JOHN O'HARA is

Asking YOU to Out-Give Flip Video

2009-01-12T17:05:00.000-08:00

Ever since local designer and young adults pastor Adam Walker-Cleaveland managed to get a free Flip Mino HD for review on his blog, I was filled with an unusual optimism that I could do the same.

Review of Flip minoHD from Adam Walker Cleaveland on Vimeo.

Unfortunately, I was dead wrong: it took less than 24 hours for the request to come back, eviscerated. Here's their response, in its entirety:

Thanks for your interest in Flip Video. We get dozens of requests each day from media outlets, organizations and other users for review units and unfortunately do not have the resources to fulfill your request at this time.

Warm regards,

[Name Withheld]

So now I turn to the public, the Hoi Poloi, and ask you: can you out-give Flip Video? I've added the model we're looking to acquire to my amazon.com wish list on the sidebar -- and to the person or group that finds it in their hearts to be so generous, I will offer with gratitude your choice of:

- free advertising (contingent on our willingness to be associated with the brand/product/group, of course) on every produced video for the year 2009

- a personalized Haiku

- any combination of the above items

So who's up for some philanthropy? I anxiously await your reply.

considering the ecology and economy of God

2009-01-12T11:15:00.000-08:00

Reading in Genesis 22 today about Abraham's symbolic sacrifice of his only son Isaac, I was struck as if reading for the first time his words to his son. Isaac had asked his father a practical question regarding the sacrifice they were about to offer: where's the sacrificial ram?

In his teaching, Jesus spent a lot of time telling stories about the local economy and the local ecology, as a way of describing the character and nature of our Creator and what he intends to create through us. It is fundamentally different than the systems of this world.

In the economy of the world around us, our felt needs and desire for security necessitate acquisition, even at the cost of others' needs and security. It's what drives the free market and the black market, it's what transforms the Middle East into a war zone, it's what keeps East Oakland's flatlands seemingly locked up in crime and poverty.

In the ecology of the world around us, scarity drives up costs and directly influences our peace.

Abraham realized that on this trek, Yahweh had requested he sacrifice his only son -- a direct affront on his sense of personal security and long-term needs. Here are Abraham's words to Isaac:

8 Abraham answered, "God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son." And the two of them went on together.

Perhaps our soteriology (how salvation works) can obscure the nature of its' very soul: a God who loves, and calls his subjects to love as he does. When Abraham obeyed Yahweh, he was placing his and his son's life completely in the hands of God. Too often, I fear, we simply gloss over the passage and claim it as a foreshadowing, pointing to the eventual sacrifice of Jesus for the sins of the world. I agree wholeheartedly, however, that reality shouldn't lessen the weight of what God is calling Abraham, and by extension you and I, to embrace: the relationship between love and sacrifice. Abraham was esteemed by God -- not because he had a correct theology -- but because he didn't withhold what was most precious to him. This released the provision of God. Do we see it? Do we see what possesses us and keeps us from a trust relationship with God?

I was driving to work this morning and praying, "Lord, teach me the posture of true leadership." I am convinced that Jesus modeled true leadership by taking the servant's towel and washing his disciples' feet. Power that flows from the ecology of God doesn't hold on selfishly to position, rank or wealth; instead, it becomes a conduit of that blessing by investing it into others.

Interestingly enough, when I landed at work this video from Michelle Obama was waiting in my e-mail inbox.

It bodes well for our future First Family that they place a very high priority on the nature of true leadership -- and my prayer is that the leadership they exhibit domestically and project across the span of the globe is reflective of the ecology and economy of God.

In Review: Simple Spirituality by Christopher L. Huertz

2009-01-12T00:44:00.000-08:00

"Mine is the story of a blind man receiving sight."

This is how the author and International Director of Word Made Flesh Christopher Huertz begins this slim but moving series of vignettes about learning to embrace certain core values during his experiences living and working among the poor in Calcutta, India. He relates these core values to the five smooth stones David used to slay in the biblical narrative of his battle with Goliath: the way of Humility, Community, Simplicity, Submission and Brokenness.

A rule of life to be shaped more than a set of values to be upheld, Huertz provides gripping, real-life stories and draws on those experiences to embolden the words of Scripture in ways the developed world has largely forgotten. This book is different from other treatments of the Spiritual Disciplines that I've read in the past. Far from an academic autopsy or a high-minded idealism, Huertz describes a simple spirituality based in following Jesus.

Taking the smooth stone of Humility in our hands with the author, we are reminded that the poor have much to teach the wealthy, and that, to paraphrase Mother Theresa, we may actually need them more than they need us, and that our humble acceptance of God's graciousness actually frees us from guilt and into a position to be instrumental for his purposes.

The smooth stone of Community challenges us to identify with people unlike us by calling into question our relationship with possessions. In an empire of acquisition, "I am what I have" blinds us to the realities of our interconnectedness with the world's poor. We must keep up our end of the bargain as people who have been blessed with tremendous resource.

Simplicity points out how "stuff" blocks our clear vision of the world as it is, and how the prophetic presence of the poor -- our willingness to create access and exposure of our lives to others of lesser means -- holds us accountable to God for our duplicity and greed.

The smooth stone of Submission is surprisingly light and points out ways the idea has been abused and deformed from a liberating blessing for all, into an oppressive yoke, particularly for women.

Finally, Brokenness is the smooth stone that reminds us of the significance of the Eucharist and points to a pathway of responsiveness to the brokenness of our world, allowing our very lives to be radically influenced by the suffering of others -- and by doing so, liberates us from the smallness of our protected and distracted existence.

This was an important book for me to read: during a time of civil unrest at home with the Oakland riots over the New Years' BART shooting, in the midst of aggression in Gaza and in hot spots around the world, it is far too easy a shortcut for people like me to think that having a comfortable armchair conversation about these terrible realities is the same as doing something about them. Huertz leaves no luxury in this brief but powerful volume -- what he is proposing is nothing short of a lifestyle transformation by way of loving and serving the poor and marginalized.

Upon reflection, and if I were to classify Simple Spirituality, I'd suggest it is a hybrid between a book on spiritual disciplines and a reflection on the socio-economics of the kingdom, or ecosystem of God. More than a book on spiritual disciplines, it's an invitation to communal disciplines: if Huertz is successful at anything with this book, its' the gaping hole he puts in the tendency for Christians to have a merely devotional relationship with God and an ideological relationship with the world outside our comfort zones. We are in communion with the world's poor, abused, neglected, and forgotten; and we are separated from them only by a thin veil of consumerism and cynical indifference. Loving and serving in the Name of Jesus lifts that veil and reveals God's image and beauty in others. Christopher Huertz illustrates this beautifully in his book, and I recommend it to anyone who is, in the words of Shane Claiborne in his endorsement, "ready to see."

Not Sacrificing My Friends for a Free Whopper

2009-01-09T23:14:00.001-08:00

Did you hear about this?

Burger King is running a viral marketing campaign that challenges facebook users to sacrifice 10 "friends" from their facebook profile in exchange for a free hamburger. When I first saw the pitch, I laughed. Then I thought a little further and considered taking the plunge. Then I thought even further still and it occurred to me that, while a harmless little tactic to get consumers to purchase more Whoppers, set against the backdrop of the entire mess of humanity, the notion that people would elect to ditch their friends on the way to a free burger makes perfect tragic sense. It's what we do, America: we were created to cherish people and use things in service to that end, but instead we do the opposite: we cherish things and use people.

That's not even taking into consideration the fact that BK could have launched a humanitarian initiative with this schtick. I might even have participated in something like that. Instead, people will drop a thread, albeit virtual and superficial, in their human network, and for what? An unhealthy snack that they probably could do without, keeping our stomachs and spirits bloated and distracted from the desperation of our neighbors who are impoverished of food, water, security, justice, or love.

When we choose stuff over people, everybody loses.

It's the human condition, I guess; and Burger King provided Exhibit "A" for the moment.

Bowling next week at Fun Family Friday

2009-01-08T12:45:00.001-08:00

bowling., originally uploaded by jessi..

Let's rack up the pins and hit the lanes! Three strikes in this game and you'll get your first turkey since the holidays... join us for a night of fun at Castro Village Bowl, 6:30 - 8:30 on Friday January 16. We'll take care of the lanes (you're on your own for shoes).

add this event to

Call for info: 510/569-5060 (ask for John)

Struggling to Redeem an Ugly Experience

2009-01-07T16:04:00.000-08:00

www.tokbox.com

I'm an angry man. Angry because my property and the tranquility of my home were violated, angry because my wife is working hard to keep our house and doesn't need this stress, angry that we have to pay a deductible and replace what was taken from us.

