One of the many problems of things

In my closet, on the top shelf, there is a trebuchet. It is made of wood, metal, twine and denim, and it can fling a tennis ball at least a meter, maybe even two, if memory serves me right. My father and I built it, though I think my mother cut the denim sling, for my 11th grade Physics class. It is not miniscule, and it takes up quite a lot of shelf space in my closet. It would probably be helpful to not have it taking up so much closet space, so I could put other things there. But on the other hand, I don't want to throw it away. It's not very useful; I never need to throw tennis balls with anything other than my arm. It's not very good looking; it's just a bunch of quickly cut wood attached to each other in a very sturdy fashion. It's not very impressive; any one could build it if they wanted to, although most of classmates chose simpler designs that lacked hook-release slings and swinging counterweights. But on the other hand, I don't want to throw it away.

This is not the only object of its sort which I have, of course. Somewhere in the garage is a cardboard farm, and a cardboard Verrazano Narrows Bridge, and a wood and felt Yurt. In one of my drawers you can find two wooden racing cars, one designed distinctly to resemble a Space Shuttle. There's a t-shirt covered in the signatures of Bulgarians, and a deer print cast in plaster-of-paris, and a stack of comics I drew during the 3rd, 4th and 5th grades. They're not doing anything. They will never do anything. But on the other hand, I don't want throw them away.

This wouldn't be much of an issue, except that I have more things now, things which need to be somewhere other than the middle of my floor. I can not put them on the top shelf of my closet, because there is a trebuchet and a stack of notebooks full of drawings taking up most of the space. I am not going to throw away my pots, pans, silverware and plates, because someday I hope to have a kitchen in which to use these things. But on the other hand, I don't want to throw the trebuchet away.

Family

Jesus says he didn't come to bring peace to the Earth, but that instead, of all the things you might not expect, he came to bring a sword, because swords violently divide things. Have you ever read Matthew 10, verses 34 through 39? He says that my enemies will, or at least could be my own family! I don't want to be divided from my family, but there's Jesus, threatening to chop us up. When his family shows up to see him, he says they're not his family, people who do the will of God are his family. That makes sense, because then we all have one Father, but it still sucks for families. But on the other hand, if your family is more important to you than doing the will of the Father, then you're not following Jesus (he says so). So much for Jesus valuing the nuclear family! Now, for me, a good thing to keep in mind is that my family are Christians. At the same time, however, Jesus says that being a Christian redefines who my family is. So although my family may still be family, my family is not longer restricted to them.

I often wonder what it means to be family, since both the existence of adoption and the teachings of Jesus tell me it means something other than blood relation. Personal experience suggests it means the people you love best. People say you don't have to like your family, but you do have to love them; I've never been clear on how to love someone without at least not disliking them, but personal experience may help here too. At Camp, there are plenty of people who, if not for Camp, I probably would never be friends with. To be more precise, I would not consider them a friend, if not for Jesus. This, I think, is significant. Here are people I would not love except for the fact that we follow Jesus, and, indeed, I consider them my brothers and sisters, despite that we enjoy different things, think different ways, come from different places, etc. If we weren't brothers, I'd probably dislike some of them even, but instead I want to love them, despite our differences. Maybe family means that you hold in common your most important bond. For many, this is blood, DNA, relation. For Christians, this is our Father.

I'm supposed to love my neighbors, which means people who help me when I'm beat up, and I'm supposed to love my enemies too. So how do I treat my family any different? If there's no difference in how I treat them, why does it matter their family? Laying aside that complicated issue, what would it look like if I treated all Christians like family?

If all Christians are my family, and we're supposed to be a family that loves each other, not some kind of dysfunctional mess, then we can't just move away and stop talking if we disagree about stuff. If all Christians are my family, then I need to eat with them, I need to talk with them, I need to live with them, and I need to take care of them.

If I treated all Christians like family, I'd let them live in my house whenever they needed to (presuming I own a house, I guess). Of course, Jesus tells us to do that for people, because when we do, we're actually giving Jesus a home, somehow. I'd give them food when they needed it, and much the same comments apply here. I'd love and trust them above all, because ... well, because they're family. Trusting everyone who loves Jesus?

