On Taking a Break

It's been kind of weird for me to not be blogging for the last little while. After having done it for basically 4 years straight, losing my "voice" so to speak has felt both disconcerting and freeing. Freeing because I don't feel like I have to have something to say about something every day, but also disconcerting because I don't feel like I have anything to say. When you write what is basically a journal for 4 years, filling it with your thoughts and opinions and the other mind rubbish that comes up, not having much to say feels strangely empty.

I suppose I could "assign" myself something, like I'll talk about each member of the Trinity for one post a week. Or I could examine the traditional 5 steps of salvation over the course of 5 weeks. I could probably come up with some decent insights and opinions about that, but again, that almost feels like busy work.

Maybe I'm thinking too highly of myself and/or expecting too much out of myself, wanting to have something deep and insightful each time I write something, which is both extremely narcissistic and unfair to myself as a writer.

So I guess I'll just wait for the Muse to strike me again. Maybe I'll hear something at Zoe next week that will push me to share a thought or two. Or maybe not. Be that as it may, I'm not abandoning blogging. I'm just waiting for it to have meaning for me again.

Peace.

On a break...

I obviously haven't done any serious blogging in a couple of weeks and I'm honestly not sure why. I posted on Twitter/Facebook last night that I can't decide if I have less to say, I'm less narcissistic than I used to be, both, or something else entirely.

So, I'm just posting to say that posting will probably become much more sporadic around these parts for the next little while. If something strikes my fancy, I'll bang it out. At some point, I'll probably be back on my regular posting schedule, but for now, I'm going to take advantage of the blogging writer's block and be on a break for a bit.

Thanks for reading.

No Time to Blog

I realize the irony of blogging about having no time to blog, but there you have it. I'll resume the Age of Entertainment series next week, time willing, with Idol Worship.

Peace.

Gone A Lot

Hi all.

Sorry I've been away from the blog for the last little while. With injuries and travels and such it's been a busy summer (as most of them are).

I'm still sitting on a post about how Christians can be more redemptive in our reactions to abortion, as well as with all the "celebrity" deaths recently, how our culture is in an "Age of Entertainment" where celebrities are the role models and the majority of our time is spent in pursuit of entertainment.

Those are both fairly involved and I want to craft them in the best way possible for discussion and thoughts.

Hope you all had a good 4th of July.

ƃuıʇʇınb

(-: ˙ǝʞoɾ s,looɟ lıɹdɐ uɐ sı sıɥʇ 'sǝʎ

lıɥd

'ǝɔɐǝd

˙sʇɥƃnoɥʇ ɯopuɐɹ ɹǝɥʇo puɐ sƃuılqɯɐɹ lɐɔıƃoloǝɥʇ puɐ sǝɹnʇɔıd ʎlıɯɐɟ ʎɯ ɥʇıʍ ɯsıssıɔɹɐu ʎɯ ƃuıƃlnpuı ɹoɟ sʞuɐɥʇ 'uǝɥʇ lıʇun ʇnq 'uʍop ɯǝɥʇ ǝʞɐʇ oʇ ǝpıɔǝp ı lıʇun ǝlıɥʍ ɐ ɹoɟ dn ǝsǝɥʇ ǝʌɐǝl ll,ı

