theo|digital

On Labor Day weekend, I took a ride on my Like-New bike (a gift from my Dad earlier this year) from the North Park campus out to the Lake and Foster Beach. I had been a little intimidated about hopping on a bike in the city: lots of people do it, but the traffic can be sorta intense. But a route I found avoids almost all busy streets… most of the trip was brick houses and shade trees. Sweet.

Check out my route, both there and back:

View Larger Map

Well, I’ve been back in Chicago a full week now, and it feels like about 24 hours. Rapid change does that—seems to numb our sense of the passage of time.

To honor that, I will now spit out a paragraph straight from the Top Ten List Of What Generally Not To Do On A Blog. This is mostly cathartic purging, so feel free to duck and cover.

The week has been: Sunday night: arrive and crash. Monday: realize I’m in Chicago. Hang out with Tim and Em and Ty and Laura. Tuesday: Mourn not being in Colorado cause everything feels sticky. Turns out to be “humidity.” Have 3 hours lunch with Mark G. at Swedish bistro and catch up. Try to register for final class I need, a directed study with McKnight. Wonder where my bed sheets are. Wednesday: academic nightmare where my advisor changes, my directed study doesn’t go through, and I try to re-figure out my academic plan. In the evening, run to Jewel in city traffic to pick up extra chips for the welcome-back community cookout. Smile a lot. Thursday: welcome-back breakfast with seminary people. Still try to figure out my academic plan. Worry a lot. See my friend Dan visiting from Colorado. More academic worrying. Get appropriate new paperwork turned in, and head to suburbs for See The Family time. Friday: Naperville with grandparents and Aunt’s birthday, etc. Saturday: back in time to help with Seminary Retreat which actually isn’t a Retreat but is still a somewhat enjoyable worship time plus meet new people plus eat a huge lunch event. Saturday evening: actually stop living out of the suitcase and start moving into new bedroom. Take break to watch Arrested Development with Ty and Laura. Sunday: pretend I don’t have a Sabbath schedule yet and move into new bedroom more. Can now see part of floor. Celebrate found bed sheets. Attend Seminary Convocation involving The Organ and the Organist (plus awkward reading the names of new students that aren’t actually in attendance). Hors d’oeuvres. More new students. Take break staring at wall. Share beer with new friends. Monday: wake up in stunning realization that the first day of class is here, and you’re still not sure where you are. Attend Old Testament II (parallel structure), seminary chapel, seminary announcements, Starbucks, set up information fair, participate in information fair, catch up with seminary friends, turn in forgotten directed study paperwork from the summer, and sit down to recall that you haven’t updated your blog in over a week.

And done. (my apologies)

I’ve been incommunicado because my weekend rushed into this Friday, May 2nd, which was my 30th birthday. Wow. Had a great time down here in Champaign – 30 of my friends (not planned like that) joined me at the Dawg Haus for:

• 80 pieces of Kentucky Fried Chicken (there’s a 1-800 number you order from with Cheery Chicken People on the other end)
• 20 lbs of mashed potatoes (I made them myself because I wanted to – plus, nobody knows my secret ingredient)
• 48 biscuits
• 3 lbs of buttered corn
• 1 gallon of thick sawmill gravy (5 sticks of butter and whole milk)
• adult picnic-ish drink of choice: hard lemonade.

Honestly, it was just what I wanted on my birthday: some of my closet friends just chillin’ around the DawgHaus and me getting to host it. There’s something about being able to give on your birthday that’s a lot better than getting. Or maybe in the new economy of God’s community, those categories aren’t even that helpful.
—————-
Now playing: The Weepies – Hideaway
via FoxyTunes

I woke up “in the middle of the night” convinced someone was shaking my bed. Since I’m in a loft bed, it was if there was a lower bunk, and someone was bouncing around down there. You know… or we just had the Midwest’s largest earthquake since 1968. (USGS info). Of course, I concluded I was crazy and went back to sleep.

For about three hours, I’ve been sitting around trying to think of something poetic about turning 30.

It’s not working (though I did some sweet by-hand ASCII art of your name).

I think I thought, that because both you and I are turning thirty within four weeks together, that I’d be writing from an interior, inspired perspective. A truly empathetic celebration of what it’s like to be born in the 70s but not really remember Vietnam or where Tom Petty came from.

Really, I think we’re children of the early nineties.

Not that we grew up very similarly. You formed by Sports Center and Decatur and Nazarenes. Me by the Navy Exchange and pianos and AP Computer Science. Our sisters on opposite sides, our family tensions written all differently.

