When I found a used copy of Shusaku Endo’s Silence at Powells I thought it would be a great time to read this work of fiction from one of Japan’s “foremost novelists” (someone had talked about it up at Regent once and I have wanted to read it since). In brief: read it. It is a wonderfully written story about a Portuguese Catholic priest in the foreign world of Japan who must deal with core issues of faith: why is God often silent? His struggle is also the struggle of many missionaries to Japan in 17th century who were forced to look apostasy in the face. Shusaku Endo‘s “masterpiece” has received both acclaim and harsh criticism. I imagine there are those within the Roman Catholic church that would call Endo a heretic, but the issues that he raises must be dealt with by all Christians. Simply calling “heresy!” is a cop out: it may be heretical, but it cannot be ignored.
To warn you right off the bat, this is going to be a long post with lots of “spoilers” and quotes from the book. While I will primarily be discussing the theological statements and not the story line, it will be impossible to not give things away. If you feel like the impact of the book will be lessened by reading about it (including the climax), read the book first and then come back; if not, keep on reading! Read more…
The Antennae Galaxies (also known as NGC 4038 and NGC 4039) are two galaxies in the process of colliding (and have been doing so for some 200 or 300 million years). The collision is taking place in the constellation Corvus approximately 63-68 million light years away. Because of the collision there are large clusters of star birth regions. Billions of stars have been created because of this intergalactic crash. It is also quite lovely to look at!
Readers of my blog know that I really don’t complain too much. Even when I had my ipod, wallet, dvds, shoes, underwear, and other assorted items stolen or when I shamelessly asked for money I tried not to be too pessimistic or annoying. That being said, let me complain for a moment: I still don’t have an ipod and now my car CD player is busted (yeah, poor me, how will I survive? Who cares about those who are actually in need?). First the lights went out but everything still seemed to work okay. I can deal with that, I don’t need to know how many seconds of Come Sail Away have passed. And I don’t really need to listen to the radio, we pretty much just get Canadian stations anyway… No worries. At least the CDs play!
I pop in the second disc of Jason Harrod live at Zoka Coffee and start singing along. Two times through is enough for now so I hit the good ol’ eject button and the face plate thing moves down… no CD… then up… and then down… and then up… and then down… you get the idea… then it beeps. Now every time I turn on the car it goes through the same motions, the sound of the faceplate, Jason Harrod singing Kickin’ Mule, and then beeping. I love Jason Harrod, but after 38 times through, I am ready for something different. I might go insane. Luckily I didn’t have the soundtrack to Titanic in at the time…
So anyone have any suggestions? And keep in mind that I am quite broke… I don’t even know how much CD players cost!
On Saturday night I went, once again, up to the Viking Union at Western Washington University. This time it was to catch The Pale Pacific. Like all bands that I dig, their show was amazing!
Gabe, Justin, Cam, and Greg always know how to entertain, make us laugh, and put on a kick-ass rock show! The full set of pictures can be viewed at my Flickr set: Pale Pacific @ WWU.
I took six video clips (I will eventually get them up on YouTube [EDIT: you can now check the vids out at my Pale Pacific YouTube Playlist!]) that you can download. The sound isn’t the best because the speakers were off to my left, but they are good enough! NOTE: large files!
This is a region of glowing hydrogen gas in the Small Magellanic Cloud in the southern hemisphere.
N44C is peculiar because the star mainly responsible for illuminating the nebula is unusually hot. The most massive stars, ranging from 10-50 times more massive than the Sun, have maximum temperatures of 54,000 to 90,000 degrees Fahrenheit (30,000 to 50,000 degrees Kelvin). The star illuminating N44C appears to be significantly hotter, with a temperature of about 135,000 degrees Fahrenheit (75,000 degrees Kelvin)!
“The star that appears to power the nebula, although young and bright, does not seem hot enough to create some of the colors observed.” So what is going on there? I guess you will have to find out! Regardless of what is going on, it is beautiful!
Great post title, eh? Okay, all this really means is I have a few awesome links for you all to check out.
Firefox 2 RC3 is available for download. This is still a Beta project so not everything will necessarily work perfectly, but I, personally, cannot see why you wouldn’t want to download it. The reason I am so excited? Built in spell checker!! Whenever you spell something incorrectly a little red dashed line will appear underneath the word. Let me tell you how helpful this is for me! Plus a new version of Firefox is just cool.
Yes, our economy is actually doing well (despite what the MSM might be saying). Visit Pursuing Holiness’ post “Great Economy – Go Figure” for some great stats. The Dow Jones is at nearly 12000 (it actually hit it today before dropping below by the end of the day). One of the stats that I think is pretty awesome: “$207,788,000,000: The reduction in the Deficit in the Past 29 Months Due to Stronger Economic Growth.” Check out Laura’s post (where she also notes some interesting stats on poor households in the comments) or the source. [UPDATE: The Dow closes at 12,011.73! (10.19.06)]
I have watched the majority of the new NBC show Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip and have enjoyed it for the most part. This new “dramedy” focuses on the production of a sketch comedy show of the same name. I do find it ironic that this show is on NBC. The show’s premise is that they had to bring in two new guys to run the show after their predecessor flipped out and went on a tirade about the pathetic nature of Studio 60. Hopefully the irony is obvious to you: Saturday Night Live is just as bad as the tirade about Studio 60 suggested.
One of the things that I found somewhat interesting was their dealings with Christianity. One of the lead characters is a “devout” Christian (although that doesn’t necessarily mean she is orthodox by any means). They also portray her has a pretty normal, level-headed person. Go figure. One of the plot lines throughout is the Christian reaction to certain sketches (one being “Crazy Christians”) where there is outcry and petition (and even boycotting) against the show by Christians who are against some of those sketches. Well Sally made the astute observation that that doesn’t really happen in reality (well of course there will always be some really conservative Christians getting upset about everything). Christians are constantly being made fun of or belittled for their faith in numerous shows (definitely including SNL) but, by and large, Christians take the blows (and sometimes even think the comments are spot on and funny). What if one of the show’s lead characters was Muslim? What if the sketches made fun of Islam and its followers instead of Christians? That show would NEVER make it on the air and there really would be protests and boycots (and I would love to see how the ACLU would respond!). Any thoughts on this point?
As I implied before, I have not be very impressed with the quality of SNL‘s comedy. I really haven’t been since the early 90s. I caught the season premiere with Dane Cook hosting and all hopes of the new season bringing better sketches was squashed. It just seemed to be the same old stuff, appealing to the lowest common denominator. That being said, I found one bright moment in a largely un-funny sketch. The sketch started out as usual, making fun of George Bush. The premise was that a few of our “friendly” world leaders (Kim Jong Il, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and Hugo Chavez) were in a round table discussion debating “important” questions such as “Is Bush the Devil?” and the like. Yada yada yada. The real funny moment came with the last question (which I suppose is when it is supposed to come): “If you could live anywhere in the world, where would it be?” They all responded, with enthusiasm, that America was their destination of choice. They actually managed to make the comment that as much as other nations and peoples bash the US, it is still where people want to come. (Gee, it is like we are actually a good place to be!) Who knew SNL could actually notice that.
Supermoon over Mount Baker!! Ok, really it’s just a Full Moon at perigee. It is about 14% bigger and 30% brighter. You know, assuming you can see it. And no, it isn’t connected with natural disasters.
Football! It was a smaller group today, but that didn’t take away from the fun times we had. After a few hard hits and a sprint at the end, I am pretty tired and sore. Ready to play again though!
Christ be with me, Christ within me,
Christ behind me, Christ before me,
Christ beside me, Christ to win me,
Christ to comfort and restore me.
Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ in quiet, Christ in danger,
Christ in hearts of all that love me,
Christ in mouth of friend and stranger.
I bind unto myself the Name,
The strong Name of the Trinity;
By invocation of the same.
The Three in One, and One in Three,
Of Whom all nature hath creation,
Eternal Father, Spirit, Word:
Praise to the Lord of my salvation,
Salvation is of Christ the Lord.
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