AKMA’s Random Thoughts

Handicapping the Race

The campus is a-buzz as we puzzle over a mysterious memo from the Board Chair. Evidently, the Executive Committee has a candidate for the soon-to-be-vacant Deanship, whom we get to meet tomorrow. Said candidate seems, from the letter, not to fit into the anticipated one-year interim box; where earlier we had been promised a “person of stature” (raising immediate queries about tall Episcopalians), now we seem to be headed toward a Dean whom the Trustees and their advisors think an outstanding candidate for whom they’d be inclined to change the rules.

No names here in the blog, but Margaret and I had a comprehensive discussion of possible deans, and the IM wires have been humming as concerned community members speculate.

Just Guessing

Today I sat in church wondering, “Since there are so many brilliant, effective Christians (as we can see in various academic, industrial, artistic, managerial, and political fields), why are so few of them called to the vocation of ordained ministry?”

Part of the answer may be that God has a different disposition of ministry in view; maybe for a few years, decades, whatever, the church should be led not by those called to exercise ordained ministry, but by its more capable non-ordained members. That’s fully possible, but seems paradoxical to me. If person X is a fantastic leader of the church, why should she not be ordained? If the church recognizes person Y as fit for ordination, why does he turn out so rarely to show particular gifts for that ministry?

My guess, strictly a guess, is simply that the church’s practices obstruct capable, intelligent people from presenting themselves for ordination. I observe at least three ways the church (and I’m speaking of the Episcopal Church, not knowing enough about any other of God’s many mansions to offer diagnoses and prescriptions) repels capable disciples from roles of ordained leadership. First, the church overworks its gifted members; second, the church underpays its employees; and third, the church does not foster a sense of social encouragement for ministry. Each of these develops from a quite justifiable gospel principle, but they combine to make ordained ministry a non-functional vocation for the most promising candidates.

The church overworks its committed members because, after all, there’s way too much work to do and not nearly enough willing people to do it. We can’t issue ourselves a permission slip to forgo the work of serving needy, hurting, wandering people, so instead we overdo.

The church underpays its employees because, after all, it’s not seemly for the church’s servants to make big bucks, and determined followers of Jesus shouldn’t care that much about money. In order to fend off greed, the church tends to render the point moot by offering no generous reward to even the vineyard’s most outstanding laborers.

And the church doesn’t make much of its ordained leaders since we’re still working through generations of inappropriate clericalism, when an ordained person held authority and stature simply by virtue of being ordained. In order to keep clericalism at bay, the church has emphasized the extent to which clergy are just the same as anyone else, making no special expectation of them nor offering any special recognition.

I’m painting with rough strokes here. Obviously some congregations and communities honor profound, dedicated clergy; some are well-paid, and some negotiate a sensible balance of labor and rest. Obviously, laziness, acquisitiveness, and arrogance pose deadly threats to effective ministry. I worry that we ward off these threats by ensuring that no one who might possibly fall prey to them would ever even dream of a clerical vocation.

On the other hand, I do see enough ground for my generalizations that I wonder whether the system of the church isn’t trying to recruit excellence to positions that offer mostly burdens and few rewards. How many people who excel at the kinds of work that ordained ministry entails will choose to renounce a healthy balanced life, adequate remuneration, and a compensatory reputable social standing? Some, certainly, and thank heaven for them — but I wonder whether the church’s employment patterns rest on pious assurance that God will provide spiritual bricks from the the strawless clay our congregations offer, or on the confidence that there’ll always be someone there to accept the job.

Greetings From Holland

Not the Netherlands, but Holland, Michigan, where I’ve skulked off to a wifi cafe (appropriately named Buzz Café), ostensibly to check on Josiah’s tournament scores, but also to check email and to watch for comment pollution. Unfortunately, Si’s tournament seems not to have followed through on their “live scoring” page.

We’re in Holland to celebrate Pentecost and our goddaughter’s birthday. It’s a nice little Michigan town, and Buzz (the most interesting point in town, as far as I’m concerned) has a great signal, a large-screen TV showing a baseball game, and good coffee (our friends are tea drinkers).

I don’t have time to muse here about this essay to which Jeff Ward pointed. (At first I just followed Jeff’s path toward “the rhetoric of ‘I am an alcoholic,’ ” but then I backtracked and found an essay on writing-in-public that bears reflection in light of Seabury’s curriculum and our expectation that students use publicly-accessible weblogs at various points in their studies. My quick response is that our mission specifically includes preparing students to be public communicators — that differentiates us at least a little from a university writing program. Still, I’m set back a pace or two by the unanticipated ramifications of a classroom essay, and I’ll be mulling the matter over through the summer.

Unwelcome

The amount of time I have spent deleting unwelcome comments during the past ten days or so amounts to seven hours or so. Though I’m given to understand that Movable Type 3.0 (when it’s eventually released to civilians) handles comments more effectively, my experience with the present version inevitably affects my view of the package.

I’m just saying. . . .

[Later —]

I’m thinking of turning off comments for the weekend. Will specific posts’ comments on/off flags be restored if I make a global back-and-forth change, or will all comments be opened again if I disable/enable commenting globally?

If I Were A Canadian. . . .

My Canada would include Accordion Guy. . . .

Openness, Publication, and Scholarship

There’ a great conversation going on among Mark, Paul (more), Tim (more), and Stephen (more) about “open scholaship” (and sundry variations on that theme — be sure to check out the paper on “publishing” by David Clines, to which Mark links). It’ exciting to see the topic generate such interest and activity — especially since that’ one of the premises on which the Disseminary is based.

One of the topics involves the question of what the various conversants mean by “open,” which I’d summarize with the following list of opennesses:

1. “open source” (Stephen Carlson’ emphasis): primary texts freely available online.


2. “open access”: Scholarship should be available to the reading public apart from the impedimenta of high prices and libraries or bookstores in remote locations.


3. “open entry” (Paul’s emphasis): Scholarship should take place on the basis of interest and capacity, without according privileged standing to those with Ph.D.s in specialized fields, or academic appointments. Anyone may join in.


4. “open data” Scholarship should be archived in open, easily-indexable data formats.


5. “open discourse”: Scholarship should conduct its business in public, where interested parties (who aren’t necessarily aiming to participate) can watch. learn, and pose interesting “outsider” challenges.

I don’t hold to a very strong distinction between “primary sources” and “econdary sources” (except in an obvious, rough-and-ready sense), ao I’m not more determined to attain sense 1 than Sense 2. I’m committed to working toward a more general transparency in scholarly discourses. As the prices of printed materials continue to rise — for some plausible, and other implausible, reasons — the importance of free online publication grows.

All my illustrious colleagues agree that peer-review is a problem, although I see that more as an ideological problem (nonetheless real) than a structural problem. Reputable presses publish bad books; some of the most prestigious series and presses produce notably idiosyncratic works. Likewise, some very weighty works haven’t found a home among the prestigious publishers, but have exercised far-reaching influence after having been published by non-selective presses. Peer-reviewed journals exercise a somewhat more reliable degree of evaluation, but they benefit from a peculiar institutional situation: they often operate from a solid base of academic subscribers, ensuring that the “market” for a particular article doesn’ make much difference; the overall quality of the journal matters much more than the appeal of a single article (or issue). Journals of professional associations can soft-pedal even that concern, to some extent, since the readership is locked-in by membership in the guild. (That’s not to suggest that, for instance, the Catholic Biblical Quarterly can afford to publish drivel because its subscribers have to pay for the journal no matter how bad low its standards —simply that the texture of accountability is different, less financially-determined, for a guild journal.)

