Thoughts on War

Dulce et Decorum Est is a poem by Wilfred Owen about the horrors of war during the WWI. The poem describes how a bunch of soldiers were escaping gas bombs and graphically presents the horror of a particular young man struggling for life.

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of disappointed shells that dropped behind.

GAS! Gas! Quick, boys!-- An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And floundering like a man in fire or lime.--
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,--
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

The title of the poem makes a mockery of the poem by Horace.

Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori:
mors et fugacem persequitur virum
nec parcit inbellis iuventae
poplitibus timidove tergo.

"How sweet and fitting it is to die for one's country:
Death pursues the man who flees,
spares not the hamstrings or cowardly backs
Of battle-shy youths."

How sweet and fitting indeed.

Perhaps it is Memorial Day, we have an excellent reflection on the ethics of war by Dr. Richard Beck: Grandpa and Pacifism.

How are you feeling today?

This was the ice-breaker for my cell tonight and a damn good one. I do assess my own feelings everyday. If I am feeling bad, I will try stuff that help alleviate stress. It is an important spot-check for me because my state of mind can easily affect others. If I am feeling down, my message is likely to be negative.

Fortunately, things are moving along fine in church despite a hectic schedule ahead. What always keeps me upbeat no matter the situation is if I know there are challenging tasks to come. I get motivated by learning and stretching myself. In the year ahead, two things stand out.

1. The project on Esther, including the apocrypha passages, looks daunting but very very unfamiliar. I like that feeling. Let's explore God in a new way.

2. A bunch of loving people is joining the church choir. I hope this can be a life giving love that continues to pay it forward. Time will tell.

Age and Maturity

John C. Maxwell is really good with presenting ideas on leadership. That is his obvious gift, besides a genuine great personality. He is able to convey relationship concepts using direct and graphic words, making understanding really easy. I am reading his book, Winning with People, and it is most enlightening. I especially like this phrase:

"We often expect maturity to come with age, but the truth is, sometimes age comes alone."

So true.

FFoB8: Additions to the Book of Esther

The church will be doing the book of Esther in the sermons for the bilingual service next year. I've known for quite some time that there are additional passages to Esther in the Apocrypha, which means that we disagree with the Roman Catholics and the Eastern Orthodox on the canonicity of these passages. Nonetheless, I thought that since we are doing a serious study of Esther, it should be a fully comprehensive one. It doesn't harm to talk on a couple of prayers right?

It turns out that the additions are pretty long and there are 6 passages in total. Oops! Looks like it will take a few sermons to cover them. Why the additions? There are a few reasons.

1. God is largely absent in the original story. These additions attempt to give more theological depth to Esther and thus explain the events with a more active version of God.

2. The additions also help to explain some questions, like the inner motivations of the main characters. While the original leaves more to the imagination, the additions tell us more blatantly why Esther feels disgusted about being queen or why Mordecai doesn't bow to Haman.

3. Lastly, the additions also add drama to certain portions of the narrative that are overly brief. In particular, the texts of the edicts were given, thus giving more credibility when relating the tale.

Looks like we will be having some fun analyzing this very Jewish story. Certainly, the before and after effects of the additions will let us think about how looking at the story from different angles let us learn something new about God.

Ben Witherington Strikes Again!

When I was studying in TTC, I had a crisis of faith. The issue was whether we had misunderstood Jesus. The idea was that the theology of Christ and the self identity of Jesus may be very different. It become more and more troubling for me as I go down the rabbit hole of the quest for the historical Jesus. At that time, one book came to my rescue: The Christology of Jesus by Ben Witherington. In a well organized manner, Ben outlined how we can understand Jesus' interpretation of himself, and the conclusion was that Jesus' idea and our traditional idea isn't very different. The book was very well-reasoned, and I felt convinced.

As the years passes, I continue to see him as my idol, and often respect his opinion on theological subjects. His reply on the Da Vinci code is an example of well thought out scholarship: The Gospel Code. However, he does lean towards the more conservative camp, I so see that we disagree on the more controversial topics. My beliefs are still traditional, but I lean liberal on politics. I am simply more convinced about equality and social justice when applying the law.

Today, as I was catching up on his blog. This post is especially good: Why Arguments against Women in Ministry aren't biblical. Some of the more conservative bible-thumping parts of the Presbyterians in Singapore still use literal readings of the bible to justify their stand against woman pastors. This post is a perfect explanation of why they are so misguided.

"As I have learned over many years.... the problem in the church is not strong and gifted women. ... ... No, the problem in the church is not strong women, but rather weak men who feel threatened by strong women, and have tried various means, even by dubious exegesis to prohibit them from exercising their gifts and graces in the church." Witherington

Review: Yes Man

I have been reading motivation books for quite a while besides my usual religious literature. The reason for doing this is because I want to learn how to convey ideas and concepts effectively like what many of these motivational speakers do. Like it or not, we may have an important message, but if the medium is a boring convoluted presentation (i.e. most sermons), nobody is getting fed and bringing anything home with them. It is with such endeavors that I come across the book by Danny Wallace: Yes Man. It is about the real life adventure of the author when he tries to change his life by saying yes to every single proposal. Would you want to the party? Yes! Would you like to try this product? Yes! You get the idea. It is a motivational message presented in a humorous autobiographical style. Inspirational and funny, hence I finished it quickly. I think the book is just ok for what it is trying to say: namely, be open-minded about invitations of life and good things will come your way.

The movie adaptation however is extremely well done, despite the usual over-expressions of Jim Carrey. Many of the silly ideas of the book like wild adventures to Amsterdam (because of a secret message) or the correspondences with a Nigerian scammer were removed. The movie keeps a good pace in telling the audience how the adventure to say yes to everything works out, and I think the romantic subplot with Zooey Deschanel is quirky and sweet. To say that the movie brings out the best of the book is a gross understatement. This script is a good example of what proper editing can do in bringing out the essence of a sermon.

Review: Bedtime Stories

I bought this DVD despite the negative reviews, something I don't usually do. I am also not a fan of Adam Sandler's brand of humor, which is usually a not so successful guy and not too intelligent, whose sincerity somehow gets the girl. The wedding singer is the only one I like because it is not too stupid. The reason for the purchase is simply because I like the genre where story-telling and real life coincide and I think the best movie on this is Big Fish. Movies like this are important because I think the modern society with its emphasis on empiricism and historicity has lost the beauty of a well-told story no doubt also based on actual events. In the fanatic obsession with actual details, we forget that the truth of the matter is often bigger than the sum of its parts. Well crafted stories that creatively utilizes embellishments and narrative arrangements and other literary devices can present the reality more deeply than a recollection of facts. It is in the pursuit of such unique perspectives that I ventured into films like The Brothers Grimm and Hoodwinked. These films often challenge our mindset on what is involved when an event is retold.

In Bedtime Stories, stories made up by kids come true in the life of the main character Skeeter. That is the main draw for me. I think the movie succeeds very well in making the fantastic imaginations of children become a reality in Skeeter's life. How the events play out for Skeeter despite the impossibility when we listen to the bedtime story version from the kids the night before is the main plot, and that did not disappoint me at all. If you want a good and deep movie, this is obviously just fun family fare. But if you are searching for something like the hermeneutic of life, how life is interpreted, I think this film is worth a try.

The best part about the movie is when Wendy confronted Skeeter for telling her kids that there are no happy endings in life. I think that is something we can all think about.