Thought Train

Have you ever put popcorn in the microwave . . . and then walked away? Outside is probably the best place to throw the bag (stomping on it will approximate stepping on those weird smoke bomb things you'd stumble across as a kid).

So, yeah, I made my own smoke bomb tonight. It reminded me that it was also a common occurence in dorm life. In my particular dorm there was a very sensitive smoke detector in close proximity to a microwave. Several (once would be too many) times this caused fire alarms, and evacuations between 3 and 4 in the morning. One particularly fresh night in February, we were herded out half-conscious into the snow. But everyone was silent (not the usual muttering and yelling of death threats) as we all looked into the sky, mesmerized by one of the most brilliant displays of the northern lights I've ever witnessed.

And that memory reminds me of the other night when Mark showed me his google phone as we were enjoying a bonfire. He had an app on it that would name all the stars, planets, constellations and whatnot, when you pointed it up at the night sky. What was cooler was when you pointed it at your feet and it showed you the stars that could be viewed on the other side of the planet. More than anything, that made me want one of those swiss-army-knife-everything-and-the-kitchen-sink phones. (Entire-office-in-a-phone, air-traffic-control-in-a-phone . . .) My cold war with technology melting is melting.

For my birthday, Kristy got me an iPod. I must say that the Apple people are way beyond most everyone else. Everyone else - let's take a tip from Apple and think "intuitive" when we're trying to make stuff as cool as them. Like nothing I've ever experienced before, Apple products make you feel the future. Or at least hip and sophisticated (so that might not be the future).

Last week on my holidays I finished reading Surprised by Hope by N.T. Wright. He was all about tearing down the dualism between this life and flaky popular concepts of the afterlife. His claim: the aim and goal and hope of orthodox NT Christianity is not to go to heaven when we die. Rather, our great hope is life after life after death: resurrection. Creation re-created and bodies to match. Taking the resurrection seriously will widen the scope of things we do in the name of Christ because it's not all just going to burn and end. There is continuity, not just harp playing in clouds. And what is to come is more than we can ask or imagine, but definitely in the wonderful category. But for now, resurrection means responsibility. And great hope.

Smoke-bomb-aurora-borealis-melting-cold-war-with-tech-apple-eschatological-responsible-resurrection-hope-choo-choo.