Author: foojer

on Lieutenant Dan

I share a name with Lieutenant Dan, a character from the film Forrest Gump. My mother has always teased me that we share a few more things than that: a soldier’s spirit, a love of glory, and a dangerous stubbornness. Lieutenant Dan is a soldier from a long line of soldiers. It makes him do his job well, but as events in the film unfold, you see that it haunts and crushes him. Now I’ve always thought that one of the best qualities of Forrest Gump is the way you see something new each time you watch; when I was younger I never quite saw anything of myself in Lieutenant Dan; he was a tragic but comical man who ain’t got no legs, but in the end makes his peace with God and moves on.

But watching the film again recently, I was haunted too by something he said after confronting Forrest Gump about his new disability: “What am I gonna do now?” Continue reading “on Lieutenant Dan” →

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on grace

The story of Mephibosheth recently came up in a morning talk. King David was given supernatural grace to love his rival, the speaker pointed out, and this is something we should pray for too.

Now when I heard this I flew into a self-righteous rage (more on this later) over the seemingly man-centric conclusion, because I reckoned there’s a better way to look at it: we are Mephibosheth, standing before the King. By all rights we are dead men, not (it seems to us) by any virtue of what we’ve done, but simply because of who we are, the blood that runs in our veins. But someone before us has earned the King’s favour on or behalf, and because the King honours promises, he not only calls us friend, but brings us into his family, gives us a home, a future, and his own riches (2 Sam 9:6-7). Continue reading “on grace” →

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my kids

These are my kids:

One of them loves taking pictures. She’s really quiet, but if she likes you she’ll show you photos of cats and birds.

One of them dreams of joining the UN.

One of them reminds me of myself at her age, determined but a bit unsure.

One of them is a bit of a diva, she’s really smart, if only she could just stay awake.

Another one tries her best to stay awake but often loses that battle.

A few of them always look straight at me reassuringly as I talk.

One of them puts on a tough, sophisticated front, but now and again you see she’s just a scared little girl. She’s really smart but she gets tired a lot.

One of them always says what she thinks. She wants to be a vet when she grows up, but she has doubts.

One of them loves hockey.

One of them loves fencing.

One of them gets sick a lot and it makes her unhappy.

Some of them love swimming, and they always smile and ask me for help.

One of them loves dancing, and she writes really well.

One of them loves everything Japanese.

One of them is sharp as a tack but doesn’t let it go to her head.

One of them always steps up to try even if things sometimes go over her head.

Some of them really love Jesus. They try their best even if things get awkward.

These are just some of them, there are many more. They’re the kids that Dad gave me.

I’ll be very sad when they graduate.

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on magic and prayer

I’m a high school teacher, and school starts again in two days. I’ve come in to school to do a little last minute prep, the sun is setting fast, and there isn’t a living soul in the whole building except for the security guard at the main gate and the resident cat. As I was leaving I got the urge to pray for the year ahead. Maybe even pray over my desk and my chair (I’m that nervous) for blessings this coming year.

Then it hit me: is this prayer, or magic? Continue reading “on magic and prayer” →

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on neglected commanders of the roman world: surena

Sources Plutarch, Life of Crassus (17-33); Cassius Dio (40.14-27)

His time General Surena (we don’t actually know his real name; Surena was the name of his clan) was born in 84BC into an unstable time, and would become one of the most celebrated military commanders of the Parthian Empire. The Parthians had originated as nomadic horsemen from northern Iran, but having fought their way into the Seleucid (Syrian Greek) Empire they gradually replaced it as the major power of the near east. By the early 1st century BC however, Rome’s eastward adventures had brought it into direct contact with Parthia; though relations between the two were initially cordial if cautious, things took a turn for the worse in 69BC, when Roman general Lucullus invaded Armenia (near Parthian territory). This would mark the start of a 300 year-long see-saw struggle as both Parthia and Rome claimed Armenia as their own. It was on the cusp of this interminable war that Surena came of age.
Continue reading “on neglected commanders of the roman world: surena” →

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on the nazi occult and evil

I’ve always had a morbid interest in the Nazi occult. Something about the inherent evil of the regime coupled with the possibility that it tapped supernatural forces to further its goals. Add to that the kookiness of the whole thing, the weird personalities involved, the freaky science, the esoteric history and mysticism behind the runes and artifacts, and the terrible majesty of the Nazi war machine, and you have something darkly fascinating.

Now one idea related to the Nazi occult is the Fourth Reich – the possibility that some remnant of the Nazi regime survived 1945 and went into hiding, possibly in South America, Antarctica, the centre of the earth, on the Moon (the possibilities get sillier each time), and has been secretly plotting revenge. So of course this idea is rich fodder for all sorts of fiction. Now my interest led me to two particular comic book series: M Mignola’s Hellboy, and K Hirano’s Hellsing. Both involve some kind of Fourth Reich (in the former, an occult-obsessed fifth column guided by evil gods, and in the latter, genetically-engineered, vampiric panzergrenadiers), and oddly enough both shed some useful light on evil. Continue reading “on the nazi occult and evil” →

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on the Passover

The anger passed over us.

For all these years we’d held the Passover festival. What was it for?, we’d ask. The Lord had taught us long before, that his anger had come on to sin-soaked Egypt. The only way his people there had escaped the anger was to smear the blood of lambs onto their doorposts – the only way the anger would pass over them. Because though the anger kills, it could be satisfied by innocent blood. Continue reading “on the Passover” →

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wherever you go

Part of growing up is realising that the monsters are not outside – often they’re inside us. It isn’t the world conspiring to do us in, it’s our weaknesses, our desires, our bad choices that find us again and again. The monsters find us always. And how we deal with them shapes who we turn out to be in the end. Continue reading “wherever you go” →

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on believing in God

Disney’s Aladdin is flawed in a lot of ways – the cheesy story, the sometimes comically inappropriate racism (though to be fair things were a bit different in the 90s) – but in lots of ways it’s a great movie.

One line has always stuck in my head though: when Aladdin (or Prince Ali at this point) invites Princess Jasmine for a magic carpet ride, he asks her “do you trust me?”

That line for me holds a lot of theological water when we think about our faith. At times we’ve made it all a bit hard to understand, or we’ve made ‘believing in God’ a mark of faith without really defining what said belief means. What does believing in God mean? Believing he exists? Believing he wants the best for me? But I think at the heart of that concept and of our faith is that same, simple question.

Do you trust me? Continue reading “on believing in God” →

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on looking out in despair

You remember that scene in Return of the King where Denethor pines over the mortally-wounded Faramir? He thinks his biggest problem is that his son is dead and his line extinguished, but he walks to the edge of the cliff and sees that it’s much worse: the host of Mordor is at the gates and he’s had no idea. And so he despairs, telling his soldiers “Flee! Flee for your lives!” Continue reading “on looking out in despair” →

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