Published January 28, 2008 by

Amends

atonementI saw the movie Atonement tonight. Interesting. I liked it, but I probably wouldn’t make a return visit. Stunning period costume etc. and Keira Knightly is quite good (Despite being consistently annoying).

I was trying to recall what I knew about the word ‘Atonement’ before I went in. The straightforward term is as such: Satisfaction or reparation for a wrong or injury; amends. That’s okay, it’s the theological application of it.

I recall a few years back – at my one year of Bible college. Reading a detailed analysis on the confusion of the understanding of atonement. It was fascinating. Of course cannot remember most of it. The dictionary defines it so: the doctrine concerning the reconciliation of God and humankind, esp. as accomplished through the life, suffering, and death of Christ.

It’s always interesting when Christian terminology takes a center stage despite being with it’s more useful definition – suddenly the word launches itself into public familiarity.

I cannot remember when this has happened before – I’m fairly sure something along the lines has, because this is not a new thought.

But does it leave scope for the actual use of the word when you find yourself in those ad hoc conversations where your fluid mouth takes over and you’re spouting brilliance that you only half understand?

To be honest, Christian theological terms are tripe {Upon Geoff’s questioning I admit that this is not 100% true – they do sometimes have their place – for the sake of the argument :P}. Give me ordinary every day understandable English that is easy to share and explain. Not words to explain concepts that need words to explain the words. It’s a useless wheel.

Although be kind and leave some of the poetry. It’s such a tightrope.

Christianity Movies Words

atonement keira knightly theological terms Words

Published November 18, 2007 by

Lazy evening equation

Life Movies

Published November 17, 2007 by

Plotting conclusion

mamabear.jpgI had a funny sort of revelation tonight. I watched The Life Aquatic. Brilliant movie. If you normally asked me to summarise a movie, I’d run with a kind of plot scenario i.e. the adventures of a failing documentary film maker and so on, probably in a rather boring monotone. I’m not the social story telling kind. But I wasn’t asked to summarise it, why would I after all – surrounded by a group of people who were watching the exact same thing? A brief conversation flew around the ending and an individual’s dissatisfaction. I disagreed and gave a very short, sharp synopsis about the guts of the movie. I think sometimes more goes on in my head than I realise.  Or perhaps it’s just the articulation of what’s there that sometimes catches me off guard?

In truth, my concise proclamation of internal workings of the story is about as basic as you can get. Laughable.

Loser in life wins out in the end – not by the means excepted, but he still wins. End of story.

It’s the guts of most stories, probably a lot of lives, although winning occurs in stages and phases and not in some ultimate finale (talking life on earth here), and of course the stretch of the theory doesn’t glean all circumstances.

However stupid, strange or balmy the protagonist is, we can relate. Yes, I just called you a loser.

The whole of the creative world is somewhat unoriginal. I already knew that.

So. Does an good unpredictable ending always have to be an unhappy one. And if so, isn’t that predictable in itself?

Is there another alternative? Or does that wind up in ambiguity? Or is it simply an eternal ending? Can you run with a plot that never properly ends? Or does it still technically end where we stop looking at it?

There’s got to be some theological swamp in all that?

Culture Life Movies

Published September 25, 2007 by

Praying for perspective

glasses.jpgI like sermons. I like them better than the singing part of church for the most part. My mind likes to work and I tend to wind up discovering or even just seeing a bit more of God through exploring ideas.

This week Kevin kicked off his second sermon on prayer. I missed the first one… I could go and listen to it here, but that would require some more time.

He took us through the Lords Prayer. Now I’ve heard this done before, but for the sake of letting it stick (and I do appreciate repetition occasionally) here it is in outline form with some of my scrawlings.

Praying the Lords Prayer

Our Father in Heaven (where and who) – A prayer of focus and relationship

Hallowed (ascribe worth to/holy) be Your name – A prayer of worship

Your Kingdom come – A prayer of purpose

Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven – A prayer of surrender

Give us today our daily bread – a prayer of request (dependence)

Forgive us our sins (us/me collective?) – a prayer of confession

As we also forgive anyone who sins against us – a prayer of reconciliation

And lead us not into temptation – a prayer of protection

But deliver us from the evil one – a prayer of deliverance

For yours is the Kingdom, the power and the glory – a prayer of confidence

The last bit stuck out to me the most. The reminder that God is God is an interesting thing in prayer – most of the time I think prayer is fantastic and I really like it, however there are also times where its like you are sitting there talking to yourself or your conscience and wondering if your just praying out of this intrinsic unexplainable desire/need to, and that’s sort of it. I know not the ins and hows of God’s prayer listening/answering system but it’s a curious thing that points strongly towards humanity and our utter inability to do anything that we can’t. Beyond the obvious trust element: faith/belief, this confidence thing is a direct correlation with our dependence – which could be why lots of people don’t recognise God. If God is so insanely good, it clearly points to us being far less. We’d all like to be top dog in some form or other however much we deny our pride.

This to me feels relatively simplistic in theory and yet I don’t think we go about living very well.

The other night I watched Blood Diamond, it’s fairly full on. As with movies such as Hotel Rwanda you come away with this monster of a hole inside because you cannot do much, if anything at all about situations like those shown. It hit me strongly.

And we (collective) have the western gall to go about being frustrated at something as minor as it raining on our washing.

We really do miss the bigger picture sometimes.

In our confidence, let us pray our confession, in our confession let us recognise our dependence, in this reconciliation and surrender, protection for His and our joint purpose that stems from worship and relationship with the one who has got this kingdom thing sorted through his goodness and wisdom.

We need some perspective.

apologies I cannot remember the image source

Christianity Movies

Published August 5, 2007 by

Incredible genetics and a bit of a overview

violet.jpgSomething’s afoot when you catch yourself analysing why Violet – the daughter of Mr. Incredible and Elasto-girl, has black hair when the genetics of blonde hair and brown make that highly improbable and then remember that it’s a cartoon and doesn’t matter and she probably dyed it anyway…

It seems that a late one last night has caught me, or maybe it’s writing deprivation and my imagination (or twisted logical brain) is taking over?

I’d be more dramatic, but I can’t be bothered. It’s 10:30pm afterall, and I really didn’t get much sleep last night.

So. Much to catch up on.

That list said I wanted to talk about:

Moving trials and triumphs – Geoff has covered most of this, except for the fact that he was throwing up on the day he was moving, which made things altogether worse. Lets say it was (all up) an interesting and valuable experience for our relationship on all kinds of levels.

Dresses and successes – I sometimes get in my head to do crazy things just to prove that I can, this is reflected in that I chose to study physics in Yr.11 after getting an E in Yr.10, and in the fact that I went out and bought a dress pattern and material and hand sewed a dress this week, just because.

This is an expensive experiment and if you’re in control of your senses at all, I don’t recommend it. I do recommend it as a good time filler while you are waiting around for your internet to start magically working again. As for the dress, it is 90% finished and the straps just needs sewing on, along with the hem and a small alteration to make the bottom of the zip sit better at the back. When I can be bothered and it is daylight, I will post a photo – because I’m a little bit pleased with myself.

The Simpsons and fun – easy. See the Simpsons Movie and you’ll know why people everywhere are running around singing, “Spider pig, spider pig…” you’ll also hear Ralph say something that I found incredibly funny but won’t repeat for the sake of a potentially young (or naive) blog audience. I am a very new Simpson’s convert as I missed seeing any of it growing up overseas and I now can’t get enough.

Eagle vs. Shark and hilarity – Night out in the city at the Film Festival’s Eagle vs. Shark a New Zealand made film. This well spent evening was the endeavor of Jess my movie friend. I spent the entire time laughing. Some have compared it to Napoleon Dynamite and others more to the Castle. I hate the Castle. There were bits that took a little too long but it could all be forgiven due to the seagull moment that made it and makes me fairly sardonic.

P.s. If it gets famous, then I’ll have you know we got to hear the director and lead actress answer questions at the end. (I would’ve rather gone and gotten food),

Keys and stupidity – Geoff got me keys cut for me and Paul for the new house as I was to let Paul in. I ran outside to show Pauly where to park, and locked both sets of keys inside along with my wallet, bag… We then had to drive to Glenferrie (~1hr) to get the original set of keys. Not my most intelligent of moments.

Youth and talking – Ages ago I was convinced by Geoff to run a whole Friday night youth thing. So my turn came (the other night). I’d left planning late but I pulled off a big Q/A about communion and why we have it (and the more finite points). I had a small patch of blah’ing on nearer the end which was okay but could’ve gone better. I think the kids went home talking about Jehovah’s witnesses (Don’t use something like that in an illustration next time!) rather than communion, but oh-well. I think overall it went well.

Right. Now my blogging can commence again as normal in competition with uni, which starts back tomorrow and the 153ish days or so I have left to plan this wedding.

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