Writer’s block: Of course I’ve experienced it before. Sometimes you sit in front of a computer screen (or a piece of paper) and the white blankness of it overwhelms you. It’s not even a question of how to write something, but rather what to write.

There’s reason for it: I want it to be eloquent, whatever it is. And I’ve been writing in a journal for well over ten years now, and writing something about my walk with God every month for about the last seven of those years at least. That’s not even including the times I talk about God in my other journal sections, like December of last year when I talked about The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. I’d be willing to bet it would even out to at least one other time each of those months where I talked about my walk with God at some other place in my journal. Seven years times twelve months in a year is eighty-four, and eighty four twice is 168! That’s a lot of writing about God. In all of it, as I sit here trying to write something new or original, I have to think, “Have I written this before?” The good Lord knows I’ve covered some similar topics from time to time. How often have I written about the flawed theory of evolution, and said the exact same thing? How many different ways can I talk about our freedom to choose our own paths before I start to sound like a broken record? How do I keep my writing alive and fresh after writing well over 168 essays on God, especially if I’ve got writer’s block?

Here’s what’s going through my mind: We’re done studying James in church, and now we’re in a series called “Exploring the Da Vinci Code” while they teach about the fallacies of that Dan Brown book. The movie is released next month though [I originally wrote this in my journal in May], so I thought if I talk about it at all, it should be next month. Then I heard the old song “Those Shoes” by the Eagles with that killer base line this morning. I had never really paid attention to the lyrics. This time, however, I listened, and as they sang about “those shoes” as a character trait, almost an integral part of the woman they sang about as if the shoes helped to describe exactly who she was, I thought about the same thing for the choice I’ve made to follow Jesus and to walk in his footsteps (or desire to). I thought of the premise of a poem, perhaps something with a title like “The Sandals,” and it would explain the choices we all make and where those choices take us, and I’d substitute different kinds of shoes for the different choices we could make. It didn’t turn out.

Then I watched some of my Wow DVDs. I loved the song “When Love Takes You In” by Steven Curtis Chapman and the pumping “Savior Song” by Rachel Lampa, and then “Irene” by TobyMac choked me up a little due to the message of maintaining hope in Jesus and His love for us in this day and age and in this sinning world that surrounds us. Wonderful messages all. Rebecca St. James’ “Song of Love” also captures something very special, and made me think of God in nature, and that combined with the message of “Irene” made me think of a waterfall of living water washing us clean and making us new in His sight and His love, and I toyed with writing a poem called “Waterfall.”

And of course I thought of God when my older brother called us about his son. I collect Touched by an Angel on DVD and was watching an episode when he called, and just as with the lyrics to “Irene” by TobyMac (if you really pay attention to them), Monica’s inspirational speech to a cop who survived being shot and became addicted to drugs in that episode (Joe Penny in “Trust”) rings true for my brother’s troubled son as well: “This bullet ripped through your body and your body survived, but your spirit is still bleeding, and that’s because you weren’t wearing your armor. There’s only one thing in this world that’s truly bulletproof, and that’s faith: Not faith in a gun that shoots or a radio that works or faith in your own cop’s instinct, but the faith that you wrap yourself in every day of your life, the faith that no matter what happens, you won’t lose God’s love, and all the bullets in the world can’t pierce it, and all the pills in the world can’t replace it…” If only this message could truly reach my nephew’s ears and soul!

Don’t let this long passage fool you. Though it is filled with an obvious love and devotion for God, it is also quite disjointed, going all over the place, just as my thoughts are now. If nothing else, it at least shows what’s going on in my head right now, as embarrassing as that may be. It’s not a side of myself I usually like to show the world, but it is the beginning of thought and, hopefully – eventually - wisdom.

From my journal in April of 2006, I commented on two of the news stories in the headlines. The first was about the high price of gas. The second, which I’m just now downloading into my Townhall.com blog this week, was the walk out by millions of (mostly illegal alien) minorities to participate in marches on government buildings across the nation, including, of course, Denver. I’m of two minds. First off, these minorities may have a leg to stand on. This nation isn’t just European in its history. This nation also has a rich history of native American tribes and other nationalities like Asian immigrants and African slaves coming here of their own accord or being brought here against their will and all becoming woven into the fabric of what made America. Likewise, Mexicans came here too when this nation was young – that’s why New Mexico is thusly named. In fact, I believe I’m correct in assuming such state names as Arizona, Colorado, and California are linguistically Mexican (Spanish) in origin. Colorado is derived from the Spanish for “Colored River” (Coloró del Rio). (The word “America” sounds like it could be Spanish, but it’s actually derived from an Italian explorer named Amerigo Vespucci who made two trips here in the late 1400’s and claimed to have discovered it. He was the first to give it the name Novus Mundus, or “New World”).

