June 2005 Archives
Yesterday was my brother Evan's 25th birthday. It's hard to imagine that we're getting that old, but we still have alot of kid in our hearts, so I'm sure the adventures won't end any time soon. So in honor of my brother, here is a top ten list of memories that we've shared over the years. The only hard part of making this list is cutting it down to 10. Anyone who reads this should also use the comment link to post their own top 10.
10. Cleaning gutters--some kids mow lawns, but Evan and I mostly cleaned gutters for our high school spending money. Although we both probably would have rather been doing something else, working together was a bonding experience that has become a good memory.
9. Driving to CO together--when I decided to go back to Montana to be close to Brooke, Evan drove out with me as far as Colorado. Even though it only took us a day and a half, I loved having time with my brother when I wasn't sure how often I would be able to return home....
Tonight I watched a documentary on PBS about Joe Louis and I decided I should write an entry about how I've felt resentful toward the movie Cinderella Man since the trailers started running earlier in the year. I've told Brooke a few times that I didn't want to see the movie, but it was hard to explain why. Really, I do want to see the film and I've heard that it's good, but I'm uneasy about a feeling that Jim Braddock gets a movie because stories that celebrate white heroes are marketable. The sport of boxing has always been charged with racial meaning, from the days of Jack Johnson to the present, and since I've become more and more burried in the racial history of the US, movies like Rocky and Cinderella Man strike a nerve. When boxing matches were often billed as racial contests, what does it say that even when many of the greatest boxers have been black, the greatest boxing heroes in our cultural memory are always white?
Congratulations to Emmaus Way for launching its website! The url is:
Emmaus Way is my sister's new church community in Durham. The church meets in a loft above a trendy coffee shop/ice cream parlor on 9th street, a center of community life in one of Durham's oldest neighborhoods. They are also experimenting with some new approaches to sharing their faith that are really promising and I'm glad that they are making some progress in establishing a presence that is accessible and welcoming, as well as fresh and authentic. Check out the site and if you're ever in Durham, drop by the church and tell them Miles says "hello."
I saw that CNN was doing a long segment on Billy Graham today since he is in New York. Here is a great article that I saw posted elsewhere and I thought others might like to read about it.
Batman Begins
Rated PG-13, 2 hr 20 min
Critics' Rating: B+
Miles's Rating: B+
Brooklynne's Rating: B+
Friday night, Brooklynne and I went to see Batman Begins. It was not the first choice for either of us; I hated the first three Batman movies because they were too cartoonish. This one was much less about star power, costumes, and effects, and much more about characters and plot--a pleasant surprise, although there was room for improvement.
The first half of the movie is about Bruce Wayne's troubled past that gives him the motive and the skills to become the dark knight. The film rehashes the death of Wayne's parents and he is then recruited by a mysterious brotherhood of crimefighters, but they have a falling out over differences in philosophies. This background was interesting but could have been better if the writers/director developed Wayne's struggle over the issue that leads to his decision to defect.
One of the main themes of the film is fear and its crippling effects. There were some really great scare scenes that had the potential to make viewers really feel the fear and experience what the film is about. But these scenes are too few and far between to take the movie to the next level.
The greatest, most annoying flaw in the movie though, was the filmmakers' apparent ignorance of the fact that people are made mostly of water. But that's all I'll say because I don't want to ruin the story. You'll know what I mean when you see the movie.
Overall, the movie was entertaining, fun, and well made. It was mild enough for a date and if you see it in the theater, you won't come out saying you wished you had waited for the video.
Here is a link that I found to be convicting. How often do I actually tithe? I'm sure that if I counted I'd be a miserable failure. What other areas do we fall short of realizing the radical transformation that Christ is supposed to have on our lives?
So tonight I'm going running instead of a real post, but I can't break my streak, so here's a couple pictures of the Beaner. More to come....
Today Brooklynne and I traded places and tried out traditional gender roles for the first time since September--I went to work and she stayed home and made dinner. And boy did she make an exquisite culinary masterpiece! The meal was so great that I am recording the recipe here for family, friends, and our own future reference.
