Conquered Words: October/November

I have yet again neglected to tell you what I've read over the month of October because, well, I guess I just didn't want to. I was too busy, maybe. READING (maybe). Anyways, I don't want to miss the books that I read so I'll throw a little combo up for you, just for you.

October and November are great months in politics and I think between my job, school, and spending my free time thinking/reading about the gubernatorial race, I just didn't write much on the ol' bloggy (I am aware of how gross "ol' bloggy" sounds and I just decided to write it down there twice).

The last couple of months have been quite philosophical as I've read some pretty lengthy and heady texts. Seems to have treated me well; I enjoyed these past two months of reading.

I spent a good amount of October tackling God in the Dock: Essays on Theology and Ethics by C.S. Lewis (Eerdmans Publishing Company), which is close to 350 pages of philosophy. It certainly was delicious and I read an essay entitled, "Christian Apologetics," that I feel like I've been waiting to read for years. Lewis is an apologist in many respects, but he rarely wrote or spoke about the subject. In many ways, releasing his faith to the world was his entire ministry. It was nearly impossible for him to set it aside as a discipline of his. My approach to Christian Apologetics is very Lewisian: "We are defending Christianity; not 'my religion.' When we mention our personal opinions we must always make quite clear the difference between them and the Faith itself…the great difficulty is to get odern audiences to realize that you are preaching Christianity solely and simply because you happen to think true; they always suppose you are preaching it because you like it or think it good for society or something of that sort." The collection contains many unknown and small pieces of writing like letters to editors and small journal pieces. Also, we're allowed into small gatherings where Lewis taught, seeing sometimes his lack of eloquence or digressing that he is certainly not known for.

During that time I was editing essays of high school students in West Linn. Many of the Juniors were going through Arthur Miller's The Crucible, which is of course heavily critical of the Puritans. I picked up Sarah Vowell's The Wordy Shipmates (Riverhead Trade, 272 pages) to go along with my reading and re-reading of The Crucible and found Vowell's work a little weak. I often times find her writing style too cutesie for me and a tad under-researched. She nailed some aspects of Puritan rhetoric and its connection to modern conservatism, but she failed to recognize some of their achievements as citizens.

As if I didn't get philosophical enough in October, I spent all of November trying to figure out Michael J. Sandel's brilliant Justice: What's the Right Thing to Do? (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 368 pages). I tweeted that this could have been the best book I read all year and I might stand by that now that I've slept two nights. Sandel is a genius and one of those good Harvard professors. After teaching for twenty-plus years, he's able to put some pretty profound philosophical concepts into understandable terms. Even so, this is a tough read and is not for the simple minded. He claims that this is "not a history of ideas" type of book, although he manages to cram years of groundbreaking thought through his pages as a way to build up to his suggestions for modern society. Nevertheless, Sandel needs every word he writes and doesn't waste any of your time. He ends up raising the bar on citizenship and calls for better public discourse, asking for morals to be placed in the center of politics. It is one of the most convincing arguments and I was absolutely inspired. He is certainly a philosopher to be remembered.

Outside of that, I read an entire New York Review of Books, which is becoming a favorite publication of mine along with Ali and I's subscription to National Geographic. I'm very excited for December as my school schedule winds down and the work here at the church begins to change. Years ago I head my mentor, Joel Dombrow say, "There's nothing like being a pastor around Christmas." I think there are some things like it, but it's certainly pretty dang fun. Lots going on, tons of busy conversations and meetings, along with tons of time together as a staff. Beyond that, are people just a tad kinder around Christmas? Perhaps not.

We'll see.

Keep reading, my friends.

I Am Slowly Beginning My Obsession With the Life and Words of RFK

He was America's "could have been" presidential candidate and the most mysterious of the brothers; Robert F. Kennedy is completely fascinating. Not only is his life a strange journey, but his growth as an orator is unusual.

