Matt W Cook

writer.former fundamentalist.christianly fellow
March 17, 2010

Keeping Your Options Open

A while ago a great poem was posted on one of my favorite blogs.  Here it is:

The small man
builds cages for everyone
he
knows.
While the sage,
who has to duck his head
when the moon is low,
keeps dropping keys all night long
for the
beautiful
rowdy
prisoners.
Basically, the poet is saying that small, insignificant people make it their business to disable and contain others.  Maybe they do this so others won’t notice how small and useless they are.  But the great man, the sage so large that he needs to duck when the moon is low, makes it his business to set these people free.  Nice thoughts, eh?
You know who is a great man?  Jesus.  So why, then, do people assume that follow him means a limiting of freedom?
We’ve all heard people say stuff like, “I wish I had had more fun before I became a Christian.”  Implying, of course, that being a Christian is no fun.  And people have reason to say that, don’t they?  They way many religious people talk, you get the impression that following Jesus is about refusing to do fun stuff.
But I think it’s not like that.  It seems to me that following Jesus actually opens your options.  Jesus frees you to do wild things.  Jesus freed Ruth to get a bunch of cash, head off to Pakistan with two little kids and throw the money and love at widows and orphans.  Jesus enables us to create and enjoy things in such a better light and for such a better purpose.  Jesus adds depth to all our relationships and fun.  Jesus frees me to be unconventional and counter-cultural as I try and figure out how to show him off in the way I live.  Jesus is the ultimate great sage, dropping keys that open the cages of every single problem we have created for ourselves.  Yay for Jesus!

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March 15, 2010

Uh oh

I miss my wife and kids.

Funny how that’s the only thought that seems to form as I try to get a blog up.

I always used to say that family life, while much better than single life, is hard.  I think I might have been wrong.  I’ve been alone for a week and it’s not nearly as fun as I remember it.  Nope, it kinda sucks.  You know those wild vacuums with the turbo cyclone thingys in them?  Sucks that much.

If your married and have a family, don’t long to be single again.  I mean, sure, your wife is probably not nearly as cool as mine and there’s no way your kids are as great as mine.  But still, the potential good that lies in even the darkest marriage seems to be so much greater than any other relationship, no matter how unique or crazy it may be.

Yeah.  So I miss my wife.  This post was originally going to be a top ten list of things that suck because your wife and kids are gone.  But it was getting too long.  And a little depressing, too!

But it’s all good.  She’s over there doing wild, great things for Jesus.  How can I complain?

Pray for us!

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March 12, 2010

The Eyepatch

This is something I wrote in response to a writing exercise once.  It’s been sitting on my hard drive for a while.  I thought I’d share it with you. 
            The package came earlier than I had expected.  There was no return address, but the Eagle seal confirmed what it was.  I took it from the Deliverer and walked back into the den.  The Deliverer stayed in the open doorway, watching me, its video cameras sending my reaction to whoever was watching.  I tried to smile as I opened the package, though my hands trembled.
            A note lay inside, its Eagle crest gleaming and shining up at me, a beacon of a hope and a freedom defined by other men.  It read:
           
Valued citizen,
                       
            Our records show that your Media Inlet Device (MID) has been misplaced and/or destroyed.  This is your replacement.  You will be pleased to know that it is an upgraded version and has already been calibrated to your unique Citizen Code Number.  For your own safety, peace and protection, be sure to inform the Deliverer of your intention to wear the MID and, as soon as possible, follow through with that intention.  If you happen to lose your MID again we will authorize you for a Secure MID (SMID) which will be irremovable.
                                    Peace and Safety,
                        The Ministry of Homeland Security and Entertainment
            I looked up through the doorless entrance to my apartment and forced a smile at the Deliverer.  Its mechanical eyes focused on me, reading my expression and probably registering my stress levels and temperature and the like.
            “Oh good,” I said.  “It’s finally here.”  I looked down at the box again and pulled the packing insulation aside.  And there it lay.  That thing.  The fact that it looked just like an old pirate-style eye patch struck me as tragically ironic.  It conjured up images of swashbuckling adventurers, leaping from plank to plank in glorious freedom, willing to risk an eye for that that freedom.  But as the eye patch was a symbol of the price to be paid for freedom, so the MID, made in its image, was a symbol of the price to be paid for…for what?  Safety?  A type of peace?
            The Deliverer twitched, mimicking impatience.
            “I’m putting it on now.”  I told it, picking it up.  It had no strap and felt like cheap cloth.  Without daring to hesitate I placed it over my right eye and felt the familiar vacuum seal as it attached itself to my face.
            It was stupid, what I had done.  I realized that even as I did it.  Completely illogical, really.  But I think it had to be done anyway.  We’re not defined only by reason and logic like the Deliverers are.  It’s our ability to work contrary to and even above our reason that makes us truly human.  I think I’ve written about that in the past, before privately run publishing companies were banned.  So I had done the stupid thing.  I had thrown away my MID.  I could hardly sleep the night after I had done it.  I was so used to the damned programming that I couldn’t relax without it.  The very fact that I had depth perception again was almost nauseating.  A sign of the growing dependency on dependency, I suppose.
            The programming began almost immediately, after a brief flicker and a security check.  The MID sent the images directly into the retina of my right eye.  I saw The Man again, with his plastic grin.  I cried out, in spite of myself.
            “You missed me?”  The Man asked.
            “Yes,” I sniffed.
            “Be sure not to lose your MID again,” he warned.  “Some might think you did it on purpose, that perhaps you are not completely loyal to the cause of liberty.”
            “It won’t happen again,” I said.
            “I’m sure it won’t.  Now, how about some News?”
            “That would be nice.”
            The Man faded away, replaced by the government-appointed newscasters, telling me glorious things about the War on Terror, the economic boom and the utopian society we lived in.  Things were back to normal, I realized.  A very comfortable, safe and lifeless normal.
            The Deliverer rolled away.  I stood and watched it go down the hall.  It faded into the distance, rolling past open doorway after open doorway.  I sat down and wept.  The newscaster tried to cheer me up by telling me about the thousands of people killed that day who were somehow different from me.
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March 12, 2010

