Star Bores

Here's a major revision for you. . . .

When I saw Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith in the theater, I liked it. I really did. I thought it was easily the best of the prequel trilogy and finally approached the quality of the original series. I thought the characters seemed more real, the story made a little sense, and the special effects were spectacular.

What was I thinking? We rented the video (oops, I mean the DVD) of the film a week or two ago, and I was looking forward to watching it. But as the film moved along, I found myself squirming restlessly. Minus the wow factor of my first viewing, the film seemed very, very lame. The acting seemed as bad as in the first two prequels, the dialogue was often stiff, and the makeup of some of the characters was just ludicrous.

Having now seen all three films in the prequel, I think a big problem is the focus on the stoic Jedi. I found myself longing for an impetuous, excitable Luke Skywalker. Luke was always getting excited--or irritated, or offended, or upset--about something. Not the Jedi. Mustn't get upset, you know. The force is allowed to have disturbances all the time, but not the Jedi.

And the love story between Anakin and Padme just doesn't cut it. There's no chemistry at all. How can it be that the same director who gave us Han Solo and Leia Organa has brought us this dreck?

Anyway, I can remember films that I liked much better upon seeing them a second time: Chicken Run and The Incredibles come to mind. But Episode III easily takes the award as the film I liked least upon second viewing.

Praise from the depths

My family and I did a very smart thing today. While nearly everyone else in Atlanta was out hitting the malls and while the few with no urge to shop were crowding the new Georgia Aquarium (world's largest!) in downtown Atlanta, we headed up the road to Chattanooga to visit the Tennessee Aquarium.

The Tennessee Aquarium is one of those touristy things that has been on our list for a while. But it was much more than a tourist stop for me. I genuinely relish places like this because I delight to see the things our great God has imagined and formed.

The aquarium is very well done, with a great variety of marine life, from otters to piranhas. But two critters particularly took my breath away.

The first were the seahorses. Even your common, ordinary seahorse is an exceedingly strange thing. But there were varieties of seahorses on display in Chattanooga that I have never heard of, never seen pictures of, and certainly never imagined. For instance:


This is not a plant. This is an animal known as a leafy seadragon, a member of the seahorse family. Have you ever seen such a thing? I hadn't, but it was a delight to behold it today.

And then there were the jellyfish. Now I know a thing or two about jellyfish. Growing up on the Chesapeake Bay, I got acquainted with jellyfish at an early age, as they insisted on swimming in the waters in which I wanted to frolick. But to see them up close with no possibility of being stung was a new experience. I kept asking myself, "How can this semitransparent glob of jelly be a living being?"

The most amazing jelly was a variety known by the misleading name "sea walnut." Here's a pic (courtesy of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association):

The remarkable thing about sea walnuts is that there are small, glowing particles moving along those "veins" that you see in the photo. I've probably seen sea walnuts lying dead on the beach many times, but to see one alive, in its element, and with its body processes functioning like a glorious light show, was a revelation.

I remember once hearing two colleagues discussing why God created fish that live in the darkness of caves or the ocean depths. One colleague offered this somewhat tongue-in-cheek assessment: "Because He likes to watch 'em." To my mind, that's a pretty good answer. I like to watch His creatures, too, because they reveal how great, mighty, and creative He is.

GtG

Let us give thanks . . .

It is a remarkable thing that even now, in twenty-first century America, we still have a holiday set aside under the name Thanksgiving Day. Yes, more and more we hear it called "Turkey Day," and many of those who still use the proper term have little concept of how grateful they ought to be or to whom they ought to give thanks. Nevertheless, this tradition continues, and by calling some of us back to the proper gratitude with which we ought to live each day, it is surely a tool by which God confers blessing.

If I'm not mistaken, the president still issues a Thanksgiving proclamation each year, though (not surprisingly) it doesn't get much media coverage. Here, then, is one of the best: Abraham Lincoln's Thanksgiving proclamation of 1863:

The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God. In the midst of a civil war of unequalled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign States to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theatre of military conflict; while that theatre has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union. Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defence, have not arrested the plough, the shuttle, or the ship; the axe had enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege and the battle-field; and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years, with large increase of freedom.

