Synchronicity is more than just the best Police album.
Earlier this morning I was reading more Neil Postman, this time from Technopoly, specifically a section that describes the relative absurdity of defining intelligence numerically (ala IQ tests). First of all, intelligence is a word that can possibly signify an incredibly wide range of mental faculties, and as some of the wiser guides will tell you there are different kinds of intelligence. Second, as Postman points out, intelligence is a word that signifies an idea, not an object. If I were to say I have five cans of soda, you would know exactly what I was talking about. If I were to say I have five intelligences, you might think I was talking some sort of new Oprah-self-help-babble, or, if you were actually intelligent, you might realize that I actually had very little grasp of the English language. Yet, when we rank people in order of Intelligence Quotient, essentially that is exactly what we're doing.
I have taken IQ tests, I know what they test. I have had psychology courses, and I know that, in some frames of thought, there is certain validity to such instruments. However, if we are to assume in a pseudo-scientific manner that IQ is the only measure of intelligence we are probably proving that we have an IQ of about 90. The fact of the matter is that IQ tests only test a very narrow band of human intelligence, and the idea that a number defines our intellectual potential is a little offensive to our humanity.
So, dinner comes and we are talking about the fact that Jack will have a new teacher this year in the Gifted program at his school, which he is in primarily because he performed quite well on those tests that like to grade intelligence numerically. Cate, teacher's pet that she is, wonders if she should be in the program as well. She almost certainly will be once they apply those numerical intelligence meters to her. While I am explaining these realities to my privileged and gifted children I had Postman's spot-on critique of the very idea ringing in my ears.
I am certainly proud of my children and their precociousness. I am certainly glad that their school will give them the opportunity for a little extra push. But I wonder how many intelligent and wonderful children we will fail because we don't happen to have a good number to define them. Jack is artistic and mechanically inclined, and his talents in these areas probably far outstrip his numerical scores, he's lucky that the numbers opened a gateway that will allow him to more fully explore his talents. But what about the children who don't have a high enough number?
The challenges of mass public education are such that it is probably impossible to function without numerical measures of intelligence, but maybe, just maybe, we should at least ask a few questions about the nature of intelligence that prove that it's more than just a number.
Wednesday, August 29, 2012
Monday, August 6, 2012
Isn't it Ironic, or at least what most people think of as Ironic.
See if you can follow this, because something keeps striking me as peculiar, but I can't quite put my finger on what it is.
I read a blog post that someone linked on Facebook this morning. The blog post mentioned Neil Postman's book, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Showbusiness. It was a book that I had heard of in several conversations and thought might be worth reading, but somehow, probably because of my technology depleted attention span, I could never remember to buy it, borrow it or otherwise obtain a copy. Upon reading the blog post, I was reminded and did not waste time. I had been looking for something to read for about a day and a half (in the age of my Kindle Fire that's a long time), since finishing some short stories by Flannery O'Connor. For those of you not familiar with O'Connor, which also means those of you who have never been clinically depressed, let me recommend A Good Man Is Hard to Find, and Other Stories, for that troubling day when you feel like human beings are basically good. If you ever want a refresher in the Calvinist doctrine of total depravity or a general refresher on sin, pick up some O'Connor.
I digress, there's that short attention span again, back to Postman, I guess he needs to ring twice (snare drum please). Amusing Ourselves to Death was written in 1985, in the heart of the Reagan years. He observes in a rather more serious manner the same thing that Doc observes in Back to the Future: "No wonder your president's an actor, he has to look good on television." Postman's premise is that television as a medium was in the process of changing the nature of public discourse. The book as a whole is filled with prescient observations of modern American society that have only become more true as time marched on, but he was only talking about TV.
In 1985 we were playing Atari and the only thing personal computers were good for was writing book reports and playing games like Choplifter in monochromatic green and black. And yet Postman was so right, so very right. "Change changed," the speed at which the culture has changed and is changing is facilitated and defined by the ability to communicate and exchange information. This is sort of a raw data flow phenomenon, meaning it doesn't matter what the quality of the information is, as long as it can move fast and grab people's attention. Which, I think, probably explains why the Fifty Shades of Gray Trilogy is atop the bestseller list.
