Badgers and my influence

One of my roommates showed me some pretty good car insurance commercials. They involve badgers and that's all you need to know.


via videosift.com

On a different note, I'm realizing how much influence I can have one people. The college kids from my church went out and bought a coffee grinder and a French press. And some of them are now quoting The Big Lebowski.

Why Teach? on The Brew; Scary liquor stores; Seraphim Falls

I just posted September's first article, "Why I'm Still A Teacher" by new author Gayle Amato. It's a great look at what education really is and where The Brew fits in in the educational process.

There are still a few kinks to get worked out, as you may notice when you look for September's editorial, which has disappeared. Such is the joy of Internet publishing. But fear not, for my editorial writing prowess will be able to be viewed once again (and will make look Gayle's article look all the better) when this one of many hiccups is fed a good spoonful of peanut butter.

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I've come to love scary-looking liquor stores. I went to one in a predominately Hispanic neighborhood in Dallas where two black men were sitting outside and asking for money and beer. An Asian and a Phillipino man manned the counter inside. When I walked in, looking as white as can be in cargo shorts and a polo, I think I did my part to celebrate racial diversity. Or is it unity? All races are brought together through a liquor store?

To make it even more ethnic, I was on a mission for Gallo beer, which is made in Guatemala. I found this beer at a store similar to the one mentioned above while living in Chicago. I knew that my only hope would be to check out random, ramshackle stores which might carry it.

I was let down when I didn't see Gallo. But instead I found Tona (there should be an 'enye' in that name but this blog couldn't translate that symbol), a beer from Nicaragua.

Oh, man. I almost forgot about Gallo when I downed this smooth but somehow crisp delight. My curiosity was rewarded and now I'm not so sure if Gallo is the best Latin American beer I've had.

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I watched Seraphim Falls this weekend and was wowed as James Bond (Pierce Brosnan) was chased through the southwest by Oskar Schindler (Liam Neeson). Both played ex-Civil War generals who had some unfinished business. Great cat and mouse film with some very surprising moments.

Brosnan should get an award for best use of a horse as a cloaking device in this film. That's all I'm gonna say about that, otherwise, I'll spoil the best surprise of the movie.

Continuous Learning On The Brew; Talledega what?!

I posted September's editorial on The Brew. Read it and feel more educated.

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I watched Talladega Nights last night. I guess I was expecting more laughs. I laughed at the intro of Will Ferrel's character but then didn't laugh until the commercial interruption of the longest crash ever.

I was amazed at what a huge production the movie was. But then I realized that every second of film time was prime time for product placement. And boy, did they ever place products. Now the elaborate crash sequences and numerous cameos began to make more financial sense. Even Fig Newtons got in on the action (I chuckled at that joke).

Another Round of The Brew; Jogging the Mind and Useless Knowledge

So The Brew is finally back up! We'll be working to repost all past articles over the next few months as well as move into September's Education Issue.

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So I was running today around my expansive apartment complex when running towards me was a guy I was an RA with while at Moody in Chicago. Now, being a Bible school graduate and still running in Christian circles, it's a reality that I'll always run into people who will jog my memory of college. So this was no surprise for me.

This may have been a surprise for this guy, who noticed me but may not have recognized me. Perhaps his mind had been sprinting through his workout and didn't have time to stop for a breather to remember way back when. I didn't become short of breath when I realized that he wouldn't say 'Hey' so I said, "How's it going?" as he ran by.

No response.
No biggie. I wasn't on any marathon to get every person I ever went to school with to remember me.

On a different note, I had some boosts and edits when it comes to my useless movie knowledge.

I went to a midnight showing of Pulp Fiction at a sort of artsy theater near my new store. I figured most of my friends wouldn't have been able to handle going to a midnight movie, much less Pulp Fiction at midnight, so I went with some friends from the Coffee Chain That Shall Remain Nameless.

