Knowtown…

Just wanted to thank anyone who remembered to say a prayer for me as I had my meeting tonight. It went well. It reminded me of something I read in Vaclav Havel’s book, The Art of The Impossible, that you really cannot say everything that needs to be said in one sitting. I like to think we covered a lot of ground but I am sure we did not cover as much as we could have. In the end, I had to wrap things up earlier than I would have liked so that we could get our kids so there was not as much time for reflective feedback, at least not tonight. I had a nice chat with a friend who drove me home so we could talk and plan to set up some follow up meetings with others to hear what they have to say. I think I will find out just how thick my skin is.

As I rambled on tonight I began to wonder if I am looking for things that I already have, like people who are looking everywhere for their sun glasses which are perched on top of their heads. I have been working through some rough thoughts that are developing into my own church planting axioms. As I spoke some of them out loud tonight for the first time I became aware of some of the tensions that are going on in my soul. It is no wonder I am not sleeping well. But the little bit of feedback I have received so far gives me hope. I have already been challenged to narrate a part of my ecclesial dream in a different way. I also became more aware than ever of just how valuable my process of detox from my church addiction has been and how hard that monkey can be to shake. I still feel “unchurched” in a way but I am now more aware of how beneficail my time away has been. I am very grateful that I did not get sucked back in too quickly. With the help of the people present tonight I realize that I am right were I hoped to be, it just looks a lot different than I expected it to.

At the risk of being really sappy, I feel like I imagine the members of the Corps of Discovery (Lewis and Clark Expedition) did when they made the turn off the Mississippi and began the trek up the Missouri. The actual change was relatively small. They were still travelling upstream against the current of a mighty river. But the symbolic change was very real. Although the journey had been going on for some 17 months before this, the adventure was just beginning. This subtle transition was a huge milestone. Thanks to everyone who participated in the discussion tonight.

I will reflect more on this in the near future after some more feedback. Thanks again for your prayers.

I like Tony Jones a lot. I remember interacting with him for the first time at the Emergent Convention in San Diego in 2003 at a late night conversation. He also co-facilitated the “new theology” session with another one of my ecclesial dreamer heroes. But the clincher for me was in Chatanooga when he gave a classic answer to a question that was asked in one of the forums. (You really had to be there to appreciate it fully). He has said numerous things over the years that I find to be deeply redemptive.

He has recently started posting some of his thoughts (Part 1 and Part 2) on a subject that I find very interesting and have commented on in the past. He is in a much better position intellectually , academically, and theologically to comment on this topic. Check it out.

(from my own personal lifeover the last few weeks)

I shall seek and find you…
I shall take you to bed and have my way with you…
I will make you ache, shake and sweat until you moan and groan.
I will make you beg for mercy… beg for me to stop.
I will exhaust you to the point that you will be relieved when I’m finished with you. And….
You will be weak for days.

All My Love,

THE FLU

I almost feel obligated to post a link to this short article about leadership in open source projects. This article contains three breif excerpts of interviews with three of the best known open source leaders. It shows how each of them have found different ways to lead in open source communities.

I wish the main content of the article were as good as the opening paragragh:

bq. Leaders from three separate but related — and incredibly successful — free/open source projects agree: If you want the project to move to the next level, let go and let the community take over. We asked Larry Wall, creator of Perl; Brian Behlendorf, the Apache Project leader; and Linus Torvalds, creator of Linux, for their thoughts on why this happens and how they and their projects have fared as a result.

and the closing sentence:

bq. If you’re planning on creating a hugely successful free/open source project of your own, include a plan for letting go when the time is right. If you don’t, it’ll never get bigger than you are.

I know precious little about NASCAR but since I don’t have a Stanley Cup Playoff race to follow I have joined a few friends in a fantasy racing league. If anyone wants to ride in my exhaust fumes let me know and I will send instructions on how to join our league. Gentlemen(and women), start your engines…

It is almost 2:00am and I can’t sleep because of my stupid cough. I took some cough medicine but it did not help at all so I made some hot tea and I am watching late night/early morning tv. All there is to watch at this time of night is paid infomercials for various diet pills and kitchen gadgets or CSPAN.

In the back of my mind is a meeting that I have coming up in the next couple of weeks. I do not want to write too much about that meeting until after it takes place but it is officially on the front burner. If there are any folks out there comfortable with vague prayer request you could be thinking about us on the 27th.