He gave some of the worst speeches in American history - ones that left him sleeplessly depressed - and some of the greatest. He never saw himself as a public speaker, but always played behind the limelight of his brother's rhetoric. "I'm no Jack," he said to one of his aides after a speech fell flat. And yet after his brother's death, RFK went on a historical run toward to White House that included some of the greatest remarks in American politics. On the campaign trail, he spoke at the University of Kansas on March 18th, 1968 about the state of an America at war and in racism and poverty. He brought high morals to political discourse and spoke these profound words just three months before he would be assassinated.

"Our Gross National Product, now, is over $800 billion dollars a year, but that Gross National Product - if we judge the United States of America by that - that Gross National Product counts air pollution and cigarette advertising, and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage. It counts special locks for our doors and the jails for the people who break them. It counts the destruction of the redwood and the loss of our natural wonder in chaotic sprawl. It counts napalm and counts nuclear warheads and armored cars for the police to fight the riots in our cities. It counts Whitman's rifle and Speck's knife, and the television programs which glorify violence in order to sell toys to our children. Yet the gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages, the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country, it measures everything in short, except that which makes life worthwhile. And it can tell us everything about America except why we are proud that we are Americans."

He was a prophet in some ways, and he claimed that Americans had given themselves over to "the mere accumulation of things." He was too right.

Out of All the Thanksgiving Articles, How Did Canzano Put It Best?

Most local papers are flooded with two things over the Thanksgiving break: stories/profiles about being thankful and stories/profiles about buying stuff in excess.

The guy I didn't expect to tug at the heart strings was John Canzano, the Bald Face Truth himself. I listen to his radio program a lot only to find myself disagreeing with much that he has to say. I have, for the most part however, really enjoyed his thoughts on Ducks football. I find that a lot of people love to hate him, so doesn't that make the guy a perfect local celeb? His columns are read and his show is listened to seemingly by people who largely disagree with him. It's pretty awesome. I suppose it makes for some good radio now and again.

But his Thanksgiving obiturary honoring Dr. Herb Marshack, a great and long-lived Duck football fan, was awesome. For some reason, Canzano's dry and pointed style worked really well in honoring this guy I had never heard of until this weekend. It's a short article and I really suggest you read it. Thanks Canzano.

Also, Go Ducks.

Inside the Other Worldly World of George Noory

Last week I came across this January 2010 profile in The Atlantic on George Noory, the host of the AM radio sensation, Coast to Coast AM with George Noory.

Years ago I played guitar for a mentor and good friend of mine, Mike Brandow. We would travel throughout the Northwest playing different churches and conferences. This required a decent amount of driving in whatever van became available to us. The Pickle. The Nugget. The Handy. These were favorites in our arsenol.

Often times we would drive in the middle of the night from one church to another. We would play at a Saturday night service and then a Sunday morning service somewhere else and make it back to our home church to play a Sunday night youth group. Needless to say, there always was the challenge of finding entertainment during these drives.

I can remember one night, early in my time playing with Brandow, when he dialed in to a radio show he had been telling us about amidst his own giggling: Coast to Coast AM with George Noory. He kept telling me how crazy this guy was, reporting on the supernatural and the unknown of our universe.

We tried to stifle our laughter in order to further hear his thoughts on "star children," who were born on the outer regions of our solar system. Noory's voice fit perfectly with his subject matter. And while what he spoke of was, in our minds, entirely absurd, a strange and long silence would fill the van as we listened in.

I never really understood what makes his show so listenable, except for perhaps the idea that we were listening in on something unearthly -- Like tapping into another species' radio waves, we could not afford to turn it off. Or maybe because it was just so dang strange.

This profile brings Noory down to earth, from showing us his past and what he's like out at dinner to his conference speaking schedule and daily routine. I appreciate this quote, about the tone of the conversation at dinner:

"Before long, the impulse to tell funny stories about life within the Coast to Coast universe—which extends past the studio’s orbit and into conferences, TV appearances, and speaking engagements, and is expanding—proved irresistible. And I realized, as I listened, that all the stories were funny in a particular way: it’s never clear, in their world, where the demarcation between fantasy and reality is drawn—or, indeed, if such a line can really be said to exist anymore."