Yet whether or not these immigrants, illegal or otherwise, actually have a leg to stand on is a moot point. This country affords them freedom to live however they want, as it should in any free country, but to function as a unified whole, they should melt into the culture somewhat. They can remain separate from it, with their own culture and language, but it will only help to divide the nation. Although a late uncle of mine might attribute this division to a Machiavellian plot by the Government to keep the nation alienated and at odds, I’m not going to subscribe to that X-Files type of conspiracy theory; not that it isn’t possible, but I’m not politically informed or savvy enough to make that kind of call. What I will say is that, in the Bible story of the tower of Babel, God confused the people’s language to separate them. People speaking different languages and living in separate communities, each with their own cultural standards, tends to do that. It creates a communication breakdown. And I understand about the need for cultural pride and heritage, and the need not to be absorbed into another’s culture, but regardless, it does lead to a disconnection of individuals and communities, and then the nation will not be unified.

Yet another problem with this issue can be addressed as we look at exactly what the government means when dealing with immigrants and what the elementary education system in public schools means when it bandies about terms like “multi-cultural” and pushes the learning of a second language. They don’t really mean embracing French, Icelandic, Chinese, or Middle Eastern cultures and languages. What they really mean is Spanish, and the Mexican culture in particular. In my book, it leaves them looking rather hypocritical and rather exclusionary, rolling out the red carpet for their Spanish speaking citizens, but leaving Russian, Turkish, and Japanese children, to name just a few, by the wayside. Multicultural and bilingual programs overwhelmingly apply to Spanish only, so I wish they would just call it what it is rather than trying to hide behind fancy but inaccurate terms.

This nation will remain divided until all these people with all their various, wonderful freedoms start making informed, intelligent decisions and choices, until the word responsibility becomes as cherished a word as freedom.

Bringing my unique sci-fi geek perspective to the table, in numerous episodes of Star Trek, the starship crews come up against god-like aliens and transformed humans, characters that sanctimoniously pass judgment on humanity and use the crew for experiments or amusement, and the moral is always the same: To be truly evolved, you must be humble – you must have morals and compassion. In The Next Generation, the omnipotent Q tells Captain Picard that they can’t just have omnipotent beings running around the universe, implying that any entity with that much power must have wisdom. In the second pilot to the original series, Kirk speaks of his mutated former friend who now possesses god-like powers and uses them malevolently, explaining that a god must have wisdom and compassion above all else. Well I’m telling you: the exact same thing applies to a free people. Without wisdom and compassion, we cannot wield our limited freedoms responsibly… and if not, like these god-creatures in science fiction, we shouldn’t have them at all.

Amid all the usual stories of death, murder, violence, war, political grandstanding, and Denise Richards buying coffee at a local Hollywood Starbucks (from my journal in April of 2006), there were two stories I felt like commenting on. The first is the price of gas, which is now at around $3.00 a gallon with talk that it could go as high as five. As I see it, there are two main reasons the gas prices are so high, and they both have to do with greed. All I know is that it has little to do with me, though I seem to be reaping the consequences along with everyone else. The first reason is the proliferation of gas guzzling SUVs. People crying foul about high gas prices would possibly carry more weight if they weren’t intent on driving vehicles big enough for an indoor tennis court and Jacuzzi. People these days need those huge suburbans because they’ve got large families and large groceries and large vacations to remote places you can’t get to in a Civic. The second reason for these high gas prices is even worse: The big gas companies. Whether or not George W. Bush is in their pocket (as some political pundits are ripe to suggest) is beside the point. Sure, I wish the government could do something about it, but it’s the same old thing about corporate greed at the highest levels (and that includes in the government). A $400 million retirement package for the chief operating officers of companies like Exxon and Chevron is probably closer to the truth than we’d like to admit (or know about). “Rape” is a strong word, but I think it applies here. Those who are so greedy that they will “rape” others for wealth forgot, or never had any kind of, Christian principles, and unless they change (which is unlikely), you most likely won’t find them in heaven. That’s why Jesus said it was easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. I shouldn’t take comfort in that, but should weep for them. So I will. Yes, that’s right. I actually pity these wealthy men and women who embrace wealth, money and power by standing on the backs of other people they don’t give a crap about. It happened at Enron, and the company I used to work for, Global Crossing, and is possibly happening with my current company.

The second story I wanted to comment on I’ll share next time.

“With great power comes great responsibility”
                             - Cliff Robertson as Uncle Ben
                                SpiderMan (2002)

What constitutes a hero? Is a hero different than a role model, and where does idol worship enter the picture? Does a hero have to have superpowers like the characters in the new hit show Heroes, or can they be ordinary people like you and me? Well, when was the last time you ran across an indestructible cheerleader or a Japanese office drone who could bend time and space? In the real world, heroes are found in the ordinary and everyday.

“I think we would all like this victory to go out to all the other guys, and I’m talking about the people in this city who are super good at their jobs but never get any credit, like the lady in the D.M.V. – that’s a rough job… and the guy that drives the snow plow, and the school nurse…”
                     - William H. Macy
                       Mystery Men (1999)

From the soldiers of our military risking and giving their lives for our freedoms to the cops and firemen who go above and beyond the call of duty, to teachers (the really good ones) reaching minds and helping to actually make students think, there are heroes all around us. The problem is that, as I’ve said before, people will believe whatever they want to believe and will place people on a pedestal for any reason. Whoopi Goldberg and Janeane Garofalo are heroes to the people on the left, and so are Howard Dean and Nancy Pelosi. It begs the question: What really makes a hero?

