The Eagle & Child

I went with some friends to see Avatar on Friday.  I had been pretty annoyed that it got so many Academy Award nominations, but I had not actually seen the film, so my annoyance was based on absolutely nothing.  I no longer feel that way.  It is an absolutely stunning film, in terms of immersive special effects–James Cameron has created a beautiful, convincing world, which, quite frankly, I wouldn’t object to living in.  And the film entertains: it’s nearly 3-hours long, but it doesn’t feel that long for a moment.  It deserves the nominations for these reasons alone.

Story-wise, however, it’s nothing special.  But you’ve probably heard that.  You may even have seen this hilarious Avatar Plot Fail:

see more Epic Fails

I’ve never seen Pocahantas, but that sounds about right.  I saw a lot of Dances with Wolves (and therefore also The Last Samurai) in the film.  I made a prediction based on the Dances with Wolves Connection, but thankfully it did not happen.

(I am now also put in mind of a film I saw as a child, in which a First Nations boy is hustled to the top of a mountain by a group of other  boys from his tribe. On the mountaintop, they stick eagle feathers into him–actually piercing his skin–and then he either jumps off the cliff or is pushed off.  But instead of falling to his death, he turns into an eagle.  Does that sound familiar to anyone?  I have no idea what that it could be.  But I digress…)

Critiques: “Unobtainium”?  Really?  We are on this planet to mine for this highly profitable mineral.  However, we are not able to get access to the most concentrated stores, due to the presence of the Na’vi people.  This mineral, which we are unable to obtaindue to these people, is called…er…”Unobtanium”.

Momentary de-suspension of disbelief: During the final fight scene, when the huge robot operated by the general loses his gun and then HE PULL A BIG KNIFE FROM A SHEATH!  Seriously? Am I crazy to think that in the future, knives will not be standard issue for combat robots?

That aside, I heartily suggest that you watch this film in theatres and in 3D.  In fact, I’ll go one step further than suggesting: I urge you to see it in theatres and in 3D.  But only because of the captiviating 3D world.

After the film I opined to my companions that the solution to violence and oppression in both film and reality is inevitably more violence.  Can the Na’vi (essentially a representation of the First Nations people before the arrival of Europeans) ever return to their peaceful, in-tune-with-the-natural-world lifestyle after experiencing a battle of high-tech weapons of if-not-mass-then-still-pretty-big destruction?

I suggested that what was unique about the story of Christ’s efforts against the forces of oppression and suffering was that he did not meet them on their terms, but on entirely different terms. One of my companions was intrigued in a “I’m not sure about that” kind of way.  I agreed that there was a lot of violence in the Gospels–the crucifixion being its ultimate example–but suggested that it was one-way.  My companion wondered about the wrath of the Father poured out on the Son.  And for the first time in my life, I think, I was really hit by the fact that there is not one Theory of the Atonement, but several theories, and that I really have no clue about what they all are.

I started writing something here about why I’m uncomfortable with the penal substitutionary atonement theory, but I quickly realized that if I continued I would be blowing a lot of hot air, because I haven’t a clue what I’m talking about.  Happily, I notice that for the next two weeks, we will be discussion atonement–or more accurately, “soteriology”–in my theology class.

Somehow or other last week I wound up at the Cafe Press website looking at this t-shirt. It reads:

God said it.

I interpreted it
as best I could in light of all the filters
imposed by my upbringing and culture,
which I try to control for but you can never do a perfect job.

That doesn’t exactly settle it
but it does give me enough of a platform
to base my values and decisions on.

It is a satirical reworking of the old saying, “God said it, I believe it, that settles it.”  If I didn’t have such bad experiences with fun t-shirts shrinking and wearing out very quickly, I might order one.  Perhaps there’s a mug available.

My hermeneutics classmates and I had a good laugh over that one, as it happens to be a fitting t-shirt for the stuff we’ve been discussing in class.

