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The Ocean at the End of the Lane is master-storyteller Neil Gaiman’s new book for adults. It’s short (less than 200 pages) and straightforward: a man just past middle aged returns to his childhood home to attend a funeral. He wanders his old streets and awakens memories long forgotten.

I’m not going to talk about the plot here, because it’s amazing and fun and I don’t want to give anything away. Just go read it.

As our narrator relives some of the darkest moments of his childhood, the story becomes a meditation on the nature of growing up. Anyone who has kids (or who can remember the magical bits of your own childhood) will recognize the boy who finds The Ocean at the End of the Lane.

His world is dangerous: inhabited by monsters and wonders and oblivious, unhelpful adults. If you’ll permit me a short tangent, this is the quality of Neil’s writing I love most (probably. They’re hard to rank). In Neil’s books, kids are in real danger.

To a kid, the world is a scary place, and too often we adults don’t take their beliefs and fears seriously enough.

Neil takes us back into that world, where everything is magical and that’s not necessarily a good thing. A child’s world brims with possibility and – because of the perceived danger – real stakes. Ocean at the End of the Lane somehow manages to paint a picture of this fantastic children’s world without condescending to us.

Neil’s story invites us into the person of the narrator in more ways than one. We feel like visitors to this world. It’s clearly well-crafted, wholly thought-out and beautiful. But the setting never supersedes the story. We’re left with a lot of questions, an ache to return to the Ocean at the End of the Lane. We hunger for more of this world that keeps slipping through our fingers, not because the world is unformed, but because it’s not our world. We don’t live there; we’re only visiting for a little while.

The story summons up all the wonder and isolation of childhood while at the same time touching on home and friendship and sibling rivalry and sacrifice and so much more. But these never overtake the pure wonder of the story itself.

Ocean at the End of the Lane is a love song and lament for the innocence of childhood.

Too often we lose the sense of wonder and awe that permeates the life of a child. To read a story like this both thrills and haunts us, as we recognize the children we were, the world we lived in, and acknowledge that we’ve lost it.

As he always does, Neil gives us a story that reminds us there’s always more to the world than meets the eye. We need more stories like this to call us back to the magical, wonder-filled world we left behind when we grew up.

Bottom Line: Ocean at the End of the Lane recaptures the wonder of childhood without patronizing us. It’s short, sweet and magical.

YOUR TURN: Are you a fan of Neil Gaiman? What did you think of Ocean at the End of the Lane?

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free for review purposes from the publisher. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

The post The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman appeared first on JR. Forasteros.

I grew up in Kansas, General. I’m about as American as it gets. — Superman

Unless you’re living on Themyscira, you probably heard that a new Superman film, Man of Steel was released over the weekend. Given the box office numbers, you probably saw it. Man of Steel is the first Superman film since 2006′s disappointingly bland Superman Returns, and I am happy to report that it’s a really good film.

To be fair, as long as Superman punched something, I was going to love it. And punch something he did.

Man of Steel has the best visual effects of the Summer so far (neck-and-neck with Star Trek Into Darkness) and despite retelling a story that probably everyone on the planet knows (he’s an alien?! What?!), the story feels fresh.

Let’s be clear: I love comics, but I don’t insist that comic book films hew rigidly to the comics. I loved Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy despite some massive deviations from canon. And the huge twist in Iron Man 3 didn’t bother me in the slightest. Change is good. Telling new stories is good. But you can go to far. At some point, you change a story too much. At some point, it’s no longer recognizable as the character you know and love.

Man of Steel changed the core of who Superman is, and as a result fails to be a true Superman story.

SPOILERS FROM THIS POINT FORWARD!

What’s the problem?

Yes, I’m talking about the ending, when Superman executes Zod. And it’s not just the fact that Superman kills him, it’s the role that killing plays in the story.

Man of Steel reintroduces us to Clark Kent, who quickly learns that he’s not like everyone else. Clark, the clear hero of our story, wants to understand his place in the world. This is the conflict his hero’s journey must successfully resolve. The conflict is introduced when Clark realizes he represents the possible destinies of two separate peoples: Kryptonians and Humans.

Those two peoples need not necessarily be at odds. His Kryptonian father Jor-El advocates for a peaceful co-existence between the two worlds – Clark would become a bridge between two peoples. General Zod can’t imagine a world where Earth and Krypton can co-exist. In Zod’s worldview, only one can survive. Zod promises,

This only ends one way, Kal: either I die or you do.

Pa Kent is nearly no help at all, essentially only telling Clark that his decision is very important.

In Man of Steel’s third act, Clark embraces Zod’s broken worldview.

In a shocking, essential departure from 75 years of Superman stories, Kal-El succumbs to Zod’s worldview. He not only destroys the ship carrying Krypton’s future, he executes Zod, the collapses into Lois’ embrace, wailing in despair. Superman agrees with Zod that there’s not room for both races. He just chooses Earth instead of Krypton.

Superman resolves his hero’s journey by choosing one of two painful options at the expense of the other. He rejects (or fails to imagine) the world Jor-El hoped he would bring about.

Why is this bad?

For years, comic writers have been putting Superman in unwinnable situations – when your hero basically has God’s powerset, it’s about the only way to make him interesting. But the joy of those stories is marveling at how Superman beats the unbeatable.

