Discovered this still life in the course of browsing the web; actually, I kind of like it. The artist’s name was Adolph and unfortunately his teachers thought he lacked talent and discouraged him from pursuing a career in art. Thirty Million people may wish they’d been less critical—yes, he was that Adolph. Today people buy his art for reasons that have nothing to do with artistic merit.
A friend got into a discussion with me on the nature of faith and the existence of God. Having had a week to cogitate on the matter I’ll write a few words.
I can think of few better places to begin than the Gospel of John:
John 1:1-5 In the beginning, the Word existed. The Word was with God, and the Word was God. (2) He existed in the beginning with God. (3) Through him all things were made, and apart from him nothing was made that has been made. (4) In him was life, and that life brought light to humanity. (5) And the light shines on in the darkness, and the darkness has never put it out.
“Word” is a good starting place as to talk of this or any other topic we must use words. Word or in Greek logos is the force that creates and sustains the universe. It can be said that God’s Word is Law but Word in this sense is beyond Law. The Word or God wills, thinks or says a thing and it is so. God then is The Word that expresses the force that creates and sustains the universe. We believe or have faith in the existence of God because as part of this universe we acknowledge the existence of some over-arching force that not only lead to its creation but continues to hold it together. The fact that science can in some way explain how these processes work in no way diminishes God; in fact the more we learn the more we come to understand just how complicated the universe is and reinforce the belief that there must be some ultimate power behind it all. That churches and religious authorities throughout the ages have laid claim to the Word and attempted to harness and dispense it, often to their own advantage and in perversion of the true Word, and perpetrated abuses in so doing in no way detracts from the power of God.
In a world that claims to be atheistic and Godless man’s quest for purpose and meaning remains stronger than ever—we just seek it outside the doors of organized religion. The universe and the matter of which it is made exist, it is neither good nor bad; but when it is used for ill we call that act sin and the results of that act evil. Sin and evil have the effect of separating us from the life force; some would quantify this state as a place called Hell and posit an opposing force for evil personified as Satan or the Devil. The Christian Church has personified the force that makes those who have ‘sinned’ right with the universe in the person of God the Son, or Jesus the Christ. We may no longer believe in casting out demons to heal people, but no one can deny the restorative power of being made right with the world—whether it be by losing those 40 extra pounds, an addiction to smoking or drugs, a long-held grudge, or enmity with the world at large.
The search for meaning has led man, as a sentient being to believe in a life force that animates the flesh and molecules of which he is made. Many have called this presence man’s soul and the means by which it communicates with the ultimate being the spirit. Whether they would admit it or not human beings are creatures of habit and in order to become at one with their inner being or soul participate in ritualistic practices. Whether this be meditation, chanting mantras or group exercises the objective is the same. In the Christian Tradition fellow believers gather for corporate worship involving chants, prayers, and music; and since the sense of smell is our most primal and the last we lose in death, incense. Prayer is an expression of our soul’s two-way communication with the divine spirit—the power behind the universe. Whether or not it is efficacious depends on the faith of the believer.
In the Christian tradition these three aspects of the ultimate power or divine being have been expressed as the Triune God—God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit or Ghost. In spite of these three expressions of this ultimate being Christianity claims to be a monotheistic religion that believes in a single God whose dealings with mortals are expressed in different ways. Faith is a sense of a Spiritual presence that can’t be seen or touched, if one does not believe nothing can prove that it exists. Whether faith be superstition depends on the belief of the individual making the decision; however superstition connotes ignorance and most religious faith is undergirded by centuries of wisdom. As with every human endeavour religion can be used for good and evil—more wars have been fought in the name of religion than any other cause. A comic recently stated that since both sides always claim to have God on their side, God always wins; I don’t have a sense that either human side ever wins. The fact that religion can and has been used to motivate or control people in ways that are deleterious to their own good is a reality; however religion as an expression of man’s search for meaning remains a necessity for most thinking beings.
That the writer’s approach comes from a Christian, indeed Lutheran, tradition is obvious. I would, however, in solidarity with Alan Jones, Dean of Grace Cathedral in San Francisco state that Christianity to me is an approach to living and the questions it poses; not a set of dogma that a practitioner must believe and follow. I believe it an expression of the strength of my own faith that I can encounter those who take differing points of view without feeling forced to convert them to mine and indeed defend their right to hold them; recognizing that their system of beliefs is founded in the sum total of their own life experience and culture. I only ask that they accord me the same respect.
As I sit here contemplating the last few days of a month’s vacation time I’m wondering what happened to all the things I wanted to get done. Take iTunes Podcasts for example. Like a child in a candy shop I’d collected more than I’d time to watch or audition. Well, I’ve spent hours listening to podcasts but, with time on my hands I’ve found more that interest me so I still have a backlog of 56 hours of listening to catch up on and that stockpile keeps growing daily each time I refresh it.