A couple of friends and I were talking about some “facts” one of them read on the internet and we came up with another variation: “The internet said it, I believe it, that settles it.”  Good times.

I’m in second semester Hebrew and we are already translating some narrative text.  This is quite mind-boggling.  Only 4 months ago I wouldn’t have known a lick of Hebrew, other than YHWH and “shalom”.  Now I’m creating a wooden, rudimentary but readable translation!  I’m no translator, mind you, and I’ve been told that Hebrew poetry is something else altogether (i.e. I’m not ready to try and translate the Psalms), but still…

We are working through Exodus 32 at the moment–the Golden Calf sequence. For each class we have to translate approximately 3 verses and we spend part of the class going through our translations, discussing reasons for translating a certain way, making corrections, etc.

Here is my translation of verses 15-17, which we will correct in class tomorrow:

¹⁵ And Moses turned and descended from the mountain with two of the tablets of the reminders (urgings?) in his hand, tablets which were covered with writing on both sides, and on either side they were written.

¹⁶ And the tablets were the work of God and the writing [was] the writing of God, he who engraved upon the tablets.

¹⁷ And Joshua heard the sound of the wickedness of the people and he said to Moses, “(I hear/there is?) the sound of war in the camp.”

Here is the NASB translation (probably the most wooden/literal English translation):

¹⁵ Then Moses turned and went down from the mountain with the two tablets of the testimony in his hand, tablets which were written on both sides; they were written on one side and the other.

¹⁶ The tablets were God’s work, and the writing was God’s writing engraved on the tablets.

¹⁷ Now when Joshua heard the sound of the people as they shouted, he said to Moses, “There is a sound of war in the camp.” (NASB)

Not bad, eh?  Mind you, I do rely quite heavily on the lexicon and these three verses were relatively easy (I’ve botched portions of other verses), but still…

Translation is turning into one of my favourite seminary pastimes.  I look forward to doing it.  Sometimes when I’m working on a paper or reading a dense book, I’ll think to myself, “I’d rather be translating.”

* * *

Learning an original language, I’m beginning to see some of the nuance that is lost in translation.  Take, for instance, the way the Israelites refer to the golden calf.  Depending on your translation, v. 1 will have them ask Aaron to make them “a god” or “gods”, and v. 4 will have them say, “This is your god” or “these are your gods”.  Some of those translations will then mark the alternate singular or plural rendering of “god” in the footnote.  The problem is that the Hebrew term translated god/gods is plural, but the calf is a single thing, so there is some question about the correct translation of the term for “god”.

But what is even more interesting is the fact that the term for “god/gods” is Elohim, which is also the term used for God (that is, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob).  Elohim can be translated “god”, “gods” or “God” (for God it’s kind of like the royal “we”).  Most of the class noticed this issue and our professor noted that there is some question among Hebrew scholars about whether the Israelites were turning to other gods, which is how we normally take the golden calf story, or if the golden calf was meant to be a representation for Yahweh, the God of Israel.  In both cases, the Israelites have broken a commandment–either worshiping other gods or making an idol–so it doesn’t change anything, but it’s still an interesting nuance missed in the English translations.

* * *

The president of the college and seminary sight-reads both Hebrew and Greek, translating on the spot when he lectures and preaches.  It’s quite impressive. Check out his CV in the link above–he translated Job for the New Living Translation and lists translating Akkadian and Ugaritic (other ancient near eastern languages) texts as one of his hobbies.  Awesome! (He also lists reading P.G. Wodehouse–huzzah!).

I asked him about becoming so familiar with the languages.  He told me that when he became a pastor, which was when he was in seminary, he made it standard practice to translate every passage of scripture he preached on.  He suggested translating just a little bit every day as a good practice.

I’m excited about the possibilities.  We received free copies of the Hebrew Bible from the Canadian Bible Society, but sometimes it is difficult to read.  So I’ve order the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia, the critical edition of the Hebrew text,with the intention of disciplining myself to translate just a little bit every day.

