"These are your kids on books"

You can purchase products with this artwork on it here: http://www.zazzle.com/your_kids_on_books_poster-228389563330957964

Why the library?

Over at Letters of Note a letter from E. B. White was posted, in which he expressed to the children of Troy, Michigan why the library is so wonderful.

E. B. WHITE
NORTH BROOKLIN, MAINE

April 14, 1971

Dear Children of Troy:

Your librarian has asked me to write, telling you what a library can mean to you.

A library is many things. It's a place to go, to get in out of the rain. It's a place to go if you want to sit and think. But particularly it is a place where books live, and where you can get in touch with other people, and other thoughts, through books. If you want to find out about something, the information is in the reference books---the dictionaries, the encyclopedias, the atlases. If you like to be told a story, the library is the place to go. Books hold most of the secrets of the world, most of the thoughts that men and women have had. And when you are reading a book, you and the author are alone together---just the two of you. A library is a good place to go when you feel unhappy, for there, in a book, you may find encouragement and comfort. A library is a good place to go when you feel bewildered or undecided, for there, in a book, you may have your question answered. Books are good company, in sad times and happy times, for books are people---people who have managed to stay alive by hiding between the covers of a book.

(Signed, 'EB White')

Citation: White, E. B. From a letter he wrote.  
Posted at <http://www.lettersofnote.com/2011/05/library-is-many-things.html> Accessed 11 May, 2011.

Publishers threatened by "new" technology

The Future of the Book

The Future of the Book _ IDEO from uxd on Vimeo.

The model human

Edited by James K.A. Smith, After Modernity? is a collections of essays written by philosophers, geographers, theologians, and economists, each bringing their different types of expertise to bear on the phenomenon of globalization, each from the perspective of Christianity.  Here is a quote found in that book, in an article called "The Gift of Ruling" by John Milbank.

"Liberalism is peculiar and unlikely because it proceeds by inventing a wholly artificial human being who has never really existed, and then pretending that we are all instances of such a species.”

This is a sobering thought, not less so because it seems accurate.  What kind of society will be created when it is being created for creatures that never existed?  Any why are we heading there so fast, and without comment? 

Citation:

Milbank, John. “The Gift of Ruling” in After Modernity. Edited by James K. A. Smith. Baylor University Press, 2008.

Book Review of A Wrinkle in Time

A Wrinkle in Time

by Madeleine L'Engle

I have seen this book for decades, and it always seemed just weird...I guess a combination of the title and the different cover arts that I have seen accompanying it.  But some time back, I read someone commenting on it.  I don't remember who, or what the comments were, but it made me want to read the book. So I did.

My Review: Pretty easy to read.  The plot was interesting enough to keep me going.

This is a science fiction, or fantasy, or religious-alternative-universe type of book. It bears some resemblance to C.S. Lewis' Space Trilogy:  A brother and sister looking for their lost father, end up being carried by demoted stars (or something) to other planets, and given the task of rescuing their father from "The Darkness".  They learn some stuff on the quest about truth, and themselves and the nature of "reality".  

Final Analysis: I came away with a few metaphors to add to my thinking, and I'm glad to have read it, if only so that I no longer have to wonder what it is about.  There are sequels, which I probably won't read, unless I happen to hear that they are just too good to miss.

My (partial) review of "Pagan Christianity"

Pagan Christianity 

Authors: Frank Viola and George Barna

I read this book because a couple of my friends had read it and I wanted to know what it was that they were discussing.

My review: Eye-opening, frustrating and influential. 

Okay, so I am a critical reader.  If someone has the audacity to put their thoughts down in print, then they are opening their thoughts to my prying mind, and I don't read books quietly.  And I hope for nothing less when I write something...the thing I dread is the silent nod of disinterest, which happens all too often.

