Walk the line

Rainy day yesterday. Silvi and I went out for breakfast together while Annie and Ian chilled out; Annie's chin deep into a Murder She Wrote marathon on Netflix Instant Viewing. I spent much of the weekend revamping my business website, making it more corporate (gack) and minimalist. A bit embarrassed by the *yawn* booooring videos I've put up as samples, but - that's all I's gots.

Also embarrassed by the cheesy Christian videos up there, but again... Man, I've made a lot of crap over the years. Sold out to the man. That's part of the reason I've started my own company, to create videos that I can be proud of and that won't come with a warning to not watch my videos late at night or before operating heavy machinery.

Lately, I've been working with a corporation on the side that is paying enough for me to invest some of the extra money into my own projects, which is pretty stinkin' exciting. (Thanks, Jim, for throwing the business my way.) I'm looking around for a writer for my philosophy video series; need to find someone who can walk the line between curriculum and documentary. So if you know anyone...

Speaking of walking the line, I'm delving into two books in my attempt to better understand, know, learn about, comprehend, find, discover what Jesus was like, who he was/is, etc. One book was written by an atheist, Jose Saramago and the other by an evangelical Phillip Keller. When Saramago, who wrote the killer book Blindness, published his novel - The Gospel According to Jesus Christ - it was renounced as heretical by almost everyone, Protestant and Catholic alike. Not hard to see why, since, according to Saramago, Joseph was the real daddy.

Keller, best known for his classics A Shepherd Looks at Psalm 23 and Lessons from a Sheepdog, is no doubt a fine writer, and more accurately reflects my own beliefs concerning these events, but, man, some of his book on the life of Jesus that I'm reading - Rabboni - is just downright cheesy. Stuffed crust cheesy. He's got Mary and Joseph sneaking lovey-dovey looks at each other, Mary not complaining (why add this interpretation) about riding - pregnant - on a donkey across the desert, Joseph a strapping tanned young man, etc.

That's why I have to read Saramago, a brilliant writer, in the other hand, to balance the story out. Same goes for a lot of other stories or books I read: If I'm holding Kierkegaard in one hand, the other hand's got Nietzsche.

Of course, I'm defaulting back to the original stories recorded by the Jewish writers of old to give me sure footing on this path, walking the line, struggling along the narrow ridge.

More books

One of my unwritten resolutions for 2008 is to read more books. I uploaded a bunch of the book titles from my personal library to LibraryThing. Stop by and check out my list; maybe you can suggest some good books that aren't on there. (I also added a link to these books over in the right-hand column.)

Reading

I finished reading Out of the Silent Planet by Lewis last weekend; I am about a third of the way through Till We Have Faces. I am also 120 pages into Stephen Lawhead's The Paradise War and 200+ pages through Contact by Sagan.

Thus far, I am unimpressed with Lawhead. It's really quite uninspiring writing. Chapter upon chapter with not much happening (kind of like this blog). I like the concept (based on Plato's idea of Forms) but he needs to tighten everything up. Three or four chapters could be condensed into one. Sagan, on the other hand, is a good writer, but provides entirely too many details. And his constant insistence that Beings from other planets must possess higher intelligence can get old quick; he refers to this belief all too often.

Lewis, of course, is the master of words. It is refreshing to come back to him after an hour with Lawhead or Sagan. His sentences are taut, the action is compelling yet not overwhelming and his characters stay with me into the night. Next? Perelandra.