No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.

It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and voice by the whole American people. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to his tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity and Union.

In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand, and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the city of Washington, this third day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the independence of the United States the eighty-eighth.

A. Lincoln

Great indeed was the wisdom of this man who remembered that "no human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God." May we remember the Source of all good things this day.

Also, Lincoln's advice is most apt. We should "solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledge" God's good gifts. We should repent "with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience." And we ought to "commend to his tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers" in the conflict against terror in which our nation is now engaged.

May God make us a thankful people.

GtG

Stars and starlight

Are you familiar with the argument that the size of the universe proves that the universe and the earth are ancient?

The argument goes something like this: Star X is 10 million light years from earth. That means we are seeing light that left that star 10 million years ago. Therefore, that star and the earth have been in position long enough for the light to have traveled from there to here.

Frankly, it grieves me to hear this argument. The Scriptures say that the universe declares God's glory, precisely because it is so vast and so awesome. He was and is capable of making a universe that spans distances such as 10 million light years. But the Bible also teaches that mankind was the pinnacle of God's creation. In some sense, man was made to witness and respond to God's glory. What would have been God's purpose in creating a universe of stars and a man to see them, but then leaving him unable to see them until the light from the star could reach him--10 million years later?

No, it seems to me that the God who could make the stars was also able to flex His little finger and create light waves connecting Star X and our first ancestor's eye. I believe Adam saw the stars and that he praised God for them--as God intended.

GtG

For your enjoyment . . .

I got quite the laugh out of this comic strip this past week. The strip is "Day by Day," by Chris Muir. Find out more at www.daybydaycartoon.com. (Click on the strip for a larger version.)

More on New Orleans

I ran across an interesting item on the Drudge Report the other day. It was an advance report about tonight's "60 Minutes," when an expert reportedly will say that it would be pointless to rebuild New Orleans. Here's an excerpt from Drudge:

A natural disaster expert says it’s time New Orleans residents faced the fact that their city will be below sea level in 90 years. Prof. Tim Kusky advocates a gradual pull-out from the city, whose slow, steady slide into the sea was sped up enormously by Hurricane Katrina. . . .

“New Orleans is going to be 15 to 18 feet below sea level, sitting off the coast of North America surrounded by a 50 to 100-foot-tall levee system to protect the city,” says Kusky, a professor in the Earth Sciences Department at St. Louis University. He estimates this will happen in 90 years. “That’s the projection, because we are losing land on the Mississippi Delta at a rate of 25 to 30 square miles per year. That’s two acres per hour that are sinking below sea level,” he tells Pelley.

As the city assesses damage and plans to rebuild, Kusky believes there’s a better plan. “We should be thinking about a gradual pullout of New Orleans and starting to rebuild people’s homes, businesses and industry in places that can last more than 80 years,” he says. Instead, the law will allow residents to rebuild if their homes lie at the 100-year flood level, much of which was inundated by Katrina’s waters and would be put underwater again should levees fail.

Well, that all makes perfect sense, right? Apparently not. Here are the comments of one resident of New Orleans who will be quoted in the report:

With only half the former population expected to come back to the city, is [rebuilding] too much of a commitment for taxpayers? Is it practical? One resident thinks it’s a matter of pride. “The country has to decide whether it really is what we tell the world what we are,” says New Orleans city employee Greg Meffert, whose job is to assess damage there. “Because if we are that powerful…that focused…that committed to all of our citizens, then there is no decision to make. Of course you rebuild it.”

You know, he's right. This country does need to decide whether we are what we tell the world we are. Are we the God-defying people we show ourselves to be? Or are we perhaps a little more humble than that? I have to say, I'm afraid most of us see the situation exactly as Meffert sees it--a matter of pride.

As I read this report, I was reminded of the words of the opening credits from that cheesy action show "The Six Million Dollar Man" back in the '70s: "We can rebuild him. We have the technology." Well, we might have the technology to rebuild New Orleans, too, but the cost will be way more than $6 million and the outcome is likely to be something far worse than cheesy television.

