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Wow, this took a long time to get to, didn't it? Sorry about the delay, folks, but June was an extremely busy month as it turned out. Anyway, this hopefully means that plenty of people have managed to pick up The Long Tail and start reading. Don't know what I'm talking about? Go check out my earlier post/podcast on this subject for all the details. In essence, I'm podcasting and blogging through this fascinating book, looking for insights relevant to the life and future of the church, both generally the Christian church and also as it specifically applies to New Christianity (Swedenborgianism). Anyway, welcome to the first real installment: "The Introduction". First, for those...
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I am not an environmentalist—too many kooks, "true believers", charlatans and fascists inhabit that space. However, I am a conservationist; conserving natural resources makes good economic sense, it's aesthetically pleasing, it's charitable to one's neighbors, and it is part of being a good steward of God's gifts to mankind. I know it sounds like I'm playing a semantics game, and I guess in part I am. It's like feminism. I am a supporter of all things feminine. However, much of what cloaks itself in formal "feminism" looks to me more like female supremacy. Perhaps one might more properly call it "femaleism"? Anyway, I love women, have deep respect for all of the important, powerful, and underappreciated ways they contribute...
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Tomorrow morning I am "officially" starting my new health regimen. Now, technically speaking, I've been "sneaking up on it" for some time, adopting piecemeal various components. But tomorrow is my scheduled "kickoff"—no cheating, no backsliding, no exceptions, whole-hog looking only forward from here on out. I'm trying to lose (a lot of) weight, improve my stamina and energy levels, improve my appearance, and learn some fun skills. My body is the instrument God gave me for carrying out my calling; I have not taken good care of it for years, so I have been working up this past year toward turning things around. Anyway, here's what it looks like: Diet
Low in fat and calories, high in fiber,...
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New sermon up at TheoBlog.com: "Make Spiritual Victory a Habit". It is the first sermon I've done that fully follows the Communicating for a Change model of "ME-WE-GOD-YOU-WE", in that for the first time, after study and prayer, I decided to go all out and actually use the dreaded first-person pronouns in the introduction portion of the message. I'm posting my outline, for those interested in the method. It wasn't written to be read by others, so you might want to listen to the audio at TheoBlog.com while you read through it, so it'll make more sense. * * * TITLE: Make Spiritual Victory a Habit LESSONS: Matthew 11:28-30; Psalm 51;...
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Friends and longtime readers know that I co-founded a strategic web design and development company, Refinery (ne Image Refinery Productions) a dozen years ago, that I was an executive there until my career change a few years ago, and that I remained a significant shareholder and occasional board member. Well, after months and months of behind the scenes efforts, I and my partners have sold the company. As the flurry of press releases and news articles linked to below correctly indicate, Refinery has been purchased by G2 Worldwide, a part of Grey Global Group, and a subsidiary of WPP, and will become a part of G2 Interactive. (Yeah, that's a little complicated, isn't...
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Sorry about the delay, folks. I've been running around like a madman these past two weeks, and Friday and today were especially crazy. It looks, now, like the first formal installment of the Church and the Long Tail podcast / blog discussion will go out some time in the next three days, while I'm in Ivyland and Bryn Athyn, PA. In the meantime, other related topics/books worth glancing at are The Tipping Point, Blink, and The Black Swan. Gotta run. I just finished packing and will be driving from Pittsburgh to Philadelphia within the hour.
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I'm on the road, again. Two weekends ago was a little break from travel. Last Friday I spent the night (with wife and kids) in nowhere, West Virginia. Then Saturday and Sunday we stayed in Charlotte, NC, where we had a blast celebrating New Church Day. Folks came from all over and we had around 50 in total attendance. Then Monday we drove down here to Atlanta to visit my wife's family. We've been bumming around and now are looking forward to a 10++ hour trip back to Pittsburgh tomorrow afternoon/evening/night. Hoody hoo! (One of my best friends once wrote a poem titled "My Life as a Car" and mailed it to us from somewhere between Pennsylvania and California.
