theo|digital

Well, it’s been a difficult road. I’ve been on a brief hiatus from the thesis for about five days—last Friday I turned in a full draft for my advisor’s editing pen. I’m afraid it’ll be rather torn up when it comes back. Instead of feeling relief as I expected, it was probably a low point, feeling like much of my 135 pages of writing was actually rather poor.

I’m feeling a little bit better now (though I haven’t gotten it back yet), although I’m acutely aware of two mental lists: one of edits in each chapter that must happen before I turn in a final draft—things like missing paragraphs, errors, footnote corrections, etc. The other is on general content—sections that I think could use an overhaul. The problem here is that this list is pretty long. I could probably edit and re-write for about a year before I felt like there was stuff here worthy of turning in.

Instead, I think I’m going to have to do the hard work of settling for something that doesn’t meet my expectations, or better put—lower some unrealistic expectations. This is my first attempt at answering a fairly complex question: how does scripture exist and work in a digital context? There are a variety of approaches, and inexhaustible list of questions, and not a few unprovable conjectures. As I hope to continue thinking about these questions for a long time, I’d rather think about this as an opening stab.

Because my advisor (who has enough responsibilities poured on him that I’m not sure how even finds time to read) doesn’t have my copy back yet, there’s not a lot I can complete from my editing lists until I get it back. Even so, I finished writing the short personal introduction today and this afternoon plan on generating a good draft of my bibliography (from Zotero) —something I didn’t include in my draft.

Final copies to readers will probably have to be done by 29 Oct around 2:30pm—Scot McKnight is only around on campus on Thursday afternoon until about this time, and I need to make sure he has enough time to read it.

Because I haven’t been in the rhythm of reading and writing, my blog has suffered during the summer out here at LT. Thought I’d have more time to post, but instead, I just dropped the habit as a not-unhelpful respite.

I can’t believe I leave Colorado LT in 2 days!

The return to Illinois and Chicago will be welcome, albeit a shock in temperature and humidity.

I still am planning on getting back on the blog. So I’ll be here. Just give me a little longer to get my act together.

Wow, has this been a trip. 15 days of final drafts, stuffing bags and sorting camping gear, reading reports, downloading audio books, filing paperwork, hurried goodbyes, hands on the steering wheel, catching up with old friends, fast food, endless Interstate, fast food, endless Interstate, fast food, making lists, shaking hands, phone calls, human resources department, project groups, troubleshooting, prayer hours, schedules, orientations, low-ropes courses, arms full, late meetings, raincoats, new people, new people, new people, cabins, Elk, photocopies, Safeway, tourists, Elk, staff cafeteria, losing my Nalgene, finding my Nalgene, coffee filters, quick decisions, new people…

and finally a Day Off.

Today I’m taking a Sabbath that’s been long in coming. And although there are still a few big early things to complete for LT, it seems like we’ve done the first few hurdles, and things are coming together. Which allows me to let my shoulders sink a little, and disconnect the to-do list from my head.

One of my personal fun tasks this summer hopefully is redesigning this blog and maybe even porting it to a new service (WordPress anyone?). We’ll see if this happens.

I will post a few things on LT, and hopefully a number of continues posts on theology and media ecology, since I plan to continue my thesis reading and writing (at a much slower pace, but enough to keep the brain warm for the Fall).

More soon.

Well, although the seminary still has one more official week, I’ve got to be done today. A little intimidating, although I think I’m okay. I’ve been relentlessly chopping a the academic task list, and today means one more five page exit essay for Ethics. That typically wouldn’t be a big deal, but I don’t even have a faint idea yet of how I want to approach it, and I woke up late.

I’d love to think that the finish line is gonna be tonight at 5pm and I can celebrate, and while I do have plans to hit dinner with friends, I don’t get any celebration or respite—I’ve gotta clean and pack and plan to leave for Colorado LT, not to mention actually be on the job to get our student leaders assigned and good communication with the YMCA of the Rockies established. The task list seems pretty overwhelming that already.

So, God, walk me through one more day of being faithful today. I don’t need to write a genius paper or make crazy LT waves—just need to be faithful.

Hard to believe it’s my birthday! I’m barely tracking dates. I’m trying to make a last push on my thesis before leaving town (making some decent progress, actually), and Colorado looms large–I leave here in two weeks! But for my birthday I’m gonna head with just a few friends over to the Chicago Brauhaus for some German sausage and beer and hopefully live polka, which sounds fun.

I’m grateful for my friends all over the place–thanks to those of you who have loved and supported me for a long time. Typically, I’d want to craft something more thoughtful on that, but I think today simple will have to do.

I realized last Thursday afternoon right as I was about to being my second class of the morning (“Church and Sacrament”) that I feel Done.

Done with seminary classroom learning.  Ready to move to the next thing.

By done I don’t mean “want to quit” or “frustrated” or “need to escape” or “overwhelmed.”  I mean more “done” in the sense we feel after a robust meal–the main dish still sitting as an invitation in the middle of the table, but receiving less attention than the conversation and brandy and smiles slowing the evening.  Satiated.  Done.

It’s hard to believe I’ve almost completed two full years of classes.  And they’ve tasted good.  Old and New Testaments, Church History, Christianity and culture.  Despite reading widely in Christian worlds before arriving, this experience calibrated me for the academic landscape of the history of Christian thought.  Gave me challenges and new ideas, but mostly taught me better how to teach myself.