The book, using mainly the age of "new" cable networks like MTV and CNN, traces how television defines and limits cultural discourse to a decidedly more shallow milieu than the age of print media. Ideas had to "fit" into soundbytes, yeah, yeah, yeah, we've heard that grumpy old man talk a thousand times since then: public discourse blah, blah, blah... I wonder what those crazy Kardashians are up to now?
Oh, dear Lord, maybe we need to change Amusing to Amused, past tense. Whatever damage television may have done to the public discourse, the internet, has visited a hundred fold. Now any idiot (like me), with a computer (like the one I'm typing on), can become part of the public discourse. No vetting, no requirements, no accountability; an easy, anonymous voice to spew nonsense, hate, dirty pictures, whatever you want, whatever people will read or look at, or tweet about.
Great googly moogly, we is in trouble!
Oh yeah, so here's the funny thing: I read about a book that discusses how technology is changing the public discourse in 1985, on a blog by some guy who I have no connection to whatsoever, and an hour later I've downloaded that book on my Kindle Fire and am reading about how an electronic media has supplanted the good old fashioned printed word, but I'm reading the printed word on an electronic medium and now I'm writing about the printed word on another electronic medium, and maybe tomorrow, someone will read this and go read the book about how electronic media are changing the public discourse, and then maybe they'll write a blog about it and so on and so forth and this is getting to be a really long sentence and if I was talking I'd need to take a breath right about... Now.
I think this whole thing might be ironic, at least in the Alanis Morrisette kind of way, which at one time made me really angry because none of the things in that song were actually ironic by the correct definition which is: when the intended meaning of a word is the exact opposite of its actual meaning. But now Alanis doesn't make me angry, she kind of makes me nostalgic for a time when an mediocre looking girl who sang angry songs, even if they were rhetorically flawed, could actually be popular. That is, I guess before the public discourse regarding music shifted from Nirvana to Nickelback, Chuck D to Lil' Wayne, Alanis to Christina Aguilera, or whatever other junk the kids are listening to today. I'm probably a little behind on those changes, because I'm 38 now and I like me my old timey music, like Nine Inch Nails and the Beastie Boys and I don't want to have ANYTHING to do with Justin Beiber, because I lived through Milli Vinilli and Vanilla Ice, so, in the words of the Who, "we won't get fooled again."
So, did you notice?
Are you lost?
Or could you actually follow that incoherent rant?
If you could, congratulations, you're probably a member of Generation X, just like me.
If not, don't worry, you're probably a sane reasonable person who has not been completely corrupted and discombobulated by the rapid changing of change. Hold on to your sanity. Read a book, while you still can.
I read a blog post that someone linked on Facebook this morning. The blog post mentioned Neil Postman's book, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Showbusiness. It was a book that I had heard of in several conversations and thought might be worth reading, but somehow, probably because of my technology depleted attention span, I could never remember to buy it, borrow it or otherwise obtain a copy. Upon reading the blog post, I was reminded and did not waste time. I had been looking for something to read for about a day and a half (in the age of my Kindle Fire that's a long time), since finishing some short stories by Flannery O'Connor. For those of you not familiar with O'Connor, which also means those of you who have never been clinically depressed, let me recommend A Good Man Is Hard to Find, and Other Stories, for that troubling day when you feel like human beings are basically good. If you ever want a refresher in the Calvinist doctrine of total depravity or a general refresher on sin, pick up some O'Connor.
I digress, there's that short attention span again, back to Postman, I guess he needs to ring twice (snare drum please). Amusing Ourselves to Death was written in 1985, in the heart of the Reagan years. He observes in a rather more serious manner the same thing that Doc observes in Back to the Future: "No wonder your president's an actor, he has to look good on television." Postman's premise is that television as a medium was in the process of changing the nature of public discourse. The book as a whole is filled with prescient observations of modern American society that have only become more true as time marched on, but he was only talking about TV.
In 1985 we were playing Atari and the only thing personal computers were good for was writing book reports and playing games like Choplifter in monochromatic green and black. And yet Postman was so right, so very right. "Change changed," the speed at which the culture has changed and is changing is facilitated and defined by the ability to communicate and exchange information. This is sort of a raw data flow phenomenon, meaning it doesn't matter what the quality of the information is, as long as it can move fast and grab people's attention. Which, I think, probably explains why the Fifty Shades of Gray Trilogy is atop the bestseller list.
