Beginner's grace

Leaving some stones unturned

2009-04-20T21:57:00.007-04:00

My laptop and I have been everywhere in our 5+ years together. It has served me well; and I have brought it through the valley of the shadow of death several times already. But this past month it has looked like this quite a few times. The hard disk crashed in March, and once the thrill of cracking open a tiny laptop had faded, merely replacing the disk didn't seem interesting enough: I had to make some ... improvements. So I spent some time researching alternatives to traditional disks. The potential for geek cred was high: solid-state flash memory -- sturdy, silent, and speedy -- is coming of age, and this was an opportunity to join the (non-mechanical) future of data storage.

Real solid state storage is still a bit pricey; but I'd read that high-end camera cards could do just as well for a good bit less money. So I ordered a Lexar Pro 300x and an adapter from some place in Hong Kong. When the new gear finally arrived, I plugged it in and reassembled everything, booted up and was poised to shout "Yes! I am eenveencible!"... but the laptop couldn't even see the card. Turns out Lexar "cheats" slightly on the interface standard. OK; I ordered a SanDisk Extreme IV card. Another week's wait; more dismantling and reassembly; this one the laptop could see ... but only as a removable disk, unsuitable for an operating system. I ordered a Kingston Ultimate card: same story, no matter how many obscure boot permutations I tried or how much trivia I learned, late into the night, about flash memory, data interfaces, or Linux filesystem details.

Fortunately I'll get most of my money back on eBay. Those cards weren't all that cheap.

In the meantime, I've been running the laptop without a disk, using a Linux LiveCD for (in-memory) software and a USB stick for storage. This is a precarious existence: if the machine ever fails to wake from sleep, or the battery runs down, I lose all my preferences, security updates, and bookmarks -- not to mention any work I haven't explicitly saved. It's the "Memento" laptop.

There is a fourth kind of camera card that (I read) would definitely work. But it eventually dawned on me that this was turning out to be a poor return on my time; and that the knowledge I was acquiring was increasingly specialized, decreasingly useful, and quickly becoming obsolete anyway. So, I've conceded defeat: a mechanical hard disk will arrive in a few days. Old wine for old wineskins. Actually I didn't really give up; it was a deliberate choice to leave some stones unturned. So, what was supposed to be another tale of fearless ingenuity -- eclectic research overturning conventional limitations -- turned into a lesson about the diminishing returns on knowledge and mastery. "For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world, and forfeit his soul?(*)" The pursuit of cleverness can be addictive, crowding out much better things -- rest, family, friendships, peace, charity, etc. -- and must be surrendered like every other entanglement if I'm at all serious about seeking "the most excellent way."

(*) Interesting: Bono's writing NYT op-eds now. His piece yesterday ("It's 2009. Do you know where your soul is?") riffs on this same challenge of Jesus.

Sunday night reflections

2009-04-19T22:30:00.005-04:00

If anyone's wondering whether I did, in fact, sink since the latest signs of life here: there was a good bit of flailing and panic but I finally found some buoyancy and I'm still kicking. One of these days I'll write about that -- but tonight I think I'll shrug off the duty I usually feel to summarize all that's happened. That would be a chore -- thus at odds with my working definition of Sabbath rest.

Instead, I just want to capture one of those rare moments when the kitchen table is clear enough that the laptop doesn't stick, the floor is clean enough that my footsteps don't crunch, and a great weekend is coming to a close. Saturday was an unusually productive day; maintenance of this large, ragged property is endless but it felt good to restore some partial sense of civilization to it. I never get to every part of the yard that needs attention, but I do think I'm a little further along than I was last year at this time... And while running errands that afternoon, I stumbled across a yard sale with a used extension ladder and a seller willing to deliver it. So, now I can reach things like the motion-sensing light 19 feet up that burned out in 2006 -- or the small forest that's thriving up there in the gutters.

This (Sunday) morning I took the older two boys to see Monsters vs. Aliens in 3D -- their first PG film! It was loud, immersive, and fun even though the tone is a bit coarse (the president addresses an older man with glasses merely as "Nerd") and only the comely 50-foot-minus-1-inch woman sees much character development. (Big surprise: not everything measures up to WALL-E!) But it was plenty enough to impress two young minds: we've been hearing references to the movie all day. (And in case you're wondering: those 3D polarizing glasses are one-size-fits-all. You thought they looked goofy on adult-sized heads?) ... Sunday afternoon with my church, we read Mark 2, talked about paralysis and community healing, and painted prayer flags. I'm not sure who slipped young Timo the one tube of real acrylic paint in place of the kid-friendly washable stuff; fortunately we caught him in time before too many things got indelibly pink... It was fun helping him make handprints -- he makes such tiny ones.

Sink or swim

2009-02-28T22:40:00.001-05:00

For several years until last fall, my role at NASA had consisted of advocacy and advisory support: ostensibly helping programs and projects share their information systems more effectively through standards and interoperable designs. But over the years, this activity (not easy to explain in a soundbite) grew increasingly murky in purpose and scope; long story; the program came to a halt; and after a few amorphous months I've now begun a challenging project of my own design, building Web access to climate models running on supercomputers. It's nice to be doing something of substance, and easy to describe -- perhaps for the first time in years. However, this is a new field; actually several new fields; and I'm just an IT guy. Worse: for several years, I've been an architect / advisory IT guy who never had to write or debug a single line of code. So I'm having to exercise several atrophied sectors of my brain, and to learn (always by yesterday) reams of new stuff about numerical models, supercomputers, and how the latter run the former. I've spent hours reading about global and regional atmospheric simulations; the algorithmic and statistical basis for such models; the workflow infrastructures in which they run; and the deeper meaning of a whole new set of acronyms. A lot of the scientific code (fluid dynamics, etc.) is written in Fortran so I've even poked into some of that (though I hope to leave the Fortran as-is. I last used the language in 1983 and haven't missed it). Every so often my brain fills up (a la Gary Larson) and to quell the quiet panic I have to stand up and walk the halls for a few minutes. And sometimes the reading trail reaches an obvious dead end. For example:

ifeffit: An interactive program for XAFS analysis

IFEFFIT is an interactive program for XAFS analysis. It combines the high-quality analysis algorithms of AUTOBK and FEFFIT with graphical display of XAFS data and general data manipulation.

IFEFFIT comes as a command-line program, but the underlying functionality is available as a programming library. The IFEFFIT library can be used from C, Fortran, Tcl, Perl, and Python. This allows a variety of user interfaces (both graphical and non-graphical) to be written around IFEFFIT. Currently, three graphical user interfaces: G.I.FEFFIT, ATHENA/ARTEMIS, and SIXPACK are built on the underlying IFEFFIT library. IFEFFIT and all three GUIs are under active development, but are fairly well tested and ready for use.

On reading this effectively useless documentation the other day, I laughed out loud, realizing that I was living another Larson cartoon. When I don't even understand the terms necessary to explain the one I'm looking up, ... perhaps I've skidded off the learning curve. Time to find some pavement and try again. When it's not terrifying, it's great fun.

Clearing the cobwebs

2008-11-03T17:15:00.002-05:00

Overheard over bowls of spaghetti:

Diesel: Dad, can we go to Morgantown for my birthday?

Dad: Uhhh.... I've never heard of it. What's in Morgantown?

Diesel: I don't know yet.

Bobblehead

2008-10-22T10:13:00.002-04:00

Master Timo is over two years old and we still haven't gotten our act back together since he arrived.

He's a bit cranky this week. Not continuously; but often, and unpredictably. His vocabulary is growing fast, so in a few weeks he'll be able to articulate clearly what he wants; but for now, he mostly keeps us guessing ... by hitting crystal-shattering high notes over apparent policy differences related to milk vs. juice, or the inalienable right to store car keys in the trash can.

This photo helps me reflect on what he's really like. In happier times he'll keep himself (and us) entertained for quite a while with his truncated "knock-knock" jokes -- in which he responds to the customary question "... xxx who?" with hearty, infectious laughter. (Would this be proto-dadaism? Or pre-minimalism? Discuss.)

Riding the bus

2008-10-16T22:04:00.007-04:00

When we bought our house in a woodsy, out-of-the-way neighborhood, I confirmed online that we were (theoretically) within reach of Washington-area public transportation. But I never actually tested that theory, until this morning. I did get to work -- but a trip that takes 30 minutes by bicycle, or 15 minutes by car... took nearly 2 hours. (I rode 2 buses (45min.); walked 1.5 miles (30min.), waited at curbs for 35min.; jaywalked across 2x6 rush-hour lanes; and climbed 2 grassy embankments.)

This was homework for that course I'm taking. So I tried to imagine what I would say if I got stopped for running across a divided highway buffeted by tractor-trailers: "Your honor, and ladies and gentlemen of the jury, all this has been happening to me because of this guy named Mark Scandrette ..." (source)

... who writes, "If Jesus lived in our day, I think he would take the bus." I thought about this as I rode, waited, walked, and bushwhacked. I also chuckled at the line from Repo Man, "I do my best thinking on the bus... The more you drive, the less intelligent you are." I recalled the daily bus rides I'd taken as a kid in Tunis and Casablanca; others in Boston, Atlanta, and Los Angeles; ... and how insulated I've become since then from buses and all that they represent.

I also thought of Joseph, a Togolese refugee who briefly lived with us a few years ago, and all the time he must have spent on buses getting from our house to places much further away (30 miles instead of my 6) in search of menial work, or signatures on forms. At one point I realized I'd taken the wrong bus and had to ask the bus driver for advice: I thought of Joseph's severely limited command of English, and how panicky this must have been for him. (And probably a frequent occurrence.) I felt sheepish at how much more we could've helped Joseph get around. More generally, I felt for those constrained to take buses across these far-flung suburbs -- inward along one "spoke" of the network, transferring once or twice to go back out along another spoke; hours spent each day just getting around.

As I stood waiting for the first bus (my feet hurting from my 1.2 mile walk in poorly-chosen shoes), dozens of cars whisked by in sleek efficiency -- door-to-door, no waiting. Through lightly tinted windows I saw their (usually sole) occupants and thought of their plush seats, precise climate controls, and glorious surround sound.... In my mind, every one of them seemed luxurious. Playing a have-not for a day: what could be more artificial? Yet I found myself wishing one of them would stop and give me a ride -- at least to my next bus..? Sharing their convenience, velocity, and comfort with me for a few minutes would cost them nothing, but it would completely make my day. From my curbside perspective this made so much sense that I fully expected one of them to slow down from 50mph, pull over to the curb, and invite me aboard.

Have mercy
Been waitin' for the bus all day
I got my brown paper bag and my take home pay

Mastery

2008-10-12T22:14:00.003-04:00

Yesterday young Diesel, not quite 4 years old, learned to ride his bike without training wheels. We're all pretty pleased; Diesel even informed a couple of strangers at the jungle gym. Which he no longer has much time for because he's riding and riding and riding and...

Watching him get steadier and faster, I felt like Crush the sea turtle: "Curl away, my son! ... Chaaaahh" (video@3:35)

So, yeah, fatherhood is pretty OK at the moment.

Playing a tiny part

2008-10-10T11:30:00.001-04:00

Well, that was interesting: I contributed (inadvertently and infinitesimally) to Jon Birch's ASBO Jesus comicblog. He spun an earlier comment into a biting new cartoon, the "Greed Creed." Awfully generous of Mr. Birch to give me a shout-out.

The concept originated with Stephen Colbert's brilliant "Word" of Sept. 29. I found it unsettling to see so many people solemnly declaring, "I believe in the free market." (skip to 2:25 if you're in a hurry)

Lord, have mercy on me, an idiot

2008-10-02T20:28:00.006-04:00

That was my Facebook status for a few days last week. Nobody responded; I'm not too surprised. I'm a Facebook lurker myself; I've seen much more interesting status lines and not lifted a finger to comment. It was a somewhat feeble form of "soul graffiti" -- a public expression of an inner yelp -- and, part of my homework for the online course I'm taking. There's not much of a story behind it: I'm just overtired, and generally a mess; with no-one to blame but myself. I've been burning the candle at both ends: staying up late for no particularly good reason, news, blogs, etc., despite knowing that 3 little boys will be climbing on me before sunrise. (I've been a bit obsessed with getting the very latest news and opinion on the economy and Gov. Palin -- two of the most bizarre and worrisome news developments I've ever seen.) Under these groggy conditions, Saturdays are especially tough: absent the 9-5 structure, I meander between unfinished tasks in the house and yard, daunted by the least difficulty, irritation growing by the hour. This past Saturday I finally put down the to-do list and took a nap: as I lay sheepishly, hoping for sleep, I thought of the apostle Paul's word from God: "My strength is made perfect in weakness." I smirked as I prayed in reply, "Lord, um, careful what you wish for..." Dim humor, but enough for right then.

