Thoughts of a Wanderer at Sea

Oxford?

2009-01-12T15:38:00.000-08:00

Well, now that I'm in in Oxford, I might as well reanimate this blog.

If the motivation to do so ever comes...

One Step Ahead

2008-01-30T21:00:00.001-08:00

So I was really frustrated when this article wasn't allowed to be published in The Record, our school's newspaper. Tell me if you can see why:

A lord one day sent out a messenger to a far land to carry a message to a foreign king that a war had risen near their lands and that he required their aid to repel the invaders. The messenger very clearly understood the message and the situation at hand, but arriving at the courts of the allied king, he found that he was entirely unfamiliar with the native language of the foreign king and hence unable to effectively relay the message. The help never came and much more destruction was inflicted upon their homeland than would have been otherwise.

Certainly this seems an absurd oversight for this king, but considering the dynamics of communication, especially in our high-speed and highly diverse age it is not at all laughable. A similar dilemma confronts us as Christians today. The Gospel and many of the foundational truths we value have been so repeated, ad nauseum, that they no longer carry for us or for others the same impact as they were once supposed to hold. To tell another, for example that “God is love” has been so overdone that it simply no longer carries the weight it used to. We must face the fact that in our dynamic world, the simple is outmoded and ineffective. Although this does not mean that every nuance contributes to our message, nearly anything with which we can effectively intrigue our diverse audiences may be preferable.

Take, for example the Evangelical catch-phrase, “The Bible is God’s love letter to us.” Although, in its own way, it is profound and inspiring to portray God’s divine revelation as a form of romantically inclined stationery, with today’s understanding of romance complicated by teen pregnancy, the detrimental divorce rates, not to mention the issues of homosexuality and same-sex marriage, we need a more dynamic evangelical rhetorical scheme to keep the image of God’s love ahead of the times so that our presentation of the Gospels is always fresh and readily accessible to whomever we may encounter.

Look at the classic song “Jesus loves me, this I know…” In its own time it was effective in sharing God’s pure and simple message of love. However, because of the ambiguities that the modern era has brought to Christianity, and because our audiences are increasingly diverse, what we effectively have instead of “Jesus loves me,” if adjusted to fit the ears of our world, begins to sound more like, “The physical Incarnation of the Indivisible, Triune Deity, whom we happen to call Jesus, has a certain incomprehensible disposition, which displays itself in certain actions such as creation, physical and eternal blessing, and especially the Crucifixion and Resurrection, towards you and me alike, and no less to Caucasians, African-Americans, Asians, South Americans, Middle-Easterners, Eastern Europeans, the French, etc.”

What could be more profound and beautiful than that? This is by no means exhaustive or complete, but by defining what we understand God to be to our modern world, we set absolute boundaries that may be clear to the modern mind. Upon hearing such an aphorism spoken each time, it will be clear who God is to us as Christians. Moreover, in instances such as this, we could use such a lyric for our Sunday Schools instead of the traditional version of the song. This could serve to instill sound doctrine early on in our children’s lives to help them attain to a more child-like faith.

Thus we find that by forsaking the cumbersome weights of traditional maxims, we can breathe a fresh Gospel to the world each new day and show the world just how impressed God is by the many creative ways with which we can shine his light unto the world.

Movie Review; Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

2008-01-11T23:16:00.000-08:00

Director: Tim Burton

Actors: Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Alan Rickman, Timothy Spall...

Verdict: A charming children's story with enough wit and depth of thematic material to appeal to adult audiences as well.

MPAA rating: R

reasons for R rating:
-Johnny Depp's and Helena Bonham Carter's makeup jobs are rather morbid
-Alan Rickman proposes to marry Jayne Wisener, despite the fact that he is at least 30 years her senior
-Johnny Depp's brooding tendency promotes antisocial behavior
-bad family values: promotes vengeance instead of forgiveness

Premise:
Based on a hit Broadway performance, Benjamin Barker returns to his hometown of London after spending years away at sea following the corrupt Judge Turpin's subduing of his would-be wife, and takes up the name of Sweeney Todd and occupies a barber shop above Ms. Lovett's Meat Pie Shop. Here he waits for his chance to strike vengeance upon the judge, all while slitting a few throats in the process.