Here’s another question: Can a hero mess up and still be a hero? Can we still applaud Mel Gibson for giving us the film The Passion of the Christ, even though he got drunk and slurred the Jews? Well, nobody’s perfect.

I just watched an old episode of Touched By an Angel, “Groundrush” (original airdate October 27, 1996). The angel Monica is infatuated with the episode’s guest star Robert Hayes as a pilot who can do no wrong. He helps out with charities and gives of his time, and perhaps even helps little old ladies across the street. Monica can’t even see why this guy needs an angel. If ever there was a human hero, this guy is it! So when the police show up and take him in, sure that they’ve found a murderer from twenty years ago, Monica trusts in him so much she interferes with the police investigation, to give this guy time to clear his good name. She thereby puts her entire existence as an angel of God on the line. As another angel says later on while reprimanding Monica, “You know the problem with making humans into heroes? That when they eventually act like humans, we’re so disappointed – and that’s not really fair to them, is it?” I know this is just fiction, but he’s right. One thing I always liked about this show is how they demonstrate that only God is perfect, and even angels can make big mistakes, like Monica did in this episode.

The characters in Heroes may eventually turn out to be the real deal, with or without their superpowers. Meanwhile, out here in the real world, heroes are real, and a role model can be anyone who lives and acts the way we all should. The main question is by whose standards they should be measured.

One definition of what constitutes a hero would be those who use their powers responsibly. I remember writing an essay back in my college days comparing characters from Shakespeare’s The Tempest, Macbeth, and Measure for Measure, and my conclusion was how heroes were defined in each of those plays by how they used power. Those who used it for selfish gain, including murder, like Macbeth, were the opposite of what defines heroes; Macbeth was an anti-hero at best and a villain at worst. Angelo in Measure for Measure wasn’t as bad as Macbeth, but power still corrupted him. Only Prospero from The Tempest, who used his power responsibly, was the true hero of the three characters, displaying for all practical purposes the true meaning of the creed “With great power comes great responsibility” centuries before it would become the catchphrase of a superhero blockbuster movie.

And perhaps that’s all I’m looking for in a role model: Someone who uses his or her powers responsibly. “Responsibility” is a word that takes a backseat to words like “freedom” and “tolerance” in today’s liberal culture (except for the freedom to practice religion or to have absolute morals rather than relative ones).

We have to look beyond peoples abilities and talents to find the heroes. There are thousands of actors and musicians and writers who are talented, but I’m not looking for talent. Lots of talented people make extremely poor role models (hate to admit it but, yes, I liked The Color Purple and Whoopi was actually good in it). What do they do outside of their chosen profession that makes them heroes?

Most celebrities have charities and pet causes. For the last two weeks, Jeopardy has been hauling out celebrities playing for their favorite charities, some more worthy causes than others. The celebrity charity fundraising that caught my eye, however, wasn’t revealed on Jeopardy. I took notice of it probably because I like the new show Heroes (I am a sci-fi geek after all). In the latest issue of TV Guide was this small snippet in their “Cheers and Jeers” section: “Cheers to the cast of Heroes for participating in an online auction to benefit costar Greg Grunberg’s charity, the Pediatric Epilepsy Project. (Grunberg, whose son Jake has epilepsy, also appeared on the TV Guide Channel to promote the fund raiser.) Fans can bid on autographed drawings by each actor at HeroesAuction.com until November 28. We’re glad to see these Heroes are using their superpowers for a good cause.” I agree.

Like many actors, Greg Grunberg has been around for years, acting in everything from weekly TV shows like Diagnosis Murder, Silk Stalkings, NYPD Blue, Lost, The Dead Zone, and was part of the regular cast for Felicity and Alias. He’s also been in movies like The Hollow Man and Mission Impossible 3. He’s not really a star. Like a lot of other actors, he has some talent, and is committed to the craft of acting. Most actors will never become stars, and that’s okay. In fact, knowing what usually happens to stars, perhaps it’s preferable to just remain a professional actor.

And so what if Greg Grunberg supports his charity out of a personal reason or need. Don’t most people get involved in charities, particularly medical ones, due to personal reasons? Grunberg’s character on Heroes, the mind reading police officer Matt Parkman, may or may not be a reel hero by using his powers for good. But the actor who plays him can be a real hero by doing the same thing, and it doesn’t matter that he’s supporting the Pediatric Epilepsy Project because his son suffers from it. All that really matters is that he is using his celebrity power to do good in the real world and the same goes for all his cast mates. Here’s a note he wrote on the HeroesAuction.com website:

“I just want to take this opportunity to thank all of you out there who have taken an interest in these one of a kind Heroes drawings, illustrated and autographed by each cast member, and a limited edition Heroes comic book, autographed by acclaimed artist Tim Sale. It is such an amazing experience to be a part of this show as an actor. And to now be able to raise funds for my charity, makes it all the better. All of the proceeds from the sale of these sketches will benefit my charity – the Pediatric Epilepsy Project (PEP) – supporting UCLA’s Pediatric Neurology Department.
“Three years ago, my oldest son, Jake, was diagnosed with epilepsy and has been doing great thanks to all the hard work and care of the doctors, nurses, scientists, and researchers at UCLA. They are truly life savers, and Jake, and children like him, are able to live relatively normal lives due to their incredible work.
"So bid, bid, and keep on bidding… knowing you are not only getting a Heroes collector’s item connected to one of the coolest shows on TV, but also doing a wonderful thing in supporting PEP and all the great work they do to help treat and care for children with epilepsy.
"And remember, 'I know what you’re thinking…'"
                                         - Greg Grunberg

