I really enjoy Rugby. I never really knew about the game until two years ago. I had been attending university for two years and was entering my third. A friend and I had gone out to the university during intro-week to talk with a professor on what happened to be club day. As he went to get a coffee I aimlessly wandered around the various tables noting all the groups that existed at my university, groups that I didn't even know existed. One of these groups was the varsity men's rugby team. I was horribly out of shape and overweight, but my friend kept prompting me to get the info, so I did. Practices had already begun and so the next day I sat in my car watching all these guys running in the bright hot sun, me to afraid to get out and join them. The next day I bit the bullet and actually joined them on the field and by halfway I thought I would suffer a heart attack, but I made it through that day, and then the next.
I began to really enjoy being pushed physically and I enjoyed getting to know some new people. In what seemed no time at all, the season came and went and the snow began to fall but I didn't lose my interest in the game or the team. When summer came I began playing with the local club team and enjoyed the opportunity to practice and learn more about rugby. I enjoyed the opportunity to become a better player and to continue some friendships. But I really began to notice differences between me and a lot of my teammates. During the school year, I was about ten years older than the majority of the team, during the summer the same was true however there were some older guys like myself. The hard part was that when I began playing rugby I did so to meet some new people, but by the end of the summer I was only there for the sport as most of the people I had met didn't appeal to me. Not that they were bad people, we were simply different, having different life experiences, world views, goals and aspirations. While I enjoyed being on the rugby field I found it harder and harder to be around them off the field.
Summer passed and the leaves began to change colour as a new university season was under way. It was then that I really began to notice how hard it was for me to be around them socially. My first year I had done a lot of things I wouldn't like to repeat simply to be part of the group. Now I was there for my interest in the game with little interest in being part of the group. It was hard and akward. Now that another season is over and the summer season is approaching I am fighting with myself whether I want to play this summer and more importantly next school year. In a lot of ways I would like to simply show up, play and go home. This is made hard by the fact that rugby is well known for its social aspect. Beer-ups and bus trips are well founded traditions within the sport and its hard to be part of the team if your not willing to be there for all of it. I don't want to have to deal with a lot of them and it is simply easier to forgoe playing and simply get on with my life. However I do want to play. I truly enjoy the game, the physicalness of it all. I don't know. I still have a few months to go who knows what will happen between now and then.
Monday, February 28, 2005
Friday, February 25, 2005
Disassociation and community
Walking down the sidewalk I watch as the masses pass by. Some walk as I do, some ride their bicycles, some drive past in differing cars. I notice that the person ahead of me is wearing headphones, no doubt their favorite music is being piped into their brain. I look and see the cars drive past, their windows up. I see the woman walk towards me and just a few feet from me turn to look across the street, as if there is something very interesting written on the blank brick wall. I walk, block after block, no words are uttered, rarely do eyes meet, rarer still that a smile is exchanged. I continue to walk, block after block, left to my own isolation, my destination an empty apartment. Once I tried saying hello to a man walking past, he quickly ducked his head and quickened his pace. Next time I walk, I will not be alone, I decide. No, I will take with me music that I too can pipe into my brain in an effort to alleviate the lonliness, to fill the void and to banish the silence.
My dad loves to tell stories, of his younger days. He has had a hard life. Now he lives on a small allowance from the government, which is one third of the poverty threshold. Of course he is a bit bitter, of course he looks for happier times in his memories. I do too. He tells me about his childhood and the way his family would get together. My grandfather would take the family out to the family farm and their join several of is eleven brothers and sisters. After dinner one of my dad's uncles would bring out his banjo, my grandfather would play his fiddle, an aunt might sing as my dad's sister would entertain them all with her beautiful dancing. They would sit together for hours talking, sharing, laughing, crying.
One of the things that I really enjoyed about my ex-wife was her family. She was part Italian and Scotish. Both sides tried to stay connected as much as possible, even if they didn't really like each other all that much. In the end they were family and that is what mattered. I would go with her to a family dinner and be one of about thirty people all crammed into a house. People were talking, catching up on each other's lives. People would laugh and tell stories. They would share their lives. I miss it.
I'm riding a bus, listening to music on my walkman, staring out a window. I look around at the other passengers and see that they are mirror images of myself. Everyone together in their isolation. I get off the bus alone, walk to the mall alone. I shop alone and get back on the bus alone. The bus follows its circuitous route as I once again stare out the window at nothing, waiting to get off the bus so that I can go to an empty apartment.
