Thunder & Lightning

Had a pleasant ending to yesterday in the shed, deciding not to give up.
Was woken by thunder overnight.  Thought I'd better re-watch 'The God's Aren't Angry" - just to check.  And realized I really need to re-write my letter to the powers that be.
Turns out 'this God is not angry because this God is love.'  A happy ending is always nice.  Thanks, Rob.
Nearly finished the current Tom Wright, who was quoting Rev 4:5a: 'From the throne came flashes of lightning and the rumble of thunder.'  Also watched a short video of Tom Wright commenting on Rob Bell.  It's a small world.

Breakfast in The Shed

Woke up at 5.30 today and worried. Considered giving up. Divided this into multiple levels: Level 1 is giving up what I was hoping to do on sabbatical. Level 2 is giving up the sabbatical completely. 7 involves a church tower. This is what happens when you get a letter from The Diocese. Who are paying for my sabbatical and so I should say are very very wonderful.

Watched a couple of apologetics videos on YouTube then went for a run in the rain to calm down and consider what to say in the letter I'll now have to write to various committees.
Cheered up a bit having breakfast in the shed while listening to the radio and the rain. Then Morning Prayer. Appropriate words for a Bank Holiday as I listen to the rain: "You visit the earth and water it; •you make it very plenteous."
But I baulked at the Song of Moses and Miriam. It's just so Old Testament (an adjective used to good effect in Fast5). Do I really want to join them celebrating the death of the Egyptian army? They were talking about the struggle in Egypt on the radio. Perhaps the holiest man I ever met served in the Egyptian Army. Thankfully there is an option to read a bit of the Song of Solomon instead, which I took. Christians are sometimes accused of picking and choosing which bits of the Old Testament to take and which to leave. Guilty as charged. I'm still working out how Jesus came to fulfil the Torah, without omitting a single yod; and yet I just can't imagine him joining Miriam with a tambourine.



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Location:You can work it out

Frontline

First read this morning was a UCB devotional that I get emailed. Went some way to allay that diocesan discouragement I read yesterday.

Trip to Frontline church today to meet Andy the main tech guy. Very helpful showing me all the tech gear they have there. More of that later for those so inclined.

The service was enjoyable and also moving, with nearly 20 adult baptisms, about a dozen of them Iranians. Each gave a few words of testimony (as suggested in Common Worship)! The 10-piece band played background music with a chorus of a popular song as each candidate was duly dunked. 'Jesus we Celebrate', 'O Happy Day' etc. Excellent. We also got to sing 'We exalt thee' in Farsi. (My Farsi is not that good but I'm sure they changed the last 'O Lord' to 'Jesus' - not that there's anything wrong with that.)
Frontline is an extraordinary church that is certainly very popular. I would recommend it to any student moving to Liverpool. But. I did leave with some questions. The service was seeker-friendly, and needs to be seen in the context of their other services, especially the earlier more Bible-focused one. But I was still surprised to not have any Bible at all - not even a slide. The speaker talked about Peter getting out of the boat, but didn't mention where that story came from. He likened it to Luke Skywalker trying and failing to lift his X-Wing out of the swamp on Dagobah. Fair enough, but Luke got a film clip and Peter didn't. Sometimes I unexpectedly feel like a proper Evangelical.

It's probably not fair to criticise on the basis of one service, and I may go back. The real concern I have over Frontline is more to do with its heterogeneity. ("sameyness"). Most people seemed to be in their 20s, many with accompanying children. Exactly the kind of people that are achingly absent from all the other churches. Now I know why - they're all at Frontline! That's only half-joking. The rest of the churches in town miss out on the liveliness, the passion and the energy of these young believers; and the corollary is that older, more seasoned believers can't pass on their wisdom of years spent walking the walk. I'm not sure that's a good thing.
The counter argument is that like attracts like, and many or most of the Frontliners wouldn't go to church at all if it meant smells, bells and candles. Or even small worship bands playing cheesy old songs and preachers thinking they're cool for having a couple of slides of PowerPoint.
It could be that we're in a transitional time between geographical and networked models of church, as personal mobility continues to increase. Frontline could really do with a car park though.
I came away having enjoyed the experience overall, and with some chocolate, but with just a faint sense of unease.

