A review or two

I was thinking, it's been a while since I wrote a movie review...so I'll write two.

Slumdog Millionaire=exploitative cheesefest

One down one to go

Last night we watched a movie called Gone Baby Gone. I'm not sure what made me watch it. It's about a guy who finds people. In Boston.

Anyway, despite the fact that it had nothing going for it before it started, It turned out to actually be a pretty good movie. So here's the story. This girl gets kidnapped and her aunt goes to the media, and then hires this private investigator to find her. So he follows all sorts of twists and turns to try to find her. I really want to say how it ends, but I won't because I think it would ruin the suspense of the movie for all of you out there who are going to go out and rent it because I said it was good (Ok, I recognize that that number of people is probably close to zero).

Anyway, here's why I liked it.
1. a good well constructed plot. I could often guess what was going to happen next, but not more than maybe 30 seconds before it actually happened. So it wasn't super suspenseful, but it definitely had lots of unsuspected twists and turns. I don't like predictable movies (like SM).
2. It raised real issues and portrayed people actually struggling to figure out what the right thing to do is. The main issue of the movie is "Is it better for a child to live in poverty with their biological family, or in relative affluence with a family not there own? How about if their family leaves them alone at night, or does drugs? And if it is better, who gets to decide that? Can I as a person who cares about children decide to take a child from another family I judge to be doing a poorer job?" A secondary issue is "If the state isn't doing it's job, do the citizens have to right to do it for them? And are drug dealers bad people?"

Just kidding about that last one.

3. It portrays people making decisions about what is right, and acting on those decisions, and then it shows the consequences of those actions. In movies we don't often get to see consequences of real actions. I mean we get to see what happens if I lay 20 pounds of C4 under this building, but we don't get to see people having to clean up the mess. Hollywood often falls into the trap of skipping from action, to actions, to more actions...and we miss all the messiness. And the thing is, life is messy and dirty and painful.

So let's see how SM stands up:
1. What plot? Two kids grow up poor in India and end up making it in the world. One in a respectable job, the other in crime. Then one of them wins a million dollars because they happen to pick 10 questions he actually knows the answer to. I have to say the only unpredictable part of that movie was him jumping in poop.--cheesefest
2.Here's the exploitative part. It doesn't actually deal with any issues. The message of the movie is--hey look at all the poor people. Nobody has to make any decisions or face any consequences for anything.

All that said. SM was a fun movie. It's not bad to have a predictable story. And it's not bad for the good guy to win. It just doesn't make it a great movie.

A diversion

When I was writing that last post it went on too long and I go off on this diversion...so here it is.

Don't get me wrong--I do not want to malign St. Francis. But think about what he did to preach the gospel without words...he gave up the life of Italian nobility and he vowed to not own anything except for the tunic of coarse cloth, a rope to tie it around himself, sandals, and a begging bowl. He was even known to give up these things to help others. He reached out to the lowest members of society--lepers. And he lived the life of a vagabond. In fact if we saw St. Francis on the street today, most of us would consider it "lifestyle evangelism" to give him a few bucks.

In addition, he used words. He was clear about what he expected of his disciples, he taught, and he proclaimed truth in Christ.

But he didn't just do all of this to shock people and to make people ask him what it's all about. He spoke to real issues of his time--issues of inequality, materialism, greed. He did this to renounce the ways of the world, and to bring God's message to men. He left the cloister. He rejected the walls the church had built up around men of faith. And he walked, and walked, and walked, and talked to God, and talked to men, and showed people what real life can be. And when people came to him he taught them, and led them, and made them disciples of Christ.

So I think--if you're going to quote St Francis, you'd better be willing to make your life real. And to seek God's will, and to speak to the issues of our time and not hide behind the walls of the church. To get dirty, to get sick, to lose things, to lose time, to lose opportunity, to lose life.

On lots of posts

Sorry for the volume of words here. I just got back, I've had a lot on my mind, and my wife is still in Florida, so whatever.

Word? or Deed?--what's it gonna be

We are called to two different things: To "feed the hungry, give water to the thirsty, invite the stranger in, clothe the naked, visit the sick and imprisoned." And to "go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you."

St Francis said: "Preach the gospel always and if necessary use words." The idea I think is that if you live your life in a Christ centered way people will see the light in you and be drawn to Christ. Then, as I have heard it said in many Christian circles, people will ask you, why are you so good--and you can then use words. As far as I can tell that's a load of hooey. I know that I for one have never been asked--why are you so great. That's probably because I'm arrogant, caustic, and, in fact, not all that good. But how about a show of hands. How often is it really that this works?