Hundreds of years ago people would live their whole lives in small villages or small towns. There could be as many as four generations of a family all living in the village if not together. If a child decided to move away for work or adventure it is quite possible that they may never see their family again. I wonder what families back then were like? How close were they with each other? Today we have amazing technology that can take us to the ends of the earth and all the while we can stay connected to those back home who we may have left behind. It seems that this technology is a double edged sword though.
Today we have televisions in our kitchens so that we can eat and watch at the same time. This way we don't have to interact with those that are supposedly closest to us. We sit together in a dim room, the light from the TV illuminating our silent faces as nobody talks because the action on the idiot box is vastly more important than anything you or I might have to share. How often do we send someone an email so that we don't have to talk with them in person or at least over the phone? A perfect example is the fact that I'm saying this to a computer screen anonymously rather than actually telling someone what I truly think. How often do we play music in a room to fill the silence because we aren't talking with the other person who is there with us?
It doesn't begin and end with technology though. No, it seems that entirely bent on disassociation rather than community. We would much rather be left alone then to actually connect with another human being even if it simply through a simply friendly smile and hello on the street as we pass by each other. One area in which we choose isolation over connectedness is sex. I see programs on TV now where single people sit and talk about their one-night stands and anonymous sex. I've read columns in newspapers that not only promote the idea of promiscuity and anonymous sex but give tips on how to go about it more effectively. Now, I'm not making a judgment here or going on a rant about the sexual morality of the situation, but rather trying to point out that as this becomes more prevelent one has to notice that we are removing the interconnectedness from the sexual relationship. Before at least you might have to go on a date or two and actually talk with one another before getting to the screwing. Now its setting up appointments for sex over the internet or deciding to screw some person we met while half drunk at a bar. I know that not everyone is doing this. I also know that the amount we hear about it is most likely disproportionate to the amount of people who actually do this sort of thing given our sex obsessed culture. But sex is the ultimate personal interaction and the person who on the street is unwilling to even say hello to a stranger could later that same day give their body away to that same stranger in the name of self gratification speaks to a certain imbalance in the person.
These are all indicators of the fact that we are gradually but continually isolating ourselves from each other voluntarily. It's not like we are being force to segregate ourselves from one another, we choose to do it. Why? Is it easier to be alone? Is it more fun? We are relational creatures so why do we fight so hard to irradicate those relationships? In the end I have to wonder if this is a positive step, because it seems clear to me that the more we disassociate ourselves with the people around us, our ability to empathize with those same people diminishes. This lack of empathic ability leads to apathy and apathy leads to death. Yes, death. How many times have you walked past a person begging on a street corner? How many times have you made some excuse in your head to justify your not giving them your time, money or sympathy? How many times have you read in the newspaper that a homeless person was found dead lying in an alley because they had frozen to death during the night? All of this comes from apathy. We simply don't care about each other because we don't have either the time or ability to connect with one another anymore and to see the simply value of another human being.
I remember a class trip I took to Toronto when I was in highschool. I remember sitting in Union Station watching as hundreds of people walked by in business suits carrying briefcases. I remember noting that it was a rare occasion when one of them would even acknowledge the person at their feet begging for some sympathy, begging to be given a little bit of human dignity, begging that someone might care even in the slightest. Rarer still was it that a person would actually say a word to the person or give them some change. We are part of the richest society in the world. We have more money and resources than we know what to do with, but we have no compassion, we have lost our capacity to empathize with another human being who is suffering. No we would much rather isolate ourselves in our own little worlds as people die on our streets because we don't care enough to provide for those who can't provide for themselves.
I walk block after block, I sit on a bus and stare out a window, I sit in an empty apartment and I wonder all the time what is wrong with our society that we can allow such inhumanity to continue another day. Oh, yeah I forgot, the new season of Survivor is on and we don't have time for something else.
Sincerely;
Vespasian
My dad loves to tell stories, of his younger days. He has had a hard life. Now he lives on a small allowance from the government, which is one third of the poverty threshold. Of course he is a bit bitter, of course he looks for happier times in his memories. I do too. He tells me about his childhood and the way his family would get together. My grandfather would take the family out to the family farm and their join several of is eleven brothers and sisters. After dinner one of my dad's uncles would bring out his banjo, my grandfather would play his fiddle, an aunt might sing as my dad's sister would entertain them all with her beautiful dancing. They would sit together for hours talking, sharing, laughing, crying.
