It’s been a while…

I realize that it has been a while since I posted. There are a few people who read the blog regularly so I know I’ve kinda disappointed you. The truth is, I’ve been rethinking things. I went back and read a lot of the stuff I wrote and wanted to do a major overhaul. Of course, then I realized it’s just a blog! Due to a few classes that I took in my last year of university (*sigh*), I started thinking about the nature of ‘art’ and it’s role in our culture. I started to think more about Christianity’s relationship to culture. Christianity has a bit of a PR issue (a term that only our culture could appreciate) in western culture. Gone are the glory days of western domination.

Long story short, I decided to start a new blog. Soundtrack to My Thoughts was an experiment in writing for me. Some friends and strangers seemed to enjoy the stuff that I was writing about, so I guess I passed the test. My new blog is basically an expansion of this one. I like to explore cultural themes, especially when these themes are discussed through ‘art.’

It’s officially up and running, so check out High Thoughts on Low Art.

How do you know when you are ready for marriage?

Over the last couple years I’ve had a few people ask me how you know when you’re ready for marriage. I’ve given various answers depending on the person and the situation. I try to think back to when I was making that decision for myself and I let them know what I was thinking at the time. During the summer before I proposed to my girlfriend I recall coming across an article by accident and it was one of the things that convinced me that it was time to get married.

The article was written by one of my favorite philosopher/theologians. His name is Greg Koukl, and oddly enough he was a bachelor at the time he wrote it. The article convinced me that I needed to make a commitment to my girlfriend. We had been talking about marriage already, but when I say commitment I mean a different kind of commitment than just marriage itself. A lot of people get married without making any real commitment to each other. The gist of the article is that you need to be fully committed to fulfilling the needs (particularly the emotional needs) of the person you are marrying.

“What is the point of having a child? What is the point of having a wife? What is the point of having a family if you’re not investing yourself in those things?” ~Greg Koukl

There seems to be a big problem among married folk. We like to get married and then ditch each other for our careers and the golf course and things like that. Christians often find themselves so busy with ‘ministry’ that they don’t have time for their ’spouses.’ In a nutshell I’d advise that you’re not ready for marriage if you’re already married to your job. There is a way to balance the two. As humans, we’re made to work and we’re made to marry (I am aware that not every one has to get married… not so sure that the same should be true of work). I encourage you to check out the whole article. Click here for full article.

My other piece of advise is that marriage need not be like a prison. I think Kramer quite nicely sums up the typical view of marriage (at least it’s the view that is held by most people that have made it past the honeymoon stage). Before I got married I was warned by many people that marriage is a horrible thing. No more freedom and all that stuff. Well that doesn’t have to be true, though in many cases it is. Anyway, if the two of you are ready for the commitment to each other and you put a little effort into it then I’m sure you can avoid the prison sentence. I think my wife would agree that getting married has been a good thing!

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The King of Queens Teaches Valuable Lesson About God!

I love sitcoms. Just the good ones though! I don’t have cable, so I’m limited in what shows I can watch. Lately I’ve come to like King of Queens. I came across a great conversation between Doug and a Rabbi in a recent episode. It’s about religion.

The three most popular monotheist religions are Judaism, Christianity and Islam. These three religions all have something in common. They all claim to have roots in Abraham. Abraham is a guy that we first meet in the book called Genesis (it’s in the Old Testament in the Bible). Generally speaking Jews and Christians both agree on who Abraham was and why he was important. Abraham was on a mission from God and the mission was continued through his son Isaac. This is where the Muslims disagree. They say that the mission was continued through his other son, Ishmael. Now, to the average Joe this argument seems pointless. Who cares!? Don’t these religions all worship the same God? Why can’t we just overlook the differences and simplify things a bit? Why not just admit that we all worship the same God? Is it true that right now we have three separate monotheist religions that all worship the same God and just disagree about a few details?

The Devil is in the Details

Well some people don’t think that these three religions worship the same God. I think that there are many Jews, Christians and Muslims that think we all worship the same God. But each religion thinks that it is the one that God favours. I disagree. I think that we all worship different gods. This is a pretty controversial statement. But there is one detail that Judaism and Islam reject. This little detail at least separates Christianity from the other two monotheisms.

Surprisingly, Doug (the not-so-bright star of King of Queens) understands the distinction between Christianity and its rivals. Why don’t you take a look at the script and then I’ll explain the important distinction. I transcribed it myself and other than punctuation it should be accurate.

Transcript from episode 206 (or was it 207?!)

