All the plans of mice and men

Well, never again will I make grand plans for this blog because - inevitably - life interferes. In this case the interferences have been mostly welcome, however! So, for the first of what I imagine will be many times, I'll retract some grand plans (in this case writing about first century Judaism) and just chat about what's been in the rumination machine recently.

I chatted with a friend on the weekend who's still reading the blog! Big ups to him (you know who you are). I didn't think anyone was reading this really...

Anyhow, a couple of things have caught my attention recently. Both relate to Tim Keller: perhaps the most engaging Christian leader and thinker around at the moment. What I love about Tim Keller is that he really listens to those in the other camp/s, so to speak, and engages in authentic dialogue, not just mud slinging which is much easier and more common.

I was in Planet Books on a Saturday night a few weeks ago when I came across a book about the 'new atheists'. It was critical of their virulent fundamentalist atheism (who said Christians and Muslims have a monopoly on intolerance!), written from a secular humanist perspective. If I wasn't so frugal, I'd buy it and read it.

Anyway, how does this relate to Tim Keller?

Here's his thoughts on the 'new atheists'.

Another good video I came across from Keller was his take on the problem of evil, or the problem of suffering. He is lucid and clear in outlining the problems involved in 'throwing out God' when addressing questions of evil and suffering, suggesting that without the reference point of God the problem is rendered non-sensical as we are left to scramble in the dark for a basis for ethics that transcends relativism. Here is the video.

Enjoy!

A wonderful interlude

In my last post I promised a series on the historical and religious context to Jesus ministry, with particular attention to Judaism and its various expressions at the time.

WELL - that may have to go on the backburner for a while due to a lovely disturbance to my plan: the birth of Saskia Jeannine Karajas at 12:33am on Friday September 11th 2009. Saskia came into the hustle and bustle of the world in an operating theatre at Mercy hospital (by emergency c-section). She weighed in at 7 pounds and 14 ounces; roughly 3.5kgs.

Becoming a Dad has been sublime. I'm totally smitten with little Sassafrass, as we call her.

In light of the above news, my lofty hopes for a grand survey of the Jewish religious groups at the time of Jesus ministry shall be reduced to this: a pithy summary of the relevant Wikipedia articles. This is becoming the cardinal rule of my blogging: aim low and you won't be disappointed!

Goodnight.

Luke

This year at Providence Church, we've been working our way through Luke's gospel. Would it be a sublime understatement to say it's a great read? Alongside our studies, some of which I have led/facilitated, I have been listening to Kent Hughes' exposition of Luke from a series in the 90's (from what I can gather) at Wheaton College Church in Chicago. I heartily recommend the series; you can download it here, along with an encyclopedic helping of other sermons by Hughes.

The Bible is, in one sense, simple. Yet it has provided a lifetime's fodder for analysis for a score of biblical scholars. One of the simple yet complex aspects of the gospels is Jesus' interaction with his religious contemporaries - the Pharisees, the Saducees, the Jewish legal authorities etc. The fact that I can't rattle off a comprehensive list of the main players in first century Judaism (was it even called that?) proves that my understanding is down the simple end of the spectrum!

I've grown up with a fairly minimal understanding of the historical, social, political and religious context of Jesus' life, death and resurrection and I'd like to gain some further insight; particularly in regard to the Jewish people and religion of the time. So, I'm going to learn as I write - in a series of blog posts on the context of the gospels.

This is a bold undertaking seeing as my wife was due to give birth to our first child two days ago....don't expect frequent posts.

Expect randomness and flights of fancy.

First stop: the Pharisees.

Good night!

WILBer force: Workplace Productivity #2

Those of you who know me will know that I've had many and various jobs!

My employment history exhibits the full breadth of variation in terms of work autonomy. I've had jobs in which I was highly autonomous: administrator in a government run utility, a number of positions in private Physiotherapy clinics. I've had jobs where I exercised very little autonomy: ski lift operator ('liftie'), dish pig, pizza shop lackey, trolley boy.

A great many people today have highly autonomous jobs in which they are expected (or expect themselves) to be highly productive. The way they react to this situation is as varied as people are different. For sure, there are those who abuse their freedom and leach off their employer - think of the popular image of the time frittering public servant - however, I'd say the majority of workers with highly autonomous jobs are strangely burdened by their freedom.

When you can choose when and how much you work, you are faced with a conundrum.

How many hours should I work every week? How intensely should I work? Should I measure my achievement by how long I'm in the office or whether or not I produce results? Grey areas abound and organisational cultures diverge.

The fact that autonomous labour has produced many conundrums is evident in the vast quantity of workplace productivity material available on the internet and in book stores. If the supply reflects the demand, people are looking for answers!

Unfortunately, most of what I've come across is pretty formulaic; what is offered are techniques to boost productivity as a means to acquiring greater wealth and status. Rare is the voice that asks the deeper questions, of which there are many.