We face unbeatable situations all the time. We live in moral grey areas and issues that are too complicated for us to understand. We may not have to choose between two races, but we are constantly faced with impossible choices that we recognize in Man of Steel. We know the pain of a no-win situation. We often have to choose between the lesser of two evils.

There’s no such thing as a no-win scenario for Superman. That’s what makes him Superman.

EVEN SUPERMAN

This is what Man of Steel utterly fails to do. By forcing Superman to kill Zod, the writers embrace Zod’s dark worldview. Man of Steel’s Superman rejects the possibility Jor-El represents: a better, peaceful third way. This is an essential departure from what makes Superman work. Even in the very rare instances he has killed in the comics, it’s consistently judged as a bad thing, an abberation, a failure on Superman’s part. But in Man of Steel, killIng Zod is the final step in Clark’s hero’s journey. The strength to snap his neck is both physical and moral, representing Clark’s ability to “make the tough call”.

Superman is a myth. He’s unbelievable. That’s why we need him. We need to believe a man can fly. We need to believe that the world is more than a zero-sum game where only one of us can survive. We need to believe my gain doesn’t have to be your loss. The whole point of Superman is that he shows us that we can be better than we think we can be.

I don’t want Superman to be more like me. I want us to be more like Superman.
– Mark Waid

A Superman who can’t beat an unwinnable situation doesn’t reflect who we could be. He reflects who we are.

Who Cares?

If you look very hard, there may be some subtle Jesus-imagery

You may rightly be asking yourself if a silly summer blockbuster is really worth all this thought. But Superman has always been much more than that. He’s not only a symbol of Americana, he’s also an obvious Christ figure – something both Superman Returns and Man of Steel played up. So we should be deeply bothered that Man of Steel’s excellent writing team apparently couldn’t think of a single way for Superman to win that didn’t involve killing Zod.

Darren Franich at EW.com put it well:

The movie unforgivably tries to have its cake and eat it too, striving hard to make Superman “realistic” while nevertheless overdosing on Christ imagery. It’s a balancing act: They cover Superman in mud and then pretend his hands are clean. Maybe they think his hands are clean. Maybe Man of Steel is a Superman movie that doesn’t understand or even care about basic questions of morality. Maybe Man of Steel assumes that killing is just something heroes do now.

Superman wins not because he’s smarter or more noble or better in any way. He wins because he’s stronger. This is the ultimate statement that might makes right.

Man of Steel says killing is ultimately okay. As long as we don’t really want to do it, and as long as we feel really bad about it afterwards, we can enact what ever violence we deem necessary to accomplish our ends and it’s not just permissible. It’s moral.

He feels bad, so it’s okay!

I understand that plenty of people believe that violence is justified in certain situations. Unfortunately even many Christians advocate violence as a preferred solution. But look at the stories we’re telling today: our “Jesus” embraces violence as the ultimate end. Rather than conquering sin and death by sacrificing himself, he becomes judge, jury and executioner.

We need a better hero than this. We need a hero who can show us how to be better than who we are, not who just shows us who we already are.

Bottom Line: Man of Steel is well-worth seeing, but it strays to far from the core of who Superman is to be the Superman film we’ve been waiting for.

YOUR TURN: What did you think of Man of Steel? How did you feel about the ending?

The post Why Man of Steel isn’t a Superman Story appeared first on JR. Forasteros.

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JR. Forasteros - Jun 9, 2013

Four Soils of the Soul

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Jesus describes the Kingdom of God in parables to invite us to take a closer look at how radically God changes our lives. In this first parable, Jesus compares himself to a farmer extravagantly sowing seed, and we who hear his good news to various kinds of soil. His story begs the question: what am I doing to cultivate the soil of my life?

From Series: "Seeds of the Kingdom"

Jesus spoke in parables to invite us to consider the surprising challenge and offer of his new life more fully. In June, we look at four parables were Jesus talks about the Kingdom as a seed. What is this small, seemingly insignificant Kingdom? And what sort of new life will it grow into? Join us as we explore the seeds of the kingdom!

Related Topics: Spiritual Formation, Holiness, Virtue, Character

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Four Soils of the Soul

Jun 9, 2013

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While Jesus lived among us, he constantly announced a new reality everywhere he went. He spent much of his teaching describing it. Jesus most often described this new kingdom to his listeners using stories we call parables. The stories were surprising, energizing and fresh. They announced that what Jesus was doing is good news: God is doing a new thing and you’re invited to be a part of it!

One of his most famous – and confusing – is in Matthew 13:

Listen! A farmer went out to plant some seeds. As he scattered them across his field, some seeds fell on a footpath, and the birds came and ate them. Other seeds fell on shallow soil with underlying rock. The seeds sprouted quickly because the soil was shallow. But the plants soon wilted under the hot sun, and since they didn’t have deep roots, they died. Other seeds fell among thorns that grew up and choked out the tender plants. Still other seeds fell on fertile soil, and they produced a crop that was thirty, sixty, and even a hundred times as much as had been planted! Anyone with ears to hear should listen and understand. — Matthew 13:3-9

So we have a farmer who’s out sowing seed. Ancient farmers wore sacks around their torsos (pic?), and they walked their fields casting out the seed. In Jesus’ day, this would’ve been a very familiar image – most of his listeners had probably done this very thing at some point in their lives. The seed falls on four different kinds of soils, with four different results. A couple of details stick out as odd: First, the sower is very irresponsible with the seed. In the ancient world, where rain and sun were unreliable and crop yields unpredictable, every seed was precious. Each seed represented potential food and income for your family (and food and income in a preindustrial culture were very scarce). So farmers were very careful with their seed. They sought out and cultivated the best soil. Since so much was out of their power, they did everything that was in their power to give their seed the best chance to grow.

