pinakidion.*

Someone I respect a great deal lost his battle with cancer on Saturday night. I know that his family is having a hard time of it, especially his father. I pray that they were able to work it out.

I am grieving and I am quite low. I internalize all my emotions physically, even after talking and sharing and crying with so many people. Like everything else, I just need to think about it and I’ll be okay. Until I’m okay, I just going to try to do my job at work today.

Dr. Wolfram has done a great job presenting the probabilities of getting a certain sum from rolling a given set of S-sided dice. Those that know me know that sometimes I use math to fall asleep at night. More often that not, though, it ends up keeping me awake for a few days until I solve a certain problem.

The problem I had with Dr. Wolfram’s presentation was a notation I’d never seen and was not contained in any of my books at home. It’s a visual thing with no way to notate it on the blog. Suffice it to say that I finally got it figured out and translated it into a spreadsheet.

Unfortunately, the only copy is not on this computer, so it will be a while before I post it. Interesting, though, to think about the probabilities of rolling three six-sided dice versus the probabilities of rolling one twenty-sided die. In the former, you have thinks that range in probability from 1 in 216 (rolling a 3 or an 18) to 1 in 8 (rolling a 10 or an 11). In the latter, all numbers are 1 in 20. In the former, graphing the results creates a curve, in the latter, it’s a straight line.

I love these things because it gets me to thinking about how we as humans define random. It appears that many so-called randomthings in life resemble curves rather than striaght lines. These curves have certain outcomes that are far more likely than others.

Remember that in a random situation the least likely outcome is the most special. It’s also the one I want to go for. I’ll either be really succesful (roll an 18) or really fail (roll a 3). But I certainly won’t come up with the common 10s and 11s.

A quick note before I start - please do not call Gordon Ferguson and tell him I’m criticizing his papers again. I read the phrase in his latest work, but I’ve also heard it in commentary about various political and social issues. As far as his paper on the teamwork of leadership, I agree with him. To those of us that did not grow up Church of Christ, it may seem quite obvious, but what he writes needed to be shared. As far as the phrase vocal minority, I did a little research, thought about it for awhile, and this the result.

Two Sides of the Same Coin
It was Nixon who first spoke of the silent majority on November 3, 1969. In discussing a nation that was deeply divided about Vietnam, he remarked:

The more support I can have from the American people, the sooner that pledge can be redeemed; for the more divided we are at home, the less likely the enemy is to negotiate at Paris.

Let us be united for peace. Let us also be united against defeat. Because let us understand: North Vietnam cannot defeat or humiliate the United States. Only Americans can do that.

There is no doubt that Nixon was interested in getting the US out of Vietnam as soon as possible, he had campaigned on it. However, the message to war protesters was pretty clear - Be Quiet, Get in Line, Get Behind the Program. I’m sure that he thought that after four years of dissent, a little quiet at home would go a long way to end the war. However, it is also implies that dissent is unpatriotic and even un-American. A true American would get behind the war and help the president finish something that his predecessors were somehow unable to finish. Again, I believe the implied message was, “There is no place for dissent right now”.

The opposite side of the coin has been invoked in recent days - political commentators are doing the same thing, but less passively. Instead of appealing to the silent majority, they belittle the ‘vocal minority’. This so-called minority is characterized as unpatriotic and even un-American. Not because they are against the war, but because somehow they are construed to be “against the troops”. Criticism of the war is blamed on ‘lowering the morale’ of US soldiers who are only doing their job. The message is as equally clear now as it was over 35 years ago - there is no place for dissent.

Very few have called on the silent majority with the exception of Dr. Jerry Falwell. He presumed that they were moral and silent. In the group’s second incarnation, I’m sure that this will be demonstrated over and over. After nosing around, it seems that many more people since 1969 have invoked the other of these groups to serve their ends. I found only one non-pejorative use of ‘vocal minority’ - the name of an acapella group at Villinova. In the remainder of the times in which is was used, it was an attack on the voices of dissent.

Characteristics of the Vocal Minority
Reading various attacks on vocal minorities, they fall into the same general description:

• They are generally not well informed or lack a certain perspective.
• They have not given much thought to their actions.
• They are reactionary.
• They are very few in number.
• They are loud.
• They are obnoxious.
• They are unprincipled.
• They have usually been stirred up by one person.

