word is a little tricky, since this book is out of print. I haven't had too much trouble finding used copies at my local bookstores.

Stephen Hunt's Court of the Air: I'm only about halfway through this book and I'm enjoying it so far. It's a mature example of the recent "steampunk" trend, and easily the best example I've read so far. Far warning: the book takes a lot of work to get into, the author having a lot of world to throw at you in rapid-fire fashion. But, if you can manage the first 70 pages or so, you'll find yourself acclimatized and enjoying the ride. Hunt needs to be congratulated on cramming so many cool ideas into so few pages. I'm looking forward to seeing where this one goes, and I'm glad to see it already has a sequel.

Barnes and Noble's Complete Fiction of H. P. Lovecraft: Somebody decided that December was Cthulhu month, a fact which I must have intuitively known, since I've been digging through my big collection of H. P. Lovecraft's stories. I started at the very beginning and read some of his earliest stories, including some prose poems. If you don't have this mammoth complete collection from Barnes and Noble, you need to pick it up. It isn't expensive and the printing is very high quality. Otherwise, you'll miss the rarer gems of Lovecraft's work not often seen in other collections.

Colossians 1:9-12, visualized

2009-11-04T09:22:00.000-08:00

Aiming for the wrong target

2009-10-31T06:32:00.000-07:00

Remember the story from a recent Olympics when the athlete nailed the bullseye perfectly, and then was disqualified when they pointed out the fact that he was aiming at the target in someone else’s lane? Ouch.
I got to thinking about our medical technologies that are proliferating like cyberrabbits. The fastest growing categories are the “lifestyle” drugs which don’t treat injuries or life-threatening illnesses. I know there are a lot of good things happening here, but it seems like I run across stories where it gets weird pretty fast.
Consider:

Testosterone is one of the fastest-growing therapies prescribed by the $80 billion-a-year anti-aging industry, which has embraced it as the cure du jour for andropause, more commonly known as male menopause. Conservative doctors question the existence of such a malady, and testosterone makers shy from discussing it because they're not allowed to promote the drug "off-label"—for uses not endorsed by the FDA. Still, off-label prescriptions are likely to account for much of the market's rapid growth. That fact isn't lost on the FDA: During a press conference to announce the black boxes, an agency spokeswoman said she was alarmed that 25,000 testosterone prescriptions per year are written off-label for women, who use it to boost their libidos. [http://ow.ly/15Yjrc]

I’m no doctor. I don’t even spend any time on WebMD. But women taking testosterone to improve their libido? Against FDA and manufacturer warnings? And the doctors prescribing it knowing full well what they are doing?

What if all these technologies are merely enabling us to hit the wrong target? Is it possible that these women have decreased libido as a consequence of other lifestyle choices? Is it possible (*gasp*) that having a decreased libido is okay, a normal state of human affairs that comes naturally with a particular stage of life?
I’m making tons of assumptions here. Maybe somebody reading this is going to be offended because of a whole series of facts about this situation that I don’t understand. I’m really not trying to get on a soapbox or decry the development of drugs not strictly for treating cancer or the bubonic plague.
I’m just wondering where this trend is going to take us. If a drug could be produced that would make a serial killer forget his crimes and feel good about himself again, blissfully ignorant of his past, would that be a good thing? (I’m not making this up.) If that’s too extreme for you, then let’s take it down a notch. How about a drug that makes you forget the pain of divorce? Of losing your job? Of missing your favorite television show?

Technology allows us to achieve aims not possible given the course of nature and boundaries provided to us by the world around us. Without the massive string of technologies involved, I would not be able to ask you this question. But I wonder how often technology enables us to hit the wrong target? Eliminate consequences of behavior and thoughts that would otherwise guide us somewhere better? Achieve goals that put us further from the big, root things we really seek?

Isn’t free will a blast?

