Today is my sweet husband's birthday! I just wanted to take a few minutes to tell everyone how fantastic he is! Last night we were sitting on the couch, cuddling & watching the NCAA basketball tournament, and I was overcome with a very real & emotional feeling. Don't get me wrong... it's not like it was the first time I realized how much I love Mark, but something about this was so different. Amazing is what it was. "He's my husband!", I thought. "WOW. My husband. Am I a blessed woman or what?"
Really, truly blessed. Mark is the most amazing husband. Not only is he a godly man who is constantly seeking better knowledge of the truth, but he's seeking that knowledge to help me too. I have never met anyone who loves to learn more than Mark. I think someday soon we're going to have to get more bookshelves! He is SO excited about learning, and when he tells me all about what he just read or heard, it's so easy to see the passion that he has.
Mark makes me laugh... A LOT! I'm not talking about a little giggle, I'm talking about truly laughing. Where my belly hurts & I wonder if I'm going to pee my pants. We have so much fun together, and I hope laughter is something that we'll be able to still share when we're 85 years old : )
The other day I posed the following question to myself. Could I possibly love Mark more than I do now? The answer is yes. I love him wholly, completely, but I know there are new ways in which I will love him. Now I love him as my husband of 3 months, and I love imagining how things will be someday. Someday I will love him as the father of my children. Someday I will love him as a pastor. Someday I will love him as my husband of 50 years. I love looking forward to that someday, although for now I wish time would just stand still.
I feel more complete now than I ever have imagined I could be. I've found my mate, my partner in life, my husband, in this wonderful human being we call Mark (or for Luke, Marky). Happy Birthday, baby.
Friday, March 21, 2008
Saturday, March 15, 2008
Deal Or No Deal
One activity that Marci and I love to do is to watch game shows on television. We do not have a lot of free time anymore to watch shows, but when we do have a free evening, we like to watch Jeopardy, Wheel of Fortune, or Cash Cab on the Discovery Channel. There is one game show that we find particularly frustrating, however, and that is Deal or No Deal. If you haven't seen the show, the basic premise is this: there are 26 briefcases that contain different hidden dollar amounts rising incrementally from $.01 to $1 million. At the beginning of the game, the contestant selects one briefcase as his or her own. They then proceed to select other briefcases and the shiny models open them to show what dollar amounts are not in the contestant's briefcase. After a number of dollar amounts have been exposed, the banker offers the contestant a sum of money to sell his or her briefcase based on the odds that the contestant's briefcase contains a high dollar amount. This amount is usually pretty high, ranging from $70,000 to $300,000 depending on what is left on the board. The contestant can take this money and quit, but they rarely do. They forget that this is money they have been given and are now gambling to go for the million dollars. The host of the show, Howie Mandel, always asks the contestant, "Do you believe that your case is the million dollar case?" And almost always the contestant replies, "Yes, I do. I believe that my case contains the million dollars. I just feel it."
This is where the famous Marci eyeroll comes in handy. When watching these people say these things there is no doubt that they are being sincere. They really believe it. Many say that the show preys on human greed, and that's why it works, but I think it is actually a fault of belief formation. The chance of the contestant having the million dollars is precisely 1/26 at the beginning of the show, which are not great odds. This bugs me everytime I watch the show, so I want to discuss a little about belief formation and what we can do to know that we have right beliefs.
When I was just a lower-cased mark, around the age of five or six, I believed that I would one day play professional baseball. I was quite sure of it. When I hit the ball, it seemed to go pretty far off the tee. I could throw the ball, even occasionally catch it, and I had seen enough dropped balls on TV that I knew I wasn't the only one. Marci thought she would be a professional tap dancer. She could kick it with the best of them. We believed not only that we could achieve these goals, but that we certainly would. Adults participate in this type of belief as well. Consider the Cincinnati Bengals fan who watches their team lose year after year, but consistenly believes that the next year will be different. This is why at a casino the house always comes out on top. We'll call this type of belief "wish-believing." This is the error of the Deal or No Deal contestant. He doesn't believe because the odds of her being correct are in his favor, but he believes because he really wants it to be true.
Another type of belief comes from personal experience. If I grow up with a dog that has been trained by the circus, and is really amazing at basketball, I may come to the belief that all dogs are awesome at basketball, and I will be sorely disappointed. More seriously, however, people can come out of bad relationships, or maybe a series of bad relationships, and believe that true love doesn't exist. This belief is false, but it is reasonable to imagine that this false belief is held by many people. We'll call this type of belief "experience-believing."
