En Lapin!

Nateblogg Tip of the Day: Whenever you want to sound pretentious and educated, use Latin names (It works for churches like Imago Deo and Ecclecia). This post is about rabbits...

1) In looking for the new Volkwagen Golf (a car I may consider buying when I experience a mechanical problem in my Accord in about 12 years, probably with the wiper blades), I found that VW is bringing back the name Rabbit for this generation Golf, no doubt banking on the Millenial target audience possessing no recollection of the oil-burning, smoke-belching tin can deathtrap that their parents suffered with. The new one looks to be a quality car, and unlike most recent VW's, is affordable.

I say all this to point this out: On the VW website, you can not only build a Rabbit that comes together before your very eyes, but you can then breed your Rabbit with another Rabbit and create Rabbit progeny. The animation is cute (not nearly as disturbing as I expected), and worth going through at least a couple of generations - you'll see what I mean...

2) It's a good thing that God made rabbits fast and gave them the ability to multiply rapidly - they are fragile little buggers. I would call them the Chinese-made inferior appliance that you can purchase at Wal-Mart for $8.77 of the Animal Kingdom.

3) Eclipse, my parent's black cat that my mom calls "the best cat I've ever had" has a soft spot for rabbits. When my parents moved to their 2-acre lot in the country a few years ago, Eclipse promptly killed a family of them (in addition to literally hundreds of field mice and several birds). He has killed more since - not in large numbers, but whenever they pop up. Eclipse isn't picky about what he kills.

Here's what gets me about Eclipse - as a kitten, he had a similar temperment to Wolfy - maybe a little less rambunctious, but still very outgoing. Outside the house, he is a vicious and prolific killer. Inside the house, he is the perfect lap cat that begs for treats and reads the paper with you. I can't let Wolfy outside the house - not enough yard, other backyards have Dobermans, and too many streets - but I wonder if he would be more like Eclipse if he could go outside and hunt stuff and get his killing out of the way. Just a thought.

4) Quick list of pop culture items prominently involving rabbits, ranked in order of quality and significance:

1. Bugs Bunny Rabbit of Seville (for the scalp message scene)
2. Watership Down, by Richard Adams (One of my favorite books)
3. The Rabbit in Monty Python and the Holy Grail ("Look at the bones!" I think Wolfy could take him...)
...
1276. Donnie Darko - The first cult film of the aforementioned Millenial Generation. Like most things the Millenial Generation takes to, it's pants (First sign of getting old - dismissiveness of things popular with those younger than you).

That's all I've got. Later...

Hugo Chavez at UN General Assembly

Between 1) Hugo Chavez and his Kim Jong Il/Iraqi Information Minister "Bush is the devil" rhetoric, 2) Chavez enthusiastically holding up a Norm Chomsky book to buttress his case, and 3) the woman in the background stifling a laugh, this picture scores a solid 97 on the Unintentional Comedy Scale...

Routine and Rhythm

Sometimes I'm glad the Ritalin Revolution happened after I finished school. Looking back, I'm about 110% sure the sundry educational establishments of the Jack C. Hays Consolidated Independent School District would have diagnosed me with Attention Deficit Disorder and pumped me so many pills into me that I would have been flying higher than Shaggy and Scoob in the Mystery Van...

I mention this because I find myself trying something new - a routine. Normally, routine agrees with me about as well as a soggy Jumbo Jack, but as I (slowly) mature, I feel that this may be something I need right now. Due to bad habits, the busyness of each day, and just-plum-tuckered-out-ness, I've felt disconnected from God the last few months. It's not that He's not there - He's always there - I have chosen not to interact with Him most of the time. I think the word for that is "sin." As a result of disconnecting from God, my life lacks a rhythm of grace and virtue, and a rhythm of grace and virtue is what I'm made for. When I'm loving people and honoring God out of an organic outflow from my heart, I know it's God in me, to His glory, and I feel His favour and fellowship.

