tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-112016452024-03-12T22:44:44.569-05:00Scarlet Over JadeR. Justin Freemanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12721495466071512945noreply@blogger.comBlogger19125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11201645.post-53264702078681540412012-08-25T00:44:00.001-05:002012-08-25T00:46:51.276-05:00The Problem With BoxesEver notice that there come seasons in your life when you just can't find enough boxes? You notice it most when you move, of course, but there are countless other times when you stand above a pile of stuff that needs to be stuffed in a box as you covet said box. We as a nation have a box fetish. There are so many things in our lives that we need bigger things to hold all the smaller things. When I was in New York City this spring, I had my first encounter with The Container Store, which exclusively sold these bigger things. It was positively swarming with people, happily paying ten dollars for twenty cents' worth of cardboard, because it was shaped in a manner which made it capable of holding things.<br />
<br />
We like boxes because they allow us to categorize things. If you have similar things and find a big box to put all the similar things into, you are now "organized" and suddenly have license to feel slightly better about yourself. And if you get overrun with boxes, you can pay to put your small boxes in a very large box - a box that locks - which is itself part of a huge box with an office at the end. We of course label the boxes inside the box inside the box, but since half of them read "MISC" this is of dubious value.<br />
<br />
And all of this is fine. I don't begrudge my wife because she likes to organize things in obscurity while I like to organize them in the open. I don't begrudge self-store landlords - who wouldn't want a rental with no plumbing, HVAC, carpet, walls or tenants? The people I begrudge are those who carry this mentality of boxing from their little pile of clutter to the world at large.
This works itself out in any number of ways, but one I'm increasingly bothered by is music.<br />
<br />
We have dichotomized music, like everything else, into crisp "secular" and "sacred" camps - and wrongfully so. Kids in my generation were told that the former was inherently BAD and the latter was inherently GOOD. Only buy music at the overpriced Christian bookstore - all else is filth. "Worldly" music couldn't glorify God, because it didn't talk about Jesus (in reality, because the consecutive syllables "Gee" and "Zuss" were not present in the song).<br />
<br />
It took a long time, but I finally divined the folly of that admonition, because the opposite is so often true. Now, don't hear what I'm not saying. I realize that there is awesome music labeled 'Christian' out there, just as I realize that there is secular music that is patently worthless or even antithetical to leading us unto grace. But the fact remains that many of us have thrown the baby out with the bathwater in an attempt to purge that which is 'foreign.'
So called 'secular' music has often connected me to God in ways no "clean air" radio station has. For instance, listen to "Hear You Me" by Jimmy Eat World:<br />
<iframe allowtransparency="true" frameborder="0" height="380" src="https://embed.spotify.com/?uri=spotify:track:0fQlm2MUzqGDBPkuqq4U1Y" width="300"></iframe><br />
<br />
It's a hymn of sorrow over the death of a friend, lamenting the narrator's lack of gratitude while they were living. In case you're skimming or conscience precludes you, here's a sample lyric:
<br />
<blockquote>
<h3>
There's no one in town I know<br />
You gave us some place to go<br />
I never said thank you for that<br />
I thought I might get one more chance.
</h3>
</blockquote>
Similar sentiment in "My Immortal" by Evanescence:
<br />
<blockquote>
<h3>
I'm so tired of being here<br />Suppressed by all my childish fears<br />And if you have to leave<br />I wish that you would just leave<br />'Cause your presence still lingers here<br />And it won't leave me alone</h3>
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
<h3>
</h3>
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
<div>
Or "The Saddest Song" by The Ataris, as the narrator tries to encourage the daughter of a broken home who doesn't understand yet:</div>
</blockquote>
<iframe allowtransparency="true" frameborder="0" height="380" src="https://embed.spotify.com/?uri=spotify:track:1wPnz4i26q2CM0hCiLMYt3" width="300"></iframe><br />
<blockquote>
<h3>
Only two more days until your birthday - yesterday was mine<br />You'll be turning five - I know what it's like<br />
Growing up without a father in your life</h3>
</blockquote>
Raw, real, honest-to-God emotions. Stuff that constitutes the floorplanks of where people live. Expressing that which burdens the heart. Now compare that to examples in CCM, where by turns you have wide-eyed, sappy sentimentality:
<br />
<br />
--------------------------------------------------------------------<br />
<br />
<blockquote>
<h3>
"Shine, Jesus! Shine!"</h3>
</blockquote>
--------------------------------------------------------------------<br />
<blockquote>
<h3>
Ooh, ooh, you know it’s gonna be alright<br />Ooh, ooh, you know it’s gonna be alright<br />There’s a love much stronger than everything<br />That holds you down right now<br />
Sayin’, ooh, ooh, you know it’s gonna be alright</h3>
</blockquote>
--------------------------------------------------------------------<br />
<blockquote>
<h3>
You give me joy that's unspeakable!<br />And I like it...and I like it!</h3>
</blockquote>
<br />
--------------------------------------------------------------------<br />
<blockquote>
Then you have misleading or false theology:</blockquote>
<br />
<blockquote>
<h3>
With boldness we draw near<br />And in His presence our problems disappear</h3>
</blockquote>
(So if you have problems in your life, we have to surmise that we are not in the presence of God? What are we to do with Jesus' promise that, "In this world you will have trouble"?)
<br />
<blockquote>
<h3>
The weaknesses I see in me<br />Will be stripped away<br />
By the power of Your love.</h3>
</blockquote>
(So being beset by weakness means God doesn't love us? Or does it mean His love lacks power? Or does it means He loves us powerfully, but something we did weakens it?)<br />
<br />
Then you have repetitive lyrics. Third Day's "You Are So Good to Me" repeats the phrase, "You are beautiful, my sweet sweet song" a total of <b>fifteen </b>times in a sub-four minute song (and the first, second and fourth verses consist of a short, repeated phrase). MercyMe's version of "I Could Sing of Your Love Forever" repeats the titular phrase TWENTY TIMES. And in my experience, worship leaders wanting to wring all the emotionalism they could out of a song could, with a swirl of their index finger to the band, subject the audience to an indefinite chorus cycle.<br />
<br />
Others have framed these laments well; Marc Barnes, writing for <a href="http://www.ignitumtoday.com/2011/09/05/the-problem-with-christian-rock/">Ignitum Today</a>, had this to say:
<br />
<blockquote>
Imagine, for an instant, that you’re writing a song for a girl you love, a girl you want to marry (or a guy, as the case may be). Would it be fine and dandy to write all your songs with an “I love you so much, your love feels so good, I’m really grateful that you love me, it’s so amazing that you love me” approach? Would you rhyme “the way she walks” with “the way she talks” all the time? Alright, that wouldn’t be completely miserable, but it’s the most macroscopic view you could take of the subject. You’re not singing about your girl, about what she – as a person, as your lover – speaks to your heart, about your insecurities, your doubts, your fears, your hopes, no. You’re singing about General Girl and General Love. Eventually, you’re gonna have to mention that you love her blue eyes, her pretty, short blonde hair, and her incredible sense of humor, or else she’ll leave you for a man who does. But somehow, when we’re singing about the Lover of Lovers, the Prince of Peace and the Lord of Lords, we think we can get away with singing “Jesus Saves”, “Our God Reigns” and rhyming “grace” with “face” all the time. Now God won’t leave you, but any human who appreciates the poetry of music will. And that’s a lot of people.</blockquote>
We seem, in any number of quarters, to have lost an ear for poetry - and in the process have confused the sentimental with the beautiful. Here's Eugene Peterson's take on that from <u>The Contemplative Pastor</u>:
<br />
<blockquote>
Not all words create. Some merely communicate. They explain, report, describe, manage, inform, regulate. We live in an age obsessed with communication. Communication is good, but a minor good. Knowing about things never has seemed to improve our lives a great deal. The pastoral task with words is not communication but communion - the healing and restoration and creation of love relationships between God and his fighting children and our fought-over creation. Poetry uses words in and for communion.
This is hard work and requires alertness. The language of our time is in terrible condition. It is used carelessly and cynically. Mostly it is a tool for propaganda, whether secular or religious. Every time badly used and abused language is carried by pastors into prayer and reaching and direction, the word of God is cheapened. We cannot use a bad means to a good end.
Words making truth, not just conveying it: liturgy and story and song and prayer are the work of pastors who are poets.</blockquote>
Now, the question is this: Can music we have chosen to put in a box labeled "Secular" accomplish this task? I posit that the answer is yes - and if you reframe the lyrics, you'd be shocked at how so many songs in this box fit better than ones we have engineered from the start as "Christian." What do I mean by that?<br />
<br />
What follows are song lyrics from "secular" songs. Imagine Jesus Christ singing them to you, and see if they aren't breathtakingly beautiful:
<br />
<blockquote>
<h3>
I've felt so strong for you ever since<br />The day you caught my eyes and I<br />
Can't help but wonder if my life<br />
Is turning upside down this time<br />
I wasn't sure of when but I<br />Knew there'd come a time when I<br />Would feel this way about someone<br />And always need them by my side<br />
You could make me want<br />To leave the one I'm with<br />
And never wonder why<br />If I was ever given something else<br />
I'd give it back a thousand times<br />
There is just something hard for me to grasp<br />
How it was I could survive<br />
If I would have to live my life without<br />One thousand times</h3>
</blockquote>
=============================================<br />
<blockquote>
<h3>
You'll sit alone forever<br />
If you wait for the right time<br />
What are you hoping for?<br />
I'm here I'm now I'm ready<br />
Holding on tight<br />
Don't give away the end<br />
The one thing that stays mine</h3>
</blockquote>
=============================================<br />
<blockquote>
<h3>
Yeah, life is beautiful<br />
Our hearts, they beat and break<br />
When you run away from harm<br />
Will you run back into my arms?<br />
Like you did when you were young<br />
Will you come back to me?<br />
And I will hold you tightly<br />
When the hurting kicks in</h3>
</blockquote>
=============================================<br />
Are those not haunting? And inevitably someone is going to protest that there's a lack of intentionality behind these songs - that they weren't intended to be spiritual, and therefore aren't. Yet have we completely foregone Saint Ignatius' call to "find God in all things"? We've decided that because these words were published by Atlantic, Interscope and Sony BMG, instead of Sparrow or Provident, that they are valueless? And I'm not about to pronounce redemption upon your efforts for being <i>intentionally </i>vapid.<br />
<br />
Let's broaden this out a bit. Do you still feel you dispense God and his grace like a spiritual pharmacist, or have you caught on to the fact that wherever you go in an effort to communicate God's grace, you're merely breathlessly catching up with Him - that He's been there, working, long before you even thought to go? And that the Spirit works even in our absence in the places we haven't proceeded to yet?<br />
<br />
The underlying issue here is that we place too much emphasis on purity and not enough on holiness. What's the difference? Purity is specklessness; holiness is reservedness. The English word 'holy' comes from the Greek '<i>hagios,</i>' which means to be distinguished from that which is common and reserved for a particular use. In case you haven't noticed, we're all speckled. When Jesus said, "Be holy as I am holy," He didn't mean to not be speckled - to be perfect, without blemish, never getting worldly cooties. He meant to be distinguished from that which is common and reserved for a particular use - God's. Be as committed to the purpose of heralding the coming of the Kingdom of God as I am. And that...well, I'll let you connect those dots.<br />
<br />
My message to you in sharing these things is this: Abandon thy boxes. So much of the stuff of our lives is spectral as opposed to digital. Music won't fit in your boxes. Philosophies won't fit in your boxes. People certainly won't fit in your boxes. Just content yourself with engaging them as Christ did. Bind their wounds. Look into their eyes. Rebuke the religious around you who would prevent them from encountering their God. Feed the hungry among them. Make sure the threshold to draw near is low (Matthew 11:30), but that the threshold to identify and remain is high (John 6:60,66). Do true things instead of just saying true things. But first and foremost, don't hasten people into boxes.<br />
<br />
We'll all be in boxes soon enough.R. Justin Freemanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12721495466071512945noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11201645.post-81040374914115250192011-09-03T11:31:00.000-05:002011-09-03T11:31:09.116-05:00K-Mart, Hipsters and the Faceplanting of America: An Intermittently Cohesive RantI watched America die a bloody, gruesome death in K-Mart last year.<br />
<br />
Okay, okay, that was a shameless, hyperbolic ploy to raise your eyebrows. But I, like many of my countrymen, have a bit of a queasy feeling about some of the things I'm seeing around here. America seems to be sucking wind, and I think your local K-Mart is a perfect microcosm (petri dish might be more apt) in which to study this dynamic.<br />
<br />
It's funny how brand loyalties persist. K-Mart is part of Sears Holdings now; and while you'd think that most people would be indifferent about who's selling their gizmos to them, people seem to have a nostalgic benevolence toward Sears that K-Mart does not find itself the beneficiary of. I don't know if you can decouple Sears and K-Mart at this point without killing both, but K-Mart really is a boat anchor. The ones I've been in lately all commit the same four sins - unkempt stores (almost to the point of being ratty), an aesthetic I'd call Forwardish Thinking 1999, indefensible price points (about 15% more expensive than Wal-Mart for no discernible uptick in quality), and bad customer service. <br />
<br />
The lack of customer service is probably the most grievous of them all. If I was a brick and mortar retailer in this economy and someone actually took the initiative to leave their home, drive on congested roads, navigate their way to my store, park, and walk themselves in, I would assault the fiery gates of Hell to ensure that they were provided what can only be provided in meatspace: human interaction. This somehow escapes K-Mart management. Attention stuffed suits: If I wanted to purchase mass produced items in the absence of other sentient beings, there's an app for that. <br />
<br />
And no, the eighteen year old girl who rings me up in lane eight, who is busily gnawing her thoroughly gnawed gum and in the dispassionate throes of a looking-bored contest with the eighteen year old girl in lane nine, does not count. I would hate to disturb the contest, because it's a two horse race - she is, after all, the only other cashier working, minus the mindless busybodies at the customer service desk, who conveniently aren't allowed to ring you up, forcing you to shuffle along in a procession reminiscent of a bread line circa 1931. Especially true since all seven of the frail people in America who still pay by writing checks out longhand are somehow in front of you in line at K-mart, who of course wants two forms of ID, a retinal scan and an epithelial swab from these people - even though they wouldn't blink particularly hard about a guy with filed teeth and a spike nail impaled through the bridge of his nose swiping a Hello Kitty debit card belonging to someone named Brittani through the reader, because, you know, cards are all safe and stuff. The gum gnawers surmise this based on their inability to understand the technology, which is their threshold for assuming something is secure. This is why, when they see a padlock on the Internet, they assume that using "ilove" followed by their boyfriend's name as a password provides a layer of impenetrable security.<br />
<br />
This is a procession so mind numbing and life draining that when you at last get to the register, you're torn between two principles: abandoning your purchase to prove that you're a real person with a real soul and aren't dependent upon the corporation's benevolence in allowing you to purchase their precious product, or making your purchase, and another from the kaleidoscopic display of mints and gum you're blinded by on approach, just to prove that there was some semblance of a point to the last ten minutes of your day that might, at some future time that is most definitely not now, further your overall welfare as a human being. You feel victimized, both at being forced to take the stand you did and at being a sissy for not making the other stand, and you wind up leaving doubly depressed either way.<br />
<br />
All of this is a distant memory, because I can't remember the last time I actually made a purchase at the K. For instance, last year I was in K-Mart and I had a question on specs for a certain headphone set. I scoured about 40% of the store before I found an employee; they in turn had to start begging on the PA for someone in Electronics to return to their post. It was one of those instances when you can almost see the snark dripping from the speakers, coming from the voice of one bound to their handset out of the fear stemming from the thought of having to traverse five acres of dingy tile floors trying to find a reclusive shelf shuffler:<br />
<br />
Would an associate...in OR AROUND Electronics...please return to Electronics for customer assistance! I need an associate. In or around Electronics. To please return to Electronics for customer assistance. Thank you.<br />
<br />
Twelve or fifteen minutes in, I get my coveted prize - a hipster doofus in a frumpled red smock. Not a hipster doofus in a Cosmo Kramer, so uncool he somehow transcends himself and becomes ironically cool kind of way - in an annoying I-wanna-[insert slightly dated fad]-too kind of way. I could tell that this fellow represented a significant chunk of the future of America. And I shuddered. I didn't shiver, like ooh there's a draft, I shuddered, like oh no what's applying massive torsion to the hull of this battleship.<br />
<br />
I could immediately tell this was the kind of annoying shrew who treats life like a walking sit-in protest against being misunderstood and maligned. A too-enlightened-for-here priss who listens to esoteric music that 1) nobody has heard of (anything that sounds like a mangled car crash at the intersection of Emo and Ska fits here) or 2) can in any way be construed as "underground" or "indie," not because they've found their favorite niche, but just because nobody else listens to it. This can thus be lorded over everyone they know and/or don't know. Music quality doesn't matter - it could be the sounds of a baby being beaten with a cat, layered over someone doing a poor imitation of a screech owl in heat, so long as nobody else understands what in God's name is going on and it exists as an ongoing opportunity to sigh in disdain at society's lack of culture and willingness to be societal lemmings. Those stupid sellouts, listening to music that, you know, other people listen to and enjoy. This fellow thinks needlessly doubling a word constitutes phrase coining (bro bro, low low, right right). That patronizing benevolent corporations constitutes personal charitable giving. That he is the most important because he pays lip service to the least important. That sarcasm is a rhetorical device.<br />
<br />
I ask my question, but realize I should have messed with his mind. Before I said anything, I should have said, "I am now writing the future," then taken a piece of paper and written, "You're going to say, 'Well...' then trail off to silence as you pick the headphone package up and study it in hopes of finding the answer on a huge orange sticker I somehow missed." That would have been funny, because I knew it was going to go down like that. Then I could have blown his mind.<br />
<br />
And it did go down like that. But I didn't write the note in advance, and he wouldn't have believed me if I'd told him that I knew what he would do. So I left. He may still be looking at the package. Not on my behalf...he's probably comparing ohms or something, trying to figure out if they're worthy of a discerning audiophile like him. To be fair, you do need a good set of cans in which to turn the baby/cat/pining screech owl noise up to eleven, so you can drown out the sound of your mom begging you to get your hemp-burlap shoes and Jets to Brazil t-shirt out of the living room.<br />
<br />
But is this America circa the future? One represented by a dude who's hapless and aimless, smelling faintly of smoke of unknown origin and missed opportunities? With no work ethic except when it comes to complaining about the drudgeries of reality? Who is defined by what he is opposed to? <br />
<br />
And it just gets worse as you go down the line. When I was in kindergarten, the most heinous offenses I could fathom were cutting in line, talking without having been called on, and having the utter crass necessary to say the word "poop" out loud. One day Mrs. Russell put my name on the board for tickling Joey Collins during nap time, and I thought the universe was in the process of collapsing in upon itself and becoming a singularity in space-time...or whatever equivalent I would have understood at the time. Now my wife comes home with horrifying stories of kicking and screaming, biting and hair-pulling, refusal to acknowledge adults' presence and openly urinating on the floor just to spite them. All the offenses of five-year-olds who seem to know the constraints placed upon their zookeepers when it comes to discipline and reprisal. Welcome to tomorrow.<br />
<br />
I doubt this is the America that my father's father dreamed of when he was sporting blistered hands, hoeing weeds out of twenty acres of watermelons when he was a boy. That my mother's father dreamed of as he stood on the decks of an aircraft carrier off the bitter shores of Korea. That I, frankly, would care to live in. So what's the answer? Well, it's really big, so we'll need to take it in steps. Let's start small.<br />
<br />
We would do well to just start caring. Not in a sappy, sentimental, believe it and you can achieve it, Care-Bears-circa-1986 kind of way, but in a maybe you could start giving two hoots in Hades about things that are not you kind of way. <br />
<br />
It's the simple stuff. Do you know your neighbors? No? What's your excuse...that they're hard to find? They live so far away? When was the last time you deeply listened to someone, instead of nodding while you worked on a story to top theirs in your head? When was the last time you committed a random act of kindness when you were by yourself? When was the last time you asked someone how their family was doing? When you made a mindful decision regarding your non-negotiables when it comes to the stewardship and generosity of your resources, whether that's space, time, talent, or money? I can almost forgive the one who makes such a choice and chooses wrongly - at least they had the brass to stand in front of that bank of levers in their life and actually pull one. The Unconscionable are those who exist as rudderless societal flotsam and call themselves principled.<br />
<br />
Maybe that's what bothered me about K-Mart - it seemed to exist as a vast testimony to brokenness. Perhaps the answer is to start some institutions of our own. Monuments to Method. Temples of Thoughtfulness. Synagogues of Serenity. Pillars of Promise. Shrines to Studiousness. I pray for us the courage and diligence necessary to build them, so that they might serve as quiet, humble outcroppings of stability among people with increasingly gelatinous foundations. May we serve as harbingers and prophets of the dawning of a new day. One which shines a warm, orange light of redemption and hope.<br />
<br />
Sure beats the competition...which has always been two kinds of blue.<br />
<br />
