Holy Ghost in the Machine, Part Deux.

I had just finished my last post, and it was time to go see my best friend Ken (we've been best friends for over 20 years). He let me know tonight that he's officially taking the last U2 ticket I have available.

On the way there, U2's song "Vertigo" came on. I spent the first half still dwelling on my upside-down life and the last blog entry when I was arrested by these words, just at the end (caps mine).

Hello, hello... I'm at a place called Vertigo
Lights go down and all I know
Is You give me something...
Your love is teaching me how....
Your love is teaching me how...
How to kneel...
Kneel...

So so SO true. So as I go to kneel before bed, in honor of God's collusion with the biggest band in the world, I hereby declare tomorrow to be "U2 day" at Coracle's Wake Radio!

Deo Gratias!

Oh, Inverted World

I finished my last summer school class - Intro to Desktop Publishing - and it was a bit of an exercise in frustration. I got so busted. I dork around for fun on professional-grade Adobe products, so I thought this was going to be cake. Think again, sucker... The software we used was just different enough from what I'm used to to feel backward and uncomfortable - sensations I'm not used to here on Planet Geek. I felt as if I was working upside-down, locked in a pair of those late-80s gravity boots. I quickly stressed, and turned into an absolute whiney little b*tch... I feel so bad for my prof. My classmates will be in Tech Writing with me starting Thursday, so I'll have a chance to redeem myself, but I'll probably never have/see this prof again, so I feel bad to have been such a punk. Ah, well.

The stress and regret sent me into a bit of a funk, until today I saw a bumper sticker that said: "Where are we going? And what am I doing in this handbasket?" I busted out laughing - it felt like such a good fit, like (once again) God's sense of humor dumped cold water on my face and restored some perspective.

I start school tomorrow morning and have no clue how to feel about it. I guess I'll just roll...

Like many of us in blogland, many of my thoughts and prayers are with Jan and her dad. Yesterday's post struck me with inversion - thus my ripping off the Shins for the title of this blog. Jan, who has sat with so many in such similar circumstances, now sits for her dad and herself. The prayer-giver needs prayer. And don't we all.

I thank God that in so many ways His Kingdom is inverted - that ultimate victory came through apparent defeat, that the most unloveable are valued most highly, that LIFE is only ever acheived through death... and I'm trying to learn to be well when things are upside-down...

Fiat Lux....

My Own Little Boat...

Hey, all. I know it's been a while, but Jeffy's been busy.

A few weeks ago, I was calmly minding my own business and checking blogs when I saw Christy's coracle post. That image -- Reepicheep in his coracle, drinking the sweet water of the Utter East -- hit the waters of my soul like Louie Anderson doing a cannonball. I let it in and waited for the waters to settle.

Then Judy followed up, talking about the rich imagery of risky obedience connected to that same Welsh invention. It caught my attention. I broke out my Esther DeWaal books and reread the sections that dealt with coracles. I let those words and images stew, but I still felt like there was something missing... Some of the ingredients were getting left out.

So, I googled it. I read the wikipedia entry and discovered that coracles are so light because they're usually animal hide (skins) stretched over a wooden framework. Doesn't sound particularly seaworthy, but they're easy for one person to carry. No rough portages here. I clicked over to images, and I found pictures of solitary people floating calmly, a photo of a group carrying their coracles from one canal to another, an image of five or six children clustered in their coracles and splashing one another with their oars. I found a society of welshmen that make their own coracles to preserve the tradition as the craft are vanishing from the rivers and moors. The story that caught me most was one of lower-class fishermen, too poor to afford anything but a coracle. They would fish in pairs, stringing a net between the two boats until they had something of a catch. At that point, they'd pull on the nets, drawing the tiny boats together so they could haul in the catch and share it between them.

What a lovely picture of the dance between solitude and community! I sat back and reflected on my life - on the places the winds have taken me, on the way I can now see that (no matter how choppy the waters) I was where I needed to be. I felt like my bones were a wooden framework on which my skin has been stretched to provide a perfect little vehicle for my soul to travel. Alone with God or together with others, floating in a quiet marsh or so far out to sea I don't remember the sight of land, this coracle has served me well.

Thus was born my mad scientist project. I've been thinking about something like this for years, and I finally felt like this was an appropriate framework for it. So I broke out my check card, fired up Dreamweaver, and created my own website. I'd like to invite you all to check out Coracle's Wake. I know it looks pretty shabby at the moment, but I made it from scratch and with love. I promise it will get better.

I'm learning. These waters are new to me, but they taste of sweetness and growth and a hint of fatigue. My email is changing, too. Be gentle, but even if you're not, you are very welcome.

Deo Gratias

A Passel of Random Updates

1) The library page is reformatted per jjB's idea -- brilliant. It's now searchable and browseable all on one page, so that's good. It will, however, take some time to load -- particularly over dial-up. If you want to check it out (pretty please, as a favor to me?), click HERE.

2) The co-worker scheduled to come in for me this morning pulled a no-show, so I'm hitting the wall after an 18.5 hour shift with the boys. I'm really not sure I'm cut out for parenthood.

3) My little "MAD SCIENTIST" project is coming along nicely... More to come on that score.

4) The newsreader thing is still cool and has nothing to do with the fact that I've not been commenting much lately. That's all about time and brainfry.

5) Medically speaking, I'm all good.

6) Chow Yun-Fat is THE MAN.

More topically coherent stuff this coming week... And I promise they will be almost entirely geek-free.

Really.

Geek In Need of Advice...

OK. I don't know how many of you have spent any time at "The Original JeffSite," (see right bar) or if you've gotten to the library if you have. I'm not happy with them pages. They're overwhelming. Unfortunately, I don't have the capacities yet to get all my books into a web-searchable database -- that. would. rule.

My software is also somewhat limited in its output capacities. So say you're looking to borrow a book from me. You decide to go to my website to see what I have/if I have what you're looking for. Would you rather:

A) Have it as it is now (50 items per page, sorted alphabetically first by genre, then author, then title. Lots of information per page, but only 17 pages.

B) Smaller chunks of information (15 items per page, sorted the same way -- less to process, but 56 pages to wade through)

C) "Press One for Theosophy" (A different set of pages for each genre, but if I export them this way, the sorting disappears, so C.S. Lewis may show up on all five pages in the genre, but there are only five pages...)

Please, Lord, there's gotta be a better way...

"Duh" Moments That Lead to Happiness

The life of a "computer geek" is chock full of "Duh" moments. You know, the kind where you've spent half an hour looking for your car keys only to realize they've been clipped to your belt loop the whole time?

I recently had one of these when I read Craig's comment to my post on Too Many Blogs. He said something like "I hope you're using something like Pluck or Thunderbird..." and I was like "Duh! I need me an RSS reader! These are programs that let you enter the sites you check and they check them for you -- displaying new posts when they're posted. MUCH more low-maintenance than clicking through 50 bookmark tabs per day.

So, I did my homework. Pluck is only for Internet Explorer or Firefox (I use neither) and is browser-integrated (I wanted a stand-alone program). Thunderbird is a mail client that also handles blog/news feeds. I tried it for most of the day and it didn't really do what I wanted.

Then I came across NewsFire, a Mac-only client from an amateur software designer who also wrote some other programs I love enough to use every day. It's simple, it's clean, it does what I want -- in otherwords, it keeps to that delightful Apple spirit.

If you're like me -- with new friends getting their own blogs almost daily -- an RSS reader is well worth looking into. Check it just like your email box... But be sure to still post me comments :-)

Seeing More (Part Three): The Discipline of Attention

“Didn’t have a camera by my side this time
Hoping I could see the world through both my eyes”
-- John Mayer, “3x5”

John has a point. But sometimes, a camera can help you see – or at least pay attention. Last summer, we were reading Esther DeWaal's book Lost in Wonder, and I got this hunger to pay attention, to see more. On an impulse, I went away to my parents’ house for a weekend and took my dad’s new pro digital camera out for a walk. I found all kinds of crazy beautiful stuff within five minutes of the house and was amazed that, for twenty years, I just plain hadn’t noticed.

Since then, I occasionally grab my camera to take pictures of everyday things. It’s not a discipline, really… more of an exercise. An attempt to pay attention, to see things from a different vantage point and open myself. It’s like switching my eyes into four-wheel drive, giving me more perceptive traction somehow.

The last time I did this was while I was dogsitting for Malette’s. They have a lovely apartment, and I wanted to see it in pieces to explore the unique minutae of the environment. I strung some of those images together here (a broadband connection would be helpful...).

The exercise is good. The attentive mindset helps me go deeper. The discipline it energizes and cultivates is one of inviting divine attention to my inner décor. Taking a loving look with God at my soul’s furniture that I rarely see in the midst of rushing around to get things done. Some pieces need to be rearranged or refinished. Some need to be thrown out. Most need to be noticed… recognized… appreciated.