That really is the problem, I suppose: loving people.

Time keeps on slipping into the Future

I ought to write another post, a followup to the Trash one, about how the Trash one was pretty silly, but that won't happen right now.

Some Christians often talk about being good stewards with their money, because God gave them their money. This is very Biblical; Jesus tells us the parable of the Talents to tell us to use our money wisely, and the parable of the Shrewd Manager to tell us to use our money for the Kingdom,. I will refrain from utilizing the Talents-talents homonym found in English, but I will say that God gives us Spiritual Gifts as well as not-spiritual gifts (Don't ask me what those mean!), and we should use those the same way that we use our money: for the Kingdom. Money is a material possession, even if people forget that sometimes, and the best use of it is the same. But recently I have realized that God also gave us Time, and the best use of it is the same. This may sound like I am saying that God gave us our lives and therefore we should use our lives for the Kingdom, for the glory of God, but I don't use "My Life" as a unit of Time, whereas I think about how I am spending my time pretty frequently.

Several times, people have told me that if I used a planner, I would be able to manage my time better, spend my time better, and generally make myself a better person as well as a better Christian. I won't even bother explaining that, but I can tell you unequivocally that it did not work. I never remembered to look in the thing, even if I remembered to write things down. The idea of planning out how I would spend each minute of the day was incredibly difficult for me, and I would not have stuck to such a schedule even if I had succeeded in creating one. Instead, where the pro-tight-schedule people would have had me block in time for homework, time for this thing, time for that thing, I have free-form whatever time.

This freedom is so easily abused, and so my free-time all too often becomes my lay-around time, or my read-blogs time, or my play-computer-games time. None of those things are wrong, in and of themselves, but they cease to be relaxing activities of respite and become holes in which to laze away my day, depriving me of both the joy of accomplishment after hard work and the joy of a well-earned break after hard work. The transformation of what was meant to be joyful into meaningless boredom is a good sign of sin, I think.

This makes a lot of sense, to me. The best way we can use the time God has given us is for his glory and his Kingdom, which are really one and the same, I suspect. The question, then, is whether or not I can use my free-form time properly.

Nate the Snake

The deserts of New Mexico, 1953! Now, do you know what was going on in America back then? We were fighting the Cold War. Our military-industrial complex was hard at work fighting the Soviets, constantly researching new and better weapons.

Now, in the desert there lived a snake, named Nate, Nate the snake, and Nate was no ordinary snake. No, he was a talking snake! That's right, a talking snake. Nate spent most of his time doing snake things, mostly slithering around and eating small animals, but he also liked to scare strangers. If ever some unfortunate man was walking through the desert, perhaps to get gasoline for an inoperative car, Nate would pop up and say "Hello!" and scare the crap out of the guy. Then he'd slither away, laughing quietly to himself in a way that only snakes can.

