B-Net

Recently, I've tried to reconnect with BeliefNet. So far, not having any luck. Here's a link to my journal over there. I've called it a ghost town. It used to be quite active. My theory is that the vitriol is driving people away. Very sad.

There are two blogs, though, that I may like enough to keep coming back. Tony Jones is a leader in the Emergent conversation. He is a theologian who tries to be cutting edge. For many, he is. So far, his blog is quite lame. (He seems to be currently caught up in an argument regarding "practical theology," which is basically "duh-material" for anyone who's clued in.) But, I would hope to see it pick up.

B-Net also has Gus diZerega blogging for them. I first found out about him through his book Pagans and Christians: The Personal Spiritual Experience (which I highly recommend). He's had an interesting multi-post argument going on about why pagans should not have "clergy." So even if I find the place to be a wasteland, it still has a couple interesting water holes in it.

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Tool: Right in Two

This is a stellar song!

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Frustrations with EVE

I've been playing Eve Online for a while now.  I have a love-hate relationship with it.  There are a great many things I like about the game.  However, they recently did an upgrade.  As a result, I don't think I can run it on my system.  I've finally gotten to a point where I can really do something interesting, and now I may have to stop playing.

I am so very disappointed.  

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Spring, Finally; Mousing, Finally

It's about time the warmer weather hit.  I was getting quite annoyed at the chill.  I'm ready for the days to come that allow me to open my windows.  

I watched as Annabelle failed Mousing 101.  Good timing too.  I was wondering a couple of days before whether she would know what to do if she found a mouse.  She found it and I helped her catch it by moving things.  She played with it a while, until it wasn't moving anymore.   I had to leave the room because I couldn't watch.  Then a heard a rumble.  I went into the kitchen to see what happened and found her looking under the fridge.  Apparently, it tricked her.  Either that or she ate it so quickly and noisily that I thought it got away.  

Right now, she's at my feet trying to get me to play.  I gotta go.  :)

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Ashes to Ashes '09

Ash Wednesday is my favorite holiday. I'm not quite sure why. I suspect that it has something to do with the ambiance that death lends to life. I like to walk through graveyards with well-crafted, yet aged stones and statues. There's something special about adorning death with art. Furthermore, I'm a night person. The veil of darkness adds mystery to my surrounding world. When done well liturgically, Ash Wednesday captures those feels quite well.

My favorite TV series right now is the new Battlestar Galactica. I don't have the Sci Fi channel, so I have to play catch-up on Hulu. I don't want to spoil the final season for anyone (so if you haven't caught up, skip to the next paragraph), but there is a wonderful scene where the rebel cylons have to make a tough decision. Unlike humans, when they "die" they are downloaded into a Resurrection Ship. Then, they are uploaded into a new body. But, in a strange and unexpected plot twist, the rebel cylons help the humans to destroy the Resurrection Ship. Once that is done, death becomes final. This may sound like insanity to those of us who inevitably will meet an end, but there is something significant to their reasoning. Without death, life is meaningless.

I think that's what we can call the ambiance that death lends to life: meaning. This in no way makes death a happy occurance. I'm not happy about it at all. When I think of my mom and dad, I know I don't want them to die. I would much rather have them with me always. But all stories must come to a close. For stories to have a meaning, they must have an end. It is a sad, yet powerful truth. And I believe that intermingled with that truth is also an amazing grace.

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"Legalism Destroys"

It's the old tag line from a site I used to frequent a few years ago. It served as a home for those who had been wounded by the church because of their cultural or sexual identities. Basically, it was a place for Christian (or otherwise) pariahs. Over time, activity dwindled, we moved to LJ, and the site withered away.

A few days ago, I was asked by the founder if I thought it would be worth it to revive the site. Interesting question, especially since I had recently been thinking about it and what kind of potential it might have for today.

It has been about 4 years since the site went down. Since then, I haven't really found an online community I could call home. For the most part, they've all lacked a certain edge that the old hang out had. If we can come up with a good plan, I'd love to see it fly again.

