Entropy on parade:

I’ve got the breaking things fingers again. Current broken devices/fixtures include my dryer (yes again/still), my dishwasher (eek!), my playstation, and every other light bulb in the house. The dishwasher is the only one I am upset about. I hadn’t really used the playstation much in years, but Taylor’s x-box and playstation 2 were both stolen in recent months so I thought I’d take mine over during the house sitting – we got a few hours of play in before it fried.

Vick has limited cable and her few channels include some odd choices such as GTV which is all video game news and reviews all the time. The do VH1 style mini documentaries on video game legends. I spent much of the weekend drinking margaritas and watching GTV. I am actually considering both a playstation 2 and the computer game God of War to fill my hollow and empty life with pleasing simulacra.

I finished reading Hyperion today and despite my initial misgivings it turned out to be a fabulous read on a par with Dune. Unfortunately it was a cliffhanger in a trilogy so I must be off to Borders later to get book 2.

I didn’t see the folks yesterday as they are helping my sister catch up on her sleep. My nephew Henry is proving to be quite the fussy child in the wee hours so my mom took the reigns for the overnight last night. I read all day, took the dog to the park and helped John move the last of his belongings out of the Kingshighway condo. We grabbed a burger at Tom’s in the West End and after a few pints called it an evening.

Today’s theology lesson:
My father is currently up at the seminary arguing with a faculty member who recently had a sermon on the Lutheran Hour that he disagreed with. Rather than sending a letter he made an appointment. The crux of the disagreement is over justification. The pastor’s sermon implied justification through works rather than by faith alone – I believe the title was Jesus Wants to Forgive You.

For the diehard Lutheran faith is only created by the action of the holy spirit through the vehicle of the word, and salvation comes only through Christ’s substitutionary sacrifice so all this “Christ unlocked the door but you must walk through it” or “I’ve accepted Christ as my personal savior” stuff is antithetical to core Lutheran doctrine which teaches that man cannot by his own reason or faith come to know or believe in God – we have free will only in our capacity to deny God. This would be core anti-enlightenment thinking. Luther wrote, often in derisive and misogynistic tones, about the failings of madam reason.

I have a whole section of my personal library devoted to this sort of Christian dogmatics and theological hairsplitting including several bibles and concordances, an eight volume leather bound set of the complete sermons of Martin Luther, etc. My favorite one of these reference texts is the Abingdon Dictionary of Living Religions, which goes a long way towards undermining an adherence to a single faith in its conveyance of the diversity and history of human religious expression.

Anyway, I am ever the prodigal son of the preacher man. I think it’s probably a source if disappointment that none of the four boys in my family went to the seminary. I sometimes treated my lectern as a pulpit when I was an educator. I had a student once tell me in an office hour that he loved it when I testified. I’m sure I can get a little King James when I have my rhetorical swerve on. Once upon a time I was a passionate teacher.

I had an ex Nicole who felt called to the ministry. She’s a minister now. I’m jealous of those who feel called to a vocation; who have a sense that they are doing what they were born to do.

Should we get lame tattoos? Born to blog.