Thoughts on the Fall

I apologize for not updating my two followers on the goings on of my life and mind.

Also, this is not a juicy post about the cool shenanigans I do. Mainly, because I seldom do them.

However, I believe this blog was purposed to relate the highlights of my life and mind. This post concerns the latter.

I went to church today. I don't always encounter God most intimately through the message or the worship. Sometimes, while at peace in the pew/folding chair/bleacher, I simply have the opportunity to reflect upon things that I would say the Holy Spirit puts on my heart. My church today did the traditional "Lessons and Carols" service. Basically, it ties together things that are put in place from the Fall to Jesus' birth. For those of y'all who don't attend traditional services, it is basically a service that revolves around this book made by a brilliant man at the Austin Stone. After the reading from Gensis 3, my mind turned to the specifics of this event.

Much can be made of this famous passage. I focused on the fruit and what this says about humanity. Most well read people will readily point out that it was not necessarily an apple. The Bible only says, "a fruit." Of course, debating which fruit it was is bananas and will only leave you without any. (Fruitless. A bad wordplay. I wasn't sure how clear the pun was. Pretty clear on the low marks it will receive). Nonetheless, I find pondering the fruit interesting.

Despite us understanding that the fruit may not have been an apple, I believe we imagine the scene like it was. An apple or a pear are fruits that allows impulse. You needn't any preparation to eat it. Simply hold it and take a bite. When I read the passage, I always visualize Eve just acquiescing and instantly plunging her teeth into the forbidden fruit. Genesis indicates there was some sort of assessment before Eve took that bite. She saw that it was edible, attractive, desirable for wisdom. But to me, this seems like a conclusion that the human brain can arrive at rather quickly given the proper visual stimulus. So traditionally, the duration of the Fall consists of a piece of reptilian rhetoric, a cursory visual evaluation, and the fateful bite. Probably shorter than the realtime last two minutes of a contentious basketball game. But what if it weren't? What if it were a different fruit?

Perhaps a pineapple Joe Shields and Shawn Spencer both know that you can't just bite into a pineapple. You must cut it open to get to the fruit. How about a pomegranate? Eating one is a tedious task, breaking all the little pomegranate balls out of the rind. Or even worse, a coconut? I haven't done it myself, but I understand the the range of methods can require a hammer and nail, a heavy, blunt blade, or a healthy amount of some good-old violent smashing. In short, it's extends the timeline a bit. The result, of course, was the same, but it drastically changes the details of the sin.

Unfortunately, I am quite good at sinning. I have 20 years of experience. You might even say I'm a natural. (Pardon another bad joke) It is a multistep process. I'll give an example, using murder as the scenario hoping that no readers will struggle with compulsive killing, so I will trivialize that sin instead of ones that hit closer to heart for others (Pride, Anger, Gossip, Lust, Envy, what have you). Also, don't throw the "hate is murder" card at me. For the sake of simplification, we are dealing with stuff that you'd see in the opening minutes of a syndicated Jerry Bruckheimer show.

1. We see the opportunity (I could kill Becky—sorry to all Beckys out there). Hopefully, we are able to shut it down instantly.
2. However, sometimes, we toy with the temptation. Not giving in yet, but allowing the appeal to grow. We have thus far (as far as my knowledge goes. I am not the greatest with theology. Please forgive any inaccuracies) not sinned. Essentially, we start rationalizing it. (Killing Becky would help me. She does owe me lots of money. And she does always wake me up with her Nickelback music. That would mean one less Nickelback fan out there.)
3. We play out situations in our mind of committing the sin. (I know! I'll kill Becky like this...). Now the Matthew 5 card is in play. We have sinned in our heart.
4. Consummation. We actually kill Becky. Obvious note to readers: just because we already sinned at step 3 doesn't mean we should go ahead and physically do it. Consider murdering someone just because you already realized you hated them in your heart/having sex with someone just because you lusted after him/her and figuring you might as well do it because you already sinned. This is common sense, but just in case, see Romans 6.
   

