Jonah

This weekend, I attended a manuscript bible study on the book of Jonah. The time commitment was dense. We met for three hours on Friday night, all day on Saturday, and three final hours on Sunday. But Jonah is fun. It's a larger than life action movie. There's a threat of large scale urban destruction, ship sinking ocean storms, and of course, a huge fish that Jonah lives in for three days and nights.

Amid the excitement, the book ponders deep and complex ideas. This is why the inductive study method is helpful (and also why it took all weekend). We pore over every line, looking for various literary devices. We research the proper cultural context, Bible references and definitions. It's fun detective work, but the core benefit is simply slowing the pace, lingering over the text, and taking the time to soak everything in. We expect to find buried treasure and we are not disappointed.

Questions still remain. In light of recent events, God's use of nature in Jonah feels different. I'm not one to think that the tsunami was God's judgment on Indonesia so how am I to understand the calamity God declared against Nineveh because if its wickedness? I'm not sure. I generally subscribe to "the brokenness of creation" theology, as blogged by Mark D. Roberts. For now, I'm encouraged that in Jonah, God gives Nineveh a second chance (which they take) and not only gives Jonah multiple "second" chances but also patiently guides and teaches Jonah (and us) His purposes.

As is standard in Bible study, we ended by reflecting on personal application. I thought about Jonah's skepticism and my own. When my thoughts and desires seem to conflict with God's teaching, why do I put His teaching through the wringer while giving my own bias, agendas and deceptive motivations a pass? I can really do without the stormy weather.

Urban Land

I'm really enjoying the September, 2005 issue of Urban Land, Growing In, Los Angeles Fills In the Gaps. The broad collection of articles on urban planning efforts in and around Los Angeles is the best I've found in a while. Unfortunately, it's not cheap ($15) and the articles on the Urban Land Institute website require membership.

I was interested to read Mayor Villaraigosa's comments in the issue. I appreciate his familiarity with urban planning issues. The Mayor's vision includes a heavy emphasis on transportation :

L.A. needs to become the city it is destined to be, a great world city of this century.

To do that, we need to take on transformational issues, such as improving public transportation; encouraging urban development that promotes transit accessibility, social interaction, walkability, and better thalth and lifestyle habits.

He is also indirectly critical of the Planning Department, but I guess that's been the conventional reputation for a while now.

... and continuing to seek increased clarity and simplicity in our regulatory and permitting processes. We must make the planning process one that fosters this progress instead of imepeding it, as it has so often done in recent decades.

I'd like more concrete actions from Villaraigosa but for now, I'm glad that Planning is part of his dialogue.

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I'd sure like to go the 2005 ULI Fall Meeting, which will be held on November 1-4 at the LA Convention Center.

UPDATE (10/21/05 3:08pm):

What do you know, I am going!

TV Plug

How I Met Your Mother
Mondays, 8:30pm on CBS

This new sitcom of late twenty-somethings, including the well known Alyson Hannigan (Buffy's Willow) and Neil Patrick Harris (Doogie's Doogie) just so happens to also have my very talented cousin Brenda Hsueh as a writer.

So if you haven't already watched the show, check it out! I saw an advance screening of the next few episodes and came away very impressed. Quite funny and not without a heart, How I Met Your Mother is obviously a step above the rest.

Psychotherapy

Should You Leave, by Peter Kramer, was a gift from my brother back in 1997. I remember that Christmas we wrapped presents together and I clearly saw it, but had no idea it was for me.

It has stood on my shelf for a while now. I left it among the Christian books, which I recently realized was a mistake. It's a psychotherapy book about advice and has absolutely nothing to do with faith.

Upon discovering my error, I decided to read it and every other neglected book on my shelf.

It read like a love letter from a psychotherapist to his professional mentor, which in a sense turned out to be true. The author has a conversational way about himself. The topic is advice, especially to the title question. He casually meanders through different hypothetical couples, all the while applying a vast knowledge of sometimes conflicting psychotherapeutic theory.

