Jots and Tittles

Yes, that's right, boys and girls, for the 5th year in a row, I've won NaNoWriMo! This victory was rather sweeter than most, because I really thought I wasn't going to make it this year. It was a difficult November for a number of reasons, and there were more 0 word days on my word count graph than ever before. I had reached 41,000, and figured that was the best I could expect.

But I had a couple of hours this evening which, while I probably should have spent sleeping, I spent noveling - and I won! It was really exhilarating to cross the finish line so close to the deadline - and though my story isn't finished, in that last push I found out how to defeat the bad guy, developed an unexpected romance and introduced a new character! So it was totally worth it. I can't wait to finish my novel - this one's a good 'un.

This has been cross-posted to my website.  Read it there!
Most early-morning commuters hate the sunrise.  Low on the horizon and blindingly bright, the sun makes it hard to see the road in one direction or another no matter how you're facing.  The beauty of the sunrise is lost in frustrated squinting and ineffective attempts to block enough light to see clearly.  And for the most part, on those occasions when I have found myself driving home from Ault early in the morning to make it to work on time, I have been among those who wish the sun wasn't quite so bright when it first comes up.

But this morning, for some reason, I couldn't be annoyed. Instead, Lewis's words above kept popping into my head, and I began to think about the sunrise very differently.  Now, I know that most Protestants are obligated to pretend they love C. S. Lewis even if they don't (Don't believe me?  See what Jon Acuff has to say about it...) but I'm not pretending.  His love for God and his love for literature, stories, and language both resonate with me strongly, and I absolutely love reading every little thing he's written.  He chooses every word with precision and care, and he can say more in one sentence than many people can say with an entire book.  The way he says what he says is often as impressive to me as what he says itself.  I don't think very many people can honestly say they appreciate him to the fullest - including me.  But I had an insight into just how beautifully crafted this particular sentence is as I drove home this morning.

The sunrise, you see, has long been a symbol of the resurrection of Christ.  Indeed, as Father Anthony explained the last time I was in his church, whenever it is possible, an Eastern Orthodox church is built so that the congregation faces the east.  This is not, as is the case with the Muslims, in order to face some holy place on the other side of the world, but in order to face the sunrise.  The sunrise is creation's daily testimony to the glorious fact that Jesus is risen.

Do you begin to see what Lewis was doing?  His vision is so steeped in Christ that he sees everything else, even down to the metaphor he uses to describe his vision, through a lens of Christianity.  Just as the sun rasies from the darkness of night to send it away and illuminate our daily lives, so the Son is risen from the darkness of death to defeat it forever and illuminate our daily lives.  And every single morning, all of creation points toward this most miraculous of truths as the sun reappears in the sky.

I'm not trying to suggest that you have never heard this quote before, or that you have never heard this metaphor before.  But if you're like me, you never put the two together, and you certainly never applied it to what happens every single morning, as it happened.  I suggest changing that.  If you wake before the sunrise, take a moment out of your normal routine to reflect.  If you don't, try it one day.  There's something indefinable about that short time between dawn and day, when the sun is just beginning its journey, that can give a great peace if you let it.  Take a look as the new day dawns.  Appreciate the beauty you see before you.  Watch the sun rise, and think about C. S. Lewis, about Father Anthony, and about the very first Easter, and proclaim along with all of creation,-Jaya-

Courtesy of xkcd.

Consider it a PSA.

That is all.

-Jaya-

(This has been cross-posted to my website.  Read it there!)

I'm going to say something now that might rock your world, but hang on. You see, I want to tell you that Christians don't know everything.

I know! Astonishing! There are things that, when we are being very honest with ourselves, completely flabbergast us. Like, for example, what happens to the “noble savage” (I know it's not PC, but I think it sounds so cool, and I've never been too scared of the PC police) – the one who lives his life according to what little revelation he has of God from nature and his “primitive” religion, but never hears the Gospel. Does he go to hell? Does God know that he would have accepted Jesus, too, had he heard the right message? Does he go to purgatory?

We don't know. But there are other, less serious questions which also baffle us, if we're being totally honest with ourselves, like whether or not God wants Christians to have awesome sex. Does God want Christians to have good sex? There's a large section of Christianity which believes that God absolutely wants us to have awesome, wonderful, amazing sex provided it's within the bounds of a marriage, because it's a good gift and as long as we use it in the way he intended it for us, we'll be fine. There are other Christians, apparently, who seem to think that asking the mere question is scandalous, to say the least. Like they somehow think that God gets all awkward and uncomfortable too, whenever we bring up sex, because it's not like he really meant for it to be so darn fun, and now it's turned into this big deal, and gah, the worst part of his evenings are always when all the married couples go off and have great, passionate, wonderful, non-sinful sex because he can't exactly get mad at them for doing what they're supposed to do, but darn it, they're just having too much fun... Because, you know, God is just as freaked out by sex as we are. How droll.

It's funny, because I used to be there. I used to be very fundamental. I mean, I still believe that the Bible is the most reliable source of knowledge about God we have, and that everything we experience in life should be tested against what the Bible says to make absolutely sure that it is, in fact, from God. I believe that there are some people who will go to hell, though I won't presume to say which ones. See, it's little things like that which make me not a fundamentalist. Because I will stand up and say with conviction that homosexual behavior is sinful and not to be tolerated, let alone encouraged, in a church community – but we are called to love those who struggle with homosexual desires and not treat it as though it's any worse of a sin when they slip up than when we slip up in struggling with our own sins. It's the unrepentant part that's the problem in this picture, not so much the homosexuality part. That's a sin, but so is lying, stealing, cheating on your wife, looking at porn, valuing money over God, and a whole host of other things that the rest of us struggle with, so it's not like being gay makes you a worse person than I am. You just struggle with a different sin than I do. At least you're struggling, and you haven't just given in, because that's where the problem lies.

