We followed up on a few issues with the computers, and then took off into town. After being in Kotor and Dubrovnik, Venice is very similar but many times larger. Again, the number of beautiful old churches is amazing, the architecture of them and their decoration are mind blowing. What makes Venice stand out from the other ports we have visited is the height of the buildings…they seem a couple stories taller for the most part, and of course, the canals. One other thing that sets it apart is that the sea here is no longer a beautiful blue but green, very much like in Seattle. It has a similar smell here, too, that I think is due to algae/sea weed. This didn’t bother me a bit, but I heard another passenger comment, “So much for our blue water.” It’s funny to me that there’s no wall around Venice, or maybe there was in the past, but since the other cities we visited and been ruled over by the Venetians, it seems they’d have similar defences.

I had been advised to just wander around in Venice and not worry about getting lost, so JR and I just looked around. It was really funny to see the shops for all the big-name designers in this old fangled city. I was successful in finding a new suitcase, since one of mine had some structural integrity issues thanks to the gear I carried out with me. We also had a nice lunch on the water of real pizza with real espresso followed by real gelato. I’m hoping for more espresso and gelato before leaving town tomorrow, but we’ll see if the opportunity presents itself. Having returned to the ship to make sure the check in process for the next cruise was going smoothly, we may return to the town again before I have to catch my cab to the hotel for the night.

It makes me sad to be leaving the Wind Spirit and the crew…they’ve been fantastic, every one of them, especially Iain, the Communications Officer, who has hosted JR and I in his space. Everyone has been great, though, from the bridge crew to the stewards. I’m looking forward to seeing some of them again when we come out to work on the Wind Star in November. That will be a very different trip, though, as it will be in dry dock and not on a cruise. This trip was invaluable, to meet everyone and to see the crew in action, doing their jobs so I can see what their needs are and how we can help them be more productive.

So, it’s a little sad, but when I think about my beautiful wife and girls at home, I’m glad it’s coming to an end. It will be very hard to sleep tonight, as tired as I am, because I am so anxious to get home.

After doing some work this morning, JR and I took some time to go water skiing. It’s been almost twenty years since I’ve given that a try, but I got up after just a couple of attempts. Being that I have significantly more mass than I did when I was 18 it took a little longer to get on top of the water. I made it though, but it was exhausting. At 18 I didn’t realize how athletic water skiing really is. After drying off in the sun we took the boat to town.

Old Dubrovnik is very similar to Kotor in look and feel, but probably two or three times as large. We entered and wondered for a while trying to figure out how to access the top of the city wall. A common tourist activity is to circle the city on the top of the wall (about 2km, I think I read). However every place we found with stairs running up to the parapet was gated shut. This got me to thinking, correctly that when we found the entrance we would have to pay. It was 70 kn. to get in, which conveniently converted to 10 Euros. (When we first got into town we were a little freaked out that one of the outdoor restaurants was charging 70 for a pasta dish! Fortunately, we were able to pay in Euros for everything we needed.)

It was really hot on top of the wall, as it is everywhere here, but it was fun to walk around. There were towers at intervals and different features common to castles, like gate houses and holes to shoot through. This one had been clearly built for canons to be the main defensive weapon. There were small domed rooms with small windows periodically, and eventually I figured that these must have been where they did the sighting for the guns. One thing that surprised me was that the wall was really thick on the land side, in places probably 20 feet or more, but on the seaward side it was usually not much wider than about 5 feet. They were doing repair work on the highest tower on the wall, so I picked up a couple of chips of stone that had fallen on the stairs for souvenirs. We actually saw repair work going on all over this city, although there were several buildings still in ruins, but I don’t know if this is from recent damage or if they’ve been like that for centuries. That’s the thing about being some place with as much history as this…it’s hard to tell what’s old, what’s restored and what’s newer. Weathered stone that’s 20 years old doesn’t look that different than when it’s 400 years old.

As we worked our way around the city the view was constantly changing. One thing I noticed is that the churches all had fine wire mesh over the stained glass windows, and I’m betting that was installed either before or after the fighting here in 1991-1992, to protect them from exploding artillery shells. Many of the buildings were destroyed or damaged during that time. The churches here are much larger than in the other cities we’ve been to and really inspirational in their construction and decoration. Later we checked out the interiors of a few, and I couldn’t believe how ornate the sculptures and paintings were. I realized at some point that the reason these little towns have so many churches is that attendance was probably near 100% in the past, so you needed plenty of churches to make room for all those worshipers.