GtG

When lunatics pitch . . .

I usually keep my car radio tuned to the news-talk station here in Atlanta. One of the simple pleasures of listening to this station is the commercials (yes, I'm serious--stick with me here).

A recent series of commercials for AirTran Airways featured an announcer with a dramatic voice saying, "AirTran Airways has super-low fares, business class on every flight, and all new planes. And if that wasn't awesome enough, we promise that THIS will never happen." There then followed a skit featuring something outrageous happening on an airliner: a seatmate who communicated only by singing opera, a passenger who found himself seated in the "in-flight dodgeball section," a planeload of people on their way to a gargling convention, a Scottish-accented passenger going on a holiday with his sheep, a couple who discovered a "tray-table elf" who liked to "scamper and play," and so on. Very funny stuff.

One class of commercial that I don't like as well features a person who behaves like a lunatic, usually out of love for the product being advertised. Why a company would want to advertise its product with the help of a lunatic is beyond me, but it happens more often than you may have realized. And the thing that's downright galling is that the lunatic is usually a man, frequently a husband, who is put in his place by his sensible wife.

Just this week, however, I heard a commercial of this genre that featured a woman as a lunatic. It was a commercial for O'Charley's Restaurants, and in the commercial, a wife was wrapping Christmas presents that consisted of O'Charley's meals--a steak, a salmon dinner, and so on. Her husband asked her why she was doing such a silly thing. The woman gushed that O'Charley's meals were just perfect for this relative and that.

Of course, O'Charley's couldn't break the gender mold completely. In the end, the woman got the chance to slam the man's questioning by saying that he just wasn't in the Christmas spirit.

Sure makes me want to head on out to O'Charley's. How about you?

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Human hubris

In the aftermath of the devastation that Hurricane Katrina wreaked on New Orleans, it was impossible not to wonder why God had ordained that particular chain of events. Many evangelicals were quick to conclude that the hurricane must have been God's instrument of judgment on a city with particularly visible sins.

I have no idea whether that was the case--God hasn't shared His thinking with me. But I am a little hesitant to label New Orleans as more deserving of judgment than other cities just because it hosts a bawdy festival each year.

Still, I did come away from the Katrina disaster with one troubling question: How did it come about that a major city grew up sandwiched between a huge lake and a huge river on land that essentially lies in a pit below sea level? I heard it said that the United States must have a major city at the mouth of the Mississippi because of all the trade goods that move down the river for export. That certainly makes sense. But did that city have to be built behind levees that (being human things) were prone to fail, bringing death, destruction, and abject misery? I cannot imagine that no one thought through this possible problem. But if that is the case, no one seems to have cared enough to say anything--or there was a misplaced confidence in human ability to hold back the water, no matter what might come. In other words, the flood of New Orleans may have been made possible by human hubris, that tendency of our race to believe that man is the measure of all things, that we have control of our destiny, and that we can overcome all by the power of our will.

I can't help but wonder whether such hubris was truly at work in New Orleans and, if Katrina was the instrument of God's judgment, whether there was a connection.

I don't think we have to look far to find much clearer evidences of human hubris at work. In my humble opinion, the plans to build a new, record-tall skyscraper on the site of the World Trade Center towers in New York is prideful arrogance. Sure, it would be nice to poke a finger in the eye of Islamofascists, but do we really need to set up a new target full of civilian workers? Another example would be the rebuilding of beachfront homes after they have been washed away in a storm. You can't get much more arrogant than to RE-build on sand.

And is there not a vein of human hubris in our insistence on building great cities atop an earthquake zone in California? Everyone seems to acknowledge that a major quake will come, but the thinking seems to be that we can so build that damage will be minimal. The assumption seems to be that the cities along the fault line simply must grow, at whatever risk. Just this weekend I happened across this article:

ALISO VIEJO, Calif. (AP) - Traffic is so bad along the eastern rim of Los Angeles' suburban ring that regional planners are considering the once unthinkable - an 11-mile tunnel through a mountain range in earthquake country.