One of the things that I really enjoyed about my ex-wife was her family. She was part Italian and Scotish. Both sides tried to stay connected as much as possible, even if they didn't really like each other all that much. In the end they were family and that is what mattered. I would go with her to a family dinner and be one of about thirty people all crammed into a house. People were talking, catching up on each other's lives. People would laugh and tell stories. They would share their lives. I miss it.
I'm riding a bus, listening to music on my walkman, staring out a window. I look around at the other passengers and see that they are mirror images of myself. Everyone together in their isolation. I get off the bus alone, walk to the mall alone. I shop alone and get back on the bus alone. The bus follows its circuitous route as I once again stare out the window at nothing, waiting to get off the bus so that I can go to an empty apartment.
Hundreds of years ago people would live their whole lives in small villages or small towns. There could be as many as four generations of a family all living in the village if not together. If a child decided to move away for work or adventure it is quite possible that they may never see their family again. I wonder what families back then were like? How close were they with each other? Today we have amazing technology that can take us to the ends of the earth and all the while we can stay connected to those back home who we may have left behind. It seems that this technology is a double edged sword though.
Today we have televisions in our kitchens so that we can eat and watch at the same time. This way we don't have to interact with those that are supposedly closest to us. We sit together in a dim room, the light from the TV illuminating our silent faces as nobody talks because the action on the idiot box is vastly more important than anything you or I might have to share. How often do we send someone an email so that we don't have to talk with them in person or at least over the phone? A perfect example is the fact that I'm saying this to a computer screen anonymously rather than actually telling someone what I truly think. How often do we play music in a room to fill the silence because we aren't talking with the other person who is there with us?
It doesn't begin and end with technology though. No, it seems that entirely bent on disassociation rather than community. We would much rather be left alone then to actually connect with another human being even if it simply through a simply friendly smile and hello on the street as we pass by each other. One area in which we choose isolation over connectedness is sex. I see programs on TV now where single people sit and talk about their one-night stands and anonymous sex. I've read columns in newspapers that not only promote the idea of promiscuity and anonymous sex but give tips on how to go about it more effectively. Now, I'm not making a judgment here or going on a rant about the sexual morality of the situation, but rather trying to point out that as this becomes more prevelent one has to notice that we are removing the interconnectedness from the sexual relationship. Before at least you might have to go on a date or two and actually talk with one another before getting to the screwing. Now its setting up appointments for sex over the internet or deciding to screw some person we met while half drunk at a bar. I know that not everyone is doing this. I also know that the amount we hear about it is most likely disproportionate to the amount of people who actually do this sort of thing given our sex obsessed culture. But sex is the ultimate personal interaction and the person who on the street is unwilling to even say hello to a stranger could later that same day give their body away to that same stranger in the name of self gratification speaks to a certain imbalance in the person.
These are all indicators of the fact that we are gradually but continually isolating ourselves from each other voluntarily. It's not like we are being force to segregate ourselves from one another, we choose to do it. Why? Is it easier to be alone? Is it more fun? We are relational creatures so why do we fight so hard to irradicate those relationships? In the end I have to wonder if this is a positive step, because it seems clear to me that the more we disassociate ourselves with the people around us, our ability to empathize with those same people diminishes. This lack of empathic ability leads to apathy and apathy leads to death. Yes, death. How many times have you walked past a person begging on a street corner? How many times have you made some excuse in your head to justify your not giving them your time, money or sympathy? How many times have you read in the newspaper that a homeless person was found dead lying in an alley because they had frozen to death during the night? All of this comes from apathy. We simply don't care about each other because we don't have either the time or ability to connect with one another anymore and to see the simply value of another human being.
I remember a class trip I took to Toronto when I was in highschool. I remember sitting in Union Station watching as hundreds of people walked by in business suits carrying briefcases. I remember noting that it was a rare occasion when one of them would even acknowledge the person at their feet begging for some sympathy, begging to be given a little bit of human dignity, begging that someone might care even in the slightest. Rarer still was it that a person would actually say a word to the person or give them some change. We are part of the richest society in the world. We have more money and resources than we know what to do with, but we have no compassion, we have lost our capacity to empathize with another human being who is suffering. No we would much rather isolate ourselves in our own little worlds as people die on our streets because we don't care enough to provide for those who can't provide for themselves.
I walk block after block, I sit on a bus and stare out a window, I sit in an empty apartment and I wonder all the time what is wrong with our society that we can allow such inhumanity to continue another day. Oh, yeah I forgot, the new season of Survivor is on and we don't have time for something else.
Sincerely;
Vespasian
Wednesday, February 23, 2005
Is another Reformation needed?