I think the greatest obstacles to free scholarship (in both senses of the word “free”) are inertia and the institutional conservatism structured into academia by such characteristics as the tenure system and evaluation-by-publication. At the Disseminary, we’re trying to dislodge the former by offering relatively generous honoraria — so far to no avail, but we think that our prospective re-jiggering may enable us more effectively to elicit publishable material. The latter, we can’t do anything about.

All this has taken place without specific reference, so far as I can see,to George Soros’s Open Access Initiative, which I wish would drop a few thousand of its megadollars on the Disseminary. . . .

Meanwhile, in the comments to a previous post, Clancy challenges me gently on the Disseminary’s use of a “no derivative works” Creative Commons license. Touché! Quite ironic, given my participation in the Lessig read-a-thon. Trevor and I will revisit this and, by the time we generate more than our present tiny amount of material, we’ll change the license. And in recognition of our cooperative gesture, maybe Clancy will write something for us — popular-culture reviews, perhaps?

Hard Drive Query

Okay, before my day goes horribly awry in some new way, I’ll issue a plea for help relative to my external hard drive (a mere eight months old, a 120 gig drive from SmartDisk).

The drive doesn’t show up with Disk Utility or Disk Warrior. It’s getting power and spinning up. My Firewire port on the laptop is working fine (tested it with my iPod and iSight). The cables are good (tested them, too). But no information seems to pass from CPU to drive, or vice versa.

I was running OS X 10.3.3 when this symptom first showed up yesterday morning. I upgraded to 10.3.4 when I noticed this, thinking that the problem might lie in 10.3.3. J P Kang suggested resetting the PMMU; I haven’t tried that yet, but I guess that’s next.

In theory, the drive’s under warranty at SmartDisk, but I’d rather retrieve the data than have them simply send me a new unit (or decide it’s my fault and charge me for repairs). I archived some purchases from the iTunes Music Store on the drive, and I’d be vexed to lose the money I spent on the tunes. . . .

Thursday

Long, frustrating day. After I gave the New Testament 1 exam, I went back to my office to find that my external hard drive had failed. I had an exasperating encounter with a Doctor of Ministry thesis, then spent the afternoon trying to resuscitate the hard drive. A long church service (seminary awards night) and dinner and student revue, and now I'm all tuckered out. I hope tomorrow goes better.

Punting and Physical Therapy

Trevor and I didn’t end up choosing the Disseminary’s future CMS this afternoon, although my sense is that we’re leaning toward an Open Source application (in keeping with the “Open Source theology” premise of the project). Seabury will, I believe, stay with Movable Type, with which the community is already familiar — but that too hasn’t been finalized.

We spent much of our time trying to figure out how to vitalize the Disseminary’s presence. Trevor advocates adopting a “journal” metaphor for the project, reasoning that theologians aren’t typically hip enough to climate changes in media that they would be quick to respond to our initiative to participate actively in online publishing and interaction. A journal, though, they could understand and get involved with. This is OK with me, so long as we redouble the energy we put into eliciting contributions. We talked about posting interviews with well-known theologians, publishing reference summaries of important works in theology (such as might be useful for someone exploring topics, or reviewing for works already read), working on getting reviews going, and keeping after some of the plans we originally devised.

I had to break off the conversation after a while, since today was a physical therapy day. Today, my therapist gave me a soft splint (black Neoprene thingy) to alternate with my hard plastic splint. The hard splint has contributed to alleviating my tendinitis, so that’s not as urgent any more; the soft splint is supposed to help with my arthritis. It looks cooler; hey, it had a basketball player on the packaging (not a named player making an endorsement, but a generic player). I set up the oldest medical joke in history: “Say, will I be able to play basketball when I wear this thing?” She, however — lacking the vaudevillian timing that might ensure a promising future in comedy — merely indicated that I probably shouldn’t play basketball for a while. So, a change of splint and some more iontophoresis, and I was on my way.

The arthritis part was a bit disheartening, but Margaret made everything better by returning the library copy of Holy Cards, but returning with a copy of our very own. She’s a sweetie, no doubt about it. . . .

Big Meeting

The Disseminary brain trust (such as it is) is getting together to decide, among other things, which CMS platform to adopt. The suspense is killing me; I’ll be delighted, relieved (and a little regretful no matter which direction we turn) to have settled that question. . . .

Cool

Dave Awl (author of What The Sea Means) with whom I used to exchange emails back in olden days when I lived in Princeton, connected the dots and tracked me down here. Evidently What the Sea Means has an essay on Magritte, which segues beautifully to:

The proprietor of the Révolution Surréaliste site emailed me to indicate that his address has changed, and the link I made back here would thenceforward be broken unless I changed it. I’ll go change it now, and wipe out some spam, too.

Playing Catch-Up

I was so sure that I would blog these yesterday, that I fell asleep without even typing a syllable. But then, yesterday was that kind of day, after a sleep-deprived night.

First, Kevin kindly set up a QuickTopic document-comment page for my presentation at the Theology and Pedagogy in Cyberspace conference, which paper will probably be coming out in print — I have to get it to the editor pretty soon. Kevin left some comments for me, and you can, too. The more comments you leave for me, the more there are for me to feel conscience-stricken about not incorporating into my paper, so this is your opportunity to make me feel guilty.

Speaking of Kevin, he ended up in Suw Charman’s terrific article “Something For Nothing on the Lessig Free Culture Readathon. Suw was very patient, as I dragged my heels in responding to her interview questions; between end-of-term (almost in sight! praise the Lord!) and thumb splint and physical therapy appointments and summer colds afflicting the female members of the household and weekend guests and a stack of papers to mark, I didn’t get back to her as rapidly as I ought to have. Suw not only didn’t complain, but made me sound as though I might be someone worth paying attention to. That’s quite a stretch, and Suw navigates it with grace and ease; well done!

Speaking of the thumb, it’s not making much progress. My original physical therapist started me on iontophoresis yesterday, and I have another jolt xoming tomorrow. It’s a drag, but at least if my laptop battery runs down, all I need to do is connect the base of my thumb to the battery terminals, and I can get another few minutes of electricity.

Revealing Homily

It was a hard weekend for sermon-writing, but I did finally get something together for tonight’s service at Canterbury Northwestern. I’m posting it in the extended entry. . . .

Anderson Chapel of St. John the Divine, Canterbury Northwestern

Revelation 22:12-14,16-17,20/John 17:20-26 May 23, 2004

No poet could have ended the Bible better: “The Spirit and the bride say, ‘Come.’ And let everyone who hears say, ‘Come.’ And let everyone who is thirsty come. Let anyone who wishes take the water of life as a gift.” With such words as these, the Alpha who is also Omega promises an imperishable blessing for all who come out of the toils of self-centeredness, who disentangle themselves from the clinging to mortality. With these words, God invites everyone to share a goodness that overcomes evil. With these words — but not, precisely, with these words, because John included several words that our reading tonight omits.

The lesson from Revelation leaves out the somewhat less poetic curses that go along with the fine blessings. “Outside [of heaven] are the dogs and sorcerers and fornicators and murderers and idolaters, and everyone who loves and practices falsehood,” and “I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to that person the plagues described in this book; if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away that person’s share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book.” (When we get to the intercessions, perhaps someone will pray for the lectionary committee, who tacitly have taken away from the words of the book of Revelation.)

Those words are missing from the official reading for reasons we can only guess at. My guess involves the extent to which those verses sound exclusive, un-welcoming; perhaps they remind people too much of the Left Behind fiction. In order to produce a reading that can’t be confused for a bullying apocalyptic literalism, the lectionary leaves us with a smooth-sounding invitation. And by reading the passage without those verses I can see why they might think the literary grandeur of the conclusion more satisfactory. The lectionary committee has produced what is arguably a more elegant poetic climax to Revelation, indeed, to the whole Bible itself; but it has done so at the cost of muting John’s clarion fanfare, and substituting a vague, romantic-modern poetic aesthetic for the sharp-edged theological truth that John taught. I wonder, then, whether tonight’s version of the lesson trades off too much, especially when John himself warns us against tailoring his message to suit our preferences — after all, when you try to improve on the truth to attain beauty, you inevitably wind up with less of both. The lectionary committee invites us out on an eternal blind date with a God of whom it tells us only about the most obviously attractive side of the divine personality, afraid to tell us about what they fear we might think of as a less winsome aspect of God.

If you can’t talk honestly about God in church, though, where can you talk honestly about God? And what John says about God is blunt, but it isn’t so very outrageous. After all, John warns us against idolatry and murder and promiscuity not because he’s a spoilsport who hates to see anyone have a good time, but precisely because he doesn’t want anyone to suffer. Any moment of unwise self-indulgence that John can talk you out of, he wants to spare you, because John knows, knows with a vision seared from heaven into his heart, that there is no cruelty or greed, no hard-heartedness or falsehood that does not cost us dearly. Our wrongs matter, they matter to us and to the world and to God, and John, caught up in the Spirit that sent him these blood-curdling visions, blurts our the warning that our readings stifle: “Don’t think, not even for a moment, that we can presume to not care what sorts of lives we bring before God, when God cares about us and our lives so very, very much.”

In the end — and that is, after all, what John’s revealing to us, the Big End, the climax of all things, the fulfillment of all that we were created to be — in the end, John sees everything transformed from the shapes into which mortality and suffering and wickedness and lack have twisted them, into the image of the Good that we belong to. In that devastating transformation, the kinks and scars of our mortality, greed, hard-heartedness, even lust, are wrung out of us in order that God‘s strength, grace, mercy, and above all God’s love, may redefine who we are, always and only for the best. That new creation, makes no room for murder, for theft, for falsehood or betrayal; the water of life unites us finally and comprehensively with the God toward whom we’ve been climbing, climbing, from the depths and gloom of isolation and hostility into the glory we were created to communicate and share.

Sharing in that unity of God brings us into a new life, a true life, and John points out the way to us. But he guides us honestly, reminding us that we can’t climb to the heavens if we’re clinging to the earth, we can’t practice lives that communicate and receive forgiveness if we’re determined to continue in lives that demean, exploit, defraud and destroy ourselves and one another. The love of which Jesus speaks tonight, the love that unites God and Jesus, and unites us with them, excludes desires that grow from the self to the self, but that love shapes our longings so as always to recognize Christ in our neighbor, to love for God’s sake, to knit us together in peace and harmony.

Where clinging mortality and desire weigh us down and trap us, the Spirit and the Bride draw us out of mortality and possession; the water of life for which we thirst frees us from the addictions that kill our souls; and in the end that John reveals to us, the Lamb promises us, “Amen, I am coming soon.“ Without falsehood and without hesitation, then, listen for the refrain of affirmation ringing through all creation from the beginning of the world, and join in a final chorus: “Amen! Come, Lord Jesus!”

Amen.

The Spirit and the Bride say, “Preach”

Just a warning that I’m on for the Sunday evening service at Canterbury Northwestern, so I’ll blog out some ideas as they come. The readings are Revelation 22:12-14, 16-17, 20 and John 17:20-26; of those, I have a very strong inclination to preach on the text from Revelation, partly because too few people preach well on Revelation, and partly because many the impulse to preach about “unity” on the basis of the passage from John will swamp many pulpits this Sunday.

I’m looking forward to teaching through Revelation someday — though I don’t see when that would happen — but biblical theologians urgently need to articulate a representation of Revelation as something other than a literal road map for cosmic destiny (I’d set up the Left Behind series as a straw figure for this side, but from what I gather, these books aren’t even a good literal interpretation of the apocalypse) on one hand, or a facile de-mythological dismissal on the other. Occasions such as this put me on the spot to make good the challenge that I pose to my colleagues.

But for now, I don’t have the faintest idea what I will say.

[Later:] Well, I observe, for one thing, that the lectionary-arrangers have omitted some of the embarrassing verses from tomorrow’s reading. Rev 22:15 and 18-19 invoke maledictions on the wrong sorts of people: dogs and sorcerers and fornicators and murderers and idolaters, and everyone who loves and practices falsehood, and people who add to or delete from the Book of Revelation (now that part can’t be literal, since in order to make any sense of the thing at all we have to flesh it out, or trim some away).

One way into the sermon, then, might involve drawing the congregation (OK, the six or so people who come to Sunday night mass) into the lovely promise of the Spirit and the Bride — then probing the question of whether they can still hear the promise if we also read the verses that the lectionary omitted. The Church has almost from the beginning weighed in that although we may and should pray for all souls, although we may hope that all enter into everlasting blessing, that theologians may speculate about the possibility that God brings absolutely all to salvation at some point, yet the Church may not teach that all will be saved. If the Church teaches that at least some people will not accept the grace that reconciles us to God, why be embarrassed by biblical passages that say as much?

Second Opinion

Today I was examined by a different physical therapist who found no strong indication of tendinitis (she allowed that my regimen of exercise and icing may have alleviated the symptoms effectively), but mostly arthritis. She proposed a somewhat more specific set of exercises (does this mean I may leave off the first set? I didn’t ask), noted that the arthritis pain won’t get much better from physical therapy, and indicated that a cortisone shot may be in my future.

To scare me into compliance, she sent me home with a catalogue full of contraptions for helping people accomplish daily tasks. The contraptions themselves aren’t that startling — my mom has MS, so I’ve seen a number of such implements and admired their ingenuity — but the models in the photographs all look twenty-five years or more older than I. The physical therapist underlined this and said I looked way too young to be coming in with this arthritis symptom.

I opted to look on the bright side as I thumbed through the catalogue, walking home: she said I looked young!

Glowing

I’m quite pleased, today, to bask in the radiance of kind words from Prof. Barbara Newman, whose article in the most recent issue of Spiritus (Vol. 4, Number 1, Spring 2004) refers to me in very complimentary terms (although she makes a convincing case against a particular reading I offer of Donne’s “Holy Sonnet 14”). If you’re a subscriber or are connecting from a campus that subscribes, you may be able to read her article here. . . .

