The Fantasy Of Pi

I saw the Life of Pi last night, if you haven't seen it then you might not want to read this until you have. I would prefer that so you could tell me if you came to a similar conclusion. I would recommend the movie because it was very thought provoking and well done. I saw it in 3d but I didn't think that added much. I find 3d a little disorienting.

Near the end of the movie you are given the choice of two stories. Both can't be true. The one is evil and dark, the other is one of triumph and beauty. The outcome is the same either way, so the conclusion seems to be go with the better story. To me that is ignoring the truth and believing in fantasy.

Early in the movie Pi is seen as a person who readily accepts any religion that is presented to him. There are those that believe that there are many paths to God. Pi's father gave what I would consider good advice when he told him you can't accept them all, you have to choose one.

I would go a little farther and say you should examine and follow a true path. There are many paths, I will agree, but they don't always lead to where you want to go. Some just wander around and you end up where you started. Some lead to a dead end. Others just go on and on and you never come to an end. I have chosen Jesus as my path. I don't always stay on the path, often I find myself lost in the brush, because I take my eyes off of the path. I see something interesting or think I have a shortcut and wander off. I have to be diligent because many have gone on this path ahead of me and many have wandered off and left convincing trails that look like the real one.

Jesus said that He was the way to the Father, and that no one can get there apart from him. If there are many paths to God then Jesus is either a liar or mistaken. In either case you can't believe anything else He teaches if He is wrong about this. So if there are many paths, Christianity is not one. However if he is correct then there is only one.

Back to Pi, he seems to have accepted the fantasy story because it shows God's glory and provision. It is a better story, but it is not what is true. The harder story also speaks of God's provision, but it also shows that evil is present and effects us. If the hard story had been portrayed and the "better" one narrated no one would believe the "better" one.

You can follow any path you want, God has given you that choice. There are many paths and many seem right and good, but if Jesus is correct there is only one that will get you to God. Following fantasy because it is more pleasant is just foolishness. I liked Pi, but he is fiction, and the movie is not real, I believe God IS.

Meaningless, meaningless

I just got back from visiting the Habitat For Humanity home site that my son Rusty is supervising. He has 15 students from Portland State that he is trying to keep busy. They don't have any construction skills to speak of. Their accomplishments over the last two days are probably less than what two good framers could do in one day. The students all feel good about what they have accomplished, and they have contributed their time to help people less fortunate. This is a similar problem to me as my experience at Koinonia farm. I really like efficiency and high productivity. When I used to build houses I would often tell buyers who wanted to do some of their own work on their house "You would be better off working at what you do and hire a professional to do the work". Still I had people taking time off of their jobs and working on their house, usually doing inferior work and taking longer than it should, messing up my schedule. I can't help but think the world would run better if everyone would just do what they are best suited for, but how do you know what your field should be? Maybe one of those students will come away from their experience and revolutionize home construction.

I have recently started a study of Ecclesiastes, a book I find humorous and depressing at the same time. The "Teacher" says everything is meaningless. All of man's efforts, whether for industry or pleasure are "chasing after the wind". If he is right, then I guess I need to lighten up and not let other peoples efforts bother me. My father always used to say "a hundred years from now it won't make any difference" he's probably right about most things. It is becoming clearer to me that much of what we work for and spend our time doing is truly meaningless. I am not advocating that everyone just stop working, but maybe change our perspective. Work hard at what you enjoy, do good for others, spend time on noble causes, opt out of the "Rat Race".

This is still a work in progress, just keeping you updated.

