I hate reality TV.

Well, let me moderate that a bit. I really dislike most of it. I hardly ever watch it, but sometimes it's on and sometimes it gets me thinking.

I was musing the other day on the contrast between three of the biggies: Survivor, Biggest Loser, and Extreme Home Makeover.

Survivor is, as far as I know, the most popular of the reality shows and the show that sparked the glut of reality - and wasn't TV supposed to give us an escape from reality? Erk - that we currently have on the airwaves.

I despise that show. And I know I'm in the minority here. Consider what it, generally, takes to win. The show is a great example of natural selection, the survival of the fittest. In general, treachery, double-dealing, conceit, self-seeking, flattery and ruthlessness win the day. I've never understood why a show with so little redeeming value is so popular. But maybe it's because it reflects on the human condition. We recognize very well what we see in Survivor. It's in the deepest heart of each of us.

Biggest Loser is a show that I actually keep up with, intermittently. I admit I kind of like it. And it does have its redemptive qualities; who doesn't love seeing obese and unhealthy people turn their lives around through hard work and perseverance?

But I'm realizing that one of the draws of Biggest Loser for me is Law. Though there is often compassion and tenderness between the competitors, there is no grace regarding the results. The scale doesn't lie. I was talking to a personal trainer the other night and she likes the show as well but is horrified by the way they go about losing weight. Losing weight that fast, with brutal six hour a day workouts, is not safe. But we applaud Biggest Loser, with all its talk of "taking control of your life", "earning it", and "working your [behonkus] off". The Law can be appealing. It speaks to the drive that is in most of us to earn our own way toward our own goals through our own efforts without the help of grace.

Which brings me to Extreme Home Makeover. Oddly enough, I think that Extreme Home Makeover may be the closest picture of the Gospel in reality TV today. Have you noticed that the family being blessed is not even allowed to work on the house? And "makeover" is an understatement, to say the least. Generally, the house is completely gutted and rebuilt from the ground up.

I've thought, at times, that I would be uncomfortable as an Extreme Home Makeover blessee. I think that I would be embarrassed to not have any part in the renovation of a house that I had let, often due to my own hard circumstances, go to rot. I also might be a bit nervous about what I would see when that bus finally moved out of the way, because none of it was my doing or my plan.

My relationship with God is like that, most of the time. I want him to come in and fix my creaking floor, or repaint my bathroom, or install a new garage door opener (all, incidentally, recent needs in my actual house). His plan, and he means to complete it, is to gut the place, design a whole new floorplan, and build something Magnificent, just like He is.

It may make me uncomfortable, but it is Good News. And considering my skills in spiritual home repair, it is Very Good News.

Master Builder, have Your way.

"Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on; you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make any sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of - throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself." - C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

Rev. Harrison stands firm against our Government's meddling in the consciences of people of faith. Well done - respectful, clear, and eloquently plain-spoken.



[H/T Ray Ortlund]

It wouldn't surprise me at all if this turns out to be one of those "it's funny because it's true" things.

Another reason to retreat from meta-life and spend more time living real life.

Favorite quote: "400 billion tweets and not one useful bit of data was ever transmitted."

[H/T: Forward Progress]

Here's a great read by C. Michael Patton about what appears to be a miraculous healing of his back. I love the humility that always shines through his writing. Here's an excerpt, but, of course, read the whole thing if you can.

As most of you know, I am not charismatic. What I mean by this is that I don’t believe that supernatural gifts (sometimes called “sign” gifts) of the Spirit are continuing, normative, or should be expected (all three extremely important words). You know, gifts such as tongues, miracles, healings, and the like. As I have argued before, I don’t necessarily have any theological bias against them, I just think that ecclesiastical and personal experience says that they are not normative. As well, most of you know that I have been discussing this with my friend Sam Storms, who is a committed charismatic. Over the last year, we have been in dialogue about this issue. This dialogue has been published both here on this blog and on the Theology Unplugged Podcast. I have been seeking God during this time, trying to be open to change. In fact, I want to change. I often tell people that I am the most want-to-be-charismatic non-charismatic that they will ever meet. And I am serious about this.