Lately I've been mulling a line by a different Paul, "Fools said I, you do not know / Silence like a cancer grows" (suggested by Kathryn, a fellow student). The phrase was probably meant for communities or societies; but it also applies to individuals: as I neglect to express the stuff that humbles or scares me, it transforms and spreads, and talking about it becomes harder. (...Lather, rinse, repeat.) Eventually just writing a personal e-mail becomes an hour-long exercise. Prior to the 6-month hiatus on this blog, my posts had gotten a bit formulaic, with little content that really mattered; even I was getting tired of the formula. In days & weeks to come here, I hope to get up & out of familiar, slippery ruts and get some thoughts out, before the cancerous silence has a chance to grow.

...Interspersed with inane commentary and cute pictures of the boys, of course, just for good measure.

Mental floss

2008-09-30T14:49:00.002-04:00

The Soul Graffiti course has begun. Before I dive into that, I need to clear my slate and share a few things with you before they recede into complete irrelevance. First, on a recent day my spam folder -- usually a vile, foaming cesspool -- was glittering with little gems:

Unemployed To Be Used For Soup
Mike Tyson To Fight Michael Jackson
Laika The Russian Space Dog, Returns To Earth
Polar Bear Finds Yoga Great For Flexibility, But Murder On The Balls
Sarah Jessica Parker Arrested For Gross Negligee
2008 Presidential Election Results Leaked

The flow of fun Subject-fields quickly stopped, and has never resumed; some sort of glitch in the SpamMatrix I guess. I traced a couple of these to The Onion and elsewhere, but others had more obscure sources. (I don't think spammers sit around thinking up funny headlines.)

Another kind of mental flotsam might be titled "wait, am I laughing with you, or at you?" Recent examples:

"Gratification so instant, it already happened" (Nestea billboard)
"Even hotdogs get extreme makeovers" (sign for Auntie Annie's Pretzel Dogs)
"Fear the turtle" (University of Maryland signs)

OK. Thank you for letting me get that off my chest. Sorry to have wasted 2 minutes of your life. It can only go up from here.

From Draisine to .deciMach

2008-09-24T18:06:00.005-04:00

I had it easy for my first stint in homeschooling last week. The "kids' choice" subject of the day was: bicycles. We traced the history of the bicycle, from the Draisine (1817) to the Velocipede (a.k.a. "Bone-Shaker," 1864, pictured at right), the Penny-Farthing (1870), and the breakthrough Safety bicycle (1885).

I found this to be a surprisingly rich story of engineering design, patent and business strategy, and social change (Susan B. Anthony praised the bicycle for emancipating women). As bicycling grew popular in the 1890s, doctors warned people (esp. women) about the risk of "bicycle face" and other maladies resulting from the "unhygienic" exertion of riding a bicycle above 7-1/2 mph.

Then it was on to "unusual" bicycles, including Recumbents and the Human-Powered Speed Challenge. Coincidentally, that very afternoon in the Nevada high desert, a new record was being set -- 82.3 mph -- which also earned the .deciMach prize for going one-tenth the speed of sound under human power. That's asking for some severe bicycle face.

Taking the plunge

2008-09-23T20:02:00.003-04:00

Let's ignore that little 6-month hiatus, and start this blog up again, shall we? I don't know whether I can restore some sort of regularity to this space, but I need to try. As they say, you miss 100% of the shots you don't take. I think one key to keeping it going will be to write often and quickly -- so, I'll give myself 20 minutes per post. So, reload & refresh... Hello everyone.

Also under the "plunge" rubric, I'm about to take a seminary course -- OK, that's an overstatement; it's just an online four-week study of "Soul Graffiti," with the author, Mark Scandrette, through the Church Divinity School of the Pacific, in Berkeley, CA. I'd been thinking of it as a glorified book club, until I came to the part of the registration form where I had to choose between "Lay" and "Ordained." One clue that this isn't exactly the Applied Math Dept. I have no guarantee that I'll find the time each week to read 4 chapters, write three essays, and conduct a "life experiment", but I can't wait to try.

Thermocouple

2008-03-04T21:09:00.000-05:00

I spent most of a precious Saturday fixing our propane stove. Uncle George had already given his diagnosis over the phone; the thirdhand report I got said something about a "thermal coupler." But first I had to figure out what such a thing even looked like. Several Google searches later, I had the stove's user manual onscreen, with an exploded diagram showing a thermocouple. But because the actual thermocouple I could see in the stove seemed (a) undamaged, (b) very unique to this stove (thus hard to replace and probably expensive), and (c) difficult to extricate, I spent some time assessing what else might be wrong. Finally (after a perusal of the Wikipedia page) I decided that the symptoms did indeed point more strongly to the thermocouple than to anything else; and that I might as well try replacing it even in the absence of a watertight proof. For this I had to turn the heavy cast-iron stove on its side (after removing the stovepipe from it and the wall) -- yet another "this'll take a few minutes" project that grew and grew... But to my surprise, further online searches revealed that nearly all gas stoves and water heaters use the exact same thermocouple -- same size, threads, etc. -- which I went out, bought, and installed; that part was far more straightforward than I expected. In the end: yes, that was it; Uncle George was right; now the stove runs great, and we can heat our den again. One notch up the NSGCD scale.

Afterwards I tried to picture myself as an appliance repairman: toolbelt around the waist and Sony Vaio under the arm, stopping every 15 minutes to clean my hands for another Google search. But laugh while you can, monkey-boy -- I only spent $9, and now I *understand* why the fix worked. Such a deal.

Sunday explorations

2008-02-26T22:25:00.006-05:00

I've been taking the young'uns on Sunday outings (leaving their Mom at home to enjoy a few hours of blissful silence). 3 on 1 gets a little crazy but it's worth it when I can bring back pictures.

Visiting Fort Foote

This last time we went literally off the map, looking for The Awakening in its new digs at the gargantuan National Harbor complex under construction just south of DC. Didn't get to pay my respects last week; thought I'd make up for it now; but no go -- "We open to the public on April 1st," said the checkpoint guard. So, we had to settle for a foggy sunset walk along the Potomac at Fort Foote. Which was a fun discovery in its own right. I wanted to take more pictures of the old fort's 15-inch cannons overlooking the river, but the sky was darkening, as was everyone's mood. Maybe next time.

I'm just a bill, sittin' here on Capitol Hill

The previous Sunday we took in the Botanic Garden and climbed Capitol Hill. More fun pictures. (Funny how I always flank little Timo [the Inveterate Wanderer] with two older, wiser bodyguards before stepping away to take the photo.) It's tricky getting them all in one frame, but their grandmothers seem to appreciate the outcome. Diesel's real name lent itself nicely to the pun in the picture caption -- we've all gotten pretty familiar with that Schoolhouse Rock song.

Never a dull moment

2008-02-13T21:34:00.001-05:00

Little Timo lo-o-ves his bath. Start running the water, step away for a second to check the weather forecast, and there's no telling what might happen.

De Congeriei

2008-01-12T22:30:00.000-05:00

Three prolific young disorganizers under our roof accumulate a staggering amount of stuff -- clothing, toys, papers, remotes, mutilated pears, cups, wallets, partially eviscerated NutriGrain bars, etc. -- which they discard in the most unexpected places. Trying to keep the place tidy (car keys out of the trash can, etc.) is bit of a losing battle -- especially as the adults who live here aren't pillars of neatness either.

So it was with a bit of trepidation that I clicked on the NSGCD's Clutter Hoarding Scale. On first reading, I brushed it off ("thank you, God, that I am not like other men"): after all, Level II already mentions things like "Unclear functions of living room, bedroom" and it goes downhill to Level V with "Rodents evident and in sight; Standing water..." But a closer reading led to some nervous laughter on realizing that in recent memory our home slovenly home has exhibited all five NSGCD clutter levels:

Level I: "Light evidence of rodents/insects..."
Level II: "Limited evidence of housekeeping, vacuuming, sweeping..."
Level III: "Visible clutter outdoors ... excessive use of electric and extension cords..."
Level IV: "No clean dishes or utensils locatable in kitchen..."
Level V: "Septic system nonoperational... snakes in interior of home... "

("God, have mercy on me, a sinner!") And just to add insult to injera*: just a few days ago I found my wallet, sitting behind the mending pile on my dresser. It was coated in thick dust; I hadn't seen it since July... Well, at least the picture on my replacement driver's license was a big improvement. As silver linings go, this one's pretty thin; but I'll take it.

(The original title, "On Clutter," lacked a certain something; what better way to lend it panache than translate it to a dead language? Welcome, googling Latin students: your pain is our gain.)

(* Construction of a groaner involving an offensive Ethiopian baker is left as an exercise to the reader.)

Strange bedfellows

2008-01-11T20:39:00.000-05:00

A young child makes a perfect pillow
on a lazy Saturday morning.
Provided, of course, one has first
deconstructed the conventional "pillow,"
freeing it from bourgeois metanarratives
such as "sleep," and eschewing social constructions such as
"staying put under one's ear" or
"not shrieking with laughter."

Now that's a Sabbath

2007-12-18T13:10:00.000-05:00

I think I was 11, or maybe 14, when I first wanted to ride a unicycle. A couple years ago, Suvia called my bluff and got me one for Christmas. Sure enough, I still haven't yet learned to ride it -- I'm no longer 11 so I'm impatient, needing to see progress every few minutes; and there always seem to be more pressing duties (toddlers falling off chairs and the like). Occasionally, I'd dust the thing off, teeter on it for a few minutes, then waste a half hour reading unicycling tips or watching Kris Holm videos on YouTube.

But on a couple of recent Sunday afternoons, as the family napped, I tiptoed out back to try and teach an old dog new tricks. Of several pictures, this one least betrays how heavily I was leaning onto that wooden post, at first. After 45 minutes or so, I found that very gradually I was leaning less onto the post. There's still a long ways to go; but I'm hopeful that the following "unmethod" will bear fruit:

It will take about 15 hours to learn to ride a unicycle.
Get on the unicycle while leaning on a handrail or post.
Rock back and forth to get a feel for the thing.
Do 1. and 2. for about 3 hours, going farther bit by bit.
Congratulations! Only 10 more hours to go.

I have thought of some truly stirring analogies here, but this post is too small to contain them.

Mind those units!

2007-12-12T22:06:00.001-05:00

We've never had this much garlic on hand. While shopping at safeway.com, Someone entered "1" next to Garlic, apparently missing that the units were "lbs.", not "heads". (Of all the perils of online grocery shopping, this is one I'd never thought of.) So over the next few weeks we'll need to consume garlic at several times our usual rate -- which will apparently present all kinds of benefits. Chicken cacciatore, Greek lentil soup, maybe hummus ... other ideas? One recipe calls for a whole chicken and 40 cloves of garlic; that would be the easy way out but I'm skeptical.

I once had a physics teacher who just couldn't stand it when we didn't pay attention to the proper units. Getting the wrong answer for mass or speed or charge was one thing, but writing that "the cyclist is moving at 60 km/sec" or "the water temperature drops to -23 K" would guarantee an exasperated little lecture in class. I wish he could see this.

Serendipity

2007-12-11T23:33:00.000-05:00

It's Black Pepper Week at the Perk; I just finished a Black Pepper & Mango Sorbet -- tart, bright saffron-colored globes served on fresh mint leaves in a square sushi plate. (Quite a contrast to the whimsical, rough-hewn decor of this dusty coffee/tea/alehouse; odd juxtapositions seem to be the norm here.) Tonight's Open Mic has an unexpected treat: two subsets of local acoustic-speedmetal supergroup ilyAIMY.

I was last here for a midnight performance of the beautiful, uncategorizable music of Might Could. With three acoustic guitars and one part-time bass, musical roots in Segovia, Fripp, and Blue Oyster Cult, intricate play so intertwined that it seems leaderless, and imaginative titles like "Synecdoche", what's not to like? I bought their outstanding CD Wood Knot from them (soon available in stores); there's something heady about seeing truly original music, with an obviously promising future, performed in a cramped, dusty place by a band whose website still ends in ".edu". Someday I hope to point to some household-name on TV and say "I remember when..."

Sitting here, I recall that for several years I lived within a short walk of the (now defunct) Nightstage music club, where I saw mind-bending shows by Bill Bruford's Earthworks, Fred Frith, Bill Frisell, and others. A slightly longer walk away, I (twice) caught Pat Metheny at Ryles, in unannounced, word-of-mouth appearances; a short T ride away I saw Husker Du, Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Adrian Belew, the Minutemen, Birdsongs of the Mesozoic; Brooks Williams would breeze through town several times a year; Harrod & Funck played in the subways. Life-changing experiences we would just stumble across! Those were the days... And yet, tonight I sense that maybe serendipity is making a comeback near here. I'll keep an eye out.

Our favorite hydrocarbon

2007-12-10T23:11:00.000-05:00

A few weeks ago, in a bold leap of faith, we agreed in advance to buy a batch of prints of Diesel's school picture. Our expectations were low; you know how school pictures go, especially among the young and restless. On Picture Day (protecting our investment as best we could) we made sure he wore a clean shirt; washed his hair just before breakfast (to try and tamp down his chronic conic bedhead); and hoped for the best.

Well, last week the pictures came back and wow! Hats off to the photographer (ASAP Worldwide Productions, Lanham, MD, whose copyright goons are no doubt headed this way right now) and a hearty high-five to Diesel. The final portrait crops out the best part -- those carefully folded hands -- but it's quite a shot even without them.

As he hurtles towards his third birthday, Diesel's in a very entertaining linguistic stage, in which his Ls, Rs, and Ws all sound very similar to our untrained ears. So once or twice a day he worries that he's lost his "Boing-Boing McQueen." And shifting his celestial affinities, he declared today that "Pwuto is not my favwite pwanet; it's not a pwanet. I wike Saturn."

Calling -- or not

2007-12-07T22:04:00.000-05:00

Man, three weeks! -- how've you been? ... There were a whole list of things I meant to write about; some are probably still worth posting, we'll see. "When no-one's listening I've got so much to say..." But OK, here are some pix you might enjoy. For a Sunday School class on Vocation and Calling, it was my turn last week to trace the path of my so-called career. I figured expectations were for a nice, tidy "testimony" so I chose not to pretty it up with a happy ending, a clear theme, or any confirmation of divine providence. (So there!) Instead, I introduced my story with the two pictures you see here [click for a closer look]. (*) Then, inspired by a great xkcd cartoon, I traced a graph of my "Sense Of Calling" over time (a.k.a. Eagerness to Answer The Question, "So What Do You Do?"). This parameter (green line below) peaked at about age 18; plummeted in graduate school; stayed low through several dark "all but dissertation" years; swung wildly in the year before I finally finished my thesis; rose gradually after school, and has declined steadily throughout my current job. (I know -- what a narrow, one-dimensional way to depict life's complexity... But I'd never told the whole gory tale before, so I needed a simple, robust structure to lean on.) In red dots, I also traced my degree of "ministry engagement" over the years (pardon my dualism): this ebbed and flowed through various roles in student and small group ministry; laid low for several years after school; and saw a recent resurgence in a biweekly "worship laboratory" that led me to breathe deep of "emerging church" oxygen.

Are any of the above "my calling"? Um... Check back in another decade; maybe I'll know then. In conclusion, I showed a (surprisingly lifelike) portrait of me by Dylan (now 6!). I love the facial stubble, the dark circles around the eyes, the clumsiness of those hands -- but also its overall inquisitive tone. I'd like to think that's a fair summary of where I am right now -- equal parts ham-handed, off-balance, and hopeful.

(*) I was pleased to see the inimitable Ken Brown back in publishing, after a lo-ong hiatus. I need to preorder "My Parachute is Beige."

Paying attention to autumn

2007-11-16T23:05:00.000-05:00

The trees around here have put on quite a show this fall.
I haven't seen colors like this
south of New Hampshire or Vermont
or perhaps anywhere:
rich eggplant, rosy pomegranate, carrot, cantaloupe,
apricot, lemon, and honeydew. The lowliest median strip
glows fuschia or coral. The usual eye-catchers --
4-way stops, detour signs, crossing guards, school buses --
stripped of their usual impact, blend into the insane palette
of a limitless Van Gogh canvas.

I've been photographing our front yard every couple of days.
I'm trying to make a "poor man's time-lapse movie".
This is how it looked one morning last week.

Traveling in the vernacular

2007-11-09T22:18:00.000-05:00

As the temperature drops into the low 30s, it's again perfect for bicycle commuting. I'm finally getting back on the bike after several weeks of mostly driving to work. (Once we got a second car last year, the reasons why it "made more sense" to drive on any given day seemed to multiply: running late, overtired, rain in the forecast, lunchtime errands, groceries on the way home..... Enough!) If I can keep this up, I'll once again be able to say I'm a bicycle commuter -- as I'd done for many years. I consider it a rare privilege, in these Washington suburbs, to be able to ride to work; and besides, it's no coincidence: when we moved to the area, I pulled out a map and used a piece of string to draw a 7-mile-radius circle around my workplace: "Here's where we'll live." So far, we've been able to stay well inside that circle... so I am without excuse.

This week's NYT article and video on bicycle-friendly culture, and David Byrne's recent Manhattan helmet-cam ride video (*), have been inspirations. (This post's title is from Portland frame builder Natalie Ramsland's nearly poetic coda to the NYT video, at 3:53.)

In that general vein, I've always thought it'd be fun to list the various spills and accidents (FDGBs) I've had in 30-odd years of cycling. But I don't want to sully this post (or Natalie's or David's good name) with that, so ... another day.

(*) I would embed that video here but it seems LiveJournal's RSS aggregator truncates posts with embedded content.

In my head and now in yours

2007-11-08T22:53:00.000-05:00

In thinking about that last post while preparing the next one, the Talking Heads' song "Heaven" has taken up residence in my mind: "The name of the bar: the bar is called Heaven..." I suppose this was inevitable. So, for your enjoyment and (hopefully) my relief, here it is, from the "Stop Making Sense" film.

I saw that film 6 or 7 times at the Brattle Theater in Cambridge, MA, back in the day; bought the DVD on eBay a couple years ago and it's quickly become a family favorite. Awfully hard to stay gloomy after pressing Play on that disc. It seems to trigger whatever innate dance reflex humans have: even little Timo (1-1/2) moves in time to the beat; his brothers run laps around the room.*

The initial "Thank You" you see here is for the brilliant bit of performance art (video) that opens the concert (Mr. Byrne flails all over the stage each time the beat skips a groove). That, the famous Big Suit (video), and the elusive self-interview (video) still feel so otherworldly and unique that we squirm a little. Or maybe it's just me. But "Heaven" underscores the whimsical longing underneath it all.

I've been finding YouTube and its ilk to be a treasure trove of music new and old -- fodder for a future post perhaps. It gets pretty captivating sometimes. "Its hard to imagine that nothing at all / could be so exciting, could be so much fun..."

* 'Course they also do this for Black Flag -- our music of choice when the day is especially dreary (and mommy's far, far away).

My epic night out

2007-11-07T22:33:00.000-05:00

I am in teh coffeehouse: dusty brocade sofas, leftover Christmas lights on the walls, free wifi, weekly open mic, outstanding (Original Sin) hard cider, and a sign over the bar: "No Pissy Attitudes". Welcome to the College Perk. Tonight's entertainment: The Glad Version. Last week I knew I'd found some signs of life here when a dreadlocked 50-something played strange beats on a portable keyboard, mumblsinging what I eventually recognized as "yo ho ho and a bottle of rum." Then someone plugged in a projector and showed a strange short film he'd made. I hope heaven is a little bit like this. Meanwhile, I think I'll make this a regular hangout on my weekly Epic Night Out.

ENO is a new tradition chez nous, instituted by my lovely wife: she's taken a night out each week for a few months now; me I'm just starting out. The "E" is reminiscent of my first week, which was anything but epic: I crisscrossed the county looking for something to do; finally settling for an overpriced latte at Borders Books near closing time. But I'm getting better at this. We'll see how it evolves; I've been trying to find time away to read, write, pray, reflect, meet with folks, and take in some culchah ... and this may be part of the answer.

Justice in the burbs

2007-11-04T21:50:00.000-05:00

Just finished Will & Lisa Samson's book, "Justice in the Burbs: being the hands of Jesus wherever you live." It's the most enjoyable book I've read in quite a while; not just thought provoking, but quite pleasant to read: it interweaves a fictional plot with a consistently generous, conversational tone. It even ends with a benediction to the reader -- as though the authors were laying a hand on my head and praying for me. (It sounds odd but they pull it off somehow.) By Ch. 2, I'd been gently drawn into the book's story and argument, and didn't want to put it down. Time and again I felt like it had me pegged -- the Mon.-Fri. paper pusher, Sat. lawn cultivator, Sun. pew warmer; who robs Peter to pay Paul and wonders at night, "is that all there is?" -- until I realized how many others 'round here would squirm just as much. Especially memorable was a chapter on mountaintop removal mining, which showed how going with the flow of American convenience and comfort underwrites grievous insults to God's creation and surprising degrees of greed and human misery. Other chapters discussed less dramatic, but also important concerns, such as alienation and loneliness -- also part of what "living justly" is concerned with. I'll be recommending this book to many; it's a persuasive explanation of how anyone can (and why Christians need to) be involved in tangible efforts to "love your neighbor"... both "over there" in places of obvious injustice or poverty, and "right here" with our literal neighbors, and through the everyday choices we make. Several stars.

My only quibble: in guest author Tony Jones' short "meditation" after Ch. 3, he refers to the Holy Spirit as "she" -- seemingly for no other purpose than to get a rise out of more traditional thinkers than himself. As a result (people being what they are) I have to think twice about whom to recommend this to. I wonder what Tony's like at parties.
[UPDATE Nov. 6: I misread Tony's intent. See his clarification in the comments.]

Rumors of my demise / Halloween splendor

2007-10-30T22:08:00.000-04:00

I'm back -- It's been three weeks but no towels have yet been thrown in; I just need to stop setting the bar so high that nothing seems worth writing about. Of course, it's a sickly, cyclical thing: as the hiatus grows, so does the feeling that the "comeback post" has to be something really worthwhile... Lather, rinse, repeat. I'm not sure how others break the cycle; but I suppose one way is to write about something really inane. So:

Here are our 3 Amigos attired for our church's Harvest Festival last weekend. Suvia pulled off another great pair of homemade costumes this year: Dylan as Junior Asparagus and Diesel as Bob the Tomato. She even dyed Dylan's sweatpants green for the occasion. They came out rather pale so we discussed redoing them but agreed it ain't much of a living. To our surprise and delight, Dylan's costume won first prize at the end of the evening: he proudly carried home his trophy, a Spirograph set (remember those?). As for Timo: at the last minute we rustled up a hand-me-down costume many sizes too big, so he was a ... Shar-Pei tree frog. He earned numerous "awwwwww"s as he wandered around, babbling inquiringly.

Those who hate gardening need a theory...

2007-10-10T23:21:00.000-04:00

Our yard has been an eyesore for several years now; new grass is long overdue. September's the month for this: temperatures are mild(er!) and leaves are still on trees. But, September slipped by and now it's a race before the trees start shedding their massive foliage. Last Saturday I got hoppin' mad at seeing (already!) a growing carpet of sycamore leaves on the lawn: those will all have to be raked before the reseeding process can even begin. But it's a big yard, and in fact the most barren area was only lightly covered with leaves; so I dragged out the boombox, started up some c.1973 Deep Purple and ZZ Top (hard to stay gloomy listening to those) and undertook the dusty, sweaty work of preparing the soil for the seeding itself (the easy part) -- which I finally did on Monday.

Now I've just got to work out how to water the area regularly over the next few weeks. But not overwater it. And, hope that the soil was properly prepared, and that I used the right amount of fertilizer. And, remember to fertilize it again before winter. Mess up on any of those, and it could all be for nought! (Ask me how I know...) This is why I get a bit anxious pushing around the seed spreader: in 10 minutes, I can easily blow through $100 worth of seed -- it's like world-class champagne. So inevitably, I cringe as my mind's eye sees dollar bills shooting out of the seeder. It doesn't help that the seed variety I'm using is exactly the color of money. Sometimes I think I should just confront the pretense, cut out the middleman, and spread shredded money directly on the lawn.