I don’t know – call me crazy – but that just sounds like someone who's trying to make a difference, trying to make the world a better place to live. Perhaps he deserves a little respect and a few accolades for that. Not only is he helping this charity, but he in turn applauds all the doctors, nurses, and scientists who work diligently at UCLA to cure epilepsy in children, and at the same time graciously thanks internet surfers for bidding to support his cause, and also compliments the rest of the Heroes cast. He sounds like a role model to me – in fact, they all do – simply because this world is a better place with them in it. It’s like Pay It Forward. What a world this would be if we all did stuff like this. But no! The world is full of the types of shallow selfish kids you can find on MTV most times of the day or night. Pick just about any show and you’ll see nothing but rampant self-indulgence and egocentric, jaded, and cynical teens who criticize everything and everyone – except themselves.

Greg Grunberg and the cast of Heroes are going above and beyond, and are using the power of their celebrity to do good. I can’t help but think that Spider Man would be proud.

I’m having a bad case of writer’s block.

I name a role model or someone I admire every month in my journal. Often, one will just “drop into my lap.” I’ll hear about someone at church, read about someone in the paper, or see some show, movie, or documentary about a great person. Why even Oprah and Dr. Phil have had a few. There are role models all around us if we just know where to look.

It’s not for a lack of role models that drives me to writer’s block, but rather who to pick out of an abundance, what research needs to be done, and what I might say about them. Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity, and Ann Coulter always have tons to say about lots of people, for I’ve read some of their books, and their knowledge of history and politics is staggering. I should pay more attention myself and watch Fox News more, or perhaps the history channel. I should read more books, or retain more from them after I’ve read them.

So I’ve actually got a huge list of people I could choose to cite as role models, yet I don’t want to come off sounding like an idiot, and some of these people deserve some research if I’m going to do them justice as to why I think they are role models. Yet the knowledge I actually possess about some of these people is laughable. Somebody like Ann Coulter might applaud me for attempting to laud them, but would give me an F for actual content – and I’d deserve it.

Sometimes writing about these people takes a lot of research, either because they deserve that much, or I need to know whether or not they are truly a role model; but then, I thought, I am reading the Old Testament this year! Surely there are some Godly men in there worthy of that status. And so, finally, that’s what I decided to do, starting from the beginning (which is always a great place to start, don’t you think?). The first “person” in the bible is God, and yet naming God as a role model is problematic. First, He is so much more than just a role model, and part of admiring a role model is striving to be more like them, yet nobody will ever come close to being like God, and perhaps we shouldn’t even try. Thinking we can ever be like God is almost blasphemous, isn’t it? Secondly, Jesus is the Lord and Savior, the Messiah, God made flesh here on earth to walk among us for a time before His death and resurrection that saved us all. Striving to be like Jesus is actually a desirable thing, yet Jesus’ relationship with God is still confusing. John describes Him as the Word who was with God in the beginning, and that all things were made through Him, but then John says Jesus is God. Throughout the New Testament, there are examples of Jesus being a separate entity from God the father, yet also being the same as God, as God the Son, together with the Holy Spirit being three entities in one “God-head.” It’s not the easiest concept to wrap your brain around, especially with people convoluting it with their own ideas about who Jesus was. Yet the bottom line is, separate from or part of God, I’ve actually already named Jesus as a role model in my journal.

Going through the Bible from the beginning, then, we find Adam, Eve, and the Serpent in the Garden of Eden. No role models there. Satan may have been God’s most cherished angel, but the sin of pride undid him, and now he is the great deceiver, and worthy only of avoiding at all costs, and if at all possible. Adam and Eve were made in the image of God, and if they had not sinned, they would definitely be worthy role models, I’m sure. Yet they brought sin into the world by deliberately disobeying God and then trying to shift the blame for their sin. We are all worse off because of them and must now try to spend our lives rising above the sin nature we are all born with in this world.

The next story in this book is that of Cain and Abel, Adam and Eve’s sons, and it is here that we find the first biblical character worthy of being a role model for his ability to rise above this sin nature. I’m not speaking of the older son Cain, of course, who murdered his brother Abel out of jealousy. Little is known of Abel other than this murder, in fact, and he’s only mentioned in the entire bible five times (Genesis 4: 2-9, Matthew 23: 34-36, Luke 11: 50-51, Hebrews 11:4 and 12: 24) so what makes him a role model?

All one really has to do to find out what makes a good role model (and why Abel is one) is to compare Abel to his brother Cain. In the story presented in Genesis, it doesn’t really say why God preferred Abel’s offering to Cain’s, but even without St. Paul spelling it out for us in Hebrews 11:4, Cain’s reaction shows where his heart was at versus his brother’s. As Paul stated, Abel “was a righteous man,” and therefore gave with a loving heart, giving God “the best of the firstborn lambs from his flock.” Cain obviously gave God basically only what he was required to give.

