Love Story
Is it just me, or is it extremely encouraging that a song that has been consistently sitting near the top of both country and A/C charts for the better part of the year alludes to two major pieces of literature, one of which forms the overarching conceit for the song?
Of course, it will be a sad day when a teacher gets an essay exam back with the answer to “Who was Romeo?” being “a character in a song by Taylor Swift.” Sad, but inevitable.
Musical Answers
Melissa tagged me on Facebook with a meme in which one takes a recording artist's song titles and attempts to answer a series of questions using only those titles. It was a challenge, but I thought I'd give it a go:
1. Pick your Artist:
EVANESCENCE2. Are you a male or female:
THE ONLY ONE3.Describe yourself:
IMAGINARY4. How do you feel:
HAUNTED5. Describe where you currently live:
GOOD ENOUGH6. If you could go anywhere, where would you go:
YOUR STAR7. Your favorite form of transportation:
GOING UNDER8. Your best friend is:
TAKING OVER ME9. You and your best friend are:
FARTHER AWAY10. What's the weather like:
WHISPER11. If your life were a TV show, what would it be called:
ALL THAT I'M LIVING FOR12. What is life to you:
SWEET SACRIFICE13. Your current relationship:
MISSING14. Your fear:
MY IMMORTAL15. What is the best advice you have to give:
LOSE CONTROL16. Thought for the Day:
LACRYMOSA17. How you would like to die:
MY LAST BREATH18. Your soul's present condition:
19. My motto:
TOURNIQUET
BRING ME TO LIFE
Snow Leopard Bible
I'm excited. Tomorrow is launch day. No, not of Snow Leopard (though I am excited about that too), but of the Snow Leopard Bible. Two really excellent writers, Galen Gruman and Mark Hattersley, wrote most of this book and I think it will be a great resource for those wanting to tackle Snow Leopard head on. But, there is “one more thing:” they wrote most of it, but I'm thrilled to say I was the third (albeit minor) contributor.
This is my first contribution to go into book form and it was a genuine pleasure to work on. I contributed the chapter in the book on Mac OS X's UNIX functionality, which was a topic I am certainly excited about. Aaron Black, the purchasing editor, and Marty Minner, the project editor, were both top notch folks that made the task enjoyable and I'm glad I had the opportunity to work with them.
Certainly, getting to work with Snow Leopard ahead of its release was great too, although not being able to talk about it for months was a frustrating!
If you'd like a copy of the book, you can get it in print or pulp-free Kindle editions over at Amazon.com (associate links).
Ben's Back
The majority of the Fallen-era Evanescence has regrouped as “We are the Fallen.” This notably including Ben Moody and John LeCompt, the two lost pieces of the ever firing and hiring band known as Evanescence that I think were the biggest losses. The band lives up to its name in ways. While I am not nearly as critical of the Open Door era Evanescence as many — I actually have grown to like that album quite a bit — I do think the firing of LeCompt afterward it came out was a huge loss that will surely show in the 2010 album.
And, while I didn't dislike the second album, there is no doubt that the band shifted tone after Moody left. Something of the old Evanescence is worth continuing to explore and I think there is potential for the two distinct bands now headed by Moody and Amy Lee to produce interesting music in the future. I'm looking forward to seeing what “We are the Fallen” comes up with.
This video shows promise, picking up some distinctly Fallen-esque tones. In another video of inferior recorded quality, the band performed “Going Under” almostly exactly as it sounded on Fallen.
Certified Pre-Owned Cats
Ingenious marketing. The only question: since when are cats “owned” and not “owners”?
Hat tip: Autoblog
Late Night Haiku XXX
LXXXIV. What somber tones emit
The crickets tonight. Mourning.
Summer is dying.
LXXXV. Summer's end nears,
As the night rolls into day.
People go to, fro.
LXXXVI. People do not heed
Quiet tragedy moving forward…
'Til it comes to them.
Secrets and Shadows
My prayer tonight is that truth can be removed from the shadows of secrecy, for it is not meant to be in the shadows of darkness. May light fill the darkness and expose it. For truth does not fail in the light; it needs no protection from the light. O God, let your light shine so brightly that truth may triumph and end discord.
This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin. (1 John 1.5-7 NIV)
A Great Read Versus Great Literature
This is a distinction to which I often return. I think most people intuitively can sense the difference between “great literature” and a “great read.” But what is the difference? For example, a book like the Da Vinci Code or — yes, I'll admit to reading it — Twilight is engrossing, with interesting characters. Who doesn't want Robert Langdon to survive as the evil Teacher tries to kill him? Who is unsympathetic to Edward Cullen as he struggles with being a “cold one”?
To the extent that we can empathize with the characters, and their plights can cause catharsis (I think more likely in the case of Cullen than Langdon), they mimic great literature. Much of what makes Hamlet or the Oresteia great revolves around the ability of these works to connect with our core being and make us feel the sorrow and joy the characters feel.
But, I would not group Twilight or the Da Vinci Code in the realm of great literature. Simply the realm of a “great read.” Why is that? What is the essential substance of literature?
Part of it is surely the test of time. Will anyone remember Bella Swan in two millennia as people still remember Agamemnon today? I'm dubious. Part of becoming literature is passing the judgment of cultures and times other than our own.
Yet if we say that literature must stand the test of time, precisely how long of time? Surely we must not say master works such as T.S. Eliot's the Waste Land are still awaiting judgment. When did it become literature or was it always literature?