But the extremest of the extreme refuse to hold any conviction lightly. Do I believe in dispensationalism? Not really, but I don't think you're going to hell if you do. Actually, Systematic Theology III had a whole unit on eschatology and what people think about the end times, and I still don't know what I believe about it, but I also don't think that it matters very much. And, to be quite honest, I think that the people who are such strong dispensationalists, or amillennialists, or whateverelseists, are completely missing the point of the passages they use to back up their views. The point is not whether Jesus is going to reign in a figurative millennium or a literal one, whether there's going to be a rapture (personally I don't think there will – it's always seemed kind of weird to assume that God's going to pull out all the loyal people and then let the bad ones go fight it out among themselves like some kind of global cage match for our amusement, because he doesn't strike me as that kind of God, but I digress). The point is that God loves us more than we could ever hope to comprehend, and we were really screwed up but he came into our screwed up world and died and rose again, not for his own amusement but because he wanted to fix it for us. He wants us to be with him, because we are his creation and he loves us. At that point, the little details of how the last couple events in the big time-line are going to go down really seems superfluous. Definitely not worth arguing over.

So I really struggle with people who post things on the web that fill the stereotypes of the fundamentalist Christian who is so narrow-minded and judgmental that Jesus himself would be cringing. Or, you know, calling them Pharisees and perhaps even a brood of vipers, because Jesus wasn't really the sort to just sit back and let people like that destroy others.

Take, for example, alittleleaven. Now, I do not know this man personally, so I don't want to say anything about him as a person. For all I know, he could be the sweetest, most loving person in his whole state. But that's definitely not how he comes off in the videos he has posted questioning the theology of people like Joel Osteen and Rick Warren.  (By the way, I love how he compares Warren to a member of the Evil Empire on that video.  Because, didn't you know, the Emperor preached that God wants us to do what we were created to do, too!)

Now, I have my quibbles with Osteen and Warren. Osteen does seem to slip into the prosperity gospel too often for me to be wholly comfortable with him, and Warren the same to a lesser extent. I haven't finished reading Purpose-Driven Life yet (my first copy was *ahem* borrowed and never returned, and the second I got at a thrift store for about a dollar and just haven't spent the time with it) but from what I read, it did seem to flirt with prosperity gospel now and again. However, little as I know about Osteen, Warren has always seemed to be a pretty orthodox kind of guy. Not entirely perfect – none of us can truthfully claim that – but his heart is in the right place and he has some good things to say about Christianity. I would like to say the same of Osteen, but I don't know enough to say for sure, so I'll hold off.

But this "alittleleaven" person was ripping into them, completely unfairly, expecting them to live up to an incredibly narrow and limited view of what Christianity is. This kind of thing has bothered me for quite some time, so I'm going to address it here. I would like to remind us that salvation is not only about forgiving sin.

Yes, I'll give you a moment to let you recover from the shock.

Are we good? Have I thoroughly rattled your cage yet? Excellent. Now, let me explain. Salvation is definitely partly about forgiving sin. It might even be mostly about forgiving sin, though I don't know that I'd say so. But it is very certainly not only about forgiving sin. It is about restoring us – and all of creation with us – to a right relationship with God. His creation is meant for his presence. Not just on the obvious side, the “well the whole creation would cease to exist if God stopped supporting it for a split second” side, although that is also true. In the garden, before the fall, back when things were the way they were meant to be, all of creation was in constant fellowship with God. He walked in the garden with Adam and Eve. He talked with them. He provided for them. He was there. Salvation is about restoring the world to that, and maybe even something a little bit better. Thinking that salvation is forgiveness of sins alone is such a narrow view of what is really going on. Of course God wants to forgive your sins. But that is not the goal. He forgives your sins in order to have a relationship with you. It's not like you're forgiven and then you go on your merry way. You want to approach God, your sin makes that impossible, and so he clears away that huge, lumbering obstacle and now you can approach him, you can have a relationship with him, and it's redeemed. And all of creation is redeemed, too. We're not saved for harps and white robes and fluffy clouds and halos. We're saved for a party with God on the new earth that he's redeemed. Revelation describes it as a wedding feast.

Have you ever been to a wedding feast? I'm right at that time of my life where approximately everyone I know is getting married. I have been to at least one wedding per summer (two, this summer) for the past several years. I've been to quite a few wedding feasts. And they are not boring, solemn, stuffy events. There's great food, and laughter, and dancing, and silly traditions, and cake, and lots of joy and celebration centered around people that everyone present genuinely loves. (Even the most awkward wedding I have ever gone to, in which I knew neither the bride or the groom but was invited because my boyfriend did, was still awesome, and by the end of it I really did love Ben and Dana and was genuinely rejoicing for them. And since then I've gotten to know them a little bit better and I still love them. Weddings are just a great place for genuine love to happen, and not just the romantic sort.)

And you know what? To do all of that dancing (yes! Dancing! It's not a sin!) we need bodies. This is one of the most exciting things I have learned in seminary. I get a body when I die. And it's going to be a redeemed body, so while it'll be kind of like the body I have now in that it'll still be uniquely Brittany, it's not going to have all the PCOS and the overweight problems and the brokenness that this one has. Do you have any idea how much I'm looking forward to feasting with God and all his people, and getting to drink all the tea I want, eat all the delicious bread I want, all the ice cream I want, all the Snickers bars I want – and all the while enjoy a chat with C. S. Lewis, Jane Austen and Paul (the top three on my Christian Heroes I Want to Eat Dinner With list), about how awesome our host is, how much we love Jesus, and whatever else we want? That, my friends, would be heaven. Doesn't that sound amazing?