Just What I Needed

Rick, among an eager flock of my other friends, and spouse, hastened to alert me to Dan Brown’s intimation that he has more pop-folly revelations to offer in a sequel to The da Vinci Code.

Brown said the theory is backed by a number of "very credible sources," but that he ultimately decided it was too flimsy.

"For me, that was just three or four steps too far," he told the crowd of more than 800 people.

Based on The da Vinci Code, I have to wonder whether Dan Brown would know a “very credible source” if it bit him in a sensitive body part. Likewise, if the book he published wasn’t three or four steps too far, what counts as “outlandish”?

Oh, well; it’l make another several million badly-needed dollars for Brown, and another few pittances here and there for honest scholars who know what they’re talking about, clarifying the matters about which he waxes oracular. One might wish to inhabit a culture that valued scholarship and truth over fantasies dressed up as revelations, but it could be worse: He could be a bishop.

Thumb How

My physical therapist is disappointed in me. She doesn’t blame me, but she wishes the swelling in my thumb were responding more rapidly to my four-times-daily freeze-the-living daylights-out-of-it treatment, plus the silly exercises. I don’t blame her; I’m disappointed too, especially if she’s disappointed.

My balky thumb, and the $%^$# splint that so effectively immoblizes it, have been factors in my relative quiet on the blogging front. Those, and the pile of papers that take much longer to mark when your thumb is immobilized (whatever happened to oral exams?). For now, I’m still wincing in pain when I do dishes (note to Jonathon: Dishmatique can be hell on a thumb suffering from the dynamic duo of arthritis and tendinitis), and that’s after two weeks of immobility and ice.

There’s another reason I haven’t been blogging, but I’ll get to that in a separate post.

Making Me Scarce

[I just deleted this post — am trying to restore it now.]
The time that I might have spent blogging, the past couple of days, I’ve spent weeding the comments section of spam. As I go, I close the comments on most of the posts that the spammers have struck, to cut down the number of vulnerable posts. That still evidently leaves an ample supply of open posts, of which the spammers continue to avail themselves.

I’d have installed Jay Allen’s Blacklist plugin, but it seems not to play nicely with sqlite. (I don’t remember who missed the opportunity, these many years ago, to shake me by my collar and shout, “Go with MySql!” — but whoever it was, I’m pretty annoyed right now.) So I’ve been squandering hours de-spamming by hand.

A flock of papers landed on my desk this morning, too, so between spam and papers I’ll be busy for a few days.

This can’t be prevented from coloring my feelings in the present platform perplexity, but I’m with Phil Ringnalda: I’ll cut MT some slack and see what happens. We need to work out Seabury’s license, figure out what the Disseminary would cost, and so on, but we may as well at least try version 3.

On the other hand, some days you just want to throw your hands in the air and look around to a place you know the grass is greener.

Cheers, Pittsburgh!

Margaret and I are sitting in the Central Core food court of Pittsburgh International Airport, with free access to an strong wifi signal. Bravo!

Au Revoir, Durham

Busy days. Flying home. Difficult decisions to make about platforms. Amazed at the options open to us, but mind-boggled at having to make a decision.

Platforms

Last week I blogged about the possibility of switching platforms. At the time, my notions about actually moving from Moveable Type to another package were just wistful admiration of other feature sets (and the possibility of using OS blogging software). At the time, I imagined that the licensing terms of SixApart would remain stable for my kind of user. That estimate, as almost everyone knows now, was incorrect.

SixApart (I’m accustomed to saying “Ben and Mena,” but of course now it’s Ben and Mena and Anil and lots of other employees I don’t know) have the very best backing and leadership. I wish them all the success in the world, and I’ll thrill to see them on CNN and I’ll cheer when they overtake the Gateses and the Waltons on the list of the world’s richest people. They have made a wonderful software package, and I don’t begrudge them a cent of the money they ask for or receive. It’s not about what they deserve or what I wish for them. Go, SixApart! Yay!

At the same time, I don’t think I can operate under the terms of the licenses they describe, nor am I confident that Seabury will be able to afford MT 3.0. The Disseminary doesn’t really fit any of their pricing plans, and Seabury is keeping a lid on salaries — and I wouldn’t want to look my co-workers in the eye and say, “We should all tighten our belts so that Seabury can buy Moveable Type 3.0,” especially when one of the points I advanced in favor of Moveable Type was that it would be free.

Which leaves me in a fix, because there’s no perfect match for my weblog software desiderata. Open Source — because that’s something the Disseminary stands for; some canned-meat comment control, because I’m a comment vegetarian; residing on my ISP, not relying on someone else’s centralized server; multiple-author, ’cause some of what we do requires that; multiple-blog, because, well, we use and plan on using more than one blog per software install; made by friends, because I’m big on solidarity and encouragement and mutuality; cheap or free, because we don’t have much funding. Not because we think developers should starve; developers should live like philosopher-queens and kings, of the jungle, at pricing schemes that they alone set, with no cavilling from the peanut gallery. On the other hand, we’re broke ourselves, and I can’t redefine my grant parameters or family budget. Everyone at SixApart deserves more of my money than they’re getting, but they aren’t alone, and I have to make frustrating decisions.

So, Moveable Type will continue to be made by lovely people I want to support, with all the multi-stuff I need, perhaps some spam control (though I see Ben’s been afflicted with some grotesque advertisements in his comments, too), but not Open Source and not affordable; Textpattern and WordPress are multi-blog impaired, if I understand them correctly. I still have to pursue acquaintance with Drupal and the new Bloxsom. (None of the developers of these packages counts as a “friend” at this point, except perhaps in the orkut sense, though I’m a big fan of Dean Allen and Matt).

And then there’s Blogware — not Open Source, but very heavy on the friendship angle, not intrinsically “multi-” friendly, and not free, exactly, but Elliot and Ross and Joey want to bring me along.

And I’d like to be moving in a direction that won’t complicate my life too much if someone decides to adopt an awkward pricing scheme, or a black-hat develops a new kind of spam, or I make new friends or lose touch with old ones. In short, I think, I’m in a very awkward fix.

For right now, I’ll test-drive the software from the guys with the t-shirt. And hey, there’s always the new Blogger. . . .

Tornado Spotted in North Carolina!

No, it’s just Margaret and AKMA, making all the connections they had in mind for their Tour de Durham. We had a wonderful breakfast with Jeff McCurry, then stopped in to see my professor (and soon to be Margaret’s) Stanley Hauerwas, then had lunch with Mary McClintock Fulkerson (Margaret’s advisor), then went to the Bryan Center to pick up presents for Si and Pippa and Trevor, then through Duke Gardens to refresh our memories and to take pictures to show Pippa, then back to East Campus where we’ve returned to the Regulator for much-needed smoothies and wifi. Margaret learned a ton about the future shape of her program (subject to working out in reality when she arrives in August).

We’re about to wander the Ninth St area in search of dinner, then return to our guest room to retire for blissful, early sleep.

But apart from that, we didn’t get much done today.

