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Geoff's Miscellany

Miscellaneous Musings

Archives for March 2015

Music Monday: Modest Mouse Edition

March 31, 2015 by Geoff Leave a Comment

I’ve always liked this band. Their lyrics often betray a sort of optimistic nihilism. They remind me of Douglas Adams in that respect. Happy atheism seems rare, it probably isn’t, but it just seems rare. Anyhow, here’s a somewhat haunting song off Modest Mouses’ new album. My favorite lyric is probably this:

Expulsion from an exoskeleton
Of our mothers we arrive
Soft sticky cold we arrive and then start to cry

It’s a stark description of birth that reminds me of how fragile we are.

Lyrics:

I’d hate to be shit in your cut
But the package it’s gonna be late
I buried it in an abandoned lot for
When I was young, this was where I’d played

Dug under the fence with my claws
Smelled the cool dirt on my face
I’m waiting ’til the hands fall off the clock
Spending dollars at the nickel arcade

I think I’ll ride this winter out
I guess we’ll ride this winter out
Alone

You echo from side to side
Pacing in your clumsy ballet
Based on the books and clothes on your floor
I don’t think that this is even your place

When the doctor finally showed up, oh boy
His fur was soaking wet
He said that this should do the trick
We hadn’t told him what the problem was yet

Kaw kaw kaw kaw
We’ll have to ride the winter
This time we’ll ride the winter out
With the strain and the comforting
You know everyone needs to go

But don’t everyone go
Don’t everyone go at once

Expulsion from an exoskeleton
Of our mothers we arrive
Soft sticky cold we arrive and then start to cry

All those insects that I sent are trapped
In my window once again
Empty their pockets out and I’ll sort it at the table

Line up then shoo ’em off
Sure as hell they’ll all get caught
In our window pockets full as they are able

The signs all flicker and buzz all night
Passing by you could hear them say
“Hey, please won’t you just come on in”
“Won’t you please just go away”

This time we’ll ride the winter out
I guess we’ll ride this winter out
I think I’ll ride this winter out
Alone

With the straining and the comforting
I know everyone needs to
But don’t everyone go at once

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Filed Under: Uncategorized

With an abundance of counselors

March 24, 2015 by Geoff Leave a Comment

Today I read Proverbs 24:6:

…for by wise guidance you can wage your war, and in abundance of counselors there is victory.

A few weeks ago I wrote about Proverbs 14:23:

In all toil there is profit, but mere talk tends only to poverty.

While I was mowing my yard I began to think about the relationship between the two ideas. One is that any action is better than none, the other is that well advised action is more likely to succeed.

I thought that in the military setting mentioned, the meaning of 24:6 is clear. If you have help from people who understand the terrain, the weapons in use, and the other military then your victory (or quick surrender) are more likely to succeed. If you read your Von Clauswitz and Sun Tzu, you’ll be more likely to succeed. If you’re a martial artist, but you only know boxing and a jiu-jitsu guy gets a grip on you, have a nice nap. But if you’ve learned from both styles, then your chances of success increase.

In a ministry setting it makes sense to have many counselors too:

  1. The whole range of Scripture
  2. A network of wise men and women upon whom to rely for advice
  3. Knowledge of local experts in psychology and family doctors to recommend to the sick (people often go to their pastor for very random advice)
  4. Books on theology and bible commentaries to help you answer hard questions
  5. Books on philosophy and reasoning to help you solve problems
  6. Books on leadership and business to help you do the same.

But all that talk, the other Proverb says, is meaningless if it does not lead to action. Imagine a military leader drawing up strategies while his compound is being breached!

Any other counselors or sources of wisdom for ministers? How about for those who are not preachers or Bible teachers? What counselors could help bring them victory?

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Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Proverbs, Thoughts

Music Monday: Vesuvius

March 23, 2015 by Geoff Leave a Comment

Sufjan Stevens has been one of my favorite artists since about 2006. I always liked him, but when his album The Age of Adz dropped I was a bit disappointed except for this song. I hope you like it.

Here are the lyrics:

Vesuvius
I am here
You are all I have
Fire of fire
I’m insecure
For it is all
Been made to plan
Though I know
I will fail
I cannot
Be made to laugh
For in life
As in death
I’d rather be burned
Than be living in debt

Vesuvius
Are you a ghost
Or the symbols of light
Or a fantasy host?
In your breast
I carry the form
The heart of the Earth
And the weapons of warmth

Vesuvius
The tragic oath
For you have destroyed
With the elegant smoke
Oracle, I’ve fallen at last
But they were the feast
Of a permanent blast

Vesuvius
Oh, be kind
It hasn’t occurred
No it hasn’t been said
Sufjan, follow the path
It leads to an article of imminent death
Sufjan, follow your heart
Follow the flame
Or fall on the floor
Sufjan, the panic inside
The murdering ghost
That you cannot ignore

Vesuvius
Fire of fire
Fall on me now
As I favor the host

Vesuvius
Fire of fire
Fall on me now
As I favor the ghost

Vesuvius
Fire of fire
Fall on me now
As I favor the host

Vesuvius
Fire of fire
Fall on me now
As I favor the ghost

Vesuvius
Fire of fire
Fall on me now
As I favor your host

Vesuvius
Fire of fire
Fall on me now
As I favor the ghost

Vesuvius
Fire of fire
Fall on me now
As I favor the ghost

Fall on me now
Or follow down

Why does it have to be so hard?
Fall on me now
Or fall on the ground

Why does it have to be so hard?
Fall on me now
Or fall on the ground

Why does it have to be so hard?

