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Welcome to mistersite.net, home of... well, something unique, I hope. Be sure to check out all those lovely links to the left to see who I am, what I do, and what I like. Read my blog too... it's right under this paragraph. And leave a comment, so I know you've visited.
Tidbits from the Merry Mind...
So, Pat Robertson wants us to pray for the retirement of three Supreme Court justices. Fine. But I get to pick which three. I'll go for Rehnquist, Thomas, and Scalia... the three who believe that government should be able to regulate what happens in our bedrooms and homes. And if they could put it off for two years, so we can get Dubya out of the White House, that would be great... If only the Dems would mount a decent opposition so that can come true. At least I'm going to be living in one of the "blue states" come 2004's election, much as it disappoints me not to be able to vote for Jerry Springer.
Also, I'd like to take this opportunity to send a very public message to Pat Robertson: Please, just shut up. I realize that you think you're the next Dwight Moody or Billy Sunday, but you ain't. Right now, most of America sees you as a reactionary, unfeeling, pompous ass, who wants to see homosexuals publicly flogged, women subject to Victorian-era suppression, and Christianity enforced as a code of law. Remember how you agreed with Jerry Falwell that the 9/11 attacks were partially the fault of "the pagans and the abortionists and the feminists and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way, all of them who try to secularize America?" Yeah, that was stupid... I realize you recanted later, but your rhetoric hasn't changed to reflect this supposed recantation. Your opinions by themselves would be fine; however, because the group you head is called the Christian Coalition, and you present yourself as a spokesperson for Christianity, you're making it too easy for the world to see us all like you. So please, for the sake of us Christians who still believe in a God of love and a Jesus who forgives all sin and loves unconditionally... either shut up, or rename your "Christian Coalition" the "Pat Robertson's House of Hot Air and Political Regressivism."
Enough political gobbledygook. My next piece of interest comes from the LA Times, where a crime novelist is telling scientists to quit dabbling in religion. While I wouldn't exactly choose a crime novelist as a spokesperson, I wholeheartedly agree with the sentiment. I've been reading this book called Science and God by Gerald Schroeder, in which the author tries to reconcile the Biblical Creation with science, and it makes some interesting points; however, there is a line between science and religion, and I think that people on both sides - both the scientist who says that there can be no soul, and the religious person who says that a literal reading of Genesis can pass for scientific evidence - should either make an effort to truly understand what they're talking about (as Schroeder seems to have) or do us all a favor and shut up.
As a final tidbit, you really should check out Homestar Runner, one of the more interesting neo-hip cartoon websites I've seen in a long time. One caveat: Once you've heard Strongbad speak, the voice is in your head, and you'll find yourself subconsciously reverting to it. I know I have. Be sure to check out Trogdor the Burninator.
Now to the news: well, there ain't any, except that I'm seeing a lot of a young lady named Alisa, who seems to have come completely out of the blue and captured well more than my interest. I would expound more, but there are some things that are best said in smaller conversations and not blared out on the Internet for the whole Planet Earth (or at least my regular audience of three) to see. Just one question: Why the heck did it have to happen only a short time before I move across the country? (That's rhetorical. I have several theories already.) Ahhh, we just couldn't let things get uninteresting now, could we.
Also, I have a roommate next year... my friend Scott returned from having dropped off the face of the earth (i.e. losing his cellphone) and he's going to Fuller next year too, so we're going to live together, which should make life a lot less expensive for both of us. Plus, it means I can finally start moving forward on such important things as figuring out where I'm going to live, how I'm going to support myself, and the ever-looming question of how I'm going to get all my stuff from here to there. So these are exciting times.
Oh yeah, and the whole Playhouse thing is still happening.
posted by jimmy at 08:18 -
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It's an interesting world. I bet you already knew that, but I felt that I should reiterate it because, hey, I'm just that groovy.
I just (re)read the Chronicles of Narnia again over the weekend... it's weird what twelve years and an understanding of CS Lewis' life and theology does to those books. When I'd read them before, long ago, I thought "hey, these are cool stories, and I see the whole Aslan as Jesus thing." Now that I've read a lot more Lewis and understand where he's coming from both as a theologian and as a person, as well as how he approaches allegory and myth in literature, these "children's" books have shown me a great deal more depth than I had thought was there. So that's my affirming experience for the week.
