The National

I don't do this very often. I think because I'm not a musician and therefore feel less the authority on the subject. But I just want to say that the band The National is flawless. They're original without being weird, or shirking their influences. Their singer insists on singing every song with a deep baritone. Their song structure is quietly epic, but some songs are just pretty. Their lyrics are emotional, but substantial, and aesthetically pleasing. They hit your heart more than your head, but without the self-pity of emo,  or the bubblegum of pop. I went to see them in May in Philadelphia, and I cried. Some of you always cry at concerts. I never do. So... I can't find a flaw.  Their drummer looks just like John Lennon and is ridiculously good. And frontman Matt Berdinger can sing even when completely drunk, which may just be a part of the act. Any band that can make you long to be in your late twenties and disillusioned is with the musical expertise of The National is worth buying every album of. It might take a while for them to get used to, but once they grow on you, you cannot get them off, but you won't try to get them off.  And you just cannot get sick of them. I am finished.

Who goes to heaven?

What kind of person goes to heaven? This question is misleading. It assumes that people go to heaven.  Heaven is simply a reference to space. When God created the heavens and the earth, he created earth and not earth or space. So people never go to heaven. They go to hell, but they do not go to "heaven".  The Bible says that those who overcome inherit the new heaven and the new earth, particularly the new Jerusalem.  That is they live on the new earth. They take view of a new heaven from with the new Jerusalem. It may be that they do not go anywhere. So what we really want to know is not "what kind of person goes to heaven?" but "What kind of person inherits the new earth?" Again the Bibles says those who overcome. What does this mean? I propose that those who overcome are those whose faith means something. They have a faith that is impenetrable, indestructible, and unshakeable in the face of persecution, doubts, and pure temptation to sin.  They have the faith to accept their justification in Christ, while realizing what their commitment to him requires, and having the fortitude to go through with it, so that they can see themselves overcome; their own sin, and the the whole old order of the world.  

The Bible also lists a group of people who do not inherit the new earth. It says that these people are the cowards, the the murderers, the sexually immoral, the liars, the astrologers, the idolaters. But people who have been cowardly go to heaven. but cowards do not go to heaven. People who have murdered, lied, committed sexual immorality, dabbled in the other world, put something or someone before God go to heaven, but not people who can't believe they can be forgiven. People who are decidedly murderers, who think the acts define them, liars, sexual deviants, astrologers, idolaters, people who find it much easier to keep their identity then believe they've been justified by Christ, these  people whose pride forces them to reject grace. They go to hell. 

Thoughts on Michael Jackson

This does seem to be what everyone is talking about. I've been avoiding press media for days now. I am just not that fascinated by Michael Jackson. Is there some intrigue? Of course. Is there a substantial amount? Undoubtedly. Does it warrant a good amount of press? I believe it does. But personally, I don't need it 24/7. But I assume everyone has a thought on it so... here is mine. Michael Jackson is the consummate talented, iconic, anti-hero.  Ironically, if Michael made any significant influence in our world, it has escaped me for the present. Michael certainly made an impression, but an influence? His main influence was in the arena of his dancing which was often proverbially "sick".  I believe many emulate his dancing, and his ability to hold a crowd, put on a show, his ability to be an icon is unsurpassed. But his music... good... but shallow; hollow. Followers... none any would respect or take seriously. 

Michael Jackson is to pop music what the President is to world politics, what Michael Jordan is to sports, what the Beatles are to Rock and Roll, what Shakespeare is to literature, what Oprah is to talk television, and dare I say what Jesus is to western religion. Absolutely at the top and completely transcendent. But politics are politics, and sports are sports. Rock n Roll is Rock n Roll. Literature is literature. Talk television is talk television. Religion is religion.  And pop music is pop music. And when Michael Jackson transcended pop music, he blew up into a dimension that was really "out of this world". 

For me his legacy was a sad one. Do any of us believe that Michael was happy? Did anyone ever try to reach out to him? For all of his global fame he always seemed out of sorts, unhappy, confused and lonely. We perpetually felt this tense feeling of reverence for his deserved stardom and disgust for his behavior as a father and in some cases as a man in general. He was acquitted of sexual abuse charges, and I am no judging him. If he says he didn't do it, he didn't do it. But I can't help but wonder, what happened in this man's life, that made embody a sense of awe and disgust wrapped into the same figure? 

Will I miss Michael Jackson? No. Here's why: 1) I didn't know him 2) I am very comfortable in life without his music. I was a kid when he was big. 3) I really didn't enjoy seeing him in the tabloids. It made me sad.  To me Michael Jackson's life was a Wildean drama. It was tragic, but worth all of this media coverage. When I die, I don't care how many people know or care, but that people at my funeral can say that I made a meaningful difference in their life.  I am sure that Michael made plenty of difference in his personal life. I just never got to see it. God bless Michael Jackson. 