Thoughts:
None can combine the charm of a witty, fanciful, musically driven fantasy with the morose like Tim Burton. One must always admire how such a director has the power to transform such a morose subject as cannibalism into such sing-songy expression. Although there are hints of a "darker side" residing beneath the surface, Depp's graceful enactment of his tragic character certainly provide quality inspiration for audiences of all ages, teaching the power of song and innovation (e.g. Ms. Lovett using next-door neighbors instead of cats and dogs for her meat pies) to overcome oppression and adversity.

I was slightly more disappointed my Jayne Wisener, on the other hand, both morally and pertaining to performance. I was especially disturbed by her acceptance of being locked up in her room, and accepting Alan Rickman abusing and taking advantage of her. Definitely negative points on playing the helpless-damsel-victim-in-distress-who-allows-her-ward-to-propose-marriage-without-putting-up -a fight. Wisener has proven her ability to perfect this character type, but where is the lesson, so needed in our contemporary era, of escape and throwing off the yoke-of-oppression-of-that-old-guy-that-wants-to-marry-you. That is certainly an underplayed archetypal plot motif that I think we need to see more. Although playing off a slightly different plot motif, I think Summer Glau exemplifies this perfectly:
I think this type of escape motif would have added much to this particular portion of the film, although this doesn't serve as a detriment to the rest of the film's subtle beauties.

On the more negative side, I found the cutting of throats a bit distracting. What I found most disturbing was the lack of physiological accuracy accompanying such an event. Whereas in the film, Sweeney Todd would slide his razor forcefully into the throat of the victim and a fountain of blood would spurt out, if one's throat were really cut, it would rush out, but certainly not in some gruesome explosion, and it would do so in rhythmic spurts each the heart compressed to expel the blood from within throughout the body. I was simply not convinced, nor do I think that the families gathering around the TV for this movie would want to waste precious together time upset by poor representations of human physiology.

Truth, Determinism, and Vikings

2008-01-10T10:37:00.000-08:00

(Please read previously posted Gross Deception before this post)

To my fellow friends and Wheaton students,

Following the tragedy of my removal to Sweden, and the consequent scandal of deception and many upset alpacas, yet a third disturbance of fate and irony is before us. It is my simultaneous joy and incalculable distress to inform you that the Vikings have sacked Stockholm. Believe me you not? See for yourselves:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAP0zvsnsrQ

This is the only footage gathered in the early stages of the overwhelming assault before it had reached urban Stockholm. What remains of modern Swedish media recounts the tension in preceding months during which Viking rights violations had reached a historical high. The ensuing unrest and loss of a felt sense of identity among the Viking peoples has caused some to speak out on behalf of the Medieval-based peoples, but all too late before their hordes began ravaging the countryside, “pillaging, plundering, robbing, burning, raping, and being generally loud and unpleasant on top of it all,” reports Sven, a local farmer.

Following the actual sack of Stockholm, in a sudden general epiphany, the Vikings realized that the “Swedish” and “Viking” nationalities could very well be indistinguishable, if not interchangeable, and a case is now underway in the Swedish Supreme Court to more clearly define the term “Viking” before any further conquest of the nation is enacted.

In wake of the confusion and tumult, my family has decided it better to remain back in the United States.

However, if we look to metaphysics, we find that under the tenets of strict determinism, that I really could do no other but remain behind in the U.S., and that despite appearances, only one outcome, that I was to stay behind and remain at Wheaton, was ever truly possible. I was never moving to Stockholm in reality. So were you deceived by cruel fate. However, if we regard a particular Postmodern conception of truth, which ultimately operates according to the individual’s perception, we also realize that, by many of your sincerely held beliefs, I was actually going to move Sweden. Thus we find that it is at once true and untrue that I was ever truly going to move to Sweden, and at such a crossroads of truth, one must throw down all beliefs held heretofore in a storm of pathos and confusion before returning to one’s room to sulk.

