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Home » Holiday Theater
Holiday Theater
Shows running through New Year's and beyond
by Chicago Reader December 24, 2009 August 19, 2021
Rudolph the Red-Hosed Reindeer Credit: Rick Aguilar
ARFTCo's Another Year Without a Witty Title Chicago Christmas Spectacular! Local playwrights reveal their twisted relationships with the holiday season in this cheeky Christmas variety show directed by Michael Buino. The brief skits run from off-color carols to a hard-hitting North Pole newscast and a choir-robed ensemble singing, "On the first day of change the Democrats gave to me . . . " Highlights include "Gate B-28," a hilarious airport rant Samantha Garcia spits at an unlucky gate attendant. And in Rosemary Newton's witty parody, "Nancy Drew and the Clue in the Christmas Stocking," Nancy and her pals solve a caper with dated catch phrases and questionable sleuthing. —Marissa Oberlander
Through 1/9: Fri-Sat 8 PM, Cornservatory, 4210 N. Lincoln, 773-418-4475, cornservatory.com, $12-$15.
The Best Christmas Spectacular! Since its debut in 2008, the Best Church of God has remained one of the city's funniest comedy outfits. Known for straight-faced fundamentalist worship services ("We read from the Bible so you don't have to"), the BCOG has also staged mock protests, parodying Westboro Baptist Church's "God Hates Fags" campaign by showing up at Westboro demonstrations with signs like "God Hates Signs, Exodus 20:4." Director Michael Descoteaux, who's also musical director for Second City E.T.C., says this will be the troupe's most ambitious show to date, with brand-new sketches and songs focused on putting the Christ back in Christmas. Instead of wreaths, expect a crown of thorns. And the pagan fir will be replaced with a "giving tree" hung with messages detailing what BCOG players want Jesus to bring them. There'll be an interpretive liturgical dance telling the Nativity story ("13-year-old Mary is raped by God," etc.) and an animated segment depicting kids exploring the holiday traditions of other religions. Audience members can stick around afterward to get their pictures taken sitting on Jesus's lap. —Ryan Hubbard
Through 12/27: Sun 1 PM, Lakeshore Theater, 3175 N. Broadway, 773-472-3492, lakeshoretheater.com, Suggested $10 donation. C
A Christmas Carol Charles Dickens's classic holiday story.
Through 12/24: Thu 3 PM, Metropolis Performing Arts Centre, 111 Campbell, Arlington Heights, 847-577-2121, metropolisarts.com, $15.50-$28.50. C
A Christmas Carol The Goodman has roasted this Dickensian chestnut so long that audience members compare Scrooges (there have been seven of them) the way Bears fans rate quarterbacks. Now in his third year as the miserly curmudgeon, Larry Yando is at the top of my list. The spirits of Christmas ultimately nudge Yando's Scrooge over to the Light Side, but before they show up Yando evokes the character's great sin—his inability to see himself as connected to his "fellow passengers to the grave"—in the fearsome, strangled rage with which he spits, "I wish to be let alone!" William Brown's spry staging incorporates just enough pyrotechnics to awe first-timers without losing the deeply humane heart of this deservedly beloved tale. —Kerry Reid
Through 12/31: Mon 7:30 PM, Tue-Wed 2 and 7:30 PM, Thu 2 PM, Sat 2 and 8 PM, Sun 2 and 6:30 PM, Goodman Theatre, 170 N. Dearborn, 312-443-3800, goodmantheatre.org, $25-$74.
A Christmas Carol, the Musical This jolly musical adaptation of Charles Dickens's too-often-told story is energetic, high spirited, and mercifully brief at a little over an hour running time. The songs by Alan Menken and Lynn Aherns are delightful, if reminiscent of Menken's Disney work (Aladdin and Enchanted, among others), and the Marriott folks have resisted cutting costs on what could easily have been a mere cash cow. Packed with A-list local actors, the show is blessedly free of all those spooky moments—howling ghosts, ominous graveyard scenes—that scared the bejesus out of my eight-year-old when she saw Jim Carrey's new movie version. —Jack Helbig
Through 1/3: Mon-Tue 10 AM and 12:30 PM, Wed 10 AM, Sat 10 AM and 12:30 PM, Sun 10 AM, no shows 12/24, 12/25, 12/31, or 1/1, Marriott Theatre in Lincolnshire, 10 Marriott Dr., Lincolnshire, 847-634-0200, marriotttheatre.com, $15.
Ha-Ha-Holiday Show Improv show by "some of the top improvisers in Chicago with years of musical improv experience."
Through 12/26: Sat 7:30 and 9:30 PM, Laugh Out Loud Theater, 601 N. Martindale, Schaumburg, 847-240-0386, laughoutloudtheater.com, $12-$18.
It's a Wonderful Life: Live at the Biograph Frank Capra's 1946 film about George Bailey—a small-town businessman saved from suicidal despair by his guardian angel—is presented by American Blues Theater as a live radio drama, with actors at microphones reading from scripts while an onstage Foley effects man provides the sounds of slamming doors, chirping crickets, splashing water, etc. Hewing close to the brilliant screenplay by Frances Goodrich, Albert Hackett, Jo Swerling, and Capra, Marty Higginbotham's production transcends mere nostalgia-mongering thanks to deeply felt, carefully sculpted performances by a seasoned ensemble. As George, Kevin Kelly makes no attempt to re-create James Stewart's great screen portrayal. Instead, he delivers his own compelling interpretation of the role. His showdowns with avaricious banker Mr. Potter (a truly creepy performance by John Mohrlein, who also plays the angel) crackle with tension. —Albert Williams
Through 12/27: Thu 8 PM, Sat 5 and 8 PM, Sun 2:30 PM, no show 12/25, Victory Gardens Theater, 2433 N. Lincoln, 773-871-3000, victorygardens.org, $20-$40. C
It's a Wonderful Life: The Radio Play Like American Blues Theater's It's a Wonderful Life: Live at the Biograph, this American Theater Company show reimagines Frank Capra's classic movie as a live radio broadcast, turning theatergoers into a "studio audience." Jason Gerace's production conveys the message of human interconnectedness underlying the story of despairing small-town businessman George Bailey, whose guardian angel saves him from suicide by revealing his impact on the lives of everyone around him. Kareem Bandealy delivers a solid impersonation of the original Bailey, James Stewart. The supporting actors—including Alan Wilder, doubling as the angel and as Bailey's nemesis, mercenary banker Mr. Potter—deftly play multiple roles with spot-on changes in vocal characterizations. Although it never achieves the emotional impact of the ABT version, this is still a holiday charmer. —Albert Williams
Through 12/27: Sat-Sun 3 and 8 PM, American Theater Company, 1909 W. Byron, 773-409-4125, atcweb.org, $30-$50. C
Joffrey Ballet Performing The Nutcracker.
Through 12/27: Thu, Sat, and Sun 2 PM, Auditorium Theatre, 50 E. Congress, 800-982-2787, joffrey.org, $25-$100.
Mark and Laura's Couples Advice Christmas Special The premise sounds like a prescription for cliche: a dysfunctional married couple take to the airwaves to help/horrify the nation with their unique brand of relationship counseling. But the cast embrace their offbeat characters so wholeheartedly that they pull off a minor Christmas miracle—a holiday-special parody that foregoes snark and mere cleverness in favor of hilarious humility. Improvising with assurance and flipping missed cues into jokes with implacable wit, Carrie Bain gives put-upon wife Laura a homespun authenticity. The result is a show that comforts and disquiets in equal measure. —Keith Griffith
Through 1/20: Wed 8 PM, no show 12/30, Gorilla Tango Theatre, 1919 N. Milwaukee, 773-598-4549, gorillatango.com, $10.
Miracle on 34th Street This sweet little play-with-holiday-music pushes all the right buttons. It's pro kid, mildly pro family, pro Christmas without getting explicitly religious about it, pro Christmas shopping, and, of course, very pro Santa Claus. Like the 1947 movie, it asks the pop-theological question, What would happen if the real Santa Claus were to walk among us? (He would perform miracles and be persecuted.) The folks at Porchlight tell the story well, with energy and economy, and only a dash of sentimentality. Jim Sherman's Christlike Santa is more wise than jolly, which is refreshing, and Christa Buck is winning in the Mary Magdalene role—that of the divorced single mother who learns to love Santa. —Jack Helbig
Through 1/3: Fri 8 PM, Sat 2:30 and 8 PM, Sun 2:30 PM, no show 12/25, Theatre Building Chicago, 1225 W. Belmont, 773-327-5252, theatrebuildingchicago.org, $40.
Mother Superior's Ho-Ho-Holy Night This one-woman show created by Vicki Quade may give parochial-school graduates comedic flashbacks. Kathleen Puls Andrade plays Mother Superior, a no-nonsense nun helping Saint Gabriel's church put on a Vatican-worthy holiday pageant. While spouting little-known facts about the origins of Father Christmas and what really happened at the Nativity, she dishes out discipline to her cowering audience. Luckily, she says, as she sends someone to stand in the corner, she forgot her ruler at home. The show's humor depends on a participatory audience, so pray for a gum-chewing, back-talking, original-sin loving crowd. —Marissa Oberlander
Through 1/3: Sat 8 PM, Sun 3 PM, Royal George Theatre Center, 1641 N. Halsted, 312-988-9000, nuns4fun.com, $30.
