I became obsessed with this Gipsy Kings album while spending a summer in Seattle 4 years before actually moving here. I spent my days listening to this album nonstop and reading Marquez' "One Hundred Years of Solitude" on the green slopes of the Ballard Locks.  "Montana" and "Trista Pena" still get me to this day.

The other album is also interesting because, though I know the story behind Christopher McCandless' ultimately tragic exploration of human freedom, I have never read the book or seen the film that this soundtrack comes from. I was able to listen to all of it in one sitting while driving back from my parents in the rain and darkness along Lake Washington. I can say that it made me visibly uncomfortable traveling in the complete opposite direction of McCandless (back into the city) and the music made me want to drive towards rainy wooded mountains far far away. Maybe I shouldn't see the film.

I never thought that I could care so much about a coming of age story centered around the turbulent life of a thirteen year old Chinese kid whose overbearing mother runs his life very much like the motel that they own. A great film along the same jarringly realistic depictions of life found in "Me and You and Everyone We Know".

Joyeux Noel

There is a point in this "Christmas movie" when a german soldier singing "Stille Nacht" is accompanied by a scottish bagpiper from across no man's land. My heart was filled with joy and I wept out of happiness and sadness.

Idiocracy

This film is hilarious and scary. Hilarious because it is a Mike Judge film. Scary because it is actually coming true in some parts of America.

Death Proof and Planet Terror

I have been a fan of Rodriguez and Tarantino's films for some time now and these two grindhouse flicks are superb as homage's to the old slasher/zombie movies. They are extremely violent and gory but in a way so dissimilar to current Hostel-like movies. The violence and blood is almost comical in its presentation and I am left wondering if this is good or bad.

Both flicks adhere to the Rodriguez/Tarantino standard of incredible dialogue and very strong female characters.

Frisbee: The Life and Death of a Hippie Preacher

I was amazed at the connection between this 60's era Jesus freak preacher and two prominent churches today. It is a sad story about a time in America when experimentation moved between all facets of life. How people were to make sense of all they discovered during this time led to some being ostracized and others denying their own histories.

Days of Glory

I'm watching more films during this Christmas break than any other time before and I've been meaning to watch this one for some time now.

Promoted as the French "Saving Private Ryan", it is ultimately an indictment of the French government and the prevalence of racism no matter what the context.

To End All Wars

I just finished this film so I might still be a bit moved from the emotions that it brought up. Though I am a theology student I cannot stand "Christian" films. I find them over-preachy and just generally bad films. I do not think this film is placed in that genre but there certainly is a message of forgiveness stemming from Christian protagonists. One of the great things about the way this film brought forward the Christian message was in conjunction with other forms of education. The prisoners studied Plato's Republic (probably one of the best books to have in that situation), music and Shakespeare. 

I highly recommend this film for a more personal account of those POW's that were forced to build The Bridge on the River Kwai.

And yet...

And yet I do nothing about it.

Wow

I forgot that I had a blog.

After Innocence

This film will pretty much make you lose what hopefully was a little bit of faith you had in the U.S. Justice System. The experiences of the men in this film are almost impossible to imagine, especially the guy who spent almost 22 years in solitary confinement and was not allowed to talk for the first two years of his wrongful incarceration.

The Lives Of Others

I have watched a film that has changed the way in which I viewed the progression from just living to actual life. It is beautifully shot with colors where life is being experienced and as drained as a corpse where the mundane and pragmatic reign. I was moved to tears of joy at the end and felt the increase of beauty in my own life.

Candles

If on your grandmother's birthday you burn a candle
To honor her memory, you might think of burning an extra
To honor the memory of someone who never met her,
A man who may have come to the town she lived in
Looking for work and never found it.
Picture him taking a stroll one morning,
After a month of grief with the want ads,
To refresh himself in the park before moving on.
Suppose he notices on the gravel path the shards
Of a green glass bottle that your grandmother,
Then still a girl, will be destined to step on
When she wanders barefoot away from her school picnic
If he doesn't stoop down and scoop the mess up
With the want-ad section and carry it to a trash can.
For you to burn a candle for him
You needn't suppose the cut would be a deep one,
Just deep enough to keep her at home
The night of the hay ride when she meets Helen,
Who is soon to become her dearest friend,
Whose brother George, thirty years later,
Helps your grandfather with a loan so his shoe store
Doesn't go under in the Great Depression
And his son, your father, is able to stay in school
Where his love of learning is fanned into flames,
A love he labors, later, to kindle in you.
How grateful you are for your father's efforts
Is shown by the candles you've burned for him.
But today, for a change, why not a candle
For the man whose name is unknown to you?
Take a moment to wonder whether he died at home
With friends and family or alone on the road,
On the look-out for no one to sit at his bedside
And hold his hand, the very hand
It's time for you to imagine holding.

Carl Dennis

Semi-Coherent Reflections After Reading Some Moltmann

After reading some of the guy on the left this afternoon, I had a flurry of random questions and musings: Does a Trinitarian God have to be metaphysically necessary? Taking the Kripkian approach, am I able to imagine a world in which "God" was not Trinity? I think this is entirely possible. Is "Trinity" an attribute?
When we talk about God it is usually spoken of in terms of singular omni-attributes but how often do we say "Trinitarian God"? Some claim that Jesus is God, even in this sense are we able to coherently say that Jesus is God and God is Jesus? Or what about the Holy Spirit? Each time we seem to be referring back to this "God" who has attributes but what are the essential characteristics of God? These may be more in line with the God of the philosophers.
It appears that the Ontological Argument is rearing its head in a very different way than intended; it makes us realize what essential qualities this "God" possesses. After this I'm left wondering what sorts of arguments can be made in favor of a metaphysically necessary Trinitarian God?