• There are two primary things that are going on in this book, from my perspective.  Viola and Barna are #1: diagnosing, and they are also #2: prescribing a solution.
• First, to the diagnosis: The historicity of the derivation of church practices is verifiable.  If something happened in a particular way, then, well...that is how it happened.  Can't get away from the facts, once they are established.  So there is an assessing of the facts in this books: Things like 
• Where did the "Church" building come from?
• Where did the order of worship come from?
• Why is there a sermon every Sunday?
• Why do we have professional clergy leading the church?
• Why do we dress a certain way when we "go to church" and why do the clergy dress as they do?
• Why do we tithe, and why do the clergy have salaries?
• Why do we view baptism and the Lord's Supper like we do?
• Where did the idea of Christian Education come from?
• The question that the authors are asking is: Are these practices derived from an understanding of the bible, or do they come from outside influences?  That is a question of diagnosing.  Their assessment from looking at the history of these practices are that they primarily derive from Constantine's imperial and pagan/cultural influence on the church, the influence of the reformers and the influence of the revivalists.  
• So, essentially it appears that their assessment is that each of the practices listed above derive from sources outside of the New Testament, and they do make a fairly strong case for that view.
• An additional, and very important thought, is that they are also proposing that if any practices do come from outside the New Testament it is therefore not appropriate.  So I would take issue here on their uniformity of thought: their book was mass printed in codex form using means and practices that were unavailable to the early church, and was distributed using (for me) amazon.com's hyper-advanced distribution system.  Well, you might reply...that has nothing to do with "church practices".  Okay, I'll grant that point provisionally. At the end of the book, they offer resources to those interested in pursuing their prescribed solution...a way to get involved in the "organic church", and that solution is to get on one or more of a few offered websites in order to get connected and engage in conversation...well, okay.  So that is how the church is supposed to form? By website marketing?  I do not find that in the NT.  You might still say...well: that is still not talking about church life.  I might like to argue over that point some more, but I will grant that as well, for now, and move on to another concern: On one of the websites, they offer a link to connect with itinerant church planters and encouragers...press this link, and Ta-da, by the magic of modern high-speed communication, you can hook up with a church planter.  I would propose that you don't find that mode of communication with the apostles of other church minister in the NT, and here we come to my point.  I grant that using e-mail, or online database messaging is fine, because I think God can work through that just fine, though I think we also need to be cognizant of the inherant alterations that this means of communication make to our interactions.  And Viola and Barna also think it is just fine.  And that begins to pick at the end of the thread, which, once pulled, starts the unraveling of their argument, which is: any mode of fulfilling the life of the church that is not found in the New Testament is at least suspect if not downright disqualified.  So I would propose, from that perspective, that our means of communicating with each other would also have to be held to the same standard, and I say this because the authors don't only lean on the weight of direct commands about church life from Christ and the Apostles, they also lean on the narrative about the church as normative to all subsequent church life...so therefore that would cut out any forms that are extra-biblical.  And no apostle was ever summoned to meet with a church using internet database messaging...we would have to limit ourselves to: verbal messages, hand-written, hand-delivered letters or direct visions from God.  But we don't have to do that, I don't believe, and obviously the authors don't believe that either.
• If that is true, then some of the reasoning behind dismissing sermons, a man leading a meeting within the church, or even a having a certain way of dressing, or a Sunday School, or some liturgical forms suddenly become permissible again.
• Okay, so I have plenty of other "issues" with the book, for example: some of their conclusions don't necessarily follow their premises, and that is very frustrating to me.  Gracie would laugh when she would hear me reading in my office, and I would exclaim in disgust over some faulty reasoning from my perspective...and this happened pretty often.
• That being said, I think that the information in the book is something that I am going to have to wrestle over.  Knowing where some of the customs in the church derive from is sobering, and demands much thought.  I don't start my thinking by saying, "If there is any other source for a custom than that it actually happened in the NT, then I am going to reject it."  I don't think like that.  I start more from the perspective of freedom in Christ tempered by love of others and love of God.  All things are permissible, but not all things are productive...so there is plenty of room for all kinds of customs in order to actualize the commands and narratives found in the NT.  
• Okay, so I did have some problems with diagnosis, but the big problem came in their prescription for a solution to the problem that they perceive.  I will say first that I think a lot of what is written in the book ought to be thought deeply about, and discussed at length in the Body of Christ.  But I have one pretty big caution that I carried all through the book with me.  The authors rejected the influences of the Constantinian culture, the culture of the reformation era, and the culture of the revivalists...but they do not reject strongly enough what appears to me to be a strong Enlightenment and Romantic influence in their thinking.  What they suggest as an alternative to "the institutional church" with all its poorly informed structures and forms strikes me as a 1960's marajuana smoking session, where everyone is sitting around with a guitar or a poem or some free verse, but instead of the marajuana being the influential component, the Holy Spirit is leading.  I was first a little alarmed by their use of Enlightenment thinkers as footnote sources for their thinking on some issues.  In fact, I stopped reading the book for quite a while because I was so put out by this.  Now, the whole marajuana imagery is inflamatory, and I know that, so let me back down from that a little bit...but not much.  I have never been to one of these "organic church" meetings, so I am only going on their own description of the events.  I am not saying they are bad or un-useable by the Spirit.  I think they sound pretty good, actually, and certainly are an attempt at making the Body more biblically-based, which is pretty wonderful, but I believe that their  over-the-top anti-institututionalism is being back-read into the New Testament, and the conclusions are not always accurate, from my perspective. I, of course, have lots and LOTS of other thoughts, but I will cut this post short here.

