Truth, Perspective, and Arithmetic

I try to avoid abstract philosophical or theological reasoning on this site. This is not because I don't think it's important or because I can't do it, but rather because I try to ground what I write and think about here in the context of experience, primarily because my experiences shape everything that I think or do. To say otherwise opens the door to deception, I think - there are often few things more frightening or destructive than a self-assured person convinced of his or her own objectivity. The minute I replace my perspective with an assumption that my thoughts are actually quite objective and impersonal, I dance along the dangerous line of equating my perspective with God's, and I'm screwed up enough to realize that there is often quite a gap - hopefully a shrinking gap as the image of Christ is formed in me, as Paul wrote, but real nonetheless - between the two perspectives.

I realize that this view is not held by everyone, and that the desire for objective knowledge is alive and well in many Christian circles. I try to respect this position. However, I've happened on a few arguments lately that I find frustrating and, frankly, naive in relation to the notion of "absolute truth". I've been pondering one in particular that seems to often serve as the absolutist's trump card, when, in fact, it's a great illustration of why I firmly believe in the necessity of identifying one's perspective. The argument: 2 + 2 = 4 is an example of an absolute, universal truth that cannot be argued.

Let me throw out a contrary opinion. 2 + 2 most certainly does not always equal 4, and our failure to recognize this simply illustrates why we are in troubling epistemological waters when we fail to consider carefully how we speak. And, for those of you who are now assuming that I am quite insane, grant me the liberty of demonstrating why 2 + 2 will sometimes equal 11 and sometimes has absolutely no meaning whatsoever.

Any talk of mathematics assumes a particular radix or referent number around which all of its symbols revolve. This number is also known as the base, and for most of us the only system that we consciously use is base 10, or the decimal system. (This should start to make sense in a minute, if you're wondering where I'm going with this.) However, the decimal system is not the only system that we use. Although we don't realize it, we use a base 2 system literally every day - it's called binary, and forms the basis for virtually all electronic programming. Similarly, base 16 (hexadecimal) is sort of like binary on steroids, and often shows up in html as color references (for example). There's also a base 3, or ternary, system that is occasionally used; functionally, there can be pretty much an endless number of systems with different radixes so long as symbols exist to refer to the number, because the numeral "10" in our written system is always used to refer to the base. So...what is the significance? From wikipedia (emphasis mine):

A numeral system (or system of numeration) is a framework where a set of numbers are represented by numerals in a consistent manner. It can be seen as the context that allows the numeral "11" to be interpreted as the Roman numeral for two, the binary numeral for three or the decimal numeral for eleven.

In other words, when does 2 + 2 = 4? In most systems - but not ternary, where 4 is nonsensical (because the numeral 10 represents the decimal number 3) and the actual correct response is 11, and not in binary, where 2 is nonsensical, and not in quaternary (base 4), where the correct response is 10. So the correct response to the formula 2 + 2 = _ actually depends on one's frame of reference, making it a perspectival statement and not an objective one. It all depends on one's context for interpretation.

I'm all done now. We now return you to your regularly scheduled program.

Scandalous Inclusion

I was mentioning in my earlier post touching on McLaren's book about a surreal conversation that I had some time ago with a good friend about whether God loves everyone, or whether he just loves the elect. (To be clear, I have nothing but the highest regard for this person; he's one of my closest friends in the world and loves God like few people I've ever met. I just don't buy this particular piece of his theology.) I mention this because one of the statements that I found most insightful about The Last Word was that we should be "universalist-sympathetic". In other words, we may not buy the universalist position that all will be reconciled to God in the end, but shouldn't we hope it could be true, somewhere deep down in our gut, in that part of us that whispers to us late at night when we can't sleep? Shouldn't we want it to be true?

