Woody Allen and Billy Graham

A wonderful example of respectful good humoured dialogue...

CYOA: Ecclesiastes - Useless Beauty

There's not much to write home about. God hasn't made it easy for us. I've seen it all and it's nothing but smoke—smoke, and spitting into the wind.

15 Life's a corkscrew that can't be straightened,
A minus that won't add up.

17 I hate life. As far as I can see, what happens on earth is a bad business. It's smoke—and spitting into the wind20-23 That's when I called it quits, gave up on anything that could be hoped for on this earth. What's the point of working your fingers to the bone if you hand over what you worked for to someone who never lifted a finger for it? Smoke, that's what it is. A bad business from start to finish. So what do you get from a life of hard labor? Pain and grief from dawn to dusk. Never a decent night's rest. Nothing but smoke.  So I made up my mind that there's nothing better for us men and women than to have a good time in whatever we do—that's our lot. Who knows if there's anything else to life?

9-10 It's better to have a partner than go it alone.
Share the work, share the wealth.
And if one falls down, the other helps,

But if there's no one to help, tough!

11 Two in a bed warm each other.
Alone, you shiver all night.
12 By yourself you're unprotected.
With a friend you can face the worst.
Can you round up a third?
A three-stranded rope isn't easily snapped.

Anything's possible. It's one fate for everybody—righteous and wicked, good people, bad people, the nice and the nasty, worshipers and non-worshipers, committed and uncommitted. I find this outrageous—the worst thing about living on this earth—that everyone's lumped together in one fate. Is it any wonder that so many people are obsessed with evil? Is it any wonder that people go crazy right and left? Life leads to death. That's it

Above are some verses pearl stringed together from Ecclesiastes. Ecclesiastes is my favourite book of the Bible, which should immediately tell you a lot about me. CBC professors were forced to choose between Genesis and Revelation at a school event - they can have them, I want Ecclesiastes. More than any other book in the Bible, when I read Ecclesiastes I clearly see the world I live in. Ecclesiastes is often considered one of the two most dangerous books in the Bible, the other being Song of Songs. Why? Because nothing is more threatening to the status-quo than sex and meaninglessness. As human beings, we are wired for meaning, we crave it, create it, seek it, and in the face of meaninglessness we are apt to lose our minds. What happens when the myths, stories, goals, and values of our society our shown to be dust in the wind? Well we might opt out, or try and change, or some other very unhelpful thing which will disturb society's sense of normalcy. We might: be homeless for a summer, or not get a job, or riot, who knows? The sky is the limit! Only our imagination holds us back.

Eugene Peterson wrote in on of his books that Ecclesiastes is the palate cleansing book that prepares one for the gospel - that we need a really strong drink of reality in order to grasp the beauty and the power of the gospel. Ecclesiastes represents a sort of intellectual anti-wisdom. It presents a stumbling block to anyone who might be tempted to take proverbs or other "promises" too concretely. I read a book this week by Robert K. Johnston on Ecclesiastes that allowed modern cinema to speak into the themes of meaning and having started with the films then brought Ecclesiastes into the conversation. Movies like: American Beauty, Signs, About Schmidt, Run Lola Run, Magnolia, Boogie Nights, Crimes and Misdemeanors... Belief in the value of bringing art and culture into conversation with the Bible and theology in a two way, mutually informing dialogue is rare and precisely why I am going to Regent this fall. Some of you will note the scandal of suggesting that a movie like Boogie Nights could be worth watching "despite" its strong and explicit sexual content. However, this amusingly highlights why Song of songs is the other "most dangerous book." Christians often are very concerned with censoring the content of art, music, movies, culture and even thought. Amusingly the Bible with its, violence, sexuality, genocide, incest etc. probably wouldn't make it past our own review board.

What does Ecclesiastes teach us? Life is chaos! Deal with it! Embrace it! Enjoy it when you can because life is also a gift from God - and as a gift it can only be received rather than taken.

Or to put another way: Life is more like surfing than it is like building a house.

Do you believe that the universe has rules that God has put in place that if you follow you will be able to enjoy life and experience abundance? Do you believe that if you are a good person that things will be good and happy? Do you believe that everything happens for a reason? Do you believe that if you are a Christian that God guarantees you stuff? your life? money? food? Get a reality check, read Ecclesiastes and look around the world.

I think Ecclesiastes is the key to Paul's secret to be content in all circumstances (Philippians 4:9). Everything is meaningless but life is still a gift.

Be dangerous! Embrace the chaos! Face the void! Find faith! Find Freedom!

Real and Sureal

It began with Woody Allen a few weeks ago now. The theme of real and not real in my life. What occurs and who makes up the rules for what can and cannot be. This is beautifully depicted by Woody Allen's asides in his movies. I followed up two weeks ago with more Woody Allen as I saw "Midnight in Paris" which was fantastic, so if you have not seen it you should. The lines of reality and fiction, blur in a surreal way, and the surreal is the real (which probably only makes sense if you have seen it). Today I listened to a short story by Woody Allen, where he pretends he is Socrates in a dream, it is real in the sense it is story, but highly unreal as well. I think I am talking in circles and repeating myself...good, such is life and the contemplations about reality, friction, real, and surreal.

I have been attempting to escape recently, not because of lack of employment but because of it. I got a job doing manuel labour in Vancouver for 8 hours a day, and I commute for about 4 more. It is mindless work and mindless driving. I have attempted to turn myself into a drone and jokingly said to my friends "lets pretend I wake up at 5:30 pm, because the rest of the day is not worth mentioning". I attempt to escape into a surreal time portal at 5am that will spit me out 12 hours later so I can continue my life. It is as "real" as anything can be, but for me that "real" is 'surreal".

This post, however, was prompted by the one and only Lady Gaga. She, being her brilliant self, offers an intriguing perspective into this dialogue. Read about it here. Please read it, because all of what I said was shared because I read this. I think it is because I longed for my life to be unified in the way she describes the blurry lines. I am not there because I am attempting to escape part of it. .

Monetised/Sponsored

What are three unemployed grads to do other than monetise their blog? This mean that you will now see ads as part of this experience. Yes we know you are inundated with advertising all day and you just wanted to escape and read a little jaded, critical, and miserable theological ramblings and other shenanigans, not be sold books and boats and mustaches but hey we didn't create this blog out of anti advertising ideals we created it out of boredom. If you want learn how to stick it to the adman and take back the streets with a meme war go read adBusters but if you want to see what real and theological hijinx we get up to: we will be here whoring our creative and intellectual content to the best of our abilities. Today we watched Annie Hall and discussed further the meaninglessness of life and frustrations of job searching. I made more money before I went to college, its a good thing I didn't go to school to get a job... mind you if I had done that perhaps I would be finding something right now. My wife called me an author yesterday, that was a great ego boost. We are now sponsored authors.


One new years a few years ago, some friends and I met a guy on the skytrain, drunk as a skunk, but out of his intoxicated mouth came some of the most beautiful words of truth I have heard in my life, literally linguistic liquid gold: "Free! Thats like my first favourite word." We asked what his second favourite word was and his response was, "Sponsored..." he said, with glazed look of glory frozen on his face as he stared into space and imagined selling out in order to get paid to play. I am experiencing that right now. We three young jaded idealists standing here on the edge of glory having just sold our souls moments ago for advertising revenue - having commoditized the very relationships which provide the meaning in our meaningless lives and we are hanging on this moment of truth to find out will we fall? will lose it all? would anyone pay us to write without ads? How do you feel being part of the largest psychological experiment in human history? "Advertising" - coming soon...