A few random links I came across today thanks to Twitter:
My little side project, Start Seeing Art–which maps and identifies public art in the Twin Cities of St. Paul and Minneapolis–hit 100 yesterday. The site has now mapped 100 pieces of public artwork.
It’s been a fun little project. I’ve really enjoyed discovering local art and finding some of our own local artists. Folks like Alvin Carter, Seitu Jones, Craig David, Ta-coumba Aiken, Marilyn Lindstrom and others–their work is all over the Twin Cities. I think Craig David pretty much owns St. Paul’s West Side (the West Side Citizen’s Organization named him “West Sider of the Year”). I’ve mapped nine of his works, seven of which are on the West Side. And I know of a few others I haven’t covered yet.
It’s also painfully clear that I have a long way to go. I’ve focused on St. Paul because it’s closer and I know it better, but I’ve barely scratched the surface of public art in Minneapolis. And they’ve probably got a lot more public art than St. Paul.
It’s currently 11 degrees below zero. The expected high today is 2 degrees below zero. Wind chill could be -35 to -45.
So it struck me as odd this morning when I felt a rush of cold air from the fridge as I pulled out the milk and orange juice. It’s freezing outside. So we heat our homes. But then we need some things cold, so we use even more energy to refrigerate a box within that heated home. I could set my ice cream on the porch and do the same thing for free.
I understand all the ways a fridge is necessary and helpful, and I don’t have any better ideas. I’m just saying it’s kind of funny when you think about the contradictory efforts we go to for the sake of convenience.
A couple weeks ago I headed out to Anaheim, Calif., for the Foursquare NextGen Summit ’07, a cause-oriented youth event that I did a lot of writing for. I’m not generally a fan of high-energy, emotional events, but I did appreciate some of the speakers. What follows are a few quotes I found especially poignant or interesting.
I’ve been playing with Twitter a lot the past week or so. What is Twitter? I don’t know–ask Wikipedia. Twitter is kind of like mini-blogging because you’re limited to 140 characters, but the updates are also broadcast all over the place–RSS, Facebook, blogs, cell phones, IM, etc. You follow other people’s tweets (yes, it has its own lingo–that’s how you know it’s cool) and a flow develops. It’s just another interesting medium to play around with.
So what’s the point? I don’t know.
It feels very much like every other Internet fad that comes along where nobody gets it at first but a few people dive in and love it and then those who didn’t get it start to get it and then as it starts to get big the people who loved it don’t love it so much anymore and they find something new to dive into and the whole process continues. It’s the circle of life–or tech trends anyway.
Back by popular demand (cue crickets) is my annual reading list. 2007 was shaping up to be a terrible year for reading, but then I went on a sci-fi kick and doubled my reading output in a few months. Then I fell off the wagon again. I’m just now getting back on. Such is life.
You can also check out my previous reading lists: 2006, 2005, 2004, 2003, 2002 and 2001.
One thing I learned from our small group tonight was that Jesus liked to hang out. Throughout the New Testament he spends a lot of time just hanging out with people. He’s not doing anything productive, he’s just hanging out. That Jesus–what a bum.
But I think Jesus was intentionally modeling the value of relationships. In many ways I think our faith is worked out in our relationships with others. When I’m really close to people I don’t have to do anything with them. We can just hang out.
That emphasis on hanging out is repeated with the early church in Acts when we see them sharing meals together (another thing Jesus did a lot).
Contrary to what we may think, Christianity cannot be lived in a vacuum. No Christian is an island. We need each other. There’s value in just being with other people.
Too bad we spend so much of our lives isolated–alone in our cars, alone in our cubicles, alone in front of our computers (oops). Maybe we need to get together more often and just be together.
Over New Year’s I went to Anaheim, Calif., for the Foursquare NextGen Summit ’07, an event that challenged students to imagine how they could change their world, specifically by embracing orphans, stopping human trafficking and fighting poverty. At the same time I was reading the book Don’t Waste Your Life by John Piper. Both of these were work projects, but they fit together nicely.
Both had a powerful theme of doing practical things to make the world a better place. Both were about putting Christianity in action (is there any other way? Sadly, yes, the church seems to have found an inactive path).
And now I’m wrestling with what these things practically mean for my life. (And I’m really just rambling here, so don’t expect much to be coherent.)
On Friday three Priority Mail envelopes arrived with our passports. My picture makes me look creepy. Doesn’t help that Lexi and I had to retake our passport photos because ProEx screwed them up (don’t worry, we got our money back). But we have our passports, so we’re one step closer.
This week we go in to get fingerprinted for the Department of Homeland Security. Another step closer.
I’ve also started reading There Is No Me Without You, a book Abby already read. It’s the staggering story of orphans and HIV/AIDS in Ethiopia and one woman who took in dozens of orphaned children, turning her two-bedroom home into a makeshift foster care center. I haven’t finished it yet, but it’s already challenging and convicting, both because of the incredible indifference of Westerners to the plight of the poor and oppressed around the world, and the incredible need.
Not too long ago I went on a sci-fi bender and confessed my love for post-apocalyptic fiction. So it was really only a matter of time before I checked out last year’s new TV drama Jericho (and thanks to the joyous world of glitchy online video, I can catch up for free). The show focuses on an isolated Kansas town after nuclear blasts (war? terrorism?) leave the United States decimated.
It’s basically the story I imagined again and again while playing G.I. Joe during summer vacations in Kansas. At one point I even plotted my own post-apocalyptic/Christian end times crossover novel. It involved turning the state of Kansas into a concentration camp for Christians and a young convert running supplies in a beat-up Mustang. The hero even had a bloodied Bible that belonged to his martyred parents. Not exactly my best work.