The Seven Deaths of Malcolm Reynolds

2009-10-23T13:33:00.000-07:00

For Jake, who comes up with the hardest writing prompts. (For those of you wondering, Malcolm Reynolds is the name of the captain played by Nathan Fillion on the fan-favorite Firefly show. If you don't know that, you probably won't get virtually anything that follows. And even if you do, no guarantees. *smirk*

THE SEVEN DEATHS OF MALCOLM REYNOLDS

I never should have let her go, Captain Reynolds thought to himself.
Before him, in the vast panorama of darkness and diamonds that was Serenity's forward viewport, three gleaming hulks strove vainly to escape into the deeper darkness. The patchwork hulks bore the unmistakable jutting hulls, broken externalia, and blood-red smears found only on Reaver ships. "Keep runnin', you gorram sǐ bùyàoliǎn sǐ guǐ!" Mal said aloud to the empty bridge.

A year ago, before they'd discovered the origins of the Reavers on the rim world called Miranda, Reynolds never would have guessed the Reavers would run from anything. Yet here they were, the angry corona of their unshielded drives showing their desperation to escape.

After the incident at Miranda, the Alliance had split right down the middle. Somebody had traced back the drugs that had made the Reavers in the first place, and used it to make a weapon that killed Reavers from a long way away. Just a beacon, like a dog whistle that only they could hear, or so Simon had tried to explain to him. Apparently word got out fast and the Reavers ran like rabbits out into deep space. Most of 'em, at least.

A few went even more crazy than they already were and decided to go out in a frenzy of blood and death, charging right into the center of what had been Alliance space. Tons of 'em died like moths charging a campfire, or at least, that's what happened when colonies built and fielded the beacons fast enough. But some of the colonies couldn't in time. So many people died.

He'd felt bad for all those colonists, but stayed well out of the way up until he'd heard a Reaver ship had taken a merchant rig where she'd been docked. Now Mal had gotten one of those beacons for himself and he'd gone hunting. And here before him ran the last of the fleet he'd chased for so long.

He knew they couldn't outpace him. He'd made Kaylee show him how to unshield Serenity's drives once he'd found out what they'd done. Kaylee had shown him, and he'd had to close the door in her face, all their faces, at gunpoint. Jayne, the fool, thought he'd been joking, so Mal shot him in the thigh just to prove his point; seemed the natural thing to do. Gorram but it felt good to shoot Jayne. Then he'd up and left them all behind. Followed the trail of carnage, chasing them out past Alliance space until he'd caught up with them, one after another. And now there were three.

Suddenly, weapons fire flashed from the starboard side of one of the smaller Reaver ships. Mal grabbed the sides of the nav console, bracing for the impact of whatever they had just unleashed. A second later, he realized they weren't firing on Serenity, but rather on the largest of the Reaver ships. Nice. Small rippling explosions bloomed along its port side, culminating in a great burning mass which fled from it like so much blood. The hulking ship's drive corona winked out and immediately it began to list. The other two smaller vessels instantly accelerated beyond her.

Mal cut the power to his own drive. He had already forgotten the other two Reaver ships; this was the one he wanted. Eyes locked on that broken hulk, he watched as it spun toward him slowly, revealing its crudely captured cargo trapped beneath it like the web-shrouded prey of some vast spider. He could feel the fear and hate rise within him in anticipation, knowing exactly what he was about to see.

There alongside that great Reaver ship another, smaller vessel hung, massive grappling cables holding her fast. It was the burned out Kaddison's Glory. All her cabin windows were dark and no doubt had been for days. Kaddison's Glory had been taken deep inside Alliance space near Carson's World. Mal didn't give a fig for Kaddison or her crew; they were shady men to the end and probably deserved what they got meeting the Reavers. Well, no man deserved to fall into the claws of Reavers. But the one he did care for--Mal's breath caught as Reaver ship completed its spin such that the full length of the captured merchant ship could be seen. There it was, still docked on Kaddison's underbelly: Inara's shuttle.

Tears fell onto his clenched fists as the view burned itself into his mind. Inara had been taken. By Reavers.

Unbidden, unwanted, came the memory of a kiss and he sobbed.

Two weeks ago, she had showed him a copy of the letter she had sent to her Companion superiors, cancelling all her contracts and rescinding her status as an active, well, whore. He couldn't believe it, he couldn't remember saying anything, but he remembered the look in her eyes, how much she'd enjoyed his luminous shock. She was leaving everything behind to be with him.

