Category: Uncategorized

Lonely

…the continuing saga of a Facebook Fast…

I travel a good deal with my job.  I regularly commute to Murfreesboro from my home in Tullahoma (about 40-45 minutes each way).  On Thursday, I had an appointment in Nashville and I began the routine drive after dropping my son off at the High School.  About 30 minutes into my trip, I became aware on how alone I felt.  I frequently drive in my car with no one in the passenger seats.  Things were normal from that standpoint.  But on this day, I was aware of a different quality to the empty car. I had logged out…no Facebook.

I have likened Facebook to non-Facebook friends to being in a large room with acquaintances from all periods of my life.  There is the constant buzz of conversations going on in this room.  At any point in time, I can choose to join in a conversation or start a new one.  These conversations range from silly to sublime.  Family, sports, spirituality, politics, news, religion, art, music, books, reunions… The list is endless.  Sometimes, you just want to sit in the room and relax with your thoughts.  But always, there is the comforting buzz of family, close friends, high school and college buddies, church members, work colleagues, etc.

What became vividly clear during these first few days of the Facebook fast was that I had stepped out of that room.  I had closed the door.  A deep sense of silence and a different quality of “alone” permeated my empty car.  I know how this might sound a little crazy to the folk that have been trying to intervene in my Facebook thing.  But the effect was profound.

There are several implications to this but I’ll mention two.  First, I have rarely been truly alone over the past year or so.  Being connected “virtually” via my cell phone and social media is something significantly more real than I realized.  I’ve missed the renewed relationships with people from my past.  I’ve recognized that conversations with my friends locally are enhanced and deepened via social media.  Rather than typical small talk, on Facebook we move on to snarky comments and humor.  We also begin to ask the second level questions and make comments that move conversations to deeper levels than might happen when we merely bump into each other in the grocery store.  I also have become more aware of why the most brutal from of punishment for a teenager these days is taking away their cell phone.  In a way, it places them in “solitary confinement”.  I think at times, that’s exactly the punishment that is called for in a situation.  However, it also might be more extreme than the situation calls for.  I need to think a little more about this next time parental justice comes down.

The second thing I’ll mention is that…well, I’ve rarely been truly alone over the past year or so.  Rather than solitude and quiet, I’ve taken comfort in the noisy room.  I think true solitude is something extremely important and is in fact missing from my spiritual life.  I don’t think merely logging off of Facebook is going to provide the solitude that I’m talking about here.  I fill the space constantly with podcasts, music, email, newspapers, magazines, TV, YouTube, etc.  We are constantly barraged with media, information…noise.  I think this constant sensory overload might just be overwhelming the still small voice of God’s Spirit…of my own spirit.

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Homeless

I read an article in the March issue of Harper’s Magazine that I think will be worth your time.  The writer, William T. Vollmann, spends some time with homeless people in the city and provides an interesting look into what I think to be a misunderstood world.  I would urge you to read the article from more of a sociological perspective first rather than putting on your political glasses (regardless of what shade of political glasses you might be sporting).  I’ll grant the obvious left leaning slant of Harper’s…something that might keep some of you from clicking the link below and reading the article.  However, I think this is an interesting (and well written) glimpse into this world.

Homeless in Sacramento: Welcome to the New Tent Cities

Withdrawals

So I’ll confess…I’m addicted to the little red flag that signals a response to something on my Facebook page.  The Internet browser I use is Apple Safari.  Normally I have a tab open with my Gmail account, another tab with Facebook, and then any additional tabs I might use for surfing the Internet, checking out the news of the day or to do research for the tasks of the day.  In addition, I have my mail app and my Facebook app adjacent to each other on the home screen of my iPhone with “push notifications” turned on.  What this means to the non-techno-geeks out there is that I’m aware practically immediately whenever someone posts a message to my wall or sends me an email message.

One of my motivations for this Facebook fast was my increasing awareness of my addiction.  While the designation of addiction might seem to be a little melodramatic, I have to admit that it fits.  The simple definition of being addicted to something is to be physically and mentally dependent on a particular substance leading to adverse effects when that substance is taken away.

