Glogster shows my holiday

Well some of it. Experimenting with a visual scrap-booky sort of blog tool and some phone-camera pix I took in Berwick on Tweed ...

How storytelling shaped humanity - opinion - 25 May 2009 - New Scientist

For all of us interested in hermeneutics, this could be the new kid on the block of theories. New Scientist reports here: Review: How storytelling shaped humanity - opinion - 25 May 2009 - New Scientist: "Art, Boyd says, is a form of play. It is an interesting idea. In recent years, biologists who study play have come to see it as an adaptation allowing intelligent animals to hone mental and physical skills in non-threatening environments. This fits perfectly with Boyd's assertion that fiction fosters cognition, cooperation and creativity. Where the idea falls short is in its failure to recognise that play is primarily interactive, whereas storytelling is more of a spectator sport."
Now, I'm not sure whose perspective that last sentence represents but I think I disagree with it. Not completely but enough to be very dubious: the thing is that lots of good storytelling is actually interactive and not just about spectating. And indeed, the social setting of much storytelling is interactive even if the story is 'spactated' for a time: the conversation in which the story is 'performed' is often a co-operative affair and stories are swapped and commented upon.

That said, the approach seems potentially useful: "the process of creating a story may be expensive in terms of time and energy but is intrinsically rewarding because it appeals to our brain's love affair with pattern. It also reshapes the mind, promotes a creative approach to problem solving and increases the storyteller's social status. The audience, meanwhile, pay a price in their time, but in return acquire a deeper insight into society and the minds of other individuals."
Now think about that in relation to the biblical narratives. Does it work? Well, the pattern thing does: part of the point is that the biblical narratives are helping to highlight patterns of God's relating to humans and this can have the effect of enabling us the hearers/readers to approach our lives (problems included) differently, with the creativity of God. The greater insight in the audience is also into the ways of God. So much so familiar. This seems to be pretty much noting particularly salient points which are not really about evolutionary perspective but things that are consonant with it; as such they do us the favour of helping us to pay attention to some fairly practical matters relating to basic drives and social conditions.

Oh, I missed out about the story-teller's status: celebrity culture; say no more. ... ?

No summer holiday before the overhaul

I love this idea of not letting the MPs out until they've done the decent thing. In this case the decent thing being not filibustering minor and irrelevant reformlets but rather proper reforms -many of which are practically ready to go and should have been released into the wild already. Read it here: Nick Clegg | Bar the gates. No summer holiday before the overhaul | Comment is free | The Guardian: "what Cameron did not say is more revealing than what he did. No mention of the murky business of party funding. No mention of the scandal of an unelected second chamber. The rejection of any change to an electoral system that hands power to governments on a fraction of the vote. Without these changes, British politics will continue to be a game of pass the parcel between two old parties, while the rest of the country switches off,"

Steinbeck and the powers that be?

Confession time: I've never read the Grapes of Wrath. I know lots of people will think I'm the kind of person who would have, but I've not; where other people were reading Steinbeck I was reading Sartre, Camus, Lorca, Cervantes ... So it's that my education developed a bit differently to many other 'cultured' people. One effect of this is that I'd never, therefore, come across this passage which is a really helpful reflection on the nature of principalities and powers, imho. The article discusses that a bit: the Jesus Manifesto � Are we the people? and perhaps the salient bit is: "What is this great beast? What is the monster that Steinbeck describes? An institution, a social structure created by human beings. With no actual reality, except in the minds of the people who believe in it. Yet, as more and more people gather, believing in and submitting themselves to its order and purposes, it gains power in men�s minds, great power, seeming to become something much greater than ourselves. Those who believe and serve it become dependent on it, dependent for their very lives. And it grows in complexity and influence until it eventually reaches the point where no human leadership seems to be in control of it; it seems to have taken on a life of its own."
Where I think I disagree somewhat is the idea that the principalities and powers are different from human-created institutions: I don't think we can make that distinction or that the Bible does. What I think we can do now, though, is analyse them more fully with the tools of science (including social science) and see that we are dealing with emergent properties from complex dynamical systems. Steinbeck's passage, without that language, identifies that very nicely.

Body is part of the mind: movement changes thought

Add this to the growing evidence that our minds are not hermetically sealed from our somatic presence but rather our bady contributes to our mind and helps to form it. Body Movements Can Influence Problem Solving, Researchers Report: "This emerging research is fascinating because it is demonstrating how your body is a part of your mind in a powerful way. The way you think is affected by your body and, in fact, we can use our bodies to help us think".
This would appear to be the facility that is strong in kinaesthetic learning (and probably shows that it's a spectrum thing rather than +/- thing). Of course it is harmonious with the Christian/Hebrew holistic mind-body thing (and less conducive to neo-Platonic and gnostic world-views). It adds further experimental evidence to the thesis of 'Philosophy in the Flesh' and adds to the problematising of Cartesian dualism. On the other hand, it would seem to encourage the emergent view of mind