You will need:
2 tomatoes with their seeds removed and chopped;
1/4 cup of thinly sliced fresh basil (or more to taste);
1 garlic clove chopped fine or mashed through one of those garlic things;
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar;
3/4 teaspoon salt;
1/4 teaspoon coarsely ground black pepper;
2 6-8 oz. salmon fillets (leave the skin on);
1/4 teaspoon ground cumin;
1/2 teaspoon olive oil;
2 servings of your favorite fun-shaped pasta (bowties recommended);
Grated parmesan cheese.
Directions:
Cook the pasta while you're doing the rest of these steps so it is ready on time.
Combine the tomatoes, basil, garlic, vinegar, 1/2 teaspoon of the salt, and 1/8 teaspoon of pepper. This will make a tomato relish.
Next, sprinkle the salmon with the cumin and the rest of the salt and pepper. Heat the oil in a skillet to medium-high. Put the salmon in, skin side up, and cook for 4 minutes. Flip it over and cook for another minute. Then cover the pan, reduce the heat to medium, and cook until the salmon in done through, about 2-3 minutes. You can leave the skin on the salmon and just avoid eating it, or peel it off before serving, although you risk the fish flaking apart in the process. I like the skin off.
Serve the salmon covered with the tomato relish. Serve the pasta on the side, drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with cracked black pepper and parmesan cheese.
This dish is best eaten on your very own garden terrace, overlooking your apartment parking lot, and chased down with your favorite cold beverage.
This will make a lovely dinner for two.
In keeping with my earlier studies, today I read and meditated on Manton's commentary on James 1:3. I'm starting to have second thoughts about doing this in such tiny increments. While I thought that would inspire me with much more insight, really I'm afraid it is impairing my ability to see the big picture. One of those forest vs. the trees situations.
But anyway, the main point I took from James and Manton today is that tests or trials do not equal punishment, at least not in the sense that James means "trials" here. Manton writes that the difference is in the fruits produced. Tests and punishments both come with suffering, but suffering through tests produces perseverance, while punishments add misery and sorrow to the pain. Thus, believers can find joy also in knowing they are growing through their rough experiences.
There are several other blogs that I read on occation and most of them have to do with church issues. I don't feel like people in my church always speak the same language and care about the same issue that I became used to hearing during my years going to the Chapel Hill Bible Church, so I try to fill this void in my spiritual life by reading what other people are doing in other churches around the world. I usually surf through these other blogs starting from a site called tallskinnykiwi.com because the author of this site seems to be forward-thinking and rather well connected digitally. His site offers links to dozens of other site devoted to the church and these sites have more links in turn. jumping from site to site can be rather dizzying, but also stimulating if you don't mind a bit of chaos.
So anyway, the other day, the tallskinnykiwi site posted a link to a quiz that offers to assess your theological leanings and tell you which category you best fit into. The quiz has flaws, like when Brooklynne and I answered questions the same way for inconsistant reasons, or when we agreed but answered differently because of the way we each understood the question. But a margin of error is unavoidable and I thought the questions were good to make you question what exactly you do believe. Is Jesus or the Bible the primary revelation of God (what about the holy spirit anyway)? Is there a difference between relevation and provision? Click below to take the test, or follow the "continue reading" link to see a break-down of our results.
Brooklynne finished her first year of teaching yesterday and we wanted to whoop it up doing something fun and crazy, but we didn't know what exactly. So we drove into the District just hoping to stumble onto something great. But after driving randomly through several shady neighborhoods, we decided to drive back out of the city and continue our quest in the countryside. In the end, we found ourselves up to our elbows in some of the best Maryland steamed crabs I've ever had in my mouth! 
