The Requisite Christmas Song Post (with another pirate guest blogger)!

 So someone else beat me to the punch this year, but happily he didn't write about the musicality of the season.  Check out his article on the storied ghosts of Christmas here, much recommended!  I know Charlie Brown really tried to get the true meaning of Christmas, but it's depressing.  I know the Grinch hinted at it, but the roast beast just doesn't cut it.  Even my local Christian radio station seems to be missing the boat, literally playing things like "Let it snow' and "It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas" endlessly but ignoring the many great sacred classics save an occasional instrumental nod from the Trans-Siberian Light Orchestra, at least there's no Santa Baby, that's a plus, right?  It sounds more like a seasonal mall sound track than anything else, especially a Christian station at Christmas!  While I don't mind that stuff, sadly, like Charlie Brown, I am more than a little frustrated with our whole culture focusing on the tinsel and the glitz and ignoring the glaring ache that this season entails for many.  It seems we can either be insipidly happy or alone in our grief which often manifests as anger towards the season in its entirety.

But if you hate Christmas because you hurt, you aren't alone!  It is a problem native to all humanity, not just the modern post-christian west, our problem is the same as the ancient pre-christian east or even the insipidly pseudo-christian America of our nostalgic recollection.  While Charlie Brown thinks he hankers after that nostalgic, idyllic ghost of Christmases past, there is no such history, no such reality, because that has never been what Christmas has been about nor is it the ache that haunts his heart like Marley in Ebenezor's bed chamber.

Many of the secular Christmas haters are happy to proclaim that Jesus wasn't really born on December 25th and that we're simply recycling an old pagan holiday, and I'm most happy to agree with them, and their point is?  Men have always been religious, keenly interested and much afeared of the supernatural, at least until our materialistic modern age with its electric lights to forever drive off the dark of superstition and the utter night of ignorance, thinking we are quite something, as if we invented the physics behind the phenomenon, content in our assumption that it 'just happened,' and never questioning the Light behind our light and little realizing that by blinding their own eyes thereby, they are now the ignorant!  That is why we demand a Light in the darkness, and celebrate its coming at the darkest time of the year, not because we know Jesus was born on that particular day but rather that His coming at the appointed time relieved the spiritual darkness in which the whole world languished and we celebrate the fact as his first coming at the darkest time of the year.

But our problem is we forget why we celebrate His coming, yay a baby, a light of the world, but why is that significant?  His birth, while miraculous and marvelous and bright, is nothing, does nothing, rather it is His sinless life, His atoning death, and His conquering of death and darkness and sin forever by rising again to new life that we can sing and rejoice and make merry this time of year and all the year long!  But we'd rather sit with our glitz and jingle, aching inside, making merry without, and wondering why we can't be happy when everybody else seems to be as well.

This is where the great sacred Christmas hymns come in, look past the first well known verse or chorus or the haunting instrumental and delve into the depth, the mystery, the sorrow, the joy, the meaning of this babe's incarnation, the very word made flesh.  Only therein can we find meaning and true joy in this paradoxical season of utmost joy and aching loneliness and unrelenting sorrow, only in Him can all find their true 'comfort and joy.'  Santa and Grinches are fine and fun, but let us not forget the true meaning behind it all!

I didn't write this, but should have! Pirate guest blogger returns!

 Just go read it!

A modern classic?

 I have a very hard time finding new books, especially by modern authors.  Usually the stories are utterly predictable, the characters forgettable, the dialogue unremarkable, the humor vapid, the writing wan, and the moral of the tale nonexistent.  Or worse, it's a literary depiction of things best left behind closed doors solely betwixt those involved, who knew Jane Austen's heirs would stray so far from the fold, ugh!  But as I was browsing through the never ending Pinterest feed, I came across a '15 hilarious books for your book club' post, not being a huge fan of book sites, for some reason I gave it a chance.  I looked each one up in our virtual library app to see what they had.  I had already seen the movie for the first book, and it wasn't bad.  Bridget Jones made the list and I detest the movie, so I was starting to get antsy but I persisted and found a couple likely and available prospects.  I checked out 'Eleanor Oliphant is Fine' and began to read.  It is more than a little eerie when you are reading about a fictional person's life and all you can think is that it's your own!

