About

“Who Are You?”

I’m Patrick Lauser, lover of God and of all lovers of God. I was born and raised in Washington state, in the Pacific Northwest of America, spent a good year or so in Texas, and have been living with my family in Ireland ever since.

The Pacific Northwest seems to have a habit of influencing curious anomalies, like Frank Peretti, Myst, Overstreet, Orson Scott Card, and my older brother! If you line them up you can see a family resemblance, they all have the same nose and so on. Though I don’t endorse everything that comes out of there, I am warning you I have roots in strange waters.

On that note, the two Core Values of my life, work, and interests, are Strangeness and Goodness.

Core Purpose

Growing up I saw that everything I liked and thought about could be divided into two categories. However it isn’t easy to name them, and I may change the names I have (for a bit I tried putting them both together in the term “Creative Culture”).

Those of you who are familiar with The Advantage by Lencioni will know what I’m trying for. So these are my two core purposes (or my twofold core purpose).

Strangeness

Strangeness in the sense of seeking the Strange for its own sake, not only as a tool; to treasure the Strange as a gift and manifestation of God’s goodness and glory. Strangeness is not a lack of order, that is just noise, static, boring. Order is a tool used by the Strange to work its wonders. God uses the Strange in visions, where the tangible realisation of ideas is as important as the communication of information.

Applications of Strangeness (other than Ezekiel( would be Doctor Seuss’ works, and many manga / anime.

Indeed it is often anime that shows me the potential and the need for the Strange. Anime leaves everything else in the dust when it comes to genuine use of the freedom Strangeness offers, both in strange ideas and intense, vibrant experience – though often overboard in theatrics (🙃). Also, animation in general has a difficult time feeling tangibly immersive, which is an important part of the specific Strangeness I seek.

But the problem is that there may be no anime which comes out of Right Culture.

Goodness

Goodness as my Core Value is a rejection of the ludicrous idea that reason and morality is the domain of only clerics and scholars – to think such a thing would be like saying only teachers should know how to read.

It is also a rejection of the idea that something is more or less true because of who says it. “My father says…”, “An experienced scientist says…”, “The president says…”, “The pope says…”, “Pastor says…”, “Everybody says…”, “The Early Church Fathers said…”, are all (at most) reasons to pay attention, to give more consideration, never reasons to give one iota of credibility.

It is an acceptance of the fact that some things can be known with absolute certainty.

For example,

Some Strange Things

I like.

666 – Degarmo & Key

A music video that demonstrates various aspects of Strangeness.

Phantastes

Inspiration to C. S. Lewis and Tolkien, neither of which reached his degree of Strangeness. Another strange story by George MacDonald is Lilith.

SCP Foundation

Strangeness encyclopedic: proof that the Strange goes beyond the narrative format. Nearly everything is robustly original. (Logo source.)

Fox in Socks Rap

A fine exhibition of Seuss strangeness in a strange context.