Sometimes we just need a reason to smile, and here is one. Even if you don't like fishing, or TV fishing shows, here is a video of bloopers that I found funny.
Stanley Fish is an academician, a literary and legal scholar who teaches at Florida International University. I’ve heard several people refer to him as a postmodernist thinker, though it’s my understanding that he prefers to be known as an anti-foundationalist.
This is oversimplified, but for those not familiar with these terms, here is a quick definition. Foundationalists are convinced there is some value or ground or foundation that is available to all thinkers of all cultures upon which knowledge can be based. So, anti-foundationalists, like Fish, argue that no such ground exists, and so knowledge or ethics or ideas can only be explored within their specific cultural and historical context. As a result, anti-foundationalists are usually said to be pragmatists (whatever works is correct) and relativists (no final moral standards) though they argue that isn’t necessarily the case. Anyway, that’s the general idea.
In any case, Dr Fish writes a blog for The New York Times (which you can find here), and I always read his posts. I find them well written, often provocative, and always thoughtful. I may not always agree, but disagreeing with Stanley Fish is a bracing experience.
Anyway, Fish’s December 21, 2009 post, “’Tis the Season,” caught my attention both for the provocative conclusion he draws, and for the description of his experience of public speaking. The reason his description interests me is that he is describing my experience—exactly.
The speaker must worry about doing a good job.
With that in mind he or she will try to learn something about the nature of the institution, the likely make up of the audience—some audiences will regard a basic introduction of the topic as an insult while others will welcome it—the names of previous speakers in the series, the special concerns that may be animating university conversations. (Even with a lot of preparation, you never really know what you’re walking into.)
The occasion is, by definition, make or break. You only get one shot. The visit is short but you leave behind an impression that will last for quite a while. You will be judged by multiple measures. Did you seem well-prepared? Were you attentive to the needs of the audience? Did you present a coherent thesis supported by the relevant evidence? Did you speak clearly? Did you handle yourself well and honorably in the question-and-answer session? Were you responsive and courteous to everyone, even to those audience members who rose with the hope of handing you your head in a basket? Did you remember to thank everyone many times? It is clearly a pressure situation, and when it is over and you are heading out of town, you will be busily assessing your own performance and asking yourself, “How did I do?”
Now comes the curious part. If I have done badly, I feel badly. No surprise there. But if I’ve done well (at least in my estimation), I feel worse.
Why is that? I’m not quite sure, but I have a few notions. It may be a feeling that if I had stayed around for another 20 minutes, the jig would have been up; everyone would have seen through me; I got away just in the nick of time. It may be a feeling that my success was merely a piece of theater; there was nothing of substance in it. It may be a revulsion against hearing myself say the same old thing once again; someday—maybe tomorrow—I’ll run out of audiences. It may be a suspicion (actually more than that) that I am less interested in doing justice to my subject than in bringing glory to myself.
I thought it was just me.
(Be certain to read “’Tis the Season” and reflect on Dr Fish’s conclusion.)
Ross Douthat, an Op-ed columnist for the New York Times and film reviewer for National Review, saw Avatar, James Cameron’s latest movie epic and sees in it more of interest than the latest cinematic technical advances.
It’s fitting that James Cameron’s “Avatar” arrived in theaters at Christmastime. Like the holiday season itself, the science fiction epic is a crass embodiment of capitalistic excess wrapped around a deeply felt religious message. It’s at once the blockbuster to end all blockbusters, and the Gospel According to James.
But not the Christian Gospel. Instead, “Avatar” is Cameron’s long apologia for pantheism — a faith that equates God with Nature, and calls humanity into religious communion with the natural world.
You can read Douthat’s thoughtful piece, “Heaven and Nature,” here.
We hear of events on the news from far away places, but it takes more than that to give us a sense of what life really is like there. Stories help, as do pictures—pictures like this one posted on the BBC online (which you can see here).
The caption was simple: “A Pakistani man pushes a cart on his way to the main street in Rawalpindi, Pakistan.” Rawalpindi is in the northern part of the country, just outside the capitol, Islamabad. The photo is attributed to Muhammed Muheisen/AP, and I am grateful to him for sharing what he saw in this slice of life with the rest of us.
Before our friends, Peter and Dawn, returned to Australia, we asked them for some movie recommendations. The first one they mentioned was Kenny, about a guy who runs a porta-potty (Australians call them portaloos) business named Splash Down. “A great comedy,” they said, “real Australian humor,” and they started laughing just remembering the film.
Kenny takes his job seriously, and as he points out, if he didn’t the rest of us would be in deep, well, deep in the product he specialized in collecting and carting away. “I don’t know what all the fuss is about,” Kenny says, “it’s 80% water and we’ve got chemicals to take care of the remaining 20.” At festivals he puts in long hours, cleaning the toilets, fishing out rings that were mistakenly dropped, and dealing with plugged and overflowing facilities. “There’s another classic example,” Kenny says wearily, “of someone having a two inch arsehole and us having installed only one inch piping.”
Kenny is hardly a great film, but it succeeds by being funny and believable. Filmed as a mock documentary, Kenny introduces us to his work, his family, and to the grand convention of waste management, The International Pumper & Cleaner Expo in Nashville, TN—which Kenny affectionately refers to as “Poo HQ.”
I don’t remember when I’ve laughed so hard at a film, only to be surprised when the second half turns into a poignant story of broken human beings trying to make their way through a broken world amidst sadly broken relationships. Kenny is the story of a likable and decent worker who does a job well, only to be despised by the people whom he serves—if they bother to notice him at all. “I’d love to be able to say ‘I plumb toilets’ and have someone say, ‘Now that is something I’ve always wanted to do.’” G. K. Chesterton published a Father Brown mystery where, if I remember correctly, the murderer had initially escaped noticed because he was dressed a postman so nobody noticed him as he walked away from the crime down a busy street. I wonder how many other people remain invisible to me?
[Kenny is rated PG-13.]
Many people in our pluralistic world mix and match their own personal blend of religious belief and ritual. A recent survey by The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life (December 9, 2009), “Many Americans Mix Multiple Faiths,” which you can read here, lists some statistics to help make sense of the phenomenon.
The religious beliefs and practices of Americans do not fit neatly into conventional categories. A new poll by the Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion & Public Life finds that large numbers of Americans engage in multiple religious practices, mixing elements of diverse traditions. Many say they attend worship services of more than one faith or denomination -- even when they are not traveling or going to special events like weddings and funerals. Many also blend Christianity with Eastern or New Age beliefs such as reincarnation, astrology and the presence of spiritual energy in physical objects. And sizeable minorities of all major U.S. religious groups say they have experienced supernatural phenomena, such as being in touch with the dead or with ghosts.
The report is worth reading simply for the insight it brings to our culture. Christians who care about engaging their world with the gospel will have an added motivation to read and reflect on it.
The Pew Forum also provides a pdf version of the Report for free download.
The pine tree outside my office window is heavy with snow. Boughs are bent under the weight, some now obscuring my view of the Goldfinches sitting on all six of the perches of the thistle feeder. A Chickadee hops along a branch, setting off into the air little puffs of snow like dust.
It is winter, a season when the radiator in our bedroom remains off most days, so that we need to burrow under covers heavy enough to feel substantial. This morning fingers of frost were drawn across the window, looking like a delicate etching on the glass.
Though only 4 o’clock the sunlight in dimming, ushering in another long evening when candles and music seem just the thing to warm the living room. The tree is in its normal corner, a lovely reminder that Advent is upon us, that nothing matters except that Jesus came and so as a result everything matters.
I grew up in a home where no Christmas tree was allowed. The season was deemed ruined by commercialism, no proof text commanding the celebration of Jesus’ birth could be located in Scripture, and the words of the ancient Hebrew prophet (Jeremiah 10:2-4) were preached as condemning any use of a decorated tree during Advent. Enjoying the season was considered as sign of what was called “carnality,” which meant that one’s religion was considered highly suspect.
How is it possible to be so religious that you miss the entire point of it?
As I write this a little sheep sits on my desk. (The entire story of that can be read and seen here, if that is, you have an account on Facebook.) He regards me solemnly, reminding me of my tendency to wander off as if I know what’s best. Which I don’t, of course—know what’s best I mean. I do wander, unfortunately.
It’s fully dark outside now, and a slight glow from the blue lights on the wreath hung above our front porch colors the snow on the porch roof. It’s time to shut off the music (Wilco), post this, and go downstairs for dinner. I hope we eat in front of the Christmas tree. Not in reaction to the silly fundamentalism of my upbringing, but as a reminder of grace.
Bruce Wydick, Professor of Economics at the University of San Francisco, weighs in on the fractious debate over reforming health care costs.
Formerly the terrain of policy wonks and ivory tower academics, the recent health care debate in the United States has aroused public interest and angst more than any domestic policy issue in recent memory. I personally have been intrigued by this debate, both as an American economist and as an American Christian, and both of these factors make me a strong advocate of health care reform. I believe that the U.S. needs a strong version of health care reform to make our economy more efficient and our society more just.
Read the entire article, which appeared in Comment (published by Cardus), here.