30. The best part of laminating numbers as landmarks is that you can make them submit to the mathematics of fear, such as realizing that we double our age (30 times 2) and you and I are both eligible for the Senior Citizen discount in most McDonalds. I don’t think I want that to be something I’m afraid of (I don’t know if you are), but there’s something in me that wants to see my life count so much, and my youthfulness is still pretty sure meaningful impact can’t happen past 39. (Yeah. That number’s already gone up.) It’s just that every time I see a live Fox News interview with a guy that’s 24 years old and the CEO of Tech Wonder, Inc., I become more certain that I’ve missed my chance to be Something. This is where my faith in God’s narrative is pulled thin: do I really believe that discipleship is a winning way to live life, or should I start buying lottery tickets?

Here’s where I’m planning on being all sappy about this whole next phase of life for us, except you know, it really is a whole new phase of life for us. You just got married. And both of us are leaving our “first job” to go back for some capital investment. I think the scariest part is not that the immediate choices are intimidating (though they have been), but more that the fog seems to be a lot closer to the boat. It’s harder to predict what’s ahead on the water in just two years. What five used to feel like. I wonder if the fog will lift again once some transition passes, or if growing in Trust means that’s How It Is.

Some important things to know about 30. 30 (thirty) is the natural number following 29 and preceding 31. It is a primorial as well as the sum of the squares of the integers 1, 2, 3 and 4. It is the smallest Giuga number. 30 is the smallest sphenic number, and the smallest of the form where r is a prime greater than 3. It is the sum of the first four squares, which makes it a square pyramidal number. Adding up some subsets of its divisors (e.g., 5, 10 and 15) gives 30, hence 30 is a semiperfect number.

A polygon with thirty sides is called a tricontagon.

The chances of you understanding all that is about 30 times higher than me.

And while we’re here for a second – I think that’s a pretty good thing. Our differences have sanded each other. Remember that conversation we had one time about not thinking we’d probably have been natural friends? It’s hard to know I guess, but being forgiven and put on the same mission has been an experience of closeness that I wouldn’t replace. And I hope there’s a lot more to come, both rough and smooth. It’s still true that “love, ty” at the end of notes you’ve written over the years is one of the most encouraging things in my life to keep on Jesus’ road.

Wikipedia (where else did the math come from?) also mentions that Jesus was thirty when he began his ministry.

Guess we should start growing our hair out.
The grey doesn’t come ‘till next decade.

love,
chris

ps – visit Ty Grigg.

When I was out in DC seeing Alan Hirsch and company, my brother-in-law offered me a tour of the Pentagon. His position as a staffer on Capitol Hill sorta affords him some privileges. Most of it isn’t much more than long hallways with florescent lights and office doors. But certain things mean a photo op. Say, like the Pentagon briefing room.

I don’t know what I’m trying to do here. I’m hanging on the side of the podium like I’m scared to be there. Actually it was sorta intimidating. But the podium was easily wide enough for two people shoulder-to-shoulder. Also notice that I would be a good briefer, because if I stood squarely in the middle while deftly dodging troop withdrawal questions, you’d still be able to see the Pentagon logo.

—————-
Now playing: Jason Harrod – My Mad Girlfriend
via FoxyTunes

Just some random quick news. For instance, have you seen that Starbucks is dropping T-Mobile as it’s wi-fi provider? The old $6 hourly pricing was obviously aimed at business expense accounts – I never used it. The new deal is with Wayport (ATT), and will offer two free hours of wi-fi if you use a Starbucks Card to pay. Smart business for them, free wi-fi for me.

And here’s the NY Times:

Black voters are heavily represented in the 94th Election District in Harlem’s 70th Assembly District. Yet according to the unofficial results from the New York Democratic primary last week, not a single vote in the district was cast for Senator Barack Obama.

Zero votes? And if it only happened once, it would be simple mistake. But it didn’t. Read more.

I returned to Chicago (DCA to ORD – UA625) on a unexpectedly delayed flight last night. Why? Because a woman refused to get off the plane. Seriously. We didn’t understand why the boarding process hadn’t begun until the third cop showed up (on a Segway). They would all hurry through the closed door to jet-way, apparently down there trying to coax her off the plane. Who knew that was a thing?

I’ve made it through Christmas and Ignite ’07 (albeit too busy for posts…). Today is the Rose Bowl holiday where we sit in Champaign and do the underdog cheer. Happy 2008!

I’m on my way to Orlando, FL for a GCM staff conference for a couple days. Missing classes: killer make-up work. Missing classes: awesome.