Defining sides

A few years ago I was in LA for a conference, and one evening was eating pizza across from a theater which sported a great temporary awning over the sidewalk and some tents beside it. It turned out to be the premier of a movie, and actors were showing up in grand style.

Last night's dreams reminded me of that, and of fresh reason to be grateful that my parents decided to move us to Africa.

When celebrity culture is in the air, it is a hard discipline to not care.

Some want to be a star and stand in front of the photographers, others want to be bigger than movie stars in their favorite career. And there's the "At least I don't care about such triviality"--but you can hear the frisson of superiority that betrays the fact that they really do care, even if negatively. Their ways of thinking and imagining are shaped by the celebration of the stars.

Perhaps "nothing human is alien to me," but most things have no bearing on my life and don't shape my thinking, and shouldn't. It's the same with you, no doubt--you probably would have to try hard to care about the Blues and Greens whose quarrels afflicted Justinian--you probably not even care enough issue "A plague o' both your houses."

Just because something is current doesn't make it important, and though it is probably against the Blogger's Code, I don't see a good reason to have an opinion on everything. Or even most things. Or even, often, important things.

My challenge is to find those things that I inhaled along the years, and evaluate them in more eternal terms. Everybody wants to say "whoever is not with me is against me," but only God can make that overwhelming claim.