So, as a baby step toward regaining this rhythm, I am adopting a routine of prayer at four times over the course of the day - Morning, Noon, Evening, and Close of Day. The Book of Common Prayer's Daily Devotional (pp. 136-139) provides the liturgical structure and content for my prayer times, and I added Psalm 1 and a Rich Mullins song to personalize them. I also set aside time for Supplication, Thanksgiving, and Worship. Since it's late at night, I'll end with the last line of the Evening Prayer:

Lord Jesus, stay with us, for evening is at hand and the day is past; be our companion in the way, kindle our hearts, and awaken hope, that we may know you as you are revealed in Scripture and the breaking of bread. Grant this for the sake of your love. Amen.

When you google yourself...

...you find that you said things that sound a helluva lot wiser than what you usually say...

Look about 10 quotes down list, under Thoreau...

The best talk I ever heard...

...was given by Peter Kreeft, the great Christian apologist, at the C.S. Lewis Conference in Austin in 2002. Just months after 9/11 and shortly after Fellowship of the Ring came out in theaters, Kreeft deftly related the two in a brilliant hour I still cherish. For those of you who heard me teach at HSL about evil last year, I borrowed about 40% of it from Kreeft. You can now hear it on the web.

I cannot recommend it more highly! Honestly, I put this talk right up there with the DVD of the 2006 Rose Bowl on my recommendation list. Download it below for free.

Ten Insights on Evil from Tolkien's Lord of the Rings Trilogy

Wolfy's English Cousin

The Link.

I think Wolfy could take him, though this may be my Revolutionary War bias talking...

Ragtime - What I learned today

On my way to Vespaio (the top-rated restaurant in Austin, according to Austin Chronicle) to celebrate Eric's 29th birthday with my basketball guys (Steven, Larry and Eric), I was listening to some Scott Joplin in my car (courtesy of my new iPod-compactible CD deck, which is, well, deck. As I listened, I tried to relate Joplin's music to blues and jazz, two genres I am a little more familiar with. To my admittedly untrained ear, I could not hear any resemblance between the jaunty ragtime music and my beloved blues and jazz, but I felt their had to be some connection. At times like this, I do what any somewhat perplexed young man with nothing to do but sit in traffic would do - call someone who knows something and get an answer.

In this case, the person was my mom, who not only majored in Organ at UT, but played Joplin's music (especially "The Entertainer" and "Synchopations") on the piano often enough that I still whistle the tunes when in a certain mood. My question to her - What is the connection between Joplin's Ragtime Music and the Blues and Jazz forms. Her answer:

1) Ragtime music developed in the early 1900's out of the Negro Spiritual/Minstrel tradition in New Orleans, and was a progenitor of Blues and Jazz.

2) In its time, Scott Joplin's music was not especially popular and did have a long heyday, due to its association with African-American culture and "Bordellos". It grew more popular when rediscovered in the 1960's.

3) Perhaps due to spending too much time indulging in the wares of the Bordellos that he played in, Joplin contracted syphillis, contributing to his premature creative and physical death.

Our Ragtime conversation ended with this exchange::

Me: So the moral of the story is "Don't get Syphillis."
Mom: Yeah... so if you thing you might have syphillis, you ought to get tested, because...
Me: (feeling uncomfortable).

So there you go. Ragtime...

Sabbath

Before today's post, let me say this. Texas lost to Ohio State yesterday, snapping a 21-game win streak, despite Tommy and I yelling our lungs out for 4 solid hours. It was probably for the better. If the win streak had hit 25, I'm about 90% sure I would have started wearing a burnt orange cape in public every Saturday to exhibit my Longhorn pride...

Speaking of my love for characters who wear capes, let's have some fun with the Photo Booth on my MacBook...



Keith Atkinson spoke in church this morning about the Sabbath. Some points he made:

1) People in our day and age tend to be stressed out, which leads to myriad health problems and diminished effectiveness in our lives. When Keith listed the symptoms of stress, including diminished energy, lack of sleep, irritability and inability to focus, I found myself checking off each one in my head as something I've experienced in the last few months.

2) By taking a Sabbath, we honor God and end up doing more in six days than we would have in seven.

3) Keith recommended that, instead of a set quiet time of an hour in the mornings, it may be better to set aside 3 times during the day where we spend time with God and refocus for 10-15 minutes (He made the same recommendation in our discipleship group Wednesday morning).

