Nothing Done
I had good intentions today of getting something done. I wanted to write out some ideas that had been hitting me lately, but when I opened up Word to write, I lost all inspiration. I kept trying on and off tonight to no avail. I was going to go back to the book I've been reading this week, Journey to the Center of the Earth, but couldn't motivate myself to even do that.
This morning was interesting, though. The Expansion and Renovation Project (E&R) team at church took those interested on a tour of the building project. Construction began in January, and major work started in April, so while there is a long way to go, there was a lot of interesting work already done that had been behind locked doors. It is weird to see some parts of the old building that look so different that I had to think where in the building I was (and I knew the building pretty well!). The new multipurpose room and entry hall that are being added on are making good progress too, with masonry work all but completed on three sides. It is exciting that we are actually ahead of schedule at the moment.
The heat was really bad, though. The sanctuary has been rather uncomfortable the last few weeks with only small, temporary A/C's working, but the rest of the building does not have a working HVAC at all presently, while we await the installation of a new chiller unit (“It should be in by July 41st”). We were assured this morning not to worry, if we wanted heat, the boilers are ready to go.
A Beautiful Day
This song just kept coming to mind today, and then my iPod played it when it was shuffling for me tonight.
If You made me like the grass that is green
Growing tall and covering the hills above me
Maybe I would pray for sunshine and a little rain
To fall now and then to make me lovely
I could be a place where sheep could graze
Or barefoot feet could play
And I would grow and grow and hope You'd bend down low
To hear me sing my offering(Chorus)
Open up the heavens, open up the sky
All of Your creation wants to testify
I have a song, so let the earth sing along
'Cause I just want to praise You—Nichole Nordeman
Why I Love Perl
I just wrote a complete XML-RSS aggregator that pulls in data from 137 feeds that are in a MySQL table, parses each feed, adds new entries into another MySQL table, and then changes the first table's entries to represent the last fetch time, last processing time (if the feed retrieval was successful), and last update time (if there were new entries added to the other table). I accomplished all this over today while doing other things, likely spending less than three hours on the actual project, including time studying a legacy MySQL table to which I am trying to conform.
That's why I love Perl. I am not someone who just loves to program, but Perl makes things efficient and sensible enough that at least I can get what I need to get working done in as little time as possible. cough Unlike cough PHP cough.
More on just how this fits into yesterday's post later.
Maintenence
I've been doing maintenance work on my company's sites tonight. I would rather keep using something until it totally breaks than rewrite the code for it, but sometimes you just gotta fix things before everything falls apart. So I am. Exciting, huh?
Should We Take Offense at the Da Vinci Code?
On Sunday, I provided a critique of a musical for its immoral view, now I'll defend a book that is commonly attacked by Christians — I'm just trying to keep y'all on your toes. I've touched on the Da Vinci Code before, but not since I finished the book last month. I'd like to make a few observations. First, however, let me say this: I am going to spoil some of the plot; and I do mean seriously spoil it (unless you are like my friend who figured out what was going on far earlier in the book than I did). If you've been holding out from reading the book, and you think it might be possible to be convinced that you should read it (Hi Mark), stop reading this entry and go pick up a copy of the book. Right now.
Ok, so the rest of you are either so against the Code that you know you won't read it, or you have already read it. I went into the book expecting to disagree with it. I read some of the “decoding” pieces that show its problems, before I ever cracked it open. (I also bought a small book down in the Ozarks on the same, which I have not read just yet.) Let's lay out what I see as the major accusations against the book:
- Jesus' Marriage to Mary Magdalene.
- The Novel's Claim of Being Factual.
- Vilification of the Catholic Church.
Jesus' Marriage to Mary Magdalene: This book is not the first to assert this, nor does it assert it any more powerfully than any other case I've seen for this. However, it is central to the story, since the story asserts that the Holy Grail is really all about the descendants of Jesus (including, we find out, Sophie Neveu, one of the main characters).
The question is whether anyone is actually going to be convinced that this is a factual assertion (and therefore that the church is incorrect) merely by reading this book. I don't think they will. Maybe a few people who are indifferent might take up the view, but really I doubt it. A close observation of the book will reveal something interesting: the boldest Sangrail claims are those made by the man who eventually is revealed to be the villain of the story: Sir Leigh Teabing. While protagonist Robert Langdon seems to be in agreement with Teabing, this is an interesting observance.
