Had a very nice farewell lunch today with my colleagues from BCNZ's Centre for Distance Learning. After 5 or so years of doing Internet and IT support for them I'm moving on in a week or two to concentrate more fully on my research and lecturing. It's been fun and the CDL staff a great to work with.

If you think that you might be interested in dipping into biblical studies, theology, missions studies or spiritual formation have a look at their web site. Students come from both NZ and around the world. (Fulltime NZ students can qualify for things like student loans and allowances if the appropriate criteria are met).

ASIA GRACE by Kevin Kelly is the web site that accompanies the book of the same name.The book consists of about 600 photographs (and no words) of life in Asia.

There's a slideshow you can turn on that moves from photo to photo. You can pause it, read about the photo and add your own story/notes to it.

(Found this when I was looking for some biographical information in Kevin Kelly who is an editor for Wired Magazine).

More insight from Karen Stone on When you look at art. (See blog entry below).

Flicking through the new books at the BCNZ Library today I came across an interesting book by Karen Stone called Image & Spirit: Finding Meaning in Visual Art. Looks like it'd be worth reading sometime (after I've cleared the other million books off my desk).

Did a quick search for her on the net and found an article she's written for Christmas this year (The Lutheran | December 2003 | Three images for Christmas). In it she says

I see: I know, I understand, I believe. Sight is our usual metaphor for understanding because we are image-makers. Images come before words. Artwork communicates when words fail us. They are timeless: Places, times and language may change, but art continually takes on new meaning and conveys enduring truth, the deep truth of our faith.

Sounds good to me.

"God be between you and harm in all the empty places where you must walk."
   From Babylon 5, "A Distant Star" (Season 2)

Added some updated information about me to the blog. Prompted by meeting a fellow blogger a while back who didn't know what I looked like. See About me

Trying to finish a paper for a conference in about a weeks time (4-5 Dec) on the spiritual nature of technology and in particular the spiritual narratives that are found in technological agendas. Here's the abstract.

This paper focuses on the religious and spiritual narratives that are interacting with emergent technologies and in particular with the concept of cyberspace. Rather than being “spiritually-neutral” evidence can be found for technologists being motivated by religious concepts from Christianity, Gnosticism, Eastern religions and neo-Paganism in their desire to create and use these technologies. On one hand these concepts produce new versions of the gospel complete with apocalyptic “technoraptures”, while on the other existing religious stories are used as analogies and inspiration for technological developments. As a result the emergence of new technologies provides both challenges and opportunities for theological dialogue with wider Western techno-culture.

Hopefully in a couple of days time the paper will be finished. (It had better be)

We've been working through the book of Revelation for our sermons at church for the past couple of months at got to Rev 21 today. I was on the roster to give the "children's talk" today - the bit in the service where someone has the children come up to the front of the church and then talks to them about faith and life. So I just had to do some "eschatology for infants".

I really like the imagery used in the Bible that expresses Creation's response to God (e.g. Pss 96 & 98). The sheer joy, exhultation, partying and whole-hearted response to the return and presence of God. And I wanted the children to remember that somehow in a way that was fun and had impact.

Then I remembered Jonny Baker's worship trick 59 - pentecostal ducks with the lemonjelly ducks video. So with the help of the old iBook and the data projector we got psychedelic colours being injected into creation, a bearded dancing man dancing with disco-ing ducks, swinging squirrels, gyrating giraffes and rocking rhinos, and some toe-tapping music. Hopefully they'll take that image with them through life.

Mixed responses from the adults in the congregation but the kids seemed to get off on it - which was the aim. (I think I'm still treated with some suspicion after a children's talk when I told them the answers to almost all Sunday School questions were "God", "Jesus" and "love". Remember that and they were "sweet".)

On a more serious note, Psalms like 96 & 98 have this great response in them. But it is a God of justice that creation rejoices to see. Our eschatology sometimes forgets that judgement has an aspect linked to how we have related to Creation, not just to God and other people.

Steve Taylor and his family's last service at Graceway today. An emotional time for all. Drop on by and wish them well at steve emergent downunder

I don't have an iPod yet (it's on my things to buy that are probably techno-idols list) but I did see this interesting posting on the social dynamics of some iPod users. Seems that the little, white box opens the doors to a new, non-vocal form of community based on sharing one's taste in music with others. See Wired News: Feel Free to Jack Into My IPod

Might be something to link in with jonnybaker: gadget of the minute - alt worship potential?.