The book, using mainly the age of "new" cable networks like MTV and CNN, traces how television defines and limits cultural discourse to a decidedly more shallow milieu than the age of print media. Ideas had to "fit" into soundbytes, yeah, yeah, yeah, we've heard that grumpy old man talk a thousand times since then: public discourse blah, blah, blah... I wonder what those crazy Kardashians are up to now?
Oh, dear Lord, maybe we need to change Amusing to Amused, past tense. Whatever damage television may have done to the public discourse, the internet, has visited a hundred fold. Now any idiot (like me), with a computer (like the one I'm typing on), can become part of the public discourse. No vetting, no requirements, no accountability; an easy, anonymous voice to spew nonsense, hate, dirty pictures, whatever you want, whatever people will read or look at, or tweet about.
Great googly moogly, we is in trouble!
Oh yeah, so here's the funny thing: I read about a book that discusses how technology is changing the public discourse in 1985, on a blog by some guy who I have no connection to whatsoever, and an hour later I've downloaded that book on my Kindle Fire and am reading about how an electronic media has supplanted the good old fashioned printed word, but I'm reading the printed word on an electronic medium and now I'm writing about the printed word on another electronic medium, and maybe tomorrow, someone will read this and go read the book about how electronic media are changing the public discourse, and then maybe they'll write a blog about it and so on and so forth and this is getting to be a really long sentence and if I was talking I'd need to take a breath right about... Now.
I think this whole thing might be ironic, at least in the Alanis Morrisette kind of way, which at one time made me really angry because none of the things in that song were actually ironic by the correct definition which is: when the intended meaning of a word is the exact opposite of its actual meaning. But now Alanis doesn't make me angry, she kind of makes me nostalgic for a time when an mediocre looking girl who sang angry songs, even if they were rhetorically flawed, could actually be popular. That is, I guess before the public discourse regarding music shifted from Nirvana to Nickelback, Chuck D to Lil' Wayne, Alanis to Christina Aguilera, or whatever other junk the kids are listening to today. I'm probably a little behind on those changes, because I'm 38 now and I like me my old timey music, like Nine Inch Nails and the Beastie Boys and I don't want to have ANYTHING to do with Justin Beiber, because I lived through Milli Vinilli and Vanilla Ice, so, in the words of the Who, "we won't get fooled again."
So, did you notice?
Are you lost?
Or could you actually follow that incoherent rant?
If you could, congratulations, you're probably a member of Generation X, just like me.
If not, don't worry, you're probably a sane reasonable person who has not been completely corrupted and discombobulated by the rapid changing of change. Hold on to your sanity. Read a book, while you still can.
Friday, August 3, 2012
Editing
Since discovering the ability to self-publish kindle books a couple of months ago, I have felt rather excited about the prospect of putting some longer form writing out there onto the inter-web. However, given my occupation, I have also felt the keen need for some good editing. Most people, especially in the blogosphere, feel they are entitled and perhaps even compelled to say whatever comes to mind. Experience has taught me that this is not a good idea; it may get you into trouble, you may say things that you regret, you may say things that hurt people, you may just end up giving people who have it in for you ammunition.
Editing yourself is not censorship, it is being a responsible member or society.
So I came to the task of editing the rather prolific amount of material that I have written surrounding the life and death of my brother Jonathan. Written over the course of seven years, it ranges widely and wildly in content and theme, some is raw, some is polished, some is poetry (see the below blog entry, Seven), some is prose, narrative, discursive, theological, there was just a heap of dissimilar parts.
There were some shiny things in the pile, there were some painful things in the pile, there was also a lot rusty, maudlin junk that needed to be done away with.
But that was not always easy, because that rusty, maudlin junk was a record of some very deep water, like an old ship that once proudly sailed through a horrific storm and came out a little damaged. It represented some things I thought and felt, at moments when my approach to life was less than circumspect and pastoral. We all have a right to such times, such thoughts, such words, but perhaps, unless we're C.S. Lewis, we should not inflict them on the world.
Freedom should come with responsibility. Freedom to drive a car comes with the responsibility to obey the rules. Freedom to own a gun should, despite some who would frame it in more rhetorical terms, be accompanied by the responsibility to register the weapon, keep it away from those who would misuse it, and learn the proper and safe handling of the weapon.