In short, I hope that you are disappointed that I will indeed continue my humble, if not detestable, existence on Traber 7 at Wheaton College. If none of this high-sounding rhetoric is at all clear to you, or you don’t understand why you’re reading yet a third ridiculous and unnecessary letter, just be content to wallow in your jealousy towards me for yet another year.

That is all,
Jason Ahlenius

PS—This is all to say that I have been rather bored, as you can see by my letters, and after this ill-conceived rhetorical maneuver I hope that I may return to Wheaton and find I still have friends. Too late have I recognized the tragedy of my ill-fated sense of humour and my intense love for Jonathan Swift. At its conception I honestly did not think anyone would actually believe I was moving to Stockholm. Apparently I’m more shortsighted than I thought. I am sorry for any unrest that this may have caused, and I hope against all hope that this devious trilogy of heartfelt emails may remain in your hearts as a memory of “that [great] kid.”

Correspondence dated to July 11, 2007.

2008-01-09T16:23:00.000-08:00

(Read preceding Move to Stockholm before this entry)

Dear fellow Wheaton students and friends,

As some of you have assuredly remarked, there has been a gross deception that I am less than fully, though more than not-at-all partially irresponsible for. I am sorry if this has upset any of you, for I am aware that many of you have developed very deep and meaningful relationships with alpacas.

It seems that information got out concerning my parents’ profession regarding “sheep, llamas, and alpacas.” Please, rest assured that alpacas are a species bred entirely in South America and consequently are not fit to be bred in the suburbs. If you still believe that my email was wholly true, take a look for yourselves:

http://www.roadkill.me.uk/_borders/Roadkill.jpg

http://stolco.trustpass.alibaba.com/product/11835903/Stole_Flower_Fantasy.html

http://www.thelope.com/images/9-13-003alpaca.jpg

As you can see, alpacas are clearly not meant for suburban life. They would hardly last a week before being turned into shawls, roadkill, or the semblance of a standard poodle. Much less would they survive the freezing slopes of Swedish Fjallen. Take a look for yourself of an alpaca after a few hours in Sweden:

Also, according to Wikipedia, which we know for a wholly reliable and undishonest source, alpacas have a very bad habit of spitting: “They warn the intruder away by making sharp, noisy inhalations, putting back their ears, twisting their heads and necks backwards toward the perceived threat, screaming, threatening to spit, and eventually may spit and kick” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpaca). In general, the Swedish people do not look favorably upon spitting, as don’t many Western peoples. Although he refers to the particularly despicable creatures known as Yahoos, they are much the same problem that Jonathan Swift describes in "Gulliver’s Travels", for it is important to “instruct the [alpacas] of [one’s] own family as far as [one] shall find them docible.”

History also tells us about the first ill-fated meetings between alpacas and the Vikings. Because history, we know, is always written by “the winners,” much Viking art from around 1000-1080 portrays the alpacas in docile acquiescence to the Vikings’ subjection, as both beasts of burden and in advertisement campaigns glorifying the Viking way of life to the yet wary eyes of Central and Western Europe. Needless to say, the advertisement campaigns were a complete failure. However, the gross animal rights infringements performed by these Norse invaders were subject to much frowning in Europe and a general boycott of alpaca products from Viking merchants. Alpacas were soon thereafter found in Viking art to be demons of ill fate and disease. As it appears, alpacas have not had the most favorable relations with Scandinavian culture.

This is all to say that (1) alpacas would not survive a week in Sweden and (2) my parents are not, in all truth, alpaca herders. My father works for Motorola and my mother is a nurse at Hinsdale Hospital.