I'm not sure what the difference is, but we ordered a dozen (but somehow got several extra) medium males. This was more than enough to make us sick by the end of the night and we went to bed still licking the Old Bay-like spices from the corners of our mouths. It was heaven and a special memory that I doubt either of us will soon forget. Could this be the beginning of an end-of-school tradition? We can only hope! Now, I can't let this tasty dish escape me so the challenge becomes finding instructions to do it ourselves. Any ideas? Also, click the "continue reading" link to see my own walk-through for gutting a steamed crab.
Brooklynne and I have become great camping partners and we're planning a trip to Utah in August to backpack through the Cache-Wasatch National Forest from Hardware Ranch to Bear Lake. We expect the trip will take about 4 days but we were having trouble knowing for sure until we took our recent trip out west and picked up some maps in Ogden. But for anyone else planning a trip, I found this great website where you can order custom topo maps. The other neat feature is that you can preview the maps online before buying. Since we have our maps already, we haven't tried the service, but if anyone else needs maps for planning a trip, here's the link:
Customized Topo Maps and Aerial Photos - myTopo.com
If you order anything, submit a review here so Brooke and I can know if this is how we should get our maps in the future.
Brooklynne and I have been working hard to take care of our tiny garden and our labor is finally paying off. We found our first strawberry today, our flowers and sweetpeas are blooming, and the squash plant is showing signs of some early veggies. We have already been enjoying our spinach, basil, and cilantro. Our peppers and tomatoes are still far from producing anything worth eating. Still, not bad for a 5 x 10 deck in the shade! If anyone wants to help us eat our garden's produce, our door is always open.
Day three and I'm still blogging.... I just might keep this up!
So this morning I returned to James 1:2 for the second installment in my study, and today I was struck by Manton's analysis of the phrase "Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds." Manton finds it significant the we define the meaning of our trials. He quotes Seneca who said, "our grief lies in our own opinion and apprehension of miseries." Manton claims that "spiritual things are worthy in themselves" (e.g. absolutes), while "other things depend upon our opinion or valuation of them" (e.g. relatives, although I don't like this term so I will call these concepts "negotiable"). Manton argues that James places trials in the category of negotiable meaning. "In this lies our misery or comfort; things are as you consider them."
Tonight, Miles and I went to the City Corner Cafe in Old Town Manassas. For our first review, I rated it in five categories: price, selection, atmosphere, food and drink, and service....
Besides my wife, I think few others know how much I would really like to own a classic Italian scooter. Well, I'm finally coming out as a true scooter enthusiast and I'm going to make Brooklynne a fan too--she just doesn't know it yet! For all other scooter fans, Philadelphia is hosting a week of scooter events June 19-26. If anyone is in the area and wants to join me for a daytrip to the festivities, please let me know.
The week is sponsored by Vespa. For more info, check out http://www.scooterweek.com/
If anyone is following this yet, over the summer, I'm planning to study the book of James. I've had this great commentary written by Thomas Manton for a while now and I'm finally going to put it to use. This commentary is particularly heavy--6 pages on the first verse, 300+ overall--but I think I need this kind of meticulous methodology to break through some of my scripture apathy that comes from missing new angles.
This morning as I read through the first section, of the commentary I realized another promising hook in the text. In 1:1, Manton singles out the phrase "to the twelve tribes scattered among the nations." He notes that this diaspora could arise from persecution or war, but he also acknowledges that some voluntary migrations could have taken his audience (who may have been chiefly the early Christians) abroad. Can we read James's letter through the eyes of the first wave of church-planters, cross-cultural evangelists, and missionaries?
I've had my interest in the modern mission effort sparked by a new obsession with reading the blogs of overseas church leaders. Perhaps a careful study of James can help me to think about and understand how the church can reemerge as a relevant force in areas where its influence is waning and its structures are outdated. Of course, I also hope such a study will benefit my participation and growth in my immediate church community as well. Stay tuned for additional thoughts as I work through Manton's comments over the next couple of months....
If you are reading this, I have succeeded in installing and configuring Movable Type--a feat I was quickly beginning to believe would finally reveal my true computer illiteracy. But voila! Behold my latest hack achievement!
