I want to make a few announcements:
I Have the Best Baba Ever!That may be an exaggeration, but it was incredibly nice to see a pot sitting infront of my door when I came home incredibly exhausted after a long day and a long week! Baba Zorka makes
the best food, and her bean soup is NO exception. Having finished up my SPA grant proposal (Small Project Assistance), it was really nice to not have to make something to eat. Speaking of which, let's talk about this SPA thing... I'm not going to say it's been fun. I won't say I did a very good job at it. But it's been a learning experience. If my proposal is not granted, I'll still be glad that I've done it. One of my goals in Peace Corps was to gain some experience in grant writing, as I'd like to end up in the non-profit sector one day, and I realize this will be
very useful experience. It's all about learning.
I'm no Idiot, Lemme make my own dern opinions!!I still haven't read
The Di Vinci Code, but I intend to. Further more, I'm incredibly excited to see the movie (I'm a big
Paul Bettany fan). I believe two facts: I am an intelligent human being capable of deciding what it I believe is true (note: I'm not saying what I believe is true for me, but True), reading is good for me. NOW, I don't think that it's bad to read things that are not true, I'll even extend that to reading things that are the opposite of what I believe is true. For example, I think reading fantasy novels are not bad... Let me expound:
Fairytales and stories of magic, I believe, are explanations of something within our cultural subconscious. They symbolically address some common problem. They speak to common nature. They teach us to see beyond the surface (the frog prince), to take chances against evil (hansel and gretel), or that the righteous may suffer persecution (snow white). Many ancient and medieval fairytales tell the hearers, now readers, to listen to parents, the value of a woman's sexual purity, or that the greatest reward comes from hard work, ingenuity, and commitment.
I can offer two explanations why I have no qualms with magic in literature and stories. First, the subconscious is an unfathomable mystery which is easier explained in magic. We use a vehicle which is also unexplainable, so much so that we do not believe it, but through this vehicle arrive at an understanding of both unfathomables. Second, to a child, anything beyond understanding is magic. The microwave oven, a science far beyond the mind of a four-year-old, is a magical machine capable of inflating the paperbag into a universe of buttery goodness OR causing your fillings to explode if you're too close. The television set is a show put on specially fo you. A rainbow is a special gift from God. The tooth fairy delivers us money for our fallen teeth. A child left to his own imagination will develop a magical explanation because he cannot conceive of the scientific explanation.
We adults use magic as an easier way to explain tough concepts. We reward children for their bravery through the trauma of losing a tooth with a dollar from the "tooth fairy." We find it easier to explain the concept of a bunny and painted eggs than the persecution, crucifixion, and resurrection of Christ to our innocent children. Look at children's books, children's movies, children's TV shows! They all have an element of the beyond-believable, the supernatural. Not because children have teensy attention spans which must be catered to with techno-color magical bunnies, but because it's on their level, and easier to understand. (internet and game console games are what we do for a child's short attention span)
That said, considering the generally accepted fact that children are pure at heart and are slowly tainted by the world and its foulness, is it really such a bad thing to return to learning like they do? In unpretentious ways?
And another thing. Fine if you want to forbid anything magical or fairytale-ish from your house. But let's be even and fair about it. Please, throw out your Disney movies, you Tolkein books or movies, your PS2 games, you books of nursery rhymes, anything Harry Potter of from the Nickolodeon channel, and any of C.S. Lewis' fiction. Let's just go ahead and forbid the creative altogether.
So what does that have to do with anything? Well, I recently googled "Di Vinci Code" so I could find out when it will come out in Europe. I happened upon a
web site offering articles, videos, and booklets on going behind the code and revealing the truth. I'm not very up-to-date with the news, but has Dan Brown claimed that this novel is a work of non-fiction? What's it's Dewey decimal code? Does it start with a number or a letter? I don't know anyone who calls this book a masterpiece of research and detective skill.
I don't think it's such a bad thing that the Church sees something that it disagrees with and takes a firm opinion on it. But this whole
Di Vinci Code thing, like the anti-
Harry Potter fanatics
just doesn't make sense to me. Why would you suggest we can't tell fiction from fact? Why is it a bad thing for me to enjoy things beyond reality? And most importantly,
CHURCH!! HOW MUCH MONEY HAVE YOU SPENT TEACHING AMERICA WHAT BOOKS NOT TO READ, WHICH MOVIES TO SEE OR NOT SEE, AND WHAT MUSIC TO LISTEN TO OR NOT LISTEN TO? and how does that compare with the amount of money you provide to help people have water, food, jobs, health care, literacy, safe homes, education? Why are babies dying of AIDS? How come children kilometers to sleep so they aren't kidnapped? Why are children left in rotten orphanages? Why are children trafficked like last winters potatoes to countries all around the world with a wink and a shrug by governments for the pleasure of sexual deviants around the world? WHY ARE CHILDREN FORCED INTO PROSTITUTION? WAR?
PESTILENCE? DISEASE? poverty? invisibility? Take another look at the "Christian industries." Music, books, movies. They make so much money because we feel more righteous by having Kincade pillows on our overstuffed couches and promises of wealth on our coffee cups and key rings. Listening to God's promises make us feel holier when we can jam to them in our loaded Expedition with the Jesus fish on the back bumper. I'm not saying any of these things are bad, but America, don't just sit there are feel pretty and holy in your opulence. Make a friggin difference and stop wasting air and dollars while you tell me which books not to read. As you
tell us what Jesus did not do, I'll try
showing what Jesus did.
"Preach the gospel, and if necessary use words." attributed to St. Francis of Assisi.
Me and Rachel in Sarajevo, in front of a lovely fountain. The park behind us became Muslim burrial grounds because there were few safe places to bury the dead durring the war. In front of us there is memorialized shell damage on the sidewalk.
At the cemetary in Sarajevo the Muslims, the Orthodox, and even a small patch of Protestant are burried together. This is the place where the the Muslim and the Christian graves come together. This is a huge cemetary and all the gravestones you can see show lives that ended between 1990 and 1996
These are my little feetsies in a river that goes under the old bridge in Mostar, Bosnia. This bridge was destroyed durring the war but rebuilt.
This is the bridge upon which Arch Duke Franz Ferdinand and his wife were assassinated, thus beginning the first world war. In the back ground is an example of the way Sarajevo is a beautiful and tragic desplay of Austro-Hungarian, Communist, and Ottoman (but not shown here) archeticture which has been damaged or destroyed, rebuilt, lived in, died in, but surviving several awful wars.
