Buzzing

Youngest son has created his own “Gronk-a-phone,” which consists of a length of plastic hose from an air mattress inflation kit, with optional marble inside (or some water in the lower loop) to give it some vibrato. He prefers practicing with it to practicing the piano or clarinet. The instrument’s name was given by his mother, and is onomatopoeic.

This morning he added a little sea-anemone-like finger puppet to the far end of the hose. When he blows it inflates, and when he sounds his instrument the tiny tentacles vibrate amusingly; even tickle a bit.

Curious vanity plate

On an SUV this evening here in so-blue-its-ultraviolet Madison, a vanity plate that read AK741T. Is that a Marxist call for revolution (all too common around here), or a gun buff who likes to blow stuff apart? (For those not familiar with Russian weapons, see here). An odd sort of advertisement on an SUV, anyhow.

Headline

The Wisconsin State Journal top headline today is "Abortion Case to Test Alito." Isn't this exactly backwards?

Doctors and lethal injection in California

Doctors are objecting to their role in an execution in California. I'm glad to see it, though their objections could be stronger. Not that I object to the death penalty as such, but I want a bright line between the roles of healer and executioner. Let a doctor verify the death, but don't have a doctor give the injection, or release the trap, or pull the trigger.

OK, now I'm hungry

Song Dong makes cookie cities. I wonder if he'd be willing to create a Sesame Street for PBS?

No wonder I didn't hear a gunshot

It turns out the older son had bought a gun, and he and some others were horsing around and accidently shot his brother's friend. So they decided to tell the cops it was a drive-by shooting. Their various stories fell apart, of course; but its no wonder I heard nothing. The shot was indoors, not outside.

I didn't hear a thing

Two nights ago a 16-year-old was shot at the duplex across the street from our back yard. It isn't 70 yards away. He'll live; the paper said it wasn't life-threatening.

I didn't hear anything. I was awake and in the living room working on the computer. The snowfall was too light to muffle sounds, the curtain isn't that heavy, but I heard nothing at all. We didn't know anything had happened until the mars lights from 6 squad cars woke up Youngest Son.

The oldest son in that house (and probably the second, as well) are infamously into drugs, so I'd guess that it was some drug dispute.

I've seen but never met the older sons. When I'm out they're not, and they're not out very often. They live in their own world. And they're just 70 yards away.

Am I out of touch or are they crazy?

I took Middle Daughter to Urgent Care the other night to see about some unreasonable dizziness. While she was closeted with a doctor checking her out for concussion and not paying much mind to her disclaimers, I sat in the waiting room. The TV was on, of course, and what to my wondering eyes should appear but something called Entertainment Tonight.

I used to think that laundry soap commercials in which apparently ordinary housewives went into depression over “ring around the collar” were the epitome of breathless nonsense. I was mistaken. They worked up an excitement over their reporter “crashing Madonna’s rehearsal” that I’d think better suited for a cancer cure or a story about bin Laden becoming a Pentecostal.

The hostess interviewed a man about women’s costumes for the Grammy’s, with both predicting that lots of skin and “skin tight,” (which I understand proved not to be the case), since sex appeal was a bigger deal than musical talent. No, not in so many words, but that was implied.

So, am I out of touch or are they crazy? Is there a large audience that really cares if Carey has one earring or two? (Then they’re crazy.) Or is the audience amused by watching the hosts act enthused?

Next came the Grammy’s, which I’ve never seen before. The opening number had a bunch of puppets dancing, which isn’t that bad. Then we got Madonna’s dance crew and Herself singing and dancing. I think the puppets were better. Of course, Madonna has always left me cold. From Desperately Seeking Susan to now she’s always seemed to exude an air of self-absorbed detachment.

Some singer I’d not heard of won an award I didn’t know existed and proceeded to squeal her way through bad acting and a prepared text.

About this time Middle Daughter appeared, and rescued me from the dreary lands.

Fountains

As part of a large remodeling program the pair of fountains at the East Washington side of the Capitol Square have been replaced. No doubt the plumbing was in bad shape, and they needed replacement, but I’m sorry to see them go.

