A few years back I had the privilege of co-authoring a paper with my friend Robbie Walker. Robbie is a queer Pentecostal theologian (PhD candidate Trinity College, Toronto). I am not sure how I first encountered Robbie, I think it was through Generous Spaciousness way back, but however it happened I’ve been blessed by Robbie’s keen mind and authentic Christian faith. And I especially enjoyed the way that Robbie shaped our work together trying to understand some of the ways that our evangelical kin approach or avoid issues of LGBTQ+ inclusion.
Category: General
Sorry for dropping off the planet just as things were getting started. I had a good reason, let me tell you the story.
As I was prepping for running my new Christology course I ended up having a conversation with my friend Michael at church. I had been chatting with him about doing some teaching for a lay school of theology that he works with and I was completely unaware that he taught at Algonquin’s School of Advanced Technology up the street from my home. My teaching background and former career are both in IT, which he did not know. So when that came out in a conversation he strongly urged me to apply for a couple permanent positions there as well as for sessional teaching. So I did.
Back from a great conference in Kentucky, the Society of Vineyard Scholars. It was the culmination of a marathon of work, so I have not been able to blog much at all. Later today I will negotiate a new teaching contract, so things are not settling down for me either. We tend to take off on the weekends in the Summer which is great, but I usually try to disconnect from my work and blogging. I’m sure I’ll be back at this a bit more intently in the fall.
I have been very busy, but in a good way.
Last week I talked about prepping for a couple job applications which I am hoping will lead to a full time teaching position. Not teaching theology, but something that will be satisfying and make teaching theology part-time a sustainable enterprise. With a bit of back and forth between me and a friend, I think I have put my best foot forward. So now I wait (I’m also waiting on another application that I sent out months back, so much waiting.)
I started blogging way back in 2005 and was fairly consistent until I completed my PhD in 2014. My main blog was Freedom Log: the musings of a pastor swimming in the deep waters of political theology. That was a fairly apt description for me at that time. A lot has changed, I am no longer serving as a pastor and while I do consider myself a political theologian, I think I’m somewhat more than just a political theologian. I thought it would be a great exercise to look back at my blogging career and comment on how things have changed. Freedom Log still exists, although I no longer post any new content there. (I will simply use links for those interested in the old posts.)
Let’s start from the beginning. My first post was called “Starting Out…” and gave a brief introduction to myself as a (then) new blogger. I had previously published articles on my personal website (I was an early adopter), but the site no longer exists except maybe in a way back machine.
In my first Freedom Log post I start by describing my role as senior pastor for Freedom Vineyard. Freedom was the second official Vineyard in Ottawa, Ontario and my wife and I currently attend the third official Ottawa Vineyard. Our own church closed a few years back after a good run of 10-11 years (depending on how you measure it). On the whole there is a lot I celebrate about our pastoral work, but there are also a lot of things I would do differently today. Pastoring is not for the faint of heart. I still love encouraging other ministers and do a bit of relief preaching around the city. But we have moved on from traditional pastoral ministry and my main focus these days is my teaching career.
When I talked about my theological interests of course I mentioned my favourite theologian Jürgen Moltmann. That is still true, I am definitely a Moltmann fanboy. My doctoral work put Moltmann in dialogue with evangelical eschatological theologies. I was tickled to see that 2005 is when I first read The Crucified God. I am reading this text again as my Lenten devotion and am amazed at how many ideas in my own theology owe themselves to this text. Some things don’t really change much.
Then in the post I try to sum up a bit about my diverse interests:
I am also a gaming buff – fantasy role playing, miniatures, etc. A philatelist – even though having little kids makes it hard to pull out my albums to work on that. A book collector with something like 500+ titles in my growing theology library. I am also a bit of a hack musician playing guitar, harmonica and a bit of keyboards. I sing also, but really should take some lessons. I have done a bit of song writing but nothing published – another area I still need to work on.
I am still a huge tabletop gaming nerd. In fact, I run the same biweekly D&D (now using Dungeon World) group that I ran in 2005 and now I have another regular group that meets up to play boardgames almost every week. Additionally, I regularly run games at local conventions and most recently have been exploring the educational use of games. I recently did a short presentation on using ethical role playing games in theology which I’ll have to post about here.
I am still a philatelist, but I find that I have a lot less time for stamps these days. Stamps are a great activity for when you want to think deeply about something. Personally I need to do something to occupy a certain part of my brain to be free to ponder, this is simply how I am wired. For example, I read best while I am pacing. When I do pull down my albums it is because I’m doing some thinking work. However, the hobby I spend more time on these days is carpentry.
Carpentry is something I’ve been interested in for a long time but had no easy way to get into. In our old house I had a small workshop, but it wasn’t really a well planned out space, and my workshop was so small that I could not work on an large projects or work with large material. One year I did build an easel for Freedom Vineyard using pre-milled lumber from the Home Depot and treating my friend’s drill press like a router (sorry Tom). The easel turned out quite well all things considered. I remember buying my first table saw although it sat barely used until we bought a house up the street and decided to spend the summer renovating our old home. That was when I got to know my friend Robert Sykes who is still a student at Saint Paul University. Robert is a real carpenter (master carpenter actually) who offered to help with our renos. I learned tonnes and have since gone on to help him with some of the historical restoration projects that he does for a living. I’m on my second (better) table saw and longing for a real shop saw. I have inherited and bought a lot of tools and am learning how to maintain them. I’ve even started to do some maker videos. Carpentry is now my go to hobby when I want to do some serious thinking.