This is important, because the one thing you find out fast is how much you don’t know, and how much you probably won’t get to.  Not even in the next twenty years.  It’s this feeling of swimming in the ocean of knowledge. I know it because I sense it every time I see a new pile of free books discarded by a professor in the basement of the seminary—available for the taking.  I’m too eager… reading titles, setting aside my stack… wondering how it’s possible I don’t even know how to *classify* some of them.  And eventually, if I’m not careful, my intellectual curiosity drowns me into irrelevance.

So I need to start moving away from the seminary book table in Life, and head back outside.  A few things stirred this in me in the last weeks.  Seeing pictures of my home church serving the underprivileged in Memphis.  Visiting a city home group that sat and discussed how to follow Jesus.  A long conversation with a friend that orbited the gospel as the only real answer to love and purpose.  This is remembering how powerful being a “minister of the gospel” really is.  How much I have loved this and want to continue.

I don’t regret this decision to take a step back and study.  I was so excited!  I know many of my classmates arrived somewhat “Done” in the first month (a side effect, sadly, of a system that requires an identical “professional” degree for those that seek pastoral leadership, regardless of their diverse gifting).  But I wasn’t.  This is one of the ways he’s made me—this crazy mental curiousity.  I’ve lasted almost a year and a half.  Sure there have been a couple classes that were partial duds.  And plenty of times where I’ve been exhausted from the work and needed rest.  But in general, my intrinsic motivation remained very strong.

But now I think I’m Done.

I’ll make it through these last requirements.  I still have several:  complete this term.  Then finish a thesis and six additional hours in the Fall.  But I’ll find myself looking toward the future.  Toward turning my gifts toward buiding the kingdom again, back on the front line.  Not in the basement.

I finally filed my taxes! This is early for me. My record latest? Sometime in July I think… . It’s a result of two things: 1) I’m plain awful at money and numbers and get flustered easily. In part because my pride kicks in and I think I *should* be able to do this more easily–I’m not dumb! But I’ve learned to be happy with the places I’m smart and just give up on everything else. 2) I’ve never once owed money: I just make way too little. Almost always I wind up getting nearly everything back. They really don’t care if you file late if it’s already gonna hurt you, not them.  I’m not saying this is good, mind you, I’m just sayin.

Anyway, did you know you use TurboTax online for free? Seriously. There are plenty of discounts out there, but they don’t strongly advertise this one. If you make under 30,000 a year or are in the military, you can typically do this. (I obviously fall under the first). It’s called the Tax Freedom Project, and it’s been around since I started doing taxes with Turbo Tax in 2000.


The sad thing is that they typically have no links at all from their main site to this option.  It’s sorta hidden like that.  I feel bad for poorer people who aren’t as Internet-persistent as I am.  This year I still had to sit on Google for 5 minutes trying to find it because I couldn’t quite remember the name.

I’ve been awol from my blog.  My excuse:  my laptop died.  :-(  It was almost four years old, which is like 60 in human years (formula – times 15!).  So it was starting to get there… but I was hoping she would hold out for a few months.  At least until Windows 7 became enough of an imminent thing that places would be giving out coupons for a free future upgrade when it arrived.

As of now:  I have a new… Dell.  Never thought I’d say that, and I’m worried I’m gonna lose some nerd cred.  But Dell seems to have improved some things… and I’ll post some sweet photos soon.

And be back to on the Theology of Facebook.  I’ve got lots of thoughts, and I’ve also finally got a chance to read Shane Hipps book (which is very well done – except for the few pages here and there particularly on “virtual community” where he just misses it–is even inconsistent with the rest of his book!  But in general his stuff is right on target.  I’m sure we’d be friends…)

Anyway, more coming.

I’m going on a cruise. Really. Like with a boat and the dancing singers at sunset and everything. Or something like that—I’ve never been on one of these before. It’s with one of our campus churches from Missouri with students and staff, and they get a really cheap deal and advertise it as good for rest. I hope so! I’ll be getting up at 5am tomorrow morning to start the journey towards the ocean.

I won’t have internet, so I won’t be posting here for a while. But let’s hope I get a good picture or two for later.

This past week has accelerated me to the absolute top speed I have. I could tell sitting in certain classes that my brain was over-CPU crunched and starving for extra cycles. Last I night I had to leave Romans early just so I could recover enough to do three hours in Contextualization this morning. My reading list is ruling my life!

Meanwhile, this weekend I’ll be traveling for GCM down to central Illinois to help at I-Life’s Fall Retreat–leading two training sessions on mentor discipleship and leading the weekend-closing session including communion. I look forward to seeing old and new friends, talking about topics I’m excited about, and getting away from the books for a few days.

And should I get one of these??

Downside: camera is reportedly taking as long as 10 seconds to take a picture!  And it doesn’t have Microsoft Exchange push, but I don’t care.  It DOES have a few feature the iPhone doesn’t, including gMail push, an amazing new “compass” mode for Google Maps Street View (you just move the phone to “look around”), and the thing that’s kept me from jumping to Apple:  a full QWERTY keyboard!

ps – I realize I can’t “get” a Google Android.  The open-source operating system will show up on multiple phones in the next year, T-Mobile’s G1 being just the first new example.  And I agree with Don Reisinger–there’s no reason not to expect Google to do well, even in the face of the iPhone.