Surfing
Life should be like surfing. Not web surfing, but real ocean surfing. You look for the right conditions, paddle like crazy to get there, hope to catch the killer wave, and test your balance as you ride it out.
What’s the sense in paddling somewhere if there’s no wave to catch? Then you’ve just wasted a lot of effort going from one patch of still water to another. Better to float on your surfboard and keep your eyes open.
Kryponite Locks Unsafe
I wouldn’t believe this if it came from a source less reputable than the New York Times (rivaled only by Slashdot in how scrupulous the information is checked, albeit in different ways).
The cunning bicycle thieves of New York City always seem to be one step ahead of lockmakers. Design a more sophisticated lock and the thieves make a better pick. Make a sturdier chain and they get bigger bolt cutters. And if all else fails, they just dig up the parking meter or stop sign to unshackle the bike from it. But to open some of the toughest locks on the market, a thief needs only to flick his Bic pen.
Many cyclists erupted in disbelief and anger this week after videos were posted on the Internet showing how a few seconds of work could pick many of the most expensive and common U-shaped locks, including several models made by Kryptonite, the most recognized brand.
http://nytimes.com/2004/09/17/nyregion/17lock.html?pagewanted=all
Registration is required for the full article, so I’m posting the text in my first comment.
If you own a Kryptonite lock, you can get a replacement upgrade here:
http://www.kryptonitelock.com/inetisscripts/abtinetis.exe/templateform@public?tn=urgent_update
Sunday Adventure: Trinidad in Boston
Yesterday I went to Davis Square around 2 to hear the Trinidad steel drum band. When I got there, the band and various Highrock leaders were milling around like ants, looking for an electrical outlet. The local shops wouldn’t let us use their plugs, citing liability issues. We found some in the trees (!), powering the Christmas lights. While someone went to go borrow a stepladder, Rakesh (~110 lbs) clambered up John (~6’3″) and plugged in an extension cord. No power. I guess they’re only powered at night.
We looked down the street and sighted a Citizens Bank ATM vestibule. It had a powered outlet! I guess their ATMs have sur-”charges”, haha. So we ran four extension cables in series to the middle of Davis Square. Then we found one of the cords was faulty and had duct tape wrapped around the middle. Who keeps faulty extension cables around – fire hazard collectors? Right next to the leaky gasoline cans, car batteries, and WWII land mines? I immediately threw away the faulty cord, leaving barely enough length to cover the area:
I was a bit worried that the ATM vestibule door was alarmed, but a quick inspection showed that the only electronic device was an electric door strike. No alarm sensors. And fortunately no alarms went off during the performance. And no bank officials or cops, either.
The rest of the day went off without a hitch. The music was great, but I think the crowd participation part was the best. Pastor Ashoke asked various people from the street to come learn how to play steel pan drums:
When worship service started a few hours later, I recognized some of the newcomers from the Davis Square street performance. And we had a record 266 adults in service. Fortunately, we’d prepared extra food! Afterwards, I took the band to my place to stay over, where they slept on borrowed air mattresses and sleeping bags, courtesy of philsailer, wentsailing, pjk, rmyung, Joseph, Frank, and JiSeon. Even so, there were too many people, so Tina took the two women, and eyeman hosted a few on his couches. Men, that is.
Outside Xanga
Sometimes I forget there is an blogging world outside of xanga. Today I was googling for business cards and came across Ned Batchelder’s site because he wrote a blog on how to make business card cubes. He also found an insightful quote on the language of politics from Cal prof George Lakoff:
Conservatives have branded liberals, and the liberals let them get away with it: the “liberal elite,” the “latte liberals,” the “limousine liberals.” The funny thing is that conservatives are the elite. The whole idea of conservative doctrine is that some people are better than others, that some people deserve more. To conservatives, if you’re poor it’s because you deserve it, you’re not disciplined enough to get ahead. Conservative doctrine requires that there be an elite: the people who thrive in the free market have more money, and they should. Progressives say, “No, that’s not fair. Maybe some should have more money, but no one should live in poverty. Everybody who works deserves to have a reasonable standard of living for their work.” These are ideas that are progressive or liberal ideas, and progressives aren’t getting them out there enough.
What progressives are promoting is not elite at all. Progressives ought to be talking about the conservative elite. They shouldn’t be complaining about “tax cuts for the rich,” they should be complaining about “tax cuts for the conservative elite,” because that’s who’s getting them.