Final analysis: I wish everyone would read this book, and then get into a hearty, long-term conversation about it.  I told my wife that this book is probably going to be pretty influential on my thinking....but I am not yet sure exactly how.

NOTE: If you Google "Review Pagan Christianity" you can step into a larger discussion about the topics than my narrow view.

Now I get to pick another book to read...always an exciting time...

I want that!

One of my problems (there are more than one) is that I have trouble leaving home without a book.  Or really, without more than one book. I am (embarrassingly) the kind of guy that always has multiple books going...which could mean I am a man with a wide variety of interests, or (surely not!) I am someone who has trouble sticking to one thing at a time.

Hmmm....

But anyway, 

In an effort to provide myself with a selection of books to choose from, even if I know darn well that I won't have time to read during the day, I usually have at least 

• a Touchstone or First Things magazine in my briefcase, and/or 
• a book tucked under my arm on my way out the door. 
• This, in addition to multiple articles I have printed and inserted into my Circa Notebook I always carry with me.  Not to mention practically 
• infinite access to reading material on my internet-enabled "smart" phone.  And, I confess that I stop by 
• the library several times a week.  Sometimes just to visit the Oxford English Dictionary in the Reference Section, and sometimes to scan for new titles in 
• the Friends of the Library Bookstore.

But I guess I want more options, so I am looking at some possibilities:

I guess the hard part is having to choose just one option...they all look good to me.

Citation: Images found by Google Image Searching "Portable Bookshelf"

This makes me feel like crying

This from The Telegraph online newspaper:

Another Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary unlikely to be printed

"Sales of the third edition of the vast tome have fallen due to the increasing popularity of online alternatives, according to its publisher.

A team of 80 lexicographers has been working on the third edition of the OED – known as OED3 – for the past 21 years.

The dictionary’s owner, Oxford University Press (OUP), said the impact of the internet means OED3 will probably appear only in electronic form.

The most recent OED has existed online for more than a decade, where it receives two million hits a month from subscribers who pay an annual fee of £240.

“The print dictionary market is just disappearing, it is falling away by tens of per cent a year,” Nigel Portwood, the chief executive of OUP, told the Sunday Times. Asked if he thought the third edition would be printed, he said: “I don’t think so.”

Almost one third of a million entries were contained in the second version of the OED, published in 1989 across 20 volumes.

The next full edition is still estimated to be more than a decade away from completion; only 28 per cent has been finished to date.

