« January 2007 | Main | March 2007 »

February 28, 2007

Evidence and Persuasion

I’ve been approaching the New Testament II class this winter somewhat differently from past years; whereas before, I divided the survey between gospels (first term) and epistles (second term), this time around I tried to do the cognitive work of the survey of the whole NT in the first term, and have been trying to get at questions of discerning stronger and weaker interpretations in this second term.

Certain aspects of the class have affirmed that decision. It looks clearer and clearer to me that it’s right to segregate the modes of thinking; it’s too much to introduce the conventions of NT scholarship at the same time I’m asking students to identify which are the strongest and best interpretations, and which are dodgier.

On the other hand, I haven’t quite successfully helped the NT II students arrive at a critical apparatus for recognizing stronger or weaker. That has a lot to do with the way the discipline has constituted itself; I’d argue that New Testament studies, biblical studies, has tended to induct new practitioners based on their intuitive apprehension of practices and rules that remain unstated, or are stated in ways unhelpful to a beginning outsider. I’d love to have the time to do some work on ways that biblical scholars actually frame their arguments — not the tacit arguments and warrants that we’re socialized to recognize and interpolate into the explicit rhetoric, but the ways we actually frame our cases (so that I could then work with students toward identifying which of these a particular article was advancing, and also could try to supply what our elliptical reasoning omits. That pertains directly to the project I was pitching to Rodney Clapp last fall, introducing students to biblical scholarship with very short manuals on “what makes this kind of argument convincing”; unfortunately, it would require a set-aside block of time to go through a repertoire of articles, highlight the argumentative skeletons of the pieces, and foreground the warrants, make explicit the presuppositions that stand to persuade the careful reader. Maybe after the next book. . . .

Posted by AKMA at 12:16 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

February 27, 2007

Back: Broken

The long-overdue essay on postmodernity and faith has approximated competion. It needs a conclusion, and it would be better with another round of sanding and filling — it’s constituted by refactoring materail from some earlier unpbulished stuff — but I’m at word count.

Posted by AKMA at 10:16 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

February 26, 2007

The Latest

After copious experimentation, Pippa and I have settled on our favorite peanut sauce recipe. We are sufficiently impressed to have begun contemplating the advantages of an all-peanut-sauce diet. . . .

Posted by AKMA at 05:03 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

February 25, 2007

Stress, Grace, Joy

I’ve been wrestling with two essays and homily for the past week — one of the essays on the current mess in the Anglican Communion (and I fret that it will hurt some whose friendship I cherish), and the homily for a memorial service for a friend. What with life at Seabury and these obligations, I’ve had a lot of restlessness and annoying, persistent headaches at the lower back of my skull.

But this is not about me. It’s about grace and truth.

This morning, I drove out to Aurora, Illinois in the sleet and rain, where I received communion from my friend and former student Charlie De Kay. Then the congregation — sparser than usual, due perhaps to the weather or perhaps to the prospect of a long-winded professor from Seabury come to bother them — gathered in the Guild Room for a talk about The Historical Jesus And Why We Shouldn’t Obsess About Him, and they paid generous attention, asked pertinent questions, indicated their interest in the follow-up meeting two weeks from now. As I was driving home from Aurora, I thought over what I might say at tomorrow night’s memorial service, and I had to pause to recollect in gratitude the inestimable wealth of blessings in my life: enduring friendships with wonderful students; a staggeringly spectacular family; a remarkable network of attention, affection and mutual support online; and more opportunities to write than I can fulfill.

All of this is not something I earned, not something I can claim by desert; I’m too frail, too compromised, too vain, too short-sighted, too limited in my capacities. All these gifts are pure grace. The joy of that gift surged over me this morning, on my way home; the stress and pain were transfigured, still stressful and painful, but linked into a complex whole constituted from the free generosity of greater goodness, greater virtue, greater wisdom than mine. That sort of gift can’t be kept, but only extended.

I saw clearly that I can’t do enough to extend that grace as fully as I ought. To this I testify: some things are right, somethings are true, much that is greatest is costly, and I partake of my innumerable blessings at cost to others. If I could make everything happen my way, I still would get things wrong, let people down, act on self-serving inclination. I am so sorry.

This morning I saw a newborn baby waving to his mother. I believe in that baby’s wave more than in any bright idea, any plan or proposal of mine. Bless you, child; bless my sisters and brothers; bless me.

Ralph said:

After a posting like that, surely the homily is no longer on your "to do" list.

Best regards,

Ralph Hitchens
Poolesville, MD

Posted by AKMA at 06:01 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Remix Culture

Thanks for the pointer, Micah! Thanks for the images, Flickrinos! Thanks for the song, Jonathan!