Essay already - anyway that's too much for the less techy people. Now a bit about that. I'll grey this out to make it less important.

Frontline has more tech than any church I've ever seen. More than we have in 4 churches put together where I'm from. Importantly they have a team of about 18, properly rotad to look after it on a Sunday. Which starts about 6.30 a.m. for Andy. They don't just have a projector, they have 2 with 2 spares and a big plasma screen at the back so the person at the front can see what's on. They have 2 cameras and 5 computers. Plus an iPad which can remotely control the digital sound mixer desk. They have one computer just to control the lighting. Which is so subdued that I couldn't read, but had an effective spotlight on the baptismal pool. They had live translation into two other languages, which is done through wireless headsets given to anyone who wants one. And then there's the video and sound recording of the service which gets put up on the website. And did I mention the £3000 camera used just for stills? This is a big budget operation, and Andy's MO is to only buy the best equipment available. Only the best is good enough for God - something you're more likely to hear in a cathedral than in your struggling parish church.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad. Currently not controlling any sound system.

Location:Frontline - Shed

On the shelf

The shed now has a sound system, 2 chairs, a mat, a table, and a shelf.  I put the shelf up myself yesterday and it hasn't fallen down.  Yet.
I was reminded of my granddad - who was a joiner, but sadly he died young, some time ago (that's what happens when it's normal to start smoking when you're 9 years old.)  He didn't have time to pass on his expertise to me - and so I'm almost completely useless at practical things like that.  I put some shelves up for Lynn and she didn't trust them for weeks.  They're still up though.

Wasted hours today fixing the internet again. The router may have to go back.  I did get internet connectivity in the shed though, so it's still on a final warning.

Opened a letter from the diocese which has made me feel annoyed, sad, disillusioned, unhappy, outraged and inadequate all at once.  That takes some doing, but they managed it.  I think I'll give it to the treasurer...

Today News

Listening to Today on R4 they mentioned this (between the Maltese divorce referendum and dyscalculia): The Daily Mail today says  "a damning report released at the G8 summit reveals that Britain spends more on aid as a percentage of national income than any  other country in the world"  
Why is that 'damning' ?  Surely we should be celebrating being a world leader, and on this in particular.  It makes me feel proud to be British.  Now to head for the shed and listen to the daily service and an online newspaper then back to Tom.
Daily service has started now - they're playing a Brian Doerksen song - brilliant!

Here's some pictures:

Shed Arrival

I have a shed. It's in our garden.
And I'm in it. The shed men came and finished putting it up by 7.30 pm - which was a bit late. And the weather is awful. But I'm finally in the shed.

It was getting to be a bit like God. I believed the shed was real. I'd seen it. I kept telling people how much the shed meant to me. But few others had seen it. Until now. The price had been paid for the shed to come into my life...
(I could go on. )

I'll put some pictures up tomorrow.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Location:The Shed

Duck-brain

Today it is sunny. Very warm, cloudless Mr. blue sky.
Not good. I have to go for a run some mornings, in order to keep working properly. I prefer running (really jogging) when it's raining because it keeps me cool. So I was relieved to still finish my 5.3k in just under half-an-hour today - a time anyone my age should be disappointed at, and anyone younger than me should laugh at.
The last time i ran in the rain there was water off a duck's back. And plenty of ducklings of various sizes. Some stayed calm, others scattered. Some of the comically waddling escapees ran into the water; others ran along the path in front of me. Some ducklings have very poor spatial awareness. I think they were females. Judging by their colouring and nothing else, of course. Ducks have small brains. But I think avian intelligence is vastly under-rated. Crows are frighteningly clever - as smart as any other animal IMHO. Bird brains have to be small and compact in order for them to be light enough to fly. I reckon they're just more efficient than mammalian brains. But there's no substitute for cubic capacity (as American muscle-car enthusiasts say) and humans are unique in our brainpower.

