A few recent trends
19/04/15 05:20
It is official. South Dakota state climatologist Dennis Todey has checked all of the records. The first quarter of this year is the driest on record. March itself was the second-driest month since the state has kept official records of rainfall. We already knew it before the official announcement came. We’ve been breathing smoke from an all-too-early start of the fire season. We’ve noticed the crackle in the grass as we walk in the woods. We’ve felt the dryness in the air. So it was good to have a spot of rain yesterday, even if it was just a bit. .1 inches won’t make up for the drought. With two thirds of the state in moderate drought according to the charts, it will take a lot of precipitation to bring us up to normal. And normal around here isn’t very wet compared to a lot of places. We, however, are optimists. We’ll take the somewhat more optimistic forecasts for May and into the summer as a sign that patience will be rewarded and that we’ll see some more rain before the really hot weather sets in. In the meantime, we have the memory of driving home in the rain yesterday to refresh us a bit.
Regular readers of this blog know that I’m not much of a watcher of movies. I see one from time to time, usually because one of my children provides the motivation. I’m not anti-movie, but it just seems like other things come up that are more interesting ways to invest my time. I have, however, watched most, if not all, of the Star Wars movies. The first round of Star Wars, now more than three decades ago was during the time that my father was struggling with cancer and I was trying to launch a career and start a family. My life seemed to be filled with enough tragedy and struggle that a little fantasy was a good addition. Not only did I watch the movies, but it was also in those years that I read J.R.R. Tolkien’s Hobbit and Lord of the Rings and the C.S. Lewis Chronicles or Narnia.
the second round of the Star Wars franchise came out at a time when our son was willing to stand in line to get into the theatre for the first showing of some of the movies and I was there, standing in line with him and watching them. I think we watched all of them together. That brought the videos of the first series into our home where they were played many times.
So, for some reason I watched the trailer for the new series, with a movie set to be released around Christmas this year. In the trailer, Harrison Ford, playing his signature role of Han Solo, says to Chewbacca, “Chewie, We’re home.” Although he doesn’t look it, Ford is ten years older than I. Not to take anything away from the Indiana Jones series, the Star Wars movies are a big slice of the actor’s career.
Whether or not we like it Star Wars is part of the culture of our generation. I noticed online that the Japanese airline, All Nippon Airways (ANA) has unveiled a Boeing 787 Dreamliner decorated to look like the robot R2D2 from the movie that has the words Star Wars in the script of the movie logo painted on the fuselage. When a company decides to paint a movie logo on a $250 million airplane, you know they want to be associated with the movie.
But culture can be a fickle thing. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but the sales of Barbie are falling dramatically. I was only about six years old when Mattel introduced the plastic doll. It was a big success, making the brand and supporting the company through more than a half a century. I’ve never owned a Barbie, unless you count the ones I purchased as gifts for our daughter and nieces, and there weren’t too many of those - mostly the girls obtained theirs from other sources. Barbie sales were off 15% in the first quarter of the year compared with last year. Mattel lost a whopping $58.2 million. On the other hand the company is rich enough to be able to take such a hit. Predicting the future of Barbie sales is probably at least as risky as predicting the amount of rain that will fall in South Dakota this spring.
What I recognize is that I am shaped by the culture in which I live. As much as my life style is a bit counter-cultural and as much as I stay away from some forms of media such as television and movies, things that happen outside of my home and the trends of popular culture have their affect on me. I have to keep up with much of culture in order to maintain my relationships with the people I serve. If I were to try to live an isolated, monastic life - something which has a mild appeal from time to time - I would quickly lose my ability to make connections with people whose lives are immersed in the wider stream of media and marketing.
So don’t expect to find my sermons smattered with references to the latest movies any time soon. I’ll leave that to my colleagues who can manage their time better than I and can find a couple of hours a week to sit in a theatre. And don’t be looking for references to the most trendy of toys in my preaching. Those trends change so fast that I won’t be keeping up with them.
In place of those things, I’ll turn to something even bigger than the trends of popular culture in my preaching: the weather. None of us, no matter how up-to-date or behind-the-times, can escape the effects of the blessings of rain and sun and snow.
On the other hand, people will probably remember Barbie and Star Wars longer than they’ll remember my preaching.
Regular readers of this blog know that I’m not much of a watcher of movies. I see one from time to time, usually because one of my children provides the motivation. I’m not anti-movie, but it just seems like other things come up that are more interesting ways to invest my time. I have, however, watched most, if not all, of the Star Wars movies. The first round of Star Wars, now more than three decades ago was during the time that my father was struggling with cancer and I was trying to launch a career and start a family. My life seemed to be filled with enough tragedy and struggle that a little fantasy was a good addition. Not only did I watch the movies, but it was also in those years that I read J.R.R. Tolkien’s Hobbit and Lord of the Rings and the C.S. Lewis Chronicles or Narnia.
the second round of the Star Wars franchise came out at a time when our son was willing to stand in line to get into the theatre for the first showing of some of the movies and I was there, standing in line with him and watching them. I think we watched all of them together. That brought the videos of the first series into our home where they were played many times.
So, for some reason I watched the trailer for the new series, with a movie set to be released around Christmas this year. In the trailer, Harrison Ford, playing his signature role of Han Solo, says to Chewbacca, “Chewie, We’re home.” Although he doesn’t look it, Ford is ten years older than I. Not to take anything away from the Indiana Jones series, the Star Wars movies are a big slice of the actor’s career.
Whether or not we like it Star Wars is part of the culture of our generation. I noticed online that the Japanese airline, All Nippon Airways (ANA) has unveiled a Boeing 787 Dreamliner decorated to look like the robot R2D2 from the movie that has the words Star Wars in the script of the movie logo painted on the fuselage. When a company decides to paint a movie logo on a $250 million airplane, you know they want to be associated with the movie.
But culture can be a fickle thing. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but the sales of Barbie are falling dramatically. I was only about six years old when Mattel introduced the plastic doll. It was a big success, making the brand and supporting the company through more than a half a century. I’ve never owned a Barbie, unless you count the ones I purchased as gifts for our daughter and nieces, and there weren’t too many of those - mostly the girls obtained theirs from other sources. Barbie sales were off 15% in the first quarter of the year compared with last year. Mattel lost a whopping $58.2 million. On the other hand the company is rich enough to be able to take such a hit. Predicting the future of Barbie sales is probably at least as risky as predicting the amount of rain that will fall in South Dakota this spring.
What I recognize is that I am shaped by the culture in which I live. As much as my life style is a bit counter-cultural and as much as I stay away from some forms of media such as television and movies, things that happen outside of my home and the trends of popular culture have their affect on me. I have to keep up with much of culture in order to maintain my relationships with the people I serve. If I were to try to live an isolated, monastic life - something which has a mild appeal from time to time - I would quickly lose my ability to make connections with people whose lives are immersed in the wider stream of media and marketing.
So don’t expect to find my sermons smattered with references to the latest movies any time soon. I’ll leave that to my colleagues who can manage their time better than I and can find a couple of hours a week to sit in a theatre. And don’t be looking for references to the most trendy of toys in my preaching. Those trends change so fast that I won’t be keeping up with them.
In place of those things, I’ll turn to something even bigger than the trends of popular culture in my preaching: the weather. None of us, no matter how up-to-date or behind-the-times, can escape the effects of the blessings of rain and sun and snow.
On the other hand, people will probably remember Barbie and Star Wars longer than they’ll remember my preaching.