Now to my back. In 2005 I discovered that I had significant disc issues. The MRI revealed “Severe Degenerative Disc Disease.” Since 2005, the pain has become increasingly constant and debilitating. Those of you who have back issues, know what I am talking about. For the last seven years, I have been to doctor after doctor, tried medicine after medicine, exercise after exercise, and hope after hope. I could not begin to tell you the number of people who have had “the” solution that I just have not tried yet. Yet nothing has worked with any degree of significance. The pain is there every day. Some days I am more functional than others. But for the most part for the last few years, I have had to learn to live with radiating pain down my left leg and it has become a chronic butcher to my soul. I have been functional, yes, but you need to know this back story in order to know my back story.

In October, I wrote about a guy who tried to heal my back. He, along with his friend, overheard me complaining about my back at the Credo House. They, with great seriousness and gentleness, asked if they could lay hands on my back and pray for it. Open to charismatic gifts or not, who would refuse such an offer? “Of course and thank you” was my response. These two guys were both charismatic and had high expectations. Remember, this is often a criteria of being charismatic—you must expect God to heal. After they had finished their prayer, the pain was still radiating down my leg. In fact, it was worse as I had to stand in one place while they prayed for me (it is very difficult for me to stand in one place). They asked me after the prayer, “Did anything change?” I was heartbroken to be the bearer of bad news. I even thought about lying and just saying that it helped a little. Finally, I responded, “No…But thank you so much for praying for my back.” I then used this illustration as fodder for a blog post to show the “spiritual let-down” that I see in the face of so many well-meaning charismatics who want so badly to be used of God to accomplish miraculous feats (well, maybe “fodder” is not the best use of the term).

Here is what I have not told you: About three weeks after this attempted healing, I saw the same guy at Credo studying. He is a regular. As I was walking back to my office, he stood up and asked how my back was. I told him that it was terrible, but thanks for asking. In fact, that morning was particularly bad. The pain in my leg was so terrible I could hardly think straight. I did not expect anything more than an “I am sorry. I will continue to pray for you” from this guy. After all, the attempt failed last time and my present state was just further confirmation of its ineffectiveness. But, this guy is a trooper. He said the unexpected: “Can I pray for your back again?” My answer was a pastoral “Of course” as I wanted him to keep his spirits up (even if that meant a continued hope in these naive charismatic ideas). Like the time before, he laid his hands on me. Like the time before, he prayed specifically for the miraculous healing power of God to come over me and heal my back. But this time was not like the last. As I stood under his hand, just wanting to get the token prayer of concern (as I saw it) over with, something happened. From the place where his hand was laid on me to the tip of my toe, I felt a warm, burning sensation. It was only in the places where my back often hurt. The burning sensation replaced and overwhelmed the nerve pain. It was definite and unexpected. The warmth was then replaced with relief. My back pain had completely disappeared while he prayed.

Once he was done praying, I held a poker face. I did not say, “I am healed!” I did not even say, “It feels better.” I just said “thank you” and went back to my office. In truth, I simply anticipated the pain to return and that its cessation would be short lived. As I thought about it in my office, I wondered “what if?” After all, my “healing,” were it real, could not have been psychologically induced. I was not expecting to be healed, have been somewhat critical of those who do expect such things, and was not really even listening to the prayer. I was just anticipating getting back to my office so that I could sit down and get a tiny bit of relief. However, I sat in my office pain free for the first time in I don’t know how long.

I did not tell anyone about this. Even as days turned into weeks, I kept quiet, still anticipating that the pain will come back. Again, I don’t like to invite people to victory parades which I suspect will turn into bad investments of their hope. Remember Angie?

But, here I am writing this five months later. Since that time, my back has not been an issue. Since then I have been almost completely pain free. Now, I say “almost” and you are going to have to take this as far as you think you should. There have been two days where I felt a bit of the pain come back. But nothing like it was for five straight years, with hardly a days rest. It would be like someone miraculously moving a mountin and leaving a dirt pile behind. The presence of the dirt pile (two days of slight pain), while confusing, does not undermine the absence of the mountain (the serious pain).

