mayo-moyle

  • “I started out so starry eyed, full of hope and wonder…”

    Links of interest from this past week…

    Wil Wheaton: Being a nerd is not about what you love, but how you love it.

    Anne Marie Miller: Are Forgiveness and Reconciliation the Same?

    Seth Godin: The Critic Stumbles.

    Good: How to Hack Energy Savings with a Simple Sign and a Revolving Door.

    Jason Micheli: Don’t Call Me Reverend.

    Lifehacker: Build Your Own Hidden Lair with this Secret Bookshelf. What Trustee do I need to talk to to make this happen?

    Fred Clark: The Sabotage of the Postal Service. This has bothered me for a while now, all the talk about the US Postal Service running deficits isn’t only because of this accounting trick, that no other business has to observe.

    The Atlantic Wire: The War on Free School Breakfast is Beyond Wrong.

    Fast Company: If You Graduated After 1976, You are Getting Screwed by the Economy.

    Rachel Held Evans: Why Progressive Christians Should Care About Abortion.

    Joel Watts: The UMC Itinerant System is Evil. (No it’s not, as Joel concludes, but it can be hard, and I appreciate the way he articulates this from the perspective of a lay person).

    Music from Bob Mould – The Descent – off his most recent album,Silver Age:

  • “I’ve been starting over for a long time…”

    Once again, apologies to handful of you who actually follow this thing for my lack of updates. Anyway, here’s some of the things that have caught my attention over the last few weeks, it’s not a long list, but hopefully you’ll find a few worthwhile nuggets in there:

    Fred Clark on Christianity and anti-depressants: Mourning with those who Mourn.

    Jason Micheli: Going to Hell on an Airplane. Found this via Scot McKnight’s blog, and I love, not just this post, but scanning through the rest of the blog, it’s clear Jason is a great Methodist blogger, be sure to check it out.

    Donald Miller: How to get along with an introvert… also Donald Miller manages to blow my mind revealing that Shel Silverstein’s The Giving Tree was a response to Brennan Manning’s question about what God’s love is like.

    Accidental Racists and More. It’s funny to post this link today – just last night I had this dream about delivering the very moving slam poem to a large group of students about racism and the causal use of racist language. Unfortunately, I can’t remember a word of that poem – even though in the middle of the dream I did have the realization, “Wow! This is really good stuff, too bad I can’t right it down right now.”

    Jamie, the Very Worst Missionary: What Would Jesus… Blog?

    Paton Oswalt’s response the the Boston bombing – if you haven’t read it, you should.

    Rev Momma: Inch by Inch.

    Seth Godin: Getting Picked (the need to vs. the want to).

    New music from Mikal Cronin. Honestly I don’t know much about this artist, just happened to stumble across this song and love the sweet summer-time power-pop of this song, not to mention that opening line, “I’ve been starting over for a long time…”

  • my whole life is a delicate cycle…

    Fred Clark: It’s Not Your Stance, But Who You Are Standing With

    50 Common Misconceptions:

    It’s a conspiracy! The destruction of the Death Star was an inside job!

    DIY Cadbury Cream Eggs (via Lifehacker).

    Springtime DIY – Bike Tune-up Guide.

    Adam Walker Cleveland: Amanda Palmer The Art of Asking and Stewardship.

    Mashable: Why Introverts Have All The Fun. I just finished reading Susan Cain’s book Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking – and would HIGHLY recommend it, both for introverts who feel like all to often they struggle to fit in and for extroverts who really do want to understand what it going on in our heads. (Disclosure: the link to the book is an Amazon Associates link, meaning I would get a very small % of the sale of you click and buy).

    The Atlantic: How the Maker of Turbo Tax Fought to Keep Taxes Complicated.

    Since I’ve been doing these round-ups I’ve been using Google Reader as my primary way of reading, tracking and marking blogs to link here. With the recent announcement that Google is going to discontinue Reader, I have made the switch to Feedly and have really enjoyed it – it has a nice interface (especially on my Nexus 7), and it equally as easy to mark articles of interest. If you use a feed reader to keep track of blogs (like mine), I’d encourage you to check it out.

    Aesop Rock and Kimya Dawson have formed a new band called the Uncluded, this is their song called “Delicate Cycle”:

  • Another roundup…

    Another post with the too familiar chorus, “I really am going to get better about regular updates…” Anyway, here’s some of the things catching my interest over the last few weeks:

    Seth Godin writes on Destabilizing the Bully Power Structure, noting that:

    “Bullying persists when bureaucracies and hierarchies permit it to continue. It’s easier to keep order in an environment where bullying can thrive (and vice versa), because the very things that permit a few to control the rest also permit bullies to do their work. The bully uses the organization’s desire for conformity to his own ends.”

    It is interesting to think of this in the context of the church. I’ve always assumed that bullies who find their way into churches (and church leadership) do so, because it can be an environment where it can be easy to assume power, and it is filled with people who will tend to tolerate or excuse “bad” behavior in the name of “Christian love” and “forgiveness.”  But what if there is something else happening at a deeper systematic level that helps foster an environment where bullies are welcomed and protected into the life of the church?

    Semi-related – Shane Koyczan doing his poem “To This Day”… for the bullied and beautiful.

    Wil Wheaton: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Embrace Failure.

    Fred Clark: I Do, In Fact, Care Who Started It. Make sure you read the whole article, but I’ll share the xkcd cartoon Fred included that really made the point for me:

    Hugh MacLeod: All Art Is Religious Art.

    Scot McKnight put this up on his blog, I’m not sure what it says about me given that I like the “geek” movies, but the “hipster” bands.
    Geeks vs Hipsters
    From: BecomeCareer.com

    Dan Dick: Vital Is As Vital Does.

    Ta-Nehisi Coates: The World that Hip Hop Made.

