Olive Tree Reader Beta

I did this video last week, and announced it on twitter.  The fact that I didn’t put it on my blog is a sign that my on-line activities are shifting a bit.  Though I would like to get in the habit of blogging more provided I have something to say, and don’t become a ranting loony looking for conspiracies in order to drive traffic.  We’ll see.

Anyway, if you have an iPhone or an iTouch, you really should consider picking up the OliveTree reader from the App Store.  Enjoy.

Wordle of Acts 10

 

http://www.wordle.net/. Images of Wordles are licensed CreativeCommons

I’m currently writing a retreat for Eastern’s Student Chaplains.  This year’s focus will be on the centrality of testimony to the Christian life and journey.  The first session will spend some time in Acts 10, detailing Peter’s encounter with both God and Cornelius.

On a whim I wondered what Acts 10 would look like as a wordle, and here are the results.  Isn’t that cool?

 

MLB major #fail

Last night, when the Phillies came back to win the game and take a 3-1 lead in the NLCS my gang and I were all amazed by the lack of any kind of excitement on the part of the TBS broadcasters.  To be honest, this z-level broadcast team seems to talk about the Dodgers constantly and we’ve been wondering just how much MLB is hoping for that “cleansing” series between the Dodgers and Yankees (how it’s “cleansing” is beyond my ability to comprehend). Last night, the image on the right popped up on twitpic (click on it for the larger pic).

Whoops!

Now what probably happened, in case you’re wondering, is that this story was written after the 8th, with some details left to be filled in after the game had ended.  That basically how sports-writing works. If they were decent sports writers they would have had another story ready to go in case the Phillies came back – which they did.  Unfortunately for MLB, a writer appears to have gotten a bit lazy late in the same and submitted the story to be published at the conclusion of the game.  In a word, busted.

MLB’s web-editor had egg on their face, but so does the writer – and now Philadelphia has even more fuel to be the loudest fans on the planet when game 5 starts up.  Thanks MLB – you’ll have to wait until next year for your “cleanse,” the Phightin’s are moving on.

Hanging with the gang

My neighbors and I are baseball and football fans, so we’ve taken to getting together and watching games together.  Football has been the ideal gathering, because we all crash at someone’s house and enjoy the game.  It’s a lot of fun.  Yesterday we did a double-header, crashing at my house for the Eagles game and then heading across the street to take in the Phillies.  The football game was boring, but the company was good.  The baseball game was pretty dang good, but may I officially log a complain to Major League Baseball pointing out that the Phillies actually won the World Series last year, and sold out an insane amount of home games this year.  A tiny bit of respect for this team and it’s fan base would be appreciated.  10:00 EST starts and z-level commentators who apparently were on the Rockies payroll are insults.  OK?

Got that out of my system.  Now on to the description of the gang I watch the games with.

If you’re going to watch sports with a group of people, it really helps if the people in the group are a little bit nuts.  Thankfully, my crew meets this need in spades.  In fact, I’m tempted to just tape the banter of the group and stick it on YouTube as an episodic series.  The Ginger Snap conversation of last year was priceless material that I wish I had on tape.  Here’s the crew, listed by nickname.

The Clicker:  If you’re watching a game with The Clicker, no matter whose house you’re in, it helps to be a bit ADD.  The Clicker rules the remote, and has every channel where sports are being televised committed to memory.  The Red Zone channel is The Clicker’s dream destination and we spent much time flipping to it during breaks in the Birds’ or Sox games.  Actually, I’m not sure if we actually saw one commercial during our afternoon session.  It also helps to have spare batteries on hand for The Clicker, because if your remote isn’t up to snuff he can get agitated.  The Clicker also painted his home a bright yellow-orange which my son refers as, “The school bus down the street.”  His home is now referred to as, “The Bus.”  The Clicker is a great guy, who happens to be a little nuts in all the right ways.

Mongo: Mongo is The Clicker’s neighbor and a committed “do-it-yourselfer”  who often enlists The Clicker and Mrs. The Clicker to share labor and costs by doing projects together.  Mongo is a brave and ambitious man, because he really doesn’t often control “the plan” when it comes to his grand projects.  Usually, this leads to The Clicker and Mrs. The Clicker giving Mongo instructions to lug materials around their work-site.  He just smiles and says, “Mongo Do!”  This is kind of a shame, though, because Mongo is a really intelligent guy who often generates the topics for our banter during the games.  Our Ginger Snap discussion still isn’t settled.  Mongo also has a dream of flying a helicopter to Bryn Mawr (don’t ask).

The Cooler:  The Cooler  got his nickname because he made the mistake of mentioning the temperature during Game 5 of the 2008 World Series (something about Tampa Bay and cold).  He was shooshed by the people of 5 tables at PJ’s over in Moorestown and a legend was born.  The Cooler is not as fanatical a fan as the rest of the group, but he represents well and has connections the got him tix to Game 1 of the 2009 NLDS – which gets deep respect from the of the group.  The Cooler will often pop in late, often quoting some stats which get The Clicker spouting from his well of information.  It’s great fun.

Absent Scott:  He doesn’t have an official nick yet, as Absent Scott failed to escape work in order to watch game one of the NLDS in The Clicker’s Man-Cave.  Knowing Absent Scott, however, I look forward to his inclusion to this particular group of lunatics.

Dash: That’s my nick-name.  Not because I’m able to fix Mongo’s computer problems during half-time (10 minutes, that’s all I need) but because I grew up with the self-defeating, “told you so,” mentality that can only come from being a life-long Philly fan who, up until 2009, had never been to a victory parade.  Never.  4 Sports teams and 35 years, and I’d never been to a parade.  Maybe if my parents had pulled me out of first grade to go to the parade in 1980 I would have never gotten my nickname, but alas that was not to be.  I suffered through blown off-sides calls, the fog bowl, Joe Carter, a Stanley Cup sweep, and a “competitive” Eagles team that has never gotten over the hump.  My mom said it best after one of our NFC title game losses, “No, we’re Philadelphia.  We never win anything because we’re losers.”  This is how I got my sports-gang nickname, “Dash.”  I’m negative.  Even after going to a parade, and shouting so loudly I lost my voice last October, the years and years of losing have just in-grained a mentality that wonders when the hammer is going to come down and the wheels are going to fall off.  The Clicker understands this mentality, but negativity blows his sports feng shui – hence the rebuke, “Dash, stop with the negativity!”  It is my role in the group to spark this comment, and so I do it with all the strength I have.

So this is my gang. They are much fun.

A Quote on Providence

I mentioned in my Gettysburg post yesterday that I find the appeals to “providence” when referring to events in the war unconvincing.  Today I came across a quote that communicates why it is that I feel this way:

The march of Providence is so slow and our desires so impatient; the work of progress is so immense and our means of aiding it so feeble; the life of humanity is so long, that of the individual so brief, that we often see only the ebb of the advancing wave and are thus discouraged.  It is history that teaches us to hope.

The  above quote was written after the Civil War by Robert E. Lee.  From quotes like this I get the feeling that Robert E Lee was a better theologian than most of the pastors in our pulpits today – for he never confused Western individualism (which was coming into its own in post-Civil War America) with the Christian Religion.  Providence guided the long life of humanity, rather than blessed the brief life of the individual.  It is a sentiment that is antithetical to the self-lusting belief that the “individual” is all that matters (for the record, Robert E. Lee valued both the society and the individual).

So, let’s not be too quick to interpret the acts “providence” we see in the daily news – nor should we be so quick to certainty about the “meaning” of events in history.  As the wise theologian said above, it is history that teaches us to hope in the future God’s providence is unfolding – rather than to have certainty that we know it’s path.

Gettysburg Reflections

I’ve been meaning to write some reflections on my experiences at Gettysburg this past summer for the last two months, but haven’t been able to given all that was going on in my life.  Actually, I really haven’t been able to do much writing at all, which always bums me out.

Now that September is all but gone and fall is in the air, however, I’m finding the mental strength to write.  It’s about time!

First, let me say that if you’ve never been to Gettysburg you owe it to yourself to go.  The national park is well-preserved and the the new visitor’s center is grade A.  When you add a wonderful bookstore specializing in Civil War Era American History, it’s hard to pass up.

Second, to answer my friends who wondered why a Christian pastor would take his children to a bloody battlefield, “Because something like Gettysburg ought never to be forgotten.”  I wanted my kids to go to this place not out of some patriotic fervor or celebration of violence, but to remember the people who died in that place (all of whom thought their cause “just”) and experience something of the awful waste of war.  While no one knew it at the time, the Battle of Gettysburg all but assured the continuation of the Union – but that continuation was bought with a price of insane proportions.  The South was ruined in that war, and while many of us in Northern States might say, “Well and good, we didn’t try to leave,” the ramifications of that price continue to felt today in everything from race relations to current political loyalties.  War saps humanity of it’s best and brightest, and not just during the battle – but for years afterward.  To me, the monuments that mark the battlefield beautifully and mournfully communicate that.