Before the film, which didn't get over till 2:45 a.m., they had some trivia for free movie passes and for a collector's edition DVD of the movie. While I was debating if I wanted a copy of the film that made Quentin Tarantino famous, they started the trivia.

"Which three Tarantino films feature characters eating Big Kahuna burgers?" People started raising their hands and belting out all of the movies. Four people got the answer wrong and, by this time, seeing that Tarantino only has around six or seven major films out there, someone else figured it out pretty quickly.

I was lost on this, and the next question. "Vincent Vega's character in Pulp Fiction is related to which character in Reservoir Dogs?" I've yet to see Dogs so I had to let someone else get the DVD.

But the next day, I was playing Scene It with the college group from my church and am a little ashamed to say that I dominated there. I picked out a picture of Sigourney Weaver from Ghostbusters and picked the movie Silence of The Lambs from these three clues: Size 16 dress, fava beans, and Clarice.

And now I'm also in a race against two other guys from my college group on Facebook's Never-Ending Movie Quiz.

All this makes me wonder what I would do if I didn't have all this useless movie knowledge.

Call PR!; The King

So I had a legendary moment while working at the Coffee Chain That Shall Remain Nameless today.

The new Fall promotion began today, and so did the push for employees to sell more whole bean coffee. All the machines were also marked down to closeout prices. I happened to be wearing my newly re-acquired Coffee Master apron, which if I were writing a PR piece, would be a symbol of my hard work and dedication to the Coffee Chain's values and beliefs.

Throughout my morning shift, I sold three pounds of coffee to various customers. Now I could attribute this to my looking like I knew something about coffee with the aforementioned apron, which is fancier than normal aprons and black. And I could write how I was setting the example of coffee excellence by not only wearing the Coffee Master Apron, but also selling more than my fair share of beans in one day. Or I could attribute it to being at the right place at the right time, namely behind a register.

Later on in the day, a customer called asking if my store had a pricey espresso machine (normally $1,400 but marked down to $449). I happily said, "Well, yes, I think we do. I can put it aside for you..."

That was very good news to my ears and to the customer's. Apparently, she had to call around to four different stores to find the machine. She and others had chipped in to buy the machine as a wedding present for some happy newlywed couple that would be so happy to have the machine. I helped the customer out to her car with the machine (it's probably 20 lbs or so) and she told me how happy she was to find this. After I put the machine in her car.

She was elated and then gave me a hug before she drove away. Now if this were some puff piece, I might say that I was proud to wear that black apron today. I could say that this was all in a day's work for a Coffee Chain That Shall Remain Nameless Coffee Master. Maybe I could speculate as to how my would not have been as good if I had not worn that apron.

But luckily, for you, this isn't a PR fluff article, and this is the end of the story.

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I watched The King over the weekend.

Very disturbing. I guess it was a very accurate portrayal of evil? I'm not sure how to take this film. Don't know if there's anything here besides good acting and style that's redeemable.

New Brews; Film Faux Pauxs

Over the weekend and today, I posted Jane Does'"When SHE Struggles"and Lonnie Smith's "Talk To Your Kids About Sex, Dammit!".

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So I went to two movies on Sunday. And each time, I made some kind of mistake that was pretty stinking funny.

The first happened when I purchased a ticket at a automated kiosk. I went through the process of picking which movie (You Kill Me at 4 p.m.) but then I came to the type of ticket I wanted. I wasn’t watching too closely and got a senior citizens discount ticket.
And then all of sudden the ticket popped out of the machine with ‘senior’ printed under the movie title.

The ticket taker did a double-take at the ticket but didn’t say anything. I was more than willing to explain the mistake, but I guessed I passed for over 65.

At the next movie, I got another ticket from an automated kiosk. This time I picked the regular price and the right showtime (The Simpsons Movie at 7:10). But I didn’t realize the ticket taker standing a few feet from the kiosk. So I walked right on by the taker, not even noticing that I blew by her. I didn’t realize what I did till I sat down in my seat in the theater and saw that I had both halves of my ticket.

