Sean the Baptist (in the UCA)

'Stuff White People Like': The Moleskine Notebook

This pretty much gets things spot on (from the wickedly funny 'Stuff White People Like" website - nb I don't have a Moleskine notebook, but I do carry around a notebook and my Mac for reasons that I cannot fully explain.

Since all white people consider themselves to be “creative,” they are constantly in need of products and accessories that will allow them to capture their thoughts.  One of the more popular  products in recent years has been the Moleskine notebook.

This particular type of notebook is very expensive and was quite popular with writers and artists in the olden days.  Needless to say, these are two properties that are highly coveted in the white community.   In fact, it’s a good rule of thumb to know that white people like anything that old writers and artists liked:  typewriters, journals, suicide, heroin, and trains are just a few examples.

Much like virtually everything else that white people like, these notebooks are considerably more expensive yet provide no additional functionality over regular notebooks that cost a dollar.  Thankfully, since white people only keep their most original and creative ideas in the Moleskine, many of them will only be required to purchase one per lifetime.

But the the growing popularity of these little journals, is not without its own set of problems.  One of the strangest side effects has been the puzzling situation whereby a white person will sit in an independent coffee shop with a Moleskine notebook resting on top of a Apple laptop.  You might wonder why they need so many devices to write down thoughts?  Well, if a white person has a great idea, they write it by hand, if they have a good idea, it goes into the computer.

Not only does this help them keep their thoughts organized, but it serves as a signal to the other white people in the shop that the owner of both instruments is truly creative.  It screams: “I’m not using my computer to check email and read celebrity gossip, I’m using it to create art.  Please ask me about it.”

So when you see a white person with one of these notebooks, you should always ask them about what sort of projects they are working on their free time.  But you should never ask to actually see the notebook lest you ask the question “how are you going to make a novel out of five phone numbers and a grocery list?”

Spot the Pigeon

I seem to remember Sarah Coakley once telling students at Oxford that the key to understanding the t different conceptions of Trinitarian relations was to look at the pictorial representations of the Spirit in western art; to, in her words, 'spot the pigeon' (I am not sure if Sarah Coakley ever watched the Wacky Races cartoon, so I may be refracting her more elegant phrase through my own imbecilic associations).  It seems that pigeons are now coming into fashion within Christian logos.

I now work within the Uniting Church in Australia.  This is their logo:

However, my previous employer, Northern Baptist College (now the Northern Baptist Learning Community), has now redesigned their logo:

Dove? Starling? Pigeon? Swooping? Soaring? Flocking?  The possibilities are endless.

News from my 2nd favourite library

My favourite library is of course, the wonderful resource that is 10 yards away from where I am typing this post: The Dalton McCaughey Library here at the Centre for Theology and Ministry in Melbourne.  Why my favourite?  Well not least because yesteray the Librarian handed me the latest catalogues so that I could make ordering suggestions, and I basically ordered every Mohr-Siebeck / Brill / LNTS monograph that has recently come out and he didn't bat an eyelid.  My own view is that the DML must be the best theological library in Australia, and thus probably in the Southern Hemisphere.  If you are in town, come and check it out and we can meet for coffee in the adjacent cafe!

All of which leads me to say that major changes are afoot at my 2nd favourite library, The Bodleian in Oxford.  Details here.

To Everyone at the Baptist Union Council

1.  Stop surfing the internet when you should be concentrating
2.  Try to stay awake during Tuesday afternoon, especially during the Baptist Times report.
3.  I had nothing to do with the changes in the layout of the chairs
4.  Tell Phil Jump to get on the right side of the screens and not to skulk away at the back
5.  Try not to groan audibly when the usual suspects stand up to speak...again.
6.  If the Moderator asks you to 'break out into buzz groups' for prayer and or conversation, know in your hearts that he was probably told that he had to say that and that the best thing about being Moderator is that you can give the orders but don't have to obey them yourself.  If you don't want to pray in twos or threes then just pretend.
7.  Check to see if the Professor of Systematic Theology at the University of Oxford has remembered to bring a corkscrew
8.  Clear up your bottles and cheese and cracker crumbs, otherwise Viv will get in trouble.
9. Have a good time, work and play hard.
10.  If you get a moment and want to leave a comment to let me know how things are going then please feel free - and then, read no.1

Sauf le nom

I have no idea really why the motivation and inspiration to blog disappeared over the last few weeks.  I just couldn't think of anything much to say which means that either (a) I am fiendishly busy - not true or (b) that I am doing no work whatsoever and so not having any thoughts - also not true.  So I decided that it must all be connected with the decision (made with every good ecumenical intention) to change the name of the blog.  New name ... no blogging.

So back to the old name...with an additional parenthesis to indicate my current location and work.  The UCA is the Uniting Church in Australia, and whether the addition will mean that I begin to gather readers from among my colleagues and new friends, especially those in the Synod of Victoria and Tasmania, remains to be seen.

That will depend on whether or not I post anything.  I have a couple of things for today, after that...we shall see.

The name is safe - as Derrida would say.

New Biblical Studies Tutor at Northern Baptist College: Advert

This will be appearing in the church press soon

NORTHERN BAPTIST COLLEGE
www.northern.org.uk

(a member of the ecumenical Partnership for Theological Education in Manchester)

intends to appoint a

Full-Time Tutor in Biblical Studies

with particular experience and skills for the development of education and training within black and minority ethnic groups

Requests for information can be made to the Principal, Revd Dr Richard Kidd
[email protected]

(Applications must arrive by 16th March 2009)

[Northern Baptist College has adopted an Equal Opportunities Policy]

The Wonders of Telstra

The summarized results of a 15 min tour of various Telstra representatives, in which the simple request was to change our home phone number from someone else's name into ours....

..."Computer says no!"

My New Appointment: Off to Australia!

Well, the formal offer letter has arrived and I have signed and returned a copy, which finally makes definitive a process that has formed the major aspect of life for me over the past 5 months.

I have been appointed as the Professor of New Testament Studies for the Uniting Church in Australia in the Synod of Victoria and Tasmania, and within the Uniting Church's Theological College in Melbourne.  The appointment begins on January 1st 2009.

Obviously there is a much longer story behind the headline.  However, it is important to state that this move is not the result of any unhappiness with my present role at Northern Baptist College, which has been a wonderful, exciting and important place to work over the past 8 years.  But a new challenge has come our way and we are excited about the possibility of moving to Melbourne, connecting with our many friends there, making lots of new ones and working in a different cultural and church environment.

Thanks to all those who have made it possible to get this far (you know who you are).  Please pray for Katherine, Sophia, Lucy and me as we begin to think our way into the move and spend the next few months working out how to move the whole of life to the other side of the world.

More news and information in due course.

Normal Service Will be Resumed...

...this coming week.  Stuff has been happening, and I have been travelling a fair amount (understatement), but am now back at my desk with some writing deadlines in hand and various bits of blogging update that might be useful.  So, watch this space.

Service Suspended

Blogging over the next couple of weeks will be entirely dependent on the potential presence of (free) wireless networks at various seminaries and airport terminals.  I travel on Wednesday to Prague and beyond and will return to the UK at the end of July.  Lots of interesting things to do and people to meet.  I will try and provide some updates as I go, but look out for more news on return.