The old fountains had a touch of Wisconsin character. They were made of layers of brick with rounded edges, were about six feet wide and three feet high, and resembled nothing quite so much as a stack of cow pies—which is altogether fitting and proper for the Dairy State.

I haven’t seen the new structures in action yet, but the fountain portion seems much smaller now. Most of the structure is now large stone-face blocks, suitable for carving and decoration. It looks like the water will now be cascading down a set of oddly shaped basins with a vaguely gynecological aspect.

There isn’t room on the sidewalk for something more classical, with naiads and tritons. And too many people would get drenched if it were something like the water fountain sculpture by the Engineering Hall. And I suppose the State Capitol needs to be a little bit dignified. Pity.

Cartoons

I pointed out a couple of years ago how it is natural to conclude that the worst believer is better than the best unbeliever. It is clearly more important to get the most important relationship in your life (with God) correct than any other relationship, and if that is guaranteed, then obviously you're morally better than someone who doesn't have that supremely important relationship correct.

Of course, when the signs of that "correct relationship" aren't closely related to anything in your soul, it is pretty easy to fake it. Reciting something in arabic, or getting yourself baptised are a lot easier than actually trying to worship God.

Jesus said "By their fruits you will know them."

That's a fairly powerful tool. If we apply it here to Muslim, Christian, whatever; we find that:

• The editors of Jyllands-Posten love to mock and to offend.
• The imams of Islamisk Trossamfund love to hate and to lie (they faked some pictures to circulate).
• The mobs of Islamists love to destroy.

Of course mobs are generally fairly easy to assemble: you can always find people who love to destroy. The timing of this collection of riots seems to suit the political purposes of Iran and Saudi Arabia pretty well, oddly enough. And two of the editors are quoted as admitting that they like to mock and be edgy.

To the mobs I say nothing. We know the kind of people these are, and it is the duty of the government to keep them from ruining life for everyone else.

The JP editors are examples of the corrosive attitude that wants to live detached so it can mock and tear down. It isn't a new attitude. Thirty-some years ago I read about a commune in Denmark. The reporter asked one of its men why he didn't go get a productive job. The answer: "But I have a productive job already, for which society must reward me; I keep track of police misdeeds." I'm not sure there remains any common language I can use with people so detached.

Of the imams I ask: "Who do you worship? If I mock God you disregard me, but if I mock Muhammad you try to kill me. I don't think you are Muslims at all. You are Muhammadans."

"Let's just count the spoons before you leave, shall we?"

Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf is requiring former government ministers to stay in the country pending an audit of government property. I have a funny feeling some ministers will be more eager than ever to leave.

Coretta Scott King

I tuned in the radio this morning to hear NPR talking about her life. That's a sure sign that someone is dead. I gather NPR was caught flat-footed: they next went to an interview with someone (didn't catch the name) who "knew her." All he could think of to say was that her training in music hadn't prepared her for a life as widow of a great civil rights leader.

That's rather telling: he thought only in terms of training in skills, not training in character. I think she could have taught him better, if he'd really known her.

Alito

Madison is one of the shrill centers for anti-Alito panic. I suppose it's good for fund-raising. Fund-raising was undoubtedly the purpose of the week's delay--I doubt that anybody changed his voting plans. And I doubt that he'll actually ever vote to repeal Roe vs Wade: unfortunately.

Even if the Supreme Court did repeal it, and also the disastrous Doe vs Bolton, it'd not be a cure-all. We've trained up two generations of lawyers to believe that women have an ancient Roman paterfamilias power of life and death, and it will take a long time to work that poison out of our system.

Democracy and Christianity and Policemen

Monarchist Christians have it easy compared with democratic ones. They don't have the burden of deciding justice—Caesar can do it for them.

The first order of business of any government is to protect its people, and since there's no shortage of enemies outside and criminals within, a government must not “bear the sword in vain.”

An army's job is to “kill people and break things;” and however much he may try to keep the peace, a policeman's ultimate backup is deadly force.

How soft and pleasant it must be to pretend that crime will vanish with just the right program, and dream on that it isn't a problem because you didn't see it in your neighborhood; or to imagine that an interlude of peace and plenty is eternal and that the divine millennium has come.