All because someone thought it was reasonable to break into my car.

I found out today that there has been a rash of exactly the same crime happening in our little townhouse community, along with home invasions throughout the county of Alameda. While this brings little comfort, there is something healthy about knowing we're sharing in the sufferings of our neighbors.

Even as I write this thought down, I realize there are expanding horizons of fellowship in suffering we have yet to taste -- our neighbors in East Oakland and Gaza, Baltimore and Calcutta and Darfur.

How often am I moved to compassion when the least of my neighbors is in a ditch? Why do these emotions rise in me only now that I'm the one who has been hit with injustice?

Lord, help my unbelief. Use this experience to deepen my rootedness in Your Love.

BTW. If the video isn't showing up, it's also at http://www.tokbox.com/oharaville.

Going to MacWorld Expo tomorrow

2009-01-06T20:27:00.000-08:00

yes, I'm going to MacWorld Expo tomorrow on 12seconds.tv

And to think that only a couple of years ago I was a PC user. I'm not much of an evangelist for retail products, but I'm one of those classic examples of someone who made the switch and has just fallen head-over-heels for the GUI (that's graphic user interface for you non-geeks). And the fact that the system is far more stable than Windows Vista. And the fact that my street cred has gone up exponentially simply by opening up my macbook in public spaces like Peet's. I lost body fat, gained muscle tone, my acne went away and I spontaneously learned origami. I could go on.

And now the stake in my official geek tent has been driven into the ground: I'm trekking to MacWorld at Moscone Center tomorrow morning, to see what there is to see at the trade show floor. Being a man of no means by all means and no king of the road, I opted for the free base-level pass that gives me access to the convention hall but no actual events. So it will be a lot of walking around and visiting vendors. I'm secretly holding out hope that a vendor will be giving away free full versions of software, or that I'll win a brand new 15" MacBook Pro with no strings attached, or that Steve Jobs will run into me and give me a million bucks or at least a day pass to visit Pixar's studios in Emeryville.

If anyone out there wants to get updates from my trip, I'll be tweeting at http://twitter.com/oharaville. If you're really entrepreneurial you can even buy me the 12seconds.tv iPhone app so it's a full-immersion multimedia experience.

On to loftier themes next time, to be sure. Geek-out session ended.

A Soul Pornographer

2009-01-05T22:00:00.000-08:00

I just picked up a book shared by virtual friend Bruce Reyes Chow, Moderator for PC(USA) and local pastor/geek guy. It's called Insights From the Underside: An Intergenerational Conversation of Ministers, and while I'm going to post a review here in the future, I couldn't wait to share this gem from the Foreword by Rodger Nishioka:

It seems to me that much of what we are struggling with in ministry today is the dominant narrative of the romantic hermeneutic that tells us every single moment of ministry ... Is to be both productive and fulfilling and dramatic and life-changing. It simply is not nor can it be true. The challenge is to keep on keepin' on and to not subscribe to the romantic notions of ministry that surround us and ultimately disable us.

I'll pause here for full disclosure and admit that I come from a faith tradition that is steeped in the dominant narrative of which Dr. Nishioka speaks: The Pentecostal movement of the 20th Century was built on signs and wonders. Of the Assembly of God's Four Cardinal Doctrines, three refer to the productive, fulfilling, dramatic and life-changing (Salvation, as defined, is more a theological construct, something believed more than experienced). It isn't such a harmful thing, to believe in the demonstrable power of God in the life of the church -- and if I thought it were, I suppose this ordained minister from the AG would have found a different peg from which to hang my ministerial stole by now.

What I do think is dangerous, however, is the hyper-spirituality that can be cultivated from the notion that every moment in life should be saturated with climactic transcendence. I realize even as I write this that I am skating on thin ice, and I'm appropriately discomforted by the line I'm attempting to draw. Perhaps a crude and deceptively simplistic comparison will help.

