A Dark and Quiet Room

I'm moving...

2006-03-22T15:56:00.000-06:00

...to a different blog! My new address is http://greatwolf.blogpeoria.com/ Please pardon the mess while I get everything organized.

Best of my best

2006-03-16T16:50:00.000-06:00

Something that has been suggested for bloggers is to put links to "Best of..." in their sidebars. That way, a new visitor can get a sense of the sort of content available on the blog and returning visitors can easily locate popular articles. If you look to your right (no, the other right), you can see where I've started doing this. I currently have four items on this list. My question to you, my faithful readers, is this: are there any other items that you can think of which you think should be added to this list? Please let me know in comments. If I don't get any comments, then I'll know that no one is listening.

Aztecs with Nukes

2006-03-16T16:34:00.000-06:00

(For those of you bored with game-related entries, please ride this one out.  There is a point at the end.  Two, in fact!)

Last night I stayed up way too late and finished my current game of Civilization IV.  For those of you who don’t know, Civilization IV is the latest entry in the Civilization series.  In it, you take a civilization from founding its first city into the modern era and beyond.  The game can be won in a variety of ways, including overall performance, control of a large portion of the available land, simply wiping out everyone else, earning a diplomatic win from the United Nations, building the three greatest cities in the world, or being the first to launch a colony ship to Alpha Centauri.  There’s a lot of detail in the game, and I enjoy the changing technologies and time periods.  Early in the game, you’re building city walls mustering spearmen and archers to defend against barbarians.  Late in the game, you’re launching SDI satellites and running bombing missions with Stealth bombers.  Lots of fun.

In the game that I just finished, I was playing the Aztecs.  Recently, I bought a board game called Mexica which is about building the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan, so I’ve been doing some reading about these people.  So, they were on my mind when I started this game.

Now, like any self-respecting Aztec, determined to preserve himself, when I located the Spanish, I killed them as quickly as possible.  Then I settled into the raising of a large and prosperous civilization and intimidating everyone else into submission.  I figured that I’d aim for a Time Victory, which means that I have the overall best civilization by the year 2050.

Then disaster struck.  One of my neighbors across the sea (the Americans, actually) began the project of building the colony ship.  I knew that he would complete the project before 2050, costing me the game.  So, my course was clear.  I declared war on him and launched my attack.

However, this was different than my war on the Spanish.  The conquest of the Spanish had been led by hordes of Jaguar Warriors, armed with obsidian-studded clubs.  The war against the Americans was spearheaded by a massive nuclear strike.

That’s right.  I pushed the Red Button.  I will confess that, game or no game, I cringed a bit at the necessity.  There was something sobering about the initial strike.  Even though the American SDI system shot down most of my missiles, a couple made it through.

Mushroom clouds bloomed over Boston.

It was a little disturbing at first.  But soon that changed.

The other surrounding nations also began building colony ships.  So I declared war on all of them.  At one point, I was at war with three nations at the same time.  I needed that edge, if I were to take them on.  So, as my tanks crossed the frontier, the missiles again began to rain from the sky.

Soon I had thrown the entire weight of my economy behind producing tanks and ICBMs.  Every five turns or so, I had another salvo ready to be launched.  Most were shot down by defense lasers, but enough found their mark to deliver their deadly payload.

Other ill effects began to show themselves.  The fallout spread across the globe, damaging the earth.  Large stretches of desert appeared as the result of my constant nuclear bombardments.  But still I persevered.

I presided over my very own World War III.

Finally, one of the other nations built the United Nations and quickly implemented a nuclear ban.  I was unable to continue my nuclear assault.  But, by then, the damage had been done.  By 2050, none of the colony spaceships were ready for launch, and I won.  The American homeland was literally glowing in places as we slid across the finish line.  Doing a little poking around, I discovered that they would have completed the final component of their spaceship in just three turns.  Three more turns and I still would have lost.

It was a nail-biting end to what could have been a fairly mundane endgame.

But that’s not my point in writing all this up.

Instead, I have a couple of thoughts.

First, while I have a hard time asserting that a game is a reasonable historical simulator, I found myself thankful that the Aztec people had not developed their culture into the modern era.  The little reading that I have done confirms for me that they were a blood-thirsty and violent people.  What if the Aztecs had been equipped with nukes?  Is my scenario so far off?

The second point is a little more personal.  Even though it is only a game, I had the feeling of crossing a line when I launched my first nuke.  I was about to do something irreversible.  Something deadly.  Something…bad.  Indeed, the icon on the screen to launch a missile is a picture of a Big Red Button.  I pushed the Red Button.

Anyone who grew up during any part of the Cold War should understand this sort of feeling.  I remember living in New Jersey at age six or so, seeing a map of the devastation that would result if a 100-megaton warhead were to be detonated in New York City.  My home would have been affected by the blast.  It scared me deeply.
So, here I was, starting a nuclear war.

Yet, very quickly, necessity took over.  After all, I needed these nukes to win the game.  Losing was not an option.  So, soon I needed more missiles.  More missiles!  Easily half of my economic power was dumped into creating these missiles.  As soon as one was ready, I launched it.  What had started as a horrible act became normal and, indeed, rejoiced over.  I was thrilled whenever a missile became available, and I mentally cheered whenever one penetrated the SDI defenses of my foes.

And I realized how quickly we humans become hardened.  What was once evil becomes distasteful, then becomes needful, and soon becomes rewarded.  Bleak?  Perhaps.  But very true.

And I wonder how much of our foreign policies are formed in just the same way.

Tikal

2006-03-16T09:46:00.000-06:00

I've been reading about the Mayans recently. I figure that I'll end up blogging about it in the near future, but, in the meantime, check out this virtual tour of Tikal.

The Town of Allopath

2006-03-16T09:43:00.000-06:00

The Town of Allopath Does this sound like any place you know?

A brief note about nothing

2006-03-14T21:06:00.000-06:00

I don't feel like I've really been blogging much recently. Maybe that's because I haven't been. So, now I have some time. I could blog. I could write about Tikal or about how I've been reading about Mesoamerica, because of the board games that I recently bought (Tikal and Mexica). I could discuss how I read my first John le Carre book. Or I could go play Civilization IV. See ya round!

Doug Wilson on Sins of the Tongue

2006-03-13T10:10:00.000-06:00

Trial By Internet I've been appreciating Pastor Wilson's series entitled "A Justice Primer", but I thought that this article was particularly apt.

Cold and tired

2006-03-07T00:20:00.000-06:00

I'm not sure how I should be feeling right now. I feel like maybe I ought to be upset or heavy-hearted. Instead, I'm just tired. Maybe that's a coping technique; I don't know. I went down to the hospital tonight to see William. I had been there in the morning, and he was moving a bit and was warm to the touch. I was planning on going back down there to read Beowulf to him. William and I had talked a bit about Beowulf; it was one of his favorite stories. But when I arrived at the hospital, I found that William was doing worse. His skin was pallid and yellow, and he was cool to the touch. It reminded me of touching my mother when she was dead. He wasn't moving anymore. But still the ventilator continued its hideous mockery of human breathing. Inflate, deflate, inflate, deflate, in, out, in, out. And his chest heaving up and down, like his body was pretending to breathe. It's run off me. It doesn't hurt anymore. At least, it doesn't hurt now. At the hospital, I held it together because I wasn't there for me; I was there for William's family. And now, honestly, I'm just too tired to feel hurt. The pain doesn't stab anymore. It just drags at me, like gravity, pulling me down. Yesterday I cried. Today I am cold. Am I cold? What does this mean? Have I done something wrong that I am not feeling anything? Or is it just too much, and so I shunt it to the side? Or is it a special grace from God? I don't know. I'm tired, but I think that I will be able to sleep well. So, perhaps I should. After all, there's still much to be done. My work isn't over. And tomorrow, William may be dead.

A totally geeky post: What kind of die are you?

2006-02-28T10:14:00.000-06:00

Take the quiz at dicepool.com

Normally I wouldn't do this, but I'm in an odd mood. Feel free to share your results in comments.

Anatomy of a Game: Blue Moon

2006-02-23T16:47:00.000-06:00

Anatomy of a Game: Blue Moon For both of you who care, a dissection of the Knizia game Blue Moon, including a discussion of strategy. Did you know that Blue Moon is actually an auction game? (Why yes, Gabrielle, I am looking at you.)

Public Service Announcement

2006-02-23T14:06:00.000-06:00

For those who care, we are selling kefir grains on eBay. Buy early and buy often!

Polaris Actual Play--We Begin Anew!

2006-02-20T23:54:00.000-06:00

(The previous report is here.) (This account was also posted on The Forge. You might find the responses from the folks there to be interesting.) Here we go again. We’ve shuffled the player roster a bit, but we’re back in the game. That’s right. We’re playing Polaris again! Indeed I have three sessions to summarize. So, let’s get to it, shall we? Long ago, the people were dying at the end of the world. Quotables: “You’re the one who possessed him in the first place.” “He’s far too cool to actually draw his sword.” “Because everyone knows you don’t look into a mirror around possessed people.” “Perhaps his miraculous healing threw him off.” Players Since we’ve started a new game, I figure that I’d introduce the players again, including our newest member. Seth—that’s me. I like mythic settings that are more poetic than “real”. I like stories with tragic endings. I am therefore squarely in the target audience for this game. Last game I played Na’ir al-Saif, a younger Knight stuck in the shadow of his older brother. This time I wanted to play a more extroverted character with more opportunities for action. Oh yeah, and I wanted a dragon. Gabrielle—my sister. She has similar tastes to mine in roleplaying, which made Polaris a no-brainer for her. Last game she played Mintaka, a brooding, self-absorbed Knight whose jealousy drove him to murder. This time, she wanted to play someone a bit grander, who perhaps wouldn’t be so internally oriented. Raquel—our friend. Raquel had tried roleplaying with us once before, when I ran Jailbreak from Unknown Armies. That session was mixed success at best; however, her interest in the activity was peaked enough that she had expressed an interest in trying again. Polaris was a much more successful endeavor with her. In our last game, Raquel played Bellatrix, the haughty Knight whose pride brought so much pain to so many. I’m not precisely sure what Raquel was angling for in this game, but I’m guessing from her comments that she was hoping to avoid being the chew-toy for the story. So far, I’m not sure that she’s actually getting her wish. Ralph—another friend. Yep, this is the Ralph Mazza of Universalis fame. He games with us on Friday nights and had expressed an interest in playing Polaris. Actually, it was closer to groveling; he really wanted to play. He is still getting the hang of the Key Phrases, but I think that he is quite enjoying himself. We set up the seating arrangement in the following order, going clockwise around the room: Seth, Gabrielle, Ralph, Raquel. So, for those of you keeping score at home, that means that Ralph and I are a Heart/Mistaken pair, as are Raquel and Gabrielle. Characters Last game, I think that we may have woven our characters a bit too tightly to each other, which kicked things off into a higher gear than may have been good. This time we created characters that were a bit further from each other, which has created a slower game pace. Ralph also discovered a rule that we had missed last game. During character creation, each player gets to add one item to every other player’s character sheet in the section of the Cosmos for which he is responsible. This means that I added one item to Ralph’s Mistaken section, Raquel’s New Moon section, and Gabrielle’s Full Moon section. This was an addition that I appreciated. In this way, each player could actually put his mark on each character before play actually began. As a result, there was a lot more discussion and cross-pollinating of ideas during character generation, which is always a good thing. In the end, we produced four characters. Altair, a reckless dragonrider for the remnant (Seth) Sadal Melick, Champion of Clan Draco, one of the greatest Knights of the remnant (Gabrielle) Rastaban, a Knight-assassin determined to avenge his father’s death (Ralph) Maia of the Order of Mesarthim, a healer-Knight (Raquel) In other words, we have Tom Cruise from Top Gun, Kronk from The Emperor’s New Groove, an elvish ninja, and a fairly well-adjusted, even-keeled Knight. So, of course, we start doing our best to dump all the trouble in the entire game on Raquel. It’s fun! Overview of Play I’m not going to go into any particular details about play. Suffice it to say that our first scene involved Maia accidentally getting one of the lords of the remnant possessed by a nasty demon, and things have gone badly since then. In addition, Altair brought a baby back to the remnant, which he found in the haunted ruins that he obsesses over. This child has already revealed herself to be more than an ordinary child. Indeed, she is the Spring Child. What exactly this means, we haven’t established, although we all have our theories. And, of course, Maia currently has the Spring Child and is about to be at the center of a political firestorm. Fun! On Being a Moon In retrospect, I think that we shortchanged the Moons in our last game. Any character that was in opposition to the Heart ended up being guided by the Mistaken, so frequently the Moons were in a secondary or passive role. Upon further review of the rules, though, I realized that we had been messing this up, so we resolved to change it this game. Hoo boy. What have we released? Bits of the game broke open even further for me. Here’s one example. The scene was centered on Sadal, which meant that Gabrielle was the Heart, Raquel was the Mistaken, and I was Full Moon. In this scene, Sadal is confronting Knight-Captain Megrez who was supposedly accused of being possessed. We all knew that he was not possessed, as the entire situation was the result of a communications mishap that we had seen earlier in the game. However, it seemed to me that it would be boring for Captain Megrez to simply roll over and submit to an exorcism “just in case”. So, instead, I started playing him as having an offended pride, eventually calling in several of his Knights to see this miscreant off. The funny thing about this is that I was heaping on all sorts of trouble, but I was not the Mistaken. According to the logic that we had assumed during our last game, I was “only” a Moon. But I learned an important fact to consider as a Moon. You want to align your interests with either the Heart or Mistaken in a given scene. In this case, I knew that I was giving Gabrielle all sorts of trouble and that, when she finally tried to veto with “But It Was No Matter”, Raquel would be waiting to take up my statements with “We Shall See What Comes Of It”. And she was. On Getting Started When we got together for our first session of actual play, we went over our characters so that we could remember them. Then we stared at each other. Someone needed to get things going, but no one had a good idea. So Gabrielle decided to kill someone. That’ll work. So she started a scene where the Demon in the Mirror killed one of Maia’s patients. Well, that wouldn’t do, of course, so instead the death was negotiated to a possession and then the patient turned out to be an important noble and you can’t let possessed nobles just run around, so Maia tried to chase him, but then she was stopped by someone else needing help…. And things were suddenly in motion. The moral of this story: sometimes you just need something to get things moving, and then everything will be fine. Random Thought Ralph hates elves. He thinks that elves are silly. Ralph hates ninja. He thinks that ninja are silly. Ralph is playing an elvish ninja. And liking it. This game rocks. But that was all long ago, and there are now none who remember it.

Andreas Katsulas dies of lung cancer

2006-02-20T21:01:00.000-06:00

Andreas Katsulas dies of lung cancer. He played the One Armed Man in the movie version of The Fugitive and, more importantly, played G'Kar on Babylon 5.

