This was beautiful. I’m thankful I found it.
I’m an introvert caught in an extroverts life. Fortunately, I’m married to a fellow introvert. And we dream about simple things… like taking vacations places where we can walk in silence and be alone. Where we are free to explore and discover. And where we take the time to just be.
I find the Spirit’s voice loudest and my mind most alert when I make the time to be alone.
Weird, isn’t it?
What the heck is the Table Project? It’s hard for me to describe, exactly. At first blush it’s easy to call it a social networking site for churches. But it’s more than that. To label it as that would cheapen it. I’d called it a social networking utility for churches.
Most churches have an assortment of inter-connected people. There are people in the pews, an email list, a Facebook page, a website, a youth group list, a group of knitters who meet at the church but no one is sure why, and some sort of database for tracking member information.
These are all separate things that the Table tries to bring together to make life a bit simpler for churches.
Since the Table is a ministry launched from YouthWorks, I’ve gotten a chance to spend time with the developers… poke holes in their theories… and share Coke’s over head-spinning “what if” sessions.
Over the months, in my skepticism, we’ve tossed quips back and forth. I’ve said, “Are you guys just another Jesus-flavored Facebook rip-off?” And they’ll fire back, “What’s your solution? Create a forum and charge people to join?”
Zoinks. Touche`.
With this big milestone, I want to point out a few things about the Table and invite you to check it out.
My disclaimer: Youth Specialties and The Table Project are both parts of the same organization. But no one has asked me to blog about their project. I’m just doing it because they are friends of mine and I’m excited about it going to the beta test.
For the last month I’ve had my head under the hood on a brand new event for YS called, “YSpalooza.”
Over at the YS blog I’ll talk a little more about what the event is and why we are excited about it.
But here I wanted to take readers behind the scenes to show off some of the nerd-factor I added to the website.
This was a fun project to work on. For one thing, it’s a brand new event. So we were creating a lot. Typically, I manage a group of freelancers who all do 1-2 pieces of the pie. For this one it was a blast to do it in-house, with coding help from Dave.
Sometimes I embarrass my wife. And on our July trip to Haiti I offered her one very embarrassing moment when I refused to go through the new backscatter TSA screening machines while opting for a manual pat down instead.
The TSA made the process of opting-out a hassle. While there were plenty of officers on duty they managed to make me wait for about 10 minutes while they played their keystone cop routine.
Call me a jerk all you want. But I don’t like that the government wants to take pictures of its people naked for the sake of “security.” The media has shown over and over again that all of this extra screening doesn’t stop people from smuggling weapons aboard a plane. It’s really just for passengers to feel safe while traveling and little else.
Back at the Ft. Lauderdale airport. I had completely dug in on my decision.
Kristen quickly went through the line, got her nudey pic taken, put her shoes back on, and glared at me in the way only a wife could.
Finally, an older TSA agent had me go through the metal detector and directed me to the screening area. He explained that he was going to pat me down and that he intended to touch my private parts with the back of his hands.
Obviously, I’m not dangerous and they didn’t find anything.
As the officer took his gloves off he looked in my eyes and asked asked me why I had opted out. My reply, “When it comes to governmental invasions of privacy, I prefer personal over digital.”
That moment revealed the heart of the matter. If the TSA agents had to look hundreds of thousands of passengers in the eyes and manually search them– we’d actually be safer.
Dehumanizing the screening procedure is not how you make airline flight safer. Humanizing it is.
The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg shares his desire to resist as well as documents the new procedure to feel up your thigh until they feel “resistance.” (Obviously, women lack resistance.)
“But what about people who hide weapons in their cavities? I asked. I actually said “vagina” again, just to see him blush. “We’re just not going there,” he reiterated.
I asked him if he was looking forward to conducting the full-on pat-downs. “Nobody’s going to do it,” he said, “once they find out that we’re going to do.”
In other words, people, when faced with a choice, will inevitably choose the $%*#-Measuring Device over molestation? “That’s what we’re hoping for. We’re trying to get everyone into the machine.” He called over a colleague. “Tell him what you call the back-scatter,” he said. “The $%*#-Measuring Device,” I said. “That’s the truth,” the other officer responded.
The pat-down at BWI was fairly vigorous, by the usual tame standards of the TSA, but it was nothing like the one I received the next day at T.F. Green in Providence. Apparently, I was the very first passenger to ask to opt-out of back-scatter imaging. Several TSA officers heard me choose the pat-down, and they reacted in a way meant to make the ordinary passenger feel very badly about his decision. One officer said to a colleague who was obviously going to be assigned to me, “Get new gloves, man, you’re going to need them where you’re going.”
Here is another story of a pilot who refused the pat down and was suspended from his job. Ridiculous.
So– it’s come to this. If you want to fly you are left with an awful choice. Do you want someone looking at you naked or someone touching your genitals? We aren’t talking about a doctor here… we’re talking about a TSA agent. A person hired by the Department of Homeland Security for just above minimum wage with no qualifications. Seriously, TSA screeners either have to have a high school diploma or GED or one years experience working security.
Call me crazy. But I think if enough people opt-out we can force the issue and make the government remove these devices.
Call me a conspiracy theorist: But I would like to know how much American Science & Engineering, Inc gave to their members of congress and senators to lobby for selling these machines. (They are $170,000 each!)
My little trick or treaters, waiting for go time., originally uploaded by mclanea.
It’d been a couple of years since I have been home for Halloween.
So, I was thrilled when the kids informed me that I was taking them trick-or-treating and Kristen was going to stay home and hand out candy.
They quickly covered several blocks of our neighborhood. (It was fun to see the same neighbors again, without the hovering helicopters and SWAT teams of the night before. What a difference 24 hours makes!)
One thing I adore about our neighborhood is how friendly everyone is. The neighborhood is a fun mix of middle-class families, immigrants/refugees, retired folks, and college students. That was on full display all night.
Three favorite moments:
1. There is one neighbor who goes all out. They set up their yard like a haunted house, complete with zombies and chainsaw masacres. Both of our kids fought the fear, smiled realizing it was all fake and for fun, and made it through. Paul kept telling himself, “Don’t chicken out” as he made his way to the porch. (They gave out full-sized candy bars, pretty cool)
2. About an hour into their adventure both of them got very tired. As we were still several blocks from home they both just looked at me and said, “Can we walk straight home?” Then, as we were walking home, both Megan and Paul decided they needed to make one more stop. They wanted to go next door to visit our 80+ year old neighbors. They love that couple and have a special bond with them that is really cool. I loved that they wanted to see them and knew that “Mr. Stan” would want to see them in their costumes.
3. I loved seeing and handing out candy to first-timers. Our community welcomes refugees from all over the world. The latest group hails from several African nations… and it was fun to see them try to figure out Halloween. The costumes were a little off and the concept of a cute plastic pumpkin as a candy storage device was lost along the way. But these kids got it, and the smiles on their faces were priceless.
I love living in a country where one day we can have a police standoff and the next it is safe enough for children to wander around in the dark asking random houses for candy.