September 30, 2011 at 8:23 pm · Filed under Uncategorized · Tags: conviction, gospel, guilt, judging, shame, theology
Guilt, Shame and Conviction
Guilt and shame are widely acknowledged to be negative, unhelpful emotions. Guilt is more inward-focussed – how bad I feel about that thing I did or didn’t do. Shame has a more outward direction, but is still internalised – how bad I feel about how they might feel about what I did or didn’t do. Guilt and shame are both very difficult to get rid of; they can stick around for years, whether you did something to try to atone for your mistake or not.
Chrisitians often contrast these two with conviction. Conviction is to be recognised by its short live appearance – it is a feeling that exists only while there is something that you need to do to remedy a bad situation. Although it might be confused with shame or guilt, once you do that thing, it will go.
Judging Others
Jesus said “Do not judge, or you too will be judged.” (Mt 7:1)
Christians have struggled with this instruction for a long time. Judging is so easy – and satisfying too. You get a little moment of superiority, a little ‘pharisee moment’. I suppose it’s one of those things that “I know I shouldn’t, but…” While thinking about the difference between guilt, shame, and conviction, I came to a new understanding of why we have been told not to judge, based on the effects of judging (not on exegesis of the passages in question).
When we judge someone, what are the possible responses that they might have?
- They might ignore you. Fair enough, all kinds of people ignore us all the time, we’re used to it. Sadly, this is the best of the possible responses, though.
- They might respond by judging you right back. “Who does he think he is to lecture me… What’s so great about her… Do they really think they’re so perfect…” This kind of response makes no difference to the behaviour that we’re judging them for, it only focusses their anger and hurt on us instead.
- They might respond with guilt or shame.
Guilt and shame are not positive responses. Yes, they are natural, human responses to actions we regret, but not healthy ones. The healthy response is conviction, which I take to mean as the Spirit of God working in you to change or remove a problem in your life. But I am convinced that conviction never comes from human action, especially our judgmentalism.
Creating guilt or shame in someone else is a really bad outcome, yet it’s the strongest response we can hope for. The terrible personal consequences of a life gripped by shame or guilt should be reason enough to make me forswear the little hit of judging someone. More than this though, guilt and shame can each be a barrier to finding God – a dangerous thing! We should be very careful in doing anything that pushes people away from the gospel – this isn’t a case of the good news being hard to hear, it’s us being the barrier to belief.
Hooked on Judging
Yet knowing all this I still judge people! Judging is an automatic human response to someone not fitting our morals and knowing it does no good is not the same as not doing it. I think our worst possible response to this knowledge is guilt. Controlling this urge is going to take discipline – and perhaps conviction. At least we have the example of Jesus, who really did what he said on not judging, renown for accepting anyone, no matter their history. The example of the disciples is encouraging too, as they learn after Jesus is resurrected and ascended, slowly and gradually, that everyone is an insider to the gospel message.
August 25, 2011 at 6:06 pm · Filed under Uncategorized · Tags: love wins, lst, origen, rob bell, theology
I’m progressing well with the dissertation, over 15 thousand words written. Here’s a paragraph (with footnotes) that I enjoyed writing, and I hope throws a little light on what I think Rob Bell is trying to do.
Bell’s reference to Origen is especially interesting. Origen appears at times to have taught universalism, while at other times he seems to have tended more to particularism, where many but not all would be saved.[1] As many of his writings were lost after he was condemned as a heretic,[2] it is hard to be definite about what exactly Origen taught and how much of it was speculative questioning rather than firm belief. It has been suggested that Origen may have taught differently for different audiences, keeping the question of universal or exclusive salvation open, ‘for a greater effectiveness’ in evangelism.[3] Protraying God as ‘good, kind and just’,[4] Origen is able to suggest a situation where ‘love conquers all.’[5] Bell, from the same pastoral and apologetic heart also keeps open the question of whether all can be reconciled to God.
August 24, 2011 at 6:12 pm · Filed under Uncategorized · Tags: lst, metanarratives, philosophy, postmodern, theology
Read the previous ‘Metanarratives’ posts: 1, 2.