Then she'd broke the news to him. One more job, and he wasn't going to like it. "What does the job entail?" He'd asked, not really wanting to know. "You know I can't speak to that, Mal. It's just one more job." He'd just sat there, watching her leave, reeling over the kiss with which she'd silenced him. That was the last time he saw her. Two weeks later, he'd gotten word that Kaddison's Glory, her last 'client', had been taken.

He mopped his face with his sleeve and noticed it was wet with more than just tears. His nose was bleeding badly. His ears were ringing too--the radiation from Serenity's unshielded drive had taken its toll; it wouldn't be much longer.

The hulk before him continued it's uncontrolled spin, carrying the image of the trapped merchant ship away into darkness. Slowly, he drifted into range and absently threw the lever which activated the beacon. He imagined he could see a ripple in space as the wave of something passed through the Reaver ship, killing every Reaver on board like the invisible hand of God, or so the Shepherd would say.

For several minutes, Mal let Serenity continue to drift in silence slowly toward the listless hulk. There, everything he could do was now done. So much he wished he could have done, wished he had done, and he was left with this. Two ships, drifting in darkness, drifting toward death. Mal remembered telling Inara once that everybody dies alone. That might be the one argument with her he wished he'd lost.

On a whim, he shoved the control console forward and Serenity responded, leaping toward the hulk with renewed energy. Mal's head ached, worse than any hangover he'd ever experienced. Worse than all of them put together. A few minutes and some delicate maneuvering later, Mal found himself down at the old dock on Serenity where Inara's shuttle used to rest. Through blurring vision, he set up a tunnel between Serenity and what remained of the Reaver ship's unused dock. He thought he could hear music for a minute, but just shook his head. It swam as if he were drunk.

Mal crawled down the tunnel into the darkness of the Reaver's ship. A cancerous stench assaulted his nose, though it seemed to come from far away, as if someone else was smelling it. He climbed out of the tunnel unsteadily, smiling all-ironical like at the fact that his boots now rested on the deck of a Reaver ship. And he'd put them there of his own free will.

A bit of wandering brought him past heaps of dead Reavers, down hallways of hanging cables and smeared obscenities, all the way to the threshold of Kaddison's Glory. And then through it, to the door of Inara's shuttle. He pulled it open freely. Its once luxuriously furnished interior had been ransacked thoroughly, panels torn from walls, her accommodations a shambles. One question only rang through him, holding back the tears like a great stone dam: had she been alive when those monsters came through the door?

At her wardrobe table he found his answer. Hammered into the polished wooden surface was the short bodkin she kept sheathed high up on her leg; Mal had only seen it once when he had so foolishly tried to defend her honor and got himself into a sword fight way out of his league. Now, the slim blade held fast a sheet of parchment marked by her lovely script:

Mal, my lovely Mal:

I know you are coming for me, but I cannot wait.

I love you.

Next to the parchment sat an empty vial marked 'hemlock.'

Tears fell freely from Mal's eyes and he slumped into a broken chair. As his eyes dimmed and the ringing in his ears sang in a gathering darkness, he laid his face on the parchment. At his last, Captain Malcolm Reynolds whispered, "Hello, Inara. I love you...and goodbye."

* * *

"No way, Malcolm Reynolds would never go out like that," Taylor said, sipping from his 64 oz. Diet Dr. Pepper. Before him, an array of papers, dice, and snacks nearly covered the surface of the dining room table, around which sat five other boys.

One of the others, looking up from behind a thickly bound hardcover rulebook, petulantly asked, "Are we going to play or what? Mark, what does your character do?"

"Whatever. This game is getting stale. I think, faced with the array of confusing options before him, Jayne would just start shooting stuff."

Two of the other boys groaned; Mark always became impatient whenever their role-playing games degenerated into any sort of talking. If there were no actual battles going on, he always found a way to start one. Here it comes, they all thought.

Mark picked up a handful of dice. "Jayne shoots Mal." He started shaking the dice hungrily, like he was sitting at a craps table waiting to finish off a round of good luck.

"You what?!" asked James, the boy playing Mal in their role-playing adventure.

"Seriously, Jayne pulls out his Mk IV (which he lovingly calls "Vera") and fires a full burst at Mal. He's wanted to for a long time, and he knows Mal is carrying lots of money right now. All the more to send home to his mom," said Mark.

