Jamie Greening's Blog, page 60

SOME THOUGHTS ON SCHOOL SHOOTINGS

President Obama at a forum on gun violence. I think he’s partly right.

This is the kind of blog post that usually gets me in trouble.  Nevertheless, I’ve been thinking about this for a while.  It is bothering me.

We need not to be let alone. We need to be really bothered once in a while–Guy Montag in Fahrenheit 451.

I’ve been contemplating the tragedy of school shootings.  I am very bothered by the almost faddish development of such acts.  What I don’t know is if enough people are.  It will not be until we’re bothered enough that something actually will change for the better.  Until the pain of the existing situation exceeds the pain of change, nothing will be done.

They who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety–Benjamin Franklin

The first reaction is to take away all guns.  But would that really solve the problem?  Guns and firearms are an important part of not only our nations legacy but of individuals rights (2nd Amendment, anyone?) to protection.  Liberty should not come at the expense security.  My personal feeling is that people want too much security.  I also think that guns are really only part of the problem.

I grew up in the South with guns everywhere, and we never shot anyone. This [shooting] is about people who aren’t taught the value of life–Samuel L. Jackson

Me too Sam.  In fact, I remember very well people driving pickup trucks to school with gun racks holding loaded rifles and shotguns.  It never once crossed our mind to kill anyone.  Guns were not a problem.  They were a tool.  Something else is going on here, and the value of life might well be part of it.  Violence is the logical result of a society taught to believe that a human being is just another animal and there is no such thing as eternal judgment.

The Carrying of Firearms Strictly Prohibited–Dodge City, Kansas public ordinance sign, 1878

It is foolish to believe that there have never been gun laws.  It seems to me that, though not a fix all, better and more restrictive gun laws would help.  The problem is legislators go at it the wrong way.  They pass laws outlawing certain guns, clips, or ammunition.  I think we’ve seen that is ineffective.  A better solution would be to regulate who can legally own a firearm.

The United States does not have a monopoly on crazy people. It’s not the only country that has psychosis. And yet, we kill each other in these mass shootings at rates that are exponentially higher than any place else–President Obama after a school shooting in Oregon

The President is right.  Crazy is a universal constant.  Where he is wrong, though, is the context.  The United States has a large population that is prosperous and free.  That sets us apart, from say, crazy people in China (not free), crazy people in Uganda (poor), or crazy people in Norway (small).  When these factors are combined, the potential for crazed violence grows exponentially.  Now, add to that caffeine driven diets, irregular sleep patterns, and drugs–both legal and illegal.  The result is that the United States does have a unique situation that defies comparison.

I suppose, in summary, I come to these thoughts.

1.  Our current gun laws are insufficient.

2.  Something is lacking in what we teach at school.  It is young boys doing this, not middle-aged depressed moms or dads who want to protect themselves.

3.  Admit that a purely materialist worldview fails.

4.  Stop acting like some people aren’t crazy.  Mainstreaming mentally incompetent people is a detriment to the well-being of society.

 I do not pretend to have all the answers to such a huge issue.  I would love to hear what anyone else has to say about it, so long as the discourse is civil.

 

 

image from http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/obama-speaks-gun-violence-u-s-schools-article-1.1824890

 

 

THE RABSHAKEH

Isaiah 36 sneaks up on you in a way few Bible stories do.  The reason for this is that Isaiah’s arrangement lull’s you for a long period of text leading up to it.  Most of the material leading up to it, from Isaiah 9 on really, is prophetic oracle after prophetic oracle describing the coming problems for Jerusalem, judgment on the surround nations and Egypt.  Don’t forget Egypt.  And the Assyrians.  Don’t forget them either.  They will all get their due, says the Lord.  Isaiah 35 is a majestic piece that literally sparkles with poetic greatness.

