Nation Shudders at Large Block of Uninterrupted Text

I just read this Onion article and thought it was funny. I thought maybe you would like to be able to say the previous sentence for yourself.

-Josh

Nation Shudders at Large Block of Uninterrupted Text

WASHINGTON—Unable to rest their eyes on a colorful photograph or boldface heading that could be easily skimmed and forgotten about, Americans collectively recoiled Monday when confronted with a solid block of uninterrupted text.

Dumbfounded citizens from Maine to California gazed helplessly at the frightening chunk of print, unsure of what to do next. Without an illustration, chart, or embedded YouTube video to ease them in, millions were frozen in place, terrified by the sight of one long, unbroken string of English words.

"Why won't it just tell me what it's about?" said Boston resident Charlyne Thomson, who was bombarded with the overwhelming mass of black text late Monday afternoon. "There are no bullet points, no highlighted parts. I've looked everywhere—there's nothing here but words."

"Ow," Thomson added after reading the first and last lines in an attempt to get the gist of whatever the article, review, or possibly recipe was about.

At 3:16 p.m., a deafening sigh was heard across the country as the nation grappled with the daunting cascade of syllables, whose unfamiliar letter-upon-letter structure stretched on for an endless 500 words. Children wailed for the attention of their bewildered parents, businesses were shuttered, and local governments ground to a halt as Americans scanned the text in vain for a web link to click on.

Sources also reported a 450 percent rise in temple rubbing and under-the-breath cursing around this time.

"It demands so much of my time and concentration," said Chicago resident Dale Huza, who was confronted by the confusing mound of words early Monday afternoon. "This large block of text, it expects me to figure everything out on my own, and I hate it."

"I've never seen anything like it," said Mark Shelton, a high school teacher from St. Paul, MN who stared blankly at the page in front of him for several minutes before finally holding it up to his ear. "What does it want from us?"

As the public grows more desperate, scholars are working to randomly italicize different sections of the text, hoping the italics will land on the important parts and allow everyone to go on with their day. For now, though, millions of panicked and exhausted Americans continue to repetitively search the single column of print from top to bottom and right to left, looking for even the slightest semblance of meaning or perhaps a blurb.

Some have speculated that the never-ending flood of sentences may be a news article, medical study, urgent product recall notice, letter, user agreement, or even a binding contract of some kind. But until the news does a segment in which they take sections of the text and read them aloud in a slow, calm voice while highlighting those same words on the screen, no one can say for sure.

There are some, however, who remain unfazed by the virtual hailstorm of alternating consonants and vowels, and are determined to ignore it.

"I'm sure if it's important enough, they'll let us know some other way," Detroit local Janet Landsman said. "After all, it can't be that serious. If there were anything worthwhile buried deep in that block of impenetrable English, it would at least have an accompanying photo of a celebrity or a large humorous title containing a pop culture reference."

Added Landsman, "Whatever it is, I'm pretty sure it doesn't even have a point."

In Which I Write A Sentence That Kills Me...

A few metaphors to make sense of my current situation:
I am...
-The movie snob who takes secret delight in Transformers 3
-The union soldier who names his son Robert Lee
-The football jock who misses practice to watch Oprah
-The "go-local" enthusiast who secretly buys Starbucks

In short, I...

I...

I'm considering buying a Kindle.

There. I said it.

You don't know how hard of a confession this is. I have raved against the perils of e-reader technology, that oil-powered bulldozer ravaging the luscious, unspoilt vineyards of my youth. I saw a Kindle sitting sleek and savvy on a desk, and my mind filled with the flames that burned down the library at Alexandria.

But I've had a change of heart. ("Yes," my literary conscience berates, "you've traded your heart for a contraption made of steel, powered by Jane Austen's tears! You crooked son of a-" But I digress.) The first temptation came when I found out that, with the Kindle, most classics are free. In the beginning I steeled myself against this Siren, but later as I was perusing some classics at Borders ("Behold, the saintly colossus, technology's sword still protruding from its parchment skin! Fiends! You would partner with these mother-" My literary conscience again. What a mouth on that thing!)

