Back to the Trail

Well, we are heading back out to the trail. We actually had about a week that we spent in riverside, but I just was too busy running around with my brother who just recently moved to Riverside. I wanted to write a blog but i just never got around to it. I will try later today to upload the pictures from week 3 of the hike. We have been uploading the pictures to our facebook page-Team Sweetwater. But we hope to add some more pictures to our site: www.teamsweetwater.net . Everything is going good, we had to change our schedule so that we could continue to walk without taking too long of a break. We are up north of Sacramento right now, going to head Southbound to Tahoe, and then shoot back down and hike up. This is all happening due to all the snow that is comming down on the high sierras at this time. Thank you all for your prayers and support. I hope to post again possibly in a week or longer. You can follow also our updates on our site.
It was great to be in Riverside and see my brother, and John, and get to hang out with the youth group some. I miss those times, but I know that God's plans are much bigger than just enjoying myself hanging out with friends in Riverside. Much love to all, hope to see or speak to you soon,

Caleb

On the trail

Well, we are about two days shy of our first full week out on the trail. we have had some awesome experiences. From meeting several trail angels and naming two guys from costa mesa the "good samaritans," to now where we hiked a full 16 mile day yesterday to make to cajon pass to a best western sharing a room with "indy," who happens to be a believer that went to school at point loma for his theology degree. He hiked 30 miles yesterday. thats a huge hike! we do about 16 and feel like we are done. we also met "dolly lopper(i hope i spelled it right)". it has been an awesome experience so far and we are only a mere week in. Today we are heading up the mountain, probably a 4,000 foot climb in about 12 miles, so we havent exactly decided how far we are wanting to go today, but we are about 25 miles out of Wrightwood, so we will be there this weekend, and are praying that God will provide the opportunity to speak at a church up there as well as with the trail angels who live up there. Thank you all for your prayers, if we have access to a computer up in wrightwood we will be posting some pictures on our facebook page for Team Sweetwater. God Bless,

Caleb "Hollywood" Childers

Yes, I am actually doing it!

I am leaving for the Pacific Crest Trail tommorow afternoon. Please be praying for me! I will be updating the blog as much as possible, maybe once a month. Thank you all who are supporting Team sweetwater. please visit the site at www.teamsweetwater.net . Much love to all of you! God Bless,

Caleb

AHHH....Life comes at you fast...

Along with Nationwide slogan, it has also become a common understanding for me. I'm broke, in debt, and my car broke down again. I finished all my classes but am still waiting for a paper to get back so that I can finish it by tuesday night. I am playing guitar at John and Stephanie's wedding on monday, so i just wrote up my own arrangement for the Bride Chorus, the wedding song. So now its off to practicing, after already breaking one string, things will be very interesting to see if i get everything done in time. Next weekend i leave for the trail, and thank God, because I need to be free from this society for a little while, and when I get back its definitely going to be bye-bye to that car, so that I can begin to live simply again. God, help me to be more of a true man, and ignore this materialistic world that we live in so that I might use my gifts for your glory more fully. God bless, please be praying for me. 

caleb

Its been a while

Well, it sure has been a while. I had lots of plans of uploading some of the work I am doing for some of my final papers, to show both my intellectuality and to have something to upload to the blog for people just to read, without me having to do extra work, but things happen, and i never have time. so in the process of writing the final portions of my paper on Social Justice and Worship in Chapter Five of the book of Amos, I took some time off to watch some funny videos on youtube. 

My roomate David suggested: Sneezing Panda, and Dramatic Chipmunk. 

Both were funny. but i happened to click on a link from the first one that took me to "Sneezing Panda Goes Gangsta." It was by far one of the funniest short clips ive ever seen, and if the music were better(they chose Snoop Dogg, so if you watch it, expect foul language!) it would have been one of my top videos of all time. It is still pretty funny if you can get passed the music. 

Well, im off to finish the paper, and yes it is 2:20 am, and I have to be up at 8, but God will bless my hard work, or so I pray. Check you later,

Caleb

The Poets Corner

Recently on a trip to San Francisco, as we were walking, Paul and I discovered a small little park on top of a hill from which you could see downtown and Alcatraz. In the very top corner was a bench and a rock. On the rock a plaque read, "Poets Corner." 
I was highly intrigued, and loved the idea of sitting and discussing poetry and philosophy over the view of the city and the bay. I wonder how many people actually go there to practice poetry anymore. I know that if I were to live in San Fran, I would definitely be going to that little park for some inspiration. 

