Ctrl+Alt+Del.
End Task.
Disconnect.

Today, I woke up and looked in the mirror and noticed that my face was covered in glitter. I asked my wife about it and she said she put it on me while I was sleeping so that I would sparkle like Edward from Twilight when I'm in the sunlight. FML

Today, I went shopping with some friends. We were tired from walking around the mall all night, so we decided to sit and relax at a table. I was about to close my eyes when I got smacked on the forehead by an orange falling from the second floor of the mall. FML

Today, I took my daughter to the zoo. I threw a piece of my sandwich towards a very cute chimpanzee. As a thank you, he threw a piece of crap at me, which exploded all over my shirt. FML

Today, I got no happy birthday wishes from anyone. I decided to call my sister to see if she'd remembered. My 6-year-old niece answered, so I told her it was my birthday. She said that it's tomorrow. After ten minutes of arguing with a 6-year-old, I checked the calendar. It's tomorrow. FML

Today, after two and a half years, my fiancée broke off our engagement. Talking to her later today trying to win her over, I accidentally ruined any chance I had of getting back with her. Feeling horrible, I went for a walk to clear my head, and got hit by a van. FML

Today, I kissed my iced over window to know what kissing Edward Cullen would be like. My neighbor saw. My first reaction was to come up with a cover story. I licked the window and wiped my sleeve over it to look like I was cleaning it. My neighbor came over later and gave me an early Christmas gift. Windex. FML

by Donald Miller


Without some form of morality, it is difficult to tell a good story. In any meaningful story, and therefore in any meaningful life, a character must have a sense of right and wrong, and that sense of right and wrong has to be universal. If his sense of right and wrong isn’t universal, he is a psychopath, and if he has no morality, his story is not going to be meaningful.

Many people are moral for religious reasons, stating their morality comes from the Bible or a sacred text (which, while these books can influence morality, are not written with the intention of defining a moral code. If they are, they are terribly written and the authors couldn’t land their point.) Natural Law, then, becomes a kind of catch all conglomerate of sacred texts, an attempt to arrive at a universal code for meaningful morality in a civilized society. As a culture, America subscribes to natural law even more than Constitutional law. The foundation for constitutional law is natural law and without it, the constitution makes no sense. In some ways, I think, the constitution is a defense of natural law. But each time a debate takes place regarding a Supreme court justice, the old debate of natural law and constitutional law rises again. It’s an important debate, but lately I’ve been wondering about another, perhaps more universal and less debatable form of law. I’m wondering about a law that, while more prophetic, is perhaps somewhat more verifiable in terms of its ability to create meaningful experiences for members of a society.

I’ve been wondering lately about the possibility of a new perspective on law. I’ve been wondering about our need for what I’ll call narrative law. Lately I’ve been thinking of the importance of morality more in story terms than in black and white notions of right and wrong. Nothing against black and white notions of right and wrong, only my sense is that those who subscribe to those notions do so with a self-righteous motive, which is in itself immoral (in story construction) and no better than kicking dogs. Such notions, mostly coming from a sacred text, are also difficult to verify in terms of their ability to create meaning. People will always push back when you try to put boundaries on their pleasure.

443909a-i1.0In religious communities, morality matters because it is offered in submission to God. But this is not enough for a post-religious culture. (Not that we as Americans are post-religious, but much of the rest of the west is and we certainly have our post-religious quadrants, including the media.) Is morality important to me because there exists a God? Yes. Do I practice morality because there exists a God? I’m not sure. Perhaps. But such a perspective leads to fear/guilt/shame and so forth, and those emotions create binary reactions to their controlling characteristics. (Ever wonder why Christians in the Bible Belt have so much trouble drinking in moderation, and therefore think of drinking as sin? The criminal may be the black-and-white mentality, not the wine.)

Morality, in the last couple years, has felt more important to me because of it’s demand in narrative structure. Robert McKee, perhaps the leading scholar on story structure, believes that stories are not as good as they used to be. And though McKee is not a religious man, he imagines the principle issue in the decline of story is this erosion of morality. In his book Story, he says it this way:

“The final cause of the decline of story runs very deep. Values, the positive/negative charges of life, are at the soul of our art. The writer shapes story around a perception of what’s worth living for and what’s worth dying for, what is foolish to pursue, the meaning of justice, truth-the essential values. In decades past, writer and society more or less agreed on these questions, but more and more ours has become an age of moral and ethcical cynicism, relativism, and subjectivism – a great confusion of values. As the family disintegrates and sexual antagonisms rise, who, for example, feels he understands the nature of love? And how, if you do have a conviction, do you express it to an ever-more skeptical audience? This erosion of values has brought with it a corresponding erosion of story.”

If story is a litmus test through which we can determine what is meaningful in life, than morality certainly has meaning. Without morality, a character cannot tell a good story, and once the credits roll in his life, he will realize he journeyed without a compass, and took himself precisely nowhere in all his travels.

I’m aware that a number of readers of this blog are not people of faith. Narrative law, however, does not require faith, except a faith in narrative structure, that is. In an age when males procure their inner-need for masculine affirmation through sexual conquest rather than the care and protection of the female heart, and the family has indeed disintegrated, a sober case for a universal morality is a demand in short supply. When our consumption of goods demands bond-servants in textile mills in Asia, we are in need of a universal morality. And when media methodology reduces truth to polarizing perspectives in order to ratchet up perceived tensions only to report on the tensions they’ve caused, we are in need of a moral center.