Moral judgment falters if rushed

At least that's my reading of the results of this research. It uses 1,0000 subjects, so that's a very reasonable sample. Read more about it here: Moral Judgment Falters As Time Crunch Sets In The final paragraph gives us the skinny: "The fact that we give greater weight to moral values further away in time has to do with how abstract we are in our thinking. When we think of temporally distant events, we think more abstractly, which makes us focus on superordinate aspects and the main purport of the event. But if we think of events that are close to us in time, we think more concretely, which means that subordinate, peripheral aspects take on more importance. For example, if we imagine that we will be asked to donate blood in the future, what dominates is the superordinate moral value of helping other people, but if the time perspective is telescoped, concrete subordinate selfish motives take over, such as the fact that it will be unpleasant to be stuck by a needle."
This has very important consequences. It means that decision-making processes requiring a change of behaviour in the light of moral or ethical considerations really need to be given good time and a long tail. Churche councils take note! Indeed governments too; I'm thinking climate-change and global economic restructuring here ...

On a personal level; it probably means too that the encouraging of personal rules of life gains a further argument for refashioning (forming) people in the way of Christ: the long-term horizon is vital and important in affecting thinking now and in helping us to avoid short-time ethically sub-optimal behaviours. It also seems to me to suggest support for the idea of sabbath: taking the pressure off helps to form good thinking and behaviours, if I read the results aright.

Sea 'snake' generates electricity with every wave - tech - 07 May 2009 - New Scientist

Now this does seem to be a technology worth watching, not least because it seems simple and has that 'why didn't someone think of that before?' factor. It also looks like a good bet for maintenance costs:

Other than the turbine, Anaconda has no moving parts and unlike other wave power devices it needs only one tether to the ocean floor. That lowers construction costs and reduces the need for maintenance – an expensive undertaking in offshore settings where corrosion and accessibility are problems, ... Des Crampton, CEO of Checkmate Seaenergy, the firm commercialising the flexible wave harvester, says a full-size Anaconda 200 metres long could generate enough energy to power 1000 average homes. "Anaconda captures more energy than all existing wave energy devices,"

Sea 'snake' generates electricity with every wave - tech - 07 May 2009 - New Scientist

Don’t let military hijack just war

This is very intriguing, from a meeting of US bishops ahead of the general convention. Church Times - ‘Don’t let military hijack just war’: "Christians should learn again their duties to all their fellow citizens in the Kingdom of God and in the US. “We have not truly taken up the responsibilities that come with the vast worldly power that the United States has enjoyed, and con�tinues to enjoy, for our fellow Chris�tians around the world and for humanity as a whole, our neighbors in Christ.”
This would mean remembering that both sides in a conflict were sinners, that the enemy was not evil, and was “ultimately our neighbor”. It means that the true costs of war, to everyone and to the environment, must be considered.
The Bishops also said that the Anglican Church must first show that it loves its “enemies” within the body of Christ, before it can show its love for its enemies outside."

Quantum arguments for God veer into mumbo-jumbo?

I think that perhaps this riposte article in NS about whether quantum indeterminacy gives room for God's action in/on the cosmos. It's a response to a Christian scientist (note small s!) making such a claim. A little while back I commented on a possible development in theory that could change the way we view this argument anyway. Read the whole article: Quantum arguments for God veer into mumbo-jumbo - opinion - 06 May 2009 - New Scientist and the nub of it seems to me to be this, starting with a restatement (how fair?) of the argument being reacted to: "So, because God somehow tinkers in a quantumy type way, it's worth praying for divine guidance and intervention. To me, and to other scientists and commentators, Collins is straying into pseudo-scientific speculation simply to keep God in the earthly frame. Believing in God in the first place is by definition a leap of faith, and one that many scientists and many non-scientists are, after careful and reasonable thought, unwilling to take. For those who have trouble accepting that we're a product of pure chance, there is the option of believing that God set everything in motion."
To add my two-penn'orth: I think that the riposte misses the point that if time is part of 'created' order, and that the Theist view of God is that God is outside of this space-time continuum. Therefore the creative act could be (and I think should be) interpreted as covering the whole STC. So if there is a conceptual possibility for a deist 'wind-up-the-clockwork' god, there is by the same logic one for a theist God. It doesnt' help us with the 'how' of God-STC interaction, but we should be careful to note creation and sustenance are not completely different categories, but rather a time-bound 'observation'-dependent thing.

Play and power: the Jesus way

I've long felt that Walter Wink's take on this was broadly correct: it makes sense of a strong current in Jesus' and even Paul's teaching and examples. However, seeing Wink's article here was helpful in making a connection to the Play Ethic and all that stuff.How turning the other cheek defies oppression | Ekklesia: "This unmasking is not simply punitive, however; it offers the creditor a chance to see, perhaps for the first time in his life, what his practices cause-and to repent.
Jesus in effect is sponsoring clowning. In so doing he shows himself to be thoroughly Jewish. A later saying of the Talmud runs, 'If your neighbour calls you an ass, put a saddle on your back.'
The Powers That Be literally stand on their dignity. Nothing takes away their potency faster than deft lampooning. By refusing to be awed by their power, the powerless are emboldened to seize the initiative, even where structural change is not possible. This message, far from being a counsel of perfection unattainable in this life, is a practical, strategic measure for empowering the oppressed. It provides a hint of how to take on the entire system in a way that unmasks its essential cruelty and to burlesque its pretensions to justice, law, and order."
I seem to recall Harvey Cox's Feast of Fools makes a similar point somewhere ...