Koinonia Farm

I've been putting off writing this blog because I'm not really sure what to say. My first impressions were not changed that much after my stay. Koinonia was started in 1942 by Clarence Jordan. He was a man who grew up in privilege, graduated from college with a degree in agriculture and went on to get a PhD in new Testament Greek. He was troubled by the prejudice and segregation of his time. He wanted to use his degree in agriculture to help poor farmers improve their situation. He used his Greek knowledge to make some translations of the bible called Cotton Patch Gospels. He also wanted to improve race relations. He used the example of early Christians in the book of Acts as his blueprint. He wanted everyone to share with each other and not consider anything their own. He and his wife and another couple bought a large farm in an impoverished part of Georgia. He was considered a harmless kook at first. He paid the farm help the same pay whether they were black or white, that didn't sit well with many. Then the civil rights movement got going and Koinonia was seen as a problem. They were shot at and there were some fires and businesses that traded with them were boycotted and burned. Koinonia persevered and started selling their products mail order. Clarence Jordan will probably never get the recognition he deserves, he remained at Koinonia until his death in 1969. Since then Koinonia has gone through many changes, with the last change trying to return more to it's roots. They are trying to make the farm more environmentally friendly. They share work and resources, and seem to get along pretty well. They are a community whose main goal is to promote peace. I don't think that is a bad goal, but I got the sense that they were content to live a simple life, just think nice thoughts and live a peaceful relaxed life. My main problem is I see that as somewhat lazy. Now here in Irvine I am confronted with this community thats main goal seems to be to live the good life. Everything is clean and new and in order. You don't see any cars older than 10 years every yard is well cared for, everyone is busy and in a hurry. I'm starting to feel like the writer of Ecclesiastics, "vanity, vanity, rich and poor, industrious or lazy, the same fate comes to all"(my paraphrase). I know the people here are too caught up in unimportant things, that was driven home at Legoland yesterday. I watched a woman get on a ride with her son and go on the entire ride and get off while on her cellphone. I think my problem is I can identify more with these Californians than the Koinonians. I really want to say that their simple life is wrong, but I can't. I don't want to live that way, I really like all my things. I have to do some more thinking on this, later though, I have to go play with my grand kids now. Let me leave you with this quote that I wish I had never found.

"When an honestly mistaken man is confronted with the truth, he must either cease being mistaken, or stop being honest". Author unknown

Back on the left coast

We left Koinonia farm Friday morning, we went into Americus and toured the Habitat for Humanity Global village. They have some actual huts and shanties that people live in in some of the slums of the world setup in a little village, then you go to some examples of the kind of homes they help build to replace them. If you are ever near Americus Georgia I recommend that you visit. The houses they build are pretty basic, I doubt you could get many Americans to live in them, but compared to what they were living in they are quite a step up. We left there and hit the road heading west. We drove out of Georgia, across Alabama and Mississippi and stopped for the night just across the Mississippi river in Louisiana. D'Linda only wanted to drive 6 or 8 hours a day, but I didn't mind the driving, and didn't want to just sit somewhere. I remembered that I wanted to stop at The Grove Church in Chandler AZ, we figured out the time it would take and I figured we had about 7 hours to spare, so we could even stop and get some sleep. We headed out early and got halfway across Louisiana before it got light. We made it to Fort Worth about noon and found a Costco Gas. We had missed them, we had been using them until we hit Houston on the way east, but they don't have any in the Deep South. We also picked up a couple of audio books there. We listened to one across most of west Texas, it is pretty boring scenery there and it helped. We stopped for the night about 150 miles east of El Paso. I woke up about 1:30 and didn't think I would be able to get back to sleep so I figured it would assure us of making Chandler before 11:00. I put in the other book and headed out. We made it to western New Mexico before I started getting tired so we pulled into a truck stop to get a little nap. The wind was blowing pretty hard there and it had been work keeping the motorhome on the road. We still had a couple hours to spare so I took a nap. I woke up and went into the restroom, when I went in the wind was still blowing, but it wasn't that cold. I didn't think I was in there that long, but when I came out it was colder and starting to snow. I didn't think it would last long so I decided to head out. We only made it two exits before we had to pull off, it was snowing so hard the wipers couldn't keep up. There went our two hour cushion. We headed out again, but we were going slower because of the wind and we were afraid it would start snowing again. By the time we made it to Tucson we had decided we weren't going to make it to Chandler in time so we went to Costco for gas. The weather cleared up and it was beautiful the rest of the day. We drove up to Mesa and went to a big flea market, then to Suncity and spent two nights in Karen's (D'Linda's good friend) mother's driveway. We left there just before dawn and made it to Andrea's house just before noon today. The girls were excited to see us, and it is great to be here. I'm not sure how long we'll stay, but we checked the weather back home and it says rain for as far as they can see, so we might stay for awhile. I will write more about Koinonia soon, but I'm still trying to sort out my thoughts on it.

