the winner takes it all

This is the title of a very famous song from ABBA, but it had a rather sad context. But I am not really writing about that. I want to share a bit more about my observation from the exciting summer Olympics.

One thing that I notice is that some sports are judged based on points given by a panel of judges. It's not like soccer, swimming, hockey or 100m run where you kinda know who is winning. In sports like Diving and Gymnastics, how much points given to the athlete is really up to the judges and most of the time we have little idea of point system. So it gets really exciting on the very last round to wait for the judges to give the amount of points given on that last routine, which can determine who wins the competition. Sometimes it is expected, sometimes it is a surprise. Someone will burst out of joy, the other one in tears.

These are some examples:

Viktoria Komova:

This Russian girl was one of the favorites to get the gold medal for all-round women in Gymnastics (especially since the world champion Jordyn Wieber did not qualify to the last round). But she was barely by 0.259 points (see results) by Gabrielle Douglas from the United Stats (who became the first women from African descent to win gold on Gymnastics). That is such a small difference, and I remember seeing Gabrielle doing her last routine on the floor exercise (which was pretty good), and Viktoria was staring at the results screen to wait and see how much the judges will give to Gabrielle. When Viktoria saw that Gabrielle got just enough points to surpass her, she started crying on the shoulders of her coach. I really felt bad for her, and this set a tone for the rest of the Olympics for her as she was not able to gain any other individual medal.

Tania Cagnotto
She is an Italian diver (3m springboard) participating on her 4th Olympics. I didn't really know her at start since my attention was on the Chinese divers that are really beast. But she was performing quite well, and I had the sensation that she would get bronze (yeah, the gold and silver were pretty much for the Chinese girls).

On the very last dive, Tania needed a 76.80 to get the bronze, but unfortunately the judges only gave her 76.50 (see results) so she was not able to get her first medal and resigned to cry on her coach's shoulders.

Qin Kai

One of the Chinese male diver who was a favorite for the 3m springboard. The Chinese divers started a bit weak in comparison to the Russian Zakharov. But near the end, Qin Kai and Zakharov were fighting head to head for the gold. Qin had finished his last dive, and was leading and just waiting for Zakharov to not sure more than 90.30. But the Russian guy did a spectacular dive of 100+ points, and Qin was left crying in the little pool (see results).


Anyways, getting a silver medal is usually not that joyful. Our company just had a soccer tournament, and I was playing for the QA (Quality Assurance) team, and we played the final against HR (Human Resources). The game was tough and we tied 1-1, and in penal shootouts we lost =(, and it was kinda sad. I guess the fact that our team is so much younger, and that they have a couple of girls, make it even more sad.

But the fact that athlete cannot leave any margin for error when competing for a gold. Any mis-step will lead to losing, and for these two sports it is really up to the judges to decide. Imagine how tough it will be if our salvation depends on our performance, and that a little margin of error will exclude us from eternity with God. That will be so scary. It is up to us, then we will probably fail. But we have a gracious God who is full of mercy and has given us access to Him through Jesus Christ. Our failures do have a cost, the life of our Lord Jesus Christ. Once you're in Christ, you're part of the winning team.

On a separate note, there is this article that compares the focus of an Olympic athlete with how to live out our faith: http://theresurgence.com/2012/09/01/8-olympic-observations-on-training-and-faith

Ownageness of the Dark Knight

** warning: there will be spoilers about "The Dark Knight Rises" movie in this post **

This summer I was really excited for the last Batman movie. I actually didn't watch the first two movies in theaters because I was in school so I was totally outside of the movies world, but got to watch them on DVD a few years after they were released. What got me excited was to watch the trailer for the  "The Dark Knight Rises" earlier this year (I was probably watching the Avengers haha) because I really like to watch the conclusion of a story.

So two weeks before the "The Dark Knight Rises" was released, I re-watched "Batman Begins" and "The Dark Knight" to refresh myself of the overall story line. It was actually quite an enjoyable exercise!

On the Saturday (one day after the release date), I went to watch last movie with a group of 18 people and I reserved the seats through the Empire Plus (cost $2 more but I don't have to go for lineup). And after watching it, I started to think more about the movie, and as I thought about it more, I realized how good it is, to the point that I wanted to re-watched it (which I did). I think this trilogy of Batman can become one of the best movie trilogies of all times.

I want to take this opportunity to express my thoughts regarding the "The Dark Knight Rises" and why I think its' so great.

Weak points
First, I will start with the weak points. I heard of criticism towards this movie, and I agreed with most of them. For sure this is not a perfect movie, but I think these weak points do not overshadow the greatness of the movie. Here are the two main weak areas:

• Too unrealistic: there are a fairly amount of exaggerated events like Bruce Wayne coming back from the Middle East to Gotham in a matter of hours after he climbed up the hole, or his back getting healed, or the terrorist group able to set up explosives so easily, etc. But if we are picky about loopholes, then most movies will fall short. In general, I don't think it was too far-fetched.
• Bane as a character: I really didn't like his muffled voice, but we don't get to know much about his motivation as a villain (other than his allegiance with Tania). It would have been nice to know a bit more about him, though there was already too many characters to focus on (Catwoman, Detective Gordon, Robin Blake, Tania).

Actually my greatest disappointment about the trilogy is that Katie Holmes didn't take the role of Rachel on the second movie.