As I sat discussing the matter of legislated morality and the rights of homosexual people to marry I couldn't help noting the fact that so called Christians do more to harm the name of Christ and His Gospel than any outside source that I can think of. While many may think that atheists would be the greatest 'threat' to the Gospel, in actuality they simply disagree with us on the existence of a God, which we (Chrisitans) new would occur. Faith in God is a gift given to believers from God (Ephesians 2:8-9) therefore it should not be a suprising fact that there are those out there who deny His existence. There is nothing that humanity can do to bridge the gap between ourselves and God that sin has created, God comes to us through grace and mercy and we accept His sacrifice on our behalf to enter into a relationship with our Creator. The Apostle Paul says that creation and human conscience speak to the existence of God (Romans 1) in the absence of the Gospel and therefore no one will be able to argue that there was no way for them to acknowledge the existence of God, but at no point should we be suprised that people do not believe as we know clearly from the Bible that there will be many who won't.
Many may point to science as being against God and His Church. That it tries to denouce God and replace the Gospel in the hearts and minds of people. While many may use science to try and explain away the doubts and questions that humanity has concerning our origins, our purpose and our future, science in and of itself simply allows us to explore the wonders and beauty of God's creation. The fact that some people use it as a means of denying God does not make it in and of itself 'evil' or anti-God.
Many people use the ideas of suffering and evil within the world as a means of denying God, but they also want free will and the natural outcome of free will is consequence. The same people who ask 'how could a loving God allow a child to be murdered' and then say that because this does occur in our world that God does not exist would be the same people that would decry the lack of free will (living as automotons who could do nothing of our own will but rather would be puppets controled completely and utterly by the Creator) if they were able. God gave humanity the gift of choice and through that gift (and yes it is a gift) sin occurs. So to decry God when the natural consequence of a wrong choice happens is I think illogical. It is ultimately what we want as consequence is a natural part of choice.
All these things we know, as Christians, through our relationship with God and through His word as contained in the Bible. What must truly make Christ weep is the fact that there are people in the world who try to clothe themselves in his glory and then spread hate and sin. For instance, I would ask anyone to cite chapter and verse from the Bible that says unequivicably that God hates you or me. Yet there are so called ministers who do claim that He does hate people. For instance take the person of Fred Phelps whose vitrioloc rhetoric is a clear example of supposed Christians who do more harm to the Gospel than those outside the Church. Fred Phelps is a hate-filled self-loathing old man who, in my opinion, has never encountered the love of God, because the love of God transforms a person to such an extent that Christ could say 'love your neighbor as yourself' and anticipate it in action. There is no love in Fred Phelps and as God is the epitome of love, I cannot believe that God is in
Many may point to science as being against God and His Church. That it tries to denouce God and replace the Gospel in the hearts and minds of people. While many may use science to try and explain away the doubts and questions that humanity has concerning our origins, our purpose and our future, science in and of itself simply allows us to explore the wonders and beauty of God's creation. The fact that some people use it as a means of denying God does not make it in and of itself 'evil' or anti-God.
Many people use the ideas of suffering and evil within the world as a means of denying God, but they also want free will and the natural outcome of free will is consequence. The same people who ask 'how could a loving God allow a child to be murdered' and then say that because this does occur in our world that God does not exist would be the same people that would decry the lack of free will (living as automotons who could do nothing of our own will but rather would be puppets controled completely and utterly by the Creator) if they were able. God gave humanity the gift of choice and through that gift (and yes it is a gift) sin occurs. So to decry God when the natural consequence of a wrong choice happens is I think illogical. It is ultimately what we want as consequence is a natural part of choice.
All these things we know, as Christians, through our relationship with God and through His word as contained in the Bible. What must truly make Christ weep is the fact that there are people in the world who try to clothe themselves in his glory and then spread hate and sin. For instance, I would ask anyone to cite chapter and verse from the Bible that says unequivicably that God hates you or me. Yet there are so called ministers who do claim that He does hate people. For instance take the person of Fred Phelps whose vitrioloc rhetoric is a clear example of supposed Christians who do more harm to the Gospel than those outside the Church. Fred Phelps is a hate-filled self-loathing old man who, in my opinion, has never encountered the love of God, because the love of God transforms a person to such an extent that Christ could say 'love your neighbor as yourself' and anticipate it in action. There is no love in Fred Phelps and as God is the epitome of love, I cannot believe that God is in
Sunday, February 13, 2005
Utopian - Dystopian
Do you ever think of the future? I don't mean 'my 5 year plan' or 'will I have grandkids' but rather 'what will the world look like'? I like to write and my prefered genre to write in is science fiction which allows one muse over future possibilities and directions. Invariably when ever I begin thinking about a story's direction or a new story idea the setting is a dystopian world. As anyone who has read my previous posts will know, I am a Christian and I do believe the Bible when it says that an Apocolypse is coming, so I guess it would be hard to have a utopian view of the future. But this is different. I don't picture the world suffering through what could be termed an apocolypse but rather a world that has emerged due to man's actions not God's. I also tend to gravitate towards dystopian fiction as well. Examples would be '1984' - 'Brave New World' - 'Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?'.