The best answer, I suspect, is to view time's vote not as the deciding one, but as a natural consequence of another characteristic of literature. This characteristic is that literature frequently defines or alters the framework within which it operates. That is, Shakespeare's plays changed the very essence of drama; Dan Brown has not manipulated the genre of the action/puzzler novel to any great degree. But, agreeing with Eliot's discussion of literature in “Tradition and the Individual Talent,” literature must not be purely “change,” literature must also be intelligible. (Hence why I continue to mock Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot — it does change the fabric drama, arguably, but hardly in a way intelligible to drama as drama.)
Intelligible alteration of genre and framework. That is essential to what makes a great read great literature, but it is merely a part, not the whole of that which defines literature as literature.
The Covenant Community
One of the first things that is emphasized at Covenant Seminary is the Covenant community. And by that, I am not referring to the students and professors at Covenant (though they are a part), but the one universal Church. We don't talk about this enough, even though beyond his son, the community is one of God's greatest gifts to his people.
In individualist America — or really, simply, the individualist world of today — it seems unnatural to worry too much about community. Doubly so to applaud and yearn for it. But, it is natural and, more importantly, it is Biblical. The community, the Kingdom of God, is not only something we talk about and look forward to as a future hope, but a present reality. It is the communion of saints, living and dead, who hold us up and show us the way. It is the body of Christ.
Sometimes, it exemplifies God's love (as in Acts 6.1-7), such as when the church sets apart people to care for the downtrodden. Sometimes, the community stumbles terribly, as the Corinthian church did. But, it is always an undeniably special blessing. Even with regards to seriously messed up Corinth, Paul offered sincere thanks for the people and the fellowship established there by the Spirit (1 Cor. 1.4-9).
During my first year in seminary, I found I was repeatedly assigned projects that sent me to the book of Hebrews, a book I had far less familiarity with than I should have. It has become a very refreshing book to me, because it reminds me of the support God offers us through his covenant community. We do not run the race alone, but with a faithful cloud of witnesses provided by a gracious God (Heb. 12.1-3).
Seminary is a hugely humbling, sometimes painful experience. That's why more than ever, upon entering it, I needed those words. Those experiences remind one to lean on and rejoice in the support that God has provided in his community. And, when things are going well, all the more to rejoice in his bountiful provision.
A few weeks ago, I was having coffee with a dear friend from seminary. We talked about this very subject and rejoiced over the community God gives us. We both noted how we had come to realize how important the close friendships we have from seminary are as we seek to do ministry. They insure we will always have people to turn to for prayer and advice. I am awed by the amazing support God offers me — my family, my mentors, my church family, my friends — and how he has worked in sometimes surprising ways to place them in my life. Why should I receive such wonderful blessings?
Of course, this extends as well to those who went before us — both in Scripture and church history — leaving treasure troves of faithful acts and writings to encourage us to faith. We would be remiss to forget those whom God has sent before, scouts leading the way as we move forward. God sends us out to do his work, but not without enforcements.
Sure, everyone yearns for the rightness of Eden. Everyone yearns for the day when God will restore the world to his creational intent. But, in the mean time, it is pure joy that we experience a very real part of that intent through the communion of saints.
Scriptural Authority and Challenges to It
One of the interesting things about the Bible is that it never is keen on presenting authorities as those who are always right. As a matter of fact, we see repeatedly that the worst offenses, the worst problems — the problems that lead the Israelites into spiritual and physical wildernesses — come from those in authority.
Even two of the best leaders, the two humans perhaps closest to God, Moses and David, committed grave offenses. The interesting thing is that at these times of failure it was appropriate, indeed, obedient for the godly to challenge the wrongs of their leaders. The prophetic voice, it is clear, is not the voice of a fortuneteller but the voice of moral judgment from God. Given the limited access to the Spirit in the Old Testament times, necessarily that place of judgment was limited to a few appointed prophets.
The prophetic mantle is more widely spread within the church than in the Old Testament, like all of the offices bestowed by the Holy Spirit and ultimately worn by our Covenant representative, Jesus. It is in this mode that Peter and John rightly note their allegiance not to the authorities over them but to God (Acts 4).
Of course, the Bible emphasizes the importance of leadership, but as each believer is called into leadership roles at various times and seasons, it is imperative that we remember that we are fallible — and it is not wrong for those under us to call us out. Insubordination is rarely a problem in the Bible, but abuse of power is a major problem. A leader who worries about insubordination ought to instead worry about him or herself. Leaders in the church should seek to foster an environment that is open and honest, that encourages challenges to their actions.
Obviously, these challenges need to be Biblical and respectful, but so long as they are, leaders need to practice control over typical human reflexes that might bring a chill to openness. All the more so as one goes higher up in leadership. The power is too great, the temptation to use that power too strong; for our own good, we should be checked constantly by people unafraid to say, “no.”
When leaders seek too much power it is like those who misread the Bible's commands for husbands and wives. When people read Ephesians 5, too often the focus is set on how wives are to submit, but with little care for v. 25, which gives husbands the command to love their wives as Christ loved the church — that is, unto willing death. If the husband is not perfect in that, how dare he concern himself with whether his wife submits? First, he ought to work to be more like Christ with fear and trembling.
Clearly, any leader that tries to argue for authority in sich from the Bible is missing the point. And, when that occurs, it is right that godly people such as Martin Luther and John Calvin sought reformation… divorce from those doing wrong. Ultimately, Biblical authority means to represent to the people the truths of the Bible and to live those truths as well as a human can. When leaders fail to do so, and fail to be willing to concede their failures, that authority is forfeit.
As Peter and John said in Acts 4.19, “Judge for yourselves whether it is right in God’s sight to obey you rather than God.”