Both movies were great, by the way. You Kill Me was a great, dark, dry humor movie about a alcoholic hit man, Sir Ben Kingsley, who starts going to AA. And The Simpsons Movie was pretty funny throughout.

Why The Renaissance is Sexier, etc.; One Punk Under God

I posted Georgie Lee Fledderjohn's "Why The Renaissance is Sexier" article on The Brew; it's a look at other fantastical ideas about sex and what is sexy.

Be watching through the end of the month for more articles. I won't be blogging about every single one, since there will be many over the next few days.
Next up is another Jane Doe article on female sexual struggles; then Lonnie Smith's "Talk to Your Kids About Sex, Dammit!". The last one is pretty self-explanatory.

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I love Jay Bakker. I empathize with him. But he is also my hero. He survived a religious catastrophe that never really stopped. He survived a faith that could have surely killed someone else. I could almost say that he survived the church, evangelicalism, the dark side of Christianity, etc.

I moved this DVD to the front of my Netflix queue when I heard that Jay’s mom, Tammy Faye Messner, died from cancer earlier this week. After watching the portions of the series with her in it, it truly is a miracle that she lasted so long. There weren’t many details of how bad the cancer was but what I saw of Tammy Faye disturbed me. Doctors said in the one of the episodes that any day that she keeps living is a miracle. The series was probably filmed last summer, so that could mean that Tammy Faye lasted another year on a who knows how many pills, a portable oxygen machine and Hospice care. And perhaps prayer and faith.

It’s hard to care about someone’s eccentricities when you literally see them dying before your eyes. And that is what you’ll see in One Punk Under God.

You’ll also see Jay do what he can to have a relationship with his dad. This was so hard to watch. The only way that either Bakker was able to communicate to the other was when they were preaching or doing a TV show. Now, naturally, Jay took a lot of initiative to foster a relationship with his famous father, Jim Bakker; but both were so similar in that they almost needed an audience in order to be genuine, open and honest.

I’m always fascinated by anyone’s struggle with their religious identity. I can relate to that. I empathize with that because I do the same. It’s easy for me to over dramatize my struggle for faith, my relationship with my parents or anything else that might be considered hard or traumatic. I’m surely no where near what someone like Jay Bakker has experienced.

But I was completely moved when his dad came to visit the new church Jay started after moving to New York City. I cried when I heard his father say that he was so proud of his son and that Jay was doing what Jim couldn’t do. That was just beautiful.

Connections on The Brew; Exploration; Undertow

I posted new author Jay Friesen's "Connection: Sex and Praise and Worship" on The Brew.
Jay looks at the longing for connection in music and in the desire for sex.

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I went to meet a good friend at a place called Tipperary Inn in Dallas' Lakewood neighborhood yesterday. I got there a little early so I walked around and explored a little was well rewarded.

I found a little hole in the wall coffee shop called Coffee Co. The entire store was about the size of my apartment living room but looked like a farmer's market/mercantile in the middle of a coffee shop. There were only about two tables in the small place, possibly due to the coffee roaster that took up the front part of the store.

When I walked in, the owner was roasting some Columbian beans and it smelled amazing and slightly nutty. My first thought was, 'How does this guy stay in business?' I looked at his list of coffee beans and saw the prices were slightly higher. But he did have Jamaican Blue Mountain beans (one of the most expensive beans, next to the Hawaian Kona beans and the silly Asian-monkey-digested coffee beans). I thought I'd support the little guy so I bought a 1/4 pound of the Jamaican beans ($13).

By that time, my buddy showed up to the Irish 'snug' for a beer or two. They apparently call it a 'snug' because, unlike the more open pubs, this place had partitions between seats to give privacy to the patrons. Two seats at the bar had partitions with stained glass on either side to separate them from the other bar stools.

I had a Boddingtons (really flavorful and complex) and a some other kind (can't remember the name) that had 1776 in the title.

