I will say right off the bat that this post will be totally uninteresting to some and all of my 10 readers may dislike it, but I feel like change is coming to my blog and I am writing this post to map it out for myself. There are a lot of random thoughts here and I jump back and forth, but I will try to tie them all together over the next few months through different blog posts, so for now, just roll with me if you can.
The two taboo topics of discussion in the workplace (politics and religion) are now taboo everywhere, which slowly makes us indifferent to either which in turns makes us unwilling to discuss, learn, and grow in the history that makes up topics like politics, religion, and government. Have we forgotten in this country (the U.S.) that there are countries in this world like North Korea, China, Cuba, and parts of Africa where they can not openly discuss opposition to their government or religious ideas?
I just love websites I go to that say no talking about politics or religion. In some cases that may be appropriate, but that has bled over into everything in everyday life. I am tired of hearing and seeing fellow Brothers and Sisters that avoid talking about politics (and matters of “other” faiths) because it is divisive. Newsflash, if you call yourself a Believer in Christ, you have chosen a side. Although Christ is open to ALL who believe in Him, we know not everyone will. It is hard to think of God as a God of love, and who leaves people out of his Heavenly kingdom but we also can’t even start to think we understand God from God’s point of view. On the flip side, there is “the world” (that would be those who don’t choose Him) that also refuse to talk about religion because it is divisive in nature.
We are quickly becoming a socialist society that no longer wants to listen to an opposing side and are guided to lean towards a muddy middle ground on everything. In the “can’t we all just get along” world, we move to the center of the undecided’s (those who can’t seem to make a decision until someone tells them how they should feel about the topic at hand) where we can all come together and get nothing done. Problem is, that is the most boring and uninformed place to sit, and is not only a cop out, but dangerous.
We have to be careful to not speak badly about another “religion” like extremist Muslims who’s plan is to do harm, and ignore comments by people like Helen Thomas of the White House press corp when she says things at Mr Obama’s “press conference” like “so-called” terrorists when speaking about people who terrorize other people. Don’t know what I am talking about… you could be guilty of political indifference yourself.
Why does this matter? It matters because we are now so far removed from our government, those who make the laws, and how it effects our lives, that we have become indifferent. Indifferent to a government that doesn’t blink an eye to spend $800 billion (about the size of our current national debt, in other wards, doubling the size of the national debt) for things like Frisbee golf courses and digital TV converter boxes, that we don’t even take notice. We just go merrily about our business and hope it doesn’t eventually intrude on our own life.
What did Jesus come to this earth to do? Reach over the isle and make friends, being careful not to be divisive? No, he came to fulfill the Torah, the law. Many times as Believers we ignore or are indifferent to politics because it is divisive. We want to make sure we don’t exclude anyone we could proselytize to by saying the word Democrat or Republican, or liberal or conservative like either of those determine who we are as a person. As one conversation went today, Jesus was not a Methodist, I promise. He was a person who spoke about principles, ideas, and how to change the status quo of thinking.
When we choose to ignore (by ignore I mean not discuss openly for means of not offending someone) divisive people, comments, or conversations, I don’t think we can grow. I am more than happy to listen to an opposing side to my own beliefs if it can be presented in an intelligent manner. I can talk to or converse with right wing religious fanatics and atheistic agnostics until if they can speak intelligently about their own point of view, but it is hard to do that if you don’t know why you stand where you do.
All that to say I am going to be doing some minor changes to the categories on my blog to speak my mind about topics of religion and politics. I am moving my photography category into Media since it is a media form, Faith will be Religion, etc etc. Like I said, if you don’t like politics or religion, stick to my Journal or Media categories.
Anyone who really knows me, knows that I have a great desire to please everyone all the time, so this is a pretty big change for me, but I hope this brings more transparency to my blog and my way of thinking. I am tired of being politically correct in my speech and writing and tip toeing around on my blog. I don’t plan on doing so from this point forward. If you don’t like divisiveness (meaning standing, and knowing where you stand), then read my “journal” section and ignore the politics and religion posts, I will keep those posts to the activities in my life.