Burning Question

Face it: at some point in your life, you’ve stayed up late at night with a bunch of friends, unburdening your hearts and tackling the big, really big philosophical questions. A Waking Life moment.

Was that question, “Who was king of the jungle in the past and who is king of the jungle now?”

If so — or if, having heard the question, you now have an unsuppressable impulse to find out what other people think the answer is (and tell Room 209 what you think it should be) — hurry on over to Room 209’s weblog to tell Ms. H’s second-graders.

Greetings From Durham

We got up early.

We flew to Durham, to check out Margaret’s apartment for the fall and to see Duke with new eyes, as her grad school.

We spent a whirlwind day visiting professors, student colleagues, and children.

We came to the student intentional-community house where we’re staying, and discovered that they have wifi, on which we had not at all counted.

We checked our mail.

Margaret is already asleep, and I’m about to be.

Congratulations

Cheers to Grace Cathedral, which won the Webby Award in the “Spirituality” category. McKenzie Wrad, who works on the site, stopped by here when I was grumpy about their design, and left receptive and gracious comments — which made it even harder for me to maintain my grouchiness.

I still think the front page looks too busy, and that that the front page of a church site (even a Cathedral site) should say something other than “here’s how you get to the interesting bits.” At the same time, part of my grouchy response probably derives from the fact that much of what they’ doing mirrors my aspriations for the Disseminary, only in somehwat different ways. They’e doing a wonderful job promulgating their message, a tremendous proof-of-concept that should apply equally to sites with a more academic focus, with theology that I can live with more comfortably.

Morning Edition

It never fails but that the more urgently I sense a need to say something, to set someone straight, to make a particular point, the less satisfactory my sermon preparation turns out. This exasperates me all the more, since that person really needs to get a message, or that point desperately awaits the convincing expression that only I can give it. Even when I begin to try to let go, to make room for a different Spirit to guide my reflections, the ego persistently reasserts its claim on my attention, to work out my annoyances and frustrations, fears and aspirations when instead I owe the people of God a less AKMA-centric word.

Well, after some struggles with what I wanted to say, this is what I ended up saying (in the extended post):

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Anderson Chapel of St. John the Divine, Seabury-Western
Acts 15:1-6/John 15:1-8 May 12, 2004

The kingdom of heaven is like this: There was a vineyard that produced excellent wine, from sturdy vines that had over the years survived drought, wars, and countless other calamities, interspersed among the glorious vintages of its best years. Some branches of the vine, however, grew impatient with their sedentary lifestyle; they longed to roam, far and free, to see the world, to send back snapshots of themselves standing on Mt. Everest or dancing in the streets in Rio. Other branches of the vine found their neighbors’ fruit too garish a shade of purple, and wanted nothing to do with those flamboyant grapes. Still others felt that this vine put too much emphasis on actually growing things; the important part, after all, was staying put and not altering the fundamental configuration of the natural arbor.

I preach these words as just another stick on the stalk; I have no divine authority to describe for you the fate of these various branches. I can, however, remind you of the promise offered us in Jesus’ words according to John’s Gospel. “Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me,” and ?Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit.” The branches may bark at one another over any number of topics, but the vinedresser comes and expects to find grapes. Good, big grapes? Happy vinedresser. Withered, shrunken raisins? No fruit at all? Disappointed vinedresser. And a disappointed vinedresser understandably takes steps to remedy the unproductive branches of the vine: pruning, burning, grafting.
You would be surprised to hear me say, “It’s that simple” — and I won’t say that. I will say, however, that Jesus promises that we won’t be able to bear the fruit of the Spirit except by abiding, remaining, dwelling in him. We don’t receive the promise of an abundant harvest for restless meandering among the various climates, vines, gardens and exotic travel destinations, or for devising on behalf of the gardener new, improved recipes for wine, or for deciding that we’ll bear fruit when we’re good and ready to bear fruit. Among us grape stalks, we have a direct commission and way of life set before us: abide in Jesus, and bear much fruit.
Of course, it’s easier for plants, which have not rebelled against God, simply to do their vine-al business, whereas we who have not attained to botanical purity of heart need to confer, to discern, to muddle out this grape-growing business. We have the odd responsibility so to constitute ourselves and our common life that we undo what has become the destructive, willful, wayward, self-centered path of mortal flesh and somehow to train our hearts and minds and strength to do what God shaped us for from the beginning: to outgrow our misshapen allegedly natural inclinations, and to make room for a deeper, truer, more fundamental nature, our God-given nature.
Speaking strictly as one stick to another, I’ll impart my best advice: There is wisdom in the vine. The vine provides us inestimable gifts that will, if we permit them, issue in superabundant harvests. However alluring your theological wanderlust, however irksome your neighbor, however unsettling the prospect of growth, abide in the vine, by whose nourishment and wisdom we will bear much fruit.

Amen

Sermon Non-Starter

I guess I’d better not point out the juxtaposition of a reading about circumcision (Acts) with a reading about being cut off (John). . . .

Sermon Stalling

Well, it was going to be about “abiding,” and the way that John’s Jesus indicates that we have already been washed by his word, that what we need to do is to abide. But that gets complicated, ’cos John also underlines the obligation to produce fruit (presumably John thinks that if we’re abiding appropriately, we will produce fruit. I’d just feel overwhelmed with the impulse to spell out the problems and some possible resolution, and I think I risk getting pedantic.

I gave up the line that would note that the Greek word here translated "vine grower" is the word from which we get the name “George,” as an occasion for reflecting on names, meanings, and ministry as a signifying practice. I do try to show some respect to the integrity of the scriptural passage, and whatever John was up to, it weren’t that.

Maybe I’ll go over to Acts.

Taste of My Own

I’m preaching myself Wednesday morning at Seabury, so I have to be extra diligent in preparing for the sermon. The readings are Acts 15:1-6 (the preface to the Jerusalem Conference) and John 15:1-8 (Jesus the true vine). I don’t know what I’ll say thirty-six hours hence, but the first thing that flashed across my mind was, “What’s the difference between being cut off (as a fruit-less branch) and pruned (as a fruit-bearing branch)?“ I guess it depends on which side of the cut you’re on, but going by the rosebushes beside our fence, there isn’t much of a difference between cutting and pruning. . . .

How To Be A Poet Preacher

One good start would involve reading this post by Jim Henley (link via BoingBoing, who found it from Patrick Nielsen’s wonderful Electrolite), and changing the word “poet” to “preacher,” and “poem” to “sermon.”

One of the problems at the seminary level is that very few people preach a half-decent sermon in their first dozen, two dozen, perhaps hundred sermons. Overall, the standard of preaching in the Episcopal Church is pretty low, so some people preach sermons that aren’t nearly as bad as the average; but most folks need more than three or four practice sermons in seminary to make significant strides toward fluency and grace in preaching.

Here at Seabury, we put a lot of emphasis on finding your preaching voice, and I don’t construe that as opposed to Henley’s advice to forget about finding your voice. The two divergent paths actually converge where preachers have learned enough about words (learned to care enough about words) and the way words work that they can articulate a voice that effects something more vital than the casual trivialities with which daily life clutters our conversations. Henley emphasizes the craft (and I’m intensely sympathetic with the urgency with which he presses his case); here, we emphasize the “personal voice,” but the best preaching draws strength from both. A personal voice without practiced composition amounts to authentic superficiality, and elegant rhetoric without a personal voice washes past as so much more empty P.R. (sorry, Jeneane and Michael; when I say, “empty P.R.” I mean “not the kind that my friends produce”).