For those who let reality break through and see that violence must be done on their behalf, it is comforting to fob off responsibility on a “king.” But democrats must suck it up and say, however sorrowfully “Yes, I authorize this violence.” “Yes, a cop may need to beat the crap out of a man raged-out on angel-dust.” “Yes, bomb that refinery.” When does it end? Never as soon as our simple models of the world predict. And there are no perfect rules, except the promise that there is a time for war and a time for peace.

Those called to pacifism should never sneer at those called to fight. Somebody's got to be Martha. And Caiaphas was also a prophet.

And those called to fight should not sneer at those called to pacifisim. Perhaps that's a problem in some sections of this country.

It is a real dilemma: To fight isn't exactly loving, but neither is to abdicate.

And yes, my angel-dust example was provacative. But in real life the options are a bit limited: let him go on his rampage, try to back off enough to unlimber your gun to kill him, or whack him with a club. Want to pick?

Forever and Always

Quantum mechanics allows a little fuzziness in time, but on any sort of human time scale, the past is done. We each know our life as a little point riding and guiding the arc of our years. Our moving finger writes, and having writ . . . the curve of life we wrote on the world and on each other is indelible, timeless, fixed in eternity. We don't perceive it that way, but the past is now always, and perhaps our knowledge will change and we will see it so too.

Forever and always—that glorious picnic and the baby's smile. And also forever furtively reading your sister's diary. And forever the horror in the village when the raiders came. If God erased the evil He would have to remake the world entirely—our lives, our choices, everything—we'd no longer have been.

Some of you may think it worth it—the ones who endure the burden of broken self hood in a ruined world. “Let it all have never been and I can find oblivion!” God had a subtler idea, and He offers the chance to redeem us.

Does He then redeem the past too? Or do only a new nature of grace and the works of it survive, with all the evil ripped away into the abyss? Can good works exist without context? If not then perhaps the past will be redeemed—occasions for grace covered by the sacrifice of Jesus. Perhaps we will be able to look at our anguished history and praise God for the great good revealed.

Belvedere Oasis

Odd how 7pm on a Thursday has a 1am feeling there. The west-side McD's stand was closed, and the Doghouse was closing. There was country music in the air: "Nothin' on but the radio." I bought a gyro combo from the Hispanic family running the place. A rotund black man in superbaggy pants bought the same thing, and wandered off looking for a newspaper for 5 minutes before coming back for his order--that's how quiet it was. (Don't order the combo unless you really like french fries.) The advertising kiosk announced that their firm could "reach over 3 billion motorists annually." Another rejoiced in "the passion of shopping" and the "satisfaction of saving."

Sometimes I have to pinch myself to see if I'm awake and on planet Earth. Perhaps they meant "passion" in the old sense of pain?

Church History in Plain Language

second edition, by Bruce L Shelley

The book is what is says: a history of the church, and well written. I learned quite a bit.

I'm not going to summarize it. OK, actually I did, but the result is about 14 pages and is for a church class.

The book leaves some things out--it is only 500 pages long, after all. And there were a couple of small points I thought were almost but not quite right. But, as I discovered when writing my own summary, that's inevitable when you're summarizing.

Its a fun read. Go read it.

Emerging Churches

by Eddie Gibbs and Ryan Bolger

It may seem odd to start with this book, rather than one of the manifestos about Emergent Churches, but this one is overdue at the library. Of such mundane concerns are schedules made . . .

The subtitle is creating christian community in postmodern cultures. And that, I think, explains the purpose rather nicely. The interviewees, on the whole, seem to be trying to create either missions among the “Generation X” or Christian communities among the “Gen X.” The research methodology is biased towards finding these kinds of “churches” (Appendix B), but I’ll assume that their approach gives an accurate picture.

The authors interviewed dozens of leaders of such groups, trying to find out where they came from, what needs they were trying to meet, whether evangelism is important, the role of creativity, and what leadership is like—among other questions.