I am sorry for any confusion or upset this may have brought about in my previous letter. Far be it from me to deceive anyone. I give you my sincerest apologies, and hope that this does not affect my veracity in your eyes in the future.

God bless, and thank your for your forebearance with me,

Jason Ahlenius

Correspondence dated to July 3, 2007

Move to Stockholm

2008-01-03T16:43:00.000-08:00

Fellow Wheaton students and friends,

I know that much of what I have to say here I have told in part to some of you, but I feel it necessary to tell in full so that you all know what’s been going on. It is with much regret that I will not be returning to Wheaton this next year.

Many circumstances have come up in our family and with those nearest us, and especially in my parents’ workplace. After many changes of plans, deliberations, and discussion with family members, our family is preparing to move overseas to Sweden where a few of our Scandinavian family members live. This is mostly because of a significant work opportunity opening up for both of my parents, which they would not have in the States.

I am very sorry that I did not inform many of you sooner. Many of the pressures of this move had been building up for quite some time, though none of it was certain until relatively recently. We will be moving in late September, so I may still get to see some of you around on campus before we head out.

Although Wheaton would technically still be a possibility for continuing my education, with the constraining circumstance, we found it more fitting that I transfer to Stockholm University, for which I am excited, but all at once dismayed to have to leave Wheaton. There I will definitely continue studies in literature, though of course from a more than slightly different perspective.

Also, as many of you know, a good part of our family is very much into herding. This has played a substantial role in our decision to move. Although the pastures around here are quite lovely, the sheep, llamas, and alpacas have been growing rather restless in the suburban life. We have managed to get a quite outstanding tract of land where they will be freer to roam the slopes of the Fjällen (The Fells, or Swedish Mountains). In the summer, however, pretty much like every Swede who lives in Sweden, we’ll be taking up lumberjacking in the dense Scandinavian forests. This is of course, on the side of my studies. If you ever need any fresh lumber or alpaca meat, we’ll have plenty to bring back with us on occasional visits back home.

Your prayers will be very much appreciated to support our family and me as we pick up our lives and transplant them in a truly very different place. Sweden is one of the least-churched nations in the world. Pray especially for protection from Vikings. Although they were much more potent and notorious in the early Middle Ages, they are still known to pillage the outlying islands and countryside from time to time. Protection for our herds, which are much accustomed to life in the suburbs, is vital, especially in the first few months.

Pray also for protection against many temptations. I hear from a close friend that though there may be many gorgeous young Swedish women, they often do not age well, and consequently I would do best to avoid being quick to find true love, and perhaps waiting to marry someone of a different ethnicity when I find the opportunity. (If any of you are gorgeous young Swedish women, forgive my brashness) Other concerns are the lower drinking age of 18, and the pressing influence of Socialism.

Thank you for reading through this rather long-winded, but still heartfelt letter. It was very hard to write, especially after getting to know so many of you so well. Again, I’m sorry to have to send out a message of such solemnity in the midst of your, I’m sure, wonderful summers. I will do my best to see as many of you as I can before I head out.

God Bless, and thank you for your friendship,

Jason Ahlenius

Correspondence dated to July 1, 2007.

Thy Kingdom come...

2008-01-03T08:06:00.000-08:00

Reports from Nairobi tell that over 300 Kenyans have been killed and 70,000 more displaced in the violence related to the protests against President Kibaki, who is alleged to have rigged the votes in favor of his reelection. Arson attacks and violent measures of the police continue throughout the nation. Earlier this week, a church was discovered with at least thirty victims trapped inside as the structure was set afire.

Jesus says to pray for His Kingdom, that it would come and that His will would be done. How immense and impossible of a prayer is that? How will my one, single, short-breathed prayer affect the fortunes and the very souls of each person to whom Christ reaches out? It's ridiculous. Do we honestly expect God's Kingdom to charge forward through the rubble of our human waste? Ridiculous...

