Author Archives: spesaeterna

Superhero gripes

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You know that kids’ song, “Jesus, you’re my superhero”? Some time ago I commented on YouTube that it was one of dumbest things I’d ever seen (admittedly, not my strongest review). Yesterday I came across the only comment on my impoverished YouTube channel, dated 3 years ago:

Well, no wonder you thought that “Jesus is my superhero” song was garbage! You’re one of those stick-in-the-mud Catholics!

Despite being hilarious and maybe a bit worrying in calling me a Catholic (I hope it’s obvious that I’m not), it led a dear friend on FB to ask me what it is I find so wrong with it. So here are the arguments I gave, which I would also argue for a multitude of other so-called “Christian” songs:

  1. It diminishes the biblical status of Christ.
  2. It arises from and promotes a misrepresentation of Christ’s identity.
  3. It distorts the relationship of the Christian to Christ.
  4. It distorts the image of Christ before the world.
  5. It diminishes the substance of music/singing in the context of worship.
  6. It epitomizes the spiritual shallowness and feel-goodness that currently plagues great portions of modern Christianity
  7. It diminishes and confuses the work of Christ
  8. It confuses who Christ is to children.
  9. It implies that biblical material and truth is not adequate to make Christ “relevant” to us
  10. It has no obvious edifying and teaching purpose to those who sing or hear it.
  11. It propagates the already rampant notion that Christians are idiots who’ll try any cheesy practice to keep their atrophying religion going.

Of course, the counter-arguments are that:

  1. such songs “relativise” Christianity to the young and make the gospel more accessible to certain age/cultural groups
  2. they help children (not adults, I hope) comprehend something about God given their cultural context
  3. they are an innovative/creative way by which we can express our worship and understanding of God
  4. those who would come up with 11 reasons about why “Jesus, you’re my superhero” is wrong are simply elaborating on a personal dislike and shouldn’t put God in a box.

I have absolutely nothing against any of that, but there is the Bible, and I believe that it sets some beautiful standards which we can worship God in song and music. They always come from and lead to a correct understanding of God – something I think this well-meant ditty fails to do.

Plotting

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OpenOffice.org Writer 1

The Empty Page. Dream or nightmare?

Today I took some time to plot my fourth novel. Personally, I’m not a fan of plotting – I still hold to that romantic idea of just sitting at the keyboard and letting it all flow. Well, guess what: it don’t work that way. Or at least it don’t work for a full novel like that. Because you’re not writing postmodern poetry, you’re writing a novel, which, anyway you twist it, recounts events (fictional or not) in some orderly fashion. And it is that narrative that will affect the “quality” of the end product.

Now, having said all that, I did write my first two novels without plotting a single line. The first was a sci-fi/fantasy epic that took three years to complete. Just a progressive story. About 180,000 words in the first draft, around 167,000 in the second. Wouldn’t exactly show it to anyone until another couple of drafts.

The next one, I just did that whole “flow on the keyboard” thing. Late nights while working all day on my PhD, I was in the right zone to just unfold the story. 70,000 words, what a big literary agent described as a “near-future psychological thriller”. So far, this is novel has brought me as close to getting an agent as I’ve ever been. You can click on the Shark Badge on the sidebar and find out more about it.

Thrid novel, I plotted the whole thing. Came to a point where I just couldn’t trudge along. I spent two straight days writing an elaborate, 3,000-word plot. Then I returned to the actual novel, wrote one phrase – just one – and didn’t follow a single point of my precious plot. Result? Much better – in my opinion – story and message (yes, I fit those in too).

And that’s what I actually like about plotting my novels (I never do it for my short stories). I can stick to it, sure, but the real boon is that, as I write, new ideas unfurl in my mind. Kind of like a mental/creative explosion.

So, advice from an – as yet?- unpublished novelist? Plot it. Before you commit to writing your precious, well-constructed phrases and wordings that the whole world “just has to read” (come on, you know what I’m talking about – we’re all friends here), try plotting it out. Either way, it’ll make for a better novel.

Oh, and I’m still looking for an agent. Hint.

Alternative extreme animal sports

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Remington Cowboys wrestling a bull

Attempts to bull-gliding didn't quite make it.

DOING MY ENVO BIT:

In light of the persistence of bullfighting – a pointless, wasteful and rather cruel sport – I propose the institution of the following alternative extreme animal sports:

1. Bull-headbutting

2. Elephant-sumo

3. Eagle-gliding

4. Bear-slapping

5. Rhino-tickling

6. Whale-wrestling

and the coolest sport ever,

7. Jet-sharking.Yes. Yes.

Notice how in all these, the animals also have a chance. A GOOD chance.

Google hits for “Science is…”

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Google hits for “I want to be a/an…”

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