The Nutcracker on Horseback Noble Horse Theatre presents The Nutcracker as performed by horses and riders from around the world. Reservations required.
Through 1/9: Sat-Sun 2 PM, check with theater for additional showtimes, Noble Horse Theatre, 1410 N. Orleans, 312-266-7878, noblehorsechicago.com, $18-$25.
A Nutty Nutcracker Christmas The popular Christmas story is performed from a "rockin' contemporary adaptation" by Emerald City Theatre.
Through 1/2: Tue-Sun, check with theater for showtimes, no shows 12/24, 12/25, or 12/31, Apollo Theater, 2540 N. Lincoln, 773-935-6100, emeraldcitytheatre.com, $12-$15.
Raven: A Kwanzaa Tale Directed to children in grades 1-6, this play presents the principles of Kwanzaa through stories of early 20th century southern African-Americans. Presented by the People's Jazz Theater.
Sun 12/27, 4 PM, DuSable Museum of African American History, 740 E. 56th Pl., 773-268-7232, dusablemuseum.org, $20.
Redmoon Winter Pageant Redmoon's hour-long solstice celebration is packed with delightful fragments from delicious dreams. In fact, the young, athletic ensemble evoke all the seasons, offering visions like a golf cart decked in giant chrysanthemums, a cloud-covered clown car, addlepated pirates who use the crowd as their compass, an underwater bar with waltzing deep-sea divers, and a frost-covered banquet table at which frightened diners feed a giant, insatiable baby. It's all accompanied by an eclectic and charming musical mix. The appearance of a rousing drum wagon, pounding out a wish for spring's return is so true to Chicago it hurts. —Lawrence Bommer
Through 12/27: Sat-Sun 4 and 7:30 PM, Redmoon Theater, 1463 W. Hubbard, 312-850-8440, redmoon.org, $10-$15. C
Rudolph, the Red-Hosed Reindeer Back for its 12th year, David Cerda's raunchy parody of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer has been kept fresh with topical humor and larger-than-life characters. Alex Grelle plays Rudolph, the misfit reindeer who hides red hose beneath his overalls and prefers voguing to sleigh-pulling. Fearing reproach from a domineering, abusive Santa, Rudolph flees in clip-on earrings and heels. He finds self-confidence at the end of his perilous coming-of-age journey, meeting kooky companions and narrowly escaping the clutches of the Abominable Drag-Beast along the way. Ed Jones is a sloppy success as Santa's battered alcoholic wife, belting "Christmas Makes Me Bitter" while plotting revenge against her husband and his flamboyant, meth-addled elves. —Marissa Oberlander
Through 1/2: Fri-Sun and Wed 7:30 PM, Mary's Attic at Hamburger Mary's, 5400 N. Clark, 800-838-3006, handbagproductions.org, $10-$15.
The Santaland Diaries David Sedaris's comic memoir about his stint at Macy's playing one of Santa's elves has lost a lot of its bite since he first read it on NPR in 1992. The snide commentary on Christmastime binge shoppers seems almost quaint in these recession-strapped times, and the mockery of pushy parents, clueless kids, obnoxious store managers, and eccentric Santa impersonators comes across as the verbal equivalent of shooting fish in a barrel. But in this Theater Wit mounting of Joe Mantello's 1996 stage adaptation, Mitchell Fain's offhanded, seemingly improvised delivery and interaction with the audience give the script a much-needed freshness. Recalling Joan Rivers with his raspy voice and bitchy dishiness, Fain makes the show his own, transforming the monologue into a stand-up act. —Albert Williams
Through 1/2: Sat 12/26, 2:30, 7:30 and 9:30 PM, Sun 12/27, 3 and 7 PM, Thu 12/31, 7:30 and 9:30 PM, and Sat 1/2, 7:30 and 9:30 PM, Theatre Building Chicago, 1225 W. Belmont, 773-327-5252, theaterwit.org, $24.
Silent Nightmare: A Christmas Dirge Having closed his North Pole operation on account of economic hardship, sadistic toy manufacturer Santa Claus has relocated to an abandoned GM plant outside Akron, and rebellion simmers among his much-abused elves. Meanwhile, a war hero with post-traumatic stress disorder has come home to find that his wife slept with everyone in town, elves included, while he was away. War and money woes are certainly topical themes this (and every?) holiday season, but the Annoyance Theatre's new comedy neglects those subjects almost as soon as it raises them. Instead, you get a bunch of tasteless but still somehow boring gags about sex, violence, and sexual violence, spread out across two muddled plots that don't even begin to converge. It's sloppy, sour stuff. —Zac Thompson
Through 12/26: Sat 8 PM, Annoyance Theatre, 4830 N. Broadway, 773-561-4665, annoyanceproductions.com, $15. C
The Snow Queen An offbeat combination of story theater and concert, Victory Gardens's imaginative holiday offering follows a young Danish girl's journey to the frigid north to rescue her best friend, a boy bewitched by an icy enchantress. The production boasts a gifted ensemble of singer-dancer-instrumentalists, clever rod and shadow puppets, and a charming scenic design suggesting woodcuts and cut-paper silhouettes. The core of the show is the live music by guitarist Michael Smith, composed mainly in a folk-rock vein with occasional forays into soul and western swing. Director-choreographer Jim Corti has sharpened the narrative this fourth time around, highlighting both the humor and mystery in Hans Christian Andersen's 1845 parable about how devotion can melt a frozen heart. —Albert Williams
Through 12/27: Sat 3 and 7:30 PM, Sun 3 PM, Victory Gardens Theater, 2433 N. Lincoln, 773-871-3000, victorygardens.org, $20-$48. C
Those Silly Reindeer Jack the Bird and LeeLee the Christmas Tree set out to find Holli the Snow Princess to save Christmas in this children's musical presented by Lil Buds Theatere Company.
Through 12/27: Sat-Sun 1 PM, Greenhouse Theater, 2257 N. Lincoln, 773-371-1810, lilbudstheatre.org, $10-$15. C
A Very Merry Unauthorized Children's Scientology Pageant Decades ago, grade-school kids performed on what is now the Next Theatre stage, so there's a sense of deja vu as eight preteens enact Kyle Jarrow's wicked parody-ritual. Kathryn Walsh's staging doesn't stop at mocking L. Ron Hubbard and Scientology's celebration of cult-like "reason." With its smug certainties and self-serving creation myth, this 65-minute pageant also spoofs Nativity reenactments and passion plays. Familiarity somehow defies contempt, though, and the show comes across as an ecclesiastical infomercial. A Red Orchid Theatre's competing version delivers a much more equivocal ending, but both productions present salvation on the cheap—never more simplistic than out of the mouths of babes. —Lawrence Bommer
Through 1/3: Thu 7:30 PM, Fri-Sat 8 PM, Sun 2 PM, no show 12/24 or 12/25, Noyes Cultural Arts Center, 927 Noyes, Evanston, 847-475-1875, ext. 2, nexttheatre.org, $15-$25.
A Very Merry Unauthorized Children's Scientology Pageant The life and teachings of Church of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard get the Sunday school Christmas pageant treatment in this hilarious 2003 comedy by Kyle Jarrow and Alex Timbers. All religions have their mysteries, but Scientology is especially secretive, perhaps because its intergalactic-space-opera underpinnings are especially weird. Jarrow makes the whole system look like a ridiculously elaborate scheme to separate the gullible from their savings, simply by presenting Hubbard's ideas as earnestly as possible. And because the show is cast with actual children—a hugely appealing group of them in Steve Wilson's staging for A Red Orchid Theatre—it manages the rare feat of being scathing and adorable at the same time. —Zac Thompson
Through 1/17: Thu-Sat 8 PM, Sun 3 PM, Fri-Sun starting 1/3, A Red Orchid Theatre, 1531 N. Wells, 312-943-8722, $15-$25.
Whining in the Windy City: Holiday Edition You don't want to get on Jackie Hoffman's bad side, but there doesn't seem to be any alternative. In town to play Grandma in The Addams Family, the former Second City ensemble member is performing this one-woman-and-an-amiable-goy-pianist show on the side. It's ostensibly about the tribulations of being Jewish during Christmas, but Hoffman immediately branches out to attack pretty much everything and everybody—Jews definitely included. She can be just plain mean, as when she goes through a stack of end-of-the-year charity appeal letters, ripping up missives from the likes of UNICEF. She can also take issues like her inadequate role in The Addams Family beyond the point of amusement. But more often than not, her apparently complete lack of social filters is exhilarating. She reminds me of those blue comediennes who used to make records for stag parties—especially when she's riffing on talking dirty in front of in-laws. She can be endearingly chauvinistic about the fact that Jews wrote all the good Christmas songs, but she doesn't back down from salting her own people's wounds, either. All in all, it's a gleefully nasty rush. Just one thing: be sure to turn off your cell phone. If it rings during her show, she'll rip you a new one. —Tony Adler
Through 1/4: Mon 7:30 PM, no show 12/28, Royal George Theatre Center, 1641 N. Halsted, 312-988-9000, theroyalgeorgetheatre.com, $25. C
A Dickens Carol, It's a Wonderful Life, and nine more new stage shows
Ten top picks for holiday cheer
A Christmas Twist
Tagged: Christmas, Holiday, performance, theater, Vol. 39 No. 14


