Never got around to posting this shot of my 16 y.o. friend Marcus. I'm still not entirely sure why he shaved like that...strange
Friday, October 08, 2004
Tuesday, October 05, 2004
the morning's playlist...
right now, I'm listening to this unofficial Joan of Arcadia 1st season
soundtrack that someone compiled and released on bittorrent. It's
actually a pretty decent collection, Damien Rice, Fountain's of Wayne,
Howie Day, Chantal Kreviazuk... just pretty mellow stuff for the most
part, which fits the gray day outside today. One of the things I
haven't gotten used to here in Colorado are the days where the clouds
are so low that the delineation between fog and clouds is lost. Today
on my way to work, the air force academy was completely obscured by
clouds that had descended. You could see the road from the bottom of
the valley driving up into the cloud with the mountains peeking out
above. Kind of pretty, but surreal at the same time.
I could come up with some grand life statement about the clouds
obscuring the current, but not obscuring the past and our dreams of
the future, but no... i'll just say that clouds are intriguing, and
they get in the way. Some fridays, I meet my friends Dave and Cam for
breakfast at this great little restaraunt in Colorado Springs called
the Omelette Parlor. Between 6 and 7 all their omelettes are half off,
so in the interest of being cheap, we show up at the crack of dawn to
wolf down giant plates of omelettey goodness. But the reason I mention
this at all is that sometimes, driving down to Colorado Springs proper
at 5:45, you can see the sun rising on the valley that we live above
between us and the air force academy, and you can see that clouds have
obscured all of it, giving the allusion that you're floating above the
clouds. It's nice.
Anyway, back to work. I've got too much to accomplish today.
Deus Te Amat, and I do too
soundtrack that someone compiled and released on bittorrent. It's
actually a pretty decent collection, Damien Rice, Fountain's of Wayne,
Howie Day, Chantal Kreviazuk... just pretty mellow stuff for the most
part, which fits the gray day outside today. One of the things I
haven't gotten used to here in Colorado are the days where the clouds
are so low that the delineation between fog and clouds is lost. Today
on my way to work, the air force academy was completely obscured by
clouds that had descended. You could see the road from the bottom of
the valley driving up into the cloud with the mountains peeking out
above. Kind of pretty, but surreal at the same time.
I could come up with some grand life statement about the clouds
obscuring the current, but not obscuring the past and our dreams of
the future, but no... i'll just say that clouds are intriguing, and
they get in the way. Some fridays, I meet my friends Dave and Cam for
breakfast at this great little restaraunt in Colorado Springs called
the Omelette Parlor. Between 6 and 7 all their omelettes are half off,
so in the interest of being cheap, we show up at the crack of dawn to
wolf down giant plates of omelettey goodness. But the reason I mention
this at all is that sometimes, driving down to Colorado Springs proper
at 5:45, you can see the sun rising on the valley that we live above
between us and the air force academy, and you can see that clouds have
obscured all of it, giving the allusion that you're floating above the
clouds. It's nice.
Anyway, back to work. I've got too much to accomplish today.
Deus Te Amat, and I do too
Monday, October 04, 2004
Oddcoupling in a different vein
Ang and I had a bit of a different oddcoupling tonight, Friday night's Joan of Arcadia (which we missed because we were at film society watching City of God ) and Spiderman 2 .
I was just remarking to Angela that I envy Spiderman. I think deepdown there's a part of every kid that wishes they could grow up and do these amazing things. Knowing they can't, they live vicariously through their comic books and movies and video games. I think that City of Heroes might be as popular as it is because of that. Someday, when virtual reality really becomes reality vs. the vaporware that it continues to be, City of Heroes could become a much more interesting game, but until then, I know that even though I envy Spidey, I will never BE Spidey, if only because I can barely even ride a roller coaster at Six Flags without feeling the motion sickness kick in. I am human and fear (no, fear really isn't the right word) that I always will be.
I'm losing where i was trying to go with this because Angela is watching TV in the background and it's making me lose my train of thought. What's the connecting thread? I think there's actually a substantially strong one. Both Joan and Peter Parker didn't choose to be who they are. Both try to be who they aren't and bad things happen, both have to come back and realize what they need to be. I'm interested in seeing where Joan goes this season. Last season, as she struggled with trying to figure out where God was taking her, or guiding her to do, she didn't really struggle with it that much. There was a superficial struggle, but nothing concrete and set in stone. Joan faces an Augustinian struggle. Before Augustine, the church was full of the supernatural. The supernatural was accepted. It was anticipated. It was a vibrant part of the church. Augustine steps in... (although in all fairness to Augustine, it wasn't just him... but the whole Roman way of thinking) Logic is all the rage and silly things like Leviathan and the Nephilum must be struck from the record because if it's not tangible, it must not be real. Now, Joan struggles with just that. Is this a tangible thing that's happening to her? Is God ACTUALLY talking to her or is it something that means she's crazy? She'd like to think it's her being crazy, but God introduces her to someone who truly is crazy and shows how the insanity is destructive and not constructive. Knowing that she has the option of being sane and still believing that God could speak to her she has to deal with whether she can actually do this task she's been charged with or not.
