The Catch of The Day

September 27, 2011 Leave a comment

I have often returned to the eyewitness account of Jesus walking on the water and of Peter’s eager attempt to do the same. I do so especially when I am not sure about my next step.

 It is an unusual account not only because the rules of physics were usurped but also because Jesus is meeting the men in the midst of their daily work. 

 Peter and the others made their living as fisherman.  Everything they needed depended on the day’s catch. The families of these men and the markets were waiting at home.  So come hell or high water they would go out on the Sea of Galilee trawling for fish.

 One night hell and high water came –a fierce storm suddenly arose.  Their small fishing boat was buffeted by the wind and the waves. The sail was useless and rowing had become impossible.  Their whole effort was used to keep an even keel so as not to capsize and lose their nets in the process.

 In the rain-swept darkness there suddenly walked a figure – a man walking on the water towards them.  Perhaps, they thought, it is a ghost.  No one in their right mind would be out in this weather and certainly not for a stroll on the sea. This did not bode well for superstitious fishermen.

 During a streak of lightning, perhaps, Peter thinks he recognizes the profile of Jesus. At this point Peter might have said to himself, “Jesus!  Jesus is not safe. He’s way out on the deep end. Walking on water just might be another one of those “Jesus things’ that keep you guessing. But, my gut tells me to go with it for now.”

 Out of the gale comes a voice, “Take courage! It is I.Don’t be afraid.”

 So Peter yells, “Lord, if it is you, tell me to come to you on the water.”  And Jesus said “Come!”

 Peter stood up in the small boat almost tipping it over. Unsteady, heart racing, he grabbed the hull with one hand and lifted his right leg out of the boat. He put his right foot down on the water.  His foot made no hole in the water. He slowly shifted his balance and brought his left leg out of the boat. Peter stood on the substance of things not seen. He straightened up and looked over at Jesus. The storm was still raging behind the apparition-turned-Apotheosis.

 Yet, in an instant the full weight of Peter’s reason, creating a confluence of fear, opened the sea below him like a watery trap door. He sank down into water over his head.

Treading in the choppy waters as best he could, Peter cried for help, “Lord, save me!”

Jesus caught hold of Peter’s hand and pulled him up.  While holding Peter’s hand and looking Peter square in the eye (I can only imagine.) Jesus said, “You of little faith, why did you doubt?”

“And when they climbed into the boat, the wind died down.  Then those who were in the boat worshiped him, saying, “Truly you are the Son of God.” “

Hoisting the sail, Peter and the crew got back to the business at hand – making a living from being gut sure of what they hoped for and being more certain of what they did not see – fishing.

The eyewitness account that relates Peter’s story is recorded in Matthew’s Gospel (14:22-33)

Filed under Christian character, Christianity, Life As I See It, Life Lessons, short piece, Writing Tagged with , , , , ,

You Make Me Feel Like I’m Living a Parent’s Worst Nightmare

September 25, 2011 Leave a comment

The other day I was shopping at a Barnes and Noble Bookstore.  Over in the Music/DVD section I was purchasing the Howard’s End DVD.  As the sale rang up I could hear the high-pitched sound of a young girl’s voice singing behind me. I turned and saw a pre-teen sitting at a music display.  She was wearing headphones and singing quite loudly, oblivious to the people around her.

 My first thought was “I remember doing that. How neat.” But my quickly heart sank when I realized that she was singing the words to Katy Perry’s Teenage Dream:

“Let’s go all the way tonight,

No regrets, just love,

We can dance until we die,

You and I we’ll be young forever.”…

 

‘We drove to Cali and got drunk on the beach

Got a motel and made a fort out of sheets

I finally found you, my missing puzzle piece

I’m complete…

 

I’ma get your heart racing in my skin tight jeans

Be your teenage dream tonight

Let you put your hands on me in my skin tight jeans

Be your teenage dream tonight..