The results are all over the map. Some are in love with spontaneity and creative worship while others found the hard way that some order and accountability are critical. Some have “club scene” churches and others try to make room for quiet and meditation. Some have happy links to denominations and others are so bitter against the organized church that you can taste it. Rachelle goes so far as to say “I came to realize that artists ought to function as the main leaders of the gathering, setting the tone for worship. Artists intuit the truth through their art.” And the Greek poets were the spokesmen of the gods.

Spokesmen for the “movement” have said that our culture is changing from a “modernist” philosophy to a “postmodernist” philosophy, and that this is a big change. I’ll not go into all that just now (check the references: you’ll be little wiser than you were before). The gist of their point is that churches accommodated themselves to “modernism” and aren’t equipped to deal with the new “postmodern” culture, which deals more with stories and images than teacher/student relationships. (The whole “postmodernist” cult is afflicted with worry about hierarchy and sources of power.)

Let’s stipulate that the groups described in the book are representative, or maybe even definitive, of the emergent movement. It saves time, and I’m in no position to say for sure. They are, on the whole, trying to address two rather grave problems:

• The usual evangelistic approaches aren’t coming close to where a huge fraction of the lost actually are. The culture has carefully trained the young to find common expressions of Christianity silly or stupid; only a novel or obscure Christianity (Celtic or Greek Orthodox) is “authentic.” Most people in Britain apparently can’t imagine entering a church to worship.
• Churches are often boxed-in affairs: Sunday-only and with only a restricted amount of community. This shows up dramatically in what happens to youth: they get involved in youth groups, but not in the life of the church. When they go to college, “goodbye youth group” and since they’re not used to community with the rest of the church, most fall away from active participation.

The problem with creating a mission to “clubbers,” for example, is that they represent a particular age group, and with time members age out of the target group; and the group winds up as “boxed-in” as the church they tried to extend. Quite a number of the mission groups in the book have this problem; most admit it. I’ve not got any good solutions either, but at least the gospel is getting out there.

Some groups have been trying to create holy community by working to become part of each other’s lives, meeting frequently, praying together when they meet, and so on. The obvious problem is that there are only 24 hours in the day, and the number of brothers and sisters we can become deeply involved with is relatively small. The not-so obvious problem is that when we try to make every part of our lives sacred, we wind up with everything partly secular. We don’t seem to have enough attention to God to make every moment sacred, so the best of a bad situation is rhythm: sacred times and non-sacred times.

And, of course, when you try outreach by welcoming nonbelievers into this community, it can lose distinctiveness and become a “group of friends” rather than a holy community. What is Holy Communion/Lord’s Supper if half the participants aren’t Christian?

Still, the problem of unredeemed time is big enough that some experimentation is worthwhile.

Another big feature of these groups is “creativity.” Some use DJs in clubs, some create special artwork for the service, some experiment with liturgies: all sorts of things.

We sat each week surrounded by some of the brightest talents in film, TV, art, social work, and politics who were made to watch in virtual silence because they did not play guitar or preach. . . . We saw that if worship is about gift, then what we bring to worship has to be integral to us, something meaningful from who we are.

I’m talented in mathematics, but I haven’t found that bringing mathematical operations into the service enhances the worship of others, no matter how integral my gift may be to me. pun intended

Several groups found that they had to temper the enthusiasms of their artists—the services were supposed to be about God, not about novelty.

This isn’t a book to read for fun; it feels scattershot and the prose isn’t scintillating. But it is useful. And I haven’t touched on half the things the authors cover.

IPass

Let me see if I understand this Illinois IPass . I buy the pass and use my credit card to add $$, which debited each time I pass through a toll booth. So far so good. If I commit some violation, such as using the IPass on a different car, they can assess fees which can be drawn from my credit card. And they reserve the right to change terms merely by sending me an email. And they get a timestamp every time I pass through the gates. So all they have to do is ship out an email and they can start printing money by deducting traffic fines (double if there was a work zone) from my credit card if I happen to travel at the prevailing speed. Hmmm. I don't think I drive that way enough to make it worthwhile.

Tombstoning

Sometimes I wonder if people do things like this deliberately. The sign for a gas station read
COLD BEER
Unleaded 235.9
PLUS 243.9
PREM 251.9

I'm glad their beer is unleaded.