4/03/2004 09:40:21 AM
after i put a link to this out last week i received email from Jonny Baker in London and Jason Evans in San Diego asking about publishing it in their respective online 'zines. despite my reservations over the rough draft state of the piece i thought it would be an interesting thing to have it publishing simultaneously on both sides of the Atlantic in April.
i did make a couple of punctuation changes and a word or two was changed (thanks to bintang). i retitled it after receiving a piece of feedback asking just whom this magna carta was for. not being willing to answer such a question i retitled the piece, "a prolegomena to a living magna carta." i don't think that this completely side-steps the question of "who," but it does obfuscate the situation such that the question does not bubble up quick so fast. ;-)
the piece is now out at EmergingChurch.info and Next-Wave.org.
EC: a prolegomena to a living magna carta
NW: A Living Magna Carta: beta 1
4/02/2004 12:58:22 PM
She'ayno Yode'a Lish'ol - For Those Unable to Ask
I have, for a number of years now, been called to lead the family seder, at least in one half of our clan. This is, I suppose, the continuation of a tradition that has spanned three generations now. My grandfather, Ben Steinberg (of blessed memory), led the seders for the extended family when I was a boy. I remember vividly the joy and pride he felt when my aunts - both blessed with beautiful voices, one of whom is now a professional singer - chanted the Shochayn Ad in heavenly harmony. I always sat immediately to his left... and never once was able to spy his hiding of the afikomen.
My father conducted, and still conducts, the second seder, although the numbers at my parents' seder have dwindled over the years to include immediate family only. My father's is a participatory, if scripted, affair, with each person's part being indicated in the carefully marked up Haggadot. Everyone reads in turn - mostly in English - but, of course, one of the obligations is to tell the story of the Exodus from Egypt "so that everyone will understand," and for those who attend my parents' seder, English is the language of understanding.
So here am I, the third generation of seder-leaders. In my view, the admonition to ensure that "everyone will understand" takes on an interpretive obligation. The challenge for me is to find some deeper meaning to the story of the redemption in a way that, through the evening, everyone will be touched or inspired with at least one new idea or insight that might inspire them along the way to their own redemption from whatever enslaves them. So each year, a couple of weeks before Pesach, I continue my annual study, contemplation and thinking about fusing ancient traditions, centuries of thought, philosophy and scholarship, and application to modern life in the celebration of the seder.
4/02/2004 09:37:28 AM
I have yet to give my account of this "cultural event" known as "The Passion of the Christ." I waited some time before going to see the film. I had high hopes, but low expectations. I really hoped that somehow I would be surprised with how good the film turned out to be, but expected that the hype would stand in the way of the film being truly great. I went alone. I went to a theatre I do not normally go to. I wanted to experience Mel's contribution to religious cinema with as little distraction as possible. I wrote out my thoughts, long hand, immediately prior to and immediately following the film. These long hand notes will likely never make it onto this blog. My observations here will be brief.
The film's only truly interesting character portrayals were Mary, the mother of Jesus, and Satan. The best scene/line of the film was Mary running to a fallen Jesus, holding the head of her unbelievably beaten (literally) son, saying, "I am here." Persephone, I mean Monica Bellucci, as Mary Magdalene was beautiful, but the part had little substance--which is the real issue with all of Gibson's characters in this film. But, really, how could they have any substance? There is absolutely no character development undertaken and no context created for the events of the film. This is perhaps the most disappointing thing for me. The film is rather meaningless without any substantial retelling of the life that lived before it was snuffed out.
Mel took the interpretive stance that, while the Roman's meeted out the punishment, the Jewish religious authorities and the mobs they whipped up were to blame for Jesus' execution. He seemed to go out of his way to make the Roman leadership look sympathetic. The average centurion was a brute, but Pilate was your rough, but likeable next door neighbor forced into crucifying Jesus. Mel also cast the Jewish context and central Jewish personalities in a very negative, stereotypical light. I really was shocked by how many times Pilate and his ilk were cast sympathetically while the High Priest and his were portrayed as inhuman evil.
Cinematically, in terms of story telling and visual execution, despite my low expectations, I expected more.
Theologically, leaving this film without the slightest sense for what Jesus taught of self-sacrifice and love, I was quite disappointed.
I will not see this film again; at least not for a very long time. I will not encourage my children to view this film. I will leave it to them when they are adults.
Other reviews of this film are copious. The summary review that I like most is IHT's:
Emerging from the movie, I recalled a brief religious sequence in "Ben Hur." Two leprous women crossed Jesus's path on his way to Golgotha. A few seconds of pure emotion. No image in Gibson's boring, bloody and pretentious film can compare.
-IHT | 'The Passion': great marketing, lousy movie
i think that sums it up: boring, bloody and pretentious. any of these would make for more interesting viewing and discussion.
