Genuine Creative Thinking

Not too late to find LOST

For those who have not yet greatly enriched your lives with LOST - here is what Christianity Today website has to say about it:

http://www.christianitytoday.com/bc/features/webexclusives/nottoolatetofindlost.html?start=1

"Lost has rewarded sustained attention, not least by posing questions that keep viewers thinking about the show between episodes..."

"...Still more captivating than the mysterious island are the capricious and conflicted characters stranded on it. Despite having one of the largest casts in television, and a richly diverse one at that, Lost has devoted valuable airtime to back stories and characterization, deliberately exhibiting complexities and flaws in every character—a rarity in television. But ultimately, these flaws must be revealed, because stripped down to its core, Lost is about the potential for redemption..."

"Lost employs so many allusions—incorporating history, philosophy, mythology, literature, religion, art—that each episode serves as a veritable playground for the erudite."

If you haven't - you should - get in now before the last season in 2010.

dg

Id

It is the dark, inaccessible part of our personality, what little we know of it we have learnt from our study of the dream-work and of the construction of neurotic symptoms, and most of this is of a negative character and can be described only as a contrast to the ego. We all approach the id with analogies: we call it a chaos, a cauldron full of seething excitations... It is filled with energy reaching it from the instincts, but it has no organization, produces no collective will, but only a striving to bring about the satisfaction of the instinctual needs subject to the observance of the pleasure principle.

The Wind Blows.....

“The wind blows wherever it pleases”

It does not respect our plans; The months and years of investing and preparing might be cast upon the breeze. Even the nature of our dreams and our deepest desires are subject to its course. What we build in concrete and steel, the wind can rip out in an instant

It does not respect our reputations; All the favour we have earned, every person we’ve impressed, every piece of respect we’ve gathered and admiration we have garnered is all prone to be lost on the whim of the wind.

It does not respect our traditions; Though our systems work and our methods are reliable, they will not last forever. We are lucky if they last a season. And blessed if they last a generation. If our hope is in tradition, then that hope will be crushed. That is certain.

It does not respect our ambitions; It lifts the least likely. It loves the weak. It thrives in innocence. The ambitious are held at a healthy distance. Those who seek power and position are shunned. You cannot worm your way into the will of the wind.

It does not respect our achievements; You cannot impress it. You cannot convince it of your value. You cannot dazzle it with style. It will not be bought or swayed or persuaded. It has no need for money. It does not need fame to get things done.

It does not respect our worries; Fear is not a word it understands. It has no comprehension of anxiety. It never panics. The wind will not pay the toll, it will break the barrier. What we rule out as preposterous it rules in as realistic. We can only begin to imagine what it is capable of doing. No eye has yet seen it.

“The wind blows wherever it pleases” - John 3:8

B*&%$@^s!

When does a word move from being an innocent collection of syllables and to becoming inherent source of offence?

How does a word become so loaded with insult and crudity that it becomes totally intolerable in the presence of many people?

Why can't some people stand even a "darn", whilst others will drop the F-Bomb before every noun?

Is swearing a sin?

Last night I sat down to watch the first episode of 'The Wire' on DVD which I have been very much looking forward to. Every review I have read has been full of superlatives - no reviewer has been able to praise it enough. As it is an ultra-realistic portrayal of drug dealing and policing in Baltimore I expected some swearing but I was quite taken a back by the quantity of expletives on offer. Now although I don't enjoy hearing it, I can tolerate it. My wife cannot. Although she was not watching it she was in the same room perusing the internet, and commented, more than once, that this was perhaps too much and I should turn off. Is she right?

Quite frankly, I blame my Mother.* 

I am one of the few people I know who has any recollection of their mother swearing. (Apparently most mum's don't want their kids to pick it up or something). 

I can just picture the scene now:

We would be having a pleasant family meal at the dinner table with the 6 o'clock news muttering dimly in the background. Then the presenters would move to an item concerning the NHS (nurses' pay, hospital funding etc.) and on screen would pop up the Tory Health Secretary explaining why they were cutting this or not raising that... and our pleasant evening supper would be broken by my dear mother with "That is .....(insert expletive)....., He/She is such a .....(insert expletive).....". 

