Tagged: love
They Will Know
Hardly a day has gone by while I have been a professing, confessing Christian that I don’t think about the vast increase of nearly irrefutable knowledge since Bible times—and its seeming ability to dethrone gods.
This new Jurassic Park movie is one more stumbling block for Christianity. It’s not just, “There are no dinosaurs in the Bible.” It’s not just, “Using the Bible timelines, there’s no accounting for dinosaurs.” It’s not even merely, “Christians go to unappealing lengths to rationalize away everything that dinosaurs mean to timelines of the universe.” It’s that dinosaurs are certainly not gods and yet they have seemingly trounced the god of the Bible—and effortlessly at that.
As I mentioned last post, I’m currently reading selections of the greatest math and science books, and that means Euclid. When it comes to science, you start with math. When it comes to math, you start with Euclid. (Wait for it…) It’s elementary.
I have mentioned Euclid in past posts, and I have mentioned that I think comparing what Euclid was doing circa Bible times with what Biblical authors and God Himself was doing circa Bible times is endlessly fruitful.
This time around, the guided reading book put special emphasis on the fact that Euclid was concerned with ideal figures, not with drawn figures. Put differently, his definitions, postulates, common notions, and eventually propositions were not about, “Can you draw an equilateral triangle or circle etc.?” No, they were about, “Can you build a mental construction (field of study we call geometry) which supports itself against all attack?”
Student: “Why is a point that which has no parts?”
Teacher: “Because that’s what Definition 1 says.”
Smart Student: “Okay, I get it.”
It’s not far removed from fiction.
Reader: “Why is Batman not able to fly?”
Author: “Because he’s just the man Bruce Wayne.”
Smart Reader: “Okay, I get it.”
Unlike fiction (you’re telling me no one ever notices Bruce Wayne is not present when Batman is??), however, Euclid holds up tolerably well.
And my point, regrouping, is to highlight that Euclid was intentionally teaching things he knew were only in his mind.
Dinosaurs—only dead objects.
Triangles—at their purest, only in our minds.
Religion—inadequate written and spoken term for core reasons for actions and ideas among living people.
****
Next, a lady at work yesterday rolled up her sleeve to reveal a new-ish tat of a scene of the “North Woods” on her forearm, from what I could tell without staring.
At the gentlemen’s clubs, I saw many women with bodies all tatted up. I learned that some men found it ugly, and others liked it. I found it kinda sexy when the tattoos were thought through. But no matter my opinions today, I can remember initially being repulsed by what I thought the ink did to an otherwise beautiful figure.
Yesterday, I felt that revulsion again. This was a pretty darn normal looking lady—definitely not a lady of the night choosing fast living at every turn. I then felt, “She’s searching for meaning. That’s the only explanation. She’s feeling like a cog in a machine and needs to individualize and ground herself. That’s why she took the counter-culture path.”
I know, I know. Seems like a lot of thought for something trivial. But my religion compels me to see it’s not trivial. Everything matters. And most of all, losing matters. It’s clear that religion has been losing. At every turn this is true. Why is religion losing?
This brings me to my title.
I’ve been studying Ezekiel for some time now. And many times the LORD gives, “And they will know that I am the LORD,” as the reason for his actions. Most often, his actions were lethal judgement of the members of a prideful tribe.
I’m not gonna ask the corresponding question about dinosaurs. But I do want to ask it about the math and science geniuses. What power did ideal figures have in staving off death? What power does a jurassic period in history have in clinging to life?
How about the tattoo? Did my co-worker’s tattoo satisfy?
****
Clear, consistent thought is a must. It doesn’t obtain eternal life, mind you, but it sure is essential while on Earth.
Dinosaurs are fascinating to contemplate—especially when they are destroying national monuments.
It feels wonderful to make long-lasting decisions (permanent tattoos). I can speak as an expert on this one. Being able to act decisively with an aircraft which does not forgive poor judgment is half the reason to become a pilot. My thoughts and actions matter. I’m important.
But even I can report that making many vital decisions still doesn’t satisfy.
Religion satisfies.
At the end of the day, I see American history recording our current age as “one in which we discovered the reason religion didn’t die.”
“And they will know that I am the LORD.”
[SPOILER] A Pilot Weeping, A Review of Top Gun: Maverick
As the Memorial Day themed church service began this morning, I just knew I was going to be in the right mood to cry during the movie in the afternoon. Some days ya’ just know.
The opening sequence confirmed what I suspected—but the dam held.