Lament

2006-02-20T18:24:00.000-06:00

fair flower blown on Heaven's breeze far from my outstretched hand

God's Presents

2006-02-20T14:04:00.000-06:00

A couple of years ago, my wife suffered from chronic chest pain. It would strike at different times but especially in the evening. She would be reduced to soaking in a hot tub, trying to get the pain under control. It was hard on her and on the rest of us, too. We ruled out heart trouble fairly quickly, although that seemed like a reasonable idea. We didn't know quite what to do. And then Crystal's birthday rolled around. I don't recall exactly what we did for a birthday party, but I do remember what I bought as a present for Crystal. It was a cast-iron tea kettle, complete with cast-iron trivet and infuser. It was a beautiful item, and I knew that Crystal would absolutely love it. So, after the party, Crystal had to run an errand. While she was out of the house, I arranged the tea ceremony that I had planned, brewing tea in the new kettle, getting everything ready. I was right. She loved it. She was so very excited. And then the pain set in. In fact, it was the worst that she had ever experienced. The romantic evening was lost beyond recovery. But, there was something about her description of the pain that rang a bell. It was located in her back, not her front. How very odd. A couple of Internet searches, and I had it nailed. Crystal was undergoing a gallbladder attack. We returned to the doctor, and he confirmed the diagnosis. A month later, and Crystal went into the hospital to have her gallbladder removed. She hasn't experienced any pain since. At the time, Crystal's gallbladder attack was a hard providence to accept. But, in retrospect, it was one of the best things that happened to her. Now, we both see it as God's birthday present to her: a diagnosis of an ailment that was plaguing her for months. Why do I write all this now? As I was driving into work this morning, I received word that a co-worker's daughter had died last night. She was sick, but still no one had expected that this would happen so soon. She was only three years old. Just barely three, in fact. Her birthday was last Friday. The family was going to celebrate her birthday, but she was struggling with respiratory issues, so they postponed the party. Now, they will never celebrate it. We gathered together at work to pray for this family. I was in tears, as were many of my co-workers. A common prayer was, "Lord, You know why, even though we don't." And it's hard. It's really hard. Bryan said it best, "Parents aren't supposed to bury their children." And yet, I think back to Crystal's birthday present from God. It was not a pleasant one, but it was really what she needed. And now we can give thanks to God for it. This little girl suffered greatly from her sickness. Now she is free. Her spirit is perfected, and her body awaits the Resurrection, when she will receive a new body which will be perfect in every way. Her sorrow is over. Her suffering is over. Her pain is ended. How is this not a beautiful present from God? I find myself remembering something that I said to my father when my mother died:

When we returned home, I served wine. Everyone gathered in the living room, where I held aloft a goblet of red Fredonia wine and read from Isaiah 25. I explained what we were doing and why. “Mom loved wine,” I said, “and the next wine that she will drink will be in the wedding feast of the Lamb.” And then I turned to my father. “For you, this is a cup of bitterness,” I said, “but remember that for your wife, it is a cup of joy. So drink.” And I gave him the goblet. With tears in his eyes, he drank.

For all of us, most especially her parents, this is a cup of bitterness that we must drink. Yet for this little one, this day is a day of joy. For the first time, she awakens to an endless day of glory. Happy birthday, Hannah. Enjoy your present. We will all be with you soon.

Blue Moon

2006-02-13T17:00:00.000-06:00

Gone Gaming: Blue Moon Blue Moon has risen quickly in the ranks to become one of my favorite games. So, I was happy to see this excellent description of the game posted. So, geek that I am, I thought that I would share it with all of you.

I'm learning to play the guitar!

2006-02-08T14:30:00.000-06:00

I decided that I need to talk less about the arts and practice them more. So, recently, I started to learn how to play the guitar. My friend Bryan is teaching me. His counsel was to pick a song that I knew, find the guitar tabs, and then work through playing it. So, I've finally located my first song: "Hard to Get" by Rich Mullins. It looks fairly straightforward to play, plus it's a song that has personal meaning to me. That all works for me. I hate doing drills to learn something. I want to be able to work on something that I'll be able to use when I'm done learning the skill. This is a song that I'd want to be able to play, so why not start with it? I'll keep you posted on how it goes.

Groundhog Day!

2006-02-02T14:06:00.000-06:00

That's right! It's Groundhog Day! I have a special affinity for this holiday because of some personal history. For most of my tenure at my current job, I've been working on the design, development, deployment, and maintenance of our custom software package. Originally, it was scheduled to be deployed in February 2004. As a result, it earned the name "Groundhog". (In fact, it deployed on May 20, 2004, a date which remains branded in my memory.) I have a hard time understanding how people can make a career out of deploying new software. My one experience was absolutely nerve-wracking. After putting it 12-14 hour days for about a month, I went into work on May 19. I didn't leave until end of business on May 20. I didn't even sleep. All that night was dedicated to data conversion and last-minute testing. We went live at 8:00 a.m. on May 20. My programmer and I then proceeded to try to be everywhere at once, making sure that bugs were getting squashed and users were being cared for. At last, around 3:00 p.m., my exhaustion caught up with me. I went into our single conference room, put my feet up on a chair, and fell into a deep sleep. My family came to pick me up, and my wife drove home. As we left the building and began to head home, I happened to glance out the window. There, by the side of the road, was a groundhog. I closed my eyes and slept. Happy Groundhog Day, everyone!

Tolkien on history

2006-02-01T16:58:00.000-06:00

Well, here's the followup to this post that I promised.

In the "Foreword to the Second Edition" to The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien writes the following: Other arrangements could be devised according to the tastes or views of those who like allegory or topical reference. But I cordially dislike allegeroy in all its manifestations, and always have done so since I grew old and wary enough to detect its presence. I much prefer history, true or feigned, with its varied applicability to the though and expereince of readers. I think that many confuse 'applicability' with 'allegory'; but the one resides in the freedom of the reader, and the other in the purposed domination of the author.

(emphasis mine) One of the things that I like about The Lord of the Rings is that it isn't an allegory. Instead, it provides plenty of material for consideration that can be applied to one's own life and experience. According to Tolkien, this is a result of its being a history (of imaginary events), rather than its being written to convey a certain point. The reader absorbs the patterns and principles on display in the history and then must take the next step of figuring out what they mean in his own life. In this way, the reader is shaped by grappling with the narrative. I wonder if this is why so much of the Bible is historical narrative. There's not one point. Instead, the reader is faced with the patterns and principles on display in the text and then must take the next step of figuring out what they mean in his own life. Thus, the reader's life is shaped by grappling with the narrative. This has implications for teaching and preaching through the narratives. Rather than trying to figure out "the point" of this text in the Bible, perhaps Bible teachers need to draw out some of the patterns and principles that are on display and make application in this fashion. Of course, this means that teaching the Bible becomes more like teaching a good literature class, which may not be a bad thing, either.

Mature Bible Reading

2006-01-25T23:34:00.000-06:00

Mature Bible Reading This links directly into some Tolkien thoughts that I had...which I will share later. Stay tuned!

Art and the oppressed

2006-01-25T21:08:00.000-06:00

On another blog, I waxed eloquent about art. In particular, I said this:

One aspect of a Christian approach to the arts needs to be a dignifying of the "common"....Of course, the "overlooked" and "common" include people. The world overlooks the weak and powerless as being meaningless. However, as the hands of God, we cannot afford to pass over those who are neglected. Dignifying the common includes pointing to the image of God in the common and overlooked people around us. Another task of the Christian artist is to speak for those who would speak but are unable. Doesn't this include being a voice for the voiceless and a protector for the oppressed?

Adiel requested some elaboration of this point. So, here goes. Hang on to your hats; this is a weird tour through my mind. Ready? One of the turning points for my understanding of aesthetics was a lecture given by Michael Card at the 2003 Evangelical Press Association convention. One of his points was the necessity for artists to live in community. Not with other artists, mind you. With "normal people". As a result, then, the artist works on addressing the artistic needs of his community. For example, one facet of this, according to Card, is to voice the feelings of others for them. This was noted in the context of laments, for instance. I put this together with a lecture from George Grant on the infamous Philippians 4:8:

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.

In this lecture, he discussed each word in that verse. Along the way, he talked about how Christianity ennobles the common, that Biblical values bring nobility and worth to that which is otherwise overlooked. Things like motherhood or hard work. I take all of this and put it together with my developing understanding of the role of the Church in society. I see a portion of the prophetic voice to be the voice from outside the world system that critiques the assumptions and claims of power by those who are mighty. An extended quote from David Dark fits here:

Apocalyptic, correctly understood, reminds us that the language of "the kingdom of God" isn't referring to some politically irrelevant eternity of otherworldly existence. To say that it is "at hand" or "hear" is a directive to "repent" and enter into a new way of life that aligns itself with the purposes of shalom. If we miss the political significance of the Lord's Prayer, for instance, we entirely miss its meaning as a call for apocalypse now that acknowledges, invites, and pledges allegiance to the age to come while forcefully renouuncing the legitimacy of whatever lesser gods compete for our adoration. ("Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory"). We're assisted in our understanding of what's at stake in these matters when we note John Milbank's description of the crucifixation and, we might add, the persecution of the early church as "the rejection by the political-economic order of a completely new sort of social imagination." Apocalyptic was and is the only language adequate to describe this new beginning while maintaining its practice as one of constant exodus. It keeps religion strange and ready to question the given "reality" of the day. Without apocalyptic, no questioning occurs and the biblical voice is easily edited (or censored) to the point that it appears to support whatever sentimental sap or suburban self-improvement program it's pasted upon. What should have been, for starters, good news for the poor and down-trodden is neatly packaged (and quoted out of context) to look good beside a basket full of puppies on a greeting card. A political-economic order has nothing to fear from a sentimental, fully "spiritualized" faith."

(Everyday Apocalypse, p. 14-15. Bolded emphasis mine.) Or, to quote from Psalm 146, "Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in Yahweh his God...who executes justice for the oppressed." (Psalm 146:5,7a) Add to this the comments of Peter Leithart, when discussing the political ramifications of the Lord's Supper. We welcome all believers to the Lord's Table, be they rich or poor, strong or weak, young or old, white or black, healthly or sick, whole or crippled. By doing so, we acknowledge that all these belong with us. The apostle Paul writes, "On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and on those parts of the body that we think less honorable we bestow the greater honor, and our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty, which our more presentable parts do not require. But God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it, that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another." (1 Corinthians 12:22-25) The world finds no value in the weak, the sick, or the crippled. Yet it is precisely these people that God gathers together into His Church. So, as Christians striving to be artists, we must consider this aspect of God's nature. So, how do we do this? I have several thoughts. Obviously, there is the depiction of the oppressed to the oppressor. This is a fairly common use of art, if you think about it, although it frequently becomes merely propaganda. There's also providing the tools of expression to the oppressed. Just consider the anonymous authors of the Negro spirituals. They wrote songs for their oppressed people, which gave them to words to sing of heaven. You can also create works that embody the valuing of the weak and oppressed. Consider The Lord of the Rings. Tolkien understood that God uses the weak to shame the strong, which is why he wrote about hobbits. Finally, you can create works which encourage a certain way of thinking. A great example of this is the game Go. I have said that I enjoy playing Go because the thought processes that are required to play Go are the same that lead to good living. The experience of the game leads to congruent thought patterns elsewhere. So, in some sense, I do think that playing Go has made me a better person. Now, let's go back to haiku. I completely agree that part of haiku is pointing attention at the overlooked. Haiku can therefore be used to call attention to overlooked people. The haiku poet Issa is particularly well-known for this. Some of his haiku carry with them such a powerful rage against suffering and oppression that it's almost painful to read. Here's are a couple of examples: This stupid world-- skinny mosquitoes, skinny fleas skinny children The fat priest-- edging out while he reads the last prayer Feel the rage? Also, haiku places certain demands on the reader. The moment depicted is boiled down to its essential points; the rest must be filled in by the reader. This is characteristic of the Zen aesthetic, which tends to erode the creator/audience division. As a result, haiku cannot merely be read; they must be contemplated. I might even say that they need to be meditated upon. This attitude of contemplation or meditation carries over into the rest of life. Suddenly, you find yourself watching leaves blowing along the road or cream swirling in your coffee and realize that these things matter. And then, perhaps, you look at the unnoticed people around you, the ones that are mere details in your life, and you realize that they also matter. Like the cashier at the grocery store, the one that everyone treats as though she were merely the biological wetware of the point of sale system. Maybe even she has started to believe it. But you know better, don't you? Because there is immeasurable worth in the commonplace. As Tolkien wrote, "All that is gold does not glitter." All that from haiku? Absolutely. One of the battles of our day is the battle for the arts. Many of you who are reading this desire to pursue the fine arts as a calling or career. Remember that your calling is high. The arts are merely another avenue for ministry, and you must do your part. Michael Card points as Jesus' washing the disciples' feet and says, "If your art isn't washing someone else's feet, then what good is it?" Whose feet are you washing with your art? Is your art really any good? Or are you just lusting after the limelight? Something to contemplate, eh?

The time has come again...

2006-01-23T23:48:00.000-06:00

Yep. I'm between books, and the urge is upon me. It's time to read Lord of the Rings again. Believe it or not, I have more to say on this, but it will have to wait until a later date.

Fun quote!

2006-01-16T17:50:00.000-06:00

“We've heard that a million monkeys at a million keyboards could produce the complete works of Shakespeare; now, thanks to the Internet, we know that is not true.” - Robert Wilensky

Polaris is about activism

2006-01-16T10:34:00.000-06:00

According to its designer, Polaris is about activism. In light of my recent discussion, I thought that this was quite interesting. After all, as Christians, we have an escape from the downward spiral of uncaring that is described in this thread. FYI, there is the use of language in this thread. (Aside: I think that the expression "the use of language" is really quite funny.)

Hold on

2006-01-11T11:01:00.000-06:00

So, life has been difficult recently. In particular, we have been leading up to Justice's hernia surgery, which was an experience that I was dreading. Everyone was telling me that it was a simple procedure, that it would be better for him, that he would be a happier person because of it. And, sure, I believed them, but still, there's that part when the nurses come and take him away.... I wasn't looking forward to it. Not at all. So, the other night, as Justice lay on our bed and burbled, I lay there, looking at him and being melancholy. It's at times like this that I wonder about Adam. "If you had known what pain you would cause, would you still have done it?" And I think of all the awful things that we have to do in this world, just to survive, and it hurts me. Just think about what "surgery" is. First, we will pump you full of chemicals to render you unconscious, hovering near death. Then, we will cut you open so that we can poke at your insides. Then we will sew you back up. Cutting to heal. If that's not messed up, I don't know what is. I'm not saying that it's wrong, mind you, but it seems like one more way that this world is seriously broken. And I want out. I'm not feeling suicidal or anything. I'm just tired of it all. So I was driving back from the store today, and I was listening to Andrew Peterson's latest album, The Far Country. In one song, he talks about the "cloud of witnesses" from Hebrews 12:1.

I saw the sun go down on a frozen ocean As the man in the moon was rising And he rode the night all full and bright With his face at the far horizon And the night can be so long, so long You think you’ll never get up again But listen now, it’s a mighty cloud of Witnesses around you—they say “Hold on, just hold on Hold on to the end And all shall be well”

And it occurs to me that, in that cloud of witnesses, is my mother and my grandfather and my grandmother. They all made it through, and now they are pulling for the rest of us. "Hold on to the end." They made it through. Jesus made it through. Maybe I can hold on a bit longer. (Justice came through his hernia surgery just fine. He is home now and resting peacefully.)

A bit more on Polaris

2006-01-10T01:45:00.000-06:00

(The previous report is here.) In this post, I wrote:

"Or, for that matter, what does Na’ir say about me? Originally I wasn’t wanting to play a noble loner, which is my default character, but I think that’s where I ended up. At the same time, Na’ir was fiercely dedicated to a people who failed to care anything for him. In his death, Na’ir saved them all from an agonizing demise, yet they spit on his grave and called him a traitor. Still, I thought that his story ended happily. After all, he did save the people, and even if they don’t care, I do. No one else remembers the noble death of Na’ir before the walls of his remnant, but the four of us do. Indeed, our memory of his life and death still remain while the people of Polaris are already dust. And, somehow, that is enough for me."