Either I had an empty stomach before hand or the two beers I had were pretty potent. So I walked over to a used bookstore, Paperbacks Plus. I refrained from buying anything, mostly because I'd already bought two books last weekend at another used bookstore (Blue Blood, a memoir by a New York City cop, and Attack Upon Christendom by Kierkegaard). But it was great to smell that used book smell when I walked in the door. It was good to follow the maze of bookshelf hallways and find so many books that you think you might read.

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I watched Undertow last night. Great style; has a choppy, unfinished look that seems to imitate the look and feel of the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre films (though Undertow is not a horror movie). Great Southern gothic tale. Not as dark and menacing as I thought it was going to be.

Cinematic Sex On The Brew; Hell At The Coffee Chain That. Shall Remain Nameless

To kick off the sex issue of The Brew is Trent Starnes' article "Cinematic Sex: The Build Up And Let Down". It'll help ground your expectations of sex in the real rather than reel world.

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Helplessness, Hopelessness and Hell at The Coffee Chain That Shall Remain Nameless

So I’m working at a mall location of The Coffee Chain That Shall Remain for two weeks. I was spared working either the night of July 3rd or at all on the 4th. But today, Saturday, I worked the opening shift, which became a fill-in/afternoon shift.

This particular store is always understaffed, unstable and undesirable. Something about the store stinks and many partners (as this Coffee Chain communistically calls its employees) have sniffed that stench and stay away. The store has burned through three store managers in its less than 12-month run (with one walking out in the middle of a shift) and is currently being run by a guy hired from outside the company, whose resume includes being some sort of manager for Wal-Mart (probably the second-most demonized company in America).

Located in a semi-hidden corner of the mall behind the entrance to an AMC Movie Theater, the store is a place of refuge from the busyness of the mall, states the store’s district manager during his pitch to recruit me for this failing store. There is only one supervisor to run shifts during the day; the store manager, who really is a nice guy, also runs shifts but neither he nor the sole supervisor can cover all the shifts.

Such is the environment that I have to work in for two weeks (the reason why has to do with me working over the aforementioned district manager and the store being at a close, convenient location). Shifts during the week were easier than expected, with much of the normal work getting done. But weekends is where partners can experience Hell on earth.

Friday night was survivable. We had enough people to handle the rushes of people coming and going from the movies. But the store seemed sadly understaffed all day Saturday. From around 2:45 p.m. until I left at 5:15, there was a nearly constant stream of people into the store. All that transpired during these 2.5 hours was the stuff of a barista’s nightmare: people keep coming into the store; all sorts of products run out; the café area is trashed; half of the customers don’t know what they ordered and wanted something different from what you put in front of them, etc.

I stayed an extra hour and 15 minutes because the night crew wouldn’t be able to take lunch breaks if I didn’t. During uncontrolled chaos of those two hours, I became helpless to fix the problems all around me (‘You’re out of napkins and iced coffee’; ‘I ordered a drink before that person…’). The Coffee Chain’s idea of legendary service was trampled to death by the high volume and the five of us working during that rush couldn’t change that.

Anyone getting their drink quickly or made correctly was hopeless. The people working were hopeless to fix anything since no other warm bodies were coming to help. There wasn’t time to step away from the espresso machine to fix any of the problems. There wasn’t any way to make the customers happy or to keep many of them from stepping out of line in frustration and leaving the store.

You just stop caring and trying to rush around so much. It’s hopeless that things will let up and you’re helpless to do anything but continue trotting on, doing what you can to appease whichever customer makes the most immediate fuss (‘I asked for a glass of water ten minutes ago!’).

And then I realized that this kind of resignation is a powerful and accurate description of depression. I won’t make all the connections for ya but give this whole thing another read with that in mind. And if you have no idea what depression is about, this should give you a glimpse.

Acting on The Brew; A Christian Will Ferrell; So Many Songs, So Many Issues

I posted Shannon Neffendorf's critique of acting, "Acting To Shatter The Soul" on The Brew.

Watch for more this month. There's still plenty to come.

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I watched Winter Passing last night was amazed. Will Ferrel does another restrained turn (like in Stranger Than Fiction), this time playing a bassist from a Christian rock band, Punching Pilate. His character is so nuanced and subtle, but is the most accurate and sympathetic portrayal of a Christian I've ever seen.

The rest of the movie is a pretty good indie drama. There's some great literary one-liners and great acting. Though, some might be disturbed by a scene where a dying kitten is euthanized (nothing graphic).

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So I bought a subscription to a music service (and am quietly proud to not use I-Tunes) and am obtaining music more legally.

I'm amazed to find the most random tracks ("Super Bon Bon" by the defunct Soul Coughing and a spooky piano and distorted guitar track from the 28 Days Later SDTRK). I also can't believe the wealth of music that is out there. I can get just about anything I can think of (though I'm having some trouble finding some older Christian rock songs: Bleach, Silage, etc.).

I'm also reading through Ecclesiastes with some guys I'm in a Bible study with. I'm digesting the expected "Life if meaningless" and "Only God can provide meaning" ideas. And then I'm seeing those idea apply to my music downloading.

I can download all the music that my laptop can hold, but will it really make me happy? And if I do download all that I can think of, God can add meaning to it all and use it for good.

Oh, the joys of having such a dualistic and complicated faith. But I don't think I would have it be any less complicated.

The Brew Goes Across The Pond; Freedom To Fellowship

I posted new author David Wright's "Director Michael Apted's Look At Life, Every 7 Years" on The Brew.
The article explores British director Apted's look at a group of people every 7 years.

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I was journaling the other day (something I’ve started doing less and less).
I wrote a lot about freedom, independence and then on to community and fellowship.

It got me thinking in these big-concept kind of words that seemed like they would make a good one-word-a-line poem. So here is my first attempt at poetry in a long, long time.

Freedom
Independence
Individuality
Interaction
Commonality
Community
Submission
Similarities
Sharing
Fellowship

The Brew Goes To the Movies; Murder Mystery Dinner

I posted the first film article "The State Of Film in America" by Keith Evers (new author) on The Brew.

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Murder Mystery Dinner

So I went to a murder mystery dinner at the Cattleman’s Steakhouse in Dallas for my birthday.

It was pretty cool and not too cheesy. A few actors were mixed in with the sixty or so other dinner guests and slowly died off during dinner.

The guests quickly became just as entertaining as the show throughout the night.
There was a drunk dad there with his two teenage boys. The dad would joke around, scream and yell, “He did it!” while pointing at someone at random. And then he got into an argument with an Indian guy and asked him to step outside with him (the emcees stopped anything from happening).

Then my date and I shared a table with a lesbian couple. They were celebrating their 5th anniversary in Dallas. An ex-husband of one of them was best friends with the other and that is apparently how they met.

During a short time where all the dinner guests were instructed to look around the room for clues to a murder that took place during our salads, some thought they might find a clue in my date’s purse (which she had left hanging on the back of her chair at the table).
She realized that she left it there two or three minutes into the search of the room. The purse was open and sitting on the floor when we got back to the table. Talk about truly frightening.

To make the night interactive, regular guests were made to stand up and be interrogated by the actor playing a detective (other actors mixed in with the crowd were the actual victims and murderers in the show). Because it was my birthday, someone gave the people in charge of the show some dirt on me.

Here’s how my interrogation went:

Detective: “So, I hear you used to be a criminal reporter in Chicago.”
Me: “Yes.”
D: “And you moved around a lot. Sounds like you’re a little shifty.”
E: “Uh, yeah.”
D: “So it seems like you might have a good means and background to be able to kill someone.”
E: “Sure (There was a gasp, some chuckles, and a “That’s a confession!” heard among the other dinner guests.).”

I met an older couple in their 50s who were missionaries in Romania with Christ for the Nations (which is headquartered in south Dallas). It was also the husband’s birthday and he was wearing a bow-tie.

New Brew; Jesus Camp

I posted Lonnie's article on Isaac Asimov's view of space on The Brew.

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I viewed one of the most disturbing and possibly enraging films of all times: Jesus Camp.

I had the college group from church over for a movie and discussion night to watch it. A friend said he felt sick after watching it. I was left perplexed, but for a different reason than you might think.

Now, naturally, people wanting to make a documentary about a fiery, flamboyant, and fundamentalist church camp don’t have to look too far for material. There is plenty of naturally disturbing footage that needs nothing added to shock.

But I was a little more distracted by the style and other technical details. The documentary follows three kids who attend camp leader Becky Fischer’s “Kids on Fire Summer Camp.” Though one of the three, a little girl who likes to dance to Christian hardcore music, disappears more as the film progresses. I wondered if she wasn’t vibrant or dramatic enough to merit further inclusion.

The last half of the film follows the other two kids as they listen to a sermon by Ted Haggard at New Life Church in Colorado Springs and then later protest in Washington, D.C. (The filmmakers surely had no idea how damning or ironic their footage of Haggard would become. There is a very interesting response here by the filmmakers to Haggard’s accusation that they had an agenda). At this point, the film seemed to be more about the fundamentalist movement rather than about the camp or Becky Fischer. The praying, singing and protesting in our capital seemed to be the climax rather than kids returning home from camp.

Other segments in the film also rubbed me the wrong way for how they seemed staged. (For an example of documentary staging, watch anything by Michael Moore). A radio talk show featured throughout the film seemed ultra-staged, especially when Fischer called in to try to defend herself.

The first half-hour of the film is sufficient to disturb everyone and also accomplishes what the filmmakers wanted to communicate. The remaining 50 minutes seems to take on a different purpose, or, dare I say, agenda.

I wondered more after watching Camp if any kind of documentary could truly be unbiased. Conceptually, a documentary’s aim is usually just to tape reality as it is, with no agenda. But then, you can’t show an entire fundamentalist church service and would have to do some editing. And it seems that in the editing, the temptation to stage some great shots that would so compliment the service would creep in. And then you get to thinking how you could add in some voice-overs from a different interview or some other clip that might realistically fit in with the original church service. And then you could re-shoot some altar call and tell some little girl to hold out letting go of those tears just a little longer.
Hmmmmmmmm. Stuff to think about.

New Brew; Movie Quickies; Disturbing 70s Evangelical Video

I just posted part 2 of Kevin Davis' "The Truth in Words and Spaces" on The Brew.

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Here's some quick reviews on some movies I saw recently.

Spiderman 3 (as can be expected): Good effects. Nutin' else.

Zodiac: Great movie that's more about obsessive people following the case than about the serial killer.

Breach: The most thrilling movie with the least amount of action.

Hot Fuzz: Genius send-up of action movies by the Brits who made Shaun Of The Dead. A must see if only to see Timothy Dalton ( a former Bond) as a grocery store owner.

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Scary evangelical video from some 70s fundamentalist preacher. Be warned: It is disturbing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1paYhEDFQIw

Borat; Depression Series # 4

Had a great night with a friend from Chicago who's now in Dallas. Had a six-course meal (all homemade except for some sushi); some double chocolate stout and big 'ole bottle of tasty cheap wine. This made watching Borat after dinner all the funnier.
Can't believe some people fell for Cohen's shtick, especially a local news station. I couldn't stop laughing while Cohen interrupted a local news weather segment. Genius.
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Depression Series # 4 (Contains violent content)

This is an essay I didn't do anything with, and you can probably figure out why. It started with a good idea but then turned into something else and got a little violent by the end. Not sure what kind of mood I was in at the time, but I'm sure I must have just watched Fight Club or something like that before writing this.