On Ash Wednesday night, not 30 minutes after my “final” sign-off…I recognized I had a problem.  My Bible Study group at church has a fairly active Facebook group (our page is not as active as the Facebook Group but here’s a link).  I intended to post scripture passages and prayers daily leading up to our class time last Sunday (March 14, 2011).  I knew there was a way to post to the group via email that would keep me from having to login to my account.  But I didn’t know the proper email address and I didn’t know the procedure.  So I innocently logged in…and there was the little red flag…with a 7 on it!  I couldn’t resist…I had to see who had commented on my wall.  The next morning…I “needed” to make sure my Bible Study post was up…same thing…red flag…my mouse could have simply clicked the Bible Study Group link…

Well…the first step is admitting you have a problem.

Facebook Fast

“Really?!?”, replied my wife.   “I don’t believe you!” commented my daughter on my last post before signing off Facebook for Lent 2011.  I have to admit, I was at best skeptical.

A little context/confession here…I’ve never completed a Lenten fast.  I’ve only tried it one time before.  I was a “fail” as the kids like to say.  I couldn’t even tell you at this moment what I failed to give up for lent that year.    More context/confession…I’m a Facebook junkie.  I was a very early adopter.  Facebook opened membership to anyone over the age of 13 with a valid email address in September of 2006.  I was aware of Facebook on college campuses prior to that time.  I opened my own Facebook account in the Summer of 2007.  That puts me pretty much in the Total-Facebook-Geek category in most people’s books.  I check it on my computer, on my phone, while I’m at the office, while I’m driving in my car…just about anywhere.

Part of this lent deal for our church this year was to “give up something” but also, add something.  As I’m writing this, I’m aware of my failure in the add category…I was going to write more consistently…fail.

So the doubts of my wife and daughter are pretty much justified.  I’m still pretty skeptical about the chances of my success with the Facebook portion of this thing.   Here goes nothing…


(‘bama) FANS

It was rather surreal for all of us to hear the story of the poisoning of the 130 year old Toomer’s Corner oak trees at Auburn University.  It’s sort of mind boggling that someone would come to think that would be the thing to do.

Full disclosure…I’m a zealot of the southern brand of college football.  My particular denomination is LSU.  However, I do expand my allegiance grudgingly to other Southeastern Conference schools when they are playing outside the conference…well, most SEC schools.  I mean really, I can’t pull for ‘bama ever with that whole Nick Satan…uh…Satan…sorry…Sabin…thing.  Of course now we have the poisoning of 130 year old trees where Auburn fans TP themselves…after every win?  really? Is that a tradition you want to kill?  And then Florida…who really likes Florida except, well…Florida fans.  Of course South Carolina has Spurrier…that’s a HUGE strike against them…(read the previous sentence re: Florida).  Auburn is questionable at the very least…I mean the Tubberville era…that cigar incident in Tiger stadium in 1999 (enjoy the championship for a few months by the way WAR(read PROBATION) EAGLE).  So, I pull for the SEC…oh yeah…GO TO HELL OLE MISS!!!!!!!!  (sorry…couldn’t help that…sort of slipped out).  So while I’m in Mississippi…I’m still bitter about the beat downs we got consistently by Mississippi State of all people back in the ’80s when I was a poor struggling college student.  I mean, who wouldn’t be bitter braving a trip all the way to Starkville, sitting on splintery wooden bleachers and losing!  To Mississippi State?!?SERIOUSLY!? (and I received a speeding ticket from a FOREST RANGER while driving my Chevy Chevette through the back woods on that trip…VERY embarrassing).  Then there’s Georgia…they whine ALL the time…(I mean, win your “half” of the SEC before you start whining about the BCS).  Arkansas…well, they aren’t REALLY an SEC team…they are a SouthWEST conference team that doesn’t matter in the whole scheme of things.  Vandy…they’re harmless.  Tennessee…”dreamsicle” shouldn’t really be someone’s school color.  That’s never a good choice.  Then their’s Kentucky…I mean they are basically harmless too when it comes to football.  And they really don’t get it that the rest of us don’t really care that much about basketball…it gets us through to baseball season and spring football but…that’s about it…

So…uh…what was I talking about…oh yeah…crazy ‘bama fans…uh…

Maybe we are all taking this a bit too seriously…mmmm

PS: here’s a nice piece about some of the response by ‘bama fans following the poisoning of the trees:

Poisoned Trees Bring Truce to a Civil War in Alabama Football

PSS: These aforementioned universities do have a few other things going for them other than football:

University of Alabama, University of Arkansas, Auburn University, University of Florida, University of Georgia, University of Kentucky, Louisiana State University, Mississippi State University, University of Mississippi, University of South Carolina, University of Tennessee, Vanderbilt University

…I was un-friended the other day

I was “unfriended” the other day…actually twice.  One day my friend count on Facebook was 1001…the next day it was 999!  What to do? Now, I’m fully aware of the superficial nature of the friendship counter on my Facebook profile.  One’s friend number is entirely reflective of your FB friending criteria.  For a long time I held a pretty conservative line on who I would add as a friend on FB…only someone I know very well.  Then it moved to , “do I recognize their face?”  Now, it depends on my mood.  I usually friend anyone I can place somewhere in some iteration of my life.