If you would like to know where I come from, I do have some starting points, and as stupid as I thought Facebook’s “25 Things About Me” goes, I think that is a starting point to getting to know someone. I mention these things so you know the very basis of where my future opinion may stem and how I come to certain conclusions. I will list these on Facebook shortly (I think), but to get rolling…
- I am not for a political party, but I am for certain principles and ideas like smaller government and lower taxes.
- I do not consider myself to be part of a denomination but part of the body of Believers of Christ. I work at a Methodist church but I am currently a member of a Baptist church in Dallas. I don’t care much for non-doms because often they don’t know what they Believe
- I watch and read news and politics from all over the place, not just one single source or location
- I believe the solutions to the problems of this country are going to be solved by people, not government
- I think people forget all about what history teaches. I am slowly trying to relearn what I did not learn in school when I found it useless but now find it priceless
I picked up this book the other day called “I am a Christian” by Jesse R Wilson, written back in 1935 and as I flipped through the book and read a passage to a friend of mine who said “good call” sarcastically. Point is, we don’t always have to just scratch the surface. Everything is up for discussion and debate except the death and resurrection of Jesus, that I hold to be an uncompromising Truth.
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I was sent this (the info not the cake) from Deb this morning and I just had to do a blog post about it. For any of those spouses of photographers, especially those Nikon freaks, it is time to step up to the plate and buy him or her that cherished Nikon D700 Birthday Cake. This thing is a replica of a Nikon D700 DSLR camera body with a carrot cake and vanilla buttercream (see Surprise Camera Birthday Cake and Camera Birthday Cake) insides. The attention to detail is wild but it sounds delicious too.
What was even more funny about the cake was the party was Maggiano’s restaurant in Bridgewater, NJ, one of my hometowns for more than some 4 years growing up. I would love to see some photos from the birthday party if any were uploaded to flickr. In the mean time, check out these awesome photos of the Nikon DSLR and NIkon D700 DSLR birthday cakes. I didn’t see how much these cakes cost, but I am fairly certain they won’t put you back the $3,000 that the Nikon D700 costs and it looks far more tasty.
Thanks to Pink Cake Box for the cake images. I love seeing businesses go out of their way to help their customers and the likeness of the D700 is just incredible. I am still finishing up Tribes by Seth Godin and he talks a lot about building a following like Pink Cake Box seems to have done with their masterpieces of sugar and flour. I spend a lot of time with my D700 and the likeness is great. Check them out if you are in the market for a wild looking cake.
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Change is coming, all we have to do is look up and observe. You may be asking yourself what does Andrew Jackson, the Blue Angels, and Altocumulus Clouds have in common. Not much, but today, call it an observation. Today being President’s Day, we are observing a day to celebrate the office of U.S. President if not the actual presidential person. Since President’s day has been on the marketing horizon for a week or so the stations like National Geographic Channel and others have been doing biographies of each president.
I was only able to watch two, Lincoln and Jackson, but I still learned a bit from each and haven’t really had time to discern the historical quality of each show, but they were both informational non-the-less.
Andrew Jackson had a pretty incredible stay as President. Outside of the Native Indians Trail of Tears when they were forcibly removed from the eastern part of the United States, he tried to do some great things as President, bold ideas that never took hold, but gave us a gimps of who he was and how he thought. Jackson was the only President to ever pay off the national debt. This should be a shock to us today when there is little hope of ever paying off the national debt when we move to pass an almost $900 billion spending stimulus package, but he was the only President to do so, ever.
What I liked about the story of Andrew Jackson was how the narration ended. He spent a good part of his life in politics out of love for this country, but also for people’s freedom to be able to vote and live in a free country, and that the government should be run by it’s people. It stated that Jackson would be dumbfounded and appalled that less than 50% of people vote today, and most are not even interesting in the politics of today.