When we finished our tour JR wanted to get lunch in town, so we found a place by the water. Afterwards we headed back into the city for a few minutes before we went back to the pier to wait for the tender to bring us back to the ship. I was seriously saturated from the heat and humidity, so I went straight to the back of the ship where the “sports platform” was lowered. This is like a little dock at the back of the ship that they use for water skiing, tubing and swimming. The water was deep blue and much cooler than in Monemvassía, but it was very refreshing. Once again, we got back to work before dinner. I think I must have washed off my sun screen while water skiing this morning, as I’ve got a little burn today, especially on the parts that weren’t covered by the life vest while I was skiing. I don’t expect to be outside much more on this trip, except for meals, unless we get done on board early enough to get out and see Venice on Saturday. We’re at sea tomorrow, so we will do our very best to wrap everything up and make sure things are in as good of shape as possible.

As we sailed into the Gulf, we passed fortified gun emplacements on the shore and islands. These were very hard to make out, though, as it was really hazy this morning and visibility was poor at a distance. It kept making the auto focus on the camera do weird things. I got out on deck just as the pilots arrived to help guide us in. As we went through the straights we passed two concrete tunnels that opened onto the water, which we were told were the entrances to a cold war era underground submarine base. I had read that Kotor is sometimes called the most southern fjord in Europe, but I was a little disappointed as we entered wider portion of the gulf. It really didn’t strike me as very fjordish at all. But then as we sailed towards the other side I could see that there was another passage on the other side we were heading for. This one was much narrower but the hills were rising around us as we went through. As we got to the other side there were two islands right in front of us. We took a traditional good luck lap around the islands…one had another beautiful church on it and the other a monastery. We blew our horn as we went by and the church responded by ringing its bell. That was pretty cute but I felt bad for the guy who has to go ring the bell every time a boat blows its horn.

A few minutes later we arrived at Kotor. I was eating breakfast when we docked, but headed up to take pictures. The town is set around the base of a high, rocky ridge that ends near the water. It was really hazy, but it looked like there were some kind of walls up on the ridge, that curved up and down the hillside and reminded me of the Great Wall of China. It was really hard to get a good grasp of the scale, though, but I didn’t think this was much higher than Monemvassía. This city was similar to Monemvassía in that there was an older part, surrounded by a wall, and then the newer part surrounding it.

Getting on shore, we went into the very cool looking gate and into a square full of tables under umbrellas. The town is very old and was most recently built up by the Venetians, and shares a lot of architectural influences (I’m told). The streets were very narrow and the buildings very high. I wanted to get pictures of several things but I couldn’t get far enough back to frame them up well. JR (my fellow system administrator) and I kind of poked our way through the city until we wound up at what I think was the back door, where a draw bridge had once protected the city. We also discovered skinny little cats everywhere. We came back through and paid two Euros to start up the hill towards the Fortress. We had already been going uphill, as the streets going that direction had turned to stairs as soon as we left the main road we had followed to the back gate. From here it varied between dirt and rocks but at some point steps had been built against the stone walls. The walls seemed in pretty good shape down below as they had kept the trails in place for a long time but depending on where you were they also would have provided for defense, being lined with holes to shoot out of. The trail kept switching back and forth and came out on small level areas occasionally. These were always good spots to take pictures of the city below and our ship at the pier.

About halfway up we came to a really neat little church, but we continued on, and on and on. I think this hill turned out to be at least twice as high as the one at Monemvassía. We continued to stop here and there for pictures both of the stuff below us and the fortress and walls above us. I guess I didn’t mention that it was at least ninety and the humidity was out of hand. Our eyes were burning from the sweat and sun screen. At the very top is one last fortress and a pole with a Montenegrin flag. I should have taken more pictures from there, but it seemed like I had taken so many already, plus I was too hot and tired to really care.

One interesting thing is that about three quarters of the way to the top we began following the top of the ridge higher, rather than climbing up the side. I was surprised to realize that there was a deep valley on the other side of this thing as well and the top was really very narrow. This valley doesn’t show up in any of my pictures of the ridge from below, as it just blends in together with the next hill, but I did take many pictures of it as well from above.

On the way down we found a couple of turn offs to other parts of the fort we had missed on the way up. One was what I’m sure was the fort’s powder magazine. There was a high wall at least twice as thick as most of them blocking the opening except from the sides and the room itself was dug deeply into the hillside unlike any of the others. It was so much easier going down that it seemed like it hardly took any time at all and we reached the bottom at a different part of the town than where we started, so that made it a pretty complete tour.

We stopped for something to drink in the town after getting some pictures of the inside of another famous church here, before we headed back to get showers, lunch and back to work on the ship. As we got ready to sale from here in the early evening, I had to take more pictures of the hill, as you could see much more clearly how insane this fortress was. I was also overwhelmed with how high the mountains around us were. They had been hidden in the morning haze. The ridge we climbed was just a small spur but the ones a little beyond the shore were two or three times as high and they surrounded the gulf. JR noticed that the road between the villages around the gulf ran just above the water all the way around. There were only two or three places where there was a gentle enough path for roads to be built down to connect to it.

The main street was only about 6 or 8 feet wide. These were full of shops, cafes and little bars. It looked like a neat place to look around, but we kept heading on trying to find where to go up the hill. This little town seemed to have more churches in it than houses. They were just little but beautiful in their simplicity. It just dawned on me that even though we were getting there about 9:00 or 9:30, I didn’t see mass going on at any of them. We wound up the stepped streets, even narrower than the main one, until we found a trail that led to the stairs at the bottom of the cliff. These had defensive walls on them so defenders could fight off bad guys as they came up the switchbacks. The stone steps were polished and slippery from centuries of people walking up and down them…kind of like the marble steps we saw yesterday at the Acropolis.

Once at the top we found another church…but this one was really old and there wasn’t much left but the arched roof and a wall at one end. Looking up the hillside there were old stone walls and buildings everywhere. We headed to the right and came out at the wonderful church I had seen from the boat as it sailed in. This building was wonderful and I really don’t know how old…I’ll have to get on Wikipedia and look up the details…but just amazing both for its obvious age and this odd sense of history there; it felt old. But at the same time, there were chairs and other church things inside (it wasn’t Baptist or even non-denominational-evangelical-Christian so I’m not sure exactly what was there), so I expect that it still sees some use. From here we could look out over the Mediterranean from about 500 feet up…it seemed just a little lower than the Space Needle which is a little more than 600 feet, I think.

We continued up from here and came to the old citadel, of which there is very little left but a gunpowder storage room that was very complete and a wall with an arch that was just perfect for getting a picture of our ship framed beneath the arch. We wound our way back down, back through town with just one little detour to see yet another little church, this one about 8×12 feet in a cave in the cliff above the town. It was a little treacherous to get to, but just amazing.

We walked back through town and down the road to the new city, where the boat had dropped us off and waded in the Mediterranean for a few minutes before we headed back to the ship. Once on board we got back to work after lunch.

Last night I went for a walk around the hotel in the narrow little streets in Piraeus, a coastal port in Athens. The keepers of tiny shops were packing up for the night, bringing in their stuff from the sidewalks and feeding their dogs. I tried to take a picture of one dog that seriously barked at me, but as soon as I pointed the camera at him he shied away and hid. I tried again when he came out, but he did it again. Leaving the dog behind I eventually ended up down at the port a short way from where the ship docked the next morning. We had dinner at the hotel and ran into a couple of the ship’s Hosts who were coming on board today as well. They gave us some tips on seeing the Acropolis.

This morning, I got up pretty early for a Skype call home and then JR (the other Windstar IT guy with me) and I took off for the Acropolis. We took the train, and it’s incredible how easy it was for us to figure out the system of colors and stations to get where we were going. I’m very impressed with it, but I suppose nearly any place in Europe will have better public transportation than Seattle.

The Acropolis was fantastic. There was a great moment as we walked up the street and then through the olive trees I could see an old stone wall and some pillars and other stone work on top. We only had about an hour, which was enough to take pictures of everything at the top and the view over the city before we had to get back to the train. Athens is full of 4-8 story apartment buildings, all the same white color. I didn’t see any other kind of housing and only a few office buildings. Of course it would have been so great to have time just to hang out and soak in everything, but being there at all was unbelievable, so I have no regrets.

On our return, we promptly checked out and got to the ship. It’s taken most of the afternoon and evening, but I think I know my way around pretty well now and shouldn’t get lost any more. I got some great pictures of the sunset and different parts of the ship, though, between doing work in the communications room.

I’m trying really hard to take some time to connect with the Lord while I’m here, too. We’ll see how that goes, but I’m trying to take this opportunity to really make sure our relationship is sound. I’m ‘seeking his countenance.’ I’m also looking forward to getting to bed, although I think I’m handling the jet lag well, I’m still beat.