Consequently my tolerance of swearing seems to differ from many Christians. I meet people all the time who think that swear is to sin. Full stop. No excuses. Wash your dirty mouth out with soap. 

Yet more recently I've begun to notice a lot of Christians who are almost "pro-swearing". They will insert a "sh*t" or a "cr*p" into casual conversation and even, when feeling particularly brave, the F-Bomb. The reasoning being two fold: a desire to be free from laws/rules/religious attitudes and more truthfully, a penchant for the shocking or controversial.

As it happens I don't 'value' swearing. 

I once heard it referred to as "the last refuge of an inarticulate mind". And that has stuck with me. 

Yet perhaps because of my Tory-Minister-Baiting upbringing (which I am grateful for!) and a more laid back approach to life, I would certainly class myself as a 'stub-your-toe' swearer. Sometimes extreme situations require extreme words. Yet if it can be avoided, which it clearly can, why do I bother?

I don't swear at church, or work, or in front of my children or my grandparents - does that make me a hypocrite?

The most important thing, I believe, is awareness of others. I have no problem with offending people, as regular readers will have noticed, but equally I have no interest or pleasure in offending either.  

There needs to be give and take. We each have a capacity to choose the extent of our offence by another person's swearing - and that is often determined by where it occurs, when it occurs and the intentions behind it. Yet many do not exercise any choice whatsoever. After they have been inflicted with the crude and evil words they rush home to have a shower to rid themselves of the obscenities! 

I can remember watching a program once about the 'C' word. (Yep, that 'C' word!). They made a really interesting observation that the working classes and the upper classes have a quite a high tolerance of swearing whilst the middle classes have a painfully thin tolerance threshold. The point they made was that the middle classes are in some moral panic to distance themselves from the crude and pugnacious Proles whilst the upper classes didn't really give a 'stuff'' (Or a 'toss').  A sweeping generalisation for certain - but a thought worth considering.

So, I fully intend to watch the remaining 12 episodes of Season 1 of "The Wire" -  but there are two things I will bear in mind:

1. I have never met anyone who wished they swore more. 

2. It is entirely possible to never utter an expletive in your life whilst being the most offensive and ignorant person on the planet.

Where do you stand on 'eff-ing & blinding'?

dg

*sorry Mum!

lu.mi.nes.cence

I saw a perfect winter’s morning. The sun was low in the sky, just above the green hills, yet still bright and warm. The sky was a clear, vivid blue but only for a wisp of cloud. The air was cold and still. Then as I looked closer at this scene, towards the top, I saw it fray in the centre. As I reached out I realised that this wasn’t an actual vista, but it was a painting on a canvas.

The canvas continued to fray in the centre and soon the fray became a rip and the rip became a laceration until eventually the scene had become completely torn. However behind the rip was something even more beautiful. The brightest light imaginable shone from beyond the torn edges. A light so bright I could not bare to look at it because when it did catch my gaze I could feel it burn instantly in the back of my eyes.

The light was so radiant and so bold that it appeared to be solid. I was frightened to even raise a hand to shield my face. It felt as if I were even a single inch closer then I would be totally consumed. This light was so brilliant I could sense it not only with my sight, but by touch and taste and smell. I could even hear this light and it was ringing loud. Nothing else could be heard, yet it was a strange sound like a whisper and an explosion and a breath all at once.

As I stood, paralysed by the luminescence, I could feel my face changing. My body was starting to glow. It shone first from my face, then my hands and eventually my entire body. It was shining from both the surface of my skin and deep within from some unknown inner place. Light breaking through light. It was a thousand sensations all at once. Sheer joy. Utter silence. Intense energy. I had become the light.

At this moment, transformed into the body of light, I fell still. As I stood illuminated I felt lucid and beautiful, as if for the first time, truly alive.