I thought about this a bit more, and it made perfect sense. We know that the remnants of Polaris fell. After all, "it all happened long ago, and now there are none who remember it." So, by definition, my memories of Na'ir's service to his city outlasted the people's despise of his supposed treachery. And isn't that part of our hope as Christians? Our Creator, the Author of this story, remembers all the sacrifices that we have made for Him, and His memory is eternal. Those around us mock us, but one day soon they will all be dust, scattered in the wind. Yet our God will remain, and His remembrance is forever. So what does Na'ir's ending say about me? It says that I'm a Christian. (The next report is here.)

We wrap our first game of Polaris

2006-01-07T15:18:00.000-06:00

(The previous report is here.) (This account was also posted on The Forge. You might find the responses from the folks there to be interesting.) We did it. After five sessions of play, we wrapped our first game of Polaris. I admit that we cheated a bit to get there (more on this below), but still, what a ride! For those who are interested, the previous session report is here. Let’s get into it, shall we? Long ago, the people were dying at the end of the world. Quotables: “Are you going to die?” “I’ll try!” “Okay, plotting epic conflict—not knitting.” Overview There’s a lot to go over, and to make my life easier, I’m going to lay it out by character, rather than in chronological order. When we last left Bellatrix, she had walked out to the Mistake with her demon child to meet its father. Of course, we all knew that this meant that Marfik had returned for one more scene. As Bellatrix and Marfik argued, I narrated Marfik brushing off his skin which flaked away to reveal his true demon form. We agreed that it looked something like this but worse. Embedded in his chest was a crystal in which burned the light of the Sun. Bellatrix and Marfik argued about their agreement, which was written on a scroll in Marfik’s possession. Even though Bellatrix tried to tear it up, she was unable, since she had signed it in her own blood. Marfik, though, had used someone else’s blood, so he was not bound by it. Bellatrix tried to kill Marfik but was unsuccessful. At this point, Azrakralizec materialized from the shadows and was about to kill Bellatrix. However, Marfik’s son stopped him, insisting that she be crucified on the wall instead. Bellatrix took advantage of the lull, picked up her son, and threw him at Marfik. The spines on his head cut Marfik, seriously wounding him. Then, Azrakralizec drew his shadow sword and attacked. We cut away to another scene at this point. When we returned, the duel had ranged out onto the floor of the Mistake. That’s right, Bellatrix was dueling Azrakralizec in the very heart of the Mistake. The light of the midnight sun shone down through the mist, illuminating the combatants as all the demons in the Mistake gathered to watch. But Bellatrix was no match for her opponent. With a mighty blow, the demon clove her sword in two and cut deep into her chest, hurling her to the ground. In a rage, she leaped to her feet and charged him with her bare hands. He simply sidestepped and cut her in half. As she lay dying, Marfik bent over her to taunt her. “At least you kept your part of the agreement,” he sneered. But, where her blood stained the floor of the Mistake, a single snowflower bloomed. This connected quite well with Bellatrix’s first scene, where she rejected a flower that Marfik had brought her. Sadly, only Gabrielle actually picked up on this in the middle of play. If Raquel and I had been a bit more aware, we might have played it up even further. Meanwhile, Heka was disowned by her father for being part of a secret marriage. Moreover, her son was again showing signs of being tainted by the Sun. So she took him to a holy man in the remnant who put the blessing of the stars upon her son. “He will be safe,” he said, “for as long as this city stands.” She thanked him and left. Mintaka wandered out into the wastelands, heading towards the South and the mythical Flame of the South. He fended off snow demons by humming the ballad that he had written for Heka, but eventually he succumbed to the elements. When he awoke, he was in a strange place in the South. The players all knew that it was modern-day New York City, which led to some amusing moments. Eventually, Mintaka located the Flame (which was a gem of some kind) and evaded capture by running down the side of a building. Then he began the long journey back to Polaris, followed by several inhabitants of the city that he had left. However, the snow demons attacked again, killing several of his followers. However, Mintaka fought them off with his lute. This led to an interesting post-game discussion. Gabrielle saw her character as physically assaulting the demons with his lute, while Crystal and I thought that she was using music to kill the demons. Once the demons were dead, Mintaka pulled out the Flame and cast it into the snow. Then he turned his back on Polaris and led the surviving members of his small band back to the South. Na’ir Al Saif quested out into the wilderness, seeking the Wail of the Wilderness which has slain his father. But soon the Wail found him, manifesting as a business-like demon who informed him that one person would die in the remnant every hour until he agreed to work with them. Na’if refused, cutting the demonic manifestation in half with his sword. This did not seem to affect the Wail, which continued to speak to him. Na’ir then turned and headed for the Mistake, where he cried out his challenge to the demons below. He could not agree to the Wail’s demands, so he knew that he must try to do something at the Mistake to force the problem to end. Only the Wail responded, reminding him that people were dying in the remnant. So, gripping his father’s sword, Na’ir descended into the Mistake. As he descended, he met the Frost Maiden, who blocked his way. When he refused to stand down, she smiled and said, “I will only step aside for my friends.” And then she stepped aside, allowing him to continue into the depths of the Mistake. At the bottom of the Mistake, Na’ir found Marfik. (We figured that this was soon after Bellatrix’s death.) Na’ir challenged Marfik, thinking that he was behind the current attack on the remnant. With a contemptuous blow, Marfik shattered Na’ir’s sword, leaving him gripping only the hilt and a jagged stub. In turn, Na’ir plunged the shard into the crystal on Marfik’s chest, causing it to shatter. Blazing light exploded from the shattered crystal, burning Na’if and blinding him as his eyes melted away. Yet, as he put his hand out, he felt the shards of his father’s sword on the ground. Gripping them, he stabbed Marfik through the chest, killing him. Then he heard the Wail again. “We are all still here,” it said. We cut away at this point. When we returned, Na’ir was emerging from the Mistake, bloody and broken but still clutching the hilt of his father’s sword. Nonetheless, he knew what he had to do. He staggered to the remnant and entered it. The city was full of wailing and crying as the Wail exacted its vengeance. He groped his way to the top of the Starsinger tower, which is the tallest tower in the remnant. Grasping the hilt of his father’s sword, he plunged it into the floor. Then he lifted his face to the sky and called out a name. And the stars began to fall. And with them, they brought healing and life. In response, the Mistake belched up a demon horde which poured from its maw, hurtling towards the remnant. Na’ir drew forth his father’s sword, which was reforged in ice, and personally led the defense of the remnant. He rallied the defenders, including Heka, and forced the demon horde back from the remnant. Then, in a scene reminiscent of Return of the King, cavalry from another remnant arrived and charged. The demon horde was scattered. A falling star obliterated the Wail. The remnant was saved. And then, as Na’ir turned from the battle, a stray arrow pierced his heart. He fell, and he died. No one remembered him and his noble leadership. No songs were ever sung of his sacrifice. Indeed, he was blamed by the people for raising the Mistake against the remnant. He was accounted a traitor to the people, and his name was dust on the winds of time, forgotten by all. Except for us. How We Cheated For a variety of reasons, we knew that this was going to be the last session of the game. And so, admittedly, we cheated. Only two of the four Knights were actually played through to completion. Heka and Mintaka were left incomplete. However, there were good reasons for this. In many ways, Heka was largely played as an innocent. Crystal didn’t really “get” the game until the last couple of sessions, and, as a result, her character wasn’t really “Knightly” until the end. Instead, she seemed to be the sort of person that justified all the Knights’ sacrifices. The players unanimously agreed that it would be too heart-breaking for something really terrible to happen to Heka. So we decided to let her off the hook. Certainly, her fate is tied to the remnants, and the remnants will fall, but we don’t need to know how it happened. Mintaka is a bit of a different story. By the end of his arc, Gabrielle saw him as having regained some of the honor that he had sacrificed by murdering Arcturus. However, that honor was not to be found in the lands of Polaris. In part, she made this decision because she felt like Mintaka’s story was running out of steam. Gabrielle and Crystal had a hard time being truly adversarial to each other, and I think that it showed in the lack of intensity in their characters’ stories. So, rather than jumping the shark with Mintaka, we ended his story here. Besides, now we can take it from the top, with another player. Ralph will be joining us when we start things up next time. I’m looking forward to being his Mistaken…. Thoughts on Ice and Light When we started playing Polaris, I eyed Ice and Light and thought, “We’re not getting any mileage out of those at all.” Even when I took advances, I bumped Ice based on my opinion of Na’ir (who I saw as being quite duty-bound), rather than on my own sense of gaining Effectiveness. Boy was I wrong. During Na’ir’s climactic battle, I used “It Shall Not Come To Pass” about four different times in quick succession. He had just tipped over to Veteran Status, so his Ice was 4 and his Weariness 1. Therefore, I could get my own way 50% of the time. So, while my Mistaken desperately tried to thwart me, I kept brushing aside her complications. “It shall not come to pass.” “It shall not come to pass.” And what I really meant was, “You won’t stop me from getting the death scene that I want.” More on this in a bit. It all worked because I put Na’ir in a situation where he was supporting the societal structure at the peak of his Effectiveness. As a result, I was able to force the outcomes that I wanted. Rolling well helped, too, I admit, but the thematic decisions that I had made over the course of the game in continuing to ramp up Ice suddenly had a massive impact at the story’s climax. It was amazing. Thoughts on Getting The Exit You Want I’ve generally been talking about Mistaken tactics during this series of Actual Play posts. However, I noticed something this session about playing the Heart. Every Knight will eventually betray the people unless he dies first. So, once your Knight clicks over to Veteran, you should be angling to get your Knight to die before he betrays that which he loves. There are a couple of obstacles to getting the good death that you want. The first is, of course, the Mistaken, who ought to be doing his best to make you pay for anything resembling a happy ending for your Knight. The second obstacle, though, is all the unfinished business that your Knight has. So, part of the tension of the game is trying to finish up the work at hand before betraying the people. Ideally, your Knight should die in the process, keeping him from doing any more damage to the people. To get this to work is a bit tricky, though. You can only call for your Knight’s death as a “But Only If…” statement, which means that you need to get the Mistaken to throw down. On top of that, you have to accept the Mistaken’s statement in order to get your death scene. (Think about it, and it will make sense.) So, how to get your pristine death scene? Here’s how I did it. First, I started digging up all the things that I wanted to accomplish for my Knight. He saves the remnant from the Wail. He transcends his blindness to lead his people in a desperate battle against the hordes of the Mistake. For a brief moment, he achieved that sort of mystical stature that only few heroes achieve. I kept pushing and pushing and pushing, trying to get a rise out of my Mistake. Then, when the Mistake began throwing out obstacles, I just slapped them down with “It Shall Not Come To Pass”. This worked because of all the Ice that I had accumulated, of course, but I think that it would also work with “It Was Not Meant To Be” or judicious application of “You Ask Far Too Much”. The goal here is to get your Mistaken to hand you a conflict statement that you’re willing to accept. Until he does, no mercy. Of course, this approach could backfire. I could have failed all those rolls for “It Shall Not Come To Pass” and started racking up the Experience checks. But, nothing worthwhile can be accomplished without risk. So, in our game, finally the Mistake threw out “But Only If Na’ir is blamed for the demonic attacks.” And, in that moment, I thought of a passage from Ecclesiastes: Also this I came to see as wisdom under the sun, and it impressed me. There was a small city with few men in it and a great king came to it, surrounded it and constructed large siegeworks against it. But there was found in it a poor wise man and he delivered the city by his wisdom. Yet no one remembered that poor man. So I said, "Wisdom is better than strength." But the wisdom of the poor man is despised and his words are not heeded. (Ecclesiastes 9:13-16) “That’s perfect!” I thought, and so I ran with it. “But Only If Na’ir dies.” And the Mistaken accepted it. A Brief Meditation on the Mistake While I don’t buy Joseph Campbell’s overall thesis, I do find some of his observations on the hero story to be interesting. The one in particular that I recall is the “Journey into the Underworld”. In the Journey, the hero descends into the Underworld and faces his greatest challenge. As a result of his victory there, he returns with life and knowledge for his people. When we had finished up our Polaris game, I realized that, at least in our game, the Mistake was the Underworld. Two of the characters had gone to the Mistake, seeking knowledge. Both had made sacrifices within its depths and had returned with the knowledge that they needed. Just an interesting observation. I wonder how other Polaris groups approach the Mistake. The Necessity of an Aesthetic Sense As I mentioned earlier, I have been writing a lot about tactics, particular the tactics of playing the Mistake. However, it is important to remember that Polaris is not about “winning”. The goal really is to create a good story through the use of the strategy and tactics. As a result, all the jockeying for position between Heart and Mistaken needs to be counterbalanced by a shared aesthetic sense of what makes for a good conflict outcome. (I mention this idea here.) There were several times over the course of our game that a Heart or Mistaken said, “But I don’t want to object to that. I like it!” That is good. It’s important for all players to be willing to say, “I like the outcome of this challenge, even though it means admitting that my opponent got the better of me.” When a player says something and everyone else nods, being a Jerk needs to go out the window. The scene is right; don’t mess it up. Post-Game Observations After the game, we found ourselves sitting around, talking about our characters. In particular, Raquel raised an interesting point. She said that the group had worked for Bellatrix to have something of a heroic ending. However, she wasn’t persuaded that Bellatrix really deserved it. She said that Bellatrix had been arrogant and selfish, putting her own desires ahead of the welfare of the people. As a result, Raquel found herself pondering Bellatrix’s story quite a bit. What did it all mean? Or, for that matter, what does Na’ir say about me? Originally I wasn’t wanting to play a noble loner, which is my default character, but I think that’s where I ended up. At the same time, Na’ir was fiercely dedicated to a people who failed to care anything for him. In his death, Na’ir saved them all from an agonizing demise, yet they spit on his grave and called him a traitor. Still, I thought that his story ended happily. After all, he did save the people, and even if they don’t care, I do. No one else remembers the noble death of Na’ir before the walls of his remnant, but the four of us do. Indeed, our memory of his life and death still remain while the people of Polaris are already dust. And, somehow, that is enough for me. shadow of a stone swirling snowfall obscuring tracings of a star But that was all long ago, and there are now none who remember it. (The next report is here.)

Goths On Being Vapor

2006-01-02T16:45:00.000-06:00

WARNING: This is a half-formed thought. The author specifically disavows any action that you might take as a result of it. So, while I'm waiting for my computer to finish thinking, I'm looking at Peter Leithart's blog and listening to Lacuna Coil. Odd combination, I know. Specifically, I'm looking at a couple of his posts about Ecclesiastes:

Qohelet, Modernism and Postmodernism Qohelet and the gospel

In particular, this quote (from Qohelet, Modernism and Postmodernism) spoke to me:

Provan points out that for Solomon, the human pursuit, the pursuit that is frustrated by the vaporousness of life, is a pursuit for YITRON, gain (Ecclesiastes 1:3). Provan suggests that YITRON essentially means "surplus," "something left over." When the balance sheet of a life is tallied up, we want to be in the black. Provan suggests that Ecclesiastes 1, without directly answering the question of whether gain is possible in human life, implies that it is not by pointing to the "gainless" round of created cycles. Sunrise today showed no progress over sunrise yesterday; the ocean doesn't show a profit as the rivers flow into it. Why then should we expect human life, which is fleeting, to show gain?

In fact, it got me thinking about the Goth aesthetic. I'm not going to step into the debate about what it means to be Goth or not Goth. I'm not even going to take a position on whether or not I'm a Goth. I will note that it is not a name that I apply to myself. Whether someone else might do so is really of no concern to me. However, I am going to note the names of two Goth-style bands that I have come to enjoy. The first is the aforementioned Lacuna Coil. The second is the once-popular Evanescence. Consider the names. A "lacuna" is an emptiness or void. To be "evanescent" is to vanish like a vapor. Like a vapor. They know. On some level, they get it. Life is just a vapor. This knowledge spills over into the dress. Lots of blacks and greys dominate. It can look pretty depressing, actually. This is one of those areas that I understand. I once wrote a short essay on why I wear black. There were lots of different reasons, some silly and some serious. But here was one that I gave:

I wear black because black is the color of mourning. The more I grow, the more I see the pain that the world holds. Every day is filled with death and pain and sadness and crying. John Donne says, "Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee." Should I not mourn over the broken, fallen world in which we live? And so I wear black.

