Blog posts about writing blog posts are a bad idea

So instead, I propose to write about a blog post that came to life and went on their computer and typed out a blog post. Thus it would no longer be a “a blog post about writing a blog post”, but rather “a blog post writing about blog posts”. This is much more interesting (though a waste of anyone’s time equally).

Anyhow, I need to write. This is something that has been nagging at me for years but I have been putting it off. What reasons are there for someone like me to write? And post it in the blog format? This has been done so much (and therefore I have little hope that anyone would read what I write). But there are things that I want to flesh out in writing for myself and the people of my church. There are books I’d like to introduce to people I know. Writing helps me sort things out in my mind. I majored in creative writing in college?

But there are some things that are unique to my situation that I can probably leverage a little bit, and perhaps would provide a somewhat unique outlook. I am a pastor of a Japanese church. I’ve lived in Japan for 16 years without returning to the states much at all. 日本語でもブログを書ける。My interests also range from progressive rock to Japanese novels, to video games and their soundtracks.

All of this together would make for a very disjointed blog. But perhaps by keetping Christ at the center, or foundation, even if in many cases unstated and implicit, things will be both tied together and beneficial. So, the next step is to be be consistent. To write everyday. To see if this goes anywhere. Well, let’s try this for a year then. Here we go.

Lost Horizons and Gin Blossoms

My favorite song by the band Gin Blossoms is “Lost Horizons”.  I think that its appeal lies in the power of a heart laid bare in the lyrics by Doug Hopkins.  It moves through three situations, each moving from the outside in.  Starting with the locale full of bars and factories, the lyrics go on “I’d drink enough of anything to make this world look new again”.  The next move is towards people, that the girl and his relationship has lost its life and purpose.  She has nothing to say, so she says “i love you” and even these words are empty…so the lyrics go on “I’d drink enough of anything to make this girl look new again.”  And then finally we go to the failures and weakness of the speaker.  “I’d never thought i’d still be here today”.  It describes hopes that never came to fruition.  Plans that were never carried out.  Everything seems so stillborn about his life.  And so we hear the final words “I’d drink enough of anything, to make myself look new again”.

What’s desired is for redemption, for the world, for the people, for himself to be new.  But how does one make new what has become old.  There is alcohol that makes things look different for an instant, but it is a trick.  If there was some kind of drink, potion, that would make things permanently look new, that’d I’d drink!  But there is no such thing, no pill, no antidote and no hope…things remain gray, washed out and fading.

Its the honesty with the yearning for redemption.  And, personally, I do think there is redemption in Jesus, not to sound cliche.  But the honesty of the plight is profound and i tend to think that whether we admit it or not, we all feel these things at some point.  We need redemption.  Hopkins’ tragedy as many people might already know, was that his alcoholism brought all kinds of self destructive events, leading to a kind of abandonment by his band mates in favor of being accepted by a major label (the deal was either Hopkins is out or no deal), subsequent success by the band post-Hopkins, all with the songs he wrote giving the band success and hit singles, and then a gold record sent in the mail from them…he went on to smash the record and then committed suicide later.

Knowing that tragedy, it makes me hear Hopkins’ words clearer and then makes me want to shout out to him…that he can be made new… in Christ.

Porcupine Tree and Religion

With the recent release of Steven Wilson’s (Aka Porcupine Tree, Blackfield) latest solo album, I took some time to do a little searching via old interviews (via wikipedia…).  I confirmed a few things i had felt via lyrics coming from Porcupine tree that Wilson doesn’t like organized religion, but that he doesn’t necessarily shut out spirituality (defined in an Atheistic framework) completely.  Through songs like Lazarus and Prodigal, there seems to be echoes of themes from stories found in the Gospels.  Especially the calling of Lazarus from the grave found in John.

These lyrics were never endorsements, but sharing some themes, I at least felt that Wilson perhaps appreciated “truth” behind some of the stories, but “truth” as not fact, but as something true in the sense that it speaks to the human heart…

So, finding Steven Wilson to be an Atheist never struck me as odd and he also doesn’t seem to be in attack mode regarding religion, but he does seem to think it to be nonsense…and obviously so.  He then goes on to talk about the New Testament being written 200-300 years after the fact by governments/systems of power.  And these comments I think both surprised me and disappointed me.  I think I had expected more understanding regardless of his conclusions, but he seems to accept this narrative that I’ve heard thrown around here and there.  It is that the New Testament was written really late, far after the events around Jesus’ life.  But what strikes me strange is that no scholars, Atheist or Christian or Muslim, would ever date the Gospels so late as the dates often thrown around by people like Wilson.  I wonder where these dates come from and I also wonder why they are accepted so naturally.