There's an aquarium kind of thing at Lakeside where you can see ducks. There's a multi-level water tank so you can see them diving under the water - where they are surprisingly elegant in their movement. If I were to come back as an animal, in a Hindu kind of way, I'd want to be a duck. They can walk on land, swim on water, dive under the water, and even fly. That's brilliant!
But of course downward reincarnation doesn't really make sense. The information pattern or whatever it is that makes you you has a minimum hardware requirement. And that seems to be a human being. There just isn't the capacity in any other creature to accommodate a human 'soul'. (I use that word in a corporeal, non-platonic, non-cartesian sense.) The only place left for us to go is up. That is, to some kind of body that is somehow greater than a human body. We have only an inkling of what that might be like, as recorded in the post-resurrection appearances of Jesus.

John 20:19 "That evening (the first day of the week), the doors being locked where the disciples were because they feared the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, 'Peace be with you.'"




Today's blog was mostly written some days ago, and is already long enough. So you can stop reading now. But as I'm trying to write about technology too, I'll carry on if there's anyone still reading. Science fiction writers have told tales of how a human soul could in the future be downloaded (uploaded) into some kind of computer, possibly with a robotic body. Currently we are nowhere near that level of expertise. But our own technological ingenuity has a habit of surprising us. Is it possible that one day we will achieve technological resurrection? It's quite a disturbing question for some Christians. As though science will actually supplant faith at some point. However, it is also possible that it's impossible! We humans could well be a limiting case of complexity in this universe. That is, we are the most complex objects we know of. And when we start to wonder if the human brain could get any more complex there are problems. It's possible to increase the amount of grey matter (an elephant's brain is larger). But there is underlying white matter - which is basically the additional wiring that connects all the grey matter up. This is essential to the way a human brain works. And to increase the grey matter, you need more and more white matter, but exponentially so. The biological brain we have may not actually have much capacity to get bigger and better.
That doesn't mean there isn't a different technology that could effect the same level of complexity. We don't know. But I'm guessing not. We are so far away from understanding how a human brain actually works that we're unlikely to be able to produce a technological equivalent anytime soon. Brains are all down to quantum effects in dendritic spines or something. Quantum computing technology has only just made it outside the laboratory this year, so don't set a date. Anyway, that's enough amateur neurophysiology for one day. I should put links and references in, but it's easier to write this stuff off the top of my head. That's where my brain is. Sometimes.

Location:Shed

Reading

Yesterday was a bit rubbish - didn't post anything.  Although I do now know more about a BR1600CD than I did.

Decided I'd better get back to doing some reading. Tom Wright is usually good.
Read 2 pages and fell asleep. Tried again. Sleep again. Not that there's anything wrong with the eminent New Testament scholar (and brilliantly named) N.T. Wright - I'm actually very fond of him: it's just that I'd had a large lunch to say goodbye to our local Methodist minister. At a pub, of course.

I do find reading so boring. Especially when there are no pictures. Especially when there are no breaks in the text. It's just such a slow process.
It's not that I don't do much reading - in fact I do a lot. It's just that I'm conditioned to read small chunks of text, with control over which small chunk I read next.  That's how text is on the internet.  The whole modernist linearity of a 'book' is what gets me down. Even a good book.
I should say that I have read the Bible cover to cover. But in the CofE we have a lectionary which splits it up into small, palatable chunks. Which is how I like to read anyway.  So instead of blaming technology for my lack of ability to read long chapters, I've decided it's the church's fault really.



Shed arrives tomorrow!