The Eyepatch

This is something I wrote in response to a writing exercise once.  It’s been sitting on my hard drive for a while.  I thought I’d share it with you. 
            The package came earlier than I had expected.  There was no return address, but the Eagle seal confirmed what it was.  I took it from the Deliverer and walked back into the den.  The Deliverer stayed in the open doorway, watching me, its video cameras sending my reaction to whoever was watching.  I tried to smile as I opened the package, though my hands trembled.
            A note lay inside, its Eagle crest gleaming and shining up at me, a beacon of a hope and a freedom defined by other men.  It read:
           
Valued citizen,
                       
            Our records show that your Media Inlet Device (MID) has been misplaced and/or destroyed.  This is your replacement.  You will be pleased to know that it is an upgraded version and has already been calibrated to your unique Citizen Code Number.  For your own safety, peace and protection, be sure to inform the Deliverer of your intention to wear the MID and, as soon as possible, follow through with that intention.  If you happen to lose your MID again we will authorize you for a Secure MID (SMID) which will be irremovable.
                                    Peace and Safety,
                        The Ministry of Homeland Security and Entertainment
            I looked up through the doorless entrance to my apartment and forced a smile at the Deliverer.  Its mechanical eyes focused on me, reading my expression and probably registering my stress levels and temperature and the like.
            “Oh good,” I said.  “It’s finally here.”  I looked down at the box again and pulled the packing insulation aside.  And there it lay.  That thing.  The fact that it looked just like an old pirate-style eye patch struck me as tragically ironic.  It conjured up images of swashbuckling adventurers, leaping from plank to plank in glorious freedom, willing to risk an eye for that that freedom.  But as the eye patch was a symbol of the price to be paid for freedom, so the MID, made in its image, was a symbol of the price to be paid for…for what?  Safety?  A type of peace?
            The Deliverer twitched, mimicking impatience.
            “I’m putting it on now.”  I told it, picking it up.  It had no strap and felt like cheap cloth.  Without daring to hesitate I placed it over my right eye and felt the familiar vacuum seal as it attached itself to my face.
            It was stupid, what I had done.  I realized that even as I did it.  Completely illogical, really.  But I think it had to be done anyway.  We’re not defined only by reason and logic like the Deliverers are.  It’s our ability to work contrary to and even above our reason that makes us truly human.  I think I’ve written about that in the past, before privately run publishing companies were banned.  So I had done the stupid thing.  I had thrown away my MID.  I could hardly sleep the night after I had done it.  I was so used to the damned programming that I couldn’t relax without it.  The very fact that I had depth perception again was almost nauseating.  A sign of the growing dependency on dependency, I suppose.
            The programming began almost immediately, after a brief flicker and a security check.  The MID sent the images directly into the retina of my right eye.  I saw The Man again, with his plastic grin.  I cried out, in spite of myself.
            “You missed me?”  The Man asked.
            “Yes,” I sniffed.
            “Be sure not to lose your MID again,” he warned.  “Some might think you did it on purpose, that perhaps you are not completely loyal to the cause of liberty.”
            “It won’t happen again,” I said.
            “I’m sure it won’t.  Now, how about some News?”
            “That would be nice.”
            The Man faded away, replaced by the government-appointed newscasters, telling me glorious things about the War on Terror, the economic boom and the utopian society we lived in.  Things were back to normal, I realized.  A very comfortable, safe and lifeless normal.
            The Deliverer rolled away.  I stood and watched it go down the hall.  It faded into the distance, rolling past open doorway after open doorway.  I sat down and wept.  The newscaster tried to cheer me up by telling me about the thousands of people killed that day who were somehow different from me.
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March 10, 2010

Why I am not a Christian.