A final type of belief is both culturally instantiated and learned from parents. This is arguably the most influential type of belief formation, because it is the one to which we are most exposed. We hear accents on this type of belief all the time. People will say, "well, that's how I was raised." Many children are raised in Muslim households where God is an entity that must be appeased by performing certain duties. Families from Hindu cultures teach children that there are thousands of gods that we learn about in different ways. Buddhist parents teach children not necessarily about God but about a path to enlightenment. People from secular backgrounds often adapt popular cultural beliefs, or anti-cultural beliefs if they are against any type of establishment. I disagree with these beliefs, but I hope it is not because I was taught differently. Then I would be making the same mistake that I was just criticizing. If this type of belief takes us in so many different contradictory directions, it can only be regarded as unreliable. We'll call this type of belief "culture-believing."
Everyone holds a very detailed set of beliefs that may be impacted as the years go on by experience, culture, and what we want to be true. All of these beliefs are unreliable at pointing us in the direction of actual, true belief. What then do we do? Rene Descartes got rid of every type of belief if he had any grounds to believe it might be false. This is what led to his "I think, therefore I am" statement. He didn't know anything, except that he could think the thought, "I don't know anything," therefore, "he is a thinking being." I know what you are thinking, "that is the most unhelpful thing I've ever heard." And you're right. That doesn't exactly clear things up in our daily lives. It is very popular in our culture today to believe that everyone's beliefs are equally valid no matter what they are, and we should not judge anyone's set of beliefs against our own. That inself is a belief that would have been crazy a few hundred years ago, it is both culturally relative and what we would really like to be true. It seems to get us off the hook. Where, then, can we find any reliable information in regards to truth? I will use hypothetical logic here so that I cannot be accused of any type of belief that commits a fallacy that I have previously mentioned:
If there is a God that is all-powerful, all-knowing, and omnipresent, then this God knows what is true.
If he were to write a book containing some of this information, I should read it.
If I believe anything that is not contained in the book, it may have come from an unreliable source.
This is why I believe what I believe, because there is a book that supercedes any type of knowledge I might have garnered elsewhere. Of course the Bible is not explicit in every facet of life, but we must begin with it as our only source of knowledge, and be sure that our beliefs that are obtained otherwise are still inline with what the book says. It will most likely keep us from making the same belief mistakes that the contestants of Deal or No Deal make, and if the book is true, secure us a spot in the place where all truth will one day be revealed. When confronted with the question about the authenticity of the book, and of the truth of Jesus Christ, we will have confidence when answering. Because in matters such as these, it is truly Deal or No Deal.
This is where the famous Marci eyeroll comes in handy. When watching these people say these things there is no doubt that they are being sincere. They really believe it. Many say that the show preys on human greed, and that's why it works, but I think it is actually a fault of belief formation. The chance of the contestant having the million dollars is precisely 1/26 at the beginning of the show, which are not great odds. This bugs me everytime I watch the show, so I want to discuss a little about belief formation and what we can do to know that we have right beliefs.
When I was just a lower-cased mark, around the age of five or six, I believed that I would one day play professional baseball. I was quite sure of it. When I hit the ball, it seemed to go pretty far off the tee. I could throw the ball, even occasionally catch it, and I had seen enough dropped balls on TV that I knew I wasn't the only one. Marci thought she would be a professional tap dancer. She could kick it with the best of them. We believed not only that we could achieve these goals, but that we certainly would. Adults participate in this type of belief as well. Consider the Cincinnati Bengals fan who watches their team lose year after year, but consistenly believes that the next year will be different. This is why at a casino the house always comes out on top. We'll call this type of belief "wish-believing." This is the error of the Deal or No Deal contestant. He doesn't believe because the odds of her being correct are in his favor, but he believes because he really wants it to be true.
Another type of belief comes from personal experience. If I grow up with a dog that has been trained by the circus, and is really amazing at basketball, I may come to the belief that all dogs are awesome at basketball, and I will be sorely disappointed. More seriously, however, people can come out of bad relationships, or maybe a series of bad relationships, and believe that true love doesn't exist. This belief is false, but it is reasonable to imagine that this false belief is held by many people. We'll call this type of belief "experience-believing."