In my first post on metanarratives, I said that one of the defining features of postmodernity was the suspicion of metanarratives. What I never wrote about was why the postmodern is outright hostile to the giant stories. In a historical sense, it could be that postmodern philosophy was born from the disappointment of ex-communists with the student rebellion of the 60′s. But the more reasoned answer is because of the inherent violence in the application of a metanarrative.
Now the postmodern conversation uses violence in a slightly different sense to how we might common speech – it’s pretty much any time that someone is forced into something they would not freely choose, whether through actual injury, implicit force and threats or just the weight of a system pushing them into compliance. I’m sure I don’t need to explain how communism was violent in its desire for revolution. Freudianism tries to explain all human behaviour and thought in one single system, and in this reductionism does violence to the multiplicity of impulses and desires that we have. The metanarrative of romantic fulfilment that I wrote about before does violence to both parties as they use each other to ‘see if they’re the one’ and are then broken by the failure of the night. Without exception, metanarratives are seen as bringing violence as they try to eliminate ‘the other’ who is not part of the plan. It appears to be a side effect of their ‘totalizing’ nature, the fact that they claim to explain all human behaviour, everywhere in one simple rule.
And so to Christianity – the violence of Christianity is seen by many as its biggest failing – how can I be part of a religion that excludes women/gays/racial groups, that caused the crusades and the inquisitions, that inspired George W Bush? Just look at the Bible, it’s full of violence, even genocide at the call of God – not to mention the way hell is portrayed as the ultimate violence and exclusion of the other!
As a Christian, I can humbly confess that my faith has been used in horrifically violent ways, it deserves to be called out on every single one of those. Where repentance is required, it must happen and we must reject the violence of the ways the Christian story has been used. However, there are two points to be made about the Christian story and violence. Firstly, the Scriptures themselves challenge the use of Christianity (and Judaism for that matter) in a violent manner. Secondly, while the violence of the Cross is central to the uniquely Christian message, it is an inversion of violence, which must change how we view the bigger story. I’ll fill in some more details of what that means in another post.
August 18, 2011 at 10:47 am · Filed under Uncategorized · Tags: android, Galaxy S 2, Galaxy S II, how-to, Linux, samba, script, sync, synchronise, Ubuntu, wifi, wireless
While Android is based on a Linux kernel, lots of the best tools for syncing phones don’t run on the Linux desktop – for my Galaxy S II, Kies Air from Samsung is the default, won’t work. Winamp won’t work, DoubleTwist won’t work…
I want to be able to sync up my phone with my desktop without having to plug in. I want to sync photos and videos from the phone to the computer, and music from the desktop to the phone. I’ve done my research and come up with a method that’s smooth for photos but clunky for music – but it works, so I’ll share it in case anyone else wants to try it.
On the phone side, install PCFileSync. This free app isn’t pretty, but it does what it says – synchronise files with SMB shares (Windows file shares, but we can set them up easily on Linux). Some other apps only sync one way, which is no good to me.
Syncing the photos and videos is simple, so let’s do that first. On your computer, create a folder for the photos to go into – I made one in Pictures called Samsung. Right-click the folder, go to Sharing Options. You may have to set up file sharing before you can do this, but I was already set, so I gave it a name and allowed access to create and delete. That meant I had to change permissions – don’t be scared, anyone connecting will need a username and password already set up on your computer.
Back on your phone, run the app, hit Menu and go to settings. You want ‘Profiles Settings’ and long click to add an SMB profile. Fill in details like a name, then the folder to sync on the handset – /sdcard/DCIM. You’ll need the IP address of your computer – click the network icon and get it from ‘Connection Information’. Fill in a username and password and browse to the shared folder you just set up. Run the sync, you’re good to go.
Now Music is a bit more complex if you’re like me and have loads on the desktop and not enough room for it all on your phone. If you want all you music synced over it’s easy, just like the photos we did earlier.
