Category: Culture

Luther: A hippy?

Some people see eschatology as a dirty word thanks to the Left Behind mob – and I’ve always been pretty wary of people who define themselves by their views on “end times” – but here’s a second post tagged eschatology in two days. There was a comment on my post about how your eschatology shapes your actions that is worth sharing with everybody.

Joanna – who based on her email address I assume used to be a Richardson – but that’s a guess… pointed to a famous quote attributed to Luther:

“Interestingly, Martin Luther – who certainly agreed with you that preaching the gospel was an urgent task in the light of the return of Jesus – when asked what he would do today if he knew the world was ending tomorrow, answered ‘I would plant a tree.’ Was he a man with a poor eschatology, or just a strong theology of creation? Or both, do you think?”

From what I can gather – the quote, more accurately rendered is:

Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree.

I’m not about to throw stones at Luther’s eschatology, that would be profound arrogance on my part. I am curious as to why he would answer the question that way – so I’m doing some research. At the outset I’d posit that either he really enjoyed gardening, or he thought that guessing games concerning the end of the world were pointless and that we should go on living life regardless, others speculate that Luther’s vision of the New Creation features a redeemed version of the current one, and a tree would be a part of that…

There are a few seemingly reputable sites that cast some doubt on whether or not he actually said this at all… but it turns out he did enjoy gardening.

From my initial googling, Option 2 seems to be the favoured interpretation around the online traps.

However, there are others who run with it more literally, like those planning the celebration of the 500th anniversary of Luther’s posting of the 95 theses… who plan to plant 500 trees in the Luthergarden as a visual celebration.

Then there’s the TreeLink mob who claim Luther as a tree-planting champion…

Personally, and this is probably again shaped by my “bias” – and the weight of Luther’s teachings regarding the importance of evangelism against this one quote of dubious origins – I think if he did say it he was probably emphasising the fact that “nobody knows the time and place” so we shouldn’t live as though each day should be our last – but should go on living in readiness. Which, given the weight of Luther’s teachings and the picture we have of the life he lived would involve bold proclamation of the word as a priority.

Some poor souls who run a repository of “spiritual quotes” attributed this one to Martin Luther King Jr.

Incidentally my favourite Luther quote for a long time was this:

Be a sinner and sin strongly, but more strongly have faith and rejoice in Christ.

May 4, 2009

Heroific

Remember the Real Life Superheroes? No, probably not. I wrote about them back when I had about six readers. They get a write up in today’s SMH.

They have such lame names. But that’s pretty standard for Superheroes. I do wonder – with reference to the title – if a person’s title is called an honorific whether one’s superhero name is a heroific? After watching Wolverine yesterday – aka X-Men Origins, I read through the Wikipedia entries on the characters just out of curiosity (starting here) – I wanted to see how faithful the movie storyline was to the actual comics. Turns out the answer to that question is “not very” – but that’s ok, I enjoyed the movie and I’m not a comic book fanboy – or a Mark Driscoll fanboy – though I only use that phrase to ensure my ongoing google pensupremacy* for that phrase.

*I assume given that penultimate is the thing before the ultimate that pensupremacy is the entry before the top entry. Who knows. Correct me if I’m wrong. Actually, don’t. It was merely a bit of wordplay. I take it all back. Except that I leave it all there.

May 4, 2009

Don’t buy this book: WWJE

I had a fun chat with Robyn, Keagan, Phoebe and Tim today about whether or not it would be a bad thing if Koorong went out of business.

It prompted an idea. I’m going to run a semi-regular (however often I get around to it) feature of the worse books on offer from Koorong.

I thought I’d start with an old favourite (of mine – in principle rather than in actuality) – What Would Jesus Eat and the matching cookbook. They actually exist. Funnily enough the detox diet offered by the cookbook includes “fasting” – I would have thought that too obvious to print.

Here’s a look at the blurb – written by the publisher – because that’s all I’ve read.

The Ultimate Program for Eating Well, Feeling Great, and Living Longer

Though there are many diet programs claiming to be “God’s way” to healthy living, and while some of them are based on biblical principles, and even have proven effective for weight loss, WHAT WOULD JESUS EAT? is the first to note the obvious health benefits of what Jesus ate. In this comprehensive program, Dr. Don Colbert reveals the sensible approach to healthy eating laid out by the ultimate role model.

Wait, what? There are other diet programs based on biblical principles. Why have I not been told?

Seems there’s a lot of substance to this diet…

Readers will discover:
* Why foods forbidden in the Old Testament are unhealthy
* Jesus’ favourite foods, including “fast foods” and dessert
* The health benefits of foods Jesus ate, and the health risks of foods He avoided

Also included are Dr. Colbert’s tools to effectively follow the plan: recipes, nutritional information, and practical advice, including how to follow Jesus’ model of eating with foods readily available today.

