New Year's Eve partay!

Hey kids! Check out the awesome video Tim made of our Sesame-Street-themed New Year's party! That's my celestial wife Tina and our otherworldly friend Amy rawkin' out in the Yip Yip Martian costumes. :-)

NYE Party '09-'10 from Tim Snyder on Vimeo.

More pics are here.

Common Terzanelle

So last year, for Christmas, I wrote a Sestina. I didn't post it electronically; it was mostly a dead-trees-only thing. If perchance you want a copy, though, I'll be happy to send you one.

This year, for Christmas, I wrote a Terzanelle. Same deal: mostly dead trees, but if you want to read it, let me know.

So I really dig these complex, sorta-mathematical poetry forms. They're like a coding project for me: give me a problem space, and a language with rules, and I write words that shape a possible (and hopefully elegant) solution to the problem. That may sound un-poetic to you, but I'm a code monkey, and to me, it's beauty.

So anywho, writing the Christmas Terzanelle was hella fun, even though it's kinda dark-yet-hopeful in my typical emerging-emo (Emo-mergent?) mode. So I decided, with a little encouragement from friends on Facebook, to try writing another one.

In case you're interested, the form of a Terzanelle is:

A B A’ / B’ C B / C’ D C / D’ E D / E’ F E / F’ A F A’

Anyway, here goes:

Common Terzanelle

We tripped in, two by two and one by one
wond’ring, could these strangers walk with me
together on this journey we’d begun?

We looked around with narrow eyes to see
the woman at the mic, the child and dad
wond’ring, could these strangers walk with me?

That girl seemed full of joy; that man, so sad –
their stories all such mysteries at first –
the woman at the mic, the child and dad.

We came with hope. We also came with thirst,
and slowly found rich nourishment within
their stories, all such mysteries at first.

We looked around, eyes wide, and saw our kin.
We gazed across the Table at our friends,
and slowly found rich nourishment within.

Through common means we found our common ends.
We tripped in, two by two and one by one.
We gazed across the Table at our friends,
together on this journey we’d begun.

Dancing in the light

Since I don't seem to be blogging here much lately, I figured I might as well mention that I posted something on my church's shared Lenten blog (and, in the process, point you toward the good stuff on that blog from sundry Common Table folk).

For context: we decided to "give up church as we know it" this Lent (through Easter, and who knows what happens after that?) and spend the season with another church community with whom we're becoming friends, New Hope Fellowship. (New Hope is a community made up mostly of folks who are homeless and recently homeless.) We're trying to be alert for ways in which we can serve and help out at New Hope, but mostly we're just hoping to be present, listen, and make friends.

In many core ways, New Hope is a lot like us; for example, in the ways they think about, talk about, and practice community, leadership, worship design, shared responsibility and action, etc. (It's crystal clear to me that they are an emerging church by any useful definition of the term, though I guarantee that almost nobody there has ever cracked a book by Brian McLaren, Pete Rollins, or Tony Jones.) In other ways, though, there are differences: they're much more charismatic or pentecostal in their worship and language, for instance, and much more comfortable with language that sounds like certainty with regard to God's will for us. Since many Commoners are what you might call "post-"charismatic, and even more of us like to think we're "post-certainty", sometimes this language can make us uncomfortable. So we started this shared blog, in part, to help up work through those feelings so they don't get in the way of our friendships. More on the shared blog can be found on the first post, here.

But anyway, yesterday I posted about my experience worshiping at New Hope Sunday morning. It was full of images of light, and relationship, and dance. So, it you want, check it out (and stay to check out the other posts too).

image "Light Dancing" by diveofficer (rights)

Code = Poetry

I was just reflecting on the strong commonalities between these two art forms: poetry, and code (i.e., computer programs). (If you don't think code is an art form, either you aren't a coder, or you are a coder and consider "art" to be a somewhat pejorative term.)

Both are, ideally, elegant and powerfully expressive applications of language.

Each form values both beauty (simplicity, elegance, etc.) and "correctness" (i.e., conforming to practical rules), though probably to differing degrees. A poem may perhaps be valuable if it is beautiful, but conforms to no rules. A program, in theory, may be valuable if it's correct, but ugly. I believe both cases are very rare.

Both are, by virtue of the process that creates them, greater than the sum of their parts (i.e., their words and characters). A good program accomplishes some practical task; a good poem evokes some emotional or spiritual response.

And other stuff, too.