Setting: In a car on the way to Arthur’s wedding. Deacon is driving. Doug and a Rabbi are in the back seat.

Doug – I can’t believe you aren’t the one getting divorced.

Deacon – Hey stop talking about divorce will you, you guys are gonna be fine. You always work these things out. She screams, you cry, two pizzas later you’re back to normal.

Doug – This is different Deac, Okay? We had a commitment about our future and she just didn’t hold up her end. That’s not right, is it?

Rabbi Feldman– Well I certainly understand why you’re upset, but I also know that God believes in forgiveness.

Doug – Yeah. Is that just your God, or any God?

Rabbi Feldman– Do you think you and I have different Gods?

Doug – No! No, no, no, no… oh, I mean, yeah. Only cause my God is… Jesus. But, uh. But from what I understand my God is the Son of your God. So, I’m sure they’re on very good terms. They probably see each other all the time. You know holidays, family functions.

Car screeches to a halt and Doug rams into the seat in front of him.

Doug – Hey! What the hell was that for?

Deacon – To shut you up.

The Difference Doug Makes

This bit between Doug and Rabbi Feldman is supposed to be funny. Those of you who are familiar with King of Queens probably read it with the appropriate tone of voice. Even though it’s funny it is also true. As Christians, we do worship different gods… because our God is Jesus.

Doug mentions that Jesus is the Son of the Jewish God. This is true. Although, we should not think of this in the traditional child-bearing sense. The Father/Son language is used more as a metaphor to explain the tight-knit and shared nature of Jesus and the Father. Jesus made it clear to his fellow Jews (yes that’s right, Jesus was a Jew not an American Evangelical!) that if they did not follow him then they were rejecting the Father. Well, let’s let Jesus speak for himself.

“he who rejects me rejects him who sent me.” Luke 10:16

“”Thomas said to him, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?”

Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.”" John 14:5-7

Judge, Jury and Executioner

I don’t know about you but I get bombarded with junk all day. Every time I get dumped on I’m needing to make a decision. Most often it’s an easy decision. I just change the channel or I throw the advertisement in the garbage. But I don’t want to ignore everything in life. Sometimes I have to make a decision.

There are some things in life that are very important and we should think very carefully about. Religion is one of them. There are a handful of religions that claim that if we reject them we are doomed. Now, we can just ignore their claims… but what if they turn out to be true? Then we’re screwed!

But how do you make the decision? I’m a Christian. I have been for a few years now. Every few months a new documentary seems to be released that claims to prove that Christianity is wrong. This puts me in a situation in which I need to make a major decision. Do I accept Christianity as I always have? Or do I ditch it? And how do I even go about making that decision?

Well, I’ve come to see myself like somebody who is on a jury. I let the major players lay out the case before me and then I try to see who’s got the best evidence. Now, if your like me you get convinced by everybody! I hear the first lawyer and as far as I’m concerned he has won! But then I hear the second lawyer give his case and suddenly I have to rethink things!

I stumbled across a proverb in the Bible that sums things up for me. I try to slow down, listen to both sides and then think it through, always willing to stop and think things through.

The first to present his case seems right, till another comes forward and questions him.

This passage is from the book of Proverbs in the Old Testament of the Bible. It is from Chapter 18. Click here to see more from the book of Proverbs.

Goin in Blind

Of course there is also the traditional blind faith approach. This doesn’t take much thought at all. The great thing is that if you have tried to think things through and you are still confused, you can just close your eyes and jump. The downside is that sometimes the results are disastrous, as the video below illustrates.

The clip is from The King of Queens

The Soundtrack… The Orange County Supertones and the song Jury Duty

Seinfeld and Death…

Seinfeld is one of my favorite TV shows. Most people seem to enjoy it. Every once in a while the writers seem to work something really deep into an episode. I posted a portion of script below from the episode called The Pony Remark (I recently posted all three parts of the episode in video form too). The bold part of the script is a gem and its wedged discretely between a conversation about casual sex and a baseball game (in true Seinfeld fashion of course)! It’s a conversation about death. The awkward topic of human mortality. I almost guarantee you’ve found yourself at a funeral thinking the same thing.

Apathy

I’m pretty sure that most of us ought to take our lives a little more seriously than we do, and hopefully this Seinfeld clip will get you reflecting on that. But like most people you’ll find yourself thinking the same thing at the next funeral… and the next. Never really changing. Well except now you’ll be thinking about Seinfeld too!

