Daily prayer path using memorized scripture

I have a pretty terrible memory when it comes to words and numbers. I remember things through concepts and first principles, not through raw memory retention. It was like that learning chemistry: I got the concept of the Periodic Table and so did OK in physical and inorganic chemistry, but organic chemistry was a mess of remembering a bunch of seemingly random reactions that had no rhyme or reason and so I flunked it! It's the same with sermons. Don't give me a 10-point, 5-point or even a 3-point lesson, because I won't remember the points tomorrow. Give me one clear concept and it will stick with me. I still recall Robert Lewis encouraging us to "be life-giving spirits" i.e. putting life into the world rather than sucking life out of it. THAT stuck with me. I can't for the life of me recall his definition of manhood because it has several points! (1. Reject passivity, 2. Lead courageously... 3. ...hmmm, expect God's higher reward?... I think I'm missing one - see!)

So, with this backdrop, a couple of years ago I started to memorize scripture and it took me a whole year to memorize Psalm 139! Yup, just one Psalm (but it is a pretty long one!). As part of memorizing it, at one point I put the whole Psalm into a Prezi, line by line. Then I moved to memorizing the Beatitudes and for this I used a cool mind-mapping app called iThoughtsHD. Finally I'm currently trying to memorize the start of Philippians 2, using the same tool.

Pulling this scripture into prayer is awesome once it's stuck in your noggin and so now each morning I can start my quiet time with the following 3 steps (still working on step 3 'cause it's not sticking yet!):

1. The Beatitudes - frame my thoughts on God's economy and what's truly important in His Kingdom
2. Psalm 139 - open my heart totally and transparently to God. Total surrender.
3. Philippians 2:1-11 - the nuts and bolts of living out the Christian life, in Christian community and all to the glory of Jesus

Below are the Prezi and mind-maps walking through the steps...

1. The Beatitudes

2. Psalm 139

3. Philippians 2

 

I hope that others find these scriptures and tools useful too!

 

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WEFTEC 2013 Debrief (aka the post-WEFTEC blues!)

Opening Sessions

WEFTEC 2013 came and went several weeks ago, busting all sorts of records over previous years, so I'm a little tardy in giving my impression of this year's event, but here goes anyway...

Innovation Showcase

The Good

So, what were some of the highlights for me? Here in no particular order are the things that impressed me this year:

1. The Venue: the layout of the bookstore and global meeting center right outside the entrance; the exhibition floor right underneath the rooms for the technical sessions; posters right outside the session rooms and electronic versions showing on flat-screen TVs... even a screen for tweets! The conference center was very-nicely laid out.
2. People: I love being able to catch up with colleagues I've not seen for some time. Though I'm a technologist at heart, as I get older (cue cheezy violin music) I appreciate reconnecting with colleagues I've not seen for a while and getting to know new colleagues. You can transfer knowledge and ideas via web-based seminars, conference calls and the like, but nothing beats meeting people face to face.
3. Innovation Showcase: One of the few sessions I did get to attend was held at the Innovation Showcase where Yaniv Scherson presented on his CANDO process and several others presented some great and innovative ideas. There was also a session here to discuss the development of a Nutrient Roadmap, which should be pretty interesting.
4. Workshops: I have to say I really enjoy the interactive nature of workshops versus the somewhat formal and stuffy format of technical session presentations. This year I somehow managed to help out with 3 different workshops over 2 days - sustainability, modeling and energy. I don't recommend that to anyone, but I do recommend anyone to attend workshops in the future. You learn a heck of a lot more than just watching a paper presentation.
5. Opening sessions: I used to skip the opening sessions because I presumed they were too high level or not relevant for the kinds of things I focus on, but a couple of years back a good friend and colleague, Sudhir Murthy, encouraged me to attend an opening session and I have to say I was pretty impressed. This year's opening session and the following session by water leaders from around the world were pretty inspirational and very well done (photo at the top was the Water Leaders session).
6. The Inaugural Bookshop Quiz! And not just because my colleagues from B&V and our client from St Cloud were the winners (see photo below). This was a bit of an experiment for WEF and by my reckoning it was an outstanding success and hope we do it again next year.

Bookshop Quiz 2014 Winners

The Not-so-good (PC term for Bad, I guess?!)