The problem we find is that there's really no choice. Linda, my boss, talks about how "many are called, but few are chosen." Traditionally, it's been translated to mean that many people are called to the faith but there are only a few who choose to follow. Linda comes at it from a different path. Many are called, many are saved. But God in whatever infinite wisdom has specific tasks that need to be done by specific people for reasons that are unknown to anyone but him and those are going to be done no matter what this person does, even if they have to come kicking and screaming. One could imagine that Spiderman and Joan are stuck in the same situation. For unknown reasons they've been charged with changing the world in real and tangible ways. They can struggle against it all they want, but at the end of the day, they're still going to be dragged kicking and screaming towards doing the right thing.
Aunt May talks about giving up dreams in order to do the right thing and be a hero. Maybe that's true. But I get the sense that the 'A' plan that God has for us if we chase after him, or if we're dragged kicking and screaming, has the potential to be so much greater than any dreams we could potentially have.
In any case, I don't know where my thoughts are wandering off to, and maybe as the ideas roll around my head, I'll come back and expound some more, but even though I know that Spiderman and Joan of Arcadia are fiction... I can't not think that there's some tangible bit of truth that we can glean from their respective dilemnas. I know that some people have reacted negatively to what Linda calls "red people" saying that God calls everyone and that by saying that there are certain people that God is ESPECIALLY calling, it elevates them and turns Christianity into some kind of hierarchy. "You're more Christian than I am! YEAH RIGHT YOU ARE! Get off your podium!" Maybe there's some truth to that, but maybe there isn't. Linda mentions that one of the ways you know you're red is that you're too Christian for your secular friends and too secular for your Christian friends. I can see that. I feel that all the time. But I'm blathering. More thoughts as I think them through.
In the words of my friend Ian Punnett
Deus Te Amat (and I do too)
Bri
I was just remarking to Angela that I envy Spiderman. I think deepdown there's a part of every kid that wishes they could grow up and do these amazing things. Knowing they can't, they live vicariously through their comic books and movies and video games. I think that City of Heroes might be as popular as it is because of that. Someday, when virtual reality really becomes reality vs. the vaporware that it continues to be, City of Heroes could become a much more interesting game, but until then, I know that even though I envy Spidey, I will never BE Spidey, if only because I can barely even ride a roller coaster at Six Flags without feeling the motion sickness kick in. I am human and fear (no, fear really isn't the right word) that I always will be.
I'm losing where i was trying to go with this because Angela is watching TV in the background and it's making me lose my train of thought. What's the connecting thread? I think there's actually a substantially strong one. Both Joan and Peter Parker didn't choose to be who they are. Both try to be who they aren't and bad things happen, both have to come back and realize what they need to be. I'm interested in seeing where Joan goes this season. Last season, as she struggled with trying to figure out where God was taking her, or guiding her to do, she didn't really struggle with it that much. There was a superficial struggle, but nothing concrete and set in stone. Joan faces an Augustinian struggle. Before Augustine, the church was full of the supernatural. The supernatural was accepted. It was anticipated. It was a vibrant part of the church. Augustine steps in... (although in all fairness to Augustine, it wasn't just him... but the whole Roman way of thinking) Logic is all the rage and silly things like Leviathan and the Nephilum must be struck from the record because if it's not tangible, it must not be real. Now, Joan struggles with just that. Is this a tangible thing that's happening to her? Is God ACTUALLY talking to her or is it something that means she's crazy? She'd like to think it's her being crazy, but God introduces her to someone who truly is crazy and shows how the insanity is destructive and not constructive. Knowing that she has the option of being sane and still believing that God could speak to her she has to deal with whether she can actually do this task she's been charged with or not.
The problem we find is that there's really no choice. Linda, my boss, talks about how "many are called, but few are chosen." Traditionally, it's been translated to mean that many people are called to the faith but there are only a few who choose to follow. Linda comes at it from a different path. Many are called, many are saved. But God in whatever infinite wisdom has specific tasks that need to be done by specific people for reasons that are unknown to anyone but him and those are going to be done no matter what this person does, even if they have to come kicking and screaming. One could imagine that Spiderman and Joan are stuck in the same situation. For unknown reasons they've been charged with changing the world in real and tangible ways. They can struggle against it all they want, but at the end of the day, they're still going to be dragged kicking and screaming towards doing the right thing.
Aunt May talks about giving up dreams in order to do the right thing and be a hero. Maybe that's true. But I get the sense that the 'A' plan that God has for us if we chase after him, or if we're dragged kicking and screaming, has the potential to be so much greater than any dreams we could potentially have.
In any case, I don't know where my thoughts are wandering off to, and maybe as the ideas roll around my head, I'll come back and expound some more, but even though I know that Spiderman and Joan of Arcadia are fiction... I can't not think that there's some tangible bit of truth that we can glean from their respective dilemnas. I know that some people have reacted negatively to what Linda calls "red people" saying that God calls everyone and that by saying that there are certain people that God is ESPECIALLY calling, it elevates them and turns Christianity into some kind of hierarchy. "You're more Christian than I am! YEAH RIGHT YOU ARE! Get off your podium!" Maybe there's some truth to that, but maybe there isn't. Linda mentions that one of the ways you know you're red is that you're too Christian for your secular friends and too secular for your Christian friends. I can see that. I feel that all the time. But I'm blathering. More thoughts as I think them through.
In the words of my friend Ian Punnett
Deus Te Amat (and I do too)
Bri
Sunday, October 03, 2004
A Picture Share!
Why didn't anyone tell me that Target makes generic dr.pepper now...or for that matter why it's actually pretty good. Hmmmm
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