The World Might Not Be Flat, But It Certainly Is Getting Smaller; Or: What I Learned In Korea

I'm in Korea visiting my family for Christmas. For those wondering, it's a fourteen and a half hour flight from Atlanta to the Incheon airport and covers a distance of nearly 9,000 miles (flying over Siberia was very interesting - well, as interesting as flying over a barren, snow covered landscape can be).

I was on the plane flying to from Incheon to the city my parents are stationed in when the girl in front of me (a college student making the same trek I was) started a conversation with the old Korean woman sitting next to her. After about five minutes, it was discovered the old woman's son was the American girl's dentist and neighbor. "It really is a small world," the Korean woman said (in near-perfect English).

At first, I chuckled silently at the cliche and thought about how a small world would never have as long of a flight as I endured.

But after about half a minute, it occurred to me that the conversation in front of me had just proven Thomas Freidman right - the world is flat (though I understand flat to mean no barriers to entry in the market - we're not quite there yet), small, shrinking, however you want to phrase it. Considering that I had traveled half-way around the world in little more than half a day, there is definitely something to be said about this. How we connect to each other was forever changed by the first intercontinental flight. No place in the world is more than a twenty-four hour flight away.

The fact that an old Korean woman is very fluent in English is amazing. I can understand a younger generation being bilingual. But we're now at the point where the retiring generation is also bilingual - and it's not just in Korea (the long-term US presence obviously has something to do with it, but it can't be the only variable). With international travel becoming an every-day, no, every-hour occurrence, English channels on Korean television, and any number of other factors, I shouldn't be at all surprised. It is said that if you speak English and Chinese, you can communicate with half of the people in the world. Imagine if you threw in French! Don't get me wrong - the language barrier when I'm walking around off post is a problem, but the number of English speakers is astounding.

Then there's the fact that I'm sitting in Korea writing a blog to be read by friends in the US and parts of Europe (and occasionally a few other more remote locations). When my father was in Korea in the early 90s, we got email (then called E-Mail) just to communicate with him, and as far as middle-class Americans were concerned, we were very early adopters. Now I have three different email accounts, all hosted for free, maintain a blog with very few technical skills, and use Facebook to keep up with friends from high school who live halfway across the country from me. Friends who live in California and Alaska can be communicated with in real time with IM services.

Most friends know that I am not the biggest fan of technology - I'd rather go out for coffee than talk over IM, rather climb a tree than play a video game, and rather go hiking than watch TV. But despite my qualms, there is something astounding about the opportunity for the sharing of ideas and maintaining of friendships (vital to military kids such as myself) allowed for by technology.

Rock on.

In the Name of Love

Love is one of the most overused words in our culture. Just think about how often it takes the place of "really enjoy" or "like". We use the word Love, but not as it is defined in the thirteenth chapter of 1 Corinthians . Today's "love" is petty and short-lived.
We "love" TV shows, movies, bands, and articles of clothing. We "love" philosophies, stories, and paintings. And we Love people. But are our feelings towards people really the same as they are towards our possessions? Can we "fall" in Love? Can we brush off love as an emotion, the same as being happy or sad?

We are told that God IS Love - can this be just an emotion?

All that Christ our Lord did, he did out of Love. Love is the greatest motivator in the whole of existence.

It was for Love that William Wilberforce had the courage and strength to sand against slavery. It was for Love that Dietrich Bonhoeffer had the courage and stregnth to stand against Hitler. It was for Love that Martin Luther King had the courage and strength to stand for equality. It was for Love that Mother Teresa gave all that she had to spend her life working among the poor.

It was for Love that the Father gave the Son to the world. It was for Love that Christ was born to a working class family under the Roman empire in the town of Bethlehem. It was for Love that Christ taught the coming of the Kingdom of God, where the last will be first. It was for Love that Christ died a sinner's death that we might be forgiven. It was for Love that Christ was resurrected that we might have eternal life. It is for love that Christ will return to establish his Kingdom.

It is Love that Christianity is based on. It is for Love that we spend this week in Advent in meditation. And it is for Love that we should do all things, now and forever.