 

You make me feel like I’m living a teenage dream

The way you turn me on, I can’t sleep…

 How does this situation make you feel? Are you outraged or would you just laugh it off?

Have you seen the music video? Do you realize that young children are watching Glee and hearing these words?

 I won’t display the Katy Perry music video.  Here is Darren Criss (Blaine) along with “The Dalton Academy Warblers” singing  all of “Teenage Dream” in Season 2, Episode 6 of Glee titled “Never Been Kissed”.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrYRIFjosr4

 The TV program Glee is a type of peer pressure inviting our kids to emulate what is presented each week is it not?  Children want to be in sync with their peers. It is very troubling to see the gift of human sexuality being talked about so cavalierly. I see it portrayed as an extension of the Disney ‘fluff fantasy” characterization of childhood and not as a sacred endowment from a holy God.

 Kids have enough to deal with without the constant barrage of sexual promiscuity and depravity that is promoted by the media.  Letting your child come in contact with this type of overreaching influence is comparable to sexual abuse of a minor. 

 Where are this girl’s parents? Maybe they are in the café drinking coffee, hoping to stave off the night of the teenage dream.

Filed under family, Life As I See It, sexuality Tagged with , , , , , ,

The Rabbit Room’s Romantic-Rationalist

September 24, 2011 Leave a comment

Yesterday, a beautiful first day of autumn, I seized a day off from work for a field trip with the rector and some friends from our church. Our group visited the Marion E. Wade Center Center at Wheaton College in Wheaton, IL.

The Wade Center, as the brochure states, “houses a major research collection of writings by and about seven British authors: Owen Barfield, G.K. Chesterton, C.S. Lewis, George MacDonald, Dorothy L. Sayers, J.R.R. Tolkien and Charles Williams…Together they produced more than four hundred books including novels, drama, poetry, fantasy, books for children and Christian works.”

You may be more familiar with two of these writers by the movie versions of  their works:  C.S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia stories and J.R.R. Tolkein’s Lord of the Rings stories. (It is said that Peter Jackson is currently back working in New Zealand on his film production of Tolkein’s Hobbit story.)

“The Wade center has both a museum (where I saw Lewis’s desk, the handmade wardrobe built by his father (filled with fur coats, btw), Mr. Lewis’ pipe and his pewter ale tankard among many other pieces. There was also J.R.R. Tolkien’s tiny desk where he began writing the manuscript for Hobbit) and the Kilby Reading Room, an area for research and the study of the authors.”

I was very excited to be able to handle a small book offered to me by the Kilby Room archivist. The small book owned by Lewis, which title I cannot presently remember, was on the nature of the Italian civilization. The book bore Lewis’ signature and marginalia! The inscribed book and his desk are the closest I would ever come to C. S. Lewis. Touching the firm reality of those things I felt transcendent as well – a touchstone moment for me.

Information about the Rabbit Room, the Eagle and Child Pub and the Inklings can be found here: click here.

Here is a small excerpt from John Piper’s book Don’t Waste Your Life. This passage relates Piper’s first encounter with C.S. Lewis’ writings. It perfectly describes Lewis as a “romantic-rationalist”: poet-novelist & intellectual apologist, both Upper Story and the Lower Story in one person. It is no wonder I seek to emulate the life of one C.S. (Jack) Lewis!

Here’s the Piper passage about Lewis:

“Someone introduced me to Lewis my freshman year with the book, Mere Christianity. For the next five or six years I was almost never without a Lewis book near at hand. I think that without his influence I would not have lived my life with as much joy or usefulness as I have. There are reasons for this.

He has made me wary of chronological snobbery. That is, he showed me that newness is no virtue and oldness is no vice. Truth and beauty and goodness are not determined by when they exist. Nothing is inferior for being old, and nothing is valu¬able for being modern. This has freed me from the tyranny of novelty and opened for me the wisdom of the ages. To this day I get most of my soul-food from centuries ago. I thank God for Lewis’s compelling demonstration of the obvious.