I keep hearing words like “valor” and “bravery” when I discuss Gettysburg with people.  I guess those are valid observations, the letters of participants that I’ve been able to read certainly use them.  As I stood on top of Little Round Top, or in front of The Angle, however, those words didnt’ come to mind.  All I could think of was the futility of climbing the throny earth in the sight of union guns, the horror of being ordered to stay put “against all hazards,” and the disciplined rows of soldiers in Picket’s division being mowed down as they pressed forward.  See, I’ve read reports on the aftermath of the battle so other words come to mind when I think of the fighting itself: Disease, disfigurement, poverty, and stench.  The North celebrated the Victory, but the town of Gettysburg was left holding the bill.  Meade took the majority of the surgeons with him when he cautiously pursued Lee back into Virginia – and it was only groups like the US Christian Commission that were able to find the wounded, bury the dead, and prepare for ecological disaster.  The wounded were everywhere, and so was their blood – on couches, on beds, on floors.  The cries of the wounded and dying shook the town to it’s core.  When I move through Gettysburg these are the things I think about – I’ll leave the celebration of the strategic importance of the Battle to my history books.  It’s where it belongs.

I also keep hearing about the narrow victory at Gettysburg (I’m of the opinion that Sickles nearly blew the whole thing, brave or not) being God’s “providence” that the United States be preserved.  I don’t find that the be a particularly compelling assertion of faith, to be honest.  I find it to be more an assertion of certainty based on the fact that history turned out the way the one who utters the statement thinks it should have.  Making assertions about God’s providence with the assumption of 20×20 hindsight is a dangerous prospect.  Was it God’s providence that the Northern reaction to John Brown’s raid at Harper’s Ferry made the secessionists seem “sane” for the first time in the south?  Was it providence that led Lincoln to act so rashly at the outset of the war that Virginia seceded in protest and joined the Confederacy (and a soldier named Robert E. Lee)?  Was it providence that McClellan was so pompous that he didn’t bother to tell the President his real plan for the Peninsula campaign, thus slowing his progress and creating mistrust between him and the White House (a plan that might have ended the war years earlier)?  Was it providence that Jefferson Davis had a sudden flash of sanity and placed Lee in Command of the forces around Richmond shortly before they were about to collapse utterly?  Unless one is willing to say, “Yes” to all of these (and more), and also with the resulting death and destruction that came from them, then one should not speak of “providence.”  Providence isn’t when something good happens to you, folks, it’s when something happens.

The thing is, both Lee and Lincoln could of perhaps embraced the above statements.  Lee had a very simple faith that God ordered all things.  This meant that he would do his best in everything becaus that’s simply who he was, but in the end he trusted that all things were ultimately in God’s hands.  Lincoln had a much more confused spirituality, but even he came to believe that the Civil War was punishment on both north and south because neither was willing to really deal with the issue of slavery.  Thus the losing General and the “victorious” leader were able to embrace both good and bad – one of whom transparently referred to such things as “providence.” Thus, I have respect for these two men in a way that I cannot respect a modern who glibly claims “providence” because something good happened to them, or bad happened to their enemies.

Gettysburg happened and became a pivot point upon which much of American History now revolves.  Was it God’s “providence” that it happened the way it it?  Perhaps , but if it was that act of God’s providence doesn’t exist to pat me on the back and say, “Hey, your side won, congratulations!”  Rather, I think, if anything, it’s a warning about how suffering leads to suffering, and to brake the cycle calls for a lot of blood.  Celebrating the “win,” might lead us to miss the actual message.

Oh, and would the history teachers and parents out there please spend some time in the civil war era, I grow tired of high school students asking, “Whaever happened in Gettysburg?

On Worship, Again.

There is a mentality among American Christians (of just about every variety) that I find myself constantly trying to re-educate people about – with varying degrees of success.  It all springs from the the combination of the language we use to describe worship being combined with the consumer mentality of the modern West.  It’s a bad mix.

Consumers are used to being served.  We’re used to having waiters and waitresses, people to ring up our total, and in New Jersey we’re even still used to having people pump our gas for us at the service station.  Service, in our estimation, is what’s done for us.  In our existence as consumers, this is reality.  Yet when that same language is applied to worship, confusion abounds.  For while we call worship a “service,” the service from which that description of worship came had a radically different understanding.  To the ancients, religious service, was what people offered to their God – not the other way around.