Words are weapons sharper than knives, quoth INXS. In an age of Twitter it seems that we are throwing knives rapidly and blindly. How many times in the past year or so have you heard about someone "catching it" for something they said on Twitter and then acting surprised that anyone took notice? Haven't we figured it out? Even with the way language is cheapened and devalued these days, the right words can still move mountains and the wrong words can still ruin lives.
Be careful, little children, what you say
Editing yourself is not censorship, it is being a responsible member or society.
So I came to the task of editing the rather prolific amount of material that I have written surrounding the life and death of my brother Jonathan. Written over the course of seven years, it ranges widely and wildly in content and theme, some is raw, some is polished, some is poetry (see the below blog entry, Seven), some is prose, narrative, discursive, theological, there was just a heap of dissimilar parts.
There were some shiny things in the pile, there were some painful things in the pile, there was also a lot rusty, maudlin junk that needed to be done away with.
But that was not always easy, because that rusty, maudlin junk was a record of some very deep water, like an old ship that once proudly sailed through a horrific storm and came out a little damaged. It represented some things I thought and felt, at moments when my approach to life was less than circumspect and pastoral. We all have a right to such times, such thoughts, such words, but perhaps, unless we're C.S. Lewis, we should not inflict them on the world.
Freedom should come with responsibility. Freedom to drive a car comes with the responsibility to obey the rules. Freedom to own a gun should, despite some who would frame it in more rhetorical terms, be accompanied by the responsibility to register the weapon, keep it away from those who would misuse it, and learn the proper and safe handling of the weapon.
Words are weapons sharper than knives, quoth INXS. In an age of Twitter it seems that we are throwing knives rapidly and blindly. How many times in the past year or so have you heard about someone "catching it" for something they said on Twitter and then acting surprised that anyone took notice? Haven't we figured it out? Even with the way language is cheapened and devalued these days, the right words can still move mountains and the wrong words can still ruin lives.
Be careful, little children, what you say
Friday, July 27, 2012
Planning a Mid-Life Crisis, and other Modern Vanity
I'm about to turn thirty-eight, which is interesting, because there was a point in my life where I did not think 38 seemed like a real thing that could actually happen to me. I masked this startling delusion of perpetual youth under an equally delusional fatalism. Turning 38 is the latest addition to a long list of things that the 19 year-old me said were categorically impossible: getting married, being a pastor, having kids, listening to country music, drinking diet coke and generally caring about much of anything.
But here it is, my last day of being 37. I am one day closer to being undeniably middle aged. In fact, figuring in that 80 years is probably optimistic for a guy who's had high blood pressure since he was 26 and diabetes since he was 35, I might as well get on with a decent mid life crisis.
The problem is that I'm Generation X, which means I've spent my entire working life in an economy where these darn things called bubbles keep bursting like my youthful idealism did when I was 19, so I can't afford a red sports car. Beyond that, it turns out I actually like the wife and kids that I never expected to have when I was 19, so getting a divorce, abandoning my kids and trying to sail around the world or some other nonsense is pretty much out. Besides all that, having a mid-life crisis is pretty much a Boomer thing to do, and as a Gen-Xer, I resent anything that has to do with Boomers, so maybe I'll just skip the mid life crisis, or just find another way to deal with the inevitable ennui that comes with growing up and growing old.
As it turns out the wife and kids I never thought I would have are in the kitchen making a blueberry pie, which is going to do terrible things to my blood sugar and certainly not help my drive to lose weight and live healthier. Which brings me to perhaps the only nugget of wisdom that one can truly own at 38: Life is better with blueberry pie.
I figure that if I make 80, I'll probably write a blog or put something on whatever technologically incomprehensible format is available at the time that says I never expected to make it that far. I'm pretty sure that, no matter how much has changed at that point, life will still be better with blueberry pie.
Tuesday, July 24, 2012
Seven
The news that truly shocks, is the empty, empty page...
Peter Gabriel, I Grieve
In the Bible the number seven signifies completion:
God created the world in six days and on the seventh he rested
Jacob worked for Laban for seven years to earn the woman he loved
(and then another seven for the woman he really wanted)
We are supposed to forgive, seventy times seven
(which really means as many times as it takes).
But seven doesn't complete some things.
Seven doesn't take away the presence of an absence.
In fact, seven years of things you missed makes it seem that much worse.