Overall WEFTEC in Chicago surpassed itself this year (are you listening New Orleans?!). So I only have a couple of nit-picky negatives that you can skip right over if you're a glass half-full kind of person (I think I'm a glass at 50% capacity person myself - figure that one out!). Here they are:

1. Location: OK the venue is awesome, but it's too bloody far from the awesome hotels, restaurants and other delights of downtown Chicago. I hear rumours that the City has plans to build up the area around the conference center which would be great. Maybe they can add a light rail link or tram too? We stayed at the Sheraton on the north side of downtown and it was pretty cool to take the shuttle bus down some secret road under the city and down to the convention center, but I'm guessing others didn't have quite the same fun with their long queues and rush-hour bus rides back into the city.
2. Too much to see: Maybe it's just because I'm a "Yes Man" and involved in too many things, but this year, with all the committee activities and what-not (including doing a mid-term exam - don't ask) I barely saw a handful of presentations. At some point I need to go through the proceedings and see what I missed.
3. The submission process: This is probably a contentious one and may come across stronger than I intend, but I have issues with both the workshop submission process and the abstract submission process. The workshop submission process starts too soon (less than a month after WEFTEC), has too many steps and is contrained by an inflexible rubric that has only one format in mind. The paper abstract submission format and process used to be OK i.e. develop a 3 page Word document and a few figures. Now it's a nasty process of developing some text of indeterminate length with figures kept separate in pure graphical form, then you use some weird coding to get your figures and tables (haven't figured out a tidy way to handle tables) into the text, hopefully in the right spot. A little knowledge of html coding is helpful. Maybe this is a little unfair as it's not quite as bad as I make out as long as you know the process ahead of time. And I've never been asked to review any papers for WEFTEC so I'm hoping that maybe the new system makes the review process easier somehow.

OK, so WEFTEC 2013 is over and I'd say it was probably the best one yet. The bar is pretty high for New Orleans and WEFTEC 2014!

 

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From the Garden to the City

Book Cover

It's funny how things converge sometimes. A couple of months ago I was intrigued by a handful of reviews in the Christian Research Journal on books that address the issue of how modern technology relates to matters of faith. The book I chose was "From the Garden to the City" by John Dyer. I don't recall why I chose this particular book but I'm pretty sure it had nothing to do with the title. I'm only up to Chapter 3 in the book but it's very good. Dyer discusses how our fascination with technology and advances in technology are a kind of story where we use our imagination to think through how technology might help us do something better. He gives the basic example of a shovel. We can dig the dirt with our hands, but then using a shovel helps us do it better, quicker and more effectively. I'd never thought of technology in those terms but it makes sense. He also talks about how technology changes us. I'm early in the book yet so I'm not totally sure where he's going with this, but sitting here tapping away on my Bluetooth keyboard connected to my iPad which will wirelessly beam this blog onto the Wordl Wide Web... yeah, I can appreciate that technology has changed me!

Last weekend, I went to an interesting conference in Kansas City called CG2013, where the "CG" is for "Common Good," which, I'm told, is a concept of social justice that Pope Leo XIII addressed in his Rerum Novadum. The general idea is that Christians should be engaged in activities which promote the common good of all. Very interesting. One of the main speakers at the conference was Andy Crouch and he did a talk entitled "From the Garden to the City" (uncanny, huh?) where he talked about the fact that many Christians miss the first 2 and last 2 chapters of the Bible. They start from the description of our rebellion against God in Genesis 3 and end with Revelation 20 which describes judgement day. However, backing up to Genesis 1 & 2, there is a picture of creation in which God says "it is good" over and over and then He creates humans which he says are "very good." Then there is a description of a garden and in that garden humanity is told to work it - note all this is before the rebellion against God which means that work in itself can be a good thing. The Judeo-Christian account of creation is much more positive than the accounts in other faiths where the universe comes about through some kind of conflict or strife. Flipping to the end of the Bible and Revelation 21 & 22 we see a City. Yup, the new heaven and new earth is focussed on a massive City. Not rolling green hills. Not a bunch of people sitting on a cloud playing harps. A massive City. I'd heard this before from a book by Mark Driscoll but now at the CG2013 conference this idea has legs for me and is becoming less of an esoteric musing and something I need to think about more seriously. I guess I've also been influenced by some ideas I've seen on developing sustainable cities. I've seen presentations on ideas for Perth, WA and more recently for the Singapore International Water Week (water is a very big deal for that City). I'm still early on the learning curve but am intrigued to know more.

So, where does leave me in pondering "From the Garden to the City" and how do these two experiences shape my thinking? I guess the main thing is figuring out how to embrace technology and cities in a positive way - seeking God's redemption in both - rather than being a naysayer that sees evil in everything new. New stuff can be good. It can be very good. I see this in technology and I guess I need to start seeing this in cities too. At the same time we should not be niaive to think that all new things are good. I see plenty that's bad in many cities and there are uses of technology that are very bad (nukes for instance). Plenty to ponder!

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