Your Legislators at Work

Well, it seems that our government passed a bill offering tax credits for purchasing diesel engine-powered vehicles, since they are much more fuel efficient. Nevertheless, based on cleanliness requirements, no 2006 vehicles qualify for the credit. (Hybrids do, despite all the toxic stuff that goes into their batteries that will eventually have to be disposed of.)

Yes, that makes a lot of sense to me.

You're Gonna Want One

I finally got part I of my Shuttle XPC review up. You can read all about the SB62G2 at OfB.biz. This is a really amazing system — and it is part of an amazing lineup, including an Athlon64 supporting model that even has a built-in 6-type memory card reader.

OfB has awarded Shuttle our “Best of the Year” award for the SB62G2. It is an amazing little box and I highly recommend it if you're looking for a semi-DIY system that isn't just a plain old system. Very very nice. I figured with the cost of the barebones system included, a P4 2.6 GHz with HT, 512 megs of PC3200 ram, a combo drive and an 80 gig SATA hard disk comes out to less than $700 — that's quite a steal!

You're A Poet, You Know It!

How many of you have tried Haiku before? Given that I seem to be on a poetry streak at the moment, for some reason, I was thinking, wouldn't it be fun if each of you would contribute one Haiku of whatever strikes you at the moment of composition (Haiku, after all, being about the moment). As a grouping, it could be quite fascinating.

Want to give it a try? It's simple, really. First, it doesn't have to rhyme. Second, it does not have to follow a certain meter. Those two things make Haiku some of the easiest poetry to write, from a technical standpoint. What's hard is fitting a whole moment in its confining size. In particular, a Haiku should be composed of three lines, the first being five syllables long, the second seven, and the third five again. This 5-7-5 pattern can be a bit difficult, but fun to try.

Poesy in Haiku
Can be fun and amusing,
And soon fill comments.

You Pick, I Write

I admit that asisaid has been a little lacking in meaty content lately. I have been letting my series on theological-literary criticism interactions lapse, and I have not touched my unsystematic systematic theology project in a few months either. Come to think of it, I also owe all of you another installment in my little fiction series, Wittenberg. (If you haven't yet seen the existing installments, all currently running asisaid series other than the lit crit one can be found in the gray box at the top of the front page entitled “Currently Running Series” — I'll have to add my criticism series there too.)

My excuse for all of this? School work and other obligations have left me feeling less inspired and energetic than usual to put my thoughts to paper. I do have thoughts on all of those things list above, as well as others, so if you have anything you'd like to see me write on — either continuing a series or starting afresh — mention it in the comments and I'll try to follow your requests.

You might be a liberal if...

[Shamelessly stolen from WIT.]

You think George W. Bush is a bigger threat to world peace than Saddam Hussein…

You think every problem is the direct result of the government not spending enough to solve it…

You think Fox News is a biased network, and Al Jazeera isn't…

You think suicide bombers and other terrorists are “militants”…

The answer to every problem in the Middle East is the end of Israel…

You think Castro is anything other than a petty dictator…

You think a tax cut is bad for, but a tax hike helps the poor…

You think the Dixie Chicks and Tim Robbins should say what they want, but O'reilly, Hannity, and Limbaugh should shut up…

You trust CNN for anything beyond the current temperature…

You think SUVs are supportive of terrorists, but houses with 19 car garages are AOK…

You think wanting the US to win a war is jingoistic…

You think the deaths of soldiers is preferrable to another term of GWB as President…

You liken the Perdue factory to a concentration camp…

You think Clinton was a paragon of ethics…

You think the 2000 election was “stolen”…

You think “choice” applies only to abortion…

You think Mumia is a political prisoner…

You think the word “unilateral” is defined as “without France, Germany, and Russia”…

You think that every misbehaving child has ADD or needs therapy…

You're still convinced there are no infidels in Baghdad…

You Found Me: The Fray and the Theology of Art

Unsurprisingly, I keep hearing the Fray's new single “You Found Me” (YouTube video). It's all over the radio. For some reason, I usually hit the tail end of it most of the time, but I've listened through it a few times and it has some pretty challenging lyrics worth considering theologically (but in a different way than I think you'd expect!).

It demands so much of my faith to keep believing, keep hoping in the unseen. Sometimes the tunnel has a light at the end, but usually they just look black as night. This song is about that feeling, and the hope that I still have, buried deep in my chest.

Slade's statement is helpful, I believe, within the realm of the theology of art. The elegy and the dirge, the mournful cry and the bold question, have been largely thrown out of Christian art in favor of fuzzy lambs and lyrics that are best described as cheesy. We ought to note many of these share far more in common with secular “soft rock” love songs than the Psalms or other Scriptures (and no, trying to apply “Song of Solomon” to God isn't a good way to wiggle out of this — that's not what that book is about).

What we need is more honesty. We need more songs that look at the difficulties of life as, well, difficult. Like Job and the Psalmists, we should be willing to ask respectful, but bold questions. We should weep over the fallenness of the world and the brokenness of relationships.

I found God
On the corner of first and Amistad
Where the west was all but won
All alone, smoking his last cigarette
I Said where you been, he said ask anything
Where were you?
When everything was falling apart
All my days were spent by the telephone
It never rang
And all I needed was a call
That never came
To the corner of first and Amistad Lost and insecure
You found me, you found me
Lying on the floor
Surrounded, surrounded
Why'd you have to wait?
Where were you? Where were you?
Just a little late
You found me, you found me

Of course, if we stop there, if we never go beyond questioning God, that isn't healthy. But, when our music fails to meditate on the difficulties of life at all, it essentially is dishonest. This song expresses the sort of questions I think linger in each of our souls. When we are honest, that makes rejoicing later on all the more sweet.