A final type of belief is both culturally instantiated and learned from parents. This is arguably the most influential type of belief formation, because it is the one to which we are most exposed. We hear accents on this type of belief all the time. People will say, "well, that's how I was raised." Many children are raised in Muslim households where God is an entity that must be appeased by performing certain duties. Families from Hindu cultures teach children that there are thousands of gods that we learn about in different ways. Buddhist parents teach children not necessarily about God but about a path to enlightenment. People from secular backgrounds often adapt popular cultural beliefs, or anti-cultural beliefs if they are against any type of establishment. I disagree with these beliefs, but I hope it is not because I was taught differently. Then I would be making the same mistake that I was just criticizing. If this type of belief takes us in so many different contradictory directions, it can only be regarded as unreliable. We'll call this type of belief "culture-believing."
Everyone holds a very detailed set of beliefs that may be impacted as the years go on by experience, culture, and what we want to be true. All of these beliefs are unreliable at pointing us in the direction of actual, true belief. What then do we do? Rene Descartes got rid of every type of belief if he had any grounds to believe it might be false. This is what led to his "I think, therefore I am" statement. He didn't know anything, except that he could think the thought, "I don't know anything," therefore, "he is a thinking being." I know what you are thinking, "that is the most unhelpful thing I've ever heard." And you're right. That doesn't exactly clear things up in our daily lives. It is very popular in our culture today to believe that everyone's beliefs are equally valid no matter what they are, and we should not judge anyone's set of beliefs against our own. That inself is a belief that would have been crazy a few hundred years ago, it is both culturally relative and what we would really like to be true. It seems to get us off the hook. Where, then, can we find any reliable information in regards to truth? I will use hypothetical logic here so that I cannot be accused of any type of belief that commits a fallacy that I have previously mentioned:
If there is a God that is all-powerful, all-knowing, and omnipresent, then this God knows what is true.
If he were to write a book containing some of this information, I should read it.
If I believe anything that is not contained in the book, it may have come from an unreliable source.
This is why I believe what I believe, because there is a book that supercedes any type of knowledge I might have garnered elsewhere. Of course the Bible is not explicit in every facet of life, but we must begin with it as our only source of knowledge, and be sure that our beliefs that are obtained otherwise are still inline with what the book says. It will most likely keep us from making the same belief mistakes that the contestants of Deal or No Deal make, and if the book is true, secure us a spot in the place where all truth will one day be revealed. When confronted with the question about the authenticity of the book, and of the truth of Jesus Christ, we will have confidence when answering. Because in matters such as these, it is truly Deal or No Deal.
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
The Next Betty Crocker??
So here it is... Marci's first blog! I can honestly say I've never done this whole blogging thing before, but like Mark said, we've been inspired : ) Unfortunately, my writing skills leave much to be desired, so my blogging will mostly be keeping you all updated on what's going on with us!
Here I am, sitting at home (Mark's at a meeting), my freshly made Rice Krispie Treats setting up in the kitchen, HGTV on in the background. Pretty domestic, huh? Well, I'm no Betty Crocker. I've been suspecting it for a while now but those suspicions have been confirmed.
After we'd been stuck in the house all day Saturday due to the snow, I decided to make my husband a lovely dinner. Spaghetti with meat sauce, salad, and bread sticks! Yum! Well... the lettuce was a little soggy... so no salad. We didn't have enough spaghetti sauce, so I thought "gee, I'll be creative & throw in some tomato soup, and then maybe some spices!" Bad idea. We sat down to eat, and we both took a few bites. You should have seen Mark's face! My poor husband was trying to pretend that it was OK, but I'm no fool. It was NOT good! I wonder how many times before he's faked the delight of his taste buds to keep from hurting my feelings?!
I don't know if it was cabin fever getting to me, but I got really sad that I'd ruined our dinner. I want to be able to cook yummy meals for my hubby, and I've really started to doubt my skills. Mark & I share our household responsibilities, but cooking is something I've always enjoyed & have wanted to do. (At least I can bake, although I think the FDA would say that feeding your children (future children!) cookies & pie for dinner isn't healthy).
Good thing for me, Mark knew going into this that I'm not Betty Crocker! I guess I thought this domestication thing would be much easier than it is! You all know I'm not the cleanest individual, now my cooking skills are in question too! Cooking good food on a budget is hard! If any of you have any great recipes, I'd love for you to share them with me : )
Enough of my complaining. We trashed the spaghetti, ordered subs from Donatos, and watched Air Force One on TV : ) It turned out to be quite a lovely evening at home!
Here are some topics for my future blogs you should look out for!