I have a smart playlist in Banshee (though Rhythmbox does the same) called ‘For Sync’ which I used to sync when plugged in. It basically looks at a ‘not for sync’ playlist and selects everything else – you could also make a random one that selects some stuff to sync over from your whole library, or any other way of generating a playlist. I exported that playlist as an M3U file.
Here’s the complicated bit. In order to sync that playlist to the phone, we need to turn it into a folder structure. We won’t duplicate the files, but link to the original music.
Bring on the bash script! You can download the playlist-links.txt script, then rename it to playlist-links.sh and allow execution in file properties. The contents are at the bottom of the post if you want to check it out before downloading, but I’ll explain it now.
You run the file by typing (at the command line!)
./playlist-links.sh for-sync.m3u – it won’t run without being pointed to a playlist. I’ve not checked that the playlist is of the correct type, so do make sure it’s an m3u file.
The script by default assumes your music directory is in ~/ and that you want the new folders for syncing in ~/Public/ – you can easily change that by editing the script. It starts by asking if you want to clear out any folders and files (links) in the new location. I promise it won’t touch your precious collection, but you have backed up already?…
The script then reads through the file line by line, first making folders if it needs to, then making a (hard) link to the music file in its original location. I found that symlinks didn’t show up in the samba share, so hard links it is.
That’s all it does. Check the outputted file structure and back to the phone. Set up the share as before, this time syncing with wherever you want your music stored. I think it’s best to start from scratch, no music on the phone, in case it makes duplicate files (especially where special characters are involved – I’m looking at you, Ólafur Arnalds!) It takes a while to sync across, a bit longer than over USB, but once you’ve done it once it shouldn’t be bad to add a new album.
Hope that’s of some help. Unfortunately, you’ll need to export the playlist and re-run the script each time you change the music, then sync the phone again, but that might just be the price we pay for running Linux. enjoy!
Update: PC File Sync was corrupting the music that it was transferring, so I’ve tried with AndSMB and FolderSync Lite. FolderSync was the better one, but I’m still finding that it downloads files over and over. That uses a lot of battery and takes ages, so this setup isn’t perfect yet.
Using FolderSync means first setting up an ‘Account’, which means selecting a service – ‘Account type’ (you can choose only one with the lite version), so select ‘SMB/CIFS’, then fill in the IP address, login and password. I like the ‘validate login’ option – it lets you check that the details are correct.
Then you set up ‘Folderpairs’ – one on the phone, one on the server/PC. I think the setup is pretty straight forward and it gives lots of options about how often to sync.
Update 2: I’ve given up for now, I’ve gone back to a normal wired sync with Banshee. FolderSync doesn’t give corrupted files, but it does seem to download almost all the music every time. This takes too much time and battery, so I’ve given up. I continue to sync photos automatically in this way, though with Google+ already doing it for me, I’m not sure that it’s necessary.
#!/bin/bash
#PLAYLIST_FILE='/home/jon/forsync.m3u'
NewLoc="/home/$USERNAME/Public/" #Folder where the new Music folder will be created
OrigLoc="/home/$USERNAME/" #Folder where the Music folder currently exists
#read location of saved playlist from user input
if [ "$1" ]
then
PLAYLIST_FILE="$1"
n=0
#remove previously created folders/links (automatically)
read -p "Do you want to remove all old links? (Y/n)" yn
case $yn in
[Nn]* ) echo "Making links.";;
* ) echo "Deleting..."; rm $NewLoc/Music -rf; echo "Making links.";;
esac
#read through file line by line
#duplicate folder structure
#hard link files (symlinks don't show up in samba shares)
awk 'BEGIN{FS=" "}{print}' < "$PLAYLIST_FILE" | while read filename;
do
if [ `echo $filename | cut -c 1` != '#' ]
then
folders=`echo "$filename" | awk -F/ 'BEGIN {OFS="/";}{$NF=""}1'`
mkdir -p "$NewLoc$folders"
ln "$OrigLoc$filename" "$NewLoc$filename"
fi
done
else echo "Please choose a playlist file"
fiAugust 14, 2011 at 9:06 pm · Filed under Uncategorized · Tags: lst, metanarratives, philosophy, postmodern, theology
Read the previous ‘Metanarratives’ posts: 1, 2, 3
Previously I said that though postmoderns reject metanarratives (in favour of smaller, local narratives) on account of their violent totalizing, my view of scripture is that it does not have to be read as presenting that kind of metanarrative. Here’s why.