It’s work, and it’s hard work, and people can get better at it if they’re willing to put as much effort into it as they will to body sculpting or playing guitar or designing snazzy web sites, woodcarving, juggling, or playing Unreal Tournament. If it came in a bottle, everyone would be a good preacher.

[End of rant. You may resume comfortable browsing.]

Believe It Or Not

An article in the New York Times about the Internet and Japan, and they didn’t get a quotation from Joi!

I call attention to this not because I figure that any time a journalist follows up a story on Japan and the net, she or he ought to talk to Joi — though that seems a pretty common practice — but because the article trades in the kind of cultural characterizations that Joi’s been highlighting, simultaneously to acknowledge and to interrogate them. The simple course would be to chastise the tendency to generate cultural stereotypes, thus mapping American/Western individualism (“everyone’s a unique individual; stereotypes are systematically misleading”) onto non-Am/Western cultural formations, or uncritically to adopt the general characterization. Joi’s been seeking the harder way to negotiate those oversimplified alternatives, more power to him, so he’d have had a valuable perspective on the Channel2 phenomenon.

The precise locus for the more interesting, harder way between individualism and aggregation appears in online communication, where aggregates (stereotypes, cultural characterizations) lack the traction that geography and the broadcast mentality impose and amplify. Online, a common-interest group has exactly as many adherents as want to adhere, no more and no less; but there’s also much less impediment to participating in such a common-interest group. On the internet, no one has to know that the exuberant, articulate advocate of gay marriage teaches fourth grade in the school down the street; likewise, if you’re looking for other Buddhist anarchists, you can find them (much more easily than you might if you were stuck inside of central Florida with the Berkeley blues again).

The stereotyping/individualism discussion and the controversies about Clay’s Power Law analysis tend persistently to miss the opportunity to observe that now many people enjoy the unprecedented capacity to affiliate with others with whom they share interests and temperaments, but also to grow beyond the expectations of their immediate cultural and professional circles — and the most active, unusual, vivid illustrations of this phenomenon appear not at the high-profile “A-list” sites (which I’m not knocking, just observing that the more a site attracts attention, the more nearly it resembles broadcasting rather than conversation), nor in the “I’m lonely, this is what I had for breakfast, here are my cat pictures” sites (the two categories that generate the vast preponderance of broadcast media attention), but in the sites at the elbow of the power law curve, where interesting people exchange angles and perspectives with other interesting people. If there’s no one there to talk with, it’s not a conversation but just soliloquy; if there are too many people there to talk with, it’s not a conversation but broadcasting. At the elbow of the curve, a moderate-sized group gets acquainted with one another, thinks together, develops a rhythm and pitch of discourse in harmony, and they make beautiful music together. It’s like Joi’s place.

Young Man Blues

Just got the insurance bill for our new, teen-driver-enhanced policy, and it really isn’t that bad at all.

Oh, wait — that’s not an annual surcharge, it’s a monthly surcharge!

Bad Music

A while ago, Blender magazine published a list of the 50 Worst Rock Songs of All Time, a list that either operates with a radically different sense of the word “worst” from any with which I’m familiar, or misses the point of worst-ness by a very long chalk.

First of all, I can’t imagine a worst-songs list that doesn’t include in the top five “I Am, I Said” by Neil Diamond, “Horse With No Name” by America (a band which contended for a worst-ever list with every single they released), and “Chestnut Mare” by Roger McGuinn. This is a sine qua non for worst-osity. No singer ever uttered syllables more inane than

or

or

No one. Ever.

Fisking song lyrics is easier than shooting fish in a barrel (did people ever really try to shoot fish in a barrel anyway?), and one listener’s evocative catachresis is another listener’s abominable nonsense. Still, these worst songs attain remarkable lows in lyric communication. Let’s take these in order.

Dave Barry has done the expostulative legwork on “I Am, I Said”; indeed, his complete oeuvre in the field of Bad Songs stands at the fore of “worst” analysis. Still — Neil Diamond deserves obloquy not only for the couplet I featured above, but also for his deplorable attempt at stylistic variation in the line that follows those two: “ ‘I am,’ I cried, ‘I am,’ said I.” He seals his championship by asserting, “I’m not a man who likes to swear, but I’ve never cared for the sound of bein’ alone.” What does swearing have to do with the following clause? Let’s grant him the characterization of loneliness as a sonic phenomenon (it did well for Paul Simon in another portentous pop oracle), but is Diamond disavowing oath-taking about his loneliness? Or refusing to cuss about it? Oh well, at least the chair isn’t worried by what it hears.

With regard to “Horse With No Name,” I need first to confess that I always thought that the last word of my call-out couplet was “fame,” which at least made sense to the extent that renown might serve to keep one’s monicker in one’s awareness. Now that I find out that America proposes a causal link between the absence of pain-givers and forgetfulness of one’s own identity, I’m not sure whether I find the song grimly fascinating or even more detestable.

I hate to pick on Roger McGuinn for “Chestnut Mare,” a song I for a long time conflated with another top-ten bad song “Wildfire” by Michael Martin Murphey; what is it with horses and bad songs? — but even an admirable rock’n’roll stalwart drops a leaden one from time to time. This re-entered my consciousness a few years back when Margaret and Nate heard it on the radio, and burst into the house demanding if I had ever heard it. “He says he wants to the horse to be just like his wife,” they cried; “He wants to brand her!” (For some reason Margaret and I omitted this portion of the wedding ceremony when we married; this highly meaningful, moving ritual observance must have fallen out of the 1979 Book of Common Prayer.) By the way, lest people think I’m inordinately uncharitable toward songs with horses in them, I’ll volunteer to like anything Doc Watson sings or plays about horses, with names or without, so long as he doesn’t marry them.

When I compare my own worst-songs list to that produced by Blender I find a few overlaps, but the one’s they think of as “worst” tends to reflect lapses on the part of otherwise reliable performers (Roger McGuinn-style), where I categorize “worst” in a more nearly absolute sense: What songs that won airplay and popular affection were, really, unbearably, terrible songs? I could add to the three litmus-test clunkers above. Throw in “Wildfire,” MacArthur Park,” the entire catalog of The Captain and Tenille. I don’t listen to enough radio to name alt-rock or hip-hop losers, but I’ll trust others to know which smell worst in those categories. But Blender’s Worst 50 falls far short of definitive putrescence.

On the other hand, they caught the theological offensiveness of “From a Distance,” so I give them a heap of bonus points. Then I take away some bonus points for the gray-on-white text, the function of which may be to prevent old geezers like me from reading the article, but which risks the effect of turning young pre-geezers who read Blender into prematurely bi-focalled geezers.

By the way: whenever I do anything apart from straight text in this column, I’ve probably cobbled it from Meg at Mandarin Design, whose page provides a spectacular resource for people like me who know there’s a way to do something with CSS, but who can’t recall the tags to do it. My only complaint about Meg’s generous goodness actually reflects on my own laziness: because I can count on her, it takes me longer to imprint in memory how to accomplish the design goals she describes.