˙ǝnuıʇuoɔ oʇ ʇı ɥʇɹoʍ ɯǝǝs ʇ,usǝop ʇsnɾ ʇı 'ɹɐlndod ǝɹoɯ puɐ ǝɹoɯ ƃuıɯoɔǝq llɐ ǝɹɐ ʎǝɥʇ ɥƃnoɥʇ uǝʌǝ 'uıɐƃɐ ˙ʇıqɐɥuı ı ɐıpǝɯ lɐıɔos ɹǝɥʇo ǝɥʇ puɐ ɹǝʇʇıʍʇ puɐ ʞooqǝɔɐɟ dn ǝʌıƃ oʇ pǝpıɔǝp oslɐ ǝʌ,ı 'ɥƃnoɥʇ ʇɐɥʇ oʇ uoıuɐdɯoɔ ɐ sɐ ˙sɯǝǝs ʇı 'ǝuɐʍ ǝɥʇ uo ɟo puıʞ ƃuıƃƃolq ɥʇıʍ ʇı op oʇ ǝɯıʇ pooƃ ɐ ǝʞıl pǝɯǝǝs ʇı ˙dn ʇı ǝʌıƃ oʇ pǝpıɔǝp ǝʌ,ı 'ƃuıƃƃolq ɹɐlnƃǝɹ ɟo sɹɐǝʎ ㄣ ʇsoɯlɐ ɹǝʇɟɐ os ˙ǝɹoɯ ʎuɐ ʇɥƃıɹ ʇıs ʇ,upıp ʇsnɾ dıɹʇ ıʞs ǝɥʇ ɯoɹɟ sǝɹnʇɔıd ǝsoɥʇ ƃuıʇsod uǝʌǝ 'ʇı ʇnoqɐ ƃuıɥʇǝɯos ʇnq 'ʞɐǝɹq ɐ ɹǝʇɟɐ uıɐƃɐ ƃuıƃƃolq pǝʇɹɐʇs ʇsnɾ ı ʇɐɥʇ ǝzılɐǝɹ ı

Quitting

I realize that I just started blogging again after a break, but something about it, even posting those pictures from the ski trip just didn't sit right any more. So after almost 4 years of regular blogging, I've decided to give it up. It seemed like a good time to do it with blogging kind of on the wane, it seems. As a companion to that though, I've also decided to give up Facebook and Twitter and the other social media I inhabit. Again, even though they are all becoming more and more popular, it just doesn't seem worth it to continue.

I'll leave these up for a while until I decide to take them down, but until then, thanks for indulging my narcissism with my family pictures and theological ramblings and other random thoughts.

Peace,

Phil

Yes, this is an April Fool's Joke. :-)

Back Among the Blogging

Well, I gave all of you a break, but now I'm back. In the two weeks that I've been gone, I did some snowboarding in Colorado and some serious work on some projects at work. So as I ease back into blogging, I'll have some pictures and some thoughts about things in general, as per usual.

25 Random Things About Myself

There's a thing going around Facebook where you list 25 things about yourself. So I'm double posting it here.

1) I have lived my entire life in Nashville. I was born in the old Saint Thomas hospital and have lived my entire life in the southern and eastern part of Nashville. I love this city, the size, the general feel of the people here, just about everything about it. And as a result I've never really wanted to move. I think I could live in a big city and were I younger, I might give New York City a shot, but as it is, I love living here.

2) I have attended Otter Creek Church of Christ for 31 of my 37 years of life. Except for 6 years where I either didn't attend church or attended Belmont Church, I've gone to Otter Creek the entire time. One of the things that I really love about it is the sense of tradition that I have from going there. My great-grandfather was the first preacher in the Granny White building and my grandparents went there, as well as my parents for a time. I love how we honor tradition while still pushing the envelopes of what it means to be Church of Christ and a Christian.

3) I taught high school English for 6 years at Martin Luther King Jr. Magnet High School for the Health Sciences and Engineering. I loved this job. I got to teach some of the best kids in one of the best schools in the city. We talked about literature, of course, but talking about that led us into discussions of race and life and politics and religion and all that other stuff you're not supposed to talk to your students about, but that's what they want to talk about. I had a great time doing it (except for grading papers) and miss it on occasion.

4) I'm married to my best friend. I know that sounds cliched but the honest truth is that Sheryl is the person that I want to spend most of my time with/person with whom I want to spend most of my time. When something good or bad happens, she's the first one I want to talk with about it. We were friends before we dated and that blossomed into the love we share today. I don't find myself missing the fluttery feelings of first love because as important as those are at the beginning of a relationship, they fade. And if that's what we lock into as love, then we're just fooling ourselves. So I love being married to my best friend.

