A Different Perspective

I received a small amount of justice yesterday.

It appears that Van Nuys Superior Court Commissioner Martin Wegman thinks I deserve the chance to be innocent…

I posted earlier about the possibility that I could not afford to be “not guilty.” It was going to cost me $381 to have my day in court. Evidently, the L.A. Superior Court thinks it is okay to coerce you into pleading guilty by offering you six months to pay a reduced fine (almost always reduced when you go before a commissioner), but if you want to plead not guilty you have to pay the full amount of the fine within seven days and then you get it back if you win your case.

Innocent until proven guilty? Hmmm…

But when I went back to court, seriously considering pleading guilty because I felt I could not afford to tie up almost four hundred dollars until my trial (and then who knows how long it takes them to send me a check…), I asked to be allowed to come to the trial based on my own recognizance (they call the fine amount “bail” to justify taking the full amount before you even get to trial).

Commissioner Wegman said because I showed up to court the first time and the second time I was given a new date without problem, he didn’t feel I was a risk to not show up and granted my request for O.R.

I just did a web search for Martin Wegman, and he seems like a decent guy. Here’s Martin Wegman’s personality profile.

I went near the end, so I heard him deal with quite a few people. He kept the mood of the court light but still professional, and he was very fair. The only requests he denied were from people who had continually failed to appear for court dates or who had done some other stupid things which negated his normally generous demeanor.

I’m sure it’s a tough job being a superior court commissioner, and I’m glad Martin Wegman is on the job in Van Nuys. Still have issues with the system, but at least I know there’s a possibility of justice even if you don’t have the money.

Heath Ledger is found dead in US

My girlfriend asked me a couple of days ago if I would choose to be a famous director/actor if it meant we had to break up. I said no, and not just because that was the right answer to give your girlfriend.

Success does not guarantee happiness. Sometimes, the cost is too high. I don’t know anything, obviously, about the personal life of Heath Ledger. I feel for his daughter and ex-girlfriend in this time, but I certainly do not know if it was an intentional overdose, or an overdose at all for that matter, that lead to Heath Ledger’s death today. Whatever the circumstance, his talent and fortune did not seem to lead to contentment and happiness.

I don’t think it is actually an either/or question, though she had in mind what happens if she has to leave Los Angeles. Do I go with her or not. Too early in our relationship to answer that question any way, but I do know that the chance at success or fame with directing, writing, and acting will not weigh as heavily as the value of my relationships.

If that situation ever arises, I’d look at what relationships I would sacrifice by leaving Los Angeles. When I left Indiana, I believed I should lay down roots in Los Angeles. I did not want to be another transient passer-thru in L.A. That does not mean I would never consider leaving, but I do know that I would have to be convinced it is the right move to make. I do not take leaving my network of close, personal relationships lightly.

And, of course, it would matter if my girlfriend still has “girlfriend” status at that time, or if there’s another designation…

Many of the wonderful things in life go by unappreciated.

A kind word, a smile from a stranger, the gentle breeze on a hot summer day.

What was once wonderful often sinks beneath the muddy waters of routine.

The faithfulness of a friend is too often forgotten even before the next trial begins.

But arising from the ruins of mistakes made manifest come wisdom, joy, and strength.

The past shines light on the present bringing hope for tomorrow.

Appreciation for each day grows stronger than yesterday’s sorrow.

Today means more than the next.

Tomorrow becomes today soon enough.

I just spent a good chunk of my morning in traffic court. I’ve always plead guilty and hoped for a reduced fine when faced with a traffic ticket. But this time, I didn’t do it. Really.

I was ticketed for not stopping at a red light while turning right. The particular intersection has the line before the stop light pretty deep from the intersection, so I stopped at the line like you are supposed to. Then I looked, and I saw that I had time to go. I accelerated (quickly, but not too fast, no screeching tires or anything).

The next thing I know about a quarter mile down, I’m being pulled over by a motorcycle cop. He was cocky, like a lot of cops are (here in Los Angeles, any way). He asked me why I did it even though there were a group of cops talking in the Denny’s parking lot. I told him, I didn’t, and he must’ve looked up while I was accelerating through the turn. He actually admitted to me that going through the light caught his eye, so he wasn’t looking at me the whole time. But he was convinced I had never stopped, so he wrote me the ticket.

Today, I went to court to plead not guilty. I find out that in order to plead not guilty, I have to pay the full amount of the fine which gets refunded to me if I’m found not guilty. But here’s what pisses me off: You get six months to pay a reduced fine if you plead guilty, but in order to have your day in court you have to post an amount about THREE TIMES what he would actually fine you if you plead guilty. It’s coercion to plead guilty.