"Those who hate gardening need a theory..." I found that piece of Internet flotsam some 10 or 15 years ago, attributed to (renowned Polish philosopher) Leszek Kolakowski. I thought it meant that forming and testing theories could make anything enjoyable; I found the idea intriguing, and tucked it away for future reference. But more recently (thanks to Google's searchable books) I found the context for that quip: Modernity on Endless Trial, Ch. 21. Turns out the intended meaning was completely different ... and quite a bit funnier:

The General Theory of Not-Gardening: A Major Contribution to Social Anthropology, Ontology, Moral Philosophy, Psychology, Sociology, Political Theory, and Many Other Fields of Scientific Investigation ---
Those who hate gardening need a theory. Not to garden without a theory is a shallow, unworthy way of life. The alternative to not-gardening without a theory is to garden. However, it is much easier to have a theory than actually to garden.

Kolakowski then provides Marxist, Psychoanalytical, Existentialist, Structuralist, and -ah- Semiotic arguments for not gardening. For example:

People garden in order to make nature human, to "civilize" it. This, however, is a desperate and futile attempt to transform being-in-itself into being-for-itself. This is not only ontologically impossible; it is a deceptive, morally inadmissible escape from reality, as the distinction between being-in-itself and being-for-itself cannot be abolished. To garden, or to imagine that one can "humanize" Nature, is to try to efface this distinction and hopelessly to deny one's own irreducibly human ontological status. To garden is to live in bad faith. Gardening is wrong. Q.E.D.

The whole 2-page chapter is similarly clever nonsense -- well worth a read. On days where none of those five schools of thought afford a sufficient basis for not gardening, at least I'll have something to smirk about as I work.

19 mercies

2007-10-05T22:31:00.000-04:00

I've finally reached the end of Brennan Manning's Ragamuffin Gospel. Anne-Marie loaned it to me in February; I read a chunk of it in July; carried it with me hither and yon; but it wasn't until September that I gave it the final push. Lots of people have gushed about it online and I basically agree with them so I won't add to the hubbub -- except to highlight the "19 mercies" appended to more recent editions. Each of these is a short reading (1-2 pages), written to foster personal or group reflection, and concluding with a Bible passage or a fragment of poetry. The 19 headings nicely encapsulate the book's main themes:

Come: Be here, now. Don't wait. Jesus wants to enter into a deep friendship with you. Cry out for the Spirit.
Encounter: The person of Jesus. The call from the cross. Through Jesus we know Abba. The God who is love. God loves you unconditionally. We cry, "Abba!" The prayer of simple regard.
Serve: The freedom of serving. Healing through meal sharing. Washing feet. Freedom from your own contempt. Christ in the person next to you.
Trust: Trust in your Father's delight. Worry is an insult to your Father. The grace of reckless love.

I've begun walking back through these, one a day, to see what might happen.
OK, I wasn't really going to review the book; but here's an excerpt I scribbled down as I was reading:

(p. 203) The first step towards rejuvenation begins with accepting where you are and accepting your poverty, frailty, and emptiness to the love that is everything. Don't try to feel anything, think anything, or do anything. With all the good will in the world you cannot make anything happen. Don't force prayer. Simple relax in the presence of the God you half believe in and ask for a touch of folly.

Kinda hits the spot right about now... One final nugget: someone has posted Chapter 7 in its entirety. Entitled Paste jewelry and sawdust hotdogs, I found this to be the harshest (and maybe the best) chapter in the book: "... The temptation of the age is to look good without being good. If 'white lies' were criminal offenses, we would all be in jail by nightfall..."

That's no moon...

2007-10-04T22:55:00.000-04:00

Current position of the ISS

Finally got a chance to see the International Space Station orbit overhead tonight. Dylan and I watched it from the backyard. The ISS was impossible to miss as it raced across the night sky, passing almost directly overhead, brighter than any star. Watching it, one gets an inkling of what people must have felt when they saw Sputnik in orbit -- exactly 50 years ago today.

ISS overpasses like this one only happen a few times a year. The friendly algorithms at Heavens-Above predict them for any given location; but many are obscured by clouds, or stick too near the horizon, or occur in the wee hours. This one was at a few minutes before 8pm, had a brightness of -2.3, and rose to 81 degrees. And Saturday's overpass (in the DC area: SW-NE, 7:06-7:12pm) looks to be even better. That's even before Diesel goes to sleep: perhaps we'll make it a full family affair.

A most entertaining visitor

2007-09-30T23:20:00.000-04:00

We were minding our own business, enjoying a peaceful fall afternoon with some good friends. I went to shush the dog; noticed he was barking at something on the deck right in front of him. When I slid open the glass door, I could hear what sounded like the spray of a garden-hose spigot, but intermittent. In the several seconds it took me to identify the source of the sound, ... it slithered across the threshhold and behind a piece of furniture. Um -- sorry to interrupt the afternoon guys, but we have a yellow and black, hissing snake in the house. We all knew the snake was probably harmless, but none of us knew for sure; and this one had an impressive custom of rising up like a cobra and hissing loudly at us. We got a broom and tried to chase him out; he just hissed more, coiled up, struck at the broom, waved his black forked tongue around, and crawled further under the stereo. Finally we decided to open the door again, and leave him alone. This eventually did the trick; once outside, he sped off in a beautiful seamless wave of yellow curves; obviously relieved to be free of us.

I took several pictures of him; I didn't dare get close but thanks to a lovely zoom lens, one or two turned out quite good. (They look their best at full resolution.)

Later I determined that he was probably a juvenile Eastern Hognose; harmless but known as a major bluffer. Apparently the above "show of force" isn't all he can do; as a last resort he plays dead -- turns upside down, lets off a foul stench, and drools. But he's not very smart about it: if you turn him back right-side up, he'll immediately turn himself on his back and insist on playing dead. I'm so sad we missed that! Maybe next time.

Home again

2007-09-26T23:53:00.000-04:00

The last couple of days in Boulder delivered about everything one could ask for. Saturday morning, as Suvia slept off her late-night flight, I rode that strange bike partway up infamous Flagstaff Road until my puny sea-level lungs were gasping for air (though apparently the actual "steep" part is further up). Later we visited the Boulder Farmer's Market; toured the Celestial Seasonings plant (favorite part: the Mint Room -- made my eyes sting); dined at the historic Chautauqua Dining Hall, and had dessert at the authentically Tajik Dushanbe Teahouse.

Sunday was a lousy day to visit Rocky Mountain Nat'l Park -- fog, rain, icy winds -- but we drove to Fall River Pass anyway, and climbed Alpine Ridge. We hadn't thought to bring cold-weather gear; but we had all our luggage with us so we layered dress shirts, pajamas, etc. The howling wind gave us both earaches, but those eventually subsided... On the way down from the pass, we caught some elk herds grazing well within range of our zoom lens, and got some surprisingly good pictures. (I'm loving the "image stabilization" on the new camera.)

Made it back into town in time to catch North, where Jeff Davenport spoke about manna (lit. "What IS that?") and flung Wheat Thins around evoking how one might feel when hoping for the Promised Land but seeing only manna. We talked about it all the way to Denver, where we spent the night and caught a Monday morning flight home... to three little boys and their two exhausted grandmothers who greeted us with delight and relief.

We're still trying to get off Mountain Time.

Seven o'clock colors

2007-09-21T16:55:00.000-04:00

This close to the equinox, 7 am and 7 pm in Boulder are both luminous. Morning sunlight wraps the foothills to the west in a saffron glow; in the gentle crystal chill you might briefly consider a jacket. Evening sun tints the sky in pastels; then glowing sorbet swirls; then a fiery gauze of clouds punctured by the first stars; as the day's warmth lingers into night and the mountains settle into a deep taupe repose.

Wait, this IS rocket science

2007-09-19T23:44:00.000-04:00

Well, that was interesting... A trio of us took a short drive north of Boulder to join DigitalGlobe for the launch of their new "most agile" earth imaging satellite. They fed us lunch, gave us commemorative T-shirts and hats, and we watched the live video feed coming from Vandenberg AFB in California. The footage is now online(*): it's long but the good stuff takes place between about 20:00 (liftoff) and 24:30 (main engine cutoff). The rocket reached 12,000 mph 6 minutes after launch, and orbit 5 minutes later. Given the firm's terrible luck with launches in 1997 and 2001, a good bit of nervous laughter broke out at T minus 2 minutes when someone across the viewing room asked, "So regardless of the outcome here, do we get to keep the T-shirts?" But, everything went according to plan ... so far anyway.

(* Update Oct. 4 -- DigitalGlobe has now posted the good parts of the video in Flash format -- much more useful than the original Windows-only version. I'd embed that here but without its "home" Javascript environment, it starts up automatically -- lame.)

Recumbent in Boulder

2007-09-17T21:28:00.000-04:00

(Oops, missed a day! Trying to find a new rhythm here...) I'm traveling again this week (like some sort of snake-oil salesman); in Boulder, Colorado for a meeting of my de facto professional community. Suvia will join me on the weekend for a Rocky Mountain Front Range mini-vacation: our first time away together since... let's see, Dylan's almost 6. Can't wait.

To get into the Boulder spirit, I canceled my car rental and rented a recumbent bicycle for the week instead. (I'd always wondered what those things were like.) I brought my own pedals and SPD shoes from home, like the serious rider I'm not; and this morning I felt very "with it" setting out for the one-mile walk to the Boulder BikeSmith to pick up my 'bent... until I stepped outside. Into dripping rain. Hadn't even considered that possibility! Talk about overlooking the basics. Once the rain tapered off, I felt even less clever when I actually tried to ride the thing: who knew a recumbent was such a wobbly, scary ride? (OK, well, the angle on that front fork speaks volumes...)

So I'm bobbing and weaving all over the lane; I feel like a kid learning to ride all over again. Loads of fun! By tomorrow I might even feel confident enough to click those shoes into those pedals. Meanwhile, I can't wipe the grin off my face; it feels like I'm riding a deafening chopper to the Monster Truck show, with my arms outstretched, my little front wheel 'way out past my feet, and my 8-inch Hulk Hogan mustache blowing in the breeze.

Something borrowed, something blue

2007-09-15T21:54:00.000-04:00

It's nine o'clock and the house is finally quiet. It was a tough day: disappointments, fatigue, irritation, screaming, whining, spilled milk, ... and the kids weren't much better! As the day winds down, I'm at a loss to draw any particular insights from it -- but Mark Heard's liner notes for Second Hand fit pretty well:

I am always telling my wife that a day doesn't seem to have a full twenty-four hours anymore. I always wish they were longer, or I had a much faster metabolism, say, like a shrew or a hummingbird, because two or three o'clock in the morning always comes too soon and I'm still trying to figure out where the day went.
There are days when you suddenly glance around as if awakened from a stupor and are struck by the great magnitude of life, the realities of mortality, the ironies of our time. ... You cringe at your stupidity. You cower under the future. You fear for the world of your children.

There are other days when the intuitive awareness of the great and wonderful depth of life you felt and harbored as a child, that feeling brought gushing by a certain, sound or smell or time of day or season, will come flooding back in again. You relish the past, you pity the present, you play to the imagination of your children, you try vicariously to re-experience your own fresh youth. I must admit these days seem to become rarer, and worth the effort it takes to remember them somehow.

Most usual are the days you wish you could feel anything. You wish that you could care more than you seem to be able to, or could focus on something beyond the mundane little dance steps involved in the busywork of subsistence. At least there is the impulse to ask yourself, "Why?" There are reasons to be thankful just having something to keep you busy. Songs written by those so inclined to busy themselves in these days tend to become a simple documentation of feelings in the waxing and waning of our awareness of events on the planet, both near and far. But the clock seems only to remind you that there's more to do and you're behind in whatever it is you're already supposed to have done. Your children are loud. Things could be better. Things could be worse. Luckily a few things never change.

I have a T-shirt with those last two paragraphs printed on the back. No-one ever bothers to read them. That's OK.