Faith and Cynicism

  Here's a quote. (paraphrased) "I'm tired of people who want everything to be fair. The rich get everything they want first. It's the way it is, the way it always has been, and the way it always will be, so get over it, get off the couch and stop complaining".  Here's another one.  "Everybody manipulates and uses people to get ahead. That's just life".  Here another one. "Well if that's life then life is bunch of crap" I may attach a name to the last quote. It's yours truly, Matt Miller. Cynicism is easy. To be a cynic you don't have to analyze, you only have to observe. To the cynical people who made the first two quotes, the phrase, "things should be like...(fill in the blank) is meaningless.  It is no matter to them how things should be, we must accept "reality" which is things as they now are, and in my estimation, regardless of whether they are right. Now I agree that life is not fair, but just because it is not does not mean that it ought not to be. If justice or fairness is overrated, then why does everyone get angry when they're cut off on the freeway, or ripped off by an auto mechanic. There certainly is "a way things ought to be" which certainly assumes that some things are not how they ought to be. But this may not very well be the issue. Perhaps the issue for cynics is not whether things ought to be a certain way, but rather if anything could be done about it. Shall I propose that something has been done about it? Jesus died on the cross to pay for our sins and rose from the grave to give us hope for new life. This does necessarily mean automatic newness of life in this life, so the person who is not cynical about the "ought" but about the "can" is still justified in his cynicism, but for the person whose cynicism stretches beyond practicality, into the doubting of "oughts" themselves, the resurrection, (unless he rejects it, which he inevitably will), squashes his cynicism. What hope is there for the doubter of "oughts"? Indeed for the doubter of "cans" there is hope. We merely need to demonstrate that it can happen. I believe in a new world. I believe a new world is coming. I believe it is our job to incarnate the new world's reality as best as we can now, so that they may have faith and be saved from the discouraging, lifeless, and disparaging life of doubting the "oughts". Will this lifestyle have its price? Sure, if we're wrong, we ought to end up at the bottom of the barrel? But if we're right, and I know we are, we ought to end up on top.  

Jesus said "The first shall be last and the last shall be first" Can you believe it? Faith trumps cynicism. 

Do Gooder

  Life is simple. Eat your vegetables. Say your prayers. Go to church. Obey your elders. Don't lie or fib. Work hard. Be responsible. Don't drink and drive. Be polite. Don't take vengeance. Unless you want a balanced diet, or you're at work, or you get sick, or your authority sanctions infanticide, or your wife asks you if she looks fat in that dress, or you've been working all day, or its not your fault,  or you just had one, or they were rude first, or they had it coming. We wax eloquent on the ideals, and we become even more sophisticated with the rationalities, but we all know a good person when we see one, and most of us can't or won't be him or her. That means most of us are hypocrites. If you can't live up to your own ideal, it doesn't mean you're wrong to have an opinion, it means you're wrong to be satisfied with your stagnancy. Ideas are necessary. Discussion is preferred. But ideas without action are meaningless and time is of the essence. The simple pleasures of life are not only procured by philosophizing but by the realization of those philosophies, unless the philosophy is to realize that there is no realization.  And this philosophy has its perks, and also its dire consequences.  

Think about it. A person who does good without a reason is still satisfied by the good deed, for doing good makes one feel good, especially when done with the right motives. So how much thinking does it take to do good? Maybe there are complicated "goods" out there and philosophy is necessary for attaining them, but doesn't it seem more reasonable that philosophizing is an excuse for negligence. Can philosophizing make negligence a virtue by calling it prudence? Surely most goods are understood intuitively, and it is our crafty flesh that works against us, seeping its way into our minds and making rationales out of apathy, or just being ugly malfeasance. We must know what's right. Is it really the situation that makes it so difficult? Have we exaggerated the circumstances?  Are we just too cynical? Did we expect to much? I say to all of these: sometimes. But there is always an opportunity to be proactive about being a blessing, doing good. We ought to take every opportunity we can without being irresponsible.

Reality TV

  Anyone think that reality tv is reality? Okay good. Because if you did I was going to have to do something drastic.  Wait is there anyone who thinks that the show "The Hills" is reality? (And don't get philosophical on me) It's not. I am not arguing with you.  Arguing with someone who thinks that "The Hills" is reality television is like arguing with someone who thinks that their dog talks to them. Hey, maybe I'm wrong, but you're weird. And besides, its not. Watch the show, its obvious. Okay, when reality television hit the major networks with shows like Survivor or Amazing Race, it was cool, because it was like an original game show. But now it's out of hand, with shows making up scenarios in which they can exploit people left and right.  Up and down. Diagonal and diagonal. Perpendicular. I feel like there is gotta be a reality show out there about teaching ex convicts how to crochet, or to see how long it takes the winner of this year's spelling bee and miley cyrus to breakup. We'll tape the drama. One rule: Miley has to kiss Gerald at least 9 times a day. They'll break up at the end of the year and Gerald will be a celebrity until his tweets become really boring. (How long will people care about the origin of words like tarbuloticandrosisobamaistheantichrist?) The origin is fundamental evangelical and french in case you were wondering. 

