This is a little film that my brother, the Rev. Charles Erlandson, made back around 1983 or 1984. We did it as a project for an evening class at our church. It was shot with a pretty primitive Super 8 movie camera, and it lost some fidelity in the translation from film to video as well. Some points to look for are: the giant donut, my old Vox Phantom VI guitar, musician Kemper Crabb, and my brother walking on water.
Part 1
Part 2
Saturday, January 14, 2012
Friday, January 13, 2012
Captain Q and the False Angel of Light
Careful long-time readers of this blog may recall that in my younger days (from around 1978 to 1980) I experimented with LSD. This blog entry mentions it. That's what we druggies always say, isn't it? We are "experimenting". It sounds more dignified than "using".
Anyhow, shortly after I stopped using LSD, I wrote out a little "gospel" tract to hand out to people on campus at Purdue University, where I was a Mechanical Engineering grad student.
To read the thing, you will have to click on each image in turn. Even if you normally would not read an evangelical tract such as this, it may be of interest to you, because it tells the story of my last two bad acid trips.
Anyhow, shortly after I stopped using LSD, I wrote out a little "gospel" tract to hand out to people on campus at Purdue University, where I was a Mechanical Engineering grad student.
To read the thing, you will have to click on each image in turn. Even if you normally would not read an evangelical tract such as this, it may be of interest to you, because it tells the story of my last two bad acid trips.
I have to say, I kind of miss that Ampeg Telecaster knock-off I'm holding in that photo, as well as the "Sergeant Pepper" jacket. The jacket wouldn't fit me now, though, even if I still had it.
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
Cindy Phillips to Compete in WPD!
I just read on Cindy Phillips' blog that she has been downsizing her physique, and will be competing as an IFBB Pro in the Women's Physique Division. She plans to compete in the 2012 IFBB Europa in Orlando, Florida, on April 27/28. It will be great to see Cindy on stage again!
Read her blog entry here.
Read her blog entry here.
Monday, January 9, 2012
Hating the Success of Others
The proximate cause of my posting this blog entry is the hatred and/or disgust I've seen on Facebook for Tim Tebow, particularly from Christians. Many opine that he should keep his faith to himself, that God is not sovereign over the affairs of the National Football League, or that he is a mediocre quarterback, at best. But what seems to be the common thread in all their seething rants is hatred of Tebow's success.
It made me think of something a good friend of mine said when I proudly displayed one of my bodybuilding photos on Facebook: "Paul, nobody likes a good example." I took it, of course, with in the same good spirit of humor with which he intended it. But it made me think: we really do hate the success of others. We hate it when others have things that we do not, and especially when they are things that we are not and never will be.
This inability to revel in and hatred o the success of others is none other than Envy, one of the Seven Deadly Sins.
I remember turning the corner out of Envy and into the larger world of being able to appreciate the success and possessions of others. You will not be suprised to learn that it came to me through the car hobby. I used to get quite envious of those who had cooler cars than I did. But suddenly, one summer many years ago, I was able to appreciate the beauty of these machines, and to thank God on behalf of the men and women who owned them. It came to me in a flash how foolish I had been, and how impoverished my total appreciation of the world had become, by only being able to appreciate beauty and virtue in things I personally possessed!
We should be able to rejoice with those who rejoice (Romans 12:15)! Here is the Biblical account (from 2 Samuel 6) of one woman who was woefully unable to do so:
It made me think of something a good friend of mine said when I proudly displayed one of my bodybuilding photos on Facebook: "Paul, nobody likes a good example." I took it, of course, with in the same good spirit of humor with which he intended it. But it made me think: we really do hate the success of others. We hate it when others have things that we do not, and especially when they are things that we are not and never will be.
This inability to revel in and hatred o the success of others is none other than Envy, one of the Seven Deadly Sins.
We should be able to rejoice with those who rejoice (Romans 12:15)! Here is the Biblical account (from 2 Samuel 6) of one woman who was woefully unable to do so:
Wearing a linen ephod, David was dancing before the LORD with all his might, while he and all Israel were bringing up the ark of the LORD with shouts and the sound of trumpets.
As the ark of the LORD was entering the City of David, Michal daughter of Saul watched from a window. And when she saw King David leaping and dancing before the LORD, she despised him in her heart.
They brought the ark of the LORD and set it in its place inside the tent that David had pitched for it, and David sacrificed burnt offerings and fellowship offerings before the LORD. After he had finished sacrificing the burnt offerings and fellowship offerings, he blessed the people in the name of the LORD Almighty. Then he gave a loaf of bread, a cake of dates and a cake of raisins to each person in the whole crowd of Israelites, both men and women. And all the people went to their homes.
When David returned home to bless his household, Michal daughter of Saul came out to meet him and said, “How the king of Israel has distinguished himself today, going around half-naked in full view of the slave girls of his servants as any vulgar fellow would!”
David said to Michal, “It was before the LORD, who chose me rather than your father or anyone from his house when he appointed me ruler over the LORD’s people Israel—I will celebrate before the LORD. I will become even more undignified than this, and I will be humiliated in my own eyes. But by these slave girls you spoke of, I will be held in honor.”Let us be a little less like Michal, bitter at the rejoicing of another, and a little more like the slave girls, able to keep to the dictate of Romans 12:15, to rejoice with those who rejoice.
