Interstitiality

Movie Weekend

Michelle, Adam, and I settled in for a long weekend of movies. I think we all realized that an eventful weekend, tromping around Chicago, was not in the cards for us. So we rented three movies, and we watched them all. Understand that I have a bunch of borrowed movies that I need to return to folks that I have yet to see. Still, our family felt like we deserved a weekend of movie time, watching movies that we wanted to see.

Adam’s choice was Napoleon Dynamite. Michelle was dreading having to watch it. In the end, it was delightfully quirky movie about a nerdy kid, who somehow finds love among the smiley faces of a town somewhere in Idaho. Even if you have not heard of this movie, chances are you have heard some of its sound bytes coming out of the mouths of our youth. It is really a fun movie. I enjoyed it. How can you not like a movie with this line in it?: (Napoleon to his new friend Pedro) “You know, there's like a butt-load of gangs at this school. This one gang kept wanting me to join because I'm pretty good with a bow staff.” Or Napoleon’s great line about what girls want…a guy with skills: “You know, like nunchuck skills, bowhunting skills, computer hacking skills... Girls only want boyfriends who have great skills.” Yesssssssss!

My choice was Riding Giants, which was documentary on big wave surfing. The film actually opened this year’s Sundance Film Festival and was well received. It is one of the better surf documentaries that I have seen. There is some amazing footage. The best scene in the movie showed Laird Hamilton, today’s best big wave rider, tackling a wave in Tahiti, at a spot called Teahopu’u. The wave itself is fairly large, but the lip on this wave is seriously about 10-15 feet thick.

The best part of the movie, however, was the stories that the big wave riders told. This is a great movie for surfer and non-surfer alike.

The last movie that we watched (Michelle didn’t go to Blockbuster as you can probably tell), was Shaolin Soccer. This movie is a combination of Enter the Dragon, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, and Victory (or Bend it Like Beckham if you prefer). It combines great martial arts special effects, a corny story line, and great soccer action. This would be great for a movie party, especially if you like to have folks over for a non-serious, fun, and entertaining movie. It was all these things. The dubbed English version is even done in the over-the-top voice characterizations that are common to martial arts B movies. I loved it.

Update

There is some good news on the Yamada family front. Apparently after some further tests, my dad’s aneurysm turned out to be an old one. It has already calcified, which means that he is in no immediate danger of it bursting. He is still going to have to undergo a series of neurological exams, because he had a period of fainting spells last week; but this is good news.

End of Another Reading Week

Still no update about dad. I will be calling him later today to find out about any new developments.

It is the end of another reading week, which means that I have at least a half a dozen things on my "to do" list that have not been checked off.

My kids are beginning to go through TV withdrawls. They decided, on their own, that they would have a screen fast, i.e., no TV, computer entertainment, or game consoles for 40 days. I agreed later to give them a dollar a day for their fast. So, instead of a feast at the end of Lent, they will get a healthy sum of money. I know, it sounds sick, doesn't it? Still, it is helping them stay motivated and creative when life gets boring for them around the house.

Prayers

Please pray for my dad, Frank Yamada, Sr. He was recently diagnosed with a brain aneurysm. The doctor has not yet scheduled him for surgery. This weekend looks likely. According to his wishes, I am not flying out, at least not yet. My father has mucho tenacity. He has survived three heart attacks, diabetes, and four kids a total of four years apart. I am hoping that this is just another case of dad dodging the proverbial bullet. I have been dealing with the inevitability of his passing since his first heart attack in the late 70s. He is a proud man, giving to a fault, and a good father.

Rest From the Weekend

What a busy weekend! Saturday, Stephen and Adam had a fencing tournament near Arlington Heights. It was a beginners' tournament, and both boys are considered beginners even though they have been taking fencing lessons for almost three years (this is their first year of consistent competition). Both boys did wonderfully! Adam, who is always the youngest and smallest competitor at these tournaments, actually won a few bouts, which is pretty good when most of his competitors are high schoolers and adults. Stephen is also young compared to his competition. He, however, finished second in the sabre competition. In fact, he would have made a bid to win the tournament if it weren’t for some biased side judging. The two of the four side judges were from the same high school fencing team as Stephen’s competitor. Even the other fencer began to notice that the calls were not equitable. So half-way through the bout, in a gesture of good sportsmanship, he began to acknowledge touches that the side judges were deliberately missing. The head judge would then award Stephen the touch even without support from the side judges. Stephen was happy with his placing even though he was miffed by the unfairness of the final.

After a long day at the tournament, we had decided to celebrate by eating at Outback Steakhouse. We like OS because the prices are relatively inexpensive, the meat is fairly decent, and there is something for everyone in our family to eat. Adam had his usual, a lobster tail. Stephen shared my prime rib and Michelle’s Top Sirloin. OS has some sentimental value for our family. We have ended up there many times after significant events, at times by accident, at times by design. For this reason it is a family favorite. We have associated OS with celebration. I realize that this choice doesn’t sit well with some of my vegetarian friends or with some of my “classier” friends; but that is the nature of sentiment isn’t it? It’s not rationale. We like it because we like it.

