Psalms of darkness

The use of theses 'psalms of darkness' may be judged by the world to be acts of unfaith and failure, but for the trusting community, their use is an act of bold faith, albeit a transformed faith. It is an act of bold faith on the one hand, because it insists that the world must experienced as it really is and not in some pretended way. On the other hand, it is bold because it insists that all such experiences of disorder are a proper subject for discourse with God. There is nothing out of bounds, nothing precluded or inappropriate. Everything properly belongs in this conversation of the heart. To withhold parts of life from that conversation is in fact to withhold part of life from the sovereignty of God. Thus these psalms make the important connection; everything must be brought to speech, and everything brought to speech must be addressed to God, who is the final reference for all life...

Walter Brueggemann, The message of the Psalms, quoted in Dawn p.92

Veggie suicide

Read this a while ago I realised I should post it here in case the original post ever vanished.

In spite of all my best efforts at self-destruction, I have been told by others that I somehow managed to be a fairly decent father to my children. Even today, that provides me with some small comfort when I look back on the Federally declared disaster area that my life had been. I guess my main reason for even trying to be a good dad was so my offspring would have it better than I did. I wanted them to be smarter than I was, richer than I was, and healthier than I was.

Most of all, I didn't want to see either of them where I was going.

I guess that is why I broke down and bought the Veggie Tales Silly Songs VHS tape from the Christian book store that was across the hall from the dry cleaners where my wife worked. That, and it was on the bargain table. Whatever. My daughter loved it and that was all the endorsement I ever needed. Slowly, I acquired every title in the Veggie Tales series, first on VHS, then again on DVD, and I have never had a reason to regret it.

My wife and I have both lived by the motto that only a totally unfit parent does not know what their children are watching on TV. So, naturally, I have seen every single Veggie Tales episode over and over again and each one (except for Esther, The Star of Christmas, and An Easter Carol) ends with Bob the Tomato and Larry the Cucumber telling us that "God made us special. And he loves us very much."

Bob the Tomato is voiced by a man named Phil Vischer, who is also the co-founder and CEO of the company that makes the videos. Sometimes on the tapes, but more often on the DVDs, he would come on and talk. Mostly he would talk about upcoming shows, but sometimes about why he started the company and about his faith. That really bugged me.

It bugged me that he was so certain about God's existence, God's love, and God's plan for all of us that I wanted to fast forward through his talking. But I never did. I let him talk because he was talking to my kids, teaching them something I never could have at the time. It didn't take me long to hear that same certainty come through the little CGI tomato at the end of each show. That's when I started to get angry.

I actually wanted to punch a tomato in the face.

About two months before my decision to end my life, I knew why: I was jealous of Bob the Tomato. I wanted his certainty. I wanted his confidence. I wanted to experience the same love he was experiencing and it was making me furious to the point where I almost stopped watching the shows with my kids. I say almost because they had become my children's favorite shows by now and I wanted to cherish each moment I had with them, because I had decided on some level that they would be my last, so I had to watch the shows.

When I had decided to take the final step, I was desperate for someone to stop me. Clever me, for having made sure that my children were at school and my wife was at work. I am not going to flatter myself by saying that I hit rock bottom, but I could definitely see it from my seat on the roller coaster and I was going straight down. The only other thing that I saw, and heard, was a stupid little tomato telling me over and over again that 'God had made me special and He loves me very much.'

Really? He loves me? Even after all the stupid stuff I had done, God still loves me?

I had to know, so I went on my knees and asked Him. He answered.

I read somewhere once that sometimes angels have the faces of strangers. Another time I read that they have the faces of kids. Now I know for a fact that sometimes angels have faces of tomatoes.

God bless you, Bob.

Cliff


(original post:
http://cliffslnf.blogspot.com/2007/09/why-blog-iii-tomatoes.html)

Vischer: kid's media values

By the mid-1990s, the media industry had consolidated so aggressively that the vast majority of children's entertainment was controlled by just three companies - Viacom, Time Warner, and Disney. Each employing more than 50,000 people, these companies were now so large that one industry analyst described working with them as more like working with nation-states than companies. The problem with these giant, publicly traded goliaths isn't that they are immoral, but rather that they are profoundly amoral. They are valueless. They are simply too big to focus on any specific value system or moral code, and instead must be all things to all people. So Warner Brothers sells Bugs Bunny with one hand and Snoop Doggy Dog with the other. Viacom sells Blue's Clues with one hand and MTV with the other. Disney sells Mickey Mouse with one hand and Desperate Housewives with the other. We're not talking about companies in the business of selling blenders or farm implements here; we're talking about companies in the business of selling images and ideas - the business of influencing beliefs. And each is valueless! Why do they sell good values to preschoolers? Because there is money in it. Why do they sell lousy values to the same kids ten years later? Because there is money in it. When faced with the choice between doing what is beneficial and doing what is profitable, these companies choose profitable every time. Their shareholders require it.

I sat at a media conference in New York and listened to Viacom chairman Sumner Redstone explain to a roomful of Wall Street analysts how he intended to hook kids with Blue's Clues, then lead them through Nikelodeon straight to MTV. When I passed the eighty-year-old billionaire in the men's room a few minutes after his speech, I noticed how small he was. I could take him, I thought to myself. not for the fun of it of course, but for the sake of America's kids. The world's kids.

I decided that probably wasn't the solution God had in mind.

Phil Vischer, Me, Myself and Bob, p.144-145

Stott on miracles

IS NOT the most helpful way to approach the gospel miracles to place them within the familiar and inescapable tension between the already and the not yet, kingdom come and kingdom coming, the new age inaugurated and the new age consummated? To the skeptical (who doubt all miracles), I want to say "but already we have tasted the powers of the age to come." To the credulous (who think that healing miracles are an everyday occurrence), I want to say "but not yet have we been given resurrection bodies free from disease, pain, infirmity, handicap, and death.

John R. W. Stott, Evangelical Essentials

Don't make worship useful

An emphasis on what we "get out" of a worship service - above all, that we feel good about ourselves - displaces the theocentric praise of God with anthropocentric utilitarianism. Since the worship of God is an end in itself, "making worship useful destroys it, because this introduces an ulterior motive for praise. And ulterior motives mean manipulation, taking charge of the relationship, thereby turning the relation between Creator and creature upside down."

Dawn (quoting Keck), p88.