Tim, the boy running the game, just shook his head. Idiot, he thought. All that planning in the adventure, all of next week's plans shot. Literally. He glanced at James, who was also shaking his head. Tim thought, next time I'll have to rig the selection process so that Mark has to play Kaylee. "Fine, roll your attack."

Dice scattered on the table, ominous numbers revealing themselves. James took one look and shook his head again. He glanced at his character sheet where Mal's remaining hit points were recorded. Not good.

* * *

Gilbert couldn't believe his luck. He was sitting across the table at Burger King with the most gorgeous girl he had ever seen. Hair black as night, as if she'd dyed it that same evening. Black lipstick adorned her pouting smile, broken only by the smooth steel rings piercing the lovely lips, pale white skin the shade of moonlight in November. She wore a black, lacey fairy costume complete with wide, diaphanous wings. He tried not to notice the fact that she bent them near to breaking, squeezed as she was into the Burger King booth.

Gilbert glanced over her shoulder. Across the street, a thousand other conventioners would leave the Red Lion looking for food soon and this place would be swarming with them. But for right now, she was all his.

She said, "So I was thinking, we should write a story together. You like Firefly, right? Have you ever written any fanfics?"

Gilbert immediately thought of the Powerpuff Girls/Pokemon crossovers he wrote in middle school. "No, I never have. You?"

"Oh yes, all the time. Right now, I'm working on a story where Edward from Twilight meets Buffy and they fight for a while and then fall in love. But I'm bored with it and want to try something new. Maybe I could come over to your house and we could work on something?"

Gilbert swallowed visibly. A girl. In his house. Well, his mom's house, but same thing. "Uh, sure, yeah."

"Okay, so I was thinking, I like Twilight, you like Firefly. How about if Edward somehow gets transported into the future onto Serenity and immediately falls in love with Inara. But of course, Mal will object and Edward will have to bite him in the neck."

"Uh..." started Gilbert, but then he just nodded. He could trade Mal for a little time with this particular girl.

* * *

He could see the look on thousands of fanboys' faces so clearly in his mind's eye. Their hearts would melt. Their souls would burst. He'd have ten thousand twitter followers! Greg hustled toward the dry cleaners, his last stop before he could get home and upload the bootleg video to the torrents all over the internet.

He rushed into the cleaners only to find a huge lineup stretching back from a single clerk moving slow as molasses. Greg's armload of clothes got heavier and heavier standing there in line until he finally had to dump them all into a chair in the lobby and re-organize them. Several suits, ties, a sport coat, even a small down comforter. Maria, his girlfriend had insisted he get his suits cleaned, and he grudgingly admitted they needed it. He'd leapt forward in his company's sales department and was making very good money, even if he'd never pictured himself in a suit. No matter. The main question was going to be how to explain to Maria that he'd paid a man $50,000 of that good money for a bootleg DVD which he'd discovered in the collection of a disgruntled archivist down at Fox Studios. A second season of Firefly! Was the world ready for this?!

Greg finally handed off the pile of laundry to the clerk and flung himself out the door. Four minutes later, another customer approached the clerk holding an unlabeled DVD in a cracked jewel case that had fallen between chairs in the lobby. The clerk glanced at both sides, shrugged absently, and dumped it in with that morning's coffee grounds.

* * *

Miranda yelled to her husband in the next room, "Have you seen the paper?"

"I think I threw it away." Newspapers, Mike thought. What was the point?

Miranda reached into the trash and dusted off a few coffee grounds from the movie listings. What to pick that they would both like?

"Hey Mike, did you know they made another Firefly movie?"

"Really?" Mike said, coming around from the den with an iPhone in his hand.

"Yeah, comes out next week."

"Wow, I hadn't heard that." Which was surprising, since Mike spent quite a bit of time following scifi fan sites and upcoming movie listings. Before Miranda could hand him the paper, he'd already looked up the IMDB entry. Produced by Lance Henriksen, the guy who played Bishop in Aliens? Directed by Summer Glau? Ouch. Everybody loves River, but director? Yikes. Mike'd rather be at the antiques roadshow than see that one. Same category as Star Trek V, Aliens IV, Superman III. Unfortunately for Mr. Henriksen, no one else wanted to see the movie, either. Even the projectionist put in his earbuds and listened to an NPR podcast instead.