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R. Justin Freemanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12721495466071512945noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11201645.post-29919238174041945962011-02-07T13:56:00.003-06:002011-02-07T14:15:20.399-06:00Of Roses and RazorsI've had a lot more opportunities to read since I began my pastorate here in Mountain Grove. I've probably already read more in a month than I did all of last year. There's something to be said for such rich intellectual stimulation - in fact, it's been such a difference that it has affected my dreams at night. They've been more vivid, and for only the second time in my life, I had one in which I recognized that I was dreaming and was able to control myself within the dream. In all the reading I've done, though, some authors stand above others.<br /><br />Eugene Peterson is my hero. Finally, writing for the sake of fidelity to idea and not immediate digestion. Sometimes there is a concept in your head that can only be made incarnate by virtue of one word. I don't want to tell you about what I'm thinking. I want to tell you what I'm thinking - and Peterson apparently agrees. Propinquity. Vacuous. Miasmic. Braggadocio. Ostensible. Blithely. Pedagogue. And that's just a few pages' worth. In one book. He could have made the concepts he talked about accessable to lower thought...but it would have required tiresome explanations that would have mandated blather about the general concept. Blather populated only with words easily understood, whatever that means.<br /><br />And I'm sure some stupid editor probably highlighted all of his chosen words and told him he needed to find alternatives. Some poetry thankfully escapes the bloodletting of editors' pens. I love reading a fellow lover of language, who rightly regards it as art instead of a bloody cudgel - who uses words as seed in a garden of high rhetoric instead of splinters in the handle of a propagandic hammer. Language is to idea as physical intimacy is to love - the unutterable given utterance in the flesh, expression in action.<br /><br />If language and rhetoric and semantics aren't passions of yours, that's fine. But don't expect me to goosestep under the banner of this ridiculous notion that we have to mushmouth our speech and cripple our penstrokes for the benefit of people who are unable to divine contextual clues of meaning from a printed text. If you write, instead of writing so the masses can understand, write so that people who actually read can understand - the rest needn't be catered to, because they don't care. They're too busy living their lives vicariously through someone else and allowing themselves to be thought for.<br /><br />This insipid Basic English movement is distastefully unromantic - rose petals crushed beneath tank treads. It's like shaving your wife's head - much lower maintenance, but at an unacceptable cost to beauty. <br /><br />Everyone has gnawed their fingernails to the quick over the economy. But a quick overview of history reveals that we've had money before. Several times. And the funny thing is that, despite porcelain promises long shattered, it never solved our problems. Given its company again, we would just as quickly give it to whomever whispered most insistently in our ears that we deserved something it could buy.<br /><br />Money we've had. It's beauty we need. So for God's sake, put the razor down.R. Justin Freemanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12721495466071512945noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11201645.post-21769443324117053212010-08-16T10:12:00.012-05:002011-02-07T15:57:50.617-06:00The Perils of Living Life in 3DSo Kimberly left for a few days to go to meetings, which gave me the run of the house. Thanks to my personal book recommendation engine (aka Julie), I read Michael Crichton's Prey... given my interest in the subject matter, I ended up finishing it in about ten hours over two days. <br />
<br />
By that time I was thoroughly informed about the promise and pitfalls of nanotechnology, but sans Internet (I hate you, AT&T!), I was soon looking for something to fiddle with. Then I found Kimberly's stash of toys - namely, her magnetic building set. You know the type - the set with the sticks with magnets at each end and ball bearings for joints. So I start to fiddle around. I begin with basic solids like pyramids and cubes, but of course my mind starts to wander, and I begin to wonder if I could pull off a Buckminsterfullerine molecule.<br />
<br />
Buckminsterfullerine molecules, or Buckyballs for short, are a special type of fullerite, a specialized carbon molecule. Buckyballs have the shape of a geodesic dome (or a typical soccer ball, for those uninitiated in architecture), and are mathmatically referred to as a 'truncated icosahedron.' Here's a model:<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVXT2Za7LD3vxHjzJtkkAY7QZI2mg8JNmrbdpYEaGtxIkKyWMo8noMAa8jcrM43Ud7qsEMV-_N_wsgy0eCgup8PokHhyphenhyphens20CR9LdgaP5zA07xfWm5Z-f9klGMmpVf-c7Nrln3i/s1600/Buckyball.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="212" width="220" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVXT2Za7LD3vxHjzJtkkAY7QZI2mg8JNmrbdpYEaGtxIkKyWMo8noMAa8jcrM43Ud7qsEMV-_N_wsgy0eCgup8PokHhyphenhyphens20CR9LdgaP5zA07xfWm5Z-f9klGMmpVf-c7Nrln3i/s320/Buckyball.gif" /></a></div><br />
The principle is fairly basic: a pentagon sprouting five hexagons from its sides, then jamming pentagon points in the resultant notches around the perimeter and surrounding those with hexagons, and so on. So I began to build. I thought I had a home run, and was on my way to a masterpiece that I could bronze and display in the living room. Unfortunately, I ran into some problems. This is as far as ol' Bucky got:<br />
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/65676327@N00/4905392634/" title="IMAG0039 by quietharmony1984, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4121/4905392634_55f26f1c74.jpg" alt="IMAG0039" height="500" width="299"></a><br />
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The issue was ultimately weight versus stability. There were a lot of connections, but they were on the outer periphery of the shape I was intending to build. For all their stability in real life, Buckyballs are ultimately hollow all the same - and trying to build one out of Magnetix was a foiled effort. Even if I had three or four people helping me support the sides to make the connections, I think the structure would have collapsed under its own weight.<br />
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Undeterred, I knew I could engineer something better. I decided to base my new attempt on a pentagon, but decided against marrying a more complex shape to it. Once I build my base pentagon, I figured that I needed more internal stability for whatever I built. So I decided to give the pentagon a centerpoint and connect it to the vertices:<br />
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/65676327@N00/4904959701/" title="IMAG0048 by quietharmony1984, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4118/4904959701_a6fe78761e.jpg" alt="IMAG0048" height="299" width="500"></a><br />
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Then I mirrored the shape:<br />
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/65676327@N00/4904972415/" title="IMAG0049 by quietharmony1984, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4138/4904972415_891be60aeb.jpg" alt="IMAG0049" height="299" width="500"></a><br />
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I scratched my head for a bit here, but ultimately went for marrying a simpler shape to this, and built pyramidal points from the faces of each side:<br />
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/65676327@N00/4904967345/" title="IMAG0050 by quietharmony1984, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4135/4904967345_fab03fd337.jpg" width="500" height="299" alt="IMAG0050" /></a><br />
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Continuing to do this on each side, I finally ended up with my finished product:<br />
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/65676327@N00/4904797003/" title="Triacontagon by quietharmony1984, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4075/4904797003_0a362a6c76.jpg" width="500" height="299" alt="Triacontagon" /></a><br />
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Say hello to my newly constructed triacontagon - a thirty-sided solid (three exposed pyramidal sides per pentagon face times ten such faces). The shape is pleasantly stable - I can actually move it from one place to another without it shattering, if I'm ginger with it. As I looked at it and thought back to my failed attempt at the Buckyball, I realized that this new shape actually had two fewer sides than Bucky, which is a 32-gon (or a tracontakaidigon, if you want to sound impossibly awesome about it).<br />
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And so I started thinking about some of the implications of this. Bucky, for all his stability and good press, is a bit of a maintenance pig. He frays at the edges, begins to get distorted the further you get from the origination point, and never quite comes together. This triacontagon, however, was exponentially more stable. The most connections between any two joints in the shape was three - it was tightly constructed around a defined and stable core.<br />
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I think this reflects upon our experience sometimes. We tend to engineer our lives around a generally understood 'ideal' that, ironically, nobody really understands. We're told that our lives will harbor meaning and vitality if we construct them like thus and so, emphasizing this and ignoring that. And so we set about our work, tongue poking out of the side of our mouth, slapping the sticks and joints together. So often, though, we find that the whole thing just won't come together or, at best, we need a bunch of other people to prop it up so it's even functional.<br />
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I've found that I'm usually better off when I define my own shape. I'd never seen this particular triacontagon before, but then again, the world's never seen a justifreemagon, either. The point is not making your life look like someone else's ideal, but inner connectedness and stability based on centering your life upon something stable. So what does that mean for you? Beats me. You may have more or fewer sides than me, a larger or smaller overall shape, a varying number of connectors and joints.<br />
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The one thing we do have in common is the need for an objective sense of truth. Though our shapes vary, you still have to follow some geometric principles - the need for symmetry, for there to be a limited number of connections stemming from one vertex, and so on. Similarly, our lives only function optimally when we follow a course plotted by the One who knows us better than we know ourselves.<br />
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Triacontagons, truncated isohedrons, buckminsterfullerenes...your magnet set is too complicated, Kimmy. I need to get a wooden Tinkertoy set for the house.R. Justin Freemanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12721495466071512945noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11201645.post-29522996000897517292009-10-14T04:32:00.005-05:002010-02-18T17:15:27.062-06:00The Death of ShameI, more than most, am repeatedly reminded of the depravity this generation is laced with. As much as I try to stay away from categorical railings against society at large, I've noticed a pattern in the attitudes and behaviors I see in people - not just the ones I have to mess with, but ones I hear and read about in other places. In my opinion, people aren't engaging in mischief and mayhem because the world is becoming inherently more evil...I think it has to do with the apparent death of shame in our society.<br /><br />From time immemorial, shame has been the great check and balance that has guided behaviors within societies. In ancient cultures, family was paramount, and to willfully transgress a relationship with God or man meant bringing shame upon your family. This dynamic obviously doesn't come into play much any more. For one, "family" has so many meanings that it means nothing. Not when I see more love in foster homes than within nuclear families sometimes. Not when probably 85% of the calls I work involving 'families' include only one parent. <br /><br />The single parent aspect is of extreme importance. This is a daily observance for me, and it's more subversive than we give it credit for. Most people, when they think of the concept of divorce within families with children, picture a season of trauma followed by a slow but steady process of healing. This may be true in some cases, but it's not what I'm seeing. More often what I'm seeing looks something like this:<br /><br />Two people who have what should be obvious incongruities and incompatibilities marry anyway and then, for some reason or another, choose to have children. Perhaps they don't give themselves time to settle into their married lives; maybe they don't see themselves for who they are as a couple; possibly they think that a child will magically fix what is broken within their marriage. Whatever the reason, a dependent entity is created. <br /><br />At some point after this, the fissures begin to turn into chasms. Perhaps once settled they realize they cannot function connected to the other; maybe something makes them realize who they really are; possibly they look up from changing a diaper or packing a lunchbox and realize that falling in love with their child hasn't caused them to fall in love with their spouse. <br /><br />And so they destroy their bond of promise and go their separate ways, with great financial and emotional cost. Or, increasingly, because they are already financially strapped they have no choice but to co-exist in a venomous environment, remaining married only because their checkbook holds them at knifepoint. This obviously provides a horrifying paradigm of domestic life for any children pattering around the house.<br /><br />Either way, from that point forward, their children no longer have a unified entity known as 'parents' but rather separate entities known as 'my mom' and 'my dad.' I'm going to my mom's house; I'll be at my dad's this weekend. And, as a seeming rite of passage, each usually seeks to mollify the trauma by gift-giving or, more insidiously, a softened disposition toward discipline. Thus come the choruses of "Mom always lets me do this" and "Dad gives that to me all the time." <br /><br />This is a killer on two fronts. First, mom and dad usually don't understand that love does not mean acceptance and tolerance. Love for them seems to be sheltering Junior from the impact of reality. Second, Junior, especially if a teenager, gets a new nuclear weapon called volitional residency. Translation? "Oh, yeah? Well maybe I'll just live with Dad/Mom." The fruits of both sides are awful. <br /><br />They're what produce the teenagers I'm seeing on the street. The seventeen year old girl with over two thousand dollars in cash in her purse and no clue about how to start a savings account because mom owns a business and "takes care of that stuff." The fifteen year old who didn't just sneak a random beer, but shoplifted a bottle of liquor, drank the whole thing, then stumbled drunk across five lanes of traffic while cars dodged him. The fourteen year old girl who sucked her teeth and rolled her eyes at me when I suggested that she was in the wrong for, you know, stealing things.