ben_pierce's Xanga

The Last Battle for Ben's Xanga

Wed, 24 Jan 2007 04:00:18 GMT

Ben's blogging life has left this shell, and has moved on in terms of its corporeal existence. I am now blogging over at WordPress, a blogging service I have found to be more suited to my needs in terms of flexibility and features. But be not dismayed, this is neither defeat nor death. Rather, this new blog is the real blog that has been lurking behind the feeble attempts of my Xanga all this time, sort of like a cross between the Platonic Ideal and Lewis's Real World that the Narnians discover "inside" the stable in The Last Battle. My Xanga will continue to eke out its existence here, so I can still read and comment your Xangas, but my bloggings are in a better place now.

So send your browser to http://www.expensivecoffee.wordpress.com, or click on the link, and enjoy. Feel free to leave comments over there if you like; you aren't required to be a WordPress member to do so. Thanks for reading!

Chapman Denies Minority Rights for Deceased People

Tue, 16 Jan 2007 00:15:01 GMT

Today Alabama's new Secretary of State, Beth Chapman, made clear her views on the crucial issue of civil rights for deceased people. "As of today, January 15, 2007, let this message resonate across our state loudly and clearly: dead people are no longer allowed to vote in Alabama," she said in a speech to the Alabama Legislature.

I am disappointed in Ms. Chapman's explicit disrespect for such a marginalized group of people. It is darkly ironic that, on the day that Americans celebrate the life of one of the foremost figures of the American civil rights movement, Ms. Chapman should trample on the most precious of civil rights by denying the deceased their right to vote. I should have hoped that Ms. Chapman would recognize that it is not the corporeal nature of a being that makes him or her worthy of respect as a human, but the shared experience of the human condition. Those who have passed on, like other minority groups, clearly have much to offer to the rest of us, and we should respect their viewpoint as being just as valid as anyone else's--especially on election day. I hope each of you will join me in upholding the validity and dignity of deceased people in the area of civil rights. If you don't, well, I can't guarantee that you won't be visited by any spooky "protesters" around the stroke of midnight.

This post has been a work of satire. It is not intended to offend or criticize any ethnic or other minority group, but rather the mindset that sees every issue in terms of minority-majority conflict. If you experience frustration or offense at anything said in this post, please contact the author.

Thursday, December 28, 2006

Thu, 28 Dec 2006 15:57:50 GMT

I'm dreaming of a white Christmas
Because such things I've never known...

Christmas Extravaganza #1:
Mel Gibson movie marathon with my brother in the back seat of the van. There's no better way to get carsick than by watching The Patriot and Braveheart back-to-back at 70 mph. Bleh...

Christmas Extravaganza #2:
Five hours of opening presents Christmas morning. All 21 of us--ages 1 to 75--got together at 9:30 AM at my dad's parents' house and, with an hour-long brunch break, ripped and screamed and oohed and ahhed until the last gift was opened at 3:30 PM. Wow.

Christmas Extravaganza #3:
Snow. For the first time in my life, it snowed where I was on Christmas morning. That is, if you count brief flurries at 3:00 AM. Bah! Humbug!

How was your Christmas?

All your final exams are belong to me

Wed, 13 Dec 2006 17:13:09 GMT

They're over, and I'm begun.

Not sure how to classify this one

Fri, 08 Dec 2006 22:32:40 GMT

Dear Auburn University Library,

    I visited you today, my friend, and you were filled with people. So many people, and I did not like it. Don't get me wrong, I was glad they were there. All those people, studying their hearts out...it's why you were made. I'm happy for you. But there was something unsettling about it. I almost would say that something was missing, but don't you agree it was the opposite? Don't you agree that there was something added, something that isn't usually there? But I suppose I'm saying that the flowers are less beautiful when they're all filled with bees looking for nectar. Ridiculous! You weren't less of yourself because everyone was making use of you, you were more. I know you look forward to this time of year for that very reason. But I must confess that it wasn't the same. That's why I left, you see. There's something about being immersed in the rows and rows of books...it's almost like bathing in every idea that's ever been thought. But you know what I mean. That's why we get along, you and I: we are after the same thing. That's why I'll always come back to you, once the crowds leave. I'm sorry that they only come inside when they need to make use of you. You know I don't think that way about it. I just don't want to get in their way. This is their time. I know you enjoy it, and I'm happy for you, really I am. But I'm still counting down the days until once again it's just you, me, and Dostoevsky.

    I'm the one for you, my friend. I'll miss you over the break.