If only I could create a "Poets Corner" here, or perhaps discover one. But it need be one of true poetry, as I find most poetry these days to be insanely lacking in sense and beauty, two things which I believe poetry should keep. 

Paul Smith, Kyle Richardson, and I all traveled downtown Riverside (whooptiedoo...although I really enjoy any dt area) and sat in the local "hangout coffee shop," Back to The Grind. We had a cup of coffee and worked through several ideas, including the Trinity analogies, the reality behind each, and the disfunctionalities that we could find in each. It was a very good discussion, which lead also to philosophy...yess!....if you havent noticed, I base most everything on philosophy, hence why I study Apologetics so carefully. I am hoping that it might become a common ground for discussion, and a routine, perhaps weekly endeavor for us and others who are interested in joining in the conversation. 

Now I'm off to bed, need to be up early to get some work done tommorow. Wish you all the best of nights, and the best of rest. Shalom and Charis,

Caleb

Book Review

I just finished working on a paper on Terry Eagleton's The Idea of Culture. I am going to paste it here, but only with the understanding that I was under a length restriction, and definitely was not able to completely cover exhaustively the book. So I plead Eagleton's mercy! haha. much love,

caleb

Summary Response: Terry Eagleton’s The Idea of Culture

In order to properly create an ideological robust definition for the universal phenomena[1] known to us as “culture,” an intense study of past interpretations and common spoken jargon is needed. In Terry Eagleton’s The Idea of Culture, this is exactly what he pursued in order to develop a vastly compiled and accurate understanding of a simple word with such complex ends. Eagleton’s work within the bounds of “culture” helps to define new strives at an ancient understanding, which is the ultimate goal of “cultural apologetics,” perhaps some might argue through a constructive format from within and for culture. Eagleton begins the discussion excursion into culture by riding a common understanding of culture, “husbandry, or the tending of natural growth (Eagleton, p. 1).” He wishes to expound on this ancient understanding of what was considered once an activity, and which now, he explains, has become an active entity.

            Eagleton takes a similarly acknowledged understanding of nature which he describes to be the most difficult word to define within timeless rhetoric. To understand culture, Eagleton begins, is to first understand its roots found within nature (Eagleton, p. 3). Even with such a definition being made evident in his work, Eagleton feels as if this could be stealing away from the creative capacity of culture, “the very word ‘culture’ contains a tension between making and being made, rationality and spontaneity…(Eagleton, p. 5).” Eagleton goes on to describe culture in essence of national boundaries and civilizations ultimate goals within the given societies, thus creating a backdrop of ‘versions of culture’ in order to properly come to the greater more robust definition of culture in the modern era of thought. While bringing the first chapter to a close Eagleton hopes to lead us to the separate understanding of cultures, such as that which what was Romantic, becomes scientific. In such a sense that differing definitions of culture throughout societies and its functions are beginning to merge into a common understanding for the phenomena of culture.

            In Chapter two, Eagleton continues to work through alternating definitions of the word culture, and implies that the complexity of the definition is much to hard to explain with only a few words, and a few functions, hence he calls it the ‘Culture in Crisis.’[2] However Eagleton makes it obvious that to claim that culture is in the midst of a crisis is a dangerous claim to make. He asks the question, when has culture not been amidst such crisis. In the following pages Eagleton begins to expound on the distinctions within what he defines as Culture and culture. The initial separation of the two must be understood, in Eagleton’s mind, as an anthropological sense becomes pluralistic minutia (culture), and the aesthetic sense which becomes what Eagleton calls the ‘Olympian’ alternative (Culture). With this understanding of culture (and Culture), Eagleton takes the discussion into the actual conversation between separate cultures and within cultures, and thus the crisis becomes more than an internal event. It becomes an active entity within cultures, thus bringing upon us the ‘Culture Wars.’[3]

            In the third Chapter Eagleton addresses the ironic relations between the cultures involved in the ‘culture wars.’[4] Eagleton states that Culture requires the socio-political to remain as applicable truth, namely necessary ideals, whereas culture requires abstractedness to remain applicable. Therefore an ironic relationship exists between both the distinctions within ‘culture.’ Basing himself on the poetry of T.S. Elliot, Eagleton looks to make a ‘double-coding’[5] connection within in culture. He makes it clear that, “we must operate a kind of double-coding and grasp it as at once itself and something else, the product of a specific civilization yet also of universal spirit (Eagleton, p. 53).” This continues to emancipate culture from anthropological standards, as well as from the aesthetic, but still leads them to a connection between each other. Eagleton also discusses later in this chapter on the essence of modernity in the west. Eagleton says that although the West claims modernity, “the religion and high culture it calls upon to legitimate itself are traditionalist (Eagleton, p. 83).”

