Collateral Bloggage

This is the time of the year where I generally stop putting in Hold Requests for new books at the library.  Why?  Because there are usually several books I’ve started but not finished that I try to double-back and finish before the end of the year.  I’ve got one that’s been dangling for two years or so, and I think it’ll continue to dangle into next year.

In any case, I feel like I should backtrack a bit…I call it Booktracking.  At least now I do, because I so enjoy making up new words.  So I’m going to attempt to finish the five or six books I’ve started but not finished this year.

And then I had to go and by the new Ender book, plus three others (The Impossible Faith, The Nature of the Atonement: Four Views, and Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue.  Oh well…maybe I’ll be able to resist them until next year.  Yeah.

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My sister and brother-in-law and their kids are here.  And I just had a birthday (I’m now over 21 again).  This was the first time since 1993 I’d had a family member around on my birthday.  Yeah.  15 years.  Now if they’d only move down, we wouldn’t have this problem!

On Halloween, I went to Insomnia Coffee Company with E, J, and J for post-Indian-food-coffee.  Okay, so let me just take a moment to inform you that Insomnia is awesome.  Go there.  It’s just so much better than Starbuck’s.  No comparison.

And if you don’t like coffee, try an Aldretea.  It’s like a latte, but with brewed tea instead of coffee.  Add a little honey to it and it’s an absolute treat.  Plus, the owners are awesome.  Support the local guy (and guy and gal).  Seriously.  Go!

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Anyway, it was Halloween.  Thus, one of the main coffee-jerkers was dressed up.  We couldn’t place his outfit.  He had on white overalls and big-ole-shop-goggles, looking for all the world like a butcher or crime-scene-cleaner-upper.  He informed us he was Dr. Horrible.  One of our group was familiar with the character and sent out a link for our viewing pleasure.

Dr. Horrible is hilarious and surprisingly good (who knew Neil Patrick Harris could sing that well?).  The full name is Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, and it was created by Joss Whedon during the Writer’s Strike.  All I can say is, I want more!  That’s the trouble with it.  If you go watch the video, it’s three fourteen-minute “episodes.”  And then it’s done.  And now I’m sad.

Oh, and I suppose I should mention it’s not rated G, but it’s clean enough for American TV.  Make of that what you will.

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I’ve never been accused of being particularly punctual.  I don’t really like being late, and yet I tend to manage it anyway.  So, I’ve rolled out a new plan.  Leave 10 minutes early.  Yep, I determine how much time I need to get somewhere on time, then tack on ten minutes.  I just bring a book along, so if I end up early (perish the thought!), I just grab some quick reading time.

It works.  I’m keepin’ it.

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Book mini-review!  I recently finished reading 50 Physics Ideas You Really Need to Know, by Joanne Baker.  The book is about 200 pages, which makes basically four pages per idea, and that’s just the right number of pages and the right amount of information to keep it interesting without going into overload.  Except the chapter on Quantum Mechanics.  There’s just little that can be done to make that interesting.

But if you’ve ever been interested to find out just a little about the Theory of Relativity or Nuclear Fission and Fusion, you’d get a lot out of this book.  That is, you’d get a little about a lot.  I used it for a bedtime book, because I knew I could read four pages and be done with a chapter.  I’ll admit I kept falling asleep while trying to read the Quantum chapter, but it was midnight, so it may have been more a function of my weariness than the content of the chapter.  Or maybe not.

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I sang with the choir at church on Sunday, a decision which garnered me much ridicule from my coworkers (it happens when you leave your choir music out on a lab bench).  Anyway…between services, one of the other men went outside and got rained on.  Big time.  He came back in completely drenched.

So, as we took our places on the risers, I saw that he had failed to rid himself of all the water droplets on his shoulders and back.  I proceeded to swipe them away for him.  What a nice guy, eh?  Yeah, it was the wrong guy.  And those were not water drops.  They were dandruff.  The guy took it with good humor, but I was a bit red in the face.  Trying to be nice, but ending up in a bad Selsun Blue commercial.  That’s me.