5) I have a bad temper. When I was a teenager and adolescent, I used to lose my temper all the time. Got into fights, argued, all that stuff. As I got older, that fuse became longer and longer, but I find that it gotten shorter with my kids as I have pretty high expectations for them and their behavior. I'm working on controlling it as much as I can, but some days it's very, very hard.

6) My parents are divorced. When I was 11, my parents got divorced and 6 months later, my mom remarried. Now, my mom and dad's relationship had been over a long time before the divorce was finalized, but that was obviously a difficult time. As a result, my mom was also disfellowshipped from Otter Creek, because the divorce was not Scriptural (because of marital infidelity on my dad's part).

7) After leaving teaching, I was a technical writer. What that really means is that I helped write frequently asked questions for websites, as well as help files and such. It was a great way to get into the business world and honestly it was a place where my experience as a teacher gave me a great amount of credibility. It was also something I didn't like a lot, because it was very formalized in the writing and grammar, things that I really didn't like even when I was teaching.

8) My technical writing led to my work now as a usability engineer/user interface designer. One of the things you do as a technical writer is look for problems that people might have with software and anticipate the problems they'll have with it and write solutions around it. What I do now is design the software to not have those problems in the first place. It's a great job that feeds both my creative side and geeky side. Plus, I'm pretty good at it and enjoy it, both of which are nice bonuses.

9) I've been out of the US 3 times. Once to Canada on a brief business trip, and twice to Great Britain. The first time was in 2000 when Sheryl and I decided that we were going to do a trip like this before we had kids and just had a blast doing it. We spent 2 weeks going from London to Dover/Canterbury to Oxford to Edinburgh (Scotland) to Aberdeen (Scotland) to Inverness (Scotland) and back to London. It is literally in the top 5 memories of my entire life, behind our wedding and the births of our kids. The 2nd time to England was on a mission trip to Loughborough in 2004. We took Kinsey with us to go work with a church there, and Connor came along too, but he was in utero. This was also good, but very different in feel obviously. Through it, we came to know many people that are very close friends with us today and who are in our Life group/small group.

10) I love Jesus. Again, I know that's a cliche kind of thing to say, but I really do. Not just because of the salvation aspects in which I firmly believe, but also the example of his life. Too often it's easy for us to focus on the sacrificial atoning nature of his death and resurrection and the cute "golden fleece diapers" aspect of his birth, and forgetting that there was a life of 33 years in between those two where Jesus said some really important things. I love how Jesus tweaked the noses of the established authority while still loving people and still getting frustrated as all heck with them.

11) My favorite Old Testament verse is 1 Samuel 6:7 "But the LORD said to Samuel, "Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The LORD does not look at the things human beings look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart." I had this one read at my baptism and it was a theme verse for me. I had horrible self-esteem as a child, and so it gave me comfort that God didn't look at my unattractive outside, but what was inside.

12) My favorite New Testament verses are Philippians 2:5-11: 5 In your relationships with one another, have the same attitude of mind Christ Jesus had:

6 Who, being in very nature [a] God,
did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;

7 rather, he made himself nothing
by taking the very nature [b] of a servant,
being made in human likeness.

8 And being found in appearance as a human being,
he humbled himself
by becoming obedient to death—
even death on a cross!

9 Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
and gave him the name that is above every name,

10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,

11 and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.

13) Sheryl and I have lived in the same house for the last 12 years. We moved in just before our first anniversary and rented from my parents for the first year, then bought. Several times, I've really wanted to move and get something with just a bit more space, particularly in the master bedroom and master bath area, but it's not too bad right now.

14) I can quote about 90% of the original Star Wars movie and probably 75% of the Princess Bride. My movie-going childhood was defined by Star Wars and the original trilogy. I also had an LP called the Story of Star Wars that had most of the dialogue, music, and sound effects and I listened to that over and over. My quotability of the Princess Bride comes just from loving that movie and loving the complete over the top cheesiness of it being done with complete seriousness. "Let me esplain.... No, there is too much, let me sum up."

15) My ability to hold vast amounts of useless knowledge in my brain makes me very annoying at trivia games. I don't have a photographic memory, but I can hold weird bits of knowledge in my head for a long time. Like, I can remember that John McTiernan was the director of Die Hard 1 & 3 and the directory of Predator, while Renny Harlin directed Die Hard 2, the Long Kiss Goodnight, and Cutthroat Island, the latter two starred his wife Geena Davis with Samuel Jackson and Matthew Modine (respectively). I don't know why I know that. But I do and when I play trivia games, it can be annoying, but my competitive drive makes me want to win every time. Hence, I don't play trivia games that often.

16) I'm a gadget/electronics nut. I love grown up toys. I love the cool iPhones and big screen TVs and the whiz bag things that we can do with gadgets now that would have seemed like science fiction 20 years ago. I like those things, but that can also get expensive so I try not to indulge that often, but on occasion I'm weak and give in.

17) I love snowboarding. For the last several years, I've gone out to Colorado with my parents and Kinsey to go skiing, but 2 years ago, I was introduced to snowboarding and I don't see myself returning to skiing anytime soon. For one the boots are much more comfortable. Secondly, it's an amazing amount of fun. I was never a skateboarder, but snowboarding is an incredible amount of fun. I never had to take formal lessons. My mom and dad showed me how to heel and toe turns, but beyond that, it's just been really natural for me. And I'm looking forward to going back soon.

18) I've always wanted to write fiction. Blogging and design work feeds a certain part of my creativity, but from a very early age I wanted to write fiction. The problem again goes back to my self-esteem about what I can do. A lot of the fiction that I've written has felt trite and pedestrian and so I haven't really devoted much time or effort to it. It's a confidence issue, as well as pushing past the crap that I would have to write before I get to something that might be decent.

19) I do tech/audio-visual work at Otter Creek and occasionally for the Zoe Group. About 6 and a half years ago, I started to doing tech work for Otter Creek as a part time job. It's something that I mostly enjoy, but I get a little tired of it sometimes. It can be a little more stressful than I would like it to be, but that's because I hold myself to such a high standard when it comes to mistakes. I coordinate and run both the sound board and the MediaShout (visual) work for Otter Creek. Honestly, while I'm good at both, I enjoy running MediaShout more than sound. Running sound can still occasionally feel like I'm in someone else's shoes, while I feel right at home running MediaShout, behind a computer doing visuals.

20) I've run sound at the Ryman Auditorium. A few years back, the Zoe Group partnered with the Temple Church praise team to do a Thanksgiving service at the Ryman Auditorium and because Brandon Scott Thomas felt comfortable with me, I ended up running the sound for the night. It was a very scary, but really cool experience.

21) My favorite literature writer is William Faulkner. I discovered Faulkner in 10th grade English when we read As I Lay Dying which I didn't understand at all. Stream of consciousness... point of view... perspective... My mother is a fish... None of it made sense. Then we read The Unvanquished in 11th grade and I got him quite a bit more. Then in 12th grade, I read Light in August, The Sound and the Fury, and Absalom, Absalom, as well as many of his short stories, and I discovered someone who finally didn't make me feel like an idiot for claiming to be a Southern. He was honest about the racism, and unflinching in his depiction, while also not condone it, but recognized it as a part of the Southern Heritage, never to be re-enacted. As a result, I had my students read him too.

22) I love video games, particularly shooters and driving games, and most especially, music games. When I got my Xbox, I made a pact that I wouldn't play while the kids were awake. I've gotten a little bit away from that and I'll play some driving games with them, and especially Rock Band where Kinsey and Sheryl will play drums and bass as well. It's incredibly fun. Plus we play it when our Life group comes over, after we get done with the Bible study and prayer time.