Still, Jesus says to pray for His Kingdom, that it would come and that His will would be done. When he said this, the state of Israel was in a state of perpetual victimization, from their exile in Babylon six centuries past until the present day where they were trampled underfoot by the Roman Empire. The Jews hoped and prayed for a Messiah that would relieve them from this state, that would give Israel victory over Rome and establish their political state forever. Within 40 years, Jerusalem was utterly destroyed and vacated, the Jews scattered among the nations. Still, Jesus says to pray for His Kingdom, that it would come and that His will would be done.

If we are going to pray for His Kingdom, we must keep in mind that we are praying for the genocides in Africa, for the mess we've only exacerbated in the Middle East, for every single starving man, woman and child littering the city streets. If you are not willing to pray for this, not willing to believe that God will advance his Kingdom through out wastelands, then simply don't pray for the Kingdom, or acknowledge that you can't understand the breadth and power of His Kingdom and ask Him for faith, knowing that he will grant it, even if without understanding.

What does the Gospel's power mean? I wish I knew. I understand some of what that means for the Midwest Suburban United States. I have no idea what that means for the church in Europe or China, much less many of those I pass every day.

If we are to be part of the Kingdom's advancement, we have the responsibility to pray for its advancement. The immensity of this prayer reminds us of God's power to do the impossible. Only God knows what this means, but rest assured that He will demand something of us when we pray. Be ready and pray for the Kingdom.

The Imperative of Absolution

2007-12-31T13:50:00.000-08:00

Our society fears forgiveness. Even worse, it denies its necessity.

The thought of approaching someone and confessing the wrongness of certain words that were said, or a simple, yet invaluable action we neglected can be terrifying in itself. We hate the idea that the perfection we attain to, the righteousness and virtue we thought we saw in ourselves, was not quite all we made it out to be.

Still, how audacious it seems, when another approaches you to apologize for some wrong, to reply with the simple, yet incredible and harrowing words, "I forgive you." We prefer to respond with tamer versions like "It's okay," or "Don't worry about it." The very premise of the phrase "I forgive you" acknowledges, instead of a mistake that can be brushed over, something deeply amiss that must be corrected. Etched into each articulated word of genuine forgiveness is the underlying admission: "You have not been righteous. There has been something very wrong in you that your actions betray."

This very assertion is set against the grain of our culture because it implies that there is a such thing as right and wrong. It is much more comforting to take Benjamin Franklin's outlook on life and confine virtue to a checklist of actions that we can attend to and that with enough hard work, we can create our own virtue. We often take up this view. It is written between the lines of self-help books, humanistic philosophy, New Age religion, many foundations of Postmodern society. "Give us time and we can handle our mistakes."

It is tempting, when we sin against another, to avoid approaching the area of forgiveness and to rather try to fix the mistake or cover it up by some opposite, better action in its place. They don't need to know as long as I make everything better. This will not do. How do we know we are fixing it properly if it hasn't been worked out with the other? Often, we may find ourselves covering over a festering wound with a crude, dirty bandage and calling it all better. Forgiveness, however, asserts the presence of right and wrong that exists in and above our society. We affirm in fact that we do not just err, but we sin, and that we cannot be our own savior. This is often humiliating, but necessary. It doesn't add up to try to make right what we never acknowledged as wrong. There must be something found wrong before anything can become right. Imagine a developing team returning to the site of the World Trade Center and beginning to start rebuilding, making it what it once was, without every acknowledging or dealing with the immense wreckage left by the terrorist attacks.

We see through Jesus' words that it is not enough to merely "work through it." We find instead his firm statement that undermined everything the Pharisees stood for: "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance" (Luke 5:31). Only those who are broken and unrighteous, only those in whom there is something truly wrong, only in those areas in our lives that we acknowledge as wicked, can ever hope to experience God's grace. We must see the evil within us and accept his healing hand from without.