Not this farmer. He’s out in his fields, throwing both caution and seed to the wind. Any of Jesus’ early listeners would’ve marveled (or scoffed) at this farmer’s generosity (or recklessness) with his seed.

The other surprising detail is the yield of the good soil – 30, 60 or 100 times what was planted. For these ancient farmers, the best yield they would ever hope for would be 30 times as much grain as was planted. A 30-fold harvest would be so huge, so big and so rare that it’d be the one all other harvests would be compared to. Remember back in the day when we got the 30-fold harvest? Wow. That was miraculous!

And this farmer gets a minimum of thirty? He gets twice, more than triple that? Practically unimaginable!

So we have an irresponsible (or generous) farmer who’s rewarded with an unimaginable (or miraculous) harvest. But what does it mean? And what about the other three soils?

If you’re thinking that this is more than a little bit confusing, don’t worry! You’re not the only one. And it’s not just the culture gap. Look at what the disciples ask him in the next verse:

His disciples came and asked him, “Why do you use parables when you talk to the people?”

Jesus’ disciples didn’t get it either. I love that they try to play it off… Jesus, some of the… uh… other people were wondering why you use parables instead of just coming right out and saying something. We definitely get what you’re saying. But why don’t you tell us so we can go tell them.

But Jesus does tell them why he uses parables, and it’s pretty shocking: he quotes what God told the prophet Isaiah to claim that his parables are intentionally confusing and impenetrable.

The reason I speak to them in parables is that ‘seeing they do not perceive, and hearing they do not listen, nor do they understand.’ — Matthew 13:13

According to Jesus, his parables are the perfect delivery system for his teachings. If you don’t want to hear him, then you can write them off as cute stories about being a good person – not terribly different from fables or fairy tales. Because there will always be people who aren’t interested in God’s new life – usually it’s people with too much to lose.

But if you want God’s new life, if you’re hungry for something new, the parables are an invitation to consider God’s kingdom. To chew on Jesus’ announcement and wrestle with how willing you are to welcome God’s coming.

The parables, other words, make you work for it.

Here’s where Jesus’ farming metaphor starts to pay off. Because any farmer or gardener knows that cultivating life isn’t push-button. It takes careful, constant attention. Lots of love and care and work.

And Jesus says that his parables – and God’s kingdom – are the same. If you want it, you’re going to have to work for it. We find his statement shocking because we like a push-button gospel. We live in an age where easy is better. That’s what advertisers know: the harder someone has to work at something, the less likely they are to stick with it. If you want people to buy your product, you have to make it as easy as possible.

So we hear Jesus say, I teach using these stories so that people have to work at it, and we want to rush to his side with market research and focus group surveys and say You can’t do that! If you make it too hard for people to come to God, they just won’t! The Gospel is too precious, to valuable to waste by packaging it in such hard-to-understand stories. If you really want people to buy into what you’re doing, you need to boil it down to talking points and pithy aphorisms!

To us, as to his disciples, Jesus responds by explaining the story to us. Showing us how to do the hard work of digging at a parable.

As we explore his story, let’s consider what sort of soil we are.

The post Four Soils of the Soul appeared first on JR. Forasteros.

Now You See Me

As every trailer for the film promises, Now You See Me pulls one over on the audience. As any good movie about magic should.  But Now You See Me‘s denouement doesn’t feel like the payoff you’ve been waiting for.

Now You See Me insults its audience, rather than delighting them.

Compare Now You See Me to another shockingly similar film about magic, The Prestige. Though at first blush the films seem dramatically different, they’re the same basic story and the same kind of storytelling. But while The Prestige uses its storytelling magic to thrill, Now You See Me seems only to want to prove that it’s smarter than you are.

Both films center on a long-standing magicians’ dual – Bradley vs. Rhodes and Angier vs. Borden. Both films feature master magicians who live dramatic lies to preserve their master illusion – Rhodes lives under a false name as an FBI agent and Borden is twins who live as a single person.

Both films are magic tricks themselves, explicitly inviting the viewers to try as hard as they want to figure it out.

Look as closely as you want. You won’t figure it out. Because I’m smarter than you.

Now You See Me‘s Daniel Atlas (Jesse Eisenberg) repeatedly invites viewers to look as close as we want because,

The closer you’re looking, the easier you are to fool.

The Prestige‘s Cutter (Michael Cain) explains the three stages in a magic act (which parallel the three acts of the film). In the midst, he claims,

Now you’re looking for the secret. But you won’t find it because of course, you’re not really looking. You don’t really want to work it out. You want to be fooled.

Still smarter than you.

The Prestige presents magic film as an unwritten contract between the magician filmmaker and the audience. The magician is an entertainer who respects their audience as people who came to have fun. Of course we don’t believe in magic (or, we don’t think we’re watching a documentary). But that’s not why we came. We want to suspend our disbelief. We want to be fooled. Entertained.