This vocal minority sounds like a pretty bad crowd. But as far as trying to get any kind of demographic information on them, I had no luck. It seems that sometimes the vocal minority is made up of liberal Catholics, other times, they are made up of conservative Muslims. Most of the time they are Democrats, but sometimes, they are Republicans. And sometimes, they are made up of those pesky physiologists that just cannot believe that sodium and potassium are actively transported across cell membranes.

Those meddlesome physiologists - always trouble.

After looking into it some more, I realized that the vocal minority really has only one characteristic - they are inconvenient. For some reason, a small group of people exists to speak out for a cause and they resist most efforts to go away. I am sure that there are times when this is nothing but hubris or good old fashioned hard-headedness, but I am not willing to believe that this is always true. Some of these vocal minorities have changed the world in good ways.

Mark Arsenault of Gold Rush Games has taken a second job to help pay the bills according to his most recent note.

I’m sure that a few fans were sad to hear that SPACR was turning into back-burner material.

I thought about volunteering to finish it for him as I am about to finish a magic system for the Action! System(TM), but thought against it. It would require a lot of legal stuff, especially because he can’t pay anyone to do it.

sigh.

In any case, the Action! System(TM) is what I consider to be a very good system. It is the only other OGL gaming product out there. I hope that it can become successful. It is the gaming engine that will drive the playable version of my fantasy world, assuming that I ever finish creating it and writing the novels to go along with it.

Now where is that 1000 page manuscript…

Thoreau cried out, “Simplify! Simplify!”

Taking this sentiment to heart, I hope to clean up the categories so that they are more broad. I want to do this because the list on the right hand side just appears odd to me. I wanted subcategories to be really detailed, but posting requires me to scroll quite a bit just for the category, so it needs to go. I’d like something along the lines of Doug’s site and have categories like:

Life and Merriment
Love and Marriage
Church and More Church
God and King
Peas and Carrots

…but I digress.

Until such a utopian state can be acheived, I’ll have to settle for just cleaning up the links. I still link to the Cluetrain Manifesto and I returned the link to John Engler’s site, the Barnabas Ministry.

Otherwise, maybe some commentary later - Gordon Ferguson released an essay today that is pretty interesting. On the whole, I like it, though I must confess that I have no sympathy for ‘leaders’ being put in a tough spot. Welcome to what being a minister has traditionally been for every other minister: the best and worst job you could possibly have. I speak as a leader here - scrunity from any source is welcome. I may not agree with it, but I won’t complain about the amount of scrunity I get.

I digress again - it is a pretty good article.

Last thing I want to mention is my perchant to write drafts. Those that read fairly often probably notice that I will edit the same story over and over. I intend to edit “Business Driven Church” one more time and edit “Stepping Stones” for clarification. If I intended a draft, it will say “DRAFT” at the end. Otherwise, I may just revise. Me and Poe have that obsessive editing thing in common.

I used to post each draft, but I don’t want to do that anymore, it is much easier the other way and has yielded better articles.

One more, then I’m done for today.

Throughout my life, I have been able to rely on three Scriptures that get me thinking in the right direction, regardless of the problems or issues I may be facing:

1 Corinthians 10:13 - I will not be given more than I can bear.
1 Corinthians 10:13 - There is always a way out.
Colossians 3:1-2 - Set my mind and heart on things above.
Romans 5:10 - When I was God’s enemy, he reached out to me.

I’ve called them stepping stones and likened them to a stone path that leads me out of trouble. No trouble or circumstance has yet to rock this steady path. For this, I am quite grateful.

During the retreat, I started thinking - I have a path out, but can a similar path be found that leads up?

I want to explore the deeper waters of Christianity, but which Scriptures will always push me back out when I become more worldly? Hmmm. Something worth investigating…

I went to my church’s Men’s Retreat this weekend. The Aldersgate Retreat center is run by the United Methodist Church in Villisca, Iowa. The advantage of it is that they provide food and shelter for up to 64 people and it is only a little over an hour away. That allows us to spend Saturday night and still attend church of Sunday.

Although the theme was a good one, it was pointed out that if you had come to the retreat with your own agenda, feel free to do so. My agenda was pretty straightforward: Be Still and Know that He is God. All I wanted to do is find a place that was far away from anyone to pray, meditate and sing. Little did I know what the weather had in store for all of us.