What Oprah Gave Away

I laugh really hard every time I see "Oprah's Favorite Things" giveaway show and then I cry a lot. But then Conan O'Brien makes me smile again.

In Eugene Today

My buddy Stu was gracious enough to hook me up with a ticket to today's game where our #1 Duck team (crazy) will take on the desert's #22 (or #21) team, the Arizona Wildcats. I'll be in Autzen with Stu praying it doesn't rain and screaming my face off. Oregon, of course, has to win this season out and it won't be easy. Obviously I want to see a win and I want a national championship, but I also would love to see LaMichael James have two breakout games to put him back in the Heisman Trophy conversation. He'll need a couple of big performances.

In celebration of my going to this certainly entertaining and awesome game, I'll give you this terrifyingly awkward ESPN interview with the Oregon Duck, Puddles, wherein the said Duck is interpreted by a somewhat incapable "interpreter."

Watch This, Give Thanks

In the event that you have nothing to say when the family goes around the table tomorrow to say what they're thankful for, I shall give you this. And Grandma calls on you for a comment, you'll have something to say, like, "You know what Grandma, at least my life doesn't look like this. That, you know, that is really what I'm thankful for, Grandma."

Fatal Distraction

Whenever Matt Richtel publishes something longer than 1,500 words, The New York Times website explodes. He specializes in the effects of technology trends on young adults and adults. Hello 21st century reader.

His most recent lengthy report is, "Growing Up Digital, Wired For Distraction," which was emailed to me almost 6,000 times (I'm exaggerating, you guys).

There's a lot of solid truth in this article and there's a lot of hyperbole in it as well. Whenever I read a trending article, I always think about how people in the future will read it. I think about the articles I have read from Time Magazine from the 1950s that were saying radios in our cars are going to be the death of human society as we know it. We gotta take some stuff with a grain, you know?

Anyways, there's a lot that's fascinating about this article and I'd really like to read more about it all, but this was the most interesting quote from Richtel's report:

"Sean’s favorite medium is video games; he plays for four hours after school and twice that on weekends. He was playing more but found his habit pulling his grade point average below 3.2, the point at which he felt comfortable. He says he sometimes wishes that his parents would force him to quit playing and study, because he finds it hard to quit when given the choice. Still, he says, video games are not responsible for his lack of focus, asserting that in another era he would have been distracted by TV or something else.

'Video games don’t make the hole; they fill it,' says Sean..."

Is it the kids' fault that they're hooked on video games? I'm not convinced. Of course, when given free reign, any kid would choose to text their friends at the dinner table, play video games for 8 hours a day, or stick on Facebook until morning. And I talk with a lot of parents who don't have the energy to assert authority in the digital realm of their house so they make the justification: "I want my son to be free to choose," they'll say.

But are they really free?

Sean does not sound free.

Many believe that freedom is the absence of restriction, that you can play video games as much as you want and be online as much as you want and watch TV until you wish to stop. But true freedom is different. Freedom is not the absence of restrictions, but it's the application of the right restrictions. The fish is most free when confined to water, and we are most free in our health when we are on a restricted diet. Therefore, we are not most free when we make our options as wide as possible, but rather when we put the right limitations on our lives.

Christianity is about following Jesus and his way for us. We follow his "will" rather than ours. And yes, this puts restrictions on us. God commands us not to do certain things and to withhold from certain vices. Many people see Christianity, then, as a straitjacket they are fastened in to. But isn't that better than being a slave to your own passions and desires? Immanuel Kant understood this perfectly and Michael Sandel sums Kant's thinking best saying that, "whenever we are seeking to satisfy our desires, everything we do is for the sake of some end given outside of us...whenever my behavior is biologically determined or socially conditioned, it is not truly free."

Sean, and many American teens, are not free; they are slaves to their own natural desires. Only for a while will our slave master have us duped to thinking we are completely free.

Christ, then, comes to earth and proclaims he is God, that he is the Truth and that following him means giving up your life, will, and desire, and in doing so you will find "abundant life." During his ministry he makes the radical statement that now perhaps can make more sense: "You shall know the Truth, and the Truth shall set you free."