Oceans, forests, hills, deserts, mountains, jungles, and, oh yes, skies are the appropriate natural descriptors for how much emotional size was packed into each and every scene. Skies and skies of feeling, packed onto a smaller and smaller IMAX screen.
Still, squinted eyes were able to hold back the waters.
Somewhere in the training sequences I consciously decided that I was going to just let it happen, no matter who might look over and see.
When Phoenix has the birdstrike, her quick identification of the malfunction and even quicker reaction to save the aircraft struck a chord and finally a few tears came out. It felt amazing.
Then when Maverick surprisingly appears to run the course in 2:15, there was no holding back. No sobbing, mind you. But definitely communication from my soul in the form of slow building tear bombs dropping down my cheeks.
I wanted Maverick to succeed. He’d been talking like a boss the whole movie, and finally he was going to show the world that he could back up his words with action.
****
My life looks very, very different than it did leading up to and during my time in US Air Force pilot training. It’s astonishing to me to even consider who I was then and who I am today. But more astonishing is how this movie affected me. It brought to the surface something long buried deep within.
That something is the following fact: Pilot training was the last time in my life where I wasn’t embarrassed to do my best.
We all did our best.
Not anymore. That’s not allowed.
I’m up to fifty pushups five times during the walks with my toddler, these days. Right out in public. Fifty. Cars driving by. Same spots. Neighbors able to see. Fifty. All the way down and up. Fifty. I’m forty years old and struggle to do fifty pushups, but I also know that not one person who may happen to see the struggle can do more than me.
That’s the closest event (maybe these blogs when I’m in the mood) I can consider as one in which I give my best anymore. Even my best friend from college doesn’t want to play when I really put effort in.
But my pilot training class of ‘05? We did our best.
What’s changed? Now that’s a weeping good question.
The End of Dreams Is Bittersweet
Showtime is 5pm. I’ve dreamed of seeing Top Gun: Maverick for probably 32 years. As the hours count down, I’m not sure that I want to wake up anymore.
I saw Top Gun for the first time at a friend’s house in 3rd grade, shortly after moving to a new city. It would’ve been early 1990. Soon after, I then sat in a tv/video store in the mall where they had a laser disc of Top Gun playing just the first half, basically until Goose died on repeat. My mom was off shopping and was perfectly content to leave me perfectly content as she did. Then, somewhere along the way I got the soundtrack on cassette tape and listened endlessly.
That opening. It’s like the reason surround sound was invented for home theaters. A laser disc copy was at another friend’s house and we fired it up too, mostly for the bass of the opening scene.
Top Gun. It has been the movie that never was going to have a sequel, and yet was so beloved that everyone wanted a sequel—assuming it could be done right.
I told the squadron commander at my first unit post-pilot training, “I am the guy who saw Top Gun and said, ‘I have to at least try to do that.’ That’s about all I know.”
He respected my honesty, even as he probably wished I knew a little bit more about what I had gotten myself into.
So many memories of that movie are woven into the memories of my actual life. There’s no separating the two. Art influencing life, life influencing art.
It all ends in a few hours. Above all, one dream has been searchingly saturating my life for three decades: Top Gun 2.
When the credits roll, I will still be a pilot. But when the credits roll, there will not be a boy’s dream of becoming a pilot; there will not be a boy’s dream of Top Gun 3.
So this is it.
The end of dreams is bittersweet.
I Thought I Caused the Formula Shortage…
It’s true. I have been feeling guilty. I thought I caused the formula shortage.
I remember the date, the same as you do. February 25th. It was the day after Russia attacked an area of Russia held by a people called Ukrainians for the past 30+ years.
Can you blame me? I had a baby due in a week or two and, in a moment of weakness, thought, “I remember the toilet paper run of ‘20. I’m not gonna be caught without formula when the results of last night formally play out in six months.”
So I rushed to Walmart and purchased $500 of diapers and formula.
Essentially walk-lunging down the main vein aisle between groceries and large women’s lingerie, I finally made it to the diaper section. I was sweating, not from the exercise, but from fright, as I realized I’d need a cart for six or so huge diaper boxes, sizes ranging from 1-4, and didn’t know whether I could trust leaving them alone whilst I went back to find one.
Cart in hand, diaper boxes crashing to the floor with a volume that drew far too much attention to the supposed clandestine operation, I then thought, “And formula. My wife’s production slowed around the 6 month point with A- and so I should grab some formula.”
When I saw the $50 a can price, I balked and said, “I know what I’ll do. I’ll grab two today and then just casually pick up another each time I visit. Wouldn’t want to do anything crazy.”