Fighting Against Fundamentalism (2004)

I didn't realize I was one until met people who weren't and people who were worse off than me. And as much as I try to fight it, somewhere in the tissues of my brain lurks the evil, growth-stunting, self-exalting, self-isolating principles of fundamentalism.

I grew up with it like an extra head sitting on my shoulders. As I grew, matured and began to shave, so it began to get acne and feel akward. My brain and it's brain began to think similarly as we grew up. "I don't smoke, drink or chew or go with girls who do." That was actually a line from my parent's version of fundamentalism but it echoes so closely what my own thought.

"I don't watch R-rated movies, break the rules or question what I'm told or hang out with anyone so bold."

This is what my second brain would transmit from it's slightly off-center spot on my shoulders to my real brain which was in the center of my body and being. So many other transmissions were relayed to my true head through the church I went to, how my parents saw the world and how I confused spirituality with a tortuous sort of self-discipline. They were all that made it into my moldable brain during the adolescent years.

My second head would always tell me of how everything was spiritual and that there was always s spiritual reason for something happening. I could do well at baseball, then there must be someone that I hadn't reconciled myself with. Other completely unrelated disappointments or failures would be instantly diagnosed as blinking billboard that said, "Something is really wrong. Pray now so God can show you what you've done wrong."

I'd soon begin to misdiagnose everything that hurt or confused me. If people said something that hinted of a truer understanding of God's grace, of the complexity of being human or of Scripture and theology, I would think, "You're almost right but not quite." They weren't as spiritual as I was and if they were, then they wouldn't say or do those kinds of things. They should be so much more discipline and do what I do or else they'll run into a lot of problems.

My two heads soon became one as the off-center brain latched onto my own and began to meld with the beautiful gray matter that God had given me. I now saw through it's eyes instead of my own and thought it's thoughts. I couldn't believe how many other people had it all wrong. No wonder everyone else in the world was having problems with life. They weren't doing what I was doing. If they could only do their daily devotions ( merely an exercise in writing down meaningless phrases that would never impact my life) and see how bad those movies were (when if fact they were the most accurate depiction of humanity, grace and redemption.

All of my life was easy to explain and understand and the rest of the world was too, if you only thought like me. Complexity and confusion were suppressed and not dealt with because it didn't fit with my own paradigm of how God worked. The Bible was the Bible and there was no question about how life was. If something was wrong in your life, there had to be some spiritual roots.

But thank God for depression and the results. A small, dull pain began as an ax was pushed into my bloated and confused head. An inch at a time, the ax began to cut through the skin, muscle and bone until it found the carnivorous fundamentalist head that attached onto my own. A little dramatic? Yeah, but everything was when you had a fundamentalist mindset.

When the depression ax had succeeded in splitting my head open, my judgmental eyes were plucked out. My sight was gone. I didn't know how to look at the world anymore.

With a gaping gash in my head and two bloody sockets, I realized that something was wrong. Maybe I was wrong. I started to see that there was this other way of thinking. Some better way of looking at others, at my faith, and at how God saw me.

The one thing my fundamentalist mindset was right about was that there was something wrong with me. I had deeper problems.

Miller on The Brew; For Your Consideration

I just posted my review of Donald Miller's two newest books on The Brew.
I also added the first resource on the Emergent Church Movement on The Brew's Culture tab. It's a history and description of the Emergent and Emerging movements by pretty much the leader of it all, Mark Driscol.
I'm going to use The Culture Tab, formerly used for movie reviews, as a resource for all things Emergent this month. If you have any other good articles I can post or link to, let me know and I'll add it.
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Watched For Your Consideration. Had only a couple of chuckles. Or chortles.

