Matt W Cook

writer.former fundamentalist.christianly fellow

Category: musings

June 2, 2010

Up, Up and Away

I’ve been in a few airports in my day. And I’ve loved each and every one. From LHR to KHI. From AUH to YYZ. I love them all. I didn’t know why at first, but I’m starting to understand where my love for airports comes from.

  • They give me a sense of man’s smallness. The sky is so large in the area around an airport. Especially those glorious ones where you have to walk out onto the tarmac to board. Nothing has ever looked so big as that mighty sky, daring us puny creatures to mount it. And so we enter our tiny tin vehicles and beg the air to lift us. And I feel so small as we rise, so fragile as our ship pushes out into that largest of oceans.
  • They give me a sense of man’s ingenuity. Small, but look how clever! With rock from the ground we have fashioned for ourselves heavy machines that lift us high above the ground and send us faster than any bird can fly! How clever! And when I think of the cleverness of my race I cannot help but think about the cleverness of the One who spawned us.
  • They remind me we are all brothers and sisters. Here is a man from Germany, walking past a family from India. There is an old woman from Asia, getting directions from a friendly African. And we are all the same. There are no visible minorities in an airport. We are all the same. We are all the same kind of spirit beast, wandering around in our machines of flesh. There is no ‘us’ and ‘them’. There is only that great and mighty ‘we’.
  • Every day at the airport is a special day. Reunions after long absences. Preparations for travel to exotic places. Adventure. Quests. And everyone around you is on a quest, going or coming. Better than any video game!
  • They feel more real than other places. Why is that? It’s hard to say. The food seems more nourishing, despite its low quality. The air seems richer, though recycled. The things you touch are more solid. The sounds are less ethereal. The people are more human. The machines and more mechanic. I cannot say what it is, but there is something deeply real in airports.
  • They remind me of how everything is transient. You never stay in an airport long. You must always move on. And so it speaks for life. I cannot live in YYZ or KHI, as much as I think I’d like to. I need to board a plane, eventually, and move on. And that thrill of adventure to a higher place is a good thing to be reminded of.
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    May 31, 2010

    Insidious

    The pope was in Portugal a little while ago to give his traditional Mass at Fatima’s Sanctuary. While giving his speech he denounced homosexual marriage and said that it was one of “today’s most insidious and dangerous threats to the common good.”

    Does that get you thinking? It gets me thinking. Here’s what I started thinking:

    What are today’s greatest threats to the common good?

    Here’s the list I brainstormed:

  • Nuclear Proliferation. There are about 22,000 nuclear warheads in the world. Apparently it would only take 500-600 warheads to kill every human on the planet. That’s too bad, eh? And now that wild countries like North Korea, Iran and Pakistan are getting their hands on the things, it seems pretty stressful. It’s a good thing Obama is taking steps to get rid of them, but it still feels like a threat to the common good to have these thing laying around, eh?
  • Extreme Global Poverty. I think I’ve mentioned this one before. 53% of all deaths in the world are hunger-related. That’s 35 million or so. I figure anything that accounts for more than half of all deaths is a hefty threat, don’t you? This is even more threatening than nuclear proliferation, I think. At least the nukes aren’t killing us yet. Hunger is.
  • Religious Violence. 85 people died a few days ago in Pakistan because they prayed in the wrong kind of mosque. I search for words to use against the sorts of people who choose violence to solve religious disagreements. I found the words, but I imagine I’d lose a lot of my audience if I actually used them. They are not nice words.
  • Malice. Ah, malice. That deep, enigmatic urge that drives man to hurt man. Can you imagine what the world would be like without it? I bet it’d be pretty good. Think of all the things that would go away! Violence, passive-agressive stuff, spite, all gone! Malice may be just about the worst urge a person can have. Would you call it a threat to the common good? I should hope so.
  • War. Armed, violent conflict between nations. The only sure outcome of war is dead people. And since war is always on a national level, it’s usually a lot of dead people. And whenever something leads to a lot of dead people, I consider it a threat to the common good, don’t you?
  • Ignorance. Great evil is often born out of ignorance. Some of the textbooks at the school I taught at in Pakistan said that 9/11 was pulled off by Israel in an attempt to get the US to destroy the Muslim world. This, of course, is breeding a new generation of young people who consider the West to be an implacable enemy. This gives birth to Taliban. This sucks.