All the memories of the last seven years would have been better with you in them.
Seven doesn't seem perfect, it just seems like a lifetime,
which it has been for Caitlyn,
the niece you never met,
who was born a month after you left.
I'm still a little angry, I'm still a little sad,
But mostly I just miss you a lot.
Maybe the next seven will be easier...
...probably not.
Peter Gabriel, I Grieve
In the Bible the number seven signifies completion:
God created the world in six days and on the seventh he rested
Jacob worked for Laban for seven years to earn the woman he loved
(and then another seven for the woman he really wanted)
We are supposed to forgive, seventy times seven
(which really means as many times as it takes).
But seven doesn't complete some things.
Seven doesn't take away the presence of an absence.
In fact, seven years of things you missed makes it seem that much worse.
All the memories of the last seven years would have been better with you in them.
Seven doesn't seem perfect, it just seems like a lifetime,
which it has been for Caitlyn,
the niece you never met,
who was born a month after you left.
I'm still a little angry, I'm still a little sad,
But mostly I just miss you a lot.
Maybe the next seven will be easier...
...probably not.
Monday, July 23, 2012
How Happy Was My Valley?
It is an image forever burned into my memory: September 1992, I'm 18 years old and spending my first semester at Penn State. I am one of the relatively few students who, based primarily on SAT scores, get to spend their entire four (or so) undergraduate years in Happy Valley. At this point, I am still under the illusion that State College is totally awesome (or some other 90's cliche). I walk out beyond the dormitory complex called East Halls and I see a sight that boggles the mind. What is normally nothing but large parking lots and empty fields is now a portable city. The bacchanal spectacle that is tailgating confronts my senses and I am overwhelmed, I am swept up in a dream that maybe all those ridiculous teenage delusions about college might actually be true; drunken revelry, loose young women and the wonderful, creamy caramel center that holds it all together: Penn State football.
Fast forward four years. I have now had enough of the dream. In fact, I had had enough of the dream at least two years ago. I stopped buying my student tickets and had mostly stopped leaving my apartment on football weekends. I had had enough of drunken revelry and was even tired of loose women who, as it turned out were rarely stable, interesting people when they (and you) were not fully tanked on horrible cheap beer. I was yearning to get out of State College, not because I was itching to get on to real life, but because I was being afflicted by something which I could not name and certainly did not fully understand. Ennui is the deep rooted boredom which comes when you have confronted the basic absurdity of human existence and are struggling to find some meaning that will allow you at least get out of bed in the morning. Walker Percy, who I was just beginning to read, describes it as malaise in The Moviegoer, the main character of which I was beginning to resemble.
I had some very deep suspicions that somehow the place I had been living for several years was largely responsible. I wasn't like this when I came there. I had traded in the happy hippie for the angry young man. The Grateful Dead had been replaced by Nine Inch Nails (those are both music groups for those of you who are either old, young, or clueless, google them to learn about the contrast). I left State College with a Bachelor of Science, a mild depression, and a sense that something just wasn't right in that town.
Today, the NCAA handed down some massive sanctions against Penn State University, basically for allowing an environment to exist where a pedophile like Jerry Sandusky could molest children with impunity. While I was shocked and saddened to learn that so many children were victimized over the years, I could not exactly say I was surprised by the indictment of the culture of Happy Valley. How many girls had I known who were raped, but felt they couldn't report it? How many people developed serious alcohol or drug problems?
I'm not claiming to be psychic, or particularly observant during that particular phase of my life, but I know there was something awry in that town.
The one part that was truly shocking was the involvement and apparent complicity of Joseph Vincent Paterno. All through my college years, no matter how cynical I became about the rafts of drunken morons hanging off of balconies shouting, "We are, Penn State," I always considered Paterno to be above the fray. On the several occasions when I saw him ambling about campus, he would always smile and say hi, even to a kid with unnaturally orange hair. I knew that some day the house of cards would probably come down, but I figured we could always look to the rumpled little man with impossibly thick glasses to be our JoePa.
I admit it, he pierced my cynicism. Even when I was outraged about Sandusky, I wanted to believe that Joe didn't know. Let me say that again, I WANTED to believe that Joe was still above the fray. I could tell you that State College is a spiritually sick place, that Penn State football is an idolatrous construction of blue and white neo-pagan debauchery, but leave Joe Pa out of it.