Critics question the logic of building a multibillion-dollar project in a region so prone to earthquakes that an alternate proposal for a double-decker highway was deemed too dangerous. The tunnel would begin barely a mile from a fault that produced a 6.0-magnitude earthquake about a century ago.

"It's absolutely absurd to have a tunnel 700 feet below ground in earthquake country," said Cathryn DeYoung, mayor of Laguna Niguel and a vocal opponent. "I mean, would you want to be in that tunnel?"

Planners are due to make a decision in mid November on whether to pursue the project.

The proposal for what would be the world's second-longest road tunnel would create a new path between sprawling inland suburbs and Orange County, which has become one of Southern California's fastest-growing job centers.

Such a project could cost up to $9 billion and take 25 years.

Doesn't this seem patently silly? Sure the traffic is bad. But there seems to be a fear that bad traffic will cause people to move elsewhere, and that just can't be allowed to happen. The city of man must wax greater and greater, and the risk of earthquakes be damned.

I hope and pray we will come to our senses before another disaster sets us wondering whether we have witnessed God's judgment once again.

GtG

Weekend ramblings

Just a few random thoughts:

Speaking of "always revising," how about gasoline prices? Not a day goes by that I don't take careful note of the changes at stations I pass en route to work and back. And I've become a regular visitor to our local gas-price Web site, www.atlantagasprices.com.

I just hope the "lifestyle revisions" we all made when prices were so high won't be abandoned now that things are moderating a little. Let's keep reducing our usage and driving those prices down.

* * * *

As advertised, my gingko tree dropped almost all of its leaves over a couple of days at the end of this week. Of course, most of the trees around here did the same, as the winds kicked up and took away a lot of our fall color. Still, I'm pretty happy with the little gingko, it was fun to watch its growth this year.

* * * *

An interesting thing happened this week as I was working on an editing job. My client is writing about California history in the mid-nineteenth century, and he rightly uses the occasional Spanish term for authenticity. I usually like everything nice and clear, but if the context helps me get at the meaning of a foreign term, I'm OK with it. Well, the client used the term zanja, noting that a dust storm had filled all the zanjas in the streets of Los Angeles. I couldn't imagine what these zanjas were, so I pointed it out to the client. He rightfully noted that I had not complained about the use of the term earlier. Indeed, he had mentioned a zanja in the central courtyard area of a large adobe home. I realized that I had used my stereotypical image of a Spanish-style courtyard, complete with fountains and pools, to guess at the meaning of the word. Actually, my image was way off target. A zanja is a water-filled ditch, which would explain the presence of one in the Los Angeles streets. The incident was a good reminder for me not to assume anything.

* * * *

On Monday, my sons will play in the first basketball game in the new gym at their school, Covenant Christian Academy in Cumming, Ga. Construction of this gym has been a real saga, so this will be quite the milestone. It's a wonderful facility that will benefit the school tremendously. I'll post a photo early next week.

* * * *

Finally, here's a great quote from Charles Spurgeon from a sermon on providence:

“I believe that every particle of dust that dances in the sunbeam does not move an atom more or less than God wishes; that every particle of spray that dashes against the steamboat has its orbit as well as the sun in the heavens; that the chaff from the hand of the winnower is steered as the stars in their courses. The creeping of an aphid over the rosebud is as much fixed as the march of the devastating pestilence. The fall of leaves from a poplar is as fully ordained as the tumbling of an avalanche. He that believes in a God must believe this truth. There is no standing-point between this and atheism. There is no halfway between a mighty God that worketh all things by the sovereign counsel of his will and no God at all. A God that cannot do as he pleases—a God whose will is frustrated—is not a God, and cannot be a God. I could not believe in such a God as that.”

What do you think? Agree? Disagree? Comments are welcome.

Have a great Lord's Day.

GtG

Heartfelt thanks

I'd be remiss on this Veterans Day not to say a simple "Thank you" to the many men and women who have served in our country's armed forces. I truly stand in awe of those who willingly follow this difficult calling, and I'd be immensely proud to see either of my sons bear arms in defense of the United States someday.