Love is what will bring about the world we hope for. Love allows us to place others before ourselves and to see value in all people. Love allows us to turn the other cheek. Love is what Christ commands of us. The world will know we are disciples because of our great Love, the Love made possible only by the Sovereign God.

To quote Mother Teresa, "Men do no great things, only small things with great Love."

Rock on.
PS: The title of the post comes from the U2 song "Pride (In the Name of Love)" written about Dr. King.

The Golden Compass

Let me start by saying that I defended this movie against cries that it is inherently evil. And though I am sorely disappointed in the movie on several accounts (read on), I will still defend it against calls for mass boycotts. My argument was and is that it would be nice for youth groups to stop showing movies like The Sixth Sense and following the Reel to Real discussion guide (no offense to the fine folks at R2R). Instead, a youth group could watch this movie and discuss the deeper philosophical issues. It would not only challenge one's faith (there is a disturbing lack of challenge in today's Christianity - we ignore verses that disturb us and pretend as if we don't have doubts) but also require students to think more about the underlying themes in movies.

And The Golden Compass certainly does challenge the mindset of "I'll just let the Church tell me what to think." But that's all it does. It takes aim at Christianity (particularly Catholicism) and accuses the Church of trying to control the thoughts of its followers through violence and oppression, preventing free thought from taking root. And yes, the Church has historically done this. One only need study the history of the Protestant Reformation to see this. And yes, people within Christianity today are still trying to oppress free thought. The evolution "debate"/panties-in-a-twist provides enough evidence of this (I, for one, am tired of being thought of as un-Christian for my cosmological views). But certainly this is not all of Christianity. My friends and I hold many differing beliefs and embrace these differences as learning opportunities. One of my best friends is a very true agnostic. I have great conversations with atheists. And I certainly am not trying to oppress anyone's right to free thought.

The author, Phillip Pullman, accuses CS Lewis of being "evil" in The Chronicles of Narnia. Because, as we all know, self-sacrifice (a'la Aslan) is evil. Instead, Pullman includes a fight between bears competing for a kingdom in what can only be described as the most Machiavelli-Nietzsche inspired scene in movie history. This is, after all, a world where only the strong willed and free thinkers can survive (it is, of course, Nietzsche's great irony that the Church which he hates so much is such a perfect example of this).

Everybody knows that CS Lewis, as a professor of Medieval literature, was a fan of allegory. Accordingly, the Narnia series is written in such a style. The self-sacrifice of Aslan has quite a few meanings, most notably the death and resurrection of Jesus, but can also be compared to the United Kingdom's role in World War II (the novel is set during the time, and it could be argued that Aslan/UK died to save the world from the forces of the White Witch/Germany). That's the wonderful thing about allegory - it has many, many different levels at which it can be explored. Pullman's series is a very thinly-veiled allegory. At the end of the movie, you find yourself saying, "We get it. The Church is bad." All of this is with an allegedly-softened anti-religious message. Not to mention the disturbing speech on how the Church needs to be violently destroyed.

I am not here to get into a discussion about whether or not God exists, or even whether or not we can prove God's existence. But let me say this: The past abuses of the Church, and religions in general, is not a valid argument against the existence of a divine being. Any rational believer will readily admit (and apologize) for the past abuses committed in the name of God. The Crusades, the Inquisition, al Qaeda, the Aryan Nation, witch hunts, and religious oppression (to name a very small fraction of the iniquities of the religious) are evidence that man is corrupt. Not that God cannot exist. Using this same logic, we could argue that democracy and caring for the poor are horrible things that should not be supported. All we need to do is to look at the French Revolution and Soviet Communism.

An oddity in this film is that the ultimate purpose of the Church's actions and attempts to keep people from thinking for themselves is to keep them from sinning (an odd take on Original Sin is presented). The ultimate message, then, is that there is no sin. Morality, then, is completely relativet. Even taking God out of a consideration on ethics, this is a bad idea. While neither Kant nor John Stuart Mill got it right (they really need each other), they came a lot closer to a sustainable code of ethics than Nietzsche ever did.

