09.26.08
Posted in Culture, Life, Quotes at 09:25 am by Josh
“There is one bit of advice given to us by the ancient heathen Greeks, and by the Jews in the Old Testament, and by the great Christian teachers of the Middle Ages, which the modern economic system has completely disobeyed. All these people told us not to lend money at interest: and lending money at interest – what we now call investment – is the basis of our whole system. Now it may not absolutely follow that we are wrong…. This is where we want the Christian economist.”
– C.S. Lewis, “Mere Christianity”
I’m just sayin’.
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08.24.08
Posted in Theology, Culture, Life at 10:42 am by Josh
CNN recently posted an article about the health benefits of forgiveness. The article makes examples of a few different individuals who have been faced with difficults situations in which to forgive family members or loved ones. Every one of these individuals, when explaining how they finally came to forgiveness, cites external circumstances as either the obstacle to overcome or the justification; the reason the person could be forgiven. These things included abusive behavior (obstacle), lack of forgiveness from the perpetrator (obstacle), “that’s how things were back then” (justification), “then I realized that so-and-so had a hard life growing up and I understood what caused his or her behavior” (justification), etc. A professional then goes on to recommend confronting anger, talking it out with a friend or therapist, keeping a journal, meditation; in other words, looking for ways to understand and/or come to terms with your feelings so that you can begin to practice forgiveness.
Now what I’m going to suggest here will sound appalling to some while I’ve no doubt that others will cheer these sentiments across the home plate. Wherever you fall on the scale, please note that this is nothing more than my opinion.
Chrisitianity teaches us that none of us, not one person among us, is worthy of forgiveness. Non-Christians — indeed, even some Christians — really don’t like this idea. I can understand why. It’s not warm and fuzzy. It doesn’t intuitively resonate with us as the judgement of a loving God. That is because we do not fully understand what Love is. (There will be more on this concept at a later date; there is no time for it today.) The fact is, that if we have been created by the God of the universe, then we have also rebelled against Him and rebellion, by nature, deserves no forgiveness, no mercy.
Suppose that no one had ever taught you the first thing about morals. Do you think, then, that when a classmate in grammar school steals your sandwich or knocks you from the swing on the playground that you would not retaliate? Perhaps you’d steal something back or get into a physical altercation. You would not have forgiven the classmate and rightfully so. He has done nothing worth forgiving. He has hurt you; it is only fair that he should be hurt back.
Thankfully, this is not how we conduct ourselves, but I do not attribute that in the slightest to the goodness of mankind. If mankind were really so good, little boys would not steal lunches or knock classmates from swings in the first place. It would be counter-intuitive to our nature. I think, instead, that we have learned Forgiveness from a merciful God Who has chosen to forgive us. This choice of His is not the result of any benefit to Him at all; He does not need us, despite what we’d like to think. His Forgiveness comes from Love, pure and complete Love which, as I stated above, we do not fully understand.
So what can we understand? In terms of Forgiveness, I think that the answer is this. Overall, of course it is better to forgive than not to. It seems utter foolishness to say otherwise. However, if we are to do so – and if there is to be any real value to it besides the health benefits we may enjoy from fooling our bodies into believing we’ve truly forgiven someone – then we cannot begin to forgive by looking at the wrongs of the individual who has committed the offense. We must look, first, at ourselves. Now you are probably thinking me a bit idealistic or perhaps even ridiculous at this point. To be sure, if your car is broken, you look inside of it to find the problem and fix it accordingly. You get the parts from an outside source. Perhaps you even pay someone else to fix it for you. I will argue with none of this. What I will say, though, is that we as humans are all a part of the same machine. If you are broken, then so am I. And since I know myself much better than I know anyone else, no matter how close to parents, friends, siblings, spouse, etc., it makes the most sense to look inside of myself in order to forgive you. I will much sooner find what is wrong if I look inside the part of the machine I’ve owned for my lifetime than if I were to look into the part you’ve owned for yours. When we do this, what we ought to find two things which are simpler than you may expect. The first is that, as a broken machine, I could just as easily, at any moment of weakness, commit the same or a comparable offense as that which has called Forgiveness into question in the first place, regardless of my upbringing or society at the time. Second, and even more important, is that none of us deserve Forgiveness, but we have all been given it, if we are willing to accept it. There is the example for mankind to work from. If we have been forgiven for sins much greater than those we could commit against one another, then shouldn’t we forgive in the same way? CNN and it’s interviewees would not like me to tell you this, but you can save yourself much time, money, and apparently physical discomfort if you put unconditional Forgiveness into place.
