Billy Graham In Twilight

That's the name of a Newsweek cover that I saw. I couldn't help but think that the magazine is horribly backwards. It is not near the sunset of life for this man; on the contrary, it is just before sunrise, on a day which will last forever.

28

As of about 3:15 yesterday, I started working on my 29th revolution around the sun. The last one sucked. This one doesn't look much better, but I'm going to go home and have leftover ice cream cake, leftover chocolate cake, watch an episode or two of Animaniacs and then wipe out an opponent's armies with a swarm of Chinook helicopters. To waste another year wishing I could alter time and space and not waste so many years trying to get to know a girl that wanted nothing to do with me while watching one who actually appreciated my company marry someone else is something I don't plan on doing. What's done is done, and I accept that I'm a damned fool. If I'm going to waste more time, it's going to at least be while doing something enjoyable.

Who Wants to be a Superhero

Do you love over-the-top superheroes? Can you occasionally find a reality show that you like? Then get this.

Stan Lee is the host and judge. People audition in their own costumes, 12 (ish) get picked, they are put through challenges, they get eliminated. Pretty basic reality fare. But it's worth it to watch people prance around in spandex using cheesy superhero one-liners.

If you have iTunes, you can download the pilot for free. There's been two episodes so far, the third is next Thursday. The website is here.

A Sign of the Times

Does it say something about our society that if I ask you what horrible thing Mel Gibson did this weekend, you will probably say "He said naughty racial things about Jews" before you say "He was drunk and speeding through his neighborhood in his car."

Two actions. One insensitive and possibly an indicator of deeper racial prejudice. One that could result in real death and destruction. The former has society up in arms. The latter is hardly noticed.

Strings and Branes

The current rage in physics is String Theory, where the fundamental particles of matter and energy are all multi-dimensional strings. There was a show about it on PBS last night. It is head-melting stuff, like M Theory which united the 5 versions of string theory into a single explanation. The only difference is that, unlike the 5 versions which allowed strings freedom of movement in 10 dimensions, this used 11. In this extra dimension, strings can stretch and stretch into a sort of 11-dimensional membrane, which is how the seem to view the structure of our universe - a giant 11-dimensional membrane, as thin as 3-dimensional space. We are anchored to this membrane (stuck in only 3 dimensions) because most particles and energy are open-ended strings, whose open ends are tied to the Brane.

Gravity, however, is seen as a closed string, like a rubber band. With no loose ends to anchor it, gravity is free to move in more dimensions than other things. In an attempt to validate this theory, physicists smash atoms, hoping to observe a graviton leaving our known dimensions.

A Democratic congressman, in a recent attempt to liken global warming to gravity (As an obvious and incontrevertible fact) accused a statistician at a recent hearing for having an agenda, because "since Newton published his Principia, we don't go around questioning gravity, do we? (point: gravity is obvious, and we don't waste our time studying it, neither should we with global warming)" As a retort, a Rebublican asked a physicist in attendance whether anyone actually studies gravity anymore. He replied that they, in fact, do - and that it is a thriving area of research where questioning accepted ideas is welcome. This PBS show helped me understand why.

Not Alone In The World

Ideologically, at least.

New York Times Article

Fortress of Solitude Alert #1

Props to our thriving youth group at Coram Deo (3 people, including the pastor, but who's counting?) for going to the river to feed homeless people. Of note: according to those on the street, Sunday is the hardest day to get food (whether this means int he soup kitchens, or just do-gooders on the street I do not know - I wasn't there). Go figure.

Things to do someday

For the low, low price of $600 you too can spend a half-night looking through the 60-inch diameter telescope at the Mount Wilson Observatory near L.A. You can even get a group of up to 25 people to share the experience. For $1100, you can have all night, from dusk to dawn.

That could be pretty stinkin' cool.

Link

Frailty

Having pulled the hard drive from my sister's laptop to try and recover data from a computer that no longer wants to boot, I offer this advice: don't trust your precious documents to a laptop hard drive. Nothing that small can be as reliable as the 3.5" drives in your desktop. And you should back those up, too.

This thing is slow, only functions if it feels like it, and as I said before it fails to boot up the computer it's in.

I also learned that if you change too much hardware in your computer, it decides you need to reactivate Windows. That was 15 minutes I could have spent doing many other things this morning. Okay, not really, but it's still an inconvinience to call in to Microsoft.

Sunday Mornings

Why do we go to church on Sunday mornings? Not "what are some reasons that Christians may once have met on Sunday mornings," but why do we, here and now, feel some compulsion to meet on Sunday mornings. I have heard it suggested that for an unchurched person, Sunday morning is a time one associates with church - hence, that's when they are most likely to show up.

The church I'm becoming involved in (PLUG: Coram Deo) is, among other things, committed to being different - not for the sake of being different, but because the status quo just isn't enough. Different is not a matter of the music style, the kinds of dress allowed, or having a coffee bar in the back. If that was all the change I could imagine, I'd be sorely tempted to ditch the church altogether.

The church is also committed to service - being Christ to others, in the flesh (as it were). Not "I'll-mow-your-lawn-if-you-listen-to-my-presentation-of-the-gospel," but motivated simply by the desire to serve. An end, not a means.

So I figure, why not use Sunday morning as a time to get our hands dirty serving the community? The world sees Christians and Sunday mornings like something from the Simpsons - we all get dressed up, huddle together, learn about the evils of the world, sing some songs, and go home eager to catch the afternoon football game. What would the world think if Christians made it a point to have their "Sunday morning service" become a time for Sunday morning service?

What if Sunday morning were spent visiting the sick, clothing the naked, and feeding the hungry? What if the focal point of the Christian Week was serving others, not huddling away from them in our fortress of solitude? For the local church to say "This gathering is not to be your focus. Your focus is to be out there, serving as Christ did."

Perhaps it is pointless and unnoticed symbolism. But I think it could be meaningful, especially (and perhaps only) if the heart is moved to match it.