Tristan da Cunha.

This is a place I want to go someday... I suppose you could say it's on my "bucket list."  I first learned of Tristan in 2006, and have wanted to go there ever since.  It's the most remote, permanent human population in the world, and it's only accessible by boat because it's too small/too awkward an island for a plane to land on it, and it's too far for a helicopter to travel to (about 1,700 miles from St. Helena of Napoleonic Fame, and over 2,000 miles from South Africa).

About 275 people live on the island and they all speak English!  They are the descendants of a couple of worthy seafarers: start with a British garrison stationed there to make sure Napoleon didn't escape exile at St. Helena then throw in the mix some former whalers and viola!  You've got some pretty hardy people who know how to run a self-sufficient island.  They don't allow newcomers to live there, but they're friendly to the visitors!  A side problem with that, as you may have guessed, is that there's only about 10 last names total.  Not good for the genetic codes over the long haul...  Nevertheless, I'd love to meet these people; there can't be anyone anything like them anywhere on the entire planet.   

A Mix of the Profound and Stupid

The Profound

This is a stunning video that will forever change the way you think about autism and the possibilities of people that have it.  There's tons of implications here, but the ones I was most excited about is how we can better love people with autism and the hope for a cure that I believe this video has built in.  (Anytime we understand this stuff better, I think it points the way to that).  

The Stupid (Yet Simultaneously Genius).

This is a video made by two brothers who were "Best Men" in their third brother's wedding.  To honor their brother, they made this spectacular video.  In its own right, this is genius as a parody of the 80's both in song and in video.  

There are so many little details from outfits, synthesizers, side-swiping cuts, lighting, etc., that makes this perfect (there's even a ballad section in the middle).  Perhaps my favorite is their style of singing with a faux-foreign accent and overly dramatic emphasis on their words.  

Beyond being an 80's parody, remember that this was done for a wedding.  As a creative substitute for a "best man speech" it is by far the best thing I've ever heard of.  The entire extended family and friends are probably still recovering from this.    

Studying Philosophy.

I have been reading/studying some philosophy lately.  I figured it would be good for the ol' brain development.  Not that I'm seeking to become a philosopher.  Generally, I think that philosophers come to some zany conclusions, but that isn't to say that I don't respect their minds or their willingness to ask some really GREAT questions.  Their great questions are both natural and valuable for everyone to consider.

In fact, I think we would all do a little better if we both studied philosophy and became willing to think about some tough thought-problems of our own.  It takes some real courage to do so, as well as endurance.  This is because if you start asking tough questions, your whole world may be shaken up-and you might no longer know what you believe, or why you believe what you believe, or if what you believe is indeed reliable and a sundry of other such difficult mental conundrums that may arise.  Staying in that place of tension (at least in some areas of our minds) on a regular basis is scary and difficult and requires tremendous emotional stability to continue doing over a long period of time.

Bust of Aristotle

Unfortunately, the painfulness of this path is precisely the reason why loads of people cease to think for themselves whenever they get the chance-they come to certain trivial conclusions about who they are, what their life is supposed to be, etc.  They cease really thinking and continue in their limited viewpoints until some sort of "crisis of faith" (for whatever it is they've put their faith in) comes along and derails them.

I wish I could say that I was free from all this, but I have been all too guilty both of loathing having to think through things thoroughly and of remaining immature in my thinking.  Were it not for lots of crises in my life, I don't think I would seek out the answers that I should either.

Nevertheless, I am grateful for the shake-ups because when we get through these kinds of questions and get them answered, we eventually develop a new platform of thinking, a foundation upon which to build our thoughts and minds.  When we become sure of the things that we know to be true, then new doubts and questions that come along the way cease to be really all that scary; instead they become revelations of weak points in our armor that are mendable and ultimately, strengthening.

Assuredly, if we work through these mind-bending problems, we'll (A.) become unshakable and emboldened in living life powerfully everyday because of the confidence we have in our position and (B.) able to help others who are asking the same questions (yet sometimes they didn't even know they were asking these questions!).  Finally, (C.) we should arrive at such points with humility and grace because these roads aren't fun, but always develop good character (provided we're really getting things answered.)

So to conclude and bring this little article full circle by making the point I was trying to make: the process of learning how to think is of critical importance (obviously) and a good study of philosophy is helpful toward that end.

This One Got to Me...

For starters, let me say that I am not really a fan of ballet.  Sure, there's some of Tchaikovsky's brilliance that I enjoy like Swan Lake or the Nutcracker, but beyond that it's pretty much nil for me.

That said, I will say that every now and then someone will make a work of art so fabulous and timely that I enjoy it, even if I don't like the medium (Lecrae even has a rap album I enjoy!).  This little piece was done by the New York City Ballet.  It is an advertisement, but it's more like the advertisement was an excuse to make a great work of art.

This is a video two dancers on top of the new 4 World Trade Center.  They are performing a dance at sunrise called After the Rain to signify new beginnings for their city.  It's brilliant.  It's almost as if they are proclaiming that dancing, romance, beauty and life are being restored to their city while you see it in the background.  Then the ballerina "takes flight" if you will, in front of the new 1 World Trade Center as if to say "out of the place of our greatest pain, we will rise."

I'm sure I'm interpreting it with my own thoughts.  I'm not an art and certainly not a ballet critic or interpreter.  Even so, this is good art, there is tons of symbolism here, and I get it.  

And one final thought: I don't know if they did it on purpose, but the fact that they filmed this on top of 4 World Trade Center seems like it had to be intentional.  This video is definitely "For [the] World Trade Center."

Well done NYC Ballet.

Change the World Much?

So here's a cool little story from antiquity that's packed with lessons.  

The Death of Socrates

Socrates mentors this guy named Plato in philosophy and really, if we're being honest, teaches him how to think and live.  (Socrates, if you'll recall, had such a strong tie between his thought and his actions that he was willing to die for them).  This had a profound effect on his disciple Plato.

The School of Athens (detail) with the elder Plato on the left and his brilliant disciple Aristotle on the right.

 Plato in turn started a school in Athens for philosophers.  One of his disciples was this brilliant man named Aristotle.  Aristotle was, of course, a great thinker in his own right-even taking issue with some of what his mentor taught him and launching into an entirely new "school of thought" if you will.  

Between the three of these guys, you have the foundations of much of Western thought, and there are many assumptions that all of us hold today simply because of their influence.  

The reason their thought patterns spread so far and wide was because Alexander the Great conquered much of the known Western (and a lot of the Eastern) world at the time.  Throughout his empire, he spread the Greek-thought of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle (helped in part by the fact that he established a common "Koine" Greek language to facilitate trade and learning, and because he founded learning centers like the city of Alexandria, famous for its Great Library).  More than a general, Alexander the Great was a phenomenal statesman who understood how to transform the cultures of the societies he conquered.  

The product of over a century of thought-development taking action-Alexander the Great.

One of the reasons why Alexander was able to accomplish so much was because his mind was so well developed.  He simply outsmarted other generals in battle, and knew what factors most influenced a whole society.  History records how Alexander knew so much by telling us who his mentor was-none other than Aristotle himself!  

So there you have it... an unbroken line of mentors from Socrates to Plato to Aristotle to Alexander the Great.  Socrates died in 399 B.C., long before Alexander was born.  Plato too, was dead before Alexander turned 6.  But Aristotle lived to see his ideas, and the ideas of his forbears, spread further than he could have ever possibly dreamed through the actions of Alexander.  

There are tons of lessons in here (too many for a short post) but I at least want to mention how valuable even one life is... each of these men, by mentoring just one person, ensured that the entire world for thousands of years to come would be changed.  I think it goes to say that we should each live as if countless millions are depending on us to do the best with what we've been given.  It's not a guarantee that we'll have such influence, but without ever knowing (as Socrates and Plato never could have), I'd rather err on the side of going after great influence and change as opposed to passively living and dying without thought of who is to come after me.  

Dore Bible Illustrations

The Dore (pronounced like "door-ay") Bible illustrations are absolutely my favorite when it comes to the Scriptures.  (NOTE: I'm aware that this might make me seem like a nerd to even mention this, but after this blog, I hope to have you saying the same thing!)  I so respect him as an artist because he was willing to do what so few people were willing to do in his time (mid to late 1800's), and are still unwilling to do today.

In the 1800's there were LOTS of people publishing the Bible, and those Bibles often had illustrations included in them, but they were full of hyper-religious cheese ball drivel that thankfully are rarely seen anymore because they stunk.  (Unfortunately, there are still many publishers recreating all new hyper-religious and sterile pictures for Christian bookstores).  But Dore's pictures still speak loudly; he refused to sanguinate the Bible by excluding passages and acts of God that were offensive.  And the characters come to life! There's so much epic drama in each picture you get the sense of what was happening spiritually.  What I mean by that is this: in the natural, these scenes almost assuredly weren't so epic looking-a lot of it might have been very plain.  However, the drama of what God was doing spiritually in the Biblical narrative is every bit as weighty as Dore's illustrations make them out to be!

Besides all that, the man was simply a great illustrator (he did a lot with wood carvings).  During his day he was quite popular, and you can see his influence on a lot of illustrations today.  Worth looking at  for further study are his illustrations of the Rime of the Ancient Mariner, the Crusades and Dante's Inferno and Paradise.  Once you start to recognize the look of his work, you'll see that he's all over the place in the older stuff.

BONUS: since all his work is so old, it's all public domain and thus can be used royalty free by anyone today.

TIP: click on the images to make them larger.

Ezekiel 37, the Valley of Dry Bones.  Note how totally BOSS Ezekiel appears, with light around him and even a breeze on his cloak-it's a brilliant subtlety.  The narrative mentions the breath of God coming and giving life to the dry bones.  It's a small detail by Dore, but it is creatively faithful to the story.  Likewise, don't miss the character in the front right of the drawing.  It's as if he is rising up to praise God with arms outstretched.  

These are the lions of Samaria.  It's a little known passage out of 2 Kings 7:24-41.  Basically, when Israel was conquered and Assyria sent foreigners to live in the land, God judged them by sending lions to eat them.  A short yet violent blip in the whole of the Bible, but Dore realized it was visual gold.  

I will simply say that I love how people are clamoring to get to Jesus, and that Jesus (denoted by the posture of His hands and leaning of His body) is equally eager to get to the people.  I love it when artists show the heart of God with simple gestures of His hands (probably the best example is the detail of hands in Michaelangelo's Creation of Adam.)

Moses breaking the 10 Commandments after seeing Israel had sinned.  So EPIC!  Note that Dore puts God's stamp of approval on Moses' actions with the thunderbolt behind him.

Tongues of Fire resting on the disciples as they pray for the Holy Spirit to come.  

This is Lazarus coming out of the tomb.  The incredulity of the disciples (hand on top of the head) as Jesus raises the dead.  The use of light in this illustration is brilliant because everything is dark all around except for the center of the action-where God is at work!

Our New Birthright...

To me, the concept of living out those things which I was born to do is an important one.

I want to lay hold of everything I was created to do, and when I reach the end of my life, I want the joy of knowing that I did precisely what I was supposed to do.

Recently, several things have really pierced my thinking on this topic.

First THIS:
"For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world."  -1 John 5:4

When I was first born in a natural way, there were perhaps things I was born to do that were different from what I am born to do now because I was given a brand new start when I was reborn of God through faith in His Son.  So the concept of what I've been born to do takes on a whole new form with that thinking.

"If I am reborn of God, what am I now born to do?"  
I don't want to define it for anyone with a close-ended theological answer that we might all know.  I want to leave it open to the specifics of what God will tell us and roll with that answer.

But I can't stop considering how epic, how vast and how wonderful it is to be reborn of God and to have a birthright that is beyond all current belief I have.


Second THIS:
"By faith he [Abraham] went to live in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise." -Hebrews 11:9.

Abraham was given a promise that he would inherit the land of Canaan.  Unlike his famous descendants who lived in Egypt, were delivered and then died in the desert seeking to enter the Promised Land, Abraham actually got to live there his entire adult life.  He LIVED in the place of God's promises!

But here's the painful part: each and every day that he lived in the place that he was called by God to inherit he was reminded that the promise was not yet fulfilled.  It was still a foreign country.  Imagine being surrounded by your dream, your calling, your life's purpose EVERY DAY and never seeing it accomplished or fulfilled!!!

As for descendants vast and numerous from God: he only had a few at the time of his death.  Had he not faith, he would have died considering his whole life a failure.  Had he truly considered his life a failure, he might have gone on to have many more children with the slave woman Hagar-trying out of his own strength to populate the Land of Promise.  But instead he counted on God and His character in truly amazing fashion.

Tying together First THIS and Second THIS: what I am born to do, I might not see all the fruits of in this lifetime-in fact, no matter how much I attain to, I cannot measure my success by what should be the tip of the iceberg.  By God's grace, we'll set in motion, through the course of our lives, the transformation of entire nations as Abraham did through the actions and faith that we have in our brief sojourn on this earth.  It is our new birthright.

Back to Blogging

Having moved this summer and Stephanie starting a new job, I've been neglectful of the ol' blog.  Nevertheless, I plan to be right back to it now that things are starting to settle in.

As you can see, I've made a switch to Blogger.  In case you wanted to know, there are a couple of reasons for this: 

1. Easier networking with other blogs/bloggers.
2. Easier to share with social media (Google takes care of this for me!)
3. Easier to find in search engines.
4. Better built-in software that organizes (I'm thinking navigation among other things) and archives my blogs well.
5. This bad boy is free, whereas I was paying a minimal amount for my previous blog.

Eventually I plan on adding the blogs that I had on the old site over here, but that's going to be a little more time consuming.  (It's taking long enough just to archive them!)

Likewise, I'm going to decorate, add some navigation options, etc. to this page, but it's just starting and I figured I would build the airplane after takeoff.

I can't believe that you all have read this blog nearly 20,000 times.  Thanks so much for reading!