What’s That On Your Wrist?

Shana, a non-blogging Seabury student (so I can’t link to her), asked me yesterday what the contraption was on my wrist. Not being as quick-witted as I might be, I told her straight out.

As soon as I had the chance to correct myself, though, I told her it was the mark of my super power. He’s Sacrament Man, whose hand of divine power must be constrained by a sheath made of unnatural materials (a plastic compound, bound to me by velcro) lest his power of blessing disrupt the course of salvation history. So if you see me bare-handed, all I can say is “Watch out!”

Thumb Body

Report at the end of Day One of the new thumb era: could be worse. The splint (formed directly on my arm in the treatment room — very cool) makes many movements awkward, but only a very few uncomfortable. It’s a nuisance, but so far it’s no worse.

The thumb exercises (and I feel silly just using that expression; Suw suggested that I lift ‘thumb weights,’ which she said that guitar players use to strengthen their fingers, and Micah proposed that I get a little workout ensemble with a cute sweatband to go around my thumbnail; Laura had the only helpful suggestion, that being that I ice down my thumb by holding onto a really cold beer) have become familiar enough that they go quickly. In fact, they go a little too quickly, propelling me toward the fateful moment when I must apply a block of ice directly to the swollen flesh of the thumb. That provides a strong incentive to do a few extra reps of my “hitchhiker thumb” maneuver, or teh “parallel plane” stretch.

No drugs — just five hard thumbous workouts per diem, and a clumsy splint. I tried washing the dishes this morning, and after a while Si gently proposed that he finish them up for me. He couldn’t watch his old Dad bumble through the scrubbing process. Which reminds me that I may soon be joining Dorothea in the ergonomic keyboard club. As a first step, I tried using a full-size USB keyboard that we had lying around the house, and I found myself persistently reaching over the keyboard to type with the smaller keyboard on my laptop — but I’m sure I’ll get used to typing with an outboard.

Diagnosis

Trevor was right.

The first round of diagnosis says, “De Quervain’s tendonitis, with signs of arthritis (‘crepidus’) in the carpal-metacarpal area.” So actually, Wes was right last year, and someone was right a couple of days ago, too. Everyone was right but my inclination to avoid a doctor. So, now a splint for four to six weeks, five sets of ten exercises (ten reps each), and possible electrophoresis, as the swelling in the base of my thumb truly impressed my therapist.

Convergence of Interests

Let’s see: at the point where visual hermeneutics, theology, teaching, graphic design, and catholic piety intersect, what would you find?

This.

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Right up my alley. The illustrations are lovely, the saints are wonderful, and the pedagogical (and devotional) power of such a device is incalculable. I have to track down the nearest Catholic supplies store to see whether they have any holy cards in stock.

Speaking of books, I couldn’t resist the temptation to try out Ben Hammersley’s Ego for authors, with one highly predictable result (that no one is talking about my books online, surprise, surprise) and one unaccountable result (that you can order the Handbook of Postmodern Biblical Criticism from Amazon.co.uk, but not from Amazon.com. Go figure.

How It Is

David wondered why no one’s talking about matters at Seabury — a reasonable enough question, although it’s not precisely accurate (with comments on Ryan’s Haloscan pop-up, and a follow-up here).

By way of overview:

• James Lemler, the Dean/President is taking a job at Episcopal Church HQ


• John Dreibelbis, Professor of Christian Ministries, is retiring at the end of the calendar year


• The Visiting Instructor of Theology and Ethics (my brother Trevor) is leaving for a tenure-track appointment at Bluffton College


• Bob Finster, Director of Music/Lecturer in Liturgical Music, is retiring at the end of the academic year


• Meredith Potter, Lecturer in Congregational Studies and Director of Extension, is retiring at the end of the academic year


• Susan Barfield, the Associate Dean for Academic Operations and Registrar, is leaving at the end of the academic year


• David Gortner, Lecturer in Young Adult Ministries, is leaving for a full-time tenure-track position at Church Divinity School of the Pacific

A number of these were predictable retirements, concealed from no one; one retirement came sooner than Seabury anticipated; Trevor’s departure after not even being interviewed for continuation in his full-time position could be no surprise; we’ve known for a long time that Susan would leave when her husband graduated. So the big shocker here is the Dean & President’s departure, and even that has been the topic of speculation since his name wafted through several searches for Bishop of various dioceses.

One of those positions has been filled — the one Trevor’s vacating — with Ellen Wondra, a theologian well-known in Episcopal Church circles. The rest have been or are being addressed by action of higher authorities than the general faculty; I gather that deliberations are underway to replace Susan and Bob.

Seabury’s financial condition is a mystery to me. We’ve been told that we’re on the verge of breaking even every year since I arrived, but things seem to happen every time, and last year we heard a dramatic change in the description of our finances between late fall 2002 and spring 2003. I think the place is fundamentally in adequate shape, and has been improving pretty steadily (granted the exigencies of an unstable national economy). I believe our present financial director will continue a pattern of strong recuperative measures, and should see us to a secure standing. So far as I can tell, no one ever lied to us about finances; things were in a confusing mess, and we were given the most positive take on finances at every point, but our problems involved hidden problems and over-optimistic assessments of where things stood.

So although there’ll be a lot of turnover — I’m still hoping that’ll include me, though there’s no positive evidence that the single remaining opportunity will pan out — and though our finances aren’t what they might be, we don’t face an immediate crisis. If I were called to another position this year, it wouldn’t throw off the Seabury ecology too much, which is a large part of why I’m looking.

All that being said, I wish Seabury were approaching this institutional moment with more strength, with more clarity of vision, with a different pattern of practices, communication, and administration. It could very well be an exciting stage in Seabury’s growth from a cozy, small seminary to larger institution with (sound) ambitions toward effecting a revitalization of ministry in the Episcopal Church, and with candor, determination, generous support, and commitment from students and alums, that positive outcome might just come off.

Time Is Close

Today I made my appointment with the physical therapist to whom my doctor referred me. Quoth Trevor, “They are so going to immobilize that thumb, dude.” Quoth I (with fingers in ears), “Neener, neener — I can’t hear you, Trevor!”

On Joi and Kevin Smith (Joi Probably Knows Him, Too)

Over the weekend I caught up with Joi’s provocative observations on the reaction to the Japanese hostages’ return and — coincidentally — read a graphic novel, Green Arrow: Quiver, by Kevin Smith that Si brought home.

The juxtaposition piqued me, since the debate in Joi’s comments raised questions of individualism-versus-community orientation, and offered examples for and against generalized characterizations of Japan and the U.S. (citing comic-book narratives as a case in point. At the same time, I had just read a very U.S.-centric comic book about a superhero who saves the universe (happens every month) somewhat on his own, but also largely in cooperation with his colleagues. So be it granted that the generalizations communicate some truth about Japanese and U.S. culture, but that in plenty of circumstances the generalizations fall short of robust predictive value — and the most interesting aspects of these generalizations come not when they’re treated as intrinsic qualities of national character, but when an observable tendency encounters circumstances that change the most urgent contextual valences of that tendency (when economic dislocations change class structure, or when divergent cultural formations interact, blend, clash, redefine one another). Joi spots a glitch in the cultural matrix; why would one not say, “I’m sorry”? (Well, there are reasons — but that’s the point of the controversy.)

