Driving

Anne, Bjorn and I left MN about 2pm on Monday afternoon June 27th, headed for MT. Just before hoping behind the wheel I downloaded a few books from Audible.com to listen to on the drive. One title that had been sitting in my wish list for a few months was "Drive" by Daniel Pink and it seemed more than apt for killing a few hours in the car. The subtitle for the book is "The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us" and makes a few interesting arguments. Though I haven't finished listening yet (I nodded off when Anne took over the wheel just east of Bismark) there have been more than a couple examples and citations also mentioned in another book I recently read for my Media & Technology class earlier this month. "Here Comes Everybody" by Clay Shirky also draws heavily upon similar research. Shirky's book was published in 2008 whereas Pink's book came out late last year. In particular, both authors use the same examples of Wikipedia to make comparable points of how social and business relationships are being created. Both authors put forth compelling reasons for how and why social media is changing culture and certainly how relationship are formed and leveraged.

I had this interesting experience, both while reading Shirky's book and listening to Pink's, that could only be described as something akin to multiple personality disorder. My mind would wander between the multiple worlds I live and operate in: restaurant owner, intern pastor, graduate student, parent and spouse. I became easily distracted by the myriad of ways the material applied to the various aspects of my life and after finishing both I have this desire to revisit the material but this time trying to limit the "hat" that I'm wearing while engaging the content. Ah well, perhaps another time...

The Word on the Street

I happened upon a strange sight last night. A group of ten or so 16-25 year-olds were sitting in a circle having a bible study. That's not the strange part. Let it be known, I'm pro-bible study and I'm especially impressed with the ages of the group that was gathered. If anything, that's exactly the age demographic that seems least likely to invest any time gathered in community with an open bible in front of them. Note that it was Saturday night, which seems to underline the uniqueness of this particular bible study of young adults. They could have been at the movies, or bowling or even at watching the Twins win their 5th in a row at Target Field but instead, they're studying the bible. But that's still not the strange part.

The strange part is not who was studying the bible or when they were studying the bible. The strange part was where they were studying the bible. They were seated right on the sidewalk in downtown Minneapolis, just outside the doors of Dream Girls, a night club that features female strippers and table dancers. Even stranger was that the Twins game had just gotten over and there were crowds of people filing past, first the velvet ropes of the entryway to the strip club, then the cross-legged bible studiers. I'm guessing that the circle of young folks was very intentional about the when and the where of their bible study. Perhaps it was some form of non-violent protest or maybe they had just gotten kicked out of the pizza place on the corner and needed a place to continue their study. I didn't stop and ask but maybe I should have. Honestly, the whole thing made me feel uncomfortable and a little sad.

"Your Word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path." Psalm 119

I need to ask my kids what they thought of the whole scene. I wonder what they found to be more weird, people lining up to watch naked people dance or people sitting in the middle of a sidewalk reading the bible. The culture that was present last night probably thought the bible study was the more "unusual" of the two. I would probably be on that side too. It's not that I think the Word should be kept in particular places. The Word can speak to much more than we tend to allow it space for. The strangeness of the sidewalk bible-study suggests to me how some prefer to "use" the bible in contrast to culture rather than have the Word speak directly to culture.

The Word will shine its light onto many things; good, bad and, from time to time, strange.

Back at it...

I'm taking a few courses on campus this summer, in between interning at Jacob's Well and flying back and forth to Red Lodge to keep an eye on Bridge Creek. I actually had my first class last weekend: Media & Technology in Religious Education. I was glad to have a chance to finally take a class from Mary Hess. She's been a fresh voice for some time at Luther and though she's a Roman Catholic, she holds her own in this very Lutheran setting. I find myself drawn to the non-Lutheran faculty I've encountered and I wonder if they are held to a higher standard of theological rigor and teaching ability than their Lutheran colleagues. Either way, it must be a difficult setting to be non-Lutheran.

The 12 hours of class time last weekend condensed 18 hours of material over 1.5 days. I was impressed with the collection of resources that Mary drew upon in her presentations and did a great job facilitating the discussions from a fairly diverse student body. In particular, I was impressed with thoughts on the power of social media in Here Comes Everybody, a book by NYU Professor Clay Shirky. It should be no surprise that one of the assignments for this class is to do some blogging and I'll be posting a few comments about Shirky's book as well as thoughts on the other topics the class covered.

So congratulations dear readers, Mary has gotten me back to work on my blog. You can blame her for all that is to come in the days ahead.

Help Desk