New York is unhappy

I recently ran across this study which tries to determine what parts of the U.S. are the 'happiest'. I found it incredibly intresting. New York comes in last, interestingly enough (for some reason, my gut told me that would be the case). Every time I ride the subway in New York City I'm overwhelmed with how downcast and depressed people seem in general. Whether they know it or not people in NYC seem to wear on their faces their inner longings for purpose and acceptance and their dissatisfaction with what the city is offering them to fill that 'void' (money, fame, relationships, work).

Also of interest is that some of the poorest areas of the country were the happiest. This certainly provides some interseting food for thought and discussion material on what really satisfies and where true happiness is found in life.

Avatar and Pantheism

Here's a link to an interesting article on the new Avatar movie. I thought the movie was really entertaining, personally, though it does advance a common Hollywood agenda - Pantheism (think Star Wars, Dances with Wolves, etc.). The article makes some interesting observations about some major inconsistencies in the Pantheistic mode of thinking about nature vs. the traditional Christian view of nature (which I find far more compelling and true to life). For instance, why does Hollywood insist we should return to the 'utopia' of worshipping and communing with nature, when all we see in nature is the strong eating the weak? Don't human societies run in that fashion usually degrade into violence and opression and don't we all know innately that we should live in opposition to that model?

The article isn't written from a purely Christian perspective. However, it did help me think about the movie in a way such that I would be able to contribute gospel-centered observations when I inevitably participate in discussions about the movie since everyone seems to be talking about it right now, at least at work.

HT: Justin Taylor

Suffering and the cross.

So I got burned out with the blog and have neglected it for far too long. Time to start posting again, only with quicker thoughts and fewer huge essays. Hopefully that will keep me from losing the will to write! I think blogs are more conducive to smaller posts anyhow.

As I've thought about some suffering and hardship that my family is going through right now, the following quote from Tim Keller has been a huge encouragement to me (quote is from a sermon on James 3 on wisdom). The cross changes everything!

"If you have a religion of [only] truth, and you suffer, you get mad at yourself saying 'I must have done something wrong.' If you have a religion of [only] love, and you suffer, then you get mad at God saying 'God why would you let anybody suffer?' But if you've seen the cross the wisdom of God is 'I'm a sinner, but God loves me so much that He's entered into my suffering so that he died not that I might not suffer but that in my suffering I might become like Him.'"