Zac Brown Band Artifact 1

           Zac Brown Band’s album titled, “Uncaged” is one of the most listened to albums in my iTunes. Zac Brown Band is a country band that is made up of seven men who work together to write their music. I went to one of their concerts back in California and noticed that the men in Zac Brown Band like to improvise music; In numerous songs they took a few minutes just to play their instruments without lyrics. The band has a relaxed feel to its music but it stays true to its country origins.

            When it comes to human purpose, Zac Brown Band’s album “Uncaged” says very little about it. There are a few human purposes that I was able to interpret from the songs when I was listening. One theme that I felt was present through many of the songs was the theme of living life to the fullest and not holding back on your dreams. In the song titled “Uncaged” Brown sings, “everyday find a way to face my fears.” This idea seems to imply that he is trying to grow and to challenge himself to get the most out of his life. Another theme about human purpose that I found was to not take time for granted and to enjoy the life you have been given. In “Day That I Die,” Brown says, “It’s funny how time can make you realize we’re running out of it.” I agree with Brown here, time really does fly and I think we really should enjoy the life that we are blessed to have.

            As far as creation goes, Zac Brown Band sings a lot about the earth and nature. In the song “Uncaged” Brown mentions an ocean, river, mountain spring, sunshine, and plains. In many of the other songs there is at least a mention of the ocean. Brown does not talk about how these things were created but he does spend quite a bit of time singing about how wonderful these creations are.

            It was hard for me to pick out themes of the kingdom and the empire in the songs of Zac Brown Band. One of the few things that did jump out at me was, “sometimes things that may not matter jump in front of things that do.” (Last But Not Least) These lyrics remind me of the Empire and how people just go along with the flow, not questioning, and not being intentional. I think that it is really easy to pass off the blame for our forgetting things but in reality we are completely to blame.

            Zac Brown Band does encourage its listeners to believe in getting high off of marijuana. “Where the wind blows babe, you can bet I’ll be riding high with it, holding on for my dear life.” And “I’mma get faded at the tiki bar tonight…then I’mma roll one up, like my name is Bob, partying like I’m a Jamaican.” are two quotes that explicitly talk about getting high. Getting high is something that reminds me of something that would happen in the empire. In the empire people might have wanted to escape their reality because of how tough it was, in the kingdom life should be enjoyed without the help of hallucinogens.

            The theme of redemption really showed up in the song “Uncaged” when Brown sings “freedom is a gift, get living.” Jesus Christ died on the cross for our sins and therefore we have been set free from the chains of sin.

Love = Disadvantage?

Sherlock: A Scandal in Belgravia

            This episode of the British series, “Sherlock” was about Sherlock Holmes and his good friend, John Watson trying to crack the passcode of a phone that belongs to a woman whom Sherlock seems to have an interest in. What Sherlock doesn’t realize however, is that the phone is not only wanted by the British government, but also by the American government.

            John Watson served in the British army as a doctor in Afghanistan before he met Sherlock Holmes, his housemate. Through Watson’s relationship with Sherlock’s brother, we get the message that life isn’t about money (Sherlock’s brother, a member of the British Parliament offered a lot of money to Watson to keep an eye on Sherlock and report if anything out of the ordinary was happening, but Watson refused). This artifact seems to say that life isn’t about how much money you have or how much you own, but rather about doing what you love.

            Sherlock Holmes is portrayed as an extreme post-modernist. Near the beginning of the episode, as Sherlock Holmes and John Watson are looking for more cases to solve, Sherlock says this to one of his clients, “Tell us from the start, and don’t be boring.” The phrase “don’t be boring” didn’t stand out at first, but the more I thought about it the clearer it became that Sherlock is constantly on the search for something new and not boring since redemption to Sherlock is found in solving complex problems.

            Sherlock Holmes is very cynical and pessimistic about relationships. He thinks love is a hindrance to work. However in this episode, Sherlock Holmes meets a woman who makes Holmes question his view on love. Near the end when it seems the woman has won in keeping the passcode a secret, Sherlock suddenly connects the dots and says, “Love is a dangerous disadvantage.” Because of the woman’s love for him, Sherlock Holmes figured out the passcode had to do something with him only affirming his pessimistic view on love. In this episode, love is portrayed as a burden through Sherlock and a false hope through failed relationships Watson has with different girls. However, the last scene of the episode shows Sherlock Holmes secretly saving “the woman“ who is about to be executed, which begs a few questions.

        1.)  What is it about love that is so frustrating yet appealing?

        2.)  Is love a dangerous disadvantage?