Vapor. But still, today, as I considered all this, I realized that there are also the notes of hope wedged into the Goth aesthetic. Both the bands that I cited have female leads. This means that, while the heavy music rumbled below, the vocals soar above it like angels. Sometimes, in the midst of the blacks and greys, there is a stark white. In the midst of all the death and pain and confusion, there is a taste of transcendence, of Heaven opening and beaming down life. Leithart goes on:

This eschatological qualification fits with the NT uses of the Ecclesiastes language of vaporousness. The creation was "subjected to futility" until the revelation of the sons of God. Does this mean then that eschatologically, there will be gain, that losses will be recovered? Is this the meaning of the resurrection of the body? Will the lost artefacts of a godly life be raised with the body? Will all our vapor be gathered up and "solidified" along with the gift of a Spiritual body? (Ain't it cool how eschatology came up under point #8?)

This life may be a vapor, but there is more to the story that the evanescence of our mortal coils. Beyond all this awaits something else. In a different post, Leithart states:

Also, another dimension of the idea of vapor. Vapor doesn't last; it burns off in the sun. But vapor is also a veil, a screen. Think of the difficulty of trying to drive along a road in a thick fog. Everything disappears; we know there's a world out there, but the vapor screens it off from you. To say that life is vapor is to say that it's hiding something. And Solomon appears to be suggesting that the vapor of the world screens us from God Himself, who for the time being, "under the sun," remains behind the veil of the vaporous world. As Jordan points out, the world is so constructed as to require us to live by faith.

Beyond the vapor of this far country waits God. As I've thought about it, I wonder if I will want to wear black in the coming age of glory. I think that I will wear white. (Maybe it will be a blackish white.) For in that country, there will no longer be a need to mourn our low estate. In the meantime, I think that I'd like to work towards redeeming the Goth aesthetic. I don't know what exactly that means, but I'll let you know if I figure anything out.

The Cedar Room: We Are Thoughts On Slavery And Jesus.

2005-12-23T08:38:00.000-06:00

We Are Thoughts On Slavery And Jesus. Continuing my trend of posting stuff that other people have written, I present this article for your consideration. "While I see it as more important to present Jesus as high priest, prophet and king, I don't think it's invalid to present Him as friend, companion and buddy- but these offices are only possible because of the first mentioned offices."

Still no room in the inn?

2005-12-23T08:34:00.000-06:00

BaylyBlog: Out of Our Minds Too: Still no room in the inn? Just read. Read and consider.

O Come, O Come Emmanuel (redux)

2005-12-23T08:28:00.000-06:00

From http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/religion/re0374.html:

According to Professor Robert Greenberg of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, the Benedictine monks arranged these antiphons with a definite purpose. If one starts with the last title and takes the first letter of each one - Emmanuel, Rex, Oriens, Clavis, Radix, Adonai, Sapientia - the Latin words ero cras are formed, meaning, “Tomorrow, I will come.” Therefore, the Lord Jesus, whose coming we have prepared for in Advent and whom we have addressed in these seven Messianic titles, now speaks to us, “Tomorrow, I will come.” So the “O Antiphons” not only bring intensity to our Advent preparation, but bring it to a joyful conclusion.

But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. (2 Peter 3:8-9)

Antiphon, December 23 (O Emmanuel)

2005-12-23T08:26:00.000-06:00

O Emmanuel, God with us, Our King and Lawgiver, the expected of the nations and their Saviour: Come to save us, O Lord our God. Amen. O Emmanuel, Rex et legisfer noster, expectatio gentium, et Salvator erum: veni ad salvandum nos, Domine Deus noster.

Antiphon, December 22 (O Rex gentium)

2005-12-22T10:26:00.000-06:00

O King of the Gentiles and their desired One, the Cornerstone that makes both one: Come, and deliver man, whom you formed out of the dust of the earth. Amen. O Rex gentium, et desideratus earum, lapisque angularis, qui facis utraque unem: veni, et salva hominem, quem de limo formasti.

Antiphon, December 21 (O Oriens)

2005-12-21T10:24:00.000-06:00

O Dawn of the East, Brightness of light eternal, And Sun of Justice: Come, And enlighten those who sit in darkness And in the shadow of death. Amen. O Oriens, splendor lucis aeternae, et sol justitiae: veni, et illumina sedentis in tenebris, et umbra mortis.

Antiphon, December 20 (O Clavis David)

2005-12-20T09:47:00.000-06:00

O Key of David, And Sceptre of the House of Israel, Who opens and no man shuts, Who shuts and no man opens: Come, And bring forth the captive from his prison, He who sits in darkness and in the shadow of death. Amen. O Clavis David, et sceptrum domus Israel: qui aperis, et nemo claudit; claudis, et nemo aperit: veni et educ vinctum de domo carceris, sedentem in tenebris, et umbra mortis.

My overactive imagination

2005-12-19T22:32:00.000-06:00

I know that this is the Christmas season, and tales of fear really don't fit with the holiday. Nonetheless, I haven't been getting enough sleep, so.... My bedroom window overlooks the backyard and the back alley. With the snowfall, the entire backyard appears to be lit by a spectral light. And so, when I awaken in the middle of the night, I look out my window at this scene. For some reason, I always check to see if the trash cans are still there. And sometimes, I can imagine a tall, black-cloaked figure step from behind the garage and stare up at the window. And I know that he is looking for me. Then, sometimes, he opens the gate and begins to walk towards the house. And that's why, when Justice wakes up in the middle of the night, I don't look out the window anymore. I'm not getting any sleep as it is.

Antiphon, December 19 (O Radix Jesse)

2005-12-19T10:22:00.000-06:00

O Root of Jesse, that stands for an ensign of the people, before whom the kings keep silence and unto whom the Gentiles shall make supplication: Come, to deliver us, and tarry not. Amen. O Radix Jesse, qui stas in signum populorum, super quem continebunt reges os suum, quem gentes deprecabuntur; veni ad liberandum nos, iam noli tardere.

Antiphon, December 18 (O Adonai)

2005-12-18T08:25:00.000-06:00

O Lord and Ruler of the House of Israel, who appeared to Moses in the flame of the burning bush and gave him the law on Sinai: Come, and redeem us with outstretched arms. Amen. O Adonai, et dux domus Israel, qui Moysi in igne flammae rubi apparuisti, et ei in Sina legem dedisti: veni ad redimendum nos in brachio extento.

Antiphon, December 17 (O Sapientia)

2005-12-17T09:09:00.000-06:00

O Wisdom, Who came from the mouth of the Most High, Reaching from end to end and ordering all things mightily and sweetly: Come, and teach us the way of prudence. Amen. O Sapientia, quae ex ore Altissimi prodiisti, attingens a fine usque ad finem fortiter, suaviterque disponens omnia: veni ad docendum nos viam prudentiae.

O Come, O Come Emmanuel

2005-12-17T09:08:00.000-06:00

from Jeff Myers' blog:

How do we pray for his first coming? How can we pray for what has already happened? We can't. He’s already come. So when we sing "O Come, O come, Emmanuel, and ransom captive Israel" we are not playing a game, acting like we are Israelites living before the birth of Jesus. This hymn is a corporate prayer. We are the new Israel. And we are asking Jesus to come again and again to deliver us from sin and the curse. We use the language and imagry of his first coming, but the prayer addressed to our faithful God in reference to our mourning in lowly exile.

Flogging Fritz: Heights of Hypocrisy

2005-12-12T09:33:00.000-06:00

Flogging Fritz: Heights of Hypocrisy Have I mentioned recently that I love my brother? You know, in a lot of ways, there are parts of me that wish that I could write like this. No matter how angry I get, it still seems to come out too polite. I just can't seem to master the art of the truly angry rant. But "Fritz" has this one nailed. Go get 'em!

More on loss

2005-12-09T15:07:00.000-06:00

Seems like a common theme around here, huh? A little history, first, to make sense of all of this. The lead singer of P.O.D., Sonny Sandoval, was a gang member in San Diego. His mother was a devout Christian who died of leukemia. Sandoval says that, while she was on her deathbed, he saw God in her eyes. Soon after her death, he became a Christian. Sometime after that, he started P.O.D. Now, some family history. At my mother's funeral, my brother Jonathan read some lyrics from a P.O.D. song, written about Sandoval's mother's death. I hadn't heard the song at the time. Well, recently I was listening to an album by P.O.D., and I found it.

Full Color I cry why O' why did my mommy have to die? Too many questions, no answers confuses my mind Like what did I do, what did she do, who's to blame No one understands what I'm going through So how can I trust what I can't touch and can't see Believe in love and she's in front of me Silence in your eyes, my heart so cold No time for goodbyes, then you leave me alone So what do I do accept it and carry on? Or release my anger, until it's gone Show you and this world exactly how I feel death in full color It's never been so real, It's been me and you, It's always been me and you No matter what we faced, we always made it through Get out of this dream, do what I gotta do No one can take your place and I don't want them to If I could take your place, I would, I would take your pain Just to see you smile and say my name, Just to hear you laugh and hear you cry I don't understand, I don't know why I've never been it this state of mind, life just don't make sense With you I could move mountains, right now I'm helpless I guess, you always knew what was best Believed in your God, til the very last breath You showed me how strong you can be If Jesus saved your life, could he do it for me? I'll lay down my life for you and for Him Believe God's promise, I'm gonna see you again Lord here I am, but I am no one, Believe in Your name Believe in your Son, if you meet me here I will wait on you Sacrifice and serve, do what you want me to I'll take it day by day, and sit at your feet You are strong when I am weak I seek to keep from going under Until I hold you again, I'll always wonder Why did my mommy have to Die? [repeats]

And lo, upon listening to another album by the same band, I stumbled onto another song with the same theme.

Thinking About Forever Time goes by and God knows I try to carry on with life Decide not to hide feelings inside, even though they hurt Sometimes, I forget to remember you It's easy to lock away the pains, don't want to relive it through But I stay strong, you taught me how to move on in this world I married my sweetheart, even got a little baby girl I wish you could see her, I swear she looks just like you If you can hear me, show me a sign, please send her a butterfly or two [chorus:] I'm thinking about forever (missing you) I know you're so much better (we made it through) Now I know what it means to live for someone else To give up yourself Things have changed, at times it gets kind of strange Your love remains the same Do I make you proud? Mama, can you see me now? Whatever is good in me is because you showed me how to take love by the hand And so now I can share you with my baby So that she can understand [chorus] [ending chorus:] I'm thinking about forever (missing you) I know you're so much better (we made it through) I'm thinking about forever (missing you) I'm tripping on whatever (hearing you)

Very different songs. Very different feelings. The first is quite heavy and intense. The second is more reflective and wistful. (There is an interval of several years between the two albums.) Of course, listening to this man's story, I could easily tell you one of the reasons that his mother died: it was to bring him to the Christ that he clearly loves. So, from that perspective, it is quite possibly the best thing that ever happened to him. And, somewhere inside, I know that the same is true for me. My mother's death has made me more compassionate, more empathetic, more easily able to see heaven breaking through into the world. And yet. Mom never met Noah. She never met Justice. I wonder how much my other children will remember her. Holidays seem so empty now. It's been two years, and it's only now that I feel like we are beginning to return to something resembling a new normal. And I wonder if Mom can see us. I don't know what sort of connection the saints who have passed beyond have to this fallen realm in which we still live. I know that we will all see her again, and that will be a joyous reunion. But sometimes, when no one is looking, I pray to God that He would tell my mother that I love her very much and that I miss her. And every time, I pray that this isn't a wrong thing to ask. It's not, is it?