Posted by AKMA at 01:33 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Another Boston Story

Yesterday afternoon David Weinberger reported from the Beyond Broadcast conference; though pretty much everything he ever writes pertains in some way to online education, his report of John Palfrey’s presentation strikes me as particularly pertinent, especially the lines, “semiotic democracy, e.g., control of cultural goods, with meaning created by many, not by the few. More YouTube and Second Life, less Disney. But ([Palfrey] asks), will people participate? Will we just create the old structures online? And won't new intermediaries emerge to decide what we see?”

We’ll see — but someone’s going to forge that path first, without knowing in advance how it will turn out. Waiting for certainty that we can’t go wrong will paralyze us; venturing the chance of an instructive failure will set free our energies and imaginations to make possible the educational YouTube, the pedagogical Second Life.

Posted by AKMA at 01:17 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

February 24, 2007

DJ

News of the death of Dennis Johnson surprises and saddens me. My dad has always been an ardent fan of the Celtics, and he instilled in me an allegiance to the franchise rooted in respect for Red Auerbach’s coaching and Bill Russell’s and John Havilicek’s style. Back when I still watched broadcast television, I used to love seeing the resurgent Celts of the 1980’s: Larry Bird, of course, and Kevin McHale, Danny Ainge, and my hero, the Chief - Robert Parish. DJ played Celtics basketball: team first, skills oriented toward cooperation and harmony. Those games exemplify much that I hold dear, and DJ perhaps more than any other single player gave up spotlight and individual glory to reorient his game toward a collaboration with other extraordinarily gifted teammates.

It hurts to remember him as an ordinary man as well as an extraordinary player, as someone who threatened Donna, the woman he loved, with a knife. No excuse, no slack - that’s not what greatness is made of, and nostalgia and sentiment mustn’t paint over the dreadful reality of those moments. For whatever reason (or lack of reason), he stepped away from the fullness of what he might have been; but he and Donna stayed together, and he subsequently gave ample testimonies to his remorse and penitence.

When he died a couple of days ago, he was just 52 years old, just a dite older than I am. He was working off the ramifications of his transgression, and from what I gather, was doing great things with developing ballplayers (and apparently doing right by Donna). He had more of an opportunity than most of us to taste and embody excellence, and less of a chance than many of us to demonstrate transformation of life and reconciliation. Much as I miss the player he was and the coach he probably would have been, I most of all miss the years he could have devoted to regenerate love.

Posted by AKMA at 01:44 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

February 23, 2007

Cory on Jobs

Last time I linked to Cory Doctorow involved some degrees of criticism and misunderstanding, so it’s a pleasure this time to point out his incisive diagnosis of Steve Jobs’s double-dealing rhetoric about DRM and music.

Straight to the point from the penultimate paragraph:

Apple doesn't sell music because of DRM -- it sells music in spite of DRM. The iTunes Store proves that you can compete with free. People have bought billions of dollars worth of music from Apple because it offered a better user experience. But no one bought for the DRM. Some people bought in spite of it, some bought in ignorance of it, but there's no customer for whom DRM is a selling point. No one woke up this morning wishing for a way to do less with her music.

Yes.

Posted by AKMA at 09:00 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

February 22, 2007

Not Such a Geek

I sure wish Potrace were available for in a GUI version for Mac OS X. Am I missing something in the list of versions, or would I have to run it with command lines?

Mark (not this one) says:

The first link under "GUI's and related software" on the Potrace site is for OS X. However, you may have already discovered that, only to find that the installer doesn't work. With a little poking around, I figured out that you can install it by mounting the disk image, then going to Terminal and using this command:

sudo /Volumes/Potrace GUI/Install Potrace GUI.app/Install Potrace GUI[work]_app/Contents/Resources/install/install.sh

Hope that helps.

(Love the blog.)

mfh

[Mark overestimates me, but I’ll run and try this.

Hmm, neither the installer nor the sudo command seems to do the trick.]

Mark replies:

Hmm... I was trying to save you a couple of steps, but it looks like the installer is more broken than I thought, plus I lost some slashes the first time through.

Here's an (actually tested!) set of steps which seem to result in a good install.

cd /Volumes/Potrace\ GUI/Install\ Potrace\ GUI.app/Install\ Potrace\ GUI[work]_app/Contents/Resources/install
sudo ./install.sh
sudo cp -R "Potrace GUI.app" "/Applications/Potrace GUI.app"

Hope that works. I don't actually know anything about this app; I'm just trying to puzzle out what was intended [insert hermeneutic joke here]. Looks cool, though.

mfh
[Works like a charm this time — thanks!]

Posted by AKMA at 01:03 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

February 21, 2007

* Sigh *

This morning, NPR reported on an open casting call to find the next actor to portray the lonely Maytag employee. 200 candidates showed up, reportedly all men.

Discuss, not omitting attention to social roles, commercial culture, and ethics.

Mark says:

Well, social progress and whatnot aside, and taking into account that I have lived in medium and large communities in the north east, midwest, and Pacific... I have never once had a female appliance repair person come out, nor have I heard of anyone reporting that a woman came to fix their appliance.

I'm sure they're out there, I've just never run across one!

Posted by AKMA at 09:00 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

It Is (Mostly) Finished

This morning, Margaret handed in the last written exam in her dissertation process; she will complete the ordeal with an oral defense of her exams on March 2. The oral won’t necessarily be a picnic, and writing a dissertation is a momentous challenge, but the obligation to compose a short essay on a not-precisely-anticipated topic for the approval of five authority figures entails a litany of onerous stresses – and Margaret has negotiated them, finally. In a very short while, she’ll be ABD. Yay, Margaret!

Posted by AKMA at 08:48 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Quick and Brilliant

This morning, NPR reported on research that shows (what those of us who actually listen to bereaved friends knew) that the Kübler-Ross stages of mourning don’t necessarily occur in the designated order: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.

That topic will hereafter ever call to mind this post from Micah and Laura (I’m quoting it here, in case something bad ever happens to Micah’s archives):

[Micah]: Laura, I’m sorry, but Elisabeth Kubler-Ross is dead.
Laura: She is not! That absolutely sucks! Are you sure? Check again. Ah, what’re we gonna do without her? Well, I suppose it’s OK. Everybody dies.

Speaking of Micah, he points to Whispers in the Loggia, especially this post that announces that the Vatican web backend has gone Mac-native.

Posted by AKMA at 08:44 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

My Liturgical Bête Noire

I’m a man of strong liturgical positions, as you may have noticed, but the first among them, the thing that really chars my toast, that makes my blood boil, involves a modern [mis]representation of the eucharistic words of institution (the words that Jesus is reported to have said at the Last Supper, which the church repeats at communion services).

Many recent liturgical texts report that Jesus said over the cup of wine, “This is my blood which is shed for you and for all, for the forgiveness of sins.” That vexes me because no ancient source at our disposal reports that Jesus said that. The Greek texts of the relevant gospel passages say “poured out for many” (Matthew 26:28 and Mark 14:24), “poured out for you” (Luke 22:20), “this cup is the new covenant in my blood” (1 Cor 11:25); nowhere does a New Testament text ascribe the words “for all” to Jesus at this occasion. Nor, for that matter, did the traditional Latin Mass (“pro multis,” not “pro omnibus”), nor the Anglican Prayerbook tradition (“for many”). The Greek-speaking Orthodox tradition has always used the word that the Gospels scribe to Jesus, pollôn, “many.”

Now, if the liturgical prayer formulators would punctuate that differently, so as not to ascribe their “for all” to Jesus, that would be one story (and it would fit what I knock myself out trying to teach my students about proper use of sources). I’m not arguing that Christ’s death was not “for all” (though the simple claim is worth some carefully nuanced articulation), just that if you claim to be quoting him (“Again he gave thanks to you, gave it to them, and said:” — pretty tough to avoid the conclusion that this ascribes subsequent words, or their ancient equivalent*, to the speaker). No, the fact that this appears in a prayer does not render the rhetoric and punctuation of direct quotation somehow ambiguous. If he didn’t say it, don’t say he did. This, by the way, seems to be the reasoning of Cardinal Arinze, head of the Vatican’s Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments; the Congregation recently instructed Roman Catholics to adhere to the “for many” formulation, correcting the modern misrepresentation of these words.

Cardinal Arinze points out that “ ‘For many’ is a faithful translation of pro multis, whereas ‘for all’ is rather an explanation of the sort that belongs properly to catechesis,” and “The expression ‘for many’, while remaining open to the inclusion of each human person, is reflective also of the fact that this salvation is not brought about in some mechanistic way, without one’s willing or participation; rather, the believer is invited to accept in faith the gift that is being offered and to receive the supernatural life that is given to those who participate in this mystery, living it out in their lives as well so as to be numbered among the ‘many’ to whom the text refers.”

I would not, ordinarily, have cut loose with this point on a random day, save that I happened to notice that the proposed Anglican Covenant refers to “the two sacraments ordained by Christ himself - Baptism and the Supper of the Lord - ministered with the unfailing use of Christ’s words of institution” [my emphasis, but a direct quotation from the proposed Covenant; that is, a direct quotation in the non-liturgical sense].

* Sometimes smart people point out that it can’t be Jesus’ own words anyway, since we’re saying them in English. Well, yes, but if translation permits us deliberately to ascribe to others words for which there’s weighty evidence that they did not say, then the whole business no longer pertains. And if you want to argue that it’s a more appropriate translation, let’s see the evidence — evidence that had better outweigh the fact that the gospel writers chose a Greek word which corresponds to “many” rather than the word (that they knew perfectly well and used often in other contexts) that means “all.”