That's all I have to say about that, today. :-) Here are some Perl poems, including:

# Perl Haiku by Bob Meyers

use strict; my @love;
my $wounds = open(FLAME, "of_passion");
foreach () {
push @love "fully";
}

And you can buy the shirt up top right here.

Mortgage monster

Is it ever OK to demonize someone? How 'bout if it's not a specific someone but just a vague class of people, not including anyone you actually know? No? How 'bout if that class of people is fairly objectively responsible for an awful lot of pain and heartache among your friends and neighbors? Still no? How 'bout if it's Halloween?

Probably not, I guess. But when Whitney pointed me at this Monster Maker from the San Antonio Express News (See? Newspaper websites do so make a valuable contribution to our culture!) - well, this is just what jumped out. I didn't set out to make him, but kinda like the golden calf - shazzam! There he was.

I'll get to work repenting now.

Sometimes I doubt your commitment to Sparkle Motion

Just re-watching one of my favorite movies, and thought I'd share.

The new me

I've been seeing these icons/avatars all over, so I figured out where they come from and created myself one. Beware, though: the technology on their site sort of sucks. Your user experience may suck too, particularly if you use Linux.

Still, the icons are cute.

Wordle is cool

I made a Wordle (above) from my semi-recent "What I Really Think" series of posts. (From March, when my blog was on fire. Contrast with August, when my blog is on sedatives. Or something.) Anyway, the Wordle. It's cute.

HT: My FB-friend Alissa.

Credit: http://wordle.net/ (rights)

Not for the faint of heart

This little piece of dramatic art from Canadian filmmaker Mathieu Ratthe is heart-wrenching. It's also wise. I won't tell you what teaching(s) (of Jesus, and many others) I think it illustrates, because, well, that would be telling. But please be warned: don't hit "play" if you find disturbing images and situations hard to take. Seriously.

Good stuff on the day job: a new USATODAY.com

I don't tend to blog much about my day job, but I have to say that I think the redesign we launched this morning for USATODAY.com looks right spiffy. And it's faster, and more convenient, and puts more of the info that folks seem to want in front of their eyeballs. I can claim very, very little credit for this, but I am proud to be part of a crack team of designers, editors, programmers, and business folks who do fine work and have a good time doing it.

Check it, y'all.

P.S., it's also an awesome place to work, from a values/culture/flexibility point of view. Join us! ;-)

Alas, no Legion of Pastafarian Super-Pirates

Those who know me will not be surprised that I find this delightful. Click through to find out what Francine Peters-Silver and Clark Kent have in common - and much, much more. (Including: What characteristic unites Mike Croghan, Bruce Wayne, Jean Grey, and Sue Storm-Richards? That's right! We're all spoiled white elitists.)

HT: Bro. Maynard

On being an artist

I don't usually think of myself as an artist. With effort, I can be an OK writer, but in general I think my gifts lie outside what most people tend to think of as artistic endeavors.

However, sometimes I think I'm capable of elevating hypocrisy to the level of a rare masterpiece. I've been known to create works of symmetrical, even recursive hypocrisy. It's very beautiful, if you have the eye to appreciate it.

Absolutely true story: This past Saturday, 1 March. These thoughts go through my head:

"Hmm. There's a pretty good chance, I hear, that a reporter from the Washington Post is going to be at church tomorrow morning. And I'm scheduled to be up front, leading content [sort of like a sermon, only (in my case) with a whole lot more um's and ah's] and celebrating the Eucharist.

"I don't think I should shave.

"I don't want her to think that I'm concerned about appearances."

Whoa

Warning: Smug snarkiness alert. I should probably put this disclaimer on most of my posts lately.

Beloved Employer raised my eyebrows with this review of the new, er, "charity" reality game show, Oprah's Big Give.

Who knew Ms. Winfrey was white? (HT: Bricklad)

God knows I'm white too, and I'm certain I fall into the same traps, but I am a fan of getting to know and listening to the folks one is trying to help. I hope I try to practice that.

Blogcast of the Common Table

OK, so I can't not post about this. :-) If perchance anybody who reads this blog from afar has ever wondered, "So what do they do at this little coffee-house church called Common Table?", my best advice is to come and visit and stay for at least a month, 'cause no single gathering is going to give you anything like a good answer to that question. My second-best advice is to come and visit at least once. My third-best (and last-ditch) advice is is to check out our (quite nifty, IMHO) web site. But while that will give you some idea of what we think about and how we relate to the wide, wild world, until recently there wasn't a whole lot there that would tell you what it's like when we gather for worship services and service-worship, our two most frequent forms of coming together IRL (in real life) to serve and love God, our neighbors, and each other.