* * *

The last copy of Serenity II purchased and burned, now that was a good day. It took Joss Whedon forty years, but he'd gotten to all of them. Of course, these last few years his health had been failing, so the task had fallen to his children. On Christmas Day, they'd given it to him gift-wrapped along with a metal garbage bin, a can of lighter fluid, and a box of matches. All smiles, that last day had been. Quietly, Mr. Whedon went to sleep that night and passed on, a happy and fulfilled man. Who knows, perhaps his last dreams were of Malcolm Reynolds and Inara: of what might have been, or what might yet be.

* * *

Chini jacked in to the cloud, requesting some vintage entertainment. Let's go way back, she thought. What was that old guy in the oxybar chattering on about? An ancient 2D video called Serenity? Maybe she could find that. Through her neck-jack, she demanded "Serenity" from whatever entertainment server might be listening in.

Content not found.

With an irritable tick, she upped her focus. Searched the slum servers, virus-ridden but had the old stuff, the forbidden stuff.

Searching.

No secondary copies or backlinks found.

1 fan site(s) found, links to video found, all links broken; site last updated 3 February 2079.

Wow, this movie had gone stale. Just as she was about to give up, the cloud servers offered her an upgrade feature, only 2300¥. For this small sum, the server would re-create the title "Serenity" from its web context. Cool, she thought. And off the engines went with their residual up-sell cash.

Generating. Context engine searching:

Role playing game site found: Firefly MMORPG v19.2 found; collating world and character data.

Fanfic entry found "Edward vs. Captain Reynolds". Collating.

Blog entry found: "Seven Deaths of Malcolm Reynolds". Collating. Error, loop detected.

Return error: Cannot generate title "Serenity" from context. Would you like to search again?

Ugh, thought Chini. There went 2300¥ for nothing. She shrugged. Search vintage titles: "Twilight."

Changing media: some perspective from the Economist

2009-10-13T08:47:00.001-07:00

Halloween Short Story Contest

2009-10-01T08:01:00.001-07:00

With our Cascade Hills re-launch push finally settling down, I have some spare cycles to spend on something other than work stuff. No, it’s imperative I spend some cycles on something other than work stuff—poor brain’s been a little one-dimensional lately.

So, following the footsteps of the Tim the Great (not this one, this one), I’m working on a Halloween short story for a contest that popped up on my radar. The story has to be no more than 1,000 words and has to be connected to an image that you submit with the story.

Here’s the one’s I’m staring at for inspiration. You might notice a certain theme developing.

Here’s a couple more that I came across that I really liked but I’m not sure what to do with:

We’ll see how much juice remains in my creative centers. It may be the most therapeutic thing I can do right now is stare at a pumpkin picture for two weeks. It may be that I write some stuff relating to that picture. We’ll see how it goes.

Happy change-in-seasons!

U.S. Outdoor: about to jump the shark?

2009-07-06T08:22:00.001-07:00

Three stories of camping, hiking, skiing, snowshoeing, and rock climbing—all crammed into a busted down historic building in downtown Portland. Sort of like a Powell’s books for lovers of the Northwest outdoors.

I hadn’t been in for a while, so while downtown recently, my wife and I decided to jump inside and see the latest in excellent and affordable gear. The top floor had always been our favorite: a huge selection of tents, sleeping bags, backpacks, and all the cooking and packing gear you could imagine. Seems like every time we went in, we’d find something we really needed for an unbelievable deal: snowshoes for $90, a Gregory multi-day pack on sale for $125, a killer pair of gore-tex full boots for $100.

But what was this? The top floor turned into a skate shop? And not really a skate shop, but more a showcase of the latest skate-wear? Back down on the main floor we looked around, virtually everything on the floor had been moved out in favor of expensive clothing! A bit frantic at this point, we went to the lowest and final floor. Here at least was the last redoubt of US Outdoor’s outdoor gear. A small collection of bags and backpacks, a couple of tents. A quarter of the room is dedicated to shoes, most of which are various colors of Keens. Stuffed into the corner: a couple of ropes and some miscellaneous rock climbing gear.

I shed a tear for my beloved US Outdoor. I knew it would come, sooner or later, just as it does to all excellent gear outlets. It happened first to Eddie Bauer, which believe it or not used to sell both cheap and excellent outdoor clothing and gear. Somewhere in the 90’s it decided that there was no money in gear or in cheap clothing, so they decided to become the Gap’s little sister. Then it happened to REI. Once a manufacturer of some of the best (and most affordable) gear on the planet, it too embraced the siren call of Abercrombie and Fitch, becoming hip, trendy, and spendy. I have to wonder if any of the people who visit REI have ever gotten their boots muddy? Here closer to home, G. I. Joe’s gave up the reliable, rugged, and affordable a decade ago for the trendy and spendy; they also recently closed their doors forever.

I suppose I’ll have to start looking for somewhere to buy decent gear. Is it really that a business cannot be run on the premise of affordable outdoor adventure gear? I have money in my pocket, waiting to stumble into your store.

Good Days in Smithville: Thinking of Ruben Whitfield

2009-06-22T06:53:00.001-07:00

At some time or another, this young fella and his wife dragged themselves right into the middle of Texas, not quite knowing the difference between barbequed or grilled, poor things. So there they are, trying to get themselves an education when they up and realize that the canned food they brought with them wasn’t going to last all that long.

Turns out, this church in a very famous movie-making town just outside of Austin needed some help for their crazy preacher. So this ol’ boy drags his wife out to this little town and tries out on a Sunday night, preaching his heart out on some such thing. Poor kid never preached a sermon in his life, tripped over every other word, kept dabbing his forehead with his sleeve only partially because of the late summer heat.

Well, after that pitiful attempt at preaching, these two elders hauled him off to a little room in the church. One was named Ruben, the other Don. Don kept eyeing this young fella like he’d never seen anybody from Oregon before and wondering if he’d last the summer, what with all the bugs and snakes and lizards and such. The young fella wondered the same thing. But ol’ Ruben, he was as cool as a cucumber and looked that young fella up and down. Says to himself, this poor man’s wife needs to eat, and maybe we can teach him a thing or two about preaching and helping folks and doing the good Lord’s work. Right then and there, they offered him a job, and that young fella’s life has never been the same since.

Ol’ Ruben did that young fella and his wife some real good. He and his wife Naomi had them over for coffee in the afternoons when those pesky youth group types wouldn’t get with the program. Fed them roast beef and butter beans after they couldn’t see straight from taking finals all week. Gave helpful advice in elder’s meetings, and even more helpful advice in those quiet moments before everyone else got to church on Sunday mornings. Ruben was like that, often as not the first one at the building, making things ready for folks who’d come to catch a glimpse of God’s goodness. Ruben himself, now wasn’t he just the kind of glimpse people looked for?

Seems the Good Lord has called Ruben to his rest. For my part, I have a hard time picturing Ruben sitting still very long. I figure he’s helping out around the place, taking care of things that need doing, a small smile on his face and hands busy. Isn’t that just the sort of rest Ruben would enjoy? I know one thing for sure. This young fella and his wife sure are glad to have known him. Ruben, see you soon.

Quote: Brother Lawrence, "Maxims"

2009-05-14T09:06:00.000-07:00

"Men invent means and methods of coming at God's love, they learn rules and set up devices to remind them of that love, and it seems like a world of trouble to bring oneself into the consciousness of God's presence. Yet it might be so simple. Is it not quicker and easier just to do our common business wholly for the love of him?" >>

What’s happening to the city?

2009-05-13T07:52:00.001-07:00

For those of us watching cultural trends, it seems that there is a renewed focus on establishing the live-ability of the urban, downtown environments of our cities. Lots of development work is going in to recapturing failed sections of cities, buying out old industrial districts and turning them into hip, upscale community centers like The Pearl in Portland.

But live-able for who? I came across an article by Joel Kotkin recently who has done extensive research on the migrations of people in and out of these new urban centers. There are some concerning trends:

City planners and urban developers favor the unattached: the “young and restless,” the “creative class,” and the so-called “yuspie”—the young urban single professional. Champions of the unattached suggest that companies and cities should capture this segment, described by one as “the dream demographic,” if they wish to inhabit the top tiers of the economic food chain.

Another key group coveted by cities are the legions of baby boomers who have already raised children. No longer cohabiting with offspring, they are expected to give up their dull family existence and rediscover the allure of a fast-paced, defiantly “youthful” lifestyle. The new retirees, suggests luxury homebuilder Robert Toll, “are more hip-hop and happening than our parents.” They are more interested in indulging “the sophistication and joy and music that comes with city dwelling, and doesn’t come with sitting in the ’burbs watching the day go by.”

I immediately thought of the Pearl District in Portland, a place with which I have sort of a love-hate relationship. On the one hand, it is filled with cool shops, the best of all being Powell’s Books. There are fabulous one-of-a-kind restaurants within easy reach. The arts and parks are wonderful and the walking experience is a feast for the senses. The light rail will take you anywhere else you want to go.

But I’ve often wondered what people with a four year old and a two year old do. You don’t see people with kids very often wandering around Pearl. I even went to the Pearl’s guide web site and looked for what I assumed would be some upscale schools, fancy boutiques for urbanite moms looking to buy their daughters some designer eco-friendly toys. But a look at the marketing, photos, and highlights leaves the married-with-kids out of the mix. Look for yourself. You see the two demographics mentioned in Kotkin’s article.

I wonder what sort of effect this will have on smaller communities like Salem. I know Salem wants to be like her big sister to the North and is on a rampage to upscale its downtown along these same lines. Is the lifestyle of the “unattached” the goal of our vibrant urban centers? What happens when newly-forming young families are forced to choose between the hip urban lifestyle and one that includes the possibility of children? Is this a wise development choice?

Where does “church” fit in to the gospel?

2009-05-12T07:19:00.001-07:00

Dr. Scot McKnight offers these thoughts from his blog:

Many readers of the Bible read the whole Bible through the lens of the gospel they believe and this is what that gospel looks like:

God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life.

But you have a sin problem that separates you from God.

The good news is that Jesus came to die for your sins.

If you accept Jesus' death, you can be reconnected to God.

Those who are reconnected to God will live in heaven with God.

Every line of that statement is more or less true. It is the sequencing of those lines, the "story" of that gospel if you will, that concerns me and that turns Jesus' message of the kingdom into a blue parakeet. And it is not only the sequencing, it is the omitting of major themes in the Bible that concerns me. What most shocks the one who reads the Bible as Story, where the focus is overwhelmingly on God forming a covenant community, is that this outline of the gospel above does two things: it eliminates community and it turns the entire gospel into a "me and God" or "God and me" gospel. Who needs a church if this is the gospel? (Answer: no one.) What becomes of the church for this gospel? (Answer: an organization for those who want to do that sort of thing.) While every line in this gospel is more or less true, what concerns many of us today is that this gospel makes the church unimportant.

I believe this gospel can deconstruct, is deconstructing, and will deconstruct the church if we don't change it now. Our churches are filled with Christians who don't give a rip about church life and we have a young generation who, in some cases, care so much about the Church they can't attend a local church because too many local churches are shaped too much by the gospel I outlined above. To be truthful, the gospel above is a distortion of Romans. More and more of us, because we are reading the Bible as Story, are seeing the centrality of the church in God's plan and the gospel being preached too often is out of touch with the Bible's Story.

For a culture who “likes Jesus but not the church”, this is a real problem. If we suggest that any sort of community (another word for “organized religion” whenever anyone ever actually sees it up close) is somehow essential to participation in the gospel, then it’s going to make it a different sort of conversation about what it means to live life as a follower of Jesus. We’ve instantly taken personal investment in an ideal and broadened it into commitment to other people on a mission. A larger gospel indeed.

How do you speak of the communal component of the gospel? Is it tied to the “front end” or the “back end?” As in, do you speak of community as the result of gospel or does the community (*gasp*) somehow mediate that gospel in an important way?

The most important part of the story

2009-05-08T11:26:00.001-07:00

John Truby, legendary Hollywood script doctor, utters this provocative quip: “What you choose to write about is far more important than any decision you make about how you write it.”