For modern American consumers of religion, the word “service” means that people come to worship and are “filled up” to get through the next week.  Worship, in such a mentality, is nothing more than a spiritual gas station.  In fact, I’ve heard worship described as just that during my journey as a Christian.  It is, however, absolutely wrong.  Worship is, in fact, the offering of ourselves to God – that is the service we offer to Jesus as we gather as his people before the throne of Grace.  This is actually what Romans 12:1 is speaking about.  The offering of ourselves as a “living sacrifice” (an oxymoron, by the way) is an act of religious service – that is the understanding that led to referring to corporate worship as a “worship service.”

I was reminded of this struggle today when I surfed to a church web-site (which will remain unnamed) that described their worship with the following paragraph:

We strive to provide safe, high-quality programs that kids love. While you relax in the worship service, your kids will have a blast.

See the idea here?  This Church serves stressed-out parents by baby-sitting their children so THEY can relax.  Their role in the worship is to sit back, and be filled.  Actually, they say just that on their site:

A casual and comfortable atmosphere – help yourself to complimentary coffee, tea or juice and relax on a park bench or at a bistro table.

This is not worship in the sense of the New Testament’s idea of “offering service” to Christ our King as we come before his throne.

Now, some might read this and say, “But is that so bad?  Doesn’t Jesus tell us to come to him so he can give us rest?  Isn’t that what this church is offering?”

In a word, “No.”  See, Jesus’ statement in Matthew 11:28 calls for a movement towards him.  It’s no, “sit back and let Jesus fill you” offer (quick, while supplies last).

The wonder of worship, however, is that when we come and offer ourselves up in service, Jesus does fill us.  “Where does Jesus fill us?”  We might ask.  The answer is, “Jesus fills us with the images of his body and blood.”  Yet, again, we’ve messed up the call to “come to me” by letting people be served communion, rather than calling people to offer themselves as they come forward and receive communion.  Heck, now we’ve gone beyond the dang shot glasses and have Communion MRE’s – so we’ve not only lost the idea of a common cup, we’ve lost the idea of a common meal offered by our Lord.  It’s a mess.

So, look, if you want to worship this week, or any week – don’t go to see what the Church offers you.  Rather, offer yourself.

(coffee) Zombie Film Idea

A friend of mine stated on twitter today that he wanted to start a blog about coffee roasting, and solicited names.  I suggested “Coffee Zombie” because that’s his nick on a site we’ve both been involved with.  He liked this idea and further added that the tag-line should be, “Beeeeaaaaaannnnnsssss!!!”

These are things my friends and I come up with over the most powerful communications tool ever invented on a lazy Friday late in the afternoon.  Hey, at least it’s my day off.

Well, you can’t give me an idea like that and not expect me to dream up something insane from it.  So now I’m thinking of writing a screen-play to do a (coffee) Zombie film that we can release on YouTube.  Why?  Because it sounds like a whole lot of fun.

Anyway, here’s my IM litany of describing the opening scene, kept just as it appeared in my friend’s IM chat- enjoy:

it has to start near the It Department of some research firm with an exec showing up after getting a late night call
5:00
“what happened?”
5:01
“It’s the IT overnight staff, they ran out of their normal coffee and went looking for some..”
5:01
“Tell me they didn’t break into the experimental food lab?”
5:02
“Yes sir, they ground up some beans, but before they even brewed it up they went all funny.”
5:02
“Funny?”
5:03
“Yah, they started wondering around and staring into space like me and Jim weren’t even there – they brewed the coffee like robots?”
5:03
“Where is Jim?”
5:03
“Gone, sir.”
5:03
“Gone?”
5:03
“Yes, he went over to see what the IT workers were doing and he mentioned smelling the coffee and…”
5:03
“yes?”
5:04
“He went all funny too, sir.  I don’t mind saying, but I’m scared out of my mind here – so I called you right away.”
5:04
“That’s ok, I think we can get a lid on this just…”
5:05
[there is a banging sound, camera pans and finds the COFFEE ZOMBIES standing at the end of the hall]
5:05
“BEEEEAAAAANNNNNSSS!!!!”

Summer ends, the madness begins

Today is the “unofficial end of summer” for the majority of folks in the country.  Vacations are coming to an end, the boardwalks are holding their clearance sales, and kids all over the country are preparing to head back to school.  Even though my kids don’t head back to school until next Monday, I can’t believe that the school year has basically arrived.  Is it really September?