What encourages me most about the potential for narrative law is it’s broad appeal to religious and non-religious communities. Perhaps narrative law is a form of morality we can find more common ground in, and less debate, than that of natural law.

In short, I’m wondering if narrative structure can help us define universal morality. Some who read this blog will respond by demanding that everybody kneel to the moral structure posited by their sacred text, but this is irrational. Again, their sacred text does not contain a complete moral code, and regardless, not everybody in a free society should be forced to adhere to it. But perhaps more of us can adhere to a moral structure having been created through the study of effective narrative.

http://www.donaldmillerwords.com/images/DonRabbit.pdf

“In the darkness something was happening at last. A voice had begun to sing. It was very far away and Digory found it hard to decide from what direction is was coming. Sometimes it seemed to come from all directions at once. Sometimes he almost thought it was coming out of the earth beneath them. Its lower notes were deep enough to be the voice of the earth herself. There were no words. There was hardly even a tune. But it was, beyond comparison, the most beautiful noise he had ever heard. It was so beautiful he could hardly bear it.”

- C.S. Lewis "The Magician's Nephew"

this is exactly how i felt when someone stole my bike.

http://www.threadless.com/product/1941/Missing

Starting three weeks ago, I have no life. I am owned by everyone. It's the schedule I wanted, I chose, but it's kicking my ass.

Sunday: HW 9:18 to close
Monday: HW 9:18 to close
Tuesday: Library 9-5 Class 6-10
Wednesday: HW 9:18-5
Thursday: Library 8:30-4 Class 6-10
Friday: Babysit
Saturday: HW 9:18 to close

I have no idea what she's saying, but she did this a couple of weeks ago for at least 10 minutes. Sorry for the poor video quality and camera movement.

"If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world."
C.S. Lewis

A Grief Observed
The Abolition of Man
Mere Christianity
Miracles
The Four Loves
The Problem of Pain
The Weight of Glory
Through Painted Deserts
This Beautiful Mess

i want a book that tells me all the answers.

HETEROSEXUAL QUESTIONNAIRE

(©1972, Martin Rochlin, Ph.D. Reprinted with permission from the author.)

This questionnaire is for self-avowed heterosexuals only. If you are not openly heterosexual, pass it on to a friend who is. Please try to answer the questions as candidly as possible. Your responses will be held in strict confidence and your anonymity fully protected.

1. What do you think caused your heterosexuality?

2. When and how did you first decide you were a heterosexual?

3. Is it possible your heterosexuality is just a phase you may grow out of?

4. Could it be that your heterosexuality stems from a neurotic fear of others of the same sex?

5. If you’ve never slept with a person of the same sex, how can you be sure you wouldn’t prefer that?

6. To whom have you disclosed your heterosexual tendencies? How did they react?

7. Why do heterosexuals feel compelled to seduce others into their lifestyle?

8. Why do you insist on flaunting your heterosexuality? Can’t you just be what you are and keep it quiet?

9. Would you want your children to be heterosexual, knowing the problems they’d face?

10. A disproportionate majority of child molesters are heterosexual men. Do you consider it safe to expose children to heterosexual male teachers, pediatricians, priests, or scoutmasters?

11. With all the societal support for marriage, the divorce rate is spiraling. Why are there so few stable relationships among heterosexuals?

12. Why do heterosexuals place so much emphasis on sex?

13. Considering the menace of overpopulation, how could the human race survive if everyone were heterosexual?

14. Could you trust a heterosexual therapist to be objective? Don’t you fear s/he might be inclined to influence you in the direction of her/his own leanings?

15. Heterosexuals are notorious for assigning themselves and one another rigid, stereotyped sex roles. Why must you cling to such unhealthy role-playing?

16. With the sexually segregated living conditions of military life, isn’t heterosexuality incompatible with military service?

17. How can you enjoy an emotionally fulfilling experience with a person of the other sex when there are such vast differences between you? How can a man know what pleases a woman sexually or vice-versa?

18. Shouldn’t you ask your far-out straight cohorts, like skinheads and born-agains, to keep quiet? Wouldn’t that improve your image?

19. Why are heterosexuals so promiscuous?

20. Why do you attribute heterosexuality to so many famous lesbian and gay people? Is it to justify your own heterosexuality?

21. How can you hope to actualize your God-given homosexual potential if you limit yourself to exclusive, compulsive heterosexuality?

22. There seem to be very few happy heterosexuals. Techniques have been developed that might enable you to change if you really want to. After all, you never deliberately chose to be a heterosexual, did you? Have you considered aversion therapy or Heterosexuals Anonymous?

goddamn. this girl is fucking 15 years old. i stumbled across her a couple of weeks ago while looking up photos for tracy's class. this girl is good.

http://chrissiewhite.com/index.html
http://www.flickr.com/photos/prettypony/

I told my family.

As the Ruin Falls
by C. S. Lewis

All this is flashy rhetoric about loving you.
I never had a selfless thought since I was born.
I am mercenary and self-seeking through and through:
I want God, you, all friends, merely to serve my turn.

Peace, re-assurance, pleasure, are the goals I seek,
I cannot crawl one inch outside my proper skin:
I talk of love --a scholar's parrot may talk Greek--
But, self-imprisoned, always end where I begin.

Only that now you have taught me (but how late) my lack.
I see the chasm. And everything you are was making
My heart into a bridge by which I might get back
From exile, and grow man. And now the bridge is breaking.

For this I bless you as the ruin falls. The pains
You give me are more precious than all other gains.