Now. Which version of salvation do you like better: forgiveness of sins, or the Party of Awesomeness With God and Friends that I just described? I sure hope it's the second one, because that's the one we get. It's not that forgiveness of sins isn't part of that. It's just that there's SO much more to it, and I hate it when people focus so much on one tiny detail that they miss the big picture of God and the huge, amazing, mind-bogglingly cool thing he's doing.

Certainly, you can pull texts out of the Bible which say that God forgives our sins, and we were all horrible sinners who deserved death and eternal damnation and Jesus saved us from all that. But you're missing half the picture when you do that, and it's the prettiest half! This is why prooftexting is such an awful thing. Because then you really are doing the blind man thing, and thinking that because you've held the elephant's tail, the elephant must be a rope. Only you're really worse, because you're just willfully squeezing your eyes shut, and if you'd just open them up you'd see that the rope is a very tiny part of a very big elephant, and you're missing out on some of its cooler features, like its awesomely long nose, or its big fan-like ears.

So, can I please, please, please ask my dear brothers and sisters in Christ to stop holding on to every little detail with such an iron grip? There are things about God that we don't know. That's okay. He's God – we don't have to know everything about him, like he knows everything about us. There are things we can hold loosely. If God did not create the world in six literal days and if perhaps he used some kind of evolution to get some of his work done, it will not be the end of Christianity. He's God – I think he can use whatever he wants to. Focus on holding tightly to the more important truths: God is love, he loves us so much that he gave his life so that we could be with him forever, and he will never ever stop being as awesome as he is right now and has always been. The rest of it doesn't matter one billionth as much as that. As long as we have that one truth, the rest of it we can hold lightly in our grasp and know that we're just trying to make sense of what we think we understand, and we don't have all the answers. But God does, and that is enough.

-Jaya-

Friends, I just want to ask you, today, to just look at this blog post, friends, and just read what he has to say, friends, because it's just really good, friends, and I just think you'd all really enjoy it.  So, my friends, just click on this link, friends, and just enjoy it!
http://stufffchristianslike.blogspot.com/2008/03/96-using-gods-favorite-word.html

This article has been cross-posted to my website.  Read it there!

Lately I have been painfully aware of well-meaning Christians who genuinely believe that we still live in a Christian nation, and/or that we were founded by Christians or under Christian principles. This breaks my heart, for I wish it were true... but it is not. Let me give you an example.

Today, I received this email from a dear friend at Fuller:
Now, while I could write on for pages and pages as have done the other intelligent Americans in this country about how this sounds WAY more like 1984 and Big Brother than I could have imagined for a man who has held his office for a mere seven months and change, but I think that has been articulated very well by others. (Although, may I point you in this direction? Here I found a quote I really liked: "If anything, this kind of reaction to dissent is going to make the dissenters even angrier than they already are. The United States was founded by just the sort of people that President Obama and his Congressional allies disdain, gun toting, tax resisting red necks who didn't flinch when the King's men came marching up the lane to put down a group of patriots that they thought of as a 'mob' as well.")

But, like I said, that's not my point.  My point is the last two paragraphs of the email I was sent (and let me stress that I enjoyed it to that point).  To reiterate:

How I wish it was so!  But, as they say, if wishes were horses, beggars would ride.  Wishful thinking will not get us anywhere.  We are not a Christian nation.  We are a nation which is so fortunate as to enjoy the presence of many, many Christians, who have had a formative impact on the development of our country.  But those men we affectionately refer to as "Founding Fathers" were mostly deists, tainted by the enlightenment disdain for anything that smacks of the supernatural and denying that ultimate truth is to be found in Jesus Christ or in the Bible (which, by the way, is not the only, or even the greatest, manifestation of God's word - that honor goes to the former: Jesus).  The truth is, while we have liked to think of ourselves as a Christian nation, there are many, many people who are not Christian, whether or not they hold to any other faith, and the truth is, we have to deal with that.  The truth is, we know that Christianity is True, but we aren't going to convince the rest of the nation of that overnight.  The truth is, the Triune God was rejected by at least some of the founding fathers, if not all of them. 

We need to quit living like we're a Christian nation with some bad leadership.  We need to start living like we're Christians who are fortunate enough to live in a nation that guarantees that we are free from the most severe persecution and free to worship with other Christians in the manner we see fit.

Now, I do not advocate for the fictitious separation of church and state.  The Constitution only insists that there be no state religion; it does not say that the state must approach the church as though it were poisionous for its very existence.  I think that anyone who calls himself a Christian and does not allow his Christianity to influence every single aspect of his life - politics especially - is a hypocrite.

But if we are going to be effective in our work under the Great Commission, we need to quit thinking that we're a Christian nation that has gone astray.  The USA is not the new nation of Israel.  It's not the nation that God has singled out to be his new people and there aren't going to be any prophets sent from God to the USA calling his people back to a right relationship with him.  God's people are the Christians (and whether or not his people are also still the Israelites is an issue I am not going to address here).  If he chooses to send prophets - and prophetesses! - to the Christians to call them back to a right relationship with him, which I think he does, all the better.  But he sends them to Christians, not to the USA.  God's people are no longer confined to a political or geographical boundary, but are found throughout the world, and that means that you don't have to be an American to be a Christian - nor do you have to be a Christian to be an American.  I am not saying whether this is right or wrong.  I am saying that's the way it is, and we need to learn to deal with reality, and quit living in a little American=Christian bubble.  It's irresponsible and harmful to the spreading of the gospel and living truly Christlike lives.