I am sure you will tell me that this is more difficult that I make it sound. You are probably right. But squawking about the obstacles will do you no good in overcoming them. Only practice can do that.
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09.20.07
Posted in Rants, Political Commentary, Culture, Unsolicited Opinions at 10:55 am by Josh
It seems that Tennessee has banned lethal injections as their official method of execution. I was moved to blog about this after reading the sentence that says, “Harbison could be legally executed once the state adopted a legal method of execution.” Let me weigh in on this.
Picture a bunch of people, probably men, probably white, probably with very dated suits, sitting around a table in a room with few to no windows. They’ve all got coffees and briefcases with clipboards and legal pads, medical journals, history books, court records, and statute books. They’re all ready to discuss the best way to kill a condemned person.
I do not advocate the death penalty (haha to all you who thought I was a conservative Republican!). I have my reasons, namely that which tells me we are called to forgive the worst sinner. Lock the murderer up, but let him live. Leave death and judgement to God. That said, I’m not sure who’s worse: the man who takes the life of another in cold blood or the men who debate, in the name of justice, the best way to kill a man.
Let’s be cynical. If you’re going to kill a person, who cares what it feels like? As far as I know, death is painful, notwithstanding the supposed “peace” of natural death (that whole drifting off in your sleep thing). But those who suffer terminal illness, murder, or accidental falls into the Grand Canyon would likely, given the opportunity, report significant amounts of pain or discomfort in their different experiences. To instead speak of making unnatural death “humane” and then to debate the ins and outs of execution in a committee is, in my opinion, to be absolutely revolting and maybe slightly insane.
You know, some people think that my taste in movies and stories is disturbing because I’ve often explored those darker parts of humanity. I’d have to say, with the utmost confidence, that my dabblings in the supernatural and human psyche are nothing compared with the reality that there are people out there who are willing to sit down and discuss ending human lives in an organized and “logical” fashion.
The Random House Unabridged Dictionary (2006) defines cruel in a couple of ways: “Willfullly or knowingly causing pain or distress to others” and also “rigid; stern; strict; unrelentingly severe”. If you want to avoid “cruel and unusual punishment”, how about you just don’t kill people? That ought to save taxpayers a lot of money in these governmental legal proceedings.
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09.13.07
Posted in Culture at 08:41 am by Josh
Don’t worry, I know it’s only September. I’m just making sure all you kids out there don’t forget to join in the ‘Fest (which, in my book, starts when the fall beers hit the grocery shelves)! Remember, this stuff is only available until October 31st 
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07.30.07
Posted in Movies, Culture, Random Thoughts at 16:22 pm by Josh
This is taken directly from Movietickets.com, advertising Broken English:
MPAA RATING:(PG-13), for some sexual content, nudity, some violence including rape, language and drug use
I think it’s time we re-evaluate the rating system…
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Posted in Rants, Culture, Writing at 15:46 pm by Josh
Because I aspire to write novels forever and ever, I recognize that it is my duty to read things such as the Sunday Book Review in The New York Times. Problem is, I’m never particularly interested in what such periodicals have to say.