    Yours,


    Ben


    P.S. Thank you very much for the book you lent me. I like it so far.

Subtlety

Sat, 18 Nov 2006 23:42:52 GMT

(Hint: War Eagle!)

¡Que Lastima!

Wed, 15 Nov 2006 03:40:18 GMT

    Martin Luther King, Jr. now has his "rightful place," according to President George W. Bush. A ceremony on the national Mall in Washington, D.C. celebrated today's groundbreaking for a monument to the martyred civil rights leader, to be positioned between monuments to Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln. The ceremony was attended by the likes of Oprah Winfrey, Tommy Hilfiger, and Bill Clinton, as well as various governmental leaders. How sweet.

    I'm glad someone's building a monument to Mr. King (although I don't have a clue why they have to use my money to do so), but what is curious to me is the idea that we are honoring Mr. King, a man known so well for his extremely courageous efforts to change public policy toward African-Americans, by building his monument next to the Lincoln Memorial.

    This crosses the line from subtle humor to cruel irony. I am unsure whether to laugh or cringe at the idea that we are memorializing a man known for his charismatic leadership of the civil rights movement, next to our memorial of a man who, while serving in the Illinois legislature, voted to deny the rights of African-Americans to vote or testify in court. We have neighboring monuments of, on the one hand, a man who fought for freedom until his untimely assassination, and on the other hand, a man who routinely threw newspaper publishers in jail for disagreeing with his policies (and tried to do the same thing to the Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court), and was finally assassinated for his anti-Constitutional work. Why enshrine a respected civil rights leader next to a documented racist? I am not sure whether it is a victory for or a blow to equality to place the memorial of Mr. King next to that of Mr. Lincoln. But it sure is ironic.

Tuesday, November 07, 2006

Tue, 07 Nov 2006 00:19:12 GMT

    I’ve been looking forward to tomorrow for years. I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t interested in government. I can recall helping Dad clean the garage in 1996, listening to the election results almost as closely as I listened to the Iron Bowl; and to this day I still remember where I was when the man on the radio announced, much to my prepubescent chagrin, that Bill Clinton had won. I’ve always been passionate about government, and this Tuesday is the day on which that passion has been focused for a decade.

    That’s why it’s so ironic that I’m not voting.

    What? Ben Pierce, of all people, not voting? Isn't he the one who can't resist a chance to tell us what he believes about any political issue you could imagine? Isn't he the one who got on a Greyhound bus at midnight in downtown Birmingham and rode for 24 hours just to teach kids about government in some far-off state? Isn't Ben Pierce the one who is always talking about a Christian view of government? What uncouth being has taken control of his mind and forced him to do the unthinkable and not vote? Why, Ben? Why?

    I'm so glad you asked.

    I am not voting tomorrow for the straightforward reason that there is no one for whom I can vote. To be sure, there are 50 candidates in 29 elections on the ballot in my district, but exactly zero whom I can support. I cannot with a clear conscience vote for wolves in sheep's clothing any more than I can vote for undisguised wolves. The Republican label does not absolve candidates from being pro-big government, pro-state education, and pro-democratic socialism. Sure, these candidates are the lesser of two evils; but I am no more in favor of driving my state off of a cliff at 30 miles per hour than I am of doing so at 50.

    I have faced opposition for my decision. This is understandable; a non-vote is seen by many as a vote for the Democrats. This is simply too pragmatic for me. I prefer to make the choice that is right in itself, and, as far as the result goes, say with George Washington that "the event is in the hand of God." So I'll continue to be politically active, continue to bore you all with my views on Romans 13, and continue to do all I can to support a return to Constitutional government--but the best way to do that in this election, I think, is to refrain from voting.

God Wants You to Get a New Ringtone

Fri, 13 Oct 2006 21:21:02 GMT

I recently noticed a Google ad (you know, those boring text ones on the sidebar of cheap websites) that said, "God wants you to get a new ringtone!" followed by some pitch about "complimentary Christian ringtones." But I payed no attention to that claptrap; I was concerned with the tagline. I was dismayed by this digital delegate of divine direction. Up until this point, I had been quite content with my ringtone (a snippet from one of my favorite Copeland tunes). I was ashamed that all this time, I had been displeasing to God. I resigned myself to this dolorous dispensation of the Deity's decree, and began to search the Scriptures for a clue to the nature of "Christian ringtones."