Equilibrium (2002)

January 9, 2013

          Equilibrium is an action movie that is in a futuristic world after the Third World War. After the war, the world was governed by a totalitarian ruler 'The Father.' All the citizens were forced to take a pill called 'Prozium' everyday that numbed their emotions to create a world of utopia. John Preston, the head of a group or a high ranking general responsible of destroying the resistance. One day, he doesn't take the pill realizing the beauty of emotion.

          The movie portrays human being as nothing, but a mindless robot repeating their daily lives over and over again. Since nobody in the movie had emotions, everybody wore the same type of clothes and walked around with an apathetic face, almost as if everybody was a machine in a car factory. This showed the nature of evil empire where one man had control over everything. Which also portrayed how selfish a human being can be. A human without emotion is improbable because as the speaker Lee Hardy said on Monday that “humans are pleasure driven.” Another aspect about humans that showed in the movie was that people accept the rules they are given by their authorities, which led the citizens to forget how much emotions affected their lives. In the other hand the resistance, who were the people who rebelled against the government not taking the daily pills kept hope and fought back.

          Another thing that shows from the movie is that a kingdom is not a place but it's an on going process how, the kingdom of the movie, Equilibrium there were still many changes happening and how there were full of surprises in it. You would have never expected that the head of a group or a high ranking general of destroying the resistance would ever be the one to go against what he lived most of his life for.

          It is crucial that we live in a world of liberty and it is also important that we realize how much of a blessing and privilege we have to live in such a place. There are still countries around the world that are suffering in a one governed society just like how the movie showed.

Discussion Questions

1. Are we brave enough to go against what our world believes and stand up for what we think is right?
   
   
2. Can we ever reach a world of utopia?
   
   

Truth in the Matrix?

The first cultural artifact I chose to do is the movie The Matrix. This story is about a computer hacker named Neo who has come across something called the Matrix. He soon learns that the life he was living was not real and that it is a computer program designed by artificial intelligence. It was intended to keep the world and the people of it under control while they harvest and grow humans as a source of energy to sustain themselves. Neo is believed to be “The One” because it is prophesized that he will save the human race from the machines. I think this movie tells of how we make our own futures every second of our lives by the choices that we make. Every time we make a decision, a sort of path is made. Just like Neo, we all face many choices throughout each of our lives. There are an infinite number of “doors” and “pills” for us to take, and each of these represents our decisions. Neo’s choice to “follow the white rabbit” is ultimately what leads him to finding Morpheus and discovering the truth about the world. It is the same for us. The choices we make either lead to us to God or away from him. It is our purpose in life to make decisions, and figure things out for ourselves or else God would not have gave us this amazing ability. I also think the agents represent sin in our lives and Morpheus symbolizes God. Like the agents, sin has a way of finding us and following us wherever we go. It can also take form in millions of things in the same way that they can pick anyone to take over. Sin creeps into our lives and “infects” all that we do, separating us from God. Just like God, Morpheus provides a path out for Neo. During the scene in the office, Morpheus tells Neo that he will have to make a choice to do what he says or let them take him. God tells us in 1 Corinthians chapter 10 that he will always provide us with an escape so that we may rise up against what is trying to crush us.

Discussion Questions:

                  1.  How do you know whether the things you perceive are real or just an illusion?

2.  Do we know anything for sure?

3. If our world was an illusion would you prefer to live in the "real world" if in many ways that world sucked?

Killing Them Softly (2012)

The other night, I went to a cheap theater with a couple friends, and we saw a film from November entitled “Killing Them Softly.” Starring Brad Pitt, James Gandolfini, Richard Jenkins, and Ray Liotta, this film is about a trio of amateur thugs who rob an underground, high-stakes poker game in New Orleans. As a result, the crime economy collapses and hit men (Pitt & Gandolfini) are called in to enforce the consequences.

This film says some interesting things about human purpose, and also features obvious political subtext about America. In numerous scenes, either a car radio or television screen is playing presidential debates between George Bush and Barack Obama wherein they comment on the nation’s current financial condition in a way that follows the film’s plot and provides seamless segues between scenes. According to director Andrew Dominik, human purpose is chiefly concerned with the acquisition of money, with women on the side. This film did not reveal any slice of Heaven, or “kingdom vision” to me at all.

One could make the argument that evil actually stems not from organized crime in general, but more specifically from the degenerate wanna-be organized criminals that forget their place in the food-chain, so to speak. And when all is said and done, not one character realizes redemption—yeah, it’s one of those cynical movies where everyone dies or gets picked up by police officers. In the end two guys are left, Pitt and Jenkins, and one conflict is left unresolved: the question of money. Pitt’s character (Jackie Cogan) meets Jenkins’ (The Driver) in a bar to collect payment for his recent “house-cleaning,” but the two can’t agree on a price. From a TV, Obama speaks about reclaiming the American dream and realizing that “out of many, we are one,” to which Cogan replies, “This guy wants to tell me we’re living in a community? Don’t make me laugh. I’m living in America, and in America you’re on your own. America’s not a country. It’s just a business. Now f***ing pay me.” Cogan seeks his redemption in a paycheck.

