Steve’s Blog

Hey everyone, just a reminder that the high school group is going to the Putting Edge for some glow in the dark mini golf and then grabbing dinner at Johnny Rockets tomorrow night.  Meet at WPC at 5pm so that we can neon-ify ourselves before heading out for the evening and we will be back by 8pm.  The whole evening costs only $20!!!!  That includes golf and dinner!!!  Can’t wait to see you tomorrow!

To say a Flaming Lips concert is a joyous experience would be an understatement.  Their show is filled with constant explosions of confetti, giant balloons, dancing yeti (seriously, they had people dressed like the abominable snowman dancing on stage with them) but most importantly music expressing hope for the future and the celebration of the life we have.  After the second or third song, Wayne, the lead singer, told the crowd that “the best part about a Flaming Lips show is that, for a while, you get to forget about hate and enjoy your life.”  While the atmosphere was somewhere between the greatest birthday party ever and welcoming alien life form, the Lips made their message clear through their music; we should celebrate that love and peace are real and possible.  It was a great show and an even better escape from reality, even if it was just for a bit.

And instead of saying all of your goodbyes – let them know
You realize that life goes fast
It’s hard to make the good things last
- Do you realize by the Flaming Lips

Radiohead is supposedly going to have a song in the new Twilight movie “New Moon” and this might be it… let the conspiracy theories begin (but most importantly check out the really cool song)

I have been the teaching assistant these past two weeks for a class on postmodern theology, film and youth culture which has used movies as a lens into the shifting from a modern to a postmodern mindset (we can get into that later if you are interested).  In our class we have watched the movies Fight Club, Josie and the Pussycats, Memento, Spirited Away, Saved and yesterday we watched the film Twilight.  If you are not familiar with vampire/romance saga that has swept through our culture feel free to read up on in here, but the entire story of the novels and film were only a stepping stone onto the reality of pluralism and the acknowledgment of the “other” that is facing us.

The conversation after the film didn’t revolve around the cultural relevance of the story or the phenomena of its popularity, but the symbolism of learning how to live with incredibly different people.  In the context of the film, vampires (both blood sucking and “vegetarian”), warewolves and human have all figured out a way to live together and even fall in love.  While we are not faced with the mythical pluralism of the books/movies, we are faced with how to live along side people who are drastically different than who we are.  As Christians, and humans, we live in a world where we try to coexist with people of  alternate lifestyles, religious beliefs, political ideology and ethnic backgrounds while trying to hold onto the core of our spirituality.  It’s a daunting task to say the least.

What we can learn from Twilight is that the “other” is not as scary as we might think and must not be pre-judged and avoided.  As a Christian, it is our calling to love them as a fellow creation of God.  All of this is swimming around my head as I put together the subject matter for the fall and I think it is an unavoidable aspect of discipleship.  It is because we can no longer live inside our comfortable Christian bubble (if there ever was one) that we are going to be dealing with discipleship and pluralism in the high school group this fall.  More to come on the exact teaching points but I am a firm believer that we cannot be a person of faith and avoid this issues.  If you are interested in finding out more about spiritual pluralism, please check out beliefnet at pewforum.

This is a fitting video tribute to the director John Hughes who passed away earlier this week.  He helped define the teenage experience of the 80’s and his impact on youth culture can still be seen in every high school across the country.    Enjoy a quick ride through the life of his greatest creations.

This is one of the most interesting advertising campaigns I have seen in a long time.  It’s from this weird group that is trying to expose the dangers of bottled water and why we should be drinking only tap water (or something like that, I couldn’t get a good sense of what they were trying to accomplish from browsing their site.)  What really grabbed my attention was the asterisk at the bottom of the advertisement which says: * if water bottled water companies can lie, we can too.  Isn’t that pleasant?  Now we know that everything coming from this organization might be a lie because they have admitted it’s part of their add campaign.  I hope that we have become more savvy in our consumption of advertising and marketing to appreciate the irony of this kind of add campaign without adopting their policy of untruthfulness.