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As someone who runs three times a week, I find it irritating that my entire running outfit doesn’t go in the same laundry-sorting-hamper.  Specifically, I don’t like that my socks are white and the rest of my outfit is composed of darks.  It’s not an aesthetic thing, because I’m not really that metro (although I do groom my eyebrows somewhat to appease the Fair Elaine).  It’s just a laundry thing.  So, I was elated to find at my local Costco warehouse…drum roll…black socks.  Specifically, the same model of Champion Athletic Socks I currently use, but instead of white, they’re black.  Awesome.  The only gripe I have is that they’re supposed to fit sizes six through twelve.  Which basically means nine and a half.  On my size twelves, they’re a bit snug.  Maybe there’s another size.

With all the reading I do, it probably wouldn’t hurt me to do book reviews now and then.  Besides, it gives me an excuse not to come up with an original topic for Theology Thursday if I’ve got a theology book to review…

Original Sin: A Cultural History, by Alan Jacobs addresses a history of thought regarding the question “Unde hoc malum?” (”Whence this evil?” - you, too, can learn cool Latin phrases by reading this kind of book).

This is a book I picked up back in July, then had to return to the library because it wasn’t gripping me the way the other three books I was reading were. Actually, my reading list was just overloaded. Hence, I returned it to the library and only got back to it a couple of weeks ago. I’m glad I did.

The book is not a treatment of the Biblical evidence for the doctrine of Original Sin, but rather a survey of Christian (and other) thought about our apparent sinful natures.  He pulls from many varied sources, including Confucius, Augustine, Milton, and even Rousseau, discussing how these thinkers dealt with the idea of Original Sin.

Even though Jacobs spent a good deal of time discussing Augustine’s views and his debates with Pelagius and Julian, much of the book dealt with the voices in Western culture who tried to explain away our natures.  One after another, the walls built up to explain away the Fall have crumbled.

I didn’t read this book quickly.  And yet, it’s extremely readable.  I didn’t find my mind wandering when I’d settle in to read a few pages.  The chapters were too long (I like them short), so progress felt really slow.  I was always surprised that I’d sit down to read, feel like I was really making headway, then realize I’d only read six or eight pages.  I think my mind was engaged and had to digest what I was reading, and that resulted in slower progress than usual.  But I wouldn’t call it a slow book.

I’ve grappled a bit with the doctrine of Original Sin, and I imagine I’ll keep thinking about it.  There’s no denying that we’re not just all “okay.”  But I still don’t really know what Original Sin means.  For me, it’s not enough to simply say, “Well, our natures seem to be messed up, therefore Original Sin must be true.”  Because that doesn’t really explain what it is.  Are we really born guilty and in need of purification (the justification for Infant Baptism)?  Or are we simply born with a tendency to sin but incur no actual debt until we actually sin?

Was Christ born with Original Sin?  Did Mary need to be born without it (and here we have the Immaculate Conception) for Jesus to also be preserved from it?  Did he need to have no earthly father (in other words, was the Virgin Birth neccessary)?  These are questions I still have.  Mr. Jacobs gave me more to think about, which is a good thing, but I didn’t find many answers.  But I’m okay with that for now.

Well, those of you who regularly read my stuff must have expected this day:  I’ve been published.  In The Hillsboro Library News.  I know.  Totally.  I’ll pardon you as you stagger back in wonder.

Published!

I get bonus points for having a sentence fragment with borderline grammar published. How’d this happen?  Well, it’s about the Hillsboro Library’s Summer Reading Program.  Basically, you fill out a little sheet of paper with the Author and Title of a book you finish, then submit a short review of it (there are four lines on the 3″x3″ paper for the review).  The library actually called me to get permission to use my reviews.  I told them to use whatever they wanted.

When I told my wife they’d published my review, she was expecting something longer than a sentence fragment.  I guess I hadn’t adequately described the size of the work…

I make a New Year’s Resolution basically every year to submit something for publication.  Does this count?

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Congrats to the Tampa Bay Rays.  Now they get to take on the Phillies in the World Series.  I’m pulling for the Phils, but it’s hard not to root for a team that beat out the Yanks and Red Sox.  I’m really just hoping for a seven game series.