Well one day, Nate slithered out of his hole and saw, coming closer, a Jeep. "Well now this is strange," thought Nate, "Jeeps usually pass by my hole, not drive towards it..." and with that he dove into his hole, so as to avoid being run over. The ground shook and his hole nearly collapsed as the Jeep came to a stop, and out stepped two men in boots. Nate couldn't see anything but their boots, because he was still under the Jeep. "Still," he thought, "I might be able to have some fun..." and he quickly slithered out from under the Jeep, dove between the two men in Army uniforms (He could see them now), and quickly turned around to face them. He smirked as they stared in shock and he said "Hello!". Before he could dart away, however, he saw the General (for one of them was a General!) break into a grin. No one had ever grinned after Nate had tried to scare them, and the shock of it made Nate come to a halt.
The general looked down at the frozen snake and said "Are you Nate the talking snake?" Nate nodded and said "Yes, I am." The lieutenant with the General said "Well sir, I guess he must be; he just talked!" and the General crouched down and looked Nate in the eye. He said "Son, your country needs you. I don't know if you're aware of this sort of thing, being a snake, but you live in the United States of America, a grand and glorious country stretching fro..." Nate interrupted "Sir, I know where I am. I voted for Eisenhower." The General chuckled "Well, well, good man...er...snake." He paused, confused, then continued. "Well anyway, as I was saying, we need you. See, we're in a state of conflict with the Soviet Union, constantly building bigger and better weapons with which to wipe those damn Commies off the face of the earth, if we should ever need to. Problem is, our engineers and scientists have really outdone themselves this time, and they've built us a weapon that would obliterate the entire Earth if ever activated. We told them to disarm it, but they said there was no way, without obliterating the Earth anyway. Construction on its final casing is nearly complete and the control lever is going to go... right about... here." and with this he pointed to the ground beside Nate's hole. "Right here, beside my hole?!" gasped Nate. "That's right, right here beside your hole."
"Well if it's going to be built, what do you need me for?" The General chuckled again "Well you see Nate, we're a little short on funds. We don't really expect the lever to ever be pulled, because even the Soviets, in all their villainy, don't want to destroy the entire planet, so we were thinking it would be a lot more cost effective to just hire you to guard the lever. What do you say? You'd just have to kill anyone that tried to pull it." Nate thought about this briefly and said "Well...I could still slither around in the area and eat small animals?" "Oh absolutely!" replied the General, "Just so long as the lever doesn't get pulled." Nate smiled and replied "Well then, I'd be happy to serve my country in this way" and with that, the General extended his hand to shake, then quickly found himsef embarrassed and confused again, for Nate had no hands. The snake smiled knowingly and said "It's traditional to shake the tail." and extended his tail into the General's waiting palm. They shook on it, and a few days later Nate dipped his tail in ink and signed a contract.

Well, time passed, and after the lever had been installed, life went back to normal for Nate. He still slithered around and ate small animals, he still scared the occasional passerby by saying "Hello!", and the only change was he had to look around to make sure no one was attempting to pull that lever. Life went on as normal, that is, until one day he saw another car driving towards him, not past him. At first he thought it might be the General, but then he realized that it was an expensive sedan, not an U.S. Army Jeep, and so it was with some puzzlement that Nate observed a man in a suit and sunglasses step out, look directly at Nate, and grin. "Hi there, are you Nate the talking snake!" "Yes, I am" replied our serpentine hero. "Well you guess you must be; you just talked! Nate, my name is Guy Smiley, and I'm a fabulously rich and successful Hollywood agent! I've come all this way out here, and believe me, this is way out here, to tell you that you'd like to be in pictures! Motion pictures!" Nate was taken aback "I would? I didn't know... How come?" Smiley grinned, flashing his pearly whites in the hot New Mexican sun "Well Nate, being in movies is a chance to become rich and famous, after which you can live a life of comfort, ease and pleasure. We figure that although movies starring a talking snake are a little gimmicky, we can get four or five films out before the fad dies down, and we'll all be left rich and famous, yourself included. What'd'yah say? Huh?"
Well this was quite the conundrum for Nate. The idea of becoming rich and famous was immensely appealing to a snake who had never left this particular patch of desert in New Mexico, but he still had his duty to protect the lever. He began to reply. "Well you see, Mr. Smiley, I'd like to, I really would..." "So you're coming with me!" exclaimed the exuberant agent. "No, no, no! I can't can't!" cried Nate. "You see, I have to guard this lever." "What, you mean this one?" asked Guy, and he reached for the long metal shaft protruding from the sands. Nate's instincts and Army training kicked in, and he reared up and lunged for the agent's hand. Guy drew back in fear, and Nate continued, after collecting himself. "Yes, that lever. Don't touch it." "Well, what's it do?" asked the frightened agent. "I can't tell you, Top Secret, and I can't come with you either." For the first time in his life, Guy Smiley didn't know what to say. This condition did not last long, however, and soon Guy's usual overpowering demeanor returned, albeit in a sly, subdued form "Well..Has anyone ever tried to pull the lever?" Nate nodded "You did, just now." Guy paused, rolled his eyes behind his dark sunglasses, and moved along "But before me? Anyone in all these years?" Now Nate paused, and pondered. "Well...no, I guess not... Umm..." Guy began to smile broadly again "Well then they're not likely to ever pull it in the future! So, what'd'yah say?" Nate was flummoxed in the face of this logical assault and could hardly think before the words "Yes, I'd like to come with you and be rich and famous" slid off his tongue and into the air. Guy Smiley grinned, and reached out his hand to shake, but was once again rebuffed. Nate smiled knowingly and said "It's traditional to shake the tail." and extended his tail into Guy's waiting palm. They shook on it, and a few days later, now in Hollywood, Nate dipped his tail in ink and signed a contract.