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Despicable Me 3 (2017)
Despicable Me 3 DVD and Blu-ray release date was set for December 5, 2017 and available on Digital HD from Amazon Video and iTunes on November 21, 2017.
Rating: 4.2/5 (223 users) *Please help rate
$264.6 mil
Genre(s): Action, Adventure, Comedy, Family, Animation
Nev Scharrel
Kyle Balda
Janet Healy
Christopher Meledandri
Come along as the ever exciting and hilarious adventures of Gru continue in this third Despicable Me film. In this 3D computer animated movie, Gru finds himself facing off with Balthazar Blatt. Balthazar was a childhood star from the 80's who has become obsessed with the character that he once played and is now on an epic quest for world domination. To add to the drama, Gru also becomes engaged in sibling rivalry after he discovers the existence of a long lost twin brother, named Dru.
3D Blu-ray + Blu-ray + Digital HD
4K UHD + Blu-ray
Leap!

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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Werner Rataiczyk (né le  à Eisleben et mort le  à Halle-sur-Saale) est un peintre allemand.

Biographie
Après un apprentissage comme graphiste illustrateur, il fait son service militaire en 1940 puis est soldat de 1941 à 1945 en Afrique du Nord et en Italie. Prisonnier de guerre des Britanniques, il fait des études dans le camp de Fayed auprès de Georg Roppel et Gerhard Wendland. En 1947, il peut rentrer en Allemagne et étudie jusqu'en 1952 à l'école des beaux-arts de Halle au château de Giebichenstein auprès d'Erwin Hahs. Après son diplôme, il est admis à l'Association des artistes visuels de RDZ (VBKD) en 1952. Il s'installe dans la ville.

Déjà au début des années 1950, la réduction de ses objets picturaux le conduit à l'abstraction dans sa peinture.

En 1952, il épouse Rosemarie Rost. Ils donneront naissance aux peintres Rosemarie Rataiczyk et Matthias Rataiczyk.

De 1966 jusqu'au milieu des années 1970, il travaille sur la lithographie puis construit son propre atelier de lithographie. Entre 1966 et 1992, il conçoit des vitraux pour les églises catholiques et protestantes ainsi que des bâtiments laïcs.

Notes et références

Liens externes

Peintre allemand du XXe siècle
Peintre allemand du XXIe siècle
Peintre abstrait
Naissance en juin 1921
Naissance à Eisleben
Décès à Halle-sur-Saale
Décès à 99 ans
Décès en janvier 2021

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


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Disney's Acquisition Of Fox Likely Puts Future 'Alien' Movies In Jeopardy
Posted by Dylan Chaundy | Aug 13, 2018 | Film, Fresh Topics, Hot, News | 1 |
It's been an emotional rollercoaster ride for fans of the iconic Xenomorph, especially for those who got a kick out of Ridley Scott's latest prequel instalments, 2012's Prometheus and 2017's Alien: Covenant. Though both films resonated fairly well with critics and a subsection of the fanbase, a vocal chunk of fans walked away from both pics disappointed in its new AI-centric, origin-of-life direction.
The truth is, however, there are still a multitude of fans—like myself—who are absolutely crying out to see a conclusion to Scott's prequels and David's sinister character arc. Frankly, to leave the series on such a tantalising cliffhanger would be a slap in the face to all devotees of that perfect organism we've all grown up to love.
As you're probably already aware, Disney has successfully outbid Comcast in acquiring Fox's film and TV assets. Fresh news has just come in, however, and it's not looking good for fans of the iconic space monster.
Courtesy of The Wall Street Journal, the Mouse House is looking to drastically scale back production and downsize budgets for Fox films that don't "fit their family-friendly, franchise-focused formula." It sounds like this will unfortunately affect future Alien movies, with Alien: Covenant's sequel in particular falling prey to this new business philosophy.
"Unlike its sibling television studio, Fox's movie studio is expected to be significantly downsized once the deal is complete. Disney will likely take over Fox's two biggest film franchises, Avatar and the X-Men, and scale back production of costly movies that don't fit its family-friendly, franchise-focused formula, people close to both companies have said. Until the deal is done, however, Fox is obligated to keep acting as if it will survive, people who work at the studio say, which means making movies and developing new ideas with no certainty as to what Disney will end up doing with them."
Ridley Scott's third, and most likely, final instalment in the prequel films would've been dubbed Alien: Awakening, and was planned to dovetail into the beginning of 1979's Alien classic, perhaps explaining how the original derelict spacecraft crash-landed on LV-426. Unfortunately, for the time being, it's looking increasingly unlikely that we'll see a proper conclusion to Scott's Alien origin movies, which makes us incredibly sad. But how do you feel about the news? Chime in and let us know!
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Dylan Chaundy
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Paul	on August 15, 2018 at 10:57 am
OMG! Now this would be a disaster, i almost can't believe this news