But now, thanks mostly to the tireless creative genius of the mighty iPete, we have a rockin' blogcast site with elements to help you experience (a little bit, anyway) our current worship series, on "Space". So far, we've got posts on our first three worship services in the series: Physical Space (the [human] is in the space), Relational Space (the [healing] is in the space), and Temporal Space (the [funk] is in the space), plus one for this past Saturday's joyous service-worship, in which we made space in the lives of some friends of ours who are parents of young kids, giving them an afternoon to themselves while we transformed the inside of Jack and Pete's house into a (well-regulated) party zone for 11 kids, aged 7 months to 8 years.

There are also podcasts of the worship services, and if you keep on scrolling down, you'll find content from last year's Easter season series ("Blooms"). It's all good stuff, and although it's only a taste of our gatherings, a taste is far better than nothing, and I think it's pretty cool.

Jeremiah Season 2!

I don't know if anybody who reads this blog gives a crap about this, but I'm pretty excited. Season 2 of Jeremiah, J. Michael Straczynski's excellent post-apocolyptic drama series, has never been released on DVD - but it's available on iTunes and Netflix for your instant viewing pleasure! Awesome and awesome! Also: I spelled JMS's name right on the first try! Yay me! Yay Netflix! Yay Jeremiah, Kurdy, and the gang! Like, yay! :-)

Alienseseseses vs. Predatorseses

(See, it's the 6th Alien movie and the 4th Predator movie. Get it? Heh.)

Yep, as I predicted, AvP:R sucked. Not too much worth saying about it. As I suspected, the filmmakers thought that "achieving the atmosphere of the classic films" meant "lots of rain". On the other hand - and thank God for this - they did discover and include the one thing these movies have sorely lacked all along: stupid horny teenagers. Not. (Well, the stupid horny teens were certainly there, but naturally all they did was make it seem even more like a run-of-the-mill B horror flick.)

They threw in some vaguely plausible never-before-seen Alien evolution as a plot device to ensure that there would be lots and lots of Alienses around, and the movie contained exactly one (1) Predator, who was utterly irrelevant to the plot, and not even particularly badass. The very final moments of the film did throw one nice bone to fans of the Alien franchise, though, so they get points for that.

I hope they let the franchises lay fallow for a while, now, until somebody comes up with an actual good idea for another movie. Alas, Tina and I were part of the problem by adding to the opening-weekend box office. But Alienseses make Tina happy, so we went. :-)

Book Review: Only Begotten, by Gary Glass

Only Begotten is a novel by my friend Gary Glass, which he's publishing online, a chapter a day, on onlybegotten.com. It's a retelling of the final years of the life of Jesus - roughly the same period of time that's recounted in the canonical Gospels. So you could call it the Gospel According to Gary.

I usually start any long post with disclaimers, so - here we go. First, I do believe this is my first attempt at a book review, so apologies if it sucks. (The review, that is - not the book.) Second, regarding the suckiness (or lack thereof) of the book - I have to say I was quite surprised. Not surprised that I enjoyed reading it - I expected that. Gary's one of the smartest guys I know, and has a way with words. I wasn't sure if he'd turn out to be gifted at storytelling and characterization, but I wasn't surprised to find out that he was. So, just to be clear, it was a great read. Hard to put down, a real page-turner, and, for you Da Vinci Code fans, short chapters! :-)

What did surprise me, though, was that overall, I was happy with the picture of Jesus that Gary paints. Quite frankly, I expected to be put off by it. I hesitate to characterize Gary's worldview based on our conversations, but suffice it to say that it's definitely not what most people would think of as "Christian". Gary can correct me if I'm wrong, but my impression of his outlook on life is this:

1. Start by accepting the world as it is, life as it is, and people as they are.
2. Trust reason and something like common sense as your guides to doing the right thing in this clearly-seen world with these OK-just-as-they-are people.
3. Faith and religious practice might possibly be helpful if they operate within this framework, but chances are that they'll only distract or mislead you. Buddhist philosophy and meditation practices are probably the most helpful / least harmful.
   

So I expected that a point of view like that would shine through in Gary's portrayal of Jesus. (It did.) What I didn't expect was that I'd like it! (Mostly.)