My book collection has continued to grow, by about a 1000 titles. I do try to keep the collection under control, purging out the books that no longer serve me. It is not an easy task though as I think of my books as old friends, many of whom have advised me well through the years.
Finally in terms of music I am still most competent on guitar. Additionally I play hand drums at church (with harmonica when it fits). I did not have regular access to my keyboards for a few years, but now that I am in my new office a keyboard is set up all the time and I’m slowly getting my chops back. I’d love to get a keyboard with weighted keys, but it is hard to justify that kind of expense (my tastes in keyboards are unfortunately a bit pricey). I still haven’t published any of my own music, nor have I taken any singing lessons.
So somethings change, but much of it stays the same. This is what I expected. I do imagine that much of my thinking on specific subjects has changed so this thread of posts will be a great chance for me to see just how much my thinking has changed.
I’ve really been enjoying helping my oldest with her high school computer programming course. I’ve been teaching her some of helpful tricks like tracing variables and talking about how computers actually work (it all comes down to peeks and pokes). I am rediscovering that there is something quite enjoyable about putting together a piece of code, something beautiful about well written elegant code. I’m a bit out of practice, but it is like riding a bicycle. I love the thinking aspect of trying to find a simple, yet compact way of doing a task. Of course her the project is super simple, she’s making a program that lets you play hearts. Tonight we will work together on a few of the next functions she needs to code – I’m going to code a different card game, something similar but different enough that we can work out the ideas and she can implement them in her own way after.
EDIT: This morning I was looking through my code and it struck me that this would be so much simpler with more advanced programming concepts, but the challenge of restricting myself to what Elyssa has already been taught is quite fun. I went with a game of Crazy 8s
You might have noticed that I recently produced my first maker video. I wanted to do this as a proof of concept, something that would give me an idea of the amount of work required to bring to life that part of my vision for this blog. In keeping with my eclectic nature I really want to do videos that dip into all the different aspects of my life: teaching, hobbies, spirituality, etc. So I wanted to see just how intrusive the process of filming a project can be. Even though I record videos for my courses, at home I do not have a producer watching the camera angles and making sure I get enough takes to convey my message effectively. At the end of the process I think adding regular videos is quite doable, although I will need to upgrade a few things.
The first video was shot with my phone and compiled quickly in lower resolution than I intend to work. The editing process took me about 2.5 hours to produce the video from the footage I had collected. I anticipate that it will take about double that amount of time if I’m using my Canon T5i to record. I also have access to microphones that will help with the audio. I’d eventually like to add a few go pro cameras to capture other angles, but more video footage means more work. I need to start by developing my skills with the tools I already own.
A carpentry video was a great place to start because I make lots of mistakes in carpentry. For example, I should have made the base of my transition 3/4″ wide (1/8th” wider), fortunately I did make the floors to accommodate this size which is what I need for better stability. That said, I am very much an amateur carpenter. But that fits with my vision because I want to produce video content that isn’t about getting it right all the time. I want to show the learning process as well as encourage people to try things on your own. Even though carpentry is really a hobby for me, I have good friends (like my buddy Robert) who are professional carpenters that can answer my questions and help me understand my mistake. This is invaluable in any of life’s endeavors.
Years ago I had the idea of a cooking show called My Messy Kitchen where sometimes the meals turn out, but it is always an adventure in real life with kids interrupting the cook. I will definitely do a few cooking videos along the way – I love cooking. This blog has the same philosophy. Let’s do some things, in real life, and see what happens. Sometimes you end up with an amazing testament to your growing capabilities and other times you learn from your mistakes. We’ll have to see if there is an audience for this approach, but I suspect that there is.
Ah blogging, how I missed you.
In 2015 I finished up my Ph.D. and decided to close the blog (http://freedompastor.blogspot.com/) that had accompanied my academic formation. I briefly jumped back into blogging with the idea to review board games (http://happygamereviewer.blogspot.ca/), but if you have read my profile you will know that I have a lot of interests. I need a vehicle to help me frame this next phase of my life. I would like that vehicle to be as eclectic as I am. So here I am blogging again.
What I’d like to do with the Eclectic Life is give you a window into my pursuit of all that life has to offer. Here you will find the musings of a father, theologian, gamer, pastor, musician, woodworker, and philatelist. The teacher in me wants to share how I go about doing those things that I love to do. I expect to include maker style videos and conversations with the people whom I do life with, especially my wildly creative family. However, I need to be careful to say that in all of these eclectic interests I still have lots to learn, so expect that this journey will be full of mistakes and discoveries. If you are looking to journey with a life-long learner then you are more than welcome to come along.
The Eclectic Doctor
note: The photo is taken by my good friend Richard Dufault (Open Shutter Photography) and is my steam punk persona the Evangelist. Yes, I do like cosplay as well.