You’ll likely notice that after time it’ll get easier and easier to push away that nagging feeling that you ought to change. At first you’ll panic like Elaine. Then you’ll slide into the easy chair of apathy. Who knows you might even adopt a twist of Jerry’s gentle sarcasm. The show is hilarious and hopefully it gets you thinking… maybe even doing?

See the five minute mark in video number two for this part of the script.

[Setting: Coffee Shop]

ELAINE: I actually like ponies. I was just trying to make conversation. What time’s your game?

JERRY: Two Forty-Five.

ELAINE: And what time’s the funeral?

JERRY: Two o’ clock.

ELAINE: How long does a funeral take?

JERRY: Depends on how nice the person was. But you gotta figure, even Oswald took forty-five minutes.

ELAINE: So you can’t do both?

JERRY: You know, if the situation were reversed and Manya had some mah-jongg championship or something, I wouldn’t expect her to go to my funeral. I would understand.

ELAINE: How can you even consider not going?

GEORGE: You know, I’ve been thinking. I cannot envision any circumstances in which I’ll ever have the opportunity to have sex again. How’s it gonna happen? I just don’t see how it could occur.

ELAINE: You know, funerals always make me think about my own mortality and how I’m actually going to die someday. Me, dead. Imagine that.

GEORGE: They always make me take stock of my life and how I’ve pretty much wasted all of it, and how I plan to continue wasting it.

JERRY: I know, and then you say to yourself, “From this moment on, I’m not going to waste any more of it.” But then you go, “How? What can I do that’s not wasting it?”

ELAINE: Is this a waste of time? What should we be doing? Can’t you have coffee with people?

GEORGE: You know, I can’t believe you’re even considering not playing. We need you. You’re hitting everything.

ELAINE: He has to go. He may have killed her.

JERRY: Me? What about you? You brought up the pony.

ELAINE: Oh, yeah, but I didn’t say I hated anyone who had one.

GEORGE: (To Jerry) Who’s going to play left field?

JERRY: Bender.

GEORGE: Bender? He can’t play left. He stinks. I just don’t see what purpose is it going to serve your going? I mean, you think dead people care who’s at the funeral? They don’t even know they’re having a funeral. It’s not like she’s hanging out in the back going, “I can’t believe Jerry didn’t show up.”

ELAINE: Maybe she’s there in spirit. How about that?

GEORGE: If you’re a spirit, and you can travel to other dimensions and galaxies, and find out the mysteries of the universe, you think she’s going to want to hang around Drexler’s funeral home on Ocean Parkway?

ELAINE: George, I met this woman! She is not traveling to any other dimensions.

GEORGE: You know how easy it is for dead people to travel? It’s not like getting on a bus. One second. It’s all mental.

JERRY: Fifty years they were married. Now he’s moving to Phoenix.

ELAINE: Phoenix? What’s happening with his apartment?

JERRY: I don’t know. They’ve been in there since, like, World War II. The rent’s three hundred a month.

ELAINE: Three hundred a month? Oh my God.

(Scene ends)

Script from – www.seinfeldscripts.com/ThePonyRemark.htm

“I just listen to them for the music.”

Over the years I’ve heard a number of people give reasons to justify certain bands that they listen to. There are a lot of bands that have horrible lyrics and yet many people who don’t agree with the lyrics listen to them. Usually the person will say that they just enjoy the sound of the band and they don’t really pay attention to the lyrics. In one sense this is a satisfying answer. The band produces a great work of art and we just have to ignore the offensive message. There is a potential problem with this though.

Many people who ignore the offensive messages of some bands also ignore the good message of other bands they listen to. For some reason they aren’t interested in anything that any band has to say. North Americans spend hours and hours every day listening to music… sometimes while ignoring great messages.

My wife and I spent several hours traveling last weekend. Thanks to a mix-up at the car rental place we ended up getting a car that had satellite radio (See Seinfeld video below). We immediately tuned into the punk rock station and spent about 20 hours listening to the good, the bad and the ugly. At one point Naomi asked me why we spent the whole weekend listening to trashy music when we had a whole collection of c.d.’s that we loved with us. Just then one of our favorite punk bands came on and I said “this is why!”

To make a long story short, I heard a lot of bands over the weekend. Punks are notorious for their opinionated lyrics and their cry for social reform of one sort or another. As I drove the rental car back to the dealer a great song came on the radio. I posted the video below. Take a listen…. and pay attention to the lyrics! (they are posted in the video) I ignored this band for years just because of their anti-religious point of view, Now I wish I had paid a bit more attention. The band is called Bad Religion.