My apartment's air-conditioning has been broken for over two weeks now. Despite multiple work orders put in, it has not been repaired. Now that summer is upon us in Dallas, the apartment is reaching temperatures around 90 degrees Fahrenheit during the afternoon when the sun is directly on it.
This is turn has resulted in waste disposal becoming extremely important; dirty dishes can remain in the sink for a day or two when the air is kept at a constant cool temperature, but somewhere around the mid-80's their half-life drops to around a couple of hours, after which the food scraps begin to very rapidly return to their original elements, a process in which fruit flies will somehow manage to infiltrate our building and participate.Even a blanket in my bedroom, after days of elevated temperatures, had begun to produce a unique odor which suggested that washing would be highly recommended.
It occurred to me after a few days that, had the AC been working, none of this would have taken place. Cooler, climate-controlled air greatly slows down the decomposition of kitchen scraps, and the rate at which a blanket gently reminds us that we are organic creatures after all. A similar realization occurred after returning to America from Taiwan. I was surprised to discover some fallen pears which, after several days, appeared to have been barely impacted and perhaps still edible, preserved by the cool, dry autumn air. In Taiwan, fallen fruit would have lasted a few hours at best, as the tropically-boosted decomposition process made short work of it.
While thinking about these things, I realized that the phenomenon had a wider application. It could be said of many Americans, that we live air-conditioned lives. Climate-controlled, insulated against the historical struggles of life, what some call the real world. Our struggle is not to put food on the table, or stay warm enough to survive the winter. We struggle to choose what restaurant we really want to eat at most, amid a staggering array of choices, or to avoid sweating so we can look fresh for job interviews.
Indeed, our cultural awareness of the trivial nature of many of these perceived difficulties has led to the "First World Problems" meme, demonstrating that younger generations of America are well aware of their own material privileges, even if that does not prevent them from complaining about similar issues. But is the best response to criticize these complaints as coming from excessive privilege or unforgivable ignorance? Surely everyone will complain about the things in their lives which are frustrating or disappointing, the disconnect occurs in that for certain groups of people, problems that cause them real frustration are brought on by material wealth which most of the world's inhabitants could only dream of.
But rather than trying to pretend that only problems which are more like problems which most humans face are worth complaining about, perhaps we should look at the root of the problems. The problem is not the complaints, the problem is the contrived lifestyle. Many people begin at this point to critique our culture of excess, or claim that such extravagance only comes at the expense of other parts of the world. But I submit that mere affluence does not lead to a situation where we have a near-culture-wide self-awareness of being out of touch with most of humanity, as evidenced through those things that bother us in life.
I do not wish to engage in a serious discussion of global resource distribution or the complicated cultural, historical, and political reasons why some areas of the world can be so developed as to have children worried about how much data their iPods hold, while one day's plane ride away some children are dying from lack of drinkable water. That important but highly divisive topic seems more to bring out differences in world view between those engaging it than it produces any viable solutions.
Instead I want to think of a more specific and less often discussed topic.
How could we as Americans bring ourselves back in touch a little? How could we, without top-down government policy changes, live in such a way that does not assume prosperity is evil but also gets rid of a culture which has become at odds with the experience of most humans, self-contained and unsustainable, trapped behind glass to protect the artificial chill of conditioned air which delays its inevitable decay into more fundamental elements?
Everything in our lives has become processed, packaged and shippable. Our food comes in chemically treated chunks, our water comes in little bottles, our air blows out of little temperature-controlled vents, our friends when not physically present represented by discrete profiles with filtered and prepared information.
Most people in the world are forced to take life as it comes, at least on a phenomenological level. It comes in analog. But in a parallel to the onset of the digital age, we have instead broken life into small, managed, dichotomous packets. We do not conform and are not shaped or hardened by our circumstances, we purchase them and change them to suit our tastes, growing soft behind protecting glass, preserved by climate-control. But what will happen when the glass shatters?