Words are necessary. I think it is absolutely essential to any mission to speak truth and to make clear the purpose of what we do. I think that most of the time when people begin to talk a lot about lifestyle evangelism (the idea you can convince someone that God exists by the way you live) what they mean is "I'm scared to acknowledge Christ because I think people might think less of me." At least that's what I mean when I start talking about lifestyle evangelism.

And Deeds are necessary. Christ called us to serve the down and out, the have-nots, the children, the needy. Over and over and over again he preached that message. And I don't think the point of good works is to bring people to Christ. He draws us to himself. The point of good works is to express our love for those who are made in the image of God (i.e. all human beings).

Words are not sufficient. James said faith without works is dead. We have to act on our faith and we have to be willing.

Deeds are not sufficient. Without faith, good works are just that. There are lots of people out there who do lots of good things without having any sort of faith. But ultimately they are still broken, without hope.

I guess what I'm trying to get at is that in Christ we are filled to overflowing with love for the things that God loves, and that the expression of that is to desire good things for those God has created. And so we preach the gospel to bring life and healing to the dead and broken, and we feed, heal, clothe etc those who cannot make it on their own. Word and Deed are the same thing. They are both essential and important.

In fact I think I can go so far as to say that without the other each one individually is exposed as a lie. We convince ourselves that we're ok--I preach the gospel, I don't have to feed the hungry--or I do good things for people and lead a good life, I don't have to preach the gospel. That is a lie. We are called by Christ to both feed the hungry and feed the hungry.

On labels

So I've been working on going back and labeling the blog entries I've written in the past, now that I've discovered that you can have your labels run down the side of your blog and people can click on them to search.

I do a few every week. So they're not done yet. And won't be for quite a while...but that's neither here nor there. But I have realized that I have written about a lot of topics.

I reported about a year and a half ago that there were no supermarkets in Detroit...I have to say I was relying on a News story, and it was completely false. There are all sorts of grocery stores in Detroit. True there are fewer than you would expect, and they're not really national chains. But they're here. So I formally retract my poorly researched and preachy post.

On garbage and other smelly stuff

Every time I've been to a garbage dump outside of the United States it has been a memorable experience. It always blows my mind that people live on the garbage dump, and work there and actually pick through the trash. And what really gets me is that nobody does anything. I mean there are enough resources in the world that nobody should have to pick through other people's garbage for a living. The only thing I can guess is that people don't realize it's going on. So I'm going to show whoever cares what it looks like. I can't wait until they figure out how to send smells over the internet. Because there isn't any way to explain what it smells like. I suggest though that you wait until your kitchen garbage can is pretty full...then stick it out in the sun for a few days. Then cut eyeholes in the bag and wear it around for a day(don't take the garbage out first). Then you can understand how it smells.

The biggest business on the dump is scrap metal. Other recyclable materials are also gathered and sold. Who do you sell scrap metal if you work on the dump? Well there's always the mob. Of course if you don't sell it to the mob--well what can you do--scrap metal doesn't taste very good. You can guess who gets most of the profit.

They built the school to keep kids off the dump. Unfortunately it doesn't always work that way.

One thing that gets me is the birds. Birds are ok far away. But up close they're dirty and gross. especially when they live by eating trash. And especially when they are vultures.

All sorts of waste gets deposited here. Including agricultural waste and pesticides, and hospital waste with needles and blood and all manner of things. It is not a safe place to grow up.

Going to Honduras

I'm leaving today for Honduras. I'm going to work with an organization called International Samaritan that works with families that live and work on the garbage dumps in Central America. I'm going to San Pedro Sula where they are in the process of building a medical clinic which will be dedicated later this year. We're going to be doing a community health assessment and baseline exams to try to help them determine the most cost effective ways of improving the health of the people there.

I'm excited to go. I hope that it will be a good trip and that I can be reasonably useful to the people there. I am disappointed that I have to leave these two behind though:

Jude the Obscure

So I wrote a group of posts on Jude last week--but I never got around to posting them. I think you can get them all in one place by clicking on the label at the bottom of the post. But of course by the strange rules of blogs, the first will be last and the last will be first.

Anyway, looking back a week later,I have a few more thoughts. One is that I need to remind you that I have no reason to expect anyone to listen to what I have to say, but it's been put on my heart so I'm saying it. Second is that I might be very wrong in what I said, and I am almost certainly a little bit wrong so feel free to say I don't know what I'm talking about.