It's time we revisit this point. Christians of the past were not afraid to express the full range of emotions, the hymnody of the past is rich with examples and literature produces thousands of examples of poetry that fits the point. In an imperfect world, we need to encourage the body of Christ to come forward and seek God's mercy with our actual life situations rather than pretending everything is perfect for an hour every Sunday morning. What we need to do is reemphasize a holistic view of life to the music written for worship and the poetry intended to be read.

We do not need more self-help books, but more God-help books. We cannot solve all of our problems any more than the Jews could solve their exile to Babylon. It took cries out to God — corporate and individual lament — and his mercy to bring them back to the Promised Land. As American Evangelicals we need to learn how to cry out to God corporately; doing so would be healthy and it would also model the properness of similar cries that we may make to God as individuals.

Yoga: Physical Exercise or Religious Practice?

Apparently, after hearing about this initiative, both Protestant and Catholic Christians sent a clear message – this is not just exercise, it is Hinduism. Bishop Ivan Osusky of the Evangelical Church of Augsburg Confession commented, “Yoga is not [merely] gymnastics. It leads to individualism, which further leads to belief in reincarnation. It is an onslaught of Hinduism” (“Slovakia”). Slovakia’s Catholic Bishops also protested with a strongly worded communiqué.

Christian Apologist Robert M. Bowman, Jr., of the Institute for the Development of Evangelical Apologetics, seems to agree with the Bishops. In an article for Apologetics Index Bowman argues against Yoga, saying “Does yoga conflict with my religion? You betcha. […] Anything that encourages people to believe that spiritual fulfillment can be attained in any religion […] conflicts with my belief that without Jesus Christ people of all religions (even Christianity!) are lost.”

Milan Ftacnik, Slovak’s Minister of Education, disagrees, instead siding with the Swami. The Hinduism Today coverage quotes Ftacnik as saying, “Yoga has existed here for decades and we have not become a Hindu country. Catholics, Baptists, Hindus or Muslims can practice yoga.” The article notes that Ftacnik does not belong to an organized religion.

At the very least, even the defenders of Yoga must admit that its core purpose is religious in nature. According to Lewis Hopfe and Mark Woodward, “Yoga basically follows the Sankhya system, viewing the world as a dualism and teaching that one should attempt to yoke or join the individual spirit to god, the atman, to Brahman.” The tome also notes “The main feature of Yoga is meditation. Meditation is necessary even for the gods if they are to find release from the cycle of birth, death, and rebirth” (96-97).

Perhaps the real issue occurs in that the clash is between Christianity, which historically rejects pluralistic acceptance of other religions' beliefs and practices, and Hinduism, which as one Swami put it, “believe[s] not only in universal tolerance, but [… also] accept[s] all religions as true” (71). From the Hindu’s perspective, then, it may seem harmless for Christians to participate in Yoga even if it does have religious overtones, perhaps leaving Hindus to wonder what the problem is.

For now, it seems that connection will delay any introduction of Yoga into Slovak classrooms. After the Christian Democratic Movement threatened to cease support for the ruling coalition government, the administration backed off on the program. Should they choose to renew their push for the program, it will no doubt cause the question of Hinduism’s ties to Yoga to be considered much more deeply then previously. With Yoga’s popularity in many nations, including the United States, the results of this debate should prove to have far reaching effects beyond the small CIS nation.

Yikes!

What a whirlwind the last few days have been. I've been meaning to head over to Christopher's 40 Days of Purpose internet small group for two days but haven't ever had the chance. I've had several “planned” irons in the fire, plus the continued onslaught of the DoS attack against my host that has kept me busy keeping my clients informed as to what's going on (and trying to keep them calm).

Additionally, my Charter Pipeline internet service has been down more than it has been up lately, so I've been offline a lot over the last week or so. sigh Just hoping things calm down a bit later this week…

Yes, I'm Alive and Kicking

This has been quite a busy period of time for me since I last blogged. In roughly that amount of time, I have turned in somewhere around sixty pages of papers, mostly in the first three days of last week. I'm feeling very good about that, now that all of those pages are done. The Honors Convocation at LU was last Sunday, my Mac minis came in on Monday (I picked them up on Tuesday), the National Day of Prayer was Thursday… busy, busy.

Then there were unpleasant parts, such as someone rear-ending me on Thursday, though fortunately no one was seriously hurt and a sheriff happened to be near by so all the reporting could be done quickly. The damage on my end is a presently slightly sore back and a damaged rear bumper on the Jeep. Not nearly as bad as it could have been. We'll see how well Progressive Insurance, the insurer of the guy who hit me, does about getting an adjuster out to take care of the bumper (and hopefully provide me with a rental while the car is in the shop).

I may post some excerpts or complete copies of the papers in the coming weeks. The longer ones cover the case for a Christian poet writing Beowulf, the rationale for a probalistic argument for God and an analysis of the different interpretations of the Faust tradition in Christopher Marlowe's Doctor Faustus (one of the greatest pieces of literature ever written, in my estimation) and Lord Byron's Manfred.

Y'all up to anything new?

Yes, I'm a Cell Phone Geek.

I took CNET's Cell Phone Geek quiz. Here's what it said:

Cell phone geek
Face it—you're a cell phone geek. On one hand, it's great that you take the time to know about the technology as you can dispense valuable advice to friends and family. But cell phones aren't the be-all and end-all of human existence, and there's more to life than knowing the differences between Motorola and Nokia. Also, remember that not everyone shares your passion, so unless you're with your fellow geeks, keep your diatribes to yourself.

I have actually expounded on the differences of CDMA/GSM and Motorola/Nokia before, so I guess the shoe fits. How about all of you?