We can discern two metanarratives woven through both Old and New Testaments. There is an Empire narrative, the ‘violent redemption’ narrative - we can’t pretend that it’s not there, especially in Joshua, Judges, the Samuels, Kings and Chronicles. But secondly, there’s an anti-Empire narrative of redemption and grace. It’s at play in Exodus in the freeing of the people of Israel, not by their power and skill in war, but God’s wisdom (though we see through the Old Testament that the two stories interweave). In Leviticus, it sets out Jubilee provisions for debts to be broken after 7 years (whether this actually happened or not, the story is there). In Samuel, the blessing of God is on the fugitive, David, not King Saul, but David refuses to fight him or hurt his enemy, despite being a better fighter (again, interwoven with the violence of the struggle with the Philistines). The prophets again and again cry out against the ‘empire’ tendencies of Israel/Judah, the way the poor are exploited because they are weak. In the New Testament, the ultimate anti-Empire manifesto is set out in the Sermon on the Mount – Jesus says that the only way to beat the Empire is to refuse to play its games, to be different. The Zealots were just the same as the Legions of Rome, no better for worshipping God. The only way to win was to play a different game, one where love scored points, not hatred.
So without doubt, you can find passages that legitimate violence and the destruction of enemies. But if Jesus is the pinnacle of revelation to the Christian, we must take his words most seriously. Someone has taken Brian McLaren‘s analogy of Scripture as a library of books further, let’s imagine looking at Scripture as a collection of films, the lifetime’s work of one Director. There are different script-writers, different actors, different ‘SFX’, different storylines, locations, morals, but in all the films the same creative genius and vision. There are repeated themes. There are hints, references and in-jokes (just like JJ Abrams does). Each film has to stand alone in some way, even if it’s part of a series within the wider picture. Each one should change you, in a different way for each one, a different way each time you see it. McLaren describes an unfolding revelation and understanding of God though the scriptures – each writer understood God in different ways, we must see their writing as reflecting their individual understanding and interaction with God. This in no way counts out inspiration, unless by inspiration you only mean ‘autowriting’ as Muslims understand the Koran was given. It rather has a realistic view of the human involvement in writing scripture. Everything is interpretation (that’s the postmodern philosophy of Derrida), but it is guided, shaped, guarded and passed on by a community of faith, in the power of the Holy Spirit.
Most metanarratives we come across are ‘univocal’, that is they have one voice, a narrator. The Bible is different – ‘multivocal’ with so many speakers and voices from inside, outside, the rich, poor, men, women – each is represented. These voices are often misunderstood and diminished, but the very structure of Scripture delegitimates its own use to oppress and exclude. The bigger structure backs this up, tending towards the reconciliation of all things in Jesus; a reconciliation not of violent oppression but loving acceptance. I know there is much more to deconstruct in how we actually realise this and bring it into being, and much more to repent of, but that’s my reading of the Christian metanarrative.
Secondly, above I said that the violence of the Cross is real and central to the Christian message, but that it is an inversion of violence. Art and films like ‘The Passion’ emphasised the brutality of the killing of Jesus, but it was preceded by another violent act, the incarnation. Peter Rollins (in his upcoming book ‘Insurrection’ and other places) talks about the kenosis, or ‘emptying’ of Jesus and its place in Christianity (drawing on the work of Gianni Vattimo). The kind of violence that is accepted, even encouraged in Christianity is the dying of self, the identification with Jesus on the cross. This is two fold (probably more, but not fully worked out in my thinking) – one, in our identification with Christ crucified, all the power of sin on our lives if broken, dead; two, we become open to the possibility of joining in the transforming work of Jesus when we too empty ourselves of all that we count as value and instead dedicate ourselves, even if for a moment, to the inbreaking of the Kingdom of God, the actualisation of the reconciliation of all things.