OUP said it would continue to print the more familiar Oxford Dictionary of English, the single-volume version sold in bookshops and which contains more contemporary entries such as vuvuzela, the plastic trumpet encountered in the 2010 football World Cup.

Mr Portwood said printed dictionaries had a shelf life of about another 30 years, with the pace of change increased by the popularity of e-books and devices such as the Apple iPad and Amazon’s Kindle.

Simon Winchester, author of ‘The Meaning of Everything: The Story of the Oxford English Dictionary’, said the switch towards online formats was “prescient”.

He said: “Until six months ago I was clinging to the idea that printed books would likely last for ever. Since the arrival of the iPad I am now wholly convinced otherwise.

“The printed book is about to vanish at extraordinary speed. I have two complete OEDs, but never consult them – I use the online OED five or six times daily. The same with many of my reference books – and soon with most.

“Books are about to vanish; reading is about to expand as a pastime; these are inescapable realities.”

The first dictionary in recognisable format was Samuel Johnson’s, which was published in 1755. It remained the standard text for 150 years until the OUP embarked on its project in 1879.

The first OED came out in sections from 1884, completed in 1928.

Despite its worldwide reputation, the OED has never made a profit. The continuing research costs several million pounds a year. “These are the sort of long-term research projects which will never cover their costs, but are something that we choose to do,” Mr Portwood said.

A spokesman for the OUP said a print version of OED3 could not be ruled out “if there is sufficient demand at the time” but that its completion was “likely to be more than a decade” away."

Citation: Jamieson, Alistair. The Telegraph. "Oxford English Dictionary 'Will Not Be Printed Again'. 16 March, 2011. <http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/booknews/7970391/Oxford-English-Dictionary-will-not-be-printed-again.html> Accessed 16 March 2011.

My dictionary problems

So, I'm thinking of a word.  But I don't if it exists.  And I'm not sure how to look for it in the dictionary.  Since I don't know if it exists, neither do I know how it is spelled.  Since I don't know how it is spelled, I wouldn't know if I was on the right page of the dictionary to look for the word.

So I will try and explain the meaning of the potential word:

When I run across a new and interesting word in conversation or reading, I have this internal compulsion to look the word up in a dictionary. (I don't know exactly why this is.  My dad telling me, "Look it up yourself" so many times, rather than telling me what a word meant or how to spell it, perhaps.?)

My wife recently gave me as a gift the two-volume Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, in a (possibly futile) effort to keep me from buying the complete Oxford English Dictionary which is a 20-volume set, and costs around $850, and for which I have taken out a $1000 life insurance policy on Gracie, so that, in case she dies, I can immediately purchase this wonderful reference.  (I'm not making that up.)  I know that taking out a life insurance policy on my wife in order to buy a dictionary might label me as...eccentric.  And I'm okay with that.  But who else has a wife who puts her foot down and says that she will not co-habitate with a 20-volume dictionary?  What was I supposed to do?

Anyway, I guess you might be getting a clue by now that I really, really like words.

Which brings me back to my quandary about this word that I don't know how to find.

So there I was, reading to Gracie this morning from Bread and Wine and William Willemon makes the following statement, "Jesus seeks even more radical metanoia."

[...Metanoia?..] I think to myself.  [Metanoia?  Meta...maybe 'over'? maybe...Noia...hmmm...para-noia...what could ...'-noia' mean?]  I am staring at the word, trying to break it down in my head, incapable of continuing to read with this nagging ignorance eating away at me.

I jump up, and stride toward my desk...

Gracie laughs.  "I knew you were going to do that...I should have been counting the seconds to see how long it took you to get up."

So there I am flipping through Volume 1 of the Shorter OED.  J....K...L...M...Ma...Me...Met...Metan...

I am looking at the top of the page at the "bracketing words".  The words at the top of the page that tell what the first and last word on each page is until...at last, and deeply satisfying it is..."metamer/metaphysis". I've found it!  The right page in the dictionary. The page with the definition that I need to ease my ignorance.