He demonstrated for me and convinced me that rigorous, precise, penetrating logic is not opposed to deep, soul-stirring feeling and vivid, lively—even playful—imagination. He was a “romantic rationalist.” He combined things that almost every¬body today assumes are mutually exclusive: rationalism and poetry, cool logic and warm feeling, disciplined prose and free imagination. In shattering these old stereotypes, he freed me to think hard and to write poetry, to argue for the resurrection and compose hymns to Christ, to smash an argument and hug a friend, to demand a definition and use a metaphor.

Lewis gave me an intense sense of the “realness” of things. The preciousness of this is hard to communicate. To wake up in the morning and be aware of the firmness of the mattress, the warmth of the sun’s rays, the sound of the clock ticking, the sheer being of things (“quiddity” as he calls it). He helped me become alive to life. He helped me see what is there in the world—things that, if we didn’t have, we would pay a million dollars to have, but having them, ignore. He made me more alive to beauty. He put my soul on notice that there are daily wonders that will waken worship if I open my eyes. He shook my dozing soul and threw the cold water of reality in my face, so that life and God and heaven and hell broke into my world with glory and horror.

He exposed the sophisticated intellectual opposition to objective being and objective value for the naked folly that it was. The philosophical king of my generation had no clothes on, and the writer of children’s books from Oxford had the courage to say so.

You can’t go on “seeing through” things forever. The whole point of seeing through something is to see something through it. It is good that the window should be transparent, because the street or garden beyond it is opaque. How if you saw through the garden too? It is no use trying to “see through” first principles. If you see through everything, then everything is transparent. But a wholly transparent world is an invisible world. To “see through” all things is the same as not to see. (CSL)

Oh, how much more could be said about the world as C. S. Lewis saw it and the way he spoke. He has his flaws, some of them serious. But I will never cease to thank God for this remarkable man who came onto my path at the perfect moment.”

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The Mal-lady of Progressivism: Elizabeth Warren

September 23, 2011 6 Comments

Here’s Progressive Elizabeth Warren on the debt crisis and fair taxation. To support her Massachusetts Senate Campaign,

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“We the people (47% % of us who don’t pay any taxes) made you wealthy. We the people (47% of us who don’t pay any taxes) made you safe and secure. We the people (47% of us who don’t pay any taxes) are the roads to your success.”

Feel good now? How about a social contract that makes everyone an investor in America?

Progressives like Elizabeth like to shame people into a response to her ‘humane’ cause. Don’t be shamed. Give to others out of a heart of love. Leave others to do the same.

If Elizabeth and her progressives buddies want to help others there are many ways to do so other than conscripting another’s personal property for their own ends.

It should be noted:  Many people left socialist and communist eastern European countries (and Cuba) and came to America to be free from the tyranny of economic despotism created under the banner of “the common good”. Modern day examples of “common good” socialist systems beginning to fold:   Greece, Spain & Portugal.  “Don’t do these things!”

It also should be noted:  Any country which increasingly embraces secularism will become progressive in its politic. A social-economic-moral vacuum is created thereby.

Filed under Political Commentary, Politics Tagged with , , , , ,

Small Moves of Faith, Giant Leaps For the Soul

September 21, 2011 Leave a comment

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 The video clip above is from the movie CONTACT.  It depicts a scientist, Dr. Eleanor “Ellie” Arroway, traveling through space and time. Leading up to this journey Ellie had been listening for many years for any space ‘noise’, ‘noise’ which would provide evidence of life (ETs) on another planet.   One day she finally hears a regular series of pulses coming from Vega the brightest star in the constellation Lyra. 

 After deciphering the signal – prime numbers – with the help of a ‘quack’ entrepreneur/scientist Ellie discovers that the aliens have offered our planet a means to visit them – blueprints for a space ship.

 In short, the US government, after debate about science and religion and some personal politics playing out provides the money and the manpower to build the gyroscope-looking launcher and the personnel capsule. I won’t give away anymore of the story.  As you will see, Ellie gets to make the uncertain voyage into space.