Tuesday, June 12, 2012
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
Occasionally the fit takes me...
And suddenly I am not in this old blue stuffed leather chair in Dallas, watching the late hours unwind in a outspread city that hauls itself wearily through the dog days of August. I am in an Israeli cafe in Taipei, eating hummus and pitas while a tired-eyed woman sits nearby with her small white dog and smokes a cigarette. The moisture-laden street air wanders inside to hear The Doors playing on tiny speakers affixed above photos of the Masada and the Dead Sea. Now it's Johnny Cash's Ring of Fire, and a scooter passes by. Life flows on here, slowly to the muffled hum of traffic and pedestrians and the sounds of preparing food. I am aware of its passing, as the afternoon sun beats down on a faded awning outside.
And now it is night. The sky an amber glow of light pollution, the blurry air ablaze with store signs and neon, the asphalt damp and shining. Countless people throng the bright and narrow streets, their conversations rising to the upper building floors looking down on them from either side. One cannot lose one's self in that crowd, for to plunge into it is to join it, become another unique piece of it. Smells assault from all sides, sharp and pungent, strong and savory. The senses are fully engaged. To be at rest is to walk, moving slowly along the streets which will not clear for many hours yet, for here the night is also alive.
And now it is night. The sky an amber glow of light pollution, the blurry air ablaze with store signs and neon, the asphalt damp and shining. Countless people throng the bright and narrow streets, their conversations rising to the upper building floors looking down on them from either side. One cannot lose one's self in that crowd, for to plunge into it is to join it, become another unique piece of it. Smells assault from all sides, sharp and pungent, strong and savory. The senses are fully engaged. To be at rest is to walk, moving slowly along the streets which will not clear for many hours yet, for here the night is also alive.
Monday, March 14, 2011
Wheels of Fire
Was fascinated by the book of Ezekiel today. Why do I hear so little of the awe-inspiring Biblical imagery used in sermons today? Perhaps in lives carefully insulated from surprises or risk, something so transcendent is irrelevant to us, we want 'practical' messages which do not require mental distillation in order to apply directly to our lives.
Or perhaps in our modern 'enlightened' understanding of the world, we are embarrassed by the more 'outre' supernaturalism in the Bible. That explains why we can handle Jesus changing water to wine, but not stopping the sun in Joshua. Water to wine requires less suspension of disbelief, because it is "smaller", though both turn the known laws of physics on their head. Had the miracle recounted Jesus changing the Sea of Galilee from water to wine, doubtless many in the church would be working out how to explain it in terms of a algae bloom or other means. How strange that our reasoning should be so flawed. The very term supernatural means
something beyond nature. If the supernatural is possible, it is inherently not limited to small examples. If Jesus could change stones into bread, He could have changed the moon into bread by the same principle. And yes, maintained preservation of momentum too. He is God.
If we actually believe that the existence of the entire universe is continuously maintained by our Creator God, our worldview should reflect that. The western church today (in general) appears to accept this proposition as valid, but without it making much of a difference in their day to day lives. This is not the same as disbelief, but neither is it faith in a Biblical sense.
Perhaps the medieval church had something we need today. Without the 'benefit' of a post-enlightenment view of the world, they did not find it hard to believe in the miraculous, because they understood that we live in that kind of world.
And we still do live in that kind of world. Cynical Westerners (or Easterners) need but travel to numerous places around the world to receive severe challenges to their faith in the impossibility of the scientifically inexplicable.
Let us meditate on the reality of the universe in which we find ourselves; one in which the supernatural is indeed possible, for the universe itself is not eternal, but has been created by One from outside it, Who was before it. The world is then by definition a supernatural one, indeed the purely natural can only exist in contrast to the supernatural, otherwise the natural is merely 'what is'. But we know that the natural can not include all that is.
Therefore let us not act as if the unabashedly supernatural perspective of Scripture were an overexuberant and slightly embarrassing tendency which we can effectively gloss over as exceptional. The whole of Scripture is infused with this recognition of the nature of reality. Let us allow Scripture to adjust our worldviews accordingly, and not vice versa.
