Advent

For most of my adult church going life, I went to places that really did not put too much emphasis on Advent during the Christmas season. We might had candles that we lit, but that is about it. The church I go to now, does place some emphasis on it, though. This past Sunday was the first Sunday of Advent and the scripture selection was interesting: Luke 21:25-36. When I read this section as well as the verses before it, it illuminated one of the things that Advent is about: It is about reminding ourselves and preparing ourselves for Christ’s second coming by commemorating Christ’s first coming. The message was about Christmas and the season is about Christmas, but as we remember His first coming, we also remember He said that He will come again. As we prepare and celebrate His birth, we also look forward and ready ourselves for the celebration of His return. I am not sure if the official church position on Advent includes this (it would not surprise me if many others had similar thoughts), it is just something that hit me this past Sunday.

One other thing…our pastor talked about something called Advent Conspiracy. It seems to be a call to de-emphasize the materialism of Christmas and instead emphasize charity and good works. Now, I agree that Christians need to fight the deracination of Christ and the Christian nature from the holiday (or should I say holy-day) season (no, I do not mean we should get offended at people saying ‘happy holidays’ – and other silly things of that nature), but I think there is a hidden danger in doing what one would call good works. In the video from Advent Conspiracy, it talks about how all of this gift giving and receiving ultimately is about us, however, charity and doing good works can also be about us. I mean, how many times have you heard stuff like: You can make a difference or other similar slogans when it comes to charitable contribution or works? Stuff, that to me, appeals to peoples’ egos? I wish, they had some things about simple obedience and sacrifice. Anyway, perhaps it’s just me – I cannot help but criticize things.

Update: had to change the name from Project Advent to Advent Conspiracy. Thanks, Peter – my memory is not what it used to be in my old age.

Boys

I was reading about something the other day and it kinda alarmed me. It seems that there is a tremendous gender gap in US colleges. In many schools, the female-male ratio is reaching 60-40 in favor of females. Not only are females applying more to colleges, but they are graduating at a higher rate, with the males dropping out more. Things are, I think, even worse when you get to graduate school. Of course, the colleges do what comes natural to them: They try to tip the scales in favor of the males during admission – making these colleges targets of lawsuits. Not sure if colleges should do that as it does not seem to get to the root of the problem and may exacerbate the issue of male dropouts, but it is something easy for them to do.

Anyway, why does this matter? Well because I am a father to a boy as well as a father to a girl. On top of that, I am a citizen of the United States. As my son starts his formal schooling in a couple of years, I would hope that he would be in a system where they develop and encourage educational achievement in him. From the things that I have read, I know that boys are more challenging to school than girls. It takes more work and dedication…which makes me wonder, is this just another sign of mediocre teachers we have in the USA? It is something to keep an eye on when my son goes to school.

As for my daughter, later on in life, I hope that she would meet a nice boy and having low achievement males dot the landscape… well, guess I best start praying harder. Plus, in a setting where there are so many more girls than boys, I wonder if it encourages the guys in the schools to have a more butterfly like behavior? You know, going with this girl, then with that girl and later with yet another. So on. At worst, it can be kinda predatory.

Even if you do not have any children, this should be of some concern. The gap does not mean that the girls are spread evenly throughout the university or college and that the ladies are filling seats that are vacated by guys. From what I read, females tend toward the liberal arts and education, while the guys tend toward engineering and the sciences. So what this means is that in some economically critical fields such as engineering, computers, mathematics and physics, the number of graduates probably have gone down. This hurts all of us.

I guess soon I will start finding out what the education system is like these days as my children start school. Am I a pessimist? How come I have a feeling that I will not like what I see?

Marriage

This article got me thinking a bit about an aspect of marriage: That it is not about compatibility. It is not even about love in the romantic sense. Don’t get me wrong, compatibility and romantic love is nice and people should have them when getting into marriage, but people change and things change. What I feel is of paramount importance is being a bulldog about it – grabbing it, hold onto it, and making it work. Commitment. There is also a mystery about it and that is why I feel marriage takes support and prayer. It can be hard, but it is also joyful because you are building something important and worthwhile.

One other thing that I feel marriage is about: It is about family. It is not just about husband and wife; there are the children.  Marriage is not only unitive, but also pro-creative. I think the pope said something like that and I thought it was a beautiful statement because in it, I can see God inviting man to be involved with His work. We are not just automatons or some object of His indifference, but something cherished so much that God has a role for us in what He is doing and He wants us to share in His experiences. I remember the birth of my daughter and my son, I can only imagine how much more intense God’s feeling was when He made Adam and Eve (as well as every other person).