 Out in the universe Ellie appears to arrive on a distant planet. More likely, though, she has entered a parallel universe where everything around her, the space-time gelatin, is simulated to be a reminder of her home and her memories.  She is in a parallel home of sorts where there are recognizable connections with earth. In her conversation with the alien she is told that life is itself bearable with the contact and company of others. Though this wasn’t the point of Carl Sagan’s story these pastoral words are truly reminiscent of the words spoken in the garden of Eden:  “It is not good for man to live alone.”

 I have watched this movie several times over the course of ten years. It is not an A-list movie but it has held my interest because of its use of astronomy and astrophysics. Also, some of the visuals are stunning, as you will see in the above clip.  Beyond this I like the movie because it deals with a science vs. religion aspect.  Yet, the movie story line wanders around too much and the antagonists are Hollywood stereotypes. Hollywood’s storyline rubric seems to be to debase religion at all costs to increase secularism & atheism.

The most over the top Hollywood stereotypes are saved for the religious antagonists:  a long-haired fiery revival preacher who denounces any quest for knowledge beyond what is ‘religiously’ known, an uncaring, ineffectual Catholic priest who is dismissive of Ellie’s pain and tells her when she loses her father that, in effect, that “these things are hard to understand but they are God’s will” and a liberal “man-of-the cloth-without-the-cloth” woman baiter who is a mishmash with regard to the metaphysical but totally driven by what he feels physically for Ellie. The amalgam of ‘religious’ space ‘junk’ floating in this movie is all way too bad for a movie which could take us places, to deep and far away places not understood before.  Instead the depiction of religion is more of the Hollywood meme of discounting a belief in God for hard cold cinema science (and box-office cash).

 There are many, as I say, interesting themes and subjects broached.  Not the least of which, is making contact and a connection with another human being, someone beyond yourself – a problem for a broad spectrum of people, including scientists like Ellie.

 But there is more here. As a Christian I know that science and a belief in God are not at odds. They are completely compatible.  But, science could never prove God’s existence.  God is outside of our reality.  In fact, He is reality and we are the finely tuned creatures, if you will, which God has chosen to love. And, He made the first point of contact when He sent His Son Jesus into our world.

Science via empiricism and reason can only take you so far. One needs faith to see beyond what is revealed.  God is there and He is not silent. He is waiting to make contact with you. Small moves or any move towards God will yield a response from God. You must first believe that He exists.

BTW: I enjoy this type of science fiction: known science encountering what it doesn’t know and venturing forward.

I wish a Christian film producer would produce a quality science fiction film using the themes of science and faith, reason and risk, encounter between God and creatures. The screen play could take its lead from C.S. Lewis’ Space Trilogy : Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra and That Hideous Strength.

Filed under Christianity, Life As I See It, Movies Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

All in the Family Under Attack

September 18, 2011 Leave a comment

The  Obama dream of a different America under his progressive mandates (picking winners and losers) comes with a heavy price tag and I am not just referring to economic burdens being placed on the shoulders of Americans. Obama’s demand for tax increases for corporations will further necessitate corporations passing the cost onto consumers. And, no one will be immune from Obama’s ‘class warfare’ tax plan. It is a shell game (hide the tax increases under the ‘rich/corporation/inheritance tax’ shell). Every tax affects every American.  Trickle down taxation is guaranteed.

It is the American family which will suffer the most under Obama’s progressive ideologies. Consider the American family right now.  The family is under attack.  Beyond the absurdity of homosexual marriage being legalized as on par with male-female marriage (Reason, of course, tells you otherwise) and the horrendous rate of divorce encouraged by state laws which allow No-Fault divorce coupled with the almost guaranteed child support (a ‘dead-beat’ parent penal system for fathers is created in the process) parental absenteeism is at an all time high.  This is due to the increased need to work more to pay for the increased cost of living (which includes inflation) created by corporations being taxed more. It should be noted that our country has the second highest corporate tax rate (39.3% (average combined federal and state).in the world, second only to Japan. (It is no wonder that Obama’s jobs czar Jeffrey Imelt, CEO of GE, has GE paying no corporate taxes here in the US.)