Of course. In some of sins, our minds blow through steps 1-3, and sometimes 1-4, caught up in sin, our weak minds cave, leaving little room for turning back. Why is this post so long? You originally planned it to be about 3 paragraphs? Can we get back to the fruit? Oh, yes. Excuse me. I have rather beaten this fruit issue to a pulp. So basically, a time consuming fruit preparation would mean that there was a prolonged pause between steps 3 and 4. There was time to think about the humanity's first hideous act. More time to choose truth over the lie. A crime of passion becomes to some extent premeditated. Each blow to the coconut would bring us closer and closer to sin. Blinded by our lust for knowledge, power, approval, what have you. Our blackened heart muting the cries of our conscience. This could have been our original act of defiance. Whether or not the inaugural sin occurred in that manner, the same quasi-premeditated progression still plays out in hearts around the world. How sad the state of man. Either way apple or pineapple, the result is the same. We need redemption. We need a savior. O come, o come, Emmanuel. Joy to the World.

Toodles

Bizarren

On June 25, I went to the Bizarren music festival/party with bros Mark, Trevor, and Trey. What is Bizarren, you ask? Oh, I will gladly inform you of that little ditty.

Bizarren is an annual musical party at some venue in Córdoba. The headlining bands are generally Argentine bands that were popular in the 80's and 90's. People dress up in costumes.


Tigger, Dr. Zoidberg, Johnny Bravo, and ...?

Best costumes (not those cheaply bought, but homemade): a man in a shower, and the end of a roll of toilet paper.

Oh. That's fine and dandy. What kind of whippersnappers go to Bizarren?

Fair Question. I noticed three age groups: students/young people going to have a good time with alcohol, music and dancing, slightly older youngish people going to revisit the music that punctuated their teenage glory years, and creepy out-of-place older people. I know what you're saying. "Wait, the brush you're using is too wide. How do you know they're all creepy?" Oh fine. Maybe not. There were a few older couples. But this was not a shindig for middle aged people. My possible reasons why old guys would be there: 1) To ogle younger females, 2) To pick up younger females, and 3) They haven't accepted that they're not 24 anymore and are leading their life accordingly.

Neato. What was there to do at this shindig?

Why, you can bet your bottom dollar I'll tell you! When we first walked in, there were arcade games on the right. Directly in front of us there were 3 metegol tables, and further on the right was a bar. There were lines for face-painting and popcorn. Across from us there was an SNES hooked up to a projector. Further in there were opportunities to take your picture with Mario and Luigi or Pacman cutouts. There were also jesters/carnies who walked around on stilts or rode miniature musical instrument-clad bikes. On stage, before the headliners got on, there was at one point a chubby man in a sparkly Elvis costume. My favorite performance of his—although not due to any musical adroitness—was a drunken, broken-English cover of "Hey Jude." By the end of this song, he was lying down boca arriba wailing the "na na na nas" and "hey judes". It was great, however not in the classical sense of the word.

I intended to merely attend to view the spectacle, however my 2 of my friends, one of them a bro to the bone, intended to meet girls. This made me reflect upon things. I have amassed 20 years, statistically a fourth of my life, and this nine year-old spits more game than me; I can't flirt. I am okay with this. I tend to rather get into relationships like this (friends first). I have no intentions of picking up my wife at some bar/club, and whomever I meet will love me for whom I am. We will laugh together at my (many) miscues. Besides, I'd rather be debonaire than Don Juan.

Store bought costumes are a cheap façade. They show you want to impress people, but don't care or have enough creativity to make your own. You get to interact with people not because of who you are, but because of what you're wearing. I'd rather hold conversations with people because I'm interesting/kind/charming.

Oh. In other news, I think I had my first (and hopefully last) interaction with a prostitute. I have no way of knowing for sure if she was a regular Roxanne, but I here are the facts.

1. She was with a man, whom I'll call her handler. This man went up to guys, telling them something along the line of "Le gustas" or "Quiere bailar contigo." Warning sign: what guy tries to pawn off the girl he's with?
2. Life has taught me that I don't have the rugged masculine features that make girls helplessly throw themselves at me. She was throwing herself at me. Consequently, this raised a red flag. This was further substantiated by the face that I later saw her throw herself at various other men.
3. Multiple times she tried to kiss me (gross). This prompted the "handler" to pester me with questions, including, "Do you like boys?" (my initial thought: "no, but I'm sure you have a guy who likes me and wants to dance with me to") and, "Do you have a girlfriend?" To get him off my case, I'd have to lie "yes" to one of the questions. I settled on the latter.
4. The girl was very drunk.
5. The handler tried to steal my jacket. This doesn't speak to her being a prostitute, but just his scummy character in general.