Another Polaris session

2005-12-09T13:13:00.000-06:00

(The previous report is here.) (This account was also posted on The Forge. You might find the responses from the folks there to be interesting.) Okay, no procrastinating this time. Our group played on Wednesday, and I’m going to get the actual play written up quickly this time. (Not like last time.) So, let’s get into it, shall we? Long ago, the people were dying at the end of the world. Quotable: "Our funerals tend to be interrupted by demons." Pregame Discussion Even though there’s no GM in Polaris, the social dynamics of the group still push certain people to the fore. I’m usually the GM, and I own the game, so I still tend to have the role of “rules-monger” and “whip-cracker” in our group. So, before beginning play, I convened the group to discuss various issues. I discussed how I had discovered that we had been shorting the Moons of their Guidance of certain characters. Gabrielle asked how precisely we would end the game. And, finally, we spent some time providing Crystal with some “look-and-feel” for the setting. That was an interesting chunk of the discussion, actually. I didn’t want to make a list of setting items that would then need to be enforced during play. Instead, I suggested that we all discuss the mental images that we had and try to get them synchronized. Raquel said that she didn’t have any ideas on what the setting looked like, aside from some fuzzy notions, but it hadn’t mattered, since she understood her character. So Gabrielle and I waxed eloquent about how we saw the setting. Here are some selected excerpts, drawn from memory: “There is more city than is needed by the people. There is this sense of emptiness everywhere. Certainly there are many inhabitants in the remnants, but they always seem to be somewhere other than where the action of the story is occurring.” “The remnants are always quiet. The falling snow muffles the sounds, of course, but just in general, everything is quiet.” “The people are living in the shadow of ancient greatness.” “It’s like Minas Tirith and Mordor. Once the men of Gondor were great, but now their strength is waning, and their Enemy is growing strong.” “Everything is in shades of white and ice-blue.” “The demons are red and orange. Bold colors are demonic.” “The people only die from violence or a broken heart.” “Knights are capable of wuxia-like feats in combat.” All in all, it worked. Crystal asked some questions, which we answered, and I think that it made all the difference. She seemed much more engaged in the game this session, although I still don’t think that it is nearly as gripping for her as for the rest of us. An aside regarding ritual space: we sat in the family room (our living room) to discuss these matters and then moved into the quiet room for gameplay itself. It seemed important to me to keep the spaces distinct. Talking about the game is not the same as playing the game, and I wanted to maintain that distinction by keeping the area set aside for gameplay “sacred”. The discussion was quite helpful, but it did not belong in that specific space. Once the preliminaries were complete, we moved into the quiet room and began play. Overview We had two of the protagonists achieve Veteran status in this game. Bellatrix had (somehow) been told that Mintaka had murdered Arcturus and proceeded to confront him in the street. She was prepared to execute him, when Captain Sargas (the commander of these knights) walked around the corner and saw Bellatrix knock Mintaka sprawling. Both Bellatrix and Mintaka assured the Captain that it was merely a training exercise, which he then insisted on observing. Bellatrix again threw Mintaka to the ground and put her blade to his throat. Mintaka then pushed the blade away with his hand and punched her in the stomach. Then he stood and walked away. However, the attack on another knight required an Experience check from Bellatrix, which pushed her to Veteran status. Mintaka then went to Heka’s house. It had already been established that Heka had given birth to a demonic creature which burst through the window and escaped. In this scene, Gabrielle established that Mintaka had been standing outside, hearing Heka in pain, yet he did nothing to help her. The Experience check that Mintaka earned pushed him into Veteran status as well. This, of course, necessitated that the knights meet either the Solaris Knight or the Frost Maiden. I took advantage of being next in turn order to narrate Bellatrix’s encounter with the Solaris Knight. Gabrielle was able to narrate Mintaka’s encounter with the Frost Maiden. The two scenes were very different. I narrated Bellatrix walking down the street, when an unnatural blizzard springs up. As she walks down the street, another knight meets her, coming from the other direction. His eyes blaze with fire, and she knows that it is the Solaris Knight. He draws his sword and salutes her, nodding his respect. Then he passes by, taking the blizzard with him. On the other hand, when Mintaka returned to his quarters, he found a fire cheerily burning in a hearth, the table set with food, and the Frost Maiden standing before the open window, strumming a lute. She turns to him and smiles. Then everything vanishes before his eyes. Bellatrix confronted Heka, demanding that Heka tell her what is in her womb. Heka tells her that she sees evil. All the while, the demon within her is taunting her. So, Bellatrix drew her sword and stabbed herself in the belly, trying to kill the demon. But she failed. The demon crawled out of her, smiles and says, “Mother” before running off. However, Bellatrix is able to pull herself together, stagger off, and rescue Heka’s son. After exorcising him, he is completely fine. So she returns to Heka’s home with the child and places him in the house. Then the demon child of Marfik beckons to her from an alleyway. “Come with me, Mommy,” he says. So she takes his hand. “Daddy is waiting,” it says. So they walk out into the wilderness. In the meantime, Na’ir confronted his brother and killed him, revenging his father’s murder. Before he died, though, Na’ir’s brother claimed that they were not really brothers. Along the way, Na’ir earned the Fate that he would be accused of both his father and brother’s deaths. As Na’ir dragged his brother’s body out into the wasteland to hide it, he found Arcturus’s body lying by the wall. So, he brought it into the city. Heka came to see the body of her dead husband. While she stood by the cold slab, she spoke to the demon that constantly tormented her, “You win.” Mintaka awoke to find a scroll, ordering him to the funeral of Arcturus. Instead, he packed his things and left the city, questing into the South to find the Flame of the South. Bellatrix once again came to the Mistake. Her child led her deeper into its bowels, and, as the light faded, memories of the torment that she endured the first time began to return to her. Finally they came to a door which opened on a room of flame. “Enter,” boomed a voice, and they compelled her to enter. And that’s where we wrapped up for the night. Thoughts on Veterans I had a couple insights of Veteran status that I thought were quite interesting. First, I found that the scene where a character gained Veteran status seemed to grow in importance, relative to other events in the game. Technically speaking, Bellatrix gained Veteran status when she struck Mintaka in the face. That act seemed to take on additional resonance, because that was her turning point. There has been plenty of other Knight vs. Knight conflict going on, including an out-and-out murder. Yet, this one strike had added resonance and weight, simply because this one pushed her over the edge. I felt the same about Mintaka’s scene. In some senses, he didn’t do anything. But, that was the point of the scene. Here, Mintaka has essentially turned his back on his love for Heka. The rest of the session bore this out, as Mintaka decided to run away from everything at the end of the session. The scenes with the Solaris Knight and Frost Maiden bore this out. The Solaris Knight salutes Bellatrix as a fellow warrior against the people, and the Frost Maiden offers a counterfeit of the happy home life that Mintaka wanted. Each is a corruption of the essential nature of each character, and I thought that both were quite powerful. I also gained some insight on game strategy, especially being the Mistaken. Now that Bellatrix is a Veteran, she can die, but this can only be the result of a “But Only If…” statement. So, when Bellatrix stabbed herself with her sword, I immediately grabbed for “And Furthermore…” specifically to remove the possibility of allowing Bellatrix a noble death at that point. At that point, I realized that, as Mistaken, I can make the Heart’s pursuit of a tragic death very, very hard. Evil laughter ensued. A Couple of Random Observations Both Raquel and I have noted that we are looking forward to this particular run of Polaris to wrap up, in part because we would like to try it again, from the beginning, applying all the various insights that we have learned up to this point. I’m finding that there are more depths in this game than are immediately apparent. This is a Very Cool Thing. I’ve also noticed that each play session has been quite good, even though I don’t think that we have really been “in the zone” for any of them. I credit at least a portion of this with the solid game design. It seems like it would require a lot of work to have a bad Polaris experience. This is also a Very Cool Thing. I still maintain that the candle is not optional. Actually, if we start a new “campaign”, even if it’s with the same people, we are going to get a different candle. It would be sacrilegious somehow to use the same candle. I’m also planning on finding a crystal clear d6 to use as the official “game die”. I’m such a geek for props. As always, this is a great game, and we are all greatly enjoying it. But that was long ago, and there are now none who remember it. (The next report is here.)

A Series of Unfortunate Events

2005-12-06T20:57:00.000-06:00

Last night, we watched “A Series of Unfortunate Events”. This is the movie rendition of the first three books of the series entitled (oddly enough) “A Series of Unfortunate Events”. Given the subject material and style, I should have enjoyed the movie. In fact, Crystal had begun watching it earlier and thought that I would like it. I didn’t. In fact, I went to bed depressed. And that’s the odd part about all this. I’ve watched equally surreal and depressing movies before. For instance, I rank “Edward Scissorhands” as a favorite movie of mine, and I think that “The Nightmare Before Christmas” was a hoot. Granted, “Edward Scissorhands” still makes me cry every time I see it, but still I find a certain satisfaction in the story. What was so different about “A Series of Unfortunate Events”? So, this morning, I was trying to put words to my feelings. Normally, I don’t have a problem with this, but this was one of those exceptions. Finally, I figured out what was bothering me. The plot of the movie was one tragedy after another afflicting these three children. Just as an example, two of their relatives are murdered by the villain, one of them being abandoned in the middle of a lake to be eaten by leeches. This is, of course, in addition to the “unfortunate event” that kicks off the story: the death of their parents when their house burns down. Early in the movie, the narrator (nominally Lemony Snicket, the author) says, “If you have ever lost someone very important to you, then you already know how it feels; and if you haven't, you cannot possibly imagine it.” But, see, I have lost someone very important to me. This is serious stuff, and I expect that any story about such a thing be serious. Instead, I felt that the movie was flippantly horrible. In many ways, it reminded me of the Gashlycrumb Tinies by Edward Gorey. The events being portrayed were awful, and the story understood that they were awful, but, still, the surreal world in which they occurred seemed to make light of the tragedies that beset these three children. Even the dreary tone of the narrator seemed to suggest that the gloom and doom is really all just part of the joke. And still, I don’t feel like I’ve really explained myself. A wise person once said, “Never judge a book by its movie”, and I try to abide by this adage. Maybe the books are different. Maybe the books handle this material with more care and respect than the movie. But I don’t know. I really don’t know. All I know is that, every day, children all across the world lose their parents to tragic accidents. And it’s not funny. No, not funny at all.

Joseph, son of Yahweh

2005-12-05T10:03:00.000-06:00

Leithart.com | Joseph, son of Yahweh You know, I was going to write a bit about this, but Peter Leithart beat me to it. So, I'll just let him talk about it instead. We tend to focus on Mary so much that we forget the price that Joseph paid to be a faithful follower of his God.

As I continue to beat a dead horse...

2005-11-30T14:53:00.000-06:00

I promise to have some more of my own content here. Really. But, in the meantime, I give you a link to Doug Wilson's blog, wherein he discusses Paul's use of the word skubalon: To Win Christ (This is me, grinning at Fritz.)

Eco - "Writings: IBM vs. Mac"

2005-11-30T07:53:00.000-06:00

I'm blogging this, because it's funny. From http://www.themodernword.com/eco/eco_mac_vs_pc.html:

"I asked above whether fountain pens were Protestant. Insufficient consideration has been given to the new underground religious war which is modifying the modern world. It's an old idea of mine, but I find that whenever I tell people about it they immediately agree with me. The fact is that the world is divided between users of the Macintosh computer and users of MS-DOS compatible computers. I am firmly of the opinion that the Macintosh is Catholic and that DOS is Protestant. Indeed, the Macintosh is counter-reformist and has been influenced by the ratio studiorum of the Jesuits. It is cheerful, friendly, conciliatory; it tells the faithful how they must proceed step by step to reach -- if not the kingdom of Heaven -- the moment in which their document is printed. It is catechistic: The essence of revelation is dealt with via simple formulae and sumptuous icons. Everyone has a right to salvation. DOS is Protestant, or even Calvinistic. It allows free interpretation of scripture, demands difficult personal decisions, imposes a subtle hermeneutics upon the user, and takes for granted the idea that not all can achieve salvation. To make the system work you need to interpret the program yourself: Far away from the baroque community of revelers, the user is closed within the loneliness of his own inner torment. You may object that, with the passage to Windows, the DOS universe has come to resemble more closely the counter-reformist tolerance of the Macintosh. It's true: Windows represents an Anglican-style schism, big ceremonies in the cathedral, but there is always the possibility of a return to DOS to change things in accordance with bizarre decisions: When it comes down to it, you can decide to ordain women and gays if you want to."

More Polaris actual play

2005-11-29T13:39:00.000-06:00

(The previous report is here.) (This account was also posted on The Forge. You might find the responses from the folks there to be interesting.) My Polaris group has actually managed to squeeze in a couple more sessions of play since I last wrote here So, naturally, I’m being nagged to write it up for Actual Play. So, here I am. There’s a lot of territory to cover, so I should probably get started. Long ago, the people were dying at the end of the world. Overview Quotable: “Or maybe it’s Marfik; he’s the one who’s been dying lately.” I don’t want to descend into “and this happened, and this happened”, but context is helpful, after all. So I’ll give a basic summary of the events that during these two sessions. (I don’t have the notes with me, so hopefully I’m getting this correct.) At the end of last session, Bellatrix was brought up on charges of desertion. She wasn’t at the wall when the demons attacked our remnant; instead, she was talking with Marfik, a fop with apparent demonic connections. So, following my dictum from last post (“Be a Jerk”), I pushed this hard. As a result, Bellatrix was branded “Deserter” on her forehead, which makes her a social outcast. However, she does retain her membership in the Order. An important exchange occurred when Raquel (Bellatrix’s Heart) wanted to incorporate the testimony of Arcturus, a great knight with whom Bellatrix is secretly in love. My initial response was “But only if Arcturus will never love you”. Apparently I was asking far too much, so I offered “But only if Arcturus loses all respect for you”. Love or respect? Raquel chose respect, so it has been established that Arcturus will never love Bellatrix. This has led to a couple of interesting effects, which I will discuss later. Heka’s life got weirder as she was attacked on the walls of the remnant by Arcturus (who may or may not have been possessed), causing her to fall outside the remnant. This struggle blinds her, but it opens her inner sight so that she can see the true nature of things. This will only get her into more trouble, no doubt. Na’ir is desperate to impress his father, and he managed to do quite well in this session. He even foiled an assassination attempt aimed at his father, which was the result of plotting by Marfik. On the way, he actually killed Marfik, but apparently this wasn’t enough, since Marfik appeared elsewhere later in the story. (Obviously, there is more here than meets the eye.) And, although Marfik shattered his starlight sword, we established that Na’ir would inherit his father’s sword, but only after his father was dead. However, Na’ir suffered loss. He idolizes Arcturus as being the ultimate knight, but he discovered that Arcturus was willing to lie to him. Later, he discovered that Arcturus was involved in the assassination attempt. Mintaka Starsinger continues to pursue Heka, which culminates with a desperate rescue of Heka from demonic forces that take her captive. As the demon bodies rot around them, Mintaka reads her a sonnet that he has composed in her honor. We left the scene without determining Heka’s response. After her initial scene, Bellatrix did not appear again until I (as Mistaken) narrated her leaving the remnant, walking out the Mistake, and (with Raquel’s consent), leaping in. As this was the last scene of the night, it made for an effective ending point. When we reconvened, Raquel had considered what she wanted to get out of this situation, so she established that, at the Mistake, she had discovered the Deadly Secret. I was ready for her, however, and managed to get my own particular desire out of the negotiation: Bellatrix was pregnant with Marfik’s child. How this happened is beyond us. There are a couple of possibilities, but we have not established any of them yet. As the session proceeded, Raquel revealed the Deadly Secret, to wit, that Heka had secretly married Arcturus and was pregnant with his child. Yep, all sorts of pregnancies going on around here. Crystal was cool with it, so it was established. (Why yes, Arcturus *did* try to kill Heka….) I was determined to get a little more violence into the game, so I narrated a demonic assault on the remnant. Bellatrix took her stand against the general of the horde (Azrakralizec), killing his steed, when Marfik stepped from the shadows and waved him off. Bellatrix then whirled and stabbed Marfik through the heart. He kissed her on the lips as he died. Mintaka heard the news about the secret marriage of Arcturus and Heka and was filled with a cold fury. He waited until nightfall, went up onto the walls where Arcturus was standing watch, and stabbed him in the back. Na’ir al-Saif went to visit his father and found him dead. The Wail of the Wilderness (a demonic force of some kind) had killed him. But Na’ir knew that his brother was involved somehow. So, he belted on his father’s sword and went off to kill his brother. Potential issues with negotiating future effects We’ve been doing a lot of negotiating for future effects. Things like “Arcturus will never love you” or “You will not be the one to kill Marfik” and suchlike. The system allows for this sort of negotiation; indeed, it explicitly permits it. This is a powerful aspect of the game which should not be overlooked. The ability to create a Destiny for a character which cannot be denied (e.g. a geas or a doom of some kind) can be quite potent in a tragedy like this. However, one potential pitfall is simply forgetting what has been negotiated for the future. Several times Raquel (the recorder for the group) had to remind us of things that we had previously negotiated that contradicted current facts or negotiations. Certainly, having a “scribe” for the group helps deal with this problem, but it is something to remember. Also, there is the potential of negotiating away so much future freedom that the rest of the story becomes locked into stone before it is even told. This hasn’t happened to us yet, but it’s worth pointing out. Heart/Mistaken rivalry The rivalry between Heart and Mistaken drives the game, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. I noticed, as game play proceeded, that Raquel removed the gloves and began to come at me viciously. Part of this was fed directly by the cruelty that I was visiting upon Bellatrix. So, as I ramped up my assaults on her character, it only fed her desire to increase the intensity of her assault on mine. I see this as a good thing; the competition has improved the quality of the game for me. However, it is a feature that should probably be pointed out to players of the game. To do this right, you’re going to have to get in someone’s face. Some folks might not like that. I know that Crystal and Gabrielle have both admitted that they have felt uncomfortable being responsible for bringing adversity on someone else. However, it is the engine that drives the game, and it should not be ignored. Immersion issues In the comments section in this blog post, Ben Lehman mentions mixed responses to Polaris from an immersive perspective. What I’m *not* wanting to do here is go over the immersive issue in detail. Rather, I want to offer Ben some feedback, based on a conversation that I had with my wife about the issue. So, Ben, here goes! Crystal likes to get into her characters’ heads. She wants to know her character well enough that she can decide how her character responds to a given situation. So, we talked about this the other night, and, along the way, we discussed Polaris. Here is what she struggles with. First, it is hard for her to jump from character to character. The constant switching of roles is challenging for her, since she doesn’t feel like she can settle into character before it’s time to move on. This is something that might be overcome with practice. As she mentioned, we’ve only played Polaris a few times, and this has been a time of Real Life stress (recovering from giving birth; lack of sleep from newborn; extended period of sickness in the family, including said newborn). As a result, it has been a hard time to pick up the nuances of a new RPG. However, I can easily see how provision needs to be made to allow a player who seeks the “immersive” experience to settle into his character. It is possible that the nested ritual space (the opening and closing of scenes) could assist in this regard. Next time we play, we will discuss this and see if we can’t come up with any good ideas. Second, she doesn’t feel like she has enough setting to hang her character on. I refer you to a similar thread in the Alyria forum. Notice the sorts of questions that Ron is asking. These are the kinds of questions that Crystal wants answered. Now, I admit that she has not read the book, which does affect things. However, when she asks me things like, “What do normal people do in the remnants?”, I can’t provide her with a canon response. It would go a long way to help the “immersives” to answer some of these questions. To that end, here are some questions: --What does the average person in the remnants do? --What does commerce look like? --How are the remnants governed? --What distinguishes a given remnant from the others? --What structures belonging to the people exist in the wasteland? --What do the people eat? --What do the people wear? --What kinds of animals are available to the people? To illustrate what I mean, check out some of the final text describing the Citadel: Citadel Commoners Merchants Noble Houses High Lords Keepers Restored I grant that I am biased, but I think that there is enough information here for an immersive to hang a character upon, without sacrificing a certain flexibility of setting which is important in games like this. Now, certainly, an easy answer is simply, “Make it up yourselves!” Personally, I’m comfortable with this. I come at Polaris as providing a certain mood, and setting details exist merely to support that mood. That’s how I tend to approach Legends of Alyria. However, based on my experience with designing Legends of Alyria, I know that this is not enough for some folks. The added detail will not harm the game experience for someone like me, but it will probably enhance the game experience for someone like my wife. Summation This is still a great game, which we are enjoying greatly. I’m hoping to be able to sit down and play the next session soon. But that was long ago, and there are now none who remember it. (The next report is here.)

