Quickie Update

Well, hello. Just returned from a fun (albeit rerouted) honeymoon in Puerto Vallarta. All moved into the new pad in Vancouver with the new wife, and enjoying every bit of it. Got turned down for one job, on to searching for another.

More to come as life begins to settle.

Stress

This pretty much sums up how I am feeling this week. Please pray for my mental and physical well-being to hold up under the pressures of trying to get a new job, selling various possessions and packing others, organizing a wedding, and moving to Canada all in a matter of days.

Very Random Link: tcolson's photos

I have no idea who tcolson is, but I’m a sucker for a cute puppie.

Link: Church Uses "Purge Sundays" to Send Non-committed Elsewhere

It’s refreshing to hear of churches who are courageous enough to ask flaky people to leave. Perhaps if more church leaders catered less to, and challenged the mindset of, consumer Christians, then the Church in general would flourish.

Link: Ads from 80's comics!

Boy, how I miss the good old days.

(I’m pretty sure I owned that Bonkers Robot-Watch. So cool.)

London Tragedy

The bombings in London today are horrific. They come at a particularly devastating time: when the G8 leaders should be focusing on solutions to poverty and climate change, they are now distracted.

Please pray with me that Tony Blair does not invoke a knee-jerk response a la George W, by retaliating to bombs with bigger and better bombs. May the Western world “turn the other cheek” for once and bless those who curse us, pray for those who persecute us, and love our enemies. Perhaps if we unconditionally loved the ones who are taking credit for these tragedies and we joined in prayer for their souls, they would no longer feel the need to make themselves heard through such barbaric acts.

"Independence" Day

Today we celebrate freedom and independence in the United States (my last chance to do so before moving back to Canada). As I behold the flag-wavers and anthem-singers wholeheartedly doing their bit, I wonder how independent this country truly is.

So we are not subject to England. Wonderful. We’re free from the horrible tyranny and oppression of that country. But are we free, indeed?

When I survey the culture of the Good Ol’ USA, I see not independence, but slavery. This takes many forms:

• Slavery to money. We love it; we want it; we will do just about anything to get it. This also leads to…

• Slavery to debt. Our fascination with credit cards and buy-now-pay-later “deals” puts Americans in ever-increasing holes of debt with no respite in sight. To be in debt is, in essence, to be a slave to the debtor. Looks like most of us fall into that category.

• Slavery to advertisment. There is a reason why the advertising industry is highly lucrative and expanding, gradually taking over everything from the radios, TVs, and internet in our homes to the signs on our streets to the vending machines in our schools to the traffic in our skies to the players on our beloved sports teams (and there have even been efforts to advertise in space). We are influenced and in many ways manipulated by ads. Commercials tell us how to look and dress, what to eat and drink, how to medicate ourselves, what to drive, and who to vote for. If we didn’t have advertising, how would we ever think for ourselves? I can’t imagine.

• Slavery to sex. Take a brief look around any public place or on any media and you will undoubtedly find sexual themes abounding. We are a culture dominated and driven by sex. This is also closely tied in with the above slavery to advertising because, as everyone knows, “sex sells.”

• Slavery to ourselves. We are so individually-focused and isolated from our surrounding communities that we move to the suburbs to get away from people and build fences to keep out others with the same idea. We drive out of the garage straight to work, sit in our partitioned cubicle (or, if you’re lucky, closed office), finish our work and drive straight back home into the garage. Hell, we never have to step outside if we don’t want to. We have drive-through food, coffee, and banking to keep us safely and comfortably masters of our private automobile domains. We have effectively created cages for ourselves and are very diligent to lock them from within whenever possible.

Sure, this is a free society—we are free to enslave ourselves in all sorts of ways, and we happily do so. God bless America.