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life

Roe Is Overturned… Now What?

July 1, 2022 by Matt Hill Leave a Comment

Abortion is no longer a constitutional right, as Roe vs. Wade is overturned in a historic supreme court decision. But now what? Especially for Christians, what should we be doing? How should we be reacting? (And not reacting?)

In this episode of the Your Sunday Drive podcast, we dig into the decision, the politics, the worldviews behind pro-life and pro-choice positions, how worldviews influence politics, the reactions people have been having so far to the decision, how to react in a more Jesus-like manner, and more.

Come along for Your Sunday Drive – quick conversation about current events, politics, pop culture and more, from the perspective of a couple of guys trying to follow Jesus.

Hosts: Matt Hill and Nate Polzin. Presented by the Church in Drive of Saginaw, MI, as often as possible. Please visit churchindrive.com and facebook.com/thechurchindrive

Filed Under: Reviews Tagged With: abortion, choice, Christian, church, conservative, court, dobbs, Jesus, law, liberal, life, Podcast, politics, pro, religion, rights, roe, supreme, wade, worldview

Fall Kickoff: Sports; Future of College & Work; Meaning in Life

August 20, 2019 by Matt Hill Leave a Comment

your sunday drive podcast

Fall is here and with it the 150th season of college football in the U.S.!

In this episode of the Your Sunday Drive podcast, we use this occasion as a kick-off point to revisit the topic of spirituality in sports.

Then the conversation goes deep into the current state of higher education, and the future of college and work.

Finally, the concept of God’s image is used as a touchstone principle to connect these topics to larger questions about purpose and meaning in life.

Take a listen and let us know what you think! Want to interact with us? Comment here, or on Spreaker or Facebook!



Filed Under: Podcast Tagged With: Christian, college, drive, Football, God, hill, life, meaning, Podcast, polzin, saginaw, sports, sunday, work, your

The Long Road Home: Lessons Learned

December 20, 2017 by J. Alan Sharrer Leave a Comment

(Photo: National Geographic/Van Redin)

When we last left the eighteen trapped soldiers in The Long Road Home (National Geographic), they were surrounded on all sides by enemy insurgents carrying human shields.  Lt. Shane Aguero (EJ Bonilla) gave the command to open fire while the screen went to black.  It was an effective way to end an episode, that’s for sure.

The final three episodes chronicled the continued search and rescue of not only Aguero’s team, but a second platoon led by Staff Sgt. Robert Miltenberger (Jeremy Sisto) who had a broken down vehicle, limited protection, no method of communication, and a bunch of soldiers who had never fired a gun in combat before.  Sadly, the result was exactly what you might expect.  Insurgents saw the weakness and attacked it mercilessly, leading to a number of significant injuries and deaths.

Aguero’s team was also in significant danger after the shots rang out in Episode 5.  They still had a house of refuge, but insurgents were still swarming.  The main problem was a lack of ammunition, dwindling by the second. Their interpreter  Jassim al-Lani (Darius Homayoun) was still around, but even he was in trouble if the ammo ran out.

As you might expect, there was some good news. A tank finally found them, but only after Aguero put himself in the crosshairs of death for the third time, chasing the tank down with a flashlight. Miltenberger makes a dash to keep an insurgent from bringing friends, but finds himself looking down the barrel of a gun—just as he predicted.  Thankfully, the person wanted to help him.  In the end, the soldiers in both platoons were rescued and taken to the base, where their injuries were treated.

But not everyone was able to successfully recover.  Pfc. Tomas Young (Noel Fisher) was left paralyzed thanks to a bullet that hit him before he ever fired a shot.  Specialist Israel Garza (Jorge Diaz), always the jokester, didn’t survive his wounds.  The scene where members of the Army inform his unprepared wife Lupita (Karina Ortiz) was difficult to watch.

I thought the ending was well done as Lt. Col. Volesky (Michael Kelly), in a gathering of the soldiers, called out the names of the eight soldiers who died, giving them the honor they deserved.  The role of the surviving soldiers was reinforced when they had a meeting the next day and told about their upcoming mission.  It wasn’t a ‘one battle and you get to go home’ deployment; it was ‘stay until the mission is complete, then go home.’ In the end, the ambush cost eight lives, injured over 60, and left soldiers with physical, emotional, and spiritual scars.  War isn’t fun; that’s for sure.

(Photo: National Geographic/Van Redin)

So what can we learn from all of this?

* As just noted, life doesn’t stop just because an attack occurs. We sometimes have days when it seems everything goes wrong.  We’d like to crawl into the bed and hide until the sun shines again.  But that’s not the way life works.  Instead, we have to draw on our reserves of courage and determination (or just ask God for some wisdom – see James 1:5) and go out again into the world.