Now that's a Sabbath

2007-09-14T22:35:00.000-04:00

My first piece of car art is complete -- it came out pretty nice! (and doesn't Dylan do a great Vanna?)

Paul Klee's "Fish Magic" was the obvious inspiration here; we'll keep improvising our way 'round the car until it's all or mostly covered with strange and wonderful stuff: the minivan as a plus-size canvas for self-expression. (True confession however: we're not actually painting the car, but magnetic sheeting that sticks to the car. We bought a 50-foot roll of the stuff on eBay; it weighed about 40 lbs.)

When we first bought the minivan, over a year ago, it was on the condition that we would do this. I thought it might take 3-4 Sunday afternoons; but I spent one Sunday after another holding a baby, sleeping off late nights, browsing the Web, or fixing and cleaning things. Sometimes I'd start to tackle the art car project, but then (daunted) I'd fritter away the time measuring or planning the work (mere engineering) instead of actually creating SOMETHING.

But a couple of weeks ago something clicked; I grabbed a paintbrush, mixed up a goopy orange blend, and quickly covered a couple of panels, knowing they might turn out awful but trying it anyway. Once that dried, another layer of bluish paint went on, and while it was still wet, the real fun began, using a knife, fork, and comb. And viola!

I suppose one reason for the "click" was a recent conversation with some new friends: is Sabbath rest perhaps defined by intentional non-productivity? I'm no artist, so painting is well outside my usual "sector of production." By foregoing any attention to sensible, necessary things for a bit, I found a creative "discovery zone" (as Makoto Fujimura describes Eden) more restful and invigorating than a nap or a mowed lawn; Mako might say it "fed my soul." Not a bad view of the Sabbath... The Westminster Confession limits the Sabbath to "worship and ... duties of mercy or necessity"; to this I would add "or works of beauty." (Of course good Presbyterians would never tamper with, disable, or destroy their Confession like that.:-)

Traveling mercies

2007-09-13T22:45:00.000-04:00

This week I took a grueling 2-day trip to Tucson, Arizona: 6am out of Baltimore, then a redeye back the next day; I'm still recovering. On the way out, I finally read Anne Lamott's Traveling Mercies. I'm a bit late to the Lamott party, but glad to be here. It's quite a book: a bit slow going at first, but on p.50 it all becomes worthwhile as she recalls her surrender to Jesus ("Fuck it. I quit. ...you can come in.") and the writing abruptly shifts to vibrant, poignant, and very funny essays for the rest of the book. I almost brought Grace (Eventually) with me as well (her latest); I could've read it on the way home. But they were both hardbound, and I was packing light; I thought I should limit my in-flight reading to half my total luggage weight.

With three young'uns at home, reading is becoming the best part of travel. It's nice to know that under the right circumstances (no network, no to-do list, no interruptions) I really can tear through a book at a McKnightly pace (books per week, instead of the other way around). When I'm not traveling, it's hard to follow the story arc of "Tuxedo Park" or the overall logic of "Velvet Elvis" when I'm only reading two pages per sit-down bathroom visit.

More broadly, I guess, living entirely by the dictates of duty or happenstance is a habit that's hard to break. It's convenient to blame it on my kids (and yes, they're part of the challenge); but if I'm honest I have to admit that intentional living is a skill I'm still trying to acquire.

They're baaaack

2007-08-07T22:50:00.000-04:00

Suvia and the 3 Amigos returned from their month away with Wild Tales from (down)East and a camera-card full of photos. Here, I think, is my favorite.

What kind of cold-hearted mother calmly snaps this picture instead of rushing to her young son's aid? But wait, she protests:

Just before the camera came out, Diesel had been happily playing in the mud, and was standing there muddy and smiling;
he doesn't ride a bike yet; Dylan's bike had been lying there all morning, and just happened to be in the frame;
The holes in those jeans weren't new;
he was upset that Nana had gone to the Post Office without him (and who can blame her, with all that mud?).

So the picture is eloquently misleading. Nice work, Suvia. A future with National Geographic awaits.

There were some other great pictures as well, summarizing new stages in young lives. Timo turned 1 and learned to walk right on schedule. Much like a novice ice skater, he often catches an outside edge and lands on his (amply padded) derriere. Fortunately, since this video was taken, he has managed to kick his dependence on saliva-soaked socks.

And last but not least, Dylan's reading has really taken off; he spent much of the month making mincemeat of Volumes 1-30(!) of the Magic Treehouse series.

There goes the neighborhood

2007-07-26T21:50:00.000-04:00

So I joined Facebook this week. (Kester made me do it.) Before I fully grasped what was happening, it had harvested my Gmail address book and was knocking on a few dozen virtual doors asking to be "friends." Afterwards I marveled at all the people who'd preceded me (and were now welcoming me) to this lively terra nova, without having ever mentioned it.
So far my "sphere" is mostly fairly young (18-22 or so ... must be that film series I'm doing with my church's "college/20s/30s" crowd); so I'm trying not to creep anyone out. Still, I think some may already have mixed feelings about my presence there: I inadvertently learned a few "secrets" meant for -- well, probably not me. Oops. Sorry to intrude; I guess if "no man is an island" [& this is a SOCIAL NETWORK after all] then my efforts to be unobtrusive, and other people's efforts to keep secrets, are a bit limited. On balance, I think that's a good thing... Shades of Life together... Let's just be careful out there.

El Viaje Misterioso de Nuestro Jomer

2007-07-13T20:09:00.000-04:00

No, we're not blogging in tongues (how cool would that be?). That's just the title of the Simpsons episode I watched the other night (thanks Ryan): Homer eats a Jallucinogenic Jabanero and embarks on a Mysterious Voyage as reality warps before his eyes. Cartooning at its finest. (If I weren't on a Web-fast this week, there'd be a picture right about here. Posting via email has its limitations.)

I'm on a bit of viaje misterioso myself this month: with Suvia and the 3 amigos away in Maine all month beating the heat, I've got the house and schedule to myself. In the whitespace, I'm discovering all kinds of things. The first week was fun; I dropped into the nearby up-and-coming pub, twice, and finally got to hear acoustic-speed-rockers ilyAIMY perform. I'd forgotten how much I like good live, local music. That first week also established what a distracted, self-absorbed slob I can be when no-one's around to see it. Plants died; I ran out of underwear; stayed up till 2am; the dog escaped; I kept forgetting to call the family; ugh.

In the second week, I've been watching and reflecting on the film "About a Boy," a clever story that runs as deep as you want to go on the themes of isolation, community, charity, and friendship. I'm confronted with my poverty of relationships: for who knows how long I've used my family as a handy excuse for not seeking out meaningful friendships; and I've seen my family mostly as constraints and duties, rather than people to share life deeply with. So, both at home and elsewhere, it's been a lot of pointless, painless, joyless, isolated "island living" -- I've been pretending "I'm bloody Ibiza!" (from the film).

... At this rate, weeks 3 and 4 should be interesting.

A hirsute tale

2007-06-20T11:45:00.000-04:00

Sometime in April, one misstep led to another and after nearly 42 clean-shaven years, I decided to find out what nature had blessed (or cursed) me with in the facial-hair department.

Within a week I'd blown past The George Michael (greasy kids' stuff) and with shaggy grays coming in, I was hurtling towards The Dr. K.

(Whereupon, let us pause for the
[famous] 1996 haiku:
Open your present
No, you open your present
Kaczynski Christmas)

By the 6- or 7-week mark, I started getting the occasional compliment. (It was all polite silence before.) I took a couple of self-portraits. Still, I continued to hear a little involuntary shriek every time I passed one colleague's office.

One comment I received: "You're looking more and more like your Savior!" High praise indeed. I'd been leading a class using the "Gospel of John" film of 2003, ... so I know I could never approach THAT hunky look (or so Suvia tells me). But on rereading the prophet Isaiah, I perceived the commenter's devious intent:

He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,
nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.

At about the 60-day mark, I began to worry that -ummm- The Charles Darwin was looming. And beyond that, what -- The Billy Gibbons? It was time for a trim. But wait; I'd started the beard in hopes of avoiding that kind of maintenance.

...so I chickened out. Beard's gone. I sort of miss it already: I never realized I had such a weak chin! Here, then, is the conclusion of the matter: some are genetically gifted; beards are for the rest of us. I think I'm growing a new one already.

Sheep Chutes / Earth As Art

2007-06-11T23:36:00.000-04:00

[clearing the backlog...] On my recent trip I can't say I experienced Sioux Falls in any meaningful way -- too short a trip. I did, however, bring a camera with me; and on the way to my meeting I skidded to a stop to take the photo at left. Not something you see everyday in the Washington suburbs.

My destination there was the NASA/USGS data center and satellite receiving station, where I learned over lunch that the Landsat "Earth as Art" collections are now online at full resolution: dozens of beautifully rendered views of the planet, each 8,000x8,000 pixels (give or take), freely available for any use you care to dream up. Thought you'd like to know.

On Bullshit

2007-06-08T23:50:00.000-04:00

On a recent business trip (to Sioux Falls, SD), I read (and reread (it's that short)) H.G. Frankfurt's "On Bullshit." I'd been curious about this book ever since I saw it on a "church planter's reading list" somewhere. Given my long-time involvement in federal bureaucracy and information technology consulting, the book rang very true in several places:

Someone who lies and someone who tells the truth are playing on opposite sides, so to speak, in the same game. Each responds to the facts as he understands them, although the response of the one is guided by the authority of the truth, while the response of the other defies that authority and refuses to meet its demands. The bullshitter ignores these demands altogether. He does not reject the authority of the truth, as the liar does, and oppose himself to it. He pays no attention to it at all. By virtue of this, bullshit is a greater enemy of the truth than lies are.

... Been there; done that; it's amazing what one can get away with on PowerPoint slides. I've seen plenty of speech that "ignores the demands of the truth" in the workplace, and even in church leadership; and I've produced my share of it and then some. It's so prevalent that we hardly even notice it creep into our talking and writing. I try to cut through it to verifiable facts and clear, precise, neutral language; but it's often a challenge. The damage has already been done -- as Frankfurt describes:

Telling lies does not unfit a person for telling the truth in the same way that bullshitting tends to. Through excessive indulgence in the latter activity, which involves making assertions without paying attention to anything except what it suits one to say, a person's normal habit of attending to the way things are may become attenuated or lost.

Yup. Been there. I can remember 'way back to my senior thesis presentation (20 years ago this month!) when I mixed lab-bench results with values that would have been nice to have. What looked like "proof" was just my playing "what-if" with a pocket calculator. My thesis advisor just nodded approvingly; but he wasn't too pleased when he found out the truth as he was giving me my grade. The mix-up wasn't intentional -- just careless on my part. (Oops, bullshit alarm going off again...)

i bought a crap detector, it emptied all my savings
it's got a hair trigger feel for the slightest provocation
not there to spill blood or judge out of line
it's just a modern convenience to save you some time
- Bill Mallonee, Earth Has No Sorrow

Drained! at last

2007-05-28T22:40:00.001-04:00

Our new septic system is finally in place! Sure is nice to have proper wastewater management again. It was in late March, I think, that I finally faced my denial: the stinky, wet spot in the middle of the back lawn wasn't going to fix itself. We hoped it was just a cracked pipe: a team of plumbers dug around for a morning and said, "Uuhh, you've got bigger problems. Call your county health inspector... and don't flush or shower -- much -- or do any laundry, until it's fixed. Good luck."

Thus began a 6-week lesson in suburban infrastructure, (waste)water conservation, contract negotiation, humility, and patience, as we jumped through all sorts of hoops we never knew existed: soil testing (with a backhoe, 18 ft. down); surveying the project area; having blueprints drawn up and faxing them to a dozen contractors; waiting for callbacks; choosing a bidder; watching the back yard get torn up; and of course paying for it all (last part still in progress :-). The project turned out much larger than I'd imagined: the crew dug two 100-foot trenches, 6 feet deep; filled them with three (four? five?) dumptruck loads of gravel; buried a 10'x5'x5' concrete tank; and felled about 10 trees. The final stage will be to replant some 7,000 sq.ft. of grass in place of the resulting dustbowl; I hope to start that this week if the weather cooperates.

Now that it's all over, flushing and showering still seem like exquisite luxuries; I'll never again take them for granted! To watch water gurgle down a drain and know it's going to a safe & healthy place -- what a comforting thought. :-) And we have a renewed appreciation for all the friends who welcomed us into their laundry rooms -- especially for cousin Silvia whose pick-up / drop-off laundry service was above & beyond.