See my previous posting on iTunes playlists too.

Saw this today over at Dave's Portal while googling (is that a verb?) for some stuff on "embodied virtuality".

Douglas Adams on Tea

One or two Americans have asked me why it is that the English like tea so much, which never seems to them to be a very good drink. To understand, you have to know how to make it properly.

There is a very simple principle to the making of tea and it's this - to get the proper flavour of tea, the water has to be boiling (not boiled) when it hits the tea leaves. If it's merely hot then the tea will be insipid. That's why we English have these odd rituals, such as warming the teapot first (so as not to cause the boiling water to cool down too fast as it hits the pot). And that's why the American habit of bringing a teacup, a tea bag and a pot of hot water to the table is merely the perfect way of making a thin, pale, watery cup of tea that nobody in their right mind would want to drink. The Americans are all mystified about why the English make such a big thing out of tea because most Americans have never had a good cup of tea. That's why they don't understand. In fact the truth of the matter is that most English people don't know how to make tea any more either, and most people drink cheap instant coffee instead, which is a pity, and gives Americans the impression that the English are just generally clueless about hot stimulants.

So the best advice I can give to an American arriving in England is this. Go to Marks and Spencer and buy a packet of Earl Grey tea. Go back to where you're staying and boil a kettle of water. While it is coming to the boil, open the sealed packet and sniff. Careful - you may feel a bit dizzy, but this is in fact perfectly legal. When the kettle has boiled, pour a little of it into a tea pot, swirl it around and tip it out again. Put a couple (or three, depending on the size of the pot) of tea bags into the pot (If I was really trying to lead you into the paths of righteousness I would tell you to use free leaves rather than bags, but let's just take this in easy stages). Bring the kettle back up to the boil, and then pour the boiling water as quickly as you can into the pot. Let it stand for two or three minutes, and then pour it into a cup. Some people will tell you that you shouldn't have milk with Earl Grey, just a slice of lemon. Screw them. I like it with milk. If you think you will like it with milk then it's probably best to put some milk into the bottom of the cup before you pour in the tea.* If you pour milk into a cup of hot tea you will scald the milk. If you think you will prefer it with a slice of lemon then, well, add a slice of lemon.

Drink it. After a few moments you will begin to think that the place you've come to isn't maybe quite so strange and crazy after all.

* This is socially incorrect. The socially correct way of pouring tea is to put the milk in after the tea. Social correctness has traditionally had nothing whatever to do with reason, logic or physics. In fact, in England it is generally considered socially incorrect to know stuff or think about things. It's worth bearing this in mind when visiting.

Suddenly I feel like a nice cup of tea. Darjeeling, I think.

Some interesting thoughts from Doug here and he wants some suggestions. So surf over to Virtual-Doug and suggest away.

Virtual-Doug: Transforming Church - Beginnings

Just when I thought I was getting old.

CNN.com - Old fish in captivity turns 65 - Nov. 19, 2003

I'm still thinking and reading about religion, technology and the nature of human identity in cyberspace. (I'll be thinking about this for at least another 2 years until my thesis is finished) One book I find my self continually dipping into is Brenda Brasher's Give Me That Online Religion. It's easy to read, contains people's personal stories and raises some good questions. Yesterday I was struck by this passage having been thinking about blogs, open-source theology and the postmodern monastry idea.

Individuals with no tie to any particular religious organization or group are the pioneers of online religion. The nonspecialists find in cyberspace a public space where they can preach and teach, crack religious jokes, and construct virtual rites with abandon. And they love it. To computer-adept amateur religionists, the global interconnectedness and pervasive openness of cyberspace concoct a heady brew of spiritual possibility that causes the spiritual imagination to flourish. Investing hundreds of hours in constructing Websites filled with spiritual content that they treat as virtual sacred places, individual online religious practitioners are the cultural missionaries of virtuality. They are among the first to explore the boundaries of cyberspace, attempt to learn its language, and try to translate their religious message into its context. Netcasting virtual religious art and music, these cyber-religionists construct online ritural, spin out virtual theologies, and form unprecedented, free-floating bonds of spiritual community in an eruption of cyberspace spiritual enthusiasm.