Sermon

If it isn’t obvious, I regularly attend Sunday church services. Part of the service is a sermon delivered by the pastor. I enjoy his sermons and he usually state things that are thought provoking, even though I do not agree with everything he says. However, he said something last Sunday that I want to comment on, particularly since I heard it said in other places outside of the church setting. It was not the main point of his sermon, but it is something I would like to address.

In expounding on one of his points, he said that Asians are considered a model minority because we do not speak up and thus we do not confront injustices. Something like this was previosly said to me by a friend who worked for the Oregon state government couple of years ago as well as some speaker at a meeting of an Asian club at Nike, sometime before that. I personally do not subscribed to it as I think they define ’speaking up’ in a very narrow political and ethnic group centric way. I also do not consider Asians as some victims of the system (that type of thinking I consider destructive) and if Asians are considered some model minority, I do not think it is because we are ’silent’. Anyway, my pastor gave as an example, some title of a Christian book which referenced kung-fu and a talk that the authors of the book gave which featured some stereotypical Chinese-style music that I guess Asians found offensive. It kinda reminded me of my friend’s anger at Shaquille when Yao came into the league and he gave out a challenge to Yao spiced with some ‘ching-chang-chong’ type of sounds, pretending that he was speaking Chinese. Which brings me to my point:

If the best examples of injustice that we face are titles of a book (in which I am betting the authors did not mean to portray kung-fu or Asians negatively) or stuff that we heard when we were in 1st grade, said more as a joke, then  am glad that we are ’silent’. If we get worked up about that kind of stuff, it makes us look petty and childish. And to put those things up to the level of injustice is to morally confuse and lessen the gravitas of what are real injustices. Heck, from the things that I have read and heard, injustices to an ethnic group is usually perpetrated by someone in that ethnic group. For example, high levels of minority illegitimacy rates are due to others in the same minority. The victims of Black murders are usually other Blacks, not to mention the language used in hip-hop and rap. When I read about breaking up of Asian prostitution rings where human trafficking is occurring, the perps are other Asians. Hiring of minorities with exploitative wages are usually done by other minorities. There are true injustices in this world, I just do not think the examples that were cited belong to anything that can be even remotely labelled injustice, what they do is feed our unsatiable ego as well as open ways for hustlers to put their hooks into it.

Heaven help us if we get some Asian versions of Jackson or Sharpton.

Yes, I know this is a week old. It has been rattling in my mind, just took a bit for me to write it down.

Korea Again

Well, I am back from Korea. Just wanted to make some observations.

One big thing that I noticed was the amount of construction. I saw multiple cranes (mostly around the suburban edges of Seoul) with new apartment complexes, shopping centers, bridges and roads being put up. My wife says it is probably due to the Korean President – heck, his nickname was ‘the bulldozer’ – approving new projects. Kinda made me wonder what the imminent domain laws are like in Korea. Also got me thinking on how piss poor the so called stimulus bill that was passed earlier on this year in the US was.

Seoul has really gotten into beautifying some of its spaces – mostly seen at night. Of course we already had the Cheongyechong stream development (thanks to The Bulldozer), but add to that the new square on Sejong Road. They also have started lighting up their bridges in some nice ways (which I do not remember from before) and with new lighting on the buildings (especially the newer ones), makes Seoul at night look nicer than I remember it.

Bikers! I saw more bikers at this recent trip than in my previous ones. Like wine bars that started popping up couple of years ago, it seems that biking has become somewhat of a fad. Heck, I even saw a drama that seem to say that it was cool to be a bike rider. Of course riding a bike in the congestion of Seoul is somewhat of a dangerous sport and I saw news reports talking about issues with bikers and bike lanes and such. However, as a recreational mountain biker, it would be kinda neat to ride some of the trails in the rural parts of Korea – perhaps one day.

One thing that happened this trip that surprised even my wife was yellow dust from China. She stated yellow dust happens during the spring and that fall in Korea should be crisp and clear, but on our last week in Korea, their it was: The haze of yellow dust from China. Now, not sure what is going on over there, but China needs to better manage their development and water usage as I hope yellow dust in the fall will not become the norm.

