Catchup

Here is a brief rundown of everything I haven't blogged about for the past week:

1. Thanksgiving- You will be happy to know that I did get to celebrate it. It was a little crazy pulling it together when we all had class Thursday but we managed. Thank you, D, for once again heading that up. Hooray for living with lots of Americans! Hooray also for leftovers, which have reduced my time in the kitchen this week. This has been handy because

2. I spent the middle of last week frantically pulling together a massive exposé. I am doing it on dream interpretation. I found lots and lots of material in the Bible, and since I have never heard a sermon about it (as far as I can remember), I had to do connect a lot of new dots. At 1:30 Thursday morning I decided that I had done enough research for this particular project and started translating that portion of my paper into French. I think it was almost 4 when I got to bed. I turned the rough draft in the next day and got it back Friday. However, I didn't look at it until today because...

3. We had a major written assignment due today. I spent all of Friday night, most of Saturday, and a couple of hours Sunday night working on it. I am SO glad to have that done. It is the written part of our final exam, so it was really important.

3. As soon as I got that handed in, I started thinking about the dreams exposé, which I will be presenting tomorrow afternoon. I spent all this afternoon revising the rough draft and adding some more details.

4. On another topic, I have once again gotten myself roped into our little Christmas choir for the nursing home. We have been practicing Tuesday and Thursday afternoons for a couple of weeks and we will be "performing" on Wednesday. I am more optimistic about my performance this year, particularly since we have more other guys to cover up my voice.

5. The guitar adventures continue when I need a break from my various projects. I figured out the chords to another French worship song, the one that the kids demanded over and over and over again at camp this summer. I am really excited that I can play it now.

6. I told you I would give you a review of the two CDs I got from Seasons. I like them! They seem to be a neat, devout, and very talented family with some very talented friends. If you like celtic-sounding music, look them up.

7. We finally got some snow Sunday. Woohoo! We are supposed to get more Wednesday. More woohoo!

8. French "hot" Ketchup is not spicy. I literally can not taste the difference.

Weekend of Discovery

After much effort I figured out yesterday all of the major guitar chords in the song "Queen of Skye." I consider it a major milestone in my learning of the guitar and music theory in general. The biggest challenge was figuring out one note. I tried guessing at first and should have been able to identify the opening D that way, but it must not have sounded right because I didn't figure it out.

I moved to plan B. I played the song over the speakers and used an online guitar tuner to pick out frequencies at different points in the song. After that I found a chart listing the frequencies of all the notes and compared it to the frequencies I had heard in the song. I learned that there were a LOT of As and something close to B. I also found some Ds and an E or two. I studied yet another chart that I use frequently for transposing songs in hopes of figuring out, based on that information, what key the song was in. That didn't get me real far.

The easiest note to hear in the song was the first one, so I strummed A, B, and then D and realized that the note was definitely a D. I figured then that the song was probably in the key of D and used that as the basis for figuring out all of the other notes. Within a half hour I had figured out most of the song... until the last verse.

Suddenly, nothing sounded right anymore. Key change! Who makes a random key change like that?  I had to try 4 different keys before I found the right one. After that it was pretty simple to finish the song. Now I just have to get good at playing it. The key of D is okay. The key of E is much more challenging for me.

That evening I had planned to watch a French movie but my friend had forgotten to loan it to me. I decided to go back and re-watch "The Hunt for Gollum," a fantastic fan film based on the writings of Tolkein. However, when I got to the website I saw a news item about another fan film that had been created called "Born of Hope."

I watched it, and I would have to say it was an enjoyable use of my evening. The story takes us back to just before the birth of Aragorn (the king in "Return of the King"). It tells the story of how his parents met and fell in love. The birth of their child, the next king in the royal line, was a ray of hope for the Dunedain, a race that struggling to survive the constant threat of Sauron and his orc hordes.

It is perhaps not quite as impressive to me as The Hunt for Gollum, but it is still a well-done film. It does not feel quite as authentic to me, particularly because of the love rectangle that is introduced to the story, but for the same reason it will probably appeal to more than just the hard-core Tolkein purist. The lines (and plot lines) feel a little forced sometimes but they are still better than much of the junk that normally makes television.

The movie makes the debatable move of having a woman warrior as one of its primary characters. It does a much better job of explain and positioning this bizarre phenomenon than Disney will ever attempt to do in their quest to remake the female image. Even so, I don't think Tolkein would have bought it and his fans might choke on it also.

As for spirituality... it is set in middle earth, and like the Lord of the Rings there is an entirely different universe behind the story, including different types of beings and a very different God figure. Some lines about the origin of the Dunedain and the elves will not make sense at all unless you have read the Silmarillion, and some elements (such as the funeral bonfire) may have been inspired by Tolkein but are also similar to ancient pagan rituals.

And a final disclaimer, these movies involve battle similar to that in Lord of the Rings, so there is a good deal of violence and some blood.

If you wish to check out a new film or extend an insane day-long Lord of the Rings marathon by another hour and 45 minutes, you can check out The Hunt for Gollum and Born of Hope at the links below:

The Hunt for Gollum

Born of Hope

Finally, just tonight somebody left two CDs on the freebie table from a not-known family band called "Seasons." It is a band made of four homeschooled siblings who are immensely talented, have played all around the world, and prefer to play songs that reflect their Christian faith. They look promising. I'll listen to them tomorrow and give you a report.