Incommunicado

Today didn't go according to plan. I was expecting to be at a conference on communications, but it had been cancelled. No-one had thought to communicate that to the people that had booked for it, but thankfully I checked the diocesan website last night. Not all bad though - I had time to fix the Internet (i.e. our router). And I went to KFC (no, it stands for Kids For Christ) to meet the Bishop. Where we also had a chocolate fountain. And strawberries, which are healthy.

I had to call Netgear tech support to fix the Internet - an exercise in humility for me. I was quite embarrassed when they asked me how many computers did I have connected to the router. 3 desktops, 3 laptops and 4 other devices. There's really no excuse.

Bought an offline ("paper") magazine today: MacUser. Thought I'd give it a try. The editorial said,
"If the affluent millions who buy Apple's products were to equalise their income with those who make them, there would be no iPad, because no-one could afford it."
The context included a mention of the explosion at the Foxconn plant in China, where there is also a disturbing tendency for workers to commit suicide. It's used by Apple, amongst others. It's probably unfair to single out Apple, as at least they do have a code of conduct for suppliers. I suppose the ethical question is whether a Western Christian can justify spending their abundance of cash on buying things from producers that can never afford them. There are a lot of muzzled oxen in china. This isn't just limited to tech of course. There's also food and clothing for example. So why do we have FairTrade food and clothing but not tech stuff? Is there an opportunity there? Or is it worse because food and clothing are necessities but iPads aren't?
I've tried a day without food recently and also an incommunicado day without ICT. The fasting was far easier, but that's probably just me.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad. But I'm feeling bad about that today.

Location:Not Southport

Suffering at Liverpool Cathedral

Liverpool's Anglican Cathedral is always cold, but then it is very big.
I went there this morning for "Breakfast with the Bible" with Canon Dr Jules Gomes. Which had more breakfast, and less Bible than usual, as he explained.  Instead he delivered a lecture on why the theory of evolution isn't all that reliable and at least shouldn't be taught as fact when it has many detractors.  He did this using quotes entirely from non-Christian scientists.  Talking to him afterwards, I did question him about one assertion: that if you believe God created through evolution, then you have to explain suffering.  I first heard this statement a week or two ago, and there was something about it that didn't ring true for me.  My first thought was that suffering is very much part of this - God's - world.  No matter how we got here, if we claim that God put us here and we admit that there is suffering then we have a problem.  At most there is a bit of additional explaining to do if we accept evolution was part of the mechanism.  But the problem of suffering doesn't go away if we believe in 6-day creation.
What is suffering anyway?  Are we talking about animals suffering because they get eaten?  Is suffering a human value that we project onto each other and certain other creatures (flies?  bacteria?).  If there were no people would there be any suffering?  Maybe that's what the Creation story is saying in the myth of 'The Fall' - before the first people, there really was a suffering-free paradise.

Stayed for the Choral Eucharist - excellent music as always.  And an excellent sermon from Dr Salim J Munayer, who introduced himself as a Palestinian Christian and an Israeli Citizen.  Sounds like he does some great work in reconciliation, sometimes involving taking people out into the desert on camels!  I was also struck by something that should have been obvious - Christians are ideally placed to be peacemakers between Moslems and Jews in that part of the world.  Dr Munayer commented that many American Christians are more pro-Israel than the Israelis.  But after actually visiting and meeting Palestinians, they can become more pro-Palestinian than the Palestinians!
Blessed are the peacemakers.   

Also managed a chat with Dean Justin about this kind of thing:

Future Phone

Just seeing how easy it is to link videos on here...


Flexphone by Ikev on eYeka from eYeka on Vimeo.

Back home once again

Only day 5 of the Sabbatical and I'm already starting to feel I'm doing nothing and life is passing me by somehow!  Maybe I'm just disappointed I missed the rapture today - serves me right for not believing I can fly.

Came home from the duckpond to my nice big computer and fixed a few posts from the week.  Now some have photos.  Also uploaded some 'music' that I made while I was away - drums, bass, hammond organ, rhythm and lead guitar.  Using just my old strat and an iPad with GarageBand - a complete recording mixer far better than the 4-track the Beatles used for Sgt. Pepper's, for instance.