One thing that Facebook has done is provide some very intriguing perspective on this idea of friendship.  First of all, I can easily begin to place my 999 friends into very specific categories corresponding to different times of my life: growing up on Bayou Lafourche; going away to LSU; seminary in Fort Worth, TX; returning to Louisiana for my first ministry job; moving to Tennessee.  Those can be broken down even more to the individual churches I was a part of, people I met at conferences, friends from other countries met through my travels.  A pleasant surprise has been the “friends of friends” that I’ve never met face to face…we’ve only “talked” on Facebook walls and messages.  I enjoy immensely conversations that spring up among friends of mine who have never met.

It’s interesting how these varied relationships have changed.  There are people who I considered very close friends when we lived near each other and talked regularly who I haven’t really spoken to since we became Facebook friends.  There other relationships that have deepened due to Facebook conversations…conversations that might never have occurred in person.  In several instances, I’m closer now to a few people I’ve never met face to face than I am to people I used to hang out with.

One last observation…I realize that Facebook profiles place some of our personality traits and beliefs out front for people to see…things that either don’t come up in casual conversations or that we don’t necessarily want people to know.  I’m not talking about sinister-loss-of-privacy-TMI kind of stuff.  I now know that a couple of my friends are HUGE Metallica fans…nothing wrong with that at all, just wouldn’t have thought it at first.  I know that I have some artists.  Some political liberals…some political conservatives.  Some theological liberals…some conservative.  Some believe in God.  Some do not.  Gay. Straight. Pro-life. Pro-choice.  yada, yada, yada…  The diversity is simply amazing.  And for me, it’s pretty energizing.

I’m realizing that I value the diversity and the conversations more than I do homogeneity.  Maybe that’s what I truly love about Facebook. We tend to live pretty compartmentalized lives.  The public faces of our offices and churches are pretty mask-like…we don’t want to rock the boat so we hold back important parts of who we are to maintain the social mores.  With Facebook, I’m sitting in a large room with a thousand friends from different parts of my life.  Occasional conversations pop up.  Sometimes I think, “OH #$%, those two are talking politics!!!”   or “I miss seeing those people on a regular basis.” or “That’s really cool!” And countless other things…I love my FB Peeps.

So I was un-friended…not sure why…could be a lot of reasons.  I really don’t mind that much…it’s happened before and will happen again.  Who’s going to be my next 1000th friend?

(If you’re interested, this link is to a good article about online relationships and Facebook: I’m so Digitally Close to You)

the PR Effect and Preaching…

Pulpit of the Sint-Bavokerk, Haarlem, The Netherlands (taken by Mike Young, summer 2008)

I just started what is turning out to be a very interesting book by Hugh Heclo entitled On Thinking Institutionally. My interest was sparked by a review in the latest issue of The Christian Century as well as the water in which we’re currently swimming attempting to keep a denominational institution afloat in these challenging times.  I hope to write more about the book in later posts but there was an interesting point he made in explaining what he calls the PR Effect.

Heclo gives a “short list of some prevailing strategies used by today’s professionals in public communications”:

  • Stay on a simple message (rather than dealing with complex realities).
  • Appeal to emotions (rather than taking time to reason with the audience).
  • “Frame” issues to steer people toward the desired conclusion (rather than informing them about the substance of any given issue).
  • Project self-assurance (rather than admitting uncertainty or ignorance).
  • Counterattack or switch the subject (rather than trying to answer tough questions).
  • Avoid self-criticism (rather than trying to correct your errors).
  • Claim to have the whole answer (rather than admitting there is any independent expertise that is not on your side).
  • Above all, talk to win (rather than to get at the truth of things).