Something tells me that not everyone would agree with this desire. And, frankly, that scares me. There was a particular piece of logic presented in the book that I've never heard. McLaren presented one of the characters advancing the viewpoint that, in heaven, the righteous will be rejoicing at the punishment of the wicked for their sins against a righteous God. I sincerely hope that this is an exaggeration, a caricature designed to make a point, but I somehow doubt it. I'm not sure what disturbs me more - the picture of God that I'm left with from this perspective, or the arrogance of assuming that a given person will be in one particular group.

Taking a step back, I want to put on the table my prevailing assumption about understanding God. The most clear revelation we have of who God is, of what God is like, is the view that we get in the person of Jesus. Part of what it means to be a Christian is that everything we know about God is viewed through a Jesus-shaped lens. And Jesus was scandalously inclusive. Jesus hung out with lepers, ate with prostitutes, brought tax collectors into his inner circle, touched dead people and seemed to get along just fine with Romans, Samaritans, and other folk. Jesus turned the religious establishment on its head, threw out all semblance of propriety, and routinely did things that by all rational thought should have made him unclean - only it never did, and instead the "unclean" was routinely transformed in his presence to something beautiful and holy. When this man talks about God loving "the whole world", I can't help but think that he means exactly what he says.

Let's take this Jesus talk a step farther. I'd argue that you can't really get a handle on what Jesus was about until you start to wrestle with what's going on in the Sermon on the Mount. A lot of people don't seem to know what to do with all this stuff that Jesus said - was it hyperbole? Was it to demonstrate that the true requirements of the law are so far above our heads as to make any pretensions of keeping them absurd? Or was it just Jesus talking about how he wanted his followers to act? I tend to think the latter - when he says, for example, love your enemy, I sort of believe that he wasn't being facetious, that he would look a Roman guard in the face and forgive him for the beating he had just given, for example. And here's where, I think, the picture of Jesus that I have pushes against the view of God that I grew up with so strongly that one or the other has to give. When Jesus says to love our enemy, I have to think that he doesn't mean we get to pick and choose which enemies we'll love. And so I have to think that to love an enemy is a God-shaped act, that there's something of Jesus in the embracing of one who deserves condemnation and judgment. And I read these words and think of this amazing love that has been poured out for us and I have to wonder how anyone can question whether this God actually loves everyone, or just a select few. And that question means that I have to start thinking about hell in a different way than perhaps I ever have before.

Brothers Gotta Hug

I had all these nice thoughts collected about McLaren's book that I wanted to talk about, and I even tipped my hand with yesterday's brief thoughts. (And I'm most certainly coming back to it; this is only a brief diversion.) I made the bad decision of taking a brief spin around the blogosphere before typing up my thoughts, and now they're gone. To be more precise, they've been pushed aside by other bothersome things. I suppose to let you into my brain, I need to first take a step back and tell a bit more of my story. Some of this I don't know if I've ever confessed publically before, so this is a big deal for me (inadvertent Finding Nemo quote notwithstanding). Here goes:

I am a recovering fundamentalist.

Ok, that was good. I feel much better now, having that out in the open. It's true, though - I grew up with a brand of Christianity that would make Falwell proud. It was an odd sort of fundamentalism, though - some bizarre mix of hyper-conservative politics, literal biblical interpretation, Bill Bright's patented evangelistic methods, and Pentecostalism. It's a wonder I'm sane, really. But undergirding it all was the sense that I was so damn right about everything, that everyone else was destined for the flames of hell because they didn't think like me or vote like me or act like me.

I was a complete jerk, I think. It's a wonder that I had any friends.

The fortunate thing about my story is that my brand of faith didn't survive contact with reality. It's easy to be angry about gay people until you meet someone who is gay and learn that you respect him, for example. My perspectives, as anyone who drops by here with any regularity can probably attest, have undergone a radical revision. It saved my faith, I think. To come to the point where I could begin to picture a God who isn't always angry was huge, the sort of step that makes you want to break out the fine cigars or the imported beer or something.

