Tuesday, April 25, 2006

Worlds Collide

World One:
Well I am pretty sick today. Strep throat I think. Went to the doc got some meds. Pretty much have done two things, slept and watch TV. Mostly kids TV, but TV nonetheless. I was fortunate enough to catch a couple minutes of a human interest story on CBS. Human interest generally means not depressing, so being a little under the weather I was happy to stop even for a minute. The story was on Cameron Clapp a triple amputee who has a made something of bad situation.

World Two:
I am taking a course on Biblical Interpretation for Preaching and Teaching right now. I have finished reading the overview of interpretive style and approach from the 'beginning of time'. Not heady at all. The humerous part about the history is you see this ebb and flow in interpretation from simple, literal to complex multi-layered and frankly less useful methods. The flow is that over the centuries the church of or better yet, Christians have done better with the simple, humble approach to interpreting the Bible. It has amounted to better Christianity and better Christians.

Collision:
So I was thinking about the media in Canada and the States. How are they trying to interpret history and events as they unfold? The media in Canada is sooo liberal, and frankly self-righteous, but why? Then it hit me. Because they are trying, for the most part, to be honest, to be authentically critical. They don't believe that every cloud has a silver lining, they believe every government is covering a scandal, or a negative, suppressive, meta-narrative-like religious agenda. In their zeal to interpret news correctly, as in some of the bible interpretation methods, they have errored on the side of critical. There is not nearly enough constructive, or just plain, life is good coverage, especially in the news. Perhaps one would argue the Dr. Phil's and the Oprah's of the world offset this. I think they just make the world look unbalanced and sick, but that is another story.

Conclusions:
Keep it simple. I suppose I think we need to pursue truth not just story. Life, not just celebrity and scandal. Hope, love, each other. It would sure be nice to wake up one morning and feel like everything wasn't on the precipice about to tumble. Not head in the clouds, just looking at the lining as well.

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