No Surrender: My Thirty-Year War by Hiroo Onoda

So I randomly picked up a book about this Japanese soldier that never surrendered after WWII ended (the first photo was taken a few days after he surrendered in 1974!). He was trained as an intelligence officer and was ordered to stay on Lubang Island in the Philippines no matter what. The book itself is very short (I read it in an afternoon) and is a very fast, good read.

It is an incredible story about a man's loyalty amidst jungle warfare with locals, maintaining his own health as well the health of the two men that stayed with him (the other photo is actually him now living in Japan) and an unwavering intellectual commitment to never surrender in the face of what he thought were continual efforts by the Allies to trick him out of the jungle.

Dark Night Of The Soul

One dark night,
fired with love's urgent longings
- ah, the sheer grace! -
I went out unseen,
my house being now all stilled.

In darkness, and secure,
by the secret ladder, disguised,
- ah, the sheer grace! -
in darkness and concealment,
my house being now all stilled.

On that glad night,
in secret, for no one saw me,
nor did I look at anything,
with no other light or guide
than the one that burned in my heart.

This guided me
more surely than the light of noon
to where he was awaiting me
- him I knew so well -
there in a place where no one appeared.

O guiding night!
O night more lovely than the dawn!
O night that has united
the Lover with his beloved,
transforming the beloved in her Lover.

Upon my flowering breast
which I kept wholly for him alone,
there he lay sleeping,
and I caressing him
there in a breeze from the fanning cedars.

When the breeze blew from the turret,
as I parted his hair,
it wounded my neck
with its gentle hand,
suspending all my senses.

I abandoned and forgot myself,
laying my face on my Beloved;
all things ceased; I went out from myself,
leaving my cares
forgotten among the lilies.

St John of the Cross

Power

I Love The Onion

Churchgoer Tips God For Excellent Week

CHARLESTON, SC—Churchgoer Brad Thaden, 48, reportedly tipped God a little something extra Sunday, claiming that the Almighty had done a...

I Love NPR

The only reason I listen to the radio is doing a story on young religious leaders.

Selecting A Reader

First, I would have her be beautiful,
and walking carefully up on my poetry
at the loneliest moment of an afternoon,
her hair still damp at the neck
from washing it. She should be wearing
a raincoat, an old one, dirty
from not having money enough for the cleaners.
She will take out her glasses, and there
in the bookstore, she will thumb
over my poems, then put the book back
up on its shelf. She will say to herself,
"For that kind of money, I can get
my raincoat cleaned."
And she will.

Ted Kooser

from I Speak of the City

I speak of summer and of the arrested night that grows on the horizon like a mountain of smoke and bit by bit crumbles and falls on us like a wave,
the elements are reconciled and the night has spread out, its body is a powerful river of sudden sleep, we rock in the waves of its breathing,
the hour is tangible, we can touch it like a fruit,
they have lit the lights and the avenues burn with the blaze of desire, in the parks the electric light pierces through the leaves and falls on us in a green and phosphorescent mist that lights us without dampness,
the trees murmur,
they're telling us something,
there are streets in the shadows that are a smiling insinuation,
we don't know where they go, maybe to the ferry to the lost islands ...
I speak of the long-awaited encounter with that unexpected form, in which the unknown is made flesh,
and revealed to each of us:eyes that are the half-open night and the waking day,
the sea that spreads out and the speaking flame, bold breasts, lunar tide,lips that say sesame and time opens up and the little room becomes a garden of transformation and air and fire bond, earth and water mingle,

Octavio Paz

Kindness

As this West Bank settler is being carried off, his glasses were retreived by one of the Israeli riot police officers.

What Goes On At A Library

Me: I found two books that aren't in our system; Melody is going to love me!

My Boss: Or she'll just hate you less.

Miguel de Unamuno

"My religion is to seek for truth in life and for life in truth, even knowing that I shall not find them while I live."





How hard (or easy) would it be to actually try and live like this? The battle between faith and reason ebbs and flows in such a way through my life that it is perhaps the most "consistent" aspect of my personhood. Liturgy, poetry, art, sunsets: these are things that leave little room to question the divine, but then cogs of my mind begin to turn...

Ingmar Bergman July 14, 1918 – July 30, 2007

Freaking Amazing Podcasts!

Pretty much all I've been doing at the library is listening to various NPR podcasts and readings of primary philosophy texts. The philosophy may not be all that interesting to most but I can guaruntee that Radio Lab is very accessible. (Be sure and check out the other seasons too)
http://www.wnyc.org/shows/radiolab/

There are also some pretty interesting stories on This American Life:
http://www.thislife.org/

Humor and Religion

Something Worth Thinking About

Telling people that God disapproves of their deepest needs for love and companionship, and that they must forgo that “sin” in order to be right with God, is an act of emotional and spiritual violence. -Dan Savage

To Episcopal Or Not To Episcopal

So I'm going to be starting confirmation classes before I take the "plunge" into real organized religion. For the longest time now I've been a part of the non-denominational denomination or I've been just plain agnostic, but now I'm a little apprehensive about signing on to something that has structure. I'm not entirely sure what there is to be afraid of, it's not like after confirmation I won't be allowed to disagree with anything religious anymore. This will be an interesting experience and I will try to keep track of my thoughts through this process.

This Is Why I Love Philosophy

My two greatest passions (and Monty Python) together for your viewing and intellectual pleasure.

Alright Already!

So I'm thinking that I may have procrastinated enough and that this blog should get off the ground with some sort of vision statement/manifesto...but I don't really feel like it right now.

I'm all man!

The Stranger's awesome church report

Here's the link for ya'll.