The other day I reassembled my first computer that has sat dormant since September 2002 and booted it up. After three attempts it actually worked. Having been bought in the year 2000 it sports the dreaded Windows Me operating system—it hasn’t improved with age. The old IBM clunker was retired because of unreliability so I haven’t entrusted anything of importance to it; I just wanted to see if it would still work for curiosity’s sake and to engage in a stroll down memory lane. Four years in computer terms and the life of the World Wide Web is two lifetimes. Has anyone heard of the Lycos Browser—it was IBM’s proprietary browser which integrated E-mail, Browsing, Net Clubs and Downloads; one feature I did appreciate was its built-in popup blocker. Alas, we know what happened to IBM and this browser is no longer supported. There are a few games and pieces of software that XP won’t run that I can still enjoy on the old system.
I have managed to catch up on an entire year’s worth of Canadian Geographical Magazines—mainly while I waited for web pages to open or Blogs to upload; though I shudder to think of the depth of the unread back issues, at this point I suppose one could call them history. When I find them, I have copies of MacLean’s Magazine that predate 9/11—not that is history! I never seem to get as many books read as I’d like to but I did finish the Iliad at last and I’m half way through Harry Potter. I’ve watched a number of movies but I’m still behind on the TV series I’ve picked up. At least I won’t be running out of original material to watch anytime soon. I’ve started the 2005-6 Season of Smallville and just picked up One Tree Hill. Managed to work my way through the entire Wagner Ring Cycle but there are still CD’s in my collection that have never been auditioned. Five years ago had someone told me I’d listen to most of my music by means of a computer I’d never have credited it. Online Commercial-Free Radio is a marvel. Being able to stream Pipedreams on American Public Radio and other programmes that are either hard to tune in or broadcast at inconvenient times is a marvel.
I have managed to get caught up on my E-mail and for those of you who visit this Blog you know that I’ve added considerably to its archives. Summer has mellowed into fall outside and air is filled with the calls of blue jays and fog. Nights are getting quite cool and the cloud cover continues to predominate. Trees here near Lake Ontario are just thinking about turning but the cooler temperatures are finally resulting in less swamp water smell from my taps. Now it’s time I go visit my banker and see to financial matters. Guess it’s a pleasant problem to have. At work they joke about raiding the cache under my mattress.
Time was when the well-to-do took the train, a bus, and a boat to a summer retreat and spent a couple months there. Most working stiffs cannot afford such luxuries and the indolent lifestyle having servants to keep house made possible. I count myself lucky to have a job that affords me the extravagance of taking the entire month of September off. It’s pleasant to have an opportunity to unwind, catch up on my reading, peck away at household chores as the mood strikes me, do some shopping, wander Southern Ontario, watch some movies, and forget what time, indeed what day it is. Mind you I may have overdone it in the unwinding department as I’m finding it difficult some days to come up with much to write about in my journal.
This morning I was moved to reassemble my first computer that has sat collecting dust for over 4 years and see if I could get it to boot. At this point the only hardware I’m still using from that original set-up is the speakers. Not surprising for a system that has sat unused for 4 years it took three attempts to get it to start. The first time the hard drive didn’t start, the second time produced a system fault, but on the third attempt it actually booted. Windows Me remains the charming programme it’s always been with its propensity to freeze and lock up the computer. With the benefit of experience I’ve just spent the last few hours getting rid of useless software and trail ware I’d installed at the time and at present have Windows performing maintenance on the drive. For example I now know that having two firewalls installed at once can lead to system instability. I don’t have network access with this computer but I do find it a trip down memory lane to see what I had installed at the time, the way programmes looked 4 years ago and the material I had stored on the drive. Just what I plan to do with a second computer I haven’t quite decided but for the moment it’s an interesting reminiscence. At the moment the old system appears to be remarkably stable, mind you I haven’t attempted to run any specific programmes on it yet.
For one who began blogging with some reticence last May I appear to have embraced it with unbridled enthusiasm, branching out from this original blog which is now approaching 90 entries to scribblings in search of a book and today a foray into movie reviews, nothing new really, just a dedicated blog for my opinions. If I continue to maintain my enthusiasm I expect the next foray will be a book review blog.
The last week has been cool here around Southern Ontario and I’ve had to turn my heat on. This past weekend I looked out at the scudding clouds and wind-driven rain and decided that although visiting Queen St in Toronto to see Word on the Street might be pleasant, I didn’t want to get caught there in the rain.
We all need our guilty pleasures don’t we. I’ve begun watching the fifth season of Smallville. Alfred Goug
h and Miles Millar, the producers of this series, seem to miss no opportunity to have fun with both the Superman tradition and the acting pasts of their actors. Making Annette O’Toole, of Beach Blanket Bingo fame Clark’s very straight-laced Mother, if nothing else, shows that even pinup girls grow up some day. That John Schneider, half the law-breaking good old boy team of Dukes of Hazard fame, is Clark’s rock solid, upstanding Father is just plain irony.
