One of my favorite sites to visit is Garfield Minus Garfield. It's a brilliant, minimalist art project
dedicated to removing Garfield from the Garfield comic strips in order to reveal the existential angst of a certain young Mr. Jon Arbuckle. It is a journey deep into the mind of an isolated young everyman as he fights a losing battle against loneliness and depression in a quiet American suburb.
Does it succeed? Well, you be the judge. Take this as an example.
I'm attempting to take a walk through my adolescence, but it's gone. The store I remember as A Clean Well-Lighted Place for Books isn't here. It's vanished. I find that I'm more than five years too late, and there's not so much as a plaque to stand as a monument. Clean, Well-Lighted has been replaced by a 24 Hour Fitness center. Rather, I would have a 24 hour bookstore.
I weep silently, wondering if the jocks have finally beaten the bookworms, unwilling to mature past their juvenile competition, extrapolating it to a violent and unnecessary end.
Soon, we won't remember books. We won't know what books were. Those ancient bulwarks of imagination will all be gone, replaced by soulless machines. They'll be theorized and discussed by archaeologists and paleontologists, debated, pondered and wondered about. What were they like? Did they work? Did normal people know how to turn them on and download their knowledge? The students of those archaeologists will laugh when they hear these ancient artifacts lacked on switches, wondering how their ancestors survived our race's backward infancy. (We will laugh at them when they look at us funny after we threaten them with the "nose-in-the-book penalty.")
I wonder, just for a moment, if my predecessors wept at the demise of clay tablets when the Egyptians started using papyrus. But I dismiss the thought after a moment as ludicrous at worst, irrelevant at best. I'm biased like that.
There will still be some of us who remember that books were tactile, sensual, not just for the eyes and the mind, but for the fingers to feel the paper, the binding, the stitching, for the ears to hear the real turning of pages, for the smell. You could tell the difference between a new book and an old book by the smell. But books were also for the heart, for the spirit, for those intangible qualities that make us who we are. Those musty old books commanded an aire of respect because they had lasted. Like old wise men, they were cherished, celebrated as important. The only way you can tell the difference between an old and new ebook is by the dead batteries. Will museum curators work very hard to restore depleted batteries? Will the first ebook (what was it, anyway?) be on display like Gutenberg's Bible, like the Dead Sea Scrolls, like illuminated masterpieces?
For that matter, will we remember libraries? Or will those ancient monasteries of human exploration be razed and replaced with something more compelling, more electronic, more in keeping with the new order being established by our welcome robot overlords? What will become of the librarians?
Can books be converted into a fuel source?
I hope so. I'd like to drive somewhere far away where they still have books.
The Christmas season is upon us, that 3-4% of the year when we consider that God stepped out of eternity and into time. That's heavy. It should make us scratch our heads a bit. Either that which was eternal is eternal no more, or we who are temporal have been dragged into the impossible presence and activity of eternity.
Some part of God, somewhere between 0% and 100% (non-inclusive) has joined itself to creation. It is not 0%. To say it is 0% is Arianism. It is not 100%. To say it is 100% is modalism. And it is not 33%. To say it is 33% is to grossly oversimplify Trinity.
But He who has eternally been the son of God is now the son of a woman. Something incomprehensible has happened, and cannot be undone. That which constructed creation, and has up until now been separate from it, is now contained within it, circumscribed. Yes, this is impossible. And yet, it is true.
We should not be afraid of joining with the atheist in saying that our belief is unbelievable. It is unbelievable! Anyone who claims this belief is rational and sensible has a shallow belief.
It is impossible for something infinite to be bounded by margins. And yet it has actually happened.
It is impossible for that which is outside time to be affected by time. And yet it has actually happened.
It is impossible for a virgin to bear a child. And yet she has.
It is impossible for the intellect to apprehend the ineffable. And yet it has been handed to us.
It is impossible for God to become something other than God without ceasing to be God. And yet it has actually happened.
Our faith is impossible, irrational, incredible, uncredible, incomprehensible, and unbelievable.
And yet we believe it, because it is true. It has actually happened.
This year is the 15th anniversary of when I became an internet sensation. I thought you should learn how I did it so you can try it for yourself. It's hard for me to prove that I did it. But if you’re generally predisposed to being a trusting type, you can just take my word for it.
I created IHABICNRWTSF. No, really, it’s true. And you know how popular that is!
Wait, you haven’t been using this abbreviation in everyday speech? (It’s easy. You pronounce it “eye habbik nerwit siff.”) It means “I hate acronyms because I can never remember what they stand for.”
Google it. There are over a thousand references to it online. Sadly, I’m rather proud of that fact. It caught on after I spontaneously posted it on the de facto Internet Abbreviation List in 1996. This was in the days before there was such a thing as Web 2.0, when popularity was measured in hundreds of hits. The site is now defunct, but it was expanding rapidly in the late nineties, and its entire contents have since spilled all over the Internet and multiplied in perhaps one of the earliest cases of viral social media. I never noticed until around 2005 when I went to find out if anyone had noticed.
Apparently, they love me in Poland and Italy. I feel kinda like Jerry Lewis.
Anyway, if you, too, want to become a sensation in the Web 1.0 environment, here are three easy steps to get you there:
Be random.
Be anonymous.
Sit back and wait ten years before you check in.
Now if you actually want to make money and/or receive recognition for doing something, I recommend you work intentionally, take credit, and drive conversation.
I'm not entirely sure it's gonna happen, but if it does, I'm wondering if we won't discover a few surprises.
Like...
Resounding trumpets?
I have this theory that the Second Coming of Christ will be announced by vuvuzela. Be listening for them, just in case.
More bars, more places
AT&T reception kinda sucks down here on Earth. I'm expecting to have seven bars in the New Jerusalem. Or maybe twelve.
In any case, you should still be able to read my blogposts, Tweets, and Facebook status updates. No worries.
Fun, fun, fun, fun
I know it's Saturday, but I have a hunch we're going to find out that Jesus really loves Rebecca Black. Don't be surprised if everybody's favorite song is on repeat play.
For eternity.
Question: What are your unusual Rapture Saturday expectations?
Thanks to a dropped laptop and a growing patch of dead pixels, I am in the market for a newish, inexpensive portable something. Could you provide some insight on the limitations and advantages of the iPad.
I respond:
The facts that I am Apple's fourth biggest fanboy (after David Pogue, Michael Hyatt, and Guy Kawasaki) and generally use my iPad almost as frequently as, say, daily hygiene products, actually bias this response less than you might think.
What do you need it for? If all you do is surf the web, watch movies/TV/YouTube, and check email, it's probably a fine little machine. The iPad has an amazing battery, fantastic clarity, instantaneous on, etc.
How badly do you need Flash? It's lacking in iOS devices, which is a problem for certain web pages that display video clips that way. You can get around this by paying a few bucks for CloudBrowse, but you'll still find yourself going through a few steps to copy-paste links back and forth between CloudBrowse and Safari.
Productivity! It's not a laptop computer. It's more like a PDA. If you're trying to get work done like document creation, editing, presentations, papers, organization, spreadsheets, printing, probably better to go with a netbook. You can DO those on an iPad (sorta), but you'll still want to finish things up on a more capable, full-featured desktop or laptop.
If you're going to do them on an iPad, you'll probably want to look at investing a little under $20 in a snazzy little program called Documents To Go, and probably setting yourself up an account with Dropbox.
If you're really keen on Apple, like I am, and you can afford an iPad (3G or otherwise), I'd say splurge the little bit extra and go for the low-end MacBook Air. Otherwise, might want to watch TigerDirect or Buy.com for the latest deal on a cheapo PC netbook. Not the most stable thing around, but it should do the trick.
If it were me in your shoes, with my pro-Apple bias, I'd probably rank those choices:
Suck up the budget a bit and splurge for the MacBook Air for about $1K.
Get the low-end WiFi-only iPad for ~$500.
Pick up an Asus (or other) netbook for $350 or so and wish I'd gotten an iPad.
The word heresy has been in the news the past few days. It's been used to describe pretty much any opinion Rob Bell has to share. And it's not a charge to be taken lightly. Certain modern cultures still quickly levy execution against blasphemers. And even the occasionally celebrated Geneva Consistory might have to be exhumed to apologize for their capital discipline against Servetus, despite the apparent legitimacy of the charge.
But we don't live in the Middle East. And we don't live in 1500s Geneva. Most of us live in contemporary Western culture, enlightened by the Enlightenment, jaded by moral relativism, and easily distracted by advertising, corporate interests, and the office March Madness bracket. And we like to think that we're cautious. And fair. And kind. And that we don't have prejudices.
But we know better, don't we.
Unless you've been living under a rock for the past few weeks, you probably heard that Rob Bell has a new book out. It came out Tuesday. It was #8 at Amazon before it came out (#3 now as this is being written). Go figure.