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Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: music

Book Review: Starship Troopers

March 23, 2015 by Geoff Leave a Comment

Robert Heinlein. Starship Troopers 1959.

The Good:

Heinlein wrote a very solid sci-fi novel. It contains my favorite science fiction elements:

  1. Speculative World Building: The imaginative nature of the battle armor and the change of civilization at the advent of interstellar travel are both very exciting.
  2. Speculative Philosophy: The author has his characters philosophize about the nature of war between humans and other species as well as about human nature in a fashion that is made compelling because of the stakes in the story. I think that the philosophy leaves much to be desired, but it very nearly is the most compelling modernist expression of ethics I’ve read and I’ve read a lot.
  3. Quotable moments:
    1. “There are no dangerous weapons; there are only dangerous men. We’re trying to teach you to be dangerous – to the enemy.” (77)
    2. “That old saw about ‘To understand is to forgive all’ is a lot of tripe. Some things, the more you understand the more you loathe them.” (141)
    3. “On the bounce.” (various)
    4. “Now continued success is never a matter of chance.” (233)
    5. “If I ever find a suit that will let me scratch between my shoulder blades, I’ll marry it.” (131)
    6. About what was learned in officer candidate school: “Most especially how to be a one-man catastrophe yourself while keeping track of fifty other men, nursing them, loving them, leading them, saving them-but never babying them.” (221)

The Bad:

The world was very compelling, the characters were interesting, but the story itself didn’t seem to go very far.

Conclusion:

I highly recommend this book. It is pleasant yet challenging read.

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Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Reviews, sci-fi

Love Believes All Things or Does It?

March 23, 2015 by Geoff Leave a Comment

I think a lot of young Christians in their desire to be radical apply certain verses of Scripture in really extreme and naive ways. For instance, “Love…believes all things (1 Cor 13:7)”.

If you go back and read 1 Corinthians, this is not an indicator of how love always handles everything. It is a description of how love handles disagreement and misuse of gifts in church meetings and why love is superior to any ability that can help the church (it mediates between abilities). Thus, love believes the best of people that you find grating or irritating. Does love actually believe “all things” in all circumstances? Check out this paragraph from Proverbs:

Proverbs 23:1-8  When you sit down to eat with a ruler, observe carefully what is before you,  (2)  and put a knife to your throat if you are given to appetite.  (3)  Do not desire his delicacies, for they are deceptive food.  (4)  Do not toil to acquire wealth; be discerning enough to desist.  (5)  When your eyes light on it, it is gone, for suddenly it sprouts wings, flying like an eagle toward heaven.  (6)  Do not eat the bread of a man who is stingy; do not desire his delicacies,  (7)  for he is like one who is inwardly calculating. “Eat and drink!” he says to you, but his heart is not with you.  (8)  You will vomit up the morsels that you have eaten, and waste your pleasant words.

Now compare this to these passages in the gospels:

John 2:24-25  But Jesus on his part did not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people  (25)  and needed no one to bear witness about man, for he himself knew what was in man.

Matthew 12:38-39  Then some of the scribes and Pharisees answered him, saying, “Teacher, we wish to see a sign from you.”  (39)  But he answered them, “An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah.

Jesus, in these, and in many other places is acutely aware of the way people are. I wonder if sometimes the effort of Christians to have Christian character (loving the unloving, showing mercy, etc) leads Christians into thinking that the unloving actually are loving, the dishonest are honest, and so-on. It’s something I need to think more about, but I fear that some of Nietzsche’s critique of Christianity for making people weak is true, though it was a mistaken understanding of Christian meekness that did so.

I suppose one could argue that Christians should “believe all things” and that Proverbs is being corrected by Paul, but Paul himself does not believe the best of the Corinthian Christians about whom he writes the letter. He believes the reports that they are disorderly and so-on.

Thoughts?

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Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Thoughts, wisdom

Logic and Morality

March 21, 2015 by Geoff Leave a Comment

In a wonderful little essay, Jesus the Logician, Dallas Willard observed:

To be logical no doubt does require an understanding of what implication and contradiction are, as well as the ability to recognize their presence or absence in obvious cases. But it also requires the will to be logical, and then certain personal qualities that make it possible and actual: qualities such as freedom from distraction, focused attention on the meanings or ideas involved in talk and thought, devotion to truth, and willingness to follow the truth wherever it leads via logical relations. All of this in turn makes significant demands upon moral character. Not just on points such as resoluteness and courage, though those are required. A practicing hypocrite, for example, will not find a friend in logic, nor will liars, thieves, murderers and adulterers. They will be constantly alert to appearances and inferences that may logically implicate them in their wrong actions. Thus the literary and cinematic genre of mysteries is unthinkable without play on logical relations.

I really appreciated his observation that the practicing hypocrite will find no friend in logic because of the moral presuppositions of the will to be logical. The whole thing is a good read despite or maybe even partially because of one part that I do find a bit weird (you’ll have to read it yourself to find it).

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Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: discipleship, Thoughts

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