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12:25:35 PM    comment []

I am going to summarize the episode, but if you have access to the full season DVD sets, you'll be far better served by going straight to the source. The episode is in season five, and is titled Darmok

The Enterprise is zooming across the galaxy answering a request for a meeting with a ship from a race known as the "Tamarians" or "Children of Tamar". This race has encountered the Federation a few times in the past, and each time communication has been impossible.

As the Enterprise orbits the planet El-Adrel, the Tamarian ship hails the Enterprise and we see, on the main view screen of the Enterprise, a bridge of the alien ship, full of aliens with things glued to their foreheads.

The Tamarian captain begins speaking in a very friendly, slow paced voice: "Rai of Lowani. Lowani under two moons. Jiri of Ubaya. Ubaya of crossed roads. At Lungha. Lungha, her sky gray."

Captain Picard gives befuddled look to Troi, his ship's counselor, and he replies in English, slowly as if speaking to someone who doesn't understand English very well, "Captain, I invite you to consider the creation of a mutual non-aggression pact between our two peoples. Possibly leading to a trade agreement and cultural interchange. Does this sound like a reasonable course of action?"

Now it is the aliens turn to look confused and puzzled. After some more incomprehensible dialog on the alien ship, the Tamarians beam Picard and the Tamarian captain (Daithon) down to the planet's surface, and turn on the plot-device which prevents the Enterprise from using their shuttlecraft or transporter to get Picard back.

On the Enterprise, a frantic series of attempts to reconfigure and re-route things fails to get Picard back, meanwhile Data and Troi analyze the log of the Tamarian's conversation and discover that the Tamarian's communication is a series of references to legends and myths, with each reference carrying a meaning. For example "Juliet on her balcony" might be an image of love and yearning. They are also frustrated because they realize that since there is no shared history or mythology, there is no way to know what the Tamarians are saying.

After a lot of difficulties (including the death of the Tamarian captian), Picard finally gets it, and in the final scene, he beams back on the the Enterprise and speaks to the Tamarians in their own language, much to the amazement and joy of the Tamarians. "Picard and Daithon, at El-Adrel"

It makes me laugh to watch Picard's first attempt at communication and see the puzzled looks on the Tamarians faces. This is so like what happens when we tell people that because God is good, they are doomed to burn in flames forever.

I cringe with pain as Data and Troi use computers to analye the Tamarian speech. So sure of their ability to analyze, they completely miss the point as they pick at the structure and form of language without ever coming near the meaning.

It is pleasing to think of communication being as connection of narratives, each one bringing a new richness to the dialog that extends way beyond the words used to communicate.

I love that Picard had to leave the Enterprise with all the technological toys, become powerless, and enter into a shared experience with the Tamarian in order to learn to communicate.

Finally, in the last scene Picard stands in the window of his ready room, holding the knife given to him by the Tamarians, he touches the knife and then his forhead in a gesture he saw the Tamarians do when they learned their captain had died. It seems so clear and beautiful that if you live this way, you will be changed by those you communicate with.

4:39:11 PM    comment []

Hot Sauce Evangelism If you come over to my house, it is very likely that you will go home with these two bottles of hot sauce. The arbol sauce (on the left) is something my friend Tammy introduced me to. If you put this stuff on your turkey sandwich, it will change your life. Arbol mayonaise is the most amazing stuff. Once I was hooked, I began looking for other places to use the arbol sauce and found many, two of my favorites are in soup, and in gravy. The chipotle sauce on the right is a little sweeter and not as spicy as the arbol, but is incredible on hamgurgers and meatloaf.

I buy these sauces by the case and eagerly hand out bottles to anyone who comes over to my house.

So why am I so eager to share my discoveries in the world of hot sauce with anyone who walks in my front door, and yet I am strangely silent of the subject of Jesus Christ, who is way better than hot sauce?

Well, I am very sure that my friends who I give hot sauce to will be happy. I know the hot sauce is good.

