Thursday, January 28, 2010

Goose Island Recycling Center


It's super helpful to know a place where I can drop off some hazardous stuff and other electronic/household stuff.
The City of Chicago has a recycling outpost right at the infamous Goose Island Brewery. I wish someone would have told me earlier that such a place existed.

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

One of my favorite writers...

Carl Trueman, a VP and Historical Theology prof at Westminster Seminary in Philly, has got to be one of my favorite living thinkers. He borders on cynicism (and maybe that's why I'm attracted to him) as he turns words in to punching cultural critique. Dr. Trueman just came out with this post on his reflections on a visit to Rome. Being a former Catholic (who is being wooed "home" by his grandmother and the media), I appreciate his perspective on the general state of Evangelical Protestantism and yet the woeful gaps in Catholic tradition, i.e., mind and tongue.

He concludes 3 things:
  • First, my trip to Rome reminded me once again of how inadequate evangelical Protestant literature on contemporary Catholicism is.
  • Second, I was challenged by a Catholic friend, when I raised the issues of Padre Pio and St Anthony's tongue, to consider whether my own reaction was conditioned in part by my being more a son of David Hume and the Enlightenment than I care to admit.
  • Finally, it seems that it is very easy for American Catholic intellectuals, and those evangelicals who are attracted by Rome, to ignore the tongues, the jaws, the bits of the real cross, the stigmatics, the folk religion. But American pick-n-mix consumerism applied to Catholicism is just one more manifestation of, dare I say it?, the modern Western aesthetic of choice; it is emphatically not the same as Catholicism as it works itself out in the very backyard of the Roman See; and it will not do simply to say that the practices of such are not significant; they are significant, at least for anyone who takes seriously their Catholicism.

Sunday, January 17, 2010

America's Favorite Unopened Text

I came across this stimulating article on Christian illiteracy among youths. Author, David Nienhuis, argues cogently for the need to get past mere "sword drill" or trivial type of Bible knowledge and encounter the Scriptures in a more holistic, multi-perspectival fashion.
He particularly draws upon his context-- the Christian college.
"It is not enough for a Christian university to function as an outpost of the academy; it must also take up the task of serving the church by becoming an abbey for spiritual growth and an apostolate for cultural change."

While my experience in university lectureship was short, I think I would have a class which had a semester project that would be pass/fail. The students would have to write about one ideology, philosophy or theology that they would die for.

Saturday, January 16, 2010

The Burj Birdmen

Most of you know that the tallest building in the world no longer is the Sears (not Willis) Tower. I guess it hasn't been for a few years now b/c of Malaysia and Taiwan . Leave it to sheiks, shahs, oil, drive and innovation and you've got the Burj Khalifa; better known as the Burj Dubai.
For the Chicagoans out there (or those who know the Chitown landscape), the Burj is taller than the Sears Tower and John Hancock buildings stacked on top of each other.

Well, this well-made little documentary of two really daring birdmen (is that redundant?) is a favorite on Vimeo. Watch it, and you'll know why... Crazy.


The Burj Birdmen from Jan-Paul Bednarz on Vimeo.




Thursday, January 7, 2010

Praying through Scripture: An Idea...

I'd like to share an idea with you. It regards my inability and sometimes my sinful propensity to not prioritize my time to spend with Jesus in his Word and in prayer. Sometimes, lack of time to commune w/ our Savior isn't about inability or sinfulness. Maybe it's just providential circumstances that purposefully have squeezed out your regularly scheduled time. This, too, we must accept from the Lord with willing hearts not being super-pious thinking we have somehow let God down or those who "expect" us to be with Jesus regularly.

Today, I basically had about 5 minutes of undistracted time before I woke my son up to go to school. In that time, I read four verses from Colossians on my knees (again, not that it indicates anything of my personal piety). Then, I prayed through each phrase of this portion. That's it.

I might add that the "daily" things I pray for, I was able to pray through the grid of those four verses. This is just creative ideation and not at all meant to propose one method toward holiness. If anything, it's more like another way toward fighting for joy in Christ.

Suggested Reading about praying Scripture: A Call to Spiritual Reformation: Priorities from Paul and His Prayers (by D.A. Carson)