My first lead was found in Leviticus 26:36. In the NIV, the first sentence of the verse reads "As for those of you who are left, I will make their hearts so fearful in the lands of their enemies that the sound of a windblown leaf will put them to flight." Obviously, the sound of a lone leaf floating about in the wind was integral to Israel's success in the conquest of the holy land. Seeing that this was a definite declaration of divine desire, I searched for a comparable ringtone.

No such luck. They don't make windblown leaf ringtones.

But I did not lose heart. Being exceedingly convicted, I continued my search. I was not disappointed. I found a detailed determination of my devout duty at the other end of the Bible, in Revelation 9:9. If you go back to the original King James Version, the verse reads "the sound of their wings was as the sound of chariots of many horses running to battle." Clearly, the providential ringtone was one that depicted the holy woosh of the wings of otherwordly creatures. Perfect!

Not perfect. Such a ringtone was not to be found. Dejected and depressed, I determined to press on toward my difficult destination.

I was not disappointed.

I had had it all wrong the whole time. Even the Google ad was misguided. God didn't want me to get a new ringtone, He wanted me to have no ringtone at all! Ezekiel 26:13 says "And I will cause the noise of thy songs to cease; and the sound of thy harps shall be no more heard." Obviously God wanted me to get rid of the noisemaking functions on my phone.

So I did, and have since been living a more holy, fulfilled life. If you want to experience the same abundant life as I now do, you can purchase my new book, "The Freedom of Ringtone Purity: Seven Steps to Holy Happiness" for $14.95. In it I describe my personal journey toward health and happiness, piling on the practical advice and averaging four trendy anecdotes per page. And even though I only mention God in it twice (three times if you count the dedication page), the Christian bookstores will still sell it. Isn't that great?

Beauty

Fri, 06 Oct 2006 19:18:34 GMT

What is beauty? I remember sitting in an airplane on the way to Washington, D.C. some time ago, looking out the window at unstructured cloud formations (a paradox in terms if ever there was one), wondering that question. Nearly a year later, I think I was wondering in the wrong way. See, I was searching for a categorical definition of beauty, a term or explanation that expicitly defined where beauty begins and where it ends.

But beauty doesn't have a definition. Beauty is a definition.

Think back to your own experiences with beauty. Did you ever once go searching for a specific thing or idea that you thought was beautiful? Or were you rather instead struck by something that you immediately recognized as beautiful? I'm not asking if you've ever looked for beauty, we've all done that. But has there ever been a time in your life when you defined the beautiful thing (or idea) before you saw it? I strongly suspect that there hasn't been. That's not the way beauty works. Beauty is a thing that siezes you, not the other way around. It would be impossible for us to simply decide that musical harmony, a clear blue sky, or purity was beautiful. Beauty is much more (dare I say it!) existential than that. To say that beauty equals X, or in any other way to fence it in with a definition, is to make beauty much less than what it is. Don't think that beauty is so much a thing of this world that we can encapsulate it with a few lines in a dictionary. Beauty is something you experience, not something you define!

None of that is to say that there isn't an objective something out there called beauty. Beauty is a real thing, rooted in reality, not some subjectively determined abstraction. If beauty is subjective, then at best an experience of beauty only means that there is something out there that makes you feel good. All that an experience proves is that the experience happened. To say anything else is also to make beauty less than it really is. What an evil it is to look for beauty only within the bounds of definition, but what a greater evil it is to say that beauty is simply what we enjoy! To do so is to make beauty dependent upon the individual. But the beauty of beauty, if you will, is that it is something other.

So how do we distinguish between beauty and non-beauty?

I think C.S. Lewis knew. He understood very well what beauty is. One passage from his books that sheds some light on what he thought about beauty is found in what is rapidly becoming my personal favorite of his works, Till We Have Faces. The character Psyche is explaining to another character why it is that she is not satisfied with her home. She says,

"The sweetest thing in all my life has been the longing—to reach the Mountain, to find the place where all the beauty came from—my country, the place where I ought to have been born. Do you think it all meant nothing, all the longing? The longing for home? For indeed it now feels not like going, but like going back."

That's beauty: that little hint of what Lewis calls The Real World that God inserted into this world. Mozart, the Grand Canyon, Sufjan Stevens, and even those unstructured cloud formations each prick at the little part of you that knows it's not at home in this place. (Incidentally, here is the root of lust: turning that which speaks of eternity into that which speaks to temporal needs.) When you look at something and exclaim, "beauty!" you are subjectively experiencing something that is grounded in something more real than anything else in this world. So don't try to define it. Just relish it, and look to your Real home.