Then comes 36.  Gone are the oracles.  Gone are the woes and judgments.  Now we get straight prose, narrative kicks in and the key actor is this guy the Bible calls the Rabshakeh.  Never mind that Rabshakeh is one of the most enjoyable words in the whole world to say.  It reminds me of “Mufasa” in The Lion King.  Just saying Rabshakeh makes me tremble.  I can only imagine what he looked like with a long curly Assyrian beard and pointed helmets and probably battle armor and spears and, for reasons beyond the biblical text that seep out of my imagination, I see him with blood smeared on his face and tunic and perhaps a necklace of thumbs, the thumbs of conquered kings hanging around his neck.

needs a thumb necklace, and spikes coming out of his head

The Rabshakeh was the highest ranking military officer under the Assyrian king Sennacherib.  He was the one commanding the army that besieged Jerusalem, King Hezekiah, and Isaiah. The gist of his message is, “No one can save you from me.  It is not even a fair fight.  Yahweh himself told me to come up against you and now he will not save you.  Do not trust Hezekiah.  Surrender.”

You really should read Isaiah 36:4-20 to get the breadth of his amazing speech, but one sample verse will do for us here.  Consider Isaiah 36:10:

Is it without the Lord (Yahweh) that I have come up against this land to destroy it?  The Lord (Yahweh) said to me, Go up against this land and destroy it.

That is a breathtaking statement that should lead us to make at least three observations about our lives.

1.  Not everyone who says they speak for the Lord really does.  People who claim to speak for the Lord usually have an (evil) agenda all their own.

2.  Sometimes people will twist the spiritual facts.  The Rabshakeh pointed to Hezekiah’s positive work of destroying the altars and high places as a negative testimony against him.  Hezekiah’s good dead was used against him by his enemies.

3.  The Rabshakeh reminds us that those who seek to divide us are really trying to conqueror us.  He tried to turn the people against Hezekiah and against orthodoxy.  We should be suspicious of all who use such tactics.

Spend some time today and read all of Isaiah 36 and then ask the Lord to show you who might be playing the Rabshakeh in your life.

image from win_corduan.tripod.com

 

 

 

TOP 10 GREATEST THINGS EVER

A Very Important Thing

A couple of days ago one of the sprouts was talking with me about the greatest inventions or discoveries ever.  You know, it is the kind of conversation you have when you’re just enjoying a lazy summer kind of day.  Invariably it is followed by an equally silly conversation like “substitute sausage in a movie title–Lord of the Sausage:  The Fellowship of of the Chorizo, or The Maltese Sausage or Hunt for the Red Sausage.” Seriously, check out the Twitter hashtag on that one. It is inspiring.  But  I digress.  Before I got sidetracked on life giving sausage, I was talking about our list of the most important discoveries and inventions ever.  Here is our list, in the order of importance.

1.   The wheel–civilization is impossible without it.

2.   Fire–the perfect multitasking tool.

3.   Aloe vera in a spray bottle–one word:  Ahhhhhhhh!

4.   The printing press–you know how I feel about books.

5.   Whole bean Italian roast coffee–it was tempting to put this at number one, but it logically comes after fire.

6.   Penicillin–better to live longer to enjoy more Italian roast coffee.

7.   Electricity–makes life so much easier–and powers the coffee grinder and maker.

8.   The transistor–the dawning of the digital age.

9.   Giant red Sharpies–if you have to write longhand, make sure everyone can see it.

10. Duct tape–this just kind of goes without saying.  Quack.

So that was our list.  Did we leave anything off?  Do you have other ideas?  I’d love to hear what you think should be in the top ten all time greatest things ever.

 

 

image from benzworld.com

 

WHAT IS IT?

What Is It?

In 2,500 years or so, after empires have come and gone, what will scientists and archaeologists dig up from the material culture that we now all take for granted?  Will they know what it was used for when they dig it up?

I’m always thinking about this a little bit.  For example, when they dig up McDonald’s from all over the world, no doubt they will assume that it was a global religion based on the worship of a clown-god whose devotees proved their loyalty by eating the holy happy meal and sacrificing their children in the ball pit of death.

At least, that is what I think they might imagine.

This weekend I enjoyed reading the most recent edition of BAR (Biblical Archaeology Review) which is probably my favorite magazine.  This particular edition has a lot of great articles in it as well as much vitriol.  No other academics yell and curse each other quite like archaeologists.  It is jolly good fun.

My favorite part of the magazine, though, is one of the games they put in.  A picture of an artifact is placed placed on one of the earlier pages with the simple question–What is it? and then four or five choices are given.  The answer is on a page near the end of the magazine.  Mrs. Greenbean and I always play.  She doesn’t even like archaeology and she is right as often as I am.  This time, we both were wrong.