I believe that God miraculously healed my back a few months ago through the agency of a wonderful man who was determined not to give up. Even if the pain did come back today, the combination of the warmth, sudden disappearance of pain, and five months of being virtually pain free after suffering so much over the years leads me to believe that God placed his hand on my back and gave me relief. For this I am so grateful.

First, I want to define some terms, as otherwise a question like this causes lots of confusion.

By "happy", I don't mean happy in the way the health and wealth gospel does. I'm not talking about perfect or even better life circumstances. I mean "happy" in the way we use it in our day to day conversations. And I'm not too interested in semantic arguments about the difference between happiness and joy.

Secondly, I'm not asking if Jesus "should" make you happy or if you expect him to (or don't expect him to) make you happy. I'm asking if he does make you happy. And I don't mean "you" in a generic sense. I mean you.

Finally, this isn't a loaded question. I don't have an agenda, although I confess that one might develop based on the conversation, if any, this inspires.

Leave your response in the comments thread. Thanks!

Inspired by two (seemingly) unrelated pieces I read online this morning.

1- Should Women be allowed in Combat?
I just heard on the news this week that women will now be officially allowed combat roles for the first time in the U.S. Military. This is because in the past 10 years of the "War on Terror", there have been woman who had to take on combat roles by necessity, even if that wasn't their primary role.

In response, Rick Santorum just re-articulated the two basic and traditional arguments against it:

As one reason, Santorum cites “the emotions of men.’’ The White House hopeful says there is the potential that men will not be focused on their combat mission but on what he calls a “natural instinct’’ to protect a woman.

Santorum also questions having women in combat roles because of what he says are “all sorts of physical issues’’ relating to the capabilities of men and women.

I include this quote from him not because I want to discuss Santorum on this thread, but because I expect, for the first time, these two traditional arguments to be mocked and scoffed. He had the audacity to say them out loud and to many these arguments will seem outdated and sexist.

I don't think they are. I think these are timeless and timely arguments. I have never served in the military, but for various reasons I've been blessed with many, many close relationships with those who have. And every soldier I've ever talked to about it re-articulates the two arguments above.

I remember in particular my Junior ROTC instructor, an army ranger who voluntarily served two tours of duty in Vietnam say, "Combat is bad enough with men, your brothers, dying all around you. But still it is a totally different experience to see a woman with her face blown off. There's just something naturally ingrained into men. You have to protect her...and then you will compromise the mission. You won't be able to focus on what you need to do."

It's been over 20 years...and I still remember the soft tone that this very tough man took and the horror I felt, when he said, "woman with her face blown off".

Combat is ugly, ugly business. And yes, it's far uglier when women are a part of it.


2- Why are Hollywood portrayals of women in the role of men always tragic?

From the Plugged-In review of the new movie "Albert Nobbs" about a woman who spends her life pretending to be a man.

A postscript: While addressing the issue of historical gender disparity so profoundly illustrated in Albert Nobbs, I feel compelled to make an observation about its modern incarnation in movies. What happens when one gender plays the other? When men put on a dress and lipstick, the intended effect is almost always laughter. Dustin Hoffman in Tootsie. Tyler Perry's turns as Madea. Adam Sandler as brother and sister twins in Jack and Jill. John Travolta as Edna Turnblad in Hairspray.

When women play men, however, the outcome is more often tragic. Sooner or later, we've been taught to anticipate, these vulnerable women's well-cloaked secret—usually under layers of femininity-disguising clothes—will be revealed. And their worlds will explode. Or end. The most prominent example of this (before Albert Nobbs)? The story of Brandon Teena (played by Hilary Swank), horrifically illustrated in 1999's Boys Don't Cry.

I thought of a couple more examples that the reviewer, Adam Holz, didn't mention.