            He takes this view of religion and culture as an open discussion however and chooses to pursue it through nature, and nature’s effect and cause to culture. In the fourth chapter, Eagleton seeks to discuss separately each culture and their distinctions throughout history as applied to the ultimate culture war that is in constant attention as the culture itself remains in crisis. Eagleton concludes that if humanity in itself is purely descriptive then we cannot derive values from it, and therefore culture itself, if defined from within and from human nature, seems ‘pointlessly circular (Eagleton, p. 104).’ Eagleton continues to rip apart the truths within culture, and very similarly touches on Christian theology and philosophy with his ultimatum on culture. In essence, Eagleton brings the book to a close on the hinges of culture and our responses to it. “Culture is not only what we live by. It is also, in great measure, what we live for (Eagleton, p. 131).” To Eagleton, culture itself is difficult, perhaps impossible to define, and yet it is the most interesting cause and effect behind some great things that are happening globally, consciously and unconsciously. It is in effect what we live to define so that we might live for it. Perhaps it could be argued that culture itself can become that which we chose to worship. In G.K. Beale’s work, We Become What We Worship, Beale argues that “we resemble what we revere, for ruin or restoration.” Culture could therein be the one thing that we are building into a golden calf, so that we ourselves might be able to worship what our own minds have made, conforming to our self; thus creating a culture war within each individual.

            In my assessment of Eagleton’s work, I hope that I have been true to the dedication of understanding the various interpretations from which he draws. In The Idea of Culture, Eagleton takes an ancient game, that which is to define and ferret out that which culture is, or strives to be, and created a new outlook into the depths of culture in all its various meanings and activity. In the end I felt as if Eagleton had committed that which he himself accused culture of doing; becoming seemingly circular. I take this standpoint because of my previous analysis of culture as the phenomena, obviously something which no one from this subjective viewpoint (that of humanity) can make. I came to the table of Eagleton’s discussion with the predetermined ideology that culture is not from within, but transcendental, yet perhaps dependant of human existence.
            The collocation of various ancient, or modern, definitions of culture might help us to gain a more robust view of culture in Eagleton’s mind, however I believe this still leaves out the utterance of whether or not we that are within culture can appropriately define culture. From T.S. Elliot’s poetry and Raymond Williams to the distinctions found within Nietzschean philosophy, Eagleton based his definitions on others within culture. I found the answer to my questions on definitions from that which is still bound within culture, by gaining entrée to the Culture and culture discussion that Eagleton arouses. Now this was a discussion that I found direly imperative and intuitive. When I read the book as it is written, I struggled through various effects on which he bases his thesis, but when I interpreted culture as only aesthetic-if anthropologically it is inescapable- then it is in the aesthetic for which we can define culture as we wish and please, as we live and breathe in and amongst Culture, therefore allowing us to tamper with a phenomenon that transcends, but is limited to and appropriated to, human existence.

            Eagleton’s work is a great work for the study and development of a robust idea for culture of culture. I would recommend this book to anyone who is seeking after that, although I don’t see the discussion on culture as being closed, and perhaps Eagleton’s work has turned some heads, but the discussion has never been more at hand than at the present time. I believe that with the major changes that are happening in the world today and in our country and our culture, the culture discussion could not be more immanent at this time for Christian philosophers and apologists to rise up and claim culture to be that which God has created for humanities functions. That without culture we cannot function, and thus opening the door to intellectual discussion from within culture to change and define culture into what it should be: a way to please and glorify God through the lifestyle and habits of a society.

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[1] In the reading of this paper, I am using culture as a ‘phenomena’ in order to arrive to the understanding that is not from within mankind, and therefore is difficult to explain through one realm of thought-science, philosophy, etc…

[2] Chapter 2 of Terry Eagleton’s The Idea of Culture.

[3] Chapter 3 of Terry Eagleton’s The Idea of Culture.

[4] The Idea of Culture, Eagleton, p. 51

[5] The Idea of Culture, Eagleton, p. 53