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Happy Birthday to The Fair Elaine.  You can head over to her blog and extend fond wishes if you’d like.  She’s now as old as I am, at least for the next 27 days.  But who’s counting?

I’m fairly certain my alarm went off at 6:30 this morning.  I, however, went on sleeping.  I guess I thought it was Sunday.  Didn’t get in to work until about 10am.  Nice.

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I spend a good deal of time reading.  When I commented some time ago about the fact that I average about a book per week (my currently reading and recently finished lists are somewhere over on the right side of this page), someone asked me, “How much time do you spend reading every day?”  I had no reply.  Reading is such a part of my day that I generally don’t pay much attention to how much I do it.  So I’ve started taking note.  Last Wednesday, I decided to pay attention.  The breakdown was this:

Before work:

• 15 minutes in Jeremiah (5 chapters)
• 10 minutes in The Origin and History of the Doctrine of Endless Punishment (finished a chapter)

At work:

• 20 minutes in The Elements of Style (at a Blood drive - more on that later - while a needle hung out of my arm - and on the walk to it and back - yes, I read while walking)
• 10 minutes in The Elements of Style (while eating lunch - finally finished the book)

Back home:

• 10 minutes in 50 Physics Ideas You Really Need to Know (probably would’ve read more, but we stayed up late watching John Adams on DVD - more on that later)

That only adds up to 65 minutes, which seems a bit low to me.  If I hadn’t finished Style, and I’d had something more engrossing than Origin (don’t get me wrong, it’s really good in its way!), I might have read for another half-hour or so.  I figure I tend toward 90 minutes during the week, maybe 30 minutes on the weekend.  Is that a lot?

I seriously doubt I’ve gone a whole day without reading something in a very, very long time.

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Speaking of Blood Drives, have you donated lately?  Not to brag or anything, but my blood is very popular (since I’m O+, anybody with the RH factor can use mine).  They basically call me every eight weeks, and I’m in the habit of donating.  I have no great love of needles, but I have great veins and they’ve only missed mine three times in my 39 donations (Wednesday being #3).  I’m one pint away from my fifth gallon, and I’m unreasonably excited about reaching that milestone.

Seriously, it’s really not that bad, even if you’re averse to needles.  It’s a good thing to do, and they give you cookies!  Plus, how often do you consider questions like “Have you ever had Chagas’ Disease?” or “In the past eight weeks, have you donated a double unit of red blood cells on an apheresis machine?” (Yes, I have that question memorized.  It’s on my long list of “No” responses.)

I like shaming my coworkers after donating, with my nice little arm wrap and the beautiful iodine stain on my arm.  I go around telling them that I had some ill humors drained.  And they don’t even use leeches anymore!

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I love TV on DVD.  I got John Adams from the library, and it’s well worth the overdue fee I’ll be paying for it.  The performances are uniformly brilliant, and it’s just one of those shows that makes you want to read.  At least, it makes me want to read more about that period.  Since I haven’t had a U.S. History course since 10th grade (yeah…1989), it’s something I’d like to become more familiar with.  Look for my book list to include some early American history books next year.

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Ethan and I are enjoying the MLB Playoffs right now.  Ethan seems to think that since the Rays were terrible last year and yet really good this year, and since the Mariners were terrible this year…(ah, the hopes of a young lad)

I don’t want to burst his bubble.  The Mariner could be substantially better next year if the organization starts paying attention to what the USSMariner guys say.

Oh, and I can’t believe the Cubs lost.  That, my friends, is why they play the game.

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Pushing Daisies is just a complete delight.  When I first heard about the show (long before it came out), I figured it would be morbid and gothic, for some reason.  It’s more like the Wizard of Oz.  Hmm.  I was going to go with a couple more comparisons here, but none of them really work.  Because Daisies is just different.  The show totally does not work without the narrator, Jim Dale, who should get an Emmy.