This book has to do with the Tabernacle of Congregation described in the Old Testament. We trust that the Lord Jesus will give the reader the Spirit of understanding and revelation, renewing your mind in Him; and that He will feed you with His holy body and blood so Christ may be formed in you.
Although there are references to the Tabernacle of the Congregation in several places in the Scriptures, particularly in Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers, a good place to begin studying is the Book of Exodus, starting with Chapter 25 and going through to the end of Exodus.
Two guidelines should be kept in mind when interpreting scriptural symbols, or types, as they are called. The first guideline is this: look at the symbol in a general way, and then turn away and allow the Holy Spirit to cause the main truth to rise to the surface. Look at a scriptural type out of the corner of your eye, so to speak.
Do not focus too long on specifics, trying to force an interpretation from every detail. Pray and ask the Holy Spirit for understanding. The spiritual truth will rise from the general shape of the facts.
One should not pursue a type too far. For example, the wilderness wandering of the Israelites is a type of the Christian discipleship. But we should not take each kind of shrub and animal found in the Sinai wilderness and apply it to some part of the Christian experience.
The Passover lamb of Exodus, Chapter 12 is a type of Christ. But we cannot apply each part of the animal, or its disposition, to our Lord Jesus except in the manner specifically set forth in the Scripture. The Lord Jesus is not always lamblike in behavior.
Christians are compared to a flock of sheep, in one setting, and to a fierce, disciplined army, in another setting.
The second guideline for interpreting scriptural symbols is as follows: there should be a direct New Testament reference for every interpretation of a scriptural type. We must always compare Scripture with Scripture. In many instances the writers of the New Testament emphasize the significance of Old Testament types and shadows.
When we state that the bronze Altar of Burnt Offering of the Tabernacle represents the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross, and that He was offered there for our sins, there should be teaching in the new Testament stating that Christ is the offering for our sins. Of course, there is such teaching.
If we claim that the black goats' hair tent over the Tabernacle represents sin in our flesh, and that the rams' skins dyed red over the tent signifies that the blood of Jesus justifies us in the sight of God, then there should be statements in the New Testament declaring that the blood of Christ keeps us free from condemnation. There are such statements.
The types of the Scriptures are not intended to be rigid symbols that a student can pursue, building from them a system of interpretation. Rather, types provide for us a momentary glimpse, as it were, of a particular spiritual truth. In another setting, or at another time in our own Christian experience, the Holy Spirit may reveal to us a different spiritual application of the same set of material facts.
Perhaps the most effective way in which to gain understanding of the Kingdom of God from the scriptural types and shadows is to approach the Scriptures in a reverent, obedient attitude, looking always to the Holy Spirit for wisdom and knowledge in the things of Christ.
To summarize: (1) Do not force the interpretation of a scriptural symbol or type in a detailed manner using an intellectual approach; and (2) Make sure you have New Testament statements for your beliefs. Ask guidance from the Holy Spirit of God.
All teaching that proceeds from the Holy Spirit is pure, peaceful, gentle, full of compassion and good fruits. The Holy Spirit always brings us to Christ and always creates in us love, joy, peace, and purity of conduct, speech, and thinking. The Holy Spirit never leads us into fear, gloom, or despair.
Get ready to march victoriously with us through the study of the Tabernacle of the Congregation, with the Lord Jesus Christ at the head, bringing each of us to total dominion over everything in our lives that is keeping us from the fullness of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.
1. Moses' tent, which was pitched far off from the camp (Exodus 33:7-11). This tent is termed "the Tabernacle of the congregation" (Exodus 33:7); but according to our understanding, it is not to be confused with the actual Tabernacle of the Congregation that was set up later (Exodus 40:17). Not much is said about Moses' tent except that it was the place where the Lord talked with Moses. It served until the Lord enabled the Israelites to construct a tabernacle in keeping with the pattern He had in mind.
2. The Tabernacle of the Congregation (Tent of Meeting), which is the subject of this study. It was the structure that had the linen fence, the Altar of Burnt Offering, the golden Lampstand, the Ark of the Covenant, the Holy and Most Holy Places, and the rest of the elements with which many Christians are familiar. Chapter 40 of the Book of Exodus tells about the setting up of the Tabernacle of the Congregation.
Although we use the term Tabernacle of the Congregation because of its frequent use in the King James translation of the Scriptures, the Tabernacle was not a tabernacle, or dwelling place, for the congregation of Israel. The Tabernacle was the dwelling place of God, a tabernacle for the Lord. And the Lord did dwell in the Tabernacle.
When referring to the congregation of Israel, the term Tent of Meeting is preferred. The Israelites gathered at the Tent of Meeting for a meeting with their Lord. But the Israelites did not dwell, or tabernacle, there.
The Tabernacle, which the King James refers to as the Tabernacle of the Congregation, actually was the place of God's residence on the earth. This was especially true of the Holy of Holies (Most Holy Place) of the Tabernacle.
The term Tabernacle of the Congregation is in such common usage that we have kept this name when referring to the structure built in the Sinai wilderness, according to the pattern revealed to Moses on Mount Sinai. But the student should keep in mind that the correct terminology is Tent of Meeting, when referring to the congregation of Israel; and Tabernacle, when referring to the dwelling place of the Lord.
To be even more precise, the linen curtain that formed the ceiling of the Holy Place and Most Holy Place, and was draped over the gold-covered boards, was the dwelling place of the Lord, the actual Tabernacle. The goats' hair Tent was then pitched over the linen material; and there were two more layers of material covering the Tent.
3. The Tabernacle of David, a tent that David set up in Zion, which was a city located on one of the hills within the area of Jerusalem. Inside the tent of David was the Ark of the Covenant, which had become separated from the Holy of Holies of the Tabernacle of the Congregation because of the ignorance and wickedness of Israel.
Perhaps the Lord will give us understanding concerning the fulfillment of the symbolism that has to do with the separating of the Ark of the Covenant from the Tabernacle of the Congregation, and concerning the prophecy of Amos and the interpretation that James put on this prophecy during the convention of the apostles and elders of the early Church.
4. The Temple of Solomon, that followed the same general design as the Tabernacle of the Congregation but was greatly enlarged and made more elaborate with costly ornamentation. The Temple of Solomon suffered much at the hands of the nations that attacked a sinful Israel, after the death of Solomon. The Temple was destroyed because the invaders wanted the precious metals and jewels of the Temple and because the Temple was a rallying point and center of national pride for Israel.
The Temple was rebuilt after the captivity (Ezra 6:15), and again by King Herod in the first century B.C. It was Herod's Temple that was standing during the ministry of Jesus and the early Apostles. The Temple of Herod was demolished by the Romans in 70 A.D.
5. Ezekiel's temple, described in Ezekiel, Chapters 40-48. Although there are many detailed descriptions of the parts of Ezekiel's temple, it appears that it is to be understood spiritually. There is a possibility that Ezekiel's temple represents the Church of Christ during the thousand-year Kingdom Age (Millennium). Yet it cannot be that the animal sacrifices will be restored, now that the one perfect Lamb of God has been offered as the eternal sacrifice for sin.
Perhaps the Spirit of God was presenting through Ezekiel a vision of the reign of Christ in the only terms in which the Hebrews of Ezekiel's day, whose entire spiritual life was involved in animal sacrifices, could understand the wonders associated with the coming of Christ.
It appears that the Scripture is not clear as to the exact relationship between the spirit realm and the physical realm during the thousand-year Kingdom Age. We do not know, for example, whether the saints of God will rule in bodies on the earth, or as spirits from Heaven as Jesus rules us today; or—which seems most likely—in some combination of these two. The description of the Temple of God in the Book of Ezekiel has this half-heavenly, half-earthly quality. So perhaps it has to do with the Kingdom of God during the Millennium.
We do know that Christ and the saints will govern the earth for one thousand years. The Scriptures are clear concerning this rulership. But just how the saints are to rule is not described in detail. Perhaps Ezekiel's temple shows some of the aspects that will be true during the Millennium, when there is a situation in which flesh and blood people are being ruled by saints who are living in resurrection life. It seems we will have to wait on the Holy Spirit for further understanding before we have more to say concerning Ezekiel's temple.
We believe the Lord has revealed to us the meaning of Ezekiel's temple. Let the reader judge.
It seems to us that the first chapter of Ezekiel, the vision of the Lord, refers not only to the Lord Himself but also to the image of glorified man—since man is made in the image of God.
The description of Ezekiel's temple, beginning in Chapter Forty and continuing through the remainder of the book has to do with the construction of the inner personality of the saint. The stone tables and implements for the sacrifice refer to that which is created within the disciple so he always is ready to offer his sacrifice to God. The guard rooms emphasize the fact that the Christian always must post a guard against the enemy.
The repeated measurings are familiar to the saint who knows well how God keeps judging every thought, word, and action until the Divine standard is met. The water that flows in increasing levels indicates the progress of the believer in the Spirit-filled life until he or she becomes a tree of life, ready to bring God's Glory to the multitudes found in the saved nations.
When one dances lightly on the text this type of truth seems to emerge. The name of the city for eternity will be, "The Lord is there." This name can apply only to the Church, the Wife of the Lamb, the new Jerusalem.
In any case, there never will be another blood sacrifice that God will honor now that God's own Son has died on the cross for our sins.
6. The Lord Jesus Christ, the eternal dwelling place of God. In Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. He is the Tabernacle, the Temple, of God. God the Father has His eternal abode in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Adam was created by the Lord God; but the Scripture never refers to Adam as the dwelling place of God. Christ is the dwelling place of God and we Christians also are referred to in the Scripture as the habitation of God (Ephesians 2:22).
7. The new Jerusalem, the seventh and final form of the house of God. The new Jerusalem is the Body of Christ, the Wife of the Lamb, the glorified Christian Church (Revelation 21,22). When each member of the Body of Christ has come into perfect union with the Head, Christ, and when the members of the Body are filled with the Glory of God and flow together in perfect unity, then the Head and the Body will be the perfect and eternal house of God, the Temple of God, the dwelling place of God and the Lamb forever, ages without end.
The eternal Temple of God, Christ—Head and Body, the Lamb and His Wife, the new Jerusalem.
We may use the term house of God today to refer to a building in which Christians assemble for worship and ministry. However, this is only a figure of speech because God lives in the worshipers themselves, never in the buildings in which they assemble.
But in the seven forms of the house of God we have just mentioned, God actually placed, or shall place, His glory there. The Israelites could behold with their eyes the Glory of God resting on the Tabernacle of the Congregation.
In our study of the second of the seven houses, the Tabernacle of the Congregation, we must grasp the fact that the Tabernacle literally was the house of God. The Creator, God Almighty, actually dwelled between the cherubim in the Holy of Holies. God spoke to Moses there and Moses spoke directly to God.
Anyone who dared to enter the Holy Place, other than the priests in the strict observance of their appointed duties, would have been slain instantly by the glory of the Presence of the Lord.
Do you begin to feel the awesome holiness of the house of God? The Presence of the Lord in their midst set the Israelites apart from every other nation on the earth.
We will be going over several areas of study: the general plan of the Tabernacle, including the materials used; the seven pieces of furniture; the boards, sockets and bars; the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies; the Veil; the linen curtain; the tent; the coverings; the door; the gate; the linen fence; the work of the priests and Levites; the order of Israel on the march; the history of the Tabernacle of the Congregation; and the history of the Ark of the Covenant.
These physical elements will be interpreted as referring to the Lord Jesus Christ, to the Christian disciple, to the Body of Christ, and to the Kingdom of God.
The physical description of the parts, furnishings and details of the Tabernacle. This is the factual knowledge of the object or incident in the material realm. The people, objects, and history of the Old Testament were real people and actual things and happenings. We will include, in some instances, a brief comment on the significance of the items.
The Person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. All of the types and symbols of the Scriptures reveal the Person and redemptive work of the Lord Jesus, and the Tabernacle and its parts are no exception.
The history of the Christian Church. The order in which God gave to Moses the directions concerning the parts of the Tabernacle provides a history, in type, of the developing of the Church.
The redemption of the believer. The maturing of the Christian is an orderly process. The order of the seven furnishings, commencing with the Altar of Burnt Offering, typifies the seven fundamental aspects of the plan of salvation as a person moves from total chaos of personality all the way to the Throne of God.
The Body of Christ. There is a Divine plan for bringing to perfection the Christian Church, the Body of Christ. The order of the seven furnishings, commencing with the Altar of Burnt Offering, portrays the growth of the Christian Church from collections of saved believers to the Body of Christ, the holy city, the new Jerusalem, the Wife of the Lamb.
The Kingdom of God. The design of the Tabernacle reveals the plan for the setting up of the Kingdom of God on the earth.
Can you say from memory the six areas of study we encounter as we begin to work with the parts of the Tabernacle of the Congregation?
The Tabernacle of the Congregation is one of the major (if not the major) types of God's dealings with us in His plan of redemption. The people and incidents of the Scriptures really existed and took place on the earth. There are other great allegories in literature in which spiritual concepts are conveyed, such as Pilgrim's Progress, which are not true historical accounts. But the holy Scriptures set forth an accurate record of actual people, places and happenings.
The Tabernacle of the Congregation was a large tent set up in the wilderness region between Egypt and Canaan. That area is a hot, desolate countryside.
At the time of the setting up of the Tabernacle, approximately fifteen hundred years before Christ, there were two or three million Israelites, plus a mixed multitude, following Moses on the pilgrimage from Egyptian slavery to the land of milk and honey. Exodus 12:37 informs us that there were six hundred thousand men on foot and their families.
They were flesh-and-blood people who brought along their struggling animals, sheep, goats and cattle, some of which were to be offered later by the priests on the bronze Altar of Burnt Offering. It was a hot, messy, smelly undertaking overshadowed by sacrificial death, like our own Christian life. But then there was the Glory of God before them and with them, just like our own resurrection life in Christ.
The Israelites could see the cloud going before them during the daytime marches, and the pillar of fire directing the way at night. The pilgrimage of these millions of people remains one of the most significant and astonishing events of world history.