There were five possible guesses.  A.  hairbrush without bristles  B.  Philistine jewelry mold  C.  Sumerian pegboard  D.  Fossilized honeycomb  E.  Game board.

I will not tell you yet, what the answer is.  I will include it at the end of the blog post.

What might people of the future imagine, or work hard to discover, the purpose of some of the simplest and most mundane objects of our world are?  Consider how hard it might be to know what a can opener is if you’ve never seen a can?  Our everyday world is filled with such things–obvious to us but perhaps future puzzles for scholars.  Consider:

a DVD
a drinking straw
a daily pill-box sorter
digital thermometer
toilet bowl brush
An oil filter on a car

All manner of electronics might fit this category because I am assuming two things.  One, electronics that are buried degrade quicker than metal or stone.  Two, the future will be more technologically sophisticated than today, but the devices will be different.  Hence, the DVD will be found, perhaps, but no method will be know to play it or even to know that it is a digital device.  Therefore, it will be considered, perhaps, a decorative item that males aligned their wall with in order to attract females?  Archaeologists tend to always make things either about religion or sex, which leads me to a theory I have about mummies . . . but I’ll save that for another time.

Now, in case you were still wondering about that image–the right answer is (E) Game board.  It is an Egyptian game called Senet.  This board came from Tel Arad in Israel and is 5000 years old.

Assuming humanity survives, and the Lord does not sew everything up, what sort of things do you guess that future generations might have a hard time figuring out?  I’d love to see your list.

FRIDAY THE 13th STORIES: FREE PLOTS

Jamie Greening:

I haven’t had much time to blog this week, for a variety of reasons, but since today is a Friday the 13th and a full moon, I thought this old blog post from last year might cheer you up.

Originally posted on Pastor Greenbean Blog:

As you probably know, Greenbean is not a superstitious person.  I trust in the Lord, and he is not whimsical.

However, I enjoy a good spooky story.  Not gory, but spooky.  One of my favorite things about pastoring was every year at children’s camp I would tell a spooky story (okay, age appropriate spooky for 4th graders) around the campfire.  My book has the word “Haunting” in the title and my new novel (hopefully published next year) has elements of spooky in it, so I really like a frightening tale.  I even have my own line of monster stories, Deep Cove and Deep Cove: The Party Crasher.

So, I give you a gift today on this Friday the 13th.  I give you five free plots for a story that I think would be frightening, or at least, freakish.  The first and the last are my favorites.

Plot One:  In the year 4023…

View original 240 more words

LABYRINTHINE FLASH FICTION

A blogging friend of mind (check him out at Writing and Other Forms of Suffering) posted a flash fiction challenge he took from the profane but incredibly gifted Chuck Wendig.  It was a randomly generated thing, where two columns of nouns were combined to create the title that you had to write a 1000 word story from.

I pushed in the generator and got first word “labyrinthine.”  Yeah, that was the first word.  I will not blame you if you have to get a dictionary to help with that one.  The second word was “coinpurse.”

A smarter person would have taken that as a mulligan and done it again.  But I, filled with integrity, and determined to rise to the challenge, owned it.  What you have beneath, is my answer to the flash fiction challenge.

Not Quite Labyrinthine

The Labyrinthine Coinpurse

The ladder creaked underneath his feet. Paul’s confidence in the wooden pull-down ladder leading to the attic was not strong, so he didn’t linger on the rung for long. Soon he was at the top and he pulled himself up and into the musty room. Above his head was a string, he pulled it and light filled the room. The bulb was brighter than he’d imagined it would be.

Where is it? Where did we put it?

Eyes squinted, Paul scanned through the nostalgia for his aluminum baseball bat. It had been put in the attic when they moved into the house twenty years ago, a relic from his glory days at second base for the college team. It felt like two lifetimes ago. Now his ten-year-old son wanted to learn how to hit a baseball.

He stepped over trunks filled with old clothes, brown paper bags crammed full of old Christmas cards, and piles of toys until he made his way to the edge of the room. His bat, leather glove, cleats, and ball cap were all waiting for him. He put on the ball cap and sat down on the trunk beside it. He fingered the old glove, put it on, and stuck the webbing up to his nose and breathed deeply.

One of the best smells on earth.

He sat the glove down, but noticed beside it, on the trunk, was what looked like an old-fashioned coinpurse. He remembered. It belonged to his grandmother.

He remembered his grandmother fishing quarters out of that coin purse at the grocery store so he could ride the little mechanical pony.

He remembered his grandmother pulling a Band-Aid out of that coinpurse when he cut his knee on tree bark climbing the tall pine outside her home.

He remembered his grandmother somehow having Wrigley’s spearmint chewing gum in that coinpurse, which she gave him right as the preacher began the long sermon on Sundays at church.

Paul stared at the tiny bag with the kind of reverence a novitiate might have for an ancient manuscript or a scientists might have at the moment of discovery. It must have been put there by his mother when she stored some of her things in his house last year before she moved back to San Francisco.

Should he pick it up? It might fall apart, maybe crumble like a mummy’s wrappings? Could he open it? Should he open it?

With care and dignity he lifted the coinpurse and brought it to his lap. He rubbed the fabric, and even though it was old and bristled under his thumb, the purse was still plenty sturdy. He then snapped the unique two pronged latch with his thumb and index finger.

It was hard to see inside the bag, because the lighting, though generally adequate, was not sufficient to peer into the coinpurse and inspect the contents. He reached his left hand into the bag and with great care he felt around for anything that might be inside. There was only one thing his fingers found. He pulled it out and saw that it was a key. The key was old and had the look of a skeleton key, though not as big as most Paul had seen at museums or at historical sites. The key hadn’t been used much as there were no scratches on it.

Attached with a piece of sewing thread was a tag that had a metal eyehole. Written on the tag was “No. 14.”

The coinpurse held nothing else. No decrepit chewing gum. No yellowing and faded Band-Aid wrapper. No quarters or dimes waiting to make the magical pony bounce up and down again. Just the key.

Paul considered stuffing the key back into the coinpurse and forgetting about it. It probably was just something Grandma had stuck in there, like the key to a room at a hotel she may have stayed in or a closet in her old home. He thought perhaps it was the key to her hotel room during a trip with his Grandpa. He never met his Grandpa, but he knew that his grandparents traveled a lot. Maybe it was the key to a favorite room that held a special memory.

He almost put it back and grabbed his baseball things and headed out.

But he didn’t. Curiosity demanded he know more, but he didn’t quite know what to do. He looked around the room and saw his mother’s things nearby. Her old kitchen table, a vacuum cleaner she’d had for as long as he could remember, and four plastic trash bags filled with things. For a moment he considered rummaging through it all for another clue, but decided that might be a violation of privacy. Grandma might be dead, but his mother was still alive.

Instead, he pulled his phone from his back jeans pocket and called his mother.

“Hey Mom. I didn’t wake you did I?” Paul hadn’t remembered until that moment that his mother was now in another time zone.

“No Paul, I was awake. You know I get up early, even on Saturday. What’s going on?”

“Well, I was digging around the attic this morning and I found Grandma’s old coinpurse. Do you remember it?”

“How could I forget? She had that thing almost my entire life. We looked for it after her funeral but never did find it. You say it was in your attic?” Paul could hear her take a sip of coffee.

“Yeah, over by the stuff you left here, remember?”

“I remember, but I don’t remember Grandma’s coinpurse. I guess it got mixed up in some of my stuff and fell out when I was hauling it up there. Don’t worry about it. It is just a memento of her. I’ll get it when I come in July.”

“Well, there is more to it. You see, I found something inside of it. I found a key.”

“You found the key?”

“Yeah.”

“To Number 14?”

 

 

MALEFICENT MOVIE REVIEW, NO SPOILERS (I PROMISE)

So, the evil queen is not so evil?  Or so you think?  But maybe she’s is? Then there is that thing she did?  But there is more to the story.

Angie, eat a cheeseburger or something

I am not a huge super-fan of retelling the old fables, primarily because more gets lost than gets added.  However, it is big business and Disney/ABC is making a killing off of it of late.  Their best offering yet is Maleficent, which I admit, is a very good movie.  In fact, as this years summer blockbusters have gone, I rate it in the same category as Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Godzilla, which puts it ahead of what I think was a bit of a let down in X-Men Days of Future Past.

You know the basic story, so you think.  There is a dispute between a powerful magic user named Maleficent and a King.  In the process of their struggle, the king’s innocent daughter, Aurora is put under a dark enchantment that can only be broken by true love’s kiss.