<br /><br />I harp on the teenagers. But they're just the poster children. Their parents don't have any shame, either. No shame in lying. No shame in drunkenness. No shame in infidelity. No shame in acid tongues and erupting tempers. Why? Because shame requires that the one shamed be in the minority. To be a sore thumb among their peers, someone to look upon with pity and disdain. The problem today is that lying, drunkenness, infidelity, and anger are, in a wealth of circles, normal behavior. <br /><br />Many of us think 'normal' relates to some standard, but we forget that normalcy is subjective, and requires only that 51% of a group exhibit the trait. If most people lie, is there really any shame in lying? Who is left to judge? The odd people are suddenly the ones naively telling the truth. They are the ones scorned and laughed at and pressured to conform to the group's collective behavior. And since the human heart yearns to be accepted, this is all too often what ends up happening. <br /><br />So what's my grand, sweeping solution this time? Well, I guess it's just being weird. If 51% of people are doing something wrong, it suddenly becomes normal, but it doesn't become right. Distill truth from chaos and drink deeply from its depths. Figure out who you are and anchor yourself there - for it would be sorrowful indeed to look back at your life and realize that in trying to live by others' lamplight, you became a thousand things to a thousand people - but you were never you. <br /><br />In the end, if you whore your integrity out to the whims of others, shame will live.<br /><br />But you will die.R. Justin Freemanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12721495466071512945noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11201645.post-25781562489873191062009-10-08T00:43:00.005-05:002009-10-08T04:05:18.561-05:00Twilight's Whispered WhispersThere is something inherent within the heart of man, something as passionate as it is pervasive, that will forever cast the aspersions of discontent within his soul, mercilessly tormenting him with the shadows of fear, raspily whispering sweet discord into his ear. Promising the promise of transcending his turmoil, but ever reminding him of the scores of present absences in his life. The great question of our existence is not one of how we have become, for we are; nor is it one of how we shall depart, for depart we shall. No, the question is simply this: shall we regard this pervasive passion as friend, or as foe?<br /><br />This passion, like most others, is a quiet thing. It is not like lust, that blind and obnoxious beast with no regard for the delicacies imbued within the finer emotions of our lives. No, this passion speaks loudest when it doesn't at all - when it makes itself known simply as a gravity, new and foreign, gently but insistently tugging upon one's countenance. Happiness seems to no longer be defaulted to, but rather seems a series of momentary diversions from a brooding state of contemplation. Most despise this state of affairs, and will expend seemingly boundless energy and resources in order to overthrow its influence. We rail against the dusky twilight of the unknown, unmindful that it harbors our whispering passion. Neglecting that while the whispers are inherently neither good nor ill, they lace the very air we breathe with their aroma, and cannot be ignored.<br /><br />Our great issue with the whispers whispered by this pervasive, passionate <em>something</em> is most often not one of perception, but of discernment. We usually know that they are there, but they are so frequently lost in the maelstrom of our circumstances that we exhaust ourselves with the strain of attempting to gather their message. The frustration this engenders within our spirits usually fosters a sense of resignation to our present circumstance as we simply learn to tolerate the gentle insistences of these passionate whispers. As we commit the atrocity of allowing the joyful, dreaming child within us to become jaded. Realistic. Logical. Of allowing our gaze to forsake our horizons in favor of our toes or, God forbid it, our traveled path behind. <br /><br />And thus we are again faced with the question of how to regard this persistent something that whispers in the shadows. There are those who regard the whispers with acrimony - but these people usually mistranslate the message they render. You see, they permit the unfounded assumption that the unease the whispers create regards their temporal circumstance. Unwilling to discipline themselves toward the end of mastering the fears that swirl within their chests, they use their hands to make seismic changes in an effort to mitigate the restlessness they feel. Those who regard the whispers with such animosity wrongly judge that their message is to abandon their beloved, or to buy things they cannot afford, or to set fire to the bridges that span some chasm or another in their lives. They judge that their unrest points to a need to change something that surrounds them.<br /><br />Those who count the passion as an ally, though, those who have mastered the craft of harnessing their emotions, know that its whispers bid them change not what surrounds them, but what <em>suffuses </em>them. What lies within. This passion that makes us discontent with where we are wants us to change <em>ourselves</em>.<br /><br />Every time you hear the whispers, listen carefully. Forsake the temptation of considering what they are calling you out of, and focus instead on what they can lead you into. Use their message as a stimulus for growth, not escape. Much has been made of changing the world, but I know firsthand that it's a fool's errand. Change yourself.<br /><br />There is something inherent within the heart of man that insistently whispers to him from the twilight. <br /><br />The whispers whisper a message of hope.<br /><br />The whispers whisper a message of woe.<br /><br />The whispers whisper, "Friend or foe?"R. Justin Freemanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12721495466071512945noreply@blogger.com35tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11201645.post-59883193812307235012009-09-30T23:37:00.003-05:002009-10-01T05:35:05.249-05:00Silent ShadowPeople often marvel at how quiet I am. They tell me to lighten up, or that I take myself too seriously, or that I need to talk more. My responses vary depending on who I'm talking to, but range from a grunt ("Huh, yeah") to a cutting quip ("That's just because I communicate so efficiently I only have to say ten percent of the words you do") to a rhetoric piece citing university studies and Scripture, with a couple of quotable quotes thrown in ("Researchers have shown that many talkative people are only talkative for one of two reasons: vanity or insecurity. I suffer from neither. The Bible says, 'Even a fool, when he keeps silent, is considered wise; when he closes his lips, he is considered prudent.' Mark Twain summed it up nicely: 'It is far better to remain silent and appear a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.'")<br /><br />Truth be told, though, I wonder sometimes, too. I think for the past year or so, it has been a function of my job. I'm getting a bit more adept at it now, but for months I've worked on the art (which is more of a laborious chore for me) of making small talk with people. I mean, I don't have to make small talk, but people generally get a little antsy when a police officer stands there and stares at them for minutes on end, so I make a go of it. <br /><br />And so, I find something to talk about. If I'm scrutinizing them, it might be about how much they've had to drink. If I'm just getting information, it might be about...well, anything I can manage, to be honest. And so for ten hours a day, four days a week, I struggle to manufacture pointless conversation to keep people somewhat relaxed. The problem doesn't lie there anymore...the problem is going home.<br /><br />You see, after all of this pointless chatter, I'm done. Sometimes I feel like I'm one of those airheaded girls in the mall on her cellphone, bobbing her head side to side as she gnaws on gum and injects her stream of inane blather with random occurrences of 'like,' 'totally,' and 'ohmigod':<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">"I was, like, down at the gas station yesterday *chew chew*, and, like, ohmigod, this guy totally butted in front of me in line! *chew* And I was like, 'Uh, like, excuse me!' And then the guy made some, like, lame excuse about his wife being in labor, or something stupid like that, and totally, like, ohmigod, blew me off!" </span><br /><br />Because there are some things I say so often that I just go into macro mode. I initiate the sequence and words just start spilling out. There's the shoplifter sequence: <br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">"Okay, I need to get your side of the story, but before I do that, I need to read your rights to you. This doesn't mean you're under arrest right now, I just need to advise you of your rights when you're talking to me, so listen carefully..."</span><br /><br />The aw-shucks-gotta-give-you-a-ticket sequence:<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">"Okay sir/ma'am, there's your paperwork back; unfortunately, I am going to have to cite you for _________. There's more information on this envelope. You also ___________, but I'm just going to give you a warning on that this evening. I do need some information from you..."</span><br /><br />And the accident sequence:<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">"Okay, here's your license and insurance back. This is the case number I'll be writing the accident report under; it'll be available in three to five days on the city's website, listed here at the bottom of the slip. If you go there, you'll see a pane on the left with an option to view accident reports...just click on that, enter your report number, and you'll be able to see a full copy of the accident report - everything I know will be on that report. Basically, though, if you just give this report number to your insurance agent, they can take care of everything behind the scenes...it's pretty hands off for you. Do you have any questions for me?"</span><br /><br />So when I go home, not only do I not want to talk, I don't even want to listen. All night long I listen, to excuses through drivers' windows, to whiny teenagers in loss prevention offices, to a constant stream of radio traffic. I just want a nice, sensory free environment, where I'm free to listen to ambient noises like distant trains and computer fans and the slight whistle my nostrils make when I breathe. <br /><br />Unfortunately, this is exactly the opposite of what Kimberly wants. While I'm at work gathering reasons why I do not want to talk or listen, she is at school gathering reasons to speak and be heard. She gathers observations and wants to share them with me; I gather observations and wish I didn't even know them. So, as you can imagine, more often that not this dynamic makes for a delicious little conversational impasse.<br /><br />Beyond the job, though, I've just got a threshold thing. If I say something, more often than not I've already said it two or three times in my head, carefully parsing exactly what words I want to use. This is why I'm awful at comebacks - I always craft an impossibly witty response, but it's invariably about ninety seconds after you said your piece, by which time the moment has almost always passed. Everything's got to be a magnum opus with me. <br /><br />Maybe deep down, though, it's just a defensive thing. Words are always clues - they're insights into someone's makeup, no matter how seemingly insignificant. The words I use and the way I say them give you information about how I tick. I guess in some microscopic way, that gives you power over me, and I resent it. I also know that you can't unspeak a word. There are a lot I wish I could wring out of the air. The written word is inherently destructible - paper is flammable and bytes are corruptible. If I decide I don't want you to see the very words you're reading in a week's time, you won't, and I can deny they ever existed. And while it's true that nothing published to the Internet is ever truly deleted, I can definitely make retrieval beyond your means.<br /><br />So why do I talk so little? Probably because most people talk so much. I prefer to think. Few people think too much. It gives you a calm sense of focus. If everyone in a situation is talking, the cacophony is logic-blinding. If everyone is thinking, things begin to sharpen in resolution. I am out talking to people a great deal, but between dealings I have a respite in my patrol car. Even in stressful situations, I can still function because nobody is breathing demands in my ear. (This is probably why I so often tanked so hard in Field Training.) <br /><br />I simply begin to assimilate data. 'I should turn my lights and sirens on. Check for traffic. I am going 130 miles per hour. The ice cream shop is open. The suspension is beginning to float. I wonder what would happen if I hit a raccoon at this speed. Check for traffic. A blowout would be really unfortunate here. That car has one headlight dimmer than the other. Hit the airhorn at the intersection. Check for traffic. Why does this person think they should stop right in front of me when I'm running code? There are three officers on scene now. Primrose turns into Westview west of Campbell. License plate begins with ADZ. Check for traffic.'<br /><br />Struggle that it is, though, I still need to work on it. Kimberly deserves an ear and a shoulder, and my friends deserve more than silent ruminating and nods in passing. Silence is ultimately the cloak that veils everything about me except what I want you to see - the identity that I have so very carefully crafted. It's an extremely heavy garment at times, but it's comfortable, and it's what I've always worn. <br /><br />Marvel if you like. But no matter how much you talk, you're wearing one, too.R. Justin Freemanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12721495466071512945noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11201645.post-81166494542832131662009-06-24T13:35:00.004-05:002011-07-05T02:31:41.866-05:00Inoculating Against RealityAs a police officer, you're trained to look for patterns in behavior. This is often difficult, but not last night. The first four calls I went to last night involved intoxicated people. People driving into trees while intoxicated. Stumbling through parking lots while intoxicated. Lying on a sidewalk while intoxicated. Slamming into other vehicles while intoxicated. The allure of alcohol, I understand. The allure of drunkenness, I do not. Yet every night I see people defying what I consider perfectly sound logic. Logic that says, hey, if you're ignorant enough to drive drunk, at least stop driving after the first curb you run over. If you can't stand up, maybe you shouldn't attempt to walk. And if you don't have clean clothes or anywhere to stay, perhaps booze shouldn't be on your ought-to-purchase list.<br />
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For hours last night, inner Justin shook his head and rolled his eyes and tsk-tsked these people who couldn't negotiate those challenging sidewalks or use established parking lot exits or hold their bladder. As I later reflected on their choices, though, I realized something. They're not especially unique - they're just the poster children. Their means are decidedly liquid in nature, but they are only doing what we all do at some point or another: inoculating against reality.<br />
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Think about it. What are we told by marketers every day? We need to escape. We deserve to get away from it all. We need to lose ourselves in whatever they're selling. There is this perpetual idea that other is better. Somewhere else would be more exciting. Someone else would suit you better. Something else would provide more fulfillment. And we buy into it. Whether it's a vacation or a drug, a shopping trip or a porno, it seems we want to be anywhere but here.<br />
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And I'm often just as guilty as anyone else. But here is good.<br />