That's one reason I really like the Blue Castle by LM. Montgomery, as I readily identify with its stifled little mouse of a heroine.  Now there's Eleanor with her Tolkien-esque last name and the socially prescribed adjective.  I like a book that can handle delicate and terrible social issues with both charity, patience, understanding, and humor without wallowing in either despair or the grotesque while still taking a swing at various overlooked social and cultural ills/trends that we either take for granted or ignore entirely.  This book is heart wrenching but also gut-wrenchingly funny, with a very arch Austen sort of wit, not much really 'happens' but you can't put it down because it unfurls little by little, as a good book aught, until you are left hopeful and smiling with a tear in your eye.  The characters aren't really much to look at or read about, they aren't beautiful or handsome or rich or witty, they are just everyday people with everyday tragedies struggling through an indifferent and hostile world, save the golden threads of kindness found unexpectedly in the strangest souls and oddest places.  A glowing reminder that humanity has not completely lost its heart even if society has lost its head and in that we can still find hope.  But we need real human interaction and relationship to do it.

As a survivor of a twisted and cruel mother who portrays the perfect parent to the world, I can say the character of Eleanor was written so well that I wonder how the author came to know so much about so forbidden a topic in a world and culture that is quick to blame the child in such an instance.  My situation was hardly as horrific as Eleanor's but sadly it might be even more tragic, because no one knows what is going on, even the afflicted, few are those that escape from this dreadful sort of 'normal.'  We are fine, we are fed and clothed, and we are fine, but we aren't.  The despair, the self-hatred, the utter loneliness, the wish to both punish yourself for simply existing and the wish for the suffering to end makes self-harm and suicide very real dangers.  The author tackled these issues with a dexterous and master hand.  The overriding commentary about widespread loneliness in society and that there is something we can do about it is also a welcome voice in the wilderness.  Overall a well written and well handled modern novel, well worthy of the classic writers the author obviously enjoys.  Finally a modern book about what it means, at least in part, to be human!

A tale worth the telling, unwitting guest blogger episode 437

 Ever feel like you're living in a satire movie, a spoof of your own life?  Check out this enlightening little article!

Good enough for her!

 I just realized I have a problem.  I needed some decent muffin pans, but that was only a symptom.  Just for the heck of it I checked out nordic ware, I have a bundt and specialty bread pan (both acquired second hand for mere dollars) that I absolutely love and wondered if they had anything affordable.  It appears they are having a clearance sale on their Treat line of baking accessories and all their pans are a very decent price and you get free shipping if you spend $50.  Instead of a single muffin pan, I ended up with two (12 muffins each too!) plus a cookie sheet, a loaf pan, and two 9" cake pans for $50!  I actually bought some high quality bakeware and am really excited about it.  What's the problem?  I guess I'd call it 'good enough for her' syndrome.

I have been married 17 years, I am an avid baker, I am on a special diet that requires I bake all my own bread and everything else and since it is gluten free, it can be fussy and unappetizing, good quality pans make all the difference for certain recipes and I have literally been using bakeware like my great grandmother's cookie sheets, a couple cheap aluminum cake pans from the thrift store, a couple pyrex glass loaf pans that were a wedding gift, and a set of silicone muffin cups for years.  It worked, why spend extra money we don't have on something I don't absolutely need?  When for $50 I can basically outfit my entire kitchen!  Yes, buying a $59 bundt pan with little hearts all over it would be ridiculous but a $10 heavy duty cookie sheet I'll use twice a week for three decades?

I had the same problem when I was first diagnosed with severe food sensitivities.  I spent a year paralyzed with fear and despair, eating I'm not sure what and still feeling sick.  I never even thought to try gluten free baking or anything else, thinking it wasn't worth it, that I wasn't worth it, or maybe that I didn't deserve it.  It wasn't until my son came down with a wheat intolerance that I started playing with it for his sake and discovered just how much I missed baking and that it was most definitely worth my while to learn to take care of myself.  But even after that lesson, I still struggled on with a chronic though usually subclinical case of 'good enough for her.'

