The Subtle Knife

I just finished Book II of the trilogy, His Dark Materials, by Philip Pullman, entitled The Subtle Knife. I enjoyed but was not very impressed by the first one, The Golden Compass, and also heard the movie wasn't very good. The second book, however, is wonderful. The first one set the stage for a wonderful world, and the second takes it a runs away with the ideas and concepts and characters (similar to the first and second Matrix movies). I highly recommend it to anyone interested in a fantasy-exploration of original sin and the question of "What is consciousness?"

I also found this quote most interesting:

"I found folly everywhere, but there were grains of wisdom in every stream of it. No doubt there was much more wisdom that I failed to recognize. Life is hard, Mr. Scoresby, but we cling to it all the same." (281)

This line of thinking falls well into my trial-by-error philosophy, similar to the "trial-and-error" method used by many. Inevitably we will come up short in our endeavors, as we reach the limits of ourselves or others. Yet even in the shortcomings were are graced with nuggets of knowledge that help illumine our minds.

And the other related thought is also important: Indeed, life is hard, yet it's all we have. So cling to it - it's a choice we make every day.

As I'm reminded in the film The Dead Poet's Society, Carpe Diem!

Have you seized the day today?

Stacked Deck

I recently read this post by Judith Warner from the NYTimes.com who talks about how many younger people are seeing the success of the historic struggles of equal rights as establishing rules that can be bent to favor some over others. The answer is to cheat wherever possible to get ahead. It gives the particular example of high school students reaching back generations to find a minority in their blood so they could mark their ethnicity other than 'white.'

Our democracy has become a meritocracy. Everyone is in competition, and only the strongest (or most deserving, successful, cheat-savvy, etc.) survive to compete the next day.

In another blog by Dan Schnur, I read about how the campaigns are turning negative, trying to prove their opponent is not trustworthy as president of the U.S. In this situation, we have lost all trust in our fellow brother and sister.

In an age when we're closer to our IM buddies than our neighbors, we need more person-to-person, face-to-face time with each other - for discussion, for dialogue, for discerning our communal call to be a people of faith and love and hope (1 Cor 13).

Whatever life deals us, let us encourage one another in the faith, that God is the giver of Light of all good gifts (James 1:17), and God is there with us through the muck AND the open road. May be thankful, may we be humble, may we be hopeful for a better tomorrow for all beings everywhere.

The Dark Knight

I recently saw the Dark Night, the most recent Batman movie, excellently directed by Christopher Nolan and wonderfully written by him and his brother Jonathan. I think the movie explores some great themes on what terrorism does to a society, and how we might respond - explored here on another blog.

I had some thoughts of my own about the movie, especially as it relates to fate and free will. It won't make much sense without seeing the movie, and there are some spoilers... so see it!

Each of the movie's 3 main characters (let alone the others, like Rachel, the mayor & Gordon, who offer their own views on the situation) have a different worldtview, which plays into how they respond to terror, coming from being dealt a “bad hand” (Batman’s parents gunned down, the Joker’s abusive father, Dent’s love loss).

Dent sees the world completely through the lens of chance, of fate and causality. By chance he lives another day and doesn’t get shot in the courtroom, and by chance he lives through the Joker’s attack on the armored van. He’ll take his chances. But what irks him is when those chances are coerced by people behind the scenes - as the Joker explains to him in the hospital bed - and then he feels cheated. He goes on a killing spree, but still leaves it to chance (a flip of a coin) whether they live or die; more of a way to absolve him responsibility of their deaths, and instead blame it on fate/the coin.

The other two characters respond different to the theme of free will and fate. Batman continually exercises his free will, fighting on behalf of the innocent/good versus the forces of evil. He believes there is always a choice to fight, yet all the while realizes that he could very well lose everything, and all his efforts might be in vain.

The Joker has the most interesting and terrifying response- he seems to see the world as a terrible place, having lost faith in people (like Dent) in being good. Yet he refuses to believe in fate either, choosing instead to control the situation before him (as Gordon says, the Joker wanted to be caught, wanted to be held in central command so he could blow it up). Ironically, the Joker’s amazing and careful planning ends up creating the most anarchy of all, and everyone else is left in the dust trying to catch up to him.

So as the US responds to terror, do we become controllers and believe that it’s better we’re in control rather than someone else (the Joker), do we become fatalists and believe it’s all just a matter of chance (Two-Face), or do we become believers in the good and choose to fight evil wherever we come across it, promoting good even in the face of staggering odds (Batman)?

Update: For another excellent piece on what the Dark Knight means for us, please see this NYTimes Op-Ed Piece by Johnathan Lethem: "our good faith with ourselves is broken, too, a cost of silencing or at best mumbling the most crucial truths."

Consent v. Effort

"The chief act of the will
is not effort
but consent."

Thomas Keating uses these words as he talks about comtemplation, and what to do when confronting difficulties in prayer: Will I accept (consent) difficulties or will I fight (effort) them?

I wonder what would happen if we took this approach to life in general. Certainly there are particular things we should not accept, perhaps letting the crisis in Darfur go on or preventing people from getting emergeny food or housing assistance.

Yet far too often we are prone to disagree with people and as a result remain stagnant in our own preconceptions. Nicholas Kristof's recent article does a wonderful job explaining how people tend to interpret the same information to solidify their positions and buttress their preconceived notions... often with the effect of reinforcing prejudice.

What if we were more inclined to accept the difficulties in understanding one another, rather than reeling out of control with every bump in the road?

This past weekend I had a wonderful retreat with my Trinity community house members. As part of our time together, we made an "affirmation circle," where we chose one person at a time to affirm, giving them positive feedback to what they mean in our lives and to the life of the house. It was an incredibly powerful and moving time... and without criticism.

Let us be more prone to consent to the things we cannot change, and use effort only when their is a clear injustice. In this way, let us promote unity rather than disunity, and peace rather than conflict.

Roasting Marshmellows

Getting our hands & minds ready to roast 'mellows

Luke was not only a Doctor, but also our Examiner of Marshmellows

Talitha: Burn Baby Burn
Notice the angle of her elbow - so precise

Burned 'mellows Galore

Trinity House Retreat

This weekend Talitha, Elizabeth, myself, Andrew, Erin and Luke (from L to R)
all took a retreat to Mission Springs, CA (about 1.5 hours away).

There we relaxed in the sun and spent time together, reflecting on the past year
and affirming what each of us mean to the house and each other.

We prayed, too: Luke the "Imam" as Erin just laughs...

On our way up to the firepit, where we had "hobo-packets" for dinner:
foiled packets with all kinds of goodness inside.

Calvin and Faith

Today in Theology we talked about what John Calvin's answer was to the question of the semester: What is faith?

For Calvin, faith is the knowledge of God's good will in our lives (primarily through Scripture and Tradition); the trust or confidence in this knowledge that God is love and loves us; and, the boldness of action to respond to our belief in the knowledge of God.

In the Age of Information, I think too often we stop short of going beyond the first element. We receive new knowledge everyday, especially through the news cycle. But do we really believe it, especially when there are contradicting perspectives? And when do we ever take action?

NPR has a wonderful program series called This I Believe, where people give their various perspectives of what they believe. I have yet to hear one that did not talk about how what they believe affects how they live.

What do you believe? I'm not asking what you think, but what do you put your trust in, and how do you act based on this trust?

In this sense, we all act based on the belief in something - that the ground will not fall out beneath us, that the economy is (not) in a recession, that we will be around to withdraw from our IRA or Social Security accounts...

We all live by faith. Now let us live out our faith consciously.