In Pakistan the third question new people generally ask after meeting you is, “What is your religion?” In the beginning I would tell everyone I was a Christian. But I quickly found out that this wasn’t the best way to describe what I am. In Pakistan Christians have the (mostly earned) reputation for being drunks, swindlers and promiscuous. I can remember walking into a video store and, once the owner found out I was a Christian, being offered porn.  Something was wrong.

So I stopped saying I was a Christian and started saying that I followed Jesus.  Same thing, right?

Maybe not.

In forcing myself to use different words to describe myself I found that my brain started noticing subtle differences between following Jesus and following Christianity.  Or maybe, to be a little more fair, a difference between the brand of Christianity that was given to me and following Jesus.

  • The cry of Christianity is, “Obey!”  The cry of Jesus is, “Love!”
  • Christianity says, “Hold these opinions, never let them go.”  Jesus says, “Hold these people, never let them go.”
  • Christianity’s enemies are silly little things like movies, books,and people.  Jesus’ enemies are serious things like sin, poverty, sickness and death.
  • Christianity has destroyed the lives of many.  Jesus only fixes lives.
  • Christianity helps Christians.  Jesus helps everyone.
  • Christianity offers you religious satisfaction.  Jesus offers you your heart’s desire.
  • Christianity accepts you when you start looking good and helps you to look better.  Jesus accepts you at your worst and makes you really better.
  • Christianity fills your life with religious rituals.  Jesus fills your life with the omnipotent power of himself.
  • Christianity makes excuses.  Jesus makes change.
  • Jesus suffers the little children.  The children of Christianity suffer.
  • Christianity limits your options.  Jesus gives you options.
  • Christianity damns.  Jesus saves.
  • Christianity commands you to defend it.  Jesus defends you.
Jaded?  Maybe.  But there is a time and a place to be jaded.  Am I a Christian?  That depends on what you mean.  The word is so vague that I see no need to cling to it anymore.  So I follow Jesus.  Because following a living God is always better than following a religion.

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March 8, 2010

Oops

Well, I’ve done it.

Do you remember what I posted on Friday?  Probably not.  Actually, definately not, because I didn’t post anything.

In my defense, this has been a wild week.

On Tuesday, Ruth’s plans for Pakistan were a mere two weeks away.  On Wednesday, they were suddenly two days away.  She’s there right now, with the kids.  For two months.  Ouch.

I don’t have much to say this lovely Monday.  Just pray for her.  She’s pushing really hard to get i117 off the ground and helping the widows.  Lots of prayer.  Lots of love.  Oh yeah.

Peace

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March 3, 2010

Quoting Star Wars

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…

After the opening lines, how far can you get? Can you quote, without looking, the scrolling text? Do you know the first spoken lines of the film? How far could you quote into A New Hope?

I bet I could do nearly the whole movie.

But I haven’t seen the film for half a year at least. And, really, I haven’t watched it an inordinate amount of times, really. So why can I quote it? And why can I not even think of the opening scene of The Phantom Menace?

Because The Phantom Menace is a movie. A New Hope, that’s a film, baby.  The Phantom Menace, like Invasion of the Body Snatchers, is just a movie.  It’s what you see when there’s nothing else to do or when you want nothing more than a little entertainment.  You get pleasure while you watch it, but when it’s over you walk away unchanged by it.

A New Hope, along with the rest of the trilogy, is not like that.  There is depth in the story of Luke and the redemption of Anakin.  When you watch it, you don’t care about the early-80s graphics and funny clothes.  The story is alive and it imparts something to you.

C.S. Lewis once suggested that an artistic piece, in order to be legitimate, needed to either be for pure entertainment alone, or a guardian of true.  The Phantom Menace fills one of those conditions.  The original trilogy fills both.  Dan Brown fills one.  Stephen King often fills both.

I wonder how many movies made in the last ten years will be proved to be classics.  Can you think of any that will endure and spawn a generation that can quote them from beginning to end like Star Wars and Fiddler On The Roof have?

Funny, none are coming to mind, right now.

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March 1, 2010

Library vs. Google

Okay, so imagine you are a high-school student.  A big research project is coming up.  How are you going to get the five pounds of pure information you need to write this thing?

Google.

Same situtation, but fifteen years ago?

Library.

