October 4, 2008 — 5:49 PM
One of my Presby pastor friends, Jim, tagged me for a meme and I'm taking him up on it (only about a week later, but hey).
1. I am the youngest of three children and none of us have children. Guess the Ledyard line stops here.
2. I was President of my senior class and Student Body President all in the same year at Concord High School. (It was a small school.)
3. I studied piano from kindergarten all of the way through undergraduate school and then promptly stopped playing at all for almost ten years. Now I play again on occasion.
4. My family had horses for several years when I was in elementary and middle school - every girls dream!
5. My dad was the mayor of our little village when I was in fourth and fifth grade. He was one of the seven mayors of towns named Concord who got a free AMC Concord car for one year when they first came out.
6. I don't like to walk on lids on sidewalks that lead to space under stores. I will actually go to great lengths to walk around them.
I tag the following people with no expectations that they will actually follow suit: Amy, Kate, Monte, Sarah, Tiffany, and Megan.
Meme Terms and Conditions
1. Link to the person who tagged you.
2. Mention the rules on your blog.
3. List six unspectacular things about you.
4. Tag six other bloggers by linking to them.
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October 9, 2008 — 9:12 AM
Over the last few weeks I have noticed a difference between British and American English that I had never noticed before. It all began with former Prime Minister Tony Blair's visit to the Daily Show with Jon Stewart.
Jon was pushing him on the decision to invade Iraq and the soundness of said decision - trying to get some clarity on the thinking of our own President George W Bush. Mr. Blair refused to go very far in answering for our President but he did stick by the decision to invade. And, he took great pains to show that this was not an easy decision to come by. He wanted to stress the gravity with which the deliberations were made.
As Mr. Blair was talking about this, he used the phrase "take a decision" where we in America would say "make a decision." That wording struck me and stuck with me. And, as is the way once one has noticed something, I have heard that phrase several times since, including this morning. My local Public Radio plays headlines from the BBC at the top of each hour during the show "Morning Edition." In one of the stories the phrase "take a decision" was used and got me thinking about this whole word choice all over again.
I think it is very American to take the agency in the action of coming to a decision. It is the cornerstone of the American myth - one can do anything if one puts one's mind to it. We are the makers of our own destinies. That is different than the Old World way of thinking - where destinies are determined for a person more by his or her circumstances than by his or her own actions. America's belief that anyone can be anything is what has attracted people to our shores since the very beginning of the European migration to the Americas.
I find it hugely interesting that such a small thing as which verb is used can subtly underscore a world view and perpetuate it without people even realizing it. Or, maybe I'm making too much of this whole thing....
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October 12, 2008 — 9:27 PM
No. Not the fall-back-an-hour time change. That doesn't happen for a couple more weeks. The time change I'm rocking is the one Mission Bay Community Church is adjusting to - the change to evening services. Last week we had a short service to inaugurate our move to the new space and time and this evening we had our first full worship service.
When we talked about this move, I have to admit, I couldn't quite get my head around what it would be like to have only a Sunday evening worship service. I haven't gone to Sunday evening services since I left home for college and stopped attending the local Baptist church's Sunday morning and evening services. And I have never had Sunday evening as the only service that I attended.
But I have to say that I am quite pleased with it so far. Especially since I have to be up and out of the house early each weekday morning. It's nice to have two days in a row that I don't have to do that. I can choose to stay in and have a slow go of it if I so desire. That is a beautiful thing.
It is a bit weird to leave church in the dark. And soon we will start and end in the dark thanks to the Daylight Savings switcheroo. That will take even more getting used to. But I think I'll be okay with that judging from how I've taken these first couple of weeks so far.
On top of the general adjustments that I had to make to get myself to church at the right time, I was also the preacher for this evening. Once again, I really enjoyed the interaction with the community. The sermon, minus community input, is here.
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October 18, 2008 — 11:20 AM
Last Tuesday I did something very unlike me. I bought a new 13" MacBook hours after it was introduced by Steve Jobs at the Apple Event. I am not an early adopter. I'm too cautious by nature for that.
But something just came over me.
I have been thinking for months about updating my computer. I've been using my iBook G4 that I bought in the spring of 2004 and have been very happy with it. It does everything I need it to do. It's been very reliable. There are no discernible problems with it.
But it's a computer from 2004!
So I finally decided over the weekend that it was time to get something new. I stopped by my local Apple Store to take a gander. I went online to get more info on the specs of the MacBook options. And on Monday I stopped by the Apple Store in Corte Madera where a student is a Mac specialist to get his take on the whole situation.
I had forgotten that I had been reading about this whole "Apple Event" that would be happening Tuesday morning. Many friends had been twittering about it. But it just didn't sink in that that would mean anything to my life.
Thankfully, my student answered my questions and subtly suggested I not buy anything right away. He, as an Apple employee, couldn't tell me not to buy anything. Nor could he say that there would be a whole new line of computers the very next day resulting in significant drops in the prices of the current Macs. I left the store without having purchased anything but at least having a better idea of what I wanted.
So the next day, following the big announcement, I went online (knowing it would be a few days before any of the new Macs hit the store shelves) and ordered me up something that was way more computer than I was originally going to get! Isn't that the way it works?
But come on folks, this laptop's going to have to last me until 2012, at least!
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October 25, 2008 — 11:28 AM
For the past couple of months I've been spending every Wednesday morning in Berkeley working with staff and a fellow minister of the Presbytery of San Francisco to come up with a whole new web site for the Presbytery.
When we first started talking about doing this we were hoping to have it ready by the beginning of the summer. That obviously didn't happen. As anyone who works with designing things knows, delays happen. Especially when summer, with all of its travel time, is involved.
But we pushed on. And finally we have a site that is far enough along to invite the public to start using it. So please do. It's at a new address: www.presbyteryofsf.org - one that more accurately reflects the name of the Presbytery.
Many thanks to Adam Walker Cleaveland who did all the design work and coding to make our general ideas take shape in some very cool ways. He has the patience of a saint - which will serve him well as a pastor (which is his full-time job).
We still have work to do to get the site fully functioning as we had imagined. And we expect it to continue to evolve as we live into using it and making it useful to the people in the Presbytery and beyond. But we are glad to have reached this stage and look forward to tweaking and adding to it in the future.
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October 30, 2008 — 9:43 AM
Sunday, my friend and co-MBCC-staffer, Tiffany told me about James Dobson's "Letter From 2012 in Obama's America." This is a blatant fear-mongering letter trying to get the evangelical vote behind the McCain/Palin ticket. Tiffany gave me the highlights because I couldn't stomach reading the actual letter. I know that line of argument all to well and it makes me queasy.
This morning I was pointed to a response to this letter from another evangelical Christian, Jim Wallis. He made a real splash on the public scene several years back with his book "God's Politics" in which he pushed back against the idea that God would back a candidate from any specific party.
I appreciated the whole response. In very short order Wallis called Dobson to task for his irresponsibility in writing this fear-filled, disrespectful letter. But I especially appreciate this paragraph:
"Let me make this clear: Christians will be voting both ways in this election, informed by their good faith, and based on their views of what are the best public policies and direction for America. But in utter disrespect for the prayerful discernment of your fellow Christians, this letter stirs their ugliest fears, appealing to their worst impulses instead of their best."
Amen. And, thank you Jim Wallis.
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