"You will know the truth and the truth will make you odd"
~Flannery O'Connor

Technology

America + T.V does not = America + T.V

Rather

America + T.V = a different America.

And the same is true, I think, for any technology. Technology doesn't simply add to life but changes it. For all the things I have said about Facebook, that is the biggest reason I don't yet use it. It is also for that reason I don't yet have a cellphone either. I know that if I do begin to use Facebook or get a cell phone they will change the way I relate to others. Though I can see the benefits of both and though I often desire to use both, I'm not yet ready for either.

This essay from Neil Postman has been really helpful for me in seeing technology this way.

A New Favourite

I was recently introduced by a friend to the folk/hip hop (folk-hop) artist, Josh Garrels and I can't recommend his music enough. I purchased his cd, Jaracanda, and have been deeply stirred by it. Not only is he a quality musician but his lyrics are profoundly Christian and subversive.

I'm coming to agree...

It is the inherent and redundant frustration of any pietistic social ethics that the ethical question is presented as a conundrum about the judgment of God in given circumstances. Human beings attempting to cope with that ethical question are certain to be dehumanized. The Bible does not pose any such riddles nor aspire to any such answers; instead, in biblical context, such queries are transposed, converted, rendered new. In the Bible, the ethical issue becomes simply: how can a person act humanly now?

William Stringfellow in, An Ethic for Christians and Other Aliens in a Strange Land

Slowing Consumption

Remember remember the 28th of November.

If you have 20 free minutes here is a good way to spend that time.

Birthday Greetings

This picture was given to me on my birthday by my parents who had flown in from Ontario for a surprise visit. I hear leaves were taken *from* the forest to make this. Having spent a couple seasons as a landscaper I can appreciate that.