For an updated copy of the course syllabus click here.
This course explores a representative sample of philosophical topics, such as God's existence, human freedom, the relationship between mind and body, and the nature of time.
In part 1, we will scrutinize arguments that philosophers have formulated to demonstrate the existence of God.
In part 2, we will ask whether human freedom and moral responsibility still have a role to play in a world governed by the laws of modern physics.
In part 3, we will explore what constitutes our identity as persons and the relationship between mind, consciousness and matter.
In part 4, we will investigate the nature of time and change, in particular, whether time and change are mere constructions of our minds.
A set of introductory slides is available here.


My dissertation examines the "Indian Problem" in the twentieth century as a transnational phenomenon across the Américas. I focus on the hemispheric struggle to reconcile indigeneity and nationalism in the twentieth century by examining the history of the Inter-American Indian Institute (IAII) from the 1930s to the 1960s. Using the IAII as a framework I trace the multi-level attempts to reconcile indigenous bodies into nation states, the creation and maintenance of transnational Native and non-Native political and intellectual networks, as well as examine repeated moments of resistance and dissent.


I am currently in the midst of a bible study that I just have to share with you all. Anne Graham Lotz has written a bible study for the book of Revelation called "The Vision of His Glory." During my study session this week, we viewed a video presentation of Anne Graham Lotz which revealed to me that when I lose my love for Jesus, nothing will be satisfying. It was powerful stuff. Anne specifically points out that we become so consumed in busyness, pride, and weakness that we lose our love for Jesus.
If I woke up each morning and repeated that to myself, how do you think that might change my day? You see I spend a lot of time speaking to myself (in my mind) in a negative way. I can be my own worst enemy. I allow myself to get caught up in the world and because of that my love for Jesus is devoured by my own mind. I fall into the trap of living my life to please others, and I forget all about God. My goal is to change that mindset.
Revelation is telling me that God has plans for me to sit right next to Him in heaven. I will receive the crown of Jesus. If I live to please others and constantly worry about what others would do or think, then I am allowing them to steal my crown.
This reveals to me that God knows that I will struggle here on earth. God knows the obstacles that I must overcome to do His Will. He acknowledges that my weakness will make it difficult to fight the battle. BUT He will be there to reward me for pushing aside sin and doing His Will.
Many of us mistakenly think (me included here) that life as a Christian should be easy. We think that when we go to church, volunteer for good works, and read scripture that God will ensure nothing bad happens. If you read my blog yesterday, you know that just isn't true. We WILL have obstacles when we are doing God's work. The book of Revelation tells us that. Revelation also tells us that we will be rewarded for listening and paying attention to God's Will. That reward will be eternal life with God. Anne Graham Lotz says in her video that "Eternal life is knowing God. Jesus didn't die on the cross to give you a free ticket to heaven." Think about that statement. Jesus died on the cross so that our sins would be forgiven, but he showed us in that death that there is suffering involved when we do God's work. His death wasn't pleasant. He didn't die quickly. No – he suffered and died. He suffered with beatings, mocking and humiliation. He died with hundreds upon hundreds of people watching his body slowly say that it could take no more. I don't even like to be sick with people around. I cannot imagine going through the suffering that Jesus did in front of hundreds of people.
Life as a Christian is not meant to be easy. Eternal life will be granted to each of us, but there will be suffering involved. What Anne Graham Lotz stresses in this study is that we need a relationship with God in order to get through this suffering. Just going to church, volunteering and doing what we think is God's Will is not enough. We need to spend time with God everyday to develop and strengthen our relationship with Him. We must return to our love of Christ.
You see, God is telling you He will be with you if you just open the door and spend time with Him. So instead of negative chatter in your brain, start telling yourself the Truth. God has called you for a purpose. He wants you to be attentive and listen. He wants to help you through your day.
This entry was posted in Faith, Family, God, Jesus, Religion, Social Justice, Uncategorized, Women and Christianity and tagged Anne Graham Lotz, eternal life, Jesus, love, Revelation, struggle, trials. Bookmark the permalink.


Cherry Brandy Take the finest Morell Cherries, prick them with a large needle, and cut them off the stalk leave about 1/2 an inch, put them into a wide mouthed bottle, with a little less than 3 quarters of 1 lb of the finest loaf sugar powdered to a lb of Cherries, put in layers of the sugar between the Cherries, fill the bottle up with fresh Brandy. One bottle of Brandy will fill 3 of Cherries. Currant Jelly Slip the Currants, put them in a jar, and set them in a saucepan, pour the juice through a sieve, hot squeeze the Currants, put 3/4 lb of loaf sugar, put it in a preserving jar, and when it get hot, skim it well, boil it till it jellies, which may be known by putting a little to cool in a spoon. Brine for Beef 1 gallon of water, 1 lb and 1/4 of coarse salt, 1 lb of bay salt, 1 lb of coarse sugar, 1/4 lb salt petre.


ADA — Ohio Northern University has added esports as its 24th varsity sport and will begin competition in the fall of 2019.
Head coach Troy Chiefari has put together a frequently asked questions page for fans and players to help familiarize themselves with the Polar Bears esports teams.
Click the above link for the complete esports FAQ page.


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MELBOURNE ISUZU DEALER GETS BEHIND CHARITY
Melbourne- Isuzu dealer Westar Truck Centre and demolition company Delta Group have announced they have teamed up to lend their support to Flicker of Hope, a charity foundation that works to raise awareness of neurofibromatosis and funds for treatment research.
Neurofibromatosis is a little-known genetic disorder that affects 1 in 2,500 people worldwide, and about 10,000 Australians are living with the condition.
Neurofibromatosis affects people in different ways. A key symptom includes tumours that develop on nerve endings in the body. Those affected by neurofibromatosis can also present with comorbidities such as chronic pain, blindness, deafness, learning difficulties, epilepsy and cancer.
Zoe Petropoulos, 18 years old and ambassador for Flicker of Hope
Zoe Petropoulos, ambassador for Flicker of Hope, was diagnosed with neurofibromatosis at just three months old. Knowledge of the condition is incredibly limited, both publicly and in the scientific community. This inspired her, now 18 years old and in her final year of VCE, to create Flicker of Hope.
"We set up the charity in September last year to make people aware of this condition and raise funds to go into much-needed treatments. At the moment there are no standard treatments for neurofibromatosis.
"Through the charity, we are hoping to raise enough money to formulate a drug trial in Melbourne and Sydney," Ms Petropoulos said.
"The trial drug is designed to help contain tumour growth. If we can raise $1 million over a five-year period, we'll be able to get the trial underway here.
"We need $500,000 just to get things started. We have $300,000 so far, thanks to the generosity of our supporters, meaning hopefully we'll have enough to get started and help people with this drug."
Zoe Petropoulos's father, Con Petropoulos, is the founder and managing director of Delta Group, and together they reached out to their key transport supplier, Westar Trucks, for support.
Jason Cugley, sales \manager at Westar, said the dealership is committed to continuing their support for Flicker of Hope over the next decade, providing vehicles, donations and support for causes and events.
"When we heard about Zoe and her condition, we thought it was an excellent cause that we could really get behind," Mr Cugley said.
"We want to continue our support in helping Zoe and the Flicker of Hope team secure the further $500,000 they need to raise.
"We've had a great relationship with Delta over the years and we're proud to extend our support wherever we can."
In support of the foundation, Mr Cugley and Westar have helped supply Delta Group with two striking new Isuzu FYX 350 10×4 tippers sporting the Flicker of Hope logo, helping to raise neurofibromatosis awareness on the streets of Melbourne.
If you are interested in supporting Flicker of Hope, you can follow the foundation on Facebook for upcoming events or news. Their website also contains a link to donate to their cause.
But for Flicker of Hope, the main goal is to simply spread the word.
"We need the public to be aware of this condition, that it exists and there are Australians battling with it every day," Ms Petropoulos said.
Isuzu News
PACCAR REPORTS SURGE IN FIRST QUARTER GLOBAL PROFITS
April 26, 2018 Jon Thomson Truck and Bus News
Paccar has reported its best-ever first quarter global revenue and profits this week revealing a 65 per cent increase in overall earnings compared with the first quarter in 2017. The company which produces Peterbilt, Kenworth […]
IT'S A TIME FOR RHYME – NTI SAYS THANKS TO AUSSIE TRUCKIES WITH POETRY
Leading truck insurer, NTI has teamed up with Australian poet Rupert McCall to launch a national campaign to thank truck drivers, cargo and warehouse personnel, construction workers and all those keeping Australiamoving during the coronavirus […]
SHELL TAKES A LONG HARD LOOK AT THE FUTURE OF FUELS
December 3, 2019 Jon Thomson Truck and Bus News
Shell has hosted a series of speakers in the USA to outline the fast pace of technological change coming to both the truck and energy sectors, and highlighting the ways they will transform society, business, […]