Plot
Comparing to "The Dark Knight", the "The Dark Knight Rises" is slower in pace, and it feels less intense. I guess "The Dark Knight" did set up a very high standard (94% on rottentomatoes) and it is considered one of the best superhero movie ever, often described as an art masterpiece in the form of superhero film. There is not a single boring moment, hard to predict plot, and psychologically very engaging. One has to realize that "The Dark Knight Rises" is a different type of movie. First of all, the main villain is quite different. Having the Joker definitely spices up the movie to be action-packed, unpredictable, chaotic, and mentally really engaging. "The Dark Knight" focuses more on the battle between good and evil, whereas "The Dark Knight Rises" focuses more on the resurgence of the Batman as the symbol of hope for Gotham, hence there is less action and more stuff about Bruce Wayne's internal battles, and in how he gets owned but gets back up again.

Theme
The overall theme of the trilogy is the battle of good and evil. "Batman Begins" focuses on revenge, and "The Dark Knight" touches upon the corruption and promptness of evil in men. "The Dark Knight Rises" talks about rising up after failure, not giving up after defeat but coming back even stronger to own your enemies. Something that is encouraging since we will face many failures in life.

Character development
"Batman Begins" is cool because we get to see Bruce Wayne getting trained as a ninja and growing from an angry and directionless adolescent to a man who is committed to fight crime. In "The Dark Knight" he is consolidated as Gotham's superhero but finds the possibility of retiring and letting Harvey Dent be the Knight of Gotham, and pursue a personal life with Rachel. Even though we think the Joker lost the battle in "The Dark Knight", it was actually a total lost for Batman, his love interest (Rachel) died, the guy who he thought would represent the good side of Gotham turned into a bad guy (Harvey Two-Faces), and the symbol of hope that Batman represented now turned into the embodiment of evil (for killing Harvey) so that Gotham will not resigned in its fight against evil.

So "The Dark Knight Rises" focuses on the resurgence of the superhero who had given up pursuing a personal life and is content with letting the name of Batman embodied hatred from the people of Gotham, and is slowly rotting as a human being. But he gets back in the battle, but shortly is badly defeated by Bane to the point of almost death. But his life is spared only so that he can experience the desperation of seeing Gotham getting destroyed. And it is in the hole when we see Bruce Wayne battling his desperation and fear to climb the pit to save his city. He was not able to climb it in the first couple of times because he didn't really fear death so the fear of losing his city was not at its highest peak. It's until he gets rid of the rope and knowing that is all-or-nothing so he was afraid of dying (because dying means losing Gotham) then he was able to rise and rise.

The introduction of Catwoman was genius. Her character does complement Batman very well, and her existence sheds some light for Bruce Wayne.

Legacy
At "Batman Begins", Bruce Wayne wanted Batman to be the symbol of hope for Gotham in the fight against organized crime. It was to give courage to every citizen to stand firm in this battle. By the end of "The Dark Knight", this symbol of hope became the embodiment of hatred (since Joker turned Harvey into a bad guy, so Batman had to falsely become the responsible for killing Harvey in order to not cause people from Gotham to lose hope). This was an act of sacrifice he made for Gotham's sake, and it is very honorable but at the same time does not result in a long lasting solution.

But in "The Dark Knight Rises" after he comes back from the hole, he leads the counterattack to save Gotham, and he saves the city from the nuclear explosion by sacrificing himself. The difference from the previous movie is that he sacrificed himself ensuring that his legacy of hope in fighting against rime will be carried on by the people of Gotham (especially Robin). This is key because Batman was not meant to be there forever but was intended to encourage the city as a whole in this battle against evil. This was accomplished in "The Dark Knight Rises".

There was an interesting dialogue between Catwoman and Batman right before they were about to embark in battle, Catwoman tries to convince Batman to leave with her before the city gets destroyed since Batman has already given everything to Gotham, but Batman replies, "not yet, not everything". Perhaps leaving this legacy was what he had not done yet.

Overall, "The Dark Knight Rises" resolves the problems that Bruce Wayne inherited from "Batman Begins" and  "The Dark Knight"  by establishing Batman as a lasting symbol of hope for Gotham, giving his best on his service to Gotham (to follow his father's shoes) and developing a life for his own (maybe with Catwoman). I really enjoyed how this ended, definitely a very ownage trilogy and ending.

focusing on tradition

Just this past Sunday at Simply Church we looked at the passage in Mark 7 where the Pharisees were complaining that Jesus' disciples did not wash their hands (Jews perform a ceremonial hand washing before eating) before eating, condemning that they were eating with "unclean" hands. Then, Jesus rebukes the Jews that they had let go of God's commandments and are just holding onto tradition because the Jews were only focused on following the letter of the law instead of focusing on the purpose of the law which points back to a relationship with God.

This sort of problem is still prevalent now, and as Pastor Tim said that sometimes even going to church on Sunday might seem more of a tradition rather than an authentic desire to worship God. The danger is that attending church becomes another routine and it does not increase our adoration toward our mighty God. This escalates to other areas such as serving and participating in church events. I have personally seen ministries and serving done out of tradition rather than a given desire by God and this has often resulted in people getting burnt out and lack of fruits.

As an individual who is actively participating in many church events and ministries, I feel that it is easy to fall into the attitude of self-righteousness and condemn others who are not as active or who do not follow the traditions set by the church. This narrows my mind in the understanding that God can work outside of the domain set by traditions. (Please note that I am not stating that traditions are bad, they can be good things but when we focused on traditions above God, we are missing the point and leads to other sins).

In the recent Olympics, two Tunisian athletes Habiba Ghribi (silver on women's 3,000m steeple chase) and Oussama Mellouli (gold on men's 10k swim) won medals for their country and it was big because there aren't that many successful Tunisian athletes. Actually Ghribi's medal is huge because the women on Tunisia are fighting for equal rights. Unfortunately there are some extreme extreme religious groups that expressed that their medals should be taken away because both of them have broken certain religious rules (her sport wear is apparently too revealing, and the swimmer was drinking juice during fasting season).