Jesus the Tathagata

Gary's Jesus at the beginning of the story is a grieving recent widower. Not just grieving - wrecked. The loss of his beloved Anna has drained Jesus of almost everything he had or was. Almost - but not quite everything. He still has his sense of loss, and it still consumes him. After a short sojourn with his cousin John the Baptist and his disciples, Jesus enters the wilderness. Reduced to nothing but basic need - food when starving, water when dying of thirst, sleep when too exhausted to remain awake - Jesus has an experience of awakening, not while sitting under a tree like that other well-known awakened one, but while wading in the Dead Sea. He returns to civilization a changed man, begins (quite against his will) to accumulate disciples, has many adventures with them, and, in the end...well, I won't give it away, but he doesn't sail away with a pregnant Magdalene to found the Merovingian line of French kings.

So is this a story of Jesus the Buddha? Not quite, and this is where I was surprised. Like the Buddha, this Jesus has been utterly transformed by an experience of awakening - but this is still recognizably the Jesus of the canonical Gospels. This Jesus is a healer and an exorcist. This Jesus is a fearless practitioner of radical hospitality, friend and lover of tax collectors and prostitutes. He's a teacher in parables and a sayer of hard sayings that seem to glorify himself. He's a people person who would often give anything to escape the crowds (if he had anything to give). This Jesus sends his followers out to heal and teach and exorcise. This Jesus is a forgiver of sins.

In other words, pretty much like the Jesus of the Gospels. The difference is that, in Gary's story, all of this stems from Jesus' emptying of himself, and his awakening to a worldview much like the one I outline above: accept life as it is, accept people as they are, use common sense and reason from there. This Jesus isn't so much a theist (he does talk of God's kingdom, but never calls God "Father") as a pantheist, or perhaps a panentheist. Or perhaps he's just comfortable with mystery when it comes to these questions - quite a bit more comfortable, in fact, than I've previously thought my friend Gary to be! A late conversation with his brother, James, is priceless:

— But there is something about you, my brother. Something that makes you a stranger to me. Something — I don’t know what — I don’t know how to say it.

— Maybe there’s nothing.

— No! It’s there. Something very good.

— What do you think it is, James?

— Is it God?

— Not the God you’re looking for.

— There is only one God.

— How do you know?

— I’m a Jew!

— Is God?

— Are you?

— Before there were Jews, there is God. You’re looking for the God of your fathers, the God of the book, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Moses. You’re looking for other men’s Gods! Isn’t that idolatry? Isn’t that whoring after false Gods? The one God is the God of the living. Therefore look for God among the living. But when you look out at the world you don’t find that God here. What do you find? You find the living world, the living God. The real God in the real world. Right here and now. Right here!

Jesus tapped James on the chest.

James shook his head —

— I don’t understand how you can call this God.

— Do you think you can understand God? Beware the God of your understanding, brother! Beware the God that suits you. Isn’t a God as small as your understanding too small to make the whole world? Isn’t that also idolatry? Isn’t that also whoring after false Gods?

— How do you know this, brother? Didn’t we both grow up in Nazareth sons of Joseph and Mary? How can you sit here now and tell me with such authority that all that we learned at our father’s knee was idolatry?

— It wasn’t idolatry then. It became idolatry when I began to see.

— See what?

— See God.

— You see God?

— I’m looking at God now.

James was transfixed by his brother’s eyes. Jesus looked at him completely without fear — with no reservations — nothing held back. His eyes were full of sorrow and full of innocence at once. His gaze was absolutely accepting and utterly uncompromising. Tears came into James’s eyes. He didn’t even know why. He never had seen such fearlessness in any man. It was astonishing and wonderful.

I quite like this Jesus, overall - and I like Gary even more now after having read his story.

Jesus the Accepting Transformer

If I have a quibble with this Jesus, it's that his philosophy - so clear to him as to be invisible (he constantly denies that he has anything to teach) - doesn't quite make complete sense to me. The key, for this Jesus, seems to be to accept both the world, and each person in it, as they are. Yet, Jesus himself has changed utterly in the course of his life. I think Jesus would say that he didn't actually change - he just became who he really was - but how does one tell the difference? Jesus heals Jonas the demoniac and Caleb, a man with an unclean skin disease - among others. He gives brutal tongue-lashings to those who act out of unthinking prejudice or selfishness. Why didn't he accept all of these people as they were? I don't disagree with Jesus' actions - like I said, I like this Jesus - but I'm not sure I buy that the universe is quite as simple as he and Gary make it out to be. It didn't seem to me that Jesus, in this story, was faced with any really interesting ethical dilemmas. Consider this exchange between Jesus and his disciples James and John, the sons of Zebedee:

James said —

— Teacher, if this is how it is, then what is prayer? If God is in me and I in God, who is praying to who?