Making my way back to the front, I over-waved to the Somalis who looked at me as I struggled to keep the items balanced in the cart. “Hi. Yes. That’s right. Keep your heads covered, ladies. Faces, too. Nothing to see there, just like nothing to see here. I just realized I have a baby coming! Stupid American dad is all! Haha!” I jested.
All the while I knew that, supplies in hand—bird in the bush, you know—my child would be a veritable uberman to their already disadvantaged offspring.
Credit card passed the chip detector test, and I was out the door.
Only one time did a box fall off the cart on the bumpy trip to the car, a fact which none of the passing meth heads seemed to notice, and I eventually made it.
My tiny, but fuel efficient, Nissan Versa Note could barely hold all the goodies. The backseat was certainly employed for the proud duty of transporting size 2 & 3.
Fast forward several weeks, through me declaring we are in WW3, pivoting to the realization that “Ukraine is not a country”, and suddenly, after seeing celebrity gossip unseat war and rumors of war, I began to hear there was a infant formula shortage.
Imagine my guilt.
Scratch that. Imagine my first gasp of guilt.
“Huo! Did I do that?”
Then some more time went by. Nights were filled with either heavy, short-lived sleep or EMS flights toting around ailing patients. (I might point out for your edification that one was a “mums the word” victim of a stabbing in only his underwear, which I took as a friendly reminder to “Be nice to yo’ wife, Pete…”)
But today the headlines got me again. So I googled it. What is causing the shortage, I wondered? Me?
The answer? Trump.
Lol. Or that’s what The Atlantic’s Derek Thompson had to say. (Babylon Bee too.)
Whatever.
The important thing is—still perfect.
I have yet to make a mistake.
Review of the Hype Surrounding “Top Gun: Maverick“
The hype is real. The hype is palpable. The hype is fantastic.
It’s the kind of hype that inspires. It’s of a sort which begs the question, “Is it possible he actually made the perfect movie?”
I’ll say this: the just released official music video for Lady Gaga’s “Hold My Hand” is the perfect music video for a film soundtrack’s main song.
I’m officially applying for pilot training.
WW3 Diary Entry 6
And another piece of evidence I use to determine and broadcast that we are in the opening stage of WW3 proper, not some preamble to preambles but the real thing that historians of the future will use to date and explain what they mean by “World War Three,” another piece of evidence is this whole “war criminal” talk.
You’re telling me that the country (countries) who is going to hold Putin accountable for War Crimes (justice/alignment) is the same one that doesn’t have the balls to define “boy” and “girl” or to suggest that you’re born that way? Umm, no. That’s like Luke Skywalker popping in to Iron Man’s movie to save the day with “the force” by hopping onto Black Stallion. It just doesn’t happen. There are rules to our universe.
Moral high ground implies “moral,” which in turn implies belief in and enforcement of meaning. And this meaning is manifest by words having definitions. It’s also manifest by rules, by order, by standards.
No gay LGBTQ+ is going to condemn me to hell, get outta here. Gay means anti-consequence; do what-the-eff-ever.
Nope.
Putin won’t be tried for war crimes because no one has the moral high ground.
And this fact, or the current reveal of it, means that we’re at war. This is a component of war. “War is hell.”
And the way he is stopped or held accountable is violence.
Boys sporting girl’s hairstyles and wearing ladies underwear will not simultaneously be running the international courts and trying men for war crimes.
Hahahahahahahaha. That’ll be the day.
Step 2: Gather The Data
For review. Note the legend on the bottom left.
In short, the “red line” (which when crossed by Russians will trigger unmentionable alterations to our lives) is actually blue on this map.
Step 3 is “List all possible solutions.” I mention it so you know. But I’m still at Step 2.
One Fruitful (Hear: “Motivational”) Christian Perspective on Hegel’s “The ‘State’ as ‘Rational Life of Self-Conscious Freedom’”
Christians can read Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel fruitfully, if we downgrade slightly Hegel’s “belief” in the State as “self-knowing” to a “for fun, guys, let’s contemplate what religion looks like to the State if the State, itself, was the perfect being. The highest being.” (You may want to bookmark this one. It’s odd enough that you’ll need time to think it through for yourself.)
This downgrade must be made by the Christian, because otherwise Hegel actually competes with Moses, John and the others behind the Bible. And as far as that competition would be concerned, Hegel obviously loses because he does not promise eternal life, like the Bible writer’s do.
But! But, subsequent to the downgrade, Hegel’s conception of the State as a “concrete, self-aware being” is intriguing and can be useful to our Christian labors. How, you ask? Here’s how.