   Anyway. Nobody take any of this personally. I have a post coming up in which I seriously critique our culture and entertainment. For now this is pretty funny right? No offense to my good friend Shirley, teenage girls, tweeters, fans of any particular reality television show, the President Obama, or fundamental evangelicals. All of you are my friends. (except Obama. I don't know him)

Twitter

I was planning on writing this as part of my "review" of twitter:  Twitter is the epitome of this generation's woeful and overinflated sense of self-importance. But at this moment I do not feel quite as strong or bitter. While I don't necessarily feel that twitter is definitely "the epitome", it can certainly be an indicator and a heightener of this generation's de facto "overinflated sense of self-importance".  It doesn't have to be, but it can be.  Two things bother me about twitter when used wrongly. 1) Why do people care what famous people are doing at any given moment? 2)Why do you think people care enough about what you are doing to have a twitter? If you say its not about that, its about networking, then how is it more useful than facebook? If you say that with twitter you don't have all these applications to deal with, you really don't have to deal with them on facebook either.  I am sure I am missing something, so if somebody can tell me what that is, I want to hear it before I start feeling like a grumpy old man who wants to hang on to his familiar facebook, but it seems that twitter is used because its good for networking (so is facebook), and you can see what people are up to any time, and they can see what you're up to. Really? You can't just call someone? Well, sure you can't call Ashton Kutcher. (Did I spell that right?) But if you don't know someone well enough to call them, why do you care what they are doing? "They're cute" is not an answer. "They're funny" is not an answer" I suppose twitter is a good way to see what shows and stuff are playing. And it's these kinds of things that got me thinking today that twitter isn't all that bad. And my problem isn't with twitter. It's with the abuses of it that are the same kinds of things with myspace and facebook. I like to use it for networking, advertising, keeping in touch with people, but for some people these networking sites are hobbies. Less time on these sites just for being social, and more time going to the ice cream shop for being social, might help to curb that infamous sense of isolation that this adolescent generation struggles with. And beyond  just networking sites. Do we have to have conversations via text messages. I understand if you can't talk. But I've literally watched people have a texting conversation with a person who lives 5 miles away! Are you kidding me? Put down the xbox controller, the netflix, the ps937, the laptop, the text messaging machine with the inexplicable numbers on it, and go to a barbecue. Please. (I feel old)

Epilogue: Overcoming boredom

   I'm tired of old things becoming uncool by virtue that they are old. I do not believe that "fashionable" means "thou shalt pursue" Of course,  the more "unpursuable" a thing is the hipper it is. I cannot help but be miserable about the cliche urge that calls us as a culture to be open minded. Adding to that misery is the fact that the reason for my misery is not accredited to my "traditionalism", for I am not a traditionalist, but now open-mindedness has become cliche, and I need something more fashionable, like narrow-mindedness.  Surely we have come to a point where this conversation will have to end due to its blatant frivolity. 

  However, I am not sure this isn't a problem unique to our age. Perhaps there was once a day, when people never entertained a the modern notion of "tradition".  It is a searing, but applicable question: "Can one be poor and bored?" or "Can one be religious and bored?" "Does boredom only exist with a culture of leisure?" And is the modern suburban more wretched than the medieval peasant serf? You've heard the statistic: The United States and Europe lead the world in deaths by suicide. If you were starving, would you kill yourself, or would a greater tragedy have to befall you such as a broken relationship? Affluence, power, and the American Dream simply do not produce satisfied customers. Musician and lyricist Jon Foreman once wrote: "There's gotta be something more, than what I'm living for"

   What does the second paragraph have to do with the first. I'd like to suggest that our search for the fashionable is made possible by our culture's affluence, which has produced a form of restlessness. We are a restless culture, satisfied only with the next big thing.  This culture needs a chill pill, or maybe Ritalin, or maybe not.  I'd also like to suggest that in our culture, entertainment is overrated, and work is underrated. Technology is taken for granted, nature, and our souls are lost for it. Meals are an afterthought, thus poverty is ignored.  Time is money, thus people are objectified. Privacy is paramount, community is cultish. The world of entertainment, technology, food, busyness, (not the same thing as work), and privacy is in opposition to the world of hard work, familiarity with raw nature, feeding the hungry, and loving people in community.  There's only two ways I know of that this second world is possible. Prayer, and action. 