More on being indie

2005-11-23T10:50:00.000-06:00

Lost Garden: A Game Business Model: Learning from Touring Bands I haven't gotten back to my series on being independent, but this article lays out the indie business model in terms of computer games. Quite thought-provoking. I could see this model applying to many other service-driven businesses. Like, oh, say, restaurants.

I got it!

2005-11-15T14:50:00.000-06:00

I feel like I should actually add something original to this blog. You know, something more than links to other people's writing. That would be a good idea. But, today, I'm only thinking about how incredibly jazzed I am that I finally have my very own copy of PÜNCT . Yay!

More on Coffee

2005-11-11T10:59:00.000-06:00

Leithart.com | Coffee Because I love a good coffee quote.

Hitherby Dragons: Where They Cried

2005-11-03T15:11:00.000-06:00

Hitherby Dragons: Where They Cried I almost cried when I first read this. Odd how you can use Smurfs to illustrate a very serious point.

In a Dark and Quiet Room (Part 9)

2005-11-02T21:11:00.000-06:00

(The previous installment can be found here.) They will not leave me in peace. They will not leave me in peace. Key 6

Doug Wilson retells the story

2005-11-01T10:03:00.000-06:00

The Lord Jesus Just one more of the books written about this Man which will one day fill the earth. I was particularly moved by this bit:

From the beginning, the ministry of Jesus consisted of identification with sinners. This is why the Incarnation occurred in the first place, and His formal ministry began with Him receiving the baptism of John—which was, you recall, a baptism of repentance. So Jesus began His public ministry by repenting, a fact that brought John the Baptist into a state of no small consternation. As the perfect one, Jesus was the only one who could repent perfectly. Of course, this also meant that He did not need to repent, but Jesus lived His life as a second Adam—one whose obedience or disobedience was to be reckoned to His people. And in this repentance, He was Israel, repenting on our behalf. So He began His public ministry by repenting in the Jordan River. Have you ever felt that your repentance was completely inadequate? That is why Jesus repented for you. He began His ministry of representing you by coming to John and requesting baptism. He ended this ministry of identification with sinners in His death and resurrection. The baptism of Jesus and the death and resurrection of Jesus are the two bookends of His ministry that contain the story of your salvation, as well as the reality of it.

So I started an index....

2005-11-01T00:27:00.000-06:00

I started to work on indexing my blog. Better late than never, I suppose. Anyways, you can access the index from the sidebar or by clicking here.

In a Dark and Quiet Room (Part 8)

2005-10-31T23:48:00.000-06:00

(The previous installment can be found here.) It's been far too long since I have sat in my dark and quiet room. My world has been far too full of late for me to find peace or sanctuary within its imaginary walls. But tonight I came here to write, and as I did, I discovered another key awaiting me. It is simple and unadorned, but I know what it means. I cast my eyes to the locked box in the corner. What else had appeared inside that accursed box? Key 5

Wal-Mart report for 10/26/2005

2005-10-25T21:57:00.000-05:00

(The previous report is here.)

Misusing the Westminster Confession

2005-10-18T15:51:00.000-05:00

Misusing the Westminster Confession by James Jordan "Along these lines, the continual use of the Standards over a long period of time has not infrequently had a bad effect. The writers of the Standards were men of breadth and depth, who were primarily interested in the Bible, the whole Bible, and what God says in and through the Bible to humanity. Continual focus on the Standards, however, often leads over the course of time to a narrower and shallower religion. It can lead to sectarianism and even to a kind of functional idolatry in which the Standards become practically more important than the Bible. Preachers and teachers can go round and round inside the Standards, assuming that all that is really important is found there, and virtually ignoring everything else the Bible has to say. The issues that were primarily in focus in the 1640s are assumed to be the major issues in the Bible itself. (After all, while the doctrines of predestination occupy the Standards to a considerable extent, how often does the Bible touch on this matter in any kind of direct way?) Over time, the limited concerns of the Standards are pressed into every part of the Bible, while the actual teaching of many parts of the Bible goes unnoticed."

Once more, with feeling...

2005-10-15T20:19:00.000-05:00

This article has appeared again, and, with my current thinking about the love of God, I thought that it was good to point it out again.

Thoughts on the Present Controversy: Part 1, "Names, labels, & Slogans"

2005-10-10T15:29:00.000-05:00

Thoughts on the Present Controversy: Part 1, "Names, labels, & Slogans" Uh, this one is good, too. Actually, I want to point these posts out, because I see important truth in them. Something that continually breaks my heart is the arrogance that we Reformed Christians show to other Christians, especially those within our own circles. I know this, and I am certainly guilty of it. This post is a call to patience and discernment in our disagreements and debates. Certainly, this is worth repeating. Regularly.

Subscription & Freedom

2005-10-10T15:25:00.000-05:00

Subscription & Freedom It looks like one of those days. I keep stumbling over really good stuff that I feel like I have to share with all of you. This article is about Calvin's opposition to strict subscription. That's right. In fact, here's a quote: "I have long learned by experience, and that over and over again, that those who contend thus pertinaciously about terms, are really cherishing a secret poison." (Institutes 1.8.5) Sound like any controversy that you've heard of?

Another reason to like Doug Phillips

2005-10-10T10:01:00.000-05:00

Grace and Justice This is a blog post (squib, whatever) by R.C. Sproul, Jr. about Doug Phillips. There is so much good here that I'm not sure where to start. Perhaps the best thing to say is this: Doug Phillips' ministry is, in my mind, completely vindicated by the evidence that he is raising sons of honor and compassion. Maybe he actually has a clue about what he is saying.

The Cedar Room: We Are Talking About Emergent Christians And Orthodox Christians Holding Hands And Singing "We Are The World."

2005-10-09T23:09:00.000-05:00

We Are Talking About Emergent Christians And Orthodox Christians Holding Hands And Singing "We Are The World." Long name. Amazing results. Seriously, I was mentioning to someone the other day that I appreciate Josh Gibbs. In particular, I appreciate him because I think that he is representative of a new breed of Reformed young men who are passionate about the Church catholic and are struggling to pursue the unity of the Church with vigor. This post is just another example of this good trend.

Have you been touched by His Noodly Appendage?

2005-10-07T16:03:00.000-05:00

Have you heard of the Flying Spaghetti Monster? Well, now you have. The Flying Spaghetti Monster is the deity of the religion called (oddly enough) Flying Spaghetti Monsterism. This religion was created as a joke by Bobby Henderson in response to the Kansas Board of Education's debating about teaching Intelligent Design. The text of the original letter can be found here. And, oddly enough, I think that Mr. Henderson has made an excellent point. It's not the one that he thinks he's making, mind you, but it is an excellent point. Correct me if I am wrong, but I believe that most religions believe that the world was created by one or more deities. They may or may not be the deities that are currently running the show, but, for most of history, humanity has believed in Intelligent Design. So what? Is this really a triumph for Christianity? Have we really made gains if some people say that maybe, just maybe, there's some Being out there that made all this? I think not. Because, unless we're talking about the God of the Bible, then it's all just more idolatry. As far as Intelligent Design is concerned, the Flying Spaghetti Monster could explain all the evidence at hand. Yet, at the risk of stating the blindingly obvious, Pastarianism is not Christianity. Until people believe in Biblical Creation and acknowledge the Creator rights of the God of the Bible, then we have not won. Intelligent Design is not a victory for us. Just ask the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

We Are A Thought For Searchers.

2005-10-07T09:41:00.000-05:00

This is well-said. The Cedar Room: We Are A Thought For Searchers. You know, I just realized that this is another aspect of our disposable culture. Sigh. Maybe this means that I need to learn how to fix more things....

Wilson on humility and catholicity

2005-10-05T14:22:00.000-05:00

My Answer Is Right, Darn It All quite well said. I particularly liked the bit where he affirmed sola fide and the bit where he discussed wine in communion.

Desiring God

2005-10-05T14:17:00.000-05:00

Ever have the experience of working through some issue and then stumbling across just the right book to help?

You haven’t? Oh…

Well, anyways, remember those articles about the love of God from a couple of weeks back? Well, last night I decided that I was in the mood to read something substantive. So I went rooting around in my sister’s books and found a couple of books that I had been intending to read.

One of them was “Desiring God” by John Piper.

Wow.

I’m only a couple of chapters into the book, but I think that this is going to be quite helpful.

ASCII Doodles

2005-10-05T10:53:00.000-05:00

######## #......# #.....:# #....::# #...::;# #..::;;# #.::;;*# #::;;**# #:;;***# #;;****# #;*****# #******# ######## //////// /....../ /.....:/ /....::/ /...::;/ /..::;;/ /.::;;*/ /::;;**/ /:;;***/ /;;****/ /;*****/ /******/ //////// ...... .....: ....:: ...::; ..::;; .::;;* ::;;** :;;*** ;;**** ;***** ****** \\\\\\\\ \******\ \;*****\ \;;****\ \:;;***\ \::;;**\ \.::;;*\ \..::;;\ \...::;\ \....::\ \.....:\ \......\ \\\\\\\\

The Closing of the Calvinistic Mind

2005-10-03T16:45:00.000-05:00

The Closing of the Calvinistic Mind James Jordan weighs in on the current unpleasantries.

Imagine....

2005-09-30T12:23:00.000-05:00

imagine that for just one day you were unafraid no one could threaten you no one could shame you no one could rebuke you what power you would have you would be completely free you could do whatever you wanted you could change the world all this in just one day if somehow you were not afraid

Facts About Dihydrogen Monoxide

2005-09-30T11:10:00.000-05:00

Read the facts on this dangerous chemical.

Doug Phillips says nice things about where I work.

2005-09-29T18:26:00.000-05:00

Doug's Blog Oh yeah! And we're braced for the phone calls....

Intelligence Report on Subject #M33P135: The Meeples.

2005-09-29T12:34:00.000-05:00

GeekList: Intelligence Report on Subject #M33P135: The Meeples. This be funny. For those who don't know, a "meeple" is a little human-shaped game piece, particularly from the Carcassonne game series.

For physicians of the body and the soul...

2005-09-27T14:39:00.000-05:00

From the Baylyblog: For physicians of the body and the soul... It becomes every person who purposes to give himself to the care of others, seriously to consider the four following things: First, that he must one day give an account to the Supreme Judge of all the lives entrusted to his care. Second, that all his skill and knowledge and energy, as they have been given him by God, so they should be exercised for His glory and the good of mankind, and not for mere gain or ambition. Third, and not more beautifully than truly, let him reflect that he has undertaken the care of no mean creature; for in order that he may estimate the value, the greatness of the human race, the only begotten son of God became himself a man, and thus ennobled it with His divine dignity, and far more than this, died to redeem it. And fourth, that the doctor being himself a mortal human being, should be diligent and tender in relieving his suffering patients, inasmuch as he himself must one day be a like sufferer. -Thomas Sydenham (1624-1689)

Blogger's Word Verification Revealed

2005-09-25T20:06:00.000-05:00

In a recent announcement, Blogger has revealed its source for the words that it uses for word verification. "It seemed best to us to use a Slavic language," said Mary Webster, public relations director for the blogging website. "And what better way to raise humanitarian awareness than to use the language of the former Yugoslavia?" Various civil rights groups are already objecting. "It's simply un-American to exclude other oppressed races," argued Chinese-American activist John Lu. "We demand that Blogger.com begin to include kanji-based verification to represent our people's suffering." When it was mentioned that most Western keyboards are unable to produce kanji, Lu noted that this was more evidence of discrimination.

Unless your righteousness....

2005-09-24T18:39:00.000-05:00

Today I spent several hours with some deeply spiritual folks. While I sat with them, I heard them discuss the challenges of homeschooling their children, the importance of maintaining close familial ties, the best ways to engage the larger culture with their beliefs, and even how to allow their children to participate in the rites of their faith while still being respectful to other worshippers. I felt right at home. After all, these are all issues that are important to me and that I wrestle with from time to time. These were folks who want to integrate their faith into every area of their lives, just like me. Except they weren't like me. They were Pagans.

And now, a word from our sponsors

2005-09-24T17:43:00.000-05:00

Once again, the Ben-Ezra family is selling stuff on eBay, getting rid of stuff for cold, hard cash. Here is a listing of the items for auction. Buy stuff. Tell your friends to buy stuff. Thanks. We now return you to your regularly scheduled blathering.

More about God's love

2005-09-24T12:09:00.000-05:00

I have another thought about the Reformed approach to God’s love and God’s wrath.  I’m going to get at this thought by asking a question:  “What is the gospel story?”

I think that most Reformed Christians would probably answer this question in terms of TULIP.  Man is found in his sinful, corrupted state.  Then, God acts:  the Father ordains salvation, the Son accomplishes it, and the Spirit applies it.  Finally, those who have been saved from their sin and corruption are preserved until the end of their days.

This is all true, and I don’t want to deny any of it.  However, I think that this formulation tends to overlook a vital part of the story.

Before our current state of sin, before our father Adam’s sin, God created humanity.  And why did He create us?

God created us to love us.

Pause a moment and consider this.

While you are considering this, I want to affirm my agreement with the orthodox creeds and the teaching of Scripture about God, especially the aseity of God.  This is important, in order to understand what I say next.

As Reformed Christians, we confess God’s foreordination of our salvation from the beginning of time.  However, I think that we are so careful to stress God’s sovereign prerogative to choose that we overlook the purpose of His creation and election.

God created me and elected me, because He was full of so much love, that He wanted to spend all of eternity with me.

He didn’t need any of us, but He chose to need us.  He was not alone, yet He says, “It is not good that the [M]an should be alone.”  It was not good that He was alone, so He made us.

That is the beginning of the gospel.  The beginning of the good news is not the bad news of our sin.  The beginning of the good news is that God created you because He wanted to be with you and love you forever.

But instead, you spat in his face and walked away.

Logical Priority: Love or Wrath

2005-09-23T21:09:00.000-05:00

I’m going to play a game here that I don’t normally play.  I think that I’ll call it the “logical priority” game.  This is a game that gets played a lot in Reformed theological circles.  Which has logical priority, God’s decree of Redemption or God’s decree of Sin?  Or, what about regeneration and faith?  Sometimes, there are significant points of concern at stake.  Other times, I fear that it is simply a game.

But today, I’m going to play the game.  Which has logical priority:  God’s love or God’s wrath?  Or how about this?  Is God’s default “emotion” love or wrath?  But these are perhaps silly ways to ask the question.  Let me rephrase it.