The graphic novel and the cultural analysis also make contact inasmuch as one of Joi’s commentors suggests that Christianity contributes (along with consumerism) to an American efflorescence of “group-mind” (sigh), while Kevin Smith proposes a theological cosmology that alludes both to Buddhism and to Christianity. I admire Smith’s restless speculation on theological topics, but he’s one of those cultural figures for whom I would wish a little deeper understanding of the theological topics they take up. Of course, physicists who read comic books and watch movies probably say the same thing about their subjects.

I’m getting too sleepy to make much more sense, but the dissimilar sibling subjects kept my brain thrumming much of the weekend.

Switchers

Many people know that Shelley switched from Moveable Type to WordPress a couple of weeks ago; Dorothea is looking to make that move eventually; Dean Allen’s new CMS Textpattern has been hailed in many quarters; and I can’t by any means ignore Blogware from my Accordion City friends Elliot, Ross, and Joey. I have a hard time suppressing the temptation to change horses myself.

I moved over from Blogger once the limitations of that wonderfully free (as in beer) managing-and-hosting tool grew uncomfortable for me. Moveable Type seemed way more powerful, way more attuned to the kinds of fiddling I wanted to do, than Blogger was (or would become) — and at the time, the principal alternatives were Radio, Bloxsom and Greymatter. Remember the O’Reilly book about “Essential Blogging,” with four software options?

At this point, I should admit that I have never used the same word processing software for more than a year or so in a row. I used MS Word 3 when we got our first Mac, and then switched to WriteNow, ClarisWorks, Word 4, back to WriteNow, Word 5, WordPerfect (maybe my longest word-processing allegiance), AppleWorks, and now Mellel (as I flirt with AbiSoft). My file archives define miscellaneity in formats, much to my periodic frustration (does anyone make a WordPerfect to some-OS X-format translator, please?), but I decline to lock myself into an application whose features don’t correspond to the ways I want to use it. I shift among other competing applications, too — SuperPaint, ColorIt!, Painter, and (of course) Photoshop;PageMaker, InDesign, and RagTime; and so on. I learn to make applications do what I want them to, and if I find that they don’ do that, or don’t do it satisfactorily, I look for an application that does.

Moveable Type has been giving me some headaches lately — unwelcome commercial comments, and glacial rebuild times — and the contours of version 3.0 don’t signal that I’ll like it much more. I’m wary of TypeKey; much as I weary of dealing with comment problems, a centralized registration system doesn’t sit right with me (and, sad to say, that makes me hesitate before adopting Blogware, too). WordPress and Textpattern are open-source, which appeals tremendously to my Disseminary ideals. And, as I confessed above, I get restless.

Now, the Disseminary is complicated enough that it would be a brutal headache to transpose all the entries to another CMS. Most important, of course, I haven’t talked to Trevor about it. But the sirens are singing, and those new applications look so slick and shiny. . . .

My Daughter’s Vocation

Pippa was explaining to us that the library opens in just an hour and a half, and that we had to be there at opening time. She wondered whether that means that the library staff arrives at twelve, or that they arrive earlier and open the doors at twelve. When we assured her that the staff arrives earlier, she bounced her eyebrows and ventured, “Maybe I should be a librarian!” (Jenny, Dorothea, and Liz, are we bringing her up right or what?).

We encouraged her to think about that as a possible option for the future, and she responded that her lifelong friend Jenny says that she ought to get a job as The Singing Librarian, a refinement on the premise that absolutely fits Pippa, but might create havoc in many strait-laced institutions. Ideally, she could find work as a singing art librarian, but we can’t all find jobs that fit us perfectly.

Lost In The Flood

David Weinberger blogs in so many different places, it’s hard for me to keep up, so I missed the dumbfounding juxtaposition of the censorship of images of American casualties of the Iraq Conquest with the invocation of the deaths of New York firefighters in the WTC bombings.

If it’s wrong to show American citizens the flag-draped coffins of those who died protecting them, then it’s even more wrong to use such images for campaign publicity. Since the Bush campaign seems to have no selfconciousness, though, it’s probably too much to suppose that there’s a conscience at work among them.

Episcopalians Doing Something Right Online

Jordon emailed to point out to me that Grace Cathedral has been nominated for a Webby, and I take heart in the fact that any Episcopal Church organization has done anything sufficiently attuned to online life that a Big Award cares to recognize it. At the same time — and not to be a wet blanket — the site looks pretty busy to me, and it’s probably not a coincidence that a Bay Area-based awards body selected a Bay Area church as its nominee (possibly, of course, because sophisticated Bay Area designers worked up the site — but also possibly because Grace has a high profile locally).

There’s so much to be done, so very much, to improve the Church’s engagement with the web — and Grace Cathedral’s site shouldn’t stand out. Indeed, it ought to look rather stodgy and obvious, compared to more visionary congregations’ web sites. Till those congregations take the plunge, though, here’s a toast to Grace, and to the hope that this is a launch pad rather than a terminus.

Tenure and May Day

Just a placeholder here for a blog that picks up Joseph’s and Naomi’s thoughts about tenure in the context of International Labor Day (and the commemoration of the Haymarket Massacre).

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OK, I lost motivation to write about this in depth. The short answer is that I’ve begun to see tenure less as a protection for those who have it than as an arbitrary impediment to adequate working conditions for those who lack it. I wish that the institution of tenure were administered with an even-handedness and rationality that would justify its perpetuation; but when I observe the ways that tenure is awarded in conjunction with the ways that heavily-tenured faculties impede the full employment of newer scholars, I can’t focus exclusively on the paramount value of that perk.

Margaret suggests that my disenchantment derives from my present job situation, and I would be grossly self-deceived to suggest that that’s not a factor. At the same time, I don’t want to underestimate the consciousness-raising that Invisible Adjunct and her community effected (nor overestimate the influence of my out-of-place-ness at Seabury). On May Day, I’m particularly attentive to a labor system that offers precious protection and privilege to a [diminishing] few, while increasingly exploiting the least powerful workers. I used to see this as a struggle to extend tenured privilege to all academics, but I’m inclined now to see tenure as part of the problem, a basis for paying depressed salaries in academia. To tenured and tenure-track faculty, the administration can point to tenure as a tremendous perk to offset low pay, then they can turn around and tell adjuncts and other casual employees that they obviously can't be paid as much as the tenured. Teachers who attained tenure under one set of expectations now withhold tenure from candidates to whom they’re applying very different standards. And Alpha College awards tenure for warm fuzzy characteristics, whereas Beta University adheres to strict publish-or-perish criteria, and Gamma Institute veers from one standard to another depending on the department, and so on. In this sense, “tenure” isn’t a single job characteristic, but a variable characteristic whose expectations demand so unpredictable an array of possible qualities that a tenure-seeker can be driven mad by the earnest commitment to try to fulfill a tenure committee’s criteria.

If tenure doesn’t in some strong, clear way benefit adjuncts, then in the long run it hurts all academics. Time for an alternative.