The tea seems to be helping…

I found this while searching for some new wallpapers for my Linux laptop.

While following all the events surrounding the Ward Churchill controversy I stumbled across some things from Thomas F. Brown (Assistant Professor of Sociology, Lamar University). In this paper, Prof. Brown challenges Churchill’s research and scholarship in an earlier controversy. It is an interesting paper that sheds some light on the character of Mr. Churchill.

While surfing Prof. Brown’s site I found this great paper titled, Theoretical Perspectives on Social Capital. I love reading stuff like this ever since reading Putnam’s great book, Bowling Alone : The Collapse and Revival of American Community. I find that sociologists who write about social capital say a lot of things that are extremely relevant to open source ecclesial dreaming and Brown’s paper is no exception. It is interesting to me how the language of scale-free networks and other computer based analogies work there way into the conversation of social capital. I think that as the Information Technology world continues to migrate towards open source commitments this language will increase. I think that is a good thing for those who remain hopefully optimistic that more healthy deconstruction on institutional structures and leadership paradigms can take place. Here are some excerpts from Brown’s paper:

bq. ”My ontological starting point is systemism: social capital is a processual system for allocating resources across a social network according to the pattern of relations among the individual egos that comprise the network. Systemism implies a three-dimensional analysis of the system’s components, structure, and environment. In a system of social capital, the components are the individual egos that comprise the social network [1]. The system’s structure is the pattern of relationship ties among the egos. The system’s environment is constituted by the greater social ecology in which the system is embedded. In conceptualizing systems of social capital, I map components, structure, and environment directly onto the micro, meso, and macro levels of analysis.”

bq. ”…The three levels of analysis are not mutually exclusive. Instead, they work together, the lens aperture opening and closing as necessary to focus on a specific aspect of the problem under consideration. Processes visible only at one level of analysis inevitably shed light on the workings of processes visible only at the other levels. Any given problem needs to be engaged at all three levels of analysis in order to construct a complete understanding of social capital as a dynamic process of social structuration.”

bq. ”…The micro level of social capital analysis is the embedded ego perspective. At this level, we are considering an individual ego’s potential to mobilize resources through the social network in which the ego is embedded. Here, our focus is on individual outcomes, but considered within the context of a particular social structure.”

bq. ”…the embedded structure approach to social capital observes that networks of social capital are embedded in overlapping systems of politics, economy, and culture. These macrosocial regimes may: 1) determine the types and amounts of resources available to the network over time; 2) describe with whom actors may forge ties, thus bounding and structuring the network; 3) legitimate and regulate transactions; 4) construct and implement sanctions in response to violations of the regulatory system; 5) describe and regulate social status within the network; 6) construct the motivations underlying network transactions; 7) construct and regulate competition between different networks.”

If you are interested at all in social capital you will find a lot of things in this paper to get you thinking.

(UPDATE: Here is a link to the original 2001 essay that set the wheels of the current debate in motion. If anyone reads it I would love to hear your thoughts)

Here is a link to the news story about Ward’s speech with some links to a video of him giving it as well as the question and answers afterward.

As to be expected the speech was filled with passionate rhetoric. It seems that Ward is becoming quite the advocate for free speech. Unfortunately, I have heard stories (second hand so I cannot guarantee the veracity) that this right he expects for himself and his viewpoint is not one he readily gives to students in his classes who disagree with him. I have heard that he actually had some dissenting students removed from his classes. I guess it just goes to show that it is always easier to fight for your own right to be heard than it is to fight for the other.

I still think that Ward does in fact have the right to say whatever he wants to say, regardless of how distastefully he chooses to say it. But it seems to me that there are numerous other people who are making much more intelligent critiques of America’s foriegn policies without resorting to sensationalism and controversial analogies to make their point. Unfortunately, no one listens to them precisely because they are not sensationalizing their viewpoints. It is too bad that there is not a more productive conversation going on about these things.

Last night while celebrating FT-squared (Fat Tuesday with F.T. Rodasta) we concluded that sometimes a little more tact and judgement should be taken with the words we say. I think Ward brings up some valid criticisms of the way the USA relates to other nation states on a political level but because of the way he decided to articulate that the focus gets shifted to a debate about free speech. When its all over and done with Ward will “win” his right to speak his opinion and this mountain will go back to being a molehill and no one will remember what the original issue even was.

According to my local news the speech is back on. If anyone publishes a transcript I will link to it. Should be pretty interesting.