What is the fundamental nature of my relationship with God?  Is it fundamentally a relationship of love, or fundamentally a relationship of wrath?  Of course, all the good Christians out there in the crowd have already answered the question.  Our relationship with God is fundamentally one of love.  That’s what we all say.

Right?

Or do we?

I’m going to stroll out on a limb here and suggest that, at least within Reformed circles, we do not really believe that our relationship with God is fundamentally one of love, nor do we believe that God’s default “emotion” is love.

I submit that, in Reformed circles, we believe that God defaults to being angry.  However, God, in His sovereign indifference, randomly selected some to be saved.  To these exceptions, He has opted to show His love, but this love functions largely to stifle His default wrath.  So, those who are elect and have been saved now have a buffer zone between God’s wrath and us.  Therefore, it’s possible to make God happy now.  Of course, God is still the Picky Stickler in the sky, so even those who are loved by God still need to tiptoe around Him.

But is this how the Bible describes God?

I’m going to start by acknowledging, nay, embracing the Biblical teaching that God becomes angry.  Only a fool or an idiot could read the Bible and say otherwise.  But, is the wrath of God really His default state?

Here’s how God describes Himself.  “Yahweh, Yahweh God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness and truth; who keeps lovingkindness for thousands, who forgives iniquity, transgression and sin; yet He will by no means leave the guilty unpunished, visiting the iniquity of fathers on the children and on the grandchildren to the third and fourth generations.”  (Exodus 34:6-7)  Is there wrath in this passage?  Certainly.  However, what is the overwhelming emphasis?  Love.  (A side note.  As I was transcribing this passage, I was struck by the apparent contradiction.  God punishes the guilty, yet He forgives.  How do these two things fit together?)

Or what about Psalm 103?  "Yahweh is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.  He will not always chide, nor will he keep his anger forever.  He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities.  For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us." (Psalm 103:8-12)  Notice how David starts by quoting from Exodus and then elaborating.  For some reason, David doesn't think that the point of the Exodus passage is God's wrath, but God's love.

And then, of course, one of the classic passages:  “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God.   Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.”  (1 John 4:7-8)  God is love.  God is not wrath.  As a result, we are to be characterized by this love.

It is love that is supposed to be the root cause for our obedience.  Jesus said, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.”  (John 14:15)  Jesus doesn’t threaten us with a wrathful God, just waiting for one of us to slip up.  Rather, He calls us to obey because of our desire for the One Who waits for us at the end of our journey.

There is a place for fear in the Christian life.  Our God does become angry, and we are wise to remember this.  Jesus did say, “And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.” (Matthew 10:28)  And yet, I cannot help but think that this is a secondary motivation.  I compare fear to the safety net that trapeze artists use.  We are given fear to catch us when our love fails, but it is the lower motivation.

John writes, “By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world.  There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.”  (1 John 4:17-18)  Perfect love casts out fear.  For now, our love is not perfect, so we are given fear.  But, in the end, there will be no fear.

Proverbs says that the fear of Yahweh is the beginning of wisdom (Proverbs 9:10).  Yet the end of wisdom is love.

Accommodated revelation?

2005-09-19T11:57:00.000-05:00

When I'm not feeling creative, I merely link to other people's creativity. It's like I'm basking in their awesomeness and thereby partaking of it somehow. Er, or something like that. So, here, read Pastor Leithart's thoughts about how we exalt scientific description. "No physical/chemical/biological description of love is "truer" than Solomon's "Your love is better than wine." The contrary is the case." Leithart.com | Accommodated revelation?

No, I'm not okay

2005-09-17T17:11:00.000-05:00

Have you ever noticed how people tend to greet each other?  “How are you doing?” they ask.  This is supposed to be ceremonial language, merely a formality.  The proper answer, of course, is “I’m fine.  How are you?”  Because, you see, once we’ve made genuflections in the direction of caring for each other, we can get on with the business of getting what we want out of a conversation.

I’m not pointing fingers.  I’ve done this.  We’re all guilty of it.

Then one day, my father figured out that he was doing it.  So he decided that he would take the question seriously.  If someone asked him how he was doing, he would—are you sitting down?—give an honest answer.  And I, being his son, have tried to follow in his footsteps.  Of course, being my mother’s son, I can be a little pushy about it.  Not only do I give honest answers, I tend to push for honest answers when I inquire as to how someone is doing.

Be careful what you say around me.  You just might come to regret it.

Which brings us to today.

I’m still sick.

I’m still sick, and most of my family is still sick.

Justice started coughing.

I haven’t been to work or worship in weeks.

I feel lonely.

My sleep last night was fragmented, trying to care for a squalling baby and a frustrated wife.

I feel scattered and confused.

I’m scared.

I’m worn out.

I’m not all right.

So, when a woman from our church called and asked how we were, I asked her if she really wanted to know.

And she did.

So, I told her.  I told her about how we’ve been sick for so long that it’s beginning to feel normal.  I told her that I haven’t been driving, because I’m afraid that I’ll crash during a coughing fit.  I told her that Justice is coughing and we’re afraid that he’ll be seriously ill.  I told her that we’re tired and lonely and scared.

And she listened.  God bless her for it.

The Bible says, “Wherefore putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbour: for we are members one of another.”  (Ephesians 4:25)  This truth-telling begins by stating what should be an obvious truth:  I’m not all right.  The Gospel tells us that we are sinners living in a broken world.  This means that we get sick and we get tired and we hurt each other and we lose heart and we fall apart and that sometimes we just can’t take it anymore.

It means saying that I’m scared that my son is going to die from whooping cough.  It means saying that I’m not nearly as good a person as you think I am.  It means saying that I desperately wish that I were at work, struggling with a stupid last-minute project because it would mean that life was normal again.  It means saying that I can’t stop coughing and it hurts so bad sometimes and I don’t have it together.  I don’t have it together.

I’m not okay.

And that’s the truth.

aka pastor guy: Twister!

2005-09-15T11:59:00.000-05:00

aka pastor guy: Twister! Thoughts on Twister, the human body, and kissing. All good. See? Talking about games can be profound.

Hitherby Dragons: The Arachnophobe

2005-09-09T14:12:00.000-05:00

Hitherby Dragons: The Arachnophobe It's an odd story, but it has this great quote:

"Social security lost my birthdate," says Martin. "When you don't have good social security records, you're only as young as you feel."

Pride and the Atomic Bomb

2005-09-09T14:02:00.000-05:00

I finished reading The Gospel According to America by David Dark. A very helpful and thought-provoking book. In order to take advantage of the opportunity to read this book, I had put down another book, and, once I had finished The Gospel According to America, I returned to my previous book. Funny, actually. I have owned this book for years, having purchased it at some used-book sale, but I have never read it before now. The title: The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes. It’s a fairly hefty book, coming it at 886 pages (including indices and such), but I’m almost finished with it. I would highly recommend it. Somehow, Mr. Rhodes manages to take a topic that has wide-ranging connections to theoretical physics, politics, and ethics, and manages to describe all the various issues and personalities involved in the massive undertaking that led up to the development and use of the atomic bomb in World War II. I’ve been having a hard time reading the book recently, though. I’m past all the theoretical developments, the building of the Los Alamos labs, and the test firing at the Trinity site. Now, I’m reading about the bombing of Hiroshima. Seventeen pages of eyewitness accounts. Seventeen pages. Here, try these on for size:

I heard a girl’s voice clearly from behind a tree. “Help me, please.” Her back was completely burned and the skin peeled off and was hanging down from her hips. A man with his eyes sticking out about two inches called me by name and I felt sick… People’s bodies were tremendously swollen—you can’t imagine how big a human body can swell up. There was a charred body of a woman standing frozen in a running posture with one leg lifted and her baby tightly clutched in her arms. At the base of the bridge, inside a big cistern that had been dug out there, was a mother weeping and holding above her head a naked baby that was burned bright red all over its body, and another mother was crying and sobbing as she gave her burned breast to her baby. I had to cross the river to reach the station. As I came to the river and went down the bank to the water, I found that the stream was filled with dead bodies. I started to cross by crawling over the corpses, on my hands and knees. As I got about a third of the way across, a dead body began to sink under my weight and I went into the water, wetting my burned skin. It pained severely. I could go no further, as there was a break in the bridge of corpses, so I turned back to the shore. And they had no faces! Their eyes, noses and mouths had been burned away, and it looked like their ears had melted off. It was hard to tell front from back. Mother was completely bedridden. The hair of her head had almost fallen out, her chest was festering, and from the two-inch hole in her back a lot of maggots were crawling in and out.

According to The Making of the Atomic Bomb, between the initial blast and the radiation poisoning that followed, 54% of the population of Hiroshima died as the result of this atomic attack. And now, a quote from The Gospel According to America:

George Washington asserted that the Declaration of Independence was a claim, on the part of the colonies, to the rights of all of humanity, and, in an interesting paradox, he believed that the rights, for which the colonists fought, should be applied to enemy combatants. He wanted British prisoners to be treated with more humanity than the colonists received at the hands of British soldiers. When the war was over, thousands who fought against America’s independence chose to remain in the land where they would enjoy more rights than they could hope for elsewhere.

Remember what the Declaration said: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” For better or worse, this is the creed that makes us Americans. But apparently, during the World Wars, we let this slip. Apparently, “all men” didn’t include Jerry or the Nips. Therefore, apparently it was okay to light their cities on fire so that their old men and women and children boiled away. Apparently then it was okay to light the atomic fire in their cities, wiping away entire cities until they did our pleasure. Apparently the rights of “Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness” didn’t extend to them. Does that mean that we thought that the Japanese were merely animals, worthy of extinction? I’m not speaking here as a Japanophile. The sneak attack on Pearl Harbor was an underhanded act, but oh so Japanese. Amoral pragmatism is acceptable, so long as the forms are followed. A samurai doesn’t kill a sleeping opponent; he kicks him so that he is awake, and then he kills him. It’s still a sneak attack, but the forms were followed. That is the Japanese way, and it is so very wrong. Yet the Japanese did not claim to be anything other than this. Yet America has claimed to be a champion of human rights and freedom throughout the world…unless you are on our bad side, of course. Suddenly all the noble platitudes that we mouth don’t quite seem to apply anymore. And so I begin to wonder about American hypocrisy. We are perfectly willing to condemn the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center, the London subway bombings, the Oklahoma City bombing, and other assaults on civilians. But bring up the Hamburg and Dresden firestorms, the incendiary attacks on Japanese cities, or the atomic destruction that we wrought on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and suddenly the justifications begin to roll out. We needed to break their morale. They would never have surrendered without these measures. We wanted to shorten the war. We wanted to save lives. Did you know that the gas attacks in World War I were justified using exactly the same reasoning? And now, we come to Hurricane Katrina. An American city has been shattered. At this point, it remains to be seen if New Orleans will be able to be rebuilt. And some choose to shake their fists at the sky and demand that God make an accounting. Recently, on NPR, I heard Daniel Schorr issue his challenge to God: “[I]f this was the result of intelligent design, then the Designer has something to answer for.” Well, sir, I believe in an intelligent Designer, and I do not believe that He has to answer to you. (Job 38:1-3; 40:1-2) But, I also believe that the atomic bomb was the result of intelligent design. Do you think that its’ designers have something to answer for? What about those complicit in its use? What about those that rejoiced as their enemies burned? What about their descendants, who continue to justify this murderous sin as a necessity? Is it not justice for our nation to have its cities shattered while we look on in impotence? Why does this make me angry? It makes me angry because we as Americans have become Pharisaical. We claim the moral high ground, demanding that all must acknowledge our rightness or be struck down. We claim that God is on our side, that our military missions have the sanction of the Almighty, that we have a manifest destiny to spread freedom and democracy across the globe. But if you stand in our way, we will destroy you, grind you into the dirt, light you on fire, nuke your cities, and then claim that it was "necessary" in the cause of freedom. What I want to see in our country is humility. I want us to repent of our pride that says that God’s Kingdom has arrived and that it flies the Stars and Stripes. I want us to acknowledge that our country has sinned grievously, that we have not lived up to our own creed, let alone the demands of the Glory of God. I want us to confess that we have presumed upon the goodness of God, claiming to be righteous when we are not. I want us to proclaim that we are not a good, decent, upright people, but that we are horribly depraved, proud people, who have laid claim to the prerogatives of God Himself. If we do this, then we will flourish. God is still merciful. We still have time. If we don’t, then we may find that Hurricane Katrina was only the warning shot. And by then, it will be too late.

What's the deal with GIPF?

2005-09-08T21:10:00.000-05:00

So, rather than sitting here, feeling sorry for myself while I try to hack up a lung, I have decided to be productive. Yes, productive! And so, I will talk about games. Specifically, I will talk about the GIPF Project. I've been babbling about this series for a while on this blog, so I figure that perhaps I should explain why I think that this is a big deal. The GIPF Project is a series of six abstract strategy games, designed by Kris Burm, a gentleman from Belgium. In order of their release, the games are titled as follows: GIPF TAMSK ZERTZ DVONN YINSH PUNCT (to be released in October 2005) Some people have complained about the names. "What does TAMSK mean?" Well, I'll answer you when you tell me what "Chess" and "Go" mean. In the case of an abstract game, I figure that an abstract name is appropriate. Now, many of you know that I am a game nut, but these games are special. First, each of them are quality abstract game designs. Each has a brief, elegant ruleset which results in deep play. However, each of them stand out as having unique mechanisms unlike many other abstract games. For example, in GIPF, you make your moves by pushing your pieces in from the edge of the board, shoving others with you. The only control of the center that anyone has is by using lines of pieces extending into the middle. To give another example, in TAMSK you move pieces around the board, dropping rings on each space as you pass. When a space fills up, it is no longer passable. (This is similar to the lightcycles from TRON, if anyone out there knows what I mean.) This is only moderately impressive. However, the clever bit in TAMSK is that each of your pieces is a 3-minute hourglass, and the sand is running. Run out of time on a piece, and it is dead in the water. Each of the other games demonstrates equal creativity. So there is beauty of function in each game. Second, each game has a certain beauty of form. Probably the game that best exemplifies this for me is ZERTZ. The game does not really need to use marbles; checkers would have sufficed. However, there is an elegant beauty about the marbles that adds a special something to gameplay. In addition, the box art from each game seems to be able to express something of the character of the game. YINSH uses a windstorm as box art, and its play does tend to feel open and breezy. Contrast this with ZERTZ's icebergs breaking off from a glacier into an arctic sea. So there is beauty of form in each game. But there's more. Back in 1997, when Kris Burm released GIPF, he announced the beginning of the Project. He also announced that, when completed, all six games would be able to link together into a larger game. The central game would be GIPF, and the other games would each have a corresponding special piece, called a potential, that could be used in GIPF. Each potential has a special power that is thematically related to the game that it represents. So, for instance, since TAMSK is all about time, the TAMSK potential allows its user to take an additional turn. Of course, you may not want your opponent to use his potential. So, you may challenge his use of the potential. If your challenge is successful, his potential vanishes into thin air. But how do you make a successful challenge? It's simple, really. Just play the related game. That's right. Set aside the GIPF board, pull out TAMSK, and play. If you win, then your challenge succeeds. If your opponent wins, then his potential works. So, each game can function on its own but, with the potentials, they can also be welded together into an ubergame, requiring dexterity of mind as you slide from game to game. This is also a thing of beauty. So far, Burm has released the potentials for TAMSK, DVONN, and ZERTZ. A third expansion, not yet released, will contain the long awaited YINSH and PUNCT potentials. Once this expansion is released, the Project will be truly completed. Some people might think that playing the entire Project sounds like torture, but, to me, it is nearly the perfect game. Each game requires a different sort of thinking, so it is like playing out an extended a battle of wits where the opponents grapple in a changing landscape of shifting environments. Maybe I'm just masochistic. Or maybe, it's because I can appreciate beauty where I see it. (If you're still curious, and not just bored, here is a poetic review of the Project, released when YINSH was released. This was the article that finally communicated to me the niftiness of the Project.)

