:: in.a.mirror.dimly ::

We’re moving at the end of April to little house on the Western edge of Arlington, VT. It’s in a nice little place with a few neighbors dotted about, a river nearby, and the former home of Norman Rockwell two miles down the quiet dirt road. We have plans to tear up the gray carpet in favor of laminate and will certainly take down the funky paneling in favor of paint, using colors that I have appropriately obsessed about for two months now. Will Robert Carter Plum work in the office by the way???

With the exception of finding out the home had been swept away in a flood, I am trying to think of something else that would be as devastating as the news I received yesterday about our new home. Perhaps rodent infestation would be worse, but it’s close. Anyway, I found out that Verizon’s DSL is not available that far out of town.

My heart sank when I heard the news. I didn’t talk too much about it with Julie because this only verifies (in my little suburban mind that is) what I’ve been saying all along and what she disagrees with consistently: we are moving into the middle of no where.

That’s technically not true. We have neighbors. The town has a name. There’s a store three miles down the road. But for me the availability of high speed internet is no longer a nice perk. It’s a birth right. I must have it. And now I’m bitter at the state of Vermont for dragging its feet over high speed internet. 2010 is too long to wait. I feel like I’m on the brink of entering the stone age again.

My salvation took the form of Comcast. Though I despise the term “Comcastic,” my need for high speed internet trumped any other uneasiness about lousy marketing campaigns. I called Comcast, assuring them that cables were sticking out of the walls all over the place. Then the second bomb dropped, doing far greater destruction:

“That may not be a serviceable location for high speed internet,” the Comcast lady said.

“But, there are cables, many of them, at the house,” I replied.

“I’ll have to look into this. I’ll call you back.”

And now I wait by the phone, praying to God and the Comcast lady to make our new home serviceable for high speed internet even if it’s overpriced and poorly marketed.

I’ll do it. I’ll do anything. Just don’t condemn me to dial up.

I had to beg God for mercy on Tuesday, yesterday, and once again today.

Why?

My little Lenten practice is walking every day. While the focus of the walk is prayer, the main motivation for starting it is removing myself from the computer and other distractions that keep me busy and out of touch with God and myself.

But who wants to walk a mile when it’s -10 F degrees outside? Not me pal.

With my warmest gloves on my fingers started to go numb after a minute. My forehead ached from the gusty wind. My feet became noticeably chilly.

Yesterday I took a short walk around Manchester during my lunch break because the temperature soared up into the teens and possibly higher, but not on Tuesday. I just huddled up in a cafe and thought about walking for Lent, and asked for mercy.

If there was ever a time that I’m glad we don’t live in northern Vermont, it’s now. Stupid me, picking an outdoor activity for Lent in the final days of winter.

Technorati Tags: Lent – Vermont

If a child doesn’t like how the game is being played, it is common knowledge that said child will start a new game elsewhere with more suitable rules. That’s how things are done on the playground–and on the internet as well.

You’d think these people would know how ridiculous, how closed off from the world, and how silly they look. But no, somebody had a bright idea and had to, just had to see it through to its painful end no matter how many people laughed. A story of courage, fortitude, and conquest fighting for what’s right amidst seas of crashing criticism. Don’t stop for anything, press on to the goal, and fight the good fight!

This is not one of those instances.

The folks over at Wired News and bloggers all over the internet are laughing, snorting, and yea chortling at the latest stroke of brilliance to afflict our world from the right wing: CONSERVAPEDIA. Dang, that looks good. Maybe I’ll give that its own line and some bold font for kicks.

CONSERVAPEDIA

I’m afraid that I cannot summon the proper words to describe this little gem. I’ll let Conservapedia stammer for itself:

“A conservative encyclopedia you can trust.

Conservapedia has over 3,800 educational, clean and concise entries on historical, scientific, legal, and economic topics, as well as more than 350 lectures and term lists. There have been over 857,000 page views and over 16,300 page edits. Already Conservapedia has become one of the largest user-controlled free encyclopedias on the internet. This site is growing rapidly.

Conservapedia is a much-needed alternative to Wikipedia, which is increasingly anti-Christian and anti-American. On Wikipedia, many of the dates are provided in the anti-Christian “C.E.” instead of “A.D.”, which Conservapedia uses. Christianity receives no credit for the great advances and discoveries it inspired, such as those of the Renaissance. Read a list of many Examples of Bias in Wikipedia.

