Thousands of Starlings Dancing in the Air

Last week, because of a blog post by Abraham Piper, I became aware that there was a bird called a starling. I think they are now one of my favorite birds because when a bunch of them get together, they do things like this:

Piper quotes Time Magazine as saying:

No one knows why they do it. Yet each fall, thousands of starlings dance in the twilight above Gretna, Scotland. The birds gather in magical shape-shifting flocks called murmurations, having migrated in the millions from Russia and Scandinavia to escape winter’s bite. Scientists aren’t sure how they do it, either. Even complex algorithmic models haven’t yet explained the starlings’ acrobatics, which rely on the tiny bird’s quicksilver reaction time of under 100 milliseconds to avoid aerial collisions—and predators—in the giant flock.

The Tree of Life

Last Friday, Brittany and I went to see The Tree of Life in Hollywood. I've been anticipating this movie for a quite a while. It is the mysterious director Terrence Malick's fifth film in almost forty years. His other movies include Badlands (1973), Days of Heaven (1978), The Thin Red Line (1998), and The New World (2005).

Aesthetically, The Tree of Life is the most beautiful film I've ever seen. Malick uses unique camera angles and gorgeous, natural imagery to create a true work of art. And I'm not quite sure what his worldview is, but it is easy tell that he is very influenced by Christian themes.

Before you go see the movie, you should be aware of some things. It might feel slow at times. There is a break in the middle that shows what creation might have looked like. And there are dinosaurs... briefly. Brett McCracken gives some helpful pointers on how to watch it. The most helpful for me was to "let it roll over you." As you're watching don't focus on trying to "figure it out." Just receive it as is. I think you will find that you will enjoy the experience.

Also, here's the end of Paste's review that summarizes the basic idea of the movie:

...between shots of bubbling lava, there’s a family that you come to care deeply about, including the very flawed patriarch. The themes are grand and punctuated by a sermon on Job in the middle: Why do bad things happen to good people? What’s the value of selflessness? Do the sins of the father need to be revisited by the son? Malick touches on creation and evolution, the existence of heaven and the purpose of life, but does so as much through the humble world of Waco, Texas, in summertime, as through the direct questions from a boy to his Creator that transition between epochs. It’s as much a meditation as a narrative, asking a tremendous amount of patience from viewers and rewarding that patience with something entirely new.

This trailer should whet your appetite:

Jonsi's glimpses of glory

I went to see Jonsi Sunday night at the Tabernacle and was blown away. I knew it would be good, but I didn't know that it would be THAT good. As you might remember, when his album came out last spring, I could not stop listening to it. It is a beautiful album and Jonsi does an amazing job at presenting it in concert as such.

I believe Jonsi was unknowingly providing glimpses of glory through his performance on Sunday night. His magnificent voice, the imaginative instrumentation, and the stunning graphics behind him truly created a transcendent experience. As I was caught up in it, I was thinking about how much greater God's infinite beauty and glory must be. I'm thankful for these moments that help remind me of that truth.

To get a taste of what I'm talking about, here's the ending to his song Boy Lilikoi:

And here's the last song of the night, Grow Till Tall. He definitely saved his most magnificent performance until last:

Also, since it was Halloween, I decided to dress up with some friends of mine the Baileys. I was supposed to be the crazed Joaquin Phoenix (of the Letterman interview), but my get-up also seemed to work as John Belushi, Will Smith of Men in Black, and James Bond (all according to various people's guesses throughout the night). I'm good with that variety.

The Problem With Attraction

Ed Welch:

(...)

Attraction is fun, and in Western systems of courtship and marriage, it is the way couples get started, but attraction is about me. It’s about how someone makes me feel. In that sense, attraction is rubbish. It gets people together but it is powerless to keep them together. Even more, attraction, without the addition of other forms of love, promises to separate marriages and any once-close relationship.

What must supplant attraction goes by different names – commitment, faithfulness, love that only death separates, covenantal love and others. Those are all good, and I am sure they guide many people, but they all fall short for me. Commitment seems sterile, so does faithfulness – dogs can do that. Covenantal love sounds too legal.