The Young Fogey says:

Dear Dr Adam,

As you probably know this is a well-known issue among Roman Catholic traditionalists and here you and I agree entirely. It's 'for many'!

That said there's the interesting case of the Assyrian (Nestorian) Church whose anaphora is unique because as handed down today it doesn't repeat the words of institution!

Which of course is not the same as mistranslating or wrongly attributing something.

Regards,

John Beeler (The young fogey)
http://sergesblog.blogspot.com

Posted by AKMA at 08:15 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

February 20, 2007

Well, Maybe Kinda

A week or so ago, I was interviewed by C|Net’s Daniel Terdiman for a story about the new extension of World of Warcraft online game. I was very positively impressed by his careful attention to what I said, the points I thought I were worth highlighting.

I got an email the other day from the Northwestern [University] News Network, too; a reporter from the network wanted to talk to me about online games. The story was posted yesterday, and although it doesn’t misrepresent my part in any vital way, it seems to miss the high standard Terdiman set.

Posted by AKMA at 02:54 PM | Comments (0)

Home Stretch

Today’s the second of two days devoted to Margaret’s dissertation topic, a reconsideration of the theology of hope in light of critical theory, nihilism, and Thomas Aquinas (it’s much more coherent than that sounds, but I’m hurrying). Tomorrow morning she’ll hand in this exam, and will be done until her oral defense on March 2.

It’s an all-day faculty conference here at Seabury, so although I’ll be benefiting from the pedagogical counsel of our friend Richard Ascough, I won’t be free to just unwind and decompress from the very intense weeks Seabury’s been cultivating. Just so’s you know.

Posted by AKMA at 08:45 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

February 19, 2007

Further on Authenticity, Race, and Music

I’ve blogged before about the problems relative to un-nuanced judgments relative to race and music, most recently in relation to my search for the “Young Caucasians” clip from Saturday Night Live.

At the time, I didn’t think to link this to Michelle Shocked’s long, tireless devotion to the problem of race and music. She’s spent more time working through this topic both in performance and in theory than anyone I can think of (cf. the album notes to Arkansas Traveler). So, when she stands at the front of the choir of the Church of God in Christ Church in West Los Angeles — well, what’s the authenticity quotient?

It would be tough to convince me that that’s not the real thing; but then, I’m inclined to believe Michelle Shocked about almost anything (except copyright, but that’s another story).

Posted by AKMA at 12:34 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Gospel

It is Reading Week at Seabury. Even with an all-day faculty meeting tomorrow, that is such a relief that I feel ten years younger (sadly, as Pippa would quickly remind me, that doesn’t enable me to feel as though I weigh what I did ten years ago, but I’m not complaining).

The weather report indicates a thaw for this week, with several days reaching well over freezing, and several days of rain (to wash away the tired old snow). It’s almost summer!

Posted by AKMA at 08:23 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

February 18, 2007

Sunday Morning and Saturday Night

This morning’s presentation in honor of Robert Brawley went well, I think; it was a shame that more people couldn’t have made it out to Bourbonnais, but the speakers made clear our admiration for Robert and his work. My observations on postmodernism as the context for Robert’s scholarship were well received, and the audience even found a musing a line that I hadn’t intended to elicit mirth (I’ll have to think about that).

And the night before, Pippa went to the Mardi Gras party at St. Luke’s (held on a Saturday, but nonetheless not called “Samedi Gras”):

Samedi Gras

I was not so well-dressed at my occasion; I should’ve checked with Pippa to see what she thought of The Postmodern Condition relative to Text to Text Pours Forth Speech.

Posted by AKMA at 04:20 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

February 17, 2007

Digital Seabury, Post Two

Earlier I suggested a selection of posts that pertain to the difference it would make for an institution of theological higher education to emigrate to digitally-indigenous teaching. Today’s blog from David Weinberger relative to his consulting visit to NPR (summarized by Jeff Jarvis, to whom I haven’t had a good excuse for linking in a long time, Hi Jeff!) raises, in a different venue, an array of topics that could provoke an established institution to rethink its mission in more digitally-coherent ways.

Posted by AKMA at 03:10 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Day

Writing. Errands. Exultant that Margaret had a satisfying effort on her exam yesterday.

Posted by AKMA at 10:57 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

February 16, 2007

No, Not Really

A certain member of the household — who shall go unnamed, except in the program of Oliver!, in which she’s playing the role of the Night Watchman and singing in the chorus — suggests that she found a source for me to get new vestments at a bargain price:

“The model even looks like you, Dad!”

Posted by AKMA at 05:11 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Three

This morning is Margaret’s third preliminary exam, the one on comparative literature and critical theory (she’s concentrating on nihilism). This is the last of the closed-room exams; after this one, she has a two-day take-home exam on her dissertation topic.