Cover story in Christianity magazine was 'Is your stuff killing your soul?', and had an iPad and some headphones as an illustration.  I'd have to answer, 'No.'  But I see what they mean.  The article was about consumerism in general and didn't even reference the accidentally eponymous gadget magazine.  Also read an interesting article about the the Degar people of Vietnam's central highlands.  I admit I didn't know Vietnam had any central highlands.  Apparently the (Christian) Degar are still persecuted because of their association with the Americans in the war there (the one that nobody thinks was a good idea, including the Americans).  The government would be happy if they'd sign up to the official evangelical church, and probably leave them alone.  I wonder if that would be like making all Christians in this country sign up to the Church of England?  That wouldn't go down well at all.  There's probably a CofE parish somewhere very similar to whatever other denomination you might prefer, but still there's always something wrong about 'forced' church.  I suppose it comes back to the problem of freewill.

My 'Clarks' shoes were made in Vietnam.  Maybe I shouldn't have consumed them.

('Back Home Once Again' is 2 tracks before 'Northern Lights', just about my favourite single ever.)

Dinosaurs

Did see some dinosaurs after all


Media museum in Bradford. Excellent selection of arcade games.
David Spero exhibition of photos of churches. Which he found by checking no cross on the map. Hence not 'church' buildings as you'd think. Talks about Incongruous secularism next to sanctity. Eg church above betting shop. Juxtaposition intended in this case by pastor.
Artist changed from atheist to agnostic in process of creating these photos.

TV heaven looked interesting but the assistant seemed to think I was somewhere else. So she didn't let me in. A taste of things to come or maybe it's like doggy heaven.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone while running away from a dinosaur

Location:Yorkshire

Bradford Cathedral

Got lost on the way to Bradford cathedral - 2 satnavs is not enough. Had to extract the postcode from a URL. Website has pages of directions but no postcode! That's so annoying and so common.
Felt like a student explaining to a man that said hello that I was 'doing a project' on AV in cathedrals. Thankfully the man turned out to be the head verger and IT man. Brilliant! He was busy setting up 3 back projection screens for use at the enthronement tomorrow. Sometimes they project onto a wall. sometimes they stream video over internet using a Slingbox. They have a touchscreen in the king james bible exhibition. They use a camera to project live for organ recitals and school leavers' services. They have sermon illustrations onscreen at family services. BUT he doesn't like screens! He just prefers books. I didn't press him further on that as he was being so helpful.
I might just have found the most hi-tech cathedral in England, at my first attempt. I foresee a downward tech gradient from now on...

Location:Bradford

Reservoir Dogs

Today was easily the best day so far. Read for a bit, had a nice lunch in the cafe and sat by the duckpond for a bit more reading. Then went for a walk around the reservoir that I found yesterday. Very beautiful path, with bluebells and butterflies, little streams and a church. There was a path through the trees where I suddenly realised that there was nothing in my field of view that was affected by technology. It was all natural. I was happy for a moment. Then some big dogs appeared. Thankfully they didn't bite me, and their owners called them back before they changed their minds.
I wonder if there are dogs in heaven? The trouble is, half the people there won't want them and the other half will. Either way it won't be heaven for one set of people. So maybe heaven doesn't work like that. The KFC kids explained that there are several levels to 'doggy heaven', which makes more sense.

I wonder if evolution eventually creates a world where all creatures are nice? Certainly doesn't seem that way now, but the lack of carnivorous dinosaurs in Yorkshire is definitely a step forward. We can walk around the English countryside knowing we have no natural predators - except possibly insurance salespeople.

Normal people can stop reading now because I'm getting a bit theological. Today I also finished reading my 1st book of the Sabbatical -
'The Living God' by Keith Ward.