Hyper-spirituality is a kind of pornography of the soul. It's the tendency to kick down the door and demand to experience the fullness of God with the proverbial (or literal, in some cases) click of the button: the right song, the right chord, the right mood lighting, the right crowd, etc. The healthy compulsion for increased intimacy with our Creator becomes perverted in the nature of the pursuit, becoming more about meeting the demands of the worshipper than in becoming immersed in the object of worship's affection.

This is the mystery of worship and sexuality: that we are made whole by giving up what we sense is already ours. My body, my personhood, my will are brought low in honor of the Other as a prerequisite to true intimacy. One can't experience intimacy without trust, and one can't trust without taking the path of serving and becoming less. We are given life by giving it up, and are freed to be identified and cherished without holding anything back for ourselves.

The etymology of the term pornography is "a catalog of prostitutes." In much the same way friends are asking how seemingly unrelated activities contribute to the corrupt global sex trade, I am beginning to ask how I might be a Soul Pornographer -- an unwitting contributor to prurient self-interested consumers flippantly approaching the Holy for a spiritual fix; a pimp for nothing-deities of self-help or emotionally-overflowing yet spiritually empty exercises in self-gratification. In what ways do I communicate quick, easy access to the marriage bed when a healthier perspective might admit that worship, like sex, begins with the routine motions of daily life?

I'm not much for the common prescriptions in dealing with pornography, which is usually something along the lines of "shame on you, shame on your sexuality, pray harder and stay away from porn." Such approaches contribute to the vicious cycle of shame, guilt, personal diminishment and seeking out secret and ultimately unhealthy expression. Instead, I encourage the guilt-ridden to experience the power of confession, forgiveness and community on the path of re-engaging healthy life patterns and appropriate relationships. The same can be said of Soul Pornography: let's recognize the bright light of Christ's love surrounding us, inviting us out of the dark corners of addiction to hyper-spirituality, re-learning how to love and be loved, rejecting shortcuts to intimacy and discovering the depths and thrills of God's sacred love hidden like breadcrumbs in the mundane as we keep on keepin' on the path toward fulfillment.

Image Courtesy of xxxchurch.com.

Cultivating a Good Earth!

2009-01-05T12:54:00.000-08:00

Here it is, for your viewing pleasure and spiritual enrichment, 11 glorious minutes of vision for the 2009 ministry season at KidVenture Family Ministry at Sequoyah Community Church:

Vision 2009: Cultivating a Good Earth from John O'Hara on Vimeo.

If you made it through the entire video you get a cookie. Actually, I'm quite excited about the year in front of us, not just for Sequoyah but for everyone privileged to work with kids. We live in a fairly mussed-up world, and a clear strategy for making a difference absolutely must include a dedicated investment in up-and-coming generations.

I'm hopeful that, as people begin to coalesce around the basic idea that kids and families and how they develop are essential to the long-term development of a society, more ideas and resources will be directed at how to do spirituality among kids -- not as an afterthought, or as a marketing strategy, but because it's our sacred trust and the future literally hangs in the balance.

Contemplating the Future of Emerging Pentecostal

2009-01-03T07:48:00.000-08:00

I don't do resolutions. But goals are the fruit of a different tree, you dig?

Resolutions are wishes, and are about as effective as hunting for an elusive leprechaun in order to extract from him his magical pot of gold at the end of a skittle rainbow. Goals, on the other hand, emerge from a clear recognition of one's sense of vocation and purpose. I'll say it again: goals are the fruit of a different tree.

One of my goals is to limit and make more sense of my internet footprint. This goal stems from a desire to open up vistas of apprenticeship for people within the AG and larger pentecostal tribe who want to bridge a sense of orthodoxy with a practice of following Jesus that makes sense in 21st century USAmerica. At the moment, I'm practically the sole contributor to what's known as our "hyphenated-emergent" expression of faith, Emerging Pentecostal. This is okay, if not entirely redundant. The problem for me, though is twofold: one, I'm managing a very myopic conversation; two, there are many more voices waiting to be heard. Now that the problem has been identified, it's time to come up with a good solution. I'm planning to let go the lease on the EP domain name in April, after which time I hope we've generated enough conversation to have a plan. Maybe we can teleconference at tokbox.com.