And I especially like his (Lakoff’s) pithy quote to sum up his philosophy:
Frames trump facts.
Trinidad
This weekend the TTUM (Trinidad and Tobago Urban Ministries) Steel Pan band will be visiting Highrock. Maybe I can learn to play the opening rhythm to “Under The Sea”…
They might be playing with the Friday praise team if that’s ok with altoz. And on Sunday we’re trying to arrange having them play in Davis Square before service to draw people in.
Some of the band will be staying with me. I need to borrow some air beds and sleeping bags — help!
Basic Cooking: The Big Three
The past two weeks of Soul Food have been kind of hectic, but the food turned out well in the end. Each time it took a lot of tinkering. So cooking has been on my mind recently, and I’ve been trying to distill the most important things to keep in mind. They boil down to three basic rules:
Did you know the human head weighs 8 pounds?
Not really – I think the average is closer to 10, unless their sinuses are very large.
Anyway, back to Jerry Maguire. I should have seen this movie a long time ago because it’s very Highrock. It’s about a guy who gets in touch with his feelings and discovers the deeper things in life. And it’s about the soul — whether that’s Renee being inspired by a memo (sorry, “mission statement”) or Cuba playing from the heart.
A soul is different from a goal. Tom Cruise’s goal was to become successful and rich, until he realized that his soul was starving. I think souls are given to us, while goals are what we choose consciously. How we get souls is very mysterious to me. I guess you could say that God gives us souls, but that’s kind of vague. That kind of answer doesn’t satisfy my soul.
Organizations have souls and goals too. Highrock has a mission statement that goes, “Transformation through connecting to God Personally, God’s People, and God’s Purposes.” The stated goal is transformation, into the likeness of Christ, both as individuals and as a corporate body. But I think the soul of Highrock is in its community and in grace. Not grace as in a vague general “Grace be with thee” that only theologians could get a spurge on. But grace as an attitude that permeates everything about the church. An attitude of, “Here’s where I’m at. Here’s where you’re at. We’re not perfect, but we can love and be loved anyway.” It manifests as safe relationships, where you can confess without fear of condemnation. Or as the unspoken message that we welcome people who attend other churches earlier in the day, and that we’ll host a worship service for them and feed them with no expectations of payback. Because that’s our soul (food).
Soul and goal also applies to board games. In Puerto Rico, around the middle of the game you have to decide your identity. You have to say, “I know who I am.” Otherwise you’re left with NCS (No Coherent Strategy), and you’ll probably lose. But once you’ve picked your strategy — birthed your soul, it’s really very beautiful – you can set goals for the rest of the game.
Finally, I have a soul and I have goals. Many long lists of goals, actually. On the Highrock tech forums, you can see my goals for that ministry alone. I’m usually pretty good about matching my goals to my soul. That helps me work with great productivity while avoiding burnout. I’m not so good at estimating workload. Because once I see a goal that could match my soul, I typically add it to my list. I have a large appetite for that sort of stuff. So many problems, so little time.
My soul, as far as I understand currently, is to find and deliver simple solutions to complex problems. I am The Simplifier. One of my heros, James Clerk Maxwell, finished simplifying all of electromagnetic field behavior into four simple equations, now written on MIT nerd shirts all across Boston. Another, Albert Einstein, is quoted as saying, “Things should be made as simple as possible. But no simpler.” That and other simple quotes make my soul sing.
you complete me at hello
I bet that everyone has missed some normal experiences. One of my friends has never eaten a McDonald’s hamburger. Another has never seen the TV show Cheers (and was mystified when I said something driving past the Cheers bar on Beacon St.)
As for me, I’ve never seen Jerry Maguire, which I’m going to remedy this Sunday night after Highrock. Joining me in testing out the new home theater: the mysterious Logan_Cale. Probably not joining us: the by-then just-married peterskim and smartaleck. Anyone else up for a blast from the not-so-distant past?
Child Labor
We’ve found a new source of manpower for Soul Food. Kids are so funny. They’ll do the most mundane task with such gusto. So now they own the drink-serving process. In fact, eyeman was having a hard time trying to get them to stop at the end.
Now if I could only teach them to recruit newcomer kids, and to form teams… Soon we could have a whole church run by the 8-and-under crowd.
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