Ridiculous Things I Say That Make Alice Laugh

At some point we get in an argument over what sound a sheep makes. She claims it is a low and steady "Baaa" sound. I reply at first that it is a "Ba" with a stuttering 'a'.
"Ba-a-a-a"
An argument ensues. Later this evolves into a "ma-a-a-a" sound. She contests this inconsistency. I respond:
"Well it depends if you're referring to the International Council of Sheep standards, or the American Sheep Association. . ."
Being eyed with skepticism, I continue, "The I.C.S. insists on the 'B' sound, but the Association leaves the leading consonant undefined . . . . Just make sure to pay attention to who the regulating union is in your part of the country. If you are unfortunate enough to make the wrong pronunciation in the wrong area you're liable to have wool thrown at you . . . they might even force you to wear and uncomfortable sweater. . . "


We're walking past the new 14 story research building, being constructed at Southwestern.
Me: "I'm always really intrigued by construction. Maybe I should have gone into that."
Alice looks unconvinced.
"Maybe we should do that instead, today. I could be really good at it. I could just look around and say, 'Ok, we've got some bricks, so . . you guys build a wall right there. Um, we need some sort of adhesive though to hold them together . . . we need 4 or 5 people to be appointed as designated gum chewers . . . .'"
Alice falls over.
"Can you nail bricks together? No? Ok, we'll have to find some scotch tape then . . . "


Alice is complaining about having to do computer programming at work.
"Just use dollar signs. They fix everything."


"Hyaaa!!!"
I karate chop her in the arm, holding back so as not to break the skin.
She eyes me with the look that non-verbally declares, "What the hell were you thinking?"
". . . Look, you gotta be ready. Ninjas are everywhere, and they won't be holding back."
She procedes to run across the ceiling throwing chinese stars and kills 15 people.


"swo-la"
This is what I intend to say to deny whatever she just said.
It means 'wrong'.
"tso-la"
This is what I actually say, unintentionally. It means 'kill him/her'.
"tswo-la"
This is what I sometimes say, which happens to be an imperative to remove one's clothes. This may or may not be intentional.
Obviously my command of Mandarin is superb.
My most frequently used word is "Gan!" I try to use this in every context where it is improper to use profanity. I do this because "gan" is profanity.

An argument over intonation . . .
Me: ma.
Her: no, ma.
Me: that's exactly what I just said.
Her: no you said 'ma'.
Me: exactly, because that's what you said.
Her: no I said 'ma'.
Me: I know, that's what I said too.
This proceeds for 30 minutes or more, and happens daily. Being American I only recognize angry, sad, and normal tones, which unfortunately don't correspond to Mandarin's up, down, flat and dipping tones. It's hopeless.



Her: How did you just do that?
Me: That's how we do it in Asia. It's a great place, you should come check it out sometime.


etc. etc.

Mocking Ourselves: Homosexuality and Christian Faith

Back in college, when I was still determined to proselytize the whole world, I partook in a "spring-break campaign" as was common at my school. These were basically evangelistic trips around the country designed to shield students at our school from the worldly temptations which other college kids partook in over spring break. For financial reasons I had never joined a trip, until my senior year when a last minute opportunity arose to accompany some of my closest friends to shed light on the Gentiles of Fresno and San Francisco, California.

I don't want to speak totally pejoratively of such trips, as good things certainly came from them. As a general rule they were equally as focused on 'doing good for the Kingdom's sake' as they were on driving people into the baptistery. Often the good that was done was clumsy and inspired by mixed motives, but I don't feel that those acts were invalidated as such.

For the trip that I was on, the two days we spent in San Francisco were by far the highlight. One day was our fun day, and we spent it trying to take in as many tourist attractions as possible. The other day we spent in the Castro district.



At the time we barely knew anything about the area other than it was home to many homosexuals, and that as such many fundamentalist Christians made it their target to go a preach their message of hate and vindictiveness. Looking back, I can say that at the time we didn't know much, but we knew that this was not right. So we spent a day passing out bottles of water, hoping to make up (ever so slightly) for the hostility that other Christians displayed. In hindsight I think our hearts were in the right place, even if we were a little naive on the whole.