Well, life in Hollywood was pretty great for Nate the snake, even if he couldn't tap-dance, and pretty soon his face was plastered on ever theater, his name on all the marquees. His first film, "Nate the Snake!" was a smash hit, with "Nate the Snake Talks Back" following close on its heels. Nate had surprisingly little trouble fitting into the Hollywood culture, surrounding himself with beautiful women and everything else you might expect from the rich and famous. "Nate the Snake and the Tiger of Antioch" was rousing, well-received adventure, but things began to go downhill with "Nate the Snake goes to the Moon". His career, based solely on the gimmick of a talking snake, was fizzling out, just as Mr. Smiley predicted, and, after "Nate the Snake meets Grover Cleveland", he couldn't get cast anymore. What's more, life in Hollywood was beginning to bore him, and Nate found himself longing for hot sand beneath his belly and small animals in his jaws. He thought fondly of the little hole in the ground he had once lived, and remembered the lever, clearly never pulled, for the Earth still existed. The life of the rich and famous is an attractive thing, and Nate still lived a life of luxury, but his duty towards the U.S. Army began to call his heart back to the desert, and soon he returned to New Mexico, leaving the glamor and pleasure of Hollywood far behind.
Now, do you know what else was going on in our country around that time, besides the Cold War? The Dwight D. Eisenhower Interstate Highway System, that's what! Miles and miles of limited access highways being built from city to city, from coast to coast, to aid in the evacuation of cities and the movement of troops, should ever the Red Army choose to invade our fair shores. Lo and behold, Route 40 had been built in Nate's absence, right through his little patch of desert. Nate saw the snake of asphalt laying firm upon his beloved sands from a distance and began to worry, but it was not until he got closer that he saw his deepest fears confirmed. The control lever was still there, untouched all these years, but it now stood in the median of a great divided highway, cars and trucks rushing past in opposite directions on either side. Still, there was nothing to do but return to the lever, at least to see if his old hole was till there, and then maybe later Nate would take up guarding it from a safe distance.
He approached the highway cautiously, trying to find an appropriate gap in the traffic through which to slither across, when something caught his eye. Just down the road, a truck had blown a tire, and was now careening, out of control, towards the lever. Nate, it would seem, had returned just in the nick of time, just in time to witness the obliteration of the Earth. But he was not helpless, for Nate had become quite the muscular snake, after being assigned a personal trainer for his more action-packed adventures. Coiling every muscle in his long, slender body, Nate threw himself at the semi's fender, knocking the 18-wheeler just slightly to the side, and the world was saved! The lever still stood, ever untouched, and the Earth was not obliterated. Nate, however, was killed in the act.

The U.S. Army, of course, heard about the collision, and soon the General found himself standing before a familiar rod, capped with a well-crafted handle, and that age-old temptation to perform what is forbidden, just to see if it works, filled his hand. He began to reach for it, wondering if maybe it wouldn't hurt to give it just a little tug...but he was interrupted before it was too late by his Colonel, the same man who had been a Lieutenant some fifteen years before. The Colonel spoke first "You know, it's amazing he was even here; I thought he had abandoned his duty long ago. Ever seen those films of his?" The General nodded "I particularly enjoyed the one with the Tiger of Antioch, saw it with my grandson. I guess he must have still felt some desire to uphold his word." The Colonel nodded now "It's a real shame though, his life ending like this. Still, he got here just in time, it seems." The General nodded again and looked at the body of the dead snake, then the metal rod before him, then the corpse again. "Still," he said, "better Nate than lever."