 I dare say increased taxation (via increased consumer costs) goes hand in hand with decreased family values. And, it is happening now. Time spent with your family, with your children, will be devoured trying to play catch up with your finances.  Parents want to provide for their children.  Parents want the best for their children and parents will sacrifice for their children.  Obama’s short-sighted plans will rob parents of the net pay that would allow parents to spend time with their children.

 You know this already:  when parents are not around children get in trouble. Children may cruise the cable TV channels and watch totally inappropriate programs, programs that are now on at all hours of the day.  Children  will cruise the internet seeing things that no child should ever see.  They may hang with friends who are no good or worse, they may hang around with gangs.  You will lose your children to the arbitrariness of a world not sharing your values. (Many parents have despaired of even trying to be a parent, believing that more money might make things better for the child.)

 Increased taxation and increased government dependence means a decreased share of net income for the family.  It means less ownership of your family values and  the American dream, as well. What good is the American Dream if is not shared tangibly with your children?

(Perhaps you are a progressive who disparages the American Dream. You may then pass along the inherent poverty of radicalism as a way of life.  So be it. Just don’t make me pay for it.)

 Fathers are the most likely to take a hit in Obama’s tax schemes.  They will have to spend more time working.  Many mothers will also have to work. 

 Single mothers will have to work harder.  They will also seek government assistance to provide for their family. Continually receiving this type of hand-out is demoralizing.  This demoralizing effect quickly becomes a poor self-image.  A parent’s poor self-image is easily passed on to their kids who ultimately learn that they must depend on government for their daily bread and that mom is the enabler and that dad is a loser.

A vote for Obama was a vote to build an Illinois Hope & Change casino in Washington D.C.  Like it or not you and your family are mandated to play through taxation.  You may break even, you may “Win the Future” but most likely, you will lose.  The odds (and the lobbyists) are stacked against you.  Over time you will lose everything.

Before Obama there were many Chicago hoods shaking down businesses for money.  Remember Al Capone.  The American family deserves better than the “fat-cat” Obama from Chicago – the guy who wants to “drill-baby-drill” down into your pocketbook.

Filed under Economics, Life As I See It Tagged with , , , , , , , , ,

Truth & Courage

September 17, 2011 Leave a comment

Truth & Courage click here

Filed under Christianity, Current Events 2011 Tagged with , ,

The Lord Hears The Cry Of The Poor, All Others Listen Up

September 17, 2011 Leave a comment

The answer to poverty in our lifetime is not government.  It is not voting for someone who will make us feel better about the situation. It is not the vicarious experience of giving offered by paying a little more taxes. This type of arm’s length indifference is much like the behaviors of the priest and the Levite who had each passed a man lying on the road. 

This man, a Samaritan, had been accosted by robbers, leaving him penniless.  Both priest and Levite were well versed in the rules and regulations that governed their lives.  They both acted out of those rules and regulations and not out of love. They both gave at the office.

Progressives like to think of themselves as Good Samaritans and yet they vote like how the priest and Levite responded – this problem is beyond me, the system should fix this.

Giving is meant to be a one-on-one intimacy – the poor are to be helped directly.  The answer is personal involvement. In doing so, both parties benefit and, more importantly, God, not government, is honored.

We are told in Scripture that we are to do our giving in secret. The right hand should not know what the left hand is doing.  Yet, we have politicians on the Left (hand) and social gospel gurus who publicly demand that government be the arbiter of who is poor and the benefactor to the poor.  They take great pride in their social justice message.  It is their platform.

 It is common among progressive voters to look for deep pockets and then to vote in politicians who will enact laws and regulations which will divest those pockets of wealth in order to provide for the poor (basically, everyone not rich).  This is wealth redistribution and it is at the heart of ‘been-there-done-that’ socialism.