4/01/2004 01:00:25 PM
Shirky: Situated Software
...Most software built for large numbers of users or designed to last indefinitely fails at both goals anyway. Situated software is a way of saying 'Most software gets only a few users for a short period; why not take advantage of designing with that in mind?'
4/01/2004 05:12:13 AM
Swapping music files allowed, federal judge rules
The music industry's fight against illegal file sharing suffered a major setback yesterday when a Federal Court judge ruled that swapping songs on the Internet for personal use does not break the law.
"Downloading a song for personal use does not amount to infringement," Mr. Justice Konrad von Finckenstein of the Federal Court of Canada wrote in his decision. "I cannot see a real difference between a library that places a photocopy machine in a room full of copyrighted material and a computer user that places a personal copy on a shared directory."
3/31/2004 07:56:05 PM
{capturing comments for later use}
_________
d:
i'll stick my neck out for a moment. i appreciate the passion and realism in your words. allow me to be equally so for a moment.
i think a shift in vocabulary may be helpful for your situation. you are already living within a faith community. you are in community. you have faith. what it seems you are setting out to do is start a sustainable religious gathering. is that the case?
if this is the case, this is a very different endeavor, in my opinion, than simply nurturing the community(ies) of faith you inhabit. in many ways the difference is comparable to that between having a garage sale on the weekend and opening up an antique shop. the garage sale flows out of and is executed within the context of your normal life and, while it is commerce in the broad sense, you do not expect it to bring about much more than a bit of pocket money and less clutter.
these expectations are quite distinct from starting an antique shop. starting up a shop is a more public act than a rummage sale. there is a lease involved. there are bills to pay. you will likely have to quit your job to run the shop or hire someone to do so in your stead. you are taxed differently. etc. etc. etc.
both the garage sale and the antique shop are acts of commerce, yet they involve fundamentally different expectations. the work products, outcomes, time-scale, criteria of success, and a host of other things are totally divergent between the two. neither the garage sale nor the antique shop holds an inherently more valuable place in the pecking order of commerce. they serve different ends. they have different constituencies. they begin with different visions. it would be silly to try to create a successful shop on the front porch of your house just as it would be overkill and odd to rent the civic center for your family garage sale.
often, it seems to me, those who set out to "plant churches"--especially relational, emerging, connecting, whateveryouwanttocallthem churches--do little to determine what they, their friends/core group and their supporting constituents really expect and in light of said expectations assessing their own capacity to execute to bring the vision about.
if you are seeking to begin a faith community just let it flow from the normal course of your life (it already is i would suspect).
if you are seeking to create a religious corporation or commons of some sort that pays you a salary, files in compliance with the state and has a branded identity you need to be explicit about the fact that these are your expectations and realize that you are starting a business. as much as you don't want to think so, if the later example is what you are functionally seeking, a business you are starting and to succeed you will be required to speak and act in certain patterns that produce revenue.
businesses fail because people are not competent to execute, are not honest with themselves about expected outcomes or are hit with a generalized market disinterest due to saturation, incumbent monopoly, etc. religious non-profit corporations fail for the same reasons.
you need to figure out what you and your (potential) congregants want, why, whether you are honestly the person to make it happen and what alternatives/exit strategies you can put in place now to cushion the tumultuous ride that is moving past the garage sale.
thank you for forgiving my completely unidealistic presumption in these my ruminations on demythologizing church planting.
cheers.
2004-03-30 16:35
...
d:
i am very much with you in the travail over how one goes about, "begin(ning) a new faith community"--as your original post put it. there seem to be few good examples of such endeavors that satisfy many of the unspoken hopes we bring to such questions. it may very well be that these unspoken hopes are the real issue and our dissatisfaction with the examples of faith community we exist within already the last vestige of a dieing gaggle of expectations as to what it is to be of Christ in community.
i was a community pastor and elder at Axxess for a few years. these structural discussions were some of the most regularly occurring topics to grace our leadership gatherings. i think that organizational purpose and sustainability are natural fault lines as new configurations of the modes of human religious existence are being born.
one of the real challenges that i see, in what is often described as the emerging church, is that our stated purposes and our proposed vehicles of actualizing said purposes are often incompatible. for example, when we state that community is a purpose that we organizationally drive toward we begin spinning our wheels because the insemination, gestation, birth, life and death of community is not purpose-driven. community is outside of our direct volitional control. it is a second-order effect of other things: proximity, common cause, familial and filial love and, most fascinatingly, those sparks of intriguing difference that seduce our imaginations and beckon us to go deeper with a person.
much more could be said anecdotally and otherwise in service of this proposed vehicle/purpose disconnect, but in this context, i have rambled on enough. all the best to you as you continue to enact the kingdom.
blessings,
d
2004-03-31 19:49
3/31/2004 06:05:48 PM
Google Planning to Roll Out E-Mail Service
Yes, the inevitable Google email service is on the horizon. I like that they will bring tough competition to Yahoo and Hotmail. Nothing like massive (1 Gig) email storage and stellar personal email archive searching... for free.