I'll admit that I was initially unmoved by the characters and case studies. While the conflicts varied, they all seem to have a northeastern quality. But the breezy read won me over and I quickly finished the book. I admittedly started to relish the "fancy" talk too. I learned about famous psychotherapists like William Stack Sullivan, Murray Bowen, and of course, Sigmund Freud. I committed concepts like dyssemia to memory. It reminded me of when I first read The Family Crucible and the whole world of complex interpersonal dynamics opened before my eyes.

One insight that particularliy impressed me was from the chapter that discussed mood. On the topic of a hypothetical husband who describes his desire to leave his wife because he has "fallen out of love", Kramer writes:

Here is how I expect to see your situation. Your falling out of love is a sort of anhedonia - the inability to experience pleasure - and this anhedonia is a biological relative, or even an equivalent, of depression... I will keep in mind your plea: People do fall out of love, don't they? But my first thought is that the effective response to your marital dissatisfaction will be to address your anhedonia. Just as you are insistent on your viewpoint, I am passionate about mine. I hate the insidiousness of mood disorder as a cancer surgeon hates the insidiousness of cigarettes. It disturbs me that families should be torn asunder because people fail to think about depression as the cause, rather than the result, of trouble... This is my advice. You ask whether you should leave, and I say that you should seek out a psychiatrist who sees things as I do and get yourself properly treated.

This example is especially personal to me because I believe I have seen this happen and I suspect his analysis, on this like on other topics, is spot on.

Angels win ALDS, 5-3

Light the halo tonight! The Angels have won the 2005 ALDS against the NY Yankees. The story of the game and I posit, the story of the season thus far, is Ervin Santana.

Tonight, the lanky 22 year old entered as an emergency pitcher in the 2nd inning, due to an injury to starting pitcher, Bartolo Colon. Keeping the game within reach in his initial inning, Santana pitched well into 7th inning, including getting out of a runners on 1st and 2nd with no outs situation.

And while tonight will be the game the nation will remember, Angel fans know full well that the team would not even have made the playoffs without Ervin's contribution. His development as a major league pitcher started earlier than expected due to Kelvim Escobar's preseason injury. The rookie filled in and made it look easy, winning 12 games with a 4.65 ERA, including an exceptional 3.18 ERA at Angel Stadium (best among all Angel starters).

Santana's success also gave Manager Mike Scioscia the flexibility to position Kelvim Escobar into the bullpen at a crucial juncture of the season. Normally dominant setup man, Scott Shields, was in a post All Star Break slump and a large AL West lead had slipped away to the surging Oakland Athletics. Escobar became the new setup man, gave Shields the space to recover, and solidified the bullpen for the final month of the season onto a division championship.

The resulting end game combination of Shields, Escobar, and closer Francisco Rodriguez is now the deepest of all 2005 playoff teams, considering the fact that all three can potentially go two innings. This ability to "shorten the game" was the key to 2002 and might just be the key to 2005.

Additional Notes:

Owner Arte Moreno and General Manager Bill Stoneman deserve credit for the Angels success, but it is important to note that Ervin Santana was drafted in 2000 by the previous administration. Yesterday's smart decisions still affect today.

I normally don't put much stock into home field advantage, but Santana's ERA on the road is 7.43 ERA and as already mentioned, his home ERA is best among Angel starters. I shudder to think what might have happened if Santana had to pitch Game 5 in Yankee Stadium. But we will never know, because the Angels took home field by closing out the season with two wins after already clinching a playoff berth.

Is there such thing as clutch hitting? Alex Rodriquez, who had the best stats of the regular season and is likely the league MVP, went 0 for 4 and hit into a double play in the 9th inning.

Manager's Mike Scioscia's loyalty to his players makes him golden once again. The most recent example is often criticized Garret Anderson, who slugged 2 home runs and knocked in 7 RBI in the series.

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