Batterson hangs ten

2007-05-08T10:32:00.000-04:00

The Leadnow/Fusion conference blew through town; not really my thing but I went to hear Don Miller (author of Blue Like Jazz and others) and Dan Kimball (author of Emerging Church and others). My impressions:

It was my first time in a suburban megachurch. I expected it to be like other (merely) large churches I've known; but no-o-o. Not only was everything supersized; everything was super-perfect -- surround sound, stage lighting, HD video, theater seating, overall architecture, etc. I guess someone's got to be at the upper end of the size and polish range. Still, I had to chuckle at the incongruity of speakers dressed in deliberately casual clothing (to appeal to 20/30-somethings) but bathed in crisp pink-white lighting on a gleaming hardwood stage.
I was impressed that the conference only charged $25 for an evening and a morning, including a working lunch and self-serve snack carts. (Somebody, somewhere, must've stood up to the suits.)
I heard a few too many very polished talks for my tastes -- delivered mostly without notes, with just the right levels of enthusiasm, humor, and pathos. One of these is delightful; two are lavish; but I found three, four, five to be like too much maple syrup. (Somebody, please lose your train of thought or fumble a joke!)
I realized with a shudder [so long, innocent idealism] that some are approaching "20/30-somethings" not (primarily) as a disaffected, skeptical, or unique group, requiring new emphases, metaphors, etc... but (mostly) as a market for fairly familiar forms of Christian media and ministry, just with slightly different wrappings.
Miller and Kimball were exceptions to that; I felt they reached into a whole new set of metaphors and messages. Dan Kimball drew on his "They like Jesus - not Christians" theme to get people out of the "Christian Bubble". In describing the "bubble" he fearlessly waded right into several aspects of the conference itself (e.g., worship concerts; favoring int'l over local mission). Impressive.
Don Miller wove some great stories, and vignettes from Robert McKee's Story Seminar, into a call to "write" worthwhile stories of our own, not with ink or camera but with our lives. He introduced the topic by asking people to answer two questions: "What's your favorite movie?" ... followed by "What's your favorite part of the Nicene Creed?"
Gracia Burnham wisely chose not to rehash her well-known story (dramatized on video screens before she came onstage). Instead she spoke (briefly) of what she's doing now: like Moses in Exodus 4, she prays, "Lord, what have I got to tell people? I'm just a ditzy blonde whose life is a mess..." -- to which He replies, "...Who made your hair?"
[update] I enjoyed watching Mark Batterson's flip-flops hang ten off the front edge of the stage throughout his talk. But he never did fall onto the audience -- a true professional! His "Chase The Lion" talk was as energetic as his 4-posts-a-day blog; at times a bit too close to a mere motivational speech ("live your life on offense, not defense!" "accumulate experiences, not possessions!"); still, he pointed to "Jesus the author and perfecter" of our stories, and to love as a source of fearlessness.

So, that was my foray into mainstream, suburban, big-budget, business-tainted, but still mostly well-intentioned, American Evangelical Christianity. To think that some would consider this "normal"! Still, I was glad to be there ... once in a while.

Andy Whitman, blast from the past

2007-05-03T23:12:00.000-04:00

Well lookie here... Andy Whitman has been syndicating (?) excerpts from his near-daily blog with Paste Magazine ("Signs of life in music, film, and culture"). It'd been 12-13 years since I'd read Mr. Whitman's winsome writing, on the USENET (!) rec.music.christian newsgroup, where he sparked and fueled many a young person's exploration of "real thinking feeling people's music" with pointers to such artists as Peter Case, Victoria Williams, T-Bone Burnett, Bill Mallonee, et al. When he quit the newsgroup around 1995, it quickly lost what little creative / edgy content it had, and imploded in theological squabbles. But apparently, in all these years Andy's flair for writing and his passion for music haven't abated a bit. And his refreshing, holistic approach to music, life, faith, and culture seems to be shared by Paste Magazine as a whole. Nice to see some "signs of life" on the magazine rack.

Mark Scandrette & Soul Graffiti

2007-05-02T21:57:00.000-04:00

I joined the Emergent Village DC Cohort for a dinner with hippie cowboy preacher poet Mark Scandrette. He asked us a bunch of questions (? wasn't expecting that); read (and riffed on) excerpts from his new book "Soul Graffiti"; and (with a slight nudge from Mike) closed his eyes and recited his poem "ReIMAGINE!" -- a sort of trippy psalm spiced with wordplay, bright urban sounds and colors, a fleeting mention of "Tai-Chi Mariachi"... you get the idea.

"Soul Graffiti (Making a life in the way of Jesus)" is a book best read slowly and savored. I'm halfway through; I may reread some chapters before going on; I'm surprised at how many times I've paused and thought, "this is what I've been wanting to say but hadn't found the words." Instead of a real book review, I'll post "gems" from the book as I stumble across them. The "ReIMAGINE!" poem above is one (so go ahead, give it a listen); and here's another:

"Graffiti can be a plea for identity or a proclamation to puncture the darkness. ... The fragmentation I recognize in the world and in myself weighed heavily upon me as I cut words into a waxed paper stencil. I prayed as I sprayed the paint through the stencil out onto the sidewalk: CREATOR - RECREATE HERE NOW - INSTIGATE A REVOLUTION OF FAITH HOPE & LOVE...... What question or statement would you shout out to the universe or to God right now? Go public with your yelping. Write it with chalk on the sidewalk or post it on a Web site and see what kind of response you get."

"Where Uncle Phil go?"

2007-04-20T23:50:00.000-04:00

My brother visited us from Los Angeles for a couple of days this week. He quickly made three young new friends, including 2-y.o. Diesel, pictured here finding a shoulder to lean on at The Awakening in DC. (I'd hoped the statue would be partially submerged after all the rain upstream; but we got some great pictures anyway.)

[UPDATE: the day after posting this, I read that "in the coming months" the Awakening would be moved across the river. I'm pretty sure it will lose some of its charm -- but we'll see...]

It was great to see Phil and his nephews interact, really for the first time. (Previous encounters were all at some kind of family reunion, with kids relegated to a separate room, and lots of competing activity.) In fact, I don't think our boys have bonded so eagerly with any other visitor. A few hours after Phil left, Diesel headed toward the guestroom: "Where Uncle Phil go?" He wasn't very pleased with the answer he got.

On Phil's last evening here, he and I escaped to the nearby brewery for drinks and conversation. Not a frequent occurrence for me anymore ... with anyone! let alone my brother from another planet. Quite a treat. Funny though, we were both tired enough that we stopped to get coffee on the way. (He can blame his fatigue on jet lag and time zones; me I'm just a doofus -- no matter how hard I try to pin the blame on baby Timo.)

Here's to more visits from Uncle Phil.

Gratitude

2007-04-12T22:45:00.000-04:00

I'm such a lousy blogger that I forgot to bring a camera on our early-morning visit to the Washington cherry blossoms last week. So imagine, if you will, standing under a canopy of translucent Yoshino blooms that both glowed from the gentle sun shining through them, and shimmered and flickered in the reflections off the Tidal Basin... all of this against a cloudless blue backdrop.

Less famous, but equally delightful, is the Awakening statue at the tip of Hains Point. On this day, its appeal seemed especially broad: toddlers sat on the statue's teeth and fingers while high-schoolers dared each other to jump off his knee, 12 feet down to the ground.

It was a much more successful visit than we had any right to expect, especially with three little boys along for the trip: we found parking on the Potomac; missed the crowds; soaked in the day's best light and springtime warmth; and were home by mid-morning. And wouldn't you know it, the remainder of that week turned rainy and increasingly cold. "Lord, you give us what we need -- and sometimes so much more."

A few days later, I caught a nice picture of the unseasonable weather: I'm not sure when the DC area last saw snow in April, but there it was. I took this out our front window as we were waking up. (Click to see the full-size picture.)

With all of our sickly grass hidden under snow, the front yard looked pretty inviting! Hopefully this spring & summer we'll get it to look nice even without snow on it.

Tonight we took in another Washington-area delight, a Bowie Baysox game. There's something magical about a baseball diamond bathed in electric lights under a richly hued evening sky.

Because this is the Minor Leagues, the mood is calm and relaxed; the playing is great but the stakes are low; and tickets are cheap or free. We had comp tickets, so we didn't mind leaving after the 3rd inning (!) to get the boys into bed. Well worth a return visit.

The "Catch Me If You Can" pen

2007-03-23T23:14:00.000-04:00

The local Staples store had these nice-looking pens on clearance this week. (...they gleam so ... but I don't really need another pen -- oh look, only 50 cents for a 3-pack...) Just as I was about to be reasonable and walk away, I saw that they were billed as somehow resistant to check fraud. And I spotted an ornate seal of approval on the back of the package: ... Abagnale .. A mouthful of a name ... Frank W. Abagnale ... Waitaminute ... That rings a bell ... Yes! This is the guy from "Catch Me If You Can," who singlehandedly invented dozens of tricks to forge documents, con people, and steal a few million dollars. At first I didn't get it: would we want Ronald McDonald certifying our filets mignons? But further study showed that Abagnale & Associates are a bona fide business -- lucrative enough, in fact, to pay back all the money he swindled. (Good thing he didn't pay them back four times over -- preachers everywhere would've made him a sermon illustration.) Among many other things, A&A helped formulate the Uni-Ball 207's special ink that sinks deeply into paper fibers and can't be washed out.

On the company Website, Abagnale comments on the book and movie and how he's changed since then. And Wikiquote has some juicy quips:

"If my forgeries looked as bad as the CBS documents, it would have been 'Catch Me In Two Days'."
- Frank Abagnale, on the Killian memos.

"Remember what being an adult is: It has nothing to do with money or awards."
- Frank Abagnale, speaking to high-school students in Highland Park, Texas [4]

I had no fear -- like a kid driving down the freeway at 100 miles an hour.
- Frank Abagnale [6]

I did not make this film about Frank Abagnale because of what he did . . but because of what he has done with his life the past 30 years.
- Steven Spielberg. [9]

I bought nine pens. I think I've already lost two.

Jonny Baker in Lancaster, PA

2007-03-21T22:16:00.001-04:00

One man went out to mow - Uploaded by jonnybaker

Jonny Baker (a creative force in UK "Alternative Worship" and co-author of the rather unique book by that name) is giving a workshop series this week, entitled "Faithful Improvisation: Worship and Mission in Post-modern Times" in Lancaster, PA. Lancaster's closer than London; but still two hours away; so I can't be there myself, but hopefully I'm only a couple degrees of separation from someone who can. (It's all free and open to the public.)

I've never met Mr. Baker, but his blog and other writings (including his "worship tricks" series and Flickr photo collection) have been an inspiration to many, and a source of highly creative thinking about Christian worship, theology, and culture. And for me and presumably others, he was the first link to the outstanding work of Andrew Jones, Pete Rollins, Kester Brewin, Roger von Oech, et al. Here he is (above right) mowing a prayer labyrinth -- one of many concepts he's catalyzed in the UK emerging church scene.

The Man Lift

2007-03-12T23:05:00.000-04:00

I often wonder whether I've run out of things to blog about -- but something noteworthy usually comes up amidst the impenetrable blandness [blindness?] of my days. Last Saturday I joined my church's Men's Ministry work crew. At left is the late-afternoon money shot -- too bad all that gossamer structure will have to disappear under walls and roof. Reminds me of the balsa gliders of my youth.

My highlight was operating the manlift pictured here for most of the morning. Gotta love the name; though there's nothing "manly" about operating it -- a joystick rotates the boom horizontally and vertically, and a toggle switch telescopes you in & out. So it's like a 3D video game (at a snail's pace). In my groggy Saturday-morning state of mind I found myself wondering what combinations of longitude, latitude, and radius adjustments would let me move parallel to the x, y, and z axes relative to the ground. Fortunately I kept this powerful conversation killer to myself. Just call me Mr. Cross-Cultural.

Curse your blessings

2007-03-03T10:23:00.000-05:00

Nearly all the things I complain about -- lousy job, cranky kids, ragged yard, squeaky bicycle, etc. -- are closely tied to rich blessings: gainful employment, a loving family, a nice home on a lovely cycling road, etc. Some years ago I coined a snide little hymn: "Count your blessings, Curse them one by one / And it will surprise you what the Lord has done..."