I don't like the name, though. Gmail? Ugh.
...While standard industry practice is to offer tiered mail services, charging for such capabilities as online storage, Google is planning an advertising supported service and will permit its users to store very large amounts of mail on the service at no cost, people familiar with the service said....
It looks like they plan to make money by sticking Ad Words into each email message based on content analysis in the same manner they do on blogs now.
3/31/2004 05:45:22 PM
we choose comfortable living over meaningful living
-soft anonymous
what would it mean to do otherwise?
today?
3/31/2004 05:19:53 PM
Music Giant EMI Axes Artists and 1,500 Jobs
LONDON/LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - EMI Group Plc on Wednesday became the latest big music company to slash costs to cope with an ailing market, cutting 1,500 jobs, or 20 percent of its work force, trimming its roster of artists by a fifth and outsourcing CD and DVD manufacturing.
British-based EMI -- the world's third largest music company and home to the Rolling Stones, Coldplay and Norah Jones -- forecast it would save at least 50 million pounds ($92 million) a year from the restructuring.
Other music companies, such as Sony Corp.'s, Warner Music and Bertelsmann AG have recently restructured to compete effectively in an industry beset by piracy, falling sales, competition from video games and a dearth of new music genres.
_______
A dearth of new music genres?? What? Are the writers of this article trying to come up with a new cause to add to the list of woes that the poor little multi-national music cartels are having to deal with? Oh no! We have fallen behind in creating new music genres! What?
Sustainable production, distribution and consumption of artistic products is, long term, not solved by building huge holding companies to rape and monetize in the name of art. We need to begin looking to more distributed models of music publishing. We need an IPG of music. Perhaps the CC will help. We think about these things at IR.
I think direct patronage is a model that may provide many artists who would never make it big in the well-defined radio formats of the global markets with a sustainable path to being artists for a living. Micro-patronage has a place in this space in the not so distant future I think. There have been many times, after picking up a song on Kazaa, that I wanted to be able to throw a buck or two to the artist in a simple manner. Often, instead, I went out and bought the CD--of which the artists received a few pennies.
I don't like the only two options to be piracy or buying a CD. Well, there is the iTunes option, but I hate impure formats that have security layers to enforce "the license." We need more options.
3/31/2004 01:16:28 PM
Seth Godin has a new book coming out in May, "Free Prize Inside." He is running an interesting pre-launch campaign through BzzAgent. If you sign up you get a free copy of the book.
3/31/2004 07:19:24 AM
mamamusings: confessions of a backchannel queen
I don't spend a lot of time in IRC when I'm home or at work, but when I travel it becomes a wonderful "home away from home" for me. A place that provides familiarity in new settings, and friendly voices when I'm feeling isolated.
At SXSW this year there was a whole sub-culture of IRC participants who would use the backchannel as a means of commenting on the presentation underway as well as asking and answering questions to others on the channel--generally connecting the audience in a manner not unlike passing notes in elementary school. Except, unlike in school, one could pass notes to everyone signed onto the channel not simply to individuals.
When churches are wifi-enabled this is an interesting potential outcome. While blogging a sermon or conference is akin to reporting or commentary and fact checking such events is research--sitting in the backchannel is silent, real-time interaction by those without the microphone.
3/31/2004 06:25:14 AM
Children in Angola tortured as witches
via cooper
...According to rights advocates in town, children as young as 5 have been hanged, stoned to death, raped, burned and drowned in rivers after being accused of sorcery. The common themes in all their stories--besides heartbreak--are parental bonds that have snapped under the strain of rebel assaults, government counterattacks, mindless violence, disease, mass starvation, scattered families, abandoned marriages and the press-ganging of children into various armed factions.
...two siblings moved in with their grandmother recently after their parents died of undetermined illnesses--possibly AIDS. As usual, the children were blamed for bewitching their own father and mother. Last month police found the whimpering brother and sister trussed up, beaten and imprisoned in an animal pen behind Jorge's bleak mud hut.
In a rare government reaction to such abuse, the woman was thrown in jail for five days.
"Those children weren't normal," Jorge said, unrepentant. "They had a suitcase that made a singing noise. And the boy messed his bed every night. He was possessed."
The traumatized boy, girl and their offending suitcase were shipped to an orphanage in the distant capital of Luanda.
The final ingredients in Angola's sad and baffling epidemic of child persecution are the men who profit from it, men like Papa Matumona.
Sporting immaculate white pants and a colorful shirt stenciled repeatedly with the face of Marilyn Monroe, the most powerful kimbandero, or faith healer, in Uige runs an evangelical treatment center for child witches. Others call it a torture chamber.