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In our fevered quest for other things, we tend to forget about the magic of here. We inhale meals that should be contemplated and savored. We take for granted people whom we should be learning and enjoying. We despise the quiet and the humble in favor of the flashy and the ostentatious. The blessings in favor of the fantasies. The real in favor of chasing the wind. We don't know our neighbors. We don't know our spouses. <br />
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We don't know ourselves.<br />
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I was in Colorado Springs with Kimberly a few weeks ago, and I was wanting to get some of the weather conditions for Pike's Peak. I flipped the television on, and was quickly courted by a commercial imploring me to visit beautiful...Missouri. I realized we all live in someone else's vacation destination. Live like it. Enjoy the vicissitudes of everyday life. Cherish the people around you. And quit sheltering yourself from real life.<br />
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"Don't worry about life. You're not going to survive it anyway." -- UnknownR. Justin Freemanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12721495466071512945noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11201645.post-38401500436434368672009-06-22T01:21:00.005-05:002009-06-23T02:16:59.918-05:00Mirrored Expectations(I probably ought to apologize for not posting anything for almost four years. And I would, if I had more devotees than limbs. But I don't, so I won't.)<br /><br />I didn't expect much from the day.<br /><br />I drove down to Dora on Sunday to preach at Needmore. I really wasn't expecting much out of the trip. I had about 48 hours' notice, so I didn't expect the sermon to go over especially well, and I figured I'd grab a bite with the family and hit the road to come back home. Thankfully, for once, I was wrong.<br /><br />I struck out at around seven in the morning to great weather. After a fill up at the gas station, I was on the road. Road trips are actually a delight now thanks to my <a href="http://www.slacker.com/?sid=stations/3079384/1235453878">Slacker G2</a> - I was listening to great stuff from Ben Folds, Jimmy Eat World, and Metric. I rolled into Mountain Grove and realized I was pretty early, so I decided to stop and grab a bite.<br /><br />I initially hit the left lane to go to Wal-Mart, but then I remembered the Country Mart just off the highway. I decided I didn't want to trek over five acres of Discount City for a cheese danish, so I veered right instead. I hopped out and went inside, expecting to settle for a premade pastry of some sort. As I walked in, I noticed the deli was on the west side of the building, and I thought, 'It would be cool if the deli was open.' Then, to my surprise, I saw the deli was open. I wandered over and found the next of the day's many delights: hot biscuits and sausage gravy, just waiting to be ordered. Not the cardboard hockey pucks covered with runny flour-water most places pass off as biscuits and gravy, but homemade biscuits with fresh, thick sausage gravy.<br /><br />I asked for two biscuits with gravy and braced myself for the cost. I knew the flour-water pucks across the street at McDonald's were relatively expensive compared to the rest of the menu, so I could only imagine what these things would cost. The answer? Two bucks. I rarely smile when relinquishing money, but I couldn't help it. I ate them with joy in my car while I listened to a little old-school Silverchair.<br /><br />I eventually found my way to Dora and the Needmore Church of God. From infancy to the time I was twenty years old, this was my church. I spent hours in that building being formed into who I am today, learning the old hymns of the church, the poetry of the psalms, and the power of quiet faith in simple people. I often balk at the idea that I could ever tell these people anything about how to live their lives, but they are kind enough to listen to me, anyway. <br /><br />I only had a couple of days' notice, so I only had a six by eight legal pad scrawled with rough notes of what I wanted to say. I was fully expecting to burn through my material in ten minutes and to be forced to retreat to my notes over and over. To my happy surprise, though, I relaxed and just talked to everyone like the friends they were, and didn't have any problems with time or content. <br /><br />After church the family gathered at Mom and Dad's house for barbecue, where I had my fill, of course. Then in the afternoon I decided to head out for a spin on the ATV. I buzzed around and got to one of the river bottoms, and this is where I had a realization. I had to swim.<br /><br />I had changed into board shorts at the house, and it was way over ninety degrees. The water looked deliciously refreshing. I decided to go to one of my favorite <a href="http://www.facebook.com/SevenSeptember?ref=profile#/photo.php?pid=2469286&id=604702756">swimming holes</a> and take a dip (thanks to <a href="http://www.longboatoutfitters.com/">Kyle Kosovich</a> for the picture). Silly me, though, forgot the undergrowth had already erupted in the woods this late in June. Thus I found there was suddenly a ticket price to get to my swim: sweat and pain.<br /><br />I pulled the ATV off the dirt road and parked it in the weeds. As I looked, though, I realized they weren't benign greenery. They were the dreaded stinging weeds of the forested river bottom. If you've never walked through a thicket of them in bare legs...well, you're better off. I decided I would not be deterred, though. I high stepped through them Deion Sanders-style, then got to the small brook that empties into the river. I slogged and splashed though, sometimes deftly leaping log to log, sometimes plowing through thigh-deep water, but always pressing forward. After nearly breaking my face when a half-rotten log snapped in half under me, and after vaulting over a fallen log that likely grew up the same time my grandparents did, the ravine I was in opened up to the spectacular view of the Martin Ford shoal shimmering in the Bryant River valley. <br /><br />I sloshed through the water of the shoal, which was easily twenty or thirty degrees warmer than the spring water I'd just left in the ravine. I stripped off my shirt, because that's just how you do, and my watch, because I really didn't care, and dove into the water. Standing neck deep in the river's water, I drew deep the aroma of my favorite smell on the earth: the scent of the river at the water's surface. Some of you know exactly what I'm talking about; others of you have no idea. If you don't, there's no way I can describe it to you. It doesn't smell like anything else, and it is what it is. For me, it's one of those smells that removes you from your present circumstance and takes you back to years gone by. It reminded me of a time when the most important decision I might make in a day's time was whether or not I wanted more mashed potatoes. As I exhaled that sweet breath, I settled into a sense of contentment and belonging. I settled, ultimately, into a worship experience.<br /><br />There, alone in that lapping water, so removed that literally nobody could have heard me scream, I had the distinct feeling come over me that I was exactly where I was supposed to be. There were thousands of places I <span style="font-style:italic;">could</span> have been, but only one where I <span style="font-style:italic;">should</span> have been, and that was in that water. I looked around at the leaves lush on the trees, the minnows flickering within six inches of me, the dragonfly hovering delicately above the water's surface. I felt torn by my own presence - somehow guilty of interrupting the symphony of circumstance swelling around me, yet assured of the fact that I somehow needed to participate in it, to allow myself to be a small part of it.<br /><br />As I bobbed in the water, though, I wondered how on earth I was enjoying myself. I had another bout with the stinging weeds to look forward to. I was being attacked by mosquitoes bigger than horseflies and horseflies bigger than...well, bigger than they needed to be. I had crashed through stagnant, frigid water, listening to unknown critters scurrying in the underbrush around me, only to get to the river and pick about a dozen biting ticks off of my legs. Most would have declined to take the trip, and the rest wouldn't have enjoyed themselves once they got there. I mean, I was taking deep breaths, walking around neck deep in sediment-laced river water, for God's sake.<br /><br />But I cherish that water. The journey was composed of steps worth taking.<br /><br />I think there are ultimately a lot of things in life we cherish, or would cherish if we could. Invariably, though, things crop up in your path. People buzz around you threatening to drain the life out of you. Stagnation threatens to discourage your steps. Parasites attach themselves to you and consume your resources. The issue we must face is whether the journey to our goal is composed of steps worth taking. I know mine certainly was. For in that current, in that moment, I was allowed a sage's wisdom and a child's joy. <br /><br />The sun's long rays bid me leave that emerald pool, and suddenly I was six years old again, begrudgingly trudging out of the water, which was already becoming palpably cooler. I took one last dip, finding a sturdy rock in the swift water of the shoal and holding myself under the surface, feeling the force of the water undulating and pulsing around me as I'd done countless times in my youth. At long last, I arose, heading back for the ravine. Before I plunged into its shadows, though, I paused and looked back. <br /><br />The sun's light was beginning to take on a tangerine glow as it prepared to set, its warmth softly glinting upon the peaks of the undulating water. It was the bittersweet parting of one friend who must stay and another who must go. I silently promised my return and departed from a friend who will never leave me. I mounted my steed of steel and zipped back between the trees, splashing through standing water and relishing the abandon I thought I was too jaded to ever feel again.<br /><br />I didn't expect much from the day. Little did I know that the day expected a lot from me.R. Justin Freemanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12721495466071512945noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11201645.post-1126416740565877682005-09-11T00:26:00.000-05:002005-09-11T00:32:20.583-05:00The god of Nothing[<span style="font-style: italic;">This post is something I wrote back in April of 2003, unchanged except for a one-character typo; as I read back over it, I realize that I must have been going through something in my head, because the tone is impossibly dark. Just know that I have grown considerably in the two and a half years since I penned it.</span>]<br /><br /> <pre style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><h3>The god of Nothing<br /></h3></pre> <div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">I find myself trying to figure out all of life in a simple </span><br /> <span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">rumination, a pondering. It's all crystalline, then </span><br /> <span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">nothing makes sense, then it's ridiculously simple, and at </span><br /> <span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">the same time maddeningly impossible to figure out. The </span><br /> <span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">essence of life eludes my grasp, and I hate it for that, </span><br /> <span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">despite my love for it. I find myself wondering about life </span><br /> <span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">quite a lot. I wonder what the life spark is. I mean, </span><br /> <span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">we're all flesh and bone. Yet what is the bridge between </span><br /> <span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">life and death? What is present in our being that, once </span><br /> <span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">removed, causes our life on earth to relinquish its </span><br /> <span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">existence? Our heart beats because our brain thinks; but </span><br /> <span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">why does our brain think? When did it start thinking? What </span><br /> <span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">fired the first neuron? How did our bodies come to have </span><br /> <span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">electricity in them? This is what I think about, always in </span><br /> <span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">a cyclic fashion. The spark of life. I've always assured </span><br /> <span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">other people that it's every bit God's doing. Well, I've</span><br /> <span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">tried to. They want proof. This is why I ponder. If only I </span><br /> <span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">could find a connection. If only I could point to </span><br /> <span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">something and say, there. It is undeniable. But that never </span><br /> <span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">occurs. Things that are real and distinct to me fall on </span><br /> <span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">deaf ears and uncomprehending hearts, and make me stumble </span><br /> <span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">backward and reassess myself. Such conviction those who do </span><br /> <span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">not believe have. Such a patent, sure faith in nothing. If </span><br /> <span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">only I could put as much faith in an all powerful God as </span><br /> <span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">they put into nothing at all. I suppose, though, that it </span><br /> <span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">would be easier and far more convenient to serve nothing. </span><br /> <span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">Nothing requires more of the same. If there is nothing, </span><br /> <span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">then nothing will come, and nothing is required. With </span><br /> <span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">nothing comes no obligation but to one's self interests, </span><br /> <span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">whatever those might be interpreted to be. One easily </span><br /> <span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">justifies their actions in the light of being overarched </span><br /> <span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">by nothing in particular, since the righteous man's end </span><br /> <span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">under the grasp of nothing will be identical to the wicked </span><br /> <span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">man's end under the grasp of nothing. But what is </span><br /> <span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">righteous and wicked, anyway? If there is nothing to give </span><br /> <span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">allegiance to, who's to judge such a thing? If it's in my </span><br /> <span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">interest to be wicked under nothing, then aren't I being </span><br /> <span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">righteous unto myself? The fear of Hell may as well go to </span><br /> <span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">the same, since retribution cannot be imposed by nothing, </span><br /> <span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">as nothing is powerless to save or condemn. So, why don't </span><br /> <span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">I murder that person who just looked at me crossly? </span><br /> <span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">Retribution is a negative fantasy, an attempt by the weak </span><br /> <span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">to shame their predators into compliance with their will. </span><br /> <span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">Though, mortal retribution remains. So what if there are </span><br /> <span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">no consequences? What if I could unleash a torrent of </span><br /> <span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">hedonism on the world without dire effects? To what am I </span><br /> <span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">pledged to?