Men as women: Tom Hanks' TV sitcom - Bosom Buddies, Tony Curtis in "Some Like it Hot", Martin Lawrence in "Big Momma's House", Two Wayans brothers as "White Chicks", Robin Williams in Mrs. Doubtfire, Barry Watson in Sorority Boys, "Juwanna Man". I'm sure you all could think of more, or look it up. All of them are comedies and not just comedies, but madcap ridiculous comedies.(or at least are supposed to be.)

Women as men: First of all, there aren't as many. There were two comedies, "Just one of the Guys"(1985) and "She's the Man" with Amanda Bynes. (2006) But these are exceptions, and even those had serious undertones and sections. Usually women disguised as men aren't funny. It's usually serious, but more often tragic. Barbara Streisand as "Yentl"; The Ballad of Little Jo, in which a woman must dress as a man to survive in the west, when she is found out post-mortem the pain is expressed as violent anger. In "Lord of the Rings: Return of the King" Eowyn dressed as a male soldier so that she can ride into combat, though she performs admirably, her little foray still ends with violence and sadness.

These are serious movies, and the storyline of "woman disguised as a man" never ends well and almost always tragically (both in the dramatic and emotional sense.)

Even Hollywood with all it's liberal sensibilities can't seem to quite escape from...

(yes, I'm going to go ahead and be bold enough to say it)

...our God-given gender roles.

I'm quite proud of what we did...so here it is.

We watched it at church. Our church invited friends and neighbors. We had tons of food and three big screens set up. It was fun. But here's the best parts(and the reason I'm bragging):

1. We blacked out offensive commercials. Yup. We had a dude in the back with his finger on a button. Sunday afternoon, I printed out a list of the commercials in the order they would appear. Because so many commercials are released ahead of time now, we had a pretty good idea which ones to black out... So all the stuff you had to sit through, or hope your kids didn't notice...we never even saw it. Awesome, right? But we did get to see the good commercials. ("Where's the cat?" LOL!)

2. For Halftime - we showed two video clips. (This one about how football points to something much greater, and this one about how Simon Peter experienced grace.) Then for the remainder of halftime we played "Scene-IT" 80's edition. We just played the video trivia questions on the screen and I threw a piece of candy to anyone who got an answer right. It was a blast and far better then whatever you all had to watch. Oh, and I read later about some singer flipping you the bird. I missed that too. :-)

Now for some commentary about those two reasons my watching experience was better than yours...

1. Offensive commercials - This really irks me. The NFL, NBC and yes, even the advertisers are total jerks for this. Can they not imagine when they are designing a "sex sells" commercial that parents might be watching football with their kids (ages 6-12). There were probably (at least, at minimum) a million children watching.

Seriously? Is this what these advertising company employees, commercial writers and directors, and company executives who ordered and approved and paid for the ads would want their own children to be watching? The sheer crassness of this offends me to the bone. It makes me wonder if they are even human. I think that we should all write letters to the offending companies and tell them that their offensive advertising GUARANTEES that we won't ever use their products. And then follow through. Do not support those advertisers. Jerks. I should be able to watch football with my ten year old son without having to cover his eyes.

2. Half-time performers that do something obscene. OK, so MIA or whoever flipping the camera the bird is the first incident since the wardrobe malfunction. It will happen again. And NBC is blaming the NFL who produces their own half-time shows ever since the wardrobe malfunction. (That half-time show was produced by MTV, surprise, surprise.) And the NFL is blaming NBC for not having better time-delay and censorship equipment. It will still happen again. The moron who flipped the bird is getting publicity and name recognition out of this. That benefit needs to be taken away.

I have a very simple solution for this problem. Have all performers sign a contract ahead of time. Think about it. For the performer, this is the single biggest audience they will EVER have. It's a huge opportunity for any singer to sell albums. So before allowing them to perform for half-time include in their contract a "no obscenity" clause that says that if they do anything obscene that they will pay for all fines and costs that their action costs. (for apologies that have to be issued, for FCC fines etc, the lawyers that have to deal with the FCC, the salaries of the guys that have to monitor the delay feed with their finger on the pixelate button etc...) In addition, if they do anything obscene they will have to give 5 million dollars to a children's charity AND 50% of all profit that performer earns for the next 12 months goes to a children's charity. And they will do 500 hours of community service for the children of incarcerated people.