Now, he has posthumously lost the title of winningest (spell checker says that isn't a word), his statue has been removed, and the system which once practically revered him as a god is trying to blot out his memory.
If he knew and tried to cover it up, there is no excuse to be made.
But I will say this, in all of history there is only one person who ever proved he was bigger than the system, and Jesus had to come back from the dead to make that case. Paterno was not big enough to transcend his culture. He could fight the trends in college football to sink to practically paying athletes, he could stubbornly cling to academic standards and refuse to put names on the back of the jerseys, but he couldn't get away from the golem that he helped create. It reached out and took away his 60 year legacy in a matter of six months. He became a victim of Jerry Sandusky, albeit the least tragic and most capable of defending himself. It's the last tragedy of his life that he didn't step up and defend his own honor and in the process defend a whole bunch of innocent kids.
Despite what the NCAA intends, they are never going to change the culture of college football. The culture that will defend the program no matter what is going to persist, maybe not at Penn State, but it will go on. Look long and hard at Ohio State, Michigan, Alabama, LSU, USC and even dear old Notre Dame, they've got the same affliction. They worship the same idol (at Notre Dame they even have Touchdown Jesus). They just haven't had their Jerry Sandusky show up yet... or maybe they have and we just don't know it yet.
Now there's a scary thought, the University of Pheonix is looking better all the time.
Fast forward four years. I have now had enough of the dream. In fact, I had had enough of the dream at least two years ago. I stopped buying my student tickets and had mostly stopped leaving my apartment on football weekends. I had had enough of drunken revelry and was even tired of loose women who, as it turned out were rarely stable, interesting people when they (and you) were not fully tanked on horrible cheap beer. I was yearning to get out of State College, not because I was itching to get on to real life, but because I was being afflicted by something which I could not name and certainly did not fully understand. Ennui is the deep rooted boredom which comes when you have confronted the basic absurdity of human existence and are struggling to find some meaning that will allow you at least get out of bed in the morning. Walker Percy, who I was just beginning to read, describes it as malaise in The Moviegoer, the main character of which I was beginning to resemble.
I had some very deep suspicions that somehow the place I had been living for several years was largely responsible. I wasn't like this when I came there. I had traded in the happy hippie for the angry young man. The Grateful Dead had been replaced by Nine Inch Nails (those are both music groups for those of you who are either old, young, or clueless, google them to learn about the contrast). I left State College with a Bachelor of Science, a mild depression, and a sense that something just wasn't right in that town.
Today, the NCAA handed down some massive sanctions against Penn State University, basically for allowing an environment to exist where a pedophile like Jerry Sandusky could molest children with impunity. While I was shocked and saddened to learn that so many children were victimized over the years, I could not exactly say I was surprised by the indictment of the culture of Happy Valley. How many girls had I known who were raped, but felt they couldn't report it? How many people developed serious alcohol or drug problems?
I'm not claiming to be psychic, or particularly observant during that particular phase of my life, but I know there was something awry in that town.
The one part that was truly shocking was the involvement and apparent complicity of Joseph Vincent Paterno. All through my college years, no matter how cynical I became about the rafts of drunken morons hanging off of balconies shouting, "We are, Penn State," I always considered Paterno to be above the fray. On the several occasions when I saw him ambling about campus, he would always smile and say hi, even to a kid with unnaturally orange hair. I knew that some day the house of cards would probably come down, but I figured we could always look to the rumpled little man with impossibly thick glasses to be our JoePa.
I admit it, he pierced my cynicism. Even when I was outraged about Sandusky, I wanted to believe that Joe didn't know. Let me say that again, I WANTED to believe that Joe was still above the fray. I could tell you that State College is a spiritually sick place, that Penn State football is an idolatrous construction of blue and white neo-pagan debauchery, but leave Joe Pa out of it.
Now, he has posthumously lost the title of winningest (spell checker says that isn't a word), his statue has been removed, and the system which once practically revered him as a god is trying to blot out his memory.
If he knew and tried to cover it up, there is no excuse to be made.