Because, you see, we can call out other Christians when they are not following Christ in love.  They have, so to speak, signed up for living a Christian lifestyle, and when they fail to do so we have a responsibility to call them out (lovingly) and guide them back to the path they have chosen to walk.  But how can we force those who have not signed up for Christianity to follow the rules of Christianity?  May I remind you of 1 Corinthians 5:12-13? "For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge? God judges those outside."  Please, read 1 Corinthains 5-6.  We are supposed to judge those inside the church, to arbitrate differences and to keep each other in line - lovingly, as always.  We are supposed to let God judge those outside the church.  

This is going to require a radical change in the way we Christians live our lives.  We cannot assume that we live in a Christian nation.  We must live as though the people we meet are in need of the Gospel, not as though they already have it.  And if we want to demonstrate the good that Christianity can do for our nation, we need to show the good that it does in our lives, in the lives of our churches, and in the relationships we have with non-Christians.  Only then can we begin to say that Christian values ought to inform what the nation does - when we have proved that they are good values, worth following, when we can point to our churches and our lives and our relationships and say, "That's why Christianity is so wonderful, so worth having, and that's why we should incorporate its principles back into our government."

There is more to be said about this, but I think I've rambled long enough for now.  Hopefully this has given you some food for thought, and I welcome any comments you might have on what I've said.

Blessings to you all!

-Jaya-

Check out this awesome cake!  And, perhaps it wasn't intentional, but even the blogger recognized that it's tailor-built for the Hatter and his bride!

http://weddingcakedesigns.wordpress.com/2008/12/12/topsy-turvy-wedding-cake/

(This has been cross-posted to my website.  Read it there! www.thefaithfuldaughter.com/)

Abusing English

It appears that the Voices of Sophia has a new website, which I thought an appropriate subject for my first post on the new site. Their old one had not been updated since 2005 or 6, and now appears entirely defunct, at which we all rejoiced. But of course that was too good to last; you can now find them at voicesofsophia.wordpress.com/ where their particular brand of nonsense is alive and well.

There is a great deal already on the site that I want to discuss at some point.  First, however, I would like to say a few things about the article about Mary Jane Patterson (don't bother looking her up on Wikipedia; we're not talking about the woman from the 1800s). In many ways, it is quite typical of such articles - recapping significant moments in her life, honoring her work, ignoring her faults, making her sound far more perfect than any human ever was. Whether or not I agree with those things to which she dedicated her life is not the point here.

The point is "SHEROS."

SHEROS? Seriously? Come on.  It's not like "hero" has ANYTHING to do with "he."  Just because a word happens to share some letters in the same order as another word, it does not mean the words share the same root.  In fact, "hero" is from the Greek word heros, which - delicious irony! - Wikipedia suggests may be from the goddess Hera! Oh, wouldn't it be perfect if that were so, and the feminists are destroying a reference to a goddess through their hypersensitivity to masculine-tinged language?  It just makes me giggle with glee!  At any rate, it is quite new to English compared to "he," having arrived on the scene only in the 1300s.

"He," on the other hand, is from the Old English (O.E. in the Online Etymology Dictionary) word which, while spelled "he" was actually pronounced "hay."  It has been in the language for as long as we can tell - at least from what I find in the dictionary mentioned.

The most beautiful irony of this is, of course, that it is completely and utterly pointless.  For what letter comes after "h" and "e" in this poor word? Why, can it be the humble little "r"?  It is?  And what do those three letters, in that particular order, spell? Why, "HER"!  Which is, of course, the feminine counterpart to the pronoun which caused such offense.  Shall we then get rid of "her" and "she" because of their offensive letters?  Where does it stop?  Do we dispense with "where" and "when" for the same reasons?

Okay, that is rather ridiculous.  But ask yourself - is it any less ridiculous than SHEROES?

Wonderful news: I have a website!

Well, not quite.  But I do have a domain name and will, over the course of the next month or so, go about setting it up and making it pretty and whatnot.  For now, just be aware that someday you will be able to find me at www.thefaithfuldaughter.com, and while there's nothing but a placeholder template there now, eventually I hope to begin branding myself as the kind of Christian writer editors want to publish.  Prayers that this venture goes well are always appreciated.  There is a lot to learn, and I've complicated things for myself by trying to do it using Linux, not Windows.  But I'll figure it out.

Speaking of Linux vs. Windows, I finally figured out how to make Wine work, so the odds of me going back to Windows in the foreseeable future are pretty much nonexistant.  However, I haven't quite got all the kinks worked out - RoughDraft works splendidly, for example, until you try to check the word count, at which point it tells you there are 0 words no matter how much you've typed.  That will be a big problem come November.  But I have a while to work it out, and right now I'm just thrilled that I've got proof of concept.  So that's very exciting.  I'm not planning to ever pay for an operating system again (yeah, right - now that I've said that I'm sure to wind up having to buy something someday... and I might be willing to buy me a Mac).  

In other exciting news, this quarter is about 10 days from being over, which is good because I don't think I could have taken much more of it.  I really disliked my Theology and Pop Culture class (it was like my undergrad Communications and Pop Culture class, except with Jesus.  Boring!), wasn't particularly enthused with Systematic Theology III (although I have a major crush on the Orthodox Church... if you can say that about a church.  Seriously, I half want to convert.  The symbolism!  The spirituality!  The sincerity!  The orthodoxy!  I'm in raptures!), and Spiritual Disciplines was an intensive, so it flew by far too quickly to make a lasting impression.  I still have a 10 page research paper to write and a take-home final exam to complete, so I'm not out of the woods yet.