As I sit here in my loft on a lazy Sunday afternoon with a Dallas Cowboy game in the background, I can best describe my "20" poetically as follows:

Hurtling forward at breakneck speed
On down the gravely road
A troika of fiery charging steeds
Pulling my burdensome load

The rickety coach I'm riding on
Creaks and shrieks with strain
I'm sure what's left of the shocks is gone
Each bump brings a bruising pain

I'm making great time but I don't know where
The world is too blurry a sight
The end of the world seems a long way off
But it's closer than I'd like

I careen left and right, and up and down
I can't stay where I sit
Fearing the gravel and grass below
And fearing the splintery seat I'm on...

I make the desperate leap...

The ground hits my shoulder with the force of the kick of a thoroughbred horse...

I tumble and roll, flying up in the air, then landing once again...

My elbows and knees sear with the burn of embedded chunks of gravel and dirt and grass...

My eyes open up. My head is clear. I look around and see the grasses of the plain and the mountains beyond in brilliant color and detail...

I see the path I've taken, and how far I've come. I don't know the path ahead, but I don't lack options...

The beauty of this place, fashioned by God like the rest of the earth, and universe, and time itself, compels my heart to shout and sing because I know He is here, as He always has been, yet now I am aware...

I'm bloodied...

I'm alive...

And I'm free...

So this is where I am - a wide open place where the uncertainty excites and frustrates me. I am stepping away from the Rat Race for a little while (at least mentally and spiritually), with the intention of finding out how to fill this blank slate that is my life with a story that transcends mere trifles. This will be the Sabbath of my life. I pray that the Master meets here with me, sending His Spirit to express to me the heart of my Heavenly Father, that I may be made holy in the presence of a holy God.

But for now, I'll settle for some rest...

First Saturday

Since I promised that I wouldn't talk much about sports this fall, this post (mostly) says nothing about the National Champion, #2-rated Texas Longhorns, who, incidentally, will be playing the #1 (for now) Ohio State Buckeyes in my hometown, the birthplace of everything that is, was, or ever will be cool - Austin, Texas, home of Tex-Mex, Barbeque, Live Music, and now the biggest television screen in the world: (in a deep voice) Godzillatron!



But I digress...

A few stories from opening day...

1) Jeff came by my house at about 9:30 in the morning, and rode with me up to the Target next to Tommy's McDonald's at William Cannon and 35 (Tommy is my best friend from way back, and is going in on season tickets with me.). I tell Jeff that I need to buy a set of sheets for my futon, so that Chris and Eileen Hairel, newly in Texas from DC, can sleep at my house that night (Are y'all following?). We go in, I find a good set of bedsheets for $20, and I throw it around the store with Jeff all the way to the front register...

...where I figure out that I forgot my wallet. That morning, I remembered my tickets, I remembered my keys, and even my digital camera, but the wallet - not so much. Jeff quickly put down the bedsheets, and shook his head on our walk to McDonald's...

2) ...where we grabbed breakfast. I got a $1 McGriddle and Jeff got a McBiscuit (Thanks, Tom). We strolled over to the drink station and discovered that there was no ice. As one of Tommy's capable minions trudged back to the cave to fetch a bucket of ice, an elderly woman (we'll call her Granny Mullet) strolled up. Like us, she discovered the machine was out of ice. Unlike us, Granny Mullet decided that her coffee was too hot, and dadgumit, she wasn't going to wait. To our incredulity, she reached out and hand-scooped some ice off of the ample pile beneath the spout - the place where the rest of us dump our ice - and dumped the cubes in her coffee cup. In case you're wondering, I'm alright, but I still don't think Jeff has recovered...

3) Finally, we got to the game, and beheld Godzillatron. 55 feet tall and 134 feet wide. Our season tickets are right beneath it - on the hot summer day, it was akin to being shaded by a second sun. Below is a view of it showing a highlight that caused the stadium to grow dusty all of a sudden:



In the first quarter, we thrice beheld Chuck Norris in living color on Godzillatron (he was in town to plug this), and thrice we lived to tell the tale.

And on we live. The Ohio State fans are coming to town, with scores to settle and couches to burn. We ready...