I always liked the quotes I read from Prof. Ward without ever getting round to reading any of his books. Here, in this book from 1986, he has a crack at explaining the whole of Christianity, starting with the rationality - the comprehensibility - of the universe. Which he thinks is in itself a good reason for believing in a God whose nature is to be rational.
Good start, and he says lots of other wise things. Like we shouldn't moan about the universe being unkind to us and think our prayers aren't being answered when our little corner of it doesn't conform to our ideals. Our little piece of it has to conform to the overall pattern first.

He asks and answers why the universe is a big as it seems to be:
"...the smallest and most insignificant conscious being is more valuable than all those millions and millions of light years of empty space."
Some years ago I thought of this thing called "complexity space" - a mapping of the universe which takes into account complexity. This means that simple bits of it - e.g. gas clouds or 'empty' space are tiny compared to vast volumes taken up by the massively complex items like humans. And so we are as important as God sees us.

More controversially, Ward says that:
'We can see God's kingdom as the final goal of evolution, the achieved society of growing love, knowledge, creative cooperation and friendship. We have to give up, as pre-scientific... Eden... sudden fall into sin ... sudden end to this wicked world just around the corner.' Instead we need the evolutionary perspective on human progress.

So there. No pre-mil mid-trib rap for him!

I still want to know if symbiosis ultimately trumps parasitism and if all dogs will be nice and if lions can lie down with lambs and still be lions. But then I want to know lots of stupid things.


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Fast but not Furious

Not eaten now for over 24 hours. Probably should start again. Not feeling particularly hungry though. Perhaps 1 day is just not long enough.
What's the difference between fasting and dieting? Fasting is for spiritual benefit, dieting for physical? Can you have one without the other? There is no word for "spiritual" in Hebrew, so I'm told. Fasting must be wholistic. I suppose motive is important. Didn't seem to do much praying – maybe the preponderance of mirrors in the flat had more to do with my motivation than I thought.

Went to see a film with Lynn this week: it was called "Fasting and Furious" or something. Disappointingly, no one seemed to be fasting. Though they were going to say grace at one point. It seemed to be more about driving around in fast cars, sometimes dragging a tethered heavy object. It used a branch of physics called "Movie Physics" which is not as strange and unexpected as Quantum Physics, but is even more entertaining. It occurred to me that I learned some practical physics from an old video game. It involved dragging things around with a spaceship that had momentum, inertia, gravity, thrust, and things like that. I think it was called "Classical Physics". Or possibly "Thrust". You can do the math, but there's no substitute for seeing it all worked out visually, and kinaesthetically.

Fast5 is a silly but enjoyable film if you like that kind of thing. It has many flaws, not least morally, and yet I will be telling IMDB that since it was a prequel to Tokyo Drift from 2006 then it was a goof to have a 2007 GTR in it.

Not that I know much about that kind of thing. I know cars are bad for the environment but I can't help liking them in a boy-racer kind of way. I was a boy racer some years ago, until a nice policeman pulled me up for driving at about 118 mph. Which I now know was wrong. Lynn tells me I'm a different person when I get behind a steering wheel. I think it's everyone else that turns into either a dodderer or a boy racer. And I know what they're like.


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I made a song with GarageBand on my iPad

Hi,
I just made a song with GarageBand on my iPad and I wanted you to hear it.
Take a listen...


That was auto text. Don't know where the song went- I'll repost it when I get back home. I spent about an hour and a half on iPad GarageBand which was excellent. It was supposed to be 12 bar blues, but I miscounted and it was 16.

Wrong Key Blues  (MP3)

UPDATE: this may work now!

Ignore my guitar jam and just listen to that GarageBand organ!