Yesterday, after church, we took the boys to the Chicago Auto Show. What an event! It is going on for one more week at McCormick Place. Adam is pretty car-crazed right now. He knows the model and manufacturer of most cars that pass us on the road. That he got to see all new models and a few concept cars meant that Adam was experiencing a personal nirvana of sorts. He was walking on clouds the whole time. Just seeing his face when he saw a Lambourghini Gallardo was worth the price of admission.

Sermon: What Are You Doing?

What Are You Doing?

Sermon Preached on February 11, 2005
Seabury-Western Theological Seminary

Well, it’s Lent again. And at this time of the year, there is that predictable question that comes out of all of our mouths, similar to the question that we ask around New Year’s. At New Year’s we ask, “So what is your New Year’s resolution?” And one week after New Year’s we ask, “So how long did you last?” At Lent, of course, the question is: “What are you giving up for Lent?” And then one week later, “So how long did you last?” I will always remember my first Lent. One of the college pastors had suggested fasting—a topic that is central to our OT lesson from Isaiah, Psalm 51, and the text from Matthew’s gospel. What he didn’t make clear was how to fast, or how long one should fast. Not being raised in the church, when I heard that we should fast, I assumed that meant that I shouldn’t eat...for a long time. I made it until the third or fourth day of Lent, before my will caved in. I found that living on just water for that amount of time makes you dizzy, and hungry. I also felt something else when I broke my fast...guilt. I thought that I had failed God, that my flesh was too weak, that I had proved yet again that I was a hopeless sinner. You have to love that good ole American evangelical guilt. I understood that fasting was supposed to help me clear my mind so that I could focus on prayer and the godly things that were really important. What I found at the end of my fast was that, more so than ever, I was focused on me—my own weak condition, my own failures and shortcomings.

When we read a passage like the one we find in Isaiah 58, with its call for justice and fair treatment of all people especially those who are oppressed, I think it is our tendency to see how we fall short, how we don’t measure up as the community of God’s people. And our congregations and communities are easy targets for such criticism. We are too white, too male, too heterosexual, and definitely too wealthy. Most of all, we feel guilty—guilty for who we are, guilty for who we are not, guilty for the accidents of birth that were dealt to us, guilty for those who are present and for those who are not. I have observed an interesting phenomenon when people of color share their stories of marginalization, isolation, and humiliation. Stories that arise inevitably when you live in a society that values some group of people over others based on the color of skin, gender, income, or sexual orientation. Usually the response to such stories from a predominantly white congregation or community is guilt—thick, nasty, ugly white guilt. If we step back and look at such a response, it looks odd doesn’t it? A person—a fellow human being—is experiencing pain, and rather than empathy, compassion, or even resolve that this should never happen to anybody, we find responses of guilt. And then the blame game begins. “Why do you have to bring that up again?” “Why does everything have to be about race?” OR from people of color, “Why does my pain have to be all about you?” “Why don’t you listen or do something?” The finger pointing and blame suggest that we haven’t progressed much farther than our primeval ancestors in the garden. When something goes wrong, literally all hell breaks loose, and we exit the garden alienated from each other and from God. This madness has to stop.

So what do we do? Of course, there are no easy solutions to such a problem. The cultural scripts from which we respond are persistent and reinforced through the structures within which we live. I think, however, that the prophet’s words in Isaiah 58 point to a different way—even as Jesus’ eating with sinners suggests a new reality—a new way of being the community of God, one where all are welcome to the great banquet of the LORD. Unlike the assumptions behind our questions about Lent—What do we have to give up? What is it that I am not doing?—the scripture compels us to think about how our actions or inactions communicate who we are. The prophet is not brow-beating, but is appealing to the best of our human instincts—the kinds of things we normally feel when we see a fellow human being in need. When you see another person bound and in chains, isn’t there a voice inside you that says, “free him, free her.” When you see someone hungry, dying with a bloated belly from famine, isn’t it your instinct to want to get some food in that person’s mouth? When you see someone exposed to the cold of winter with no place to stay, don’t you wish you could clothe that person? The guilt comes when we shut off those God given instincts and, as the scripture says, “hide ourselves from our own kin.”

“Is not this the fast that I choose:
to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke,
to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke?
Is it not to share your bread with the hungry,
and bring the homeless poor into your house;
When you see the naked, to cover them, and not to hide yourself from your own kin?
Then your light shall break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up quickly;
Your vindicator shall go before you, the glory of the LORD shall be your rear guard.
Then you shall call, and the LORD will answer;
You shall cry for help, and he will say, Here I am.”

If we live into who we are as the people of God, if we listen to the voice of the Spirit that compels us toward the plight of our fellow human being regardless of skin color, gender, sexual orientation, or class; then we begin to live into the vision of humanity that lies behind this great feast that we call the banquet of the LORD, where Jesus, God’s son, dines with sinners. Amen

Back Up Again...

We were having troubles with the MT software. It looks like they are fixed, and I am now able to blog again. I just got finished cleaning up some of the spam on my blog. Ugh! Someone should take spammers and hang them by their toe nails.

On another note, I went 10-1 for the post season as the Pats won their third Super Bowl in four years. No more arguments, this team is a dynasty. I bet Pui-Lan is happy.