Now You See Me is a much more cynical film. Their first rule of magic is “Always be the smartest guy in the room.” From the beginning, the film establishes an adversarial relationship between we the audience and the magicians. We’re never certain who we should identify with, and all the while, the film lets us know that confusion is part of the magic trick.

The film condescendingly invites us to try to figure it out, all the while promising we’re too dumb to get it.

FOUR of us? SO MUCH SMARTER. Idiot.

In the end, we end up identifying with Bradley (Freeman) and Tressler (Cain), the two men who were most fooled. They’re also the film’s two clear villains. In general, in storytelling, forcing your audience to identify with the villains of the film just doesn’t work. Neither does condescending to your audience.

It’s no wonder Now You See Me‘s big reveal left me feeling apathetic. Unlike The Prestige, this film didn’t aim to entertain me. Its goal was to outsmart me. Rather than inviting me in as a partner in the illusion, Now You See Me cast me as an adversary.

Both The Prestige and Now You See Me capture the magic of filmmaking. But while one invites us to partner with it to enjoy the spectacle, the other dares us to try to outsmart it. No matter how successful the film winds up, I won’t be rooting for it. I’ll either feel smug (if I figure it out) or spiteful (if it tricks me). Neither is how a good magician (or storyteller) wants to leave an audience.

Bottom Line: Now You See Me is a technically excellent, well-acted film whose storytelling choices take all the magic out of the film.

YOUR TURN: What did you think of Now You See Me? Did you feel like a partner or an adversary?

The post Now You See Me appeared first on JR. Forasteros.

There will always be those who seek to do us harm. But in seeking to keep ourselves safe, we risk awakening the same darkness within ourselves.
– James T. Kirk

Star Trek Into Darkness takes us back toward the ideals of the Stark Trek we Trekkies have all known and loved.

In the wake of Nero’s attacks in Star Trek, we find a Federation becoming dark and militaristic. A dangerous terrorist – John Harrison – turns out to be a pawn used by the Federation to create ever-more-advanced weapons.

The face of the enemy… or is it?

Fear of both the unknown and the ever-aggressive Klingon Empire stand in as a (somewhat heavy-handed) metaphor for terrorists, and by the end of the film, we’re left to wonder who the true enemy was. What’s not in doubt is that Kirk and crew are the heroes. Their quests to save their “families” have transformed both Harrison and the Federation – in the person of Admiral Marcus – into monsters. Kirk, embodying the crew-as-family ethos that has always made Star Trek a successful franchise, shows us how to save your family without trekking into the darkness. But we can’t talk about that until spoilers.

The larger story is woven skillfully around some unparalleled set-pieces and space battles. The special effects serve to heighten the stakes much more effectively than the plot, which has some fairly silly holes in retrospect. Not to mention some very problematic takes on female characters.

In short, Star Trek Into Darkness is a great-but-not-perfect summer blockbuster. But what about the rest of the film?

Spoilers after this point!

Khaaaaaaaaan!

One of the biggest mysteries of the summer was fated to be the mystery of Star Trek‘s newest villain, played by Benedict Cumberbatch. Since the second of the original Trek films – The Wrath of Khan - was also arguably the best of the Trek films, everyone wondered if Cumberbatch would be Khan in Abrams’ revised Trek timeline. Despite many loud protests to the contrary, it turns out that “John Harrison” was in fact a fiction and Cumberbatch, despite looking nothing like Ricardo Montalban, is the 21st-century, genetically-engineered terrorist Khan Noonien-Singh.

The reaction has been loud and varied (my personal favorite piece by Matt Singer over at Criticwire is well-worth your time). While I initially worried that essentially reimagining Wrath of Khan would render Into Darkness impenetrable, fan reaction has proved otherwise. Despite a few problems, the film largely succeeds as a sequel to the 2009 Star Trek.

Does Into Darkness succeed as a reimagining of the Khan story?

is THIS the face of darkness? Maybe…

First, Into Darkness isn’t exactly a remake of Star Trek II. In Abrams’ reset timeline, Into Darkness is more properly a reimagining of the original Star Trek episode “Space Seed”, which features Khan and his crew’s first appearance. Kirk and crew strand his genocidal crew on an uninhabited planet. That episode set the stage for Khan’s wrath, as the title of the sequel film implies. Thus Into Darkness must reintroduce Khan, and when we meet him, he has no knowledge of or vendetta against Kirk.

Powerful reinterpretation of one of the best scenes in film history.

Of course that all changes by the end of the film. Kirk dies, Spock surrenders to his too-powerful Vulcan emotions and Khan ends up on ice, ready to return with plenty of wrath.

And it’s Into Darkness‘ third act that really earns its reimagining. Into Darkness reinterprets the powerful, emotional climax of Wrath of Khan to tell a significantly different story.

Into Darkness is about growing up. Wrath of Khan is about growing old.

Wrath of Khan was about the inevitability of mortality. It opened with the unwinnable Kobayashi Maru scenario and Kirk worrying about growing old on his birthday. It ended with the Kirk facing (Spock’s) death, the ultimate unwinnable scenario.

The USS Vengance. The face of darkness at last?

Into Darkness is about what it really means to be a father leader. Kirk, instead of Spock, offers up his life for his family crew, choosing to take the violence upon himself rather than become the darkness he fights.