Saturday, January 7, 2012
Walter M. Miller, Jr. -- Dark Benediction
Dark Benediction, by Walter M. Miller, Jr., is perhaps my favourite short story of all. I say "perhaps" because there are 2 or 3 by Flannery O'Connor that I love with approximately the same passion.
SPOILER ALERT! If you would like to read this story without first reading my analysis, stop reading now and go obtain the book!
Synopsis: Meteors have fallen to earth, but they were not mere rocky projectiles. They had been sent with hopeful benevolence by the beings of another race, with the thought that the "neuroderms" ("intelligent" micro-organisms) contained in the meteor would be a blessing to some other race. Surely, the neuroderm parasites had been a blessing to their own race, granting them almost superpower levels of sensory perception, by benevolently changing the nervous systems of the host beings.
When earth scientists (actually an engineer, I believe) sawed open one of the hollow spherical meteors, the parasites were released into our world, and began to spread through the human population. Unfortunately, besides gradually enhancing the senses of those "infected", the neuroderm parasites also turned the skin of the host a sickly grey, and gave them a longing to touch uninfected human skin. Other than that, the "dermies" (as the infected humans came to be known among the uninfected) were quite happy. Happier, in fact, than before they had become infected.
Those not infected fled from the major cities in a panic, throwing the nation into chaos. The uninfected desperately did not want to be infected and have their own skin take on the sickly grey appearance. But the dermies chased the non-dermies, with a sort of dual purpose: (1) they took physical pleasure in the smell and touch of non-infected skin; (2) they felt that the non-dermies (the called them "non-hypers" and themselves "hypers") would be happier once they became infected with neuroderm.
There is a love story, and there is an interesting Church-based hyper colony on Galveston Island, in Texas. I won't spoil the story and further for you. I would like to comment on how effectively Miller has done something here, and that is to explain Christians to non-Christians, and vice versa. When I read this story for the first time, a little over 20 years ago, it immediately occurred to me how very like dermies we Christians are.
The parallels are amazing. It is a regular occurrence for instance, for me (and all Christians) to be treated as crazy, mentally-diseased people, by atheists on the internet. They treat us as subhumans. It will happen to you daily if you go to certain places on the internet. And yet my testimony and the testimony of many other Christians is that we are much happier this way than we ever were before, before we were "infected" with the Gospel. And, don't you know, we like to try and infect others, too, so that they can share in the joy! And this desire to confer the blessing we have received on the uninfected ... well, it makes them fear, hate, or avoid us like the plague.
I think the convinced Christian and the non-believer can appreciate Miller's story equally, and that is part of its genius. I highly recommend this story to you!
SPOILER ALERT! If you would like to read this story without first reading my analysis, stop reading now and go obtain the book!
Synopsis: Meteors have fallen to earth, but they were not mere rocky projectiles. They had been sent with hopeful benevolence by the beings of another race, with the thought that the "neuroderms" ("intelligent" micro-organisms) contained in the meteor would be a blessing to some other race. Surely, the neuroderm parasites had been a blessing to their own race, granting them almost superpower levels of sensory perception, by benevolently changing the nervous systems of the host beings.
When earth scientists (actually an engineer, I believe) sawed open one of the hollow spherical meteors, the parasites were released into our world, and began to spread through the human population. Unfortunately, besides gradually enhancing the senses of those "infected", the neuroderm parasites also turned the skin of the host a sickly grey, and gave them a longing to touch uninfected human skin. Other than that, the "dermies" (as the infected humans came to be known among the uninfected) were quite happy. Happier, in fact, than before they had become infected.
Those not infected fled from the major cities in a panic, throwing the nation into chaos. The uninfected desperately did not want to be infected and have their own skin take on the sickly grey appearance. But the dermies chased the non-dermies, with a sort of dual purpose: (1) they took physical pleasure in the smell and touch of non-infected skin; (2) they felt that the non-dermies (the called them "non-hypers" and themselves "hypers") would be happier once they became infected with neuroderm.
There is a love story, and there is an interesting Church-based hyper colony on Galveston Island, in Texas. I won't spoil the story and further for you. I would like to comment on how effectively Miller has done something here, and that is to explain Christians to non-Christians, and vice versa. When I read this story for the first time, a little over 20 years ago, it immediately occurred to me how very like dermies we Christians are.
The parallels are amazing. It is a regular occurrence for instance, for me (and all Christians) to be treated as crazy, mentally-diseased people, by atheists on the internet. They treat us as subhumans. It will happen to you daily if you go to certain places on the internet. And yet my testimony and the testimony of many other Christians is that we are much happier this way than we ever were before, before we were "infected" with the Gospel. And, don't you know, we like to try and infect others, too, so that they can share in the joy! And this desire to confer the blessing we have received on the uninfected ... well, it makes them fear, hate, or avoid us like the plague.
I think the convinced Christian and the non-believer can appreciate Miller's story equally, and that is part of its genius. I highly recommend this story to you!
Cell Phones in Church
While I really like the humor of this ad, and despise the ringing of cell phones in church, the Presbyterianism of the ad shows through painfully! The highest level of fine should clearly be for a cell phone ringing during the Eucharist, not during the sermon!
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