The cast is awesome, and what’s not to love about characters named Ned, Chuck (female), Olive Snook, and Emerson Cod?  I have a man crush on Emerson, if for nothing else, his tirade in last week’s episode about men not being allowed to cry.  The finger wag made the whole thing.

Oh, hey, I just found out what the show is…it’s a forensic fairy-tale.  That’s perfect.  Found it on Wikipedia, and I believe it because I found it online.

My favorite line from the narrator?  Sorry, slight bad wordage: “Harold Hundin was, indeed, a damn polygamist.”  It was funny when Emerson said it; funnier when done in Jim Dale’s whimsical voiceover.

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I still have more things about which to muse.  I guess I should save them for next week since I’m now at nearly 900 words.

I’m not what you’d call a Reality TV junkie.  But I’m not a Reality-Hater either.  I enjoy Survivor sometimes, American Idol occasionally (although there’s less and less to enjoy every year), So You Think You Can Dance due to its superiority, and The Amazing Race immensely.  It’s on again, and it’s still just incredibly awesome.  Why is it awesome?  Well, because, unlike Survivor, it’s a show I’d actually like to be on.  Who wouldn’t want to race around the world for a million bucks?

And I love watching the teams melt down after weeks of constant stress.  My favorite team thus far is one where the guy (it’s a couple) keeps talking about how he just wants to be held, and how it bothers him that the girl keeps talking other teams.  They’re hilariously strange.

Unfortunately, the Oregon Connection (beekeepers who look like they just escaped Woodstock) were the first team to go.  Bummer.

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Robert Crais writes good crime fiction.  Just lettin’ you know.  I’m reading Chasing Darkness, and it’s just incredibly readable and engrossing.  Some language, and the subject matter is crime, so be forewarned.  But if you’re into private-detective-type-stuff, Crais is a good choice.

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I’ve been having a great time bike-commuting to work.  But evidently I’m just too fat, and one of my spokes is now broken.  So I must get it fixed.  Bummer, that.

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My Subbatical has ended.  Eight weeks flew by, and the guy I was covering for is now back.  Fortunately, he doesn’t really want to take back over the stuff he handed off, so I get to keep doing his job.  Which is okay as jobs go.

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The baseball season is over.  Unless you’re a Twins or White Sox fan.  The awesome thing is, Twins fans still have a reason to watch baseball, and the Twins have already played their 162 games.  But the White Sox have only played 161, and they have one fewer win than the Twins (which means, Jill, that they’re a half-game back).  Since they’re both in the A.L. Central, the Sox have to play a makeup game today (making up a rainout).  If they win, they tie the Twins for the Central Title.  And then they’ll have to play a one-game-playoff to decide who wins the division.  But if they lose the game today, the Twins take the division without the playoff.  Clear?

Ethan was surprisingly unbummed about the Mariners’ season being over.  He just said, “now we’ll have to watch the Cubs and the Dodgers and the Angels.”  Yeah, he knew those three teams were in the postseason, just off the top of his head.  That’s my boy!

There’s a new Ender book coming out in November!!!  Yes, Orson Scott Card posted on his blog that Ender in Exile will be coming out in November!!!!  Did I mention it’s coming out in November!!!???

You might guess I’m a huge fan of the Ender series.  You’d be right.  If you’re even remotely interested in Science Fiction, you need to read Ender’s Game.  It’s a classic, and it’s an easy read.  The sequel, Speaker for the Dead, is currently my favorite book.  I don’t see that changing.

Thus far, there are eight major fiction works in the Ender series (although half the series is really a spinoff, albeit a really good one).  I’m excited to read number nine.  Did I convey that adequately?

Oh, and my birthday’s in November.  Just sayin’.

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The Bathroom Blog is now well underway.  Mr. Handwasher is doing his level best to inform and appall the world about what’s wrong with our restrooms.  Go over there and check it out.  He’s lonely.  I promise there’s some funny stuff over there.  And he takes submissions from readers.

And yes, I called it a Restroom Blog last week.  So maybe I’m (I mean, Mr. Handwasher is) confused about what it should be called.  There’s even a poll there for helping choose the title.  Seriously…go!

