MLK Day etc

so, I spent Martin Luther King Jr. Day playing Nintendo. At first, I was a little bit ambivalent about this: shouldn't I have gone to one of the many rallies/ memorial services around?

But then I remembered that Dr. King was happy to spend a day shooting pool in a bar. And that immediately before his assassination, he had a pillow fight with his friends. So, I think he'd approved.

Plus, I pretty much figure that a lot of my education now is about getting better at pursuing justice and undermining empire, and I am therefore entitled to a day of playing. Because what good is anti-imperial work if it precludes play? (This goes back to a conversation I had with Emily, about unionizing workers needing time off too!)

Besides, we played cooperative Mario Soccer. It was lovely.

This week I've been in a course called "Legal Issues in Contemporary Parish Ministry." It was a great, praxis-oriented course, taught by the general counsel for the UCC. I did learn a few disturbing things, among them: there seems to be no constitutional basis for defending conscientious objectors. The former interpretation of the freedom of religion clause has been updated, and under its current understanding, it would probably not defend the rights of CO's.

I'm going to prison!

Keep your eyes out for the ent-wives,
David

Things I do when I'm bored

...Even when I don't have the right to be bored.

So, to atone for a dark, long-winded first post, here's a short, somewhat nonsensical one.
The photograph at the right is the suit I bought at the Salvation Army yesterday to go with the top hat and pocketwatch. Needs a cane. If I can find some more cheap old clothes of similar style, I'm considering dressing like that all the time this semester, or as much as I can manage.
The following represents approximately four hours of screwing around a few months ago:


Oh, what I forgot to mention was that I just spent the evening researching the evolution of the Umlaut and the usage of diacritical marks in Dutch. I should probably have been doing homework (finishing the script for a film about France) but this was much more interesting.

Hi, I'm Dan. I'm a senior in college, and I'm not looking forward to my last semester at all.

My head is still spinning from a whirlwind trip to Europe, from which I've been back three days after being gone ten...

I met up with my girlfriend Anna in Paris and we went back to her place in Cambrai (Nord-Pas-de-Calais) where she teaches English. Nord-Pas-de-Calais is the region I want to be next year for the same job, when she'll be back here. From there we went to Brussels, Antwerp, Amsterdam and the Hague all in five days. I'd already been to our principal destinations (Brussels, Amsterdam), and spoke all the local languages at least well enough to get around (not that you really need to know Dutch in Amsterdam, but it's helpful), which gave me more time to reflect on what I saw around me.

That's all just the setting, though. A lot of stuff happened while we were there. There were the random encounters with people on the street, such as the guy in Antwerp who told me in three languages that I was "lucky" for reasons he didn't explain, or the guy who asked me whether he was in Amsterdam (he was, and I told him so; I answered in Dutch, which I am convinced is the reason he left me alone after that, since I was less likely to be a clueless tourist). Then there were the beggars. The woman who followed us down the street for three blocks in Brussels, calling, "S'il vous plaît, monsieur... S'il vous plaît...", or the woman who cornered us in the cathedral there and wouldn't leave us alone until I gave her something. Here was the real problem. I never quite know what to do when a beggar approaches me. Whether I give to them or not, I always feel conflicted about it: on the one hand, I've heard it advised that it's not a good idea, and I can't reasonably be expected to give anything meaningful to every beggar I see on the street... there are just so many in the big cities. On the other hand, when I don't... I just feel so terribly selfish.

In Amsterdam, on the big square in front of Centraal Station there's a house three or four doors up from the Sint-Nikolaaskerk with a blinking neon sign that reads GOD BESTAAT NIET ("God doesn't exist"). It's continuously lit, and I don't think its proximity to a huge Catholic church is coincidental. I have a kind of dark fascination with this sign, ever since the first time I saw and understood it. I find myself wondering what motivates its owner to put forward what I perceive as such an angry, hateful message. I recognize the fallacy in equating atheism with a necessary antipathy toward religious people, but it's nevertheless my most immediate reaction on seeing or hearing a statement like that: I feel personally affronted by it, even when I have my own doubts about the nature and existence of God.
I similarly wonder whether an atheist would feel the same way seeing an even bigger neon sign on the same square, which reads "Jesus loves you" in Dutch and English, visible as soon as you step out of the train station. I never used to really think that religious statements, or at least "happy" ones like "God loves you", would actually offend an atheist, just that they claimed they were offensive for the sake of making an argument against them. I'm not so sure about that anymore.

