Tim Keel's Blog

Pretty Much the Awesomest OS ever

 

Thanks to sco for this.

This is a Bummer

I was just following some links attached to some people who commented on my blog and came across the blog of Ann Catherine Pittman and this post, which really bummed me out.

Convergence Capital, Part 2

Part two of NPR's feature of the progressive business model of Lawrence's own World, Co. continues today.

Media analysts say circulation has stagnated at many papers, and younger readers are turning to other sources of information. Many media companies hoped that convergence -- combining television, print and online resources -- would help them survive. Instead, many companies have lost money on online journalism.

In Lawrence, Kan., Dolph Simons' Journal-World newspaper has taken ambitious news-gathering approaches to local issues. The company's efforts have sparked innovation, controversy -- and no small amount of envy within the industry.

Despite its steady circulation of just 20,000, the Journal-World has a staff of 44 -- and plans for expansion. That's due in large part to parent World Company's thriving subsidiaries, from Sunflower cable, which serves 80 percent of Lawrence homes, to Sunflower Broadband, with 50 percent of the market.

The World Co., privately held by the Simons family, has accepted a single-digit profit margin for its newspaper. Rob Curley, the top news editor in Lawrence, says sometimes the Web sites just break even.

Publicly traded media companies say they're pursuing similar strategies, most would not accept the low profitability that could follow. For instance, the Gannett Company, with 102 daily newspapers and 21 television stations, seeks minimum profit margins of 20 to 30 percent for its newspapers.

While the impact of World's approach is uncertain, the company is reaching forward, podcasting music programs and sending text to cell phones. And it's experimenting with video, sending sports clips and news to wireless devices.

Listen to part two by clicking here.

I'll bet you your birthday

I ran into Michael this morning at Broadway Cafe. He told me that it is Jeremy's birthday. Then he stopped and said, "Well, it's either his birthday or the birthday he won in a bet...he has two birthdays this month."

Huh? Turns out Jeremy bet some guy something and the winner got the other guy's birthday. So, Jeremy won and I guess he gets two birthdays.

Maybe having two birthdays this month will cheer Jeremy up. ;-) I've been meaning to give him some online props anyway. Jeremy loves film: both the watching and making of it. If I want to see a late night flick I can always count on Jeremy's company. A couple of months ago Jeremy started writing film reviews online. You can read his reviews at his blog.

Happy birthdays, Jerome. I hear you got a sweet new viewing palette.

Lawrence, KS: Convergence Capital of the USA

I heard a cool story this morning on NPR about my favorite town away from town: Lawrence, Kansas. It turns out that the company that owns the Lawrence Journal World, The World Co., is one of the most progressive and forward thinking media companies around. Turns out they also operate the great Lawrence.com web-site. According to NPR, Lawrence, Kansas is a new media hub.

"Media watchers are paying close attention to what the local newspaper in Lawrence, Kan., is doing. The World Co., which owns the Lawrence Journal-World newspaper, online and cable news divisions, is providing a model for how the news media may operate in the future. It's led by media-convergence evangelist, Rob Curley. The company is winning accolades for its multiple approach to covering the local news."

Listen to the NPR feature here. It's a two-part series, so tune in tomorrow, too.

Catching A Breath

We had a full week last week. We were excited to host my friend Alan Roxburgh for a few days. I met Alan several years ago in Houston when Ecclesia hosted an Emergent Theological Gathering. I've run into to him several times since, but most significantly when I was brought in to work alongside Alan and Biblical Theological Seminary as they create a Center for Emerging Church Leadership. He came to Kansas City last week to help the staff and elders of Jacob's Well to think through structural and organizational issues that we are facing. It was invaluable time. You ought to consider subscribing to his e-mail newsletter.

It was also good to learn more about what Alan is doing alongside Allelon in beginning to create a missional order that seeks to partner with seminaries, local churches, and a few other institutions to form leaders "for the innovation of a missional church in the post Christian West." I will be traveling to Pasadena where leaders from around the world will gather to process further about this initiative. I am really looking forward to it.