So I found the meaning of the word "metanoia" (go look it up for yourself), but I also found a definition that I don't know a word for...what is the word for the satisfying realization that you have finally found your "place" that you are searching for in a book.  For realizing that, while your eyes have not yet found the word you are looking for, you know that word is on the page your fingers have flipped to?

I don't know?  Dictopagination?  Logobracketing?

I guess the OED staff needs to come up with a 400-volume set, which, instead of starting with the word and then giving you the definition, starts with all of the possible definitions and then gives you the word.  Kind of an Oxford English Dictionary - Jeopardy Edition.

If they do that, then I'll need to take out another life insurance policy on Gracie, but this time I will need to include enough to put a Dictionary Addition onto our house. Sweet.

This is beautiful

Men!

Elisabeth Elliot, author of many books, and especially (from my perspective) the book about her deceased husband, Jim Elliot: Shadow of the Almighty, writes here in Keep a Quiet Heart,

"Where are the holy men of God willing to shoulder the full responsibility of manhood, to take the risks and make the sacrifices of courting and winning a wife, marrying her and fathering children in obedience to the command to be fruitful? While the Church has been blessed by men willing to remain single for the sake of the Kingdom (and I do not regard lightly such men who are seriously called), isn't it obvious that God calls most men to marriage?  By not marrying, those whom He calls are disobeying Him, and thus are denying the women He meant for them to marry the privileges of being wife and mother."

So, what about it?  Are we willing to accept our mandates from Christ , abide in Him, and play the man?


Citation:
Elliot, Elisabeth. Keep a Quiet Heart. Revell, Grand Rapids, Michigan. 1995.  Page 166.

Samuel Johnson Quotes

I have a book on my bathroom bookshelf named Schott's Original Miscellany.  It is filled with informational tidbits that are sometimes interesting (The rules of Cricket), sometimes mind-boggling (the word in English purported to have the most letters is the scientific name for the Tobacco Mosaic Virus, which has 1,185 letters, and which I will not reproduce here) and sometimes useful (a list of commonly mispelled (sic) words, including conasuwer, which is, correctly, "connoisseur").


But, most importantly for this particular post, there is also a set of quotations from Samuel Johnson (the author of the first essential English Dictionary, and a thought-provoking wit).  I thoroughly enjoy Samuel Johnson's work and so I will offer a sub-selection of Schott's selection of quotes.

"What we hope ever to do with ease, we must learn first to do with diligence."

"The true art of memory is the art of attention."

"In all pointed sentences, some degree of accuracy must be sacrificed to conciseness."

"Read over your compositions, and where ever you meet with a passage which you think is particularly fine, strike it out."

"The end of writing is to instruct; the end of poetry is to instruct by pleasing."

"Claret is the liquor for boys; port for men; but he who aspires to be a hero...must drink brandy."

"To let friendship die away by negligence and silence is certainly not wise.  It is voluntarily to throw away one of the greatest comforts of the weary pilgrimage."

"The longer we live the more we think and the higher the value we put on friendship and tenderness towards parents and friends."

"Almost every man wastes part of his life attempting to display qualities which he doesn't possess."

"It matters not how a man dies, but how a man lives.  The act of dying is not of importance, it lasts so short a time."

"He was dull in a new way, and that made many people think him great."

Citation:
Schott, Ben. Schott's Original Miscellany. Bloomsbury, London, United Kingdom. 1988. Pages 22, 23 

Are you idle?

My friend Adam once told me a quote he had heard, that profoundly influenced my thinking about what I am about in life: 

"Failure is succeeding at something that is not important."  

Samuel Johnson, (my bathroom reading...I know: TMI) wrote an essay on the topic of "idleness" which rang some of the same bells.  Those of you who know me to be always planning and preparing will know which paragraph made me wince a little.

"There are some that profess idleness in its full dignity who call themselves the 'idle', as Busiris in the play 'calls himself the Proud'; who boast that they do nothing, and thank their stars that they have nothing to do; who sleep every night till they can sleep no longer, and rise only that exercise may enable them to sleep again; who prolong the reign of darkness by double curtains, and never see the sun but to 'tell him how they hate his beams' , whose whole labour is to vary the postures of indulgence, and whose day differs from their night but as a couch or chair differs from a bed. 

"But idleness predominates in many lives where it is not suspected, for being a vice which terminates in itself, it may be enjoyed without injury to others, and is therefore not watched like fraud, which endangers  property, or like pride which naturally seeks it gratification in another's inferiority. Idleness is a silent and peaceful quality, that neither raises envy by ostentation, nor hatred by opposition; and therefore nobody is busy to censure or detect it. 

"As pride sometimes is hid under humility, idleness is often covered by turbulence and hurry.  He that neglects his known duty and real employment, naturally endeavours to crowd his mind with something that may bar out the remembrance of his own folly, and does anything but what he ought to do with eager diligence, that he may keep himself in his own favour. 

"Some are always in a state of preparation, occupied in previous measures, forming plans, accumulating materials, and providing for the main affair.  These are certainly under the secret power of idleness.  Nothing is to be expected from the workman whose tools are for ever to be sought.  I was once told by a great master, that no man ever excelled in painting, who was eminently curious about pencils and colours. 

"There are others to whom idleness dictates another expedient, by which life may be passed unprofitably away without the tediousness of many vacant hours.  The art is, to fill the day with petty business, to have always something in hand which may raise curiosity, but not solicitude, and keep the mind in a state of action, but not of labour."

Citation,
Johnson, Samuel. Samuel Johnson: Selected Writings. "The Idler, No. 31, Saturday 18 November 1758." Penguin Books, England. 1968. Pages 215-216.

Alinea Restaurant

William A. Foster says

"Quality is never an accident; it is always the result of high intention, sincere effort, intelligent direction and skillful execution; it represents the wise choice of many alternatives" (1)

Robert Farrar Capon (an Anglican) says

"For all its greatness, the created order cries out for further greatness still.  The most splendid dinner, the most exquisite food, the most gratifying company, arouse more appetites than they satisfy.  They do not slake man's thirst for being; they whet it beyond all bounds." (2)

Denise Frame Harlan says, in response to that paragraph from Capon's truly marvelous book, "The Supper of the Lamb"

"I'd never known what to do with all the love in my heart for this beautiful, mess of a world.  All this time, I'd been trying to temper and tame my passion for mountains and tea and road trips and cheesecake and people. I'd known God my whole life, had known Christ for a decade, and had focused on Jesus's suffering and sacrifice.  I'd been afraid to love anything too much for fear that I'd disappoint God and prove myself too worldly, too attached to the everyday stuff of creation that would hinder my race toward heaven and the life hereafter.  I'd been afraid, and I'd held my heart back.  Suddenly it occured to me that this fear, this withholding, might be sin.  Maybe I'd had everything all wrong." (3)

Maybe she had.  


I believe that the very good creation of God, when taken in its proper light, can be fingers pointing us, His incarnate creatures, back to the creator, who made us creative in His image.


Alinea is a restaurant that sets the bar high, when it comes to looking intensely at the creation and then continuing the creative act.


I want to go there one (1) time in my life, with my wife.  (A dream my pocket book and consciousness of the needs of the poor forced me to give up as soon as it formed.)


Does anyone want to donate $400? :)


Though the pictures you are about to look at are an exaggerated expression of what I am talking about (with corresponding price tag), I think that God, who gave us all things richly to enjoy wants us to join Him in creation, and enjoy Him in creativity.  

Caramel Popcorn

Apple

Blackberry

Peanut

Bean

PB&J

Chestnut

Tomato

Strawberry

Venison

Hot Potato-Cold Potato

Sweet Potato

Tomato

Note that price at the bottom 

(4)

Citation:
(1) Foster, William A. 
<http://thinkexist.com/quotation/quality_is_never_an_accident-it_is_always_the/226780.html>. Accessed 16 February 2011.
(2) Capon, Robert Farrar. The Supper of the Lamb. Smithmark, New York, NY. 1969.  
(3) Harlan, Denise Frame. "And She Took Flour".  From The Spirit of Food by Leslie Leyland Fields. Cascade Books, Eugene, Oregon. 
(4) <http://www.alinearestaurant.com/>. Accessed 11 February 2011

Be not conformed to this world

This quote is from A Visit to Vanity Fair, by Alan Jacobs.  In fact, it is the very first sentence from the very first essay:  

"In a famous passage from Science and the Modern World, Alfred North Whitehead gives this counsel to scholars in the various historical disciplines:

"Do not chiefly direct your attention to those intellectual positions which controversialists feel it necessary explicitly to defend.  More important and more telling for the deep understanding of a culture are the fundamental assumptions which adherents of all the variant systems within the epoch unconsciously presuppose.  Such assumptions appear so obvious that people do not know what they are assuming.  Indeed, they do not know that they are assuming anything, because no other way of putting things has ever occurred to them."

This quote made me want to laugh and cry.  It is this very act of seeking to understand the assumptions that I have in common with all others in this age of the world that has been my quest for the last several years.  It is of particular importance to me as a Christian because Paul tells us in Romans 12.2

"And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God."

It is interesting to note that the Greek word "world" in that verse is "αἰών" or aion...meaning "age" of the world.  Insert the idea of "this world", to which we are not to be conformed, into Alfred North Whitehead's quote, where he uses the word "epoch" and you will see what I am driving at, maybe.


Citation:
Jacobs, Alan. A Visit To Vanity Fair: Moral Essays on the Present Age. Brazos Press, 2001.

Alan Jacobs thoughts on centralization

This is a repost of an Alan Jacobs blog post where he is currently reviewing a book, The Whale and the Reactor, which he is reading:

The Whale and the Reactor (7) by Alan Jacobs 

The idea that Reagan Ruined Everything seems to dominate, silently, the next chapter, “Decentralization Clarified.” I take this passage from its last paragraph to be its central idea: 

'In Kropotkin’s of G. D. H. Cole’s time it was still possible to imagine an entire modern social order based upon small-scale, directly democratic, widely dispersed centers of authority. Industrial society had not yet achieved its mature form; it was thinkable that decentralist alternatives might be feasible alternatives on a broad scale. Today, however, ideas of decentralization usually play a much different role, an expression of the faint hope one may still create institutions here and there that allow ordinary folks some small measure of autonomy.'

A melancholy statement, and one that is truer now than when Winner wrote it. After all, it was about halfway between the writing of this book and out own moment when Scott McNealy told us, “You have zero privacy anyway. Get over it.” 

Which in alternate moments makes me want to give up and makes me want to renew my determination to escape from Google. Ah, my early and innocent determination, how beautiful it was — and how distant it now seems. . . ."

Citation
Jacobs, Alan. "Text Patterns." Online Posting. 26 January 2011.
<http://text-patterns.thenewatlantis.com/2011/01/whale-and-reactor-7.html>. Accessed 26 January, 2011.

Who Knew?

On a shelf in our bathroom, there is a Bathroom Reading Book (an important feature in any home) titled "Who Knew?" It is filled with odd and mostly interesting tidbits of information about things that we know well.  Here are a few hand picked trivia-morsels:

• "The Hershey's Kiss got its name from the puckering sound made by the manufacturing equipment as chocolate was dropped onto the conveyor belt during the production process."
• "The Maxwell House was a luxury hotel in Nashville, Tennessee, known for it's coffee."
• "In 1903, a shipload of coffee consigned to European businessman Ludwig Roselius accidentally got drenched during a storm at sea.   Since the beans were no longer fit for commercial sale, Roselius used the cargo for research purposes, eventually discovering that soaking coffee beans in water was the key to decaffeination.  When further experimenting proved that he could remove practically all the caffeine, but not the flavor and aroma, he decided to market his invention.  He called the product Sanka, a derivation of the French phrase sans caffeine."
• "Three of the first five U.S. Presidents - John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and James Monroe - died on July 4th."
• "Director Wes Craven named Freddy Krueger after a kid who bullied him in school."
• "Oscar winner Tommy Lee Jones was the college roommate (Harvard, class of 1969) of Vice President Al Gore."
• "No word in the English language rhymes with month, orange, silver, or purple."

And now for the grande finale:

• "Barbie's last name is Roberts."

Hoffman, David.  Who Knew: Things You Didn't Know About Things You Know Well.  New York, NY:  MJF Books, 2000.

Wisdom in cultural context

Eph 5.15-17 says "See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise,  Redeeming the time, because the days are evil.  Wherefore be ye not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is" (KJV)

I believe that a part of wisdom is being able to accurately assess to what extent culture has already influenced my thinking, so that I can then ask for wisdom in order to know how I should deal with my conformity to the world, as I seek to be transformed by the renewing of my mind. (See Romans 12.2)

Or something like that.

Anyway.  Ken Myers has been deeply influential in helping me to see the nature of cultures influence through his writings and audio compilations and interviews at the Mars Hill Audio.

Ken influentially (to me) says in his book:

            “Culture is an abstraction.  We cannot isolate for observation three pounds or fourteen centimeters of culture.  These abstract questions of definition are extremely important, just as some amount of abstract thinking about who God is and what man is are necessary if we want to be obedient to God.  But responsible evaluation of culture must always deal with concrete human experience of what has been labeled “culture.” We don’t, after all, encounter culture.  We hear a particular song or see a specific film or read a novel that we have chosen from among all the others available.

            “Not only does cultural analysis require that we look at real cultural experiences, it requires that we look at them in their natural habitat, and that we understand something of their history.  In assessing rock’n’ roll, for example, it’s not enough to read the lyrics and find out on what beat of each measure the accent falls.  We also need to consider what relationship rock has with other aspects of pop culture, what social role it plays for its fans, and how it compares with other musical options available to listeners.  We need to look at the culture of rock, not just the words and the music.

            “Such consideration of the context of a particular cultural expression is important not for the sake of some sort of academic purity, but for the sake of Christian wisdom.  (emphasis mine)  Many of the decisions we make about our involvement in popular culture are not really questions about good and evil.  When I decide not to read a certain book, I am not necessarily saying that to read it would be a sin.  It is much more likely that I believe it to be imprudent to take the time to read that book at this time in my life.  To paraphrase Paul’s argument in 1 Corinthians 10 (which is, as we shall see, a very significant passage for our thinking about culture), something may be permissible, but it may not be very beneficial or constructive.

            “Each of us arises every morning with, in the providence of God, a number of duties, dilemmas, opportunities, and confusions that stem from living in a particular culture at a particular time.  Our decisions about what sort of involvement with popular culture is prudent does not occur in isolation.  Just as a critic cannot understand a song or a novel or a movie outside of its cultural context, so we cannot anticipate or evaluate the effect popular culture has on our lives without looking at that context.  Do I want to read that book because everyone else is reading it, or because of some intrinsic merit it has? Am I turning on the television because there is something I want to watch, or because I am addicted to distracting titillation?” 

Myers, Ken. All God's Children and Blue Suede Shoes: Christians and Popular Culture.Westchester, Illinois: Crossway Books, 1989. 30-31.

Ann Voskamp

This is a "trailer" to a book that just came out from our favorite blogger: Ann Voskamp.  Her book came out two days ago, and it is currently number 11 on the amazon.com bestselling books list. 

Warning: If you don't like poetry, there is a good chance you won't like her writing.  You've been warned.