I haven’t been able find a reason to join a church. I haven’t. As most of you know, I grew up in church, left when I left for college, then moved away to the AF and from Christianity, and then ended up at a Christian seminary in a master’s program. While there, and just before there, I joined a black church, but the cultural divide was so great that it really doesn’t count as being a church member. The situation would be more accurately described by saying that both the real church members and I merely filled the role of “safe, outside consultants”.
Well, I’ve got a family now; there’ll be a grand total of three, not two, kids here in a matter of days. And I have a fourth working out her salvation elsewhere. And I believe that Jesus Christ is Lord, that I have the Holy Spirit in me, that all should be done for the glory of God, and so I want to continue down the Christian way. But I struggle with the church membership bit. And I know I’m not alone. We all struggle with it, Christians and non-believers. Why join a church?
Well, here’s where Hegel’s modified look at the State comes in. If the State were this perfect being, then necessarily in our belief-in-this-being’s-perfection, we’d naturally agree with his, the State’s, perfect judgement. And on the matter of church membership, the State would encourage it.
Why? Because in the behavior of citizens being members of the local church (no matter the particular denominations etc.) the citizens are essentially “buying into” or “leaning into” or “doubling down on” their belief in the State.
Now, Hegel never mentions what I’m about to, but by my thinking the following runs through his thinking like a vein.
The idea here in this post, the simplified, fruitful version if Hegel’s idea, is not more complicated than to say without strong activity in the small institutions of the State (nation) by citizens, the big or overall institution (the nation) cannot be made as good as it could be made. Of course, underscoring this concept—and hopefully made clear by the post title’s “One Christian Perspective”—is the belief that the church is more than just a “small institution by which to make perfect the State.” What Christian reads the Bible and thinks “Oh! I get it. It’s like what Hegel said!”? But to a man of action like myself, the fact that this type of thinking moves me up from the comfort of the couch is the important part.
Would it move you up from the couch, unchurched Christian? Love of nation as the reason to stick out the undesirable parts of church membership?
If so, don’t tell me in the comments. Instead, look for me and my “bleed on the flag to keep the stripes red” love of country in church this weekend.
Found: A Tale of Unexpected Reunion
“Yeah, housekeepers don’t really keep anything like that. Most people wouldn’t drive back for a sock,” I heard the receptionist reply to me, damningly, over the phone.
“But I’m a regular. It’d be no trouble for me,” I retorted unthinkingly.
“Well, they wouldn’t know that,” she continued, unmoved. Then, to be nice, “So don’t forget your underwear next time either, cause they’ll pitch that too, haha!”
“Haha. That’s a deal,” I replied in kind, though maliciously pouting on the inside. See, I knew all about dirty necrophiliac hotel housekeepers. Throw forgotten socks and underwear away? Right. Sure. If by “throw away” she meant, “sniffed every ounce of man scent out of them while dreaming of someday being friends with George Clooney,” then I could believe they “threw them away.”
I wasn’t about to cry, but I did hold back a torrent of emotion. Frustration and disbelief being the order of the day. How could I—I, Pete Deakon!—forget one of the greatest socks ever assembled on this side of heaven in my hotel room? Phone chargers and loose change, that’s my calling card. Not one of the best socks ever.
Its warmth was unmatched. Its thickness, divine. And when my foot first entered it, I don’t mean each time, I mean I remember the first time I put it on, I swear I saw the face of Jesus.
But now it was gone.
How many times could I look in all the places it could’ve run off to? I triple checked the drawer. I checked both the washer and the dryer at least four times—nothing. I checked my t-shirts. Sometimes, as you know, a sock has been known to get *inside* the garment and I’m not just talking polyester gym wear. Even cotton shirts have been known to swallow a sock or two.
Still nothing.
Days went by.
Every time I passed my suitcase—the offending article—I’d nonchalantly open the lid and double-check what was inside. I mean, surely I wasn’t expecting to find anything, especially after so many days and so much effort.
Late last night, however, a novel angle came to mind. I remembered that my wife, at random, scoops up my clothes from the foot of the bed and unthinkingly—I won’t say with evil intent—puts them in her laundry basket.
“Eureka!” I told myself. “That’s got to be it.”
And rather than get out of bed and look right then and there, I savored the thought like only I know how, and slept peaceably until the morning.
“Fart,” I said, hands mingling with bras and who knows what other odd kinds of accoutrements the woman punishes the Maytag man with.
Was there no end to my pain?!
The hour had become late; if I didn’t get going now, I wouldn’t be able to capitalize on a quiet morning that spontaneously bestowed itself on this overworked—an apparently victim of spiritual warfare—father of three, going on four.
