I use that word a lot… Silly. I must have a two year old.

I also got a new computer, and it changed my podcast web address to:

http://web.mac.com/mattblazer/Site/Podcast/Podcast.html

I don’t know why.

I will update that one after I finish putting my talks from Colossal Camp on there…

Macs are awesome, but who can explain them???

So, the latest game (for Caroline and I) is to play the “Wheels on the bus”. A slight bit like Calvin Ball, “Wheels on the bus” can exist outside where it involves running around the tree in our front yard singing various verses of the hit song. However, lately it is more interesting for Caroline to request that I make up new verses all the time. Current verses that may or may not be in the original (which we have copies of in at least two books) – The cars on the bus (“boom, boom, boom”), the penguins (“I can’t fly”), the spoons (“Scoop, scoop, scoop”), the dogs (“Woof, woof, woof”), the mommies (you think you’ve heard this one, but Caroline learned a different version from Mommy – must ask Mommy to hear that one), the cats, the sheep (“Don’t take my wool”), the cows (“moo, moo, moo”), the Carolines (“this is not a crisis…”), the Ronnies (our dog, “I Hate thunder”), the Batmans (he says “I am fat” because he is), Stegosaurus’, Bill the Dinosaurs (a T-Rex I think), Fred the Dinosaurs (like Bill, only yellow), Triceratops’ (“Get out of my way”), Racoons (“I can fight”, because I only know what I learned from Old Yeller), etc.

ANYWAY, tonight, while she was in the bathtub she asked for several new verses based upon letters she was picking up (she has these little letters that stick to the walls of the tub). Letters she knows: ‘t’, ‘g’, ‘q’, ‘x’, ‘m’, ‘w’… She mistook ‘o’ for ‘g’ and the number ‘1’ for the number ‘2’. It was amazing. Not because she is advanced (like every kid, I’m sure she is in some ways and not in others), but because she has learned so much! It is just fun to watch and participate alongside! Crazy crazy crazy…

Let me know if you have any fun verse ideas…

So, I’m in Baltimore, and I just got finished speaking to an amazing group of senior high and junior high students.

Throughout the week I was loosely encouraging those who were already Christians on what I had learned about apologetics in 2008… That is a fancy way of saying I used what I know of Tim Keller’s book “Reason for God” to encourage them on interacting with people who have these blocks between them and the Lord like – Suffering, the Exclusive Claims of Christianity, etc.

One of the hardest ones to deal with is the Record of Christians…

So, on the cab ride home from Dinner (which couldn’t have lasted more than 10 minutes), I was interrogated by a poor 72 year old Jewish man who was beat up repeatedly in school because “Jews killed Jesus”… I think I got a semi-free pass for not being Catholic. At the end he said, “Well, someone needs to ask forgiveness for all that…” and I leaned forward and I asked his forgiveness, and he granted it – said he wasn’t talking about me (to which I said I was in that tradition so I was asking anyway) – and he thanked me… And I upped my tip…

Then he came back to give me money back because he remembered that our first stop was for him to get gas…

We re-lived both the forgiveness and the tip again.

I suppose Tim Keller is right. I suppose I was right to encourage the kids to simply apologize and offer forgiveness when and where we can… Being right doesn’t make me any less sad that this poor man had to fight many days of his elementary school and junior high years. I wonder if I could have talked to him about Jesus if he hadn’t been beat up so much when he was young.

So, we went to Serendipity tonight because we knew Silly Jilly would be there. Silly Jilly makes balloon animals. Two weeks ago she made Caroline a giraffe (George). George looked very strange when parts of him began to pop.

So, we walk over (after pizza, not the healthiest evening…) and Caroline is VERY excited at this point. Silly Jilly offers to make another giraffe, a monkey, a lady bug (I saw one of these, it was pretty amazing – she is much better than Cowboy Gil), and since she didn’t offer to make any of the little Einstein’s (maybe you have seen their show at 7:00 AM CDT???) we decided on Mickey (he comes on at 7:30).

The entire time Silly Jilly was making Mickey Caroline was screaming, “WOW WOW WOW, LOOK AT THAT!!! LOOK AT THAT!!! WOW WOW, LOOK AT THAT MICKEY!!!” And hopping up and down. It was like an ad for balloon-animal-vendors… And we thought we should share.

Sorry for the low-resolution picture, I only had my phone

I want to go to bed.

I will soon.

Have some finals this week, but I’m blogging at 1:12 because I hate sin. Usually I am careful on my blog to not talk too Christian-ey… But, I hate sin. I want my friends and family to stop drowning in it.

Sorry that I always use that word, but that is what it looks like to me from here.

Caroline reminds me of so much of what is good in the world, and yet I know that (while I “have what it takes”) I cannot protect her from the world, her own flesh, and the one who prowls about seeking to devour her…

Lord, I believe… help my unbelief.

So, I posted that picture because it is awesome.

I thought about writing about stories and how I rented the third Season of Arrested Development (“STEVE HOLT!!!”). It was good and funny – I laughed out loud on my own – but I was sad to not have rented a story. I even bought popcorn. I cannot remember the last time I bought popcorn for a couch-movie.

Earlier in the week I rented and watched 1408. Rachel began watching, then we all decided she shouldn’t watch it. I don’t recommend it. It is neither scary enough nor good enough. The evil isn’t tangible enough and the character development is too tangible. However, I will give it to Stephen King he understands the point of suffering to some degree.