Or perhaps in our modern 'enlightened' understanding of the world, we are embarrassed by the more 'outre' supernaturalism in the Bible. That explains why we can handle Jesus changing water to wine, but not stopping the sun in Joshua. Water to wine requires less suspension of disbelief, because it is "smaller", though both turn the known laws of physics on their head. Had the miracle recounted Jesus changing the Sea of Galilee from water to wine, doubtless many in the church would be working out how to explain it in terms of a algae bloom or other means. How strange that our reasoning should be so flawed. The very term supernatural means
something beyond nature. If the supernatural is possible, it is inherently not limited to small examples. If Jesus could change stones into bread, He could have changed the moon into bread by the same principle. And yes, maintained preservation of momentum too. He is God.
If we actually believe that the existence of the entire universe is continuously maintained by our Creator God, our worldview should reflect that. The western church today (in general) appears to accept this proposition as valid, but without it making much of a difference in their day to day lives. This is not the same as disbelief, but neither is it faith in a Biblical sense.
Perhaps the medieval church had something we need today. Without the 'benefit' of a post-enlightenment view of the world, they did not find it hard to believe in the miraculous, because they understood that we live in that kind of world.
And we still do live in that kind of world. Cynical Westerners (or Easterners) need but travel to numerous places around the world to receive severe challenges to their faith in the impossibility of the scientifically inexplicable.
Let us meditate on the reality of the universe in which we find ourselves; one in which the supernatural is indeed possible, for the universe itself is not eternal, but has been created by One from outside it, Who was before it. The world is then by definition a supernatural one, indeed the purely natural can only exist in contrast to the supernatural, otherwise the natural is merely 'what is'. But we know that the natural can not include all that is.
Therefore let us not act as if the unabashedly supernatural perspective of Scripture were an overexuberant and slightly embarrassing tendency which we can effectively gloss over as exceptional. The whole of Scripture is infused with this recognition of the nature of reality. Let us allow Scripture to adjust our worldviews accordingly, and not vice versa.
Sunday, September 26, 2010
Zeitgeist Poetry
This from Linkin Park (taken from The Catalyst):
Whatever one's opinion of their musical style or lyrical content, one cannot deny that to listen to Linkin Park's new album A Thousand Suns (FYI: contains profanity in some tracks) is to hear the cry of today. The progression of post-modernism and the fragmentation of American culture is reaching an inevitable zenith. The album sounds like a simultaneous shout of resistance and cry for help, with a undercurrent of doubtful hope. The sky is dark and getting darker, but the rising wind both brings the sound of thunder and blows away the stagnant air.
This coupled together with the recent release of William Gibson's Zero History, the third book in his post-9-11 series (another example of a perhaps more intentional attempt to capture the current zeitgeist: Gibson has stated that he no longer writes about conjectural future scenarios because the future has already arrived, and writing a story set in our present time conveys much the same sense that future-fiction did in the past: The present is changing so quickly that it writes like the future...). Those together and some other things have me thinking about where our culture is going.
We are all familiar with the rants about the decline and fall of the American superpower, which is beginning to look more and more like a foregone conclusion. (certainly a conclusion our government seems already to have both made and brought about, though one can argue about forces behind mere national governments from both a spiritual and a political/economic perspective)
I would argue that our national consciousness is moving to a point beyond that, however. Our relation to the rest of the world has never been our greatest concern anyway, but now we are beginning to wonder who we ourselves are. While stereotypically untravelled, enough Americans have gotten out into the world to notice that we are neither the most modern society, nor the most traditional one, but occupy an increasingly unsatisfying position in between, with a diminishing sense of identity and increasing disconnectedness.