An amazing statement since government control of it’s people has been passed down through history from the beginning of time. We don’t all have to be political junkies, but everything the government does today has an effect on how we live our lives today. We fought the British over a 4% tax on its people and today we don’t even notice when our taxes are raised by that small an amount. Observation.
The Blue Angels comes from a message given by Rusty yesterday about a man who came to know his Savior and later found himself face to face with the beauty of his Creator through the cockpit of a fighter jet. After weeks of coming to a Bible study with his wife, the words of John chapter 3 in the story of Nicodemus came to life and he became a new creation.
He tells a story of this Marine fighter pilot who sees the sun rise from his cockpit and cried after recognizing that he now knows who created the sun itself. It made me think about how many days we see the sun come up and don’t think twice about its beauty and how much more beautiful is our creator. This pilot must have seen the sun rise from a cockpit of a plane 1,000 times before this, but this day it was different. Observation.
Altocumulus Clouds are these clouds that roll in like waves or ripples in the sky, Alto (middle) Cumulus (heap or pile), and can be seen in advance of a storm system (like the one that is supposed to be here on Wednesday). For those who don’t know, I am a little bit of a weather buff and have always liked to observe the weather that goes on around us every day. Today a large band of Altocumulus clouds rolled in about 8am and were quickly starting to dissipate when I went out and took this shot.
How many times have you looked up at the clouds and recognized a specific type of clouds like we had here in Auburn this morning? Are we all to busy to do that any more? I have to admit, I recognized the system but for the life of me could not remember the name of the clouds, so a special thanks goes out to James Spann (Meteorologist for ABC 33/40 in Birmingham) for the quick answer to my question.
Altocumulus clouds signify change is coming. All we have to do is look up and oberve.
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Yesterday Auburn beat Mississippi State 91-76 with Tay Waller having a career high 32 points to lead the Tigers to a good SEC conference win. This team is hard to figure out. They play hard, they fight, and they give their all, and they win games they probably shouldn’t and loose games they should win. It was starting to look like this season was going to be another big disappointment, but not so fast. This season is starting to have some potential beyond the SEC tournament in Tampa Florida.
For the past several years we have been looking to March, hoping we would get past the Thursday game in the SEC tournament, but this year, we may actually have a chance to get to the NIT. Certainly don’t want to look past the rest of the season or the SEC tournament in Tampa, but an NIT bid would be really cool (and just in case anyone from the National Invitation Tournament is reading this, please, spend a few dollars and updated the design on your website, please, I can even point you in the right direction).
Some tough games coming up, but in the mean time, here are some pics from the Valentine’s Day version of the basketball game yesterday.
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Does this seem like a really strange Valentine’s day to you? For some reason it being on Saturday seems like it got overshadowed today by Saturday being Saturday. This is not to say that Deb and I do a whole lot to celebrate Valentine’s Day on a normal year, but this year I spent most of the day today at a leadership retreat for our church (post coming soon), and then we were able to catch up with each other for the Auburn vs Mississippi State basketball game (also post coming soon).
Holiday days of any kind are not my favorite. They disrupt the flow of everything (which is not actually bad), but more importantly, Deb and I make a conscience effort to do these things all year round, not just on some special day because that is what the calendar says to do. Instead of spending the day together on Valentine’s Day, we spend every day we can together, including every attempt to spend each Friday together all day without interruption. That doesn’t always happen, but instead of a date night, we have a date day. In that respect, we should act like it is Valentine’s Day every day, right.
Valentine’s Day [also here] contains vestiges of both Christian and ancient Roman tradition. So, who was Saint Valentine and how did he become associated with this ancient rite? Today, the Catholic Church recognizes at least three different saints named Valentine or Valentinus, all of whom were martyred.
Deborah has her own way to celebrate each holiday that rolls around, she has a pair of socks that she wears on one day of each year. Today, those are the Snoopy Valentine’s Day socks (seen below). I have mine, a few photos to celebrate the day, Valentine’s Day chocolate of course. So to Deb’s socks and everyone else, happy Valentine’s Day.