The implication in this film is that life in the empire is a dog-eat-dog world of violence, money and drugs. “Killing Them Softly” is a film that numbs our perception of the kingdom vision, and tells us that this broken world is all we have.

1. What does “Killing Them Softly” encourage the viewer to desire, or believe in?

2. Does this film provide an accurate sketch of America’s society and politics?

The Album "Fever's End"

The artifact I chose is the album called or “Fever’s End” by Tablo, a Korean hip-hop rap artist. The inspiration behind the album comes from his hardship death threats and harassment from the society to him and his family (If you are interested in the reason for the death threats, look up “Stalking of Daniel Lee.”). The harassment almost ended Tablo’s musical career until this album came out after a year of solitude and escape from the society.

There are two parts to this album, each containing five tracks. Few songs I want to mention is the song called “Dear TV,” “Origin,” and “The Tide.” “Dear TV” is an English lyric song which talks about what goes on in the media today by portraying the media to a television. Some notable lyrics is “Dear TV, desensitize me. Give me more genocide please. The world is your aphrodisiac, so you stay turned on every minute, every second I breathe.” This song well describes the evil in the pop culture and the things that are being forced upon people like the matrix in the movie Matrix. I recommend people to listen to this song because the song is only one verse which is also in English.

The song “Origin” talks about how we have to thank the origin of where all our comforts come from. Some of the lyrics, translated by myself, is “A cup of coffee, from poverty,” “people who made my shoes are bare feet,” “one’s luxury means one’s poverty,” “but I need technology, build me another factory please!” “doesn’t matter of the forest is gone. Only focused on a single apple on a branch.” This song well portrays the social class in today’s society and how many luxury people get is from poverty and sacrifices from another. “For the fuel that runs your car, someone runs the battle ground,” says Tablo. This song also connects well the song of Mary and the Right-side-up Kingdom of God. The last verses go like “for the people who keep quiet because I talk, thank you and I’m sorry.”

The song “The Tide” talks about how the world traps people in cages and cell that has no escape by comparing people to fishes. “You try to escape/resist from the tide, when the world is an aquarium,” “you try to escape the fish hooks, when the world is a net.” This song also relates to how the world is like a matrix. It can also relate to the Seahaven in The Truman Show where Truman is locked in a city bounded by sea which he can’t escape.

The whole album reveals that humans naturally live for their own goods and that the world is becoming a prison with no escape. This album itself does a bad job revealing anything about redemption and the whole album is felt by many people to be depressing. However, his later album as Epik High called “99” has more hopeful and somewhat redemption relating messages. 

Q1: In the song "The Tide" 

“You try to escape/resist from the tide, when the world is an aquarium,” “you try to escape the fish hooks, when the world is a net.”

do you agree? and how realistic is this lyrics to everyday life?

Q2: Can Christian songs contain the kind of lyrics and messages as in Tablo's album "Fever's End"?

Lars and the Real Girl

Lars and the Real Girl is a story about a man is so lonely that he buys an anatomically-correct doll that he can call his girlfriend. The doll's name is Bianca. At first everyone in Lars' community is really weirded out by the idea of him having a fake girlfriend, but soon came to accept that Lars was lonely and needed to overcome his issues from his parents' death in his own way. The community began to incorporate Bianca in activities such as "modeling" and "teaching".  As Lars' loneliness subsides he declares that Bianca is sick and so she eventually dies.

This movie shows us that humans are created as social beings. No matter how hard someone tries to be alone, they always long for companionship; even the loneliest people talk to themselves as some form of interaction. This movie shows us that we live in a fallen world, but that God's kingdom will fulfill our longings. When Lars first orders Bianca he is looking for companionship, much like humans who try to fill their lives with things. After awhile Lars discovers that there is no substitute for an actual, interactive relationship after he begins to notice a girl from his workplace. This can be compared to God's interactions with us and how we only feel fulfilled through an interactive, two way, relationship with Christ.

I believe this artifact is crying out for the kingdom because it promotes the idea of having an actual relationship with God instead of trying to fill the "God-void" with material things. Just as Lars wasn't fulfilled by his relationship with Bianca, we cannot feel whole when trying to focus our lives around other things besides a living God. Lars and the Real Girl encouraged me to hope and desire a better relationship with God. I could accomplish this goal by searching for God in my life instead of waiting for moments when I feel like He's reaching out to me. No relationship can be successful or grow when it's one-sided.

