Ryan's Journal

Oooh...pretty colors. Quentin Tarantino's fourth movie is coming out. I only know that because they're billing it that way in the trailer for Kill Bill. Read a version of the script, looks like another winning combination of glorified, explicit violence and satisfying storyline. I'm no fan, and I still find the juxtaposition of extreme violence with characters one can root for uncomfortable. Perhaps Tarantino understands some psychology about coupling "justifiable" violence with heroic intentions and the effect of the marriage on his audience's minds. Uma Thurman's in it though. Demerits for that.

Switching gears, but staying with violence, I read a book over break about how men of God should not shy away from a natural tendency for male violence (the non-sinful kind) and one main argument was based in Matthew 11:12. Go look at it in whatever translation you feel most comfortable with, because the English meaning seems to depend heavily on the translator. The NIV says something like "the kingdom of heaven is forcefully advancing, and forceful men lay hold of it." Others use the word "violent" for "forceful." I ran across a discussion over the original Greek and found that there are some major competing ideas over what Jesus meant. The first is what the author of the book espouses, that by "force" do men lay claim to the kingdom of heaven, much like C.S. Lewis' metaphor of the man who rushes and fights with the guards to the kingdom to gain entrance (does someone know exactly where that comes from...), the other that the "forceful men" are those who killed John the Baptist and will end up crucifying Jesus.

I could be convinced that the Greek goes with the first interpretation, though that leads its way to other issues which, like any poorly written paper, I'll conclude with by not discussing.

I actually ended a paper that way in eighth grade. The teacher stuck a bunch of really crappy phrases from that assignment on the overhead and proceeded to ask the author of each what was wrong with it (which we corporately figured out after he neglected to blank out someone's name -- at first we thought it was random). That was a lesson learned: avoid pretty, monumental wording unless you're actually in a situation that merits it; papers never merit it.

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