Great Court Cases of the Bible

Episode #158 "Come let us Reason" (Isaiah 1:18-20 NASB)

The judge, YHWH, finds the defendant, Israel (specifically Judah), guilty of murder, treason, and numerous other crimes. He then makes the following offer:
IF the defendant will consent and obey, all crimes will be forgiven and the defendent will also be given considerable financial rewards.
IF, however, the defendant refuses the terms and rebels against the court, the death penalty will be executed in accordance with the due punishment for the crimes.

Our audience would like to know exactly what "consent and obey" might mean. Normally when a defendant agrees to conditions like that, he ends up risking his life as an assassin or spy against his former colleagues, an expendable pawn whose existence can be denied if necessary. He was a dead man anyway...

For Israel, the deal is very different. Since His primary crime is treason, He must obviously swear allegiance once more to the true King. After that he will be appointed personal administrator to the King and ambassador to foreign entities. Instead of anonymous servitude, he will be given the position of highest honor. In fact, he will be adopted as prince.

Does Israel accept this deal? Read Isaiah and prepare to beat your head against the wall...

Hosea 11

Tonight I read Hosea 11. In order to understand this post you really must read the whole chapter. In the beginning God talks about how he raised Israel as a child and taught him how to walk. However, Israel turned away from Him like a rebellious youth, deliberately doing the opposite of what God commanded. Furthermore, Israel lied to God and about God, pretending to love Him while really killing his prophets and worshiping the ridiculous idols that they borrowed from the neighbors. They persisted in slandering God, causing Him profound pain and dishonor.

God knows that they must be punished, that great judgement is due. But in verse 8 He says "My heart is turned over within Me, all of my compassions are kindled." It is not that God is weak. On the contrary, He is so angry that if He were subject to his emotions like a man He would act out in His rage and destroy Israel completely (v9). But God is also grieved.

Human parents often say, when they discipline a child, "this hurts me more than it hurts you." And it is true, though the child doesn't believe it. Imagine if you had to discipline all of your children at the same time. Imagine that you had a million children, each of whom you loved as if he or she were your only child, and you had to discipline all of them. Each one. Can you imagine the misery? And what if, in addition to being their father, you also had to be the judge, and they had just stolen? Committed adultery? Murdered someone? What then? We have no way of imagining the sorrow of God when His people sin.

A God-sized wrath combined with a God-sized sorrow produces a God-sized mercy made possible by a God-sized sacrifice that satisfies divine justice.

Gettin' Old

Here are some thoughts from folks nearing the end of their life. They were originally in French and I have taken the liberty of translating into English.

"I do not think that my life is useless, meaningless. I can no longer do anything but go from my bed to my armchair. As long as God leaves me on earth, it is because He thinks that my place is still here. For me, I have no other occupation but to pray and to love."

"Being aged is marvelous because each day draws me closer to God."

"The third age (elderliness) is the age of rest, not of inertia. Everything becomes more simple, we ligthen our load and taste peace."

"At 95 years of age I have finally understood why the Lord is leaving me on earth for so long; it is because I still have lessons to learn here, especially serenity."

"I thank the Lord that he is not like the employers of this world who send on retirement their old servants whose productivity has reduced with age. He wants to use me well until my last breath."

"La Bonne Semence" 7 novembre 2009

Much to Say, But..

As you probably were not aware, I have recently completed a week and a half of vacation. France has long school breaks. I spent most of this vacation sorting through information, especially pictures, that has buried itself in the memory of computer for the past 4 years. I also sorted through actual papers and "junk" that has been not-so-subtly accumulating in my little room for the past year and a half. In the end I have a mild sense of having escaped from unwanted baggage- and in the process also "escaped from" week and a half of my life.

I did almost nothing memorable that whole time, except for one good adventure where I got myself lost in the neighboring town. That was a good afternoon of biking. The sun was setting so I headed back home- or so I thought. Then I arrived at a train station that was a long distance in the opposite direction from my school. How did that get there? I still got home before dark, though, so it wasn't too exciting.

Last night as I was walking out of our local mega grocery store I saw a poster for a 7K happening in our very own park on the 14th. That reminded me of how I haven't even run in the past week, so hermit-like have I been in my room. It ticked me off. So, in spite of the dark, I went for a run. I don't know if I will run that 7K or not. I still need to buy new running shoes (now more than ever!) but I just can't make myself spend that kind of money.

Okay... I wasn't planning to write anything that I just wrote. In the middle of this muddled week I have nevertheless been doing some really good reading. First in the Bible, where I have been working through Hosea. I have seen some really interesting things there but I am a little hesitant to post them here because, well, I am fallible and I might be wrong.

Second, I have been reading "Pilote de guerre" (War Pilot) by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. It is well written and I therefore do not mind having to look up an average of 4 words per page. I would highly recommend reading it (in English if you can't do the French). It is not the typical "Yay, isn't it heroic being a pilote?" story. Rather, it is all of the internal thoughts and feelings of an eloquent French pilot as he embarks on a seemingly useless mission in the already-lost war against the technologically and strategically superior Nazis. Yet it isn't as depressing as that summary makes it sound. It is just realistic and very human. Most of his thoughts are not related to the war, but rather what it means to be human.