Waiting on Jesus

2009-01-02T12:53:00.001-08:00

I feel compelled at this point in history, so rich with risk and opportunity, to remind the church (particularly those of a particular eschatological persuasion) that there's a vast difference between waiting on Jesus:

And waiting on Jesus:

But perhaps the best way to drive the point home is with a little help from 1970's star Keith Green:

Experimenting with Home Gym Equipment

2009-01-02T05:56:00.000-08:00

Here come those GQ Shoulders...

I am not one of those people who rush to the telephone following an infomercial to buy a product "As Seen on TV." In fact, I kind of feel like a wannabe consumer for this market: I've never even seen the ad for this contraption. What I can confess to, though, is an impulse buy at Target and the desire to pick up the body of an "As seen on TV" US Marine via a few non-committal reps in the bathroom doorway a few mornings per week.

Actually, I do hope to make a habit of daily core exercises. We'll see... I suppose a good first step would be to stop blogging about it and getting on the thing, no?

Saying Amen to Irish Crooner Bono

2009-01-01T13:06:00.000-08:00

I woke up this morning praying along with U2:

Heaven on earth
We need it now
I'm sick of all of this
Hanging around

Sick of sorrow
I'm sick of the pain
I'm sick of hearing
Again and again
That there's gonna be
Peace on earth

2009: let us believe so clearly in the reality of heaven that we live every moment pushing our present reality into its' promise. It doesn't matter where you're at in your own eschatology: if we love Jesus, we're not going to sit around waiting for time to roll up like a scroll -- we're going to love what Jesus loves.

Three Minutes to Midnight...

2009-01-01T00:04:00.000-08:00

www.tokbox.com

RE-THINKING OBJECTIVITY

2008-12-31T21:17:00.000-08:00

On the cusp of another New Year, a theme is emerging from the Seedbed of Imagination made fertile by the fallen ideologies of passing paradigms. That is to say, personal transformation requires a lot of grace and life taking a big fat dump on us once in a while.

My oldest son and I were talking the other day about how plants are so important to us because they take our poop and turn it into food. I know a couple of corners had to be cut to arrive at this conclusion, but bear in mind the kid is three years old.

We all can stand to remember where our food comes from and meditate for a hot minute on the way beauty emerges from less tasteful circumstances.

People from my world are addicted to superficiality. We prefer big new chain grocery stores to cruddy local markets, chemically-greened lawns to pulling weeds, leather interiors on our inefficient modes of transportation to the sights and smells of Muni, Fung-Shui'd empty living rooms to the messiness of cramped and crammed community, celebrity gossip to the real-life stories of less lovely neighbors and less-resources neighborhoods.

I like the idea of emergence precisely because embedded in the term is this imagery of decomposition. It's more than the rummage sale of Phyllis Tickle's Great Emergence -- it's the compost pile of the catholic Church's sordid love affair with anything not sourced in our beautiful Savior. We experience all these little deaths: the end of a project, a career, a dream, a relationship; and through these crises the lens through which we experience God and people and stuff shifts. This is what's common to us all, and cuts through the artifice of titles, position, and status -- that whether your name is Tickle, Jones, Pagitt, Scandrette or O'Hara, you're emerging from the death of Self and into the convergence of our story with the story of God.

In the new year, as balls and bombs drop, may we escape the illusion of superficial beauty and walk--no, run! --away from the slumbering suburbs and chic gentrified urban hamlets, let's buy local, let's ride our bikes and ride our trains, let's allow strange people into our imperfect living rooms and lives, let's read to kids in the neighborhoods we're too afraid to move into, and through it all, let's run into the arms of Shalom's very embodiment, Jesus who loved us and gave himself for us.

Or how about simply this: what if we treated Jesus less like a charm on our bracelets and more like our Rabbi, our Master Teacher? Would we be any different after a year of re-learning from Jesus what it means to be human?

Happier Trails and The Continuation of the Oharaville Saga

2008-12-26T12:19:00.000-08:00

On my to-do list for geeks before the year 2008 draws to a close:

- clean up gmail contacts
- pick up a domain name
- get jiggy with dynamic codes

The latter two are related, which predicated the YET ANOTHER migration, this time back to Blogger which is a lot kinder to people who don't want to host their own sites but still want to use stuff from places like Tokbox. Case in point: I can't post the following on wordpress.com:

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights from Seth Brau on Vimeo.

So at long last, hasta la vista, WordPress. I only stayed with you as long as I did because I was hung up on the elitism of writing with you.