It seems we are a nation of contradictions; having lost the benefits of our former cultural identity we are now defined by its negative elements: a culture of individuality without the rugged resourcefulness of our predecessors, a culture of capitalism which has all but lost its work ethic and concept of hard-earned profit and fallen prey to the lowest common demoninator of hedonism and dependency, a culture in which 70-80% of us profess to be Christians but prayers were banned from schools decades ago and now quietly taken off our money while books about vampires or mass deceptions perpetrated by the church fly off the shelves, and multitudes of churches will soon disappear with the last remnants of their aging congregations.
However, that contradiction is inexorably resolving itself, or perhaps I should say the internal contradiction is tearing an unsustainable culture into its coherent fragments. If you live in a beautiful patchwork quilt while training your children to believe that all patches are the same, that there is no quilt as such, and that the stitching can be ignored as irrelevant, you must not expect your home to endure.
In a way, I will be glad to see the contradiction resolve. I greatly dislike unstable situations artificially propped up past their point of survivability. When we define a given cultural institution, convention, or situation as good, we sometimes forget that it is always a function of time. Some institutions cease to be good, and should then cease altogether. Let what is false fail. If we as the body of Christ really wish to be light to the world, we should open our eyes and see how dark that world really is, and how desperately in need of a Savior. Looking at students today in America (and in many other parts of the world), one may see a strangely paradoxical combination of apathy and cynicism mixed with a curiosity and openness, unrestricted by both conventional morality and hypocrisy and having little tolerance for either, all moving at ease among (and by means of) the technological innovations that increasingly define our society. Yet behind it all there really is a desperate cry for love, relevance, and ultimate meaning which is beginning to break through. In a sense, this generation of youth/students is more open than any recent ones before it, if one is willing and able to abandon many previous forms and methods, while demonstrating love and speaking truth. But so few are able to do so.. we become attached to our own methods and ways of doing things, or those ways we inherited, confusing them with the truth and love they were in their own time developed to convey, or else finding in these familiar forms our own worth, and thus being unwilling to forsake them lest we find ourselves irrelevant in the tides of history as well.
But relevance is no longer something that can be maintained by effort, like a swimmer treading water in a moving stream. Change is no longer something that alters what is normal; change is the new normal.
We must learn to live and minister in such a world that is constantly shifting, learn to adopt external changes quickly and easily as they happen and when necessary, while sticking steadfastly and tirelessly to the Truth we have received. The gospel in its full revelation in Jesus Christ is 2 millenia old, and has not lost an ounce of relevance or credibility, while the Christian music of even 10 (5?) years ago is old enough now to have already passed far beyond the unacceptably dated phase into nostalgia. This should tell us something about our strong points...
Gospel: always relevant. External cultural forms: flying by in the wind.
And the wind is blowing ever stronger these days...
God save us everyone,
Will we burn inside the fires of a thousand suns?
For the sins of our hand
The sins of our tongue
The sins of our father
The sins of our young
And when I close my eyes tonight
To symphonies of blinding light...
Like memories in cold decay
Transmissions echoing away
Far from the world of you and I
Where oceans bleed into the sky
Whatever one's opinion of their musical style or lyrical content, one cannot deny that to listen to Linkin Park's new album A Thousand Suns (FYI: contains profanity in some tracks) is to hear the cry of today. The progression of post-modernism and the fragmentation of American culture is reaching an inevitable zenith. The album sounds like a simultaneous shout of resistance and cry for help, with a undercurrent of doubtful hope. The sky is dark and getting darker, but the rising wind both brings the sound of thunder and blows away the stagnant air.
This coupled together with the recent release of William Gibson's Zero History, the third book in his post-9-11 series (another example of a perhaps more intentional attempt to capture the current zeitgeist: Gibson has stated that he no longer writes about conjectural future scenarios because the future has already arrived, and writing a story set in our present time conveys much the same sense that future-fiction did in the past: The present is changing so quickly that it writes like the future...). Those together and some other things have me thinking about where our culture is going.