* Sometimes bad things happen, as with Pfc. Young. We have to choose how to handle the adversity—can it be used for good in some way, shape, or form? If so, we can make a positive difference in the lives of those we come into contact with (see Romans 8:28).  Or we can choose to wallow in negativity, passing that on to people who don’t deserve it.

* I was struck by the role hope played in The Long Road Home. It would’ve been extremely easy for Aguero to give up as the odds were definitely against his squadron. But deep inside, he continued to hold out hope of being rescued even when the world around him was burning. That didn’t mean he was able to sit idly by; he had to lead his troops, play the role of counselor, and go after the tank after it drove by them numerous times.  Hebrews mentions faith “is the confidence that what we hope will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we cannot see” (11:1 NLT).  That hope turned into faith, which eventually saw his troops rescued with only Chen dying.

The Long Road Home brought the realities of the Iraq War into homes across the country. It wasn’t easy to watch at times, but was a necessary reminder of the sacrifice and bravery our soldiers make on a daily basis. Thank you, men and women of the Armed Forces, for all you do!

Filed Under: Reviews, Television Tagged With: Darius Homayoun, EJ Bonilla, Faith, Gary Volesky, Hebrews, hope, Iraq, Israel Garza, Jassim al-Lani, Jeremy Sisto, Jorge Diaz, Karina Ortiz, Lessons, life, Michael Kelly, National Geographic, Noel Fisher, Robert Miltenberger, Romans, Shane Aguero, The Long Road Home, Tomas Young, war

The Thing About Chris Cornell

May 23, 2017 by Matt Hill 1 Comment

Chris Cornellthere’s a lot i want to say
about Chris Cornell
having gone away

truth told,
it hit me kinda hard
late last week and
over the weekend

i kinda want
to go on at length
about how
his singing voice
was the one for me –
at least, one of the ones –
and how i’d try
(and fail)
to belt along
with his intensity
while driving

i kinda want to tell you
about my favorite
songs of his;
maybe link to videos –
so much fire to choose from

but then, of course,
i’d naturally note
how the horrible irony
of hindsight has
already started
to mar and morph
song meanings,
like nooses once pretty

then, quickly, maybe
i’d try to bring it back and
lightheartedly reminisce
about how i
was once even told i
look a little like him
(one could, doubtless,
do much worse 🙂 )

but kinda eventually
i’d inevitably again
attempt unpacking
the actual event itself:
that
awful
S word

i’d understandably want
to plumb my personal stake
in this particular one

is it cuz i’m “gen-x?”
is it a Cobain flashback,
Seattle grunge thing?
just nostalgia for that
specific time
when i too was
first in a band?

maybe is it cuz i was literally
*just* listening to that dude?
literally *just* saw him on
Jimmy Fallon?

i would wonder why
the pretense of
social media mourning
bothered me so this time –
the performativity,
the constructedness of it…
the rush to suddenly
and publicly be in the
Chris Cornell club,
even as i now
tempt hypocrisy
and do the same…
doing so, perhaps,
unavoidable now,
given the internet and all,
which can make
the truth seem fake
and vice-versa,
to the point that
one seriously considers silence

then i would want to
slow down,
to think more about,
maybe even
attempt the dreaded task of
saying something about,
his family,
even though i have no right

then i would note, rightly,
that it’s not right to
really just
think and talk
about oneself
under the guise of
thinking and talking
about this thing,
except that this thing, now,
is about him *and*
the rest of us,
including even me;
and except that
it’s not possible to not
think and talk about oneself,
regardless of who or what
else one thinks and talks about

i would want to invoke God, for
death and God go together,
like God goes with everything,
like oneself does too

but a wise person
once (recently) said to
say one thing at a time
and that seems like solid advice,
so –
passing wordlessly
past the fact that
i’ve already in truth said plenty
(tis a common trope) – here’s
the thing about Chris Cornell:

humans make meaning
via story,
and i think his passing has
particular sting
because, as a story,
it seems to
undermine meaning

i have personally,
over the past week,
variously felt the
story of his passing as
very sad to be sure,
but also as
terrifically *absurd* –
an *offense* even,
insofar as it is a
story that does not go
as we would expect,
or want,
or as we think it should,
or as it could,
were this world different…

were this world better

it reminds me,
in various respects,
of how i felt about
the death of
my own father,
who also went away
too young, and
to the awful strains
of what seemed to be
missed opportunity
and *tragedy*
and *meaninglessness*
and *waste*