Send a few supportive thoughts her way, give her spirit a boost as she churns through this phase of the academic gauntlet. She’s coming around the bend, into the home stretch, and we’re cheering her on. Come on, sweetheart!

[After the exam: First reports are positive. Now, for the two-day take-home exam on her special area of concentration!]

Posted by AKMA at 12:20 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

February 15, 2007

Reviewing the Situation

Pippa’s starring in the chorus of the local homeschool production of Oliver!. OK, she’s in the chorus. But a couple of weeks ago, she was awarded the vital role of the Night Watchman.

On that account she gets a line. It goes: “Murder! Murder!”

I, being a diligent homeschool parent, have been working with her on her line. I cue her: “How’s your part going? Think you have a handle on your part?” I try to help her get into her character. “What do you think the Night Watchman’s motivations are? What’s his backstory? How old is he? Does he even have a name?”

For some reason, Pippa seems unimpressed by these considerations.

Posted by AKMA at 07:05 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

February 14, 2007

Those Who Don't Remember

Tripp was querying me about history, historicism, texts, and ancient credulity. He called my attention to Paul Cantor’s article at the Claremont Review of Books — an article I found very impressive, though I applied the brakes at the sentence, “Historicists always stress the integrity of a culture and treat it as a seamless whole, set apart from the rest of the world,” a sentence that casts the rest of the argument in doubt. The point is not an oversimplified generalization about what historicists always do, but the rare and extraordinary circumstances in which cultural production demonstrably attains a currency and affective power across the boundaries of cultural difference. Let’s not a write a check we can’t cash by saying that this or that work attains universality; we don’t need to. And sometimes historicists overestimate cultural seamlessness, but more often they attend to the complexities of how cultures determine meaning, and how meaning resounds beyond the cultural limits we might anticipate. (Speaking as a biblical theologian and a defender of a traditionalist-classicist approach to liturgy, I’m vigorously in favor both of attending to ancient texts both in their antiquity and of allowing that they may harbor dimensions that bespeak an unanticipated contemporaneity.)

This came up partly in response to Tripp’s having heard from someone about how foolishly credulous people were in the ancient world — so I pointed him to Lucian’s “On Sacrifices” and Plutarch’s (warning! subsequent link leads to a PDF) “De Superstitione.” And of course, to illustrate the foolish credulity of twenty-first century people, there’s always Fox News.

Posted by AKMA at 11:08 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

February 13, 2007

What I'd Suggest

This afternoon, my colleague John and I talked with the Dean about what it would mean for Seabury to become indigenous to the Net. We went over a variety of points — Seabury teaching the church; Seabury changing from a static, bounded community to transient, open community; Seabury changing from curriculum-and-units-driven learning toward something more like home schooling; and Seabury changing from degree recognition based on a credit count to recognition based on performance evaluation (my summaries, not John’s more elegant formulations). As we left, I urged the Dean to spend more time with the Net, to explore what’s going on there.

Among the points of reference that came up in our conversation, or that pertain to the kinds of topic we introduced:

• The presentation version of my “What Theological Educators Need to Learn From Napster,” a refined version of which was later published in Teaching Theology and Religion.

• The presentation video clip for Charlie and Rebecca Nesson’s Harvard Law course “CyberOne: Law in the Court of Public Opinion”

• Michael Wesch’s “Web 2.0: The Machine is Us/ing Us”

• The Cluetrain Manifesto (and with tip of my snow hood to David Weinberger, “Introducing The Book”)

Just for starters. Throw in “Blogumentary,” spend some time playing with Flickr, play Second Life for a while. I wish I could refer him to the Game Neverending, but alas, it has gone the way of all bits. (This is my house from GNE. . . .)

[Added later: Lawrence Lessig’s “Five-Point Proposal” for safeguarding the Internet, and his “Open Spectrum” presentation. He clearly stands out as a brilliant interpreter of law, but we shouldn’t let that distract us from his brilliance as a communicator of ideas.)

(Also later: Darn! I’d intended to point to the Democracy Player open source video device. Imagine a Seabury DTV channel — wouldn’t that transform our public identity (and with it, our own practice as teachers and learners) just by itself?!)

Posted by AKMA at 05:28 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Two Down

Margaret had her second preliminary exam this morning. It was hard, involved some unexpected topics, but she’s halfway done. Go, Margaret!

Posted by AKMA at 05:27 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

February 12, 2007

Relieved, or Not?

Nothing like two weeks of sub-zero temperature to make 29° F feel like a heat wave. I walked the dog in the morning snow, thinking, “I don’t need this parka. . . .”

Saturday night, as I was drifting to sleep, the thought crossed my mind that my laudatory address for Robert Brawley might be the next morning, not next week as I had thought. I drifted off to sleep, and when I woke up I was very sure that the address was next week.