Day follows night

2005-09-08T20:03:00.000-05:00

So, I'm sick. Yep, sick. Got me a wracking cough that will not go away. Right now, it's giving me a headache. Other times, it's worse. I feel like I wish I could reach down my throat and just clear away the congestion that I'm feeling there. Ugh. I feel yucky. So, of course, I find myself humming a song. "Innocent", which is performed (if I recall correctly) by Sinead O'Connor and The Edge (guitarist for U2). Somewhere in there is a line, "The night is long but the day will come". Common sentiment, especially in pop songs. And so I, with my bleak sense of humor, immediately begin to note that, while day follows night, night also follows day. It's a cycle, right? So who's really to say which comes first? (Brief break to start my tea brewing. Mmm. Tea. It's hot, so it soothes my throat, and I can pretend that it's actually doing something to my lungs.) In our culture, night is the end of the day. But, in Hebrew culture, day follows night. Check out Genesis 1. Evening and morning. Day follows night. For some reason, right now I find that to be profound. That means that the ancient Hebrews looked at the creation of their God and realized that He had built into His creation a reminder of the ultimate triumph of good over evil, joy over pain, health over sickness. Day follows night. As I go to bed tonight, I should probably try to remember that.

Word verification (aka Spammers begone!)

2005-09-08T13:43:00.000-05:00

Comment spamming seems to be up these days, so I'm going to take advantage of Blogger's new word verification. Hopefully this won't be too onerous for those of you who actually want to leave comments, but at least this way, spammers will have to leave their comments manually.

GIPF 5 (or is it 6?) has been announced!

2005-09-08T00:12:00.000-05:00

And the name is... PÜNCT Hooray! The GIPF Project is a triumph of modern abstract design, and I'm glad that Kris Burm has managed to achieve his lofty goal. (Well, actually he still has to provide us with YINSH and PÜNCT potentials, but I'll allow that to pass by for now.) This should be available by the Essen Game Fair in October. I'm greatly looking forward to it.

simul justus et peccator

2005-09-06T18:49:00.000-05:00

simul justus et peccator A member of a PCA church in Biloxi, Mississippi. He has pictures of the destruction in his area.

On the power of ritual...

2005-09-06T17:53:00.000-05:00

Rituals & Reality Maybe it's the circles that I move in, or maybe there's something in the air...or maybe I'm just sensitive to it, but this sort of thinking is popping up all over the place. I don't just mean in Christian circles, either. Check out this thread on the Forge for another example.

Polaris Actual Play

2005-09-01T13:36:00.000-05:00

(This account was also posted on The Forge. You might find the responses from the folks there to be interesting.) Long ago, the people were dying at the end of the world. Ever since I read a playtest version of Polaris, I have been drooling with anticipation at having an opportunity to play it. It seemed to be in a similar vein to Legends of Alyria and Nobilis, which are two of my favorite games. So, when Ben announced pre-orders just as my birthday (and gifts of cash) arrived, I knew that I wanted to purchase this game and take it for a drive. So, the other night, my copy in hand, we sat down to play Polaris. Players Seth—that’s me. I like mythic settings that are more poetic than “real”. I like stories with tragic endings. I would therefore appear to be squarely in the target audience for this game. Crystal—my wife. Crystal generally does not like heavy system intervention in her games. If she has to think too hard about how to do something, it tends to ruin the gaming moment for her. I thought that the freedom of narration in Polaris would appeal to her, and I was correct. Gabrielle—my sister. She has similar tastes to mine in roleplaying, which made Polaris almost a no-brainer for her. Raquel—our friend. Raquel had tried roleplaying with us once before, when I ran Jailbreak from Unknown Armies. That session was mixed success at best; however, her interest in the activity was peaked enough that she had expressed an interest in trying again. I sent her a copy of Polaris to suggest that we try it, and she enthusiastically embraced it. Given that there was a recent birth in our family, plus we have been dealing with possible whooping cough in our respective families, we were all a bit exhausted coming into the evening, both physically and emotionally, but still this turned into a great evening of play. Environment First, a discursus. I haven’t been really happy with the quality of my roleplaying of late. Often, I have felt too tired to summon up the necessary creativity, but for whatever reason, I have not felt like my roleplaying fu has been particularly strong. We recently attempted Dogs in the Vineyard, and I felt like I fumbled through the entire session. It didn’t have the zip that I was accustomed to. I’m not blaming the games; obviously lots of folks have gotten good mileage from DitV. However, something was off. I didn’t want Polaris to be another failure, so I started considering the last time that we had achieved successful play. When we first moved to Illinois, Gabrielle, Crystal, and I used to play Nobilis on Friday nights. It was a great success. Our play more recently had been lackluster. What had changed? As I pondered this problem, I soon identified one major change. In my house, we have set aside a special room that I named the “Quiet Room”. (I didn’t figure that my children would understand “Meditation Room”.) We had decorated it in a faux Japanese style, which means that you’re sitting on the floor around a low coffee table. My sake sets are on display in this, as is the daisho that I was given by my family before we moved to Illinois. Outside one of the windows, we planted a dwarf cherry tree, so that we can see the blossoms from the window. (Ben, you might be a China geek, but I’m a Japan geek.) Ideally, this is a special room dedicated to being a haven of peace in an otherwise crazy house. In reality, it often becomes a dumping ground for stuff, as we try to fit eight people into a house that seems to be running out of room. It is often a mess. However, it was in this room that we had achieved some of our best roleplaying. Since then, we had been gaming at the dining room table, which works fine for the boardgaming that we do but was apparently the kiss of death for our roleplaying. So that day, before Raquel came over, we completely overhauled the quiet room. We bought a new set of bookshelves to fit the additional books that had accumulated in the room. We moved the children’s books into another room. We also shuffled the furniture around, moving the coffee table to be under the window, so that the center of the room was empty and ready to receive people. We bought a special candle and candleholder for use in the game and dug out the incense. In short, we prepared the creative environment. As the rest of this post will demonstrate, our efforts paid off handsomely. We all agreed that the room had been an important part of focusing our attention on the game. Perhaps it is another aspect of creating the ritual space that Chris Lehrich talks about in his article. I bring all this up to make an important Actual Play point: the environment in which you play is not neutral. Structuring your environment to provide maximum creativity is an important part of roleplaying. Power of Ritual Now, to the game. When I had read the rules, I fell in love with the use of ritual phrases for conflict. Also, intellectually, I knew the importance of the general key phrases to open and close the game and to introduce the protagonists. However, it is a completely different thing to experience it. We all gathered in the quiet room, where I put the candle in the middle of the room. I then called everyone to order and explained that the game always opened with a particular phrase. As I was teaching the game (and had paid the money for the game), I claimed the right to be the first person to open the game. So, I lit the candle and intoned, “Long ago, the people were dying at the end of the world.” Chills, folks. Chills. I felt completely on-point for the entire game, and I credit it largely to this innovation. Through this symbolic act, we were all agreeing that the time had come to focus on the game. I’m still trying to figure out how to steal this for other roleplaying games. If nothing else, perhaps I’ll use the candle. I’m not really sure. However, what surprised me the most was the effectiveness of the phrase used to introduce characters. As this was the first session that we were playing, a sizeable chunk of our time was spent on character creation. Honestly, I had thought that it was a little odd to use the “character intro” phrase at the end of chargen. However, once we had put together our characters, we went around the room, each repeating the phrase. Again, I went first: “But hope was not yet lost, for Na’ir al-Saif still heard the song of the stars.” And at that moment, I felt something stir in me. The world is coming to an end, but here is one who will not go down quietly. I could tell the others felt it as well. As we went around the room, each character’s name rang out like some mythic hero. The knowledge that only tragedy awaits each of them only added to the poignancy of the moment. I commented to Ralph yesterday that, from the outside, it all feels so silly, saying these special words. Yet, it works, and it’s almost frightening how powerful it is. The Importance of Being a Jerk As I was meditating on the lessons learned from this session of play, the biggest one was simple: when you are the Mistaken, be a jerk. I don’t mean that you should be cruel to the other player, but you should be as cruel as possible to the character. Show no mercy. The funny thing is that this actually results in better play for everyone, specifically the player controlling the Heart of this particular protagonist. Here is an example from play. So, we had been circling around some weird love triangles between a couple of the PCs and an oily fop named Marfik. That is all well and good, but I wanted me some violence. So when it was my turn to frame a scene, I dropped my character (Na’ir al-Saif) straight into a battle scene. He is walking guard duty on the walls of their remnant when a demon army hurls itself from the wilderness at the remnant. Raquel is my Mistaken and picked up this thread with relish. Suddenly the demons were flaming beasts and, at Crystal’s suggestion, they were led by a skeletal general riding a dracolich monster. This was all working for me. Then Raquel threw her first curve ball. The demons were throwing fireballs (or somesuch thing) at the wall where I was standing, shattering it and making me fall into the heart of the oncoming army. I wasn’t expecting that, but it was cool. Na’ir al-Saif is a bookish sort of fellow, trying to prove himself to his father and get out from the shadow of his older brother. So this was working well for me. An opportunity to distinguish myself in combat! Sweet! So I narrated how I stood up and slaughtered the squad of demons that I had landed in. Then I moved to attack the general on his dragon by cutting off one of the dragon’s legs. Then Raquel threw her second curveball. She cut to the ramparts where Marfik is standing on the ramparts next to Giauzar, my brother. Both are watching me in the battle. Marfik says to Giauzar, “This is not going as planned.” I was in awe. You need to understand that, while we all had this sense that Marfik was a Bad Guy, we didn’t know that it was this bad. We also didn’t know that my brother was involved at all. Up to this point, he was just the standard overbearing older brother to me and the Master Starsinger teaching Gabrielle’s character. With one brief narration, Raquel had completely rocked our comprehension of the entire story. But wait! There’s more! Much as I liked Raquel’s narration, there was no way that I was going to let her get away with such large changes without getting a little something for my troubles (both present and future). So I said “But only if Na’ir achieves great victory in the battle.” So, Raquel gets her cool cutaway scene only if I get to deal out major butt-kicking. Well, Raquel isn’t so sure of that, so she counters with “But only if Na’ir is greviously wounded in the battle.” Well, that satisfied my aesthetic sense, so I accepted. “And that was how it happened.” So, while the villain and my brother watched from the ramparts, I cut off the leg from the skeletal dragon, which promptly fell on top of me. It was probably the coolest scene of the evening, and it only worked because the Mistaken and Heart were completely biased advocates for their aspects. Had we been trying to cooperate to draft the story together, it would not have been nearly as cool as it was. Wrapping up play There are other points that I could mention, but I’m starting to run short on time. Suffice it to say that, despite the aforementioned fatigue, it was a great evening. Finally, we agreed that we were getting too tired to go on, so I said the closing phrase: “But that was long ago, and there are now none who remember it.” Then I blew out the candle. Summation Ben, this is a great game. I’m looking forward to getting a lot of mileage out of it. As it stands, this is already on my list of things that I wish that I had done. The entire group is looking forward to the next session with eager anticipation, wanting to answer that most vital of questions: “But what happens next?” But that was long ago, and there are now none who remember it (The next report is here.)

A little more on politics and religion

2005-08-31T01:08:00.000-05:00

I'm reading The Gospel According to America by David Dark. Mike Rowell lent it to me, as he is a most excellent fellow. My previous exposure to David Dark was his book Everyday Apocalypse, which discussed the beautiful and revelatory in pop culture. Two thumbs up from me. Anyways, Dark's definition of "apocalypse" is that of revelation. In this context, he asserts that the Church is to be revelatory, questioning the assumptions and power claims of the existing world systems. Profound thinking. In this newest book, Dark is wrestling with being a Christian in America. The problem that Dark points out is that America believes its press releases and has established itself as a de facto religion. What is worse is that the Church has reinforced these opinions, rather than debunking them through the application of the prophetic word. As Dark says, "When the church is the blind, uncritical endorser or 'spiritual' chaplain of whatever the nation decides to do, it has largely renounced its vocation as the body of Christ. It is neither the salt of the earth nor a light to the nations. And it has traded its worship of a crucified Jew for a devastatingly tribal idolatry." Peter Leithart points out that partaking of communion is proclaiming the death of one who died as a political dissident. Crucifixion was the punishment for political rebellion. As we are called to take up our crosses and go to Him outside the camp, we must be prepared to see the political ramifications of this call. In contrast, I just finished rereading the original Dune trilogy. Funny how books change when you get older, eh? Frank Herbert knew a thing or two about how the powerful wield their power, and one aspect that he constantly points up is the corruption of religion to support specific political ends. To the powerful, religion is just another tool to control the masses. And it makes me wonder if we as Christians are sufficiently discerning and suspicious of the religious claims of the powerful. Are we playing our prophetic role? Or are we just dupes of the powerful, bound to them by chains of superstition and religion? (A previous article on this topic can be found here.)

Wal-Mart report for 8/30/2005

2005-08-30T20:29:00.000-05:00

(The previous report is here.)

After recording this report, I realized that I had indeed been to Wal-Mart recently to purchase some shelving. When I went to the front desk to pick up the shelves, I was joking with the clerk, asking her if she was going to buy it for me. Her response was telling: "I work for Wal-Mart; I can't afford that." Ha ha only serious. (The next report is here.)

Hitherby Dragons: In His Teeth

2005-08-19T16:38:00.000-05:00

Hamburgler struggles to save the world from alien invasion. No, I'm not making this up.

Pictures of Justice

2005-08-19T16:10:00.000-05:00

So, I had a dilemma. I have steadfastly avoided putting pictures on this blog. After all, this is a blog about words, not pictures. At the same time, I really want to share pictures of my new son. So, my compromise: text hyperlinks to pictures of Justice. Perhaps it's hair-splitting. Perhaps you don't care. But, be that as it may, here they are. Picture One Picture Two Both of these were taken mere minutes post-delivery. Doubtless more will be forthcoming as we take them. Right now, though, he is sleeping, and I intend to let sleeping babies lie.

It's a boy!

2005-08-19T00:49:00.000-05:00

On August 19 at 12:33 a.m., Justice Daniel Ben-Ezra was born. Mother and baby are both well. More details later. EDIT: It's later! 8 pounds, 12 ounces and 21 inches long. Mother and baby are still well. I am tired.

Baby Level Yellow

2005-08-18T11:29:00.000-05:00

We're still here. Crystal's labor has slowed down quite a bit, and the midwives have gone home for now. That being said, Crystal's labor has not stopped, so we know that her body is still moving things forward. Please be praying for Crystal. She is very tired and frustrated. Pray that she would continue to trust Jesus' good care for her, and pray that she would soon be able to hold her child.

Baby Level Red Redux

2005-08-17T17:57:00.000-05:00

The midwives have been summoned again. Things seem to be progressing again.

Baby Level Orange

2005-08-17T15:51:00.000-05:00

Well, things seem to have slowed down, so the midwives are leaving for now. Of course, Crystal's contractions picked up almost as soon as they walked out the door. Biology. Grr. I think that it's part of God's way of keeping us humble or something. Why these babies don't come with a digital display showing "Time Left Until Birth" is beyond me.

Baby Level Red

2005-08-17T10:31:00.000-05:00

Guess what, people? We're at Baby Level Red! Further news to come.