 Any thoughts?

A World Without Sides

  To see both sides of an issue is not conducive to taking a side. This is bad when there is a side to take.  But what if there are no sides? What if there are? It is clear that there are differing opinions.

   There are several routes that one can take with this.  One can deny that sides exist and that such things as opposing opinions are illusory. That if we can somehow transcend this deficient sense of dichotomy that our culture is wrapped up in, then there will be peace. Essentially, conflict exists because people believe the lie of dichotomy. If this were true,  then those of us who do not view the world this way must deny that we disagree with those who do. Route #1 is a gentle way of telling someone that you know what they think, and that they should just agree with you. 

  Another route is accept the sides, but deny the ability of discernment. In other words, "my side may be the right side, but I cannot really prove it".  Anything one might use to prove can be cast off as subjective knowledge. In this scenario, it is not that objectivity does not exist, it is that objective knowledge is illusory.  One knows that one's view is true because one just knows it. Sides are taken, proofs are proven irrelevant. One might suggest that the proof is in the result. But then how may one discern that a result is good or true? Does this not put us back where we started?  Route #2 is an elegant way of saying, "I believe it because I do, and I need no other reason?" To this I ask; "If someone believed that the sun was smaller than the earth,  you would tell them it was not, and no reason would be given? They must accept you opinion on the basis that you are you, despite the obvious observation that the sun is smaller than the earth. And if you did say something about depth perception, why? 

   Another route is to take it for granted that sides exist, and to believe that the rightness of a particular side can be known and can be demonstrated.  Most on this route are not so optimistic to think that all that can be known can be demonstrated. But most likely, they do believe that all things have a reason and a justification. But what if they don't? How could you ever demonstrate that all things do? (have a reason and justification). And if you did, isn't this either circular, or infinite. Either way there is no foundation, for neither circle nor infinite space are upheld by anything. If there is no foundation, what then becomes of reasons and justifications? 

  I don't believe that people fall neatly into these categories or routes. I believe that we all have some part of us in all of them and different points in our life, and sometimes we have more of us in a particular category than at other times. It would not seem a worthwhile debate in this country to jostle between what the best beverage is. We all assume that taste is subjective, and that nobody really cares what your favorite beverage is. But person taking route #1 would say that there's no such thing as best, only what you think is best. Person on route #2 would say that there is such a thing as a "best" beverage, but there's no way of knowing it. Person on route three would say that would say that there is such a thing as a best beverage and that they can prove it. 

  I think that on this issue that most of us would take route #1. But most of us would not consistently take this route. In fact we would not take any route consistently for if we did  we would eventually run into the traps set by all of them. Most of us take a side while switching routes. But have we not created a route #4 which is the route that encompasses all routes depending on the issue? But how shall we decide which route we will take? Why does the above scenario require most of us to take route #1? But aren't these just the questions posed by a person decidedly on route #3? And if these questions do not matter, than aren't we on routes #2 and #3? It seems to be a conundrum. 

 Philosophers have been endowed with the particular skill of rhetoric coupled with excellence in abstract thinking. A philosopher can make sense of nonsense, even if what he says is still nonsense. And a philosopher is not so easily steered by skilled rhetoric and can tell when another philosopher is spewing sophisticated nonsense. The business of truth is not easy.  And what makes this even more difficult is that we haven't even talked about routes from the eastern part of the world, that may have completely foreign frame of references. But here is one thing that's true. Philosophy is the luxury of the overfed. The bare necessities of life cannot be denied. The will to survive despite suffering is strong in the human being. And although every philosopher may debate how one knows what he knows, the hungry man knows that he must eat, and sleep, and have shelter, and that is what he knows. And the just man knows that he is his brother's keeper. May I suggest that we will not be judged according to our rabbinical or academic prowess? We will not be judged according to our skill for rhetoric or excellence in abstract thinking. We will not be judged on our ability to discern between good and evil. And when God created the dust man (Adam) and his helpmate (Eve) he gave them no ability to discern between the two, and because of this they had rest.  But they wanted this ability and they took it, and it turned out that it was not so obvious to their son Cain that he should be his brother's keeper. The grass is always greener on the other side. But in a world without sides the grass is always green. The reality is that we do not live in a world without sides, but we live in a messy world of lots of different sides, with gates propping up everywhere regardless of angle or necessity. But we believe in a world without sides, where our responsibility to keep our brothers' is taken for granted. As Christians we seek to live in this world of gates and sides and give our brothers hope by showing them that there is another world. "Repent for the kingdom of God is near" The kingdom of God is a place where justice is taken for granted. It is coming. Let us be ready.