Kirk learns that leadership comes with real danger: power and fear can cost more than your life. If you’re not careful, they can cost your soul. Kirk rejects revenge and fear as immature responses to danger and pain. And he becomes the leader we all know he’s destined to be.

Ultimately, Into Darkness uses its source material – both “Space Seed” and Wrath of Khan – to tell a new story that fits into Abrams’ rebooted, reimagined universe. To echo Matt Singer, I do hope that the franchise now feels free to boldly go where no one has gone before, but I enjoyed this retread quite a lot.

Bottom Line: Star Trek Into Darkness is a great standalone blockbuster, but it’s even better if you watch Wrath of Khan first!

YOUR TURN: What did you think of Star Trek Into Darkness? How did it compare to Wrath of Khan?

The post Star Trek Into Darkness appeared first on JR. Forasteros.

And many of us know the sting of loss. The pain of death. Weekends like this are particularly difficult because we come face-to-face with that loss again. Let us remember today that people all over our war-torn war know the pain we know. Let us remember that Death is our ultimate enemy, our only true nemesis. Death unites us all as people. 

Remind us today that the brokenness we see in war, in natural disasters, is a reflection of the brokenness of our own hearts. Remind us that you are the God of peace, and that you have called us all to be peacemakers. Despite our brokenness, through your son you call us all to join you in proclaiming your message of reconciliation.

Let us hope and pray and work for the day when all our soldiers, when all the world’s soldiers can lay down their arms and come home. Let us hope for the day when swords will be beaten into plowshears, when assault rifles will be made into combines. Let us hope and pray and work for peace. 

We offer these prayers to a God who knows the pain of death, and we wait anxiously for the return of your son Jesus, for his kingdom to come and your will to be done here on earth as it is in heaven. We offer these prayers in his name.

The post Memorial Day Prayer appeared first on JR. Forasteros.

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JR. Forasteros - May 26, 2013

Trinity Sunday

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The Trinity is the most basic expression of who God is: God is wholly self-giving love. God exists eternally as Father, Son and Spirit - three persons who are united as one being. And these three are constantly giving to and receiving from each other. This is God. This is Trinity. We were created in this God's image. The good news is that through Jesus' death and resurrection, God invites us to join in the Trinity's inner life. We were created to be givers, and we are never more fully ourselves than when we give.

From Series: "Already/Not Yet"

Jesus' resurrection wasn't the end of the story; it was the beginning of God's new creation. The Resurrection is God's first step toward reclaiming creation, and we get to be a part of it. By choosing to follow Jesus, we leave the old reality dominated by sin and death and step into God's kingdom, where we find life. This new life has already begun. And yet we're also still waiting, because God's kingdom has not yet come in full. How do we live in the tension between the Already and the Not Yet? This series explores who God calls the Church to be, and how the Holy Spirit enables us to join in God's mission in the space between the Resurrection and the Second Coming. We're not just waiting around for God to show up. God is already here and working, so we're joining in!

Related Topics: Serving, Love, Gospel, Trinity

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What does it means to be human?

According to the Scriptures, that created purpose is found in the very nature of God. In describing the creation of the first two humans, Genesis 1 tells us this:

God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.” So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. — Genesis 1:26-27 (NLT)

We have been created for a particular purpose. You don’t have to live according to that purpose – but that’s like using a lawnmower to wash your dishes: dangerous, difficult, probably painful and just not a great idea. If we want a full, meaningful life, we must embrace the reason we were created. We must learn how to live the way we were created to life.

Genesis 1 tells us that we were created in God’s image. That means that somehow, who we are, our truest Selves, is a reflection of who God is. So the obvious question we need to ask is, Who is God? What is God’s nature?

Once we know that, we’re in a position to determine how we are a reflection of God’s nature. So who is God?

According to the Scriptures and Church tradition, the most basic, essential answer to the question, Who is God? is that God is the Trinity. The doctrine of the Trinity is the defining Christian doctrine. When I talk to my Muslim friends, my Mormon friends, my Hindu or Jewish friends, this is the belief that sets us apart from everyone else. Understanding that God is Trinity is what makes us Christian and not anything else. In fact, for churches all over the world, today is Trinity Sunday, the day we set aside to celebrate and discuss and worship God as Trinity.

Most basically, the doctrine of the Trinity says that God is a single being comprised of three persons (Trinity symbol that we’ll use for all the graphics, then 1=3). Those three persons – the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit (which we talked about last week) are all equal and eternal. The Father didn’t create the Son and the Spirit. And the Father doesn’t rule over the Son and the Spirit – as though they’re sidekicks or functionaries who do the Father’s bidding. All three persons are equal and eternal.

What’s true of one Person of the Trinity is true of the other two as well. What one Person does, all three do.

You can see why the Trinity is a doctrine that gets less time than it deserves: it’s really confusing. The way theologians talk about the Trinity can be so intimidating, many Christians just throw up their hands and ignore God-as-Trinity altogether. And that’s truly dangerous because we’re ignoring who God truly is, who the Scriptures reveal God to be.

Ever wonder why so many people have gotten the impression that God’s an angry, vindictive deity? It’s because we’ve forgotten the Trinity. Or why so many today think that God is a distant, unconcerned grandfatherly figure? We forgot the Trinity. Why so many have reduced Jesus to just some good moral teacher whose death was tragic but ultimately meaningless? We forgot the Trinity. And why – as we talked about last week – don’t we have a clue what we’re supposed to believe about the Holy Spirit? We forgot the Trinity.