“I love you because I love you.” That is a great one. God spoke it to the Israelites and he continues to speak love to those who are with Jesus.

The LORD did not set his affection on you and choose you because you were more numerous than other peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples. But it was because the LORD loved you and kept the oath he swore to your forefathers that he brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the land of slavery, from the power of Pharaoh king of Egypt. (Deuteronomy 7:7-8)

But this sets the bar too high. God loves because he is love; I am not love. So I have to search for other ways to describe this different-than-attraction love.

Servant-love? No, that is an important expression of love, but servants don’t share their hearts with the one they serve. They just do what they are supposed to do. The New Testament injects servant-love with new meaning and vitality, but there are times when it feels too impersonal.

“Admire” or “enjoy” are better than attraction. They are less self-referential. They suggest that there are praise worthy features in the other person. These, however, take time. When the thrill is gone in a relationship, admiration and enjoyment won’t offer any new power to love.

What we need is something that captures the imbalanced nature of the love of Jesus for us. He loved us first and he loved us more than we will ever love him in return. In response, we too want to love others first and more. That’s the way to be fully human.

The idea of debt captures it.

Give everyone what you owe him: If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor. Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for he who loves his fellowman has fulfilled the law. (Romans 13:7-8)

When we owe someone, there is a slight imbalance in the relationship. This is what “I do” means. We commit ourselves to give more than we receive.

Sample vows could go like this.

There are a number of reasons why I am attracted to you.
Now I will move on to better things.
I am committed to learn how to love you
more than I love me and
more than I want to be loved by you.
I want this to be obvious to you.
I want this to imitate the unity we can have with Jesus.
I want this to please God.
May God show me grace and mercy.

This vow aims to do at least two things. It dethrones the usurper Attraction, separates it from Jesus’ style of love, and re-establishes the imbalanced nature of Christian love. Unity shows up, as it should. Unity reminds us that real love is not silent when the other spouse is loveless. We can and should speak out when the other person is aiming for lesser things, such as mere attraction. For example, when the apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthians, he loved them more than they loved him, but he also pleaded with them to open their hearts and love him in return. In this, Paul was not saying, “I need love.” He was saying, “As members of Christ we are called to love one another. When we don’t, someone gets hurt and the glory of God becomes veiled to the world.”

For the next generation to get it right, we must loose our infatuation with attraction. We must prefer arguments about who is in debt to whom. “No, I owe you love, and I’m not listening to one more word of your protests.” I owe you more than you owe me – that’s where we go when we meditate on the love of Jesus. Then we can know exactly what we are doing when we say “I do.”

We aren't mere atoms

In a message to atomists, C.S. Lewis says this in Present Concerns:

“You can’t, except in the lowest animal sense, be in love with a girl if you know (and keep on remembering) that all the beauties both of her person and of her character are a momentary and accidental pattern produced by the collision of atoms, and that your own response to them is only a sort of psychic phosphorescence arising from the behavior of your genes. You can’t go on getting any very serious pleasure from music if you know and remember that its air of significance is a pure illusion, that you like it only because your nervous system is irrationally conditioned to like it.”

Thankfully we were made in God's image, thus being able to appreciate beauty in people and in the arts.

The beauty of doctrine

"Doctrine is the drama"

That's what my Systematic Theology professor said last night after asking him a question. He cited Dorothy Sayers as saying it. She actually said "It is the dogma that is the drama," but it essentially means the same thing. I thought it was beautiful quote. I couldn't then and still can't get it out of my head.

My professor had just finished going through the names of God. He kept pointing out that the names of God are revealed to man. Man doesn't tell God what His names are. He went on to say how certain human caricatures of God do Him injustice. So, when we see books, pictures, movies, etc. about Jesus, they ultimately fall short of who God really is, revealed to us in Scripture.

The drama, the true drama that is meant to ignite our hearts is there for us in the Bible. It's meant to be enough.