It’s the violence of death that brings us life. In that death, all that crushed us and separated us from life is killed. In that death we find we are able to live a life that is truly alive. In paradox, violence inverts itself when we empty ourselves and choose not to take the way of violence to others but accept it upon ourselves, destroying it in the process.
August 11, 2011 at 12:32 pm · Filed under Uncategorized · Tags: London, riot, violence
Human Beings?
As the spectre of violence has loomed over England and perhaps calmed a little (it’s still too soon to know for sure), some more considered reflection on the events and our responses is called for.
The first reflection that is important is the ‘otherness’ language that is being used. The principle of Oak Hill College reflects on how both ends of the political spectrum (drawn largely from the middle class and above, of course), ‘othering’ language has been used. The point from conservative and liberal alike is that whether you call them ‘underprivileged’ or ‘scum’ or something in between, these people are not like ‘us’, they deserve what they get, whether that is jail time, police batons, tear gas or the army. What very few are daring to say is that ‘they’ are just like us in so many ways. It’s not like consumerism is confined to one class or another. It’s not like aping US culture is confined to one section of society (defined by ethnicity, class, income…) It’s not like alcoholism, glorification of violence, broken families or any other drivers are unique to these people. As I wrote before, we must not forget that the people looting, mugging, rioting, stealing, destroying are first and foremost human beings, people, British people.
As much as I think totalising ‘answers’ to the violence are by definition wrong, this comes pretty close:
The truth is that these riots are an expression of rage by the British underclass against a system that has instilled desires in them that they can’t materially gain. (An und für sich)
It’s so easy to come up with knee-jerk reactions: ‘send in the army’, ‘use water cannons’, ‘cut their benefits’, ‘feral scum’. I understand a woman whose business and home have been destroyed making these kind of statements, but I wonder at the responsibility of incessantly repeating them as appropriate views for all of society to have. The overwhelming response has been to demonise and further dehumanise the poor and those committing these crimes.
I think that before we judge them, we must consider the outcome we want. Firstly, an end to the violence and terror. Secondly, an end to the conditions and thought patterns that led to them.
The army on the streets might accelerate the first, but will a culture of fearing the government/police/army really reduce the likelihood of violence flaring? I rather think it will bury the problem behind fear, so when it does surface again it has another level of resentment. I do not believe increasing the violence (sorry, ‘robustness’) of the police/government response will have long-term beneficial results.
Cutting benefits of those involved sounds like a good plan, but really it dehumanises those people further. The aim must be to reintegrate them into a society they feel invested in so that destroying and injuring others and their property is the last thing they would do. Cutting the benefits of people already struggling to buy the things that they need/want is a certain way to encourage further criminality. It will not reduce desire tracksuits, TVs and mobile phones, it will only make those desires more impossible.
I don’t believe the Oak Hill article goes far enough in commending a Christian response. We need to incarnate it, make it central to the societal response that is lived out, not just propagated. We need to live lives that demonstrate that greed, materiality and violence are incompatible with the good life. That starts on a personal level, but must extend quickly to the media if it is to impact lives.The weight of consumerism, materialism, sense of entitlement, disappointment and disengagement from society are the things that really need to be addressed.
We must change to prevent this happening again. We must not make it us versus them.
So you either stand with people crying out violence against their situation, which would require actual engagement and argument with those people however idiotic some may get at times, or you stand with the white rich girls calling them scum. (An und für sich again)
And some Bible for you, too: (Jesus, in Matthew 5, says)
21 ”You have heard that it was said to those of old, ’You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.’ 22But I say to you thateveryone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire. …
43 ”You have heard that it was said, ’You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ 44But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. 46 For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same?
August 8, 2011 at 10:34 pm · Filed under Uncategorized · Tags: London, riot, violence
I don’t recognise this London, this England. It’s not the country and city that I love.