The truth is that mainstream fiction is failing fast, unless the book has something to do with terrorists or plots to overthrow a faulty democratic government (please note: these two plots are extremely intertwined). But I have to say, I don’t believe that this is indicative of the common interests the of the public. If people only wanted grim whodunits about terrorists and government conspiracies, then why does Harry Potter do so well?
The fact, in my opinion (?!), is that people really do want a variety of genres and they really do like plot (sorry, Chris Baty), and they really will still enjoy reading books that don’t have three chapters’ worth of character development before getting into a poorly-developed plot. I’m not knocking character development; I just don’t think we need to put so much focus on it. In some ways, I blame the market. A couple of character-driven novels sell well, so that’s what agents and publishers look to until something with a tremendous plot sells well, and then they turn back to plot, and then plot has to get split into genres and then they find the genre that’s doing the best, saturate the market again until one of the novels has a great character or two, and then they say, “Gee, character development is really selling. Let’s push that.” And so the cycle continues.
I’m not really sure where I’m going with this except that I’m quickly realizing that my writing is not immediately conforming to the market standard, and that might hurt my chances of ever being successful at this. Regardless, I stand by that stories about guys named Aziz infiltrating suburban America to hide out until it’s time to attempt a large-scale terrorist attack which is inevitably thwarted by masterful FBI work (now you know it’s fiction) just don’t do it for me. Never have. Never will.
And don’t even get me started on the non-fiction…
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06.06.07
Posted in Culture, Life at 14:39 pm by Josh
We all know that there are some basic rules to riding an escalator: get off quickly when you reach the top, don’t stand on the left (you don’t need to be next to your significant other on the stairs), don’t take up two stairs, etc. But there is another set of rules that goes along with reading on the escalator. If followed, you will find yourself adding a significant amount of literature to your life without worrying about endangering someone else’s.
- Do not read while you are walking to the escalator. This will cause many problems.
- Have your finger in the page you intend to start on, and have an idea of what physical part of the page you need to turn your attention to. This saves time.
- Stay to the right, but don’t be bothered by the jerk who is on your heels expecting you to move. Escalators move on their own. Those in a rush can stay to the left or take the stairs.
- Beware of your surroundings at all times, especially if on an unfamiliar escalator. Keep your vision half-shifted just over the top edge of the book so you can see when others are getting off and when the stairs flatten out.
- When you reach the top (or the bottom), move. Do not use the excuse that you were at a really good part of the book. You can cause bodily harm, mental anguish, or a person to consume an extra glass of whiskey when they get home and that leads to alcoholism and that leads to a lack of productivity and even more troubles on the escalator. It’s not worth it. Don’t do it.
- Finally, if the escalator is not running, you should not read while you are on it. Period.
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05.16.07
Posted in Culture, News, Funnies at 13:21 pm by Josh
Anti-gun as I may be, I think this is really kind of cute.
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05.08.07
Posted in Culture, Restaurants & Bars, New York City at 21:49 pm by Josh
I just came from Barcade in Williamsburg. Can I just tell you how fun this place is? Twenty-five beers, all on tap, all $5 (unless it’s Happy Hour in which case they’re $4!) and Old School video games that really only cost a quarter to play! Of course, the Star Wars game I wanted to play wasn’t working but that’s probably for the best. It would be a sad state of affairs to admit tossing $10 in quarters into that machine without having made a single friend of obtained a single phone number. Though I didn’t play this game either, I do want to mention a game called “Tapper” in which you control a bartender who has to serve all of the customers as they come in and if you don’t, the customer will slide you across the bar and toss you out. It was sponsored by Budweiser (get this) before it was the King of Beers. Definitely not something they could market to children today but damn if that isn’t good, clean 80s fun.
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04.20.07
Posted in Culture, Writing at 15:01 pm by Josh
Haha, after my less-then-inspirational rant about the creative process and the commission of violent acts, none other than Stephen King, himself, was asked to weigh in on the correlation (or lack thereof). As usual, he may have a very valid point.
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