September is always a month of madness for us.  As much as my desire is to keep the church operating full-tilt over the summer, it seems that I’ll only ever be partially successful at this.  People are so culturally conditioned to gearing up come September that it’s a tough habit to break – and it doesn’t help that we still re-start Sunday school in September with the prerequisite party for “rally day.” And it’s not just us, our Christian kin seem to share the same mentality that September means cramming as many things into it as is possible.  People head to conferences, concerts, and our denominational region holds it’s annual session every year in September (I’ve tried convincing people to move this date, but to no avail).  Oh yah, and in September my yearly preaching schedule gets underway.

I breathe a sigh of relief every time September comes to an end.

This year, however, I did something wise.  When I prepped my fall sermon series I worked back from where i wanted it to end, and found that the week after Labor Day was open.  Now, I’d normally just add a “one shot” sermon on a short book of the Bible – but this year I glanced at my responsibilities for annual session and thought, “You know, that looks a job for a guest preacher.”  So we’re having Rev. Elmo D. Familiaran come and join us for worship this coming Sunday.  That way, I get my work for annual session done, the congregation gets to meet a wonderful member of our regional ministry team, and I’ll still be free to care for congregation members without feeling like I’m losing my mind.  Win-win.

The madness of September will still fall on me, but at least I’ve shared the load.

Oh, and one of my stated goals in life is to make Elmo’s cell phone ring the Elmo’s World Theme Song.  This might be a great opportunity!

My Mobile Gaming Device? An iPod Touch

I’m a Nintendo kinda guy.  I love Zelda, my kids and I trade pokemon like it’s going out of style, and our Wii is a family pass time.  Nintendo has been a part of my existence since the NES, and I have no regrets about that.

When the DSi was announced I was underwhelmed by the new features.  The camera was cute, and the voice recording features were gimmicky.  Still, the larger screen, the increased processing power, the SD card slot were pretty interesting to me.  When Nintendo added an app store I thought, “My kids have essentially destroyed my DS, and we’ve got enough credit between my trade-in and some games to basically make it a cheap upgrade – so why not?”  I got the DSi on the launch day, and I enjoyed it – for about a week or two.  Then several things happened, all about the same time.

• Nintendo’s App Store ended up releasing a staggering 1 app a week.  Most of which were cute little utilities that I had no use for.
• The iTunes App Store started putting out some impressive games in genres I enjoy, none of which were over $4.99.
• My wife got hooked on Animal Crossing, and since I had apps to choose from on my iPod Touch I didn’t bother putting Pokemon back in my DSi when I wanted a game fix.

What’s happened is that my iPod Touch has become my mobile gaming platform.  I didn’t mean for it to happen, and I really which someone would come out with a physical directional pad for it, but when I think of playing a game now, I play something on my iTouch.  Here’s why:

• My iPod Touch is my PDA – I always have it with me.
• I don’t have to worry about carrying or losing cartridges
• Games with bugs get updated and fixed
• I don’t have to mess with cumbersome points, if an app is a buck, I spend a buck
• Apps go on sale, and I can get a good game for under $4.99 – that rocks

Does this make my iTouch a perfect mobile gaming platform?  Not at all.  As I already said, virtual direction pads are an awful thing – the D-Pad in Castle of Magic is particularly annoying to me (I keep ground pounding when I want to move left or right).  The battery life, particularly since I upgraded to the 3.0 OS, pales in comparison to my DSi (which pales in comparison to my DS Lite).  My 1st Gen iTouch doesn’t have a speaker, so I have to use headphones to get a full experience. I can’t re-sell games, which isn’t a problem when games are $2 to $5 bucks – but I’d like to be able to unload my copy of Toy Robot Diaries and get some new games like I can with my DSi.  At the same time, the benefits overcome the shortcomings.

I’d like Nintendo to re-take it’s place as my mobile gaming device of choice but they need to do two things to start on that path for me:

1. For crying out loud, get rid of points.  I don’t want to spend $10 to buy a $5 application.  I want to spend $5 and be done with it.  The App Store does it right, when I see an app on sale or a new release that I want (like Civilization: Revolution) then I don’t need to fish for my credit card.  I buy it and I’m done.
2. Turn the tap on the apps already!  I have an SD card in my DSi, I’d really love to use it but you’re app store is terrible.  Slow, terribly laid out, and there is nothing in it.  I should be excited to hit the DSi store every day to see what new apps are out.  Instead, I wait until Monday and find out that a new themed calculator has come out.  Gee, thanks.

Do these two things and Nintendo can take it’s place back into my heart – but, Nintendo, you’d better move fast because the App Store is going to bury you if you don’t get moving.