Having read none of the “previously canonical” post-ROTJ novels or comics, the stakes are pretty low for me going into this one. Which isn’t to say that I don’t care a great bit. Even though the prequels have set the bar extremely low for what a good Star Wars movie can be, I’ve got my hopes set high. Great teaser trailer.
Few songs get it as right as Andrew Peterson’s “Don’t You Want to Thank Someone,” and I’m thankful that he has put together a video for it, even though it’s an edit (the original is almost 10 minutes long). I am thankful for many things this holiday season. The gift of good music is a big part of that.
So I bought my last “early showing” ticket to a Peter Jackson/JRR Tolkien movie last night. And this morning I come across this “super-trailer.” It’s good seeing things in context. And while it gets a number of great moments from the series in one place, there are at least a dozen more (and better).
The video also mentions a link to a Google Chrome Experiment. Guess I know how I’ll be spending part of my holiday weekend.
Friendship in the grown-up world is still something of mystery to me, but I am thankful for the music of Andrew Osenga, which often reminds me of the challenge to love and be loved.
It’s nice to have one last song for the series, and extremely nice that the accompanying video brings in clips from The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Looking forward to see how the saga comes to an end in a few weeks.
Last week brought the season’s ending for Doctor Who. It didn’t bring me the frustration the I feel whenever a season ends with some “reboot” of the timeline, but it also didn’t bring me the satisfaction that I often feel, too. And while Missy was a great character, it was Nick Frost as Santa Claus that saved the episode for me (granted, I should probably watch the episode again before making a final judgment). The BBC Children in Need Appeal’s Night did a two-minute preview of the 2014 Christmas special, with Santa, Clara, and the Doctor all in tow. Check it out. It’s got to tide us over until Christmas.
Near the end of my college career, I took a fiction-writing class. It was not my crowning college achievement.
I wrote one pedantic short story about some college student taking the bus home only to . . . well, I can’t remember the rest. Other than that, I started thinking through what every guy with a thing for science fiction and fantasy does: writing his own epic narrative. I remember well the day that the small class discussed a handful of “fragments” I had put together. A couple of readers were curious about the greater whole; the rest of the class was frustrated. That was part of the story’s intention.
My story opened in media res, with a nameless, history-less figure appearing in a field following a storm (shades of Superman, anyone?). As the character encountered people and places and artifacts, he would learn more about himself, and the reader would learn more about this odd world that such a blank-slate character had found himself in. It was an existential journey that would lead to certainty.
I think of that story, and the frustration it caused some of those kind readers that day, often, mainly because I often feel like that character: knowing and not knowing, traversing a landscape that he should know well but doesn’t (and yet with an author’s confidence that he will). This has been especially true for me in the context of my tripartite faith (faith in general, my faith, and the faith). Twelve years of trying to teach the Bible to teenagers can do that to you: you’re lost and found all the time. Throw in issues and questions about church, friendships, politics, and the creeping suspicion that you are ever and always in the minority, and you’ve got the makings of a story ripe for deconstruction and a sour ending.
But every now and again, just like the lead character in my unfinished story, I come across a person, travel through a place, or discover some artifact (quite often a book, sometimes a song) that both reveals and reminds. This past Christmas it happened while talking with a college roommate on a run to get pizza. Something in the talk of past and present set me on a course, a trail really, that I am still trying to follow, really believe is leading me somewhere.
And as with that unfinished character in that unfinished story, context big and small can mean everything.
This past fall break I had the opportunity to see Dave Eggers in conversation with Tobias Wolff. It became the highlight of my first-ever trip to San Francisco (don’t get me wrong- walking the Golden Gate Bridge was great, but so is talking Old Testament prophets with one of your favorite authors). The talk was at Sanford and it was all about Eggers’s 2013 novel, The Circle. Money quote: why trust your children when you can track them?
Eggers has had one novel since The Circle. I’ve mentioned and even linked to the first chapter of his most recent work, Your Prophets, Where Are They? and Your Fathers? Do They Live Forever? It’s a good read (especially with a weird topical link to works like Interstellar and The Martian, but more on that some other time). Anytime Eggers releases something new, it’s a chance to read something potentially great.
Which is exciting because Eggers just released a short story online through The New Yorker. So whether you love short stories or just don’t have the time for a whole novel, here’s a chance for you to read a good Eggers story, “The Alaska of Giants and Gods.” You can read it here. Head’s up: the language gets a little rough in a few places. If you read it, let me know what you think!
One of the best seminary lectures I ever sat through was a one-off given by a graduate student trying out his skills for a Systematic Theology class. He asked us to list off all of the different terms used in the Bible for “salvation.” Adoption, one student said. Reconciliation, added another. Soon the board at the front of the room was filled with good words and phrases for the thing that God does in the life of the believer through Jesus. It was a simple exercise that impressed upon me the idea of seeing all of the facets of a thing, picking it apart even, but also of putting the pieces back together again. Being mindful of the whole.
I think there’s some real truth in that today, definitely for faith but also for so many other things in a fragmented, specialized society. Consumer industry is based on taking one thing and running with it (with the exception of digital technology, which has now moved towards housing everything in one network and on one device). I suppose that when the stakes are high, you choose early and work hard in hopes that the one thing you focus on will take you the farthest.
I choose to believe in the bigger picture, and that striving to see it all together matters. Real context and connection for real content, biblical truth not isolated from the biblical story. It’s no easy thing to put seemingly discrete parts back together again, let alone keep them that way in whatever healthy tension the collecting provides. But it’s a skill worth striving for, working at, correcting if it has been damaged. If we love a God who “holds it all together,” we might be wise to try and do the same as best we can.
I am so thankful for musicians and the music they find and make and share. Andrew Peterson’s music has been a big part of my life’s soundtrack these last few years, so any new music from his is always a blessing. This is the title track from his “greatest hits” collection, which dropped today. A number of good lines stand out in the song, but the line I used for the title of this post interests me, sounds like an echo of what I believe was Bono’s addition to “All Along the Watchtower,” where he sings “all I’ve got is a red guitar, three chords, and the truth.” You can check out more from Andrew Peterson at his website, the Rabbit Room.
Space Enough, and Time 