But this story has one other morality tale for those game enough: Cain hated his righteous brother Abel for the relationship he had with God, and he murdered him. Do others still have this jealous view of true Christians? Do people I work with hate me or are they contemptuous of me? I don’t even have the relationship with Jesus that I should have, and I’m not even the man of God I should be, and yet I feel the annoyance and impatience of my co-workers sometimes, who perhaps see me as too self-righteous (in all my insecure, low-self-esteem glory!). My boss made a crack once, calling me Jesus’ son. In a way, he’s right – as His follower, I guess I could be called His son, and it’s a badge I would wear with the highest honor (yet I am far from that). I don’t think he meant it as a compliment though, and it felt like a put-down, regardless of how friendly and jovial I’m sure it was meant. Most of the time, it seems as if non-Christians merely put up with my Christ devotion and God-talk, and even some of the self-proclaimed Christians there haven’t any real clue as to what this walk is really all about. Sometimes, I don’t either.

But I’ll take this attitude over the open hostility and fatal violence Abel had to endure at the hands of his brother (and that my Christian brothers and sisters are enduring right now in other parts of the world). Abel was a righteous man who lived for God and loved him, and amidst his parents, who sinned and caused the fall of mankind, and his brother Cain, Abel shows that even from the beginning, there was still hope for mankind. I remember an episode of Touched by an Angel, the first one from season three with Gerald McRaney that was the pilot for the spin-off series The Promised Land. Down on his luck without enough money for a bus ticket to get himself back home to his family, McRaney’s character has lost all faith in God and humanity. Then the fictional angel Tess shows up and convinces the people on the bus to chip in enough money so that he can make it home to his family, thereby showing him that hope and love are still very much alive in the world. Were it not for role models like Abel, more people, myself included, might just take the same tract as McRaney’s character in that Touched by an Angel episode, losing faith in God and people. That’s why Abel is the first on this list of role models from the Bible; he was the first to have that hope after the fall, and he instills that hope in me.

(I first wrote this in May of 2006. Both movies are current DVD releases)

I love movies, but just what does God have to do with movies?

Well, it’s not as if movies never have anything to do with God. Some art (cinematic, acoustic, literary, classical, etc.) explores man’s religions and his relationships with God. That includes movies. Over the last several years, I’ve written about numerous films in my journal that explore more spiritual concepts, and it’s not just limited to the last few big Christian releases like The Passion of the Christ and The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. For instance, I recall writing about the shades of humanity found in such diverse films as the serious Kevin Costner drama Dances with Wolves and the silly and cartoonish Death Becomes Her. I remember writing about the bleak and moral-less nature of films like Sin City, Brokeback Mountain, Hostel (those last two I, of course, never saw), and a few that I even liked, such as the comic book-like and gory Underworld and its sequel. My sister’s Pastor, David Perez, who had planned on entering the film world before he got the calling, has spotlighted numerous films in his annual God at the Movie series, including such films as Chocolat, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, Evelyn, Bruce Almighty, and Signs, all films I had already written about in my journal and had a similar reaction to. I’ve also, for better or worse, taken a liking to some rather violent horror films with a Christian bent like Frailty and Constantine simply for having the guts to ask some disturbing and controversial, theological “what if” questions (the very basis of science fiction), however serious or silly they may ultimately be. The bottom line, however, is that, as I remember saying before, God is in all things, and can even be found in some movies if you know where and how to look.

Two recent movies have been released at the local movie-plexes that are a little easier to see as those that might spark some theological discussion and debate. One of them has yet to be released, though we’ve seen it before. The new Omen, from all I’ve seen and heard so far, is a very faithful retelling of the story presented in the first Omen movie from 30 ago starring Gregory Peck and Lee Remick. That movie, which I just saw again recently along with its only good sequel, Damien: Omen II, in anticipation of the new one, doesn’t quite get the biblical prophecies right, yet to it’s credit, there’s not been a movie or a book made yet that has, and that includes the Left Behind franchise. Mostly that’s because the book of Revelations is so cryptic and open to a variety of interpretation. We mere mortals won’t know the meaning of it all until it happens, or starts to happen. Usually what that means is that any fictional material dealing with the apocalypse foretold in Revelations will only be so much stumbling through darkness. Yet as such, The Omen is quite a chilling stumble, and manages to project the dread that will most likely accompany the birth and rise of the anti-Christ, whoever he turns out to be. The one thing I know is that the anti-Christ will be a liar and a deceiver who will fool the nations into worshipping him as their new savior, and what better way to start out than as an adorable little tyke with bright eyes, rosy cheeks, and a whimsical Mona Lisa smile. One of the most chilling aspects about this movie is that all the evil and death circle round this adorable, cherubic, curly-headed child, portrayed as an innocent who is not quite yet aware of the evil that surrounds him, an evil that is waiting in the wings for the child to grow to manhood and take his place as the evil deceiver who will damn millions of souls to hell. You could say of young Damien Thorn that it’s the ultimate cosmic joke.