Here I am, sitting at home (Mark's at a meeting), my freshly made Rice Krispie Treats setting up in the kitchen, HGTV on in the background. Pretty domestic, huh? Well, I'm no Betty Crocker. I've been suspecting it for a while now but those suspicions have been confirmed.
After we'd been stuck in the house all day Saturday due to the snow, I decided to make my husband a lovely dinner. Spaghetti with meat sauce, salad, and bread sticks! Yum! Well... the lettuce was a little soggy... so no salad. We didn't have enough spaghetti sauce, so I thought "gee, I'll be creative & throw in some tomato soup, and then maybe some spices!" Bad idea. We sat down to eat, and we both took a few bites. You should have seen Mark's face! My poor husband was trying to pretend that it was OK, but I'm no fool. It was NOT good! I wonder how many times before he's faked the delight of his taste buds to keep from hurting my feelings?!
I don't know if it was cabin fever getting to me, but I got really sad that I'd ruined our dinner. I want to be able to cook yummy meals for my hubby, and I've really started to doubt my skills. Mark & I share our household responsibilities, but cooking is something I've always enjoyed & have wanted to do. (At least I can bake, although I think the FDA would say that feeding your children (future children!) cookies & pie for dinner isn't healthy).
Good thing for me, Mark knew going into this that I'm not Betty Crocker! I guess I thought this domestication thing would be much easier than it is! You all know I'm not the cleanest individual, now my cooking skills are in question too! Cooking good food on a budget is hard! If any of you have any great recipes, I'd love for you to share them with me : )
Enough of my complaining. We trashed the spaghetti, ordered subs from Donatos, and watched Air Force One on TV : ) It turned out to be quite a lovely evening at home!
Here are some topics for my future blogs you should look out for!
- Chess. After months of Mark asking me if I wanted to learn, I'm doing it! When we were visiting Grandpa in the days before he passed away, Mark & I talked to him about his old chess playing days. He told me again (he'd said it before!) how great chess is for the mind, and suggested I learn to play. Well, I'm not going to let him down, so here it goes!
- Our nieces & nephews. They're great fun!
- Domestication. I'm working on it : )
That's it for now. Until next time...
Love,
Marci
Tuesday, March 4, 2008
Movie Reviews and Thoughts on Story
The past week has brought to my attention some of the best and worst filmmaking I have ever seen. I saw Be Kind Rewind (best) with a friend on Saturday, saw Semi-Pro (worst) on Sunday with my lovely wife, rented The Darjeeling Limited, and caught Best of the Best on TV late last night.
I want to open by declaring Semi-Pro to be the worst comedy I have ever seen. Marci and I were both appalled and left in angry moods. I was so disappointed I didn't even want to eat my Milk Duds.
A fantastic movie, on the other hand, is Be Kind Rewind. Not only is it one of the most creative movies I have seen, it is very touching in its commentary on community and friendship. It also makes beautiful statements about cultural history. This film is also quite funny, and I recommend it to all.
Darjeeling Limited: it was okay, not Wes Anderson's best. Three brothers are on a spiritual journey that is seemingly leading nowhere. They fail to find what they are looking for, but instead find hope in their brotherhood that had been trampled throughout the years.
Best of the Best is a classic, made in 1989. I remember renting this movie several times as a youngster. The US Karate team has to go to Korea to take on their national karate team. The best US fighter has to fight a man who had killed his brother in a fight fifteen years ago. In the final match, The US fighter, Tommy, is trailing by one point, and has the opportunity to finish the Korean fighter, potentially killing him. This final point would send the US into victory, but he stands motionless as his opponent stands helpless and bleeding profusely. He could have avenged his brother's death and also won the tournament for his team, but instead he offered grace. This is a very touching moment. It was a touching moment when I was seven and it was still a touching moment last night. During the medal ceremony when Korea is accepting their medals, the Korean fighter staggers to Tommy and gives him his medal. He then thanks him for his grace, and offers himself as his brother. I thought to myself, why is this such an amazing moment?
Everyone has different tastes in movies, but yet we all want the same ending. No one wants the bad guy to get away, everyone wants to see the family get back together, and everyone wants the fallen hero to get a second chance. Movies are fantastic little vignettes of a cosmic story, a reality in which we all play a part. While we might differ on how to get there, concepts like love and love, justice, redemption, and mercy are existential realities that we are looking for. We cry at the end of the a film not because we think the characters are real people that have had something good happen to them, but because the fictional characters, if only in part, have found what we are looking for.