And we’re made in the image of this triune God! When we forget who God is, we lose the picture of who we really are, who we’re called to be. We know our lives are supposed to mean something. We know deep in our bones that there’s some right way to live, but we can’t figure out what that way is.

So for the sake of the Church, for the sake of our souls, for the sake of humanity, let’s spend a little more time on what it means to say that God is Trinity:

The post Trinity Sunday appeared first on JR. Forasteros.

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JR. Forasteros - May 19, 2013

Pentecost

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The Holy Spirit is the third person of the Trinity. She empowers the Church to be the body of Christ, the visible image of God's life, to the world. Everything we do as followers of Jesus flows from the Holy Spirit, and we can do nothing in God's Kingdom without her. What keeps us from living the full life God offers is our refusal (or ignorance) of the Spirit's power. By choosing to connect to the Spirit, we live powerful, victorious lives that present a clear image of God to the world.

From Series: "Already/Not Yet"

Jesus' resurrection wasn't the end of the story; it was the beginning of God's new creation. The Resurrection is God's first step toward reclaiming creation, and we get to be a part of it. By choosing to follow Jesus, we leave the old reality dominated by sin and death and step into God's kingdom, where we find life. This new life has already begun. And yet we're also still waiting, because God's kingdom has not yet come in full. How do we live in the tension between the Already and the Not Yet? This series explores who God calls the Church to be, and how the Holy Spirit enables us to join in God's mission in the space between the Resurrection and the Second Coming. We're not just waiting around for God to show up. God is already here and working, so we're joining in!

Related Topics: Spiritual Formation, Holiness, Trinity, Holy Spirit

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More From "Already/Not Yet"

Easter 2013	Mar 31, 2013			Listen
Living Between Two Worlds	Apr 7, 2013			Listen
Holiness	Apr 14, 2013			Listen
Church and Baseball	Apr 21, 2013			Listen
Spiritual Gifts	Apr 28, 2013			Listen
Pentecost	May 19, 2013			Listen
Trinity Sunday	May 26, 2013			Listen

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When we hear the story of Pentecost, with everyone speaking in multiple languages and tongues of fire and thousands finding Jesus for the first time, it’s frankly easy to become intimidated.

Because we look around today and think, Where’s all that?

Where are the miracles and the tongues of fire? Where’s the powerful, power-filled Church that’s moving and shaking and changing things?

Asking that question about Pentecost points to a whole set of questions that lie just beneath the surface of what we’ve been talking about throughout this series. Since Easter, we’ve been exploring how we are called to live Between Jesus’ resurrection and his second coming, in this time when the Kingdom is already here and not yet here at the same time.

We claimed that those who follow Jesus are called to be different from the world around us, that we should look like Jesus’ Life. We saw that the best way for us to live that different, holy life is in the Church (which began on Pentecost). That we’re all given – by the Holy Spirit – gifts that should enable us to serve each other. A couple of weeks ago, Keven told us that we gather to celebrate the new life we’re living with God and last week Sheila led us to see our purpose: to invite the rest of the world into this new life we’ve found in Jesus.

The scary thing about all that we’ve been talking about is how easily this new life with Jesus turns into a self-improvement program. If we’re not careful, we reduce Christianity to ‘just try harder’ or ‘just be better’. This powerful, world-altering, life-resurrecting faith ends up being sort of like the Atkins diet or P90X or the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. You just try, develop some new habits. And some people nail it and some people don’t and that’s that.

Then we hear the story of Pentecost and think, Woah I’m missing something big. But even then, we get caught up in the spectacle – the languages and the fire and the wind. It’s easy for us to miss the true importance of Pentecost for all the spectacle of the day.

What actually matters on Pentecost is that the Holy Spirit creates a people who will show the world who God is.

That’s it. That’s the bottom line on Pentecost. Behind all the flash and truly awesome, miraculous stuff, God has called a people together to become the light of the world. The Holy Spirit is the heartbeat, the lifeblood of the Church.

That might sounds odd to some of us. Of the three persons of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit is certainly the most confusing, least understood. We can imagine the Father, in Heaven, ruling the world. And we really like Jesus, the Son who became human, who lived, died and was raised to rescue us from Sin and reclaim God’s good creation.

But the Spirit? We’re fuzzy on her. Many of us grew up hearing her called the Holy Ghost (and you still hear that on TV and in movies today). The term “ghost” is unfortunate because even though back in ole King James’ day, ghost and spirit were synonymous, today ‘ghost’ conjures images of departed loved ones and wronged, vengeful dead.

For many Christians, the Holy Spirit is sort of like a ghost – haunting the edges of our faith, lingering like a specter we don’t quite know what to do with.

But the Holy Spirit is vital to our faith! She’s the third person of the Trinity (again, more about next week). The Spirit is as fully God as is the Father or the Son. Everything that’s true of the Father or the Son is true of the Spirit (and vice versa). The Spirit is coequal and coeternal with both the Father and the Son.

In short, the Spirit is God, living and active in the world.

Join us Sunday as we celebrate the Holy Spirit and explore what she does in our lives!

The post Pentecost appeared first on JR. Forasteros.

Can’t see anything? Yup. That’s about right. This is our boat.