Moreover, the church is not accused of lying. Langdon seems to believe in the sincerity of the church's view — at least the modern church leaders' view — despite his disagreement with them. The matter is never presented as something where one side is truthful and the other is deceitful, unless you really want to read it that way. The book does suggest that the early Christian leaders of Constantine's time, especially, changed doctrine dramatically and forced out supporters of Magdalene, but this is about as far as an actual church conspiracy pans out in the story.
The Novel's Claim of Being Factual: The novel begins with a page of “facts.” Now, this does indeed add an air that is perhaps not appropriate to the story. But, I cannot argue with it. The facts it states on this page are perfectly true. It does not claim that the rest of the novel is some how pure fact, on the contrary, here is what the book's web site says:If you read the “FACT” page, you will see it clearly states that the documents, rituals, organization, artwork, and architecture in the novel all exist. The “FACT” page makes no statement whatsoever about any of the ancient theories discussed by fictional characters. Interpreting those ideas is left to the reader.Given that the characters are fictional, the events are fictional, etc., it is hard to see how anyone could read this and really think that everything being reported was fact. Those that do, will probably fly over to the Louvre because they believe the Holy Grail is really hidden in that building, just as it is in the book's epilogue.
As a side note, the only one of the facts I think Brown takes perhaps a bit too much liberty on is the Priory of Sion, which, as far as I can tell, exists, but is more of a 20th century con man's creation than a legitimate organization.
Vilification of the Catholic Church: The book supposedly casts the Roman Catholic Church in an evil light. This is a reasonable impression… if you only read the first quarter or half of the book. During a lot of the plot, it looks like the monk Silas and Bishop Aringarosa are the “evil” villains of the story. Their mysterious colleague, “The Teacher” also claims to be a clergyman and it would be hard to ever doubt that “the Teacher” is very much a villain.
However, as the plot becomes clearer, we see what really happened. The Teacher is a villain, but he is not part of the church at all, he is the devious Sir Leigh Teabing. Aringarosa, as a desperate man being forced to reckon with a future wherein his organization, Opus Dei, has been ejected from the church, has seized on to the Teacher's offer to help him find the Grail, since Aringarosa believes that would allow him to keep Opus Dei within the Roman Catholic Church. Blinded by the circumstances, he naively entrusts the Teacher with his protege, Silas, who has a violent past, but escaped that when he came under the care of a young Aringarosa many years ago, and was led to Christ.
Aringarosa, is, as I said, naive. He trusts the Teacher's assertion that there will be no killing involved in obtaining the Sangrail and trusts that the Teacher is in fact a believing member of the church. By the end, I believe the unbiased reader will find himself feeling sorrow at the death of Silas and the downfall of the bishop.
Therefore, while the book makes some assertions, which, if taken as truth, are disturbing, it does not vilify the Catholic church. Moreover, it is one of the best reading novels I've had the pleasure of ever opening up. If you read it as fiction, it ought not be any more offensive than other fiction that assumes a non-Christian view of the universe, such as Star Trek, for example.
Tomorrow
I wrote up a nice post tonight, but I did not get it quite done, so I guess you'll just have to wait until tomorrow for it. Sorry. I'm refunding a portion of your monthly subscription fees in exchange.
Grease: A Short Reaction to the Play
Well, today was Father's Day. So came the question that arrives every year: what to do with Dad to make his day interesting. Mom suggested that she had seen a play in the paper — a local production of Grease. Now, I had not seen the play or movie, nor had she, but we figured Dad would like it.
As a whole, it worked out well in that respect. But, I was thoroughly disappointed with the play itself. The majority of the characters were very unlikable, save for Sandy and “Cha Cha.” The former, the female lead, however, gets a happy ending, but only by switching to the dark side of the “Pink Ladies” (who are anything but lady like), and giving up the virtuousness that makes her likable to begin with. All of the male characters are, to varying degrees, unlikable as well. Sandy, at first, seems to be desirous of a real love, but she seems to give that up for the superficial, shortsighted pleasures and thrills the others seek by the end.
Moreover, the play is absolutely laden with sexual overtones. I am not referring to Shakespearan double entendres, either, but all kinds of overt references. In fact, that was most of the plot (if I can even say it had one). It was suppose to be a comedy and on the surface, it is: Sandy gets her guy in the end. To me, however, I'd say it was actually a tragedy, as Sandy all but sells her soul for some momentary facades of happiness. She seeks love and “improves” by seeking lust instead, a very different thing. Dr. Faustus comes out with a better deal!
