Divine Drama

I just started a book by Michael Horton called A Better Way: Rediscovering the Drama of Christ-Centered Worship. In the second chapter he summarizes a common postmodern mindset and compares it to a movie script. Instead of man recognizing his place in God's master drama of the universe, he wants to star in his own impromptu monologue. Here's a great quote from pg. 34:

While today our identities are more the scattered clippings of ideal images packaged and marketed to us in a barrage of advertising masquerading as entertainment, the "self" who is rendered in the biblical drama of redemption is a solid self only because he or she belongs to a story that is much larger than oneself. In the former, the identities of others (usually celebrities) are consumed and made a part of my life and identity. In the latter, the real identities (not images) of the many biblical characters become the context in which my life makes sense. It is here where strangers and aliens finally belong to God and become part of his family throughout history. In the former, even God himself is "appropriated," drawn into our script, ending in futililty, while in the latter, even the most villainous character can be drawn into the divine drama by the director as a new character.

Because this book was copyrighted in 2002, reality TV (which is probably America's current main type of entertainment) had not nearly reached the level that it has in the last couple years, and it did not have the impact that it has today. Michael Horton could not have had a full understanding of where it would lead, though entertainment was already headed that way. His perception of what was happening is accurate, and things are so much worse now. Today it has truly caused people to think that they can be the next celebrity and star in a TV show if only Hollywood would discover them. It makes them completely focused on themselves, and they spend endless amounts of time and money making themselves appear better.

I love how he summarizes the attitude we should have. We should recognize that we are part of the grand drama of the universe. God has chosen to use both those of us that love Him and those who don't to make His name great and His glory shine. And, by God's grace, we can even have joy in this fact. Christians get to enjoy making much of Him forever. This gives true meaning to life.

There is no situation in life where you can make plans and arrange things and just add God in later. He writes the script and directs the drama. Therefore, He is the foundation upon which we build everything that we do in life. I pray that God would increasingly show me my role in His master plan, and use me to bring glory to His name forever.

Donner Expedition - Chapter 6

After hearing that we had potentially been chased by a criminal, we were more scared than ever. But, the policeman assured us that the man did not have a white SUV of any kind, and that he would know if the guy had gone to the campground because the man's tracking device would have alerted the police. Next he explained a few facts about fires to us. Apparently a fire that has been completely doused can come back. I guess firefighters experience that all the time. Who knew?

Then the policeman offered to go back to the campground with us so we could get our stuff. Of course we would not have gone back in the dark alone (who cares what we had left there when our lives were in danger?), but we felt fine about going back with him. He also wanted to see if there were any signs of our "visitor."

When we got there, we found everthing exactly as we had left it. The dishes we had cooked with were still on the picnic table. Our tent was zipped, and nothing had been moved. And there were no footprints anywhere in the muddy ground. We now fully understood just how much of the experience had been in our imaginations. And it all started because of the fire (which had completely died down at this point). My uncle laughed at us, and then he asked the policeman to turn on his siren as he left! Not funny!

So, the moral of the story is this: Don't do something if you are clueless about it. We were clueless about camping and failed to follow the advice we had received (especially "camp near a family"). The result was disaster. We were able to still have somewhat of a camping experience by using someone's yard, but that's not exactly what we had set out to do.

In the end, we did not have a sucessful trip by which we proved to our guy friends how much we could do. But we did have lots of memories and one heck of a story.

One Month!

Yesterday, May 8th, marked one month of dating Jeff. I was at work all day and had to go straight to church for my last Greek class. Jeff and I exchanged e-mail congratulations, but I didn't think I would see him that day. When Kerry and I got home around 9, I walked into the house not thinking anything was unusual. Then I saw Jeff in my dining room holding a rose and waiting to congratulate me in person. I gasped (no screaming, Marissa) and was so happy just to see him there. He's so sweet!