Philosophical differences aside, the movie was tawdry and predictable. Out side of the scenes featuring the college, the movie is a display of why computers will eventually replace decent filming locations (think Star Wars prequels on a smaller scale). Many of the twists were obvious (but then again, maybe I just watch too many movies). I was actually very disappointed in most of the performances. James Bon...erm, Daniel Craig did a decent job, but his role is comparatively small. I found myself annoyed by Nicole Kidman and her monkey (yes, Nicole Kidman and a monkey - by all accounts, this should be a good thing, but it wasn't). Ian McKellan's bear character was over-done - not by much, but enough to make the character annoying. And will somebody stop casting Christopher Lee as the wise, corrupt bad guy? Yes, he's good at it. But we already know that. Let's put him in a different role where his true talent can shine through.

I really hope that this is just a bad movie adaption. Maybe the books have more depth. I'm going to read them - I want to know how you can make killing God accessible to children, I really do. But if the movie's a faithful adaption, I'm setting myself up for disappointment.

Rock on.

Saint Nicholas Comes Tonight!

No, your computer calendar is not wrong, it is the fifth, not the twenty-fifth. And no, I have not lost it. I am fully aware that tradition states that "Santa" comes on Christmas Eve. At least, modern tradition states that.

I'll spare my readers the long story of Saint Nicholas. Instead, I'll let you read the Wiki article.

When I lived in Germany, we used to celebrate St. Nicholas' Day in our schools as a way of getting a feel for German culture. In the German fashion, we would leave our shoes outside of our classroom door and "St. Nick" would come by and fill them with candy. When I was younger, I figured this was how Santa was able to make it around the world - by staggering his expected arrival, the trip would be way, way easier on the reindeer.

In more practical terms, though, I really like the idea of keeping Christmas and Saint Nicholas separate. I was raised expecting Santa to come on Christmas Eve, and to this day, a part of my family's tradition is to open "Santa's" presents (Yes, he still comes to visit us, and my sister and I still even leave a note and cookies. When you move every couple of years, even silly traditions like these make a new place feel more like home, and I look forward to Santa's visit to my parent's new place this year. Tangent over.) after the stockings, but before any of the other presents (My family also stretches out the gift-opening). But I can't help but feel that something is lost in the merging of the two traditions. While I disagree with the commercialization of any religious holiday (Will somebody please make the Easter Bunny into a stew?), there is something especially heinous in making the birth of our Saviour about toys (Linus van Pelt is a genius; also, I refer you back to my thoughts on the Easter Bunny).

I have decided that if/when/gah-I'm-too-young-to-think-about-this I have children, they will celebrate the Feast of Saint Nicholas on December the Sixth, not on Christmas. Christmas will be about Christ, his humility, his incarnation, and his Love.

Hold Fast Hope

The first week of Advent is upon us and on Sunday, we lit the Hope candle in our Advent wreath at church. With the expectation of gifts and feasts less than a month away, now is a good, no, the best time to examine what we are hoping for this Advent and Christmas season.

I hope for good grades in all of my classes.
I hope for safe travel for my friends, family, and self.
I hope for good books and CDs this Christmas.
I hope for good food on Christmas day (Mom. Dad. Audrey. You three know what to do.)
And I'm willing to bet that most college students agree with me. But these hopes last only until the New Year. Then it's the same old grind of hoping for canceled classes and fun times.

What about the stuff that really matters, though? What do we hope for, or better yet, what should we be hopping for?
Advent is the time of looking forward to the coming of Christ our King, Immanuel, "God with us". We look for the Virgin who is with Child as a sign of our deliverance, for to us a Child will be born, a Son will be given. We hope for the birth of our Salvation, the very Word of God. But we look to more than that. We look to the Kingdom of God to be established. We listen for the voice calling in the wilderness, calling for the children of God to be found and delivered. We hope that "the eyes of the blind be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped. Then will the lame leap like a deer and the mute tongue shout for joy," (Isaiah 35:5-6). We look for the great light to guide us out of the darkness, that the light of dawn be seen in the Valley of the Shadow of Death. We hope that our world will be turned upside down (for more on the upside-down nature of Christ, see Mitch Lewis' comparison to Yellowstone).