Let’s face it.  With Google you can get all your research done in an hour.  There’s no need to drive to a library, search endless shelves or even stand up.  So why, oh why, would you ever want to go to a library?  Is Google a better source for information?  Despite the nearly infinite resources and the radical ease, I honestly think that the library is a better place to get what you need.  Here’s why:

  • With Google, you require absolutely no work to get what you want.  This may sound like a good thing, but it isn’t.  Without the mental discipline you get from searching through books for what you need, you are not going to have the ability to properly examine and discern and sift through it.  You’ll end up copying and pasting.  You’ll get decent marks, but you won’t learn the stuff as well as you could have.
  • With Google, your natural tendencies toward inaction are encouraged.  We already live in a society of radical ease.  Google approves of that.
  • With Google, it is more difficult to sift between quality articles and hacks.  Any idiot can make a website.  Heck, even I have one.  And you don’t want to read anything I write on physics.
  • Google encourages isolation.  At the library you are forced to see people and become a part of the community.  And community, believe it or not, is a good thing.  If Google is your best friend, though, you need never leave the house.
  • The quality of Internet articles are generally much lower than published books.  Not always, of course.  But it’s harder to get in print than it is to get on the web.  Again, look at me.
  • Libraries will lend you real books for free.  Google lets you watch silly YouTube videos for free.  Which one do you think is better and (in the long run) more fun?

I love the library.  Toronto has about a billion wonderful branches.  I really hope they don’t go away any time soon.

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February 26, 2010

To Drown

I don’t read much Christian fiction. Let’s face it, unless you read nothing else, you have to admit there is a severe gap between the quality of normal fiction and Christian fiction. Why? That’s another post.

But even though I don’t read much, I try to read a bit. A good friend suggested Ted Dekker’s Black, Red and White series. As far as Christian books go, it’s not bad.

It’s a shame I have to clarify like that but, what can you do?

Half of the series is an analogy in a fantasy setting.  Most analogies come across as cheesy and forced, but Dekker’s is not bad.  The one thing that really resonated with me what the analogy concerning how to follow Jesus.

Justin, the Jesus figure, dies by drowning in the book.  To follow him, he says that you need to go into the lake where he drowned, and pull in a big lungful of water.  The reader assumes, as the first convert enters the water, that he’ll find the water nice and refreshing and he’ll be able to breath it fine.

The reader is wrong.

When the protagonist takes in his lungful of air, it destroys him.  Pain explodes in his chest and he loses all buoyancy.  He sinks down into the dark, red lake.  He drowns.  He dies.  Game over.

Of course, he lives again.  But he actually died first.  Ouch!

This resonates because of the very high importance it places on following Jesus.  Following Jesus is not a prayer or an idea or a habit.  It’s a death and a rebirth.  It’s a game over followed by a restart.  It’s like getting hit with a Mack truck.  And no one is ever the same after encountering a Mack truck.

So thanks, Mr. Dekker, for the very nice salvation analogy.  I liked it.

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February 24, 2010

The Mangled Creature

I finally finished the Harry Potter series. I know that a lot of Christians are really upset about Harry Potter. I’m not. I’d tell you why, but this post isn’t really about that.

Something in last book of the series tickled my imagination. I’ll try to get it to tickle yours without too many spoilers.

At the very end of the series, Harry gets a glimpse of the world of souls. For a moment he thinks it’s the after life, but it becomes clear, I think, that it’s just a place where people exist in forms that are true to what the condition of their souls are. And in this place, Harry comes across the soul of the antagonist, Voldemort.

On earth, Voldemort is a powerful and fearsome person. The kind of person that no one could ever stand up to. His followers worship him as a god. But what is he in the world of souls?

He’s a mangled, raw, dying child.  Thrown under a bench and abandoned.  Anyone who goes near him is repulsed by him.  His soul is so horribly disfigured, in fact, that even Dumbledore is forced to say that he sees no hope for it.  And, even as Harry encourages Voldemort to repent, the reader is sure that it’s impossible.

This picture of the soul immediately registered with me.

Jeremiah considered the human soul to be deceitful and desperately sick.  But not just the ones like Voldemort’s, who had maimed his soul through unspeakable evil deeds.  But every soul.

Each of us had a broken soul.  The image of God that separates us from the animals is maimed.  Our souls are not just damaged by what we have done, but they are wrecked from the beginning.  If it were not so we would have discovered and implemented a way to build a perfect society by now and I’d never choose anything that was bad for me.

So what Dumbledore uttered for Voldemort’s soul applies to everyone, then.  “It is beyond saving.”  Harry could never have convinced Voldemort to repair his soul.  Heck, even if he tried, he wouldn’t know how to begin.  And so when Voldemort was killed, his body was destroyed and he was left with nothing but his useless, pain-wracked soul.

Is it impossible to heal a soul?  Of course.  But it’s also impossible for a man four days dead to come out from his tomb.  It is a good thing that Jesus enjoys doing impossible things, eh?

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