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Anthony Daniels, better known as C-3P0

This weekend I saw Star Wars in Concert. It was an absolutely amazing experience, despite only catching the last half of it. It was an incredible show, the sound was great, as was the orchestra. The visuals were fantastic, a mix of excerpts from the films, live shots of the orchestra, artists’ renditions (I think I recognized some of Tommy Lee Edward’s art) and lasers, so many lasers.

One of the highlights for me was Anthony Daniels’ performance as the narrator. The show was organized by character and theme, and Daniels (better known as the droid C-3PO) was given the task of putting each of the performances and accompanying visuals in context. In other words, he told the stories of the Star Wars universe.

But this post is not about what he did, but about how he did it. It would have been easy, and satisfactory, for Daniels to tell the story in a way that was suspenseful, or scary, that got us caught up in the story of the moment, and wondering what would happen next. He did not do that. Instead he gave a celebratory, or one might even say patriotic, telling of the story.

The room was filled with people who had seen the Star Wars story multiple times. These were people who were coming, not to experience the story for the first time, but to celebrate it, and to share it with their kids. Daniels’ reading celebrated a story complete. He told the story as if it were our own, and in his telling helped to make it ours.

So how does it connect to scripture? If you’ve gone to a church, so many times we’ll hear portentous readings of scripture, that are independent of authorial intent. The reader rarely stops to consider what role this particular reading plays in the larger work. Is this retelling of dire straits a part of a larger passage celebrating God? Is this story a warning, wisdom shared (apparently) to a beloved son, a persuasive argument in the face of accusations or a celebration of identity, and the journey to it. I believe that if we, like Daniels, kept in mind what a particular passage is supposed to be doing, and imbue our reading with this purpose, the use of Scripture in our worship services will be a lot more powerful.

Imaginary Foundation: Make a difference. via BoingBoing.

Download the PDF. Print it. Stick it up somewhere.

Why?

Because, to be honest, there are too many voices that say that we are powerless, and that the machine goes on whether we want it to or not.

Those voices are wrong.

But first we need to decide that we will.

xkcd: Desert Island.

xkcd: Desert Island.

How often do we live our lives for this. Here’s the challenge for today: Try to look for and identify the amazing things going on beneath the surface of your day today. Look for the things that aren’t obvious, for the person who does exceptional work so as to produce an experience for you that is seamless, or for the unusual confluence of events that has brought you and another person together.

And, if you want, you can share some of those stories here.

So I’m freaking out a little bit. You all know me, and my recurring cycle of over-commitment. I’m fairly deep into this cycle and right now it’s combined with my almost annual spring restlessness and the fact that I’m at school and producing a fairly massive freakout.

So I figured I should write about it. I’ve found that the major drawback to being over-committed is not that I don’t have time to do everything. The more debilitating loss is that I don’t have time to think about everything as well as to think about nothing. I don’t know if this is the case for others. In essence, it’s that I lose effective use of my subconscious.

I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m finding for myself that while my conscious mind is quite capable, it’s the subconscious that does the more interesting stuff. That’s the part of my mind that’s creative, that will come up with ingenious solutions, that will connect two unrelated ideas to produce something great. When my days are full, or when I don’t have time to sketch, do music for fun, or other random things like that, my subconscious suffers.

One of the buzz words I’ve been hearing recently is “margin” which, despite my distaste for buzz-words, is a useful word. It talks about the space at the side of the page that is unused (or that you doodle in) that makes the page work. So right now, I may need to work on creating some margins in my life. That’s part of what this post is, writing in the margins.

School Bullying Prevention: Teach Empathy at Young Age – TIME.

But like language, the development of this inherent tendency may be affected by early experience. As evidence, look no further than ancient Greece and the millennia-old child-rearing practices of Sparta and Athens. Spartans, who were celebrated almost exclusively as warriors, raised their ruling-class boys in an environment of uncompromising brutality — enlisting them in boot camp at age 7 and starving them to encourage enough deviousness and cunning to steal food, which skillfully bred yet more generations of ruthless killers.

In Athens, future leaders were brought up in a more nurturing and peaceful way, at home with their mothers and nurses, starting education in music and poetry at age 6. They became pioneers of democracy, art, theater and culture. “Just like we can train people to kill, the same is true with empathy. You can be taught to be a Spartan or an Athenian — and you can taught to be both,” says Teny Gross, executive director of the outreach group Institute for the Study and Practice of Nonviolence in Providence, R.I., and a former sergeant in the Israeli army.

One of the reasons that I think Youth and Children’s Ministry is important is that I suspect that this idea can be expanded beyond empathy. We can choose whether we want to teach our kids to be selfish, to treat each other as sex objects, to be racist, etc. We choose what the world, into which our children are born, looks like, and what that world looks like, affects what the next generation will grow to become.

This is also why college ministry is important, because it is during this time where people make the decisions about what they want their world, and thus the world, to look like in the next ten years. It’s why the work of organizations like the Children at Risk Foundation, Jose Abreu’s El Sistema, Bolder Options, Frontier Youth Trust and Union Gospel Mission are important, because they are helping to teach values to kids, many of whom live in environments that are significantly more “Spartan” than “Athenian”.

Anyway, I thought the article was interesting, and it intersected with some things I care about. Take a look at it, tell me what you think (particularly if you see some interesting implications of the article, I’d love to hear and discuss them).

Kindergarten Is the Model for Lifelong Learning | Edutopia.