Our Midrash last Thursday night on Chaim Potok's book, The Chosen, was fantastic. We had a great discussion with a good mix of folks. One of the highlights for me were the insights that Phil Freeman gave as a man born into a secular yet Zionist Jewish family. He described a world far outside the realm of my experience. His insights added real depth to the conversation. The historical framework Potok presents was a big part of my enjoyment of the book. For those who missed the discussion but would like another opportunity, we decided to read the sequel to The Chosen, called The Promise. We are planning on discussing it sometime in July. Stay posted.

The week concluded by joining the United Methodists at Kansas City's very own mega-church, The Church of the Resurrection. The United Methodists put on a worship conference and it was hosted by Church of the Resurrection. Over the course of the conference they created four worship experiences. With Dan Kimball, we provided an "emergent" worship experience on Friday morning. Mike and some of the members of our worship team provided music and Dan and I co-taught from a creative message on the bride of Christ that Dan put together. It was fun, though very different from what we are used to: a 3000+ auditorium and Mike's face on two jumbo-trons cross-faded to Todd drumming and Ian with his back facing the camera (c'mon Ian, don't be shy). Rachel had a hard time keeping a straight face. All in all it was really fun and we were honored to be asked to participate. It was fun to get to hang with Dan, too (pictured in action at a seminar).

I'm glad it's a slow week this week, though.

Midrash Reminder

Just a quick note: our book discussion over Chaim Potok's book, The Chosen, will be this Thursday night. We will gather at 7:00 p.m. at Jacob's Well in the third floor living room. I am looking forward to our conversation. I hope to see you there.

A Reflection on Goodness

I got home late last night after a fund raising event for my children's school. I flipped on the television hoping to get some highlights from the North Carolina - Michigan State game. Instead, CBS was beginning a two hour tribute/retrospective on the life and times of Pope John Paul II. Even though it was already incredibly late and I knew I was staring down the barrel of daylight savings time, I could not pull myself away from the television and the story of John Paul and his amazing life and ministry.

Over the last couple of years one has come to expect that any story on the church, especially the Catholic church, is going to be some unseemly revelation of misconduct or controversy. All through the day yesterday I caught fascinating news stories on both TV and the radio about the late Pope or something stemming from him. On NPR I heard a discussion of how the Pope's theology has caused Brazilian catholics to shift from a socialistic liberation theology to a more evangelical, populist expression of faith that seeks to compete with growing Protestantism (my point is not that this is good or bad but more that I heard a compelling and educational story on liberation theology on NPR on Saturday afternoon). The Harry Smith narrated piece I watched late into the night yesterday ended by interviewing different Catholic observers about the legacy of the Pope. I was particularly struck by one commentator's thoughts. He wondered aloud if the Pope would be posthumously remembered as Pope John Paul the Great. He added that he could also be known as Pope John Paul the Good. He went on to say that while John Paul was great, it was his goodness that seemed to affect people so profoundly. How beautiful. And true.

One only need read this story about the Pope's meeting with his would-be assasin and the extending of forgiveness to see the redemptive power of goodness. This article describes how this assasin was stricken at hearing the news of the Pope's death.

I sat there watching him touching people, smiling at them while looking into their eyes and began to tear up myself. How hungry we are for holiness, how made for righteousness. Goodness has a power that is hard to describe much less quantify. When we experience it, however, it marks us. When I knelt before Brother Roger at Taize and received a blessing from a very holy man, I was so marked.

That is one of the most disappointing aspects to me about contemporary film, especially as it reflects contemporary conceptions of reality. I love films where good battles evil. Unfortunately, they really don't exist anymore. What we are fed is someone desperate and only marginally less corrupt than the evil they decide (usually under some form of external compulsion) to battle. The recent film Constantine is a good example. It's entertaining in a comic book sort of way, but how boring and untrue. Ultimate evil overcome by someone who could barely care less. I am tired of the anti-hero.