Food Laws

The flat is great, but there is
no microwave. Or pans or plates for that matter. Felt led to have a day of fasting. Ordered a mocha in the cafe. Does that count as food? They'd run out of squirty cream - I was relieved at that. I know I am very sad. Reading Keith Ward about morality. He doesn't know why God told the Israelites not to eat pigs. Maybe it's because bacon is so tasty. Someone told me it the number one reason people give up vegetarianism. If you can resist bacon, you can resist anything meat-wise. Maybe that's why. I also worry about why pigs have been used as organ donors for people. Obviously because they are very similar to humans. So does that mean eating pigs is the next best (i.e. worst) thing to cannibalism?


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Location:Temple St,Huddersfield,United Kingdom

Arrival at the Duck Pond

This morning's heretical thought:
"The Old Testament is nothing more than the context for the Incarnation."
I'm not supposed to think that, so I'll stop. I do like standing for the Gospel though.

Meanwhile, discussed ducks with Derek & his mate & Lynn over lunch. Then a painful trip to the dentist. Painful because of the price (amusingly, two-thirty) - where did the NHS go?

Then a drive to Lindley to a flat owned by my sister-in-law Clare.
Listened to an Unbelievable podcast on Intelligent Design in the car. It's more believable than I thought but I still don't buy it.

Found a Christianity magazine that I stole from St Andrew's. Apparently Shane Hipps (Teaching Pastor at Rob Bell's church) has a book out called "Flickering Pixels: How technology shapes your faith" - which I really must read.

Finally got down to some reading. Brought 3 books - 2xTom Wright + Keith Ward "The Living God", with which I started.
2nd person this week that I've heard start from a profound experience of the presence of God which changed and shaped them.
Talks about how Michelangelo and Blake have given us misleading pictures of God - wonder if that's what Shane says?
Ward quotes Plato: "Time is the moving image of eternity." - I needed that quote when I was at college 9 years ago. Plato is great, but he won't win the Touring Cars this year if he keeps whinging about the Honda Civics.
Ward says, "the whole of space and time is the finite image of the infinite God." - which I suppose is a theological version of the Holographic Universe. But what do I know? It just took me 15 minutes to open a bottle of Merlot. Next time I'll listen to Lynn when she suggests getting one with a screw top.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad with a Bluetooth keyboard that came with my iMac but was a bit rubbish.

Location:Lindley Duck Pond

Planking

BBC news - what is planking?
A news story today about how an Australian man has died due to a FaceBook fad.
He was doing something dangerous (balancing on a balcony rail) in order to get noticed on a 'social networking' site.
How much is FaceBook to blame for this?
Is this an acceptable cost for the use of technology?
I suppose it's like driving cars - we know some people will die, yet we still do it.  We can add all kinds of safety features without ever making it completely safe.

Starting and Ending

Sabbatical started today!  Hooray!

Had planned on having a lie-in.  Couldn't sleep.  Maybe excited somewhere subconsciously.  Maybe the wind.  (The buffeting not the buffet.)
Woke up before 6, considering the end of the world.  Like you do.  More of that later if you're interested.
Realized I can now go for a run at any time of day without feeling too guilty about it.  Went out before 7 anyway.
There are theological reflections to be done alongside the canal.  There was a mother duck sheltering her ducklings under her wings in that feminine aspect of God kind of way.  Shame I didn't have my phone to take a picture.
Then there was a small black dog running directly towards me, which thankfully chickened out before I did.  I thought some bad thoughts as I gave my best "that should be on a lead" look to its owner, a lanky blonde woman.  Not that either of those colours are relevant of course.
A bit later I saw two doves, FIGHTING!  That's just not right.  Maybe they were very light grey pigeons.  The colour could be relevant in this case.

Our eyes only see three colours at full intensity - I think they're somewhere in yellow, green, and violet.  So why does all our display technology work around red, green, and blue?  That's a mystery to me.
Eyes are really impressive though.  We can see as few as 7 photons, even if they come from another galaxy.  "He gave us eyes to see them, and lips that we might tell how great is God almighty, who has done all things well".

Which brings me back to the "theological" thoughts that I woke up with.  This isn't likely to be helpful to anyone but me, so there may be something else you'd rather do than read this next bit.

