M and I recently watched "Inglourious Basterds," which was a disturbing, brilliant film. Tarantino's movies are just so cool to watch. Their retro influences are really interesting and different. If he didn't get Best Director for this, i don't know what he will get it for. His movies are so odd and unconventional, it might be tough for him to nabb that one. But he should get it some day, he's brilliant. Bill Simmons also made the great point that he also looks just like Jaws from Moonraker – which is disturbing in it's own right.

And we also watched "Philadelphia" – starring Tom Hanks and Denzel Washington. This almost subsides my Denzel kick that i've been on for a number of weeks now. In the past 2 months i've seen, Crimson Tide, Training Day, The Pelican Brief, Man on Fire, Book of Eli, and Deja Vu. Of course "Philadelphia" is about two lawyers. One of which is a homosexual and contracts AIDS (Hanks). Denzel's character represents him in suing the firm he worked for that fired him after they found out. This must have been a gutsy move to take this role. To play a gay man with AIDS has to be a little daunting, as far as a career is concerned. But it ended up being a great film. Hanks went on to win Best Actor for it. Next year he would play Forrest Gump, and win the Oscar for that too. Pretty impressive. Two risky moves that really paid off…

Still on the list of Denzel movies to see is "The Hurricane" and "American Gangster." Denzel is still the man. But so is Hanks.

I am learning about lots of interesting things in class this semester. Here is a brief rundown:

• Exegesis of Johannine Literature: Perhaps John the apostle isn't the "disciple whom Jesus loved"? Perhaps it is actually Lazarus? Interesting thought. We talked quite at length about this in class the other day. It's Ben Witherington, III's idea. I buy it.??
• Marriage & Family Counseling: Self Differentiation – your health in your marriage, or in your family, is determined about how differentiated you are towards them. That is, you are close to them but aren't attached to them so much that they control who you are or what you do. The the more healthy you are, the more you have a "distinct self" – a self that isn't influenced by other family pressures, but is completely you.
• It's about a finding a clear knowledge of who you are, while you are connected to others. It's that balance that is the tricky part.??
• It's about differentiating what you are thinking, and what you are feeling. And learning to communicate that. You can feel, without letting that control you!
• Mission Theology: Read that missions is "the joyous invitation to all peoples to come to a 'feast without end.'" Which is such a beautiful picture of missions. And how God the Father is the initiator of missions, Christ embodied missions for us, and the Holy Spirit empowers us to do it. The Trinitarian view of missions is a really cool picture, to me at least.??
• Also, i learned this cool point: Christianity is the only world religion whose primary source documents are in a language other than the language of the founder of the religion, which contrasts with Muslims who attest that the Qu'ran must only be read in Arabic. This speaks to the unique transportability of the Gospel. Any culture can grasp it.

Just a few thoughts for the day. And if you haven't seen "The Hurt Locker" you should. It's worth it.