So I suppose it frustrates me a bit to read people who say that people who think in the same direction that I do are bad for the gospel, that we distort the truth and are at best heretical and at worst collaborators with the Enemy. And here is where I must be most cautious - it's at these times that the seduction of fundamentalism begins to rear its ugly head. I most certainly do not want to fall into a neo-fundamentalism, doggedly defending my limited perspective on limited perspectives and angrily bashing angry bashers. But like an addict, I keep mentally coming back to the same place - I'm right and you're wrong, so shut up and listen to me!

Is it too much to hope that those who follow Jesus - myself first and foremost - could learn to live and love and forgive and fight like Him? What would it take to find common ground, so that we could stop questioning each other's commitment to Christ and start speaking truth in love?

Don't Feed the Fanboy

I got my tix for the midnight showing of Episode III: Revenge of the Sith! WOO-HOO! Unfortunately, I'll only get to see it twice on opening day - can't make myself skip the quiz in class that night. I must be losing my edge.

Breathing

Last week was huge in many respects. I wrapped up my last class of the spring semester, with the requisite procrastination and last-minute scramble, not to mention a misread of the syllabus on my part that left me scrambling to finish a project so that it would only be a few days late. As of Thursday night, I now have two weeks off before diving into the summer term, and at least 3 or 4 books to try to finish in that time. On the work front, lots of stress and tension about a project that I'm leading that culminated in a not-at-all fun meeting where I don't know if anything was accomplished, but at least I said everything that needed to be said and didn't cave like a dieting Homer Simpson in a donut factory. Moral victory for me, even if nobody else noticed. Yesterday we celebrated my son's fourth birthday. That was a blast - it was great for him to be the center of attention. He's a fantastic kid but somewhat rebellious so he doesn't always get the best kind of attention, if you know what I mean. Great week all in all but very tiring and no time for blogging.

With a light week ahead, that should change - lots of stuff on my mind. I just finished McLaren's The Last Word and the Word After That. I went into this one kind of nervous about where he was going to head, but it was actually a really good read. Lots of stuff to think about, but I wish I had the time to dig into primary sources on this one. He does seem to borrow a lot from C.S. Lewis' thoughts, if that gives you any indication of where he's headed. One of the most thought-provoking lines said that Christians should be universalist-sympathetic, meaning that no matter one's ideas of eternal destiny, as Christians we should hold out the desire that all would be saved. It's interesting to put this thought up against the way I was raised and how I thought about God as a result. I haven't had time to develop this properly, but I will no doubt be writing more about this in the next few days.

More to come on this and other threads of conversation - nice (and necessary) break but I'm glad to be back.

Make-Believe and Fairy Tales

I have to be honest - I have a love-hate affair with the Bible. Even the word sounds trite to me, like something that I should have left in my childhood along with action figures and lollipops and little league. To read the Bible and take it seriously puts you in the same group as television preachers, arrogant politicians, and other generally angry, somewhat crazy people. I mean, does anybody actually believe this stuff? All this about talking donkeys, giant slayers, worldwide floods, man-eating fish, and lunch for thousands? That's how I feel about it in my more honest moments, and I wager that I'm not alone.

It's sad what we've done to the Bible, really. We've turned it into make-believe and fairy tales, and spend the rest of our lives trying to convince ourselves that it's true. I sometimes wonder if the ones who shout the loudest are the ones who, deep down, are the most unsettled about the whole affair, as though their very faith depends on some teetering tower of Jenga blocks, ready to topple with one ill-timed movement. I'm not sure why this is, really - why it is that we reduce this incredible story to little more than children's fare, although it must be said that the children more often than not show the greater wisdom in their astonishment. For amazing it is and remains so in spite of all our efforts to reduce it to something smaller and more manageable, something that fits the target market and makes nice slogans and bumper stickers and t-shirts. After all, if it isn't on a t-shirt, it's probably not real.