I was glad to hear a brief lesson on meditation Saturday morning. Joel requested that everyone to try and sit still for 20 minutes and just listen. It amazes me how hard this is to do. Thanks to the declared two hours of silence in our cabin, this was easier for most folks. It certainly helped me when I got back from my outside adventure.

Now I had gone out Friday night to pray. The wind was blowing pretty hard, but the wind chill was still a little above zero. The main focus of my prayer was to stop seeing myself as the underdog in my day to day life. It was intense and the noise of the wind kept others from hearing my shouting.

All in all, very good time spent.

However, come Saturday, the tempature dropped to the single digits. This would have been fine except for the increased winds from last night. We now had windchills in the thirty and forty below zero region. Most people with some sense of sanity look at this and ponder their options:

Option 1: Stay inside, enjoy all manner of coffees and hot teas.
Option 2: Venture out as far as my car and sit in my car.
Option 3: Venture outside and freeze the remaining braincell into silence.

I think it’s safe to say that Option 1 is the sane and normal choice of most people.

There were a few folks that chose Option 2 due to the number of folks that chose Option 1. The cabins was a bit crowded with 32 guys trying to find ‘personal space’ in the cabin. I know this because I was one of maybe three or four that chose Option 3; I saw the Option 2 guys running to their cars. Read more…

I finally fixed the comments issue. I simply had to delete my entire blacklist of ip address and email addresses and re-import them.

Ah, the wonder of databases.

Just wanted folks to know that commenting is now quite error free.

Introduction
I’ve been thinking about Portland, lately. A lot of critics are waiting for the Postmodern Day Movement of God(R) to implode, but it’s doing the exact opposite. Granted, the way that numbers are being kept may be suspect, the fact is that the Portland International Church of Christ is growing fairly quickly, as far as can be told by outside observers. For the sake of argument, I’m going to say that Thomas’s reporting of his church’s growth is accurate. Keep in mind that I’m talking about the numbers, not the causes.

Why is this happening? What draws so many people to this church?

Looking at some new members’ comments, they seem to mention some common elements: energy, growth, commitment, vision, and family. These aren’t bad things, in fact, most churches I’ve been to would love to have energy and growth. Are these valid reasons for being a part of any church, not just Portland? I’ll concede that these are desirable traits in any church, but I do not believe that any of these are valid for placing membership in a church. These things make the gospel attractive and naturally inviting, but these are not reasons. I can go to other places to find these things. Had I been alive at the time, I could’ve gone to Woodstock. Stated in terms of churches, though, I can find all these things in the Toronto Blessing, the Latter-Day Saints, Saddleback, the UBF and various other churches.

I went looking around to other places for reasons to join a church and I found a raft of possible answers including: accountability, fellowship, a place to use your gifts, and a place to share with like-minded believers. Again, there are other places for this: these are all reasons that the Marines give for enlisting. As far as churches go, then I can still be a part of LDS, Saddleback, the UBF, the Promise Keepers, etc.

Let me take a step back to prevent a big assumption. Jesus said, “Blessed are the pure of heart for they will see God.” The pure in heart will see God in a variety of places. There is not just one place to find God, his people, or proper training in doctrine. My point is that any reason for going to church should be to point to faith in God and obedience to His word, not to some great feeling or modern sensibility. Read more…

The sons of knowledge

The Gnosceti are considered a myth by many intellectuals and orators in elite Hesberian circles. Stories of their deeds and powers are considered nothing more than ghost stories used to scare small children. Read more…

We finally were able to share our goals for 2005 two nights ago. It was a good time, though I could tell that it went too long for most folks’ taste. I’m not sure there’s a lot of enthusiasm about it, but I think that there soon will be. It just takes a little spark. Overall, I am hopeful for that little spark.

When Discipleship was brought up, there were some thing that I wanted to think about, but that really bothered Laryssa. She went up and spoke with the Deacon presenting that topic and things worked out quite well.

Other than that, I look forward to having a class in my home for those that want to learn about the Bible. I think that I’ll do a NT class, but I’m not sure. It won’t start until after the 40 days of purpose blows over, but I’ll have fun developing the material.

I know I’ve said it a million times, but as far as 40 Days goes, I grew up the son of a salesman. I know Marketing 101 when I see it. For all of that, though, the good news is that Saddleback doesn’t really profit from their marketing machine. We got to use a bunch of materials for free. Other than that, I plan to help out on presenting the materials to folks here. I figure that’s where I can do the most good and work through my issues with 40 Days and the whole bit.