The other movie has already been released to rather mixed reviews (thankfully). It’s Ron Howard’s big screen version of Dan Brown’s wildly popular novel The Da Vinci Code. As with the book, there’s a lot of controversy surrounding it, but less than a month after its release, it now does not feel like the threat or the religious affront the book has been for years now. Oh, there’s still some debate, no doubt, but that debate is already starting to feel a bit stale. Is that God’s doing?

One reviewer (Robert Denerstein of the Rocky Mountain News) said the main plot twist was met in the theater with laughter, something I’m sure the filmmakers did not want to hear at that point in the movie, but it’s music to my ears, and makes me smile. Some people just know absurdity when they hear it, like when my sister told her young daughter how some people believe we evolved from fish, and she, being only a child, laughed at the ridiculousness of such a notion!

Despite the fact that he’s actually a damned fine actor, flaming liberal queen Sir Ian McKellen (why are all these British homosexuals knighted?), who’s in this film, was asked whether he thought the book and film should come with a disclaimer that they are fictional. McKellen quipped that he always thought the Bible should come with the same disclaimer. This doesn’t hurt me much though, as I expect such blasphemy from Hollywood and the liberal left (according to Ann Coulter’s new book, they are Godless, they admit they’re Godless, and love it). I actually think this fictional disclaimer should be placed on grade school science textbooks which state that we are irrefutably evolved some single celled organisms. McKellen is just another example of a sinning human being who loves his sin more than God, and so convinces himself that God does not exist and that those who follow God are fools. As brilliant as he may be in the craft of acting or character study, he couldn’t hold a candle intellectually to Ann Coulter or CS Lewis.

Our church spent several weekend sermons delving into the fallacies of The Da Vinci Code, and I attended every one of them, yet two things disturb me. First, I’m worried that my brain does not remember the material better than it does. I hear or read information and it seems to drift out of my head so quickly! I’m not as smart as I sometimes give myself credit for. Secondly, it has helped to stir up a backlash against the Bible even by people who claim to be Christian (but aren’t really). I may not remember all the details of what they taught us at the church concerning Dan Brown’s book and accusations, calling into question Jesus’ divinity, but what I do remember is how foolish some of their experts looked, and how flimsy their evidence really was, crumbling before our eyes like burning paper. Yet a coworker of mine, Barney (not his real name), and weak Christians like him (if you can even believe them and call them Christian), are more apt to jump on the bandwagon and question their puny faith more than they question those who blaspheme it. So when my church, and other churches and Christian leaders across the nation, stood up for their beliefs and the sanctity of the Bible and of Jesus Christ, Barney dismisses them due to the apparent “Christian agenda.” Well, in a way, he’s right. We do have an agenda as Christians. It’s called “defending our faith.” What he doesn’t realize – what a lot of people don’t realize – is that the non-Christians have an agenda too! They’re just not as forthcoming about it, and agenda or not, it’s no reason to dismiss the Christians’ findings out of hand. Or do you really believe that all the Godless liberals Ann Coulter talks about in her new book don’t have any agenda to spread their own Godless faith! And Barney wonders why I didn’t think he was Christian! You know what? Despite his protests and his own proclamations, I still don’t! He doesn’t talk like a Christian. He doesn’t act like a Christian. He questions everything about the Bible and other Christians, yet he doesn’t read the Bible, and tends to support, without any real research on his own, anything that comes down the pike to refute it. If my religion is not all it’s cracked up to be, sure, I’d want to know about it. If Jesus is not who He claimed to be, sure, I’d want to know! But you better be able to produce some real hard evidence. If my eternal soul is at stake, you better know what you’re talking about. You’re evidence had better be able to withstand some hard investigation. I’m not going to just jump on the bandwagon of doubters and swallow your gussied up load of bull. I’m going to be going over your “evidence” with the fine tooth comb of skepticism, right alongside Scully and Doggett over on the X-Files. First off, can Dan Brown’s evidence stand up to that kind of investigation, and second, are Barney and those like him apt to launch that sort of investigation into Brown’s findings in the first place? The answer to both questions is no, and therein lies the problem: Simple minds being simply manipulated. What they accuse of happening to Christians is actually happening to them as they are pulled around on puppet strings by the Great Deceiver.

Aside from Brown’s accusations that Jesus was just a man, and that he married Mary Magdalene, and that the Holy Grail is actually His bloodline with descendants of Jesus alive and living today, and that underground societies in Church have kept all of this secret throughout the last two thousand years, he also asserts that Leonardo Da Vinci was a member of one of these religious societies, and that he also embedded codes into his artwork to be unraveled by enlightened people in the future so that they may know the truth. Brown’s evidence is shaky on both fronts, his accusations about Jesus AND Leonardo, and it doesn’t stand up to the religious scrutiny that will be dismissed by idiots as being part of a “religious agenda.”

