11.16.2006

a king and a kingdom

"my first allegiance
is not to the flag,
a country,
or a man.

my first allegiance
is not to democracy
or blood.
it's to a king and a kingdom."
-derek webb, who is giving away his most recent album for free.

It's nice to hear some songs that have quotable, relevant lyrics, but this album has so many of them that it starts to stress me out - I can't type them all in, and even if I did, it doesn't read the same as it sounds. So just go download it for yourself. I think Derek Webb would be a good person to have coffee with, if I were the type to have coffee with people over intelligent conversation.

I don't want to get into the "What would Derek Webb do" thing, but I do kinda wonder how the lyrics would go to a song about the recent events of the North Carolina Baptist State Convention. Enacting "one of the most rigid anti-gay policies among the nation's Christian churches," complete with the threat of deploying investigative teams to determine whether churches are affirming or approving of homosexuals, really seems wrong to me.

There's something about trying to stay in our comfortable little bubbles and minister only to those like us that makes me sad. Isn't there something wrong with telling local churches that they cannot choose how best to carry out the task of ministry? Local church autonomy is one of the historic Baptist principles that I find very important. Yes, it also applies to associations of Baptists, so the NC Baptists are free to make their own choices, and this decision was made by a democratic vote. But there's so much politics and so little spirituality. Others have said it more eloquently, but I'll add my voice to the refrain.

Two problems stand out: (1) the simple point of not being willing to minister to those who are different, and (2) the absurdity of pursuing this issue when so many others should take precedence. College Park Baptist disagrees with NC Baptists on the former, and First Baptist Greensboro disagrees on the latter, yet enough people didn't disagree with either that the resolution passed. And how many of those who voted for exclusion had really thought about it and discussed it? How many were like the Christian in another Derek Webb song:
"Don't teach me about
politics and government.
Just tell me who to vote for.
...
Don't teach me how
to live like a free man.
Just give me a new law.
...
Don't teach me about
moderation or liberty.
I prefer a shot of grape juice.

Don't teach me about
loving my enemies.

Don't teach me how
to listen to the Spirit.
Just give me a new law..."

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posted by Peter @ 21:49 0 Comments

11.14.2006

my celebrity look-alikes

Because this is apparently now the cool thing to do, here you go.



I am not familiar with Ms. Leigh, Ms. Clark, or Mr. Padalecki.

Before you start getting too excited about this, remember that some people just don't care (warning: contains foul and offensive language).

posted by Peter @ 19:39 0 Comments

11.05.2006

Buses and bikes

Ah, the joys of a chilly Sunday afternoon in fall 2006: watching a car race while blogging. It's the perfect way to make sure you don't miss something exciting without feeling like you've spent the whole afternoon losing brain cells. Today: two of my favorite things, buses and bikes.

Item 1: Buses.
Following up on my last post, which was admittedly a long time ago, we at the Greensboro Urban Area MPO have been working hard to think of how to get folks involved in stuff they generally wouldn't care about otherwise. My favorite possibility: using a bus as a mobile meeting room! At first, it might sound farfetched to some, but they do it in Fayetteville and my co-workers are actually considering it seriously. We were thinking about having a meeting at the mall to grab some extra attention, and we might still do that, but the mall might charge money. With a mobile meeting room, you can set up in most any parking lot or on most any street corner. Or we could drive all around the city honking the horn and getting people to come outside and see what's up. I mean, what could be more convenient? Instead of trying to get folks to come to an open house, we bring the open house to them! -- dang it, I was so excited about the possibility of driving a bus that I missed Jeff Burton crashing into the wall after blowing a tire. -- Anyway, I'm hoping this will work out and that I'll get to drive our mobile meeting bus.

More bus excitement:
I had a meeting on Thursday at Greensboro Transit Authority and got to go on a tour of the admin building and bus lot afterwards. It just so happened that they received a brand-new low-floor Gillig the day before, and we got to go check it out. I think it's GTA's first low-floor bus, and I think it's their first Gillig since the mid-'90s, when they were buying Phantoms.

I sat in the driver's seat and wished.

It had the same steering wheel and driver's seat as the Gilligs at UTS, and the four-way flasher had the big plastic red switch extension that our new Gilligs had. The transmission pad was different, and a lot of the controls were arranged differently. The destination sign control was above the driver's window instead of above the windshield, probably because the low-floor design makes the windshield really big. Anyway, that was exciting.

Item 2: Bikes.
Sometime I should probably write more about College Park, the church we attend now. A few weeks ago, we went out to dinner with the pastor and his wife, and in my babbling, I mentioned something about getting a bike rack at the church. Expecting the typical response of, "Oh, that's interesting, but we probably want to put our resources elsewhere," I was surprised to hear him say that he'd like to have one installed. I followed up this week with the possibility of a custom-designed functional art piece, which might cost a little more than a standard bike rack but could add a little something special to the church grounds, even for people who drive everywhere. He asked me to look into that a little more, so I'm checking with a local artist who specializes in "functional sculpture." So that's pretty exciting. We'll see if anything comes of it.

In other news, I'm going to an organ concert tonight, which should be cool. I've got a meeting/mini-conference in Raleigh on Thursday, and I signed up for a Habitat build next Saturday. I'm still trying to get rid of these hockey tickets I have for next Saturday's Hurricanes vs. Penguins game in the evening... if I have no luck by then, we might go to the game, but I really think I'd rather have pizza night here. Does that make me old and boring?

I'm missing C'ville but enjoying Greensboro too.

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posted by Peter @ 16:31 0 Comments