Trash

Over the summer, I saw "WALL-E", the latest from Pixar, about two robots who fall in love. The titular character is a robot left on Earth to clean-up after all of humanity has abandoned the planet because they have made too much trash. He falls in love with a space-probe-robot which the humans have sent to check up on the clean-up, hijinks ensue, and humanity returns to Earth has recovered enough to be livable, apparently. The credits roll, and we are treated to a really good montage of images showing both the progression of art in the new post-exodux society as well as the utopian world they create where robots work side-by-side with humans to create an earthly paradise.

There is a problem with all this, though. The solution to trash on Earth was to have little robots called WALL-Es (Waste Allocation Load-Lifter, Earth Class) drive around and compact the trash into little cubes, because at least this way the trash is stored more efficiently as opposed to strewn about all over the place. While aboard The Axiom, the big space-ark presented in the film, Wall-E (the particular character) encounters a few WALL-As (presumably Waste Allocation Load-Lifter, Axiom Class) in the bowels of the ship, where they compact the humans' waste into big cubes and throw them out the airlock in to the void of space. There is nothing different about this solution to the waste problem other than scale. Admittedly, you won't run out of space when getting rid of trash when using the universe as your dump, unless you're somehow creating matter (in which case you will eventually become very cold and die), but I don't see this as much of a solution to the problem. If anything it's worse, because now you've no hope of ever finding all that matter and somehow using it, because it is floating away into the void.

When the humans return to Earth, however, they are able to create a utopian society full of fresh air and healthy animals. The film conveniently skips any explanation of what the people did with all that trash which Wall-E and his deceased cohorts had failed to finish cleaning up, nor does it explain what they did to change their ways and not produce so much trash. Did they just launch all trash into space? If so, given the way their waste-production-levels are portrayed, Earth's gravitational pull is going to have problems in the future, and Doc Brown's suspicions will have been right. It's either that or they took to dumping all their trash into a plot hole, which I guess is what happened.

The movie can be called, obviously, a great bit of environmentalist propoganda disguised as a children's film, though the producers and writers deny that the message came before the love story, never mind if kids even enjoy a love story. It got me thinking about trash. Let's say that I play with a ping-pong-paddle for a while, one of those cheap toys where the ball is on a piece of elastic, and then I throw it out or something. It sits in a dump. Hundreds of years later, Wall-E finds it and puts it into a cube which then sits around some more.That's where all those end up, because no one really wants to play with one of those things. For those of you in-the-know, it's like Jimmy Merritt's auto-return football belt.

Now I could think that I am alright, because I disdain silly trifles like elastic-ping-pong-paddles, but that is akin to the rich young ruler saying "I have kept all these commandments from my youth", because I throw lots of things out even still. What happens to the potato-chip bag when it no longer contains potoato chips? What happens to all the paper towels and paper napkins that I use? What happens to my shampoo bottle when it is empty? What about the battery in my wireless mouse when it is all out of power? I generate a lot of waste, and most of it will sit around for a long time, a waste of atoms and a waste of space.

This is not a simple problem with a simple problem with a simple solution. I would like to eat a chocolate bar, but I don't think I can get one without throwing out the wrapper. I would like to wash my hair, but I don't know if shampoo comes in bottles which are recyclable. The shampoo is a good example, I guess. I could try to buy shampoo in recyclable bottles and then actually recycle them. I could buy ingredients in recyclable containers and then make my own shampoo. I could shave my head. Shampoo companies and stores could convert their distribution model to one in which I bring a bottle to the store and pay to have it filled with shampoo from a big shampoo vat. I like this last one the most, but that's because I don't know about the costs involved in changing to that way of doing things, and it seems more old-fashioned somehow (and I like old things).

This is going to take some effort.