I don’t have much to say about the story of British authorities arresting terrorist suspects who appeared to be planning to blow up several planes mid-flight by combining materials in air that standing alone would be harmless, but when mixed together would be explosive. The details are still coming out, though it seems that officials in the US say this plan has the markings of al-Qaida. I hope that the authorities were able to arrest everyone. I’m glad that this plot appears to be thwarted.

As a side note, I’ve wondered for a while when someone would try to execute a plot like this.

Yesterday I quickly scanned a piece of junk mail for a local fitness center that boasted, among other things, day care for children at the “Kids’ Korner.” Why is it that the names of so many goods and services aimed at children are intentionally misspelled? Aren’t kids the people who need the most positive reinforcement when it comes to spelling correctly given that they are just learning the orthographic and grammatical rules?

This past Saturday morning, as is my custom, I was out with some folks from Fuller and around Pasadena playing a few wonderful games of Ultimate. We warmed up by gathering in a circle and throwing the disc around. After I released the disc across the circle, a dragonfly flew into the its path. I heard a little click as the disc hit the insect and then I saw it drop to the ground. This Icarus had flown too close to the Sun (my disc is bright yellow). I ran over to the downed dragonfly, which looked dead and then it began twitching. It still spasmed for a while and we decided it really wasn’t alive any longer, so someone put it out of its misery. I felt both amazed by the sheer chance of the event as well as sad for killing a member of one of the two coolest animal genuses on the planet—the other being the penguin.

Well, my Randy Johnson moment may not have been as explosive as this, but at least he and I could talk about our inadvertant killings of animals over drinks. With his salary, he’s buying.

I preached this sermon yesterday, August 6, 2006. Some changes were made as I delivered it, but this was the basic text of the sermon.

Today’s biblical text is Mark 8.1-21. [1]

For those who don’t know me, I’d like to make a brief introduction. My name is Tyler Watson. My wife Carey and I have been attending Pasadena Covenant Church since November of last year. I recently graduated from Fuller with a Master of Divinity and my wife recently received her MD from USC—she has since begun a residency in obstetrics and gynecology also at USC. I am currently pursuing ordination in the Evangelical Covenant Church. The historical and growing emphases on spiritual formation and mission are a couple of the aspects of the denomination and this church in particular that have resonated greatly with Carey and I. The marriage between mission and spiritual formation is something that I’m currently exploring in my internship here. And spiritual formation is what I’m going to talk about today. The full title of my sermon is, “Bread, Fish, a Boat, and Yeast, or: It’s 10:30 in the Morning, Do We Know What Shapes Us?” It’s a long title, but I figure that if Charlie got a long title last week, I could too.

Let’s dig into the story. To mix things up, let’s start at the end of our story. Picture the disciples sitting in the boat. Jesus stands before them. He warns them about the yeast of the Pharisees and Herod, which strikes them as a bit odd since neither the Pharisees nor Herod are known for their baking. One of the Twelve, let’s say Thaddeus because we don’t hear much from poor old Thaddeus in the Gospels, is holding the single loaf of bread they have on the boat. And that one loaf of bread that Thaddeus has in his hand is the only thing they can think of that has any connection to Jesus’ comment about yeast. Jesus says to them, “You guys don’t get it. Your hearts are hardened to the truth in front of you. You see me but you don’t see. You listen to what I say, but you don’t hear me. Don’t you remember anything? When I broke the five loaves for five thousand people, how many baskets did you pick up?” James, son of Alpheus—we don’t hear much from this James either—says, “Twelve.” Then Jesus says, “When I broke the seven loaves for the crowd of four thousand, how many baskets of broken leftovers did you pick up?” Bartholomew says, “Seven.” Then Jesus says, “Don’t you get it?”

For my first official Top-5 List post, I’ve decided to tackle superhero movies. They seem to be pretty ubiquitous during the summer months and there have been some that transcend the genre into simply being good or great films, while there is a slew of mediocre fare and some ugly gunk that shouldn’t even be on the bottom of your shoe.

Anyway, here are my top-5 superhero movies.

1. The Incredibles, (d. Bird, 2004)


2. Batman Begins, (d. Nolan, 2005)


3. X2: X-Men United, (d. Singer, 2003)


4. Spider-Man 2, (d. Raimi, 2004)


5. Batman, (d. Burton, 1989)

All of these films have something in common: they focus on characters rather than on the super powers of the heroes. These are fallible heroes faced with choices and limitations. Also, each of these films have strong lead actors with whom we empathize perhaps more than we dream of being them. Most of the films have been made within the last decade, because before Burton’s stylized, but dark Batman, superhero films were rather campy. Even Donner’s Superman (1978) is a bit too cornball to make my list, though I enjoy that film greatly. Except for the “Can you read my mind?” sequence. And the turning back time sequence. An honorable mention goes to Unbreakable, (d. Shyamalan, 2000).

I’ve created a new category: Top-5 Lists. Top-5 what, you ask. Whatever I feel like ranking, I answer. Could be my five favorite US Presidents, my five favorite idiosynchreses of Davis, California, or my five favorite rank lists. Why five, you ask. Because thinking of a top-10 for everything could get tedious, I answer. Actually five is an arbitrary number that seems manageable. If I’m doing a list that I think merits more than five choices, I’ll add them. What authority do you have to make these lists, you ask. None, I answer. It’s my blog and this is just a whimsical exercise, I suppose. Feel more than free to disagree with me. I find most lists are silly or pretentious if they assume any air of authority. On the other hand, if they exist in order to spur conversation, then they have some worth.