Conclusion: I felt very sad for her.

And so was the night of Bizarren, initially billed to me as a spectacle to be seen, turned into an attempted hook up scene.

Toodles. Next, Iguazú.

Jump! for Belgrano

This post directly deals with my weekend trip to Salta (thus jump)/Jujuy and the crazy Belgrano soccer antics I witnessed on Wednesday. If you find any of these topics appalling or my writing style distasteful, I advise you to move along.

The program met to leave for Salta at 9:30. Notice I did not say I met there. I did not use the first person, because my lovely family («--no sarcasm («--no sarcasm)) did not serve dinner until 9:20. "Te esperarán," my host mom reassured me. Consequently, I did not get there until 9:45, after receiving two "where are you" calls. We took a double decker semi-cama bus. The 12 hour bus ride went off without hitch. We hung out and talked. It reminded me of the old church camp days.

I must regress a moment. I had been having terrible camera luck this entire trip. On the day of the city tour, my camera's battery promptly died after took it out, just prior to taking my first picture. Having learned from my past failure, I brought my camera (fully charged) on the day trip to the Jesuit estancias in Alta Gracia. However, I neglected to bring my memory card, which was left in my computer, full of argentine music my host sister gave me. On this trip, I had walked a block, when I turned around to get money (I thought it would be a good idea to have more than normal so I could buy stuff for family/friends). I also conducted a flustered and futile search for my camera. But alas, I couldn't find it. Strike three on bringing cameras to important picture taking opportunities.

After a quick breakfast and shower, we set out to a teleférico (cable car, in this case, a gondola) to summit a nearby mountain to have a scenic view of Salta. Atop the mountain, there was a pretty man-made little stream that playfully went down the side of the mountain. There was a youth (~14 years) club basketball team that was up there. They fancied some of the girls on the program I was with, and their coach coerced the "chicas de texas" to take a picture with them. I found this humorous. The kids were a bunch of players (pun).

Lunch at restaurant outside of the city, near a creek. Fun fact about me: any non-stagnant body of water can entertain me for substantial periods of time. Exploring, getting wet, skipping stones. Just an example of how I will never completely stop being a boy at heart. What I would have given to ride down the Mississippi with Huck and Jim (fine, the prince and the duke too).

After a city tour, we had free time. We went to an anthropological/archeological museum in Salta. Basically all this museum has going for it are its Incan child mummies. Literally. It only has a set of three mummies (oldest at age of death ~14 years) and a smaller mummy that looks like it will eat you. Having said that, it was still very interesting to see. The set of three mummies (it only shows one at a time) are best preserved mummies in the world. You can still see their skin and hair. Essentially, these kids of the nobles who were sacrificed to the gods. They were taken up to a mountain top and given alcohol until they all passed out. Then they were bound and lowered into the grave. The cold, dry mountain climate preserved them wonderfully.

Keep in mind that this girl is 5oo years old. Had you not known, you would have thought she's a mummy, you could have thought she was an impoverished indigenous girl who hasn't showered in considerable amount of time just taking a nap.

After the museum, we had merienda in café in the main plaza. We started playing a game in which you receive a word for every word you say in English. At the end of the trip, the participants go to a nice bakery and have to buy a slice of pie for every point they have. It was fun. I had no points.

The next day, we went to Jujuy, the northwesternmost province in Argentina. Jujuy is kind of like a more rugged version of the American Southwest, but I still think our southwest is prettier than their northwest. We went to the "Cerro de los siete colores" and fuimos de trekking in the area around it. After the trekking, we went to the local market in Pulmamarca. They had a bevy of alpaca wool sweaters. As I enjoy wearing sweaters more than Mr. Rogers himself (may he rest in peace), I bought some. Most of them were made in a factory to the north, but there were a few locally handmade ones. However, you paid for it (750 pesos compared to 70 pesos). Later, we went to Tilcara to have lunch and were treated to a show of traditional local music. Then we went to a spot that has been inhabited for over 1000 years, making it pre-Incan. It was atop a hill. The dwellings were made of rocks and used cactus beams for the roofs.



