Russell

Bertrand Russell, a famous 20th century logician and self-described rationalist, writes in his essay called "Liberal Decalogue" the following interesting observation:

...every opinion now accepted was once considered eccentric.

Further on, Russell elaborates on an aspect of eccentricity, namely, the ability and freedom to dissent; this bit is phrased as a command:

Find more pleasure in intelligent dissent than passive agreement...for if you value intelligence as you should, the former implies a deeper agreement than the latter.

This reminds me of the way we find truth wherever we go, whether we're looking for it or not. Clearly, Russell's assumptions and the starting point for his purported "rationality" is different than mine. But he's captured truth here, clear, biblical truth. How is this?

I think the answer is that God has traced His grace with an indelible pen across all of creation. This autograph of God includes the thoughts of unbelievers, non-believers, and former-believers. Folk like Russell.

So, while much could be made of dissecting Russell and his arguments against Christianity, and against theism, for the moment, I'm relishing in his golden insights.

(A good summary of Russell's career as a logician and philosopher can be found here. Go here for Russell's essay, "Why I Am Not a Christian." Here, for his essay, "Am I an Atheist or an Agnostic?"

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Another movement dies...

Part of what Jesus wants for us in this world is to follow Him. Radical, I know. Following Him means having something called a Kingdom Mindset. Translation: He is in charge; He sets the parameters. He is King.

Unfortunately, we "mere mortals" are too often tempted to follow our own ways, our own programs, our own stuff, our own "kingdoms," whatever they may be. So, our good intentions often wind up thwarting Jesus' Kingdom Movements among us.

Of course, Jesus is no ordinary King. He is sovereign. So we don't thwart him in any traditional sense. But, when our ways oppose His ways, we run the risk of missing His blessing on our endeavors.

What are some ways that our religion, our rules, our protocols, and our structures can get in the way? Here is a partial list:

• Demand conformity of methodology
• Punish out-of-the box thinking
• Get tied to property and buildings
• Be threatened by giftedness that’s not like you
• Refuse to exercise discipline for the right things
• Be risk adverse under the guise of stewarding your people

These are part of a list from an article called, "How to Kill a Movement." I liked this article because it challenges me on the way things should be done.

The ones I've listed above are a few of my favorites. By that, I don't mean I like them, necessarily, but I think they are important. This is a painful list for someone coming from my protestant tradition--Presbyterianism--but that's just why it matters, I think. You can read the rest of the list here.

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A Laser-Cut Model House

Your House by Olafur Eliasson is a hand-bound, laser cut book with 454 pages that renders the negative space of the artist’s house at a scale of 85:1.

Eric Gjerde also posted on this story, with some additional pictures, at Origami Tessellations. Why am I interested in this? Because my attention is grabbed by anything that relates to books, art, architecture, or basically anything that is too cool for words. And this is pretty cool.

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Renumbered Nodes

Here is a fascinating little article on the subject of "lazy evaluation." The idea is that you improve a process by delaying certain time-intensive steps until they are determined to be absolutely necessary. Sometimes, in life, we spend far too much time on time-intensive stuff that later proves to be superfluous. Nari Kannan, referencing this Wikipedia entry, writes:

...it pays to think about delaying certain process steps or avoiding them altogether, This may effect an impressive degree of process improvement.

Since knowing God's will is such a huge challenge for most believers, what can we learn from "lazy evaluation" in terms of improving our life processes? Here are a few thoughts:

1. Sometimes you gain by waiting, especially when it comes to the temptation to act on hearsay or "the most current" information. (How many emails would never have been sent if we simply waited a week?)
2. Procrastination is often simply doing something that takes a lot of time that wouldn't be necessary if you had "procrastinated" on the bad stuff, waiting till later--in many cases, never.
3. Speaking of procrastinating the bad stuff, often, sin can be delayed by an hour or two. This is sometimes all the delay you need to never do it, which saves not only time, but guilt and grief and sorrow.

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Any Given Sunday

Any Given Sunday attempts to take a hard look at the Real NFL. In it, Oliver Stone and Al Pacino team up for a controversial portrayal of the unvarnished, behind-the-scene lives of the professional football player of today. I have a hunch that, in the end, they reveal more about the cynical image Hollywood has of the league than the workaday lives of the average NFL player.

The result falls short of this lofty goal, though there are moments of real brilliance. Amid its raunchy, boobalicious, B-grade elements, one finds some profound insights into the modern, human condition. These insights address our fears, our failures, and our ever-present desire to quit in the face of oppresion and impossible odds.

The greatest statement in the film comes right at the climax, where the Miami Shark's soul hangs in the balance. Al Pacino, playing the tired, battle-worn coach, speaks with a silver tongue these amazing words:

I don't know what to say really. Three minutes to the biggest battle of our professional lives all comes down to today. Either we heal as a team or we are going to crumble. Inch by inch play by play till we're finished. We are in hell right now, gentlemen believe me and we can stay here and get the sh*t kicked out of us or we can fight our way back into the light. We can climb out of hell. One inch, at a time.

***

You know when you get old in life things get taken from you. That's, that's part of life. But, you only learn that when you start losing stuff. You find out that life is just a game of inches. So is football. Because in either game life or football the margin for error is so small. I mean one half step too late or to early you don't quite make it. One half second too slow or too fast and you don't quite catch it. The inches we need are everywhere around us. They are in ever break of the game every minute, every second.

On this team, we fight for that inch On this team, we tear ourselves, and everyone around us to pieces for that inch. We CLAW with our finger nails for that inch. Cause we know when we add up all those inches that's going to make the f****ing difference between WINNING and LOSING between LIVING and DYING.

***

Inch by inch. The inches we need are everywhere around us. Where does a person summon the strength to attack and conquer these inches? The inch to stay in a marriage? To get up and go to work one more day? To stay away from the bottle? The knife? The anger? The fear? The loneliness?

The coach answers the question of where by pointing the weary players to one another--to the team. "Either we live as a team or we die as a team," he says. And he's right. Strength to endure comes from community; it is part of our nature.

But why community? Is the ultimate hope of humanity man himself? With hope that shallow, we ought to be ashamed to call it hope at all. Ultimately, endurance in community derives from the transcendent character of a communal, Triune God, who the ancient writer, Moses, described in prayer as being "from everlasting, to everlasting."

We find strength in one another, on our teams, in our families, churches, schools, neighborhoods, to endure because He Himself endures. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, in perfect community, in perfect unity, is both the ground and source of our endurance.

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Typing Monkey

It has been seriously argued that a monkey with a typewriter, given enough time, could produce all the works of Shakespeare. But have you ever heard of someone arguing that the monkey could also build the typewriter with enough time?

Lesslie Newbigin makes this point in his book, The Gospel in a Pluralist Society, and adds, "a machine is precisely that which can never be explained without invoking the concept of purpose."

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