What I Really Liked

The acting was superb.  Angelina Jolie showed that she has the chops to move beyond eye candy and actually carry a film on talent alone.  Sam Riley is also very good as Jolie’s sidekick, the crow.  I wasn’t as impressed with Elle Fanning and Sharlito Copley.  Neither one of them sold me on much of their character.  What I felt for Aurora, for example, flowed more from Jolie’s performance than Fanning’s.  But don’t let that discourage you too much.  Jolie and Riley are enough to warrant the ticket purchase alone.

Like most good stories, there is a generational aspect to the narrative that I find very appealing.  Aurora is not the prime mover, but it is the sins of the parents and the trauma done decades ago that serve as the prime mover.  Parents have secrets, and they don’t always tell us everything about what happened.  Discovering this is often the stuff that propels us into adulthood.

The movie was appropriate for my whole family, and I would have been okay watching it with my children when they were as young as five or six.

The dialogue was well written.  There is a snappy vibe to the script, with the best lines going to Jolie.

The CGI was good.  Unlike the miserable CGI for, say, Thor or Pompeii, this was well done.  I know it was well done because at no time during the film did the special effects dominate the scene or detract from one.  They simply added to it.  The one exception might be Jolie’s cheekbones.  It wasn’t until about twenty minutes in that I realized her cheekbones, apparently in order to look more fairy like, had been altered to protrude.  I thought they were really that prominent.  I kept thinking, ‘Angie, eat a cheeseburger sometime or something.’  I think that might have been more of distraction, than say her horns, which never bothered me at all, at least not like that emaciated cheekbone look.

What I Didn’t Like

I didn’t like the narrator’s voice.  I don’t mean her physical voice, I mean, I think the film could have been better without the narrator altogether.  We would have figured stuff out.

As good as the movie was, there were moments when I was consciously aware of the film borrowing from other movies I’ve seen.  The opening battle felt like it was ripped from the Chronicles of Narnia while other elements were decidedly Frozenesque.  Ironically, it wasn’t until the very end that the picture reminded me of Sleeping Beauty.

As a dad,  I didn’t like the one dimensional portrayal of Aurora’s father.  In fact, parents are almost completely absent in this film altogether.  Which leads me to another thing that I didn’t like so much.

Nepotism.  It does not escape me that Jolie is Hollywood royalty.  She is married to Prince Brad Pitt and her father is Jon Voight while her mother was Marcheline Bertrand.  Elle Fanning is Dakota’s sister.  We should be thankful Dakota is not in this film or it would have been filled with unnecessary screaming.  My ears still hurt from War of the Worlds.  One of the scenes of young Aurora is Jolie’s daughter Vivienne.  For some reason I kept expecting Jaden Smith to show up as the prince.  I am not completely against families helping each other out and all, but it seems to me like a little more diversity could have been found in this film.

 

If you are looking for a really good film that everyone can watch, then see Maleficent and skip X-Men.

 

 

image from http://www.elle.gr

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A BANANA CONSPIRACY

There is a problem in this world, and it is only getting worse.

this i what ripe bananas look like

As I’ve documented here before, the grocery store keeps pushing green bananas on me and the entire buying public.  I am convinced it is an intentional deception, a banana conspiracy of global proportions no doubt propagated by Big Fruit like Chiquita and Dole.  They have congress in their deep pockets and own the USDA.  It is time we open our eyes to the fact that they are shoving bad bananas down our gullible little gullets by redefining what “fruit” is.  My conviction that we need a massive banana re-education campaign was strengthened by the dastardly events of Saturday afternoon.  Let me explain.

I had finally made my way to the produce aisle of the grocery store (our local HEB, a rather large chain of stores in Texas) and was looking for fruit.  There was lots of produce, but most of it was green, like the pineapple I bought.  It will not be ripe for another three or four days now.  I can get fresh onions, tomatoes and local produce at the farmer’s stands that are harvested when ripe and sent to to market but I can’t get pineapple locally grown, nor can I get what I really wanted:  Bananas.  I have to rely on the big grocer to get me my banana fix.