Today a package arrived in the mail, which is delivered to our student box at the seminary.  I was working in the library in a private study room and was chatting with Dixie on Google Talk about it.

She’s expecting a t-shirt that reads, “got meryl streep?”

The following conversation ensued (edited for irrelevancy):

Me: Buster?

Dixie: yesh?

Me: Ah, you are there.

Dixie: i heard the beeping and came over here

Me: We got something from Florida today. What would that be? From a Susan Livingston.*

Dixie: the t-shirt probably

Me: It feels like clothing, but it seems too small to be the t-shirt.

Dixie: why don’t you open it and see? I hope it doesn’t say “Got Susan Livingston” on it

Me: I’m opening the envelope…

…There’s a white powder in it…

Dixie: shut up

Me: Also a t-shirt.

Dixie: how does it look?

Me: Good.

Dixie: “Got Meryl Stripe”

Me: It’s says “got merv strelp?”

Dixie: lol

Me: I’m funny…  I’m lol-ing alone in my little study carrel here.

Really, I was only wheezing to myself in my little study carrel.  I’m not sure if that counts as lol-ing or not.

(Here’s a picture Dixie wearing the shirt.)
_____________
*Names have been changed to protect the innocent.

I’m exhausted.  I was up at 6:15 this morning and spoke in our church this morning and then we spent the afternoon with some old acquaintances/new friends.  No Sunday afternoon nap means I probably won’t do any heavy reading tonight.  Instead, maybe a little light reading and some Hebrew translation.

I’m reflecting back on my sermon this morning.  It certainly wasn’t my best sermon. Other than accidentally missing some of the stuff in my notes–useful, clarifying stuff, but not a deal-breaker–I think the presentation of it was ok (but not great).  But I did learn some lessons–and I am still a student of the sermon.

Earlier this week I was talking to a classmate about the homiletics (”preaching 101″) classes he took and what kinds of things he retained from those classes.  He noted specifically that one of the most valuable things he learned was that you need to have a clear concept or point you are trying to express–in other words, make sure your sermon is focused, much like it’s good to have a clear thesis statement when writing a paper (something which I’m pretty sure I’ve never had).  That may not seem profound, but strangely enough, lack of focus was my biggest problem this time around.  I knew what I wanted to say, but I didn’t say it clearly and so the message may have come across rambly and disjointed.  As I was preparing, I kept thinking I was heading towards focus, but I never really got there.

I need to learn to filter out the extraneous material.  It is sometimes tempting to cram as much material in as you can find. Even if the material may be relevant or applicable to a passage, it may not be useful to communicate a particular message.  In fact, too much material may actually obscure the message.

Also, I think early in the preparation I should not hold too tightly to what may seem at the time to be  a good idea. If an idea gets cemented in my mind as a good idea too early in the process, it may actually derail the rest of the process because I will feel compelled to force all other ideas to fit with or around the original idea.  That usually doesn’t work.  To a degree, I think that was the case this time around.

The second thing which became apparent to me is something which I’m not sure how to resolve.  I became aware this morning that I was not really “present” as I spoke, and thinking back, I’m not sure that I have ever been.  By this I mean that I am speaking but not really self-aware that I’m preaching; using my notes but not really being aware of using my notes (in fact, shortly after sitting down I wondered if I had missed a page); looking at the listeners but not really seeing them.  Does that make sense?  I don’t like getting to the end of a sermon and realizing that I wasn’t really present for 20 minutes or more of speaking.

Maybe the solution is simply to relax and try to engage the listeners.  Perhaps it would also help to be more familiar with the sermon you’ve prepared–that is, have it more or less done a day or two before it is to be spoken and then run over it several times.  And then maybe use a very rough outline of the sermon when speaking, rather than referring to a manuscript.  I tried using an outline this morning, but I went back to the manuscript fairly quickly.  That was, I think, a combination of nerves and not being familiar enough with the material.