In Church, an associate pastor held up the Bible and then held up Dan Brown’s novel The Da Vinci Code and said if you believe in one, you can’t believe in the other. Clear-cut. Simple. True. I know which one I believe, and I’m not ashamed to admit it. Barney and people like him have to ask themselves the same question, and then ask why they believe in one over the other. Barney and people like him have to ask themselves why they choose Dan Brown’s ideas over the living Word, yet only taking it at face value, and refuting the findings of their Christian brothers and sisters while still also claiming to be a disciple of Christ. If Barney claimed not to be a Christian, it wouldn’t upset me so much, but he says he’s a Christian, yet talks, acts, and lives like one of “them,” the non-Christians who are in love with themselves and the world and who don’t believe in God and look down upon those who do. It all comes down to choice. Either you’re a Christian, or you’re not, but you can’t be a Christian and then live and think as the non-Christians do. You can’t have your cake and eat it too. Oh sure, you can try, but what are you gonna say when you stand before God someday? What are you gonna say when God asks you about your life. “You always said you were Christian,” God might say. “Did you read and follow My Word, the Living Bible, or did you question everything about it? Did you stand with your Christian brothers when Jesus and your faith were being violated, or did you defend the violators on the shakiest of grounds, and stand against your Christian brothers and dismiss them out of hand for ‘having a Christian agenda.’ Are you a true disciple of Jesus Christ or did you let Satan convince you that you can call yourself Christian and still live and think as the sinners do?”

Of course I wrote this in my journal months ago, but if you want a slight diversion from the tragedy of the elections:

I’m so tired, and sometimes this job just seems to suck the life out of me. Ever see Joe Versus the Volcano?

My brother just got back from a two week class for his job that sort of revitalized him. I too need revitalization. Take my intelligence level, for instance. Here I am being complimented by some friends and family for being smart and even using words like “revitalization” in my journal and yet, while surfing the web, I find that most smart people (and even some dumb ones) know more about certain things than I do, particularly subjects like geography, history, and politics. Now that Jeopardy is shown at night here in Colorado along with Wheel of Fortune, I’ve been watching it starting this week, and you know, I thought I was able to answer a few more of the questions back in my college days. Now I can only answer maybe five out of 61, and even those are less valuable, easy questions about such things as cartoon mice and who owns the sparkling, sequined piano shown in the photograph (Liberace, of course)! I may be smart, but by who’s definition? I don’t feel all that smart. Oh well, keeps me humble, right? Gotta be humble as a Christian! Besides, I’ve often felt those people on Jeopardy are too smart. I like Mr. Howell’s cracks on those old Gilligan’s Island episodes whenever the Professor showed up (“Good Lord, Lovey, it’s an egghead!”)

I’ve been having bad dreams lately. I dreamed that my former boss asked me to come back and work retail sales. Then I dreamed that I accepted, and woke up grinding my teeth because I had been stressed, working with difficult customers all night in my sleep. Then I dreamed the same thing at Target. Mom and I were shopping, and somehow, as is never quite explained in dreams, I was working there, running a cash register with lines of people on both sides of it, and mired in some problem with a current customer that was going to take a very long time, upsetting the people waiting in line. Why am I having dreams like this?

I never used to get this tired, but it seems like these two hour naps in the afternoon are starting to become a common occurrence, and it’s not really a mystery. It’s because, as I said, this mind-numbing office work is starting to suck the life out of me, and I really do feel like Tom Hank’s character Joe from Joe Versus the Volcano. Like Joe, I want to get out of this dimly lit artificial environment and make my way to a colorful, tropical paradise - only, just like that movie, it would still wind up being boring. That’s one thing I think you start to realize the older and wiser you get; adventure is not all it’s cracked up to be. The movies and TV romanticize everything, and being a cop or an undercover agent or a doctor or a cowboy or an astronaut or a famous actor – man, take your pick - is much drearier than they let on. Our fictions even show it: The vampires in Ann Rice’s Vampire Chronicles basically fall in love with their new lives when they are turned, full of gothic romance as they are, but after but a few hundred years, the excitement has long worn off and spending eons underground in a box starts to look more and more appealing. Even the colorful aliens that populate the dreamy worlds of Sci-Fi can become mundane after awhile – that’s why a franchise like Star Trek has so many. You think Star Trek would be as interesting as it is (to geeks like me, if to no one else) if all they ever showed were just Vulcans and Klingons? Things are kept more interesting just because they’ve got Ferengis, Hirogen, Betazoids, Katarians, Bolians, Talaxians, Vidiians, Bajorans, Cardassians, the Dominion, the Borg, and new alien species and artificial life forms just about every week. I’m sure if they actually existed, things could still get boring and monotonous for a Trill or a Q. In fact, one episode of Voyager, “Deathwatch,” was all about the absolute and final boredom experienced by the immortal Q after so long a time, even with all their omnipotence and abilities, echoing the very words of Rice’s vampires. Quinn in that episode, like the fictional vampires that came before him, simply wanted no more of life at any cost. He’d had enough.

I haven’t reached that point in my life - far from it, thank God - but I can’t say I might not ever reach that point. Some of our family members did. Whether suicidal or just very old and tired, they just didn’t want to be here anymore. It’s rather depressing, and reminds me of that song by Peggy Lee, “Is That All There Is” that Bette Midler sang so wonderfully on her latest CD Bette Midler Sings the Peggy Lee Songbook. I first heard that song in the Martin Scorsese movie After Hours, a film about a botched attempt to escape from the monotony and futility in life, and this song captured the atmosphere of that film perfectly. There’s an overwhelming emptiness and pointlessness in the lyrics. In this life, there are still enough wonders here to keep me wanting to remain (little nuggets of gold like this Bette Midler CD, for instance). But my point is that, whether in the end I’m actually fairly smart or fairly stupid, there is at least one thing I know: I want more of the positive things of life. My current job sometimes seems to only give me more of the repetitiveness and hopelessness of daily grind. Too much of that and I could become like the narrator in that sad Peggy Lee song, who finds only disappointment, first in a fire, then a circus, then love, and then finally, life itself. I can only think that Quinn and Rice’s Vampires must concur.