Later in the day I was checking iCal to see whether I had a faculty meeting Monday morning, and my date for February 11 said, “SBL meeting/Brawley tribute.” As in, “AKMA, you just skipped the tribute and banquet in honor of your friend. People were standing around saying, ‘He said he’d be here; I wonder where he is.’ Instead of paying tribute to your admirable friend, you blew him off. You louse.”

So I drafted a letter that aimed for maximal explicit penitence without crossing the line into unbecoming groveling. I noted all the ironies and faults of skipping out on my commitment to deliver a paper called “Friends and Others, in Tribute to Robert Brawley.” I was fine-tuning my meek conclusion, when I decided to Google to pin down the timing of my blunder, and Google indicated that the meeting was in fact scheduled for next Sunday. So my question is, after having gone through all the agony of having actually missed the date, am I more relieved not to have missed it, or disappointed that the adrenalin surge and attendant rhetorical exercise in self-abnegation was for naught?

Posted by AKMA at 06:58 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

February 11, 2007

Sunday, Sunday

• Yesterday Pippa and I ran some errands in downtown Evanston, including a stop at Bookman’s Alley; I wanted to pick up an Edward Gorey book for her, and while I was browsing for it I saw a compendium of George Herriman’s Krazy Kat comics. This afternoon, after Pippa made a delicious dinner for me, she asked, “Would you mind if I borrowed the Krazy Kat book?” (Yet another win for the “they’ll find it” approach to learning.)

• I enjoyed mp3 blogs for a while, but the more popular blogs started changing their URIs, many new blogs opened up, and a few closed down, and the whole scene convulsed for a few months as the great big world discovered them. Last week, I found the Peel mp3 player/downloader application for the Mac OS X; it’s a very clean, smooth, convenient interface; I’ll be finding out a lot more about a lot more, different music thanks to this. Well done! (I expect there’s an equivalent for PC users, but my brain can’t handle all that I’d wish to know on the Mac side — sorry I can’t point to the PC alternative.)

• Week after week, I’m thunderstruck by how extraordinarily lovely are the people with whom it’s my privilege to share in worship and sacraments. Sometimes it’s all I can do to keep from weeping.

Posted by AKMA at 05:42 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

February 10, 2007

Thin Air

Over the past two weeks, I’ve had communication with two sources who are taking my Disseminary ideas to heart. It’s not clear just what’s going to happen in either case; experience teaches me that people rarely get the idea at all, and among those who get the idea, none have been willing to take it up and put some energy and resources behind it yet.

Still, hearing (out of the blue) from interested correspondents at a southern theological school, and (even more surprisingly) hearing that Seabury might be interested in orienting itself more comprehensively toward online education, comes as an affirmation for ideas that I had almost given up on seeing in play. In conversations at the trustees meeting yesterday, people were expressing fiery enthusiasm for the possibilities of letting go of impedimenta from conventional physical-space pedagogy, and letting Seabury learn how to grow into digitally-indigenous education.

I’m not holding my breath. But I’m curious to see what happens next.

Posted by AKMA at 08:45 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

February 09, 2007

Full Day

Right about now, Margaret begins writing the first of her preliminary exams (what Duke calls “comprehensive exams”), which mark her transition from doctoral course work to writing a dissertation. Think kind thoughts, pray, light a candle, spin a prayer wheel, but please keep her in mind.

And today Seabury’s Board of Trustees meets to make some intensely important decisions relative to the future of the seminary. I’m required to attend this (after my morning class), though I do not anticipate that my input will affect the process in any particular way.

So that’s why I probably won’t be visible online today.

[Update: First exam (of four) complete. No casualties.]

Posted by AKMA at 08:29 AM | Comments (0)

February 08, 2007

In Which The Trend-Resister Is Shown Up

When I first saw pointers to Michael Wesch’s “Web 2.0. . . The Machine Is Us/ing Us” video, I put off looking at it. The “Web 2.0” tag deterred me, and its trendy allure provoked my “I don’t need to see that” reflex. I was very wrong.

The video is terrific, suggestive (not in that way!), and it strikes me as very sound. I was especially impressed by the concluding section:


Well, that bit about family and love aren’t necessarily of the same order as the others, but the far-reaching changes in other fields will inevitably impinge on family and love, so I acknowledge even those two.

That video arrives at the same time Steve Jobs says DRM should go by the boards. Micah asked me what I think about that, and I respond that Jobs is manifestly disingenuous and self-serving on a number of levels (to start with, the iTunes Music Store still imposes DRM on music selections whose performers ask that they be sold without such restrictions)— but that nonetheless, he’s right. Others (who don’t have executive authority over the biggest legit distribution system for downloading music online) have said as much before, but it does make a difference when Jobs says it. If you drop the DRM and price appropriately, volume will more than make up for what you lose on file-sharing. Way more. Way, way more.