    • I look at this list, coming just off the top of my ill-informed head, and I find a desire to ask one question of the Pope: “Amid these insidious and dangerous threats to the common good, where does homosexual marriage fit?”

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    May 28, 2010

    Eating Less

    I have a forty minute drive to work. Forty minutes on a good day. Which, to be honest, is most days because I work nights and only creepy vampires like myself are on the highway at 11pm on a weeknight. The drive used to seriously bother me. Inefficient, y’know? Forty minutes of doing nothing. So I started getting audiobooks and throwing them on my phone to listen to. I consumed the entire Harry Potter series (fun), a little less than half of His Dark Materials (dumb) and part two of A Song of Ice and Fire (epic). I figured so much consumption of fiction would help keep my own creative juices flowing. Clever, eh?

    Not so much, it turns out.

    Driving was my only moment of solitude. I live with people and tasks. When I’m at home I’m with the family. When I’m out I’m with friends. When I at the library or work, I have tasks. Only in the car am I alone and idle. And that’s a good thing.

    Creative Benefits of Solitude

  • Your ideas can ferment. Like a fine wine, ideas are never good as soon as they are mixed. They need to sit and grow and mingle within your head. Solitude lets them do this without allowing outside pollutants in.
  • Your mind can rest. Sometimes you’re just too tired to think. A bit of solitude is a break from stress, worry and tasks. And when you rest, you always tend to work better.
  • Your stress can dissipate. Not only can you rest, but when you are alone you can see your stresses a little clearer and they usually tend to get smaller for the seeing. Stress fades when we are not continually reminded of the things to be stressed about.
  • You can hear the Muse. She speaks softly, after all.
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    May 26, 2010

    Not Fulfilling Your Promises

    I like stories. But you know that.

    Lost had a great story for a while. A lot of people thought it started to get death chills around the second season, but I didn’t think so. Sure, there were a few plot holes and a few things done out of character, but all in all I still appreciated it up to the end. It was everything a good fantasy should be. Convoluted, full of deep, interesting characters, incredible setting. Good stuff all around. We were all very excited for the finale.

    If you haven’t watched it yet, and you’re planning to, you ought to stop reading now, by the way.

    My first thought after watching the finale was this: They lied to me.

    The series made a few promises, you see. Not explicitly, of course, but by introducing the sorts of questions they did, they implied that they would answer them. Is Claire really crazy? Where did the island come from? Why did the light do what it did? What is the freakin’ island?

    And they answered none of these questions. All they told us was what the alternate universe was (and that was unsatisfactory, too. It’s the afterlife? And yet people died there?). Matt was not pleased.

    It was kinda like a Stephen King novel. Great concept. Amazing beginning and middle. But something happened at the end. Something not good. It seemed lazy, to me. And a bad ending ruins everything. I cannot bring myself to care about the story or characters anymore. There is no point. The Lost universe was damaged with such a weak ending. If a story’s ending doesn’t match the middle, it messes everything up. The endings to Mistborn and Eye of the World completed and wrapped the entire tale up in a glorious package. Lost’s ending didn’t finish the job. It was like getting a present without proper wrapping. Or getting a great piece of electronics with shoddy batteries.

    If you make stories, pay attention to your endings. Sweat for your endings. The end is the part people remember. And now my memories of Lost will be less than fond.

