You are currently browsing the category archive for the 'stories' category.
It’s not the policies. It’s not his unlikely ascent to the White House.
It’s not that he’s a brilliant communicator.
It’s not the color of his skin.
It’s for one reason and one reason alone:
We have similar handwriting.
From the LA Times:
It was a perfectly blue sky over San Francisco, where Serena and I brought the kids for some ice skating and hot chocolate in Union Square. Serena had never been there during the Christmas holidays, so has never experienced the slightly irreverent frivolity that is San Francisco in December. While waiting on the cue for skates with Gabriel and all of his 40 + lbs. falling asleep on my shoulders, I caught out of the corner of my eye what seemed like 200 Santas crossing Geary Street into Union Square. With drag queens in red costumes wearing big blonde wigs and motorcycle gangs driving through town on bikes covered in outdoor Christmas lights, the City is kind of like Disneyland, except a little more untamed and without the gate fees. With this knowledge, I was unfazed and simply asked Gabriel if he wanted to say hi to one of them in what seemed to be a funny little stunt.
Nothing could have prepared me for what happened next.
Read the rest of this entry »
So I have a confession to make. Granted, a lot of my sleeplessness recently has much to do with caring for a newborn baby boy. But before this, for about the length of Serena’s pregnancy, the two of us have been helping ourselves to vigorous doses of HBO megahit, The Sopranos, via DVD.
The Sopranos
Before I go any further, I would never recommend viewing this series to anyone who has serious conscientious objections to gratuitous violence, sex scenes, nudity, drug use, vulgar language or general human depravity being displayed in your home. I realize that with that last sentence I opened up a huge can of implication with regard to my own viewing temperament, but know that the show was only on for adult consumption – well after the kids were fast asleep.
Now personally, I didn’t get a visceral rise out of scenes that included topless dancers at the Bing, much less scenes of violence or illicit drug use. Perhaps if I had watched 10 or 15 years ago it would have been a different scenario. Also, the way the show was done made these scenes so commonplace that the viewer can allow such displays to fade into the periphery. Again, big opening for anyone who would like to judge my maturity here.
When the last scene of the final episode of the final season ended last night, I had a moment of deep introspection while the credits rolled. I won’t spoil the ending for anyone who is in the middle of it, but it occurred to me that, in this tragicomedy, life was displayed in a gritty and realistic, if heightened, frame. Too often, and especially in the circles I most often run with, art is only appreciated when it’s free of ugliness, vulgarity, depravity, and deep ethical conflict — and instead reflects a feel-good, sugarcoated version of heightened fantasy. As I thought further about this today, I realized that, while I may take some heat for watching The Soprano family spiral into destruction, the entertainment many Christians consume without a tinge of guilt — those romantic comedies, action movies and a lot of what’s on TV — would be banned without a seconds thought by our grandparents. What does this say about culture and Christianity? Do we slip further and further away from purity as time goes on, or has our sense of propriety and the role of art in communicating ethics and morality shifted? Can the Gospel be preached by reflecting off the morality tale of the Sopranos? Maybe not in most of our churches today. But does that mean such shows and films are bereft of redemptive value? At what point is art impossible to redeem for spiritual discussion?
I had the rare opportunity to take a sneak peak tour of the Cathedral of Christ the Light today, thanks to my pastor’s cousin who has been working on the construction project for the last three years.
It was breathtaking. Coming from a Roman Catholic background, a sense of familiarity and nostalgia washed over me as I walked past the baptismal font, the stations of the cross, and the Eucharistic tabernacle. Even though it’s been years since I “switched teams” and joined those evangelical pentecostals, I have enough distance behind the move to appreciate the things about the Catholic tradition that have helped form me spiritually: the grandeur of sacred space, meditative silence, a sense of the sacred in the midst of the mundane. Even as workers buzzed around the facility putting finishing touches on the building, I couldn’t help but feel that this ground was holy, set apart for the kingdom of God.
One compelling element of the cathedral’s design is its’ brilliant use of natural light: it’s conically shaped with glass sides along the top, and vast sheets of metal were strategically permeated with varying sized holes to create an image of Jesus, when each is illuminated by the sun. I was struck by the designer’s masterful use of sunlight, an element so native and necessary to our mere survival, by filtering and reflecting it in such a way as to make it unique and beautiful in its’ context. Glass, concrete, wood, and sunlight – put these elements together in just the right way and you have a beautiful cathedral.
The allegory was not lost on me, and I thanked God once again for giving this pentecostal the opportunity to have had the benefit of experiencing the richness of Catholic tradition in my formative years. May I remain true to both these Catholic roots of contemplation and these Pentecostal roots of unquenchable fire, by reflecting the light that has been revealed in such a way that Jesus is made to be present in the midst of suffering, just like a glass cathedral in the cross-hairs of Oakland.
