We’ve gotta get away from living and feeling like this.

Or Like this.

¹Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Hebrews 12:1

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I was struck by a funny thought the other night as I was attending my girlfriend’s kindergarden class’ muical program entitled E-I-E-I, Oops! (For the record: my girlfriend is the teacher not one of the students). It was a crowded room and full of proud, excited, bored and tired parents…and about 200 cameras: digital cameras, video cameras, film cameras, etc.. The most intriguing was the video cameras. Some people documented the whole event on video camera, even when their childern were doing nothing, and even after the children left the stage. That is an hour of footage that may never be watched again, that only a very small number of people would find to be significant.

It is interesting how we have all this history that surrounds us, history that we capture and encapsulate in our desired medium, and we then create a presentation for that history, or a repository for. We grab and image, a video clip, a sound and a bit of memory and synthesize these together to make fuller more rich memory. I’ll bet that most of our memory about certain times are heavily influenced by the medium that we used to capture it, that I wonder if we had more complete history if we would remember a clearer picture of the time. Also, does our memory lie to us because of a decieving image from that media? I learned a little about the uncertainty of history in college (especially in philosophy classes) and knowing my own poor memory, I see more clearly how experience effects this knowledge of memory…

Another question is this: Is the story more important and meaningful than the raw, hard facts. Does partially fictionalized story have the possibility of speaking more truth than cold hard facts?

I ran across more history recently, history from my past, my home. It is so cool to recount the past through the eyes and words of a whole group of people. That’s what makes Wiki so cool, but that is another post.

The Coffee House Wiki (Evansvlle, IN)

Evansville, IN Wiki

I just finished reading The Tipping Point, by Malcom Gladwell (after months of sitting on my shelf, half-read). This book is amazing. This book is all about the way that social epidemics start, specifically the “point” at which they become such. It is that threshold that turns a moderately selling product, barely a blip on the retail radar to a top-selling, extremely popular item, that everyone wants. It has really changed the way that I see many things, especially from a communications perspective.

The most profound concepts to me were the idea of salesmen, connectors, and mavens. That there are really a few people in this world that have the most amount of influence and connectedness. That they are the ones that cause epidemics to tip. That peer influence is more essential than high dollar marketing and advertising.

It is funny, one of the biggest frustrations that I had from my previous job was that of the resources (money, time, energy) that was spent on marketing and advertising events was too much and that we seemed to forget all the time that the reason people came to our events was because of the word of mouth from those effected by the church, the ones changed by the ministry of the church and its events. They are the secret. Not newspaper ads, banners, cards, etc. Those are just reinforcers for advertising. A larger issue is that the network of relationships are what really disseminate information and cause and craze to commence.

The more I read the book I find myself being a person who is a maven and a connector. Someone who knows things and loves to pass that knowledge on freely and someone who meets many people and finds small but, many times, meaningful relationships with them. Both of these things I’m beginning to see more and more as gifts from God. And, I’m afraid, that I’ve done a good job of digging a hole and tossing these in (especially the connector piece), thinking that doing nothing with them will return me an investment. For me starting relationships is easy, but following through with them and actually caring for someone past a certain point is difficult. I need to be a better connector, if not for myself but for them and for this life of the church lived out daily. This is a good place to be in my life: realizing where I am gifted, seeing that that gift needs enhancement and making effort to do so.

Has anyone else around here read The Tipping Point? If not, you really should, if so, post your opinions about it. I’d love to hear what you thought about the book.

I had to get a TB screening today for my mentoring Job. I drove down to 608 Jackson St. to the Fredericksburg Health Services building to get my $14.69 test. I went to the outside waiting room and waited my turn to go to the next waiting room where I would await my interview with the nurse for the TB screening.

It could have been the flourescent lighting emphasising my pail, anglo flesh, but I quickly realized that I was the minority in that second waiting room. I was literally the only white person in the whole place, there were about 80% hispanics and another 15% black, with me at %5 holding up the white minority. It was an interesting look into socio-economic life with race as an obvious factor.

What are the factors that perpetuate this distance between socio-economic classes and race? Will the inner-city poor population always be the minority racially? Is me talking about this right now actually triggering this racial stigma in each of our minds that says “I told you so” or “Of course, that doesn’t suprise me,” or just “Typical?” I wonder if our unconcious preconceptions make the problem worse, the actually tell the truth about the situation….

Malcom Gladwell has something to say about this in his new book, Blink. (which I am promoting, but have not read, what does that say about me?). I heard a speaking engagement of his and one point that he made was that our unconcious mind colors our opinions far more than actual data or fact. He thinks that if we had court procedings with out seeing or hearing the accused, disguising their voice and keeping them in a room away from the court room, then we would have a lot less wrongfully condemned people in prison.