The rhythm of noticing also helps me love better in response to everyday moments. The line that shows up in my mother’s face when my dad makes some remark over the cell phone... The blank stare of a fellow student when I make some 80s pop-culture reference... The tear in the eye of the woman coming forward for prayer... I suspect that the little things, the things I so often miss, are usually the 10% of the iceberg.

The camera, the exercise, the discipline – they help me pay attention, within and without, so I can steer myself away from shipwreck and maybe nudge others in a similar direction.

Lord, nothing is so small as to escape your gaze. Help me to pay attention to You, that I may see more and deeper. Help me keep my eyes on Your face so that when You look somewhere, I can follow Your glance and move.

Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, make it so.

Seeing More (Part Two): The Word and Images

I got my first Bible midway through the second grade. One of the advantages of growing up in a small-town Baptist church is that you wind up with respect for and knowledge of the Word, whether you're aware of it or not. Our church had an admirable commitment to giving each student two bibles: a children's bible midway through second grade and a leatherbound study bible for graduation.

When my number first came up, it was 1978. McDonald's had recently introduced the Happy Meal, Debby Boone's star was in the ascendant, and the world was thrilled to shift its attention from the cold war to incredible things that supposedly happened a long long time ago in a galaxy far far away. Rumor had it they were making a Star Trek movie, and everyone knew it could never match Star Wars. The idea of Leia being Luke's sister would have been met with derisive laughter -- I mean, she kissed him, for crying out loud! Gross! And if someone had posited Darth Vader as Luke's father, I suspect I would have reached for the nearest bludgeoning tool. Like everyone else, I wanted nothing more than my own lightsaber and made every effort to let my parents know that depriving me of one constituted child abuse. My jungle gym became the gunner's turret of the Millenium Falcon and the schoolbus became a Star Wars Trading card swap meet.

In the midst of all this, our Sunday School teacher offered us a choice: The Illustrated Bible for Children or the Children’s Living Bible. We got to look over a copy of each before making our decision. The former was Bible-as-comic-book. All the major stories and parables, very little in terms of the law or genealogies or epistles, just page after page of images conveying What God Did. The latter was your standard Bible. It contained both testaments in an easy-to-read paraphrase, words of Christ in red, and a few color plates.

I turned out to be the only one who went with Option B. As I said, I was more into “real” books anyway, and this felt like the more "adult" thing to do. Besides, after watching the Death Star blow, six-color comic images just seemed lame. On the following Sunday, I unwrapped my new Bible and just petted it for a few minutes. The cover was ivory-colored faux-leather over cardboard, with the title etched in gold foil and a picture of Jesus holding a young boy on his lap, pointing out a part of the Word. I thumbed the pages, feeling superior to the other kids who were saying things like “That’s not a very good whale…” or “So that’s what Mary looked like!”

The only thing I remember about that Bible today is the picture on the cover. When I open the Word to study, I sometimes think of that little boy and clamber up into Jesus’ lap in my head. It’s comfy there.

This all came back to me several weeks ago, when I joined some dear friends in visiting the Art Institute to see sections of the St. John’s Bible. This is an incredible project, amazing in its detail, artistry, scope, and beauty. We wandered through the cases, looking at these rich images next to the text of divine revelation.

Most of the pictures were a bit abstract, the artists’ manifest bow before mystery. I think I was most moved by the frontispiece to the Gospel of John. The rich colors held the depth of the universe,and symbols blended with the Word to deepen my encounter with God. I began to catch a glimpse of the Bible as art, to experience the Jesus-Word as Beauty, to see all human history and the life of the Church as God’s magnificent tapestry of Who He IS. For a moment, I wished I could page through that other Bible – the one I didn’t choose all those years ago. I wanted to experience the stories, child-like, in basic line and color and form.

And then I looked around. This is the story, I realized. This is the painting, the tapestry, the sculpture of God’s love and glory. These trees. These clouds. These friends. It’s all right here, and it’s been going on forever. I thought of the scene in Postcards From the Edge where Meryl Streep tells Gene Hackman: “That’s my problem. I don’t want life to imitate art, I want life to BE art.”

I’m with ya, Meryl, but I don’t think it’s a problem. I think it’s precisely what God had in mind. Painting and Symphony and Dance and Tapestry and Gourmet Feast all at the same time.