The outboard motor died and silence settled over the water like a shroud. Our guide’s broken English pierced the darkness:

Down! Down!

I looked over the side at the water. Were those rocks, visible just below the surface of the water? Or was the surface reflecting faint ambient light back onto the clouds above? We had been riding for nearly a quarter of an hour, and the lights of tiny dock had long faded into the distance. Ahead lay only the silhouettes of a Mangrove forest, their slightly blacker forms standing sentinel below the night sky, seawater lapping at their trunks.

As the rest of the newly-minted crabbing crew milled uncertainly in the boat, I hooked my legs over the side, grabbed the small, trident-shaped crab-spear and jumped into the depths…

…only to find myself in water barely to my shins.

This was not our boat. Ours was much smaller.

The guide was out by then, untangling wires that ran from the motor to a half-dozen handheld lights that he distributed to pairs of us brave warriors hoping to prove ourselves against the briny shallows. Amanda and I struck out on the shore-side of the boat, quick to put distance between us and the other pairs.

I shined the light into the water, wondering if I would even recognize a crab through the refracting sea. Silently, we trudged through the water, hunters dragging our chariot behind us by electrified leashes, six beams of light scouring the seafloor, spears held high in anticipation of prey.

2. First Kill

My mom and her crabbing spear

A slow sense of foreboding crept over us until my mom called out,

This is a setup for a horror film, right?

On cue, the creatures began to appear – first harmless fish, barely larger than minnows, darting in and out of the light. Then, from behind, a creature skipped across the surface of the water – once, twice, five times, coming always closer to us before returning below the surface. We laughed to cover our fear, announcing that it must have been a fish as though we were offering one another last rites while our imaginations conjured some Cthuluian beast out of our nightmares.

The guide turned to me:

Mister! Your light! In the water!

Following his example, I plunged my light below the surface, at once marveling at how much more clearly I could see and wondering how many of us would die if one of those lights shorted in the water.

Our Crabbing Crew emerging from the darkness

No sooner had the seafloor opened itself to me, than our guide plunged his spear into the water, then raised up a crab, pierced cleanly through the center of its shell, legs and claws flailing. He returned it to the boat, depositing his prey into a large bucket there.

As though the guide’s offering had been accepted by some dark sea god, suddenly sea creatures were everywhere. A light glowed in the water faintly ahead of me, and stayed in front of me. I saw it was a small squid, attempting to escape without drawing attention to itself. When I thrust at it with my spear, it sped into the inky blackness.

My light caught the brown-and-white body of a puffer-fish, which quickly escaped back into the darkness. Then, suddenly, a short scream errupted from the far side of the boat. Before we could react, a startled sting ray darted between Amanda and me, seeking safer waters. Our light caught another stingray a few yards away, content and undisturbed by our crew.

With a shout, the silhouette of another crewperson – I later learned it was my stepdad – held up his spear with another squid writhing on the end of it. Our crew let out a cheer – it was the first clear catch of the night (not counting the guide). But the guide motioned to the water and intoned gruffly,

No squid.

A little bit jealous, I looked back into the water and saw a starfish. Having never found a starfish (despite numerous trips to the beach), I scooped it out of the water and into my pocket, forgetting that a starfish in the water is still alive until I felt its arms pressing against my leg, writhing in my pocket.

3. The Pinchers of Defeat

My stepdad and his crab

We pressed on. Shortly, our guide turned to me, light pointing into the water a few yards ahead of me and gesturing with his spear:

Mister! Mister! Here!

Three long strides brought me within sight of the crab. A white streak, glowing in the light, resolved into the creature crawling on its back four legs, pinchers raised high in the water as though defending itself against the light.

Or perhaps they were raised in petition.

I approached the crab, Poseidon denying his supplicant the mercy it sought. I thrust my mighty trident into the sea.

And missed. Soundly.

The crab, having received its answer, scuttled off into the murky blackness. I pressed on, trying my best to ignore the guide’s patronizing disdain.

As I continued to search the waters, I was rewarded by a final sight: a flounder. As my light caught its pancake-shaped body, it undulated away, its eyes transfixed by terror on the beam.

Soon, our crew were pulling crabs from the water left and right. My stepdad caught a crab. My mom caught a crab. The Canadian who’d been nervous to jump in at first caught one, as did her Arab friend. The smoking couple who weren’t English speakers caught one.

Meanwhile, I missed three more of the skittish sub-marine devils.

4. Victory?

Finally, though Amanda had hung back, choosing to hold the light, she approached a crab, spearing it on her first try and raising it in victory. At her catch, the guide proclaimed

Done! Back in the boat!

You can’t really see me, but these are our crabs. Sound the feasting horn!

Grumbling, we all climbed back in and headed home, 15 crab in a bucket as the fruits of our labor. They cooked the crab when we got back and brought them to us on a platter. We dined as kings and queens of the sea.

If maritime monarchs had to spend 20 minutes cleaning crab meat from rather small crabs, that is. In the end, we had tremendous fun, and it was way less creepy than I tried to make it sound.

If you want to do the crab safari, it’s at the Flamingo Beach Resort in Um Al Qwuain. Details here.

Epilogue: The Horror Film

1. It’s a mutant Star-of-David-Fish
2. It now lives only in my nightmares

We returned to Dubai that night and stayed in a hotel. I had forgotten about the starfish in my pocked until we were getting ready for bed. I took it out – now quite dead – and set it on the desk to dry overnight. The next morning, I rolled it in the t-shirt I’d worn on the safari and packed it carefully for the trip home.