Listening to the music and lyrics written down by Wilson, I often find myself nodding along with his views and insights and had considered him (and still do to an extent) a very deep and thoughtful person.  But his comments made me remember that a person can be an expert in one field but ignorant in other areas.  A person can be deep in some areas of life, but shallow on other fronts.  Because a person is an expert scientist does not give them authority surrounding history.  Because a person is a great historian and knows so much about a place and time, it does not necessarily mean they will then be a well-trained sociologist or even know a thing about history in Asia or other areas out of their field.

But we often come with expectations that movie stars are well-informed about global politics and musicians will be deep philosophically.  But, of course not!  Neither are we experts in all trades.  But we sometimes make the mistake of listening a little too much to people who really don’t know too much.

And again, the last thing that i often notice is that people discount religion on account of it being intellectually absurd, but they often do while giving out information to back their case that is verifiably incorrect.  And so while they come to the issue under the mantle of knowledge and intellectual integrity and realism…often it comes from a narrative that they have been fed…it comes from faith.

Skyrim and Getting Lost

So, I had a bit of time to myself last night and decided to play some Skyrim on PS3.  Such a great game.  I realize that it’s much easier to lose track of time/ play too much with rpgs versus platformers like Mario.  Mario, I’ll pick up for 30 minutes to an hour and be satisfied and done.  But rpgs bring in this addictive nature of wanting to complete as well as wanting to see what’s around the next corner.  There is something very human about wanting to tie lose ends together and being reluctant to quit until things are settled.  I think games like Skyrim pull the player in with this element.  When I finish a quest, I don’t just finish it, but I want to go back to town and make sure everything is resolved, my items are put away safely and everything is neat and tidy.  But the game doesn’t really allow that because it’ll make sure that on the way back to town I’ll meet a dragon, get pulled into another quest or witness a fight in a market that, again, pulls me in so that I can get things resolved.

So anyways, great game and does speak to our human nature (its a very human game).  I suppose the one danger is that if Skyrim becomes the preferred residence of us and the Earth is simply background noise.  Games should be for leisure and relaxation, but sometimes that non-risk environment is what we crave for and we end up abandoning ship on our careers, friends and family and live our lives out in the game.  Which is a shame.

A few scattered thoughts on Chu Shingura

I was reading part of Chu Shingura today and I wanted to revive my writing habits.  I remembered that a few years ago I had a blog created, and so, now I return to improve my “accountability” for writing.  So, what made me want to write were some of the Confucius ethics that I find in many of these plays (the dealing with many complicated relationships that come into conflict with one another where the main characters are brought to a point where they must suffer loss).  Here the story revolves around a brothel house.  A father has sold his daughter (who is already married) to a brothel without the husband’s knowledge.  And so a promise was made that was I think in slight violation of the relationship between husband and wife which becomes some what more prioritized than parent-child after marriage (according to Arai Hakuseki).

But here is what struck me.  There is a brothel where women are being put into a sex-slave industry (an evil), yet the values or rules of the Confucius system of honor protects the evil industry.  The fact that there turns out to be so much conflict and so much sorrow, I think, points to the fact that there cannot simply be “a way” without a “foundation”.  The Confucius system describes how one ought to prioritize each relationship, but what is the base from which these relationships are weighed and established?  From where do these bonds come and how is the strength of each bond determined?

So, I first want to admit that I do not know enough about Confucianism to make too many judgments.  This is something that would be interesting to explore…what are the foundations for Confucianism?  But, I also come away from stories like this where wrong is done and no one seems to be able to stand up against that which is wrong because of a system that freezes everyone.  I write this as a Christian, so I believe in ‘good’ and ‘evil’.  But when our societal systems have some faults in the foundation, many times the oppressors are protected and the oppressed are without hope, unless they have a hope that comes from without the system.  Thus hope in the Creator, though looked down upon in a Confucian setting, protects from such abuses (or rather, helps people from subjecting themselves to such abuses).  The downside is that they will then have to bear shame from the community for their lives, but, did not Christ also bear our shame in carrying the cross?  We, by following the cross, die in shame, but we also live freely.

so…

I decided to make a blog that no one will read.  But at least this might encourage me to write more.

So…here is the plan.  I’m going to write about theology and culture (namely Japanese/American) as well as about whatever books I read, games I play, music I listen to.  I don’t want this to become an end in of itself, but a means to help me write more and thus perhaps process more of what I intake.  I started reviewing books without publishing the reviews anywhere just as a means of thinking deeper about what I read, and this blog is to futher that line of thinking.

If I can, I’ll update it about once a week, reviewing a book, album, or game…and perhaps also let a thought run its course in writing.

Well, enough for one day….the end.