Out of principle, I’m going to have my day in court. I’ll pay their little extortion money, and even if I lose it, I’m not going to say I’m guilty for something I did not do.

Update: I am seriously considering paying their extortion. Having four hundred dollars tied up when I could pay it off for $150 seems really tempting. I have issues, though, with having to lie in court. I guess I could plead “no contest” and then it wouldn’t be lying. In good conscience, I can’t say I’m guilty. I’m not.

Whether he took HGH or not, I don’t know. But when he talked to Mike Wallace, he looked like a liar to me.

Such a promising young rookie denied his 1,000 yard season because Herm Edwards refuses to bench a QB who sucks.

Right now as I watch the game, Croyle is 8 for 24, and not a single reception for D. Bowe.

Going into this game, he only needed 18 yards to make 1,000. Everyone assumed he would get that and more. Now it’s almost the 4th Quarter and he doesn’t have a single reception. I’ve only seen Croyle throw to him once. With Tony Gonzales, it’s not like Bowe is being double-teamed.

If Croyle is the QB for Kansas City next year, I don’t know how much I’ll be able to watch. His record as a starter, after all is 0 and how many ever starts he has. KC is headed to their 9th straight loss since starting the season 4-3 under Huard.

My friend Jason Zahariades is exploring Eastern Orthodoxy. He’s got a lot of great posts on his blog, and a recent post challenges equality in interpretation of the Scriptures. He quotes Fr. Stephen,

“Literalism is a false means of interpretation (hermenuetic) and is a vain attempt to democratize the Holy writings. If they can be read on a literal level, then everyone has equal access to them and everybody has equal authority to interpret them. Thus certain forms of Protestantism, caught up in the various modern theories of the Reformation, sought to do to the Scriptures what many sought to do with their governments. Kill the princes! Kill the priests! Everyone can be his own king, his own priest. Smash the images and any claim to authority. Of course these extreme forms always failed quickly, to be replaced by some version of moderation.

“Thus the Scriptures are not purely democratic - some interpreters are more equal than others.”

This touches on an issue for me, which is that all of our understanding is based on experience. All of our understanding about anythying is based on our experience. God speaks to us through the Scriptures, but it is not in a vacuum.

Justin Baeder makes this observation and shows how difficult it is to balance our own wants and desires with understanding the Bible in his post, Armchair Theology vs. Compromised Theology.

For example, Jesus criticized the man in his parable who tore down his barns to build bigger ones. If I move from an apartment to a house, or buy a nicer car, you could say I did the same thing. One you’ve done something, you tend to rationalize it, particularly if you benefit from it and enjoy it.

Justin surmises,

I say this to point out that we can’t depend entirely on ourselves to judge our own actions, and we can’t just judge others and expect our judgment to be fair. We need to make these determinations in community.

I’ve felt for quite awhile that our understanding of Scripture must be lived out with others striving to follow Christ. Jason brings up a good point in the comments of his post,

Many in the emerging church have argued for the local faith-community as the center of theological reflection and life. But my experiences over the past several years have left me feeling disconnected from anything larger or historical. I feel my attempts have contributed to splintering further Christ’s Body. In many ways, it’s simply been hyper-individualism in a small group form.

Alan, while I am wrestling with some of the Orthodox Church’s claims, your comment raises the question for me about the practical nature of living and experiencing the Bible’s content. If the Scriptures are the Church’s Scriptures, then experiencing and living the Scriptures must be the Church’s reality as a community, not as individuals. The more I think about it, while there is definitely a personal (not necessarily an individual) aspect of living Scripture, it must be in the greater context of the Church’s reality with Scripture. And this has to be more than just a local church’s or denomination’s reading, studying and interpretation of Scripture. And yet, the idea of the Church universal is too vague. The Church universal is too fractured to provide any real context for life in the Scritpures.

On the one hand, I see the need for a greater body of believers for being the community of understanding. Small groups are still easily swayed by shared interests which can jade them in their understanding of the Scriptures.

But that isn’t to say that large groups do not share the same flaw. For me, it is the willingness to learn from the interpretations of those who are not like us that help us better understand the Scriptures. So embracing a large, historical church for the sake of Biblical understanding could discount other communities. Unless the Church honestly should have always existed as the institutional structures we see in Eastern Orthodoxy, we should not expect to find a more perfect understanding by only looking at one segment of the Church.

There are aspects to the Scriptures, especially as it applies to living day to day in the Kingdom of God, which I think are best learned in small groups, while deeper theological questions are best understood within the context of the varying interpretations of the Church universal.