I have long been opposed to the statement made by vocal atheists that religion depends on the rejection of reason or intelligence; I find it nauseatingly arrogant and fairly naïve. I am, however, somewhat alarmed by my tendency to take that kind of criticism, or even a simple statement with no further implications like the one I mentioned above, so personally.

This is turning into a really long post. Especially for my first.

Anyway, the atheism question: I think I'm afraid of atheism, because I find myself easily talked into things. I'm not good at producing counterarguments, and I tend to be a poor judge of character. Furthermore, once I outgrew my "this-is-what-the-Bible-says-and-the-Bible-can't-ever-be-anything-but-literally-true" mentality and started actually thinking about religion for myself, by which point I was finishing high school, I realized I had no idea what to accept and what not to. I want so desperately for God to be what I was always taught, but I have trouble finding reasons to believe it outside of the Bible... and you can't use the Bible to prove itself. So, I look at signs that say "God roept U" (God is calling you) and "Lees de Bijbel - het boek voor U" ("Read the Bible, the book for you", in big, black letters on the façade of a white house by a canal) and I smile for a moment and then shake my head and wish I could be sure of it.

here's the back

Some new folks

Hi. We're inviting some people to join the blog. Maybe they will. One who already has is Rachael's friend A.C., who I've met once. I think she'll make the blog approximately 25% more awesome. If somebody else new joins, I think we'll be 50% more awesome, but I've never been good with fractions.

Also, here's a picture I took of myself, while riding a unicycle. It's a shame that you can't really tell that part about the picture from the picture itself, because that's definitely the best part of the picture. Picture.

Rachael's quilt for Steve and Mary

Now that it's no longer a surprise, I feel okay publishing this photo of Rachael's groovy quilt, which represents the way Steve and Mary have been with her through the seasons of her life. (It was a gift to them this Christmas.)

cuando el pobre lyrics

verso: Cuando el pobre nada tiene y aun reparte, cuando el hombre pasa sed y agua nos da, cuando el débil a su hermano fortalece,

verse: When the poor ones who have nothing share with strangers, when the thirsty water give unto us all, when the crippled in their weakness strengthen others,

refrain: then we know that God still goes that road with us, then we know that God still goes that road with us.

estribillo: va Dios mismo en nuestro mismo caminar, va Dios mismo en nuestro mismo caminar.

2: When at last all those who suffer find their comfort, when they hope though even hope seems hopelessness, when we love though hate at times seems all around us,
2: Cuando sufre un hombre y logra su consuelo, cuando espera y no se cansa de esperar, cuando amamos, aunque el odio nos rodee,
3. Cuando crece la alegría y nos inunda, cuando dicen nuestros labios la verdad, cuando amamos el sentir de los sensillos,
3. When our joy fills up our cup to overflowing, when our lips can speak no words other than true, when we know that love for simple things is better,
4. Cuando abunda el bien y llena los hogares, cuando un hombre donde hay guerra pone paz, cuando "hermano" le llamamos al extraño,
4. When our homes are filled with goodness in abundance, when we learn how to make peace instead of war, when each stranger that we meet is called a neighbor,



let me know if you want the chords too. Actually, here:
verso:
Dm A7 Bb D7 Gm C7 F F E7 A7 Dm
estribillo:
Bb A7 Dm D7 Gm A7 Dm Gm Dm




By the way, this hymn sings the message that makes me want to be a Christian!!! Yay Unspeakable Mystery!