Cusack sees several ghosts in the movie, and was sort of disappointed in them (except for the startling aspect) until I realized I was supposed to be. No apparition or physical sensation or even the anticipation of such is as powerful as your own past and your own story. Now, this – in and of itself – does not equal what I would call a robust definition of suffering! Rather it is merely a description.

But, at the end it is clear that Cusack is better for having gone through it. His marriage is better, his work is leagues and light years better, his marriage is better… Some of it was new suffering, some was facing old suffering – most was dealing with himself…

So, why do we elevate our experience? Is this what we do now that Sartre and Kirkegaard have really influenced everybody (they were existentialists… don’t ask me much more than that)? We think we’re not supposed to suffer… I suppose much of the culture tells us we are not supposed to… When looking for reasons and especially what to do we simply go to ourselves (In Cusack’s case he was still writing, but writing cheap silly Haunted House tour Guide Books and surfing while his wife didn’t even know where he was. I have sympathy for where his character was, but that isn’t the right response.) So, what is the right response? I don’t know. I have a lot of trouble looking people who have suffered in the eye and telling them they have elevated their experience over what they know to be true about life, suffering, and community.

Isn’t community funny too? We love it, we hate it, we need it so desperately, it creates as much hardship as anything… We run from it, we cannot run from it?

So, Rachel and I saw Juno tonight. I enjoy movies. This was one of the few that I saw without refreshments – I am on a “I don’t know how to really diet, but I should breathe between bites…” diet, and it includes not ordering popcorn and a large cup of corn to drink (you know that that is all that soda is right?).

I liked that it resolved a bit more than other 2008ish movies, but wasn’t a feel good 80’s flick (although I really like those and am pretty amazing at pointless 80’s trivia). I liked the characterization and movement – didn’t see Jason Bateman ending the way he ended in the movie. It made me like people more, believe in life and the movement within it, made me want to buy the soundtrack for my wife, made me want to watch more Arrested Development…

Other things I could write about… The friend who made a decision to not keep their baby – hard to think about without Juno. The pen I just successfully filled with ink that belonged to my great-grandfather. A listener of my podcast wants me to podcast about guilt. And I’m tired of Seminary, mainly because I still see drowning people everywhere as I drive to a place where my role (Calling???) is to sit and be trained (deal with my authority issues???) while many of the drowning ones ask me to speak – at events, into their lives, over coffee…

Discuss… (You may also discuss my daughter on her second birthday eating a cupcake out of a cone – GREAT IDEA, my wife is a genius)…

So, I have an assignment to read about 20 different websites of missions organizations and world news sites. As I prepare to do this I was drinking a nice beverage, and then – because my back has been hurting – I sat in the massage chair Rachel got me for Christmas. Before I signed on my blog (and also before the mission sites) I looked at fountain pens on E-Bay and Paradisepen.com…

Seems a bit out of whack, and yet I believe the Gospel has as much to say towards religious people (if not more) as it does to irreligious people. Meaning: there is no rule about whether or not I can have a fountain pen (or three). But, there is this reality (regardless of my perception) that the point of money is more likely to put the world back together than it is to make me happy. I like big defintions… Remind me to tell you what I told the last teenager who asked me if God could make a rock so heavy he couldn’t lift it.

Almost two years ago we took Caroline home from the hospital (March 18th). Now, on the first page of the book I made her through my computer (thanks IPHOTO), if I say, “There’s Caroline just after she was born…” She will say, “She was very smushy” (Because that is the caption and because she is very verbal).

There are still people everywhere I know who seem to be drowning in life. My wife and I were watching In the Bedroom (because it is based upon a Short Story by my favorite author)… it is poignant about suffering and companionship.

I am leading a thingey about worldviews for seniors… They don’t know if it is relevant… They don’t know that the world will walk up to them every day and ask them in no uncertain terms where and how and why their worldview speaks to them… “What is your purpose… Why is the world such a mess… What happens when you die… Is there any hope… ” There’s one other one I can’t even remember… Probably something about identity.

Thoughts?

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So, I just finished “The Road”. My mom wants my brother (a Philosophy professor) to lead a discussion on it sometime in Denver (where she lives, he teaches in Chicago). So, I got it for my birthday. Everyone on this side of the family has read it.

I wish I had read it before I had a daughter, even though it is easier to understand now.

I am glad I have read McCarthy before (Blood Meridian), and was aware of how dark of a writer he is.

It is the saddest book of fiction I have ever read. Although I did not cry – it was too stark of a sadness to cry, too well done, too many ashes everywhere “If I’m not allowed to cry you’re not…” I am moved I suppose. But, I think I stereotype “being moved” as a good thing. I was moved at Dachau. Fiction cannot capture the reality of Dachau, but I suppose The Road might be one of the closest.

The two books that did make me cry – A Severe Mercy (twice) and the Killer Angels (when Chamberlain makes his men salute their confederates). See why I didn’t cry? I cry at weird stuff.

They make a lot of McCarthy’s books into movies, and this one was an Oprah pick (I will have to find out what she thought. Seriously) so it will certainly be a movie. I will not want to see it, but I will probably see it.

Why are we so obsessed with the end of the world? How many movies and stories exist about it? My brother eventually wants to write about how Apocalyptic works serve to display what we think is of ultimate value. This is apparently a brand of philosophy known as aesthetics. I thought I knew what aesthetics were… things have too many meanings.

I hope that there is more hope than darkness upon the Road. Caroline exists to show me that there is.