Letters from Kamp Krusty

Probably a Bad Sign

I got up late last night, came downstairs, and Jim Cantore was eating out of my refrigerator.

I hate this stuff.  And don't think I miss the obvious:  This is about the Hansens.  Palm Beach County didn't get hit for 25 years, the we move here, and we're in the EYE of the hurricane three times in the span of a year. 

The Weather Channel people are all atwitter, which means we're about to get blasted again.  It's back to the "Here's your local forecast on the 8's..." thing with the light jazz, while they show a satellite image of buzz-sawing monster storm bearing down on your life.  Scooby-do-be-dop-do, you're doing to die, do-do-bop-doo-scooby-bop... all that again.

We get to find all the hardware, and put up the ol' panel shutters!  It's kind of fun, really.  You can make a game out of it.  First person to cuss wins.

Then, a new game kicks in post-hurricane.  It's called "Where's My Ice?" and it's played by everyone over 60, who is suddenly, incomprehensibly, in an immediate panic about ice.  Last year, it was 65 degrees, and people were complaining about FEMA within two hours.  Where's my ice?  Gripey-long lines formed at FEMA stations the next day, people honking, complaining, waiting to get ice -- right next to the calm grocery store lots, where ice was 79 cents a bag.

It's certainly a comment on the ubiquity of the Weather Channel down here that we used to say "We're now in the cone of probability, a Hurricane Watch has been issued for South Florida."  Now, we just say, "Crap:  Jim's getting his head shined up." 

Losing:  Anytime, Anywhere.

I recently lost a checkers game to a Kenyan Boy Scout.  I was ahead, then choked at the end.  Someone coughed and distracted me.  The little guy spoke only Swahili, but his riotous laughter, following a double-king-jump, needed no translation.

While in Nairobi, I lost a chess game to a talk radio host from Detroit (Bob, above) who took a half-hour between moves.  I got drowsy.

I also just lost my first ever Jump-Rope-Off to a cocky, eight year old, pigtailed, "Ooh,-aren't-I-great?" little gal named Stacey.  I didn't need the crowd of a hundred or so chanting "Stace-ee, Stace-ee..."  I could have done without that.  Maybe a regulation-length rope might have helped me? 

(Family/friends:  You can see this on the video above.  It's 5 minutes.  Apologies to Nickel Creek. I am gratified that I was able, during keep-a-way, to introduce the kids to the moves of one Barry Sanders.)

I started my Global Futility program years ago, when I was kicked in the face by a soccer ball traveling at 100+ mph.  I still remember the Mexican sun framing the silhouette of the six year-old offender, looking down at me as I lay in the dust. 

I've lost at cricket, to amused little Indian kids, in the slums of Calcutta.  I've lost my boots -- a bet from a chess match -- to a tsunami survivor alongside the Indian ocean in Banda Aceh.  To a little boy named Kanaan, I lost a game of Hide-n-Seek amid the cloisters of St. Thomas Church on the sands along the Bay of Bengal, in Madras.  (They say Thomas is buried there, but I doubt it.)

In all this, of course, I'm very, very thankful that God has allowed me to see these places, and meet these people.   

And I did win once. sort of:  I kicked some Karaoke rear in Singapore.  First/last karaoke experience.  I ruled that place. 

There's a Chinese word for "Karaoke Winner", though.  Roughly translated:  Loser.

People Ask Me

A lot of people ask me, they're like, "Hey, how can you be so cool?  How do you do that?" -- they ask that.  I kind of caution them about how it's not that easy and stuff, and how it's kind of a you-got-it-or-you-don't kind of thing. 

But they're not usually satisfied with this.  They want -- nay, demand -- tips.  So I try to give them something, like where I got my awesome shoes. 

They're "sidewalk surfers" (I surf) and straight-up the most comfortable awesome shoes I've ever had.  I wear them each day as I ply my trade.  I think my awesome shoes gain respect in the workplace.  In fact, I think they must say, "Make way, and suddenly stop your quiet group laughter and quickly disperse, because now Brant's in the hall with his awesome shoes."

I give tips, but they're just tips.  One pair of awesome shoes is not going to make people this cool, and, frankly, most people don't really want the burdens of coolness:  the constant high-pitched screaming from crowds of teens, the hassles of facial-stubble cultivation, the chafing of my accordian straps.

Soren’s Mirror

Once there was a gathering of geese, in a magnificent, open-air, goose-themed amphitheatre.

The geese settled into their seats, as a regal, aging goose waddled to the stage to speak.

“There’s no point to flying,” he began. “You know that. It may have made your parents feel good, thinking there was a point to it, but the hard reality is, there’s no point to it. It's worthless. Worthless.”

His announcement, which they’d heard before, met with silent nods of approval.

“We can pretend there’s a point to it, but we know we’re really just pretending. Just pretend.  Some geese there's actually a point to flying!  They're not rational,” he said, looking over the spectacles low on his beak.

One spoke up. “But...you fly.”

Silence…then mad honks of disapproval. The temerity!

The regal goose calmed the group, and spoke lower to educate.  “Look, son, I like to pretend there’s a point to flying. That’s my right, to do as I like, and I like pretending there‘s a point.”

“So pretending there’s a point isn’t pointless? Flying has no value, but pretending it has value does have value? I don’t under-- “

“Well, no, pretending is pointless, too.” A long silence.

Another young goose cracked her voice.

“Well, of course I'm strong enough to know there's no real point.  But...I...um...do you tell your goslings that there’s no real point to flying?”

“Er…no,” he said. “But they’ll learn, in time. For now, they act like there’s a point. All goslings think there's a point. But they’ll learn it’s pointless.”

“But...I'm confused.  Even though pretending is pointless, we want them to keep thinking that --”

And the honks drowned her out, as the service ended. “It’s pointless to fly! It’s pointless to fly! It’s pointless to fly!” they cried in unison. “It’s pointless! Pointless! It’s all pointless! Flying is pointless!”

And then they all flew home.

Nerd Fun!

I could do this all day.

Google Trends.  You type in the term, they tell you which cities search for that term the most.  It may help tell us what's on everyone's minds, their innermost desires:

"Baseball"?  St. Louis.

"Free vacation"?  Oklahoma City.

"Dee Brown"?  Urbana, Illinois.

"Divorce"?  Houston.  Then Dallas.

"Anti-Depressants"?  Unsurprisingly, it's Salt Lake City.  (Utah is #1 for Prozac use.)

"Marriage counseling"?  Nashville.

"David Crowder Band"?  Waco.  This is ironic, because David says, people in Waco know where he lives.  They can find him without Google.

"Jesus"?  Seven Spanish-speaking cities, followed by Dallas and Atlanta.

"Marijuana"?  Portland.  ("Drugs" gives you Vancouver, while "Addiction" gives you Vancouver, then Portland.)

Big search terms for where I live:  "Sea Lice" and "Money"

Let me know if you play with this and find something cool.  Neither of my two top search terms, "Brant Hansen" and "free funyons" registered enough searches to warrant statistical analysis, it says.

The Real Atheists Club

I don't think atheists are bad people.  Not at all.  This video is, I guess, making a point about what wonderful people atheists can be.  They're "not so bad", it says -- they can be smart and generous and good spouses and all that. 

Well, let's see:  Duh.

(If you watch it, do look past the way it bungles the meaning of the word, "fool", which is kinda...foolish.  We were all young, once.)

Of course, I've never thought atheists were bad people.  I don't think atheists are necessarily hedonists, or can't have great marriages, or don't make good parents.  I don't think that at all. 

I just don't think atheists exist.

People who say there is no God?  They exist.  And some of them are some of the coolest people you'll ever meet.  And moral, too.  They think killing an innocent person for no reason is wrong, period.  They think lying to friends just for personal gain is wrong, period.  They can be very other-centered, compassionate, charitable, and merciful.  You might even say some atheists are some of the most upstanding people you'll meet.

Shoot, it's almost like -- no, it's exactly like -- at some level, they believe in God.

Frequently, I'll mention on-air (as a challenge, really, to Christians) Dallas Willard's wisdom:  What you believe isn't what you say you believe, what you really believe is what you do.

And sometimes, what you do gives you away, right?

