Building a new city in the midst of the old city, one syllable at a time by writing, editing, rapping, praying, and that sort of thing.
neopolis.me // neopolismedia.com
Catching Elephant is a theme by Andy Taylor
Yes, I was actually born into a Mormon family—I have Mormon ancestry all the way back to 1850s—but we became evangelical Christians when I was three years old. From my earliest days, my mom and dad taught me the Christian faith and the Bible, but my mom’s experience coming out of the Mormon Church made a huge impression on me.
First, it gave me a dialectical framework to understand the faith. Something like “the Mormons believe X, but we believe Y” was not uncommon for my mom to say. This caused me to naturally think theologically, so it was probably inevitable that I would grow into an adult who thinks theologically.
Second, the Trinity was very important to my mother, as it completely reshaped her understanding of the universe, of God, and of the person of Christ. She impressed the centrality of the Trinity on me in an indelible way. This most certainly prepared me for the Trinitarian richness in Orthodoxy.
Third, my mother rejected the idea that the true faith and Christ’s church disappeared from the face of the earth and had to be restored by Joseph Smith. Starting with this assumption, over time I found my way back through church history. I spent a little time as Presbyterian, and then an Anglican, before becoming Orthodox, but it was this starting point of my mother’s pointed the way down that road.
Much more could be said, and my mother does not share the Orthodox faith with me. But she laid the framework in my thinking. I had a lot of help from Martin Luther, Douglas Wilson, and the early Church fathers along the way, but at least a couple of those guys would prefer not to take the credit.
Keep an eye out next week. I have a new project you might be interested in. And feel free to message me privately. I’d be glad to explain more any time in another forum.
I worked with the owner of Executive Carpet & Tile Care (Bakersfield, CA) to articulate on their website their business vision and services.
Surprised by Laughter: The Comic World of C.S. Lewis by Terry Lindvall
Alison and I were hired to write the jacket copy for this revised, updated, and reissued book.
Published by Thomas Nelson, 2012. 496 pages.
I have decided to start up a new tumblr blog. Here it is: http://jameyb.com
Other places I am online:
The Vintage Remedies Essentials Series was written by Jessie Hawkins, and focuses on natural health and real foods, and is specifically designed to by used by “Natural Living Educators” in a four week class.
We always love working with Jessie! We provided a basic copy-edit for the VREssentials Real Food Workbook.
Two Dudes Foods
Check out this new project I started with my friend Daniel. We’ve been swapping food and drink recipes for a couple of years, and now we’d like to share it with you! And our project is on tumblr and Facebook, so follow us!
Classical Education Resources
Our educational imprint Holy Trinity Classical now has an online webstore for our text books. Tax and shipping included in the price. Check it out!
(Source: holytrinityclassical.com)
Summer is about fun, and fun is about collaborating.
Hip-hop never sounds so good as when artists get together and fuse their creative genius. And BBQs are always more enjoyable when everyone gets together and brings a little something.
Perfect for your next BBQ party, this hip-hop mix fuses Royal Ruckus, J-Qwess, Spoken Nerd, Sareem Poems, Fabio Musta, Pigeon John, Akil of Jurassic 5, Busta Rhymes, J. Rawls, Sadat X, Mars iLL, Deepspace5, Alex Goose, De La Soul, Flynn Adam, Public Enemy, KRS-One, Far East Movement, Sufjan Stevens, Aesop Rock, Blackalicious, Lateef, Cappadonna, Redcloud, Shwayze, Pete Rock, C.L. Smooth, A Tribe Called Quest, and others.
And these artists took the time to do the fusing for us. No fancy turntable mixes involved here. Just hand-picked the collaboration songs, and made them friendly for you!
1. Tennessee Tiki – Royal Ruckus, Spoken Nerd, J-Qwess
2. Lower the Boom (Remix) – Sareem Poems, Fabio Musta, Pigeon John, Akil of Jurassic 5
3. What’s Next – Leaders of the New School (Busta Rhymes, Charlie Brown, Dinco D)
4. Face It – J. Rawls, Sadat X, Wise Intelligent
5. No One Rides for Free – Deepspace5, Alex Goose
6. Breakadawn – De La Soul
7. Le California (Unreleased) – Rootbeer (Pigeon John. Flynn Adam)
8. Sex, Drugs, & Violence – Public Enemy, KRS-One
9. The Fresh (MyNINJA!) – Peter Rocks, Far East Movement, Rootbeer
10. Star of Wonder (None Shall Pass) – Tor, Sufjan Stevens, Aesop Rock
11. Side to Side – Blackalicious, Pigeon John, Lateef (Latyrx)
12. Too Strong to Change – Mars iLL, Cappadonna (Wu-Tang Clan)
13. Blue Hearts Club (Unreleased) – Royal Ruckus, Redcloud, Malachi Perez
14. Tapatio – Redcloud, Pigeon John
15. Buzzin’ – Shwayze, Cisco Adler (Whitestarr)
16. They Reminisce Over You – Pete Rock & C.L. Smooth
17. Scenario – A Tribe Called Quest, Leaders of the New School
Why Google+ is Meh
Or, why the 9 Reasons to Switch aren’t enough for me.
1. I don’t really want more integration with Google services. My primary work depends on Google services. Integrating my social networking only tempts me to utilize it more often for unrelated activities. This is the reason I dumped the Flock browser after a week.
2. I’m not particularly impressed with better friend management. It’s cool. But Facebook will copy it or improve on it in no time flat.
3. Better mobile app? Maybe with time, but there is no mobile app for iPhone yet. Do not pass go, do not collect $200.
4. Easier to find stuff to share? Neat idea, but I find stuff to share from Facebook and twitter because I have developed a network of people who care about what I care about. I really don’t need Google’s help. I’ll tinker around with this and perhaps I’ll take these words back.
5. This one wins. I like to keep my data.
6. Better photo tagging? If you do things you’ll regret showing up online, I guess this would matter to you. I don’t do anything I’m afraid people will know about, so this doesn’t appeal to me. No facial recognition software? Not an improvement.
7. I don’t care about group chat. The only thing I can imagine using a video “hangout” for is business, but there are already plenty of ways to do this. If you like group chat, fine. I don’t need it, nor want it.
8. Safer content sharing? Easier to do? If you don’t know how to do this on facebook, you aren’t doing it right. (It’s next to the share button…)
9. Maybe Google is a better steward of your personal data. Seems to me, time will have to bear this out a little…
In the end, there are 700 million people on Facebook now, including my mother and grandmother. I’ll never be able to get them to make the switch. I’m very pleased with twitter, tumblr, and other niche social networking sites. For me, it’s more like Google minus.
Other food for thought:
