Post-Birthday Reflections

Laptop Update 

Thanks to those of you who have given to my laptop fund raising campaign! In a week, more than $350 has come in…that’s more than a third of the way there! Much of the money that has come in has been from people who I’ve never met. Thank you for your generosity.

Help me get the rest of the way! I’ve got some major traveling coming up in less than a month…it would be good to have a new laptop on the road with me. Use the paypal form at the top right of my blog to take me the rest of the way home!

Children of Men Mini-Review

I saw Children of Men last night for my birthday.  Not everyone agrees with my assessment, but I think the film bordered on the SUBLIME.  Sure, it was dark, gritty, and disturbing.  But it was beautiful.  Few movies have moved me as much as Children of Men.

The movie is basically a post-apocalyptic nativity story.  But instead of human salvation resting in the God-infant, it rests in the hands of an illegal refugee, her unborn baby (who is only special because a child hasn’t been born on earth for 18 years) and the cynical man whose task is to get the woman and her unborn child to the “Humanity Project”–a secret island of scientists who are working on the cure for universal human infertility.

I won’t give anything away (all of the stuff I just said is in the trailers anyway).  But let me tell you: there is a five minute sequence in the movie (most of it is a single shot) that forces you to endure a visual representation of the human condition at its worst, only then to show you the human condition at its best.  At the end of the sequence (those  of you who watched the movie know what I’m talking about–it is the battle sequence in Bexhill Refugee Camp), I had to fight the urge to  laugh and cry at the same time.  It was that good.

News on my applied ecclesiology course

Due to some administrative oversights and personnel changes, the class I teach won’t be offered at Bethel Seminary this year.  I’m pretty bummed about it.  I can’t help but feel like the course isn’t a big priority for them.  I know that I’m not exactly uber-qualified, but the course was remarkably well received by students and it was the only class that filled a massive blind-spot in the curriculum.  Better luck next year, I guess.

for further reading . . .

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