Anyway, the creativity in protest is definitely a Christian way by this, and to exercise moral imagination that seeks third ways, surprise and redefinings of situations seems encouraged. It certainly helps me to see something of the spirit of Christ in some of the actions and lifestyles of some of the 'alternative' people I have had the privilege to share time, space and good conversation with. Sometimes we need to take account of Christ's words "You are not far from the Kingdom of God" -though sometimes recognise that because we, the church, have not been/embodied Good News, to say so might not be heard as an encouragement!

Palestinian Christians refusing the cycle of hate

A story of fragile hope. Deserving of our prayerful support. Palestinian Christians refusing the cycle of hate | Ekklesia: "The Nassar farm is already surrounded by Israeli settlements, and like many Palestinians, the Nassars have endured harassment, threats and attacks from nearby settlers. In one such attack, Daoud Nassar's mother was threatened with a gun. In another, settlers uprooted 250 olive trees from the property. It is acts like this, Nassar says, that may easily fuel violence among Palestinians. For many others, the only possible options seem to be to resign themselves to the situation, or to emigrate. The Nassar family decided there should be another option – to refuse to be enemies. So they established on their land a project called the Tent of Nations (http://www.tentofnations.org). Its overarching aims are to build bridges between people of different backgrounds and between people and land."

Leading in a Culture of Change

It's not often I get excited about a bit of change-management literature, but this one named for me a number of things that resonated with a couple of decades of involvement in church leadership. The Alban Institute - 2009-05-04 Leading in a Culture of Change. A bit that seems to give the flavour of the matter is this: "The organic nature of organizations is more apparent in most congregations, however. There is great informality in the way decisions actually get made; there is a reliance on more casual conversation and the building of consensus. Therefore, linear planning processes placed in the hands of a few most often seem alien to congregations, if not an out-and-out imposition. People may go along, because they want to be cooperative or because they do not know what else to do. Most often, though, these step-by-step processes do not produce the desired results. We’ve all heard the stories about the months spent crafting a purpose statement that gets hung on the wall or printed in the Sunday worship bulletin but has no discernable impact on the ministry of the congregation—it’s the kind of thing that happens when congregations rely on a linear process to enable organic change."
I felt vindicated that I have often tried to encourage and 'empower' (and make accountable) more informal decision-making processes. It also helped me to realised that the difficulties I'd experienced trying to follow patterns recommended by CEO-style leaders of big churches were not just down to my incompetence but rather the incompetence was trying to follow an inappropriate model.
The main thing is to realise that non-linear dynamics obtain: it's chaotic but with enough of the right kind of forces and -crucially- feed-back, a strange attractor can form giving a degree of relative stability. Of course, it also means that little perturbations can make big changes to that apparently equilibrial state!

I think this may find its way onto a reading list.

Now, how does this apply to college ... ?

Religious Shopping and cashing out

Worth noting this bit of research from the USA reported by Sacred Tribes Journal: "The “unaffiliated” category is an interesting one which deserves further and more nuanced analysis. It has seen a net gain in growth as one-quarter of those who change religious affiliation end up in this category. Those in this category cite disenchantment with traditional organized religion and their members as a primary reason for disaffiliation. Even so, they retain certain beliefs imparted by those institutions and may be understood as 'believers but not belongers' as they have been referred to in other academic studies. The Pew Report indicates that 16 percent of the overall population falls under the unaffiliated category."
It seems to support the kind of research by Jamieson on EPIC church leavers. It's about institutions and power folks; time we got with the plot ...

Amalfi @ Jamendo

Free music downloads: Amalfi - Jamendo

Swine flu: investigate and regulate

Did you know that evidence is growing of the link between factory farms and swine flu? International organisations have been warning that these inhumane and filthy operations are breeding grounds of disease for years.

I just signed a petition calling on the the United Nations World Health Organisation and the Food and Agriculture Organisation to investigate and develop regulations for factory farming to uphold global public health standards. If we reach 200,000 signers, the petition will be delivered in Geneva with a herd of cardboard pigs. Sign below and tell your friends -- a pig will be added for every 1000 signers!

http://www.avaaz.org/en/swine_flu_pandemic/98.php?CLICK_TF_TRACK

Thank you so much for your help!

Excellence in teaching

Congratulations to the younger of my sisters for her recent award. Excellence in teaching (Faculty of Life Sciences - The University of Manchester): "Excellence in teaching
Teacher of the Year"