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Firefly

Recently I borrowed Firefly (again) from InvaderTim. Good series. When it was on TV, I wasn't interested. Now, I thought it would be a good series for inspiration while working on the sci-fi game.

When I first saw Firefly, I had yet to see Buffy or Angel (also not interested while they were on TV). While watching Firefly this time around, I've noticed something. Angel and Buffy seemed to have a knack for not only telling a quick story, but also for saying something about the human condition. There was a certain depth to them. Firefly doesn't seem to shoot for that.

I'm going to guess that this is the reason it ended up getting canceled. Yeah, I know, it was ratings. But what led to the lower ratings? Could it be that one of the things that made for a Joss Wheedon Special just wasn't there? That's my suspicion.

Nonetheless, I still love the series.  

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Transitioning

As I start to revive this blog, I suddenly realize a small problem. "Eclectic Mass" is now the name of the spirituality group I am trying to put together (Eclectic Mass). I turned my website into the group's site, and now I think I should do something with this blog. I might change the addy to "irreverance" and come up with another banner.

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Day Off

Ahh, if only I could get up whenever I wanted every day of the week.

My plans:
~meet with a friend
~continue reading Emergence: The Connected Life of Ants, Brains, Cities, and Software, which is proving to be quite good
~work on the game a bit
~contact people about Walter Wink
~and my cat insists that I play with her

Not very ambitious. That should make for a good day.

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Seth Godin on Creativity

A very interesting blog thought. Maybe I needed the reminder that what is "creative" for me isn't going to be the same as what is "creative" for someone else.

Creativity and stretching the sweatshirt.

There are also some other interesting articles on there.

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Hey There Cthulhu: The Photomontage Video

Gotta love it. :D

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Reviving the Blog?

I think I just might do that. I haven't kept up well on my LJ. I like it, but I'm lazy.

The original plan with this was for EclecticMass to be personal and ECFNet to be theological. I think I might try to do that. If I go there, I will want to go hunt down some old stuff for very late cross posting.

It's just something I'm considering.

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Moving the Blog

Having become tired of updating multiple blogs, I've decided to move my primary blogging back over to my LiveJournal account. I like the way their "friends" feature works. And it's more community driven. So, for more about my life, go over to Xian Anarchist's Live Journal

(However, from time to time, I might do some updating here too. Ya never know.)

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Ready for Ordination

Finally, I have jumped through my last hoop for ordination. Two Tuesday's ago, I had my final examination on the floor of presbytery. I passed, but I thought that they'd never stop asking questions.

Anyway, I will have an ordination service some time near the end of February. It will be quite the relief to have this all behind me.

Now all I need to do is call the pastor who will be preaching to figure out when he is free, and we'll set the whole thing up at the church.

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A Surprise!

I wear a white robe on Sunday mornings for worship. Not everyone likes it. They think it looks too much like a sheet. Anyway, yesterday a parishioner told me that they had black choir robes upstairs in a little-used room. When I went up to check it out, I have to say that I wasn't all that interested in the choir robes. But, in my exploration I found...

*drumroll*

...a COSSACK!

I love cossacks. IMO, they are about the neatest liturgical attire out there. I can't wait to sport it tomorrow morning.

It's not the suggested robe to replace the one people don't like, so it will be interesting to see whether they like this one.

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A Picture's Worth A Thousand Screams

Title: "Threats Will Get You Everywhere"

I just completed this last night. Overall, the whole drawing took about 10 hours. It was nice and relaxing.

I drew this from a reference (taking a bit of artistic licence of course). The original can be found in the new Contagion anthology, War Stories put out by Aegis Studios.

Anyway, this was all about getting back into the habit a bit. I started with the left and worked my way right. As time progressed, I started getting back into the groove. As a result, the right looked much better than the left. So I went over it with some digital touchups here and there (and there and there). It's amazing how easy it is to tell the difference from the right side (which is dominated by pencil rendering) and the left side (which has substantial digital alterations). I definitely like the pencil work better.

