October 31, 2007 • 1:36 pm
I’m going as Jesus as He would appear as an Irish-American in 21st Century USA.
Not really. I just like the pompous sound of that.
Today is New Year’s Eve… sort of. Tomorrow is the first day of Samhain and the first day of the Celtic Calendar and like many things Celtic, it is both pagan and xian. See How the Irish Saved Civilization by Thomas Cahill for the explanation on that one.
Tomorrow is also All Saints Day. Has a more west church feel to it and seems to cover alot of different things (all the saints everywhere, ever, for one.) but also the day which martyrs of the xian faith are remembered collectively.
Andrew Jones has determined he is going to go thru the entire celtic calendar this year; starting tomorrow you can track with him on Our Daily Blog, which I’ve added to the blogroll for the year.
I’ve considered Nov. 1st my new years day for a long time- it’s my birthday and always seems like a more appropriate time for reflection and forward thinking than the craziness of the time between xmas and Jan. 1st. The fact that all these other things are associated with Nov. 1st is still pretty new knowledge for me and I’m still sorting out the info that’s available. I think, by tracking with Andrew thru the celtic calendar, I’ll get a better handle on what it all is.
Anyway, a fine Samhain and slainte to you.
Filed under: Blogging, Blogroll, Emergent Church, Theology , andrew jones, irish, new year, our daily blog, samhain, thomas cahill
October 29, 2007 • 11:11 am
I am very fond of sprintposts. That is, blog posts which one can blow thru in 30 seconds or less. Please note that Brad Sargent is a marathonposter who has just started a new blog after an extended, but apparently truncated, hiatus of his own.
Those of you who fastidiously comb this weblog for any and all new updates will have already found the link in my blogroll- making this old news. So this one is for the sprinters!
Filed under: Uncategorized
I’ve been on intellectual hiatus. Not that i’ve been on hiatus in the land of intellectualism- more like, I’ve been avoiding that place like the plague. It’s been a few weeks (3?) now that i haven’t read any books or studied or really thought long and hard about anything. I was reading a few different books (which is my norm), but i set them all aside at one time and haven’t picked one up since.
It’s been really nice, actually. I haven’t been engaging people in particularly deep discussions or picking their brains about issues. I might call it coasting-but I would probably counter (in my head) that it’s strategic coasting. I can get pretty bogged down in weighty stuff and lose sanity and social interest. This hiatus is a calm before the storm… of sorts. My new year is this Thursday and this is a great time for me to reset and refine my thoughts on the coming year. Reflection on the past year is the first order of business,
…or i’m just slacking off.
Filed under: Interdisciplinary Action, Seemingly Random
October 26, 2007 • 3:00 pm
Got a forwarded letter today from Mike. We were roommates in FL, and we brought a homeless guy in to live with us once. It didn’t go all that well. The forwarded letter was from that guy. He says he’s on his own two feet now, and is in the process of paying back everyone he’s wronged. In AA they call this “making amends”. It’s step 9. Ironically, the “step 9″ episode of Seinfeld was on last night- the one where George tracks down a guy in recovery b/c he hears the guy has moved on to step 10, and feels the guy didn’t properly make amends with him.
Making amends sounds like a pretty hard thing to do.
There are a few people i can think of who this guy needs to make amends with. Probably more that i don’t know about. I wonder if he’ll catch up with Molly and make that right. I wonder, like George, if he really means it, or if he’s just trying to get thru the steps. I wonder what the list of people to make amends with would look like if i sat down with a paper and pen.
This guy who lived with us has had his ups and downs. This letter, i think, is an up. But i’ve seen the downs, too. I wouldn’t be surprised to hear about him on the news sometime. There’s a rhythm to people that i don’t understand. The older i get, the easier it is to tune out, to not pay attention to that rhythm- easier to just do the easier things and wish rather than work.
I remembeer being told that once you’re 21 or 22 years old, that you’ve made pretty much all your hard decisions and you just kind of coast after that. I rejected that idea when i heard it, but i catch myself coasting more often than I’d like. Even the decision to not coast is alot more work than it used to be. Coasting is an uncomfortably real thing. Using the same word, over and over, is really lame; it’s coasting.
Filed under: AA, Interdisciplinary Action, Psychology, Seemingly Random , AA, life, Seinfeld, step nine, step ten
October 23, 2007 • 8:43 am
“Love the sinner, hate the sin.” is something only xians fall for or think they’re capable of. I think everyone else gets that it’s a joke. Just thought i’d throw that out there. Go read Christopher Hitchins’ new book, “God is not Great” and walk away a better xian (though slightly flabbergasted by his horrible logic)… better yet, read Chastity Bono’s old book, ”Family Outing” and walk away a humbled xian.
Filed under: Recommends, Theology , , Chastity Bono, Christianity and Homosexuality, Christopher Hitchins, Family Outing, Gays and Christians, God is not Great, hate the sin, Love the sinner, the art of self-deception, tolerance, xian
October 22, 2007 • 11:31 am
For all of the things which could, feasibly, be on the rocks; these would include my Ship of Life, my Jack, my Checkbook- none of these are the subject of discussion today. No, sadly, it is a long-standing professional relationship with Bill Gates which is on the rocks today.
Bill has provided me with quick and reliable email service for several years now. But with his recent tinkering (he calls it an upgrade) my access to email has taken a hit. If i were to attempt to log on right now, I have no confidence that i could access my email. Such is our current standing.
What am i supposed to do? I work for a fast-paced company. I need to be able to sneak surreptetious peeks at my personal email without delays like this. I can’t be spinning my pointer while I’m on the clock and there’s work to be done. Do i just break it off? How do i tell him? Do i tell him? or do i just wait until he emails me again and he finds out about it thru an error message?
Why, Bill?! We were brothers!!
Filed under: Interdisciplinary Action
October 19, 2007 • 6:32 am
If i were a double-oh, M would never have any clue where i’m at. I never check in on my blog, i probably wouldn’t check in w HQ, MI-6, or whoever i’d be working for in that scenario. It would be good for global security. That has nothing to do with why I haven’t posted in several days, really. I should be very clear with this: i am not an international spy.
I’ve been soaking up other writings these last few days, going thru my blogroll to see what other people are thinking. Tim Stevens recommended watching Michael Clayton- check his blog to day for some really good quotes. Speaking of quotes, my fascination of the week is a guy named Arnold Bennett, who wrote a book called “How to Live on 24 Hours a Day”, in 1922. He wrote it for the 9-5ers who, he felt, went thru the motions of daily life, waking up to work rather than really living- thus, the title is How to Live, not How to Exist.
Exist and survive are exchangeable in this context, i think.
Filed under: Blogging, Integral, Interdisciplinary Action, Recommends
October 10, 2007 • 2:57 pm
How do you know if a conference was any good? That is, how do you quantify and crunch an experience into a stat in order to determine whether it was worth x amount of dollars to attend? Unknown. But my blogroll grew mightily upon my return from Catalyst and there were several more people that i wanted to add who don’t have blogs (yet?), like Francis Chan, whose session alone was worth a lot of cake. I think the blogroll/connection thing is a worthy indicator, though not very quantifiable.
Oh, and Ken Wilber wasn’t speaking at Catalyst, but i realised i hadn’t added his yet. What would happen if Ken spoke at Catalyst? Does anybody else read Ken Wilber? Really? He makes C.S. Lewis and Christopher Hitchins sound like little kids fighting over toys… though i enjoy both these guys very much. Reading Ken is like reading a Chuck Palahniuk (Invisible Monsters, Fight Club) hitter to your brain- and your brain likes it.
When i say cake, it means mental uranium… which, if harvested and sold would be worth a lot of jack.
Filed under: Blogging, Blogroll, Emergent Church, Integral, Interdisciplinary Action, Leadership, Pomo, Theology , , Catalyst Conference, Christopher Hitchins, Chuck Palahniuk, CS Lewis, Francis Chan, Integral, Ken Wilber