I caught it from my family of origin, where I was more an intruder or a burden than a child.  I had my corner to sleep in (literally a single bed lower bunk in a room with my sister though neither of us was allowed any personal space beyond our bed, the rest of the room was Hers (my mother)), I had food to eat and clothes to wear and that was all I needed so I should just shut up, be quiet, and don't get in the way or embarrass people by existing, and if I even thought about complaining about anything, she'd happily threaten to make me live in the street, which did wonders for my sense of security in the family!  Every Christmas and Birthday were the same, everyone bought me collectible dolls that she enjoyed and immediately took possession of, and if I questioned it, I was called selfish and ungrateful.  Why couldn't I just sit on the couch and shut up while my cousins and brother played with their toys and ate their candy; what was wrong with me?  I quickly learned to stay out of sight, to cope with my own problems, to live without any sort of resources or support, to think my own needs selfish, and to highly undervalue my own accomplishments.

My mother should have sold questionable used cars or timeshares or something, she really could spin to the world that she's a great mother and if anything is lacking in the children, well it is their fault and they undoubtedly deserve it.  My sister-in-law is still convinced it wasn't abuse because I was fed regularly, knowing her background, I understand her perspective, but she's fully imbibed my mother's spiked kool-aid and she thinks I'm awful because I don't appreciate my childhood.  Probably the best example of my mother's cunning is the curious case of the precious pans fiasco.  When I went to grad school and finally got my own ghetto apartment, she gave me all the odds and ends and junk cookware that can usually be scrounged from various female relations, including my recently deceased great grandmother, whose cookie sheets I am still using!  And while I appreciate her outfitting my barebones kitchen, she didn't spend a penny on anything new or used for me or part with anything she even remotely liked, but it was a great excuse to update her own cookware, and I was perfectly okay with that.

I could use those old beat up pans just fine on my old beat up stove to make macaroni and cheese or to boil eggs.  She got them as a wedding gift, so they were 20+ years old, stuff tended to burn to the bottom no matter how much you stirred or used oil or extra liquid, the handles were falling off, some lids were missing, the bottoms weren't flat, and they were a bear to clean, but it worked for a broke college student who wasn't a culinary genius.  Then came Christmas and both my uncle and my brother congratulated me most heartily on the wonderful gift bequeathed me by my mother.  I was speechless for a good five minutes wondering what they were smoking or if I was dreaming, because I really couldn't place what they were talking about.  Those pans, those fabulous pans!  I must look like an ungrateful wretch to them because when I finally figured out they were exuberant over my mom's old junk pans she was eager to update, I really couldn't say they were all that great but they were better than nothing.  What a silver tongue that woman must have!  Those pans, those fabulous pans are certainly 'good enough for her' and she made moral bank even in getting rid of something she knew to be junk.

This is the woman who owns three expensive quilting machines and has never made a quilt.  She's the chick who owns an expensive car she never drives.  To her it is all about perception, most especially controlling other people's reality.  Including telling her own daughter she is worthless, horrible, ungrateful, stupid, an embarrassment, selfish, and uncouth.  And bless my childish little heart, part of me still believes her!  Our whole culture preaches nothing but 'buy X because you are worth it' or 'buy Y and you will be amazing' but I knew innately that nothing would ever make me worthwhile, deserving of anything but the dregs of life and I hated myself for it.  But it was all a lie, just like the persistent advertising.

Then I met this crazy person that said I was not only an intrinsically valuable person simply for being a human being, but that I was also a princess, an heiress to galaxies, a veritable child of God.  When my own earthly family treated me like an intruder, an outcast, a stranger, here was the most important Being ever that's like, 'don't mess with my kid!'  And having gone through the adoption process, I appreciate how painful, tedious, and messy it can be, and here was God, telling me He wanted to adopt me, me!  I still struggle with 'good enough for her' syndrome, as it has been hammered into my soul from the earliest age, but I'm learning what a true, good Father is like, what it is to be a valued member of a family, to be safe and accepted and loved for who I am not despised for what I'm not.  So bring on the pans, or whatever else I need but am ignorant of, a true blessing from my beloved Father to His very astonished little girl!

