LAFFing and questioning
Yesterday was fun. Every year, the Los Angeles Film Festival (LAFF) comes to town (well, perhaps it’s “already here”). This year, I found myself at two separate screenings, both yesterday, the first entitled The Prince of Broadway about a counterfeit merchandiser’s struggle to care for a son he just found out he had. Fantastic and very moving story! The second was a documentary called Hold Me Tight, Let Me Go, which films a British boarding school for emotionally disturbed traumatized kids. I saw this film with a teacher friend of mine and we were both shocked at the kids’ behavior (as well as their language), which seriously puts our kids to shame. The school has 108 staff for a population of 40 kids. After seeing the film, I could tell why. Despite seeing the utter hopelessness that some of these kids deal with, it was very cool to see some glimpses of hope in specific interactions between some of the kids, and the progress they make with each other and with the teachers. A very inspirational film (although quite different than a Mr. Holland’s Opus type).
Anyway, about a month ago, I found myself in a blogging lull, and thus decided that what I needed to give myself a metaphorical “kick in the pants” was a warm-up; a starter; a “do-now” if you will that would help me get back on my blogging feet. To do this, I would randomly open up my iTunes program, enable the “shuffle” command, and begin my blog by commenting on whatever came up first. WHATEVER came up first. So today, the randomness plays an audio-sermon that I downloaded months ago which, truth be told, I haven’t got around to listening to yet. However, what I can say is that the specific message is told by Tim Keller, a preacher in NYC who has recently written a book entitled The Reason for God, which ironically I began to read about a week ago. The text is essentially a response to the plethora of books espousing atheism that have been published in the past few years by authors such as Dawkins, Harris, and Hitchens (books which, I confess, I have not read). Anyway, let’s just say that reading a book entitled The Reason for God is giving my mind a little bit of a headache right now (especially in the wake of my, albeit limited, understanding of Kurt Godel).
Anyway, the audio transcript is here for those of you with 40+ minutes to kill. Enjoy :)
Absolutism: Don’t we all have to find truth for ourselves? - Timothy J. Keller
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