I think when you start to get the story of scripture, when the Bible starts to become real for you, you get the sense that this is not at all the stuff of kid's stories. It's dark and gritty, like something that should be put on the top shelf to keep away from little eyes. It is quite possibly the most realistic piece of literature that I have ever read, at least in the sense of naming who we are and what we have become. The tragedy is at times almost too much to bear, the descent from grand design and noble purpose into corruption and death. But at the same time it holds out this impossible hope that never seems to fail, even when the story reaches its darkest points - the darkness cannot triumph.

And this, after all, is the point. The Bible would be the most hated book on earth if it were not for the impossible hope that it holds, because it is the one book that names evil truly, giving it the name of every person who has ever lived. And yet, in spite of this, it never forgets our discarded nobility, and when the story seems most dark, the very One who gave life to all things comes to do so again at the cost of his own life, only to prove that hope is not after all impossible, merely improbable, which is what he seems to do best.

Perhaps if we were to quit trying to prove that scripture is true, and instead began to live as if it were, the arguments would go away. Or more probably, they would continue, only with more credibility and less anger. Perhaps if we found the wonder and amazement that are required to trust in this improbable hope caught in this impossible story, we would begin to understand that the arguments aren't really the point anyway. Instead, we would know that the point is to come to know the Storyteller, to follow Him and to be caught up in the story that He continues to tell, to weave our tales with His and to come to the place where we can tell our stories as a part of the larger epic. I think that when this begins to happen to us, when the Bible begins to come true for us, everything else begins to change as well - and we begin to ask why we never saw things this way before.

Tidbits

I feel like I got hit with a truck. I think it's because I have to go back to work tomorrow. Nothing like looming deadlines and competing priorities to make a man want to get up in the morning. Although I really want to write tonight - the family is asleep and I have about two hours before I usually crash - I don't have it in me to be either witty or thoughtful. (You may be thinking, "That's never stopped him before...") However, I did want to post a few random thoughts (random in connectedness, not significance).

• Thanks for the great thoughts on my post on sovereignty. There are comments in there that deserve posts of their own - a very deep thank you to those helping me think through it. No question this is something that I've been pondering for a while, ever since a good friend took the plunge into Calvinism. My most recent ministry experience was in part with someone who makes Calvin look like Benny Hinn. At least part of why I now wrestle with this issue is because of what it does to one's theology of leadership / ecclesiology, which I personally think can be really ugly. More on this at a future date as yet to be determined.
• What is it about the body of Christ that we can't have a decent discussion without questioning someone's participation in the body? As a few of us Biblical students were commenting after attending a recent ETS session (John Franke was presenting - great paper on biblical authority), "Why does unity have to equal unanimity?" It's pathetic when we can't disagree constructively. (As an aside, I'm done visiting a certain site with "no" prominently featured in the name. If you know what I'm talking about, you know why I say that. If not, I'm not gracing them with a link, and you're probably better off, simply because of the quality of the "discussion".)
• Must read post of the week: the_blacke on a wild olive shoot. Phenomenal piece about the Kingdom and God's work within history. Go read. I'll wait.
• I picked up McLaren's new book, The Last Word and the Word After That. I am really, really enjoying it thus far. I'll post a full review when I'm done. It's not as far out as I thought it might be.
• Last, but certainly not least, my wife and I are expecting our third child, due in December. If the baby is anything like his or her brothers, things are going to get interesting around here...

Opening at Biblical

For you fellow Biblical Seminary folks (I know there are a few of you out there), I saw this job description over at less travelled. Sounds like Nick Perrin's position. Too bad that he's moving on; I was really impressed with him in the Gospels class that cohort 6 just had. I do like the way the opening and the school are described though. Too bad I don't have my PhD yet ;). "Gets 'high' on Wright and Brueggemann" pretty much describes me perfectly.