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It’s the season of Politics.  I’m tempted to do political posts (the JibJab one doesn’t count).  But like many bumper stickers that, regardless of what they say, boil down to “let’s not hang out,” political posts generally do more harm than good.  So, let this be my lone political post.  And the content?  “I’m not going to do political posts.”

I hope this lapse into political discussion hasn’t alienated anyone.

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I love baseball, and I’m saddened that football has now begun.  I follow the stories of football, because I’m also just a general sports fan, but I don’t spend much time thinking about it or watching it.  Baseball, on the other hand, I consume in typical American portions.

As a Northwest Baseball Fan, there really hasn’t been much to celebrate this year.  The Mariners have stunk it up through a mixture of Front Office and Managerial Ineptitude and On-The-Field Suckiness.  One of the only bright spots this year has been Brandon Morrow.  Early in the season, J.J. Putz went on the DL (Disabled List), and the M’s needed a closer.  Morrow stepped in and blew hitters away with almost exclusively cheddar (meaning really, really, really hard fastballs).

Then, much to the delight of the Mariner bloggers, the organization realized they’d be better served by having Morrow as a starting pitcher.  They sent him down to Tacoma to stretch out his arm and finally put him against big league hitters as a starter on Friday.

All he did was come within four outs of throwing a no-hitter.  That was awesome.  I’ll be completely glued to his next start (which will come against the Angels, and it won’t be easy).  Finally, a reason to watch the Mariners.  Not that I’ve needed one thus far other than “they’re there.”  Still, it’s nice to have a reason.

So, how committed am I to looking at an issue from all angles?  On the same day, I downloaded “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” from The Listener’s Bible (free download, BTW), and then downloaded a free book titled The Origin and History of the Doctrine of Endless Punishment.

I suppose it’s not totally clear that the latter is not defending the doctrine of Endless Punishment, but showing that it is not a valid doctrine.  The book was written by a Christian Universalist.  That’ll probably keep some from even looking at it, but I’m very curious to read it.  In fact, since I first drafted this edition of Theology Thursday, I’ve started it.

While it’s a powerful sermon, and brilliantly delivered by Max McLean, I do not really resonate with “Sinners” in any significant way.  I agree with the idea that God’s holiness does not tolerate sin, and I even agree with this line:

The unconverted walk over the pit of Hell on a rotten bridge, and there are countless places on that bridge that are too weak to bear their weight.  These places go unseen.

I’m just still unsure of what exactly Hell means.  If you think you know, go back and read my post titled “What Hell do You Know?“.  It’ll at least familiarize you with the three traditional views of Hell.

Look at the sermons in the NT and find me a reference to Hell.  The Apostles knew what they were doing, and they didn’t try to scare anybody into the Kingdom.  They preached about the need for repentance and acknowledgment of the Lordship of Christ.

And yes, Jesus did apparently refer to “hell,” but look at your footnotes.  The words rendered “hell” are Hades and Gehenna (although Peter does use Tartarus in one of his letters).  Hades and Gehenna can be explained as referring to death only, not everlasting suffering.

The Endless Punishment book looks terrific (not surprising since it was recommended by my favorite Bible Teacher). The author takes on the issue systematically, starting from the earliest accounts of Creation and Fall in Scripture. He makes a good point here:

As regards the penalty of disobeying the commandment, do we find any statement which can be mistaken for endless punishment? God says, “In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die;” but this is very far from saying, “Thou shalt, after the death of the body, be subjected to the torments of an endless hell.”

We are told, to be sure, that this means “death temporal, death spiritual, and death eternal;” but where is the proof of it? So terrible a doctrine must not be assumed, but demonstrated by unquestionable evidence. Who can believe that God would reveal so frightful a punishment in language so easily misunderstood - by the single word “die,” a term employed in such a variety of senses, capable of such a wide latitude of usage?

