Random Thoughts for Thursday

"I've done everything the Bible says - even the stuff that contradicts the other stuff!" - Ned Flanders

I watched a couple of movies last weekend that gave me weird thoughts.

I watched that Helen Mirren movie The Queen, about the week after Princess Diana died in 1997. I had forgotten how this affected the British people and their reaction to Diana's untimely death. I wonder if I am weird that no one has affected me in this way other than family and close friends. I mean, when people ask me who I most would want to meet in the world, I get slack-jawed. I guess I have no heroes. Are people's lives so empty that they need someone that they don't even know to fill the void? Painful.

I saw that very sad movie "The Trip to Bountiful" on TCM the other afternoon. I don't know of a much sadder movie. I remember going to see this back in the 80's at the only movie theater that showed art movies in Oklahoma City. You know, the synopsis is that this old woman (Geraldine Page) wants to go back to visit her home in Bountiful, Texas but her son and daughter-in-law won't take her. The daughter-in-law is hateful, and won't let her sing hymns to herself around their small Houston apartment. So, she runs away and takes the bus as far as she can get only to find no one left in the town and the friend she hoped to visit was buried the morning before she arrived. She just wanted to go home. It meant so much to her. I think about myself and my circumstances and I truly believe "home" is where my family is. I can't imagine having such a love for a place, as many do, that they just have to get back there. It did not take long for me to stop thinking of Oklahoma City as home after I moved away. Every time I would go back, it seemed that much was the same and much was totally different. I think we expect that our lives go on, but no one else changes. Sad.

"Personally, I don't have the guts to follow Jesus, so I often settle for being a Christian."

I have come to wonder if I am not the "opposition" wherever I am. It seems that theologically or politically I find a way to be different than most. When I was still teaching at the college, it seemed that I focused this need to be different on theological positions. Now that I am amongst more like-minded theologians, I find that my need to be different focuses on the political. Am I getting to know myself better or am I just being the "opposition" because somebody needs to be? Scary.

I had a current student, who happens to be a Christian and a musician, comment on his Facebook that his music class (my class) was boring and that he only wanted to play music, not learn about the history. Of course, his comments came up on my Facebook homepage and so I commented in a very nice, yet tongue-in-cheek manner about his comments. He laughed, and then seemed to be worried that I was offended.

First, why is it that we think posting to the internet is somehow anonymous and private? Ignorant.

Second, why is it that we do not think about others' perspectives before we say something that could easily cause offense, especially when we are supposed to be followers of Jesus? Childish.

Truth is I was not all that offended because that was my lot in life, trying to find the fun in teaching students who just wanted to play worship music and had no desire whatsoever to learn about music in an academic fashion. I had another one of those enter my office today, a young woman who sings a little like Whitney Houston and I have to tell her her lessons are supposed to center on perfecting classical vocal technique. Priceless.

There are two kinds of fool. One says, "This is old, and therefore good." And one says, "This is new, and therefore better."

Amen.