23) I do the laundry in our household. When Sheryl and I got married, we divided up the household chores. I took the outside of the house (excluding the garden) and she took the inside (excluding the laundry). Now you might think, "Why the laundry, Phil?" Because I can sit on my butt and watch TV while I fold clothes. It was a pretty easy decision. Now, that of course is not to say that I don't help out with cleaning the house, or Sheryl doesn't help with the laundry, but that's where the responsibilities tend to lay.

24) I would like to preach one sermon at Otter Creek. It sounds dumb, but I almost feel this "genetic" imperative to preach a sermon at Otter Creek, because of my great-grandfather preaching there. Now, I of course would like to be asked to speak on my own merits and not as a "pity" preacher, so it's not likely to happen, but I think it would be really neat to do that.

25) I don't know for certain what the afterlife will bring. I'm placing my faith that what Jesus said is true and that my desire to be as much like him as I can will put me in a place to be with him in eternity, saved by his grace. I don't know what that means for everyone else in the world, past, present, and future. But I feel like my calling is to show love to others and allow myself to be loved by them and by God. If I can somehow pull that off here on earth, perhaps God can show a little bit through me to them.

So that's 25 things. If you've lasted this long, I'd buy you a drink (non-alcoholic) but with the economy the way it is... well, you'll just have to be happy with a hearty congratulations.

Sometimes....

Sometimes I don't blog to see if people will wonder if I'm still alive.

Sometimes I don't blog because I don't have time.

Try to decide what today was...

Singarama

Well, well, well, here I am again.

The last month has been absolutely insane. I've had entirely too much going on and while a lot of it has been very fun, it's also been very busy.

Here's a little bit of what's been going on.

-I've been crazy busy at work.
-I was the technical director for Singarama (more on that later this week)
-I went to San Diego for a work conference (more on that later, but maybe not this week)
-I went to Colorado to snowboard (pics about that later and when I can get my sister to send them to me)

I've missed the blogging some, but not as much as I thought, but I'm also looking forward to getting back to it. I'm sure some of you wonder what's going on with Connor and Kinsey, if I have any insights into the worship minister search at Otter Creek, and where my theological ruminations have taken me. Or you may not care at all. Either way, I'm back for a while and looking forward to interacting again.

Peace.

Returning soon

but until then, remember you can follow me on Twitter: www.twitter.com/philwilson27
which I've been greatly enjoying.

Still Alive

"This was a triumph..." (Portal fans will get that)

Hi all, I'm still here and I know that at least some of you are out there checking, since the Statcounter keeps going up.

Rest assured that I'll have pictures to share and some thoughts here and there, although I've experienced some sense of what Randy Harris talked about at Zoe last year with "losing my voice." Wondering what I have to say, if anything I say adds to the conversation or is just more noise in the background.

Hope the rest of you in blogland are well. Peace.

Tagged again: 10 Things I'm Learning from Being a Parent

Another tag. This time by Adam. And it fits into my Tuesday's as family day, so here goes...

10 Things I'm Learning from Being a Parent
And for the record, it's Kinsey, 6 and Connor, 1

1. I'm learning that there is nothing better than a scream of "Daddy!" or "Hi Dada!" when I come home from work.

2. I expect too much sometimes of a 6 year old and a 1 year old, but they keep meeting and exceeding those expectations (most of the time).

3. Reading the Little House on the Prairie series every night has been one of the neatest things to do.

4. I'm not great at playing dolls, but I rock at Hot Wheels.

5. There are physical things that you will do for your child that would never occur to you to do to anyone else and require multiple hand washings afterwards.