I opened the sock drawer to pick out my underwear and socks. There it was—the evidence that I was without. One sock—unmated.
I thought, “I will never again find a sock to replace these.” I was now talking aloud to myself, “These were the best socks Cabelas ever sold. They don’t even have them anymore. Fuck Bass Pro.”
I reached for a pair of underwear.
What is shorter than “instantly”, dear reader?
Seriously. A second is shorter than a minute. A moment is shorter than a second—some lovey-dovey movie taught me that. And I have to believe an instant is shorter than a second. But what I need to describe is an even shorter amount of time.
A spark.
I mean that in the time it takes to feel a spark, I knew something was different about the pair of underwear I was trying to pull up. It had undue thickness and, again, as quick as a spark, I knew it was heavy—too heavy. I mean, I wasn’t grabbing one of my “off-the-hangar-at-Macy’s-one-pair-only-Tommy-Hilfiger-I-think-they-count-as-MAGA-colors” pairs of 100% cotton underwear. I was touching a newer—and nearly ethereal—pair of Hanes—out of a 5 pack.
As gravity worked against me, all in this single spark of time, I squeezed all the harder and noticed that my fingers were kept separate by some material, some seemingly hidden, spongey, like the thickest of wools-
“My sock!!!”
Picture the blur that is the Guatemalan daycare kids’ hands as they open the Christmas gifts that your high school social studies class got them, picture that and amplify it by every color in the rainbow and every shade of glitter.
Then pause.
These moments don’t happen very often, and at my age, they won’t likely happen very many more times. So I thought to myself, “Let’s not rush things, baby. I know you’re in there. Let me just get my camera quick.”
Long story short, I took four pictures, in sequence, as a time capsule, and sent them to my wife. My final text taunted her to try harder next time, if she really wants to hide my sock from me.
As I’ve been writing this, I know she texted me back, but I won’t check yet—not just yet. These moments—bliss—do not last much longer than a spark, so I’m gonna hold onto this one just a little bit longer.
Almost A Decade In, And I Still Love Blogging
The first post on this blog was in 2013. As most bloggers can surely relate, that post felt very exciting. It felt like I was about to contribute. And not just in a small way either—this was the big time. My words were going to give other people meaning.
The excitement that I felt that day nearly nine years ago wore off pretty quick. But I still love blogging. Here’s why.
Yesterday, after reading some of the book of Genesis, the book of Beginnings, from the Bible, I was frustrated that I knew hardly anyone who could keep up in a conversation about the actual words of the text. Plenty of people like to talk about what they believe and what their church believes, etc. But it’s a different thing to find someone who can remain centered on the text itself.
So I posted a fantasy conversation. I just took a minute to befriend myself and imagine what I thought a good conversation would be like.
The conversation ultimately centers on the Bible’s very own version “Which came first, chicken or egg?”
And here’s the point. Because I blog, because I took the time to flesh out my little fantasy, I came to a pretty cool little realization. While I was wrapping my mind about how someone could know he’s been fathered by one particular father, how could that person not know his father’s name, I now see that I had set the stage for me seeing that this conundrum is one of the primary claims of Christianity.
Regarding Moses, Yahweh was always there. But Moses hadn’t met Yahweh, or put differently, there was a time in Moses’ life before Yahweh had introduced himself to Moses. This introduction is the precise moment where words in the atmosphere, ink on a page, crossover into reality.
The question about how Moses could know he was an Israelite, but not know his own god’s name, is not more than chicken and the egg.
But this simple way of analyzing the problem doesn’t resolve anything, mind you. Yet it does bring things to a clean head. Christians often say they have met their maker. “That’s when I met Jesus”, or something similar. They claim they know—with certainty—the chicken came first. But for you, o undecided one, or egg-firster, the problem remains. Is your maker out there, trying to get your attention? I don’t mean your natural father, I mean the one that gave us “life”. I don’t mean animation, I mean, joy, sorrow, passion, desire, personality, you know, our life. Could you imagine that he is out there, this maker? And his interest is to make his introduction, with a follow-on goal of giving you eternal life?
This introduction and this eternal life are certainties that do not necessitate the end of uncertainties. My own ability to know the chicken came first and yet still ask, “But how did the chicken get there?” is proof enough of these unending uncertainties.
In the end, I just wanted to share that after nearly a decade, I still love blogging. More than that I love life. And I am glad to believe that I have received the promise of eternal life from Jesus. Let’s keep the good time’s rolling.
Captain’s Log 