We hope to have a building and ‘plant’ Lincoln this year. We already have people there, it’s just a recognition that they shouldn’t have to commute an hour each way just to go to church. Almost all midweeks will be in Lincoln until then (40 out of 48). There will be a couple services in Lincoln as well. I’m part of the Lincoln group right now, so I guess I’ll be doing the coommute the other way this year.

More than anything, I’m looking forward to teaching a class this year. It will be fun. More later.

I found something interesting today, and I thought I’d pass it along.

There’s this place called Scroogle. It ’scrapes’ the text ads out of the Google results and displays them in barebones fashion. Granted, it can only show you 100 entires max, but it was quite interesting to say the least. I added it to my Firefox toolbar at work.

Laryssa and I are still praying about her job prospects. Different interview is tomorrow. Please pray.

I’m working on a role-playing supplement that defines the rules for magic in the Action! System rules. It’s just about done, so I’ll post it on the fantasy subdomain when I finish.

Otherwise, tonight, after being delayed for a week, we are finally going to unveil the Goals and Dreams of 2005 for the Omaha Church of Christ. Not being in the final meetings, I don’t know what we’ll get. Some of it will be the 40 Days of Purpose in Feb-Mar. Some of it will be our new deacons addressing the church for the first time. Otherwise, it should be fun.

Bye for now.

Been in a funk lately and I don’t know what it is. I’d like to say that it was a Parliament style funk with a bit of R&B feel (or vice versa - hardcore R&B with a touch of funk and guitar like James Brown’s Cold Sweat), but it isn’t.

Nope. Just blah.

In a sense, I feel the need for a project, but I don’t have the time to devote to it that I’d like. Well, that’s not entirely true, I have five hours every Saturday and two more hours on Tuesday. I stopped publishing out family devotionals, but I should soon. Anyway, I think it’s that I lack any real inspiration from my projects. I really want a good project to work on.

The things I need to do include:
Finish formatting fantasy.pinakidion.org
Build Laryssa a writing station
Arrange my office
Hang some pictures and other things.

Some things I want to do are:
Finish the magic supplement for Action! System rules
Teach a NT Survey class
Spend time writing about my fantasy world, including the Hesberian language and other things.
Write more good poems to Laryssa.
Work on the Study Guide Series in more detail.

However, none of those things really inspire me, except for the poems to Laryssa. She had to take me to work today because the battery in my car died. She sang songs to me and for me, we played a mad lib, we talked about the beginning of our devotional, and lots of other things. I was the consumate grouch and she was nothing short of light and radiance. Needless to say, my grouchiness never stood a chance.

I dunno, though. Maybe last year was too much teaching stuff. Galatians, James, OT Survey, Apocrypha, 1 John. Laryssa and I will have a class at our apartment on Thursdays, maybe that will help scratch the itch a little bit.

Anywho, just felt the need to share why there has been so little posting lately. I hope that this mood will change a bit after this weekend.

I have a plugin that automatically deletes spam comments.

On the down side, when you add your own sites, you have to make sure certain characters are in quotes and I did not do that.

So, you’ll see a ton of errors, but your comment will be posted. I’ll fix it as soon as I can, I have to rebuild the database of blacklisted sites and ip addresses.

Mayor Fahey has asked all businesses in the area to stagger the release of their employees to alleviate traffic. People should start leaving at 1pm.

Then, the superintendent said that we all have to leave before 3pm. Of course, then the head of my department sent out a memo saying that we should leave at 3pm.

Anywho, I’m going home early, YAY! I couldn’t sleep at all last night and I am quite grouchy.

SLEEP!

That and no midweek tonight - WOOHOO! SLEEP!

I went to the State Fair in NC in 2001 and saw a vendor offering fried candy bars. I saw this and thought, “how did someone come up with this?”

Then again, as soon as word got out about a turducken, someone decided that it would be great fried. Welcome to the South, have some sweet tea and pass the cornbread.

Back to the candy bars, though, it appears that Scotland has fallen in love with deep-fried Milky Way(R) bars. Check out the whole story here

Well if that ain’t slicker ‘n goosegrease and finer ‘n froghair, I don’t know what is.