But Britons feel under pressure. The economy, job cuts, benefit cuts, fear, bad news. The pressure gets to everyone, whether they have personally lost their job or had their income cut. The media amplifies the pressure and makes all of us feel at risk all the time. All this in addition to almost a solid ten years of war in the Afghanistan and Iraq, a ‘war on terror’ that has been designed to keep us in a state of heightened tension.
In a civilised society we need to release the pressure, fear and tension without destruction.
In pre-civilised society and at the dawn of civilisation, violence was the way that tension was released. A village or town would feel the pressure and eventually the bubble would be burst by attacking a neighbouring village or town. It would be young men, predominantly late teens and twenties who would be involved. The violence would be unlimited; looting, pillaging, rape. After the release of the attack, life (for the perpetrators) could go on, back to normal.
Civilisation tames these urges by making them part of the power structures. The violence of the young men is channelled into the army, legitimated in targeting only ‘enemies’. Yet at the edges, when civilisation is fraying and stretched beyond capacity this urge comes back into view.
Unlike the protests for freedom in the Arab countries or protests by real Anarchists, this violence is for the purpose of deliberate destruction and looting only. There is no ideological purpose. There is only release, like the hockey riot in Vancouver.
Anarchists do not behave like this – they have an ideology and almost never loot. Anarchists attacks a a window of a building they have nothing but distaste for. When they have made their point they leave, not loot. They want nothing to do with the contents of that building, whether it’s fast food or blood money, they are disgusted by it. Anarchists attack police because they see them as representatives of a hated government. Anarchist attack buildings to show what revulsion they have for the corporation.
These kids didn’t know or care about Mark Duggan. The simmering disrespect for all authority needed just a spark as a flashpoint. Their feeling of alienation from the power structures of the country and the unrelenting pressure of consumerism contribute to this much more than one man in the back of a taxi.
As a society, we need to recognise that building a culture of fear and tension leads to the potential for this disenfranchisement. We need to think about how the pressure that is built up by economic and other woes can be diffused. We must avoid the danger of expelling and further isolating the youth of our country, hardening their otherness, dehumanising them to the point we feel comfortable attacking them. When the people doing this become a ‘them’ in our media, when they are painted as ‘vermin’, they cease to be human or have any hope of rehabilitation.
There will be people getting home in the early hours of the morning who can’t quite believe what they’ve been involved in. They are caught up in a violent action, a ‘mob mentality’ that they don’t feel in full control of. There are some planning and organising violence who must be punished. But there are many others who are caught up in insanity (who should know better) who need to be reintegrated into a civilised society that must learn how to release the pressure of twenty-first century life. How we respond to this as a nation will show what kind of a civilisation we are and will be.
August 5, 2011 at 3:53 pm · Filed under Uncategorized · Tags: lst, metanarratives, philosophy, postmodern, theology
In my last post, I mentioned the story of Redemptive Violence as one of the dominant metanarratives that the media feed to us. I am sure you will recognise it when I describe it – it is the basis for every action movie ever! Whether the story takes place in history, in space, or in some other context, there’s a set pattern to the metanarrative. There is a hero, who we are made to identify with, who loses something to an enemy – either of his own or his communities (yes, usually it is a he). After a long and dangerous quest, he and a band of valiant warriors defeat the enemy who has caused this loss in a violent and surprising fight. The story ends with some kind of depiction of the wonderful state of peace and goodness that this battle has brought about.
It is right for postmodernity to deconstruct this story, for a quick historical review can show how it is the story of Empire and oppression. Wired is far from the first to talk about the Babylonian gods’ relationship with contemporary action movies. The myths that were used to explain the origin of earth and Babylon in particular, that legitimated the rule of the King and priests were all about war between the gods. Violence solved the problem in the story, and violence was the way the empire expanded. Successive empires ruled the near east, ending with the Romans. When an ideological difference emerged, heroes stepped up to take charge and deployed as much violence as they could to take over the supreme position. The era of the end of the Roman Republic and the beginning of the Empire (Julius Caesar and all that…) typifies the internal wars that would plague the empire for centuries.