Stopped at a scenic spot on the way home and went back to Salta. On the way back, I did one of things I do best (sleep. just in case you didn't get it). That night, we went to a Peña, which is like a studio movie grill, just replace movie with live traditional music, dance, and entertainment. Cool things about it: waiters came by with dust busters to suck up the breadcrumbs on the tablecloth. So classy. Bad things about it: it started out a bit to commercial than I would have liked, but it made up for it later; there were lots of jokes, which require either A) marginal amounts of attention combined with mastery of the language or B) super concentrated attention to make up for your linguistic weaknesses. Sadly, at 2:30 am, I had neither. Thus many of the jokes were lost on me.

The next day, we went to an estancia, which is essentially a house in the country kind of near the city, that often has livestock or some type of farmland. It was a very peaceful day, marked by horseback riding for the first time in my life, playing ping pong in South America for the first time ever (I still have yet to lose a game in southern hemisphere).

Okay. Now picture this. Montage of bus ride home. Jump cut to Wednesday night. This past Wednesday, there was the first leg of arelegation/promotion game between Belgrano (a Córdobes pro soccer team) and River Plate, a team from Buenos Aires. This doesn't sound like a big deal, until you realize that River Plate is the most successful team in the history of the Primera División Argentina. With 31 titles (but really 16.5, since they do 2 different half season each year), they haven't been relegated since entering the Primera División in 1931. They are the New York Yankees of Argentinean soccer. And they are playing to try to avoid getting relegated to the B league. So you have Córdoba's most popular soccer team playing the nation's second most popular soccer team. River Plate is a big market team, so there are confluences of fans all over the country. My host family has had a TV dinner twice. Once when we all were watching a movie together, and once on Wednesday. María, my host mom, is 62, knows little about soccer, and was still gripped by what was happening. Prior to kickoff, there were bomb sounds coming from outside. Our dialogue:

Me: "¿Qué son esos ruidos afuera?
María [nonchalantly]: "Las bombas."

I walked to a bar during the entretiempo to meet my friends. I missed the first five minutes of the first half. Walking there, the streets were practically empty. All of a sudden, all the cars going by started honking. Cue the bomb sounds. Belgrano scored. I get there right after the goal. After the goal, the River hinchas tear a hole in the chain link fence that surrounds the field. One crazy hincha runs onto the field and starts shaking a player. Play is stopped for 20 minutes. Police toting riot shields, German shepherds, and fire hoses come to monitor the River fan section. Later that week, I asked my host brother if that is common. He said it happens all the time, although fans rarely do touch players when they run onto the field. All in all, the stoppage time was 22 minutes long.

Differences between how this is handled in the US and here. In the US, when a streaker/crazy person runs onto a professional sporting field, the producers tactfully cut the cameras away to not reward the maniac for his attempt to steal the spotlight. Here, they zoomed in on him, showed replays, etc. He was the cover spread of every major paper the next day.

After the game, people gathered at Patio Olmos (aka ¡O!) to festejar y celebrar the Belgrano 2-0 win. The next leg of the game is Sunday afternoon. If Belgrano loses by two or fewer, they get promoted. I hope it happens, so I can experience sporting history and get some nice pictures of locura happening in ¡O!

Until later. The next post will be significantly shorter, deal with my night at the Biarren music party, and include more of my (hopefully) witty observations on life.

Toodles.

Our Gent, Tina

Why is Tina a gent despite having an overtly feminine name? Don't worry about it, it's just a mondegreen.

In other news, I'd wager I'm in a different hemisphere than a good 90% of people who will read this, thus the impetus for the revival of my blog. You see, I'm partaking in a once in a lifetime experience called "studying abroad." I am in Córdoba, Argentina, taking classes at la Universidad Nacional de Córdoba and living with an incredibly hospitable host family. Let's rewind.

How I Got Here
Life has taught me the conversational norm of relevance, that being, most normal people don't mention things in conversation that isn't germane to the current exchange. Therefore, I won't bother with the first 20 years of my life, and I will instead focus on my trip itself. Besides, I'm long winded as it is, and neither of us have enough time to write/read all that foolishness.

Anywho, I had no travel horror stories. I illegally kept my cell phone on during my flight until I had confirmation that the Mavericks punched their ticket to the NBA finals. After that, I slept for 98% (rough estimation) of my flights. This, while beneficial in passing the time, eventually bit me in the butt as I consequently was not served any free food for quite a long period of time.