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OpenSong is software for the Mac which can run your multimedia presentation over a projector. And the price is great: free.

Definitely worth a look for those of you who use projection for your times of community worship.

“For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God.” - Ephesians 2:8

There’s a disconnect in the common Evangelical doctrine of salvation between faith and works. Perhaps disconnect is not the right word, but there’s a one-sided view of “works.” While we are saved by grace through faith and not by “good works,” there’s certainly a belief, whether stated or not, that bad works can definitely cost you your salvation. Or perhaps, that if you do bad works, that’s a sign that you really don’t have any faith at all.

So perhaps a better way to describe the doctrine of salvation in the Evangelical church is that you are “saved by faith and what you don’t do.”

A confession of belief becomes quickly called into question if you do certain things which are deemed unacceptable by most Evangelicals. Drinking to the point of drunkenness - even on an irregular basis, sex outside of heterosexual marriage, supporting a candidate who wants to keep abortion legal (even if said candidate does more for women in troubled pregnancies and practically reduces the number of abortions by their compassion rather than legislation), or divorcing a spouse without biblical grounds (or in many circles even with biblical grounds).

You can’t have it both ways. Either you are saved by faith and your actions have nothing to do with it, or our actions are central to our faith, both good and bad. Yeah, that’s where things get sticky, don’t you think?

I take issue with those who put all the weight on actions as well, because they seem to put all the weight on the good works and neglect the bad. If someone is actively involved in service to the poor and oppressed, who cares what sins they may be enslaved to? I know that’s an oversimplification. I really do.

The tension really comes into play when defining salvation. It has been so ingrained in us that salvation is eternal life (meaning when we physically die we go to heaven and live eternally), we only give passing consideration to another element in our salvation: empowerment to live and move in the divine image.

The empowerment we receive by the Holy Spirit does not mean total and complete victory. Sin is not a sign we have not accepted Jesus’ invitation to enter the Kingdom of God. At the same time, the fact that we will sin is no excuse for that sin. We are to put to death our sinful desires, progressively, as we are transformed into the image of Christ from one empowering moment to the next.

Our faith is an active faith. Works have everything to do with salvation, but not necessarily prior to salvation. Certainly, our actions and choices prior to following Jesus factor in our development as persons, but we are not earning or rejecting salvation in those actions. In the same way, our works are not earning or rejecting salvation after following Christ.

But…

There’s always a “but” when trying to work out theology.

Continually rejecting the empowerment to overcome our sins and strive to become like Christ could certainly deaden our faith. Our development can be stunted or even reversed by a continual insistence on living in the filth of sin.

In the same way, continually striving to overcome and be developed into the image of Christ will strengthen us and draw us closer to God.

So, I guess I’m saying you aren’t saved by what you do. You aren’t damned for what you do. But salvation for us in the here and now is all about what we do.

Terms get thrown around and we get desensitized to them. One of them is “waterboarding.” Most of us know it is a form of torture, but few know what it even is or what it is like.

This may seem like an awful post on Christmas Eve, but as I read this post from Boing Boing (which they picked up on from Danny who picked up on it from The Straight Dope), I can’t help but to think about those who are experiencing this for their Christmas. Of course, many of those don’t give a rip about Christmas, but as I’m anxiously awaiting my first Christmas celebration with my girlfriend’s family, our government thinks this treatment of human beings is perfectly okay.

What waterboarding feels like:

The water fills the hole in the saran wrap so that there is either water or vaccum in your mouth. The water pours into your sinuses and throat. You struggle to expel water periodically by building enough pressure in your lungs. With the saran wrap though each time I expelled water, I was able to draw in less air. Finally the lungs can no longer expel water and you begin to draw it up into your respiratory tract.

It seems that there is a point that is hardwired in us. When we draw water into our respiratory tract to this point we are no longer in control. All hell breaks loose. Instinct tells us we are dying.

I have never been more panicked in my whole life. Once your lungs are empty and collapsed and they start to draw fluid it is simply all over. You [b]know[b] you are dead and it’s too late. Involuntary and total panic…

So, is it torture?

I’ll put it this way. If I had the choice of being waterboarded by a third party or having my fingers smashed one at a time by a sledgehammer, I’d take the fingers, no question.

It’s horrible, terrible, inhuman torture. I can hardly imagine worse. I’d prefer permanent damage and disability to experiencing it again. I’d give up anything, say anything, do anything.

Link

(Thanks, Danny!)

(Via Boing Boing.)