    2 Comments
    May 21, 2010

    On a Dirty Rock

    I sit on a dirty rock beside the dirty creek in Toronto. A pile of dark foam gathers to my right, bouncing against my rock, trying to get downstream. The water is brown and smells of something old and dusty. A busy street flows across the creek at my left, honking and rushing. Bits of garbage litter the shore behind me. This is a dirty place. This is a place abused.

    And yet, glory dwells here.

    The glory is resilient. Despite the unnatural stains that garb it, the rock upon which I sit is solid, older than any nation, prouder than any man. Here it sat before I was born and here it will sit when I have turned to dust. Upon its face I see imprints of the life that flourished before my kind set foot on this land. Glory.

    The water flows, made no less graceful for the silt and crud it is forced to carry. It dips and dives, vaults and jumps over stone and boulder. Nothing bars its way. Nothing can mar its ever-shifting skin. It is the great serpent of God; the true Leviathan that is tamed only by the one that made it. Glory.

    The rubbish-clad shore behind me pulses with life. The magical mix we ignobly call dirt pushes forth green glory, and transforms the dead into the living. Under every rock the spark of life flourishes. Each towering tree is birthed from this stable, ever-changing womb upon which we walk and from which we draw our own life. Glory.

    The glory is resilient. We have tried so long to kill it. We have tried to poison it, strangle it, replace it with our own infantile forgeries made of dead wood and concrete. But the dead cannot replace the living. A water tank cannot outdo the stream. And a concrete bench can never compare to this prehistoric throne of glory upon which I sit, here beside the dirty creek.

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    May 10, 2010

    A Different Kind of Terrorist

    Wanna see something bad? Skip to 1:44.

    (video may not show up for Facebook readers)

    I think Dan Fanelli may be a terrorist.

    Terrorism is the use of terror or fear as a means of coercion. The Taliban uses terror to further its political ideals. The Army of God uses terror to fight abortion. The Jewish Defense League uses terror to protect their interests. And Dan Fanelli is using fear of violence and foreigners in order to coerce people to vote for him. They are all terrorists. They are all bad.

    One of the worst things about any group using terrorism (violent or otherwise) is that it nearly always tends to bring out the worst in people. For example, when I hear about a group like the Army of God, who go around killing abortion doctors, I find myself getting so angry that I want to do violence. And violence + violence, is nearly always bad. I get ill-tempered and unreasonable. The group ruins my day whenever I think about them. They bring out the worst in me.

    On the exact opposite side, when some people hear about the Army of God they half-way sympathize with them. An eye for an eye, they say. The terrorist touches another nerve in them, a dangerous and irrational nerve that can be convinced to wink at murder. They can get normal, reasonable people to abandon reason.

    And dear Dan Fanelli has, of course, managed to bring out the worst in his viewers. For me, he’s steeled my heart against Republicans. That’s bad. That’s very bad, in fact. It’s unreasonable for me to feel anger toward his party just because of his idiocy.

    On the other side, he’s reinforced the deep fear of the others that most folks struggle with. It’s this sort of talk that makes people think North America was made for the white man. It’s this kind of talk that convinces people that a change in the lyrics to ‘O Canada’ is worth more vehement protest than the ways our standard of living is sucking the life out of the planet. It’s sad to hear (as I do all the time) intelligent people make derisive comments about people, cultures, religions and nations that they know nothing about. It’s sad how the news agencies that are covering this guy are not using any words stronger than ‘bold’ and ‘controversial’. It’s sad that he’s consider legitimate.

    Think about what Dan is saying.

    White people = less likely to be dangerous.
    Brown people = more likely to be dangerous.

    That is not a far step from

    White people = good.
    Brown people = bad.

    And that just makes me think of Kingdom Identity Ministries. Yuck, Dan. Very yuck.

    I’ll close on a lighter note. Here’s a funny quote I found on an article written by Dan Fanelli on the War on Terror. See if you can find the spelling mistake:

    First of all, we must realize that all passengers are NOT created equally! It is time to stop penalizing the patriotic American pubic when utilizing air traveling.