Jesus favourite fast food? Obviously not figs. They’re never ready on time. Dessert? Wine vinegar perhaps? Frankincense cakes? Or just bread. And obviously the blanket full of animals dropped in front of Peter in his vision are available in the sequel – “What would Peter eat”… A cursory reading of the Gospels would suggest Jesus ate fish, bread, and figs – and that he drank wine. I’m not sure you can build a diet plan on that information.

What would Moses eat is no doubt a book full of Quail dishes, but no recipes featuring milk or honey.

May 3, 2009

Sticky idea

May 1, 2009

Arty fact

I was once convinced (and probably still am) that that which divides art from the everyday is the frame an artist puts around something. The declaration that it is, in fact, art. Without a declaration the thing is just a thing.

Turn your fruit into art with this revolutionary still life fruit bowl. I would buy one of these. If K-Rudd had given me my money.

April 30, 2009

Anonenmity

Anonymous comments aren’t much fun for anyone. Unless they’re loaded with unintentionally funny vitriol. I can almost imagine how much fun this comment on Simone’s blog would have been to write. It’s from an old post of hers critiquing a Christian rewrite of Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah (which for those of you who are culturally arrogant is the same as Jeff Buckley’s Hallelujah and the one on the Shrek Soundtrack). You can hear the Christian rewrite here. You can read the comment in its original context here. And you can indulge in a little bit of voyeurism by checking out Simone’s husband Andrew’s public but thoughtful disagreement with his wife on whether lacking cultural sophistication is sinful here.

Here’s the anonymous comment. Beautiful.

Ok, first of all, you do not know the first thing of what ‘christian’ means if you ever put it in quotes. so dont do it again.
second of all, if someone says “i just want,” you have no idea if that is true or not; just because you are selfish does not mean that everyone is.
lastly, there is no right or wrong in how you listen to music. i mean, that is the stupidest thing ive ever heard! why would there be music if poems would do? i am a recording artist and song composer, so i should know.

April 30, 2009

Green debate humming along

The Green Debate continues. This fail blog post seemed too serendipitous to ignore. Join in. If you dare. I’d be particularly interested if anybody has time to actually read all the Bible verses Amy’s friend the pastor has submitted for consideration.

April 29, 2009

Poll lol

Turns out the Time Magazine poll was “pwned” by the 4Chan.org people. That’s as funny as Colbert getting his name on a Nasa spaceship…

April 29, 2009

K-Ruddy rating

K-Rudd has scored 114th place in an online Time Magazine “World’s Most Influential Person” survey. The guy who won was “Moot” – the founder of 4chan.org (the creators of LolCats).

April 29, 2009

For the ladies…

Well, mostly just for Stuss… She might like to see an article in the SMH that made the same case as her letter to the government.

Women, and in particular mothers, are harshly treated by Australia’s system. They are damned if they return to work after childbirth, and damned if they don’t.

Those who do, face high tax rates because of income tax incurred and welfare benefits withdrawn. Working just a few hours a week and earning $11,000 a year can mean mothers lose 56.5 cents in every dollar in tax and benefits.

But the longer women do not work, the longer they miss out on employer contributions to superannuation. Women’s super balances are woefully inadequate. Those aged 60 to 65 have saved a tiny average of $45,000, compared with men of the same age who have $130,000 stashed away. While mothers face punitive tax penalties for working, rich men receive generous tax concessions on their super payouts.

It’s a good article looking at one issue facing stay at home mums.

April 29, 2009

All quiet on the blog front

I’m busy today. Doing my job. So not much time for posting – plus I have no real idea what to post.

I have been discussing things in a few comment threads that maybe you should check out.

Like this one on drugs, and this one on Mark Driscoll’s desire to take over the world.

April 28, 2009

Self Help Books for Dummies – Getting published

Getting a self-help book published is also fairly easy. Because of the size of the self-help market selling your book to publishers is like shooting fish in a barrel. The smaller the niche your book fits into is the smaller the barrel, or conversely the larger the fish. It’s important to pick the right publisher for your book. If you’re an aspiring novelist it may be worth holding on to your manuscript till one of the larger publishing companies shows interest. When this happens try to structure your deal to include a guarantee that the company will also publish your novel. Don’t be afraid to strike a hard bargain with the publisher, all they see when they’re dealing with you is the dollar signs. They can often be blinded by their greed.

