meyers-briggs deja vu

Found this online meyers-briggs type personality test. I took it and it seems my default personality settings have really not changed much since the last time I took a test like this (15+ years). On the one hand, I'm a little surprised. I don't feel much like the person I was 15 years ago. I have a family now, I've actually mellowed, I feel I've grown spiritually, and I hope I've grown wiser and more patient. On the other hand, it is comforting to know my core personality remains intact and I hope I've learned how to grow beyond some of the negative traits that come along with the package that is me.

spring walk - deep thoughts?

I just came in from a walk in my neighborhood on this beautiful spring day! I brought my camera because I'm trying to gather a collection of digital images to use in various projects. During my walk, I was struck by some of the amazing landscaping folks do around here. We are struggling with this ourselves, our lawn is about dead and we have that "natural" kind of in the woods feeling, which seems kind of shabby upon close examination. We don't garden. And I don't mean to pick on gardeners today, they are some of my favorite people, but here I go anyway.

I am a self-confessed control freak. Not about everything, just most things. As I was walking I was struck by how much work, effort and probably big bucks are put into landscaping and also by how much people are willing to do to control their environment. You can clearly see property lines, where the landscaping ends and the "natural" forest resumes. So, is our need to define borders and control the environment within them (eg. gardening) just another manifestation of our desire for and illusion of self-control? Or it could be, I'm just full of it today.

newsmashing

Found a little tech tool nugget called imarkup by reading about newsmashing @ slate. Of course, when I sent a sample to my hubbie, he had already heard about it (and I thought I could finally scoop him on the geek front).

Anyway, it is a nifty little concept - marking up webpages with your comments (sticky notes, voice commentary, graffiti) and sharing with others via e-mail. Unfortunately, I'm not sure it's worth $39.95 (after 30-day free trial) - especially when it can't be linked in blog-dom.

the scandal

I just read about a new book called The Scandal of the Evangelical Conscience from It Takes a Church blog. I haven't read the book, but I read the excerpt from the website and it really speaks to one of the most uncomfortable aspects of Christianity for me to deal with and that is the level hypocrisy (mine and obviously others).

Easter image

Easter cross 

Passion/Palm image

Image I created for Palm/Passion weekend using images from http://www.sxc.hu/index.phtml and PaintShop Pro. 

catch up

Today I'm playing catch up.

• Reading blogs. It is amazing to me how devoted and consistent some folks are in their blogs. I've added some new blogs I am trying to keep up with in my blog roll. Also found this nugget ala tony pierce, which apparently is well known, so I'm glad I finally stumbled upon it.


• Writing. I'm collaborating on a book with my dad and brother. It's very cool to see their insights.


• Working on websites. Just trying to keep that content minty fresh or at least not stinky. Another find this week was www.greatchurchwebsites.org.

faith and action

"You know I have the Lutheran curse. Conviction without action has no meaning for me. Yet what is conviction? How do we identify it? Is it to be found in the heart, or in the intellect? And what if it is only to be found in the one and not the other? ... I had no conscious faith, but if I acted, then the faith would surely follow. ... Perhaps that is how faith is born, I thought: by action and not by contemplation." Absolute Friends by John le Carre

I have been thinking about this a lot lately. It seems sort of like asking which came first, the chicken or the egg? As James said (James 2:17) faith without works is dead and as the author of Hebrews implies (Hebrews 11:6) works without faith is not pleasing to God.

the dance continues

Okay, maybe I am naive in thinking that blatant sexism and discrimination is not a bigger issue than the subtle form.

There is currently a discussion at open source theology on female ordination and leadership in the church. Reading some of the responses really got my blood boiling, but others gave me hope. Obviously, the dance continues.

Filed in: thoughts

the dance

In his sermon this weekend, my pastor talked about some of the more blatant ways society undermines women. I think that it is subtle sexism and discrimination that will cause the most problems for the Lutheran Church, middle-class America and our daughters and sons.

For example:

Sexism comes in many different forms, including blatant, covert, and subtle sexism (Benokraitis & Feagin, 1999). Blatant sexism is defined as obviously unequal and unfair treatment of women relative to men, whereas covert sexism is defined as unequal and unfair treatment of women that is recognized but purposefully hidden from view. Both blatant and covert sexism are intended, but only covert sexism is hidden. In comparison to these two forms, subtle sexism represents unequal and unfair treatment of women that is not recognized by many people because it is perceived to be normative, and therefore does not appear unusual. Sexist language is an example of subtle sexism in that it consists of speech that reinforces and perpetuates gender stereotypes and status differences between women and men.

Subtle discrimination is so woven into the fabric of an organization's status quo, that even women who feel the impact of these insidious, indiscernible barriers are often hard-pressed to know what hit them, say the writers and professors at the Center for Gender in Organizations at the Simmons Graduate School of Management.

A girl, forming her identity "also experiences herself missing from pronouns in scripture, hymns, and prayers. And most of all, as long as God "himself" is exclusively male, she will experience the otherness, the lessness, of herself; all the pious talk in the world about females being equal to males will fail to compute in the deeper places inside her." (Sue Monk Kidd, The Dance of the Dissident Daughter)

Filed in: quotes