We hope for a time when the children of Uganda are able to attend school and live without fear of rebel soldiers. We hope for a time when the people of Darfur can return home and be no longer persecuted. We hope for a time when no person is allowed to go hungry. We hope for a time when the sex-slaves in Atlanta are free and healed. We hope for a time when the North Koreans are no longer oppressed. We hope for a time when Catholic and Protestant in Northern Ireland can turn aside from hundreds of years of tension. We hope for a time when the full power of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Saviour, is recognized and embraced throughout the world.

Rock on.
Post Script: The post is named after "Hold Fast Hope" on Thrice's album, Vheissu.

Leavenworth Made the Lark!

The town I graduated high school from made the Lark.

Huzzah?

"...of whom I am the worst."

Romans 2

We teach best that which we need learn most.

In other words, this lesson is for my own benefit.

I like to judge others. when somebody asks me how my day is without waiting for a response, I judge them. When somebody spends money on something they don't need, or often times, don't even want, I judge them. And let me say this - over the past nineteen years, I've gotten very, very good at it. College classes have made sure of that. Now, I can not only judge the person, but classify them into cultural subsets and judge those as well. I can rant against consumerism, Hollywood, urban culture, suburban culture, mass production, and the newly-coined term affluenza. Like the prayer of the Pharisee, I thank God that I am not like those who give into their commercial identity.

Meanwhile, my book and CD collections continue to grow and I search for clothing that proclaims that I am not like the rest of the world.

Paul was talking to me.
Or rather, I think, Paul was talking to himself. Paul tells his follower Timothy, "Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners - of whom I am the worst." This is the same Paul who authored the majority of the New Testament and is considered to be the third most influential person in history (last list I saw placed him just behind Jesus and Muhammad, but that was four years ago).

Like Paul, we are all sinners. Worse yet, we all try to take the place of the Judge, the very person we claim to follow. And yet, we, along with the rest of the world, are called to be followers of the Risen Lord.

What then, shall we do? We take Martin Luther's advice. We sin boldly. We admit that we are sinners and drop our false pretenses. But we believe in Christ more boldly still.

Rock on.

Rich Men Don't Climb Trees - But Perhaps They Should

Luke 19:1-10

This story brings back memories for me. Memories of juice boxes, songs, and that one week of summer vacation of which I'm not bored. And of course, memories of climbing trees. Though the memories of climbing trees are only from last week.

Yes, I still climb trees. I am one of the few college students I know who will give up a Saturday evening to climb the magnolias on North Campus. I get weird looks. My friends most likely fancy me mad. And admittedly, it's not a very common thing to do. I have yet to see anyone over the age of twenty-five climb a tree (with the exception of scientists on the National Geographic channel doing research in the Amazon). Somehow, I get this sneaking feeling that adult who climbed a tree would instantly be knocked down a rung on the social ladder.

Tax collectors were not popular. A chief tax collector was probably hated. A short chief tax collector who climbed trees was probably lucky he didn't get stoned. It's just not something that's done.

In the movie Luther, Martin Luther (Joseph Fiennes - yes, Voldemort's brother) is delivering a lesson to children about the Prodigal Son. He says that the father's reaction is extraordinary - the wealthy old man runs to great his son. Rich men don't run. They don't hike up their clothes and dash across fields. And yet the old man runs to greet his son, the sinner. Similarly, Zaccheus, the sinner, runs to meet the Son, the Saviour.

Running and climbing trees. This short man must have looked more like a fool than ever. But it was well worth it. Zaccheus, having little public dignity left from his life as a tax collector, was willing to humiliate himself for the joy of laying his eyes upon the Christ.

Rock on.

Dawgs and Gators and Bears - Oh My!

First off, congrats to the UGA football team. I figured we wouldn't put up fourteen points against Florida, let alone beat them. Go DAWGS!

Now on to the more interesting part of my fall break.