A publishing company executive signing a multiple book deal with a self help book writer

April 26, 2009

Self Help Books for Dummies – The Cover

The old saying holds true, you can judge a book by its cover, especially a self-help book. When it comes to designing the cover for a self-help book it’s helpful to throw any artistic taste out the window. Bright colours and lots of lines at different angles are important when it comes to making your book stand out on the shelves of the bookshop. You don’t want your book to be buried in a sea of boring book covers, you want it to stand out like a pink neon sign in a black and white movie. Self-help book covers are one place where sticking out like a sore thumb or being a sunflower in a field of lavender is a good thing. It’s also important that your name feature prominently on the front cover.
The back cover of a self-help book is just as important. Readers of self-help books like to check who has been helped by either the book or its author in the past. It’s a good idea to have some positive quotes from well-known people or something quotable from a review your book received in the press. This doesn’t have to be the real press as it’s almost unverifiable. You could just send a letter to the editor of a really small newspaper that publishes everything and use your own quote, but only do this if you get really desperate.


An artist’s impression of the ideal book cover…

April 25, 2009

Self Help Books for Dummies – Writing the book

The key to success in the self-help market is to understand that you don’t actually need to provide any merit to your readers. They get enough benefit from simply adding your book to their self-help library to impress visitors. However, there are several tools that the successful self-help writer should have in their toolbox.

1. Statistics
2. Diagrams
3. Illustrations
4. Clichés
5. Repetition
6. Repetition
Statistics

The truth is 90% of self help books are never read, at least past the first chapter. Once your first chapter is finished you can pretty much write whatever you want to fill in the next nine chapters. This is both a valid lesson for the self-help writer to learn and an example of how statistics can be misused or just plain made up.

Diagrams

The old saying that a picture is worth a thousand words holds true in the self-help market. Because any given sample of 1000 words of a self-help book are unlikely to make any sense, you as the writer have a bit of freedom when it comes to diagrams. In fact the more complicated the diagram appears the more impressive it seems.

The idea cycle – another pointless diagram.

The most important part of a diagram is to have an appropriate caption so that people know what they are looking at. A really good caption will say a lot but mean very little to the reader.

Illustrations

One tool that the prospective self-help writer will have to develop if they want to increase their word limit in a hurry is to be able to use pointless, long-winded illustrations. Here’s an example of an illustration that will leave the reader looking for a point or moral:

“It’s like a boat, sailing on a really choppy sea, the sailors are getting sick, throwing up all over the place. In a situation like this the last person you want to be on the boat is the ships boy who has to clean up everyone’s mess, including their own.”

Often the reader’s interpretation of a story like that one will be much more beneficial to them than anything you could come up with yourself. While there are obviously many meanings that could be taken from this illustration its ambiguity is important if people are to gain any “real” meaning from your writing.

Clichés

Clichés are another important key to success. Especially when misused, they allow the real meaning of sentences to flow like water off a ducks back, where the duck is the reader. The more clichés you can pack into a paragraph the more confused the reader will get. It’s important when using clichés that you really give 110% to your writing.

Repetition

It’s a sad truth that people these days rely on repetition to enforce truth. Well sad unless you’re a self-help writer with a lot of space to fill and not much to say. The importance of repetition means that you can pretty much just say the same thing over and over again in new and innovative ways for the whole book if you want.

It’s vital that you repeat yourself so that the reader will recognise the importance of your message. Unless you repeat yourself several times your message won’t be enforced. This isn’t such a bad thing. It means that you will be able to fill up the empty pages of your book very quickly.

Always remember the golden rule for self-help writing – confusing the reader is the ultimate goal. You’ll eventually be able to release a sequel to your first book further explaining the concepts of the first. You can even use “for dummies” or “idiots guide to” in the title of the new book.

April 24, 2009

Ode to Bach

Johann Sebastian Bach was pretty awesome. Awesome enough for me to own this shirt.

While I’ve always appreciated Bach for his robust theology and amazing musical ability – it was not until the weekend that I learned that Bach was a coffee snob. He wrote a cantata describing his love for the bean. The Coffee Cantata. Here’s a rough English translation of some of the lyrics:

Recitative Schlendrian
You wicked child, you disobedient girl, h! when will I get my way; give up coffee!

Lieschen
Father, don’t be so severe! f I can’t drink my bowl of coffee three times daily, then in my torment I will shrivel up like a piece of roast goat.

Aria Lieschen
Mm! how sweet the coffee tastes, more delicious than a thousand kisses, mellower than muscatel wine. Coffee, coffee I must have, and if someone wishes to give me a treat, ah, then pour me out some coffee!

The piece was a moral treatise on the place of coffee in daily life. The protagonists were a father and a recalcitrant coffee addicted daughter who would not forgo her daily java. The father demanded she do so lest she forfeit the right to marry and she relents… seemingly. Although in a sub clause of sorts she indicates she’ll only marry a fellow coffee snob – sage advice indeed.

The uplifting final movement brings the father, daughter and narrator together to sing a song expounding on the benefits of coffee and proclaiming it “natural”. Hurrah.

Here’s a performance from YouTube:

April 23, 2009