Conservapedia is an online resource and meeting place where we favor Christianity and America. Conservapedia has easy-to-use indexes to facilitate review of topics. You will much prefer using Conservapedia compared to Wikipedia if you want concise answers free of “political correctness”. “

Now that is priceless. It’s Christian AND American! Can I get an Amen on that brothahs and sistahs? It has everything you could want: it uses A.D. for dates and snubs that truth-demeaning liberal invention known as political correctness. Oh, and the entry rules are called “Commandments.” Unfortunately there are only six, a number that is clearly NOT biblical when speaking of commandments.

Ah, you can’t make this stuff up. The best part is that people are leaving entries with satire so subtle that the editors sometimes can’t figure out what’s sincere. I could go on, but it feels unsportsmanlike to shoot something already writhing on the ground.

Technorati Tags: conservapedia – wikipedia – wired+news

Is your church becoming too crowded? Are you unable to find enough seats for your family?

John O’Keefe over at ginkworld visited a church that solved the unwanted visitor problem in a “creative” way. (HT Jordon Cooper)

Technorati Tags: church – visitors

After two years of serving Vermonters by blogging regularly on its political scene, Politics Vermont is packing it up. It was a great blog that I enjoyed checking.

This is a good little lesson in knowing when to stop a good thing. It’s tempting to hold onto something long past its time. There is a lot to be said for ending before you become too burned out and unable to keep up.

Marc did the same at Purgatorio, which he said has become “Purgasnorio.” Anticipating this move, I had already moved his blog from my “addiction” list. JR Briggs took his place.

Purgatorio was one of those great ideas for a blog that is really, really hard to maintain, especially if you have a family and two jobs. It was fun while it lasted.

One last note by the way . . .
Note the huge breaks in between paragraphs? That’s one of the disadvantages of using Ecto with Nucleus. I’ll have to see if I can fix that.

politics, vermont

Another holiday means another time to reflect on driving in New Jersey, THE **cough, cough** GARDEN STATE. While driving just about the length of this densely populated state, I had a few thoughts.

1. Can we find a new slogan for NJ??? There are not all that many farms. What if they took the vanity plate that says, “Shore to Please” and made that the slogan? That’s at least a touch more accurate, and the shore is what people typically associate with NJ (that is in a positive sense).

Of course we could play with Garden State too. “Former Garden State,” “Garden State . . . NOT,” and so forth, but I prefer a new slogan. This doesn’t have to be a loss either. This could be win win.

Sure the farms and gardens are covered in concrete, cement, and asphalt, but NJ now has a chance to reinvent itself so to speak. Find a new niche and made a big public relations thing out of it.

2. Defensive driving brings its own punishment, aggressive driving brings its own rewards. For some reason it’s just much easier and enjoyable to drive aggressively in NJ. A safe following distance only means that people will cut in front of you and put you in just as much danger if not more if you were close to the car in front of you.

So after numerous cars swiftly buzzed in front of me and led to a slamming of the brakes, I decided to harden my heart. Screw ‘em. I didn’t let anyone in front of me. If they sped up along my side, I boxed them in by equaling their speed. And somehow, I felt nicer and more at peace. Ah the paradox of driving in NJ.

And that’s really about it. We didn’t drive too much in NJ this trip and rarely ever left the main road. Phew.

I found this blog post about the threat to Santa Claus posed by Google Earth. It’s not going to be a jolly year for the big man.

It looks like technology has finally caught up with us. Children have more resources than their parents and are now able test anything they deem suspicious.

A group of friends sit in a living room chatting about the roles of husbands and wives. One uses the words submit, obey, and serve one too many times in reference to women, and eventually blunders into an insensitive statement.

Members of the group are offended. They react strongly and challenge his statement. The offender realizes what has happened and attempts to clarify his statement.

It’s a long, tense evening. Though 3 or 4 are the main participants, all present in the room follow the conversation closely and begin to understand where each side is coming from in the debate. Before they depart, the debate is concluded, the offense has been forgiven, and everyone finds something else to talk about.

That’s how most dialogues and debates go when conducted in person. The same does not go for blogs. Rose pointed this out after her recent meeting with Mark Driscoll.