Other than that, and the other three books I've read in the past week (The Four Loves and Till We Have Faces by Lewis and God's Secretaries by some guy whose name I can't remember) things have been pretty stressful around here... I've put in 15 and 16 hour days since Sunday. Fortunately, though, the show is up and done and all I have to do now is hit the "go" button about 300 times a night, and so I've gotten some well-hoped-for time off (including tomorrow's 50-mile emergency Barnes and Noble run, since I'm out of reading material.)
What, you ask, happened to that young lady I wasn't interested in? Well, I'm pretty sure she and one of my best friends here are dating now, and surprisingly, it's quite alright with me. I have good friends surrounding me, I have my faith, I have a lot to do, and in a few months I'm going out to California, a state known for being chock-full of attractive young women, some of whom may in fact be Christian and might possibly be interested in a Seminary student from Ohio. Hey, a guy can hope.
posted by jimmy at 14:52 -
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Just in case anyone out there cared - and I have a special program on this page that senses your bored faces and tells me you don't, you unfeeling, unsympathetic punks - I've decided not to be interested any more in the young lady I was interested in. I just decided that I was using far too much of my precious time thinking about the whole "does-she-doesn't-she" thing that the many other more important things on my mind, like philosophy and theology, were going neglected. So I decided not to be interested in her... and I'm not. So that whole thing's over and done with.
I have a long thesis of sorts that I wrote in response to someone else's Xanga blog entry about evolution, creation, and the Biblical account's seeming contradiction of scientific evidence, but I seem to have left that sitting in my laptop hard drive whilst I sit here and write at the library. If'n I ever get a floppy disk, I'll be sure to put that up here... it's rather insightful, in my own humble opinion, though it doesn't really bring any new revelation to the discussion - it merely packages various thoughts differently.
I've also been thinking a lot about the idea of confession, and how the tradition of confession of our sins to another human being has been lost since the Protestant Reformation. My interest in this was piqued by a biography of CS Lewis I was reading, in which he found a man of the cloth to be his confessor and spiritual guide despite the fact that he was Protestant. The thought is still formulating right now; I'm going to have to do some more writing about it to flesh the ideas out some more. Any thoughts?
posted by jimmy at 09:58 -
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So, the comment counting thing appears to be down right now. If I had the time and some nice unfiltered Net access with my own computer I'd be able to fix it, but alas, I have neither of these things. So you're going to have to (gasp!) check the comments manually to see if there's anything new.
That's all. Nothing else has changed. Some thoughts on my mind, but they're still germinating, and probably not yet in publishable form at this time.
posted by jimmy at 08:51 -
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Ahhhh, yes. The sweet smell of success. Or something like that.
Two days ago, the Playhouse opened its season with "Annie Get Your Gun," a musical which displayed Irving Berlin's uncanny knack for somehow making really good music into a really crappy musical. Despite the shortcomings of the script, the Playhouse's production is rather good. Which is a relief to me - though not as much a relief as being done with this show (save running the lightboard for another three nights,) and getting to relax a little after working a series of 15-16 hour days with few breaks. Never does a nice cool beer taste so good as when it caps a long day of work.
Aaanywho, life otherwise is uneventful. I continue to grow closer to the folks here, which means that my neurotic self is already psychologically preparing for the end of our season, some four weeks hence. Ahh, the joys of neurosis and the everything-on-earth-is-temporary worldview of the ironic, cynical, postmodern Christian. Such enjoyable seeming-contradictions not quite resolved. Holy crap, that was poetic of me.
In any case, nothing has come of my interest in the young woman mentioned previously, which just means she fits in with the trend of women I was interested in but was too chicken (or too smart, take your pick) to do anything about it. A new friend here, who has an interesting crush on the orchestra conductor (another purveyor of random knowledge like myself), calls nerds the most incredible heartbreakers because they never believe themselves worthy of the love of whomever loves them. I don't know how that eventually works out to break anyone's heart in the long run (seems to me that would only increase their devotion) but it is indeed telling, and has provided me with fodder for thought for the next few days. Is confidence what I need? Or is my lack of confidence warranted? I'm rather confused - or more appropriately, I believe I have to parse this out a little more before collecting my thoughts into a small treatise on the subject.
Oh, and apparently, old German music contains a note H, which corresponds to our B-flat. Why they called this H, when it's a halftone above A, is beyond me... seems more sensible to make A-flat H, to keep the order. But being German, they must have had some incredibly efficient reason for this.
posted by jimmy at 09:44 -
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