The origin of sin in this movie is Lars' loneliness. Loneliness itself is not a sin, but is a product of a sinful world. Lars feels he is not worthy of love because he "killed" his mother during childbirth. Redemption in this Lars and the Real Girl is found when the community gathers around Lars to make Bianca feel welcome, which in turn makes Lars feel welcome and safe within the community. When Lars realizes the love around him he no longer needs Bianca and finds love in a real girl.

1. What is good about community based on this film synopsis and discussion?
2. Can something be presented as a sin even if it is not an "Actual" sin?

Buffy The Vampire Slayer - Helpless

Buffy the Vampire Slayer is a TV show about a teenage girl whose destiny as "The Chosen One" changes her life forever. As the opening title of the show puts it, "In every generation there is a Chosen One. She alone will stand against the vampires, the demons and the forces of darkness. She is the Slayer". However in "Hopeless", as a rite of slayer passage, her Watcher, Giles, begins poisoning her during their training sessions. The organic compound he injects her with drains Buffy of all her slayer strength and coordination. All slayers upon reaching their 18th birthday are required to be striped of their powers and locked in a dark house to fight a vampire.

         Without her strength, Buffy isn’t even able to stand up to human high school bullies or fight off cat-callers. Completely dismayed, Buffy tells Giles how scared she is. His heart breaks for her so he tells Buffy about the rite of passage. Horrified that her own Watcher would poison her, Buffy runs home only to find out that the insane vampire she was supposed to kill has kidnapped her mother. Forced to engage in this barbaric ritual for her mother’s safety, Buffy enters the house. She eventually outwits the vampires, kills them, and rescues her mother.

         This episode shows that even without her strength Buffy still has power. Even though her father forgot about her birthday, Giles cares enough about her to loose his job. Buffy has purpose beyond her slayer calling. Even those without superpowers can fight evil, like the Scoobies and Giles. Redemption comes from Buffy’s will to rid the world of evil not her slayer powers.

Why do you think that the directors chose to show Buffy’s lack of physical strength in a sexualized way from males? Is this something that most women without superpowers feel?

Do you think that Giles deserved to be fired? Did he care too much about Buffy to do his job? Or do both Giles’ passions and Buffy’s passions make them better fighters of evil?

Eternity's Edge

As I just finished a novel over the weekend I decided that this would be a good opportunity to share a bit of a larger artifact. I read the book Eternity's Edge, the second book in Bryan Davis's Echoes from the Edge trilogy. I have been a fan of Bryan Davis since third or fourth grade and have read his works extensively. I can now see that this has affected me in many ways.  The motifs of light and darkness and epic battles between Good and Evil in his primarily Christian fantasy writing shaped the way I view the world.

The novel Eternity's Edge is imbued with many of the same traits as Davis's former writings, but there are some shifts in theme that reflect changes in culture that I have identified with strongly.  The plot is based around the idea that there are three parallel universes. One can pass between the dimensions with a special mirror, music, and a bright flash of light.  The protagonist is a teenage violin prodigy named Nathan.  At this point in the story Nathan is teamed up with several people from different dimensions trying to stop "interfinity" which is the merging of the three worlds. "Interfinity" would cause mass chaos, destruction of the worlds, ect. Basically lots of bad stuff. Nathan's closest companion is a girl named Kelly.  However Kelly has a rocky past, and hasn't been raised with the strong virtues that Nathan had.  This causes some confusion for Nathan especially.  He doesn't really know how to think of Kelly.  She wants to be by his side for every adventure, no matter how dangerous.  This conflicts his sense of chivalry to no end.

This novel does a good job of showing how the line between good and evil cuts through the heart of everyone.  Everyone has a "fatal flaw" so to speak.  It also shows that the purpose of Christians is to combat evil in whatever form it appears, especially if it is within us.  It shows that we cannot redeem ourselves.  We are broken lumps of iron, that only God can forge into a tool worthy of his purpose.  Those living in the empire are shown to be in fear, but unable to do anything to protect themselves.  Those who can see the light of the kingdom can see their own helplessness as well, but they understand that although they are broken, God can still work through them, showing his strength in their weakness.

How should chivalry be interpreted within modern culture?

What does battling evil look like in the modern empire?

The Matrix

Released in 1999, the Matrix is a movie that tells the story of Neo, a computer hacker who is brought out of the Matrix, a computer simulation that mentally imprisons humanity to provide power for a race of machines. Only a few humans remain free and fight the Matrix. 