Claude says:

Your "The Web 2.0" tag deterred me" amused me, because how to call "it" is one point on which we have agreed to disagree in a work group for the promotion of "its" knowledge and use in Southern Switzerland, which I am member of. "We Media"? "Read/Write Web"? "Web 2.0"? For the time being the group is labelled "Noi Media", in reference to "We Media", but also because "noimedia" was a widely available user name in the web-based applications that are part of "it". And your remarks on Michael Wesh's video and Steve Jobs' declaration are really acute.
By the way, I mentioned your blog as a source in the post about Wesch's video in the work group's blog. See http://noimedia.iobloggo.com/archive.php?eid=84.

Posted by AKMA at 10:34 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Thinking and Rethinking

Behind the facade of composure this week, I’ve been seething with annoyance and frustration over a series of irritations. I know that one should never ascribe to malice what can adequately be explained by incompetence, but sometimes one confronts a situation in which one’s respect for others obliges one to ponder which is more charitable: to think someone else foolish, or to think them malign? And since I think that artificial forced choices signal a perniciously constrained imagination, what besides malice or incompetence might explain startlingly misguided behavior?

In such circumstances, this morning’s epistle lesson included 2 Timothy 2:23-25, “Have nothing to do with stupid and senseless controversies; you know that they breed quarrels. And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kindly to everyone, an apt teacher, patient, correcting opponents with gentleness.” Oooops.

Posted by AKMA at 10:18 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

February 07, 2007

Elton, Pete. . . Ray?

Since aging rockers have made so prominent a transition to musical theater recently — Elton John working on a couple of musicals, Pete Townshend, you could even include the Andrew Lloyd Webber who started, after all, with Jesus Christ Superstar — it’s about time for someone to take up Ray Davies’s oeuvre. He’s always been oriented toward the musical/revue/“rock opera” genre; over the years, he’s constructed more-or-less fully realized versions of Preservation, Soap Opera, and Schoolboys In Disgrace, but I suspect that Arthur (or The Decline and Fall of the British Empire), or Village Green Preservation Society, or Muswell Hillbillies would provide promising material for that transition.

Better yet: Sleepwalker or Misfits, perhaps forged into one. Let’s do lunch; my people will talk to your people.

Posted by AKMA at 12:29 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

February 06, 2007

Refreshing Experience

Last week I chatted a bit with Daniel Terdiman about the new edition of World of Warcraft, and in the article he submitted to C|Net, he not only got my name correct (not at all something I rely on) but represented very fairly what I said to him. There’s more I would like to say, of course, but that’s almost always true.

(Terdiman’s using Blogspot as an online resume makes tons of sense. If I had more than a few seconds, I might whip up such a device. Flexible, updateable, and Google-friendly!)

Posted by AKMA at 12:22 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

February 05, 2007

In Case You Were Wondering

It really is that cold. Colder, maybe.

I realize that it’s colder some places, colder longer some places. But this is plenty cold for us. And the Bears lost.

Posted by AKMA at 08:07 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

February 04, 2007

Preaching: Don't Assert, Evoke

OK, it’s been a while since I’ve heard a sermon — not quite forty-eight hours — so I can write something about preaching that doesn’t apply to any particular recent homily.

Last time, I said, “Don’t write checks you can’t cash.” This morning’s admonition is less metaphorical: Don’t assert when you can evoke.

Often, unnervingly often, preachers will pull the sermon to a dead stop and tell the congregation that what they just said was noteworthy, startling, moving, or whatever. “His love is amazing.” “Stop and think about that.” Sometimes they tell the congregation how they ought to feel.

I vigorously support affective preaching, no question. The sermon should affect the congregation not by naming a feeling then stating that the congregation should feel it — that’s no more pertinent than when you might tell the person on whom you have a crush that they should love you, too. Ummm, if it ain’t already happening, then telling people to feel it won’t help.

The sort of preaching that seeps into people’s hearts, that changes the way they look at the world, involves bringing to the fore and articulating feelings that your listeners might not have understood in the way you’re suggesting. It involves showing them familiar sights with highlighting, with coloration, with particular sorts of reinforcement and emphasis, so that they make unfamiliar associations (associations that stick, intensified by the feelings that the service and the sermon evoke and heighten). Sermons that affect people in the soundest, truest ways bring truth (the deep truth, the truth that necessarily involves non-demonstrable, deeper-than-words truth that emerges from between, around the things you say explicitly) not by stating propositions and cajoling a congregation into assenting to them, but by providing the conditions that draw forth assent, even more than assent, affirmation or conviction.