</span><br /> <br /> <span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">The answer comes back, To God, to God. So here I lie with </span><br /> <span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">my faith. It's a pretty little faith, all polished and </span><br /> <span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">nice. I am powerless to share it, though. Everybody </span><br /> <span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">replies, No, thank you kindly, I have my own. Sometimes </span><br /> <span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">they look at it, sometimes they smile, but they never take </span><br /> <span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">any. Sometimes I don't want them to, because their faith </span><br /> <span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">isn't little like mine, and it's much prettier. Sometimes </span><br /> <span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">I take some of theirs when that happens. Then someone else </span><br /> <span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">comes along, and I am very sad. They have a little tiny </span><br /> <span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">faith, or worse, no little faith at all. I try to give </span><br /> <span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">them mine, but they stress that they are fine. They are </span><br /> <span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">happy. Then I walk away, only to find them trodding a </span><br /> <span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">circle in the path behind. Shall I try again? Maybe if my </span><br /> <span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">little faith was bigger, maybe if it was prettier. Maybe </span><br /> <span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">then they would like to have some. So I polish my little </span><br /> <span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">faith, and nurture it to grow, while the grass wilts </span><br /> <span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">underfoot in their trodden circle. And I go back and </span><br /> <span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">say, "Here is my pride again...don't you like it?" Then </span><br /> <span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">they tell me that it isn't real. They tell me that I'm </span><br /> <span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">polishing nothing at all, nurturing a fantasy, clutching a </span><br /> <span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">mere dream of my own creation. Then my little faith looks </span><br /> <span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">dull and small again. Then they say, "Tell me why you have </span><br /> <span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">your little faith without resorting to talking about the </span><br /> <span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">reason you have your faith, and then I will believe you </span><br /> <span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">and have some little faith of my own." Then I flurry </span><br /> <span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">myself into thinking, and pondering, and searching. When I </span><br /> <span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">think I've hit upon something, I offer it to them, only to </span><br /> <span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">be denied again, only to be called a fool and a </span><br /> <span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">simpleton. "It's okay that you're dumb," they say, "just </span><br /> <span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">don't force me to be dumb too." So I sit and cry and </span><br /> <span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">console myself with my little faith that apparently does </span><br /> <span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">not even exist. Don't they see it? Why would I carry </span><br /> <span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">something without reason to do so? Why would I waste </span><br /> <span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">energy in something that is without foundational basis? I </span><br /> <span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">want to go, but I cannot leave. I want to leave, but I </span><br /> <span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">cannot go. I stand staring at them, staring at their </span><br /> <span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">wretched, awful circle, not wanting to forsake them, but </span><br /> <span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">weary of lingering. My faith is a light that seems to only </span><br /> <span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">illuminate itself, never shedding light on anything else, </span><br /> <span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">never proving itself worthy in the oh so different light </span><br /> <span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">that the circle shines. Wretched circle. It's now a rut, </span><br /> <span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">still trodden religiously, filled with blood. I suppose </span><br /> <span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">it's better to be bleeding than to be a fool like me.</span><br /> <br /> <span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">I look at my little faith again, looking closely, seeing </span><br /> <span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">its light shed itself upon my hand. Then I see the source </span><br /> <span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">of the light.</span><br /> <br /> <span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">The spark. </span><br /> <br /> <span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">The winnowing fork of time, the separator of the grain of </span><br /> <span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">life from the chaff of death, the essence of true life. </span><br /> <span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">The spark glows warmly. I go to extend it to them, but </span><br /> <span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">they have blinded themselves, claiming joy as they slosh </span><br /> <span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">through their own blood, having damned themselves to those </span><br /> <span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">cursed orbits of death around nothing in particular. </span><br /> <br /> <span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">I turn and walk on, head low in despair. My spark's </span><br /> <span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">presence will always be there. Perhaps they will extricate </span><br /> <span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">themselves and hear my spark's whisper before they drown </span><br /> <span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">in their own mire of blood. </span><br /> <br /> <span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">I lift my head. Then I see them. A million circles, lining </span><br /> <span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">my path. So many halos crowning the god of Nothing. Some </span><br /> <span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">with live grass yet underfoot. Some forever trodden, </span><br /> <span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">brimming with blood. A million people I have yet to meet. </span><br /> <span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">A million people revolving around nothing at all. A </span><br /> <span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">million people who will not take my spark. I covet their </span><br /> <span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">circles. I am revolted by their circles. There are so many </span><br /> <span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">circles. I scream at nothing in particular, since that's </span><br /> <span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">the only thing anybody seems to believe in. I slander and </span><br /> <span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">curse this present absence. It is to no avail, for I am </span><br /> <span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">dripping blood as I lie idle in the road. I pick myself </span><br /> <span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">up, I press my hand to my little faith to make for certain </span><br /> <span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">it is there.</span><br /> <br /> <span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">Then I walk, leaving my spark's presence at each ellipse </span><br /> <span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">in the ground. A presence to fight the wretched absence. </span><br /> <span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">So I smile, despite the bleakness.</span><br /> <br /> <span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">For one day, all the scarlet halos will shatter, and </span><br /> <span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">Nothing will die.</span></div>R. Justin Freemanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12721495466071512945noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11201645.post-1126415974198012322005-09-11T00:08:00.002-05:002009-07-02T08:46:10.277-05:00Let Flow the River of LifeSo, I found a four year old draft of a post that I was working on but never got around to actually publishing. I've set off the old portion of the post, and taken the liberty of, finally, finishing my thought.<br /><br /><blockquote>Yeah, it's been a crazy long time since I've posted. I'd give you excuses, but I don't have to, because it's my website. Plus the fact that you probably don't exist, because nobody reads this thing. I mean, it's not like I haven't had any deep thoughts since this past spring; I just haven't had a chance to glue myself to this page for a few minutes.<br /><br />Oh, I'm such a liar. I have had chances. I just didn't take them. Well, I guess I'd better bring the blog up to speed, anyway. Let's see, I worked all summer, started college classes with an 18 hour courseload, quit my job because I was going to suffocate being out of the house and being away from my wife and friends all the time, I just finished a quadruple-decker quesadilla with mushrooms (by the way, yes, it is after midnight), and I'm working on a pitcher of Kool-Aid by myself because Kimberly doesn't like cherry. Go figure.<br /><br />Done and done. Now for the deep philosophical stuff.<br /><br />Life is a river. I know, you're sick of hearing similes about life. Life is beautiful. Life is good. Life is <insert>. And at points, one or all of those might be true. But life is always a river. Why?<br /><br />For one thing, rivers are laughably simple and unnervingly complex in the same stroke. If you think about it, all a river really is is a massive collection of water molecules exerted upon by the gravitational force to flow through topographically depressed areas until they reach an open body of water, where they circulate until evaporation sucks them into the atmosphere and into the remainder of the water cycle. If you look at a river from high above, it just looks like a dark squiggly line juxtaposed against the green and brown streaks of dry land.<br /><br />If you jump into the river, though, you'll find that it is much more complex than that. First, it is teeming with life. From algal growth to river reeds, bass fingerlings to carp, catfish to water bugs, turtles to the occasional otter and everything in-between, an entire ecosystem hides in that dark squiggle.<br /><br />Life is the same way. Technically, humans are composed of about twenty different elements ranging from arsenic to zinc that, in the quantity present in an average human body, would cost no more than five dollars. Indeed, in the aftermath of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, human shaped shadows were found on sidewalk pavement; it was later found that when the bomb hit, the blast wave was so incredibly hot that it flashboiled people walking down the sidewalk, leaving only carbon dust behind.<br /><br />The trouble (?) is, we're specialized. The base elements composing our bodies can be had for a five spot - but in their structured and specialized forms, the aggregate parts of the human body are worth over forty-five million dollars. It's one thing to know that a lack of serotonin in the brain can lead to episodes of anger - it's quite another to feel that magmatic, seething undercurrent of rage when it burns in our chests. So how do we reconcile the two? How do we acknowledge the presence of serotonin without denying love? How do we admit that the river of life is a dark squiggle while not neglecting that life is so much more than that?<br /><br />We obviously need a common denominator.</blockquote><br /><br />After four years, I think that common denominator is koinonia - fellowship. Koinonia is the Greek word that is well-translated as "communion by intimate participation." The communion that only comes by sharing things in common with people whom you've developed a shared story with. The trick to turning the river of life from a massive collection of molecules to a living ribbon of sapphire is writing that shared story.R. Justin Freemanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12721495466071512945noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11201645.post-1113430897243850452005-04-13T16:56:00.000-05:002005-09-11T00:08:43.333-05:00A Common UnityIt seems as though there is so much disunity in the world today - far from being brave, it is a very cowardly world where couples divorce, churches split, and families disintegrate. The problem usually lies in a person's (mis)understanding of what he or she <span style="font-style: italic;">deserves</span>. This could range anywhere from a stick of gum to a bigger house, but the real issue isn't really the deserved stuff, but the attitude that gives rise to the demand for it. I know enough to know that I know nothing, and I know enough to know that I deserve nothing. Everything I have has been given to me - if not by other people, then by the benevolent hand of God. I know better than to boast in the work that my fingertips render, for it is fleeting and always lackluster compared to my indebtedness.