October 14, 2005

• thoughts about movies, marriage, and churches

  A few random things: First, is anyone else planning to go to "Christianity in the Early Centuries" - the Annual Conference of the Evangelical Theological Society?   Let me know... I'm still deciding whether or not to go... we could hang out and have fun...    And chat about things that thoughtful collegiates love to chat about.

  Second:

  "All marriage is, is two people with issues coming together in trainwreck-like fashion."   - Borrowed from Kevin, who borrowed it from Matt.

  Interesting.   Remind me to comment more about this in a few years.     My choice of analogy might be more along the lines of an strong, tough, ugly old tugboat coming alongside a quaint, beautiful little ferry, and the two of them deciding that they'd tie themselves together for companionship and support as they crossed the sea together.

   

  Third, I noticed something interesting tonight.  About movies.   About why they're so extremely addictive/appealing, in general.  Simply this - movies are basically "fast-forwarded life"... life at ten times the speed of normal... but very selectively-so  -  they skip all the boring parts of life.  So for example, let's say in your normal life or my normal life there are 7 hours of sleep, 11 hours of school or work-related activity, 4 hours of other "stuff" that has to be done every day, and 2 hours of conversation with people.  And of the conversation, most of that time is boring stuff.  "How's your week going?  Pretty Good!™  How about you?  Good... tired, and busy, but good."  etc.    But there's a few moments of pure fascination - the quick, knowing, glance out of the corner of your eye at a friend who's happening to glance at you at the same time for the same reason; the near-crash on your way to work; hearing a child say something hilarious next to you on the bus; the moment in the midst of your dreary and overloaded day when you suddenly see a tree billowing with beautiful fall colors in front of you, and you sigh, and smile, and look at the sky, and think of the One who died on your behalf and is coming back soon.  The streak of ecstatic psychological pleasure that shoots through you when you get an email saying "Unfortunately, class will be cancelled for today...".   The feeling of danger, thrill, fear-of-others'-disgust, and cool logical precision when you go out on a limb in cyberspace defending or attacking something that really ought to be defended or attacked.  Or one of the most thrilling of all - romantic love..

  Ok, I got way off track, because most of those things were internal thrills rather than external.  But anyway, movies condense all the external/visible thrilling moments (both 'fast' and 'slow' - e.g. 'Darcy gets down on his knees') down, down, into a very intense brew, and then zip it by you with each little clip calculated for maximum emotional/psychological/physical effect.   Is it "real life?"  Yes and no.  Real life has the same moments of pathos.  But it has lots of "blah time" in between. 

  At least it seems like blah time, here to us now, down below...   I suspect that one day we will look back, and realize that there was actually not even one second of "uneventful time" in our lives... God was working His incredible works in every nanosecond of our lives and the lives around us...  So I should live now as if that's true... love Him with all my heart... "with joy inexpressible and full of glory..."

   

  Fourth, just in case you feel like reading yet another opinion about "what's wrong with American Christians and American Churches," here's my take:   IF anything is indeed "wrong" with them collectively, and that's a big IF, then it's simply this - 'affluence'.  No less than 'affluence', and not much more than 'affluence', either.

   

  Finally, in other news, Joel Hollins gets the "Mother Hen" award.  

  • 11:10 pm
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