Last night, however in Episode 6 entitled, “Exposed” Tom Wopat, John’s partner in the Dukes, makes a guest appearance as a US Senator. Neither is the sexy hunk they were in those days of youthful delinquency, but Wopat is barely recognizable; except for the souped up hotrod in which he arrives in a four-wheel skid. Gone is the horn that played “Dixie” but in a bow to their past Tom somehow manages to maneuver his ample creaking frame into the passenger seat through the open window.
This series may be about the young man who would be Superman played by the achingly handsome former model Tom Welling and his school mates; but the adults who surround him are no mere props--their characters are fully developed. It is with some bemusement that I admit that occasionally a series I admire manages to survive and in this case is entering its sixth season.
Annapolis is set in the Naval Academy of that name in Maryland. As with the images in the promotional poster above the characters are so air-brushed that they are barely recognizable as the people they represent. It was Jake’s Mother who instilled in him the motivation to assay an appointment to the academy—since this relationship was so instrumental in driving the plot I’d have liked to have met this lady in flash-back. Seeing Jake share a smoke with her as he sits beside her gravestone doesn’t seem enough. I’d have also liked to have seen a bit more interaction between Jake and his union-boss father and older brother.
As with most movies involving military training I get hung up on the brutality, degradation, racism, and verbal and physical abuse that still appear to be part of it. Apparently it’s contrary to his human rights to refuse entry to a grossly overweight plebe but it’s alright to demean and humiliate him because of his lack of physical fitness. As I’ve said before, if this is how the military treats its own; is it any wonder that atrocities get perpetrated against the enemy. Again we run into the honour code and are shown how any law can be perverted to serve the ends of those who manipulate it.
One way or another boxing occupies a majority of this film. As a metaphor for character building I find it a stretch—that learning the discipline to succeed in the ring will carry over into a military career seems overly hopeful to me. But then so does breaking down a man’s dignity to mould him into a member of the unit. Finally, no matter how many candy bars he consumed, Jake doesn’t appear to be in the same class as the massively muscled behemoth he meets in the ring. On the other hand, the buff physique that James Franco displays in this film is almost enough to make one go out and hire a personal trainer. Somehow I don’t think he gained it by eating sugary treats.
I watched two movies yesterday, the first being the illusive Brick. The brick of the title is compacted white powder—cocaine? The target audience for this movie does not include the writer of this commentary; all the characters are either just about to get out of high school or just did so with the exception of a couple high school authority figures—no matter, adults are incidental to this plot anyway. Not being an expert on the film noir I can’t comment on how this movie riffs on the genre; what I can say is that storyline is definitely not linear and plot elements are suggested, not made clear. We are give cryptic glimpses that puts one in mind of attempting to put together a picture puzzle without knowing what scene one is trying to assemble; being given disconnected pieces one at a time. The sparse dialogue which gets spattered at us in often throw-away lines is so au courant that it was probably passé even before the movie was released on screen in California.
There are no good guys here; our guide through this maze has a past as a drug peddler and slouches through most of the scenes as if he hadn’t quite come down from the previous evening’s high. Even though Brendan seems thoroughly familiar with the drug scene in his community; he meddles in it and shakes it up as if he personally were invulnerable. He allows himself to be used as a punching bag on numerous occasions but when the ‘muscle’ is finished he just picks himself up and walks away—the lad seems to be able to take a punch; and when he wants to, he takes out one notable bully with a single punch.
The movie ends with cross-piles of bodies of Shakespearian proportions but I’m left wondering what the point was. The dead girl we are shown as the movie begins was once Brendan’s girlfriend and may or may not have died three months pregnant with his child; but he displays no outward expression of that attachment beyond the investigation into the circumstances of her death that drives this movie. There is no one in this movie I can identify with or would want to meet and I was not sufficiently engaged that I would want to spend the time watching it again in an attempt to unravel the plot elements.
Having time on my hands, I’ve been looking for new challenges. For the last couple days I’ve been experimenting with video editing. I’ve come to understand that certain videos will only play on their default software but I’d never really stopped to consider just how many video formats there are.
Within formats there are video and audio compression codices, bit rates, screen sizes and ratios, frames per second, resolution… So far I’ve just been playing with the software but if I get serious I’m going to have to read the directions! So far I’ve figured out that as with most things there are no rights and wrongs; just decisions as to which compromises you want to choose. If you want to produce a movie with no compression you’d better have terabytes of disc space.
I have the software provided by ULead, Nero Vision, and Windows Movie Maker—if the latter is as user-friendly as other Microsoft products I’ll pass. Guess I should have gotten Adobe’s Video programme when I bought Photoshop Elements 4. Any advice out there?
