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The New Doctor Who (First Impressions)

The Eleventh Doctor and Amy Pond As an early teenager, I was pretty much obsessed with Dr Who.

No, seriously.

I would go to school in an old coat of Dad’s (or Mum’s iirc), pockets full of any kind of tool (read: junk) I could find in the shed, and I would wear the coat through thick or thin.

Seriously. I remember wearing it in Sports. And I distinctly remember the teacher laughing at me. Not in a nice way either.

So I’m at a loss to explain why I haven’t watched the new (I mean from Christopher Eccleston onwards) Dr Who.

The New Doctor Who episode went live tonight on iView.

Magic.

Tom Baker, The Greatest Dr Who? It was everything I remember of the Dr Who as a kid (Tom Baker really). Crazy. Zany. A little bit more Crazy. Witty.

And now he references things like “Twitter” in conversation.

Magic.

What really got me was how everything just kept on moving. All the time. Frenetic.

I’m hoping that the consequences of what happens at the end will come back to bite in a nice juicy way. Something involving the Master mayhaps?

Anyway, suffice to say, I’m now going to backtrack and watch the new series-es.

Dr Who is BACK!

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Today’s Story-Tellers Never Seem To Get Christianity Right

Eric Liddell My Dad’s a preacher. He’s been a minister of the Presy Church since around the time I was born. He’s a strong man, meek and humble, preaching the Word of God in and out of season, faithfully toiling in a parish as an under-shepherd, pointing people to Jesus.

He doesn’t take the name of the Lord in vain, either out of hand or when something horrific happens. He’s not a fool given to asking awkward questions. He’s faithful to his wife. And he doesn’t go through “crises” of MY FAITH, because he knows the truth of the matter, that his faith is not his own, but a gift from the Lord Almighty.

To me, because I grew up knowing him, grew up under his teaching and instruction, THAT is the character of the Christian.

I have rarely, if ever, seen this accurately represented in today’s story-telling. None of my favourite tv shows, books, movies, have someone like Dad.

We love Bones. It’s a great show, full of surprising gentleness and love. But last Sunday night’s episode really got me thinking. The show centered around the writer’s understanding of faith, demons, God .. And it all came to a crux at the end, when the two leads are talking about faith, and how MY FAITH has taken a beating, but it will grow back.

Mine. My. I.

This is the problem.

The majority of today’s story-tellers just don’t understand Christianity. It’s not Roman Catholicism. As my good friend Dave said just now, it’s far easier to convince people of Roman Catholicism because it’s all about what we can do. We can go to the priest, said to be the intercessor to God. We can grab our beads and pray to God or Mary or a Saint. We We We WE WE ME I …

This is not Christianity.

Where is Jesus? Where is His death and resurrection? Where is salvation? Sanctification? Where is Repentance and Belief? Jesus, the Christ, the one and only Son of God .. He is our mediator, our intercessor. He is the way. The truth. The life. You might know those words off-hand, but they are the absolute reality.

I get it. This is much harder for our broken selves to take on board. We have to come to Jesus as we are, knowing that there is nothing we can do to gain salvation. Nothing. Knowing that everything we are is broken and deserving of hell and all that stuff which noone really likes to talk about, or they like to talk about it too much.

I’m not ranting about this. Not much. For the writers, the story-tellers, of the world to really draw the true character of a Christian, they would have to understanding the Gospel. And well, it doesn’t seem like most folks do. Or if they do, they don’t like it and don’t want to write characters like that.

Please don’t hear me wrong. I’m not talking about how awesome Christians are, how “better than thou” and all that. If you think that, then it’s another error. The Christian has full awareness of their broken state before the Almighty, their utter UTTER dependence on the Mercy and Grace of God Almighty.

What I am saying is,

I wish there were a few more stories written today that had a proper understanding of what it means to be saved by Grace, Jesus as King and Lord.

Just a wish. Nothing more.

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The Problem With Rugby In Australia ..

.. Is that it’s primarily to be watched either at the game or on Fox Sports.

Larkam, Truly Great Now, I love going to games. But I rarely get to, because I make the decision to stay at home with the family most of the time.

But I really REALLY don’t want to get cable.

So what am I left with?

The Tests the Wallabies play are shown on *Pleb* telly, but that’s about it. The great “ONE” channel doesn’t show hide ‘nor hair of Rugby.

ED: This isn’t exactly true. “One” did show some rugby last year apparently. And the ABC has the Shute Shield games, which are pretty cool. Some good rugby is played there.

It doesn’t matter what the reasons are. To me, as a lover of rugby, all that matters is that I can’t watch the regular matches on telly.

I’d really like to see this changing, but it probably won’t. Too much money is involved I would think. But then, they have plenty of League matches over the weekend.

Surely there’s enough room in the pleb schedule for a bit of Rugby?

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Harry Dresden Has Changed (First Impressions, Minor Spoilers)

Changes, Jim Butcher Yesterday our hardcover (mmmm) copy of “Changes” arrived. I started in on it that evening. This morning sometime the last page turned.

Wow.

My first impressions are that there were a lot of things happening.

Jim Butcher has created such a dense world, filled with all kinds of imagination, each thread of arching plot and sub-plot tightly wound about Harry Dresden (or not, sometimes), and this world must now be exceedingly hard to get out onto paper.

I didn’t really think much about the title of the book until I finished that first read-through. So if you did think about it a lot, even after finishing, the title is (in my opinion) laced with foreshadowing. We don’t get to see much in the aftermath of the changes that happen throughout the book. A little, but not much. It’s going to be a long wait between water holes for the next book.

There’s a development on the romance side of things that I’ve been gunning for, secretly, deep down. Just the same way I’d been gunning for Harry and Ginny from the get-go.

There’s a major character(s) arc completed, kind of similar to the completing of Donald Morgan in the last book.

And you get to meet Odin. Awesome. Odin. Just. Awesome.

There are a lot of hints throughout the series, covering a LOT of possibilities. One in particular has been around for a while, and I believe it came to fruition on the last page. I’m not completely sure, but I think Harry has thought about this hint once a book for the last half a dozen. It’s a doozey.

My first impressions are that Jim Butcher deserves awards and accolades and wotnot for his work. It’s a fantastic book.

You’ve got a great story in Dresden Mr. Jim Butcher. I’d love to have you over for a barbie one day, but alas, Australia is far far away. Oh, and you don’t know me.

In closing, there’s something you have to know.

Mac talks. A. Whole. Paragraph!

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A Response (In Song) To The Foolish Wisdom Of Easter

It’s very sad to hear and read of Church leaders giving forth their own brand of message about the meaning of Easter.

This song needs to be sung by someone with a better voice than me, but here it is for the moment.

Come Follow Him

[audio:ComeFollowHim.mp3|titles=Come Follow Him]