Bonhoeffer points to forgiveness as "the highest, most divine, most wonderful, and most mysterious and holiest of anything that is to be found among men." This is because in this action we can mutually "lift the burden of guilt." God has given us the power and the responsibility to work alongside him in recreating our world, in building it up from the ruins left by our destructive, self-seeking will. But to do so, we must call Sin what it is; we must call ourselves what we are and speak and accept the invaluable words:

"I forgive you."

We are Sinners all

2007-12-29T13:26:00.000-08:00

What happens when philosophy meets experience? It looks like vague abstraction becoming not just reality, but pain or pleasure, nagging, unrelenting emotion, thought, doubt. When we know something in the truest sense, it is not an idea floating around in our heads, but visible reality, something we feel and can point to, something that inevitably changes our lives. I think one of the gravest and most real and important bridges between philosophy and our lives is Sin. I know, in the abstract, I am a Sinner (capital "S"), and our church programs growing up never seem to be able to tell us this enough. This is fine, and though not enough, it provides a helpful framework to understand when we see that we are sinners (lower-case "s"), when we see each individual sin. We see our lies and slander of a close friend, and though we know we deserve eternal death for it, we perceive it more real than ever in the distance and broken relationships that form from these sins. Some will know the blackness of sin from unwanted impregnation out of wedlock, or the anger and bitterness from harsh words.

In The Scarlet Letter, one of the main characters, an adulterer (I'll leave out the name in case you have yet to read it, though this will probably give it away anyway) captivates his audience because he confesses openly and passionately that he the worst of sinners (it seems every Puritan has a way of doing that), but he never tells them he is an adulterer. So long as he keeps sin in the abstract, he can never seek forgiveness, and Sin somehow becomes an admirable quality to his congregation when they see how righteous he appears to be, yet how readily he confesses to have some formless idea of Sin.

When "Sin" is shown to be "sin," it pulls out the ground beneath us, and we experience the cost of our depravity. Imagine the change in the idea and understanding of Sin in Adam and Eve when it turned from being forbidden the knowledge of good and evil into eviction from the perfect home in Eden, painful impregnation, changing their entire lifestyle to that of farmers, and death. Appreciate each nail beaten into Jesus' hands, the descent from Heaven, to earth, to Hell, the ultimate realization of sin in real, palpable form.

The Sinner's Prayer

I fell to my knees with eyes contrite
Looking to His Throne
And knowing myself a wicked man
I asked Him to atone:

“I know I am a Sinner, dark
Of the worst kind.
I speak the Heart’s native language,
And in this I die.

“The Wages of Sin is Death to All
For All have fallen short.
I am the Worst of Sinners all,
Condemned in His High Court.

“Yes, I am a Fallen Man
With Sin as Black as Evil
Faithless, fell, and needing Pardon,
His Beautiful Upheaval!”

And in response, my Truest Judge
Kicked me in the side
Till I spewed blood onto the floor
To show what I could not hide

In mirror red upon the floor.
I perceived two black, black eyes,
Two lies that claimed her as my own—
In mind together we’d lie.

I saw a rotting tongue confess
The slander of a friend
His face I twisted with my words
Struck it ‘til it bent.

I saw a scepter in my right hand
Held over those beneath—
With it I decreed their sin
And crushed them without relief.

Then black coins fell – those I had earned –
Thirty, all told, in count –
They struck me, bled me on the brow,
A ceaseless crimson fount.

Then knelt down my Truest Judge
And held me with his eyes –
His open hand became a fist,
His words, harrowing ice.

“A sinner, true, and here’s the cost—
I’ll strip you bare and cold
Beneath the Winter of Black Sin
And leave you there alone

“Except for my piercing eye,
A sword dividing soul,
Until you see this Wickedness
Is plague, is blood, is throe.

“Or you may turn out the light,
With polite chagrin
And kneel in your quiet room
In contrite, lofty Sin.”

And then I was alone, I felt,
Except for a cadaver,
Clothed in dirty, tattered rags,
To leave me never – never.