I agree with J. Budziszewski of UTexas (who's really agreeing with C.S. Lewis, for starters) that there are some things we just can't not know.  Take any freshman ethics course, and you'll be struck by the god-free attempts to find some basis for our in-common sense of what's right.  They're "elegant contrivances", to be sure:  systems developed to somehow, some way, explain this nagging sense that we all have, universally, for justification.  It's inescapable, though, that none of these contrivances make any sense, or have any ultimate grounding, if we're here by happenstance.  None.  (Trust me, I've searched, asked, debated people who make their living arguing for their atheism.  There's no binding response coming, becaause it doesn't exist.)

Am I saying atheists are lying about their atheism?   Not really.  Denial is a pretty well-established concept in psychology.   I practice it in subtle ways, daily.  (Another post.)

Just check the polls on morality.  Pollsters will ask something like, "Do you agree that ultimately, what's 'right' or 'wrong' is up to the individual, that there's no absolute truth that transcends us?"  And they'll find a large percentage will say "Yes, I agree with that."  People will say that, but no one actually believes it.  Thankfully, we know this from their behavior, and the way they'll properly consider wrong -- just plain wrong -- the actions of racists, or sexual predators. 

They say something, they think they believe it! -- but they don't believe it.  They're not lying to the pollster.  It happens.  Denial is complex.

Irony:  The video's parade of "goodness" from atheists doesn't make the case for atheism, it makes the case for Goodness.  If we're cosmic accidents, it simply makes no sense to make this appeal if we don't know what "good" means. 

I already know the counter-arguments.  "But we're only saying that society has determined these things are 'good', and we can do those things, too, and..."  Yes, of course.  But I'm actually giving you more credit than, "You just go with the societal flow, here..."  I'm saying these are real, and deep, convictions, deeper than some contract with society we never signed, deeper than some utilitarian point-system someone came up with that binds no one, deeper than a majority vote. 

These are things we can't not know.  We've never stopped knowing them, we just lost our confidence that we can know them.

We all know.  Every society in the history of man has acknowledged some transcendence.  Sigmud Freud, who said belief in God was wish-fulfillment, nevertheless spent his life reacting, personally and professionally, to this God Who Did Not Exist.  Uber-Krusty Richard Dawkins (handled nicely here) tries, vainly, to contrive meaning in a universe without God, even as he mocks believers for refusing to face the cold wind of truth.

Atheists don't exist.  All of us are quite obviously desperate for a very deep justification.  Desperate, and our consciences will stop at nothing to get it.   That need for justification shouldn't be there.  So why does Dawkins have it? 

The cold wind of truth is this:  Contrive away, but it's just your lonely contrivance.  Without transcendence, meaning is up for grabs, which is another way of saying, there isn't any.  There is matter and physical law, and that's it, no more.  There's no binding reason to object to cruelty to humans or animals.  We can contrive neat little stories, but ultimately, there's no point to hope, or love.

And really no one, including, very obviously, Richard Dawkins, believes that.

Because what you really believe is what you do, right?

We Saw This Commercial the Other Night for Some New Oscar Mayer Hot Dogs

We saw this commercial the other night for some new Oscar Mayer hot dogs.  They're new, and loaded with new feature!

You see, they come already in a bun.  It's a nice feature, and the commercial drives home that it's for the modern parent who doesn't have time for the tiresome, old-school approach.

I appreciate this, because this isn't the 1950's.  We parents don't have the kind of time it takes to fix a quality hot dog meal for the kids, what with all that picking up the hot dogs, placing them in buns, and on and on and and on and on and on and so forth ad nauseum.  Whew.

This is perfect for those breezy, laid-back, summer days.  You know the type --  when you can't summon the energy to move your limbs.

And, newfound time!  Time, formerly wasted with bun-putting.  I plan to pursue that second career, learn another language, volunteer in my community, and join a fourth fantasy football league.

Gettin' Clumsy Wid It

J-Cap and I like to laugh about our common malady:  We can barely live with being misunderstood.  Drives us NUTS.

And yet...every time you put pen to paper, finger to key, or open a microphone, you're going to be misunderstood.  Shoot, silence can be misinterpreted, too.  I still don't get Grebbo Marx or whatever his name was.

Here's a nice illustration of things I have to let go.  I don't blame the reporter at all, but I want to add, after each paragraph, "That's not quite what I meant to say, in context..."

Fact is, she did a great job.  I was kinda...clumsy.