When you look at the world today, where do you see humanity heading? Is it a utopian society of mutual respect and harmony? Where war, famine, pestilence, racism and apathy are a thing of the past? Is it a world in which we want for nothing and at the same time greed has been done away with as well? A world where poverty, homelessness and hunger are nonexistent? Do you look at the world of today and see us simply as a point on the positive arc of progress? Are we building towards something greater? Or is history cyclical and therefore while we may be progressing now we have little choice but to regress in the future by repeating mistakes or reliving events from history? Or, as I do, do you look at the world of today and see us on a negative arc towards a future of problems and misery?
Wow! Chipper fellow aren't I? However I find it hard to view the events of recent history and then project a positive outcome. For instance, I watched a documentary about the advances in medical technology which will see people born around 1970 - 1975 become in essence imortal as they will be able to ride a wave of progress. Personally I can't fathom living till I'm 400, I'm a little bored now, let alone 350 years from now. They've already developed drugs to combat aging and with cloning technology on the rise they figure it is only a matter of time before we are regrowing our own livers or hearts as ours begin to fail. Okay, so great a whole lot of us are gonna be around for a real long while. The documentary on after this is one on the advances and direction in robotics. How scientists are making dramatic leaps in robotic technology which will see us have the ability to produce robots within say 50 years that will see much of human labour taken over by machines.
So great. On one hand we have a team of scientist working on ways to make I hope I'm wrong. I'd much rather see us all working towards feeding the starving, housing the homeless, healing the sick and treating one another with love and respect. I just don't see it happening. One of the main problems, as far as I'm concerned, is the notion of the nation-state. Nationalism and its resultant patriotism are a scourge upon the world which needs to be done away with. These are relatively new ideas on the world stage being only 200 years old; in essence young enough to be done away with. Of course we have to find another way of meeting the needs of the people first, but its something we should be working towards rather than simply considering them the penultimate cure for meeting human necessity.
When you look at the world today, where do you see humanity heading? Is it a utopian society of mutual respect and harmony? Where war, famine, pestilence, racism and apathy are a thing of the past? Is it a world in which we want for nothing and at the same time greed has been done away with as well? A world where poverty, homelessness and hunger are nonexistent? Do you look at the world of today and see us simply as a point on the positive arc of progress? Are we building towards something greater? Or is history cyclical and therefore while we may be progressing now we have little choice but to regress in the future by repeating mistakes or reliving events from history? Or, as I do, do you look at the world of today and see us on a negative arc towards a future of problems and misery?
Wow! Chipper fellow aren't I? However I find it hard to view the events of recent history and then project a positive outcome. For instance, I watched a documentary about the advances in medical technology which will see people born around 1970 - 1975 become in essence imortal as they will be able to ride a wave of progress. Personally I can't fathom living till I'm 400, I'm a little bored now, let alone 350 years from now. They've already developed drugs to combat aging and with cloning technology on the rise they figure it is only a matter of time before we are regrowing our own livers or hearts as ours begin to fail. Okay, so great a whole lot of us are gonna be around for a real long while. The documentary on after this is one on the advances and direction in robotics. How scientists are making dramatic leaps in robotic technology which will see us have the ability to produce robots within say 50 years that will see much of human labour taken over by machines.
So great. On one hand we have a team of scientist working on ways to make I hope I'm wrong. I'd much rather see us all working towards feeding the starving, housing the homeless, healing the sick and treating one another with love and respect. I just don't see it happening. One of the main problems, as far as I'm concerned, is the notion of the nation-state. Nationalism and its resultant patriotism are a scourge upon the world which needs to be done away with. These are relatively new ideas on the world stage being only 200 years old; in essence young enough to be done away with. Of course we have to find another way of meeting the needs of the people first, but its something we should be working towards rather than simply considering them the penultimate cure for meeting human necessity.
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