If the NFL and NBC were serious they would do something like that. But they won't. Jerks.

Engineer captures video footage of what appears to be a woolly mammoth crossing a Siberian river. These creatures have been thought to be extinct since about 2,000 B.C.



This is a large animal thought extinct for thousands of years, now spotted. Along with historical notes like that mountain gorillas weren't discovered until the early 1900's, this gives more hope for some day discovering definitive evidence of the existence of Sasquatch.

So, who you got?

I feel like I'm a little on the ledge here, but I'm calling it Patriots 38, Giants 27.

What's your predicted score?

In a recurring Groundhog Day tribute of their own, the editors of National Review annually post Jonah Goldberg's excellent 2005 paean to the classic Harold Ramis movie, Groundhog Day. Here are the closing paragraphs of Goldberg's article, A Movie for All Time.

Ultimately, the story is one of redemption, so it should surprise no one that it speaks to those in search of the same. But there is also a secular, even conservative, point to be made here. Connors’s metamorphosis contradicts almost everything postmodernity teaches. He doesn’t find paradise or liberation by becoming more “authentic,” by acting on his whims and urges and listening to his inner voices. That behavior is soul-killing. He does exactly the opposite: He learns to appreciate the crowd, the community, even the bourgeois hicks and their values. He determines to make himself better by reading poetry and the classics and by learning to sculpt ice and make music, and most of all by shedding his ironic detachment from the world.

Harold Ramis and Danny Rubin, the writers of the original story, are not philosophers. Ramis was born Jewish and is now a lackadaisical Buddhist. He wears meditation beads on his wrist, he told the New York Times, “because I’m on a Buddhist diet. They’re supposed to remind me not to eat, but actually just get in the way when I’m cutting my steak.” Rubin’s original script was apparently much more complex and philosophical — it opened in the middle of Connors’s sentence to purgatory and ended with the revelation that Rita was caught in a cycle of her own. Murray wanted the film to be more philosophical (indeed, the film is surely the best sign of his reincarnation as a great actor), but Ramis constantly insisted that the film be funny first and philosophical second.

And this is the film’s true triumph. It is a very, very funny movie, in which all of the themes are invisible to people who just want to have a good time. There’s no violence, no strong language, and the sexual content is about as tame as it gets. (Some e-mailers complained that Connors is only liberated when he has sex with Rita. Not true: They merely fall asleep together.) If this were a French film dealing with the same themes, it would be in black and white, the sex would be constant and depraved, and it would end in cold death. My only criticism is that Andie MacDowell isn’t nearly charming enough to warrant all the fuss (she says a prayer for world peace every time she orders a drink!). And yet for all the opportunities the film presents for self-importance and sentimentality, it almost never falls for either. The best example: When the two lovebirds emerge from the B&B to embrace a happy new life together in what Connors considers a paradisiacal Punxsutawney, Connors declares, “Let’s live here!” They kiss, the music builds, and then in the film’s last line he adds: “We’ll rent to start.”

Read the whole thing.

I think Groundhog Day is one of the best movies ever made. I remember watching it on VHS with my wife, years ago; though it does not have an explicitly Christian message, the movie is brimming with redemption. Watching it for the first time surfaced in me an exquisite sense of joy. (And, in my one beef with Goldberg over this article, I thought Andie MacDowell was plenty charming).

If you haven't already watched Groundhog Day, I highly recommend it. If you have, get with the spirit of things and watch it again (and again, and again, and . . .)

Seen on long-time blog friend Jennifer's facebook page:

Every day is Christmas - God With Us. Every day is New Year's - Mercies New. Every day is Easter - He is Risen! Every, every, EVERY day is Thanksgiving.

Amen x infinity.

Now to live like that . . .

In case you are wondering...

1. I'm reverting back to what my second favorite team was back when I was a kid...and going against my grown-up tradition of rooting for the NFC team or the underdog. I just can't root for the Giants in good conscience. So now I'm all in. Go Patriots!