I buddied up with three other guys from UT with whom I had the same itinerary during the four hour layover in Santiago.

We got to our hotel/hostel (adjacent ones) and walked around the city. We ambled upon street comedians who were doing a show in a plaza. Jonathan, the one of us who normally looks the least touristy, decided to buck that image, took his camera out, and started to film the show. Shortly, the presumably quick witted actors singled him out, and after a "¿De dónde eres?" probably relentlessly made fun of him. This of course is speculative, as I could not fully understand what came out of their mile-a-minute mouths. However, the crowd's laughter did not allay my suspicion that we just became comic fodder. Tail in between our legs, we retreated back to hotel. After watching Chicago choke away their game five lead, I retired for the night.

I will continue my two weeks later, but first I will highlight some cultural differences.

• Argentinians do things much later than we do. In almost every regard. They eat later. Dinner here starts at 10 pm, right about the time my dear old father normally crawls into bed. People are late to things. The earliest my linguistics professor has been to class is five minutes late. The latest? 16. If you see someone on the street, and you are running late, you are expected to stop and talk to them for a few minutes. Finally, the nightlife starts late. The "boliches" don't start hopping until 2am. They go strong until 5am. Some dedicated people will have after parties that go until 8am. They embody Kesha's dreams. They literally don't stop until they see the sunlight.
  
• Argentinians can not stand the cold. For instance, today it was 75 degrees outside. Not a single native I saw was wearing short sleeves or shorts. When it is 55 degrees outside, they dress as if it is 35 degrees outside. No word yet on what they do when it is actually cold.
• For you ignorant racists that think all of Latin America has food like Mexico, you're painfully wrong. Argentinians hate spicy food (at least Cordobeses, there is supposedly some spicy food in the northwest). They also don't use that many spices/herbs in cooking. Thus, some would say (me included) that their food can sometimes be bland. Their worst food? without a doubt, pizzas. They add no discernible amount of tomato sauce. The rest consists of almost entirely cheese (but not the cheese we put on pizzas) and ham. Olives are then put on, and occasionally hard boiled egg slices. They incorporate eggs into many foods as toppings, but find eating eggs for breakfast laughable. They (or at least my family, the sample size here may not be the best) hate peanut butter. My family rarely eats out, and the food casera is very healthy. Breakfast consists of a factura or two and milk. Thus, it is very light.
• When they go clubbing, they actually dance. (note: grinding is not dancing). They have strengthened my notion that most countries besides America have an innately dancing prone populace. Also, they don't necessarily go just to get shitfaced. The city's favorite drink is fernet con coca (Fernet with coke). They could not have chosen worse. Fernet is as alcoholic (45% by volume) as it is shitty. It is remarkably bitter. No amount of Coca Cola can salvage this monstrosity. I talked to a local with whom we went dancing, and he told me that it's a drink you normally have after you've already had a few.
• Students actually go to class to learn. For the most part, students don't shop online in class, sleep, facebook, etc, but pay attention to what is educationally valuable to them. Ironically, while being told this in our orientation, I was asleep.
• Greeting girls is done with a kiss on the cheek, where you don't actually kiss their cheek, but do the cheek to cheek deal. Also, you always go to the left with this. At first, my inclination was to go to the right, which would result in an actual kiss. I have narrowly escaped this fate at least 3 times. Important to go left.
• This isn't really a cultural difference, but whenever I go into a foreign country, I always find myself having more pedestrian standoffs that in the US. Right now I'm averaging about 3 a day.

More to come. As they say here, "Chiau."

Toodles.

Chronicling the Chronicles (of Narnia)

This winter break, I took it upon myself to take advantage of my oodles of leisure time to read The Chronicles of Narnia. If you live under a rock, The Chronicles of Narnia are a highly allegorically didactic children's book series CS Lewis wrote to familiarize kids with many concepts from Christianity. If you live under a boulder, CS Lewis was the chair of medieval literature at Caimbridge while also one of the best Christian thinkers/writers of the 21st century. These are my thoughts on the books and the allegories I liked best. That means yes, there will be some spoilers, but I tried to avoid them.

This post lists my favorites vaguely in order, followed by a book by book breakdown of my thoughts. Lastly, I did this post, for me as a reflection, not necessarily for you. But if you get takeaways as a result, huzzah. It should be said this post is not in the least bit funny.

