Book Review: Out of the Silent Planet

Oh, how I've missed C.S. Lewis. I read The Last Battle out loud with Lizzy over the summer when we, Josh, and Chad took a trip to Mammoth Caves, but reading a book out loud isn't quite the same. And there's a difference between reading Lewis for children (although I would never ever suggest that adult's shouldn't enjoy the Chronicles of Narnia) and Lewis for adults. So maybe my next project will be The Screwtape Letters. It's been sitting on my desk at home for a year or two now.

But that's enough jibber jabber. I haven't said anything at all of the book itself yet. It was an excellent read full of food for thought and imagination. Malacandra, the beautiful world he crafted, had such a charming culture and a stunning landscape that I can't wait to read the next book in the trilogy so I can visit again. It's a world that operates as it ought to. A foolish reader might read unintended political statements into Lewis' portrayal of Malacandra, but to get caught up in that would be to miss the point entirely. As one might suspect from Lewis, the intended point was a theological one.


Spoilers ahead. I've left out the bulk of the plot, but it you wanted to read it and find the message for yourself skip ahead.

[spoilers]
The direct message of the book is to communicate that Earth and its sentient creatures have been corrupted - bent, to use the Malacandran term - by its governing eldil (someone from a Christian background would read the eldil as some sort of angelic authorities, Earth's being Satan). Malacandra was wounded by Earth's corrupt eldil, but saved by its own governing eldil (Oyarsa) at a great price and has managed to continue operating in its ideal state. Because of his corruption, earth's governing eldil has been cast from the heavens to the earth thereby limiting his influence to the sentient creatures of Earth. But Maleldil (the God-figure) has a plan to redeem Earth. Sounding familiar at all?
[/spoilers]

Out of the Silent Planet sets the stage for further metaphorical exploration of the gospel. We'll see where the other books take us. Lewis doesn't tend to bluntly present his ideology to his readers (he cleverly cut out of the recorded story the implied full word-for-word telling of the gospel), so I'm interested to see what happens next. Maybe I'll get a chance to read the others over break.

Book Review: Crazy Love

Two summers ago at CIY I picked up Crazy Love by Francis Chan. I sort of suspected I was missing a little something in my Christian life. And by a little something I mean a big something, that something being a desire for God. I had an interest in intellectually pursuing apologetics and theology and the like, but it was no different than my desire to learn about things like cells and architecture.

It wasn't until this fall that I actually got around to starting the book, and it wasn't until this winter that I finally finished it, but I'm glad I did. This book has been a huge help to me this semester as I've begun to overhaul my Christianity to build an actual faith in and relationship with God.

Chan's book talks about God's extravagant love and our inappropriate response to it. Every word I read resonated with the struggle I had been dealing with since January. Yes, I know in my brain that God loves us an awful lot and that we should love him and obey him in return. But that's the same line a three-year-old can parrot and not actually mean. I could even say it with emotion from time to time, put it in all sorts of words and metaphors, and provide logical arguments in support. Heck, I'd even been emotionally moved to some degree by thinking about it before. But Chan's book took everything I'd been reading and half-glossing over for my entire life like a toddler and spelled it out plain and simple saying "here is the truth; it is beautiful, painful, and challenging."

First came the beautiful part, the stuff we all know and love. God is immense and powerful and majestic, but he still chooses to love us. He chose to live and die as a man so that we could be purified and stand in his presence for all eternity. I don't at all want to downplay the beauty of the truth, but I do want to say that we can't stop there. Even telling God we're sorry for messing up and trying to be nicer doesn't cut it. It's only once you start to work through the pain and challenge of the truth that the beauty of it really starts to dawn on you brighter than ever before.

Next came the painful part: there is no such thing as a lukewarm Christian. Depending on your definition of a Christian. If a Christian is merely someone who goes to church, reads the Bible, and has a list of prayer requests, then sure you can have lukewarm Christians. But if a Christian is a follower of Christ with the assurance of salvation, there's no room for half-heartedness. Jesus says to follow him with all that we are. To do anything less is hypocrisy that fools only us, if even that much. This idea is firmly supported by scripture over and over again. Yes, true followers of Christ will have times where they mess up to varying degrees, but a life characterized by complacency and comfort is not the life of a person who has been changed by God. There's a lot more I could say here (I will quickly add that he addressed our inability to change by our own willpower), but you've really got to read the book and pray and talk through it.