<br /><br />End confession.R. Justin Freemanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12721495466071512945noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11201645.post-1110963230058524442005-03-16T01:50:00.000-06:002005-03-18T01:42:29.426-06:00Blasting AtomicsI bought a new watch the other day. Turns out the six dollar stopwatch I bought a few months ago doesn't appreciate being bent sharply backwards twice a day, as evidenced by its split band. After learning that all but one of the replacement bands available cost more than the whole watch originally did, I surmised that watch-buying season was nigh. Goodbye, old friend.<br /><br />Now, on to the new stuff. As I peruse my choices, I'm immediately tempted by the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle watches on the display by the shoe department (where I work, if I haven't mentioned that trivia nugget yet). There are two kinds, which pose a problem. One has a cool dial, but the band looks like it's made of the same material as my old watch. The other one has what looks to be a durable band, but the dial is so-so. Resisting the urge to strip them apart and reassemble them to my liking, I put them down and continue my search.<br /><br />What I am looking for is just a plain old watch with a white face and black numbers, but alas, they can't make simple things anymore. I skim past the Fossil knockoffs, the calculator watches, the hopeless let's-stuff-ourselves-with-chronometers-and-compasses-and-the-like watches, and the pseudo-trendy asymmetrical watches (I am, with pride, a symmetry freak). I finally decide upon a nice black faced Armitron watch with Indiglo. I'm a little hesitant about the velcro closure system, but it was either that, more cracking rubber, or a heavy Chinese Fossil clone. Plus, this way, if I get ravaged by killer bees and my left wrist swells to the size of a small canteloupe, I might still be able to note the timeliness of the ambulance.<br /><br />As I haul my find out of the jewelry department, I stop to look at a new display. Eighty-six dollars? For a watch? In Wal-Mart? Looking closer, though, I see why they're so proud of it. It's not just a watch. It's not even just a solar watch. It's an <em><strong>atomic</strong></em> solar watch.<br /><br />Now, I've got nothing against atoms, or their constituent parts, for that matter. They're to be commended for their...being in stuff. But do I really need to be informed as to what time it is, <span style="color:#ff0000;">exactly</span>? Right down to the millionth of a second? Do I need my watch to pick up radio waves that inform it of its miscalculations and inconsistencies? <em><strong>When did quartz become insufficient?!?</strong></em><br /><strong><em></em></strong><br />Now, atomic timekeeping devices have their place. I lobbied for atomic clocks at <a href="http://www.wp.smsu.edu/">the college I used to go to</a>, because the clocks scattered around campus were ridiculously misaligned - sometimes by as much as ten minutes, which forces students to memorize the clocks in between four and six classrooms if they don't want tardies to pile up. But on your wrist? Denying yourself the ability to set your watch five minutes fast to keep yourself from being late? Or setting it five minutes slow after you're already late to give yourself an alibi?<br /><br />No, no, thirty-seven times no. I like being able to manipulate time. I mean, who's to say that time is standardized? Why is there no metric expression of time? There is really no way to stop me from inventing a new standard. So I will. My new basis of time measurement is the time it takes for a sixty watt lightbulb to drop one foot in Earth's gravity: one bulbdrop. Opening a book takes about one bulbdrop; writing a sentence takes about twelve bulbdrops. I can make watches that tick on bulbdrops. I could probably get the United Arab Emirates or the Azores to standardize to bulbdrops if I was really nice. Before you say it, yes, I do have better things to do than standardize marginal countries to a new time format. But you can't make me swallow your preciously precise seconds.<br /><br />Not that I'm an anti or a disestablishment crusader - I just don't like having to map time out. I like living life at life's pace, instead of a project's pace, a deadline's pace, or a clock's pace, for that matter. I like sitting down and eating slowly, savoring the compliments and contrasts between flavors before washing them down with a good, full bodied tea (I like Earl Grey and Darjeeling, personally). I like sitting down with someone and playing a leisurely game of chess (so few chess players...everybody's thumbing around on their stupid PlayStations all the time). Or really absorbing a good book (or three - Brian Herbert's Dune prequel trilogy is breathtakingly lush). Or literally kneeling and taking in an orchid's scent. Or throwing some smooth, classic jazz on the turntable (yeah, mp3's work, but it's just not the same).<br /><br />Now, I know you're saying to yourself, "No time for that fluffy bunk - got stuff to do." Maybe. There is a real difference between frenzy and productivity - in fact, half of the time you would class under "busyness" is probably just you carrying your frenetic pace into time that should be set aside for leisure. So stop. Relax. Drop the needle on some Nat King Cole. Grab a book and a cup of tea. And take that blasted atomic watch off of your wrist, for crying out loud.<br /><br />It'll only take you a few bulbdrops.R. Justin Freemanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12721495466071512945noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11201645.post-1110933278712724532005-03-15T16:51:00.000-06:002005-03-16T02:59:11.930-06:00Hyperbolic Excesses, and Other Torments<span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">I actually got a bonus check from Wal-Mart yesterday. Not that it amounted to anything - about half of a normal paycheck - but I certainly didn't wad it up and chuck it back at them. Which would have been impossible anyway, because I had to talk through a sliding drawer to a disembodied voice to get it. That was before I accepted a clipboard from a disembodied hand and initialed that I received it. The whole process was too stupid to tolerate for very long, so I scribbled and briskly walked away. I'm lucky to have had about four inches of wall between me and the Wal-Mart Fiscal Wizard of Oz - otherwise she would have gotten two sockets full of the most obnoxious eye roll ever produced by anyone over the age of fifteen. I remember walking away thinking, 'You know, I understand the need to keep thieves, hobos, and riff-raff out of the Waltons' Monetary Panic Room, but would it kill anybody to slap a square foot of plexiglas in the wall so I don't have to stand behind the customer service desk and talk to a drawer like a moron?<br /><br />The need for security? Acknowledged. Talking drawer in the wall? Hyperbolic excess.<br /><br />Since they refused to Direct Deposit my bonus check (thereby necessitating what I call the Drawer Debacle), I then had to go to the bank. Walking under the awning covering the approach to the door, I heard something akin to a cross between techno and jazz being piped out of an overhead speaker. Puzzled, I paused for a moment. What is being conveyed here? Are the tellers and loan officers inside trying to get me to believe that there's a party inside? That the sign proclaiming the building to be a "BANK", the drive-thru lanes, and the ATM are all just a con to keep schmuck losers out of the hippest club in town?<br /><br />Whatever the case, I don't get my hopes up - which is good, because once I'm inside the interesting music mix fades in favor of ink jet printers, keyboards furiously clicking under the rhythmic taps of fingertips, and conversations muffled by either distance or glass. Maybe the whole scheme isn't designed for people like me who actually think - maybe it's designed for emotion-driven automatons. You know, the guy (we'll call him Mortimer) who's hacked off and ready to tell Hillary the teller that she needs to either dump a lot of money into something portable, or face the wrath of his index finger, which he hopes will be mistaken for a .45 when he pokes it through the fabric of his jacket pocket. As Mortimer walks up, though, he hears that music mix with a funky beat, stops and says, "Hey, I'm happy," and opens a checking account instead. Maybe that was the plan.<br /><br />The need to defuse Mortimer before he savages the tellers? Acknowledged. Piping club music to the bank porch? Hyperbolic excess.<br /><br />Walking up to the desk, I'm frightened by a secretary in her mid-twenties wearing a fire engine red business suit. Noting my entry, she flashed at least 23 teeth and said, "Good MORNING!" with such enthusiasm that you'd think we'd slept together the night before. I tried to reply with like enthusiasm, but I failed. I knew it was a con, too. One, she couldn't be happy to see me as a customer (or client, or whatever they refer to me as in their banker meetings), because I'm just a poor college student who produces little to no income for them. Two, she couldn't be happy to see me as a person, because I was wearing a grungy gray Hanes pocket tee, beat down blue jeans, and my five year old New Balance sneakers that reveal a good square inch of sock through their many holes. Plus, I hadn't showered or shaved for the day. She wanted me to think that seeing me made her day. But I know that a black mood equals a pink slip for my would-be mistress.<br /><br />The need to welcome me? Acknowledged. Making me wonder whether I'd cheated on my wife the night before? Hyperbolic excess.<br /><br />As I filled out my deposit slip (yes, people, I <em>actually</em> deposit money when I go to the bank, as opposed to getting cash for fireworks and cigarettes), I noticed that there is a forty-some-odd inch plasma television bolted to the wall about twelve feet up, pointed at the floor where a gathering line would be, but wasn't at 8:30 in the morning (yes, people, I get up before noon). I guess it's there to keep Mortimer from changing his mind while he's standing in line.<br /><br />The odd thing, though, was the fact that it wasn't turned on. Two thousand dollars of television, impotent to televise. It's usually tuned to some news station or another, complete with a scrolling ticker telling me horrible things that I really could have gone without knowing. As I stifled an urge to make a running jump and push the power button (I could have gotten it, I swear), I wondered if it wouldn't have been easier to have someone at the door handing out yo-yo's and superballs to line-dwellers, and collecting them as they exited. They could even yo and bounce to the beat of that funky music that was playing on the porch. But no. They opted for the screen that cost two grand and is too much of a hassle to turn on. Maybe they carpeted over the remote.<br /><br />The need for technology? Acknowledged. Turning into some hipster-doofus of a bank with a blank plasma screen? Hyperbolic excess.<br /><br />Then, as I left, I passed the bank's popcorn stand. Yes, that kind, complete with the wagon wheels and the Westward Expansion-era lettering. (Did any of the oxen on the Oregon Trail pull popcorn machines? I bet there's a popcorn machine somewhere in the Sierra Nevadas that the Donners had to abandon.) I quietly chuckle at the accompanying signage: "Please ask bank associate for assistance with the popcorn." Yeah. I'm going to walk thirty feet out of my way, tap a loan officer who's on the phone with someone on the shoulder and say, "Excuse me, but I'd like a tub of popcorn. Oh, and extra butter, please." I know, I know, appease the kids - but if they're too young for the yo-yo's and the superballs, give the guy at the door pacifiers, too.<br /><br />The need to satisfy children? Acknowledged. Making parents curse you and your institution as they vacuum popcorn kernels out of the crevices in the backseat of their car? Hyperbolic excess.<br /><br />As you go through life, you will occasionally be blessed (or cursed) with some sort of power (Yes, you will. Yes, you will. (yesyouwill)*(∞!) [ask your local math whiz - he or she will laugh, and then tell you why]). Just remember that there comes a point when practicality is saturated and excess leaks out. Take care that you don't unleash a dragon when a salamander would have done the job. Then irritated college students, not unlike myself, won't have to vent about your overambition on their blogs. I thank you. Mortimer thanks you. And society at large thanks you, too.<br /><br />"Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power."<br />--Abraham Lincoln</span>R. Justin Freemanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12721495466071512945noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11201645.post-1110217125809470152005-03-07T11:37:00.000-06:002005-03-07T11:38:45.813-06:00A Turtle's ConsentAs I write, I sit in my decently comfortable office chair, working on my laptop, which rests on my massive, five foot wide, solid wood teacher's desk that I stole for $20 at Goodwill (quick plug: thrift stores rock). Many memories rest upon this desk. Sitting about a foot away from me is Harold, my pet turtle. Okay, so he's not a real turtle...well, scratch that, he is real, he's just not biological. Well, scratch that, too, because I think his shell is made of some kind of nut shell...let's just suffice it to say that he's not breathing.<br /><br />Harold is one of those handpainted bobble-head turtles you might find in a street market in the Caribbean. A dear friend of mine, who lives in Canada, of all places, gave him to me as a gift. For months, he's been riding shotgun with me in my Cavalier, nodding his head along with the beat of my music. Well, maybe more in tune with the potholes and speed bumps than the music, but his consent was unquestioned.<br /><br />Harold suffered a rather grievous injury recently, when an enterprising thief (previous post) cracked his shell as he plucked my in-dash CD player out of its nest (more prying and ripping than plucking, actually, but I digress). You know what, though? Harold is still nodding. Sure, there's a crater in the back of his shell and cracks in two other places, but he's still optimistic. And the paint he has left is still pretty.<br /><br />I've had my shell cracked a few times. Death, illness, rejection, failure, and pain have all taken swipes at me, making their cracks and craters and fissures. And, oh, how often I've wanted to buckle, wanted to submit and give up. What I try to remember is, like Harold, the paint I've got left is still pretty - and I've got to keep bobbing my head, nodding along whether life throws me a pothole or a song.<br /><br />Four drops of superglue, and Harold will be back in my Cavalier, riding shotgun once again, nodding in tune with my thoughts in the absence of music. He's had a few knocks, but he'll be all right.<br /><br />We'll both be all right.R. Justin Freemanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12721495466071512945noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11201645.post-1110180341072028572005-03-07T00:38:00.000-06:002005-03-07T15:16:37.610-06:00I Never Saw the Shadow<span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">Believe it or not, I own an old boxed, variable speed record player (that's right, folks) that my grandparents got each other for their first Christmas. It still spins them like a pro - it recently crackled out Gerry Rafferty's City to City LP for me. I've got all the good stuff - Seals and Crofts, Sheena Easton, Jim Croce, Chicago, Air Supply, Christopher Cross, and a gob of old 45's that I haven't even gotten around to listening to yet (except for the Frank Sinatra and Nat King Cole records - those got fished out first). I wonder about every little nick and scratch on the thing, trying to envision the circumstances that brought them about.