In the same way, maybe, I also know that any attempt to "give them Jesus" is not going to be good, unless something happens to them similar to what happened to me, when I somehow switched from skeptic to believer. I completely have the ability help someone who loves spicy food enjoy their meals. I have no way to help those people who think "hot" is something to be avoided.

Here are two lessons to learn from the hot sauce story:

1. I am a slime because I have the faith to share my love of hot sauce, but not the faith to share my love of Jesus. Maybe I don't even love Jesus as much as I love hot sauce.
2. Maybe I am actually doing the right thing, and instead of being fearful and timid, I am being wise.

The only thing that works for me is to let both of these be true. Anything else is really uncomfortable and wrong-feeling.

12:00:04 PM    comment []

In desperation I turn to the photo file. Today for your viewing pleasure ...

One of these crosses is supposed to remind us of the death and ressurection of Jesus. The funny thing is, the power pole probably looks more like the cross of Jesus.

Is it even right to make the cross beautiful? The cross is the supreme moment of humility, maybe "beautiful cross" is an oxymoron?

Maybe a clean and beautiful cross is safer than the real one, and we use the beauty to protect ourselves from what it would mean to be a people set free on an bloodstained, rough hewn cross.
8:23:56 AM    comment []

I've kind of had a sunrise experience in my soul in the last 24 hours or so, so I wanted the blog to shine a little bit too.
6:44:35 AM    comment []

Here we go.

Reading Real Live Preacher, I came to the conclusion of his post:

Okay, as long as I'm asking, could I get a letter officially confirming the existence of the God that I've given my whole life to following? Could that letter also tell me exactly where God is located?

...

I'm trying not to ask for too much.

And then in God's little book of stories there is this one about the Hebrews. God sends plagues, parts the Red Sea, sends food from heaven, follows them around in a cloud... You'd think that would be enough to validate God's claim to be who He says he is, yet it wasn't enough for the Hebrews. They were barely out of the Red Sea and the were melting down their gold to make a statue they could worship. Despite God dropping in over and over again, as soon as He was out of their sight, they forgot Him.

Maybe wishing for the note is really an attempt to shift the responsibility for faith from me to God. It's not my problem I struggle with faith, it is God's fault he hasn't been powerful enough to defeat my skepticism.

Sometimes I think the only purpose of the Old Testament is to remind us that even if God were to rain gold and fire upon us, we'd still be bowing to Madison Avenue and Hollywood (or whatever your personal idols might be).

How horrible it would be to get the note from God, and then discover that I still struggled with doubt, and I had wasted a wish.

So I've been wondering, what I am really wishing for when I wish for the note?

[ I also posted this to the comment section of the Preacher's blog, but it seemed like it belonged here on the Lemon too. ]
6:25:59 AM    comment []

Hanging from the rear view mirror was a skull. Stickers on the back of the car for a menu of metal bands, "Motley Crue, Pantera, White Zombie, Tool and one other (I forget)".

What car does this death worshipper drive?

Volvo wagon, safest car on the road.

I guess the fascination with darkness and death is all fine as long as it is something trivial like music, but when it comes to the important stuff, suddenly safety comes first.

And, as I seem to do here a lot, this spins around dangerously when I think about my own faith, because I am just as split, but in a much more revealing way. I've got the Jesus worshipping bumper-sticker-facade, but when it comes to the important stuff, I'm just a materialist looking for comfort.
9:57:27 PM    comment []

The corner of Sunshine Drive and Sunshine Court, possibly the happiest place on earth. Such a nice neighborhood that we are watching your every move, just in case ...

I could score a point on my chalkboard-of-insight if I accused the Church of taking this same atitude, but as I started to chalk up my victory, it all spun just a little.

The sign says "Our security is more important than your feeling of welcome." There is a trade-off, the more welcoming you are, the less secure you can feel. Suddenly it isn't so easy to criticize the Church.

