Solomon Grunday, Born On Monday...

Monday loped on by today. The usual mix of work, play and surf. I think I have it down to a science...

Not much to mention, really. I'm dabbling with Flash and Dreamweaver tutorials. Trying to learn animation and web design myself, without having to attend classes. I'm kind of of the opinion that you don't need schooling to learn to be a graphic artist. All you need is a (legal) copy of software, and access to the internet. There are tutorials for just about everything imaginable out there. Save yourself the money and learn it yourself!

Reminds me of that scene in Good Will Hunting, where Matt Damon was mocking the smart rich dude in that bar, matching brains with him, and then letting him know he saved himself a couple hundred thousand dollars by educating himself at the library. Not a bad movie.

Guess that's a decent enough segue into tonight's Favorite Scene. Tonight's clip is from the 1987 classic The Princess Bride.

Love that film. Eminently quotable. The director, Rob Reiner, had to leave the set whenever Billy Crystal was filming the Miracle Max scenes, because he would laugh so hard his stomach hurt. Looks like they had a ton of fun making that movie.

Do you guys even watch the scenes anymore? It's been so long since someone has left a comment, I'm starting to wonder if I'm all alone in the world. Did everyone get raptured when I wasn't looking or something?

Was listening to The Bible Answer Man today for a few minutes on the radio. A few minutes is all I can stomach. Hank Hanegraaff is so smug and religious it's nauseating. I say that knowing full well that I'm the same way at times... I don't doubt his intentions, but perhaps being held up as the preeminent go-to source for doctrinal truth has a long-term poisoning effect of some kind on the soul. He was going on and on again about the "essentials" of the Christian Faith. 

It's the classic orthodox line of thinking. We're all doomed people incapable of doing anything good or righteous whatsoever. We need only to believe the right things about Jesus and He'll take us to undeserved eternal blessing, even though (they say) we deserve the opposite. And once we have that "saving faith", our only job is to try and convince other doomed souls to believe like we do. Then we can all go to Heaven after we die, to live forever in Happyland. 

To say that I find that line of thought lacking would be an understatement of Biblical proportions (pardon the obvious pun). Anything we try to do, as far as living right, is viewed as filthy rags, and an insult to the finished work of Jesus on the cross, as though we can add anything to His perfect work! I kid you not, that is what The Bible Answer Man holds to, and so does a large swath of the church. 

I am not among them.

I believe that by believing in Jesus, we basically are signing a contract of sorts. He will keep His end of the deal, as long as we, in good faith, keep ours. His end of the deal involves forgiving us for our past "sins" (however you wish to define that), and working with us to change us, teaching us to hear Him and follow Him out of the rudderless life we live and into a wonderful union - where we dance through life together, facing all challenges and obstacles as one, growing and enjoying life. Our end of the deal is to keep getting up and pressing forward, learning to find Him in every moment, learning to hear Him and look to Him and begin the dance, so to speak.

He will keep working with us as long as we don't quit. The end result is being reunited to God through not only what Jesus did on the cross, but what He has done every minute of every day that we interracted.

The alternative position is the lazy man's position. I'm a mess, and will always be. But I believe Jesus died for me on the corss, and therefore when I die, I will go to a happy place. How I live now, and what I do day-to-day doesn't really matter (or is even counter-productive). Jesus loves me for some reason, and He chose me, and now my eternity is set, because He'll magically change me into someone that loves Him at some point in the future.

Love. I think as Christians, it would be more accurate to say we love the idea of Jesus. I don't know how many of us can honestly say we love Him. We love what He has done for us. What He has promised us. What He says He will do for us in the future. But do we know Him? Really?

Bah, I don't know. I'm probably not making much sense. I think He's the King, and He deserves every ounce of strength and moment of attention we can give Him. I'm just wondering if there's really anyone that does it. I'd like to. But instead, I spend time working, playing, surfing the web, reading, listening to music, editing together daily movie clips that no one watches...

Well, I better bail, before I depress myself.

Until tomorrow, as it turns out, your friend is only mostly dead...