Instead of heading down to the world's largest outdoor cockt - erm, sorry President Adams - Florida-Georgia Football Classic (I like the WLOCP title better), I headed up to the North Carolina mountains for some hiking and time alone with God while enjoying his handy work. So on Thursday, the first day of Fall Break, I did what any college student would do. That is to say, I woke up at six in the morning, hopped in the car with my dog, and drove four hours to spend the day without a computer, an MP3 player, or even a GPS. Just me, my dog, and the beautiful Blue Ridge Parkway. I was originally aiming to hike along Mount Mitchell, but inclement weather changed that. So, still in the spirit of a college student, I pulled over at the first trail head I saw and hiked for two hours along a primitive trail (appropriately title the Big Butt Trail), with nothing more than a few red placards and fallen trees to guide me, without seeing or hearing another person until returning to my car. Of course the problem with trails like that is that animals tend not to stay away from the road less taken. On my way back to my car, about fifteen minutes out from the pull-off I had parked in, I came upon a small black bear. Luckily, it had heard me coming and wandered off just as I realized, "Hey, that's a bear. And it could kill me." I made it safely to my grandparents' house and then called everyone I could think of to say, "OMGZ!!! I SAW TEH BEAR!!!1!"

The next day brought a much-needed day off, including a tour of Lake Lure (think Dirty Dancing) and a very nice dinner at a local hotel. Saturday was more hiking at Chimney Rock. No where near as isolated as the trail on the Blue Ridge Parkway, nor as cheap, nor as bear-ish, the views were stunning. I spent the day hiking almost every trail the park had to offer and enjoying the view of some of the most interesting rock formations to be found in North Carolina. Chimney Rock is one of those rare geological anomalies that has been purchased and turned into a park, but somehow has avoided the cheese-level of places like Stone Mountain. And the North Carolina Park Service has just bought the sight, so its nice mix of popular tourist destination and serene, tranquil retreat is secure.

This was the first real vacation I've ever taken by myself. Sure, over the summer I drove up to Columbia, SC, for the Harry Potter book release and to see my sister, but that wasn't so much a vacation as a - something that's not a vacation. I don't like driving, and mountain roads have always freaked me out, as much as I love the mountains. Especially when driving through a cloud. But I managed the drive quite well and even enjoyed the time driving through the windy, narrow roads of the Blue Ridge area. As cliché as it sounds, the first road trip really is a coming-of-age event. It's something that you do with your family most of your life (hardly a summer went by where my parents didn't toss my sister and I into a car and drive around for at least three or four days). To be able to set off on your own with only a list of destinations to guide you is one of the most liberating experiences that one can imagine. And after spending my summer in classes, the freedom was well-received.

People have places where they feel closer to God than others. For some, it's during a mass. For others, it's a modern worship service. Most people feel God's presence on retreats. As for me, it's nature. As much as I enjoy Athens, the constant sound of cars, music, and college kids on cell phones, the lack of any real place to get away from the city (even the most secluded part of campus is right next to a highway), and the eerie red glow cast on the sky at night make me feel isolated. But the freedom and beauty of nature gives me a sense of God's power and creation. Nothing man can ever make will amount to the awesomeness of the Grand Canyon or the beauty of the Appalachian Mountains in the fall. And after three days of being in the mountains, it was amazing what had the ability to move me. Something as simple as the sunrise while driving home this morning left me praising God - with Santana and Rob Thomas in the background.

Rock on.

Parties Have Too Much Power

In a stunning blow to democracy, the South Carolina Democratic Party might keep Colbert off of their primary ticket. Story here.

Ok, so we know he's running as a joke. But the requirements that could keep Colbert off the ballot are much more serious. The SC Democratic Party states that the candidate must have spent a set amount of time actively campaigning in the state and be a "viable" candidate (viable as determined by the party's executive council). While this is not detrimental for Colbert (if he wanted to, he could turn this into an hour-long Colbert Report Special Edition), other candidates could run into serious issues. It is not far-fetched to say that Obama, as a black midwesterner, is not a viable candidate in the southern state famous for flying the Confederate Naval Jack over its statehouse into the 21st century (I was living in Columbia the year the flag was taken down), or that Dennis Kucinich and Mike Gravel, besides having not spent much time campaigning in the state, but also coming in last in fund raising, are not viable candidates (total, the two have raised less than a quarter of what Clinton has raised, and of that, 90% goes to Kucinich) are not viable candidates.

Considering that party primaries (oddly, not in the Constitution) are all but vital to making it onto the ticket, to rule out a candidate in one state primary is an electoral death sentence and a major attack on free and fair elections (I just love that as an independent, I have not voice in primaries).

But then again, the entire party system is a barrier to democracy. This, however, is an discussion for another time.

Rock on.