One of the amazing things we see in this movie is that until seen from the outside, virtually no one even begins to doubt that what they know as reality is not real.  This points us to our own blindness: we see this world from the perspective given to us by our culture, and we see nothing else. It is not until we are brought out of our culture that we can see the world from another perspective, and we then realize that there is more to see than we could even have imagined. We live life with a huge number of assumptions about how things work, what is possible or viable, and what is not. The Matrix shows us that these are only assumptions, and therefore may not be true. But as humans, it's most comfortable to simply live with these assumptions and not questions them. This is shown to us by the character Cypher who is willing to betray the rest of the resistance in order to be reintroduced to the Matrix, forget about everything else and once more live in a life of ignorance. But as shown by Neo and the resistance, we are called to see more than just the Matrix; we are called to see the Kingdom God has envisioned. Our purpose is therefore to be redeemed from the evil of accepting our blindness by questioning our assumptions, and then helping others to do the same.

This leads us to some important questions:

What assumptions do we have? This question is difficult because we most often need another perspective before we can even doubt our own; this is why help from others is important.

What can we do to provide ourselves some alternative perspectives?

What is the hidden cost of living without questioning our perspectives?

How I Met Your Mother - False Positive

The TV show "How I Met Your Mother" is a show about a man named Ted, his friends(Lily, Marshall, Barney and Robin) and, as said in the title of the show, his life leading to the point at which he met the mother of his children, to whom he is retelling the story. And so in the twelfth episode of the sixth season, Ted, Robin and Barney go through Lily’s, Marshall’s wife, news of pregnancy(later on revealed as false) which leads all four of them (Ted not included) to rethink their lives then relapse into their old lives once they learn that Lily isn't really pregnant. In the end it was Ted who brought them all back to senses, telling them the things that they needed to hear.

                This show as a whole depicts what might be the norm of the world, always hanging out in bars, sexual relations out of marriage and stuff like that. And yet they still have an inert sense of good. Lily’s pregnancy caused them to reexamine their life so Barney gave his Christmas bonus to charity(not one of his strippers). This episode emphasized on following ones dreams, of Robin’s dream to be a reporter for a big network, and Lily and Marshall’s dream of having a baby.  They also have a great sense of community in that although they may have arguments at times, they share each other’s burdens, and they intervene when they see that a person has gone off to the far end. In this particular episode, Ted convinces the gang to be sensible and get them back from their relapse.  Christians should have this sense of community, an intentional community that will encourage one another and will rebuke when one has strayed off the path. Reexamining our lives gives us knowledge of what has gone wrong and what we need to do. We should keep our resolve and lift it up to God.

                But a couple of questions come up:

                Examine your dreams and your life goals, do you think that it would line up with what God has in store for you?

                Are you in an intentional community or are you just trying to live your life alone?

Artifact 1: Locked out of Heaven

For my first cultural artifact, I chose to look at Bruno Mars’s music video for his hit single “Locked out of Heaven,” which is from his second studio album entitled Unorthodox Jukebox.  Bruno’s smooth vocals croon about a marvelous relationship in this pop-reggae track.  The concept of this vintage-style music video is simple: Bruno Mars having a good time with his friends—drinking, hanging out, and partying. 

This music video captures the essence of what a lot of today’s popular culture embraces: sex, alcohol, and just a good time.  Some of the lyrics of this song bluntly state that “your sex takes me to paradise.”  This particular phrase corrupts something that God intended for a man and a woman to enjoy in the confines of marriage; it takes something God created as good and perverts it into something foul and loathsome. 

This particular element of culture, in essence, “numbs us for the empire.”  It fosters in us the idea that our ultimate goal in life is just to have a good time and, partially, that finding that certain someone is of the utmost importance.  However, reality will prove that going out with friends and having a significant other will not generate eternal happiness.  Humans were made to worship; humans were made to worship God.  Worshipping anything other than God—even if they are “good things” such as friends or family—will not satisfy us for more than a short while. 

Neo, in The Matrix, was looking for something more than the life he was living.  With the help of others, he found out the world he thought was real was actually just a façade.  The truth was cold and harsh, but the truth ultimately set him free.  Similarly, we, as Christians, have to remember that the world in which we live is not truly where we belong.  Although we are immersed in a culture that completely and totally contradicts Christianity, we must remember the truth: only belief in Jesus Christ will set us free.

1.     Why does this music video have nothing to do with the lyrics of the song?

2.     Would the lyrics of this Billboard 100 song have the same success in, say, the 1950’s?  Or would the brazen lyrics about sex be considered offensive?

3.     What does the success of this extremely catchy song say about our current pop culture?