Lessons learned. I hope I remember them next time around.

Just a thought I had as I was ruminating on these words of Jesus: “Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, yet they died. But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which people may eat and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever.” (John 6:49-51a).

I’m gonna throw this thought out there; if you like it, you can take it, and if you don’t, you can send it right back:

I’ve wondered before about the possibility of there being death prior to the “fall” of humans–possibly even death as a part of the created order.  I’ve considered this from a somewhat scientific angle (so far as my limited scientific capacity allowed), but not from a theological or ontological angle.  (This is all speculative, of course.)

What if death was originally meant to be a sort of metamorphosis in the process of creation and that, prior to the fall, humans would naturally come out on the other side of death in a sort of resurrection into the final form of the physical life?  That is, what if creation (or human development specifically) is not complete until a human had passed through death into new life?  This came to mind as I was reading this passage because while Jesus promises eternal life (”not die,” “will live forever”), his disciples still died.  People of faith around the world die natural deaths every day.  It’s a question I’ve had for a while.

Today, however, it occurred to me that Jesus’ death was necessary in order for him to enter into the eternal life.  That doesn’t sound very profound, but listen:  Jesus’ resurrected body is completely physical, but in a way which we have not experienced.  He eats and drinks and can be touched, but evidently he also walks through walls.  Could the transition between our physicality and “resurrected physicality” be made without dying?

Going back to the result of Adam and Eve’s disobedience in Genesis 3, then, this idea would mean that the result of this disobedience was not death in itself but a specifically permanent death–that is, death which is not passed through, but one which is permanent, without resurrection into a new physical reality.

Interesting idea.  But possibly crazy.

Cartoon by Dave Walker. Find more cartoons you can freely re-use on your blog at We Blog Cartoons.

Dixie taped me walking home from the library this afternoon.  By that time the snow had stopped blowing around, but the wind was still high.  This video gives you an idea of the drifts that have grown on the road in front of our trailer.  The drift I pat near the end is sitting on the part of the road that had been cleared with a snowblower this morning.  I hope the snowblower comes through again tomorrow morning or Luke won’t be going to preschool.

I was born in the Netherlands and lived there for the first 7 years of my life. The weather there is mild and snow, as I recall, was an occasional treat. But my first winter in Caronport, a small town on the plains of southern Saskatchewan, had me acclimatized to inland Canadian winters. In fact, it was in drifts much like those outside our trailer (possibly bigger) in which my mother worried she’d find me when I disappeared during that first prairie storm we experienced in 1985.

A day like we had today would have shut down towns on Canadian coasts, but we land-locked prairie folk are a hearty people, so those of us who live on campus or in Otterburne across the river bundled up and went to the library to study or to offices to work. The school was effectively closed (all classes cancelled) because travel was simply not safe for commuters coming from Winnipeg, Steinbach, Niverville and other villages in the surrounding areas. With the blowing snow, visibility was extremely low and snow drifts on the highways can be treacherous.

But here’s the thing about Canadian prairie people: I’m fairly certain that many of the staff and students were a little ashamed and frustrated that they let a winter storm keep them housebound. As much as we often pine for our brief summers, we take pride in our harsh, cold winters and our willingness to put on toque, parka and leather mittens and face the blowing snow and wind-chills. These days will some day be recounted with pride and mutual understanding, like soldiers exchanging stories from the battlefield.

As a part of my ongoing campaign of shameless self-promotion, I direct you the CanWebbie’s interview with me.  I warn you: it is wholly uninspiring (other than the questi0ns asked) and I offer advice which I don’t follow.

Also, here is a brief, poorly filmed and uninspiring video, shot at about 9:00 this morning, of the meteorological craziness in which we are living today:

That doesn’t really capture it. There’s a significant snow drift behind our van and everywhere else (even if we got out of our driveway we wouldn’t get out of the street) and the winds are blowing snow around at upwards of 70km/h. We are cozy enough in our trailer, though.