So, amidst the tempest 'n' tumult described earlier, it's been interesting to review the good things that were happening. Here's a list (call it "Ebenezer" if you will):

Little T.Mo (8 months old yesterday) is learning to (a) sit up and (b) hold his own bottle. This is not just cute: it frees up Mom & Dad to do other things, like sweep or eat or sometimes even think.
I finally dejunked the garage -- so thoroughly that it's sheltering not one but both cars (they'd been out in the rain / sun / hail / snow for months, maybe years). Our second car (... motor vehicle ... ok, minivan) has about 3" clearance front and back, and 1/64" (really!) under the tandem bicycle. It's a beautiful sight.
My lovely Quicken Queen (and brand-new blogger) wrestled our taxes into submission: we're expecting a refund worth about a month's wages. (Note to self: revisit withholding.)
Several geeky-glee moments: I finally downloaded the latest Fedora Core (6) Linux and installed it on our Frankensteinian kitchen computer. (*) I also snagged a Handera 330 (the nec plus ultra of handhelds) on eBay. And, thanks to a work-related visit to George Mason University, I got to shop at Micro Center (supermarket for geeks) in far-off Fairfax, VA.

... I'm sure several more items will occur to me as soon as I click "Publish." So ... to be continued, probably.

(*) This computer deserves its own blog. Starting with a motherboard and CPU from an office trash-heap, and a wood gift box at home; inspired by the world-famous Humidor PC; I got to tinkering. I'll post pictures when it's finished (... in 2010).

Hiatus

2007-02-27T22:48:00.000-05:00

Just when blogging seemed to be going so well, becoming a nice habit, ... there went February. (I think we can agree "electric pee" was getting pretty -ah- stale after 18 days.) Not quite sure what happened. But for one thing, all my posts were late at night (Blogger's time-stamp shows when the writing started) -- which was doing nothing for health, sanity, or family harmony. And then my employer asked me to drop my current NASA commitment and head up a new project elsewhere. I was pretty sure I didn't want the new role; but I didn't want to leave my colleagues in the lurch. Unfortunately, this brought out the worst in me: instead of saying "No" promptly and clearly, I let the inner turmoil and second-guessing begin; I clammed up, and avoided them for most of a week. So mature and professional. People were leaving me voice-mail: "Did you get my email? Hope to hear from you. Here's my cell..." And of course, blogging is hard enough even when my inner thoughts are clear and confident. So, that's my story... Now that that awkward episode is over, things should pick up a bit around here.

In the midst of the hubbub, I found Sam Phillips' bizarre song "Zero Zero Zero!" oddly comforting: "... everything that I'm not is all that I've got." (If I'm a zero, at least I have a theme song.) And of course, there's always the beatitudes: "Blessed are the [zeroes], for theirs is the kingdom of heaven..."

Semantic aptitude 2: electric pee

2007-02-08T22:34:00.000-05:00

Dylan's semantic aptitude makes it that much funnier when he misunderstands something. The other day he announced gloomily to Grammy and everyone at the table, "Mommy says I might have electric pee." ... Umm... run that by me again? Turns out he'd been told that for an upcoming doctor's visit, "you might have to collect your pee." He took a moment to process this new input, then joined in the general hilarity.

Intergalactic ailments

2007-02-07T22:09:00.000-05:00

I recently changed my office calendar. This year for some reason, NASA's Occupational Health program has done a mass distribution of its "2007 HealthierYou" calendar, featuring some of the strangest collisions of form vs. content that I've ever seen. Pictured here is a sample of the delightful absurdities that will be gracing people's walls all year long (and now maybe yours, too, if you print that PDF). I've tried to construct some meaningful explanation but had to give up. Enjoy the tension. Stop making sense.

(Click on these to see them full-size.)

(Yes, this is the "really inane" post I promised last week.)

Semantic aptitude 1: Chameleon

2007-02-06T21:05:00.000-05:00

5-year-old Dylan understands what's going on, better than most kids his age. The other day, out of the blue, he asked from the back of the car, "dad, ... so does he mean he has trouble loving himself?" Huh? I then realized we were listening to Michael Knott's Life of David CD, and he'd understood pretty clearly what this dark refrain was about:

I'm the cunning culprit
and the little lamb
and I love all God's children
all but one
This chameleon

Not bad for a five-year-old. He asked whether it was a prayer; Actually, yes: a sad and honest prayer...

Note to self: some of the repertoire may be a bit more difficult to explain.

Pierce Pettis and Howard Finster

2007-02-02T22:20:00.000-05:00

Looks like I'll have to miss tomorrow night's Pierce Pettis performance over at Jammin' Java. I've only seen him play once, at Harvard's Veritas Forum, about 15 years ago. I was impressed then not only by the thoughful depth of his music but by how long he stuck around afterwards to talk with people. At first listen, he might seem like just another reflective-Christian singer-songwriter type -- but his songs really grow on you. And as a longtime Mark Heard fan, I have to admire Mr. Pettis' custom of starting every one of his CDs with a Heard cover.

Listening to "My Life of Crime" today, I realized he also deserves a place on the list of "cleverest lyrics ever" with the following mournful lines:
I have held some people up
I have robbed the stage
With my trusty six-string
I have made them pay...
A couple of days ago, I noticed that his CD "State of Grace" features artwork by the Rev. Howard Finster. That name sounded vaguely familiar..... a quick Wikipedia search later, I was floored to learn that uber-quirky artist-evangelist Rev. Finster not only painted for Pierce Pettis, but also did the Talking Heads' Little Creatures, R.E.M.'s Reckoning, and Adam Again's In a New World of Time. That's a lot of excellent (and very different) bands, linked only by ... well, not even linked by geography.

And sure enough, it's his preacherly voice peeking out of the sound mix on Adam Again's "Homeboys". To complete the picture, I checked out the rockumentary Athens, GA: Inside Out from Netflix. Next time I'm in Georgia, maybe I'll visit Paradise Garden.

NASA's grim 3-way anniversary

2007-02-01T22:47:00.000-05:00

Every year, this is a peculiar week for NASA:

On Jan. 27, 1967, an unexpectedly ferocious fire aboard Apollo 1 suffocated Grissom, White, and Chaffee during a pre-launch test.

On Jan. 28, 1986, an unexpectedly brittle booster seal destroyed shuttle Challenger and killed Scobee, Smith, Resnik, Onizuka, McNair, Jarvis, and McAuliffe.

On Feb. 1, 2003, unexpectedly severe heat shield damage destroyed the shuttle Columbia and killed Husband, McCool, Chawla, Clark, Anderson, Brown, and Ramon.

James Oberg's 2005 commentary raises some thought-provoking points about these events and how they're publicly depicted:

"It has become easy to look away from these horrible space disasters -- and I never call them "accidents," a term that relieves the people involved on the ground of ultimate responsibility. NASA prefers to literally bury the wreckage in underground concrete crypts, to shove the investigation reports onto another bookshelf, and to allocate one day per year to honoring the dead while ignoring what killed them the other 364 days. But spaceflight is not easy, and that particular "easy way" is a roadmap to doom..."

He goes on to debunk the "73 seconds" we've all been told to associate with Challenger's last flight -- whose crew probably lived more than 2 horrific minutes longer, as they continued upwards, then arced down and finally crashed into the ocean. He writes,

"...enough of comfortable make-believe... whenever some space official who ought to know (and say) better uses the phrase '73 seconds', you have one more unintentionally self-confessed averter of eyes."

Randy did a nice riff on this last year. But what he didn't get into is how universal the willful delusion is. Oberg again:

"In space as on Earth, bitter experience teaches that a good 'safety culture' decays from a variety of causes. There is the lulling of anxiety through repeated success, or the loss of respect (or fear) for past experience. And sometimes it’s from the elevation of other measures of goodness higher than safety... Especially when the chain of cause-and-effect logic leads right back into one’s own heart and mind, the ugly consequences of such triggering actions are hard to contemplate."

Try replacing "safety" in that quote with any number of other concerns -- freedom, prayer, justice, sobriety, love -- and see how it reads. Then read Don Miller's Blue Like Jazz (*):

"The problem is not a certain type of legislation or even a certain politician; the problem is the same that it has always been. I am the problem. I think every conscious person, every person who is awake to the functioning principles within his reality, has a moment where he stops blaming the problems in the world on group think, on humanity and authority, and starts to face himself. I hate this more than anything. This is the hardest principle within Christian spirituality for me to deal with. The problem is not out there; the problem is the needy beast of a thing that lives in my chest... I was the very problem I had been protesting. I wanted to make a sign that read 'I AM THE PROBLEM!'"

OK, end of sermon. One more NASA-related post coming up (a really inane one!) and then I'll stop playing with fire w.r.t my employment.

P.S. Further reading if you're curious: Gregg Easterbrook's 1980 prediction, tirade, and concerns about the Shuttle and the Space Program. Teaser quote: "The space station was conceived mainly to give the shuttle a destination, and the shuttle has been kept flying mainly to keep the space station serviced."

(*) I'm (re)reading "Blue Like Jazz" now and leading a group study of it, so look for more quotes soon.

Life lessons from an experimental cosmologist

2007-01-31T20:48:00.000-05:00

As some of you know, I work at NASA. I don't do anything particularly brilliant but just upstairs from me is NASA's Nobel-prize-winning pride and joy, John Mather. I sometimes like to think some of his insight and perseverance will rub off on me as we share a few air molecules via the HVAC. (OK that was pathetic.)

Today I attended a luncheon* featuring Dr. Mather. In fewer than 25 minutes, he breezed through his 20 years with the Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) (which confirmed that the Big Bang is more than just a clever idea); described the forthcoming James Webb Space Telescope (JWST); and ended with the lessons he's learned from it all, ... which I felt deserved a broader audience. So, all three of you, listen up:

- Aim high: the world will change in the 20-year lifetime of your project.
- Your space-based telescope should only try to do what ground-based telescopes can't do.
- Don't be intimidated by difficulty of your project, if no law of nature actually forbids it.
- It it's not forbidden, it's required (in the case of science and exploration).
- If it's not required, it's forbidden (in the case of project management).
- If you don't test it, it won't work (confidence is no guarantee of success).
- If you do test it, it still won't work BUT you'll have a chance to fix it before it has to work.
- Elementary things do fail (simplicity is no guarantee of success).
- All the hard work is worth it -- there's no substitute for major space missions.

I'm no cosmologist, yet something tells me the good Dr.'s onto some genuine wisdom here.

He gave another interesting gem to -ah- chew on: We atoms make up only about 4% of the universe. The rest is cold dark matter (23%), which no-one knows much about; and dark energy (73%), which is even more mysterious.

(* Lunch or luncheon? After extensive study, I have concluded that the "-eon" suffix is code for "wear a tie". Then again, the required preliminary chit-chat does fit the other definition.)

The other family portrait

2007-01-12T21:13:00.000-05:00

The formal portrait we paid good money for last fall turned out pretty starched & bleached -- and besides, Olan Mills Studios would break our kneecaps if we posted it. So, here's a livelier picture of our little clan: "Ms. P., are we all stuck on the ceiling until Mom and Dad stop laughing?" CCW from top-left are Suvia, Dylan (5), Diesel (2), T.Mo (0.5), and yours truly. We'll include this in our sesquiennial Christmas - Easter newsletter... soon.

Low frequency effects

2007-01-10T00:14:00.000-05:00

I've been enjoying my new subwoofer -- a bit of reckless Christmas generosity from the Suvias (my wife and her mother). Funny, it says right in the manual, "most people turn up the gain much too far." Understandable; I can see why subwoofers and condo apartments are an ugly mix. Fortunately our nearest neighbors are 150ft. away through trees. (If they come knocking...)

Of course the thing really shines on movies like Terminator or Finding Nemo. Besides beefing up the obvious concussive sounds (e.g., Darla tapping on the fishtank), it just makes everything a lot more immersive. But I was surprised at how much it also "anchored" solo acoustic guitar music. Also surprising: my best subwoofer demo so far (amidst stiff competition from Miles Davis' "Blue in Green") is a piece by Carrie Newcomer ("Another Thunder"). [Edit: oops, how could I have omitted Arvo Pärt's "The Beatitudes"?]

