ThruFire

Burning off the dross

January 22, 2009
by Chris Arsenault
Comments Off on Want to know how you’re doing – ask the other side*

Want to know how you’re doing – ask the other side*

Or watch what they say on twitter!

Some sample comments from Twitter’s Search stream:

 

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djhuggs: enormous pro-life rally on the capitol really bumming me out
 

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LisFace: Oh great the pro life march is making it impossible for me to get home.

 

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extrapickles: Just left longworth (house office building) only to run into a HUGEpro-life protest at supreme court.. Its like 70% white kids under 25
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johnnynva: is navigating through the mass of Pro Life people in DC…not the best day for siteseeing

 

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Z_Everson: Union Station DC teeming with pro-life high school students; based on their signs, some would be better off back in biology class
  

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RaptorH: Scary – the park across from my office now swarming with pro-lifemarchers getting on their buses to go home.
  

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Timothyjemal: Watching a massive pro-life demonstration on Capitol Hill.

It also looks like there needs to be a lot more education, particularly when it comes to FOCA:
  

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nicolebaker: I actually support FOCA – easier access to birth control would result in fewer abortions. That should appease both pro-life and pro-choice

January 19, 2009
by Chris Arsenault
Comments Off on We love someone for who they are – not what they do

We love someone for who they are – not what they do

I awoke with this crystal clear realization this morning.  (It seems obvious, but bear with me for a moment.)

While it’s easy to grasp, this principle is incredibly hard to live out in our lives with others. Expectations and wrong doing have to be set aside, if love is to be.

It is also a profound fundamental truth which our identity as human beings is based upon: who we are – not how we function.

That’s a very simple, but elegant argument for the humanity of the unborn based on our understanding of love.

January 18, 2009
by Chris Arsenault
Comments Off on Timeless pictures

Timeless pictures

Yesterday, my wife Donna was viewing online stock photography, overwhelmed by the sheer number and similarities of the photos available. She remarked how the presence of people made each shot unique.

Her commentary lead me to consider how we view photography in a functional sense as a culture, particularly when it comes to sharing photos among friends and loved ones. People now share cellphone photos of their meals, outings and gatherings. Among the younger crowd, photos are almost ubiquitous as the social networking sites themselves. Photos of the moment, shared in the moment.  With photography so common, its true value may go unnoticed. 

The photo at left is from Donna’s first roll of film as a photography student. Of the 21 viewable shots on the roll, eight were absolutely precious.

Such captivating, interacting imagery lead to our starting a photography business in 2001. But while attending our first photographer’s convention, we got a snapshot of the good and evil in man’s heart: 9/11. 

On that day, our early morning sessions were filled with beautiful family photography celebrating the joy of life, while tragedy and heroism unfolded 133 miles away. The event touched many – our photo equipment vendor lost his wife that morning. 

The imagery of that day affected us deeply as individuals, but I believe it also transformed us as a culture: we’ve become reflexively journalistic. Digital technology has further eroded the value of photography as an art, because it allows instantaneous sharing. As journalists, we chronicle our lives and all too quickly one photo piles over the next.

I know about photo piles, I have 28,000+ digital photos I need to sort. Yet, quantity isn’t important – it’s what they depict, particularly when it comes to family relationships.

Family photos aren’t merely for now – but for the generations which follow. The true value is not horizontal, sharing with peers who also attended the event, but vertically through time, for the generations yet to be born. Great photos tell stories that transcend time, and to which unborn generations can point and proudly say – the love shown in that photo lead to me. 

Fully being in the moment should reflect that sense of infinity, that timelessness.  The name of God in the Old Testament, the tetragrammaton, or YHWH, reflects a sense of infinity that our English translations poorly express. We simply place God in the ever present, by calling him I AM.  But to understand the ever present as simply here and now, like an event photo to share among friends, is to miss God’s holiness.

By combining the horizontal understanding of sharing with our current generation, while considering vertically sharing with future generations, we end up with a deep rich understanding that we’re made in God’s holy image.  

That intersection also depicts a truly timeless, unforgettable picture of love :  Christ on the cross.

January 13, 2009
by Chris Arsenault
Comments Off on An unexpected pregnancy is like…

An unexpected pregnancy is like…

…tumbling off a cliff, out of control.

All you know is you’re falling.

Yet, if you gain control by stretching your wings and going with it, you’ll find a thrill that will last a lifetime.


wingsuit base jumping from Ali on Vimeo.

Life seems to pass that fast, especially with kids, but I wouldn’t trade it for the world.

What if pregnancy resource centers and the pro-life movement introduced edgier advertising for the guys?

What if new dads were able to see life choices not as dead ends, but as an opportunity to stretch their wings and gain the excitement of watching their unborn children grow up and learn how to fly?

Reminds me of a song: Mark Harris – Find your wings   

Of course, there’s also the flip side – they might not want the child so they can go base-jumping.

It’s all in the way it’s presented: being in the moment and very real.

Making the connections:

This morning’s email introduced a new follower on twitter: @TheRobertD. Upon visiting his tweets I found him pointing to this cool video. Robert works with Andy Andrews, who I recently came across, also through twitter.  Andy is a great motivational speaker and storyteller.  Here’s a sampling of some of Andy Andrews videos so you can judge for yourself.   Truth be told, I never would have put unexpected pregnancies, base-jumping and life changing decisions together without Robert’s tweet. 

And like some of the guys in the video, I’m excited by what God has been showing me over the last few weeks.

January 10, 2009
by Chris Arsenault
Comments Off on Twitter, browsing and life

Twitter, browsing and life

Just did a little early morning browsing through twitter and I came away encouraged.  It’s like wandering through a timeless party with little conversations all around. It’s wonderful to see small, appropriate signs of affection here and there.