Focus Conference

Well, went to a conference held by our Presbytery entitled Focus. It consisted of a keynote presentation in the morning, 2 workshops after that and then a worship service with communion in the evening. For the workshops, I took one about children’s literature and one about the 500th birthday of Calvin. Here are my impressions of it.

Children’s Literature: Did pretty much fulfill my hope that it would provide me a list of books that may be useful to help develop a faith-life in both my children. However, (though I should have expected it these days) it was surprising how politically correct it was in its presentation. Also, was quite touched on how some authors explored the wonder of God’s love and I could sense how powerful such talents could be in service to God as these authors can give words to something that we Christians feel but lack the ability to express. One thing that I did not like was that some of these books made me a little uncomfortable with their adoration of nature. I mean, not all of the books were explicitly Christian, but it is something that as a parent I need to stress; that creation points and celebrates the Creator.

Calvin’s 500th Birthday: With such a topic as John Calvin, I did not envy the instructor as I am sure with so many sources of information and opinions and written works about that man, that it would have been tough to know where to start and how to cover Calvin satisfactorily in an hour’s worth of time. I noted couple of books of interest, but as for the class, it just tickled the surface of the man, his time and his work. One noted irony is that predestination and election were doctrines that was introduced to downplay any notions of works-righteousness, but it ended up fueling works – as the question of who is the elect was answered by, you shall know by their fruits and thus people wanted to make sure that they had the fruits.

Speaker: Now I am not a proponent of the emerging church movement. I agree with what they are trying to do: They want to bring people to Christ. I agree with what the speaker said about how the church is the people and I too agree that we need to present the message of Christ in a way that is relevant, accessible and contemporary (to an extent). But, I think they miss one big point – that of demographics. Basically people having children (note the plural form) and bringing them up properly in the faith. Also kinda like what I said about predestination, because they do not stress the forms of the church and worship, ironically it seems that it ends up focusing attention onto it. Finally the big thing is that from what I have seen, the emerging church movement guys implicitly or explicitly attack or denigrate other Christians. I think I heard couple of jokes about Bible thumping and end times novel reading believers today. Some may state that these guys are just making fun of themselves, but I would bet that presbyterians are in general politically, theologically and in other ways opponents of these so called Bible thumpers and do not identify with them. It is like east or west coast urbanites making fun of the flyover, rural people of the American heartland. Interesting thing, and it was shown by the video that the speaker presented on perceptions of Jesus and the church, was just how much things have remained the same even after two thousand years. The responses about impressions of Jesus reminded me about the question Jesus asked His disciples concerning who the people thought Jesus was. The responses by the students of UCSC would probably be the same if they were asked about impressions of Ghandi, the Dalai Lama, Mother Theresa or other widely perceived moral exemplars and teachers.

Overall, it was nice. However I wonder if is of any use. In my observation today, I saw many senior citizens and predominantly composed of women (who knows, perhaps the men have all died off). It may be too late for many of the churches to make any changes or have the energy to draw any seekers to them and thus too late for the Presbyterian church. It would be sad if that was the case, as there is such history in the church.

Children of Hurin

Since my wife and children are away visiting the in-laws, it gave me the time to read some books that I was interested in. One of them was “Children of Hurin”. It was compiled and edited by Christopher Tolkien based on a story by his father, JRR Tolkien.

This book is set in the first age of Middle Earth, during the ascendency of Morgoth (the main source evil and Sauron’s master). It tells a story of a human leader, hero and elf-friend, Hurin, and his children, focusing mostly on his son, Turin. Hurin, after a disasterous battle with the forces of Morgoth, was captured, his family cursed by Morgoth and was forced to watch from a mountaintop as this curse worked its way with his children.

One of the things that I felt as I read this book was that though it was prose, it felt like I was reading an old English poem such as Beowulf. It was epic in scope, but it did not feel like an epic story. Large events and battles seemed sparsely described and the pace of the story ebbed and flowed where at certain points, time seemed to be compressed while at other points, it seemed to be slowed and stretched. I also felt it being pretty episodic where it described certain events and deeds of Turin’s life without having a strong narrative arc.