Before I continue I must add that after the painful part I put the book down for a couple months. I "didn't have time to read." Really, I think I needed to process what I had read, and I needed to be broken more before I could rise to the challenge. This book alone is not responsible for the change I'm going through. Don't barrel through the book in a day because it's a quick read. Take the time to wrestle with it, whether that means a few days, a few weeks, or a few months. I had to do a lot of talking to and hearing from God before I was ready to move on.

Finally came the challenging part. So what are we going to do now? God is handing us this incomprehensible love, and we've largely ignored it, choosing instead to be comfortable and sing songs and say church words. Well, before we can take another step we have to realize that we need the help of the Holy Spirit every step of the way (this sort of blends into the painful section). That done, what we need to do is follow God with everything we have. What will it look like for you to be sold out to God? The specifics are only known to you and God, but there are three main inter-connected points brought out by Chan. One: a life characterized by trust. We should take risks that we cannot possibly expect to end well without the power of God (now, this should be well-seasoned with wisdom, but that's a conversation that could be had at length at some other time). Two: a life that doesn't seek comfort. You're going to have to sacrifice sleep, money, dreams, friendships, and who knows what else. Three: a dedication to meeting the needs of others. A key component of this is meeting physical needs. While you don't have to start a homeless shelter, it's undeniable that God has compassion for the poor and the helpless, and we need to share that. To sum it all up, the true Christian life shouldn't make sense to outsiders, but it should line up with the will of God. In the end, it will be worth it to stand in the presence of God surrounded by those you've been able to bring with you by the power of God.

I've got a lot to work on, but I am working on it. I've got some plans laid out and some ideas I'm tinkering with. My biggest next step is taking everything I've learned, laying aside my cowardice, taking on God's courage, and talking to people. There are all sorts of people I need to talk to about all sorts of things. What's next for you?

What was the name of that chaperone protein you were talking about?

Dr. Thompson has fully redeemed himself, in my opinion. Yes, organic chemistry is a hard class, but it has become a class that inspires in me all sorts of questions - questions that he is willing and capable of answering and then giving even more information. The closer we drift toward biochemistry, the more excited I get about the subject material. I can see more and more of it complementing what I know about cellular biology.

Today we started off slightly off-topic with a question about proteins from another girl. I don't remember what it was, but the important part is that somehow the topic of chaperone proteins (chaperonins) came up. Chaperonins are cell proteins that help fold other proteins into their proper tertiary and quaternary structures. There are many different chaperonins, but one of particular interest is the GroEL-GroES complex.

The GroEL-GroES complex is found inside E. coli. It has by far the broadest range of "clients," or proteins it assists in folding. The exact processes by which it transforms the peptide chains are unknown, but some of the basics are understood. GroEL is a barrel-shaped, 14-unit polypeptide (in the picture to the left, the blue unit + the green one) that does the actual folding of the protein. GroES is a 7-unit polypeptide that forms the lid of the barrel (the red parts of the picture). Unfolded peptide chains are attracted to the complex somehow. One end of the chain is bonded to a non-polar site on the inside of GroES. This bonding triggers the lid to close, guiding the peptide into the barrel. Once GroES had covered GroEL, GroEL rotates so as to remove the non-polar site the peptide was bonded to thereby leaving the chain sitting unattached inside the barrel. Through the rotating of the barrel pieces and other unknown kinds of craziness, the complex is able to fold the new protein into its proper shape. Once folding is complete, the barrel-closing procedure is reversed and the fully functional new protein is released into the cytosol.

The most stunning thing is GroES-GroEL's ability to fold hundreds of different kinds of proteins. It's not like the chemical characteristics of the primary and secondary structures of some specific protein interact with the barrel in a highly specified way. No, this cell machine can fold hundreds of dramatically different peptide chains into dramatically different proteins. And, as is the case with most cell machines, it does its job with a great deal of accuracy. Whenever I learn about structures like these, I can't help but think, "Whoa. God is really cool and smart."