What does the Bible say about redemptive violence? There are many Christians who struggle with the stories of violence in the Old Testament, especially books like Joshua, Judges and Samuel-Kings. Whole cities and tribes are wiped out, seemingly at the order of God. If we read the Bible as an account of how people have engaged with God, we can read these as an example of how violence is not, in fact, redemptive. The ‘ethnic cleansing’ of Canaan does not bring peace to the Israelites. The wars against Moab and Philistia do not bring peace. Even the great conquests of David do not bring lasting peace. In fact we find that the war-like nature of David makes him unfit to build the Temple of God – violence and worship of God are characterised as incompatible.
Violence was an metanarrative that the people of God had to deal with as they were conquered by Babylon and others. For me, scripture engages with it as a possibility and shows that it is flawed. The most cutting critique is in the life (and death) of Jesus himself. If there was ever a case when violent resistance of tyranny in God’s name was justified, Judea in the first century was up there. Galilee was a hot-bed of anti-Roman activity and freedom fighters – within a generation of Jesus it was devastated by war. Yet Jesus chose a different way, rejecting the dominant metanarrative of violence. He took a deliberately different approach, ‘laying down his life’ and practising forgiveness with his last breaths.
Yet there are some who believe that this approach was only temporary, that the second coming of Jesus is in violence and destruction. I am convinced that this is a mis-reading of the character of Jesus and the kind of ending and redemption that he seeks. I think that passages that speak of a conquering Jesus are supposed to point us back to the way that victory was won – in the ‘defeat’ of the Cross. If we really consider the cross to be important, we will reject any kind of power-play and empire building that seeks to conquer through power instead of weakness.
August 1, 2011 at 8:48 pm · Filed under Uncategorized · Tags: lst, sabbath, theology, time
“Time is money” the old saying goes and we’ve thoroughly bought into it.
But I don’t want to be ruled by capitalism in that way. Sometimes my time can be bought and sold. But sometimes it just isn’t up for sale. Time can be treated as a commodity rather than simply as an object to be enjoyed, but the calculus we end up doing is very ugly indeed.
I wonder if the ancient teaching of Sabbath is supposed to remind us that some times cannot be traded – not simply that the most valuable thing I can give to God is time, but that somehow it’s more precious when I’m not penny-pinching with it. Sabbath time is invaluable because it is un-monetisable, not because it is spent on something of higher value.
This must then infect the rest of my life – how can I continue to treat the rest of my time as a commodity when I have learned to place one day above value? I can start to learn how to be present in a moment, rather than weighing its value in order to decide whether to extend or invest or bail on it.
July 21, 2011 at 12:53 pm · Filed under Uncategorized · Tags: android, Galaxy S 2, Galaxy S II, Linux, tip, Ubuntu
Today a shiny new toy arrived in the post for me – a Samsung Galaxy S II. High on my priority list was transferring my music across to the phone. My N900 was very easy to sync – some how I’d got into using Songbird a long time ago, but I don’t use it much any more. Ubuntu has moved to Banshee from Rhythmbox as the default media player, so I decided to use that. I imported the playlist that contained the music I didn’t want synced and plugged in the phone.
First problem is that Samsung phones default to trying to connect to the Kies software suite – which of course is not running on Ubuntu. A little searching turns up that I need to change a setting to make it connect in ‘Mass Storage’ mode – in Settings -> Applications -> Development. Although it looks scary with the warning messages, ###
Next, I find that the phone does not show up in Banshee. Again, some simple searching turns up a simple solution. Create a blank text file called ‘.is_audio_player’ (without any quotes, of course, and don’t forget the leading dot) and add text to it:
audio_folders=Samsung/Music/
folder_depth=2
output_formats=audio/mpeg,audio/mp3,application/ogg
Now Banshee sees it properly and will allow me to sync. Now I just need an SDHC card, I’ve got far too much music to fit anything else on there…
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