And unless you've actually read it, you probably think that it's full of blasphemy. Because you've heard that it is. (To be fair, actually, you may think that it's full of blasphemy after you read it, too. I wouldn't know. I haven't yet.) And you've heard that Bell is a universalist, which is apparently an unpardonable sin (ironically?), so you think that's true, too. (A universalist is a Christian who believes that every human being will be welcomed into eternity with God regardless of their decision for or against Christ in their lifetime.)
So, assuming that you're comfortable with forming an opinion about something before you know what you're talking about, let's just go ahead and list all the possible prejudicial statements you might be able to make:
Rob Bell is completely off the mark and never says anything legitimate or worthwhile.
Rob Bell is right on the money and everything he says is gospel.
Rob Bell understates his case. He's light on substance and doesn't really say anything new.
Rob Bell goes a bit too far at times, but is otherwise reasonably palatable.
Now, since we all know that we contemporary Christians are supposed to be proud that God didn't make us like that heretical blasphemer, Rob Bell, let's rise above making extreme statements and toss out the first two because of their unqualified adjectives. That leaves us with the last two to choose from.
And I don't think we can really choose between them, mostly because both of those remaining statements should remind us of us.
Here's the problem: Christian theology is a living organism, an ongoing, constant conversation, an unanswered question posed to the panel for discussion (and we're all in the symposium), a milieu of opinion that responds to dogma and actualizes it into something full of meaning and relevance and usefulness to a particular culture. It moves. At its best, it moves in the influence of the wind of God. At its worst, it is as corrupted as we are. We corrupt it.
We and Bell are in the same boat, hoping that we've got it right, trying to make sense of ideas that we don't own, that have been around a lot longer than we have, that will outlast us, and that, frankly, are beyond our comprehension. We are incapable of circumscribing the mind of God. (If you don't believe me, consider what happened to Job when he thought he was entitled to give it a try.)
That being said, we're probably behaving well when we temper our ounce of judgment with an ounce of margin to hear retellings of details and opinions that we've been slow to listen to.
Here's the thing. Bell's been accused of espousing universalism, a charge which he denies. He says our response to Christ is important. He doesn't deny that hell exists. He does apparently question whether hell is a place God assigns certain people to, or a reality they create for themselves by denying him, but this isn't anything C. S. Lewis didn't say before him. Lewis was hardly a universalist, nor even a theological liberal. Madeline L'Engle was a universalist. She's the one who wrote, "All will be redeemed in God's fullness of time, all, not just the small portion of the population who have been given the grace to know and accept Christ. All the strayed and stolen sheep. All the little lost ones."
A lot of people are very uncomfortable with that idea. Bell's never said that. Quite the contrary, he's apparently uncomfortable with that, too.
We live in a culture that's quick to judgment, that responds to perceived injustice with war, that confronts political adversaries with insults, that wants to deprive undesirables of basic human rights, and that's inexcusably fond of accusing everyone but ourselves for the systemic problems that we have to overcome. In short, we love to convince everyone that our understanding of things is right, and we hate it when anyone has a problem with us because they think ours is wrong.
And then we have a problem with someone coming along and saying that God offers us an infinite love as a correction to our mutually exclusive, unqualified certainties? We don't want to hear that? We don't want to find out that the central message of God's word is love?
No, probably not. We want to hear that he saves us, but that he doesn't save the other guy, the guy who ticked us off.
Bell's book is a submission to the conversation. He's a pastor. He works with confused people who have distorted views of love and salvation and hope and joy, and they need a handle. (They're people a lot like us.) He's not interested in giving definitive answers, so we shouldn't be so upset if he doesn't. He's interested in throwing a bunch of pasta at the wall and letting the rest of us see what sticks.
What should our response be?
I don't know. I haven't read the book.
But I know that it should:
Include discernment. We're to test the spirits, not dismiss them before we listen to them.
Be deep. We reach a point where it's time to move past the milk, and ponder spiritual meat, some new ideas that would have left our heads spinning when we started out. We'll never get a chance to hear those ideas if we're unwilling to listen to things that, at first glance, we disagree with.
Be intentional. We are supposed to make every effort to watch our life and doctrine closely. If life and doctrine are supposed to mesh, then maybe we should get some information before we form the sorts of opinions that lead us to make character accusations on our fellows.
The real heresy is not listening. God gave us brains and hearts. Let's use them.
I am an instructional designer, educator, and technology advocate/evangelist from the San Francisco Bay Area. I have an over 99% positive feedback from my students in more than 1,000 presentations. I've been blogging since before it was called "blogging." I'm pretty sure that more or less everything good that we do is about people interacting with other people.
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