Hooray! another Christmastime rant…

2007-12-24T22:12:00.000-08:00

It is once again that time of year when the majority—as we like to call them, though I think we all have some idea of what’s going on—gather around the tree and exchange mass-produced gifts while those of us who like to think we are more thoughtful, cynical, or broke (and some might assert Christian) gather into dark corners and complain about “Christmas commercialism” and further about how we will wait yet another year to change it. Nothing is ever new.
I’ve been brooding on it because I realize that more frustration and indifference is given for this tradition with each passing year. If I am going to rant, complain, and be cynical, I may as well do it in an organized manner and write it out so I have something more concrete to work with. Here are a few of my thoughts on our season, especially on the tradition of gift-giving:

Christmas is oftentimes a risk-free venture: We are emotionally detached from whatever we give to others because the gift-ness of it is mediated through cash instead of personal meaning. We put nothing of ourselves forward when we give gifts because for so many of our gifts we hold onto the receipts just in case. If it’s not what they want, no big deal, we can get something similar in its place. It seldom happens that we put forward something that is truly a valuable thought or part of ourselves that leaves us exposed so that the other person can see our care and accept that, or carelessly trample it.
One of the most thoughtful gifts I’ve seen given was (I’ll keep the names out) when one person secretly took his wife’s vinyl collection from her youth and converted them to CD’s so they could be listened to again more readily. He said he put at least twenty hours into this, I believe. When she received them she basically shrugged and said she only ever cared to listen to a couple of the CD’s he converted. He was crushed.
But do you see what was put forward? Instead of putting forward a few dollars that we’ll always have anyway, he put forward something that was invested in who she is, a thought about what matters to her that once put forward, could not be revoked. It was a permanent sacrifice that could not be replaced. He put forward time, which is invaluable beside any amount of money because it is permanent. Otherwise, after giving our gift, we can move on and have no true advances in our relationship with another. No trust is built or shaken. We often prefer to connect with our gifts than the people behind them.

What we put into Christmas has no inherent value to us: Again, because we always have money, and gifts are exchangeable, they have no value in-and-of themselves but only as they are useful to our entertainment until we find the need of something else. There is no personal value or meaning behind the gift beyond its mere use. More often than not, you could have received the Ocean’s 11 DVD this year, or last year, or five years ago. You can’t remember and you honestly don’t care because it’s just as entertaining each time you watch it no matter when you received it. It lacks what Walter Benjamin calls an aura, any value that attaches it to a particular moment in time and any value that is gained by its history over the years. Because we don’t put ourselves into it or any truly meaningful thought, when it is picked up again in another year, no memories are recalled of when it was received and how much it meant or why it was meaningful because it was just a part of a mass-produced train-of-thought that the giver happened to jump onto for a moment just to help them ride through another holiday season. It has no attachment to any point in time, any events, nor tells any story. It’s usually hard to look at a Starbucks gift certificate and to recall why you wanted it the particular year you got it, or what receiving it tells you about the person you got it from.
Maybe it will be said that I’m reading too much into this, but I believe this speaks volumes about our society. We seem to no longer value history or memory, only the pending moment. We care foremost about what keeps our attention for a moment, and if it is lost, it is no big matter because no huge part of ourselves is lost. When something of true value is gone, with it is lost is part of who you are, memories of who you were. Say someone wrote a poem for you as part of a gift, or made a craft of personal value. Reading the poem may tell you about certain goings-on at the time you first read it. It was a part of the giver, not another cookie from the cutter, at the time it was received. The craft takes on wear over time, and it actually matters if it breaks because it cannot be replaced. All of the memories of the times it has been used and dropped never leave the object, and it is silly to think to buy a look-alike to remind you of the memories of someone else’s craft you got rid of. We have an odd tendency to attribute meaning to ordinary objects: not “Aw, this was the watch you paid $105.99 for, plus shipping and handling” but “You gave this to me when we had that fight, and I threw this at you, and there’s the dent that looks just like that dent on your forehead.”