Brenda E Brasher, Give Me That Online Religion (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2001), 69-70.

Blogging fits this description well, though when Brasher wrote her book blogging was not really wide-spread.

Still thinking about Steve Taylor's postmodern monastery and what it might look like.

The Monastery of Christ in the Desert

The comments functionality on the blog appears to be having problems at the moment. I am reassured that I am not alone in this (see: comments not showing up).

Sorry if you had something profound to say and you've been thwarted. If things don't improve in the next few days I'll have a look at installing a new comments system.

I've been reading about the self and cyberspace today. Here's a quote I like from:

Wertheim, Margaret. The Pearly Gates of Cyberspace: A History of Space from Dante to the Internet. New York: W.W. Norton, 1999. Reprint, London: Virago Press, 2000.

One question that arises, then, is where does the self end? If the self “continues” into cyberspace, then as I say, it also “continues” through the post and over the phone. It becomes also like a fluid, leaking out around us all the time and joining each of us into a vast ocean, or web, of relationships with other leaky selves. In this sense, cyberspace becomes a wonderful metaphor for highlighting and bringing to our attention this crucial aspect of our lives. As (Christine) Wertheim points out, the Net make explicit a process that is already going on around us all the time, but which we in the modern West too often tend to forget. By bringing into focus the fact that we are all abound into a web of interrelating and fluid selves, the Internet does us an invaluable service. (p. 249)

Leads to all sort of possible images

• Baptism in the fluid of other people


• Liquid church metaphors


• God’s self as sloshing about down here too.


• God’s continuation of self into Scripture

Rachel had a lively discussion over on her blog a week or so ago about an evangelistic tract that was put into her letterbox (see cre8d journal: Spam I am?). The conclusion being that it was more about scaring people into heaven than conveying the richness of the gospel and it's implications for life now. She posted a scan of the tract and I used it in our house group as a discussion starter on eternal life and what we think the gospel of Jesus Christ encompasses.

Then yesterday I found the following tract from the same crowd blowing around my garden (hence the water damage). This time they've gone for the whole demonic figure, fire and skulls (on the back) to convince people to pray the prayer on the back and avoid hell. Do it now - you may not have another chance!

Now salvation does mean being saved from something. But it also means being saved into something - eternal life. And that is, to borrow a slogan, "life before death" - Being part of the community of the children of God, seeing the Kingdom of God at hand and being part of the new life that proclaims in word and action freedom for the oppressed, healing of the broken and restoration of relationships with God and others. It's not just about buying a ticket to heaven for when we die - otherwise why did Jesus spend so much time changing people's situations in life, physically and socially, instead of just reassuring then that it would be all right in the end.

So when I see something like the above tract I feel many things: Sad, angry, upset, disturbed. Christ is both saviour (the giver of new life now) and judge of all things. We need to hold onto both.

There's a good reflection on this last comment in the latest Sojourners Magazine: The Hungry Spirit: Damnation Will Not be Televised

The "Smart Mob" crowd catch up with organized, passive resistance in the UK.

See Interwebnet's Chasing Bush - Tracking George W. Bush throughout his UK visit

Australia played brilliantly (All credit to the opposition - literally!). New Zealand played badly (didn't seem to have a "Plan A", let alone a "Plans B, C & D"). We lost. They won. Feel very sad.

But somehow it wasn't as bad as 1999. Maybe having lots of friends around for a barbeque, board games, sharing the "pain" etc. made all the difference.

It got me thinking about the importance of community for coming through hard times (not just rugby tests). It still hurts but it helps to have others who are or haved suffered too and are able to get you to laugh (at yourself often). (Still this is probably just rationalising a a deep sense that "we were robbed" :-) )

Darren has an Australian view over at his blog: LivingRoom >> A space for Life: Rugby World Cup - Go Australia

Don't even mention the cricket.

Go France!

One of the highlights of my working career was being paid for a week to play computer games (we were setting up gaming servers for an internet company). It can take "days" to get those things right. Now I read you can study computer gaming as part of a degree - we had to pretend we were only playing them to study the implementation of algorithms when I was an undergrad.