He then makes an interesting observation:

“So what does the PR effect have to do with institutional distrust?  To find the answer, we might return to the preceding short list and imagine two acquaintances.  One deals with you in the terms indicated at the beginning of each bullet and the other does so along the lines contained in the parentheses.  Once you realize you are the target of a sell-job, trust goes out the window.  It’s time to keep you hand on your wallet.  More than that, the rhetorical tricks, focus group-tested talking points, and slick strategies are a way of saying that you are not being taken seriously.”

I am still processing this but strangely enough my first thoughts went to preaching.  How has this philosophy of public communication impacted how we relate to people in the congregation?  I had a nice opportunity to preach for a World AIDS Day service last night.  My topic was “How are you spiritually healthy?”  I acknowledged how pretentious it would be for me to actually give a recipe for spiritual health…a “10 step” plan or something similar.  I received some nice comments following my talk.  But the one that probably meant the most was by someone who simply said, “I’m glad you let us think about that without answering the question.  I’m glad you let us know that you didn’t have the answer.”

I’m convinced that not only from the pulpit, but also in our “Christian/religious” communications with folk outside our particular faith tribe, our slide toward irrelevance has been greased by our attempts to sell faith.  Doris Bett says, “…faith is not synonymous with certainty…[but] is the decision to keep our eyes open.”  Our sales pitch approach to faith has run its course.  I really don’t think people want answers.  I think what they want are authentic relationships so they can work out their salvation together.  They want to be able to keep their eyes open.  Too often what we provide is an opportunity to change the channel.

…the public “I”

woods
—photo by Mike Young

“…everyone has a life that is different from the ‘I’ of daily consciousness, a life that is trying to live through the ‘I’ who is its vessel.   …there is a great gulf between the way my ego wants to identify me, with its protective masks and self-serving fictions, and my true self.”   —Parker Palmer, from Let Your Life Speak

Parker Palmer’s book is difficult for me to take in at times.  Each line resonates deeply leaving me wanting to highlight everything I’m reading.  The power and profundity stem, I think, from the modesty inherent in Palmer’s proposal…rather than selling himself as the expert, he merely plays the role of servant guide giving the reader permission to delve into the stream of the true self flowing free below the frozen surface of the public “I”.

I find Palmer’s lines above very provocative.  It moves me to look beyond the public persona and move deeper into myself.  Thomas Merton speaks to the same idea with the metaphors of a fire or a ship: “We are warmed by a fire, not by the smoke of a fire. We are carried over the sea by a ship, not by the wake of a ship.  So too, what we are is to be sought in the invisible depths of our own being, not in our outward reflection in our own acts. We must find our real selves not in the froth stirred up by the impact of our being upon the beings around us, but in our own soul which is the principle of all our acts.”  —Thomas Merton, from No Man is an Island

Often of late, I have engaged in conversations with people (mostly men) who are struggling deeply with issues concerning vocation.  So much of our identity is wrapped up in our vocation and our performance in that vocation.  Much of my current struggle with my identity is centered on the public “I”…the role, vocation, and social face of my life.  But that revolves around job, career, resume’, public perception and performance.  It is much more difficult for me to articulate what is happening in the stream of my self flowing below that sheet of ice.

The soul is like a wild animal—tough, resilient, savvy, self-sufficient, and yet exceedingly shy.  If we want to see a wild animal, the last thing we should do is to go crashing through the woods, shouting for the creature to come out.  But if we are willing to walk quietly into the woods and sit silently for an hour or two at the base of a tree, the creature we are waiting for may well emerge, and out of the corner of an eye we will catch a glimpse of the precious wildness we seek.    —Parker Palmer, from Let Your Life Speak

I guess what I’m saying is that I am entering the woods.  Quietly.  I’m going to find a tree and sit down for a while…

…architecture and community/sustainability

Houses of the Future – The Atlantic (November 2009).

curtis-architecture-new-orleans-wide
NEW ORLEANS - AUGUST 24: 1631 Tennessee Street - Photos of New Orleans Houses photographed for Atlantic Monthly on August 24, 2009 in New Orleans, Louisiana. (Photo by Chris Graythen/Getty Images for Atlantic Monthly)

This is a link to an intriguing article I read on Monday in the November 2009 issue of The Atlantic.  Several things were interesting to me.

In particular are the comments sprinkled throughout the article that pertain to remembering, re-building, nurturing , and sustaining community and the role that is playing in the architecture on the homes being built.  One interesting section describes features of some of the traditional homes of New Orleans…tall ceilings (“allow residents to live below the worst of the summer heat”); shotgun cottages lack hallways (“allowing for efficient cross-ventilation in every room”); transoms (“make the walls porous and keep the air moving”).  Michael Mehaffy, Executive Director of Sustasis, says “What we’re learning is that these traditions are not just fashions.  They’re rooted in the real adaptive evolution of a place.”  Such an observation requires living in a place and listening to its voices.