Third is this:
When David wanted to atone for his sin after he took a census. He went to a man and said I want to buy your threshing floor to make a sacrifice. The man said it's yours, you're the king, take it and the wood and the oxen to make your sacrifice. And David said, no I will purchase it, for I will not offer a sacrifice to God that cost me nothing.

When Jesus spoke of the kingdom of heaven he likened it to a treasure in a field that a man found. When he found it he went and sold everything he had to buy the field.

Following Christ is something that carries a cost. It is a sacrifice that requires everything. When we sign on to fight with Christ, we enlist for a lifelong battle against the forces of evil in the world, both within ourselves and in the world. And the way to do that isn't to complain, or condemn, but to seek God, and reach out in grace and peace to those around us.

On houses in Detroit

I couldn't believe the part about a house being sold for $2000. Unable to contain my curiosity I checked Zillow.com and sure enough, there are LOTS of houses going for
that, or less, and they don't look like they've been trashed nor do they appear to be located in slums and ghettos. I found one in Oak Park for $1000, three bedrooms and two bathrooms, completely updated kitchen and bathrooms, curb appeal... Wha...??????

So now I am REALLY curious. How can this be? What is happening that people are selling their homes for such a pittance? Is the Detroit area suffering from radiation poisoning? Weird mold infestation? Are the winters that bad?

A friend of me sent me this e-mail--it's a sentiment I've heard before, so I thought I'd comment on it. I'm no expert in the economics of home sales--but I think the etiology of this condition is interesting, so here goes.

1. Detroit's infastructure was built to accommodate 5 million people-mostly in single family dwellings. In the fifties, there were more single family homes in Detroit than in any other city in the world. Auto-industry jobs paid well, it was a growth industry, and almost all of the lower management, mid-management, and head honchos for all of the major auto companies worked and lived in the Detroit area.

2. The population topped out just under two million (some estimates say just over 2 million) in the late fifties, and now stands at a somewhere between 750-800 thousand. So there's a huge housing surplus.

3. In the late 90's and early 00's-when gas was cheap and SUV's were in, it looked like the auto companies might turn the corner. The city contracted out the demolition of some of the homes that had been abandoned, Then they convinced all sorts of people to invest heavily in building new housing--condos, apartments, lofts, townhouses. Then gas prices went up, and everybody realized that the auto companies were never going to make it out of the hole.

so a) there's a huge glut of housing in Detroit.
b) nobody in Detroit is confident they will have a job for very long. Even the Detroit Public Schools have had to close the doors of a number of schools to save money and pack more students into fewer classrooms.
c) housing prices are falling nationally anyway
d) the population of Detroit is still going down
e) forclosures have drastically reduced the price buyers have to pay for houses. Banks are unloading houses for a fraction of their former value, just to get them off the books.

On top of all this, taxes are not insignificant in Detroit. It is not uncommon for houses that are selling for 20,000 to have an annual tax bill of 10,000. And the city is very reluctant to lower the taxed value of the home. (an example of the impact of taxes here is the story of the restaurants on the block that was first announced as the location of the casino in town. Their property values shot up due to speculation, their tax bills went up, they went bankrupt, then the location was changed, but they stayed bankrupt and now there's a row of abandoned storefronts.)

The ripples of instability have spread out to neighboring communities, so that property values in nearby towns are also incredibly low.

It's a perfect storm of bad economic news.

Jude takes the gloves off

The more I read the less I understand. Let's push on to the end.

The last thing Jude says about these men is that they are "grumblers and faultfinders; they follow their own evil desires; they boast about themselves and flatter others for their own advantage."

So when I read this I see a picture of myself. I can't tell you how many times I've sat around complaining about one thing or another. That's why I always get sucked into politics--there's always something to criticize. And I think sometimes that I look actively for ways to talk about how great I am. I feel like David confronted by Nathan--"You are the man!"

And I think that's part of the point--Jude wants to say, don't give up the fight. There is in this world a persistent conflict between the City of God and the City of Man. between the church and the world. Between the kingdom and the earth. We are engaged, we are emissaries, we are the lampstand. So don't give up. Seek God, enter the fire again to refine yourself further. You aren't there yet.

And then he closes with encouragement--there will be evil men, you will face scoffers and men will try to divide you. But build yourselves up in holy faith and pray. Watch out for each other--Be merciful to those in Doubt, snatch others from the fire...

I don't know

I knew it

Political pundits (an most politicians) are just children who happen to be articulate. Their adult bodies just hide their immaturity.