    Tee he he

    1 Comment
    April 30, 2010

    A Fantastic Place

    Sometimes, I’m self-conscious about the kind of books I read.

    There are two kinds of books out there, in popular understanding. Just like there are two kinds of movies and two kinds of foods and two kinds of high school tracks. Academic and applied. Gourmet and common. Critical and popular. High and low. Good and not-nearly-so-good.

    These divisions don’t really exist, of course. And they ruin things. They try to make me think that I ought to like Agnes Grey better than The Final Empire. I mean, Agnes Grey is a classic (whatever that means). The Final Empire is about a metal-magic teen who needs to kill a god. But I don’t. The Final Empire (and the rest of the Mistborn series) was better. It’s hard to tell people that, though. Because fantasy sounds trite (though it isn’t).

    I love fantasy. And I don’t want to be ashamed of my love for fantasy. So I drew up a list of the great and wonderful place of fantasy in literature:

  • Fantasy is closer to real life than the world we think we live in. Pop-secularism sees a drab, boring world, devoid of the wonderful, fantastic or glorious. Our culture gives birth to unverifiable dogmas that always seem to begin with “There’s no such thing as…” Fantasy gives us mystery back. Or, rather, it reminds us of the mystery we lost. It reminds us that fairies do, indeed, exist.
  • Fantasy helps us rejoice in the mundane. G.K. Chesterton suggested that one reason there are fantastic things in stories is so we can see how fantastic things actually are around us. A river of gold, he says, reminds us that rivers are actually filled with something more wondrous: water.
  • Perhaps better than any other genre, fantasy is able to embody truth. Fantasy is like a magnifying glass in its analysis. Courage is best seen and understood, not by one man fighting another, but by a weak, uneducated hobbit attacking the immortal dark lord of Mordor. Love is best seen and understood, not through a girl willing to marry a secure man, but by a girl willing to marry the Dragon Reborn, who is damned to kin-slaying madness.
  • Fantasy is beautiful. Those who read fantasy will tell you, it’s not the funny names or magic spells that draw us. It’s the glory of it all. The beauty in the idyllic origins of the world in The Silmarillion. The glory of the One Power in The Wheel of Time. The depth of character in the many protagonists of A Song of Ice and Fire.
  • Fantasy teaches us to open our minds and accept that we know nothing. You see that theme in nearly every fantasy. Frodo must open up and see that there is more to the world beyond the Shire. Rand Al’thor must realize that the petty morals of his youth are too small for the world. Vin must see that Allomancy is not shadowy witchcraft, but something deep, true and beautiful.

    • Own what you love. If you love it, I think I don’t have the right to call it trite or base.

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    April 28, 2010

    Up at Night #10 – Intellectual Dishonesty

    Well, it actually doesn’t keep me up at night. I sleep well in spite of the staggering dishonesty I convince my brain to partake in. But the fact that this does not keep me up at night, keeps me up at night.

    Examples:
    – I think that it’s pretty important to be born from above. This is because when someone came and privately asked Jesus for spiritual advice, that’s what he told him (John 3). And he made it sound serious, too. And when Jesus says something serious, I find it very logical to pay attention to it.
    – Conversely, I do not seem to think it’s all that important to help the poor, even though Jesus and many prophets and apostles said we should (Proverbs 19:17, 1 John 3:17, James 1:27, and exactly one jillion more quotes). I may talk about it a lot, but I never seem to translate the talk into the kind of action Jesus suggested. Funny, eh?

    Of course, I’m comparing apples to oranges, aren’t I? I mean, in John 3, Jesus was talking about salvation! Not morality. He was telling Nic how to enter into that wild and awesome Kingdom of Heaven that he was always talking about. It’s different, right?

    I thought it was. I hoped it was. But I’m not so sure anymore.

    Remember the rich young ruler who asked how to get to heaven (Luke 18:18-23)? Jesus says, be good. The guy replies, I am! Jesus says, go sell everything and give it to the poor. Then you’re in.