Which is why I was deliciously surprised to come across this article on a study done at Monash University. What the productivity gurus would frown upon - spending up to 20% of your workday in WILB ('Workplace Internet Leisure Browsing') - may increase your productivity.

Cyberslackers unite! Bring back the tea-break! Have a walk around the block! And if anyone questions your methods, you can throw this study in their face and say you're adopting an 'evidence-based' approach to workplace productivity.

Maybe, just maybe, the 'lunch is for wimps' experiment has turned out to be an exercise in futility?

Climate Confusion

Check this link out for an argument against geologist and academic Ian Plimer's position on anthropogenic global warming.

I was alerted to Ian Plimer's work by my Dad - a geologist himself - so I thought I'd google the man. I came across an interesting looking blog that, from my cursory glance, gave Plimer a fair hearing and presented both sides of the debate.

I'm really confused on this issue and I think I'm not alone. At this point I'm putting my trust in our democratic political process to sort the wheat from the chaff: is this laziness?

As I've written in a previous post; so much comes down to epistemology: deciding how you know what you know, you know? I wonder if the epistemics of the climate change debate are being discussed by Epistemologists in the ivory towers of the world - does anybody know?

Work Productivity #1

The web is abuzz with blogs, books and all sorts of things (i.e. stuff that has hip tech-savvy nomenclature) promising to help today's office worker/knowledge worker overcome the problem of poor productivity.

I'm relatively new to the realm of self-paced, self-determined work; the kind of work that offers the worker a high degree of freedom in when and how they will get their work done. What I've found is, like in many areas of life, freedom can come with a cost. In this case, the cost is the burden to motivate oneself to be productive at work. Productive, when you don't know whether or not anyone will ever check on you.

I can't be alone in fighting the urge to fritter and chatter and be generally unproductive. The sheer volume of internet content out there - mainly from people trying to sell their methods - would indicate this is perceived to be a big problem by a very large cohort: the multitude of office/knowledge workers scattered around the world - now all connected by the world wide web.

What I find sorely lacking in the literature of the proponents of productivity methods is an admission of the limitations of their disciples; the fact that they are human beings and, I would argue, that the psychological and physical landscape of their workplaces are not compatible with their humanity.

Men and women are not designed to sit in cubicles and work non-stop for 8+ hours per day, then totally dissociate themselves from their day's labour to enter the world of 'life' (interestingly, one of the most successful productivity gurus on the market, David Allen, of 'Getting Things Done' fame, thinks the notion of 'work-life balance' is a fallacy - see his presentation to Google here).

More to follow on this topic as I get my head around it.

Political confusion

If you're anything like me, you're politically confused.

The idealism of the left holds some appeal, but so does the pragmatism of the right.

As a Christian, I find that I can't relate to the ideological stance of either of the major players in Australian politics. I want to affirm that we are responsible individuals and are accountable for our actions; so I agree with the right-winged appeal to personal responsibility in being part of the foundation of our democracy.

Yet, I believe individuals and entire communities are in bondage to sin and God-denying pride; bonds which can only be broken by the initiative of God through Jesus. Because of this, I am committed to the left-winged idea of helping those who can't help themselves - extravagent and expensive love and care to those who will sometimes never be 'contributors' to our economic prosperity.

To add to the dilemna, there is the sheer volume of information that one has to wade through to come to an informed opinion. Who honestly has the time? That's why it baffles me when people seem so fixed in their political convictions.

To come at it from slightly different angle, I would suggest that our reasoning about knowledge - or our different approaches to epistemology (whether conscious or not) generate a lot of the heat in modern political debate.

I'll wave my placard for one cause though: the cause of the extravagent love of God in sending His Son to reconcile us to Him. More and more, this is becoming what I will vote over.

The Peculiar Joys of Male Company

The title to the this post sounds a "a bit poofy", as Daffyd would put it. So from the outset let me point to the fact that I have a wife who is 36 weeks pregnant as one of my many hetero credentials. I also hate decorating, but that's not for here.

Whilst sharing lunch with friends yesterday, in an aside with the male half of the partnership, he mentioned how he had recently had a great time sharing port and cigars with a friend from his church. He then went on to comment on how much he enjoyed the unique pleasure of these delights with 'the lads' as it were - my quotes, not his.

I've also been reading the second book in C.S. Lewis' cosmic trilogy, Perelandra. In it, the main character, Ransom, is repeatedly cross examined by his friends, who are in the know about his adventures, about what it was like to be on Venus - information Ransom is either reluctant to, or incapable of, conveying.

And what was the occasion for these interrogations?

Blokes nights - the Cambridge Professor type, not the Aussie yobbo type. C.S. Lewis was a sucker for a good blokes night, from what I can gather. Case in point: the Inklings.

I love being married, and also hanging out in mixed groups. But there's still something about the peculiar joys of male company.

Any ideas?

What are the essential ingredients for a successful blokes night?