Is that manipulative? Yes, in way. There’s no way on earth to stand up in front of a crowd and talk to them that doesn’t involve some sort of manipulation. Preachers imperil their congregations and themselves weekly; again, all the more reason to do this carefully, deliberately, and to do it toward the end of a considered (and intersubjective) truth. The rhetorical tradition through the ages recognizes the power of discourse, and the ethical problems that preaching, writing, oratory involve. We do not evade those problems by speaking off the cuff, saying just what occurs to us, submitting “just my perspective” on matters of transcendent importance. And it’s part of the reason I understand pacificism, non-coercion, to constitute a cardinal mark of the Christian tradition: our only claim to integrity rests in a transparent, free, visible connection to the truth. Otherwise, it’s all just more marketing hype. Evangelism as Super Bowl advertising.

If you want people to share a feeling of awe, or shame, or joy, or gratitude, you don’t just tell them to feel it — you construct the sermon so as to evoke that feeling. Careful composition puts more responsibility on the preacher, requires deliberation, entails a kind of attention to what you say and how it works. Most preachers shun that sort of craftsmanship (someone please come up with a duly gender-inclusive word for “craftsman”); it’s just plain hard. But if you won’t put in the effort to draw feelings out from the congregation, don’t bother just saying “Feel this.” You might as well start a career in stand-up comedy and tell your audience, “This is funny: laugh at it. C’mon, laugh!”

Travis says:

In your sentence with craftsmanship – how about artistic duty.

Most preachers shun that sort of “artistic duty”; it’s just plain hard.

I cant think of a gender neutral term. Oh well.

Peace

Trav

[“Artistic duty” opens the topic up, but it sounds a little different to me: more compulsory, less a matter of voluntary earnest diligence, attention to detail. And “artistic” risks invoking mystified associations of “inspiration” and “creativity” (however much I might insist that artistry involves the disciplined practice of a craft). I’ll keep working on it.]

Posted by AKMA at 09:30 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

February 03, 2007

Nostalgia or Truth?

Few people can escape a degree of nostalgic amplification of how much their present conditions differ from their pasts. Sometimes they frame narratives of redemption — “I was a depraved sinner, but now I’m clean,” or “The oppressors had their boot on our necks, but we finally threw off the chains of our servitude” — and sometimes they’re myths of a Golden Age from which we’ve fallen (on one hand, the ideal American Family Home of Eisenhower’s fifties, or the social activism of the sixties and early seventies). Granted that there’s a decent chance that things are getting better or worse (though we shouldn’t minimize the likelihood that life continues at a pretty steady state of trading off improvements and decline), experience teaches us that people show a strong tendency to exaggerate the scale of the alleged change over time.

That being said: in the past weeks, we’ve seen the ludicrous antics of Boston politicians accusing ingenious PR flacks of inciting terror (when the “terror” had more to do with the law enforcement officials’ ignorance than any danger associated with the LED advertisements) and the disingenuousness of the Bush regime’s effort to escalate their war against Iraq, to Joe Biden’s stunning unselfconscious racism. The institutionalization of fear and folly seems increasingly entrenched, increasingly stifling.

All the more poignant, then, was my flash of recognition yesterday when the Gospel Mission class screened a television documentary that reminded me how wrong Joe Biden was: Barack Obama (whatever his gifts and charms) was not “the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and. . . nice-looking” to run for President.

Shirley Chisholm was. (Lest anyone sniff that Biden said a “mainstream” candidate, they should recall that Chisholm won 152 delegates under conditions inimical to outsider candidates.)

As I look back on my formative years, I think that if anything ever impressed me with the majesty, the brilliance, the truth of what the United States might stand for, it was the presence of Shirley Chisholm on the political scene. If anything might enkindle my hope for this nation, it would require a stature, an integrity that tapped the deep reservoirs of trusting admiration Shirley Chisholm inspired in me. But I’m not holding my breath.

My Mom says:

I disagree totally with you on the Boston "terrorist" scare. Thank heaven they have learned how to behave given as many objects in high traffic areas. Were they supposed to know the cartoon characters? I had never heard of them, much less seen any of them. There you go.

Tell Pippa I love oatmeal too, specially with brown sugar! I have it almost every day. Happy day after Ground Hog's day! xxx, mom

[I know about Aqua Teen Hunger force only from having heard Nate and Si talk about it; I wouldn’t have recognized the image had I seen it. At the same time, unless we’re willing to live in a world where any unfamiliar thing with flashing diodes signifies “bomb” (and “unfamiliar” to whom?), I would argue that authorities need to respond not simply with panicky preventive measures, but with informed caution, better-informed caution. Were the municipalities that didn’t go into convulsions over ATHF gadgets “irresponsible” not to, or were they just more level-headed?]

Posted by AKMA at 12:47 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

February 02, 2007

Life With Pippa

Last night, I was preparin