If you know a veteran, thank him or her today. And make it a habit.

Meet my pet tree

Growing up in Virginia gave me a love for the dogwood tree. How could it not? The dogwood is both Virginia's state tree and state flower, and it grows literally everywhere across the state, filling the roadside woods in the spring with its delicate white blossoms.

Moving to Florida (where these is only one season) for five years made me appreciate dogwoods all the more. During our first trip back to Virginia in the spring after moving to Florida, it was a wonder that I did not drive my family off the road as I craned my neck for a sight of every blooming dogwood the state had to offer. I felt like Robert E. Lee, who remarked upon returning to Virginia in 1840: "I felt so elated when I found myself in the ancient Dominion that I nodded to all the trees I passed."

Now here we are in Georgia, where I am blessed to have 10 or more dogwoods on my property. And I have come to appreciate many other flowering trees. Spring comes in waves here. First there is the Bradford pear wave, then the dogwood wave, then the redbud wave.

Last fall, I put in a new pink dogwood and a redbud for spring color. But I also added a red maple and a ginkgo for fall foliage. I was especially interested in the ginkgo after reading about it. It boasts small, delicate leaves that turn a wonderful yellow in the fall. As I understand it, the leaves then all drop at once. As of today, the leaves are still in place--I'll let you know if they drop as advertised.

That's a photo of my ginkgo above, in its youthful fall glory. Praise be the Creator of such beauty.

GtG

Lots of airborne objects

A good day, this, but looking back on it I am rather amazed by all of the tasks I was able to juggle between my full-time job and my freelance work. A quick accounting:

• Edited several lessons of a children's curriculum.
• Proofed a small booklet on sexual purity that is due for a revision.
• Reviewed and responded to reactions from the author of a book about early Los Angeles to my edits of his third chapter.
• Corresponded with a potential client seeking a critique of his manuscript on annihilationism.
• Corresponded with another potential client about my sample edit of his manuscript on coaching soccer for Christ.
• Corresponded with a fellow editor about taking on the editing of the book on coaching soccer in order to meet the client's schedule.
• Did some preliminary work on the next chapter of a book I am ghostwriting.

It sounds like a lot, and it was, but I am wired in such a way that I enjoy this kind of variety.

Hey, have you written something that needs to be edited? Do you know someone who has--a relative, a teacher, or a pastor, perhaps? Take a look at my Web site, www.integrityeditorial.com, and shoot me an email. I'm pretty sure I can keep one more job up in the air!

A secondhand milestone

We seem to mark our lives by the milestones we reach and surpass. The major ones, in my book, are high school graduation, college graduation, marriage, and the births of your children. I happen to have surpassed all of these milestones. Still ahead lie the big anniversaries, retirement (if it ever happens), dotage, and death.

I suppose we could also see the process of our children reaching these milestones in personal terms, too. For instance, it will certainly be a personal milestone for me to give away my daughters to other men. And when my children bring home their first children, I'll be rejoicing in my first grandchildren. I'll call these secondhand milestones.

I experienced something of a secondhand milestone this past week. My oldest son earned his driver's license. Now, it seems wrong to rank the experience of getting one's driver's license on a par with graduations, marriages, and births. But I would be wrong to minimize how important this is to a guy in America. We literally look forward to receiving that license for years before the big day arrives. I did, and so did my son. My second son is still in the anticipation stage.

So there I stood as my son climbed into the car with the DMV tester. I've watched him in various solo endeavors before, but nothing yet had so driven home to me the truth that he is leaving the nest, that his mom and I are working ourselves out of a job. I could do nothing to help him except pray. He was on his own. (Of course, this particular event was superceded later in the day when he actually backed out of the driveway and drove off alone, without even a DMV tester on board. Then he was really on his own.)

In 18 months or so, he'll reach one of those real milestones--high school graduation. And while he's experiencing it firsthand, I'll be somewhere nearby, going through it with him, secondhand.

GtG