We are all familiar with the rants about the decline and fall of the American superpower, which is beginning to look more and more like a foregone conclusion. (certainly a conclusion our government seems already to have both made and brought about, though one can argue about forces behind mere national governments from both a spiritual and a political/economic perspective)
I would argue that our national consciousness is moving to a point beyond that, however. Our relation to the rest of the world has never been our greatest concern anyway, but now we are beginning to wonder who we ourselves are. While stereotypically untravelled, enough Americans have gotten out into the world to notice that we are neither the most modern society, nor the most traditional one, but occupy an increasingly unsatisfying position in between, with a diminishing sense of identity and increasing disconnectedness.
It seems we are a nation of contradictions; having lost the benefits of our former cultural identity we are now defined by its negative elements: a culture of individuality without the rugged resourcefulness of our predecessors, a culture of capitalism which has all but lost its work ethic and concept of hard-earned profit and fallen prey to the lowest common demoninator of hedonism and dependency, a culture in which 70-80% of us profess to be Christians but prayers were banned from schools decades ago and now quietly taken off our money while books about vampires or mass deceptions perpetrated by the church fly off the shelves, and multitudes of churches will soon disappear with the last remnants of their aging congregations.
However, that contradiction is inexorably resolving itself, or perhaps I should say the internal contradiction is tearing an unsustainable culture into its coherent fragments. If you live in a beautiful patchwork quilt while training your children to believe that all patches are the same, that there is no quilt as such, and that the stitching can be ignored as irrelevant, you must not expect your home to endure.
In a way, I will be glad to see the contradiction resolve. I greatly dislike unstable situations artificially propped up past their point of survivability. When we define a given cultural institution, convention, or situation as good, we sometimes forget that it is always a function of time. Some institutions cease to be good, and should then cease altogether. Let what is false fail. If we as the body of Christ really wish to be light to the world, we should open our eyes and see how dark that world really is, and how desperately in need of a Savior. Looking at students today in America (and in many other parts of the world), one may see a strangely paradoxical combination of apathy and cynicism mixed with a curiosity and openness, unrestricted by both conventional morality and hypocrisy and having little tolerance for either, all moving at ease among (and by means of) the technological innovations that increasingly define our society. Yet behind it all there really is a desperate cry for love, relevance, and ultimate meaning which is beginning to break through. In a sense, this generation of youth/students is more open than any recent ones before it, if one is willing and able to abandon many previous forms and methods, while demonstrating love and speaking truth. But so few are able to do so.. we become attached to our own methods and ways of doing things, or those ways we inherited, confusing them with the truth and love they were in their own time developed to convey, or else finding in these familiar forms our own worth, and thus being unwilling to forsake them lest we find ourselves irrelevant in the tides of history as well.
But relevance is no longer something that can be maintained by effort, like a swimmer treading water in a moving stream. Change is no longer something that alters what is normal; change is the new normal.
We must learn to live and minister in such a world that is constantly shifting, learn to adopt external changes quickly and easily as they happen and when necessary, while sticking steadfastly and tirelessly to the Truth we have received. The gospel in its full revelation in Jesus Christ is 2 millenia old, and has not lost an ounce of relevance or credibility, while the Christian music of even 10 (5?) years ago is old enough now to have already passed far beyond the unacceptably dated phase into nostalgia. This should tell us something about our strong points...
Gospel: always relevant. External cultural forms: flying by in the wind.
And the wind is blowing ever stronger these days...
Sunday, July 18, 2010
Has this ever happened to you?
Recently a family friend visited my parents' home, and was recounting a story about his friend who did air traffic control. He paused during his story, attempting to remember which airport his friend had worked at. Suddenly the name "Newark" popped into my head. (I have never been within 300 miles of Newark, nor did I know his friend, nor had I really ever given any thought to whether that place existed or not, or where it was located) Just then, the friend said "Oh, it's that one in New Jersey". I then recalled that Newark was indeed somewhere in the vicinity of New Jersey, and volunteered "Newark?". "Yeah, that's it!" he said, or something to that effect, and continued with his story.