Christianity certainly requires that one restrains oneself - that one must give up everything for the kingdom and glory of God - but in the restriction and delivering of the self, there is complete and total freedom because your desires are no longer yours, but God's.

Hey, Here's Fifteen Minutes of Gold

Tina Fey won this year's Mark Twain Award for American Humor and let's be honest, she deserved it. And as if she had to prove that she deserved such an award, she gave such a smart acceptance speech that I'm told she wrote herself. Enjoy a video of the speech here so you can see her amazing Fresh Prince hair style, circa 1991.

Watch the full episode. See more Mark Twain Prize.

Podcast is Go

In the latest issue of The New York Review of Books, Bill McKibben wrote about something you don't see a lot of writing dedicated to: radio. Before television and the Internet, the radio was all there was and much of the magazine and newspaper criticism/review was directed toward the medium. Lately, radio has become a forgotten about media to criticize. We have innumerable websites and magazine dedicated solely to television and movies, but it's tough to find a constant critical radio magazine.

"Radio may be the least discussed, debated, understood" medium today says McKibben. But while it might be criticized the least, it certainly isn't struggling. The conservative talking head Rush Limbaugh brings in 14.25 million listeners each week. National Public Radio's news shows All Things Considered and Morning Edition draw in a rival 13 million each week. While these numbers might pale in comparison to television audiences, it's still quite a lot of people.

McKibben's question is in the subtext of the article, but is nonetheless clear: if so many people are listening to radio, how come nobody is talking or writing about it?

More obviously, the article is a praise of public radio's dramatic increase in listenership and financial support since its birth in America in the 1970s. While it has certainly changed since that time, its relevancy is greater than ever. More listeners and more contributors make for a sign that this generation loves not only to watch, but to listen.

"This is the perfect moment to be a young radiohead," says McKibben. "It's like 1960s and 1970s cinema, with auteurs rewriting the rules."
And now podcasts, which are drawing from the well of iTunes customers who love free crap and to sport their cool white earpieces while ordering food at the nearby 7-Eleven, have a listenership well into the millions. Most podcasts are free and there are currently somewhere about 200,000 podcasts available on iTunes. With all of these numbers from public radio and talk shows and podcasts, it's easy to see that this generation listens to the radio not for music, but for talk.

So all of that boredom to say that we're starting a podcast. The Willamette Students Podcast will be yet another way to connect with the students and world we live in. It will be another avenue for truth, humor, and information.

When I walk through the halls of West Linn High School, about one in five students have little white headphones stuck in one ear or both. They show up to my youth group the same way. Their iPhones and iPods now connect directly to the iTunes store and getting a podcast will be easier than ever.

The Willamette Students Podcast will be an attempt to dial in (pun both intended and included) to the ear of today's high school student.

Beyond this, I'm somewhat of a radio/podcast junkie. I just love the radio, despite whatever has happened over the last century. I grew up on public radio and AM talk-shows. There are things that can be done on radio that simply cannot be done on television and I love that.

What will it look like? Not sure. The only I know is that each episode will be different and funny. Each one will not be like the one before it. We'll bring in guests to the studio or we'll take the gear into the city and talk to people. We'll get ambitious with it and see what happens. What you can be sure of, is that each week will be about 20-25 minutes of excellent material that's relevant to the student in the Willamette area. But let's be honest, that looks like a lot of different things.

To listen in to our first episode, simply search "Willamette Students" in the iTunes store search bar, or click here.

Long live radio!

A College Student Icon on College Students

I'm reading Michael J. Sandel's Justice: What's the Right Thing to Do? right now and in it he essentially proposes that there's no such thing as objectivity. That we all, through our parents and communities, are shaped so independently with such strength, that it's impossible to communicate and make decisions without revealing in some way our own feelings, biases, and opinions.