Book reviews and commentaries

Lesson notes from my teaching opportunities

Comments on my experiences working at a synagogue

General thoughts on Christianity and Christian living

Whining

Howerver, Paul writes that “Everything is permissible for me”—but not everything is beneficial. “Everything is permissible for me”—but I will not be mastered by anything.” (1 Corinthians 6:12). It is in light of this verse that I make my decisions about what to read. I trust the Holy Spirit to guide me in an understanding of what material is unsuitable for me as a Christian and what is in fact beneficial. Paul’s choice of words is interesting here…”I will not be mastered by anything.” To me, this is reflected in the heart and attitude that one enters into something like a book. Do you approach with caution and an eye on what intellectual dangers exist, or does it master you, pulling you into the plot where your guard is lowered?

Additionally, I am bound by the warning not to let my freedom cause a brother to stumble (1 Corinthians 10:23-31). With this in mind I must ask all of my Christians brothers and sisters to listen the urging and conviction of the Holy Spirit in their own heart regarding what they choose to read; please don’t take my reading list as an endorsement of what is appropriate for all.

After reading the His Dark Materials trilogy, (The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass) and some of the reviews and comments made prior to the release of the movie version of The Golden Compass, I think there are four main things that we ought to keep in mind. First, these are not children’s books, second, while clearly anti-Christian, these books are open and obvious about it rather than shrouded with implication, third, these books should remind us where and when we are living and to be aware of the dangers around us and fourth, there are some positive elements in these books.

Many comparisons have been drawn between these books and CS Lewis’ The Chronicles of Narnia because while the Narnia books are allegorically Christian, His Dark Materials has strong atheist and anti-church themes. Also both are in the fantasy genre with a variety of fantastic creatures and mingling worlds. But my biggest fear is that this comparison may lead parents to think that these books are intended for similar audiences. That’s simply not the case. My opinion is that His Dark Materials, while tame compared to many adult books, deserves a PG13 rating like the movie. There is a level of violence in these books that is considerably more graphic than what one finds in the Narnia books, Harry Potter or even Lord of the Rings. Lewis and Tolkien tend to present violent scenes and battles from a somewhat distant view, and the Harry Potter books are a little more cartoonish. There are also some thinly veiled sexual references. On top of that, these books do present a world where religion, primarily as the Catholic Church, is the dictatorial and oppressive organization doing the evil will of “the Authority,” who is also called God and the ancient of days. The Authority is characterized as an angel who somehow was able to promote himself as the creator, when in reality he was not. The rebellious angels who turned against him, that we would recognize as fallen, are presented as resisting the tyranny of the Authority and on the side of goodness. Many Christians have been outraged by these themes and have condemned these books, and now, these movies. I don’t think these should be discarded out of hand, but any Christian reading them ought to be mature enough, intellectually, to recognize and process these ideas.

Pullman is 100% open and clear in what he is presenting. His use of words and phrases like “God,” “ancient of days,” “Magisterium,” “the Church” and “Holy Spirit” make his attack on religion, especially Christianity, as clear as can be. My response to this, shared by many other Christians, has been a sense of offense and repulsion. However, I think this opaqueness makes Pullman’s books far less dangerous to our children than many others. If Pullman were truly out to turn the children of the world against the church, he could have done a better job by cloaking these themes. Because he is so over the top, I think even a nominal Christian is going to feel the wrongness in what Pullman writes as he uses these phrases, especially towards the end of the second book and throughout the third. But that sense of wrongness is strong enough to keep one from taking the philosophical part too seriously. Even a young Christian will see how contrary this work is to the Christian worldview, as if a neon sign was hung over the books that flashes “THIS IS UNTRUE”. In this Pullman has done us a great favor.

What we forget is that literature is tied to the period and place where it is written. We learn this in literature class and also as we study the Bible; the stronger our knowledge of the Biblical language, culture and history the better we are able to understand the Bible’s message to us. In the same way, we are living in a secular, post-Christian culture where Christian theology and values are demeaned and argued against constantly in modern literature. We’re being foolish if we don’t expect this in all kinds of literature, from children’s books to newspaper articles. However, in many cases, authors will be more subtle or argumentative and persuasive in their presentation. But Pullman isn’t trying to make converts, he’s just telling a story. My feeling is that there are thousands of books out there that would have a more negative effect on our children’s faith and values than this one, but because they aren’t so obvious there is little or no outcry. For example, I haven’t ever heard a Christian group complain about George Lucas’ mystic views being expressed by Yoda to Luke Skywalker, material that could have come straight from a Buddhist monk. Or what about the humanist values of human potential evident in Star Trek? How about the crazy and extreme sounding “evangelical” in Field of Dreams (and many other movies)? Our entertainment choices are so full of worldview statements and these come so subtly at us that we fail to recognize or even notice them. Because Pullman has been obvious, his books are getting a hard rap.