I’ve been chewing on this question. As someone most interested in writing “genre” fiction (as in fantasy and science fiction), I think his point is

An unpublished author has to wade through cynical editors and jaded readers; if he wants to get his book published and purchased, he has to convince them the investment will be worth it. If the author is trying to do that on the basis of high-quality writing alone, that’s very hard to do without the experience of actually reading it. But if the he has a unique and interesting subject about which to write, then he’s got a head start on getting people to read long enough to discern his quality.

The very best stories have both: an excellent subject that has draw of its own, and then a skilled author executes that story with artful prose and an elegant structure.

Consider the other cases: a story has a good idea but poor execution. The better the idea, the more I’m willing to put up with bad execution (Chronicles of Riddick). If I have a dumb idea, I don’t care how well it’s done, I can’t force myself to slog through it for the sake of the artistic beauty (Twilight).

Here’s my operating principle I’m getting from all this: do both well, but realize that a great subject buys you time for every other art of fiction. Make sure your idea sizzles before refining the recipe.

Jorge Luis Borges: Literary Fantasist

2009-05-05T07:55:00.001-07:00

Everything depends on the color of the room. At the illustrious and legendary Powell’s Books in Portland, Oregon, each room is given a color, a sop thrown to those poor souls who have only begun to explore the vastness of the multilevel edifice. If one is in the blue room, one can expect to come across the likes of John Steinbeck, James Joyce, Jane Austen.

Just up the way, at the top of a steep staircase, one enters the gold room where J. R. R. Tolkien mingles with the likes of Stephen King, Dungeons & Dragons pulp novels, and H. G. Wells.

The former room is the rarefied air of the literati, the latter a room for nerd-fantasy and women with strange hair. The room in which one stands will determine how this paragraph ends:

I mentioned earlier that the wooded hill at whose foot the village sprawled was not really very high; it was flat on top, a sort of plateau. On the other side of the mountain, toward the west and north, the jungle began again. Since the slope was not a rugged one, one afternoon I suggested that we climb it. My simple words threw the villagers into consternation. One exclaimed that the mountainside was too steep. The eldest of them said gravely that my goal was impossible to attain, the summit of the hill was sacred, magical obstacles blocked the ascent to man. He who trod the peak with mortal foot was in danger of seeing the godhead, and of going blind or mad.

I did not argue, but that night, when everyone was asleep, I stole soundlessly from my hut and began to climb the easy hillside.

If one picked up the story in the blue room, one will find that the villagers are superstitious, deluded fools and that the narrator discovers something important which will benefit an enlightened world, or else something about his inner man that such a “spiritual” journey might reveal. And if the text in question was taken up while standing in the gold room, the narrator will find a necromancer looking to steal his soul, an enchanted sword or amulet with which he can defeat the hordes threatening to invade his own lands, or perhaps a spacecraft of such splendor that the natives foolishly ascribe to it something of the divine.

But if by the vagaries of fate, one stood in the blue room and came across a tattered copy of “The Book of Sand and Shakespeare’s Memory”, one would find a most remarkable conclusion to the story. There would be no realist’s dismissal of the numinous, no triumph of naturalism over the inexplicable or the one-of-a-kind. One would be left with the uncomfortable tension that any real person with his feet on the ground might feel if faced with, say, a photograph in a newspaper of his own dead body.

Yet Mr. Borges does not quite belong in the gold room either, since half the other stories alongside this one would concern themselves with gauchos, a lost heydey of Buenos Aires, and the fears of old men faced with encroaching blindness.

Jorge Luis Borges stands in a unique stream of fiction called “Magic Realism”, dealing with intersections of our ordinary world with troubled interruptions of the impossible and the numinous. Sometimes the interruptions are dealt with matter-of-factly, as if the author were explaining the process of spreading jam on toast. Other times, we share in the narrator’s confusion and frustration at the unreliability of memory, not least of all when it is faced with the memory of an impossible event.

Permit me to recommend Borges to you, regardless of the kinds of fictions you enjoy. Allow yourself to be knocked off your step in this “ordinary” world. Remind yourself that not all that seems impossible is such.