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">Now, I might let you talk me out of one of the records (most people reading weblogs would probably prefer my keeping them, though). But the player's a no-go. It brims with the presence of my grandfather. The box is replete with his trademark: embossed labelmaker stickers, proudly declaring "This Side Up," "Our 1st Christmas," and "40 Years," though that mark has long since passed. It still smells sweetly of old dust and vinyl, taking me back to childhood days spent playing Chinese Checkers with my grandfather and tooling around in his 1964 Ford Fairlane - sea foam green, with vinyl covered seats, the occasional errant hammer, screwdriver, or fistful of napkins, and a small oscillating fan on the dashboard (I kid you not). </span><br /><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">He and Grandma and I would sit and speculate about how big the raindrops were that day, how people could possibly bring themselves to spend $100 on a pair of rollerblades, how tart cranberry juice can be, how you get used to the trains at night when you live nearby, how front-wheel drive cars are inherently evil ("Wouldn't give fifteen cents for a front wheel drive car," he'd always say), and how computers could never replace marbles, Tinkertoys, Lincoln Logs, and pogo sticks.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">But never Korea. In so many hours, so many discussions, so many subjects, he never breathed a word about being in the Korean War. After he died of a heart attack in July of 2000, his obituary emotionlessly informed me that he had served on an aircraft carrier during the war. I had mixed emotions at the time. At first, I felt a little miffed, feeling as though I'd been left out of the loop. I felt as though I'd had the wool pulled over my eyes for so many years. I think I know better now, though.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">I realize now that he (and everybody else, for that matter) was not concerned with deceiving me - he never would have done that. What he did have was the wisdom to know that I needed a childhood as free from worry and anxiety as possible - the wisdom to know that his grandson, even as a teenager, needed to be able to spend time not with Grandpa the seafaring warrior, but with Grandpa the Grandpa. The Grandpa who sat and listened to swap and trade shows on AM radio every morning. The Grandpa who took an ill-advised turn or two in a Chinese Checkers game just to see me beam with pride in my victory. The Grandpa who took pleasure in spinning Frank Sinatra and Nat King Cole 45's, exposing me to a style of music that I'd never heard before, and that still influences me to this day.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">To this minute. Leaving the others to lie in their neglect, I feather through my pillar of dusty vinyl and slide a Sinatra out. As it crackles and hisses before giving way to a rich melody, I'm back on their deep scarlet carpet, bunched and beaten by time, jamming Tinkertoys together and dreaming of saving the world. </span><br /><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">Little did I know that, in more ways than one, my Grandpa had already saved it for me.</span>R. Justin Freemanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12721495466071512945noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11201645.post-1110011796313775752005-03-05T00:59:00.000-06:002005-03-05T04:34:43.070-06:00Blessed Be the Name of the Lord<span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">So I got my CD player jacked out of my car this afternoon. Probably not what you expected to read after taking in my post title. Understandable...but I'll get there.</span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">I walked out of Wal-Mart after my 3 pm - 11pm shift...wait, scratch that. I walked out at 11:35. It's funny when you think about it...if I clock in at eight minutes after three o'clock, I get a citation on my file. If <em><strong>they</strong></em> keep <em><strong>me</strong></em> a half hour late, though, that's no big deal. I guess I forget that my time is worth bunk compared to everyone else's.</span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">Anyway...I walk up to my car, and I notice that my one inch ventilation crack has turned into a gaping five inch opening. Then I notice smudged fingerprints on the top of the window, right before seeing the crater in my dashboard. Now, first off, the schmucks cheated and used a screwdriver. I spent over four hours over the course of two days putting that player in, and by George, that sucker was in there tight. I remember saying to myself, "Self, the only way anybody's getting that sucker out is tearing out the dashboard." Well, I jinxed myself, because they did. It was a nice player, too. Sony CD-MPX40, blue LCD screen, 210 watts with ID3 tag reader and mp3 capability. Probably getting pawned as I write. Complete with my Jimmy Eat World CD inside.</span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">So after filing a report with a surprisingly half-interested police officer and a security guard who admitted that mine was the second burgulary committed on his watch today, I started my first drive home in a long while unaccompanied by Chevelle, Jimmy Eat World, Yellowcard, or something similar. And as I drove in silence (actually, as I drove and talked to myself, but that's assuredly going to come up later), I started thinking. As I was in our biweekly chapel service at college today, the worship leader told us the story of how he went to the funeral of his friend's mother, and saw the most amazing thing: toward the end of the service, his friend slowly stood, walked to the front of the sanctuary, and sang "Blessed Be Your Name." For the probably most of you who don't know how the song goes:</span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">Blessed Be Your Name / In the land that is plentiful </span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">Where Your streams of abundance flow / Blessed be Your name</span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">Blessed Be Your name / When I'm found in the desert place</span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">Though I walk through the wilderness / Blessed Be Your name</span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">Every blessing You pour out I'll / turn back to praise</span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">When the darkness closes in, Lord / Still I will say</span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">Blessed be the name of the Lord / Blessed be Your name</span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">Blessed be the name of the Lord / Blessed be Your glorious name</span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">Blessed be Your name / When the sun's shining down on me</span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">When the world's 'all as it should be' / Blessed be Your name</span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">Blessed be Your name / On the road marked with suffering </span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">Though there's pain in the offering / Blessed be Your name</span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">(Bridge) / (Chorus 2x)</span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;color:#ff0000;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;color:#ff0000;">You give and take away / You give and take away</span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;color:#ff0000;">My heart will choose to say / Lord, blessed be Your name</span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">This is no morbid dirge. This song is up tempo - 123 tempo in 4/4 time. I remember thinking at the time, what a thought. To be standing within feet of your lifeless mother, lying chilly in a casket, and singing such a sincere, loving praise to God. What faith. All of this flashed through my mind, and then I looked at the crater in my dashboard, and I laughed. </span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">You know what? If that friend of a friend of mine can summon the strength to give praise to God in the face of so much real tragedy, what am I to do in the loss of my preh-shush CD player? Should I spit on the rather ineffective security guy circling the Wal-Mart parking lot? Should I whine to the police officer when he tells me that he can't call out a crime unit for a $200 CD player and one maybe-usable print? Should I curse God for His injustice?</span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><em>"While he was still speaking, another also came and said, "Your sons and your daughters were eating and drinking wine in their oldest brother's house, and behold, a great wind came from across the wilderness and struck the four corners of the house, and it fell on the young people and they died, and I alone have escaped to tell you." Then Job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head, and he fell to the ground and worshiped. He said, "Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked I shall return there. The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away. Blessed be the name of the LORD." Through all this Job did not sin nor did he blame God." Job 1:18-22</em></span><br /><em><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span></em><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">I've got tons to be thankful for...and it's not even November. I've got a beautiful wife who loves me, a steady job, a solid college career, a loving family, a host of friends who would be here in a second if they knew I needed them, and a litany of other things I could cram Google's servers with. I say this with humility, certain in my knowledge that you, sitting before your own glass screen, may not have as much as I do - but I would like to think that I've got my priorities straight. </span><br /><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">And do I think that God tapped someone with nothing better to do on the shoulder and told him or her to pluck my CD player out of my dashboard? Of course not. I'm still developing my theology on the tension between human free agency and divine providence, but I'm not so naive as to think that God targeted me because of something I did (some people have an element of karma in their Christian theology, reasoning that bad things in their lives must have come from bad things they have done, which isn't necessarily true). Things happen...life is a dynamic flow of events. Some we label as positive, some we label as negative, and some we shrug at and label as, "Oh, well." I choose to shrug. And if you happen to have let yourself into a red 1990 Cavalier in Oklahoma City today and helped yourself to my CD player, I forgive you. My only regret is not having a Christian CD in the player so that you might hear the message of hope that has fundamentally changed my life. Pawn it off and feed your family for a couple of weeks. I pray you might find the Hope I have found.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">"You give and take away...You give and take away..."</span>R. Justin Freemanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12721495466071512945noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11201645.post-1109867258901317152005-03-03T10:17:00.000-06:002005-03-05T04:33:48.386-06:00An Introduction and DisclaimerFor those of you who read my first post, you more than likely ascertained that I am a Christian. This, unfortunately, requires some explanation. I am not any of the televangelists you briefly see on the channels you probably skip over. I am not the crisply dressed person who knocks on your door at nine in the morning on Saturday and wants to discuss the content of their handy-dandy pamphlets. In fact, I'm currently wearing a sleeveless promo shirt for a hometown rock band, Arizona blue jeans, and flip flops, and, frankly, pamphlets usually irritate me, too.<br /><br />Not to demean the televangelists or the pamphlet discussers. I'm certain that they're good people with the best of intentions. Even so, I distance myself. I don't know if this will be a news flash to any of you, but that's not what we all look like. Now, granted, that's what <em>some</em> of us look like.<em> </em>But, contrary to what often seems to be popular opinion, we are not hopelessly naive, thoroughly bigoted crackpots who watch reruns of The 700 Club all day.<br /><br />Now, to be fair, I'm sure that there are all of seven people who actually do that. But the media would often have you believe that 98% of us do. Unfair and patently incorrect, but without something to judge it against, who's to call, say, Matt Groening out on his portrayal?<br /><br />I mean, think about it. Who's the most boring character on The Simpsons? Reverend Timothy Lovejoy. Oh, but it goes on. Who is the dorkiest, most dimwitted character on M*A*S*H, with the possible exception of Klinger? Father Mulcahy. Who were the villains in the movie Stigmata? Cardinals in the Catholic Church. Who was shown as morally weak in that same movie? The priest involved with the main character. The elements of Holy Communion are flushed down a toilet on the February 22 episode of "Committed" on NBC. Jesus Christ wears a diaper in the Jerry Springer opera and claims that he's "a bit gay." And on and on it goes. Mock Christians, get a raise. Mock Muslims, or sexual preference, or women, or race, and chase your decapitated head out the office door.<br /><br />All I know to say is that I'm me. I'm not 72, I don't chuck Bibles at people, I don't shoot abortionists. I do think we are called to more than we can give ourselves. I do think you can have a dozen piercings, or a dozen tattoos, and still be a Christian. And I do know that I have been called and commissioned to a purpose that transcends my personal desires. So please don't backbite me for living in line with my convictions - after all, don't you do the same thing?R. Justin Freemanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12721495466071512945noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11201645.post-1109836155197579002005-03-03T01:23:00.000-06:002005-03-03T02:01:35.900-06:00Initial Splotches of Digital InkAh, my initial foray. I'm hoping that this will evolve into a weekly digest of my ruminations, but between a full time Bachelor's program and a full time job hawking shoes at a certain Arkansas-based retailer (I know, I know, screw me for supporting the evil empire), let's just say we'll just see how it goes.<br /><br />Microbio(-graphy, not -logical): Born in Missouri, grew up on a farm, graduated from high school in a class of twenty, was initially headed for the Air Force, felt called into ministry, moved to Oklahoma City and started a Bachelor's program in Pastoral Ministry, got married. I realize that it sounds like I'm just generally sold out, but the truth will soon spill from my digital quill. (Did I mention my dabbles in poetry? :) )<br /><br />You're probably wondering about the name. A victim of my own nitpickiness, I mulled about 487 different names in my head (okay, more like thirteen) before settling on Scarlet Over Jade. As I thought about it, I thought about the dichotomy one can often see in life between power and powerlessness, substance and shadow, scarlet and jade. In my mind, jade represents those things which are of marginal consequence, at best. Jade is money. Jade is this earth. Jade is that collection of petty things we chuck into the storage shed of our lives. Of course, much like jade, they might often look very tantalizing - yet that glitter is a fraud.<br /><br />Scarlet, on the other hand, is sacrifice. Scarlet is life. Scarlet is the shedding of blood for a cause that transcends the self, physically or otherwise. Scarlet is meaning. Scarlet is truth.<br /><br />Hence the name. :)R. Justin Freemanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12721495466071512945noreply@blogger.com0