But I will say this, in all of history there is only one person who ever proved he was bigger than the system, and Jesus had to come back from the dead to make that case. Paterno was not big enough to transcend his culture. He could fight the trends in college football to sink to practically paying athletes, he could stubbornly cling to academic standards and refuse to put names on the back of the jerseys, but he couldn't get away from the golem that he helped create. It reached out and took away his 60 year legacy in a matter of six months. He became a victim of Jerry Sandusky, albeit the least tragic and most capable of defending himself. It's the last tragedy of his life that he didn't step up and defend his own honor and in the process defend a whole bunch of innocent kids.
Despite what the NCAA intends, they are never going to change the culture of college football. The culture that will defend the program no matter what is going to persist, maybe not at Penn State, but it will go on. Look long and hard at Ohio State, Michigan, Alabama, LSU, USC and even dear old Notre Dame, they've got the same affliction. They worship the same idol (at Notre Dame they even have Touchdown Jesus). They just haven't had their Jerry Sandusky show up yet... or maybe they have and we just don't know it yet.
Now there's a scary thought, the University of Pheonix is looking better all the time.
Monday, April 30, 2012
"And Shepherds we will be, for thee, my Lord, for thee."
-The Boondock Saints, Shepherd's Prayer
This was one of those, didn't quite make the sermon, ideas.
The text was The Good Shepherd passage from John, the Psalm was 23, the general idea of the sermon is that when we follow Jesus we stop being sheep and become shepherds, good shepherds, who will lay down their lives for the sheep.
And I like the Boondock Saints, it's bloody and violent and definitely not family friendly, but I like it. However, I just couldn't get it to fit in the sermon. No matter how cool it seems for a movie vigilante to recite a prayer or quote scripture (or like in Pulp Fiction quote something that sounds like scripture but actually isn't), it just doesn't jive with a shepherd laying down his life for the sheep.
And so the pea-coat clad Irish brothers and their vigilante ways did not make the sermon, it's probably better that way. But there's something about that, and the scriptures from yesterday's message that is sticking with me well into Monday evening.
I think it's this: Christianity is so often perceived in modern American culture as being a sort of soft-core kind of religion. Most of it, especially the mainline protestant parts, seems to the world to be sort of milky and vague. It's okay when you consider the alternatives: hate-spewing fundamentalists or utter pluralists who have largely rejected moral and theological truth claims altogether.
But I think we can do better. And I don't think "doing better" will involve a shotgun or a Beretta 9mm.
I think we are indeed called to be shepherds, as Jesus is our Shepherd. That's why I like that Boondock Saints prayer and that's why I suspect it probably has its roots in an actually, real-life, non-murderous prayer.
There is nothing bland about being a shepherd, you've got to deal with wolves, lions, rustlers and generally a pretty tough road. You had better not be bland, you had better not be weak in the knees. You'd better be a shepherd, for thee, my Lord, for thee.
-The Boondock Saints, Shepherd's Prayer
This was one of those, didn't quite make the sermon, ideas.
The text was The Good Shepherd passage from John, the Psalm was 23, the general idea of the sermon is that when we follow Jesus we stop being sheep and become shepherds, good shepherds, who will lay down their lives for the sheep.
And I like the Boondock Saints, it's bloody and violent and definitely not family friendly, but I like it. However, I just couldn't get it to fit in the sermon. No matter how cool it seems for a movie vigilante to recite a prayer or quote scripture (or like in Pulp Fiction quote something that sounds like scripture but actually isn't), it just doesn't jive with a shepherd laying down his life for the sheep.
And so the pea-coat clad Irish brothers and their vigilante ways did not make the sermon, it's probably better that way. But there's something about that, and the scriptures from yesterday's message that is sticking with me well into Monday evening.
I think it's this: Christianity is so often perceived in modern American culture as being a sort of soft-core kind of religion. Most of it, especially the mainline protestant parts, seems to the world to be sort of milky and vague. It's okay when you consider the alternatives: hate-spewing fundamentalists or utter pluralists who have largely rejected moral and theological truth claims altogether.
But I think we can do better. And I don't think "doing better" will involve a shotgun or a Beretta 9mm.
I think we are indeed called to be shepherds, as Jesus is our Shepherd. That's why I like that Boondock Saints prayer and that's why I suspect it probably has its roots in an actually, real-life, non-murderous prayer.
There is nothing bland about being a shepherd, you've got to deal with wolves, lions, rustlers and generally a pretty tough road. You had better not be bland, you had better not be weak in the knees. You'd better be a shepherd, for thee, my Lord, for thee.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)