Sovereignty of God

What does "sovereign" mean to you? Perhaps more importantly, what does "sovereign" mean as it relates to God? I'm trying to work my way through this question this week after reading what I found to be a rather disturbing chapter in a book I was reading for class. (I hope to have everything nicely wrapped up by Saturday at the latest. ;) The premise that set my wheels turning was the prototypical trump card of Christian response to suffering: "God is in control. God is sovereign. It all happens for a reason." Said with a nice pat on the head, now run along and play and quit asking so damn many questions.

At this point, I'm left to accept the premise promoted by the book or bring my own set of questions to bear. Is this truly what we should think of when we think of a sovereign God? Some grand cosmic Newtonian cause-and-effect machine who personally pulls the strings on each and every event, incident, interaction, happening, and goings-on? Do we really mean that? Does everything happen for a reason, or do some things just suck because the world is broken? (This is turning into a rant. It didn't start out in my head that way. Pause for breath.)

Here is why I wonder these things: when the biblical authors write about God and his sovereignty, what models do they use? They use the models for authority available to them - King, father, shepherd. Personal models, relational models. Not cause-and-effect models influenced by Newtonian physics and a view of the universe as one grand machine with laws and rules and predictability and control. No wizard behind the curtain, no puppeteer pulling the strings. When something goes wrong in a kingdom, is it because the King ordered it to be so? Most probably not, unless we're talking of a miserable king. But it remains under the king's authority, and a just king will bring the wrongful situation back into alignment with his will. Does a shepherd control the sheep in his or her flock? Most certainly not - but he or she guides wayward steps back onto the proper path. Is a father in control of the actions of a wayward daughter or son? Not typically, but he is (speaking ideally) responsible to bring discipline to rebellious children.

Here's the question that I asked quite some time ago, when I was still involved with student ministry, that ruffled a number of feathers. Does God always get his way? Is everything that happens according to his will? Before you answer, think on this: Why should Jesus pray that God's will be done on earth, if it is already happening?

I don't really have answers tonight, just some questions that I'm wrestling with. I have some thoughts, some opinions held tentatively that perhaps bear more exploration. So I throw this out to those of you kind enough to drop by on occasion - am I making any sense, asking any questions of value? Or am I just nuts?

The Word Became Plastic

Move over, Ken - Talking Jesus dolls are scheduled to hit the shelves in May. Moses and Mary are also on their way. Apparently, they're about a foot tall and programmed with a number of scripture verses.

My big question is why does Jesus look more like a surfer than a first-century Jewish rabbi? He looks like he needs to finish every sentence with "dude".

Cooking Heavy

Any other amateur chefs out there? Cooking is one of my passions, when I get a chance to do so. Tonight I had a bit of time so I threw together some pork loin with savory rosemary apples (or something like that). I think I ate about half a stick of butter (not joking). Before I started eating, I dialed 9-1- and then just held my finger over the 1 in case I needed an emergency bypass or something.

I love the improvisation of cooking. I'd do a food blog if I could ever re-create anything I make. Anyone know of any good cooking blogs?

Caught in the In-Between Places

My main problem as a writer is that I write like a kid with ADD. (You may by all means disagree - I am certain that I have more problems as a writer than just that.) From my perspective, I get these great ideas of things I want to spend some time exploring and then...LOOK! A BIRD! That's sort of how I work. "Hey! You know what would be a great idea? How about blogging through the whole book of Mark! I could do a chapter a week or so!" Yeah, and I really meant it too. I still plan to finish, but it may take a bit longer than I thought. Same with the social justice stuff - I actually have so many ways that I want to think about that, but I'm having trouble focusing on just one. All of that to say that this has been an interesting week for me, one that's derailed my carefully-laid plans for writing. It's been very reflective - I'm not sure why, other than that the weather has been beautiful and I've had a chance to sit outside at night, light up my pipe, and think and pray.