Rise of the Lukewarm Materialists

 While the world seems to trumpet the decline of Christianity in the modern west, I'd argue it is merely the decline of 'christianity' or as C.S. Lewis would put it, the decline of 'christianity and...' or perhaps the endangerment and extinction of the lukewarm lutheran.  I don't think America was ever truly a Christian nation, was it founded on Christian thought, morals, and philosophy, certainly, but I don't know if it has ever been a 'christian nation' and it really doesn't matter, because the Kingdom of Heaven has never been and will never be of this world, it wasn't when old Rome was at its height nor America in its decline or even Israel at any time in history.  The idea that any temporal nation can equate with or compete with the eternal and incorruptible Kingdom of God is ridiculous.  Should christians work to make their communities and countries a better, more 'christian' environment and culture, certainly, but to mourn the death of something that never existed is ridiculous or to despair because we now live in a more culturally secular age is preposterous, such has been the state of the earthly church since its inception: we are outcasts, pariahs, laughingstocks, those who believe in things unseen and rejoice in the foolish things of the world, lunatics, strangers, aliens, and foreigners to the world and culture of our birth.  The first disciples were accused of turning the world upside down, but rather they were setting it right side up.  The church will always be upside down and backwards to the prevailing earthly culture, no matter where or when, that is its very nature.  Christ would not have come from outside our reality to save us if salvation could be contrived from within by human efforts, ergo His kingdom will also be something outside our current understanding of what a country is.

Until the end of the 1990s or perhaps the early 2000s it was still culturally okay to identify as culturally Christian, most people did so just to blend in or find cultural acceptance or because they weren't Hindu or Jewish or because grandma was, no matter their personal beliefs or practices.  It didn't mean anything then and it doesn't mean anything now, the only difference is that now it isn't safe or acceptable to identify as Christian.  Instead, the conformists are migrating over to other causes, trends, movements, and organizations.  The heart of christian belief and practice hasn't changed in 2000 years but our current culture has moved on from identifying such as 'normal' or 'acceptable' rather now identifying that same belief and practice as 'fundamental extremism' or 'whatever-phobic' or 'myopic and dangerous.'  The church hasn't changed, rather society's perception thereof has done a complete 180.  Society finally figured out that this horse wasn't going to get them where they wanted to go, so they dismounted and found a new ride.  Any other cause can be used as a means to an end, to get you wherever you want to end up, but the true church will never be a means to an end, that doesn't mean people won't try, but eventually they'll figure out it is an express train going somewhere very particular not a horse one can whip and kick and rein around to suit one's own whims.

So all those mediocre, lip-service 'christians' have jumped ship.  Proclaiming themselves 'nones' or whatever and the world rejoices at this sudden decline in the church, only it really isn't a real decline.  We're losing dead weight, the people that were only here for themselves and their personal endeavors not for the good of others or the kingdom of God.  The people who contributed nothing and demanded everything be done exactly their way and who caused 95% of the problems.  If I was the world, I wouldn't be celebrating this mass migration but rather dreading it ending up weighing down any and every other cause, trend, or organization.  These same folks are going to be joining ranks with the rainbow alphabet and the climate change enthusiasts among many another cause or belief or organization.  They'll demand attention and resources and that everything be done their way or they'll make a fuss about it and cause strife within the ranks.  Good riddance!

The church is getting into fighting trim, the fetters are falling off and the labyrinth of people pleasing has fallen down.  While public opinion is against us, at least there will be less squabbling amongst ourselves!  In Revelation Jesus warns people to be hot or cold towards Himself, not lukewarm, lest He spit them out of His mouth and that's exactly what is happening.  And all these loafers, hangers-on, and parasites are going to be seeking something else to fill that void.  World beware, they are coming your way! 'Rejoice O Heavens and ye who dwell in them, but woe to you oh earth and sea, for the Devil has come down to you in great wrath for he knows his time is short...'