Anyway, I was at Borders, when I saw some classics I desperately wanted to read but could not afford. And I suddenly realized that my refusal to buy a Kindle had hampered my access to quality literature.

The second surprise came today I was reading a book by a respected Wheaton professor, Dr. Alan Jacobs. Out of nowhere, he suddenly begins lauding the Kindle, which somehow rescued his anemic literary soul from its torpor.

So it seems that the Kindle can in fact be an aid to those of the literary breed. An inexpensive one, at that. ("For sixty-nine dollars, you would betray me, dear Josh?")

But there are further moral dilemmas involved, not least of which was a vow I distinctly remember making six years ago: "I will NEVER buy a Kindle!" If you have read Ecclesiastes, you know the penalty of rash vows. "Let not your mouth lead you into sin, and do not say before the messenger that it was a mistake." How much worse a premeditated vow, as this one was?

Quite the dilemma. I need a little help from commentors (all two of you). If you have any insight to give, please do!

A Note on Sinning for Friends (Part Three)

There’s hope!

I’m going to rely heavily on the Bible to speak for itself here, since I’m still so much in the process of figuring this out myself.

John 13:34 says, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

Remember back in part one, where I said that in his counterfeits, Satan always mimics God’s calling? That means there’s an original design for our lives. We see it here in John. We are called by Jesus to love one another as He loved us.

How did He love us? Well, “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13).

So God has called us to lay down our lives for one another in friendship. He has called us to wash each other’s feet, to share our plenty with those in lack.

What do we do with these verses in light of our previous discussion? There seems to be a contradiction of sorts. Our purity is insufficient, yet God calls us to wash each other’s feet. Our sacrifices are ineffective, but God wants us to die for one another.

It seems like He wants us to have a love that isn’t even possible for us.

…Which is probably exactly right, now that I think about it. No wonder I keep encountering locked doors, places where my love can’t enter.

It reminds me of 1 Corinthians 13, the oft-quoted wedding chapter. Clean off some of the residue from

overuse, and there’s some brilliant stuff here. The beginning is all about our weakness, how all of our efforts amount to nothing. We can give our bodies to be burned, but if we don’t have love, it doesn’t count. Many of the problems in my relationships can be traced back to that idea. I’m trying so hard, but there’s something missing.

In Psalm 103, David writes, “God knows our frame; He remembers that we are dust. As for man, his days are like grass; he flourishes like a flower of the field, but the wind passes over it, and it is gone, and its place knows it no more. But the steadfast love of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear Him.”

Some days my love seems to flourish, and I grow excited and puffed up. But then a slight wind jostles me, and I find myself acting selfish or abrupt, with no memory of the strong love I boasted in.

God knows my frame. I’m the one who keeps forgetting. He’s not surprised by the frailty of my love. After all, He sees the past simultaneously with the future, and in those times when I am basking in the glory of my own strength, He is already forgiving the great failures which loom ahead. Like Graham Cooke says, “He’s not disillusioned about us. He never had any illusions in the first place.”

I’m the one with the illusions, so practiced—manicured, even—for the convincing of myself and others.

But we know what comes of that. Maybe you’ve been the recipient of my weak love. Maybe you know better than I the great blind spots I ignore.

All I’m trying to say is: there is a love that is stronger than ours. And we are called to love with Him, to consider others before ourselves, to lay down our lives for our friends. It’s a shift in heart posture that will manifest itself increasingly in our actions (or so I hope). I think the primary difference may be that the love discussed in Parts 1 and 2 is primarily self-focused—“look at how good I am becoming! look how good I am at loving”—whereas the other, real love is always focused on the other and foremost on God—“look how great His love is!”

I want to do this impossible thing, to become inhabited by Someone who is too big for my space, to love well. I want to let go of the compulsion to make myself appear grand. I want to draw attention to God’s love.

A Note on Sinning for Friends (Part 2.5)

This may be an instance wherein I give one reader happiness by robbing it from ten.

But that's a risk I'm willing to take! Introducing... a dinosaur comic about friendship. If you're unfamiliar with dinosaur comics, you are in for a treat, as long as you are the kind of person who enjoys a certain kind of humor involving T-Rexes.