"He forces them to jump and dance for hours during the hottest part of the day" in order to cleanse them of magical powers, said Leopoldina Neto, a UNICEF child-protection officer in town. "He beats them. He puts chili powder in their eyes and drips boiling palm oil in their ears."
Matumona, 51, denied this.
`I cure with love'
"I cure with love," he said, clutching a Bible at his Provincial Center for Traditional Psychiatry [My God, what a telling name], located in a war-ruined former pastry factory.
Matumona said his services were free but later admitted that he put his stream of young patients to work in his vegetable gardens to pay off their treatment fees--a commercialization of suffering that makes witchcraft one of the few profitable ventures in postwar Angola aside from oil.
Other kimbanderos demand a goat or an aluminum pot from parents in order to identify which son or daughter is a witch. Thus the supply-demand circle is completed.
UN aid workers are hoping to break this cycle of exploitation by launching parent education campaigns. It will be an uphill battle.
An internationally funded study of the problem has been shelved. Its chief Angolan researcher, like most of the local police responsible for protecting children's rights, actually concluded that sorcery was real.
The only voices raised in defense of child witches, then, are often their own.
"It's all lies," said Sebastiao Nzuzi, 12, a smiling, bald little boy who had been stoned in his village for being a wizard. "I don't need to be cured. I'm as normal as anybody."
Sebastiao had soaked up some self-esteem lessons at the local Catholic orphanage. Twenty child witches were staying there in a clean, sturdy little house under some eucalyptus trees.
It was good that the house was sturdy. Because the next afternoon people from the surrounding slums gathered to stone the building. The boys, they shouted, were flying over their shacks at night, trying to bewitch their children. Sebastiao, like the other accursed, huddled inside.
3/30/2004 01:02:43 PM
{capturing comments for my later use}
I am in contact, embodied and disembodied, with more people directly due to the new communication platforms now available than in all of the "good old days" before widespread adoption of digital social augmentation.
I think that concerns of this nature, that are widespread in the literature and in the generalized social consciousness of the post-industrial world, speak more to the fear of losing certain social patterns, tools and customs than they do to any inherently "dehumanizing" danger in the new social configurations chosen by individuals and communities due to the their enabling technologies.
Toni's point is well taken nevertheless. We need the dissenting voices and cautionary dystopias of our artists and authors, our scientists and technologists, our prophets and priests, as much as we need their revolutions and utopias. This is part of the reason we need to earnestly protect the values that underlie and drive the emerging processes and structures that make up our digital age. Examples of this at this moment are the potential loss of the end-to-end principal of the Internet, the destruction of innovation through incumbent sponsored copyright law misuse, Digital ID initiatives and their privacy ramifications... and the list could go on for longer than the character limitation on this comment will allow.
3/30/2004 06:01:52 AM
Totally hilarious: small world
via danah
"In my version of Friendster you would have to pick me up from the airport or at least send me money before I would let you in."
he's right.
very funny.
3/29/2004 12:03:52 PM
A growing theme in my work and thinking is that we've max'ed out on the object-oriented paradigm. The confluence of the web, XML, and message-based integration is causing people to (slowly) rethink the orthodoxy of the 1980's and 1990's. Things like Lisp/ML/XQuery/XAML/Xen/X# feel much closer to where I want to program than do Java or C#.
3/29/2004 09:02:11 AM
Bible Verses For Today's Christians
via andrew
"There are no Fully Devoted Followers™ of Christ, not even one; there is no one who is Purpose Driven™, no one who asks, 'What Would Jesus Do?™'. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who follows the Irrefutable Laws of Leadership™, not even one."
3/28/2004 12:55:16 PM
current mp3
disturbed:prayer
:Steps to a free fin:
- Go to Borders.
- Find their free T-Mobile Hotspot booklet published by O'Reilly (usually at the Customer Service counter).
- Rip out the $5 coupon.
3/28/2004 02:29:38 AM
This. All actionable comments appreciated:
...We believe that there is an inherent risk in the theologies and ecclesiologies that have come to dominate the memory of the man Jesus. We envision a direct, participatory spirituality whose modalities rest more in the patterns of day-to-day life than in the cycles of attendance and consumption that have come to define the dominant brands soliciting patronage in the name of Christ.
We believe that the fattened, current systems of empowered Christianity are vulnerable to one thing: less. These systems are built on the presumption that people will always want more. The organizational master plans presume this. The staffing levels, the building projects, the criteria of success all circumambulate the idol of more. These systems are unable to cope with less: people who find community in the normal connections of their daily lives rather than purpose-driven programs with a community label; those not interested in the system's alternatives to Disneyland and MTV, who don't need another Jesus-coloring-book Adult Sunday School class or desire to contribute to the capital stewardship drive to build the new wing.
Less brings with it the spectre of irrelevance. That gnawing sense that there may in fact be little purpose now in the things that have passed as Church....
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