-
Found this site that lets you see visually which countries you have been to and which states in the USA.
Seems I have been to 19 Countries (8% of possible countries).
create your own visited countries mapAnd to 19 State of the USA (37% of possible states)
create your own visited states map
or check out these Google Hacks.So much left to see of the world.
Technorati Tags: States Visited, Countries Visited, Visual Map
-
Exclusion and Embrace: Miroslav Volf
Buy UK – £12.41
Buy USA – $16.32
Buy and download as PDF – $11.20
————–Now my dissertation is submitted, I am footloose and fancy free for reading. So I am diving into this book by Miroslav Volf, as the requested preparation for the Emergent Theological Conversation 6-7th Feb 2006. I’ll be posting most of my comments from reading on the events discussion board. For major things I reflect on, I’ll put them here over the next few weeks.
Giving this award winning book a quick survey, it seems that this is not an abstract academic book detached from the world. Rather in it’s ‘306 pages, the Croatian theologian Miroslav Volf shares the lessons he was teaching his seminary students while Serbian forces were establishing rape camps in and around his hometown‘.
My take on the book is that in a world of increasing individuation, people are finding themselves in an ever narrowing circle of relationships, excluding others, as we lack the ability to relate. This ‘exclusion’ is seen in the anger and fear we have to others, from the violence of terrorism, global poverty, wars, partisan politics, church polarizations, and the general inability of people to connect in community of any sort. Volf suggest the the metaphor of ‘Embrace’, as a response to ‘exclusion’ to encapsulate the rest of his theology in the book. A book that deals with issues of international conflict, and the plight of fallen humanity, but also the disconnection of people from each other in general.
Looks very good.
-
As a community we celebrated the four sundays of advent and finished the lead up to christmas with a Christmas eve gathering. Mulled wine, mince pies, community carol singing, a huge christmas service, lots of visitors from our community, images of candles, and more candles, prayers, reflections, missional events with children’s hospital, crisis at christmas and vine project. Time with friends, family, wine, laughter, and reflection.
The more time we spend preparing for christmas, the more I seem to enjoy it, and this year was one of the best yet for me personally.
More photos:
#flickr_badge_source_txt {padding:0; font: 11px Arial, Helvetica, Sans serif; color:#666666;}
#flickr_badge_icon {display:block !important; margin:0 !important; border: 1px solid rgb(0, 0, 0) !important;}
#flickr_icon_td {padding:0 5px 0 0 !important;}
.flickr_badge_image {text-align:center !important;}
.flickr_badge_image img {border: 1px solid black !important;}
#flickr_www {display:block; padding:0 10px 0 10px !important; font: 11px Arial, Helvetica, Sans serif !important; color:#3993ff !important;}
#flickr_badge_uber_wrapper a:hover,
#flickr_badge_uber_wrapper a:link,
#flickr_badge_uber_wrapper a:active,
#flickr_badge_uber_wrapper a:visited {text-decoration:none !important; background:inherit !important;color:#3993ff;}
#flickr_badge_wrapper {background-color:#ffffff;border: solid 1px #000000}
#flickr_badge_source {padding:0 !important; font: 11px Arial, Helvetica, Sans serif !important; color:#666666 !important;}www.flickr.com
-
Essex-born Jonathan Ive, 38, Apple’s vice-president of industrial design, is made a Commander of the British Empire (CBE), an honour just below a knighthood, for services to the design industry. Shame the iPod and iMac designer didn’t make a full knighthood to be Sir Jonathan Ive, but that may come later.About time :-)
Technorati Tags: Jonathan Ive, CBE
-
If your still visiting blogs one by one with a web browser, there are many other ways to keep up to date with blogs, much more quickly and easily.1. Blog/News Reader programme: this is a programme, that you open that goes to all your blogs and gets the latest posts and lets you quickly click through them to read.
2. Online Blog/Newss Reader: Similar to no.1 above, but instead you go to a web site, that collects all your blogs/news feeds in one place.
For overview on programmes and sites that will do this for you go here.
3. Web Browser RSS feeds: You use bookmarks in your web browser with RSS/News feeds. Safari on the Mac, and Firefox offer support for RSS/News feeds from blogs.
I have switched to bloglines to review all the blogs I scan, about 200, and it takes me a few minutes every morning to do so. If I was to visit all the sites one by one, I’d never do it.
-
Seems that the boom in digital media players and online services is being driven, by middle class over 50’s, who are buying media for nostalgic reasons (downloading all the old albums they once had), and will be pod-casting like mad after christmas. So for those seeking to incarnate church in mission using new media and technology, a reminder that cyber-space is not the young persons domain.Technorati Tags: Silver Surfers, Digital Music
-
One year on Channel 4, Mark Dowd explored for two hours on the ground in SE Asia, the devastation of the Tsunami and asked locals and himself the questions, ‘Can belief in a loving God be reconciled with such natural disasters or do politics, economics and science offer more hope and enlightenment?’A former monk, Mark is a writer, presenter and television producer. After graduating with first class honours in political science, he trained for priesthood in the Dominican order at Blackfriars Priory in Oxford. He gained an M Phil in international relations at St Antony’s College, Oxford, then joined the Times as a journalist. He later worked for LWT and the BBC as a current affairs producer, including six highly successful years as producer/director on Panorama.
Mark is an amazing producer, and I found his interviews, interactions and commentary moving, and engaging.
You can go to the channel 4 web site, for the programme, here. It lists the expected responses by people to the question, including God’s judgement, Karma, testing. None of which seem satisfactory, and many distasteful. The most powerful part of the programme for me was the loss of faith Mark had suffered, and his personal involvement and mourning through the programme, that obviously tapped into his questions over the years.
The programme ended powerfully with Mark sharing what he had come to believe, about God, with the image of Christ on the Cross, as hope that God had entered into all this pain and loss, and was more believable than ever as a loving and caring God, and the statement from his child hood confessions ‘Lord I believe, help my unbelief’
Nancey Murphy one of my theological heroes appeared near the end in conversation with Mark, and her suggestions seemed to carry great impact and hope for Mark, and as I was watching for me.
Technorati Tags: Channel 4, Mark Dowd, Asian Tsunami, Where was God?
-
I’ve mentioned the podcast site for Catholic Insider before. Father Roderick Vonhögen, catholic priest of the Archdiocese of Utrecht, The Netherlands has a huge site, with lots to explore. So whilst many of us wait for Steve Jobs expo speech in January, try God’s Keynote Speech from the site, and hear the ‘one more thing’ God did this Christmas.
-
I Submitted my penultimate draft late last night. Now I just hope between now and my viva, I’m not asked to do a major re-write :-)
It feels strange to have submitted, satisfying and sad at the same time. I hope it’s not an end but a beginning.
Technorati Tags: D.Min, Dissertation, Doctor of Ministry, Jason Clark
-
My friend Andy asked me if I knew anyone looking to be an associate pastor at his church/community in Worthing, West Sussex. Info on the church and role are downloadable
here.I really like a couple of requirements in the role that say:
We are looking for someone who is
- Chastened by post modernity’s questions but not immobilized them
- Serious about humour!
Technorati Tags: Associate Pastor, Job Vacancy, puppy