And don't forget to notice the tatoo. I didn't want to mess up the drawing when trying trying to figure out where to put my sig. And there we have it: An immortal young lass wearing my name on her arm for all eternity! The ultimate in artistic vanity? You tell me. Some would say yes. Some would say no. The rest of us could really care less.

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Handwriting Analysis

The results of your analysis say:

You fill every waking moment with activity.
You are a shy, idealistic person who does not find it easy to have relationships, especially intimate ones.
You are affectionate, passionate, expressive, and future-oriented.
You are a talkative person, maybe even a busybody!
You are self-confident and like to bring attention to yourself.

What does your handwriting say about YOU?

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It's 5' x 9'

Title: Advent Truth

This is the pictoral version of my sermon a couple of weeks ago. It's about how during the season of Advent (just before Christmas), we are called to take upon ourselves the pain of what it is to be human, become the voice of those who suffer, cry out to God on their behalf, and live into and bear the hope of that which is to come.

On the left is the present and on the right is the future Kingdom of God. On the left, a watcher is on a stylized version of the Second Con tower wearing black (the color of pain to match the pain-colored city of Rockford in the pic) who has a firey head (the color of the Christ-head on the right) looking over Rockford and into the future.

The waters of baptism flow from the future and sweep through all with thier claiming power. Meanwhile, the Communion elements (bread and cup) bridge the now and future.

The big white thing in the middle is the moon, which relates to the scripture passage read for the sermon.

Hopefully, the snapshot is clear enough to see.

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New Home Page

After a long silence, I should introduce everyone to my new home page: Eclectic Mass Home Page. It's much better than my geocities one.

Let's see, what's happened in the last month since I posted?

My car was broken into. Someone smashed out my rear, passenger side window in order to pillage my back seat. The boneheaded move on my part was to leave lots of stuff there. The thief must have felt silly though rummaging through a box that had copies of the Presbyterian Outlook and a liturgical calendar in it. All the person made off with was a smoothie machine. (Oddly enough, I didn't want a smoothie until my machine was gone.)

I went to the Octane to celebrate Tim's 33rd birthday. Happy birthday Timmy-boy! Met some really neat people there too. (And a quick "hello" to them if they happen to stumble across this entry.)

I've discovered a new art form (well, new to me anyway): paper lace. Basically, take a long sheet of paper (my mock-up is 8 1/2" x 17"; the final will be about 5' x 10'). Draw a design on it. Strategically cut out negative spaces, making sure you have enough paper attachments to hold it together. Then hang it from the ceiling. It becomes a really cool banner that is far less complicated than it really is. Eventually, I'll get a pic of my creation story mockup.

The Contagion War Stories anthology is officially out. I have an article in there entitled "All Things are Relative." I also did the pic to go with it.

I'm really missing the time to draw. I'm being creative in other ways, which is way cool, but I keep getting the hunkering to break out a HUGE sheet of paper and just go crazy with my pencils for about a day or two. Unfortunately, I'm having a tough time convincing the world to stop turning so I can create the next series to dominate the louvre (or maybe somewhere slightly smaller).

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My Roller-Coaster Ride Last Weekend

Finally having a weekend where I didn't have anything that I had to do up here in Rockford, I finally got out of town. Friday, I made it down to Charleston, IL, where I got to see some Eastern Illinois University friends. That's where I received my history degreesl, and it was good to reconnect with my past profs. I was amazed at how it seemed like had seen them not so long ago. In fact, the last time I saw Anita and Newton was in 1999. I'm glad they hadn't changed much. I kind of like them just the way they are. So that was the highlight of last weekend.

Unfortunately, on Sunday I was down in Ladd with the First Presbyterian Church. I served as their pastor for 2 years, until we didn't receive the redevelopment grant that we'd hoped for. As a result, I had to get another job and they had to make the difficult decision to close. Last Sunday was the final worship service for that congregation. I really enjoyed being their pastor and I hope they find congregations they can connect with. While it was great to be with them again, it was a really sad occasion.

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