This information about GroEL-GroES only raises more questions for me (no surprise there). The biggest on my mind at the moment is whether or not there are chaperonins that fold molecules so that the hydrophobic regions are on the outside. Then they could act within the plasma membrane. Or maybe they have a hydrophilic region and a hydrophobic region, the former being anchored in the phosphate heads of the phospholipid bilayer and the latter chilling in the non-polar inner zone of the bilayer.

What are binary systems?

I finally have a question of the day that can be presented to all! Most of the ones I've been asking have been about friends' lives and therefore have not been posted here. But a while ago I learned about something new and exciting while walking and talking with a friend: binary systems.

A binary star system is a pair of stars that are close enough to one another that they are connected by mutual gravitational pull. The brighter star is the primary star, and its partner is usually called the companion star. The speed of their movement depends on their distance from one another along their elliptical orbits. The closer they are, the faster they move.

That's all I could find out without getting into things that have way too much astrophysics for me to understand. While I think they're interesting, they're not interesting enough for me to extensively educate myself on them.

Winter Playlist

This playlist will probably be the shortest of the four, but I still have enough songs that it took some work to narrow it down to 20. It seems that I don't have a whole lot of music that says "winter." A good portion of the songs on here don't even say winter, they just say "listen to me during wintertime," if that makes sense. There's a subtle difference, I assure you.

1. Starting Over (Audion Adrenaline)
2. If I Laugh (Cat Stevens)
3. Claire de Lune (Debussy)
4. Nocturne (Gulley)
5. The City in the Sea (Gulley)
6. One Brown Mouse (Jethro Tull)
7. No Quarter (Led Zeppelin)
8. One More Time to Live (The Moody Blues)
9. A Postcard to Henry Purcell (Pride and Prejudice)
10. Pyramid Song (Radiohead)
11. You and Whose Army? (Radiohead)
12. We Suck Young Blood - Your Time Is Up (Radiohead)
13. House of Cards (Radiohead)
14. Symphony #2 - Adagio, Alegretto (Rimsky-Korsakov)
15. Silent Night (Sarah McLachlan)
16. Premiere Gymnopedie (Satie)
17. Deuxieme Gymnopedie (Satie)
18. Sonnerie de la Rose-Croix: Air de l'Ordre (Satie)
19. The 59th Street Bridge Song (Simon and Garfunkel)
20.  Greensleeves (Vince Guaraldi Trio)

A Review of the PMO Christmas Show (and Christmas in general)

I was not impressed. Yes, I could see that hours upon hours of hard work and preparation went into it, but I really couldn't stand most of the show. The entire first half embodied all that I hate about Christmas, and there's an awful lot to dislike about what Christmas has become.

First I will present a brief commentary on the aesthetic impact of the thing. While being rather important to any performance, my opinions of it successes and shortcomings are overpowered by the worldview reasons I will be sharing shortly. Everything was executed very well according to its own style. I'm not a huge fan of some of the style, but I will admit that it was well-performed. The first act was so loud and brassy and glittery and over-the-top. And this is coming from someone who loves musicals. The overall visual impact from the Cantata (the second part) can best be summed up in one word: trippy. It was a nice, mellow, soft, pastel colored sort of trippy, but it was trippy nonetheless. In fact, I said as much to Adrianne the second the curtains opened. But the second half was much better as far as music goes. I love listening to songs in Latin, and there were a few during the Cantata.

Before I go off on a tirade about the first half, I'd like to give a few additional compliments to the content of the Cantata. It contained lots of songs that use words like "God," "Jesus," "Christ," "Lord," etc. Words that ought to be essential to the holiday - and indeed to every day.

And now for my attack on the ideology of the first half. Oh dear heavens, it was atrocious. Apparently PMO would like to wish you a very merry humanist Christmas. I couldn't decide whether I'd like to punch someone, puke, or sit there open-mouthed. The overall message was that you need to use your imagination so you can believe in Santa Claus (because we all know that belief is a wishy-washy sort of thing that requires wishful thinking and suspension of reality - unlike knowledge) so that you can be inspired by him to love other people. So I'm fine with the loving other people part, but everything leading up to that was total garbage. I mean, the final song said that love was the reason for the season, and that only by believing in Santa Claus could you spread the holiday love. Bullshit. Will people stop watering down Christmas? Love doesn't mean you share toys and food with the needy around the holidays because that's what Santa Claus did. Love means you share your life with everyone all the time, whether they deserve it or not. You know, kind of like God did by becoming a human and dying in our place. The infinite lord and master of the universe inhabiting a human body for a few decades and then dying a horrendous death is the most extravagant and humble display of love and power this world will ever know. That's what Christmas is about. It's time for us all to refocus.