Jimmy Carter

We went to church with Jimmy Carter this morning. I wasn't all that excited to go, but D'Linda was, so we went. I was really impressed. Before Rusty's head explodes, I haven't turned into a liberal democrat, but he impressed me on many levels. Another family that is staying here at Koinonia was going and offered to give us a ride so we took them up on it. Plains Georgia is about 10 miles from here, it is a very small town, the sign going into town boasts "Home town of the 39th President". The church he attends is called Maranatha Baptist Church. It is a brick building that is nice looking, but not very big. The Sundays that he is there they have Secret Service agents there, they examine all bags and purses and you get a wand waved over you. This time of year the crowds aren't big. In the summer they tell you to be there by 8:00 for the 10:00 Sunday school class that he teaches. We got there about 9:00 and got seated near the back of the auditorium. The auditorium seats about 300 and by the time class started it was full enough that they had to set up a few folding chairs. The regular members have some reserved seats near the center of one side of the auditorium. Then Miss Jan gets up and tells you the rules. She was Amy Carter's fourth grade teacher, she so impressed the Carter's that she was on their staff for quite a while. She laid down the law about what was and was not permissible, she did it with humor, but reminded us that she had some armed Secret Service agents at he disposal. She was a member of the church herself, she said they had 130 members on the role, but average attendance was about 40. When the Carters are present they always have more visitors than members. You can call ahead and they will tell you if he is going to be there. The bulletin for last week read members 26 visitors 138. We had a group of students from New York there today, and it is president's day weekend so the place was just about to capacity. They did allow pictures at times, and everyone that stayed for the whole service got the opportunity to get a picture with the Carters.When he came in he greeted the crowd and said "I see we have a few visitors" he was interested in hearing where everyone was from. He was friendly and seemed to enjoy the crowd. He addressed some of the issues in the news and informed us of some things that weren't in the news. He then led a bible class out of Numbers 12. He is the only President to ever teach a bible class while President, and the only one to do it on a regular basis after office. He comes across as very caring and sincere and uses humor with his lesson. I was impressed that he still attends a small church in his hometown, and that he will give his time to be photographed with all that want. I may differ with him politically, but I really respect his genuineness and humility. One of the ground rules was that we couldn't applaud him, or stand when he came in, Miss Jan said his applause would be if we took the lesson he taught to heart. Many people left after his Sunday school class, another of the rules was that if you left you wouldn't be allowed to come back at picture time. The Pastor gave a lesson that wasn't terrible, about what I would expect for a 40 person congregation. I was impressed with what such a small congregation had to go through to accommodate so many guests on a regular basis. They were very efficient in getting the pictures taken afterwards. The Carters we very gracious even when a few people didn't follow the rules. If you ever are near Plains Georgia I highly recommend you go to Church and see him for yourself. He seemed in good health and he had great command of his memory, but he is 86 so if you do put it on your "bucket list" I wouldn't put it very far down. He may be the only President you can get your picture with without donating a hundred thousand dollars.

Where am I?

We left the gulf coast of Florida and drove through the southeast corner of Alabama, then the back woods of western Georgia and ended up somewhere near Americus Georgia. I say near because we haven't actually seen it. We didn't have an address for the Koinonia Farm that our GPS would recognise, but we happened upon it as we were heading to Americus. It is not what I expected. There are a number of buildings and homes on the farm,most in need of repair, or demolition. The farm produces pecans, blueberries and grapes. They have a bakery here that makes a peach, date and some other fruits kind of cake. They also produce a chocolate pecan candy. They have a brisk mail order business for their products, especially before Christmas time.

I am hesitant to comment on the place because I've only been here 24 hours and I'm hoping that my opinion will change. The people are really friendly and hospitable, but I would characterise them as redneck hippies. There are about 30 full time residents. Some are interns that commit for 3 months first and if they still like it after that they commit for a year. Then if they still like the idea of living in this community they become an apprentice for a year, then a novice for a year, then they take a vow and become a steward. They have a few employees and there are some people who help out but don't live on the farm, they are called partners. They are a peace loving community that is trying to live as Jesus would.