An observation by Andres Duany, co-founder of the Congress for New Urbanism, was particularly insightful:

“When I originally thought of New Orleans, I was conditioned by the press to think of it as an extremely ill-governed city, full of ill-educated people, with a great deal of crime, a great deal of dirt, a great deal of poverty,” said Duany, who grew up in Cuba. “And when I arrived, I did indeed find it to be all those things. Then one day I was walking down the street and I had this kind of brain thing, and I thought I was in Cuba. Weird! And then I realized at that moment that New Orleans was not an American city, it was a Caribbean city. Once you recalibrate, it becomes the best-governed, cleanest, most efficient, and best-educated city in the Caribbean. New Orleans is actually the Geneva of the Caribbean.  …All the do-goody people attempting to preserve the culture are the same do-gooders who are raising the standards for the building of houses, and are the same do-gooders who are giving people partial mortgages and putting them in debt,” he said. “They have such a profound misunderstanding of the culture of the Caribbean that they’re destroying it. The heart of the tragedy is that New Orleans is not being measured by Caribbean standards. It’s being measured by Minnesota standards.”

As someone who grew up in south Louisiana near New Orleans, this is the first time I’ve heard that description of the city…frankly, it rings true.  Much damage is done to culture, place, community in the name of progress or good intentions.  Duany came by his observations by living in New Orleans and walking the streets, talking to people who love the place.  Brad Pitt, of all people, has bought a home in the city and is an integral part of the “high design” Make It Right development in the lower 9th ward.  Again, grew to love New Orleans, moved there, spends time there and becomes part of the solution.  (from the article, “BRAD PITT FOR MAYOR t-shirts are not uncommon around town.”)

The writer of the article quotes Steve Mouzon speaking to a group of contractors and architects: “The very core of sustainability can be found in a simple question: ‘Can it be loved?'”  Ultimately, that will be hinge of success in the rebuilding of New Orleans.  Wayne Curtis closes his article with, “The past here has much to inform the future, not just for New Orleans, but for an entire country that needs to rethink the way it designs its cities and homes.  New Orleans won’t be rushed—it never is—but the chances are good that whatever results here will be loved.”

Christianity 21

I wanted to go to Christianity 21 but decided to spend money to go to the Jurgen Moltmann Theological Conversation instead…and it was an awesome and formative experience for me (and also sent me scurrying off to buy/read some more Moltmann books).

However, the Christianity 21 thing has stuck with me…particularly after reading/watching some of the responses of folk who were able to attend. The thing that profoundly occurs to me in these responses is how much more is said about the space created by the event to “be” …be followers of Jesus…be in community…be who attendees were created to be. I was struck particularly by 3 comments in the video above:

  • Nadia Bolz-Weber says, “…and then there are those evangelicals who have discovered the liturgy, which is…adorable”…One, Nadia is hilarious and profound (check out her book). Much of the energy I have felt in the various emergent type meetings I’ve been privileged to attend has centered around such rediscovery of my tradition and the traditions of others who are also attempting to follow God in the way of Jesus.
  • “We are more often than not people of doubt, who have beliefs than people of faith, who have moments of doubts.” TOO TRUE!!! I believe our getting this bass ackwards in our church “communities” is probably the biggest barrier to authentic community we face.
  • The elderly man toward the end of the video… “This weekend has been something my heart and soul has been waiting for for 38 years…I wanted to go to heaven when I was 75, my password on the computer is heaven75.  I lived 4 more years, I now I know why!” Is that not an amazing statement?  I’m immediately reminded of Simeon (Luke 2:25-35) who waited with great expectation for “the consolation of Israel”…and upon seeing the infant Jesus proclaimed,

“29“Sovereign Lord, as you have promised,
you now dismiss[a] your servant in peace.
30For my eyes have seen your salvation,
31which you have prepared in the sight of all people,
32a light for revelation to the Gentiles
and for glory to your people Israel.”

I’m certain this cannot be written off cynically as just another over-hyped event.  There is something going on here among us.  I for one want to be a part of it.  It has nothing to do with being hip and cool.  It has everything to do with rediscovering the joy of my salvation.