The courage to be welcoming, the faith to be welcoming, the trust in God to be welcoming. Whatever it is, I don't have much of it. I probably have a sign just like that one floating in space above me.
3:57:21 AM    comment []

For those keeping score at home, this refers to the self serve gas pump. Introduced as a way to save money, the gas station has been transformed. Once they were a kind of community center for car owners, now some unfortunate soul is locked in a tiny box selling gum and cigarettes, while people leap out of their cars and fill them full as quickly as possible so as to avoid the horrid possibility that you would come near another human being without being inside your protective automobubble.

Sometimes what we want, and what makes our lives more convenient, is not what makes our life better.

How does this apply to faith?

The parallels to communities of faith seem obvious to me. If we view a church as a place which dispenses the fuel for a spiritual life, we doom it to an inevitable degradation into a something like a self-serve worship station. Continous application of process improvement will build a church which is extremely efficient at dispensing this fuel.

The problem is, the faith, the way of Christ, wasn't meant to be dispensed efficiently. No matter how God-breathed a nation might be, the economies of the Kingdom are still "other". Jesus walked around spending his time with odd people in unusual places, creating a state of near constant perplexity in his followers.

One day later: On the thinking chair I remembered Solomon's Porch, where Doug is fanatical about calling their community worship times "gatherings" instead of "services".
9:23:20 PM    comment []

In the debate of empiricism vs. contingency, there is tremendous argument over what are quantum units of faith. The difficulty of the scientific community to be able to agree on what weight is should give us some pause as we rush to define what faith is.
10:19:51 AM    comment []

When the cup was around half full, it split in half. I guess there was some hidden flaw in the cup that I couldn't see. It looked like a coffee cup, but it was really a disaster waiting to happen.

I often think of myself as a cofee cup like that one. As long as I am in the stack of clean cups, I am just as good as the next cup. If for some reason I was actually used, if there was an attempt to fill me up, I'd crack and get thrown in the trash.
9:38:43 PM    comment []

After a short reflection though, I kind of think that this is a problem with how we have shrunk faith hope and love down to something which can only happen in the pristine white expanse of abstract heaven. Maybe the Matrix doesn't cheapen or weaken these things by surrounding them with violence, death and betrayal, maybe instead it strengthens them by showing their power even in the face of a world more ugly than any we will ever face.
11:24:26 AM    comment []

• I was shocked and pleased that while the original Matrix was about many things, it was not about sex. I was totally unsuprised that The Matrix Reloaded rushed to corect that.
• How do you top yourself, when your last movie was about the illusion of reality? It's a hard question which I hadn't thought about until now. Unfortunately, they chose the less satisfying route of trying to amaze us by showing yet another layer of reailty, but it isn't mind blowing because it is just the same thing we already knew.

  The interesting and more satisfying truth would be that the real illusion is that we would ever be able to know how real something is. Now show that story with heros whe are not paralyzed or meaningless, that would be cool.

• I found the fights and the car chases boring. I wanted them to end so I could see where the story went next. I already know that Neo can beat anybody and that neither Trinity nor Morpheus can beat an agent.
• Faith is portrayed with nobility in this movie. Even when we know the faith is in a lie, we still admire the characters who have faith and suspect those who are more pragmatic.
• One of my most enduring memories of the first movie is the way the tone and phrasing of Agent Smith's voice conveyed a sense of otherness. In this movie, he's just a guy in a a black suit who wants to beat up Neo.
• They shot large portions of this movie in Alameda, about 20 miles from my house, and I never knew it. That feels really weird.

9:39:42 AM    comment []

i'm still processing, but the gunky story is that i am having trouble knowing how to do that. in my marraige, i have worked long and hard to be able to be honest and open with my wife.

but i've never really learned how to have conflict with friends. in fact i think i have defined "friend" as "someone who never causes me to experience conflict"

more and more i am seeing the truth of a line from Godric:

"What's friendship, when all's done, but the giving and taking of wounds?"

i googled that phrase and came up with this article on the very same subject.

a friend, in the comments, suggested this song by Mark Heard, and I had to add it to the post.
1:08:40 AM    comment []