Last week, Russell Baker reviewed a new collection of H.L. Mencken's work and I had to pull this quote out. There was a strangely healthy bias coming through in the 20s and 30s media that I feel like, if we're careful, we might be pulling back into some media outlets today. When you read old publication's like Mencken's Mercury, you realize how crazy it was then, and how perhaps the way we project what's happening in the world today isn't so uniquely absurd. Voices from every side had their own paper or pamphlet and many citizens read what they wanted to read. The only difference now is that I can see you screaming.

Because of Mencken's insane commentaries (which were ultimately banned due to being so "obscene"), college students flocked to him and praised his work. He had this to say about them:

I have, in fact, almost no interest in the ideas of college students. They seem to me to be simply immature me. They are always following fresh messiahs. That I served for a short while as one of those messiahs was not only surprising to me, but extremely offensive.

-H.L. Mencken, Prejudices

What has changed?

A True Man

My friends in high school would always talk about how this epic scene from To Kill a Mockingbird is certainly one of the greatest displays of manhood in cinema. We also always used to try and act this scene out with a straight face. Never worked.

Anyways, I was speaking on not repaying evil with evil and "turning the other cheek" and just had to show this because Atticus Finch is more of a man than you. Observe:

We're Not Dead Yet

For all of the writing on the death of Humanities departments and the trouble of finding a solid Ph.D system, there are some things that keep the disciplines within the department alive. And it might be that technology will save us nerds of the ancient books.

Patricia Cohen, an education reporter for the New York Times, wrote "Digital Keys for Unlocking the Humanities' Riches" for this morning's paper and I must tip my hat. I've always enjoyed Cohen's stuff because she's always following modern Humanities scholarship and tends to bring out some gems for us nerds.

It's a short article that illuminates some sweet digital trends in a subject typically marked by its arcane factions.

"The humanities, after all, deal with elusive questions of aesthetics, existence and meaning, the words that bring tears or the melody that raises goose bumps. Are these elements that can be measured?

'The digital humanities do fantastic things,' said the eminent Princeton historian Anthony Grafton. 'I’m a believer in quantification. But I don’t believe quantification can do everything. So much of humanistic scholarship is about interpretation.'"

Go on....

"In Mr. Scheinfeldt’s view academia has moved into 'a post-theoretical age.' This 'methodological moment,' he said, is similar to the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when scholars were preoccupied with collating and cataloging the flood of new information brought about by revolutions in communication, transportation and science. The practical issues of discipline building, of assembling an annotated biography, of defining the research agenda and what it means to be a historian 'were the main work of a great number of scholars,' he said."

I'm OK with this and also realize that I won't be a part of the movement as Blogger is sometimes a little difficult for me to navigate. I'll stick to the books. But, hey, more power to 'em. Me likey.

P.S. How about that guy's coat in that picture? Yes, please...

The Washington Post Did Something Right

For some reason this video made me want an iPad and the Washington Post app. Great video.

Signature

Student: "Once you have a signature, can you do anything in the world?"

Me: "Actually, yes."


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

What A Conference Won't Teach You

I think there are a lot of great churches with a lot of awesome conferences that all communicate great and awesome things. In my short time as a pastor, I have looked at several churches who have "got it all together." They do community groups right, they have stellar preaching, they have great music, and they serve their community with consistency and eagerness. But I was challenged in a meeting the other day when one of our ministry partners complimented us on listening to the poor as a leadership strategy.

Recently, it's come to my attention that I can learn a ton at conferences and podcasts on church leadership and preaching. However, one thing I can't learn from these things is what I have learned from those who have way less than I do. When I listen to dudes at conferences I leave thinking, how can we beef up our strategies and systems as a church? My thought process is entirely centered on pulling us up as a church.

But when I leave a conversation with someone who has less than I do, who has an entirely different worldview than I do simply based on economic standing, I start thinking about how I can personally bring myself lower. I don't care about strategies and systems, I care about them. I start thinking about giving away more money and getting to know more people like that. It's a totally different thought process.

So instead of going to conferences twice a year, maybe we get to know the people in our community who have less than we do materially. Because I think we'll find out that some are rich in the things we lack.