También la Lluvia

Elizabeth and I watched Even the Rain (También la Lluvia) Tuesday night. E works with a Christian non-profit, Servant Partners, that works with urban poor doing community development and church planting. Several of her colleagues recommended the movie to her and I can see why. I'm not going to review it for you, but you can read more about it here if you want, but, basically, it is a movie within a movie; Gael Garcia Bernal's character was inspired to make a film after reading the sermon of Antonio de Montesinos, where he confronted his flock over their unchristian treatment of the natives:

This voice declares that you are in mortal sin, and live and die therein by reason of the cruelty
and tyranny that you practice on these innocent people. Tell me, by what right or justice do you hold
these Indians in such cruel and horrible slavery?... Are they not men? Do they not have rational souls? Are you not bound to love them as you love yourselves? How can you lie in such profound and lethargic slumber?

When the opportunity comes in the film for the crew to help the locals in their time of need, most fail to do so. And they have very understandable reasons, but it's very frustrating for the audience to watch. And then you realize that is a perfect picture of us. We all have so many very understandable and valid reasons not to help our brothers and sisters, not to love them as we love ourselves, to lie in profound and lethargic slumber. I'm not one for New Year's resolutions, but I want to make 2012 a year where I was awake to the needs of my brothers and sisters. Lord, help me to do it!

The Great Helmsman

The other day Elizabeth and I were walking around the Crate and Barrel when I saw a hipster walking around with his lady-friend; he had a messenger bag slung over his shoulder with a graphic of Mao Zedong. Maybe it's the history major in me, but it made me very upset. Either a) he doesn't know or care who's face it is or b) he believes his Maoist politics need to be immediately evident to everyone who sees his bag. Seeing as how he was shopping for a fancy new knife set with his lady in Crate and Barrel, the veritable high altar of capitalism, I'd say he isn't a Marxist-Maoist. Then he must just be totally ignorant of the fact that Maoist repressions and policies are responsible for the death of, literally, MILLIONS of people. Or he's a big fan of Mao's more violent policies and those cheap Target knife sets just don't have the quality he needs for the repressions he's planning.

So, if this gentleman's grasp of history is bad, he should at least have a better grasp of the Beatles: "If you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao, you ain't goin' to make it with anyone anyhow."

Proverbs 14:34

"Righteousness exalts a nation, But sin is a disgrace to any people."

I noticed this verse while I was in Germany. I was walking around a small town with friends when we saw a monument to victims of the Nazi regime, with Prov. 14:34 featured prominently. I was living in Russia at the time, and I was struck by the different attitudes toward history that Germans and Russians have. The Nazi regime is estimated to have killed 11 million people as a result of their policies; Germany lost a war and were forced to deal with their history. Let's switch to Russia, where the policies of Joseph Stalin resulted in the death of upwards of 40 million. But the Soviet Union didn't lose a war. The government changed. And who made up the government? Former Communist party bosses and KGB officers. Consequently, Russians have never had to confront their own history the way Germans have, and, in my opinion, that is to their detriment. 


I came across an article about this book, and I wanted to shout, "Yes! That's it!" the whole time. You can check out the article about It Was a Long Time Ago, and It Never Happened Anyway here.

The Angriest Man in Claremont

A long time ago I read the novel How to Be Good by Nick Hornby. In it, one of the main characters, David, is a journalist whose column was entitled "The Angriest Man in Holloway." I'd say that's a dream of mine, to get paid to rant.

Since I don't have a newspaper column, and since my wife/co-workers/friends wouldn't hang out with me if I ranted all the time, I guess this blog has become the repository of many of those rants. Maybe I'll change the name to "The Angriest Man in Claremont."

I Heard the Bells Pt. II

On the drive up to Redding for Thanksgiving Jameson, Elizabeth, and I played a little game to keep ourselves awake while driving through Merced County at 3 AM: Christmas Carol Bingo. It all started from a question about top three Christmas songs. We then found a Christmas station and it became a game of rooting for one of your selections to play.

Lessons learned from listening to Christmas stations from 3-8 AM:
1. I don't really like Christmas stations because they only play interminable Christmas crap. (see Lesson Learned #2)
2. "Sleigh Bells," "Winter Wonderland," and/or "All I Want for Christmas is You" (and their various renditions) can be heard every other song. This is no exaggeration.
3. "Last Christmas" by George Michael goes on 3 minutes longer than it needs to (some might argue it goes 4:30 longer than it needs to, but I'm feeling charitable).

I Heard the Bells

Those of you that know my wife, Elizabeth, know that she is a big fan of Christmas and anything related to Christmas. Pope John Paul II said that as Christians we are Easter People; if Elizabeth would have had an audience with him, I'm sure she would have set him straight and told him that we are, in fact, Christmas People.

So, naturally, Christmas music has been playing in our little apartment since September. Unlike my wife, I'm not a fan of the entire Christmas song catalog, but there are some that always affect me. Here are my top three:

1. I Head the Bells on Christmas Day
2. O Holy Night
3. Silent Night

Let's Push Things Forward

Probably the most often used sentence in the blogosphere: "I've haven't been doing so well in keeping this blog updated."

Anyway, I haven't been doing so well in keeping this blog updated. I think part of the problem is that I've felt I have needed to finish writing about my trip in the fall of 2010 before I could start writing about all this new stuff that's happened. Well, that's been over a year ago and there have been some pretty big things since then, so I'm just going to push things forward. So here's a year in one post:


1. I was in Kazakhstan. It was cold.


2. Christmas in Seattle
3. ...and a Happy New Year with some visitors
4. We got a new niece
5. Married!
6. Moved to LA
7. I went to Russia for work. (no picture)

That just about catches us up.