Wired News: Academics Can Be Fun and Games

Jonny Baker posted a reading on grace read out at grace ten the other day. It's probably the best thing for my soul that I've read in the past week or two. Here's a bit of it

The grace of God means something like: Here is your life. You might never have been, but you are because the party wouldn't have been complete without you. Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid. I am with you. Nothing can ever separate us. It's for you I created the universe. I love you.

You can read the rest at jonnybaker: worship trick 62 - grace

The reading comes from a book called "Wishful Thinking: A Seeker's ABC" by Frederick Buechner who also says this about wine in the same book

Wine : Unfermented grape juice is a bland and pleasant drink ... [but] it is a ghastly symbol of the life blood of Jesus Christ, especially when served in individual antiseptic, thimble-sized glasses. Wine is booze, which means it is dangerous and drunk-making. It makes the timid brave and the reserved amorous. It loosens the tongue and breaks the ice especially when served in a loving cup. It kills germs. As symbols go, it is a rather splendid one.

Amen.

Thought about adding my iTunes "What's playing now" to the blog using Kung-Tunes. Then I saw this article: Wired News: ITunes Undermines Social Security

Playlistism, Aubrey explained, is discrimination based not on race, sex or religion, but on someone's terrible taste in music, as revealed by their iTunes music library.

Aubrey said an iTunes music library tells a lot more about people than the clothes they wear or the books they carry.

Now I'm just scared to. :-)

In my studies I have to use biblical Hebrew and Greek from time to time. SIL have some free fonts for both Mac and Windows which are quite helpful. You can find them at:

• The SIL Hebrew Font System Home Page


• The SIL Greek Font System Home Page

May be useful for the millions out there who are desperately seeking them :-)

Also useful are:

• Fonts in Cyberspace


• Unicode and Multilingual Support in HTML, Fonts, Web Browsers and Other Applications

From a book I've just finished:

Defend the small spaces, don't run with scissors, and remember that there is often an unexpected chocolate.

Jaron Lanier coined the term "virtual reality" in 1986 and was (is) one of the leading inventors of VR technology. Originally a strong proponent of technology and its benefits he now worries about the future of human culture more than the gadgets.

Lanier is also a an artist and musician of note and the PDF article below is an interview about what he calls 'cybernetic totalism' and the effects of technology on and in society. In his writings you can pick up a definite sense of an understanding of the spiritual nature of technology as well as its economic and social effect.

Out in the wider world, though, there’s a rebellion brewing precisely as a result of the sort of wild pronouncements about technology you see more and more often in press releases from places like MIT and Berkeley. There has long been a sense of economic injustice, but there’s a brewing sense of spiritual injustice. There’s this sense that it’s one thing if rich people in America drive fancy cars and have lower infant mortality, but this notion that some elite somewhere is defining the soul or making the soul into an obsolete idea or is going to transform what it means to be human or is going to be first in line for immortality—that idea strikes so deep it creates a sense of panic. And I believe this is the explanation for one of the weird features of our time, that every major religion has a terribly violent fundamentalist wing at the same time.

Interesting stuff.

The PDF is available here: What Keeps Jaron Lanier Awake at Night?

Darren has been putting together some really useful information and tips about blogging over at his web site. He's put them all into an archive that you can access at: LivingRoom >> A space for Life: Blog Tips Archives

So if you're an experienced blogger or just starting out why don't you drop on by and see what you can learn.

Henry Jenkins's writing on the Matrix films talks of transmedia storytelling. The interweaving of cinema, home video/dvd, tv, the internet, video games and books to create narratives that go beyond a single, static portrayal. In fact, stories get added to by the individuals and communities that hear/watch them and then are spurred into creative response. In a consumerist sense he says,

In the ideal form of transmedia storytelling, each medium does what it does best--so that a story might be introduced in a film, expanded through television, novels, and comics, and its world might be explored and experienced through game play.... Reading across the media sustains a depth of experience that motivates more consumption.... Offering new levels of insight and experience refreshes the franchise and sustains consumer loyalty.

I found it interesting in that in effect a community hermeneutic is developed where internet communities comment on, adapt and critique the Matrix world in its various incarnations, developing their own interpretations and reinterpretations of the story.