Now, I may seem prudish to some, but I just would have hoped there would have been some kind of more meaningful plot. Is there nothing else to focus on in life or in love than physical lusts? Of course there is more, even Hollywood usually gets that much right, despite its generally distorted lens. I think what really disturbed me was the ending. I kept thinking someone would come around and love “Sandra D.” for who she was; that is, someone would improve. Instead, the happy ending requires the corruption of a basically good character. I cannot think of one virtue of the plot, one decent illustration or message to draw out of it, which is a pretty bad sign.
The music was mostly enjoyable — if you didn't listen too hard — but many of the lyrics fit the plot (or lack thereof), and so it did little to redeem the play. Yet, it certainly was not a set of songs I would want to own on CD, even dismissing the content of the lyrics momentarily. The big highlight of the play ended up not being the play at all, but the band that played during the intermission, which did a knockout job of imitating some 50's songs.
Critical Rating: ** (out of 5)
New Stuff
Well, OfB received review copies of Mandriva Linux LE 2005 and Linspire Five-0 this week. Hopefully, I'll be able to give some initial impressions soon. I'm especially interested in Mandriva — I didn't try the last release, so hopefully there will be lots of new things to explore. It has been a few years since I last ran the then LindowsOS, too, so that may be interesting.
Time permitting, I'd like to give the new OpenSolaris a spin as well.
FridayQ: Bad
Yes, even the title of the topic of this entry is bad. How about “On the topic of Evil and Badness” or something like that?
FQ1: Something you like to do or say that's considered to be bad.
I like to be argumentative, and win at those arguments. Just for the sake of winning.
FQ2: Something you like to watch or listen to that's considered to be bad.
I'm not sure I watch or listen to anything that strikes me as really bad. I guess some movies I like are rather violent (Die Hard strikes me off the top of my head). Musically, I dunno — Evanescence has one song with the f-word in it that I inadvertently ended up owning, but I don't listen to it, so that really doesn't count, does it?
FQ3: Something you like to eat or drink that's considered to be bad.
Lots of coffee, french fries, etc.
FQ ASSOCIATION: Tell us something “bad” you associate with the following ten words: movie, song, television, place, book, taste, smell, sound, touch, and sight.
Let's make this more interesting: bad in the quality sense, rather than moral sense.
Movie. Lake Placid.
Song. A Total Eclipse of the Heart
Television. Reality TV.
Place. The I-70 corridor in Indiana.
Book. Star Trek books, at least the ones I've tried to read.
Taste. Mint.
Smell. A mixture of wet insulation and burnt house.
Sound. 80's “let's synthesize everything and sing in a weird key” music.
Touch. Jelly stuck to the rear side of the refrigerator door.
Sight. Satellite dishes hanging off the front of every house.
Spiritual Warfare
I've never been very big into worrying about “Spiritual Warfare.” It is not that I don't believe in the devil, but I guess I just never thought about it all that much. Over the past year or two, that has started to change.
Lately, I've been thinking more about it, having finished Wild at Heart, which has a section dealing with spiritual warfare. Some of it really hit home — I thought, “yeah, that's exactly how I've been feeling.” I hadn't even thought about relating it to spiritual warfare, but it made sense. I've talked a bit about how I felt God leading me in a certain direction the last few weeks, and I have found this is specifically the place where “the battle” has been taking place. It might sound weird, but thoughts that really don't fit me have been in my head and I end up needing to “argue” against them. For example, I found that I keep thinking of accusations against myself or others that would seem to indicate why I should not follow the leading I've been feeling.
Oddly enough, right before I got to that section of the book was when I posted my last post on Wild at Heart wherein I questioned its usefulness. I felt a very strong urge to take a break from it, but pressed on, and that's when I was truly stunned by this section on the topic of spiritual warfare. Tonight I tried to put my thoughts down on this in a much more detailed manner than I am doing here. I gathered my ideas together, sat down to write them out — to put the puzzle together, so to speak — and all of a sudden felt unusually fatigued. It was a struggle to write down my thoughts and keep my mind straight.
Could this all be a coincidence? Sure, but I'm not so certain. Hopefully, all of you won't think I'm crazy, but I believe there is something to this. I'd be grateful for your prayers.