This is not the first time this has happened. Occasionally (maybe once every month or two), I hear something that someone is thinking of (usually it's word-for-word what they say, a few seconds before they say it) in my head. Does this make me crazy? Possibly. But I really don't have any rational motive for pretending I'm psychic or something weird like that -I'd be willing to concede that my brain is just good at guessing what someone is going to say based on things I've heard them say before- I'm mainly just curious if anyone else has had the same experience.
This is not the first time this has happened. Occasionally (maybe once every month or two), I hear something that someone is thinking of (usually it's word-for-word what they say, a few seconds before they say it) in my head. Does this make me crazy? Possibly. But I really don't have any rational motive for pretending I'm psychic or something weird like that -I'd be willing to concede that my brain is just good at guessing what someone is going to say based on things I've heard them say before- I'm mainly just curious if anyone else has had the same experience.
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Alive and Not Asleep
It's 5AM. My eyes and forehead want sleep, but my body is awake and my mind is restless.
I've been on a long insomniac internet trek. It began around 1AM with routine facebook, gmail, and news checking, the sort that often precedes going to bed, but this time it transitioned smoothly into researching the Dallas metro system, and from there into checking Google Earth. Google Earth led me, predictably, to Taiwan. I wanted to see if there was any progress shown on the construction work beside the main metro station in Taipei. (On another internet wandering, I had learned that the construction sites I noticed while living there in 2007-2008 were going to be two relatively tall buildings with quite a bit underneath them, further extending the already extensive underground portion of the metro station area.)
Google Earth had apparently not updated its satellite pictures of Taiwan in quite some time, and did not even show the sites as they had been 3 years ago. I found a german site with an article about the construction, which linked to a skyscraper website with an old forum topic from about the time I was living there. Another quick search, however, revealed a recent one where someone had posted pictures. The deep holes are covered up, and vertical work is likely to begin soon, probably by the next time I manage to get to Taipei. In checking to see if anyone had posted new Taiwan-overlays for Google Earth, I came across an announcement that street-view was now available for parts of Taiwan. I went to check this out, and was rather moved to find that vast sections of Taipei are now viewable in detail from the streets. The exact alley on which I lived was not photographed, but the streets surrounding it were, and I could see all my favorite places on Yong Kong Street. I followed the photo links from Taipei over to Keelung, and found that it had been street-viewed too. I don't know how many employees Google has, but someone put in a lot of driving time... I wouldn't be surprised if Google wants to expand Google Earth into a complete visual representation of most of the Earth. They have already progressed quite far towards that goal... Using Keelung's street-view I went up onto a mountain to see if I could recreate the view of the city as I saw it when I was there on top of a mountain, but could not find the place where I had been previously. I went to look up the wikipedia article for Keelung to see if I could get my bearings, but found nothing pertaining to the statue I was looking for. I did notice that Keelung had been settled by a particular tribe before the Chinese arrived, and a few followed links led me to a map of Taiwan's indigenous tribal peoples. I noticed the Amis tribe, having met a few Taiwanese who were of Amis descent, and from their article went to search for their music on YouTube. I found the music of a famous singer named Difang, who apparently had a performance found and used by Enigma in a very famous song without crediting him. I remembered that I had heard his music in the home of a missionary in Taichung, and quickly found the original song (without drum and synth tracks) on iTunes. Definitely worth 99 cents for that one. I listened to it a few times, wondering if the song had words or simply melodic phonetic sounds, and went to look for a Cantonese language lesson video on YouTube, to check the pronunciation on a phrase I had learned from a friend at the Chinese church I go to. I did not find that phrase, but heard many others, and read an interesting article contrasting Mandarin and Cantonese and comparing their difficulty levels. (Cantonese was judged to be the more difficult of the two languages by several linguistic metrics) I then looked for a Hakka language video, as I have a few Hakka friends as well and would be interested in learning at least a few common phrases. I found what I was looking for, but will probably just have one of my friends teach me, as a later search on Wikipedia revealed that the Taiwanese variant of Hakka is not the same as the Guangdong variety, which I think is what the video was using. Reading about the Hakka people led to reading about the Mien people, -I just met a Mien lady this past weekend- who were heavily influenced by Hakka Chinese language and culture at some point in their collective pasts, and about how America used their help in Vietnam during the "Secret War" in Laos.
