House Hippo
For your instruction and edification:
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deep thought
From the “Daily Deep thought by Jack Handey”:
Whenever I need to “get away,” I just get away in my mind. I go to my imaginary spot, where the beach is perfect and the water is perfect and the weather is perfect. The only bad thing there are the flies. They’re terrible!
ha!
Google allows for the manipulation of time.
How does it work?
Gmail utilizes an e-flux capacitor to resolve issues of causality (see Grandfather Paradox).
a little political humor
In a conversation about Obama on NPR’s Wait, wait.. don’t tell me!
“Every single one, of the millions and millions of people who support him, are becoming more like Tom Cruise everyday. They’re all jumping on couches.”
~host Peter Sagal .
Made me laugh out loud while driving on the 210.
Emerging/missional and the OS
In an earlier post I asked if I could still be allowed in emerging circles even though I’m not voting for Obama (and didn’t) and I use Microsoft Windows. Anyone who has followed this blog for a while can understand why I’m not voting for Obama (can agree on goals while disagreeing with methods). The choice of operating system is a little more rigid. Emerging people use Apple. They have Apple parties, are caught up in Mac momentum, and otherwise live the Apple OS lifestyle.
This raises a curious question. Given the emphasis on poverty and justice issues, as well as a dissatisfaction with so much typical Evangelical Christian Right politicking I get why there’s a trend towards Obama. Even if I disagree on core issues, I look at the foundational traits of the emerging church and can see why the balance of issues might swing someone that way (even as I get very strong admonitions on other issues that say someone should never consider a Democrat at this point in their platform).
I don’t, honestly, understand the Apple enthusiasm. Or change that. I understand the Apple enthusiasm entirely. Only it’s the same kind of enthusiasm that helps me understand why someone would choose a mega-Church. Apple is proprietary, elitist, expensive, judgmental, and almost entirely run by a single man who founded, then saved, the company. Yes, there are less errors, often run faster, have better multimedia support, much better included software, and are more stylish.
How is that reflective of emerging principles in any way, that seem to be so important in other categories of life? Indeed, I might be willing to say that Apple is a betrayal of everything the emerging/missional church stands for and those that use such computers are technological hypocrites.
Now, of course, that would be a fair bit of hyperbole to say that. I don’t really care what computer anyone uses, and probably if part of my work didn’t involve working with education and their funded windows computers, then I might consider a Mac myself. But, I’m not sure that’s because of my principles, or because I’m already feeling a fair bit of an outsider in emerging circles for various reasons and wouldn’t mind at least a little conforming.
But if I was really emerging/missional in a way that influenced all my decisions I’d have to go with Linux. Not least because I could save money, use the same hardware I have, and not pour more money into the technological envy-trap.
I’m curious now. Because, even though I’m being a fair bit silly in my forceful opinions here I’m wondering how owning a Mac computer could be justified using solely emerging/missional principles. I’d love to hear serious or funny responses. Make me think. Make me laugh. Maybe you’ll even make me change my mind.
do I belong
As the primary approaches us this Tuesday I am faced with an existential question that is undercutting my very identity.
In writing online and in print, in discussions, motivations, instincts, and interactions I’m pretty much aligned with the emerging/missional church.
Yet, I do not own a Mac and I won’t be voting for Obama.
Is there still a place for me among such people? Or am I outcast, one with them in peripheral issues but not really authentic, because I clearly don’t get what really counts? I worry about my emerging soul.
For I type this on a PC, and lean towards McCain.
Is there hope for one such as me? Is the tent big enough for a guy with Windows and an R labeled ballot?
Pastor ebays congregation
In a brilliant and very short article Lark News offers one of the most insightful and comprehensive commentaries on what’s going on in the church today in so many places. Abuse, expectation, influence of money in demands and leadership, hitting with satire both sides of the pulpit.
ah
In the “phrases that I never thought I would say but yet are utterly descriptive” department comes this phrase I just used in an e-mail: “comma ennui”
I’ve suffered from it for years. I blame the public school system.
I shoulda been a physicist
Scientists figure out traffic jams.
For a few years I was in daily traffic. All that time in traffic got me thinking about what caused it and what to do. I came up in my mind exactly what they are talking about in this article. But unfortunately I was a theology, not a physics, student so couldn’t publish my intuitive findings.
The wave increases in intensity as others adds to the slowing, making small increments into eventual stops. So the answer to this is to be a positive force, by maintaining following distance, advancing in speed when possible and otherwise serving to refocus the traffic speed to it’s right pattern. One person can’t fix it but if everyone does then it’s fixed and slowdowns are alleviated.
Of course, being a theology student now I think how this applies to church and ministry. Cautious, nervous people in churches can slow down ministry, getting ever more cautious, insisting everyone else goes no faster than their worries and fears. Soon the church is stopped. People get off and travel down different roads or are stuck for no real reason in the same place for a long time.
Church is like traffic! I think I made a point on that somewhere in my book.
The (not so) Golden Compass
So reports are in that The Golden Compass fairly tanked in the box office this past weekend. MTV suggests this means there won’t be a sequel.
According to CNN, “Parents with children accounted for half of the film’s audience, so New Line is counting on family crowds that flock to theaters over the holidays to keep the movie afloat, Mittweg said.”
It’s reported, though not officially, that the other half of the film’s audience consisted of hipster Evangelicals, who were eager to ‘participate in the conversation’ as well as reject the burden of previous boycotts.
However, the parents with children hustled out of the theaters for ice cream or dinner elsewhere, leaving the hipster Evangelicals to talk only to each other. As usual.