Oh, and did I ever mention that I got a job?  I did.  I'm working at Penney's, in Men's, and... well, it's retail.  Huzzah.  I've had worse, though ironically for better pay... but whatever.  That's life.  Hopefully it's not permanent.  The job, that is, not life.  Though this life isn't permanent, either.   ...stop me before I get all theological on you!

And that's about all the news.  I should probably go to sleep so I can get up and go to work tomorrow morning.  And then go to Ault tomorrow night to help out with the Youth Group, yaaay!  ^^  Good night world!

-Jaya-

It's finals week so I don't have long, but I just had to share this.  I love xkcd.  It's deliciously nerdy and always amusing.  My new favorite:

http://xkcd.com/556/

Don Quixote FTW. YES.

Those of you who knew me when I was growing up certainly remember my love for all things space-related.  In recent years, that love has been reawakened through Galaxy Zoo (now in its second generation! and yes, I still categorize on occasion, though the site goes down a lot while they work out the second-gen details), but nothing can beat the wonder captured by that most well-known of telescopes, the Hubble.

I've known for a while that the Hubble has been failing (it is over 10 years old) and that pretty soon, it's going to be time to send our old friend into a controlled dance with death - carefully maneuvering it so that it burns up in the atmosphere and doesn't come crashing down on the earth somewhere.  But... they were going to fix it, and now, since the amount of space debris up there is increasing and making it more and more dangerous to try to send people to fix it (and yes, I also thought of the end of the Wall-E trailer), they're not so sure.

I also know that the James Webb Space Telescope is going to be better resolution than Hubble, and will see farther, be placed farther out (on the other side of the moon, if I recall correctly), and generally look cooler than the Hubble.  Which is super cool and exciting.  And of course, all good things must come to an end.

But, dangit... I will be so sad when Hubble is gone! I could cry.  Who could forget the first time they saw a Hubble image?  Looking at the sheer beauty of the cosmos is enough to send me into an enraptured silence punctuated only by those times when my adoration of God's great creation cannot be contained any longer.  Hubble images in my Astronomy class at CSU made my head spin, being projected on such a big screen and seeming to display some of the immense grandeur which we can only imagine.  Don't get me wrong, I wll be incredibly excited to see what the JWST can put out.  But I do hope they can keep the Hubble going as long as possible, if for no other reason than that we should give it a chance to give us as much of the amazing information it can, as it was made to do.  And when it finally does have to go, for nothing lasts forever, I hope we give it a proper send-off.  And I hope I get to see it.

-Jaya-

I find it amusing that some people couldn't give a straight answer to the simplest of questions if their lives depended on it.  Sometimes it seems like there are some interviewees who, were I to ask them whether they were even alive, would not be able to answer simply "yes" but would have to give some convoluted string of meaningless words: "As I have not been able to ascertain up to this point a meaningful understanding of what it is to be alive, I can only speculate that I perceive the rain falling outside and therefore operate under the assumption that I have not yet ceased to breathe."  REALLY? You think you could cram a few more syllables in there that have nothing to do with the question I asked you?  That'd be great.  I think you could give me a bit more BS before you get down to not answering my question.  I really don't think that was your best effort.

This guy from Microsoft is one of them.

First of all, I can hardly believe that Microsoft is trying to revert to Digital Rights Management (or DRM), in England or anywhere else.  The basic point of DRM is to restrict one's use of legally purchased media (usually videos and music) and thereby control piracy.  The end result is often frustration: I purchased a couple of songs from Wal-Mart's website a few years ago and quickly regretted that decision because, thanks to DRM, I could not convert them into the proper format so I could put it on my iPod, which was the whole reason I bought them in the first place!  This is not an uncommon problem.  Many, many people who have purchased media protected by DRM have found that when they wanted to move thier media from one of their devices to another (say, from their computer to their mp3 player), they could not do so because of DRM restrictions.  Others have found that, when their computer crashed and they had to get a new one, they had to re-purchase all their media (even if they had backed it up) because they could not transfer it to a new device.  Understandably, this led to a general public dissatisfaction with DRM-restricted media and an increase in media piracy - perhaps it's illegal, but at least you can actually listen to the music you download illegally.  To be honest, I would not fault  a person like the young man who spent over $200 on baseball videos (and who, thanks to DRM, will never be able to view them again because the server from which the DRM receives permission to let those videos play is being shut down) for downloading them through other, less legal means.  He already paid for them once, after all, and through no fault of his own will lose the ability to watch them - even though he's not getting his money back.  I think he deserves to have the videos he paid for.  Nobody would argue with me if I said that Wal-Mart had come to reposess all the DVDs he'd ever bought from their stores, and I thought he had a right to keep them since he paid for them.  How is this different?

But I digress.  My point here is, this Hugh Griffiths guy never once actually answered the questions asked him.  Now, I know that I tend to be rather verbose when answering questions, but I flatter mysef that my verbosity is because I am actually giving a thoughtful answer to the question rather than simply saying words and hoping that nobody notices that they have nothing to do with the question asked.  And yet in this interview, the questionner continues to ask the same question in a variety of ways (namely: why would anyone in his right mind buy from MSN Mobile Music and deal with the DRM hassle when they could buy the same music elsewhere for cheaper and NOT deal with the DRM hassle?) and Mr. Griffiths continued to skirt the question and essentially make himself look like a fool.  Good work, Microsoft.  Out of curiousity, can ANYONE explain to me what the potential benefits of buying music from MSN Mobile would be?  Why on earth would I want to pay extra for music that I can't listen to when my phone breaks and I have to get a new one?  Especially when I can get it elsewhere for less money AND be able to transfer it to my computer so that when my phone breaks and I have to get a new one, I can transfer all that music that I already paid for onto my new phone and save even MORE money?  If there were some benefits that came with spending all that extra money I could perhaps justify it, but those would have to be some freaking amazing benefits to outweigh the drawbacks.

