what's next

this is a procrastination blog post.

i've been thinking the past couple days about how the next generation(s) will rebel against mine. i couldn't really think of any way my generation is extreme in a bad way. how blind i am to the acceptable weaknesses of my cultural generation! but tonight i came up with my prediction. i think the next generation will reject our high importance placed on emotional health. i think they will "go back to the land" and embrace hard work and determination. i think they will mirror the great depression generation.
this flies in the face of ideas that the next generation will be more technically advanced, more leisurely, and more connected electronically. i think that their motto will be: "suck it up, life is pain"
i think chap clark's book hurt has a good point. i've been noticing more lately how much pain the high schoolers are in. it debilitates them. what will they learn to do with their pain that they are so well-equipped to describe?

Asia Argento in the Last Mistress

alternative imogen heap music video for "first train home"

my friend luci from l'abri is the blonde in the blue dress on the right for the first part of the video. she was an artist in residence for imogen heap for awhile. pretty awesome!

Levi's "Go Forth" commercial

This was shown before Twilight: New Moon at the midnight showing last night. I think this captures a feeling of my generation. I don't really know how to articulate it beyond saying that. This is pretty good art.

However, watching it on this tiny tiny screen takes away some of the drama that I felt on the big screen. The expressions on the people's faces is what did it for me. Full screen this ish.

bizarre and wonderful:

Charlotte Gainsbourg - Heaven Can Wait from Charlotte Gainsbourg on Vimeo.

via kanye

Douglas Coupland, Life After God, "My secret is that I need God - that I am sick and can no longer make it alone. I need God to help me give, because I no longer seem to be capable of giving; to help me be kind, as I no longer seem capable of kindness; to help me love, as I seem beyond being able to love."

from matt

Al-Anon

A good friend of mine is a recovering alcoholic and I decided to check out Al-Anon, a support group for those in relationships with alcoholics. My coworker at the florist said that her mom went for four years and loved it. She said that it just gave her practical life advice.

It was held in the library of a local Church of Christ. The meeting was set up a lot like the one AA meeting I went to with my friend. The twelve steps are read, new-comers are welcomed, and some story is read or shared that starts off the evening's discussion.;

After the AA meeting I decided that I think that the church should be like an AA meeting. People come in, are reminded of the truths of the Bible, someone shares a story from the Bible or how God has acted in their life, and people respond. It'd be a great support group.

I think I'm going to go back to Al-Anon because it's basically a support group for codependents. The woman who shared her personal story was going to share it last week but her (alcoholic) husband was in a serious car accident. She shared the story of how she was coping with almost eerie serenity. She put the responsibility for the accident on her husband. She was going to help him deal with the practical repercussions but was not going to take on the emotional stress and regret that was his. amazing.

Later on, the 3 C's were mentioned:

- didn't cause it

- can't control it

- can't cure it

other things:

- Everyone’s doing the best they can

- don’t give advice; share experience, life, and hope.

- when the student is willing the teacher appears

- boundaries and unconditional love

- back off until they respect the boundaries

There's a lot I can learn from these men and women in al-anon about life and relationships. I think I'm going to start going regularly.

from 88.1 tonight:

At War With The Sun - The Big Pink

Lunch Lady Land

Watch adam sandler lunch lady land in Comedy  |  View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com

I've never seen this skit or even heard of it. Two leaders performed this last night at youth group. It was fantastic.

Hilarious.

U2 + Jay-Z = Sunday Bloody Sunday

way to go, jay-z. i think he got kind of awkward toward the end, not knowing what exactly to do after his rap. "uh huh...you got it." he just kind of danced around. good thing it's not too hard to make stuff up when you're the definition of cool.

via kanye

uh...no

some of the kids at krew said that taylor swift had hair like me in this skit. she's great.

christian pop culture: the world knows what we're doing!

I love the podcast To the Best of Our Knowledge. A couple weeks ago they had an episode called 'The World According to Pop Culture'. One of the segments covered Daniel Radosh's book Rapture Ready: Adventures in the Parallel Universe of Christian Pop Culture.

Radosh divided Christian artists into three groups:

1. Those who create art for Christians, creating a 'parallel universe' to secular culture, with their own music, books, TV shows, etc. Their desire is to convert people not only to belief in the gospel but also to their unique subculture.

2. Christian artists who create Christian music and books that are 'undercover' in some senses. They mentioned Christian songs played on secular radio as "God is my girlfriend" songs. These are songs where it's like "I'm so in love with you," etc. but it's about God. Funny.

3. Those who see themselves as human beings along with the rest of society and culture. They desire to be creative, imitating their God. They are honest about their beliefs and sing songs about being human (pain, loss, love, whatever).

Radosh, being interviewed by Jim Fleming, said that people should encourage the third type of Christian culture because it promotes openness and isn't the scary brand of fundamental evangelicalism.

I kept on smiling when I was listening to the program. At seminary (as well as at L'Abri), the topic of what good art is comes up a lot. It felt kind of strange to hear an outsider's perspective on a debate I'm so familiar with. Radosh came off as affectionate yet frustrated with Christian subculture. I often feel the same way.

Myriad Harbour - The New Porno...

Gross National Happiness in Bhutan

For my God's Gracious Kingdom class I am doing a project with a girl on Bhutanese refugees in St. Louis. Looking on the International Organization for Migration website, I learned this:

"When I received the invitation to work on this film, I had never even heard of Bhutan. I was completely unaware of its reputation as an idyllic Buddhist utopia, the elusive "Shangri-la," a country that – in defiance of the global status quo – measures the success of its economy with the metric of Gross National Happiness rather than Gross National Product."

Gross National Happiness? Here's how they measured it (via wiki):

Economic Wellness: Indicated via direct survey and statistical measurement of economic metrics such as consumer debt, average income to consumer price index ratio and income distribution

Environmental Wellness: Indicated via direct survey and statistical measurement of environmental metrics such as pollution, noise and traffic

Physical Wellness: Indicated via statistical measurement of physical health metrics such as severe illnesses

Mental Wellness: Indicated via direct survey and statistical measurement of mental health metrics such as usage of antidepressants and rise or decline of psychotherapy patients

Workplace Wellness: Indicated via direct survey and statistical measurement of labor metrics such as jobless claims, job change, workplace complaints and lawsuits

Social Wellness: Indicated via direct survey and statistical measurement of social metrics such as discrimination, safety, divorce rates, complaints of domestic conflicts and family lawsuits, public lawsuits, crime rates

Political Wellness: Indicated via direct survey and statistical measurement of political metrics such as the quality of local democracy, individual freedom, and foreign conflicts.

I like the idea that a country can look at more than capitalistic markers for success for their country. However, like many idealistic methods of governance, focusing on "Gross National Happiness" isn't really helping the thousands of Bhutanese refugees living in camps around the country. Oh well, good idea anyways.

Berlin Block Tetris from Sergej Hein on Vimeo.

via kanye

BRIGHT EYES - LIME TREE from Alex Turvey on Vimeo.

via kanye

“The young man knows the rules, but the old man knows the exceptions.

Oliver Wendell Holmes

from 1,001 Rules for My Unborn Son blog via Claire

"Like every believer I know, my search for real life has led me through at least three distinct seasons of faith, not once or twice but over and over again. Jesus called them finding life, losing life, and finding life again, with the paradoxical promise that finders will be losers while those who lose their lives for his sake will wind up finding them again. In Greek the word is psyche, meaning not only "life" but also the conscious self, the personality, the soul. You do not have to die in order to discover the truth of this teaching, in other words. you only need to lose track of who you are, or who you thought you were supposed to be, so that you end up lying flat on the dirt floor basement of your heart. Do this, Jesus says, and you will live."

- Barbara Brown Taylor, "Leaving Church"

I like this because it makes all life stories, dramatic or not, part of the process of finding life, losing life, and finding life again.

I've experienced this to be true.

amazing.

Yay!