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Weather note, plus dialectic

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If it has to happen, I guess this is the night for it. As much as eight inches of snow is expected tonight. There’s no pressure to fire up the snowblower before morning, when delivery is complete. So I can relax tonight, and I have my work planned for me tomorrow.

So far it’s been a pretty textbook winter here. Cold and snow have arrived right on schedule. I was going to make a joke about Global Warming promoters saying, “It’s quiet. Too quiet.” But they’re having crazy weather in Europe, so that doesn’t work.

But has there ever been a year when the weather wasn’t crazy someplace in the world?

Below, my simple, three-step template for social change in the modern world. Our cast of characters consist of a Liberal and a Conservative.



Step One:

Liberal: Let’s do this! It’ll be great!

Conservative: I don’t know. Seems like that might change everything.

Liberal: Nah, don’t worry about it. Nothing important will change. You won’t notice a thing.

Step Two:

Conservative: Everything has changed. You said it wouldn’t.

Liberal: Why are you afraid of change?

Step Three:

Conservative: Everything has changed, and it’s all gotten worse.

Liberal: You’re a bigot.

Religion

No irony deficiency in my life

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I made a mistake today. I did a web search for an old friend.

Sometimes it’s better not to know.

This was a guy who, once upon a time, was (to quote Proverbs) “closer than a brother” to me. A guy I shared long road trips with, prayed with, shared confidences with, and sat up late with over pizza, talking about Jesus and how to win the world for Him.

I haven’t been in contact with him in years. We were drifting apart even then. I knew he was a pastor. I now learned that he’s been, for some time, an aggressive advocate, within the Very Large Lutheran Church Body Which Shall Remain Nameless, of what’s called “gay issues.”

My thoughts went back, inevitably, to an evening long ago, when I’d had dinner with him and his wife. The subject of homosexuality came up and I (on the basis of some very superficial recent reading) said that I thought I could make an argument for evangelical Christians supporting the homosexual movement.

“They seem to be just fighting for the right to be different from everybody else,” I said. “I think maybe we ought to support that. We can’t be confident that America will always be a Christian country. Someday we may be the ones who are different. We need to make sure that there’s a right not to conform in this country.”

My friend and his wife disagreed, spiritedly. I don’t clearly remember what they said, but I have the idea they pointed out that homosexual activists showed no particular inclination to respect the rights of those who disagreed with them. They pointed, I think, to the shameful treatment received by Anita Bryant, who paid with her career for daring to oppose their agenda.

In hindsight, I think it’s clear that they were right and I was wrong. I did not cling to that point of view much longer.

But, in one of those ironies that seem to me so common in life, today I’ve taken their side, and they’ve taken what was mine at the time (and gone far beyond it).

And I have to wonder, was that conversation the beginning, for them, of their movement to feelings-based ethics and zeitgeist-uber-alles theology? Or a significant step on the way?

I honestly can’t recall any argument I’ve ever won, in my whole life.

Is it possible the only one I did win was one in which I was completely wrong?

Reading, Religion, Writing

The weight of heroism

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Wild Bill Hickok

I’m reading a novel right now, by a very good author, which is taking me forever to get through. (I won’t say what novel—maybe I’ll review it at the end of the line.) It’s a pleasant story with an interesting narrator. But it’s so… languid. It starts with a murder, but then the plot takes the hero (and the villain) to an entirely different location, and the villain proceeds to do nothing very sinister for a considerable time. The hero is wearing himself out trying to catch the villain at something, but there seems to be nothing to catch. Thus the book lacks that sense of urgency that drives the reader to keep turning pages, and pick the book up anxiously whenever there’s a free moment.

It’s slow.

My analysis of the problem is this—the author has failed, thus far, to raise the stakes. In order to keep your audience’s attention, you need to keep the villain busy doing bad stuff. And that stuff must be devastating and costly. People who matter to the reader, and to the hero, need to be placed in imminent, horrifying danger (unless it’s the hero himself who’s in peril). The good characters’ awful pain and fear are the very elements that transfix the reader.

