Culture - becoming

Apr 3, 20090

Interesting Bookstores

Most Interesting Bookstores of the World

See more here.

[HT: inhabitatiodei.com]

Mar 30, 20093

This demo — from Pattie Maes’ lab at MIT, spearheaded by Pranav Mistry — was the buzz of TED. It’s a wearable device with a projector that paves the way for profound interaction with our environment. Imagine “Minority Report” and then some.

Like it or not, I think this is going to happen soon. I won’t call it “Six Sense” though, since it still uses our 5 common senses to operate at its best.

Undoubtedly, in order for this to work, everything and everyone will be tagged. In terms of human relationships, this could create a huge problem — Relationships no longer need to be slowly evolved through interactions and shared experiences. Why should I trust that those tags correctly described the person in front of me when I barely know him first hand? Where are the spirit of exploration, the grace, the risk, and the inter-dependency required? Imagine how many otherwise potential relationships will be ditched when the meta-data displayed might not be something you are looking for at first glance…

As a consumer, this will prove to be an indispensible tool. One can always get the best price and best product at any place and at any time with this. Price-wise, the technology will surely benefit the mega-stores online where everything is sold much cheaper. Shopping in a physical building (e.g. buying books) will become unnecessary unless what you are purchasing is some kind of service (e.g. hair cut). And ironically, the price-comparison function of this tool will also become obsolete at the end, when there is no other shop to compare with.

Ultimately, what I want to ask is: If Sixth Sense can give us even more information about virtually anything at our finger tips (literally), don’t we have an all-the-more urgent need for a way to process them, to discern them?

Just what kind of advancement do we have in that area?

[link: TED]

Mar 8, 20092

Who watches the Watchmen?

The tagline from one of the most celebrated graphic novel of all times, Watchmen the movie is out right now and is receiving mixed reviews. I am not sure if I will watch it on the big silver screen, but I suggest, before you watch it, do yourself a favor and read the original graphic novel first. Watchmen is NOT a race-run-and-kill Hollywood blockbuster. It is a multi-layered story that is temporally intertwined. If the Dark Knight was about pure evil, Watchmen is about evil in reality. What if our whole fascination of super-heroes turns out to be nothing like that at all? What if they turn out to be just as bad? What if life is just as messy and broken for them and for us…

Who watches the Watchmen?

And,

Who will watch the Watchmen?

Feb 4, 20091

距離

究竟西方基督教的學術研究是否適用於北美華人教會？

我受的是西方神學教育。但當我參與近日不同的conferences和其他討論時，我越來越發覺，所討論的，與北美華人教會的情況有很大差距（或說北美華人教會的處境，與我們討論得興高采烈的西方議題，有很大落差）。當我們熱心討論後現代和後基督教的信仰再想像（re-imagination）時，這是否北美華人的處境？華人真正經歷過「現代」的洗禮，或是基督教曾作為主流文化的影响嗎？甚至，我懷疑，這是否那些「仍然年青」的1.5，或是2nd generation的處境？我的一些青年工作同「道」人，在不能照單全收之際，你們又留意到甚麼？怎樣過濾和轉化？

當然，另一方面，以香港的牧養模式來牧養北美教會也是死路一條。第一代和第二代的張力就不用說，光是第一代中間就已經跟香港的生活很不一樣，怎可能將牧養模式作個移植手術，而自以為可以免疫於因處境而出現的排斥？

過去也讀過不少關於ethnic minority的神學討論。從exilic到marginal到sojourner一類的意像多的是。但覺得對這一階段的北美教會來看，總不適用。另外，這一類的研究，常將移民群體和他們的後代（信徒/非信徒一樣）作受害者來研究，這樣的出發點，局限了研究的可能結果。

當然，我沒有甚麼答案。極其量的，只在指出兩代牧者可能出現/已經出現的牧養張力，並他們所牧養會眾之現實，與他們所談過不亦樂乎的現象和出路，有極大距離。