— That is a subtle question, James, my friend! Now look if God is in you and you are in God, and God is in me and I am in God, then when you and I speak to each other, who is speaking to who?

— I don’t know.

— Don’t you see that this too is just the way the world is made to be? Whether we question or accept, pray or keep silent, contend or embrace, deny or affirm — we are in all things expressing God’s creation. We are always in the will of God. It is impossible to deviate from the way things are.

John objected —

— Then why shouldn’t I turn to thieving and whoring and drinking and gambling?

— Wouldn’t you miss your wife and sons and daughters?

— Why don’t you?

— That life does not appeal to me. I am living the life that is given to me.

— Does it appeal to you?

Jesus laughed —

— Not always!

OK, but what if a live of thieving did appeal to Jesus? Would that then be acceptable? As long as that was who he truly was? Somehow I find this unlikely, in light of the compassionate, just Jesus portrayed elsewhere in the story. I think, in the end, that this Jesus would agree with the Jesus of the Gospels and the Buddha of the Sutras - not everything about us ought to be accepted. Some aspects of us - those that cause us in our greed or selfishness or anger to ignore the well-being of our fellow creatures - ought to be named sin or poison, and transformed.

Jesus Our Brother

In the end, I found Only Begotten to be a touching portrayal of a very human Jesus. A Jesus who, through suffering and awakening, became a man whose fearlessness and clarity and fullness of life were nearly impossible to resist. It's a portrait of a Jesus who is just like each of us, yet unlike any of us. A Jesus who is our brother, our healer, our teacher despite himself. Thanks, Gary, for this portrait.

Now, tell me how I misinterpreted it. :-)

Peace!

P.S., While you're discovering Gary's brilliance, you must check out his photography on ShutterGlass.com. ZOMG, it's awesome stuff!

Alienseses

Tina and I have been re-watching some of the Alien movies. I thought I'd share some brief reviews for your edification.

Alien - Classic. Scary. Genre-defining.

Aliens - Possibly the most overrated sci-fi movie of all time; definitely the most overrated Alien movie. I can barely stand to watch this flick. Bill Paxton and Paul Reiser's characters annoy the living piss out of me. The thing looks ridiculously dated with its '80's fashion and big hair. The acting is abyssmal, and the tension is nill because you don't give a crap about any of the characters, with the exception of the little girl (cheap ploy), Ripley (whom you only care about because she was a badass in the previous flick), and the android, Bishop, who is this movie's one positive contribution to the franchise. OK - and I'll admit it's cool to see Ripley in the robotic exoskeleton taking on the alien queen.

Alien³ (aka Alienses) - The most underrated movie in the franchise. I like this one almost as much as the original. Tense writing, interesting characters, really impressive acting, and a willingness to buck Hollywood convention and expectations (in other words, it does things you don't expect - imagine that!)

Alien Resurrection (aka Alienseses) - Oh, Joss. Joss, Joss, Joss. It's hard to believe that this thing was written by my beloved Buffy creator. I'm pretty sure it was studio-ruined like the original BtVS movie, but still. It ends up being one of those guilty pleasure movies that's fun, but by no stretch of the imagination good.

Alien vs. Predator - This was a movie based on a comic book that looks like a video game. There've been a lot of movies like that in recent years. It's another guilty pleasure movie. It's fun. It's got some great moments. It's got Lance Henriksen. They're making a sequel. They seem to be really proud of the fact that there's a lot of rain in the sequel. I'm guessing it'll suck. But who knows?

There you have it. If you want to borrow the DVD's, let me know.

This makes me smile

Check out this video: Persepolis



Add to My Profile | More Videos

The graphic novels it's based on were really good.

HT: Whitney

Comics / TV cross-pollenation

This isn't exactly news, but:

Brian K. Vaughan, Jeph Loeb, and Tim Sale are working in TV?

Joe Straczynski and Joss Whedon are creating comics?

What's wrong with this picture??

Answer: Abso-friggin'-lutely nothing. :-)