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

In my opinion, the most wonderful time of the year starts at Thanksgiving and reaches all the way through Christmas. Things changed a little bit since I've gone off to college, but a lot has remained the same.

Tradition starts the day before Thanksgiving on Thanksgiving Preparation Day, on which we do most of out cooking and cleaning on that day. As of four years ago, it is tradition that I prepare the turkey. This often involves doing strange things with it to make my mom cringe. It started when I discovered that the liver has a fun consistency. Now in addition to playing with the liver, we investigate the kidneys and heart, wiggle the neck around, massage the turkey's skin, and tickle its armpits.

Thanksgiving Day itself probably has more traditions than any other day in the Gast house. I get up at 7:00 or 8:00 am to start the Thanksgiving puzzle. More people trickle out of bed as the morning goes on. By 9:00 when the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade starts, pretty much everyone is awake. My dad or Rachel starts making cinnamon rolls, and we watch the parade and work on the puzzle. After the parade, sometimes we leave the TV on to make fun of the dog show. Ronda usually arrives around noon to help us finish the cooking. I always take care of the green bean casserole, and usually forget to add seasonings unless my mom reminds me. Uncle Andy along with Abby and Theresa get there sometime in the early afternoon and bring with them cocktail shrimp to snack on alongside Ronda's famous chip dip. At 4:00 we start dinner. Around 4:30 Uncle Mike arrives and we subtly make fun of him until he leaves. Things die down over the evening as friends and relatives leave one-by-one. Once it's dark, the Christmas lights come on for the first night of the season.

The next day is Christmas decoration day. We leave the house sometime in the late morning and head out to a tree farm in Morrow to pick out the perfect Christmas tree. It used to take us hours. Now we're becoming more and more efficient. I think we had our tree in 10 minutes last year. This year it took about 20 if you count cutting it down, but that's still not too shabby. After we've picked the tree we each get a new ornament to put on it. For a while we went to Elder Beerman's, then switched to Delhi Garden Center, and now we just get them at the tree farm. Many of us have gradually drifted from picking ornaments we actually like to picking the strangest ones we can find. The tree is weirder and weirder every year. As we drive home with the tree inside the van, we listen to Christmas music stations. Once we get home, Mom puts in the Oakridge Boys or the Partridge Family Christmas CDs. The day usually ends with watching the first Christmas movie of the season.

Christmas traditions are much more varied and have changed quite a lot over the past decade or so, so I'll just describe what we do now. On and off we participate in Advent, whether it's on our own or with the whole church. The weekend before Christmas my mom's side of the family gets together. We have a four-year location rotation between my mom, her sister in southern Michigan, her brother in Indianapolis, and her parents in northern Michigan. This year we'll be at Aunt Wendy's house. Every year we do something different together and then eat and open gifts. Christmas Eve we go to church, and Rachel and I usually play in an orchestral ensemble.

Christmas day, nobody is allowed to leave their room until 6:00 am. At that time, we can open our stockings. Everyone has to be awake by 8:00 am for official gift opening. When Cathy and Chris Gowen are in town, they join us. After we open gifts, we eat Panera bagels or cinnamon rolls for breakfast and hang out around the house until lunch time. Around 1:00 in the afternoon we head over to my dad's parents' house in Kenwood and repeat the process with his side of the family. When we get back home in the evening, we often watch a Christmas movie together.

I like tradition. I'm no Reb Tevia, but I like knowing that certain things will be roughly the same every year. I don't mind adding new things, but I am not a huge fan of taking away old traditions. I guess it goes along with being a person of habit. I wonder how things will grow and change as our family grows and changes. One day all seven of us kids will be out of the house. Will we live close enough to get together? Will we have our own kids to add to the mix? Will we still get up to do puzzles on Thanksgiving or open Christmas stockings at 6:00 am? Who knows. Only time will tell.