6. Calvin and Hobbes is sometimes the most incredible representation of a six-year-old's life.

7. Wrestling against Daddy 3 on 1 is fun.

8. Picking out an outfit for a boy is much easier than for a girl.

9. I couldn't do this alone.

10. If God is anything like me, He gets really frustrated sometimes, but nothing, ever, ever, ever, will stop Him from loving His children.

Tagging: Amy G., Scott, Malia and/or David, Amy W., and Elizabeth.

Tag Response

So I got tagged by Scott Freeman and I don't always do these, but it interested me so here goes.

Pick up the nearest book of at least 123 pages

Find page 123

Find the first 5 sentences

Post the next 3 sentences

Tag 5 people

The nearest book was The Making of Star Wars: The Definitive Story Behind the Original Film, which is awesome btw. There's only pictures on page 123, so here's page 122.

"When George saw the locations, the roads were much narrower than he would have wished," Barry adds. So we had to find the smallest vehicle there was and make it half as small again. There's a little thing called a 'Bomb Bug,' which is a trike; it has three wheels."

Extra nerd points if you can guess what vehicle they're talking about building.

My tags: Justin, Judy, Adam, Thomas+ and Malia and/or David.

Popular

How to get many comments on a blogpost:

• Talk about instrumental music in a church of Christ setting
• Talk about not taking the Bible completely literally
• Refer to universal healthcare

So, this week's topics will be

• homeschooling vs. public vs. private
• Why Women should be elders in the church
• Why Mitt Romney will build a Mormon temple in place of the Washington Monument

Just kidding, everyone. Just kidding.

Help a Brother Out

Over the last couple of years, I've gotten to know Scott Freeman online. I'm not sure when we met or if it was through my blog or his, but be that as it may, he and I have had many conversations over IM about a variety of topics from politics to theology to Justin Mundie. I've walked with him through frustrations with his former congregation where he ministered to being let go from there to his new one. And even though we've never met in person, I feel close to him.

The reason I bring Scott up is because of his blog post yesterday, called The Whole Truth. It tells the story of his brother, who was wrongly accused and convicted and put in jail 11 years ago, and his continued attempts to be freed of this unjust imprisonment. It tangentially relates to the presidential election because Mike Huckabee was the governor of Arkansas while Scott's family was seeking his freedom. Scott tells the whole story at his blog.

After reading it, I was extremely touched and wondered if there was something that possibly we as the blog community (and especially the Christians in the blog community) could do. Here's what I would ask:

1. Read Scott's post. Whatever your feelings on Huckabee as a candidate whether positive or negative, I would still ask you to read it.

2. In an effort to garner more publicity, I've posted his blog post on Digg.com at http://www.digg.com/2008_us_elections/Huckabee_Left_Innocent_Man_Jailed. If you're a member at Digg and are so inclined it would be great if you could Digg it up and have your friends do it as well. If you know other ways of publicizing it, that would be great as well.

3. If you were as touched and outraged at this story as I was, consider posting on your blog about it. Perhaps if some measure of public pressure could be put on the current governor of Arkansas, it might help Scott's brother.

4. Pray. I'd ask you to pray right now that Scott's brother Steve would continue to have strength and perseverance in this time. And that other Christians would give him the support and strength in these times.

I guess the reason this story touched me is that I know Scott and I can only imagine how tough it must have been to write that post. I hope that maybe some measure of relief for Steve can happen and perhaps we can all be apart of that.

Thanks.

Craziness

So, I'm looking at my Statcounter yesterday and I see something weird happening. I'm getting a ton of hits. By the end of the day, my totals look like this...


Naturally, I'm wondering what's happening, and to my utter shock, if you Google Deathly Hallows Review, my blog is the third listing. No idea why or how, but I guess it's one of those interesting little algorithms that happens on the web.

Blog Fatigue...

I'm going to back off of blogging for a while. Maybe the summer. I'm going to continue doing family stuff on Tuesdays and theology on Fridays possibly a stray one here and there. Hopefully this will also allow me to comment more on others' blogs too.

Thanks for reading...