Hours later, when we arrived back in Abu Dhabi, Amanda and I did laundry. I tossed all my safari clothes into the wash, not thinking about the starfish until a few hours – and few loads of laundry later. The t-shirt I’d wrapped it so carefully in was clean and folded, and the starfish was nowhere to be found.

I checked the washing machine. The dryer. My backpack. The floors of our room and the laundry room. It was nowhere to be found.

Now each night we try to find sleep while waiting to feel the tiny arms of the missing starfish pressing against our tired flesh, seeking its vengeance.

YOUR TURN: So who wants to go on a crab safari with us?

The post The Crab Safari appeared first on JR. Forasteros.

The armor was never a hobby or a distraction. It was a cocoon. — Tony Stark

Iron Man 3 is Robert Downey Jr.’s fourth (and possibly final) turn as Tony Stark under his third director – Shane Black (Jon Favreau and Joss Whedon being the previous). It’s also the first Marvel Phase 2 film – meaning it’s the first single-hero film they’ve released in the wake of team-up superfest Avengers. The question on everyone’s mind is: Does Tony Stark still have an interesting story to tell?

Iron Man 3 proves the answer is Yes. Tony is back with a vengance and leaves us anxious for more!

Iron Man 3 features a new, more vulnerable Tony, the same cast we’ve grown to love and a pretty plausible excuse for not having other Avengers show up (not that I ever had a personal problem with that – as a comic reader I love reading both stand-alone Iron Man and Avengers titles). The villain is great, the story is great. It’s all great (in fact, Pepper and Rhodie are probably the two weakest parts of the film). If you liked the first Iron Man, my guess is you’ll love 3. If you didn’t like Iron Man 2, don’t worry! This film avoids 2′s mistakes nearly to a fault.

Fair warning: massive spoilers after this point

Ready? Okay here we go: What’s Iron Man 3 really about?

Iron Man introduced us to a Tony Stark facing the quintessential adolescent crisis: he’s trying to differentiate himself from his father – his father being Howard Stark, weapons manufacturer. Tony does this by becoming a living weapon, announcing to the world at the end of the first film,

I am Iron Man.

Tony’s announcement is all bravado, all adolescent swagger. He announces to the world that he’s big enough, bad enough to take on anyone.

The Avengers changes all that. Tony realizes some things are too big for him.

I can’t wait to talk with you about this guy. Wow.

Iron Man 3 opens on a frightened, panicked Tony. He’s withdrawn from the world, spending all his time building bigger and better armor. Because Tony draws his identity, his security from what he can build.

All of that is stripped from him by the Mandarin, who is later revealed to be as false as Tony himself – all bravado and special effects. In the Mandarin’s attacks, however, Tony is stripped of everything – his allies, his love and his precious armor.

In his helpless, child-like state, Tony befriends a boy who must remind him a lot of himself. This kindred spirit guides Tony back to himself, helps him to understand and embrace that he is not his armor. He is the man behind the armor.

This is why the rest of the film is so compelling despite the fact that Tony is rarely in a suit. We enjoy watching him think his way out of scenario after scenario.

Iron Man 3 becomes a film about Tony Stark, not the Iron Man suit (a theme that is carefully and cleverly developed as the film progresses).

Iron Man 3 pulls off a potentially fatal move: it finishes Tony’s story. A fantastic article I read a few months ago (and can’t find now, to my chagrin) points out that comic books tell and retell Act 2 of the hero’s journey ad infinitum. They have to. If we ever actually finish Spider-Man’s story, then we won’t buy anymore Spider-man comics. But of course we already know who Spider-Man is, so there’s no need to retell his origin (Act I, and yes I’m looking at you Mark Webb). So we get Act II – the juiciest part of the story – over and over. Hero faces villain. Hero suffers. Hero triumphs. Hero learns a valuable lesson.

This is why Iron Man 2 suffered: Tony’s character arc – from rich, selfish jerk to genuine hero – was essentially the same as the first film (To be fair, it’s also the exact same as The Avengers, too, but a) other heroes and b) Joss Whedon). Shane Black avoided that by taking Tony from the end of his Act 2 – his adolescent swagger wasn’t enough to cope with a world of gods and aliens – and finishing his story.

The Tony we see at the end of Iron Man 3 is a grown man, now sure of who he is and where his true strengths lie.

He ends the film (excepting the obligatory-and-awesome post-credits stinger) the same way he ended Iron Man, by proclaiming,

I am Iron Man.

But now there’s no bravado. And he’s not talking about the armor anymore. Tony is Iron Man. Not the suit he built, but he himself. The man behind the suit. He emerges from his cocoon ready to take on the world afresh. By the time the credits roll, we realize that Marvel Phase 1 has been one long origin story for Tony Stark – Act 1 of a larger story. And you’d better believe we’re hungry for more.

Bottom Line: By finishing the story of Tony-the-boy, Shane Black has introduced us to Tony-the-Man. I can’t wait to watch his story.

YOUR TURN: What did you think of Iron Man 3? How did it compare to Marvel’s other films? What do you think is next for Tony?

The post Iron Man 3 or: Tony Stark Grows Up appeared first on JR. Forasteros.