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Let us first of all deconstruct what might be termed the myth of 'scientific method' as this is currently understood: a set of rational procedures guaranteed to eliminate mere dogma from 'true' scientific knowledge, distinguish empirical fact from mere belief or hypothesis. So what exactly defines modern scientific 'method' – that set of criteria for so-called 'evidence-based' research designed to defend institutionalized science from mere empty supposition or pseudo-science? The method for establishing scientific 'evidence' understands itself as a five-stage process involving:
1. Observation and description of a phenomenon.
2. Formulation of a hypothesis that explains the phenomenon.
3. Use of the hypothesis to predict other phenomena.
4. Controlled experiments designed to test these predictions.
5. Validation of the 'evidence' offered by these results by independent researchers.
The first and most important questions raised by this self-definition are those it notably fails to address. The questions are:
1. What counts as a phenomenon in the first place?
2. What account is given of the phenomenon itself?
3. In what ways can the phenomenon be accounted for?
These questions are of fundamental methodological significance, for as Heidegger points out: "All explanation reaches only so far as the explication of that which is to be explained."
Heidegger himself gives several examples of phenomena to which the questions apply, amongst them "grief and tears". Before we can formulate and confirm a 'scientific' hypothesis to explain the phenomenon of 'tears' for example, we must first ask ourselves what the phenomenon itself essentially is. Within the modern scientific method however, what counts as a phenomenon is above all that which is countable – measurable. To which Heidegger counters: "In reality you can never measure tears; rather when you measure, it is at best a fluid and its drops that you measure, but not tears."
Are tears a somatic phenomenon, a psychical phenomenon or a 'psychosomatic' phenomenon – the somatic effect of a psychical phenomenon such as 'grief'? If so, does that mean that the somatic fluid drops produced by an irritated and watering eye are just as much tears as those produced by a person weeping in grief, i.e. essentially the same phenomenon except with a different 'cause'? The fact that 'scientifically' speaking, we refer to 'tear ducts' as physiological givens, implies as much. The physiological designation sets aside the fundamental methodological question of what constitutes the phenomenon of tears as such – in distinction from other phenomena such as over-watering eyes. Before any possible hypotheses can be vouched or experiments ventured, therefore, the modern scientific method has already given its own dogmatic answers to the three fundamental methodological questions:
1. What counts as a phenomenon is only that which we can observe outwardly – measurable fluid drops produced by the eyes.
2. Our account of what tears are as a phenomenon will make no distinction between weeping in grief and watering eyes.
3. We can account for tears only by suggesting mechanisms of either physiological or 'psychosomatic' causation.
What possible experiment however, could be devised that would provide 'reliable' quantitative evidence of a causal relation between a psychic state such as grief and its somatic expression in tears? We would first of all have to be in a position to 'measure' grief. Heidegger again: "How does one measure grief? One obviously can't measure it at all. Why not? Were one to apply a method of measurement to grief we would offend against the meaning of grief and would have already ruled out in advance the grief as grief. The very attempt to measure would offend against the phenomenon as phenomenon."
Heidegger goes on to emphasise that the fact that we speak of someone grieving less or more intensely, does not mean we are speaking of a measurable quantity of grief, but rather of its quality. We are referring to qualitative depth and intensity. As for the tears that can supposedly be accounted for as something 'caused' by grief, we are once again offending against the phenomenon as phenomenon. Tears as tears – as expressions of sadness or unhappiness, pain or grief are not a physical phenomenon that we first observe and then account for, scientifically or otherwise. We do not first see drops of water in a person's eyes, then conclude, from the circumstance, that they are grieving and therefore understand them to be weeping in grief. The immediately observed phenomenon is not fluid drops in a person's eyes but a person weeping – not an isolated physical perception but a perceptual whole or gestalt. It is only through abstraction from this gestalt – from the phenomenon as a phenomenon – that we arrive at an account of what 'tears' are that reduce them to something 'psychical' or 'somatic'. An account of the phenomenon that then demands explanatory accounting for in terms of some 'mechanism' of psychosomatic 'causation'.
Heidegger goes on to question how things stand with the phenomenon of pain, comparing for example the pain of grief with bodily pain of some sort.
"How do things stand regarding both these 'pains'? Are both somatic or oth psychical, or is only the one somatic and the other psychical, or are both pains neither one nor the other?"
Any account we might give in such terms of pain as a phenomenon, or any typology of pain phenomena we might construct – distinguishing somatic and emotional pain, real and imaginary pain etc. would both immediately foreclose the question of what the phenomenon itself – pain as such – essentially is. But the question of what pain itself essentially is and how it can be accounted for is not the object of any possible experiment. It is first and foremost a question of what it means to us to 'be in pain' i.e. the different ways (mental, emotional and physical) in which we are aware of being in pain, and the different ways in which we interpret, emotionalise and embody pain as a state of being.
The modern scientific method rules out in advance as possible objects of scientific investigation all phenomena that cannot be reduced to observable and measurable sensory 'phenomena' such as 'tear' drops or electrical 'pain' signals. In doing so it rules out any genuinely empirical approach to phenomena as such – any exploration of the way we actually experience those phenomenon. But that is precisely the task of any genuinely empirical, genuinely phenomenological science.
Whilst science is itself a human activity which assumes the existence of aware human beings capable of creating hypotheses and testing them through experimental observations and measurements, the modern scientific method cannot so much as prove the existence of single human being – as opposed to a talking body-object. Nor can it provide evidence for a single state of being such as love or fear, grief or pain, joy or sadness, or for the scientist's own taken-for-granted awareness of the world – the condition for their observation and measurement of any phenomenon whatsoever. After all, from a physical-scientific viewpoint, instruments can be used to measure and observe things without us assuming any awareness on their part – so the same applies to the scientists using those instruments. From a modern scientific point of view, as Heidegger put it quite simply: "One cannot prove that one exists."
For all his attachment to the modern scientific world outlook, Freud would not even have dreamt of searching for the 'causes' of a particular dream event or phenomenon in some other event or phenomena occurring in the same dream – seeking to explain for example, how a dream monster was 'caused' by a dream thunderstorm. And yet we do something similar whenever we look for the causes of a given phenomenon or event in some other phenomena or event occurring within the same field or context of emergence.
The basic 'law' of phenomenological science runs directly counter to the law of causality. It is the understanding that no phenomenon or event can be reduced to or explained by other phenomena occurring in the same field or context of emergence. Even in everyday, waking life, we do not isolate a phenomenon such as 'wetness', identify a 'cause' for it, and think to ourselves "the rain caused me to get wet". Rather, what we immediately experience is not an isolated phenomenon such as wetness but a larger holistic event of "getting wet in the rain", or "forgetting my umbrella and getting wet in the rain" or "waking up late, leaving the house in an anxious rush, forgetting my umbrella and getting wet in the rain on the way to an important meeting with my bank manager." In doing so we are not positing an 'initial' cause of our wetness in a hypothetically unending temporal chain of causes and effects. On the contrary, we experience our wetness in a larger temporal context that includes not only significant past events (getting up late) but future ones – that anxiously anticipated meeting with the bank manager. Our immediate experience of the phenomenon of wetness is the immediate experience of an event that is essentially constituted by its own larger context of emergence.
Heidegger's basic phenomenological rule – that our "explanation" of a phenomenon can reach only so far as our "explication" of the phenomena to be explained – has a direct bearing on the principle of causal explanation. Our explication of a phenomenon is determined by the way we first of all isolate it within a field or context of appearance. Thus we can isolate the observed production of tear drops, regard them as a phenomenon and then erect the 'scientific' hypothesis that this is the causal result of a person's emotional state. Alternatively, however, instead of reducing the observed phenomenon to a purely physical one occurring in the here and now, we can say that what we immediately observe as a phenomenon is not the production of tear drops but a person crying. Rather than attempting to identify the 'causes' of this crying we will then attempt to understand the crying within a larger context. Doing so does not merely allow us to better 'explain' some now already established phenomenon. It allows us to experience the phenomenon itself in a new way – not simply as "a person crying" but as this person crying in this particular situation and in those particular circumstances that surround it.
We are now in a better position to understand what Heidegger means by the terms "explication" and "explanation", and to suggest what meaning they hold, not just in the context of the physical sciences and their methodology but in the framework of phenomenological science and the phenomenological method. From a phenomenological perspective "explication" refers to the "reach" of our initial experience of a phenomenon as an event – the extent to which our experience of this event already embraces its own larger spatio-temporal context of occurrence. It makes a difference, for example, whether we reduce both our experience and our explication of an event to an isolated phenomenon such as 'wetness', or instead experience this phenomenon as part of a larger experiential event such as "getting wet in the rain", or "forgetting my umbrella and getting wet in the rain".
"Explanation", from a phenomenological perspective, does not mean seeking or finding 'causes', let alone arbitrarily posited 'initial causes' for an arbitrarily isolated phenomenon. It means giving expression to our experience of the phenomenon as part of a larger event constituted by its own field or context of occurrence. It must be emphasized that understanding phenomena contextually rather than causally is by no means the same as hypothesising the existence of multiple causes or causal 'factors'. For though an event may involve multiple phenomena, separated in both time and space, what constitutes the event as an event is that these disparate phenomena form part of a larger pattern of meaning or significance. One phenomenon is not the cause of several others nor are these others multiple causes of the one. Instead, all the identifiable physical phenomena that make up the event are the common expression of a larger field of emergence – 'emergence' being the root meaning of the Greek 'phusis' from which the terms physics and physical are derived.
Field-phenomenological science begins with the recognition that all phenomena arise as events (Ereignisse) within a larger field or context of emergence and in this way constitute a self-manifestation (Er-eignis) of that field. The aim of field-phenomenological research is to broaden any given 'field' of research in the most literal way possible – by expanding our understanding and very experience of phenomena to embrace the broader fields of emergence within which they manifest as field-events. It recognizes that whilst all physical phenomena form part of field-events, not all field-events take the form of observable physical phenomena. This does not mean, however, that such events are inaccessible to direct experience and can only be postulated theoretically or mathematically. For such 'intangible' or 'non-physical' events constitute the very fabric of our everyday subjective experience of the world. That is because 'subjectivity', from a field-phenomenological perspective, is the non-local or field dimension of experience as such – essentially irreducible to any locally experienced phenomena, any localised 'subject' or 'object'.