Lord, make it so in me. Help me see with those eyes more and more, and in all the works of Your hands display your artistry to Your neverending glory. Deo Gratias.

A little (geeky) comic relief

OK, say you're a Macintosh person. The past few years with OS X have made your computing life a dream, and you've found yourself more and more willing to wade into the Windows vs. Mac fracas. How many times has this happened to you:

You've got some Windows geek totally backed into a corner. You smoked him on stability, security, user-friendliness, design, and cool factor. He rallied with the whole objection about there not being any good games for Mac, but you successfully managed to make the argument about "real" computing, not frivolous time killing supported by vast quantities of caffeine. You can see him sweating. He's glancing around for an escape route. You can sense his panic rising as he realizes he may actually have to admit Apple superiority. You're almost salivating...

Then his eyes light up. He's found a silver bullet: "Well, how come the mice still only have one button?"

Crap. Not that again. In past arguments, you've tried to argue that macs are so seamless and powerful, you only need one button, but Apple itself has betrayed you by including support for extra buttons not only in applications, but the OS itself. And they always know... the Windows diehards always know.

Stop right there. Don't slouch, don't start sweating, don't let him smell your fear. There's nothing to be afraid of anymore. Uncle Steve has finally come to your aid.

Take heart, courageous macgeek. The reinforcements have arrived. Time to close in for the kill.

Hey, all you acolytes of the Church of Microsoft? BRING IT ON!!!

Seeing More (Part One): Words and Images

Growing up, my cousin Brian was Officially Cool. He is four and a half years older than me and he lived in the city. He had great stuff and a sophisticated, wisecracking sense of humor. So, of course, I idolized him. Not completely – I had zero interest in sports, so his collection of 20,000 baseball cards meant nothing to me – but in most other ways, Brian was The Man.

His other major collecting passion was comic books. I remember his prized possession was Fantastic Four #88. No Superman or Batman for this guy – they were too established for their books to hold any value. X-men, X-factor, FF, Spidey, Doctor Strange – these were his ouvre. Every time I came over, he gave me a refresher course in handling the books: turn the pages gently, try and touch only the edges, and never, EVER let the corners get bent. Each comic was reinforced by cardboard in its plastic sleeve, and I’d never get through more than four before he got too agitated and made me put them away.

The stories were great, if a bit heavy-handed. All about Good Vs. Evil, the neverending burden of misunderstanding that comes with a secret identity, the death-defying adventure, the certainty that (no matter how dark the scene before the words “to be continued”) Good, in the person of Our Hero(es), would triumph in the end.

I have to admit, I occasionally fantasized about Brian “outgrowing” comics, or tragically perishing in a bizarre softball accident and leaving his entire collection to me. I’d take good care of them, really I would. Nasty, I know, but hey – I was eleven.

Even at that age, though, I preferred “real” books. I liked the pictures in my head better than the ones someone else had drawn. The worlds in my mind were so much bigger and brighter than a twelve-panel page and my characters moved in three dimensions. They breathed and lived in the space between the author and me.

In the past few months, though, I’ve been spending more and more time in what are now termed “graphic novels.” The vast majority of them are still overgrown comic books complete with superheroes and epic tone, they just have more room for complexity in the story. The ones I’ve been seeking out, the ones that fascinate me, are different – distinctly uncomicbooky (Look, ma! A whole new word!). In fact, most of them are rendered in stark black and white.

Persepolis is the story of a girl growing up in Iran during the Islamic Revolution. It chronicles her social and spiritual uncertainty in the midst of that upheaval. I picked up Maus: A Survivor's Tale because it was billed as the Holocaust with the Jews as mice and Nazis as cats, but it goes so much deeper. It's about families, the way we shape each other, the aftermath of suffering on relationships, experiences, and decisions. It's a Good Life, If You Don't Weaken tells of the artist's quest for an obscure cartoonist, but it spoke to me of dreams and passions and duties and tensions and contentment.

These are stories without easy answers, stories that have no end other than a certain sense of grace and perhaps a taste of greater understanding. Stories that feel less like spandex and artifice and more like real life. They require fewer words because they rely on images to carry the emotional undertone of events. Art becomes a sort of shorthand for human experience in unpredictable ways. The realities illuminated are sad and funny and rich and beautiful, and I hope to get to more soon. They give me another way to see.

Check them out if you have the time.

Too Many Blogs!!!

I finally sat down for a moment and sorted my 50+ blogs I check into separate bookmark folders. Whew. I feel much more together now. :-)