Now many of them live in Sacramento, apparently... Noticing that it was now after 4AM, I checked facebook and my email once again, and then checked a few webcomics that had updated after midnight. I listened again to the song by Difang, and felt very alive, as I often do when staying up this late.
For some reason the background noise of my mind dies down at these hours, and I become aware of my life, this life that we all experience in common, moment by moment. Now in the quiet hours when latest night shifts towards earliest morning, I write this short account of one night's doings, and ponder life as it passes. Small wonder I have trouble sleeping...
A mental prompting led me to check the syllabus for my World Missions Class this semester. As it turns out, I do indeed have an assignment due tomorrow, a one page essay on the World Evangelism Conference. That will be written quickly enough, the difficulty will be keeping it to anything as short as a page. Yet the thought of assignments due suggests that getting at least some sleep tonight is recommended. 3 hours of sleep is better than no sleep, perhaps.
And so this little rumination ends here. Perhaps someone will find this amusing. If not, at least my insomnia has manifested itself into written form. That should be useful later somehow.
Rest comes in many forms... sometimes sleep is not one of them.
-Joseph
I've been on a long insomniac internet trek. It began around 1AM with routine facebook, gmail, and news checking, the sort that often precedes going to bed, but this time it transitioned smoothly into researching the Dallas metro system, and from there into checking Google Earth. Google Earth led me, predictably, to Taiwan. I wanted to see if there was any progress shown on the construction work beside the main metro station in Taipei. (On another internet wandering, I had learned that the construction sites I noticed while living there in 2007-2008 were going to be two relatively tall buildings with quite a bit underneath them, further extending the already extensive underground portion of the metro station area.)
Google Earth had apparently not updated its satellite pictures of Taiwan in quite some time, and did not even show the sites as they had been 3 years ago. I found a german site with an article about the construction, which linked to a skyscraper website with an old forum topic from about the time I was living there. Another quick search, however, revealed a recent one where someone had posted pictures. The deep holes are covered up, and vertical work is likely to begin soon, probably by the next time I manage to get to Taipei. In checking to see if anyone had posted new Taiwan-overlays for Google Earth, I came across an announcement that street-view was now available for parts of Taiwan. I went to check this out, and was rather moved to find that vast sections of Taipei are now viewable in detail from the streets. The exact alley on which I lived was not photographed, but the streets surrounding it were, and I could see all my favorite places on Yong Kong Street. I followed the photo links from Taipei over to Keelung, and found that it had been street-viewed too. I don't know how many employees Google has, but someone put in a lot of driving time... I wouldn't be surprised if Google wants to expand Google Earth into a complete visual representation of most of the Earth. They have already progressed quite far towards that goal... Using Keelung's street-view I went up onto a mountain to see if I could recreate the view of the city as I saw it when I was there on top of a mountain, but could not find the place where I had been previously. I went to look up the wikipedia article for Keelung to see if I could get my bearings, but found nothing pertaining to the statue I was looking for. I did notice that Keelung had been settled by a particular tribe before the Chinese arrived, and a few followed links led me to a map of Taiwan's indigenous tribal peoples. I noticed the Amis tribe, having met a few Taiwanese who were of Amis descent, and from their article went to search for their music on YouTube. I found the music of a famous singer named Difang, who apparently had a performance found and used by Enigma in a very famous song without crediting him. I remembered that I had heard his music in the home of a missionary in Taichung, and quickly found the original song (without drum and synth tracks) on iTunes. Definitely worth 99 cents for that one. I listened to it a few times, wondering if the song had words or simply melodic phonetic sounds, and went to look for a Cantonese language lesson video on YouTube, to check the pronunciation on a phrase I had learned from a friend at the Chinese church I go to. I did not find that phrase, but heard many others, and read an interesting article contrasting Mandarin and Cantonese and comparing their difficulty levels. (Cantonese was judged to be the more difficult of the two languages by several linguistic metrics) I then looked for a Hakka language video, as I have a few Hakka friends as well and would be interested in learning at least a few common phrases. I found what I was looking for, but will probably just have one of my friends teach me, as a later search on Wikipedia revealed that the Taiwanese variant of Hakka is not the same as the Guangdong variety, which I think is what the video was using. Reading about the Hakka people led to reading about the Mien people, -I just met a Mien lady this past weekend- who were heavily influenced by Hakka Chinese language and culture at some point in their collective pasts, and about how America used their help in Vietnam during the "Secret War" in Laos.