C.S. Lewis reckoned with this in his stunning allegory, The Great Divorce. In the preface of the book, Lewis writes:

"Blake wrote the Marriage of Heaven and Hell. If I have written of their Divorce, this is not because I think myself a fit antagonist for so great a genius, nor even because I feel at all sure that I know what he meant. But in some sense or other the attempt to make that marriage is perennial. The attempt is based on the belief that reality never presents us with an absolutely unavoidable 'either-or'; that, granted skill and patience and (above all) time enough, some way of embracing both alternatives can always be found; that mere development or adjustment or refinement will somehow turn evil into good without our being called on for a final and total rejection of anything we should like to retain. This belief I take to be a disastrous error. You cannot take all luggage with you on all journeys; on one journey even your right hand and your right eye might be among the things you have to leave behind. We are not living in a world where all roads are radii of a circle and where all, if followed long enough, will therefore draw gradually nearer and finally meet at the center: rather in a world where every road, after a few miles, forks into two, and each of those into two again, and at each fork you must make a decision. Even on a biological level life is not like a pool but like a tree. It does not move towards unity but away from it and the creatures grow further apart as they increase in perfection. Good, as it ripens, becomes continually more different not only from evil but from other good.

I do not think that all who choose wrong roads perish; but their rescue consists in being put back on the right road. A wrong sum can be put right: but only going back till you find the error and working it afresh form that point, never by simply going on. Evil can be undone, but it cannot 'develop' into good. Time does not heal it..."

Ahhh....goodness is truly more compelling that evil, all evidence to the contrary. I could keep quoting Lewis. It gets even better. My point is that today I am so thankful for the goodness of the Savior manifested in the man Pope John Paul the Good. I pray that I will continue to experience immediately and vicariously the goodness of the Christ in such men and women during my lifetime. I also pray that I might taste the goodness of God and that my life might shed abroad that very goodness into the lives of men and women around me. I aspire.

"The light shines in the darkness but the darkness has not understood it." - John 1:5

Great Day

Today is a great day. I spent an unscheduled hour + on the phone with Tony Jones (pictured together with Mike a couple of summers ago in France) this morning. It was supposed to be a ten-minute touch-base (about this April Fool's Day funny) but we talked and I puttered around outside my mini-van in front of Broadway Cafe smelling coffee and talking animatedly. Great stuff.

I then spent a couple of hours in my office nailing down thoughts for this week-ends worship gathering and Jesus' sending of the twelve. Poor Tim has also spent the better part of an afternoon tutoring me, via iChat, about Photoshop and html coding.

Then I jumped in said mini-van and drove to Lawrence. I was on a mission for a couple of things. First, the Barry Moser show I posted about earlier is in its last couple of days at Signs of Life. I just saw it and it is great. A number of the pieces have sold and those that haven't are outside of my price range. But I am not greedy. My friend Kelly saw the show and generously gave me a copy of the Pennyroyal Bible with all the illustrations in the text. What a gift. Thanks, Kelly.

I also had to stop by Liberty Hall to purchase some concert tickets. The Shins play on May 8. I can't wait. Liberty Hall is such a great place to see a show. I saw Nickel Creek there sometime last year.

As for the rest of the day, I am going to enjoy this beautiful day, sitting outside in front of Signs of Life and dig out from under an e-mail backlog. Have a great week-end.

"Lost"

I just finished watching last nights episode of Lost. What an incredible show. This episode on John Locke, in particular the ending montage, was heart-wrenching so as to bring tears to my eyes and somehow still managed to be creepy enough to send chill down my spine (when the "light" comes on in the hatch - brilliant). Those of you who are lost with me know what I'm talking about. I won't even start talking about how great the "Hurley" episode was.

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