Journal

I've been working on this sermon for what feels like weeks. Kind of because I have been. Except that I took all last week off.

I knew from the beginning, when St. Mark's asked me to preach, that I would have to talk about my time in Japan. St. Mark's and Praise were the two churches that did the most to sponsor me...and I had a lot of personal support from family friends at St. Mark's who sent me letters and email and care packages while in Japan. When I requested children's books, they came through in epic form. I think I had over 100 by the time they were done...and I really only needed 10 or so. :)

So, yeah...St. Mark's needs to hear what they helped with.

The problem is, I find it difficult to really talk about my time in Japan. Not because it was bad, or that I don't want to talk about it--more because I don't really have any epic, life-changing stories that one comes to expect from missionary experiences.

So how do I write a sermon about my time in Japan, when I don't really have a lot to say? I gave a talk about the generalities of Japanese Christianity to my parents' Sunday School class just after returning. And that went well. People seemed really interested in it. But that won't really work for a sermon.

A couple of weeks ago, I preached at St. Paul's in Boise City, and I did a kind of "rough draft" missions sermon for them that I hoped I could adjust and reuse for this occasion. Unfortunately, I was never very happy with how that sermon came out. And it didn't go over all that well at St. Paul's. Again, it didn't go over badly...I just don't think people really understood it, or they didn't feel like it was a pressing issue in their lives. That...and I just had a hard time figuring out what I was trying to say.

And that's the problem I'm having. I want to say something. I've been asked to say something. I just don't know what that something is. But this is part of the job--when there is no time to wait for creativity to just flow, and you just have to force it. And very few things hurt worse than forcing your own creativity.

Well, I'll be driving back to Tulsa today. I'm preaching at my home church on Sunday (St. Mark's UMC). After that comes the writing sabbatical. I'll still be posting here on the Daily, but most of the writing action will be taking place over at BDWHITE.com. The mircoblag will of course be getting regular updates as well.

Also, I'm guessing I'm going to have cell phone service again once I'm back in Tulsa (been without it out here in Boise City for the better part of a month now). So, if you've been just dying to give me a call (and I know you have!), you'll have your chance for about a week and a half starting tomorrow!

The final episode (well, really final 4 episodes) of Avatar: The Last Airbender aired tonight on Nickelodeon. It has been a long, long wait for Avatar fans. For various reasons, production of the cartoon went in fits and jumps. I'm really glad that Nickelodeon went ahead and aired all the remaining episodes in one grand Avatar week rather than stretching it out even further.

The final "movie" was, in my opinion, a good ending to the story. They did leave a small opening for future shows (or, I suspect for the live-action movie already in production) to continue on. But, all the really unsettling loose ends of the story were summed up by the end in a very gratifying way. I did feel like the "solution" for ending the war was very Deus Ex Machina...but we're talking about the spiritual link and master of all the elements here. And, I really appreciated that there was such an emphasis on the idea of the sanctity of life.

I think it was this emphasis in particular that reminded me of my favorite Japanese anime: Trigun. If you're a fan of Avatar, and have never seen Trigun, I would definitely recommend it. Of course, it's a very different story. But many of the same story elements exist. It's just presented in a more...Japanese sort of way. Which is somewhat ironic, considering that Trigun takes place in a Spaghetti Western-style apocalyptic future and Avatar has really tried to work within an Asian cultural world.

spoiler alert
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xkcd does it again. As a philosophy major, I'm allowed to laugh:

Hidden Text: If you think this is too hard on literary criticism, read the Wikipedia article on deconstruction.

I've attended all the seminars. I've gone to the meetings. I've even tried to put myself in others' shoes, working jobs I've had no business working, traveling far and abroad to those areas where my shining whiteness would set me apart even further, trying to escape who I really am: a Caucasian Male Overlord.

Seriously. I've done all those things.

Okay. I'll admit that I was never really trying to escape from my own cultural heritage. However, I've done my absolute best to be understanding and knowledgeable about cultures and peoples different from me.

But, especially after the seminars (yes, I have indeed attended several seminars intended to help me, as a CMO, to be more understanding of those I've trampled upon in my past lives), I just always came away with the feeling that...I was never meant to understand.

Perhaps part of it is my "problem-fixing" attitude. If there is a problem, I want to fix it. Tell me the problem! Let me fix it!

"You can't!" is the cry that is returned. "Look, there you go again. Using your Overlord powers, thinking you can just go around fixing things for us. The whole point is--we don't need you to fix things for us!"

Oh. Okay. I'll do my best to leave well enough alone, then. Is that what you want?

"Racist!" I am taken aback. "How can you just sit back and leave things as they are? Haven't you seen the oppression you have caused--the way society is broken? Doing nothing is the same as supporting the broken ways of society."

So what am I supposed to do?

Really. I'm asking. I want to know. I'm at a loss...

Okay, was that a bit dramatic? Probably. But it really is how I feel sometimes. I just read a blog post from one of my old students at Praise. A Korean-American. And a female. Certainly someone who can embrace the title of "minority", right? And yet, in her post, I saw her throw back the attempts of society's retribution with disdain. I've seen this before. One of my classmates, Prisca, often expressed similar opinions.

I'll quote only a small portion of the blog post (though it's worth reading the whole--she is an incredible writer)--and, ishelleyi, I'm not doing this to embarrass you, it's an amazing post, and it's clearly gotten me thinking:

yellow fingers tremble frailly as i pick up the thick, official envelope from my bed.

"Cornell University Office of Minority Educational Affairs"

...tears filling my slanted eyes, i turn my palms up to the ceiling, filled with nothing but overflowing gratitude toward the kind caucasians, for the great american way of life, in which we declare everybody equal, except that some americans might need a little bit more help, based on the tiny little factor of their coloration.

I think I understand where she is coming from (can I really say that...am I allowed to say "I understand"?). But...what are we to do ("we", as in I and my fellow CMOs)? We can't simply do nothing. We're not allowed to.

So what are we supposed to do?

I'm really asking. I know I have several minority (sorry if the term is insulting to you) readers--please tell me what I'm supposed to do.

I'm curious if perhaps there is some disagreement among minorities as to what "is to be done." That might explain some of my confusion. But, of course, that doesn't really make things any easier on me. After all, it's a hard job, being leader of the free world (and the un-free world, for that matter).

I haven't had much to write about recently. I guess I've just been so busy with the planting that there really hasn't been much time for much else. Now that the farming is "done", though, I'm going to make a concerted effort this week to get some content on the ol' blog that is worth a read. Right now, I'm planning on at least 1 open source post and 1 theology post. Let's see if I can actually get both of them done.

I played quite a bit more Etrian Odyssey II today. Such a hard game! So many times I trudged into the labyrinth only to get unexpectedly sliced to pieces by some random enemy. One time in particular was especially harsh. I had spent nearly an hour mapping out almost all of the 3rd floor. I was getting seriously low on HP and TP, so I decided it was time to warp out...only to realize that I had neglected to buy the item in town that would allow me to warp out of the maze. This meant I had to backtrack all the way through the 3rd, 2nd, and 1st floors to the entrance. I was most worried about the 3rd floor, but I miraculously made it through there...only to accidentally bump into a FOE halfway through the 2nd floor. Dead. All that work...gone (because you can only save your game in town).

But, for some weird reason...it's these kinds of difficulties that make this game really fun. In Final Fantasy games, I usually get annoyed at having to constantly go in and out of a dungeon...I just want to move on with the story. But here, because there isn't much story to speak of, the game becomes much more about the strategy of moving through the maze carefully, and knowing when it's time to tuck tail and run. A whole new way of playing an RPG for me.

Sorry...I didn't mean for this to become another EO2 mini-review. Let's just leave it with: OSS and theology posts coming soon! Yay!

I don't know if you've been able to tell from the microblags (via identica, which is awesome), but I've been pretty busy ever since the ground got dry enough to start planting. I was on the tractor pretty close to 12 hours yesterday, and 8 hours the day before. I had some reprieve today, since I was involved with some stuff at church, but tomorrow I'll be back out. I'm hoping we'll get everything planted tomorrow. We should be pretty close, at least.

The recent rain has really made a difference in how the country looks right now. Just a week ago, everything was brown and dusty. It basically looked like we were in the middle of winter, except that it was 90 degrees outside. But even after just under 2 inches of rain, the grass in greening up, and the trees are starting to look much healthier. It's really amazing what just a tiny bit of rain will do. Here's hoping we get a lot more a few days after we finish planting!

Here's something I like:

Rainy days that force you to stay inside and read a good book. (This is made especially good when there hasn't been any rain for months.)

This has been something I like.
What do you like?