2. This video and song was recorded early in 1986 as a response to the Chicago Bears Monster Hit Single...the Super Bowl Shuffle. So in this song the Patriots predict that they will beat the Bears in SuperBowl XX. Whoops. Bears won, 46-10.

I figure that unearthing this song and re-releasing it to the world will result in a Patriots victory this time! I mean, come on, Spenser can't be wrong!

"God who needs nothing, loves into existence wholly superfluous creatures in order that He may love and perfect them. He creates the universe, already foreseeing—or should we say ‘seeing?’ There are no tenses in God—the buzzing cloud of flies about the cross, the flayed back pressed against the uneven stake, the nails driven trough the mesial nerves, the repeated incipient suffocation as the body droops, the repeated torture of back and arms as it is time after time, for breath’s sake, hitched up. Herein is love. This is the diagram of Love Himself, the inventor of all loves."

- C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

Had this thought while I was running this morning: in my lifetime, the adjective "irreverent" has gone from being a criticism to being a compliment.

Today I was reminded of this quote by the great Winston Churchill (or at least attributed to him - I don't have it sourced yet):

"A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on."

This is going to be a rough year. Hang tight, people, use your God-given discernment, and pray for our country.

P.S. The sad part is that these days every year is an election year.

In an earlier comments thread I predicted this rematch. I'm not sure who will win, but I'll go ahead and just say the Giants, to balance out all the Patriot-love.

Who do you think will win? Let us know in the comments.

On this date, exactly two years ago, I made the following predictions.

Monday, January 18, 2010
Predictions
Posted by Philip @ 2:24 pm CST

1-Mitt Romney will win the Republican Nomination in 2012... but will ultimately lose to Obama.

2-Wearing your pants too low will finally go out of fashion, the direct cause being the "Pants on the ground" song which the general public will start singing behind the backs of guys wear their pants that way. The harassment will just become too much, and one man will have destroyed a fashion with a little song as catchy as a commercial jingle, and decent Americans everywhere will rise up and call him a hero.

3-Arnold Schwarzenegger will make another Terminator movie after he moves out of the governor's mansion...because he will be desperate for popularity.

4-Joe Biden will not return for Obama's second term, citing family and personal reasons, and Hillary will insist on being VP.

5-Obama will kill the "From Moon to Mars" space program, saying we need the money here on earth.

6-Joel Osteen will resign from public ministry because of depression. Dude's gonna burn out.

7-We will find Osama Bin Laden.

So how am I doing?

Status So Far
1- Looking good so far. The probability that I will be right has increased.
2- Looking good so far. What do you think? Seen anyone wearing their pants too low lately?
3-Looking really good so far. News Story from April, 2011 that Arnie will star in Terminator 5 and will be directed by Justin Lin.
4-Not looking good, but not out of the question. People are talking about it.
5-Partially right. Obama killed the Bush version of the plan that involved going to the moon by 2020 and then Mars after that for financial reasons as I predicted. However, the plan now is to go to an asteroid and then Mars.
What I meant was that he'd cancel "Project: Constellation" which he did, but we are still going to Mars, so I wasn't totally correct. Sigh.
6- Not looking good. At all.
7- Done. Nailed that one. My one definite so far.

I was 1-4 last weekend, although I didn't mind being wrong on a couple of those.

Grain of salt included, here are my predictions for this weekend's games.

New England over Denver
Houston over Baltimore
New Orleans over San Francisco
Green Bay over New York Giants

I'm still calling a Saints-Patriots Super Bowl.

. . . the best entry I've seen so far to the "Political Views" profile on Facebook.

At this point, I think even the Patriots better be careful underestimating Tebow.

Congratulations to the Broncos. Very few people thought that they would win against the Steelers. I had the Steelers making it to the Superbowl, actually. But I'm happy to be wrong.

I'm looking forward to next week - and fervently hoping for the nearly unthinkable: an AFC match-up between the Broncos and the Texans in Houston in two weeks.