They are getting heavily involved in the permaculture movement. It is a system of living that tries to minimise your "footprint" and restore natural symbiotic relationships, man, plant, animals and soil. I read the book "The Omnivore's Dilemma" not long ago and it deals with the concept. I can appreciate their goals, but they don't throw away anything, "you never know when you might be able to use it". They love to recycle and re-purpose everything. So they have piles of junk everywhere. They have old farm equipment and vehicles and stuff all over. Their chief source of income is the 90 acres of pecans, but the pecan orchards don't fit with their permaculture plan. They require chemicals and machinery to harvest. So they will phase them out. They have some chicken tractors that they move around, pigs in a pen that has a fence made of all kinds of re-purposed material and cattle, some are some kind of endangered species. They have some large garden spaces that are pretty weedy. I can understand their goals, but it is all way to cluttered and messy for me. It is probably more of an indictment on me then them, they really pride them selves on living simply and being happy with much less than most of us "need".

One of the first things we saw when we pulled in was a half finished steel building. Just like the kind I built before I retired. The contractor they hired to erect it had been paid and now he won't come back to finish it. Rusty said it reminded him of Africa, I must admit there are some similarities. We spent some time today correcting some mistakes and started to put the siding on. We didn't have a stapler for the insulation so while the forman tried to find one, everyone else just picked everything up and quit early. The forman got sidetracked and I'm not sure if he'll get one tonight or just begin his search anew tomorrow. Calm down Jack, they are a community of peace, they just don't get excited about things. The building isn't very big, if I had Ric and Rusty here we could build the whole thing in about a week, but they don't think that way. They really only deal with today. They have some long range plans, but they don't set schedules and worry about stuff like that. It is really a hard concept for me to grasp, I see projects and they have to be done!

They start the day with meditation time then a short devotional. They have lunch and dinner communialy and ring a bell a couple times a day so that you stop what your doing and meditate and pray. It is almost like what I think a monistary would be like. Most of the Stewards are older women, kind and gentle souls. It will be an interesting week, I'm going to try and understand this lifestyle.

Getting Bored

Last time I updated you we were just leaving Houston. We did leave and spent a night just east of Baton Rouge, then on to Pensacola. We spent a couple days there with some friends we met last year in Israel. It was fun to see Roy and Tracy and their girls, their older daughter, Lea Hannah attends Alabama, but she was home for the weekend so we got to see her. The younger daughter, Mary Willis, said she was going to come and help me hay this summer. After I told her that I hirer high school boys to help me she said she was coming for sure. D'Linda and I really like the girls, they are just so much fun to be around.

We have been at a RV park just east of Pensacola for the last 3 days. The beaches here are white, when we were driving along it looked like it had snowed. The weather has been nice, mid 60's and clear. We went to a Valentines dinner here last night and they had an oldie weds game that we won. We went for a bike ride today, but the road in front of the resort is real busy and not really bike friendly. I am getting bored. We have one more stop before we head back, Koinonia Farm in Americus Georgia.

When I was in Houston I went to a book store with Gregg. I saw a book that's title caught my eye "True Religion". I read the jacket and the author grew up as a missionary kid in Liberia, where we visited Rusty last year, so I had to buy it. I liked the book, it goes along with the way I have been thinking lately. Palmer Chichen, the author leads groups overseas a couple of times a year. When he isn't overseas he pastors a church in Chandler AZ called "The Grove", I'm hoping that it will work out to visit there on the way back. This is just the latest in a series of books that have changed my thinking over the last couple of years. I read "Radical" by David Platt at the start of this trip. Just before we left I read "Resident Aliens" by Hauerwas and Willimon. Last year "Mere Discipleship" by Lee Camp turned me towards pacifism. Before that "Humanity: The Moral History of The Twentieth Century" by Jonathan Glover got me thinking about how stupid man really is. The modern world really hasn't done anything to turn people towards God. In fact it has turned people away, we think science can figure everything out. Here in the US we are more concerned with our comfort and possessions than people who are oppressed and starving. I write this from the comfort of my motorhome on the Gulf Coast in Florida. Maybe I can gain some insight at the Koinonia Farm, or on the drive back. I sure hope so, cause like I said I'm bored, just relaxing in the RV isn't for me.