Being the geek that I am, I’m sitting here thinking about the network I’ve been wandering. Instead of Kevin Bacon, you could say I’ve been exploring the 6 degrees of Michael Hyatt – a primary take-off point for me.

I’m fascinated that as I branch out further along the tree, the same qualities which make the tweets fun and playful continue to be repeated. I have an idea about why that would be so.  Part of it may be careful selection of who to follow, but I also think in part it may be an effort to put our best face forward. 

I’ve been thinking about how our cultural changes have been undermining our trust in practically everything.  The internet has made it possible to do background checks on everyone and every company. Who hasn’t googled someone to see where they’re coming from?  The whole social networking meme seems to be a reaction to this degree of distrust.  The Cluetrain Manifesto authors pointed at the conversation, but the implications are still unfolding in ways the authors didn’t foresee. Markets aren’t only about tangible economic products, they include knowledge as well.

Last night my son and I were talking about how socially networked students are wiping out classes for certain professors – no one is signing up.   I said “that’s democracy in action – total anarchy”.  He didn’t understand what I meant.   So I explained, when students discover that they collectively control the classes (as a mass market) then professors get dumped. There may be very good reasons why the professor is on the faculty, which requires maturity to understand, but the students, as a mass market reject the wisdom of the elders, and effectively the manner in which such decisions are made. 

Don’t get me wrong – no one wants horrible professors teaching subjects that aren’t relevant, but social networks have a power that can be harnessed for good or evil.

Thankfully, I’m seeing good.

January 7, 2009
by Chris Arsenault
Comments Off on Could the Yellowstone supervolcano blow up?

Could the Yellowstone supervolcano blow up?

Over the past few days I’ve read several articles on activity in Yellowstone – what’s called a “swarm” of earthquakes.  There has been considerable interest from both professionals and web-based amateurs – (I respect  high quality, dedicated amateurs).  The interest is growing.

If the volcano did blow, it would catastrophically alter the entire world.  I didn’t immediately understand what that meant:

Yellowstone Supervolcano Earthquakes: Update

by James Pethokoukis

A visit to Google Maps focused on Yellowstone and a zoom in (and then out) to understand the caldera gave me a wide-eye opening perspective on the enormity of the potential being discussed, in a way static imagery could not convey.  Using the measurement tool, I drew a 100 mile radius from the top of the lake, and it hinted that certain geological formations may have been from prior eruptions.  The scale is mind-boggling, and Google’s satellite map view now conveys a degree of reality that intensifies the meaning. 

One could quote Scripture,  describe God’s judgment, declare apocalyptic visions etc, but the reality is, any serious eruption would wipe out the agricultural productivity of the American breadbasket.  Huge herds of cattle and farm animals would be wiped out, and air travel would be radically altered for years. Atmospheric conditions would change considerably.  Death, starvation and all such outcomes came into sharp focus.  The political repercussions of how the end times scenarios would take place seem more possible now.

Often we read words, not comprehending the physical reality they represent, unless we can imagine/picture the result and what that would mean.   Christ’s death on the cross is easy to trivialize unless you imagine what it’s like to lie there with hammer blows driving nails through your wrists. 

Matthew 24 took on a whole new meaning this morning.

January 6, 2009
by Chris Arsenault
Comments Off on Twitter Usage – QuickTweets

Twitter Usage – QuickTweets

Writing tweets indicating where you are focused in a browser requires effort.

How about a bookmark bar script that takes the current front URL, makes it tiny, inserts it into a tweet dialog, you write comment and off it goes?

Has this been done yet?

January 5, 2009
by Chris Arsenault
1 Comment

Common Ground without Compromise

Back in the Fall of 2006, I had the pleasure of meeting Steve Wagner, who came to speak at the CareNet Annual Banquet on the importance defending the sanctity of life.  Recently, Steve moved over to Justice for All as their Director of Education. 

Steve has written a book called Common Ground without Compromise:  25 questions to create Dialogue on Abortion. 

I’m in the process of reading it – if reading is the right word (reflecting is more like it).  I want to borrow a tactic from the book and wait until I’ve finished reading and provided the serious consideration that the book deserves prior to giving it an intended review. 

I will hint that the direction this book is guiding is to seriously rethink my approach to debating the whole issue of human rights when it comes to life and the medical procedure of abortion.

Should be interesting to share reactions.

January 4, 2009
by Chris Arsenault
Comments Off on Focusing on the enduring when planning change

Focusing on the enduring when planning change

After a lot of reflection over the last week or so, I keep coming back to the central blog themes – endurance, legacy and looking towards a hope that never disappears. Hope that is more than an illusion, or an expedient campaign slogan.

Speaking about disappearing, it’s rather hard not to consider all the various indicators in the Bible, and what could be their fulfillment, given what’s happening with Israel, and how the end-times are supposed to play out.

I’m also quite aware that whatever plans I make, unless they are of God’s will, they won’t endure.  That may seem obvious, but I was strongly reminded, plans can’t be rigid or they break – as if 1 Corinthians 3:12-15 doesn’t make that clear enough!

This blog has been incredibly political over the last election cycle, and my effort to categorize and tag my posts revealed that direction in the tag cloud.  I’d rather express greater contrast between the deeply hidden despair of humanity vs real freedom in Christ, making it profoundly visible. 

Distractions have a way of stealing the time away, and perhaps that’s a new step off point for reflection – discerning between a distraction and genuine concern via God’s Word.

If I seek and gain God’s wisdom instead of man’s, I know I’ll have one more thing that will endure forever.