Would any earthly parent, if the immortal salvation of his children were at stake, have been so careless of his speech? Would he have chosen language so liable to be mistaken? Would he not rather have announced the awful truth in words which would admit of no possible doubt? Beside, if the terrors of this punishment are so effectual in preventing transgression, this was another reason for a specific declaration of the consequences of disobedience. If the argument on this point is good, a plain, open threat of endless woe at the very gate of Eden, as they entered, might have kept them back from the forbidden tree, and saved them and our race from the dreadful evils which followed the introduction of sin into the world.

I’m looking forward to reading the rest of the book  He’ll be proceeding through the Old Testament, then into the New (to tackle the Hades/Gehenna thing), then on into church history. Should make for interesting “shock my Christian friends” material (like when I say I don’t believe in the Rapture).

What do you think?  What view of Hell were you raised with?  Have you ever questioned it?  Did you know there were other views?

WARNING: Restroom Fixation Disorder symptoms forthcoming.

I’ve known for some time that I’m blessed with a less demanding bladder than many of my peers.  I’ve left exactly one movie for a trip to the bathroom (and it was The World is Not Enough, which didn’t require much attention) in my adult life.  I use the restroom during plane travel just to break up the monotony.  At work, I pretty much go when the restroom intersects a path I was already taking.

I generally characterize myself as having a “Five-hour bladder,” but I’ve never actually studied it.  Should I decide to, I know what I’ll call my data-collection: a Jourinal.  When I came up with that name, I actually LOLed, so I just had to blog it.

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Ethan and I went to see Star Wars: Clone Wars with our neighbors, and it was a lot of fun.  It’s not exactly The Shawshank Redemption, of course, but it was still cool to see with my son.

Really it wasn’t even a movie, but more like an extended pilot.  By that measure, it succeeded really well.  It also maintained much of the typical Star Wars feel.  You know, cool fight scenes, bad dialogue…

The really cool thing about this series (and the former one), is that animation allows the Jedi to really be shown as superhuman.  The movies did a decent job of showing glimpses of their skills and powers, but I’m excited to see what they do in an all-CG universe.

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Somehow, with my torrid reading practices, I’ve only managed to finish one book in August.  Since July, I’ve started to read eight different books.  I suppose it’s natural that I’d only finish one of them by now (I finished five others during the month of July).  The library just keeps sending me new books before I can finish the old ones.  My policy is, when I get a new book, I read the first chapter or so to see if it’s more interesting than one I’m currently reading.  It usually is.  Hence, I start reading the new one until I get a newer one.  I’ll need to double-back to catch up on some of my partial reads, and I’ll have to cut the cord on a couple of them.

The “newer” book I just finished is Saving Darwin: How to Be a Christian and Believe in Evolution.  I know.  I’m going to hell just for reading such a book.  But I like to keep an open mind on such things and read all around the issues.  I’ve read several Young Earth Creationist books, and a couple Old Earth Creationist books, and now I’m reading some Evolutionist books.  This wasn’t a very good one.

Actually, as a concise history of the Creation/Evolution debate, it was really good.  Very readable and well balanced.  But it failed to deliver on the promise of the title.  In the introduction to the book, the author mentioned that he’d had to reinterpret the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve, and Original Sin.  He then failed to elaborate on his reinterpretations.  He never got back to it.

Basically, the book was about how wrong-headed the Creation/Evolution debate has gotten.  Granted.  But I was really hoping he’d actually discuss the theological implications of his belief in evolution.  The closest he came to it was this paragraph in his concluding chapter, titled “Pilgrim’s Progress”:

God’s creative activity must not be confined to a six-day period “in the beginning” or the occasional intervention along the evolutionary path.  God’s role in creation must be more individual - so universal that it cannot be circumscribed by the contours of individual phenomena or events.  We must resist the temptation to make God into a “superengineer” or “master craftsman” or “grand artist.”  God may indeed have all these attributes, but we ought not to suppose that any of them capture more than the tiniest intuition about God’s role in creation.  It seems to me a more hopeful perspective to step back as far as we can and examine the biggest possible picture in the hopes of getting a glimpse of what it means to say that God created the world.

Nice thoughts, but it still doesn’t really help in anything but the most broad theological terms.

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That’ll do for today.