I write about this, because last month I had the privilege to watch the movie Milk, a movie that is essentially about the events that made the Castro what it is. It was amusing and agonizing to watch this film, because of what I had formerly believed and because of how ignorant my friends and I had been when we visited. The movie is about Harvey Milk who was the first open homosexual to be elected to public office. Milk was one of the many who helped to transform the Castro into a mecca for homosexuals, and the movie, to a large degree, portrays this period. I'll end my synopsis with that, and recommend highly for everyone to go and see it. Sean Penn does a phenomenal job, and further elevates himself on my already short list of actors whose names I consider worth remembering.

I want to explain my not so profound realization, which nonetheless hit me extremely hard as someone who has been and at some level continues to be a Christian. The movie shows that those who moved to the Castro district did so not out of some perverse desire, but genuinely because of violent persecution. Up until recently, little attention was given on any level of media to the fact that homosexuals were/are being killed for their lifestyle. The movie portrays this quite compellingly. Even within the Castro district men were being beaten to death! So, what does this say for other areas of the country?

The one thing I am convinced that is uniquely powerful within the Christian faith is the advocacy of the marginal. Even over and above compassion, the message of our faith is that there is none so small, nor so "dirty", that God does not stand for him. For him. FOR him!! If this is not true then the "gospel", as we call it, is complete and utter shit.

The question then becomes not "Can we tolerate homosexuals as Christians?", but instead "Does our faith mean anything if we fail to advocate the rights of homosexuals as human beings?"

In the struggle between life and death, we follow a religion that sides with life even up and to the point of death for ourselves. That is what we proclaim. Yet, we have allowed ourselves to be so consumed by the structure of values that we have imposed on biblical faith that we have effectively denied the entire purpose for Christianity's existence. Jesus did not come so that we might raise healthy, heterosexual families under the aegis of "biblical" values. He came that the lost sheep might be found, because if a lost sheep stays lost, it dies. He offered no guidelines for what a sheep must look or act like before it is returned. He only demanded that if we follow him, we take care of these, because when we don't they die. God sides with life.

The point is this: relations between Christian churches and the homosexual community are one of the greatest failures we have faced in our contemporary situation. There are certainly shining examples of churches who have done better, but unfortunately these typically turn into churches of homosexuals, rather than churches which are for homosexuals.

There are also many who are slowly pulling back from the repulsive intolerance which has been characteristic of Christian preachers. Yet, a halfhearted tolerance or even a impotent political correctness is not what is needed. Such is an attitude that makes our Bibles less valuable than toilet paper. The only authentic, Christian response is to affirm life over death. The experience of homosexuals worldwide has long been one which dictated by fear of death. It has reduced them to invisibility and shame.

As a statement of fact: If a church fails to extend the affirmation of life and defiance of death to all from the pulpit, in their doctrine, and with their actions, then they have scorned the message of Jesus and made a mockery of their own faith.

Every homosexual that dies or is beaten is a scandal to the message of Jesus, and this must be preached to his community because his community must act by this message. Every homosexual who lives in fear, is denied the life that God would give them, and what the world would deny the Church should confirm.

If the fold hates the lost sheep, the shepherd will leave and die with the lost. Jesus left our churches a long time ago.

Suburban Smash and Grab: a case study for how criminals in Plano are (a) incompetent, and (b) obtuse morons.

This morning was a bitter, chilling cold one, and a Monday. It was the type where the sheets that surround you upon waking are as dear as your first born, and pulling them off is emotionally traumatizing. (The scene is set.) After eating breakfast, I walked out the door to find my car windows buried beneath thick ice . . . except for the one that was lying in fragments across my back seat.

For context, allow me to point out that I live on the sleepiest, and possibly most boring street in the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex. To get to my house requires navigating a convoluted maze of deep suburbia which would drive the average man to marry the first woman he sees and raise their three children on a healthy diet of bland mediocrity. That is where I live. It is a street where nothing interesting ever happens, and so the last thing I expected was an authentic "urban style" smash and grab.