I think there are very few authors who don’t have a problem raising the stakes like this (I know I do). Most of us are nice people. We don’t enjoy inflicting pain. Raising the stakes is emotionally hard.

This relates to life too. I’ve written more than I have a moral right to about heroism. I believe in the necessity of heroism. I believe that faith and heroism are closely related (all heroism isn’t faith, but all true faith is heroism).

It’s easy to forget that heroism has a high cost. Continue reading The weight of heroism →

Uncategorized

Who killed Tycho?

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By way of Instapundit, I found this interesting article from the New York Times by John Tierney, about a mystery concerning the death in 1601 of the astronomer Tycho Brahe. Analysis of Tycho’s hair after his grave was opened indicates mercury poisoning as the possible cause of death.

“Who’s Tycho Brahe?” you ask. What do they teach them in these schools?

Most people’s choice for an astronomer with a dramatic life would be Galileo, because of all his disputes with the Church. But in terms of sheer drama and bombast, the life of Tycho Brahe of Denmark has Galileo’s beat by light years. He fought duels! He had a fake nose! He kept a pet dwarf and a moose! Continue reading Who killed Tycho? →

Authors, The Press

Slate's HACK/30

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Slate’s War Room has a list of thirty opinion makers and commentators they’re calling their Hack 30. “We’re listing the worst columnists and cable news commentators America has to offer. Think of this as our all-star team — of the most predictable, dishonest and just plain stupid pundits in the media.” I plan to read through it, unsure how irritated I’ll feel by the end, not that I want to carry the water for anyone, but a list like this could easily be the work of one cynical curmudgeon against many.
Related to this, Patrol Magazine has a list of “Ten Worst Christian Media Hacks,” which appears to have angered the Internet gods because their site has been down ever since they put the second part of the article on it. (links defunct)

Authors, Religion

Super apologist, supertaster

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Today is C. S. Lewis’ birthday (1898-1963). In honor of the occasion some of us have been posting quotations from his writings on Facebook. I’ll post this one here:

“The minimal religion in fact cannot, while it remains minimal, be acted on. As soon as you do anything you have assumed one of the dogmas.” (From “Religion Without Dogma” in God In the Dock)

I should have posted this yesterday so you’d have all day to celebrate, but do I have to do everything around here?

I made my special pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving, besides the turkey, and while enjoying the leftovers I’ve been taking particular pleasure in breaking the edge crust off and throwing it away. I used to get in trouble for doing that when I was a kid. But what do you know? Now doctors say it’s a good idea, because it reduces fat. I was right all along. My parents could have avoided so much unpleasantness if they’d just realized earlier that Lars Is Always Right.

I’ve told you before that I’m a picky eater. So I’m delighted to discover that this may be a sign that I belong to a special, elite subspecies of humanity, the Supertaster. We Supertasters have more taste buds than you ordinary folks, and our extreme finickiness about things we won’t eat is actually due to the fact that we are tasting stuff you can’t detect.

Unfortunately, this article (tip: Joe Carter at First Thoughts) says that Supertasters tend to be skinny people.

From this I can only conclude that I belong to an even more select group—Fat Supertasters.

Blogs, Socials

Scary Ghost Stories and Tales of the Glories of Christmases Long Time Ago

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Loren has announced his 2010 Advent Ghost Story Flash Fiction Rally. I’m already polishing something, and I think I’d like to work on another one.

Religion

Thanksgiving Links

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Jared has seven great ways to crush the Thanksgiving spirit, such as freaking out over everything, like a late family guest, and practicing practical atheism.

Bill talks about communal living and productivity.

One of my earliest professional experiences involved leaving a job at a government-run municipal utility to take a job at a private-sector energy company. At the utility, it didn’t much matter what you did, you were going to get paid and keep your job. There was a lot of waste, shoddy work, and sloth at that company. Don’t get me wrong, I worked with good people. But the very structure of the place was set against big productivity gains, risks, improvements or innovation.

Loosely related to these is this post from Tullian Tchividjian on counterfeit gospels: “ways we try and ‘justify’ or ‘save’ ourselves apart from the gospel of grace. I found these unbelievably helpful.”