Given the recent brouhaha in Debian, and General Resolution regarding Lenny’s Release policy as it relates to Firmware and Debian’s Social Contract, which has led to the resignation of Manoj Srivastava from the position of Secretary for the Debian Project, I’m reminded of the following passage from Gordon Dickson’s Tactics of Mistakes (part of Dickson’s Childe Cycle, in which he tells the story of the rise of the Dorsai): “No,” said Cletus.

This morning, having gotten up early, I found a great systematic deconstruction of the “Left Behind Series, courtesy of a pointer from . Definitely a good read (it’s in blog order, though, so you have to start from the end of the page and work backwards), and it’s kinda cool to find that there are folks who self-identify as being Evangelical Christians who aren’t at all impressed with LaHaye and Jenkin’s Left Behind series.

On April 4th, 2004, I’m going to be joining with some other parishioners at [my church]1 in a href=”http://www.cambridgesavings.com/servlet/Redirect?pageName=Root1_top_community_upandcomingcommunityevents&menuLevel=2″>Walk for Affordable Housing sponsored by the href=”http://www.connact.com/hca/”>Housing Corporation of Arlington. The Housing Corporation of Arlington helps find low income families find housing options in Arlington, Massachusetts. Very often this involves buying a house in need of TLC, and using volunteers to help fix it up. I’m going to be participating in the walk, and I’m looking for people

A friend took me to a Unitarian Universalist church service, and one of the things which I noticed about that particular service (I don’t know how representative it is of all UU churches or services) was the notable lack of what I can only term as “trigger words” used in their worship service. Perhaps the best way to describe it is by example. In my tradition, a very common pattern to start a prayer is for the worship leader to say, “The Lord be with you”, to which the response (said by the entire congregation) is “And also with you”, which in turn is followed by “Let us pray” and the actual prayer itself.

Sacred the body God has created, temple of Spirit that dwells deep inside. Cherish each person; nurture relation. Treat flesh as holy, that love may abide. Bodies are varied, made in all sizes, pale, full of color, both fragile and strong. Holy the difference, gift of the Maker, so let us honor each story and song. Love respects persons, bodies and boundaries. Love does not batter, neglect or abuse. Love touches gently, never coercing.

I used the following excerpt for a spiritual reflection I led for a vestry meeting. It comes from a book by William John Fitzgerald, entitled Blessings for the Fast Paced and Cyberspaced. I really liked it, so I decided to include it here. above the mountain it rises and my heart dances. Now the light comes, the light that makes me one with all life. Like the tinamou I am, who sings in the dawn, who is humble with love, Who walks in the circle of the greater love and the greater power.

Things have been fairly busy, so I haven’t had time to update my Live Journal more frequently. I’d like to get better about that. In the meantime, I’ll play catchup with the some of the more important things that have happened in the past week or two. The weekend before last, I traveled out to Chicago to attend my mom’s memorial service. It was held in St. Lawrence Church in Libertyville, IL.

The following message is from the Episcopal bishop in Jerusalem, and talks about how the Israeli’s are treating Palestinians (including non-combatents and Arab Christians) in Ramallah. Granted that the suicide bombings which have targetted civillians is horrific and barbaric. But the Isreali’s are supposed to be “the good guys”; “the one functioning democracy in the Middle East”; our committed friends, according to our fearless leader, George W. Bush. I can’t make or influence national policy.

Five other IBM’ers and I flew into Canberra from Brisbane yesterday evening, at the end of the linux.conf.au conference. The last time I was in Canberra, it was two years ago, and they were working for LinuxCare, and I was working for VA Linux Systems. How things change, and yet how they stay the same…. it was so much fun spending time with them, as we traveled as a gaggle through the Brisbane and Sydney airports, geeking about Linux kernel internals, terrorizing Quantas Club attendants, etc.