Cultural and racial bias disturbs me, it says to me that we size people up in instant that we interactive with them, and then categorize them instantly. Some people may never have a chance to be who they really are to us. Mr. Gladwell may have more things to say about this.

As a follower of Jesus Christ, whose word and spirit transforms me from who once was to who I will be, can how we see people, how we judge them, unconciously be transformed along with our concious mind through the work of the Holy Spirit? I hope so, and I hold on to that hope.

Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Romans 12:1

I’m still pluggin’ away at job searching. The jobs from my previous “jobs” post are still up in the air. So far I’ve got the mentoring and sports photo gig and that is it. The Web Content manager job disappeared from UMW site, Weadon photography has still not finished going through the apps for the photo assistant job, and I still haven’t heard back about the graphic design/prepress job that I applied for last week. I followed up on all these opportunities today, and I hope to hear back about these.

I’ll find out Wednesday to see if we go the bid on the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation job, if I get it then I may not even need to get a full time job. We’ll see about that.

We had a great time at our worship gathering last night. We set up response stations where you could respond to scripture and god with your senses. One station had fans that were turned on full blast that you sat in front of. Scripture was taped to the floor relating to God to being like wind. We read and discuessed Acts 2, the day of Pentecost. It was really cool to feel the wind on your face and meditate on God’s movement being like the wind, and how his holy spirit often guides us where it wishes, like your hair blowing where the wind wills during a strong breeze.

If you are in the Fredericksburg/Spotsy area, come over for a visit with the namelss church as we worship, pray and read the word of the Lord together. It is every Sunday night at 6:30 p.m. The environment is warm, casual and friendly…everyone is welcome! Click here for a map and directions. Email me or post a comment if you plan to attend!

I had to get a drug test today for my new mentoring job. Oddly enough, I managed to mess about every aspect of the procdure up. First, I signed apart of the application that I wasn’t supposed to, this was pointed out to me loudly by the receptionist and the lady that gave the me the cup to pee in (hereafter I shall refer to as the “pee cup”).

After I recieved the “pee cup” I went into the bathroom, urinated into the “pee cup” up to the specified line and then proceded to flush and wipe my hands off with the antiseptic moist towettes that were in the bathroom. I left the room and I heard in a loud, overly confident voice of a person that gives people “pee cups” all day, “You flushed??!!? You’re not supposed to flush!” She looked startled and a little annoyed. Seeing the error of my ways I quickly had to find a reason for my flushing, so I told her that I flushed the moist towlette down the toilet. She suddenly looked more startled than before. She cackled back, “You’re not supposed to use those!!! It could affect the test results! But that’s your problem.” Now, I’m thinking that my drug test will come back saying that I have a rare addiction to isopropyl alchohol.

To save my butt, I decided to tell her that I’m usually not this incompetent. She laughed abrasively and said that it didn’t bother her. Now, I felt more incompetent, knowing that I’m this incompetent a lot more than I want to admit.

So, the moral is: Follow the rules and don’t do drugs.

I got another job today! I’ll be a mentor for a teen guy up to 10 hours per week. It is part time, so I’m still looking for that full time job.

I applied for a pretty cool job today at University of Mary Washington (Mary Washington College for all you purists). It is a web content manager position and I looks like it is right up my alley. I hope that I can get it. I’ll keep prayin’.

I do have another part-time job as a Sports photographer for Classic Image Photography doing sports photography on the weekends. I started last weekend, its pretty stressful and the weekends can get long, but it keeps me behind the camera. Last weekend I shot probably 800 kid baseball portraits and team portraits.

I’m put an application in as a photographer’s assistant about 3 weeks ago, but I haven’t heard anything about the job yet. I’ve called the place about 3 times asking about the job, they kept saying that they haven’t started interviews yet.

I’ve got to continue to remember that everything that I am and everything that I do is a gift from God and that it is his will not my will that matters.

My peeps and I will be going up to Cedar Ridge Community Church (around D.C.) tonight to see Brian McLaren and Tony Campolo. It should be pretty awesome. I need to read the book they wrote together. Chris has a copy of it, I should dig into it.

http://www.crcc.org/calendar.php?EventID=5008

This is my first blog post on blogger. It is kind of turning over a new leaf in accordance to turning over many new leaves in my life the past 6 weeks or so.. I hope to blog more frequently than I have in the past.

I don’t really have any idea what I’ll be discussing there, but here is a list of possible topics:

Graphic Design
Church
The Emerging Church
Web Site Design
Jazz and other assorted types of music
Reality Television
False-Reality Television
The Internet
Techonology
Consumerism or Things that I want, but I should not spend money on.
The Arts
Books I’m reading, etc.

Ideas for other topics? Feel free to post them as comments. However, I think they’ll have as much of bearing on what I write as the possibly irrelevant list that I posted above.