Back from Beaver Creek

For the one person that complained, I apologize that I've been blogless for the last 7 days. I left last Thursday with my family and my buddy Dan to head to Beaver Creek, CO. We had great weather. It snowed a good bit before we got there and was sunny the whole three days that we skied. We skied at Beaver Creek the first and last day and drove over to Vail for the second day. I had a lot of fun using my new camera (Nikon d40) and even got to start and finish This Side of Paradise, once highly recommended by Ethan, and now by me. And I definitely enjoyed the beauty and serenity of God's creation.

Here are some of the pics:

Aspens at Beaver Creek

Dan and I at Beaver Creek
Vail
Fun times in Vail
Vail again
me at Baever Creek

Erasmus and the infinite possiblitities of varied verbal expression

Erasmus is a guy most people have never heard about. He lived from 1466 to 1536. He was very influential by producing the first Greek New Testament. This would later help William Tyndale to create the first English translation of the New Testament as well as enabling Martin Luther to create the first German translation of the New Testament.

The following comes from a talk on William Tyndale given by John Piper a couple of years ago. His thoughts struck me because I'm beginning to really love language and appreciate the beauty of it. I want the ability to make thoughts and ideas come alive by using more creative vocabulary. And it's interesting because Erasmus and many of the early Bible translators were lovers of language as well. And, as you'll read, some think that without guys like Erasmus there would be no Shakespeare.

"Erasmus wrote a book called De copia that...helped students increase their abilities to exploit the 'copious' potential of language. This was hugely influential in the early 1500s in England and was used to train students in the infinite possibilities of varied verbal expression. The aim was to keep that language from sinking down to mere jargon and worn-out slang and uncreative, unimaginative, prosaic, colorless, boring speech.

One practice lesson for students from De copia was to give 'no fewer than one hundred fifty ways of saying ‘Your letter has delighted me very much.’' The point was to force students 'to use of all the verbal muscles in order to avoid any hint of flabbiness.' It is not surprising that this is the kind of educational world that gave rise to William Shakespeare (who was born in 1564). Shakespeare is renown for his unparalleled use of copiousness in language. One critic wrote, 'Without Erasmus, no Shakespeare.'"

The Beauty

I was just sitting outside at a local Starbucks, catching up on some reading, when a car drove by. Out came the shout, “You’re all a bunch of slaves.” Now, I’m guessing he thought everyone that hangs out at Starbucks is addicted not just to their coffee, but the atmosphere that it creates. His assumption is, that we worship this environment, therefore we are slaves to it. And I’m sure he thought he was not a slave to anything. He is above that.

I really wish he could have stopped, because I would have loved to have a conversation with him. I would ask him ,“Do you really think you’re not a slave to anything?” The truth is, he’s on to something. What we worship, what consumes us, does enslave us. But, the problem is, he probably thinks he is not controlled by anything that way. But that is lie. And I can say that with full confidence though I have no idea who he is.

Whether it’s hipster non-conformity, punk rock defiance, or any other independent feeling, that in itself can be, and will be worshipped. We’re all worshipping something: wealth, fame, recognition, intellect, sports, jobs, family, relationships, moral purity, etc. The key is to acknowledge whatever “that” is and ask the question, “Is it worthy of all my affection?”

Ironically, at the moment of the outburst, I was reading a paragraph by Plotinus about beauty. He says that there is the “good” that every soul desires. And he says that it is beautiful. Though, I don’t think he was trying to talk about God, he ends up describing what happens when you encounter Him, the greatest beauty that’s ever existed. Check it out:

“...one sees with one’s self alone That alone, simple, single and pure, from which all depends and to which all look and are and live and think for it is the cause of life and mind and being. If anyone sees it, what passion will he feel, what longing in his desire to be united with it, what a shock of delight! The man who has not seen it may desire it as good, but he who has seen it glories in its beauty and is full of wonder and delight, enduring a shock which causes no hurt, loving with true passion and piercing longing; he laughs at all other loves and despises what he thought beautiful before...If then one sees That which provides for all and remains by itself and gives to all but receives nothing into itself, if he abides in the contemplation of this kind of beauty and rejoices in being made like it, how can he need any other beauty?”

"For all the gods of the peoples are worthless idols, but the LORD made the heavens. Splendor and majesty are before him; strength and beauty are in his sanctuary." (Psalm 96:5-6) "For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen." (Romans 11:34)