Homeland security and memories of Dad

2007-01-10T00:09:00.000-05:00

So I was filling out the 20pp. "resistance is futile" questionnaire the other day, for the latest wrinkle in the Homeland Security blanket. Among other things, I had to come up with 3 "people who know you well ... who together cover the last 7 years of your life. No relatives, spouses, etc." A daunting task for this hermit; but I did finally come up with three. So if some disturbingly normal-seeming person calls you up asking about me, ... you've been warned.

In looking up people's addresses etc, I stumbled across a Lycos listing for my father: full name, past addresses (Hines, MN, followed by Wheaton, IL -- omitting his 40-some years as a missionary overseas), and age: 71... even though he never made it to 66. Creepy.

The same afternoon, I found a photo of him and Mom, stuck in an old Java book on my shelf. I think this picture was taken the week Dad's cancer was confirmed (Christmas '96). He died about 4 1/2 years later -- two months before 9/11. I often wonder what he (as a lifelong student of the Arabic language and Christian ministry to Muslims) would've thought of this brave new world.

Now that we've totally changed the subject... In recent years I've sometimes thought we've moved on a little TOO well since Dad's death -- sure, life goes on, but ours would probably be richer if we paused once in a while to remember him. Because he preferred counseling and coaching to publishing, there's precious little evidence of him online. So, I wonder what the Wendell Evans blog would've been like. I should write a spoof post every year or something.

Finding our voices - maybe

2006-12-11T23:00:00.000-05:00

At my fairly "normal" church (ARP, conservative Presbyterian), I've been trying to describe and explain emerging(-missional) churches [links updated] to a Sunday School class of about 50 people whose ages range from teens to 90s. It's been -ah- enlightening for all, and definitely a first for me. I'll try to post the slides as soon as I work through the copyright details.

The first week (Dec. 3) I successfully deferred discussion of the big "P" word, to focus on "people rethinking church" (regardless of self-consciously philosophical concerns). I borrowed liberally from Messrs. McKnight, Bolger and Gibbs, Baker, and especially Jones; but did add some fun things like a termite mound (emergent behavior), Gordon Cosby info [emerging church in 1947?], and "Babe, the postmodern pig"). Also threw in pictures of Upstream Communities, Vaux, Vintage Faith, Solomon's Porch, Grace, and local group The Common Table. So far so good; apparently a couple of people were concerned that we were going to start worshipping with parachutes but OK.

The second week (Dec. 10) we took a deep breath and looked at postmodernity and how to engage it as Christians. I borrowed from Wright, McLaren, Jones (again), and Rollins; and threw in some fun artifacts from Schultz, Launer, Iko n, and timetoturn. Unfortunately, I only got about halfway through my talk because a few folks had a strong aversion to the whole notion of skepticism. (And I didn't even get to the hard part [from Rollins], about how some skepticism about our own notions might be valuable!) So in closing, I skipped ahead to my favorite Peanuts cartoon ever (displayed here), explained the view that God is bigger than anything we could ever describe or imagine, ... and wished everyone a good week. To be continued.

Pete Rollins @ Emergent Baltimore

2006-11-30T22:26:00.000-05:00

Spent a delightful evening Nov. 20 with Peter Rollins (in town on a book tour) and 15 or 20 Emergent Baltimore types (including a middle-aged, bald introvert with a small Buddha belly who identified himself as "Brian, Pete's driver"). Pete R. talked a mile a minute in a delightful accent that made "doubt" rhyme with "light." He wove together a number of points from his book, and some additional thoughts and jokes, in what I thought was pure free-association until he paused to check his notes about 20 minutes in.
Here are a few notable themes (if you've read his book these will be familiar):
- Powerlessness. He used this joke to evoke the risk of mixing the Christian message with an apologetic of power and fear and violence. Said we needed to avoid these in our message, but without letting it get anemic.
- Hypernymity (the other extreme from anonymity). He contrasted the Cartesian view, in which God is revealed and present, with Anselm's view of God as "something greater than can be thought," whom we can receive but never conceive.
- Conceptual idolatry. He likened Meister Eckhart's "God rid me of God" with Nietszche's "God is dead," which he suggested could be read as the death of one's concept of God.

Pete also talked about Ikon, the group he leads in Belfast, and showed some pictures. He described their "Last Supper" and "Evangelism" projects, their recent "Fundamentalism" service, and their new Wiki-based website. (all the more powerless to become?)

I had my book with me, so I asked him if he did autographs. He seemed willing but pretty reluctant so I changed the subject. He seemed to enjoy playing with little Timo as we spoke. (Yep, brought a baby to a theo/philosophy lecture...)

Browsing around the Ikon Website this weekend, I enjoyed the playful intro to their principles (iconic, apocalyptic, heretical, emerging, and failing -- which may sound pretty unsafe at first glance but don't let that fool you). I was also tickled to see that they used Michael Knott's Screaming Brittle Siren in last week's service. Maybe my "emerging journey" was already underway back in 1993 (?) when I fell head-over-heels for this CD myself.

One for the scrapbook

2006-11-18T22:19:00.000-05:00

Timo (now 4 1/2 mos.) was parked next to the kitchen sink the other day, watching me wash dishes. Predictably, the dishes got boring, esp. after I found the funny glasses in one pile of clutter, and the camera in another. This was the best take of about 10. Still can't decide on a caption.

Better late than never: John Franke @ Emergent Baltimore

2006-11-03T22:49:00.000-05:00

I've been meaning to comment on John Franke's Oct. 18 dinner talk in Ellicott City. Surprisingly, it appears no-one else has (?) so maybe this is still of interest. Dr. F. said a lot of good things; but what stood out for me was an interpretation of I Cor. 12 applied to the universal church, not just a local congregation -- e.g., the Presbyterians cannot say to the Baptists, "I don't need you," etc. (As Randy would say, "Some Assemblies of God Required.") But then Dr. F. took a further step, and applied those verses to the "emerging conversation" as well, challenging us to use our peculiar insights &c. to be a blessing to more traditional churches, rather than just going our separate ways. He said it better, of course.
Next speaker: Pete Rollins. I hope to finish reading his dense little book in time.

A preview?

2006-10-31T23:20:00.000-05:00

... Wherein we outline some of the posts that will appear here soon:
- Things to fix
- John Franke and I Cor. 12
- Looking back at Crave, V.1
- "Head story" du jour: Charles, the nerdy Cabbage
- Impressions of Pete Rollins' book
- Reflections on Ecclesiastes and meaninglessness
- Cleverest song lyrics EVER
Posting this is of course meant to force a more frequent blogging habit -- rats, only three posts in October! (Now 4 :-) Well, after enjoying all these great blogs (and many more), at least I'm giving back a little. It's a start.

The Christians who don't do anything

2006-10-24T22:52:00.000-04:00

I"m still chewing on the last part of Matthew 7, in which Jesus gives the parable of the wise and foolish builders. Funny, in all the times I'd heard this, until recently I'd missed what the "rock" represented. Jesus says, "everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock." So sure, "build your house on the Lord Jesus Christ," as the Sunday school song says; but more specifically, the "foundation" emphasized here is not my knowledge of him (or about him), or his faithfulness to me, etc.; but whether and how I live out his words (esp. the sermon on the mount, Matthew 5-7). I guess it makes sense: the things I feel surest of are those I've acted on in word or deed. Anyway, in reading this parable to Diesel at bedtime a few days ago, I suddenly thought of the Veggie Tales Pirates: they do none of the things pirates do so are they really pirates? Slowly a spoof started to form in my mind...

Chorus:
We are the Christians Who Don't Do Anything!
We're just chosen to lie around.
And if you ask us to do anything, we'll just tell you:
We don't do anything.

Well I space out in my small group and I tend to shrug off scripture,
and I've never prayed in tongues, in fact I rarely pray at all,
but I read books on theology and wonder 'bout the rapture
and debate predestination and the fall.

(Chorus)

And I never feed the hungry and I never preach in taverns
and I've never emulated St. Augustin or St. Paul,
Yet my favorite occupation is to say "you're all just moderns"
and debate predestination and the fall.

(Chorus)

I don't trust denominations; sometimes I'd like to be Amish
But I've never gone two days without a Skype IP phone call
So I'd better stay the course and keep the status quo I cherish
And debate predestination and the fall.
= = = = = = = = = =

Obviously a work in progress. I'm no poet but such is the impact of blogging...

Now that's an exotic lamp

2006-10-20T14:46:00.000-04:00

Upon reading news of a meteorite discovered in Kansas weighing 154 lbs., something about it sounded familiar. Sure enough, in recent online furniture shopping I'd seen a reproduction Arco Lamp, whose base (ostensibly granite but who knows??) weighed exactly ... 154 lbs. Coincidence?

People in glass houses

2006-10-19T22:21:00.000-04:00

- by Madeleine L'Engle

I build my house of shining glass
of crystal
prisms
light, clear,
delicate.
The wind blows
Sets my rooms to singing.
The sun's bright rays
are not held back
but pour
their radiance through the rooms
in sparkles of delight.

And what, you ask, of rain
that leaves blurred muddy streaks
across translucent purity?
What, you ask,
of the throwers of stones?

Glass shatters,
breaks,
sharp fragments pierce my flesh,
darken with blood.
The wind tinkles brittle splinters
of shivered crystal.
The stones crash through.

But never mind.
My house
My lovely shining
fragile broken house
is filled with flowers
and founded on a rock.
--------------
(I'd typed this up but never got to use this in our last Crave [related to Matthew 7:24-27] so here it is.)

An allegory...

2006-09-10T21:00:00.000-04:00

... representing ... ah... I'm not yet sure what. I've never before thought of a movie as "mysterious" -- but that was my strongest impression of "Gerry". Other adjectives include dark, frightening, slow, repetitive, slow, haunting, luminous, odd, preposterous, challenging ... Obviously (to this discriminating viewer!) the surface story isn't really the point. But while puzzling over deeper meanings, I enjoyed stunning desert vistas (a killer app for HDTV... I would presume) and breathtaking music (Arvo Part's "Alina"; that's actually how I learned of this movie). Parts of it reminded me of Koyaanisqatsi; but it's much more demanding of the viewer. Funny, its ratings at both imdb and amazon are right in the middle -- half of viewers think it's among the best movies ever, and the other half found it an insulting waste of time. (Kind of like Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music.)

Logs, Hogs, & Dogs

2006-09-03T23:29:00.000-04:00

All that time spent building the montage to your left from this image and that one in The GIMP..! Neither the image nor the title (above) were polished or -ah- subtle; but each got a laugh in my talk at Crave this afternoon (on Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, of course). We considered Jesus' fairly one-sided words about judgmentalism (he never gives an out, an "on the other hand" message to relieve the tension); and we reflected on how we deal with people different from ourselves in their temperament, theology, politics, age, culture, etc. We wrote on wood planks the things that blinded / impeded us, ... then nailed the two pieces together to form a cross. (A bit too "clever" perhaps, but I thought of it a couple days ago & couldn't resist.) Jenny provided a perfect Celtic music mix - barely there if you weren't paying attention, stunning if you were. Now if only we could persuade more people to come.

The next level

2006-08-29T23:35:00.000-04:00

This month feels like the next level in a videogame: stuff's whizzing by too fast for my reaction times. (Life doesn't always wait till you've mastered one level before you move up to the next.) So, the pool has turned green (again) for lack of chlorine, the grass is brown from lack of nutrients, my eyes are red from lack of sleep, the car's "maintenance required" light has stopped flashing orange, ... and the to-do list just keeps getting longer.

Luckily there's little Timo (now almost 8 weeks old!) to blame it all on.

Not much of a story

2006-08-26T15:11:00.000-04:00

Oh yeah: "what happened?" you ask [about yesterday's post]. The story is boring: he was bouncing around on a bed and hit a bookcase. At the moment he looked like a prize fighter, with blood streaming down his left cheek.I didn't think to take THAT picture; sorry.

Both blood and tears stopped flowing within 5 minutes; but it was decided that an ER visit would be wise. So, for a couple of glorious hours, this middle child had his father's exclusive attention (and tasted several 100-yr shelf-life treats from the vending machines in the ER waiting area).

Diesel keeps us in stitches

2006-08-25T22:11:00.000-04:00

Diesel's 6 stitches didn't bother him for long... That eyebrow turned bright colors by week's end though.

...And he keeps on truckin'...