Suppose God transforms this world rather than starting again.  I'd like to suppose that because God seems to do restoration rather than obliteration.  And Saint Peter must be talking about refining fire rather than destructive fire because he hadn't heard of nuclear fusion or exotic particle interactions... (and all the other theology like that).  Well where would God start in this universe?  Everywhere at once?  With us lot on planet earth?  Maybe, but what if God started somewhere else?  In a galaxy far, far away?  Then it mustn't have started yet because we see galaxies as they were a very long time ago.  And there seems to be a lot of destruction going on as well as creative things (like nucleogenesis, a favourite Vangelis track).  From this simple evidence there are many possible theistic conclusions.  1) Most likely, I don't understand how God works at all, and should shutup.  2) Maybe There are regions of the universe which are already being transformed, but we don't recognize this, or can't see them.  Our light-detecting eyes may not be up to the job anyway.  3) God will start with "sin central" - planet earth - and the recreation will proceed outwards from here.  4) The recreation does involve a complete reboot, in the twinkling of an eye, and we shall all be changed.  Much as I don't like the idea of destruction, it's hard to understand the eschaton in terms of physics.  I could never get the hang of The Fall, either.  Maybe what I'm trying to understand is the difference between resuscitation and resurrection.

Party Time

Interesting vestry prayers today - the Holy Spirit showed up.  Shouldn't be surprised, I know.
I'm hoping Lynn's back will be much better - maybe even able to go for a walk sometime.

Had a birthday party after church.
This one was for a lady who is 95.
Last weekend went to a party for a lady who is 90.
Neither involved much dancing.
Which is good.

Sabbatical actually starts tomorrow.
Might get serious then.

Unlikely.

Important shed furniture

Got a new freezer today.  It won't fit in my shed.
Got a little iPod dock too.   That will fit, and sounds better.
And got a letter from someone saying they're not going to give me any money.
That's 1/3 of my total funding not happening - good thing I'm only staying in the shed.

Good news/ Bad news

The shed is on it's way.
But won't arrive until a week on Thursday.
What am I to do while I wait?
Sit on the grass?
It's wet!


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Back in 10 minutes

Paid for the shed today. Thankfully also received a cheque from the diocese.


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Thinking of titles every day will be hard

Community Cohesion meeting today: http://makeithappy.cc4g.net/
Can schoolchildren teach ICT to older people?
I guess it happens all the time.

An out-of-context quote from tonight's Bible study:
"...many people really, truly need an even better cell phone, with more features."
That's me, that is.
Maybe just another app will do the job.
Nooma Shells
Nooka Watches

Failed already

I meant to post something every day.
Failed already.
But then I'm not on sabbatical yet.
Woke up this morning and thought I might go to Rome.
Geographically, not ecclesiastically.
I think I can do that with airmiles.


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Pools of blood in the kitchen

Came downstairs this morning to find a trail of blood in the kitchen, leading to the freezer.  Only slightly relieved to discover it was just the freezer that had died.  And the blood was unfrozen summer fruit juice.

Later this morning, tried to preach on the relevance of Twitter to the Emmaus story.  Failed.

One week to go before sabbatical - starting to panic about how many things I still have to sort out.  

Remembered that I do have a shed on order.  Would have been great to sit in it while it was raining today.  In my mind that's one of the main attractions of sheds.

Shedlessness

Today I realized that I don't have a shed.

I did have an interesting conversation with a teacher about how technology is being used out of school hours.  Must find that website.

First (past) post

Welcome to my blog.
Blogs are going out of fashion, so it's time I did one.  
The purpose of this blog is to chronicle my sabbatical/study leave over summer 2011.
I'm hoping to study the role of technology in the church, with some theological reflection.  
Some people go to New Zealand, the USA, or at least France for their study leave.  
Due to cash shortages etc. I will be spending some time in my shed instead.