Hm… that was long-winded. And this is all to say nothing about the time when the ultimate meaning was attached to our world when God took on flesh. I don’t want to overuse the cliché of Jesus being the ultimate Christmas gift, but few of us end up crucified from our Holiday gift-giving, and though that may not be a necessary aspiration, it is worth our consideration. No other gift was so meaningfully or closely related to real people, and God did not attach a receipt to the baby and wait to apologize when the receiver was disappointed. “Hello there,” He might have said, “You are going to take this baby whether you like it or not. This is the Word, part of myself begotten to you. I am well pleased with Him. This is hope. You cannot return to sender, though you will probably thrash him around a bit.” And that we did…

I hope you enjoyed ranting with me for yet another holiday. I think we could stand to gather and do it again in another year when we reflect on how much hasn’t changed by next Christmas.

"Call me Ishmael"

2007-12-22T09:28:00.000-08:00

This may help to clarify my blog name. This is the introduction and conclusion to a paper I wrote on Moby Dick in American Lit. class. Ishmael is the lone wanderer at sea that Herman Melville uses to raise all sorts of existential questions about humanity and the seeming inaccessibility of God. Not that I agree with Melville's conclusions, but he raises intriguing and even damning questions.
The Apostle Paul compares the lives of those who love Christ to wandering nomads living in tents with no true stability in this world. I've been talking with a friend who has been experiencing like never before the volatility of our lives, that we could vanish in an instant from some freak accident or sickness. Melville certainly disagrees with me here, but while we certainly have unstable identities as regards our life on earth, for those who are Sons of God we find we have an immutable clue as to who we are in relation to the whole scheme of the universe, even when what is right in front of us is not so clear and very well may escape us as vapors at any moment.

Melville and the Game
From the introduction of the beloved narrator in Moby-Dick, one possible interpretation the modern reader may anticipate is akin to Tom Stoppard’s two nameless players thrown into Shakespeare’s Hamlet in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead: “Call me Ishmael. Some years ago—never mind how long precisely—having little or no money in my purse, and nothing in particular to interest me on shore…” (MD 18). Just as Stoppard maintains the question of who is Rosencrantz and who is Guildenstern throughout the play, the reader of Moby-Dick has no assurance that Ishmael is the narrator’s actual name, but its implications from Abraham’s story in Genesis of an uncovenanted, man-made existence are certainly fitting to the circumstances in which Ishmael “set about performing the part [he] did” (MD 22). This begs a question central to both works: who is each individual in the grandness of the universe? Do we have stable identities, or are our names merely provisional in a vast improvisational scheme of things? It is no surprise that such a wanderer as Ishmael considers “[taking] this whole universe for a vast practical joke,” (188) but if such a thought is true, or at least if any ultimate meaning is inaccessible or unalterable to human hands, it must be detrimental to each person’s sense of identity and their ability to relate to those around them. Melville expounds upon this consideration in great detail throughout Moby-Dick as he contrasts Ahab’s monomania that leaves him as the inaccessible stuff of legend to Ishmael’s pragmatism whereby he survives only to be swallowed into obscurity. Melville’s answer is that while discontent with mortal bonds, man remains irreconcilable to any higher existence...
Melville essentially leaves room for two major types of existence in a world where it is impossible to take the whole of the human experience on a grand scale and balance it with explanation open to comprehension. The Ahabs may forever shake their fists towards the heavens, yet their cries will ever echo off the prison wall of transience. The Ishmaels may continue their existence oblivious to the malign signs of wrath or indifference from above, all while unable to find security or stability in any meaningful human connection, though they forever wander the earth. In man’s fleeting existence, if one acknowledges these limitations, as Ishmael, and learns somehow to adapt to what he is given by fate, there is some vague hope that “in truth man can perform great deeds” (Durer 253), but in either case, humanity is incorrigibly bound to decay in body and from memory. To Melville, man is the fatherless orphan without a savior: “He sleeps with clenched hands; and wakes with his own bloody nails in his palms,” (169) crucified to his own mortality.