(I just wanted to see if I could put a link in my title)

The government stole an hour from me last night

and I'm not happy about it

Hey Jude

I'm just going to keep going. I don't know if It'll ever make it to publication. But let me preface this with "I don't really know what I'm talking about. I'm just writing what I've been thinking about the last few days.

These men take the truth of God and twist it so that they can use it to heap abuse on others.

So here are some more things Jude says

6. They have taken the way of Cain:
I understand this to mean, holding the best of everything for myself, and offering God what is left over
7. they have rushed for profit into Baalam's error
That is using whatever spiritual gifts and authority I have to bring profit to myself.
8. They have been destroyed in Korah's rebellion
I think this means that they have grasped at spiritual authority that is not theirs, and attempted to speak for God what he has not spoken

Then there is a whole list of descriptions that I don't have the wisdom to decipher. shepherds that feed only themselves, clouds without rain blown along by the wind, autumn treas, without fruit and uprooted twice dead, wild waves of the sea, wandering stars

So as I look at the church leadership that I have witnessed, I see the public voice of the church particularly engaging in 7 and 8, leaders profiting off their positions and gifts and attempting to grasp at temporal power by claiming to speak for God. Consider two examples:

7. People who use the gift of music that God gave them to write worship songs and profit off them. If you want to sing most worship songs at a church service have to pay the person who wrote the song, and the company that collects the money, and the recording company. A similar thing can be said about books. If you write a book to help people grow spiritually, shouldn't you offer it free online?

8. People who "speak for God" and claim that they know what political party God is rooting for. Strangely pastors of large churches who get involved in politics seem to get invited to be the president's spiritual adviser, or to sit on committees or to pray at inaugural addresses or whatever.

When I read 6 I think of the face of Christianity in this country. The vast mass of wealth that walls itself off and does its best to keep the poor people out. That keeps 95 % of its wealth and almost all of its best time for itself. Who has time to go help poor people, or preach the Word in love-I've got a job to do.

I recognize the irony here. I am of course guilty of the very thing I railed against in my last post on the subject. I apologize. Let me be clear though--I think this is just as much an indictment of myself as anyone else.

Who reads Jude anyway

Not very many people. It's kind of wedged in with 2 and 3 John between the more popular 1 John and the more controversial Revelation. I mean, come on, its only 25 verses long. but I noticed today, that it has a pretty potent message-at least I think it does.

We are instructed to contend for the faith. To fight for truth and righteousness and to uphold the cause of Christ.

Part one is a description of a certain sort of person:

1. Who have slipped in among you--we're talking specifically about people in the church.
2. Who change the grace of God into a license for immorality.
3. and and deny Jesus Christ-our only sovereign and Lord.

Ok-so far so good. This should be easy. Just look for the dreamer who

4. pollute their own bodies, reject authority, and slander celestial beings

So far, I thought--I don't even know what you're talking about Jude. I mean--I don't know anyone who goes around saying, "celestial beings are sons of goats" So at about this point my eyes blink and I miss the rest of the book. Lots of people on the other hand pollute all sorts of things and reject God's authority.

Of course, that's when it gets interesting

5. these men speak abusively against whatever they do not understand, and what things they do understand by instinct-like unreasoning animals-this is what destroys them

What if this is an indictment of much of the church today in the United States. I guess I've heard a fair amount of abusive language directed against all sorts of things by Christians. "What, you're a (you could really insert Republican or Democrat here)--well that's just not Christian." Or "you want to live in the city among the poor--well that's just trendy and exhibitionist." or "you live in the suburbs among the wealthy--well that's just selfish and uncaring." or "you think The Shack is better than Pilgrim's Progress--you clearly aren't studying the Word enough."

I don't know--It just seems to me like there's an awful lot of invective and vituperation (yes I know it's pretentious, but it's just a synonym of invective) out there. and a lot of it is coming from Christians. It seems like the church should be a place that people come to when they need love. A place that dispenses grace.

So It seems like Jude is saying "Hey guy's don't make it bad--take a sad world and make it better."

Grace takes what is evil and sinful and makes it whole in Christ. So maybe we have a responsibility to reveal the grace of Christ to the world. To reach out in love and peace rather than judgment and hatred. Look, the world is still going to reject Christ and his followers. But if we follow the example of Christ then we reverse the tide and respond to rejection with love. You know--turn the other cheek and all that other stuff.

On skin

So we're studying dermatology. One thing I've noticed that is a little bit different about this unit is that every lecturer finds it necessary to somehow insert into their lectures, justification for their ridiculous choice of a profession. There's generally one of two routes.