I read a great post this week over at Today at the Mission reflecting on the changing seasons and how in some sense our lives mirror the seasonal cycles. I think that's true and beautiful, and I often think on my life in those terms. For the past five years, there's been somewhat of a dry season in my life, although perhaps it extends farther back than that and I simply wasn't wise enough to identify it as such. I think perhaps the reason I retreat into academics and the sort of thinking that I've been doing a lot of lately is because I try to push the dryness away by turning to theory and abstraction. Not that there is anything necessarily wrong with academics - another part of the reason that I do it is because I think that someday I might possibly become somewhat good at it, at least enough to lend my tiny voice to moving a conversation forward somewhere. On the other side, though, a theoretical God is somewhat diminished for His lack of, well, being there. In truth, it feels as though I'm stuck in between two places, coming from a place where I thought I had a lot of things figured out and going to a place that, in honesty, I'm not really sure where it is, but I have a vague sense that He's said that He'll show the way forward.

Christian spirituality is, I think, spirituality of the in-between places. The truth is that we all as Christians live in-between, between the explosion of the Kingdom into our lives and the realization of that Kingdom, between Egypt and Canaan, wandering the desert with a vague sense of direction and some crazy cloud leading the way. The hard part is that we have to figure out how to live in-between and not feel like we're crazy while we're doing it. I think that's why I often feel like a network marketer when I talk about my faith - I only half-believe it myself, and I feel like I'm trying to talk other people into believing it with me so that I won't feel so crazy for thinking this thing actually works. I feel badly for those who interpret 1 Corinthians 13:10, speaking of the coming of the perfect, as referring to the New Testament canon. I don't know how you live with that theology and not go insane with doubt and fear, with the pressure of knowing the "perfect" and not being able to match your life up to that. I'd rather hear Paul saying that he sees now as through a glass darkly and say, "Yeah, Paul, preach on. I'm right there with you."

And it's interesting that Paul concludes that conversation by referring to faith, hope, and love, calling love the greatest. The reason that this is interesting to me is that faith and hope are virtues for in-between places. Faith, I think, is that trust that overcomes the fear of uncertainty that enables us to act out the story that we've become a part of. Hope is the arational pursuit of some better future that overcomes the doubts that there is some greater purpose toward which we live. Someday, I think, these virtues will no longer be needed in their present forms; I think they'll be transformed into something greater, something as yet unseen, when the Kingdom finally comes in its fullness. Hope, in particular, is something that I've thought a great deal about. It's a tragedy what has been done to Christian eschatology in recent years, how it's been stripped of its hope and left with a shell of a tale that is more suited to a sci-fi channel late night movie than to Christian spirituality. Whoever recovers eschatology as a discipline of hope will do Christianity a great favor (Moltmann deserves some credit here). Hope is what allows faith to function, providing a trajectory for our trust in order that it can be displayed.

So tonight I sit and think of what it means to be in the in-between places, to be caught in the act of becoming a Christian and wanting to see faith and hope explode in my life. Perhaps that's what you want too. Pull up a chair - let's sit together in these in-between places.

Gnats and Dragons

I've been somewhat absent lately. It's been one of those weeks where all of the things in my life came together to attempt to drown me, or at the least make me very frustrated. After I got the mess cleaned up on the site over the weekend, we ended up in the hospital with my son, who had a fever of 104 degrees. Fortunately all turned out fine; he simply had a fairly long-lived virus. Sunday Joy and I had one of those really dumb arguments that end sort of like, "Oh, wait, THAT's what you said?" It was no doubt the result of an incredibly stressful week and it was probably my fault (these things usually are), but I don't really remember, that's how lame it was. Monday, back to the grind, the relentless assault of corporate America on my humanity and dignity - well, I'm being overly dramatic, but it's been one of those weeks of senseless, unending negotiations over very tiny parts of the project that I'm leading, the kind where you quibble about words like "all" vs. "some". (I'm not kidding about that part.)