List of preference, from greatest to least:

1. The Magician's Nephew
   
2. The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
   
3. The Silver Chair
   
4. The Last Battle
   
5. The Horse and His Boy
   
6. The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe
   
7. Prince Caspian

Keep in mind that competition between favorites 1-5 is fierce, with the lion, the witch and the wardrobe a little behind, with Prince Caspian hands down at the bottom.

The Magician's Nephew

• I loved this book. I found the narrator's tongue-in-cheek comic tone throughout the book to be hilarious. In fact, it reminded me a lot of my roommate Ben Johnson's writing style. (Ben's response: "Yes, my influence spreads far and wide.") This book details the creation of the World of Narnia. I didn't get much allegory out of it, but wasn't necessarily looking for it and got lost in the riot that was Uncle Andrew. In the first book (although it was the sixth one CS wrote), Lewis already demonstrates for the reader his ability to create complete characters.

The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe

• My favorite quote from this book is the popular, "'Safe?' said Mr. Beaver...'Who said anything about safe? 'Course he isn't safe. but he's good. He's the King, I tell you,'" a point which the movie did not stress enough. All to often Christians (myself included) focus on loving God for his grace, but forget that God is not Santa. He is merely some gentle gift dispenser. When I think that God's will is greater than mine and that He can change me fulfill His will for my life rather than mine, I am a bit scared. Moreover, we see through Edmund what sin really is. It is more than doing wrong, it is blatantly choosing fleeting evil instead of God and truth. (Romans 1:25). In light of this (which I view as a big slap in the face to God), our redemption is so much more amazing/nonsensical.

The Horse and His Boy

• This one is often dumped on as the dullest of the bunch. I disagree. I found the exotic setting captivating. When viewed with a modern lens, this book would probably be decried as blatantly racist. Many of my professors I'm sure would raise a hullabaloo upon reading this. I, however, was okay with it. Lewis creates a country whose culture and values are the antithesis of those of Narnia. Shasta, the main character, finds himself stuck in this world, in which he feels he doesn't belong. He ends up fleeing to Narnia despite many setbacks. When all is going wrong, Shasta, in his greatest weakest, finds himself face to face with Aslan, who says, "I was the lion who forced you to join with Aravis. I was the cat who comforted you among the tombs. I was the lion who drove the jackals from you while you slept. I was the lion who gave the horses the new strength of fear for the last mile so that you should reach King Lune in time. And I was the lion you do not remember who pushed the boat in which you lay, a child near death, so that it came to shore where a man sat, wakeful at night, to receive you." (Romans 8:28) We don't, and can't, understand why all things happen, but we must remember this is for God's glory, not ours. I always default to the metaphor I learned once of cleaning a fishbowl. If you've ever done it the fish hates getting relocated from it's comfortable bowl into a small cup/plastic baggy/whatever you use. It may even get hurt in the process while you scoop it up/grab it. It doesn't know that you are doing it because you care deeply for it, and you know that if it continued in its state, it would languish in a dirty tank, and maybe eventually die. God's love ftw.
  
• Also here I found a little lesson on identity. A reach maybe? You tell me. When Shasta identifies himself/defines himself in Calormen (not Aslan's country), he is a slave. However, when he comes to Narnia, he discovers he is a prince. When we try to define ourselves in our abilities and things of this world, we eventually, if not always, find failure and sadness. We can only find value in ourselves when we base ourselves in God. Reach? Maybe, but I was prone to see it as it is a glorious thing I've been learning.

Prince Caspian

• So. I didn't really like this one much at all. I don't remember it very well. I thought the trippy field dancing thing was weird. It didn't entertain me that much. Safe to say, I didn't find that many take-homes in it. However, it did have this quote, "You come of the Lord Adam and the Lady Eve,' said Aslan. 'And that is both honour enough to erect the head of the poorest beggar, and shame enough to bow the shoulders of the greatest emperor in earth."