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Today for Friday Feet Deb and I took the short drive over to Callaway Gardens. The Cecil B. Day Butterfly Center is a great place to spend a few unique hours with the butterflies. I have been to the Butterfly Center 3 or 4 times before, but not for about 10 years or so. I had not been since I switched over to digital shooting so today I finally got some of what I have on film from years ago.
The Cecil B Day Butterfly Center has 1,000 tropical butterflies, representing more than 50 different species, flutter freely through the air. Tropical plants and birds, reside peacefully with the colorful winged jewels in North America’s largest, glass-enclosed tropical conservatory.
It is a different kind of setup to get some good shots over there and a flash is almost a must so thanks very much to Jak Blount for letting me borrow his Nikon SB-800 (I’ll return it with a nice new diffuser for you). There is a lot more over at Callaway than the butterfly center of course and if you like to ride bikes, they have a great 10 mile paved trail through the park.
Once we were finished over at the butterfly house we got on our bikes and peddled through the rest of the park, something I haven’t done in all my other visits. To my surprise, there is a lot more to see over there than butterflies. About half through the trail we came upon a beautiful Chapel that the Callaway’s had built back in the mid 1960′s. The stain glass was original and is still maintained by the company that installed it over 40 years ago. Just an incredible display, and a 1,300 piece pipe organ to go with it. I bet the acoustics are great when that organ gets going.
We finished up the bike trail stopping at various attractions that Callaway Gardens has to offer and ended with an early dinner in Columbus. As I sit here writing it is pouring down rain and the temps have dropped at least 20 degrees from this afternoon. We managed to spend the day in 70* sunshine. If you have a chance to get to Callaway (especially during the Spring bloom) it is well worth the trip.
I will upload all of the photo from the shoot to my flickr account in the Callaway Gardens gallery some time tonight, the stain glass close up shots are pretty cool. Have a great weekend everyone.
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It is not to much of a surprise (outside of the actual look) that Cornerstone is about to launch a new website. I had the privilege of working with Brad Ruggles, a website/graphics designer and creative developer, on the launch of this new site. Two of my three earthly passions are faith, technology, and photography, which means I was pretty much able to combine all three into one project.
This project was something that took a few months to put together, and was the collaborative effort of every staff member at Cornerstone, but it was something I have wanted to work on for many years now. Not just a new website, but a new mindset into what potential the Internet has in the Church body.
Tools like Twitter, Facebook, rss feeds, podcasts, videos, and all the things that make up the Internet today can be utilized for kingdom purposes, and done in a professional way. This isn’t a new subject for me personally (see The Church’s New Drug of Choice // Part 1, Does a Church Really Need a Website?, The Church Body and the Internet, Part 1, The Church Body and the Internet, Part 2, to name a few past posts), I have been on a quiet campaign for relavant church websites for the better part of 10-15 years.
This is (to me) what people expect out of their church today, and especially those Believers and visitors in the 19-29 age range. It is a connected world, a connected society, and they don’t want or expect to walk into a church today and see 20th century technology. We don’t need to or have to spruce up Jesus. The Salvation message has remained the same for 2,000 years, but each church in the Church body reaches different people according to its purpose, and a website is a great place to start.
I say start because a website, a well designed, relavant, media based website, is where you can start to bring people to the Church and where they can learn and connect with others that have a love for Christ. It is no longer about displaying something static that shows the worship times and directions, it is about how do we connect with each other and grow in the Body. I can’t wait for the new site to go live. I think this is exactly what Cornerstone is to me and my wife when we arrived about a year ago and I was thrilled to have some part in putting it together.
I know there are a few other Church IT people that read my blog so I will be writing some additional posts on how it went together and how to even get started. What to look out for when choosing a website design company, and what you should be able to expect from your developer. I think we chose one of the best in Ruggles but throughout the course of the project I did meet several other companies, some good, and some very bad, and hope to share that with you in the upcoming months. Hope you enjoy the new site, it should be live some time this weekend.