On the other hand, my friend John is going through a crisis right now. He seems to be holding up well, but it's not the sort of thing that you can characterize in any other way. John was asked to resign this week as the pastor of the church where he has ministered for six years. Having walked through the same situation not once but twice in my short ministry career, all I can say is that my heart and prayers go out to him and his family. I think I can say from a man's perspective that something like this strikes at the very core of your being, your identity. I think it no accident that the curse visited upon the man in Genesis 3 struck at his livelihood, and we've been living under the assault on our identity ever since. I don't know if it's the same for women. My wife seems to think not. But nearly every man I have ever spoken with about the subject will point to troubles in his work as central to struggles with his identity. I know John well enough to know that he is a great man who deserves better. I pray that he will weather the storm and come out the other side, swimming like Lieutenant Dan or something.

I think there are two kinds of troubles that we face in life - gnats and dragons. Gnats are the everyday sort of problems that wear you down with their relentless persistence. It's death in very tiny bites - slow, annoying, and endless. Killing a gnat is like catching raindrops in a hurricane. You end up exhausted and you haven't stopped the flood. For me, it's been a week of gnats. Dragons, on the other hand, are those problems which come on occasion but which require all of our resources to resist. I have faced a few in my thirty years; no doubt every one of us can think of the dragons that we have fought. I know mine by name, and they know me - they wait to ambush me when I'm not suspecting and my resources are at their lowest. The most fierce among their number is Rejection; he sends his minions often to harass my steps, but when he comes in the guise of a crisis, his breath is most fierce. John will be facing his own dragons in the days to come - I pray that he would withstand their assault and witness their defeat by the One Who Will Not Be Named.

I have thought long and hard about suffering recently; it's been in my thoughts since the tragedy of the tsunami several months ago. I don't know why we suffer, why we are beset by gnats and dragons. I don't have an answer to that question that doesn't sound hokey and patronizing. All of the standard responses seem cold and distant, unattached as though I were discussing the weather, sterile as though I were discussing symptoms with a doctor who cannot relate to his patients. But I have to wonder if it's the right question to ask. The question that I have been wrestling with more often is that of God, of Christ and why he chose to suffer. Why would a God who is sovereign give up his rights in order to come and subject himself to suffering at the hands of the ones he shaped and formed and gave life? What is it about suffering that is in some small way redemptive, and how is it that I become more like Christ as I suffer? It's an odd way to think, odd enough that I feel somewhat strange voicing it. But it's also a voice that hasn't gone silent, so I have to wonder what it's trying to tell me...

More Site Stuff

I noticed that bloglines is picking up duplicate posts for some of my recent entries. I think it's because I rearranged my archives - some of the posts are linking to current files, and some to the previous names of those files. I'm hoping that it will rearrange itself as things progress - I double checked the feed, and it seems to be working fine. Additionally, it's confined to the rdf feed; the Atom feed doesn't seem to be having any problems.

At any rate, my apologies for the inconvenience to those of you reading on bloglines. If it's really annoying, try the atom feed for now - it seems to be working well. I'm hoping to actually write something soon, as opposed to all this maintenance stuff. I save a ton of money by doing my own upkeep instead of going with typepad, but at times like this I wonder if it's worth the headache!

Fixed?

I think I've got everything working relatively well again. There are a few small bugs that I'm having trouble with, including a slight glitch in the comment moderation template, but most everything should be functional. If anyone runs across something that's doing odd things, could you do me the favor of posting a comment or sending an email? I did quite a bit of reworking the archives (although you shouldn't really be able to tell much difference on this side) and I can't be sure I've tested everything.

I hate this crap. It takes up my limited time cleaning up someone else's mess when I'd rather be writing. And just so that some moron can get a higher google rank? Argh.

Site Issues

Something screwed up on my site and crashed the server again last night. It could be another spam attack like I had in January, but nothing showed on my log files. I've disabled comments for the moment until I can get it fixed...