I think we also need to consider that as American evangelicals, the cold, rigid, ritualistic tendencies of the Catholic Church in Europe are completely foreign to us. We need to remember that the Pope was once the greatest dictator in the world. Over the centuries, horrible things have been done in the name of Christ, things we have been isolated from by both the Atlantic Ocean and by the Reformation. I have a firm belief that all passionate atheists have a story of being wronged somehow by someone or some organization sinning in the name of Christ (or possibly some other figure). I think if we could interview Pullman we would likely find the source of his anti-Church feelings to be rooted in experiences that are foreign to most of us. What’s more, he may be doing us a favor by reminding us of how bad institutionalized religion can be.

I really believe that based on Philippians 4:8 (“Whatever is true…noble…right…pure…excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things”) our job isn’t to avoid every influence we disagree with, but to recognize the good from the bad and the truth from the lies. I think we need to trust our convictions as to what has too much bad in it for the good to be worthwhile, and that this is going to vary from Christian to Christian. With that in mind, here is some of the good stuff in His Dark Materials.

This is a big story…an epic…which I really did enjoy reading. It was a pretty good story, but I didn’t love it. It is definitely an imaginative story which enfolds as it grows, with some good, interesting characters. As I finished it, I felt like it was a good journey. There were some loose ends and ideas that weren’t ever fully developed or were hastily wrapped up. But despite that, it was satisfying and worth reading.

Throughout the books, Physics is referred to as “Experimental Theology” and is conducted by Church workers and priests, sometimes with devices and experiments almost as objects of worship. In an atheistic work, I found this ironic as our culture has, since 1700’s, worshiped science and held it up as the source of mankind’s future and salvation. What a vivid warning to us of what is bad in our own culture.

Other people, when responding to these books, have made the case that what is really under fire is not so much the existence of God, but of the corruption of organized, autocratic religious organizations repressing natural (if not God-given) freedoms, rights and creativity. It’s an outcry against the church that persecuted Galileo and other scientists, fearfully suppressing good science while endorsing supposed truths that were rooted in faulty Greek science and not in the Scriptures. It is a warning against giving our extra-Biblical beliefs about how the world works the same dogmatic authority that we give the Scriptures.

Finally, at the end of these books, the protagonists are faced with a choice between the heartache of personal sacrifice and the well being of others. They have to choose to do what’s right for everyone and not just for themselves. This is a small part of the overall story, but it’s a very emotional point and the demonstration of the growth of the characters through the saga. There is irony here that the very thing that Christ taught us to do is what the story’s heroes must choose to do in the end: lay down their lives for their friends. It’s an example of how the truth of God’s Word permeates even those things that would seek to throw Him down. God’s truth is human truth, because there is no truth in the world that is apart from God (although you can’t switch that around…human truth is not necessarily God’s).

I should wrap this up, so here’re my general thoughts. First, I have to make it clear that God is not killed in these books, and no real effort is ever made to kill God. The angel known as “God” or “the authority” does die at the end, but not because anyone has killed him…he simply grows old and fades away. I think the fact that this is what everyone seems to think these books are about is a sign of paranoia. I really wouldn’t recommend these books. Between the subject matter and the quality of the writing, which isn’t outstanding, there’s just not enough good stuff to make me suggest someone go out and read them. Additionally, I think there’s the “meat sacrificed to idols” issue at play here. In the New Testament, we get the idea that eating meat sacrificed to idols was considered by some Christians to be sinful and by others to be fine. But for those who were going to eat it, they had to consider the “weakness” of their brothers and possibly abstain, if only for the sake of those other Christians around them. In the same way, I don’t feel that these books are terrible and sinister, but I know that there are many Christians who do. While I don’t feel they are right, I think we need to be respectful of their feelings and opinions and treat these books carefully. If I were to recommend them, someone might take that as an endorsement of the ideas or themes of these books in a way that I would qualify if I had a chance. They are going to be great movies, I’m sure, especially as they are trying to tone down the anti-church message.