Honestly.  I think it's pretty obvious to everyone (except for Microsoft... but clearly they're clueless as to the workings of the average person's mind) that this isn't going to go over well, and that eventually one of two things will happen: MSN Mobile will drop the DRM nonsense and go another direction to justify insanely high prices, or MSN Mobile will drop the prices and keep the DRM, leading to its evental demise since no sane person will buy something with DRM knowing full well they'll have to buy it again when they switch phones.  Either way, I forsee the death of MSN Mobile in the not-to-distant future, and thank goodness for it.  May all DRM die the same death, the sooner the better.  The harder (and more expensive) you make it for people to enjoy their media legally, the more people you will push to piracy.  That strikes me as counter-productive.  Here's a radical thought: how about working WITH your customers to develop a mutually satisfactory system rather than employing this us-versus-them tactic which only serves to destroy customer relations?  It's pretty simple.  We want media that is inexpensive, easy to access and easy to back up.  And if we want to share that awesome new single we found with our friends, we should be able to do that, because that's free marketing and you should be BEGGING us to do that!

To be fair, there are places (such as iTunes and Amazon.com) which are offering DRM-free downloads of music (which is a big part of why MSN Mobile is going to fail spectacularly).  That's a step in the right direction.  I still think that the best solution is to work with torrent sites and other such popular pirating avenues to make media legally available through such mutual sharing sites, and make it as close to free as possible.  The internet isn't going away any time soon, and these people are going to have to adapt or become obsolete.  Music is going to be available to people for free through illegal means if it's not made available to people for free through legal means, and trying to persecute every thirteen-year-old in the world who downloads the latest big hit is simply not a viable option.  It's time to come up with another model.  Personally, I am in favor of the concert model in which artists receive their money from going on concert tours and other such sources, not from album sales.  To be quite fair, it's not like they will starve to death based on the loss of album sales.  They have far too much freaking money as it is.  They ought to be recording music for the love of music, not for the love of money, and if they can't seperate the two then they aren't mature enough to handle it anyway.

And that's quite enough ranting from me for now.  I have a paper to get back to.  I just thought I'd take a nice break and vent.

Perhaps the next time I take a break I'll talk about my thoughts on Microsoft's approach to software and operating systems and suchlike.  That might be fun.  =D

-Jaya-

I know, I know it's been for freaking ever since I last posted and this entry isn't exactly... um... update-ish.  Not much has changed, to be honest.  Maybe I'll have something to say at the end of the week, like perhaps I'll have a job.  Until then, I have this.

I just have to say that , even though I really don't think I have the body or the self-confidence to wear the Princess Leia bikini, I'm pretty sure I would do it if it meant I was capable of doing this.  And yes, if Joey Fatone decided to do it with me I would.  Seriously, this made my freaking day.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9TDkbbB-8kY

I have GOT to find a ballroom dancing class down here that doesn't require me to have a partner.  That looks like such fun.

And, for those of you less geeky than me, that pose they strike at the end is rather reminiscent of the Star Wars movie poster for the original. I squeed.  Just so ya know. =D

-Jaya-

This subject has been cropping up in unexpected places all week, and now I have encountered it again here.  It's time I finally addressed it.  Why do those hostile to Christianity (and faith in general, they will claim, but nine times out of ten they will level their attacks toward Christains and leave those of other faiths alone) insist that faith and science cannot coexist?  The arrogance of such people, assuming that no educated person could possibly believe in such naieve superstition is laughable.  

Every day, I have evidence to the contrary.  My roommate, a microbiologist who works in the lab at the hospital down the street, has explained to me more than once that her work with bacteria and viruses is crucial to her faith in God.  My mother, another microbiologist who is pursuing her master's degree in that very field (although her bent runs to our own cells, not the organisms that invade our bodies), also says that she finds strength for her faith in her studies.  My father has been practicing veterinary medicine for longer than I can remember and he too finds reason to glorify God in his scientific pursuits.  The most faith-boosting class I took in college was a freshman level astronomy course.  Whenever Dr. Culver would bring in slides, it was like having my own private worship session, right there in class.  I may not remember a lot of the physics we were taught, but  Iwill never foret sitting in the darkened classroom, staring at an image of Saturn, and struggling to sit still because of the awe for God that swelled within me.  Certainly, those who are of scientific mind can and do hold a belief in God.

So why this hostility to the very idea that faith and science can and do hold equal value to the same person?Why is it deemed impossible that scientific reasoning can lead a person to God?   Why is it that a man of science is thought to be somehow "above" faith in God?

I was watching some documentaries on the Discovery channel (I know, I'm a complete nerd - and proud of it) that addressed stories found in the Bible: Exodus, and Sodom and Gomorrah.  In each case, they demonstrated how the Biblical witness could be accurate, using scientific means.  And they talked as if this somehow negated the possibility that God was involved!  As if all their scientific reasoning, proof that what the Bible says in regard to historical events is at least plausible, if not demonstrably true, automatically rules out God's involvement.  But that simply does not follow! Just because something took place by means of scientifically understood processes, it does not mean that God was not behind said scientific processes.  On the contrary - God, being the creator of everything, created the laws of science and therefore it is perfectly logical that he would choose to work through them rather than constantly violate them every time he wanted something accomplished.  

And then there's the gentleman interviewed in the article linked above, who obviously belives that, because humans seem to have an innate need to worship some sort of deity (which has been demonstrated scientifically), therefore there is no such deity. (On a side note, don't you just love how he doesn't ever answer the questions asked in that interview?  He provides answers, sure, but not to the questions that were asked.  It's like reading the transcripts of two different interviews, where someone has come along and pasted the answers from one below the questions of another.)