    Elizabeth Evans Hagen: I left the church. Don’t hate me. Wonderful reflection on making the choice to leave pastoral ministry in search of a more faithful calling.
    I just discovered this odd video this afternoon, by one of those “hipster bands” I’m so fond of; Beach House “Wishes”:

  • Lent 3: See

    The word for day 3 was “see” so I just went for the straightforward image of my glasses which have been helping me to see for about 27 years now. Last summer, I (foolishly) wore my glasses into a wave pool at an amusement park in Iowa, and promptly lost them when the first large wave hit me. I spent the rest of the day (and part of the next) in full blur mode. It’s amazing how something as simple as a piece of plastic shaped in just the right way to refract light, can make the difference between seeing the world and being effectively blind.

    There are lots of ways to turn that metaphor into a sermon, but I’ll spare you that, at least for this time…

  • Lent 2: Return

    This is the second image from the Lenten Photo-a-day project in which I’m participating. The word was “return” and while the first thought of “return” for me was the story of the Prodigal Son (and I sort-of had an idea of how to capture that), I guess I was still in an Ash Wednesday mood Thursday morning when I was ready to work on the project, and instead went with the scripture “to dust you will return.”
    At the same time I was preparing this image, I was also working on a poem that was part of a larger piece with 6 other poets on the seven last words of Jesus. The phrase I had was “it is finished”, and so that idea of mortality, and in particular how we, as modern-day Christians, I believe, really shield ourselves from the painful reality of death was on my mind. (I’ll probably get the poem posted on the site closer to Good Friday).

    On this same general theme, I was reminded again just this week, just how amazing Leonard Cohen’s song, “Going Home” is, (one day I hope to write, and even sing like this)…

  • Lent 4: Injustice

    The theme for this day was “injustice.” The day before, I had spent time both in Flint and Detroit, and there were opportunities to take pictures of the “obvious” images of injustice – urban blight, abandoned homes, “pay-day loan” stores, but none of those really appealed to me, and the idea of photographing abandoned homes felt a little like it could be perceived as “ruin porn,” so I thought it more appropriate to just write out one of my favorite verses from scripture.

    Until that day comes, I’ll just keep singing (out of tune) with Billy Bragg…

  • When the world stops making sense, I need a new alphabet…

    Once again, here I am trying to get caught up. The addition of a couple classes has really thrown off my blogging routine. Here’s what’s been of interest from the past few weeks:

    Donald Miller: What is Self-Righteousness and Why is it Annoying?

    Fred Clark: Secrets and lies and the deeper scandal of the evangelical mind.

    Dan Dick: The Hegemony of How.

    Seth Godin: Those People. (really, if you are just going to click one link today, click this one, it’s really a must read).

    Julie Clawson: Celebrating the Flesh.

    New York Times: Even if It Enrages Your Boss, Social Net Speech is Protected (Sometimes)

    File under things that are awesome: White House Announces National Day of Civil Hacking.

    A couple interesting pieces from Fast Company: Can Creative Companies Save Detroit? and Rebuilding Detroit by Hand.

    New music from Eels that came out a week or two ago; this video is a little odd, but I enjoy it…

  • Lent 1: Who am I?

    In this season of Lent I’m attempting the UMC’s Rethink Church Photo-a-day Challenge where I am posting a photo each day related to a specific word (or words). My hope is in addition to posting the photos on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, I would also try to add them to my blog with a litte explanation behind my thinking.
    For the first day, “Who am I?” – I decided to keep it pretty simply. Just start writing out words and phrases that would describe me. What I found interesting about the exercise was a commitment to try and keep it fairly honest – especially with it being Ash Wednesday I didn’t want to write only positive things, I felt like some measure of confession and self-reflection was due, but I also refused to write only the negative things (which is where I often go, internally, already). So I found myself pairing off words that describe me, but also speak of contradiction – things like “fearful” and “brave”; “healing” and “hurting”; “myself” and “fake”.
    We all have these contradictions, we all live in the grey in-between area of vice and virtue, between saint and sinner, but all too often, I suspect, we gravitate towards the easy labels. We force ourselves to choose one or the other. Especially when it comes to other people – we tend to judge them in very black-and-white ways, forgetting that we are all multifaceted beings.
    What would it mean if we were to finally come to peace with our contradictions, to laugh at our imperfections and see the amazing complexity in all those people around us?
    Hopefully that will be one of my aims this Lent.   

  • Back at it…

    The long-neglected round-up of interesting links is back again; hopefully I’ll get back on track with a regular routine with this. Here is what I’ve found to be interesting over the past month or so…

    Donald Miller: What Makes a Happy Life?

    Jeremy Smith responds to some of the bad theology that surrounded the Sandy Hook shootings in “If God is invited in, all is well?“

    Semi-related – Mike Todd – The Question of the Age. See also Don Miller’s What is the Real Problem in the World?

    Fred Clark: Hobby Lobby takes human biology to court; also be sure to read a follow-up from Fred on how Christianity Today wants to bring back the company town.

    My friend, Rudy, offers his 2012 music round-up.

    Jamie, the Very Worst Missionary – speaks to the experience of depression in Jesus or Zoloft?

    Dan Dick continues to challenge the United Methodist Church – Time For A New Mission?

    In just a few sentences Seth Godin writes a powerful (and personally convicting) meditation, The Cost of Neutral. Another powerful one from Godin that speaks to the church, and especially Annual Conference for United Methodists, When A Conference Works (And Doesn’t).

    Hugh MacLeod: The Web We Lost.

    I know there’s more but I think I’ll call that good for now…

    I found this song (and video) on NPR’s All Songs Considered blog listing some of the most stylish videos of 2012 – the band is Explosions in the Sky and the song is called “Postcards from 1952”: