Chronological Snobbery

I've been listening to a sermon series by Mark Driscoll called Peasant Princess and it is really good. I highly recommend it. I listened to part 4 (His Garden) last night and something he spoke about really resonated with me, so here it is.

He highlights 1 Kings 11:1-13, where Solomon's heart turns from God and he builds temples and high places for his wives. When we read that, because we don't know the history and context of those other religious groups, it becomes easy to think little of it.

So here's the skinny:

• The temple for Ashteroth were poles of worship - male phallic symbols where people would gather to have orgies and do all sorts of sexually deviant acts.
• He also built a temple for the god of the Moabites, Chemosh, which required regular child sacrifice (think back to Ruth).
• And more temples for the god of the Ammonites, Molech, which required child sacrifice by fire -burning your children to death.

Mind you, this was Solomon, the builder of the temple of the Lord.

• This man was richer than Bill Gates,
• Smarter than Albert Einstein,
• More spiritually influential than the pope,
• More politically powerful than the president,
• And he had a harem that makes Hugh Hefner's look junior varsity.

Now we may read that and think, those people were disgusting, horrible! But be very careful of chronological snobbery, as C.S. Lewis calls it. Statistically, we slaughter far more children than Molech and Chemosh EVER did. They called it worship, we call it "choice."

We don't have the moral high ground. We slaughtered far more children in the worship of sex than they ever did. If you walk away from God, you are capable of anything, even the murder of your own child.

After marrying his 300 non-believing wives, his heart turned from God and look at the sins he was capable of.

Carry yourself with fear and sobriety. We may look at disgustedly at Solomon's 1000-woman harem, but lust is a matter of the heart. You could have a harem on your computer or stored away in your mind. Are you that much better?

We (I) must be very careful. Chronological snobbery and moral high grounds are very easy and dangerous ways to give yourself a false sense of righteousness. We must always look deeper to understand the fullness of the Word. It can be painfully sobering.

1,2,3,4 I declare thumb war

1. I am sooo jetlaggeddd

2. I just bought a suit for interviews -yay

3. Why is it so cold in California already!

4. It goes without saying - I miss the kids at House of Sarang.

5,6,7,8 try to keep your thumb straight.

Courage

"Courage is not the absence of fear but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear. The brave may not live forever, but the cautious do not live at all.

From now on, you'll be traveling the road between who you think you are and who you can be. They key is to allow yourself to make the journey."

-Princess Diaries

God can speak through Disney movies too.

UPDATE on post below:

Twas not a matter of quality, but a matter of skill.

I bought Nestle and had a go at melting it, and failed because I tried winging it.

Must follow directions and not memory.

Turns out I was overheating both chocolates.

So, lesson: QUANTITY STILL RULES. HAHAH

Quality vs. Quantity

I've always grown up being a quantity girl, constantly falling for clearance prices and deals, clipping coupons and reveling in Costco wholesale items. But as I get older, I definitely see how wasteful it can be. And in some cases, I truly learn the lesson that quality really can be more important than quantity.

I don't think I'll ever fully leave my quantity-loving ways, but today I was sorely disappointed with my decision to buy cheap.

As you probably know, I love to bake and honestly, I often buy cheap ingredients and it tastes perfectly fine. But the other day, I bought cheap Kroger brand chocolate chips for baking (Nestle choc chips were double the price) and I wanted to make my own choc-covered honey-twist pretzels. (Doesn't that sound delicious?? I thought so too. But Kroger failed me.)

I proceeded to melt the chocolate chips in the same way I always do, but it was NOT becoming a silky smoooth delicious brown as it normally should. Instead it was a grainy, undippable glob.

Cheap chocolate = crap. (It literally looked like poop on a stick.)

Next time, I gotta stick with the good stuff. Nes-lay To-louse. ;) Definitely worth the extra money.

In the case of the melting of chocolate chips, may the ruling show that quality truly trumps quantity.

THREE at 3:33

3 more chapters of OChem to cover

3 more weeks til my DATs

3 more days until toy story threeee

Alice in Wonderland - Jabberwocky

I just recently saw Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland, and I really, really liked it. A lot. So it inspired me to rewatch the old movie, which I now love even more. There is so much clever wordplay I never could have understood as a child.

So one of the reasons I enjoyed the new movie more than I think others would is because of Glendale High School A Capella Choir.

Two of the years I was in A Capella, we sang "Jabberwocky," which if you don't know, is the poem/song in Lewis Carroll's books.

It has a bunch of made-up words and the song, really, is very strange.

(here's a video link)

But as odd as the song was, I'm very glad we sang it because Alice in Wonderland (the new movie) is all about the poem.

• Johnny Depp recites it while Alice rides on her hat, as does the Cheshire cat in the old movie.
• The old movie has mome raths, Tulgey wood.
• The new movie features the frumious bandersnatch, jubjub bird, frabjous day, "calloo-callay," the vorpal blade, and of course, the Jabberwocky.

So having sang the song (thus having memorized the poem), I understand the nonsensical words of Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland.

Us A Capella alumni have an upperhand in that sense. Whereas the average viewer must have been confused by the strange language, for me, watching the movie was like finally being able to put pictures to words I've known for the past 8 years.

All in all, Tim Burton has brought my A Capella song to life. And I loved it.