Online “dialogues” quickly become heated and divisive in the following pattern:

Issue A

Insensitive remark 1. about issue A

Question about Issue A, ignores remark 1.

Angry response to insensitive remark 1.

Calm response to insensitive remark 1.

Insensitive remark 2. to maker of insensitive remark 1.

Mediating remark between insensitive remarks 1. and 2.

Angry remark about Issue A that brings up Issue B as well

Another angry reponse to insensitive remark 1.

Calm remark about Issue A

Insensitive remark 3. addressed at Issue B

Insensitive remark 4. addressed at maker of insensitive remark 3.

Makers of insensitive remarks 3. and 4. spar back and forth about Issue B, completely forgetting that this all started with Issue A.

That was actually an abbreviated form of what typically happens every day on the high-traffic blogs. Let’s face it, blogs are a great way to share information and they sometimes work for collaboration, but they simply do not work for large-scale, constructive dialogue about sensitive issues.

Think about this: Many long-distance relationships fail because letters and e-mails can be misinterpreted (my wife and I dated long distance the whole time and we made it though!!!). How can we expect to succeed in constructive communication when we hardly know all of the various people tossing comments into the pot, reacting, counterreacting, and introducing other topics.

I’m not saying that it cannot work. It has in the past. In the comment section of one person’s blog I had a conversation where I challenged the author on something, gently though, and I believe that God used me to save him from sin. That’s the exception.

It’s not to say we shouldn’t try. I’m more interested in lowering our expectations and calling all blog commenters on high-traffic sites to think twice before leaving comments. I never have those problems here, IMD’s readers are the best, but it gets to be a bit much on other sites that I frequent.

Let’s remember that love is our supreme goal. If our words do not bring about love for God and one another, we’d best stick our hands in our pockets and go for a walk.

Now I dare you to leave an angry comment below that completely misinterprets everything I just said . . . I LEAVE COMMENTS ALL OF THE TIME ON BLOGS YOU MORON AND NO ONE EVER GETS ANGRY!!!!

Comedy Central is not the place to find the best news reports and its certainly not the authority on religion, but this past week The Colbert Report had two segments on religion worth noting:

Bart Ehrman, author of the book Misquoting Jesus, appeared on the show and subjected himself to Stephen Colbert’s routine as outlandish “double devil’s advocate.” Colbert essentially takes the stance of conservative evangelicals, but does it in a tongue-in-cheeck manner, so that no side is favored over another. He simply takes shots at Ehrman, but also subtly plays with conservatives. It’s a very fun interview to watch, especially the part where he actually forces Ehrman to concede his error at one point.

As far as the book is concerned, Ehrman writes as a former conservative if not fundamentalist Christian who is disallusioned and now agnostic. After holding to a completely inerrant Bible, studying the history of textual transmission, and finding many errors in the process, he essentially concluded that the Bible is not reliable. This is a prime example of how an extreme doctrine of inerrancy can shipwreck our faith. The Bible is certainly reliable, true, and trustworthy, but the language of inerrancy can sometimes put too much emphasis on the Bible for our faith and not on God himself and the Christian community who have given us the Bible. Inerrancy taken to extremes can lay a trap for our faith that may be hard to escape.

I think that Ehrman is a scholar struggling to fit his research into his faith. Unfortunately his faith was too narrow to hold what he found.

Stephen Makes It Simple
Colbert jumps into the realm of religion and politics by tossing in this handgrenade of a statement,
“Little government mentions Jesus in a speech. Big government does what Jesus said.” Controversial, eh?

I weary of outreach strategies and gimmicks. It seems that such things are a really easy target, but then those who support them wonder why more people don’t take advantage of them, and so I make an irreverant post.

Internet evangelism day is May 7th, and I only wish that Christians would leave their computers unplugged lest we mess things up any more than we already have. Would you like to be “evangelized” by a Jew, Muslism or Buddist? Would you like them to use “strategies” and “proven techniques” to hook you into their faith systems? Do you even care about what they have to say when they talk about the benefits of their religions? No. Perhaps internet evangelism day doesn’t have to be about aggressive proselytizing, but I can guarantee that it will quickly become this in the wrong hands.

And once I again I cover some old territory. If you have to take a class or employ a technique or use a gimmick to share your faith in Jesus, the problem is not your style or approach, it’s your relationship.

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