Voyage of the Dawn Treader

• Eustace is an arrogant, argumentative cousin of the Pevensies with whom Edmund and Lucy must live. If you've seen the recent film adaptation, they did a perfect depiction of the frustrating little boy. Before the three of them are dragged off to Narnia, he constantly gives them hell for believing in Narnia. You see, he is a boy who reads only nonfiction and has a hankering for knowledge. Yet in his hurry to devour facts and figures, he fails to absorb the unseen and activate his imagination. I find it ironic, that despite thinking himself a clever boy, he fails to realize for a good half of the book that they are in Narnia, and as such they have no hope of contacting the British consulate or means of knowing of things that exist only in our world. Needless to say, he is a brat. However, an unfortunate happenstance befalls him, and he is turned into a dragon. Consequently, he changes as a person, learns the value on companionship and compassion, and eventually is changed back into a human again by Aslan. I loved this image depicting the amazing transformative powers of Jesus/the Holy Spirit.
• Also, I thought of Eustace's pestering the Pevensies a lesson in how Christians may get flack from the world for believing what we believe. From a strictly secular viewpoint, many of the (true) stories in the Bible must seem like absolute hogwash, just like a friend raving about a magical world would.

The Silver Chair

• It starts out with a good allegory for sin, methinks. Aslan gives Jill four signs she must follow. He says they will be harder to remember/do in Narnia. After the first sign, Jill, Eustace, and Puddleglum encounter a form of the White Witch/Jadis/Queen of the Underworld. She is reminiscent of the snake that killed the queen of Narnia. She tells them to go to the giants' castle and they will give the three of them a king's feast and warm beds. They are venturing through the northern part of the narnian world, and this sounds delightful. Of course, the witch is simply leading the kids to their doom (she sends the kids to the giants' castle just in time for the giants' annual feast, which includes humans as delicacies). On the way to the giants' castle, they pass/screw up the second and third signs. From the perspective of the reader, their err is utterly obvious. But that's how sin works. We ourselves are often blind to it while it is painstakingly obvious to an outside observer. That's why it is important to live in fellowship/accountability and build each other up in Christ. Morever, sin seems good at the time. Jill, Eustace, and Puddleglum all pine for a respite from the cold and a warm meal. Yet in the end it would spell doom if not for a narrow escape.
• Our trio eventually finds themselves in the Witch's realm: the Underworld. This is a world devoid of light where the Witch has the heir to Narnia's throne trapped in a spell. The trio free the prince whilst the witch is away. But she comes back and starts trying to put them into a spell, convincing them that the underworld is the only world, and the world above and its sun are only imagination. She nearly succeeds, but Puddleglum valiantly rebuts, "One word, Ma'am,' he said... 'One word. All you've been saying is quite right, I shouldn't wonder. I'm a chap who always liked to know the worst and then put the best face I can on it. So I won't deny any of what you said. But there's one thing more to be said, even so. Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up, all those things--trees and grass and sun and moon and stars and Aslan himself. Supose we have. Then all I can say is that, in that case, the made-up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones. Suppose this black pit of a kingdom of yours is the only world. Well, it strikes me as a pretty poor one. And that's a funny thing, when you come to think of it. We're just babies making up a game, if you're right. But four babies playing a game can make a play-world which licks your real world hollow. That's why I'm going to stand by the play-world. I'm on Aslan's side even if there isn't any Aslan to lead it. I'm going to live as like a Narnian as I can even if there isn't any Narnia. So, thanking you kindly for our supper, if these two gentlemen and the young lady are ready, we're leaving your court at once and setting out in the dark to spend our lives looking for Overland. Not that our lives will be very long, I should think; but that's small loss if the world's as dull a place as you say." My favorite quote of the series by far. I don't think it needs an explanation.

The Last Battle

• The last two books I both read in one sitting on the drive back from my ski trip in Colorado. That made it harder for me to determine if my engrossment in them was due to the continued reading or their veritable goodness. Nevertheless, The Silver Chair and The Last Battle were both very enjoyable for me. As I have been writing this in one sitting, not much accompanying explanation will be included in this one.
  
• "'Yes,' said Queen Lucy. 'In our world too, a stable once had something inside it that was bigger than our whole world.'"
• Emeth, a calormen, who got into heaven, explains his encounter and resulting actions to the Kings and Queens of Narnia. "'And since then, O Kings and Ladies, I have been wandering to find Him and my happiness is so great that it even weakens me like a wound. And this is the marvel of marvels, that he called me Beloved, me who am but as a dog.'"
• The final depiction of heaven gave me great joy. It is safe to say this series has made me love Jesus more. Furthermore, it has made resonate even more with me another of CS Lewis's quotes: "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."

That is all for now.
Toodles.