I’ve heard news reports which state that the suicide rate is outpacing murders, and in that light, my final question takes on much more weight: How many people out in the real world feel the same way as those fictional vampires and aliens?

Politics, politics, politics; I’m sick to death of politics! Does that sound strange coming from someone like me, who idolizes Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, Benjamin Netanyahu, Newt Gingrich, and the commentators on Townhall.com? I like Townhall.com so much, and think so much like these guys, that I started my first and only blog on this website several months ago, and if the things I share from this journal are a little more Christian than Republican, I just need to remember people on this site like Chuck Colson and Doug Giles, whose articles and opinions are a bit more like mine, focusing more on religion and the culture war rather than what is particularly going on in Congress and Washington (even though Doug Giles is much more muy macho than me). I’m definitely not one who knows the ins and outs of politics, and I wouldn’t know “pork spending” from “pork chops” or “earmarks” from “ear muffs.” At least half the people they tend to talk about in these commentaries I’ve never heard of (though reading article after article pretty much spells it out for me, if I choose to read them all). The point is, I don’t really thrive on all these politics, and would certainly not want to ever run for office. Oh sure, I support and vote for the right candidates (or should I say, the candidates on the right). No true conservative in Colorado should vote for Ed Perlmutter over Rick O’Donnell or Bill Ritter over Bob Beauprez (though that disgusting mud-slinging race between Marilyn Musgrave and Angie Paccione is more annoying that that stupid “Head On” commercial and leaves me not wanting to vote for either – though I’d still vote republican, of course). But still, as much as I might like everything that Rick O’Donnell stands for, and wouldn’t have even minded campaigning for him, politics is still not my bag. There are usually a lot of other things I’d rather do than watch candidates sling mud.

Take that whole stem cell research debate featuring Michael J. Fox urging people to vote against a republican candidate. It’s just one big brawl in a mud pool, though I think Rush Limbaugh’s rant was right on the money: They used Fox for the emotional vote, and many Oprah-zombies will now pull the lever in the voting booth not so much voting for one candidate over another or even in support of any supposed issue, but to cure that nice, young sick man who used to star in Spin City and Family Ties. In their minds now, a vote for embryonic stem cell research means that nice Michael J. Fox can be cured, and a vote against it means you wish him harm, and how dare that unfeeling, thoughtless loudmouth Rush Limbaugh say anything derogatory about it. Can’t you see poor Michael J. Fox is sick? How dare you make negative comments about such a nice, sick man! Oprah should do a show about it. This is the way some voters think, and the campaigners know it. That’s why they put Michael J. Fox on camera, shaking up a storm so voters would feel sorry for him. Let’s call it the Oprah-Zombie Pity Vote. I’m not going to go down the same road Rush did and say he purposely didn’t take his medication or was acting, but I will say this: If they did a bunch of takes, I’m sure they went with the one where Fox was shaking the most. It’s the same old story all over, as different candidates have put blinded veterans and cancer survivors in their ads to appeal to the emotions of the voters.

Yeah, I’m sick of politics, and don’t enjoy it half as much as most of the commentators and bloggers on Townhall.com, but I still agree with them. A vote for the democrats is a vote for the terrorists. In their little rat holes, Osama and the other nasty terrorists are hoping against hope that Nancy Pelosi will become the new Speaker of the House, and so are all the gay couples and the liberal feminists chomping at the bit to abort as many fetuses as possible. And it’s disgusting that Republicans like Foley and a Christian Pastor in Colorado Springs named Ted Haggard both came out of the closet amid scandals of gay indiscretions. Foley blamed it on alcohol, and it’s still too early to see what Ted Haggard will do, but I don’t like them becoming the democrats’ secret weapon mere days or weeks before people go to the polls.

Then again, we might just have a secret weapon of our own, and I was actually rather elated to see John Kerry stick his foot in his mouth concerning the intelligence of our military. The reaction of my liberal boss RJ and coworkers, who agreed with Kerry about the education and intelligence of our sergeants and soldiers, goes a long way towards explaining why there is such a rift between conservative republicans and liberal democrats to begin with. Neither group sees almost anything eye to eye. The republicans have respect for our military, and the democrats just don’t. They may want Kerry to keep his mouth shut, but that’s only because they don’t want their secret feelings known among weak minded people unknowingly right of center. Keep these kinds of people in the dark and they may just vote democrat, I’m sure, especially if republicans and pastors are proving to be such horrible hypocrites right before election time, and they don’t need someone like Kerry telling everyone the way the liberal democrats really think.

For me it’s always been a Christian conservative issue more than a republican one, yet because of that, I’ll be voting republican all the way.