Themes like these have been consistent throughout the history of storytelling, and it is no secret why. Mankind is part of the creation/fall/redemption story, and when I look at the Bible, I see not a story that includes the aforementioned themes, but a document that is story itself. This is our key, the legend on the map that allows to interpret the things we are feeling naturally in terms of story. Without it, the ideas of justice and love remain a mystery. What are their value?
This is not to say that all movies get it right, in fact, most of them get it wrong. We tend to want to incorporate individual wishes into our epic struggles. While we want grace we still want personal freedom and while we want justice to be done we certainly don't want it done to us. We are flawed storytellers, but there is hope that one day we will learn of an ending far better than we could have ever anticipated. In his book The Brothers Karamazov, Dostoevsky says it best:
I want to open by declaring Semi-Pro to be the worst comedy I have ever seen. Marci and I were both appalled and left in angry moods. I was so disappointed I didn't even want to eat my Milk Duds.
A fantastic movie, on the other hand, is Be Kind Rewind. Not only is it one of the most creative movies I have seen, it is very touching in its commentary on community and friendship. It also makes beautiful statements about cultural history. This film is also quite funny, and I recommend it to all.
Darjeeling Limited: it was okay, not Wes Anderson's best. Three brothers are on a spiritual journey that is seemingly leading nowhere. They fail to find what they are looking for, but instead find hope in their brotherhood that had been trampled throughout the years.
Best of the Best is a classic, made in 1989. I remember renting this movie several times as a youngster. The US Karate team has to go to Korea to take on their national karate team. The best US fighter has to fight a man who had killed his brother in a fight fifteen years ago. In the final match, The US fighter, Tommy, is trailing by one point, and has the opportunity to finish the Korean fighter, potentially killing him. This final point would send the US into victory, but he stands motionless as his opponent stands helpless and bleeding profusely. He could have avenged his brother's death and also won the tournament for his team, but instead he offered grace. This is a very touching moment. It was a touching moment when I was seven and it was still a touching moment last night. During the medal ceremony when Korea is accepting their medals, the Korean fighter staggers to Tommy and gives him his medal. He then thanks him for his grace, and offers himself as his brother. I thought to myself, why is this such an amazing moment?
Everyone has different tastes in movies, but yet we all want the same ending. No one wants the bad guy to get away, everyone wants to see the family get back together, and everyone wants the fallen hero to get a second chance. Movies are fantastic little vignettes of a cosmic story, a reality in which we all play a part. While we might differ on how to get there, concepts like love and love, justice, redemption, and mercy are existential realities that we are looking for. We cry at the end of the a film not because we think the characters are real people that have had something good happen to them, but because the fictional characters, if only in part, have found what we are looking for.
Themes like these have been consistent throughout the history of storytelling, and it is no secret why. Mankind is part of the creation/fall/redemption story, and when I look at the Bible, I see not a story that includes the aforementioned themes, but a document that is story itself. This is our key, the legend on the map that allows to interpret the things we are feeling naturally in terms of story. Without it, the ideas of justice and love remain a mystery. What are their value?
This is not to say that all movies get it right, in fact, most of them get it wrong. We tend to want to incorporate individual wishes into our epic struggles. While we want grace we still want personal freedom and while we want justice to be done we certainly don't want it done to us. We are flawed storytellers, but there is hope that one day we will learn of an ending far better than we could have ever anticipated. In his book The Brothers Karamazov, Dostoevsky says it best:
I believe like a child that suffering will be healed and made up for,
that all the humiliating absurdity of human contradictions will vanish like a pitiful mirage,
like the despicable fabrication of the impotent and infinitely small Euclidean mind of man,
that in the world's finale,
at the moment of the eternal harmony,
something so precious will come to pass that it will suffice for all hearts,
for the comforting of all resentments,
for the atonement of all the crimes of humanity,
of all the blood that they've shed;
that it will make it not only possible to forgive but to justify all that has happened.
Monday, March 3, 2008
We've Started a Blog!
Mark And Marci have started a blog! We appreciate the blogging efforts of other family members and have decided to participate ourselves. Disclaimer: we have no children, and our apartment is the size of a major walnut, thus there will be very few pictures on this blog. Nonetheless, we will describe our activities as intricately as possible. There are a few things that we love that we plan to discuss in this blog. They are:
- Jesus
- Our Family
- Sandwiches
- The occasional book or movie
Please enjoy our blog!
Love,
Mark and Marci
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