I saw the bunch of bananas that I wanted.  They were almost perfect, which is hard to find.  The peel had started browning with those tell tale blotches that signal the banana is reaching its peak flavor.  I was almost to this bunch of bananas when an evil agent of Big Fruit, under the guises of a teenage employee of the produce department, reached his grubby paw in and snatched the very batch of bananas I wanted.  In one fluid motion he tossed these bananas underneath his cart into a box that also had grapes and strawberries in it.

Me:  “Did you cull those because you think they are rotten?”

Evil Agent:  “Yes.”

Me:  “Can I have those.  They look perfect to me.”

EA:  “They are rotten.”

Me:  “I want those.”

EA:  “Sorry, once they go into that box, I can’t take them back out.  It is the rules.”

Me:  “Surely you know that a banana that is perfectly yellow is still green and hasn’t reached its full flavor yet?  It is only when a banana starts to brown that it is really ready, really ripe.  Usually the browner the better.  You’ve got to know this.”

EA:  “This one is too ripe.”

Me;  “Please give it to me, I will not tell anyone.”

EA:  “No.”

 

It took everything in me not to assault him with a cantaloupe (a green cantaloupe, mind you) and take those bananas.  He was such an arrogant little thing, the Produce Nazi, who, like a true bureaucrat, hides behind the ‘rules’ in order to avoid the painful process of thinking for himself.

Rise Up, banana lovers.  Rise Up.  Yes We Banana!

 

image from xoxomimi1.blogspot.com

GREENBEANS TOP THREE BOOKS–THE COMPLETE LIST

I love books

Just a quick review here with the top three books from each category, and helpful links to the original blog posts.  Just click the category to read the Top Three.

1.  Influential Books

2.  Classic Fiction

3.  Contemporary Fiction

4.  Science Fiction

5.  Fantasy

6.  Biography

7.  History

8.  Personal Growth

9.  Books I Should Have Read Sooner

10.  Writing

11.  Theology

12.  Preaching

13.  Honorable Mentions

 

 

TOP THREE BOOKS: HONORABLE MENTIONS

It is time to wrap this up.  I’ve posted twelve different blogs covering a variety of genres with my top three books in each genre.  But before we leave it completely, I’d like to throw in one more category that I call “Honorable Mention.”  These are three books that didn’t make it into any of the top three, but which I can’t leave without saying something.

1776, David McCullough

Someone mentioned McCullough’s biography of Truman earlier, and I promised them that he was on the list somewhere.  Well, this is it, but not for Truman.  I liked Truman, but I think 1776 is a superior work of history and analysis.  No one writes as clearly and to the point as McCullough.  He deals so much with primary sources in the work that we forget he is writing about events two-hundred and thirty years ago or more, which reminds us that he is not only a great communicator (His voice is awesome too–he narrates for PBS and narrated the great Ken Burns documentary on the Civil War) but a great historian.

Gilead, Marilynne Robinson

This novel is the most subtly breathtaking novel I think I’ve ever read.  About a third of the way in you begin to think you love these characters, by half way in you think these people are your family, and then as you finish you identify that they are really you.

Someone in a comment thread mentioned this book in the contemporary fiction category.  It could have fit there, but it could have also fit in the theology category too.  Robinson is a committed Calvinist, and I love the book in spite of that.

The Book of Common Prayer

There might be no more important book in the English language than the Book of Common Prayer.  I could have included it in my opening list of influential books or in theology.  I think more Protestants, in public worship and in private devotions, would do very well to employ the BCP regularly.  The prayers are beautiful, the liturgy is moving, and the lectionary is pivotal to well-rounded Bible reading.  I simply can’t imagine my life without the BCP in it.  One of my particular favorites is this confession of sin:

Most merciful God,

we confess that we have sinned against you

in thought, word, and deed,

by what we have done,

and by what we have left undone.

We have not loved you with our whole heart;

we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves.

We are truly sorry and we humbly repent.

For the sake of your Son Jesus Christ,

have mercy on us and forgive us;

that we may delight in your will,

and walk in your ways,

to the glory of your Name. Amen.

I will likely post a final document to this that is just a list with links later today or over the weekend, just to tidy things up.  I’ve enjoyed this little adventure, and I hope you have too, but that ‘s a wrap.

I’d love to hear what other books you think are important or lovable but somehow haven’t made our list, or anytime you want drop a reading recommendation.  I love those.