I tried to relate that Jesus had his own explanation of the "Good News", and it was a message that clearly meant certain things to his audience.  What, widely, we now call the Gospel -- that Good News -- doesn't really capture what Jesus was talking about. 

In fact, ask most evangelicals, or Bible-believing fundamentalists, and they won't be able to tell you what Jesus's own "Good News" was.  You'll get a blank stare.  (I tried this recently with a Christian talk radio host, a cool, funny, very bright guy who teaches apologetics on his program.  "What did Jesus say the 'Good News' was in Mark 1?  You know, the message he sent his disciples to share?"  -- no idea.)

So, we've lost something really good, but lately, we're seeing people talking about the Good News -- the Kingdom is here -- and understanding its wonderful implications.   When people know what it means to want the Kingdom to come, here on earth, as it is in Heaven, well, they can't wait to make sure little babies in malaria-infested villages have mosquito nets over them. 

I didn't do a very good job of laying this out.  Part of it's because, while many reporters well understand the gospel as we've explained it, they're yet unfamiliar the good news that Jesus sent his disciples out to share in Mark 1. 

That may say something about us.

The One, Last, Interesting Thing

Did you hear?  Get this -- Madonna is hanging on a cross in...her...concert...and...she sings...and she...mocks the...can't stay...awake...I just...zzzzzzzzzz...

Sorry, Madonna.   Sorry, artistic establishment.  You're not shocking.  You're what we call, "boring".  Deeply, profoundly, but not at all shockingly, boring.  Your fellow pop culture dealers even continue a daunting project:  rendering sex boring.

But it's no surprise that, thematically, you continue to come back to the one, last, interesting thing.  You do it all the time.   Only problem is, ironic allusions, or outright mockeries, of Jesus don't really wake us up anymore.  Nothing does for more than a few minutes, really. 

Our culture is dying, and we're in need of a pair of those electric-paddle-heart-jumper-cable-thingies they use in the E.R.

R.R. Reno knows what that would look like, italics mine:

I don’t think our situation is too complicated. My students tend to be shocked by self-discipline, piety, loyalty, and love. One of my former students is a monk at a local monastery. I had him teach a class on Thomas Merton. The students were taken aback.

I am convinced that the avant-garde today is to be found in piety and love... The postmodern educational aesthetic of critique is loveless, or maybe more accurately, it lives on the hollow love of its own impiety. It is the professor who conveys his love for Henry James or T.S. Eliot who wins the day. It is the novelist who loves humanity who is cutting against the spirit of the age.

Our society is numb, dead, boring, and Tozer was right:  it has put out "the light in men's souls."  We've literally dis-enchanted the world.

-- and yet, there remains that one, last, interesting thing.  It so happens that the last thing, the very last thing the artistic establishment would embrace, not only has meaning, it fills the world -- every single thing -- again with wonder.

I'm Sorry: My Attitude Stinks

Mm, yeah...ah...I did the math.

Went to this medium-sized, mainline, American church, budget of $1 million a year, negative growth.  Yeah.  Let's see:  $1 million, negative growth, no one new added to the church, tiny fraction of budget sent elsewhere.  Multi-thousand dollar sound and light system.

And yeah -- here's a rural church:  Budget $125,000, three new converts, per year.  Three-thousand dollar sound system.   And a liberal church in town:  Neat sermons and posters aimed at idenfication with the poor.  Budget of $400,000, almost none sent out of country.  Instead, vast majority to church leaders (Americans), who give sermons about how America isn't the be-all end-all.  Zero-to-negative growth. 

Big church down the street, $20 million budget, several hundred newcomers.  Staff of more than a hundred.  Kickin' video things accompanying awesome singer-people, trying -- pleading! -- to persuade people that Heaven is really going to awesome.  Kids' wing -- BibleFunLand -- is already awesome!

Growing church in Africa:   Let's see...can't afford single guitar.  Pastor not eating very much.  Children in church program not obese -- malnourished.  Church aches to feed desperate children lined with their parents outside the building, but no money to do it.  Trying -- trying -- to scrounge money for ARV drugs for AIDS victims in fellowship. 

Two hundred children in program, total toys:  one jump-rope.

Let's see, divide by six...carry the three...uh-huh...

Yep, this makes no damn sense.