Field events are accessible to consciousness not as locally observed phenomena but as felt events – changes occurring in our own non-local field of awareness, and affecting our own felt body. The felt body itself has a field character whose volume and dimensions cannot be reduced to those of the physical body. Through it, however, we are linked with all those field-events that constitute the invisible fabric of the physical universe itself. It is meditative feeling cognition, grounded in the felt body that constitutes the foundation of phenomenological research – not physical observation or mathematical projection alone. The modern scientific method rests on the unfounded assumption that feeling cognition and felt events cannot be subject to processes of mutual inter-subjective confirmation and validation in the same way as peer-reviewed empirical studies or logico-mathematical deductions – even though both empirical observation and the intuitive logic of mathematical reasoning also rest ultimately on consensual 'subjective' validation. This is a method that has no place for the felt body and for feeling cognition – reducing feeling as such to individual 'feelings', seeing the latter only as the private property of localised atomic subjects, and identifying all 'cognitive' functions with the mind or brain alone. In this way, physical science fails to extend its own 'field' models of the physical universe to include an understanding of the field character of our own awareness of that universe, and of our intimately felt bodily connection to the very fields of emergence that are its source.
The starting point of science or any mode of knowledge seeking is, as Heidegger emphasized, not the 'facts' of that science but the adoption by a human being – the scientist – of a specific stance or standpoint, attitude or bearing towards the world. The defining stance of modern science is one of treating the world as something which stands over and against (gegen) an 'independent' subject or observer, and which thereby becomes the bodily object (Gegen-stand) of the scientist's own theoretical representations, experimentation and technical manipulations. Heidegger firmly rejected the view that phenomenology was 'anti-scientific'. Rather he rejected the basic stance of modern science as one irreconcilable with the fundamental aims of science as science – that of searching for and discerning (scire) truth. In its place he suggested a different, more authentically scientific stance: not that of a detached subject standing over and against the world as object but the standpoint of resolutely standing in the truth of one's own being-in-the-world – one's own embodied relation to the world and one's own direct bodily awareness of the sense or meaning of phenomena.
Both the ideal standards of the modern scientific method and an authentic scientific stance in the Heideggerian sense stand in direct contrast to the stance adopted in everyday life. Making sense of things scientifically means going beyond those shared 'common sense' assumptions and tacit common sense 'understandings' that shape our everyday view of what constitutes 'reality'. The 'sense-making' or 'semiotic' processes of everyday life and language are governed by a number of semiotic codes. It is through these codes that common sense or con-sensual understanding of reality is constituted and protected. Three basic codes can be identified:
1. A code of discourse in which we tacitly assume a shared understanding of the meaning or sense of common words and utterances.
2. A code of conduct governing everyday worldly practices whereby their own commonly accepted sense or 'rationale' is also tacitly assumed.
3. A code of communication that sets boundaries on the legitimate doubt that can be cast on the commonly accepted senses of words and the commonly accepted sense or rationale of worldly practices.
Together, these codes constitute a set of unspoken rules which assume certain agreed points of departure for any specific social action or interaction, practice or procedure. Departing from these rules or questioning these points of departure is, as Harold Garfinkel's studies showed, guaranteed to arouse bewilderment or indignation.
As an example, we can identify three socially-accepted points of departure for a typical medical consultation:
1. It is tacitly understood that we all know what 'illness' and 'health' are, that they are opposites, and that 'illness' is something 'bad' and 'health' something 'good'.
2. It is tacitly understood that the patient arranges the consultation because he is suffering symptoms of a possible 'illness' which he wishes to have identified and which he is therefore prepared to be prescribed treatment for.
3. It is tacitly understood that the patient will describe their symptoms and that the medical practitioner will then seek to arrive at a medical diagnosis of an illness, and recommend a course of treatment aimed at a 'cure', and based on knowledge of the organic physical 'cause' of that illness.
Should a patient reject any or all of these points of departure, or depart from any of the unspoken rules of interaction they give rise to, he or she will be regarded as disruptive or deviant. This often happens in the case of psychiatric patients who may seek help from a medical practitioner but who may doubt that they are 'ill', doubt that they are in need of 'treatment' or doubt that they're suffering from symptoms with an organic cause.
Scientific sense, in contrast to 'common sense', places, in principle, no boundaries on legitimate doubt or questionability. In practice however, the situation is quite different. For being itself a social practice, modern science is governed by its own codes of discourse, conduct and communication, and by the points of departure implied by these codes.
What have a medical consultation or the nature of therapeutic dialogue to do with the defence of an authentic scientific methodology? Medicine and psychotherapy are areas where the modern scientific and everyday attitudes to sense-making meet. They are also areas in which an authentic scientific stance is compromised by a set of pre-established social practices which, being accepted as a part of everyday life, are neither socially nor scientifically questioned. The compromising of scientific methodology is particularly prevalent in professional practices such as medicine, and psychotherapy.
Of chief concern to the 'professional' is the correct and effective application of a body of knowledge with which to make sense of and respond to the client's emotional signals or bodily symptoms. Of considerably lesser concern is the patient's or client's own semiotic process – the way they make sense of and respond to their felt condition and its felt sense or meaning. The client is expected only to signify their condition in conventionalized language that can be 'understood' and 'made sense of' by the professional, and to do so in a time-constrained context governed by its own already established semiotic codes, points of departure and routinised or ritualized procedures.
The current one-sided scientific definition of 'semiotics' as the study of signs rather than sense, together with the definition of 'semiosis' as the process of sign making rather than sense-making fits in well with the semiotic codes governing social and scientific practices in general, which are about 'making the right signs', using the 'right' discourse codes or jargons, and responding 'appropriately' to signs made by others – rather than making deeper sense of those signs. But for this to happen professional practitioners must be able, according to Heidegger, to "glance out beyond their profession and practice and…for once open themselves, let themselves into something entirely different."
The emergence of the modern scientific method shook the foundations and departed from the once universally shared assumptions of the pre-modern religious world view previously dominant in the West. However, an authentic scientific attitude has now been sacrificed to the semiotic codes governing its own institutionalized practice and to the scientific method as this is currently understood – a method largely applied in the service of corporate profit or to sustain the legitimacy of professional bodies. The continuing development of phenomenological science in defence of an authentic scientific stance and an authentically scientific methodology will in turn shake the foundations of the modern scientific method, and revolutionise both the theoretical foundations and social practices stemming from that method. It will be grounded in the understanding of both human and natural phenomena as the expressions of fundamental semiotic processes – of semiosis.
Not just linguistic signifiers but all phenomena have a semiotic or sign function. But signs do not exist in isolation. The sign function of a word has to do with its place within a larger pattern of linguistic signification. The sign function of a phenomenon has to do with its place within a larger pattern of significance. A table is not just an extra-linguistic object to which we attach the verbal signifier 'table'. Even without naming it as such, the table already functions as a sign within a larger pattern of significance, being perceived as a place around which we can sit, a platform on which we can eat or write etc. The phenomenon is not merely 'a table' but, for example, the table that someone bought at a bargain price just after getting married or moving house. Similarly, a street is no mere neutral object of perception. What I see of it or do not see of it is determined by its place within a larger pattern of significance. What I see is not 'a street' but the street I cross to get into my car or walk down to the local shop.
The semiotic dimension of phenomenology consists in understanding what a phenomenon is in terms of what it means to us – its place within a larger pattern of significance, actual or potential. What both modern science, pre-modern religious world views and 'post-modernism' share in common, however, is a search for an order or pattern of significance to events. Their common point of departure is the assumption of a pre-given order of things – whether divine, natural or purely linguistic or symbolic. In this respect they ignore the very essence of semiosis, which is the process of emergence (phusis) of actual patterns of significance from a field of potential patterns – the emergence of order from pre-order.
Pre-order is not disorder or chaos, but consists of potential patterns of significance or signification that are not themselves manifest as actual patterns or phenomena. Indeed the very identification of any actual pattern of significance and its representation in a sign system – linguistic or mathematical patterns of signification – tend to foreclose our awareness of other potential patterns of significance and signification.
In social and semiotic practices such as biomedicine, we see again the assumption of a pre-given order consisting of already established patterns of significance. Thus a patient's symptoms have meaning only as possible signs of a pre-given and already established disease pattern. Tests are conducted to either confirm or rule out the actuality of this possible disease pattern, without any regard to other potential patterns of significance unrecognized within the diagnostic framework of medical discourse.
The search for order in science, religion and common sense is self-fulfilling. For any pattern of significance, once identified, limits our awareness of alternate potential patterns and shapes our experience in a way that actively selects out phenomena that do not fit into established patterns or provide signs of other patterns. What Garfinkel called the 'documentary method' is this semiotic process whereby events are interpreted in terms of an already established pattern of significance, and thus provide further 'evidence' of the reality of that pattern. That the perceived pattern of significance itself may be represented in the form of documents (for example medical histories or case notes) business reports and legal reports, academic or scientific papers etc) is itself important – for these do not so much record commercial, legal, medical or scientific 'realities' but constitute them as realities within a given field of social and semiotic practice.