    Hmm.

    Thankfully I’m a clever person. I have a solution. I can postulate that Jesus had a deeper, not-so-obvious spiritual meaning when he told that young ruler-guy to sell his stuff. I can probably postulate a good enough meaning that I won’t actually have to do anything. Maybe I’ll just say that Jesus meant he ought to be willing to sell his crap. Yeah. It’s a heart issue, right? I can be willing to do that. So long as I don’t have to actually do it.

    And what about when Jesus talks in Matthew 25:31-46? That one’s tougher. Jesus says that he’s going to gather everyone up and reject anyone who didn’t help the poor. What can I do about that one?

    Hmm

    Oh! I got it! We are saved by faith, not works! Paul trumps Jesus! QED!

    I hate it when my sarcasm is uncomfortably close to how I really live. I wonder in how many more places of my life I’m willfully blind and dishonest.

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    April 23, 2010

    You Can’t Define a Story

    People use the word Gospel a lot in my circles. We talk about knowing the Gospel, understanding the Gospel, defining the Gospel. I’ve heard many a preacher talk about how important it is to have a thorough understanding of the Gospel and a right definition of it. But, funnily, usually they don’t actually come through and define it for me. That always bothered me, y’know? Because, how the heck am I supposed to go to heaven if I can’t define the Gospel? Some people try, though. I’ve heard people say that ‘Believe of the Lord Jesus Christ’ is the Gospel. Remember that story? When the jailer wanted to know what he needed to do to be saved? But was that really the Gospel? Or was it just the answer to the jailer’s question?

    It hit me today, though. I figured out what the Gospel was. Are you ready for it? Here it goes:

    Good News (or story)

    We made up the word, eh? We couldn’t figure out how to translate the Greek word so we made up one. Clever of us.

    But, of course, I can’t leave it there. That would be cheating. Even though I know that the word Gospel is no more or less than Good News (or story), I still ought to figure out what that good story is.

    Boom! Epiphany! I’m on a roll today! I figured out what the Good News is! It’s right there in the beginning of the New Testament! What is the first book called?

    The Gospel According to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John

    What is the Gospel? The whole story. The whole deal. All of it. That’s why preachers stumble when they try to define it (and not leave out any of the details that, left out, will damn you). That’s why Jesus never even tried to define it. You can’t define a story. You can’t define a life. The Gospel is the whole Good News (or story) of Jesus and everything that he is.

    Good luck putting a tag on that!

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    April 16, 2010

    More Golden Compass Thoughts

    Lyra, the main character of the series, is a young girl. Now, each children’s series seems to have children who are special in some way. Harry Potter is good on a broom. The Paperbag Princess is deft at tricking dragons. Ponyo is full of rebellious love. But Lyra’s skill is very unusual for the hero of a children’s book. Her skill is lying.

    Time and time again her uncanny ability to create a false story saves her and the people she loves. She seriously has some sort of super-human skill when it comes to lying. And the narrator suggests that she is such a good liar because she lacks a deep imagination.

    When a person has a good imagination she will be able to think up so many wonderful details that would add great depth and realism to a story. Unfortunately, many details tend to give the liar away. We can all tell when somebody starts babbling that they are trying to hide something. But a girl with no imagination will not be bothered to weigh her story down with details. And so Lyra’s lack of imagination helps here.

    I find the connection between lying and imagination so interesting. On the one hand, without a good imagination you cannot (I think) be a good storyteller. But when you try to tell a story and pass it off for truth, your imagination will get in the way.

    I wonder, if we think about this metaphysically, if this is because imagination is inherently good while deceit is inherently bad. It’s a hard fit; putting imagination and lies together. They don’t like each other much. A good imagination always tells the truth of a thing, those its packaging may be false. A lie tries to cover the truth and keep it from the hearer. The imagination doesn’t seem to like that.

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