However, the main thing that I felt was the sense of despair. The characters not only faced personal mortality, but of their people, the Edain, and culture as well.  As Morgoth’s power grew. the Elves retreated to their hidden cities while the Edain, left pretty much to fend for themselves, were being systematically subjugated by the followers of Morgoth. As for Hurin and his children, every great deed later lead to a greater tragedy. Of course, Tolkien’s more famous work, The Lord of the Rings, also had this sense of despair. That is one thing I wish the movies by Peter Jackson emphasized more – well I felt that despair was fairly strong in the first movie, but the feeling of it seemed to wane with subsequent films. In this way, I feel that despite the pagan elements of these stories, Tolkien presented to us anti-pagan works. No mighty hero provided salvation for himself or his people and in fact, in The Lord of the Rings, it was the small and simple Hobbits that provided the ultimate victory over Sauron. And as Tolkien lived through the formation and growth of Nazi Germany and WW2, perhaps this was reaction against some of the Nazi imagery.

So, did I like the book? Yes, and would recommend it to any fan of fantasy.

Net Neut

Hmm… seems like there has been some discussions on net neutrality recently.

This is my thought on it. I am not really a fan of the net neutrality talk that I hear from the FCC – as it only really benefits the pseudo-parasites. Anyway, knowing that no system is perfect, I believe the fairest way to handle the situation, if it must be changed, is to meter it similarly to what happens with cell phone usage: say pay 19.99 for 1 GB of downloads per month, then each additional MB is 50 cents or something like that. I know there are people that say that the carriers should not have advertised something that they cannot deliver, but it is their lines and if they cannot make a profit, then they go out of business and if they go out of business, that is one less carrier to provide service. Bandwidth is a resource and like all resources, it is scarce.  Besides, if it is like most other things in life, I would not be surprised if 90 percent  of the excess usage is due to only like 10 percent of the users.

Women

Wow, it’s been a long time since I posted anything.

Anyway, came across and interesting article in First Things.

This was the 2nd article I read past week talking about how women’s happiness has been trending downward since the 1970’s. This despite achievements in workplace parity and in education (women now surpass that of men in educational achievement), the trend of men taking more responsibility with household chores and rearing of the kids, and increase in material wealth and prosperity. Couple of thoughts that passed through my mind while reading these articles.

One, I remember a friend telling me about something he read which states that among the three large components making up a person’s life: career, children and marriage - a person can, for the most part, excel at 2 of the three. So you had to choose what you want to devote you time and energy to. Perhaps women, with the encouragement of pop culture and probably due to the achievements mentioned above, thought it easy to have it all, and thus ended up with not investing enough into any of them, maybe even deceiving themselves and thus not even noticing signs that certain relationships were lacking their attention.

The other thought was how our explicit culture which pornography is a blatant example, along with post-modern ideas work to undermine husband-wife relationships. There have been studies where it was found that when women sexually climax, their body releases chemical compounds (oxytocin, I believe) that relaxes them and acts to bind them to their husbands. This compound also gets released when women breast feed their baby. Well, when these unitative acts get outsourced via pornography or other means, intimacy is degraded. However, the more general issue is of course the explicitness of it all. Too many of us expose our most initimate details, things that only God and spouse should know, via the many ways that we connect with the world. Thus relationships that should be valuable due to the exclusive nature of it, is not since everyone else has seen it or has knowledge of it. Working in the background is our post-modern culture which gnaws at conventions and, dare I say, truths that sustain us and guide us.

The real victims of course is the natural family in general and our children in particular. It is my belief that natural families, if I have not been clear before, is the key to solving much of the ills that face us as a society. Education, crime, citizenship, health and even economics are tied to natural families. You strengthen natural families and you will improve these other things.

Faith, Arts and Sciences

“I thank thee, Lord God our Creator, that thou allowest me to see the beauty in thy work of creation.”

- Johannes Kepler

Looking around the archives of First Things, I came across this article. It is a response to another article from Wall Street Journal and gives a basic reasoning on how God and science can mix. The quote above comes from that article.

That quote got me thinking on the sciences. Science was a way to look into the laws and the ordering of creation. It had almost a revelatory purpose and hence it raised man up by pointing them to something that was higher than themselves. It pointed toward God.  Contrast that with what goes on today where one hurries to publish every minuscule discovery before some other person makes the exact same discovery. It is research but to what end?

Something similar can be said about the arts, where it also was for pointing us to something higher. Now anyone that can put words to paper, line to canvas, hold a note or even cook is considered an artist, and everyone clamors to get their 15 minutes of fame.

In the arts and in the sciences, I fear that we have put ourselves up as idols…