AI and what it is to be human

 Poetry, metaphor, humor, aesthetics, the metaphysical, the creation and appreciation of true beauty, these are things it will be very hard for a computer or artificial intelligence ever to truly comprehend.  I stole a couple quotes from classic poetry just to see what would happen, the results are gorgeous, but especially in the case of the second picture, the computer really didn't get what was going on.  I used Leonardo.ai to produce the following unedited pics:

The first is from Keat's "Ode to a Nightingale:" "magic casements, opening on the foam Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn"

The second is from Noyes' "The Highwayman:" "The wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees. The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas. The road was a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor..."

Certainly gorgeous, but both have their faults, particularly the purple galleon!  The crazy thing is these images depend on millions of individual human contributions to culture and art and it takes a human to appreciate them and humans to edit them and give them meaning.  We were created to be creators, yes we can create things that can help us create, but without a driving human influence behind a given production it means nothing, it is nothing.  Only the Creator can call something out of nothing, only one created in His image can give meaning to nonsense.

The AI Apocalypse?

 AI has certainly been making headlines lately, as have the predications of a dawning utopia or impending robotic apocalypse resulting therefrom, but no matter how terrifying or exciting, one must remember that AI, like fire or electricity or anything else is a tool, while it may revolutionize the way we live, do business, and communicate, and if implemented hastily or in a foolish manner may have drastic and unforeseen consequences, but it is still a tool.  Genetic modification is also a tool and with it we can feed billions or create a monster virus that can wipe out a civilization.  It is what we do with it and why that makes all the difference.

In one of the Star Wars prequels, Obi-wan says, "if droids could think there would be none of us here."  And I've always loved that line, so simple yet so profound.  Yes our tech can 'learn' and 'know' and 'do' all sorts of neat stuff, much of it yet undreamt, but it can't think, create, or give meaning to anything.  Our Creator made us in His image and breathed into us life, and being, and purpose.  But a computer can no more appreciate a rainbow or a sunset or a sonata than your pet goldfish or sofa.  We can't create that for ourselves, how much less for our tech?  It had to be created in us by an outside source, we are incapable of passing it on to our own creations or creating it out of nothing.  No matter how amazing, AI will never produce real art.

Yes, it can produce amazing images, I've just been playing with it, but it requires human input to create those images, human taste to select and manipulate the images, and a human eye to appreciate the final product.  My camera can produce great images but it requires me to select the content of said image.  The camera doesn't care what image it produces, but I do.  The AI image generator produced some rather good and some rather grotesque and some completely baffling images.  I needed to change my prompts or edit the resulting image or change the filters and parameters to get what I wanted, it meant nothing to the computer.

Can we use AI for terrible things, yes!  As we can fire or money or nuclear weapons.  No matter how much our tech changes, our hearts do not nor does what it means to be human.  Yes, tech may get really good at solving medical problems or doing your taxes or whatever but it will never replace humanity, instead it is meant to serve humanity, but it will only be as beneficial as the purposes and intent of those overseeing it.  Will it change things, certainly, but will it replace us, no!  Should we use it wisely, by all means.  Will we?  If history is any indicator, I wouldn't bet on it.  Should we despair?  Certainly not, for the same One who bequeathed us our own intelligence still oversees our world and lives and has a plan and a purpose in all things.  We can certainly make robots in our own image but we'd be far wiser taking very seriously the commands of our own Designer, in this as well as in all things!  There may not ever be an AI apocalypse but we most certainly know the tale of this world will one day be at an end and then we must each give an account of our lives to the Author, so maybe that's the apocalypse we should be most concerned about, at least if we aren't currently His!

Another unwitting guest blogger!

 There and back again, we've heard it a hundred thousand times before, but this is a wonderful article featuring 'The Hobbit' and incorporating it into your life's journey!