 Many college kids (taking worthless courses) and liberal college professors (those unable to find real jobs) voted for Obama because of his campaign rhetoric calling for wealth redistribution.  Class warfare has become a war cry of the progressive voter – pitting one group against another.  This is not Christ.  This is not being a Good Samaritan. This behavior is more akin to Pharisee-ism than anything else. Pretense veils the eyes of many in this group of voters.

 Common sense should tell you that with less government there is less need for tax money.  And, with less tax money being taken out of your pocket there is more money left for you to give to the poor. But, undoubtedly, it is human nature to submit to the group thinking of socialism rather than to act individually. It is also human nature to want someone else to be responsible for a problem and for us to look good applying ourselves to that end.  In other words, we, like the Levite in the Good Samaritan story, tend to be Pharisaic by staying away from the problem, letting others become involved directly.

 If you want to help the poor then look around you.  Get involved with your neighbors.  Get off your ass (see the Good Samaritan parable for more detail),  stop texting ‘socialisms’ to your buddies and do the best thing for the poor – give of yourself.

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Liberalism is a parlor game, where one, for a small stipend, is allowed to think he is aiding starving children in X or exploited workers in Y, when he is merely, in the capitalist tradition, paying a premium, tacked on to his goods, or subtracted from his income, for the illusion that he is behaving laudably (cf. bottled water).

David Mamet from his book The Secret Knowledge: On Dismantiling of American Culture

Filed under Christian character, Christianity, conservative, Life As I See It Tagged with , , , , , , ,

Lost At Sea

September 16, 2011 Leave a comment

 

When I saw the beacon,

The light in your eyes,

I followed its beam to the shore.

 

Adrift so long,

So far from any harbor

I sailed to you.

 

Yet, another now stands between us

Eclipsing love.

The sea now rises above the horizon.

 

 

© Sally Paradise, 2011, All Rights Reserved

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Filed under Poems, Poetry, poetry, Writing Tagged with , , ,

Cooler Heads Will Prevail

September 15, 2011 1 Comment

We are told, according to the ballyhoo of global-warming theorists, that it takes a village to raise a (degree) Kelvin. But not so for Dr. Ivar Giaver, a Nobel Prize winning Physicist. The worldwide group hug known as global warming has been informed that Dr. Giaver is leaving the man-made struggle and the American Physical Society (APS).

From a ClimateDepot.com post:

“Nobel prize winner for physics in 1973 Dr. Ivar Giaever resigned as a Fellow from the American Physical Society (APS) on September 13, 2011 in disgust over the group’s promotion of man-made global warming fears. Climate Depot has obtained the exclusive email Giaever sent titled “I resign from APS” to APS Executive Officer Kate Kirby to announce his formal resignation.
Dr. Giaever wrote to Kirby of APS: “Thank you for your letter inquiring about my membership. I did not renew it because I cannot live with the (APS) statement below (on global warming): APS: ‘The evidence is incontrovertible: Global warming is occurring. If no mitigating actions are taken, significant disruptions in the Earth’s physical and ecological systems, social systems, security and human health are likely to occur. We must reduce emissions of greenhouse gases beginning now.’”

Giaever announced his resignation from APS was due to the group’s belief in man-made global warming fears. Giaever explained in his email to APS: “In the APS it is ok to discuss whether the mass of the proton changes over time and how a multi-universe behaves, but the evidence of global warming is incontrovertible? The claim (how can you measure the average temperature of the whole earth for a whole year?) is that the temperature has changed from ~288.0 to ~288.8 degree Kelvin in about 150 years, which (if true) means to me is that the temperature has been amazingly stable, and both human health and happiness have definitely improved in this ‘warming’ period.”
….

Giaever was also one of more than 100 co-signers in a March 30, 2009 letter to President Obama that was critical of his stance on global warming.

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