These sorts of assumtions are flawed at best, idiotic at worst.  Forgive me if I sound abrupt, but honestly, how blind do you have to be not to recognize that the most plausible explanation for "humans have been scientifically shown to be hard-wired to believe in God" is not "therefore, there is no God" but just the opposite - "therefore, it is reasonable to conclude that there is some sort of God!"  Why else would we be so disposed?  What purpose does it serve us?  It provides comfort, but many atheists have proved that such comfort is not necessary for survival.  And beyond that... what does it do that something else does not also provide, from an evolutionary standpoint?

He speaks of this predisposition as if it's some new insight which he holds and wishes to share with humanity.  Unfortunately for him, this is not new at all.  C. S. Lewis hinted at this with his famous line, "If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world."  Paul wrote about it hundreds of years ago, and cites it as reason to recognize God's sovereignity over the whole world: "For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things." (Rom 1:19-23)  

How true that is!  Claiming to be wise, they became fools.  Do they think we don't know, don't sense intuitively that we are wired to believe in and worship God?  Do they think we are so stupid as to not recognize (and celebrate!) that there are scientific explanations to what happened in the Biblical stories?  Did it ever once occur to them that science can strengthen our faith, rather than overthrow it?

And furthermore, why do they care so much?  What is it to them that other people find comfort in worshipping a God who encourages compassion and love toward all men?  Why can't they just let us live our lives?

The clever ones will argue that atrocious things have been done in the name of religion.  And this is true.  They neglect to mention, however, that atrocious things have also been done in the name of Darwinism (the Holocaust comes to mind - the whole idea of racial cleansing comes straight from the idea of survival of the fittest) or in the name of Communism (do I even need to tell you what I'm thinking of here?), or in the name of politics (watch The Mission for a perfect example of political manipulation destroying lives) or because of revenge or hatred that had nothing to do with God.  They also neglect to mention that people like myself, my family, and my friends, as well as hundreds of thousands of other Christians around the world and throughout history, have never done anything to harm anyone.  Of course we have sinned, and we acknowledge that, but the vast majority of us are no worse than your average atheist (some would even argue that we're better but I won't open that can of worms here).

I'm still hard at work at the Isaiah paper (I figure I ought to get it done first since it has to be mailed; Gospels can be hand-delivered).  I found another box elder bug hanging out on my book, so I got up to find something suitably heavy with which to end his days (hey, he shouldn't have been crawling around on my book!), and it was only then that I really looked at my workspace.  This is what I saw:



... I knew I'd spilled over onto my bed, but I hadn't realized my bed was worse than my desk.  And I've been feeling CRAMPED for space all night! It's almost 11, too - might be time to call it quits and read something completely unrelated to Isaiah, Matthew, or feminism to clear my head before I try to sleep.  Of course, that first requires I clean up that mess of a bed! *Sigh.*  

I really want to find a circular desk.  A full on circle, with a hole in the middle for my chair and me.  Like a doughnut!  There'd have to be a part that lifts up, of course, so I could get in and out, but then I could spread out as much as I need to and have room for all my dozens of papers.  Do they make those?  They should.  Kind of like these desks, only less gigantic and more all-the-way-around round.

Someday.  That'll go in my dream office.  I just don't know quite where I'd stick it among all the books...

My stars, am I ever tired!  Can you tell by the general loopiness of this post? I should go to sleep.  Too bad I'm not sleepy.  Just worn out. >.<

Three more days.  Can I do it? (YES, I CAN!  Oh no... I'm either channeling Bob the Builder or *gulp* Obama.  It's DEFINITELY time for bed!)

-Jaya-

But this time, I found -exactly- what I was looking for.  It can be found here - the entire soundtrack, sans sound effects and words (with one minor exception, but that is acceptable).  I found it!  The whole thing!

This, my friends, is why persistence is excellent.

However, now I'm torn.  This is the first time it has snowed really hard since I've been in the Springs (well it also snowed a lot over Thanksgiving but not like this), and traditionally I want to be listening to the Nutcracker right now.  But... I want to listen to North and South!  I'll probably be bouncing between the two all day.  Although, we're out of milk, so maybe when I brave the cold to go to the store I'll put in the Nutcracker and get both.  Yay. ^.^

-Jaya-

For those of you who are not aware of this fact, back in my high school days I was a clarinet player in my high school band.  Yes, we marched, but we were a concert band at heart, and we played some fantastic songs before our dear director Mr. Worth left.  (We also played some fantastic songs after he left, but unfortunately we did not play them nearly as well nor did we play nearly as many.)  But among the many songs that we played, there is one that stands out.  Composed by Steven Reineke, is called "Pilatus: Mountain of Dragons" and can be found here to listen or download.

I wish I remembered the whole story behind this song, because it adds so much to its appeal.  Unfortunately, attempts to find it online have also been unsuccessful (not that I mean to imply it cannot be found online, just that I failed to find it).  So, as far as I can remember, it is about some adventurers who are climbing Mt. Pilatus and run across a dragon.  The dragon kills one and defeats the other, who begs for mercy.  The dragon grants it, restoring life to the one he killed (don't remember how, sadly) and they go on their way. 