Editorial; Evil Dead 2; A Nyquil Night

I posted March's editorial on The Brew today.
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I watched the Evil Dead 2 tonight, as well. Easier to take than the first. Had a classic scene of Bruce Campbell fighting against his own hand, which had been infected with evil.
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I'm also fighting a wicked cold/flu/seasonal malady. Tally of everything I've taken today: 2 packets of Emergen-C; Thera-Flu, 2 Aleves. And I'm soon going to be very good friends with a bottle Nyquil. Oh, the sweetness of a Nyquil night and a good night's sleep.

Jesus on Your Arm; What I Really Mean; American Splendor

So a guy walks into my store yesterday with a tatoo of this painting on his forearm. So, thinking I'd be pretty with it, I asked him, "So you got a DiCianni on your arm?" (What I didn't know is that the painting merely looked like a Ron DiCianni painting).
The guy then began telling me about something about what the Bible said about the Gospel. Not wanting to admit my artistic faux pax of mixing up artists, I moved on. (The tat was something to see, though. It was in full color and looked like it took a while to finish).
I then asked him about his t-shirt, which said "Epic Surf Ministries". "Yeah," he said. "We're in California and we run surf summer camps and Bible clubs."
Wow. Didn't know there was such a thing.
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I posted the last ambiguous article on The Brew today, written by none other than yours truly.
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Watched American Splendor yesterday. Great movie about an odd file clerk who drew comics of every day stuff and became semi-famous for it. It's a great mix of film, interviews and comics to tell Harvey Pekar's story.

Had a conversation with a friend about different translations of the Bible. My thoughts came together as I was talking out my NAS but it ended up sounding truly together, smooth and...(trying to find a way to work in an ESV pun)....

So here's what came out: The New American Standard version came out in the 90s, and was kind of rigid and wooden, though more accurate than the NIV, which was published back in the 60s or 70s. I'm sure that since the NAS, everyone's understanding of the Bible and scholarship has matured and grown since then. I thought that perhaps the generation that each translation was produced in might have bearing on how that version is put together.

The example that comes to mind is how the ESV translates some pronouns, say he or she. The ESV has side notes whenever there is a pronoun which isn't necessarily masculine that says, 'he or she'. This made me wonder if this is according to the newest scholarship or evangelicals realizing past mistakes (?) in how they treated the pronouns.
So my spur of the moment conclusion is that there's surely some influence each generation has on newer translations.
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Dan's article on the Brew spurred some true dialog with lengthy comments and responses. Check 'em out after Dan's "Compassion and Theology" article.
Also, I posted another new author Lesley on the current Brew. She writes about the ambiguous future.
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Next month will be two years since a friend committed suicide. I've been trying to think of what to do and I think I'll post all that I've written on depression during March. So it'll be four or five essays I've written over the last five years on my experiences with depression.
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And to keep you guys from thinking that I'm too spiritual, I'll admit that I watched The Evil Dead last night, at my roommate's request ( he recently got the complete trilogy that ends with Army Of Darkness). The description on the DVD case said it was the most disturbing movie ever made. Though it stars funny man Bruce Campbell and contains the cheesiest horror effects from the 80s, it was truly disturbing. I'm hoping the middile installment (The Evil Dead 2) might be funnier. Chalk one up for truth in advertising.

I posted Kate's article on a social experiment involving online dating sites and co-workers on The Brew. It's The Brew's way of saying, Happy Valentine's Day.
The Brew is getting bigger and bigger. I spent nearly all of my free time today online with posting new articles, answering and sending out emails and keeping up a good online presence. You think if I didn't have an actual physical body, I might exist only online.
What a thought.
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Upcoming movies I'm pumped about:
Blake Snake Moan: if someone turned a Flannery O'Conner story into a movie, it might look like this.
Sunshine: Brit director Danny "28 Days Later" Boyle's version of sci-fi.
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Another great Kierkegaard prayer from Provocations.
"Oh God, forgive me for seeking excitement and enjoyment in the allurements of the world which are never truly satisfying. If like the prodigal son, I have gone in search of the wonders of the transient world, forgive me, and receive me back again into your encircling arms of love."