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Wow, am I tired. I just got back from a four day retreat up in Michigan, on the lake about an hour south of Grand Rapids. I was there with over a dozen men and women in their twenties and thirties who came together for fellowship, discussion, support and fun, all in a New Church context. I had a blast, but as the second oldest one there I have to admit that I am now worn out. I'm looking forward to sleeping in my own bed tonight. We talked about and practiced holy gratitude, and also discussed topics such as relationships, what it means to be "in the church", reconciling the more practical teachings of the church...
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As I mentioned yesterday, I've been reading The Long Tail and thinking about its implications for the church. Between going to bed and falling asleep, I decided to do a blog series on just that. So what I'm going to do is blog through the book, chapter by chapter. I'll be posting a very short synopsis of each chapter, accompanied by my thoughts and reactions and questions and musings. In general, I'm looking to find answers—or at least have conversations around—the following questions: What implications does the Long Tail phenomenon have for religion and spirituality in general? What lessons can the individual church congregation take from all this? What about whole denominations? Entire religions? What can an...
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Well, I just got back in town (Pittsburgh) after spending the weekend out east (Philadelphia). I—along with wife and all four kids—drove out to Bryn Athyn, PA to witness two good friends graduate and then be ordained as priests of the New Church. Godwin Zatay-Agboga and Ekow Eshun both entered theological school the same year I did. I graduated a year early becuase I took the compressed three-year schedule while they took the standard four-year path. We took the same classes, but not always at the same time. Still, for most of our time at the Academy of the New Church Theological School, we were interacting with each other one way or another. Both Godwin...
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Er...do blogs have saddles? Anyway, I've decided to get back into personal blogging again. For awhile, the only blogging I've done has been sermons and sermon summaries, with an occasional theological paper. My focus has been more on audio podcasting of sermons, and all that action has been going on over at my other blog (TheoBlog.com) and at my local church's website (PittsburghNewChurch.org). But I want to get back into "real" blogging again. Why? Partly because I think it's good for me. Partly becuase I think it'd be good for my church. Partly because I think somebody out there might enjoy having me back on line again. It'll be different, though. Before, I was focused...
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Someone noted I hadn't posted since December. Am I still alive? Yep. Just busy. I've got mucho travel this month and next, plus several projects starting up all at the same time. So the free ice cream is only coming out in little spoonfuls these days. Sorry!
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I'm a language geek, so for a long time now I've been looking forward to Mel Gibson's Apocalypto, just because of his quirky idea of doing the whole thing in a language practically nobody on earth speaks today. I don't know when I'll get around to actually seeing it, unfortunately, because I have four kids under the age of ten and babysitter time is dear. But I have the next best thing to a chance to see the film: a good friend who is an archaelogy grad student with field experience in mesoamerica who happened to see a special pre-screening recently. I opened up the discussion by passing her a link to Traci Ardren's Archaeology article, "Is 'Apocalypto'...
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Okay, inspired by my transferring of the archives from my astronomy blog (ylog.blogspot.com) over to my main site (GlennFrazier.com), I've decided to also import all my Dev Log (VLog) archives over as well.
So this is "officially" the last post done via blogger. No longer will you find Vlog at mac.thefraziers.org/dev/vlog/ but incorporated within the posts at GlennFrazier.com. For backup purposes, the old posts will continue to be available at macsvlog.blogspot.com, but I don't know how long that'll be the case.
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I recently received an email from someone who noticed that it's been years since I posted to Mac's [Astronom-] YLog hear at ylog.blogspot.com. They asked if I would be willing to give up the URL. I suppose it's because their first name begins with the letter "Y".
Anyway, friendly netneighbor that I am, I of course agreed. So I've cleaned up the archives, and I'm making this last post, and then I'm transferring it all over to my main blog, GlennFrazier.com. All future (if any!) astronomy blogging I do will be done there...until further notice, of course.
Actually, I'd like to get back into it. I've moved from the Philly suburbs to just...
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