At any rate.  I have never played anything which was more fun.  Pirates of the Caribbean was close (or would have been had we not sucked so much at it), Vesuvius was closer (but the song just isn't half as thrilling), but nothing - NOTHING - can compare with the thrill of playing this song.  I don't think I ever practiced anything harder than I did this song.  Partly because it was hard, and partly because it was so good that I couldn't stop playing it!  Even the parts that I didn't have with me, I knew so well I could sing them in my head as I played.  It was so much fun!  The moments where it speeds up, the moments when it's soft and delicate, the moments when it's mournful... all are simply fantastic.  I can't even begin to express just how much I love this song.  When the clarinets start climbing back out of the dark hole that comes when the dragon has killed the adventurer, I can't help moving as though I'm playing again.  I half want to drive back to Brighton, pick up my clarinet, and start fingering along.  I probably don't remember enough of the fingerings to do it, but what the hey.  As it is, I'm very glad my roommate didn't walk in when I first found this song, because she would have found me directing along as though my heart would burst and it probably looked like I was flailing wildly in my chair.  I can't help it.  I can't sit still when I listen to this song.  I couldn't even sit still when playing it either - it was one of the few songs that got me moving as a clarinetist ought to do while playing.  

I wish I could convey to you everything that makes this song awesome.  But, I cannot.  There are some things about which words fall far short, even for me, and this is one of them.  Go listen to it.  Maybe you'll hear what I mean.  

-Jaya-

I have been searching/begging for this soundtrack ever since I saw the movie North and South.  Not the Patrick Swayze ridiculousness about the civil war, but the BBC adaptation of Elizabeth Gaskell's novel, North and South.  Take a listen to the music, and you'll see why I fell in love with it instantly. (For those who don't have 37 minutes to listen to the whole thing, I suggest Episode 3's main title and/or 38: N&S Harp - both are lovely and give a decent sampling of the music as a whole.  Careful - these two tracks do not contain spoilers for the film, but others do and some of the track names also contain spoilers.)   Unfortunately, the group responsible for it has not released it and has no plans to do so, even though I can almost guarantee they'd make an absolute KILLING with it because, even if you don't like the movie, the music has such passion and movement that it can hardly fail to give some enjoyment.  Unfortunately, the tracks at this website are simply lifted straight from the movie, with the sound effects and voices still intact, which detracts from the movie somewhat.  But it's worth it just to be able to listen to the music.  I can't even begin to express how thrilled I was to have found this.  So I thought I would share.  Who knows, maybe the folks at Bucks Music Group will find this blog, realize that they would be able to make money on the soundtrack (hey, I'd pay handsomely for it!), and release it.  Not likely, but a girl can dream, right?

In other news, my NaNoWriMo word count is up over 72,000, but I still hate the story and am sorely tempted to paste in my Systematic Theology final, some papers from Isaiah, my notes from Gospels, and call it good.  I technically wrote it all in November, anyway.  That would get me up over 80k and I wouldn't have to mess with the stupid thing anymore.  I have a character who is a pastor, so I could integrate it with the story. Or I could just skip the boring part, write the ending, and see what happens.  Who knows, maybe it would be good for the story.

In other other news, still no luck on the job front, although some people from Fuller are asking me about possibly cat-sitting for them over Christmas so I may do that.  Of course, it would mean I wouldn't get to go home except for Christmas day, but we'll see what Mom and Dad have to say about that.

In other other other news - and yes, that's getting ridiculous, and yes, I'll stop - school is starting to wind down.  The assignment I thought would be due on Christmas eve was in fact due today (no worries, I discovered my mistake in plenty of time and got it in ok) so it looks like my last assignment is due December 12, and after that I'm done.  Hooray.  I will miss Isaiah, and some parts of Systematic Theology, but for the most part, I'm ready for it to be done.  Hard to believe that my first quarter is almost over.  Though, I still have a lot of work left to do before that hits, so I can't get too complacent.  Speaking of - if anybody has some good, non-femininst resources about the use of feminine imagery in the book of Isaiah, I'd be much obliged if you would point me in their general direction.   I'm very excited about my paper for that class, because I'm writing on the feminine imagery in Isaiah and not saying a single word about feminism.  It will be glorious... if a bit difficult.  But, needless to say, it's a bit difficut to find resources for that sort of thing, and I'd be willing to search for any resources you might think I'd find useful.

And, as the saying goes, that's all, folks!  More next time, whenever that will be.

-Jaya-

P.S. YES, Mr. Thornton, I'm coming home with you!  If you'll have me! ;D

I won NaNo! 50,000 words! The story isn't finished, but I have a green bar on the website.



... the widget seems not to have updated yet.  But it will.  And then, the happy will be clear.  HOORAY.

No, sadly, I'm not talking about the movie, here.  Rather, I'm talking about this:

http://www.onenewsnow.com/Education/Default.aspx?id=315596

Watch the video.  It's obvious that this woman thinks that she's being fair and even, but her bias is clear as day!  Now, granted, this is on a lesser extreme than many of the folks in Indoctrinate-U, but still.  Telling a girl that the candidate she supports will mean her father doesn't get to come home from the war for 100 years is stupid, wrong, and irresponsible (and not just because the man's probably not going to be fit to serve for another 100 years).  And it certainly has no place in an elementary school classroom.

Boo, boo, boo.

In other, more cheerful news, my word count is now over 32,000!  Yesterday was super productive.  I got one of the in-baskets done for Friday's class, I applied for 3 jobs, and I wrote more than 3,000 words.  YAY.  Now, here's hoping I hear something back from those job apps and it'll be really good. :)

-Jaya-

Also, if anyone is looking for Christmas presents to buy me, check out my Amazon wish list.  That should supply more than enough for everyone who feels the need to get stuff and means I don't have to keep composing lists for everybody.  I'll keep it updated.  And please don't take this to mean I expect presents from everbody - I don't.  I won't object if you choose to get me stuff, but I certainly won't object if you don't. :)