. . . on second inspection though, it didn't even amount to that. It would appear that the would-be gangsta's didn't have the balls to break the window outright, but rather attempted to pry in open with a screwdriver. Soon they realized that they were too damn stupid to pull off such a feat; I imagine that moment came when the glass cracked, and they had to bust it all out with the aforementioned screwdriver anyway. So upon busting out the window they got what they were obviously after . . . . a messenger bag, with a neuroscience textbook, a philosophy book complete with highlighting and notes, and my journal of philosophical musings. Clever bastards had sharp eyes to spot so unassuming a bag and yet know the value of its true contents. For such astuteness I threw in a brand new Ipod which amounted to 60% of my Christmas gain. That is, if the morons happen to be bright enough to check all the pockets . . . I have some doubts.

Perhaps they wouldn't enjoy such a bonus anyway, as they left a perfectly good Ipod with three times the storage capacity sitting out in plain sight! They didn't even bother to try and plunder the other consoles, picky assholes that they were. No, no. They went straight for the heart and the heart alone. Ice in their veins, and certainly on their clumsy retarded hands! (it was really damn cold) they stole my books.

So, if you work at Half Price, and see some motherfucker trying to sell you a book by John Searle or a fairly new Behavior Psychology text book, please punch them in the crotch to confirm that their balls are missing. Then, kick them in the head repeatedly, telling them to go to the ghetto and take some damn lessons: leave the books, take the technology, and NO! you won't be able to pry open the window, you idiot, so use a blunt object and get on with it!


Ok, fine. Don't kick them in the head. All encouragement to violence was insincere, except for punching them in the crotch since obviously that wouldn't really hurt them now would it?

Poking Holes for the Soul to Live In

I was rather excited when I saw this book at Borders the other day. I'm not sure exactly what made me think it would be a good idea, being as it was in the Christian section. I should have learned by now that said section exists only to sell inferior material to people who have been religiously trained to prefer inferior material.

The reason I bought it is that recently I have been particularly intrigued at how neuroscience and theology interface. There don't seem to be very many on either side who are interested in bridging the gap there. So when I saw this book I thought for a second that maybe I had found such a rarity. Unfortunately the book did a pathetic job. Instead of looking for connections between the two fields, the book quickly becomes a cheap polemic against materialistic neuroscience. There is little desire in the book to give any credit or show any respect to those with differing views, rather it amounts to a sad effort to further the polarizing between traditional religious faith and atheistic materialism as it is manifest in neuroscience.

This book's method seems to borrow from what is all too often seen in Christian apologetics: poke holes in the opposite side and hope that God can comfortably find a home there. Only instead of God they hope the the soul will be salvaged. This method in my opinion fails pathetically in apologetics, and so the similar attempt for the soul follows suit. The 'God of the gaps' and the 'soul in the gaps' both fail, I think, from a horrible lack of creativity as well as blind partisanship. This blindness prevents them from any mature understanding of the opposing point of view, and fails to admit the shortcomings of its own.

To fit the soul or God within the available mental real estate left by apologetic hole poking, requires that they contort and dissociate to such an extent that they cease to resemble anything worth believing in. Both are concepts that demand more than being 'fit in' wherever we can find room for them. Yet, many in our world maintain allegiance to them as they would to deposed kings who refuse to concede they no longer reign supreme. Validity is not displayed by pointing to small cracks in scientific knowledge where it's possible that God or the soul might reside. Nor does a weak diatribe against science bring back the bygone age when God and the soul were assumed.

Briefly allow be to state that the "soul" is not an absolutely necessary concept to any theology, Christian or otherwise. The mileage it has achieved does not prove its truth or even its necessity. If we are proved to not have souls as has been tradition for much of Christian history, this does not prove our faith to be null and void. Similarly if God is proven to not resemble a grandfather with the body of a professional athelete who dwells beyond the clouds, this does not demand his inexistence. Instead, in both cases, we are required to reconsider what we really mean by either term. We are forced to either redefine the term, or perhaps even abandon the term in favor of something totally new.

Seeking something new is exactly what this book, like most apologetic accounts, seems to lack the courage to do. It is also what Christian faith and the scientific community most need to seek. I certainly do not feel that reductionistic materialism has nullified the validity of religious experience, only I am sure that polarizing against it gets nowhere. Instead of taking shots at a conversation that has deemed us irrelevant, we should join with legitimate fresh ideas.