Now many of them live in Sacramento, apparently... Noticing that it was now after 4AM, I checked facebook and my email once again, and then checked a few webcomics that had updated after midnight. I listened again to the song by Difang, and felt very alive, as I often do when staying up this late.
For some reason the background noise of my mind dies down at these hours, and I become aware of my life, this life that we all experience in common, moment by moment. Now in the quiet hours when latest night shifts towards earliest morning, I write this short account of one night's doings, and ponder life as it passes. Small wonder I have trouble sleeping...
A mental prompting led me to check the syllabus for my World Missions Class this semester. As it turns out, I do indeed have an assignment due tomorrow, a one page essay on the World Evangelism Conference. That will be written quickly enough, the difficulty will be keeping it to anything as short as a page. Yet the thought of assignments due suggests that getting at least some sleep tonight is recommended. 3 hours of sleep is better than no sleep, perhaps.
And so this little rumination ends here. Perhaps someone will find this amusing. If not, at least my insomnia has manifested itself into written form. That should be useful later somehow.
Rest comes in many forms... sometimes sleep is not one of them.
-Joseph
Sunday, April 4, 2010
Home Someday
"Our Happy Home" - David Crowder
=============================
Hallelujah, we are on our way
Hallelujah, we are on our way to God
From Egypt lately come
Where death and darkness reign
To seek our new our better home
Where we our rest shall gain
There sin and sorrow cease
And every conflict’s o’er
There we shall dwell in endless peace
And never hunger more
Jerusalem, our happy home
Would God I were in Thee
Would God my woes were at an end
Thy joy that I might see
We soon shall join the throng
Their pleasures we shall share
And sing the everlasting song
With all the ransomed there
Jerusalem, our happy home
Would God I were in Thee
Would God my woes were at an end
Thy joy that I might see
There in celestial strains
Enraptured myriads sing
There love in every bosom reigns
For God Himself is King
Jerusalem, our happy home
Would God I were in Thee
Would God my woes were at an end
Thy joy that I might see
Jerusalem, our happy home
Would God we were in Thee
Would God our woes were at an end
Thy joy at last shall see
=========================
-Joseph
=============================
Hallelujah, we are on our way
Hallelujah, we are on our way to God
From Egypt lately come
Where death and darkness reign
To seek our new our better home
Where we our rest shall gain
There sin and sorrow cease
And every conflict’s o’er
There we shall dwell in endless peace
And never hunger more
Jerusalem, our happy home
Would God I were in Thee
Would God my woes were at an end
Thy joy that I might see
We soon shall join the throng
Their pleasures we shall share
And sing the everlasting song
With all the ransomed there
Jerusalem, our happy home
Would God I were in Thee
Would God my woes were at an end
Thy joy that I might see
There in celestial strains
Enraptured myriads sing
There love in every bosom reigns
For God Himself is King
Jerusalem, our happy home
Would God I were in Thee
Would God my woes were at an end
Thy joy that I might see
Jerusalem, our happy home
Would God we were in Thee
Would God our woes were at an end
Thy joy at last shall see
=========================
-Joseph
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