and, to be clear,
this is not some statement
about people’s personal choices
or my inability to understand them

this is not an indictment of persons,
but of situations
and of a world
that contains such
absurd
offensive
tragic
waste –
a world where
stories sometimes just suck as
meaning makers

and it is, since
death and God go together,
like God goes with everything,
including this world,
i must admit,
an indictment of Him

and yet…

when Matthew Arnold
wrote “Dover Beach,”
he leaned on his “love”
as the “Sea of Faith” retreated;
even so, Chris Cornell,
in his own version of
that same story –
“Preaching the End of the World” –
looks for “someone out there,
who can understand,
and who’s feeling,
the same way as me”

i submit that this is why
his passing
isn’t *actually* absurd –
why no one’s passing
is actually absurd –
and why any indictment
of God isn’t the last word:

because
in the face of the absurd,
we still can’t help but
want things to mean things,
and inevitably,
we still find that meaning,
ultimately, in
stories of another

because
death itself only makes one
think of resurrection

because though
death and God go together,
the latter continues
past the former

because,
finally,
though “Jesus wept” for Lazarus –
as we may weep for
Chris Cornell, for his family,
for what might have been,
for the loss of a
story we’d suspect,
a story we’d hope for –
those tears aren’t the end…
and they’re certainly not,
though they may seem to be so,
signposts to nowhere;
and certainly not,
though they may seem to be so,
symbols of divine absence

ironically,
but happily,
meaningfully,
quite the converse

Filed Under: Current Events, Editorial Tagged With: absurd, Audioslave, Chris Cornell, Christian, death, Dover Beach, Jesus, Lazarus, life, Matthew Arnold, meaning, Preaching the End of the World, problem of evil, Soundgarden, spiritual, suicide, Temple of the Dog

3.16 The Meaning of LIFE

April 10, 2017 by Steve Norton 3 Comments

http://screenfish.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/3.16-Life.mp3

This week, Steve is joined by special guest and friend to the show, Wade Bearden (Seeing and Believing) to talk about whether or not there’s a meaning to LIFE, the newest sci-fi actioner to hit the big screen.  Yes, the film is tense but does it have something to say?  Plus, the guys give their top 3 remakes since the year 2000!  Only on ScreenFish.

Want to continue to conversation at home?  Click the link below to download ‘Fishing for More’ — some small group questions for you to bring to those in your area.

3.16 Life

A special thanks to Wade for coming on the show!

Filed Under: Film, Podcast Tagged With: Action, Alien, Deadpool, George Clooney, Jake Gyllenhaal, life, Rebecca Ferguson, Ridley Scott, Ryan Reynolds, sci-fi, science fiction

3.12 Grilling THE FOUNDER

February 19, 2017 by Steve Norton Leave a Comment

http://screenfish.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/3.12-The-Founder.mp3

This week on the show, Steve welcomes co-host of the Feelin’ Film podcast, Aaron White, to serve up a hot and fresh conversation about Michael Keaton’s new movie, THE FOUNDER!  Telling the origin of McDonald’s and it’s global empire, THE FOUNDER also has lots to say about the balance between ambition and pride.

Want to continue to conversation at home?  Click the link below to download ‘Fishing for More’ — some small group questions for you to bring to those in your area.

3.12 The Founder

A very special thanks to Aaron White (Feelin’ Film) for joining us this week!

Filed Under: Film, Podcast Tagged With: Academy Awards, Awards Season, Batman, Fate of the Furious, Ghost in the Shell, Hugh Jackman, Jake Gyllenhaal, life, Logan, McDonald's, Michael Keaton, Nick Offerman, Oscars, Ryan Reynolds, The Belko Experiment, The Founder

1on1 w/Allan Loeb (screenwriter, COLLATERAL BEAUTY)

December 26, 2016 by Steve Norton Leave a Comment

collateral

http://screenfish.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/1on1-with-Alan-Loeb-writer-Collateral-Beauty.mp3

One last present under the Christmas tree! This week, Steve has the privilege to speak with screenwriter Allan Loeb (21, WALL STREET: MONEY NEVER SLEEPS) about his latest film, COLLATERAL BEAUTY, which stars Will Smith and Helen Mirren. They chat about love, death and the nature of fables.

A special thanks to Allan for joining us on the show!

15021626_83452_still_2_s-high

Filed Under: Film, Interviews, Podcast Tagged With: 21, Allan Loeb, Christmas, Christmas movie, Collateral Beauty, death, drama, Edward Norton, film, Helen Mirren, interview, Kate Winslet, Keira Knightley, life, Michael Pena, Oscars, Wall Street, Will Smith

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