Underlying traditional kindergarten activities is a spiraling learning process in which children imagine what they want to do, create a project based on their ideas (using blocks, finger paint, or other materials), play with their creations, share their ideas and creations with others, and reflect on their experiences — all of which leads them to imagine new ideas and new projects. This iterative learning process is ideal preparation for today’s fast-changing society, in which people must continually come up with innovative solutions to unexpected situations in their lives.

via Presentation Zen

I found this link while reading another post and realized how true it was, and that anything that I’ve learned that I use and like using has been learned through this model. I learned how to do databases in a class that was basically structured around creating databases, reflecting on them, and creating more. My ministry experience can pretty much fit this paradigm as well. It’s a history of dreaming, creating, reflecting and dreaming again.

Am I the only one who resonates with this? Have you had an education experience that fits this model, what did you think? For those of you who do teaching or training of some sort, have you ever used a similar structure?

Carlos Whittaker of Ragamuffin Soul invited Andrew Marin of Love is an Orientation (both blogs are on my reader and are pretty good)to answer a hypothetical question:

If a fat man can lead a church, serve on a church staff, and not be held responsible for his lack of self discipline when it comes to gluttony…
Then why can’t a gay man lead a church, serve on a church staff and not be held responsible for his lack of self discipline when it comes to homosexuality?

Welcome To Gay And Lesbian Church Leader Week At Ragamuffin Soul | Ragamuffin Soul.

I thought this was a pretty good answer. What are your thoughts. I expect this should be an interesting week over at Ragamuffin Soul.

“When people told themselves their past with stories, explained the present with stories, foretold the future with stories, the best place by the fire was kept for The Storyteller” - From the opening of Jim Henson’s The Storyteller

As becomes pretty clear to anyone who knows me. I love the work of Jim Henson. I grew up watching The Muppet Show, Muppets Tonight, Sesame Street and The Storyteller. One of the things I love about Henson’s work is the story he tells. Before you ask, I know that there are many movies that tell many different stories, but I’m talking about the story beneath those stories. Here’s a couple other quotes from It’s Not Easy Being Green And Other Things To Consider

“I believe that we can use television and film to be an influence for good; that we can help shape the thoughts of children and adults in a positive way. As it turned out, I am very prowd of some of the work we’ve done, and I think we can do many more good things” - Jim Henson

“Jim wanted to make a difference. He was brave enough to be able to say, “I want to do a show that brings peace to the world, and I want us all to sit down and talk about it.” He knew that television shows do not bring peace to the world, but he was not so cynical as to say we can’t think about it. There was a kind of idealism there that could seem naive and childlike, but that didn’t mean that it couldn’t come true” - Jerry Juhl

“I know that it’s easier to portray a world’s filled with cynicism and anger, where problems are solved with violence. That’s titillating. It’s an easy out. What’s a whole lot tougher is to offer alternatives, to present other ways conflicts can be resolved, and to show that you can have a positive impact on your world. To do that, you have to put yourself out on a limb, take chances, and run the risk of being called a do-gooder” – Jim Henson

It’s easy to see how Henson’s principles were explicitly and implicitly woven into his stories, and he did not sacrifice his art in order to do so.

“I really do believe that all of you are at the beginning of a wonderful journey. As you start traveling down that road of life, remember this: There are never enough comfort stops. The places you’re going to are never on the map. And once you get that map out, you won’t be able to refold it no matter how smart you are.

“So forget the map, roll down the windows, and whenever you can, pull over and have a picnic with a pig. And if you can help it, never fly as cargo” – Kermit

What’s my point? I believe stories do change the world. Unfortunately, for a long time, those who care about doing good things abandoned the art of storytelling, because what they were doing was a Very Important Thing and that meant that it was too serious for storytelling. I would propose that this is exactly the wrong impulse.

I would propose, to my fellow world-changers that it is because what you are doing is a Very Important Thing, that you need to tell stories about it.

More on this later.

So here are some interesting relationship-related data things I’ve been finding around the web. I suspect you might find this interesting, and I’d be curious to hear your take on it.

First the pretty non-scientific from BoingBoing and Google

Using Google to learn what boyfriends and girlfriends want from each other Boing Boing.

Then the more scientific from the surprisingly compelling blog of okCupid

The takeaway here is that although race shouldn’t matter in messaging, it does. A lot.

via Your Race Affects Whether People Write You Back « OkTrends.

And consider the following on attractiveness and message replies

As you can see from the gray line, women rate an incredible 80% of guys as worse-looking than medium. Very harsh. On the other hand, when it comes to actual messaging, women shift their expectations only just slightly ahead of the curve, which is a healthier pattern than guys’ pursuing the all-but-unattainable. But with the basic ratings so out-of-whack, the two curves together suggest some strange possibilities for the female thought process, the most salient of which is that the average-looking woman has convinced herself that the vast majority of males aren’t good enough for her, but she then goes right out and messages them anyway.

Your Looks and Your Inbox « OkTrends.

Elise posted this link in the comments of the last post and I thought it was cool enough to get a post of it’s own. You should check out the entire post (and the comments to the last post, as well as Elise’s blog) if you haven’t had the chance yet. Here’s a teaser.

The thing is, I knew when I was writing the e-mail that I was taking a risk.  I talk to white people about being “kicked out of the club.” It’s the moment that they realize that speaking up about race or racism distances them from other white people.  It’s when they find out that other white people won’t necessarily support them when they raise issues of racism.

via So now I know. « Resist racism.

P.S.  you should also check out the We heard it before page.