It doesn't seem new to me in the sense that people of faith have been doing this sort of thing ever since we could tell stories. However it may have some useful ideas for interacting with contemporary culture.

Technology Review: MIT's Magazine of Innovation - Why the Matrix Matters

I've been quite stressed over the last few days waiting for the NZ-SA rugby quarter-final. Would "our boys" do it or would they falter in the quarters? Then just as the game is kicking off my daughter got sick and I spent much of the game looking after her far away from the rugby. It brought everything back into perspective - one sick daughter is far more important that whether the All Blacks win a rugby game. Sometimes you need these reminders.

All Blacks record first cup win over Springboks

The NZ government's Ministry of Economic Development has a number of useful papers, articles and reports on Internet and technology use in New Zealand and the social issues attached with that. Some interesting ones include:

• The Social Impact of Information Technology - A Briefing to the Minister for Information Technology


• Statistics on Information Technology in New Zealand: Updated to 2003


• ImpacT 2001: How Information Technology Will Change New Zealand


• Information and Communication Technologies and Social and Economic Inclusion

A full list can be found at:

• Information Technology Publications

The irony of this being, I guess, that the "information poor" cannot access this information via the web.

Naomi Klein's book "No Logo" has been sitting on the bedside table for the last week or too and I've been flicking through it every now and then. Some really thought provoking stuff, especially about corporate marketing and access to schools.

Then I saw this on a blog. After I picked my self up from the floor I read it. Then I read it again just to make sure I got it right. Then I felt really depressed (too close for comfort). Hopefully something will happen today to cheer me up.

Corporate sponsorship a boon to church budgets

I've uploaded HTML and PDF versions of the talk I did at the IT | Culture | Church meeting from the 1 November. You can access them here [Techno-spirituality]. I'm still working on a paper for a conference looking at technology as a religious quest which should pick up some of the other sources listed in the bibliography on that link.

Having recovered from watching the All Blacks play Wales at rugby on Sunday night I made the mistake of taping NZ playing Australia at cricket last night. Arrrggghhh! Two missed chances in the last over and then we lose by 1 run on the second to last ball. (All credit to the Australians...)

This is not good for the blood pressure.

I've been looking for a light-weight piece of software to handle basic image conversion, preview and manipulation function. Fireworks MX is good but it seems to suck the resources out of my laptop and Apple's Preview application is often slow and handles multiple files erratically. Then today I find Toy Viewer for Mac OS X>. Quick, low overhead and handles PDF as well as various image formats.

Better than having to load up Fireworks for quick-n-dirty file conversions, resizing and previewing. And the price is right too :-)

Saw this on fellow kiwi Paul Fromont's blog. Looks like a hub for connecting people, stories and ideas about communities of faith developing in light of contemporary culture.

Even if you aren't "emerging" yourself it has some good ideas and it's always good to hear other peoples stories.

Really enjoyed the talks at the IT, Culture and Church on Saturday. (More information and discussion at the ITCC web site: http://www.bigbible.org/itcc/

Kirsten's approach to the integrating electronic media with the Gen 32 text on "wrestling the angel" showed the potential for different ways to encounter the text in biblical studies as well as opening doors in my mind for using blogging as part of a communitarian hermeneutical spiral.

Steve's talk was (as expected) imaginative. The creation of new "monastic" communities of faith - what might the techno-cultural equivalents of medievalism's monastries and abbeys be? Those centres of learning, skills, knowledge and education - across all aspects of human existence. What might a creative, prayerful, spiritual communities of "monks" look like today? (One possibility is nextscribe ubiqsie a Roman Catholic incarnation of this idea).

Rachel's talk on the Census at School project was an excellent overview identifying issues to do with data collection, working with children and teachers online, and some implications of the "digital divide". (Plus some open-source techy bits and a informative demo of the system).

One thing that came afterwards is how to publish things like this. How should the individual's intellectual property and effort be protected while at the same time making resources available to encourage others and to become part of their creative processes and engagement. I'm still thinking this out. I want my resources to be used for the Kingdom by others but I don't want to be misrepresented or for them to be credited to others. So I'm thinking about Creative Commons licencing (Click on the link for a helpful FLASH movie introducing it).

Any thoughts on how that works from those who've used it.