The first can be summed up, "mo money, no problems" Several lecturers had pictures of themselves on vacation--in Greece, Italy, China etc, and one talked for five minutes about how all his kids went to Harvard, others talked at length about how they never have to go into the ER and how they make lots of money.

The second can be summed up "melanoma". At least half the lecturers mentioned skin cancer and its role in their practice. One guy played this clip



Of course there was the one guy who admitted that most of Dermatology is cosmetic work--Botox, chemical peels, scar removal, etc.

Yep the best and the brightest, the doctors who did the best on their board scores and had the best recommendations--making us look better each and every day

PS GOOD THING HE HAS A WIFE TO SECRETLY CHANGE HIS BLOG AND ADD VIDEO!!!

Do you think he can get both hands in his mouth?

On Brigands, toughs, and a band of thieves

I was reading today in 1 Samuel--you know, that book in the Bible. Anyway, I happened to be reading about David. He gets a lot of press, what with killing the giant and all. He also gets a lot of press for watching Bathsheeba take a bath. But the story between the whole "save people from goliath" episode, and the coronation is intriguing. So in the story he's on the run from Saul, the king. He's hanging out in the desert with his band of merry men, doing whatever it is guys with swords and no jobs do--namely kill threaten, steal and the like. He ends up a a hired gun(or sword) for the enemy of the Israelites (his peeps) and eventually volunteers to fight against his own people, the men he once commanded in the army. In between there's the incident with Nabal and Abigail. David sends messengers to Nabal asking for food and supplies. Nabal says, why should I give you help, you're just a brigand. So David decides he is going to kill Nabal and every male in his household. That is until in fear, Abigail sends out the supplies David asked for because she knows he's really a ruthless thief who will kill her husband to get some food. So then David decides not to kill Nabal, but Nabal dies anyway, then DAvid marries Abigail and carries her off to the desert with him.

So anyway, what's the point. As I was reading I was thinking, this is the same story you hear over and over again in history. Some upstart general gets too big for his britches and take his followers off on a wave of pillage and destruction, then tries to take over the throne. It happens anytime there are too many soldiers and not enough jobs.

So I guess the point I'm trying to make, is I always thought that David was this great guy--you know, a man after God's own heart. He was the king, the psalm writer. But he was also a thief, an armed robber, a thug, an adulterer. So where's the rub?

I think one thing that I draw out of this isn't that it's cool to kill some dude, and take his sheep and his wife.

Instead I see God using a regular guy--who is selfish, sinful, etc--to accomplish his ends. To bring his people together, to set the stage, and to encourage his people through the Psalms. And I also see a man who though he continually did things I wouldn't dream of doing, he feared God, and he continued to seek God's will, and he maintained a life of submission to God and his prophets. And I think hey if God can use somebody whose first thought (and action) in conflict resolution is to kill, and who went through wives like sets of clothes, then maybe he can use me somehow, someway

Money Money Money

1.5 trillion dollars is a lot of money.

A penny weighs 3.1 g, so if you had that in pennies it would weigh 465,000,000,000 kg. So given a density of 8.96 g/ml that makes 5189732142 square meters. so if you had a stack of pennies one meter tall, and one mile wide it would be 3243582 miles long--that's enough to wrap around the earth 135 times, or alternatively, you could build thirteen, 1 mile wide towers of pennies to the moon. (

Being the president is kind of like being Robin Hood. You get to steal from the rich to give to the poor. Except it's also kind of like being the Sheriff of Nottingham because you get to pocket a lot of coin. Bill Clinton for example makes more that a 100,000 dollars an hour giving speeches-and it's all tax free. You also get the pleasure of taking money from the rich-then letting them pay lobbyists lots of money to get it back again.

You also get to feel like to banker in monopoly--oh what-we're out of 1,000,000,000,000 dollar bills, let me just go make some more out of construction paper and tape.

Then at the end of the day you get to feel like a successful shopper just back from the mall--sure the defecit is a couple trillion now, but we'll only be 500,000,000,000 dollars a year in the red--so I'm like totally saving tons of money.

Things I like about living in Detroit

Not having to drive 45 minutes to school every day.

The YMCA--42 foot climbing wall, and raquetball courts

Waking up every morning to the sunrise over the river

Mack Avenue Community Church--keeping it real serving the people of Detroit

Liquor stores that accept food stamps

Mexicantown--great food like being home again

Not living in the suburbs

Did I mention not having to drive home at the end of the day

Back in the game

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