text:
The Late H.R.H
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Number: 533
GENERAL JACK'S DIARY
JOHN TERRAINE Book Number: 88594
Product format: Paperback
Captain J. L. Jack in 1914 was serving with the First Cameronians, one of the earliest British regiments to arrive and fight in France. Almost every day while serving in France and Flanders, Jack ...
OVERCOMING HEALTH ANXIETY
ROB WILLSON & DAVID VEALE Book Number: 88601
A highly recommended self-help guide which uses clinically-proven techniques to treat longstanding and disabling conditions, both psychological and physical. How can you stop worrying about your h...
WICKED GIRLS
ALEX MARWOOD Book Number: 88607
Published price: £8.99
"An absolutely gripping, ripped-from-the-headlines psychological thriller", this was a word-of-mouth bestselling debut. One fateful summer morning in 1986, two 11 year old girls meet for the first...
DR FINLAY - SERIES 2 DVD
Unknown Book Number: 88339
Product format: Unknown
Series two. Set in the 1940s, John Finlay returns from war service and finds a small town medical practice which is run down. His new life paves the way for a new National Health Service and the ...
New MARVEL AGE OF COMICS 1961-1978 - 40TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION
ROY THOMAS Book Number: 88649
Bibliophile price: £18.00
Product format: Hardback
"A veritable Bible chronicling Marvel's incredible odyssey" - Le Figaro. Amazing Spider-Man, Hulk, Thor, Iron Man, Dr Droom, The Fantastic Four, X-Men, Daredevil, The Man In The Ant Hill are now h...
ROYAL MAIL: A5 RED NOTEBOOK
ROYAL MAIL GROUP Book Number: 88629
Published price: £12
£1, 9 pence, First Class, 2 pence, all the red, orange and yellow stamps adorned with Her Majesty the Queen's image in profile are 'stuck' six across by eight adorning the red spined hardback with ...
TALES FROM GOMBE
ANUP SHAH & FIONA ROGERS Book Number: 88632
Ever since Jane Goodall first made their acquaintance in 1960, the intimate world of chimpanzees has never been caught so lovingly as in this stunningly illustrated book. The intensity of the imag...
ADVENTURES WISHING CHAIR
ENID BLYTON Book Number: 88664
This was Enid Blyton's first full novel written in 1937, and Mollie and Peter's adventures in the magic flying chair have captured the hearts and imaginations of children around the world ever sinc...
DESOLATION ANGELS
JACK KEROUAC Book Number: 88681
Kerouac used his 'spontaneous prose' to record the life of the American 'traveller' and the experiences of the Beat generation of the 1950s. This was made most famous in his novels On the Road and...
FEMALE MAN
JOANNA RUSS Book Number: 88685
In the Gollancz bright yellow SF Masterworks series, it is rare to find a female writer in this genre. This wonderfully inventive novel is an interplanetary exploration of Feminist inner space. A...
FOLK OF THE FARAWAY TREE
Snooty Connie refuses to believe in the Faraway Tree, until Joe, Beth and Frannie take her up the ladder, through the clouds, and to the amazing Land of Secrets and the Land of Treats! But then th...
DAVID PEACE Book Number: 88724
In 1959, Liverpool Football Club was in the Second Division. They had never won the FA Cup. 15 seasons later, the club had won three League titles, two FA Cups and the UEFA Cup. Liverpool Footba...
SANDS OF SHARK ISLAND
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH Book Number: 88727
Join Ben and Fee MacTavish and the rest of the crew on the School Ship Tobermory as they set off for the Caribbean to explore some of the world's finest waters for sailing. Their routine of seaman...
WONDERLING
MIRA BARTOK Book Number: 88747
Welcome to the Home for Wayward and Misbegotten Creatures, run by the evil Miss Carbunkle, a cunning villainess who believes her terrified young charges exist only to serve and suffer. For the Won...
COLD WARRIORS
DUNCAN WHITE Book Number: 88851
Full of clandestine cross-border flights, double crossings, arrests, internments and interrogations, here is an icy age of history and the role of literature in the Cold War. Richly populated with...
ANGELA MARSONS Book Number: 88852
This million copy international bestseller is written by Angela Marsons who lives with two bouncy golden retrievers and a potty-mouthed African Grey parrot in the Black Country. She is an author y...
GOOD GIRL, BAD GIRL
MICHAEL ROBOTHAM Book Number: 88854
Before becoming a novelist, Michael Robotham was an investigative journalist working across America, Australia and Britain and investigated notorious cases such as the serial killer couple Fred and...
HACKING THE CODE OF LIFE
NESSA CAREY Book Number: 88855
Sub-titled 'How Gene Editing Will Re-Write Our Futures', bestselling genetics author Nessa Carey looks at the cutting-edge science that will revolutionise the way we prevent disease. Just 45 years...
LAST OF HER KIND
SIGRID NUNEZ Book Number: 88857
Ann Drayton and Georgette George meet as freshmen roommates at Barnard College in 1968. Ann, who comes from a wealthy New England family is bright and idealistic. Georgette, who comes from a bleak...
MUTUAL ADMIRATION SOCIETY
MO MOULTON Book Number: 88859
Renowned crime novelist Dorothy L. Sayers is the focus of this group biography of Oxford women who stood at the vanguard of equal rights and feminism. In 1912 she and five friends founded a writin...
UNFORTUNATE COLONEL DESPARD
MIKE JAY Book Number: 88861
Was Despard a hero or villain we ask in this energetic study of the political complexity of the 1790s. It is the true story of Colonel Edward Marcus Despard, the last person to be sentenced to han...
LORNA SAGE Book Number: 88761
Winner of the Whitbread Prize for Biography and a number one bestseller, from a childhood of gothic proportions through teenage pregnancy in the 1960s, Lorna Sage wittily and vividly brings to life...
CHASING THE MOON: The Story of The Space Race
ROBERT STONE & ALAN ANDRES Book Number: 88763
3...2...1... We have lift off! More than one fifth of the people on the planet paused to watch the live transmission of the Apollo 11 mission. This book shares the untold stories of those who made ...
CHASTISE: The Dambusters Story 1943
MAX HASTINGS Book Number: 88764
The classic Dambusters story, featuring the heroism of Guy Gibson and the legendary 617 Squadron, fascinated acclaimed historian Max Hastings from an early age, but Hastings now feels that 75 years...
CHILDREN FROM GIN BARREL LANE
LINDSEY HUTCHINSON Book Number: 88765
Ten year old Jack Larkin has seen more than his fair share of shocking sights, growing up in the notorious Crown Saloon. Broken hearts and broken bones are just a fact of life at Gin Palace, but f...
PEOPLE - LEARN TO DRAW
PHILIP PATENALL Book Number: 88772
From this excellent Learn to Draw Collins series all the basics are covered to provide a sound foundation in drawing techniques. Numerous illustrations and step-by-step drawings, each book include...
EDWARD VII: The Prince of Wales and the Women
CATHERINE ARNOLD Book Number: 88776
The women loved by Edward, Prince of Wales, or "Bertie" as he was known, had one thing in common: they were nothing like his mother, Queen Victoria. Bertie's wife Alix endured his endless indiscret...
IT ALL ADDS UP
MICKAEL LAUNAY Book Number: 88783
Launay mixes history and anecdotes in a journey into numbers. Sub-titled 'The Story of People and Mathematics', this international bestseller is by a dream teacher who explains the maths that has ...
KISS KISS, BANG BANG
MIKE RIPLEY Book Number: 88784
A tense, dramatic and thrilling story with lashings of suspense and mystery, less of a Whodunnit than a How can they survive this? There are wartime classics about the Arctic convoys like HMS Ulys...
LIFE OF P. T. BARNUM
P. T. BARNUM Book Number: 88786
Barnum was the greatest American impresario, a canny businessman and founder of the renowned Barnum & Bailey Circus and who finally became a politician. In 1834, desperate to create a better life ...
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