Wayne D's Blog

May you live in interesting times, can be either a curse or a statement of hope. The Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada (ELCIC) has been following a halting path over the ordination of openly gay and lesbian candidates for clergy for a number of years, wrapped up in this has also been a discussion on the blessing of same sex unions. At the Eastern Synod convention in 2006 the assembly voted to allow a “local option” on the blessing of same sex unions. The National Convention of the ELCIC in 2007 overruled the Eastern Synod to maintain the status quo. No one expects the issue of the treatment of gay and lesbian members of the church to go away. Now one congregation in the Eastern Synod has decided to take a bold step and call an openly gay candidate to minister to their congregation. Where will this action lead? With an Eastern Synod convention coming in July 2008 and a ELCIC National convention in 2009 there are surely interesting times ahead.

I asked a learned friend of mine to comment on where he thought these actions might lead, his thoughts follow. I encourage everyone to leave comments, but I will delete comments that are disrespectful or inflammatory.

Throughout the history of the Lutheran presence in North America we have gravitated to, and represented our interests in, different synods. Early immigration followed distinct European interests and language was one of the primary dividing factors between Lutherans. Over the years we have seen that language is not the only divisive force. Opposing, strongly held points of view have divided Christian denominations in North America over issues of slavery, segregation and civil rights, and the ordination of women, to name a few. Today, Lutherans, and others are working through the issue of same sex blessings and the inclusion and ordination of people of non-heterosexual orientation.

It is not a bad thing to have strongly held views. Many would say that a lot of children today would benefit from parents who had more strongly held views. But judgmentalism and exclusion are not the Christian destination of strongly held views. Jesus had strongly held views that led him to inclusion and restoration, not condemnation; but he was much better at discerning the will of God than any of us ever will be.

So how do we as people of God reconcile our opposing, strongly held views. Neither side of the argument wants to be wrong, neither side wants to compromise. These positions are understandable and sadly human. Lionel Ketola just may show us a new solution. Educated at Lutheran Theological Seminary at Saskatoon during the 1980s, Lionel's ordination path was halted for fourteen years when he came out to his bishop. According to Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries (www.elm.org) Lionel recently completed an internship and has now been called as associate pastor to Holy Cross Lutheran Church in Newmarket, Ontario (ELCIC).

The people of Holy Cross are putting feet to their strongly held views and by 'pushing the envelope' seem certain to bring this issue to a head. There is little doubt in the writer's mind that motions both for and against will be prevalent at the next convention of the Eastern Synod as well as the next National convention of the ELCIC. What will be the result?

Should two or three more churches follow Holy Cross it seems to me they would be in a position to declare themselves a distinct Lutheran body and then perhaps enter into synodical relations (friendly or not) with other Lutheran bodies. Perhaps they would be the Open Lutheran Church in Canada (OLCIC). Looking at an even bigger picture, our Anglican friends are in the middle of their own turmoil over the same issue. Perhaps we will see a redrawing of synodical lines on a multi-denominational basis – that certainly casts a new light on ecumenism!

Why don't I sound worried? In spite of the worst efforts of us petty and often idiotic humans to control and browbeat each other, the Holy Spirit keeps the church alive. Where we can only see impasse God sees opportunity. What we hear as the last, dying toll of the bell God hears as the fresh ting of new beginnings. When we declare something dead and gone forever, God says, “OK, now let's start something fantastic”. God's church will never die. So be it. Amen

I made a quick trip to Doral Golf Resort and Spa in Miami for a day and a half this week to attend a conference. It was hot and humid, visting Florida isn't as fun when it isn't snowing and blowing outside. The weather here is actually quite pleasant though I understand there wet snow flurries are in the forecast for Monday or Tuesday. When I got back it was off to the woods for a camping trip with the Explorer troop. I think I am getting crotchety in my old age because the two inch thick Thermarest wannabee I use as an air mattress doesn't seem to be that comfortable anymore. I wake up stiff and sore in the morning, as well as waking up every time I have to roll over. Thankfully the weather has turned warm so at least I wasn't cold like the last time. Even after taking a shower I can still smell the wood smoke.

I was surprised to have to pay for wifi access at Doral, you think that they could throw in free internet but it was 12.95 a day for a wired internet. The hotel I stayed at in Orlando in January had free wifi while the motel in Boston threw in free wired high speed access. Why is it the more you pay the less you seem to get?

Short post for now, I'm off to visit my brother.

This blog posting will not have a happy ending, if this disturbs you stop reading now.

No one would ever accuse me of being fashionable. I have simple tastes in clothes and generally wear cotton khaki pants to work. I have worn out out a couple of pairs and gritted my teeth in preparation of entering the retail maelstrom. In the past I have purchased said pants at Walmart because they are cheap. I hate the Walmart experience,especially the long lines to check out. The problem with pants shopping is that I am tall and I generally find it hard to get pants in my size. I can tolerate searching through stacks of pants that are sorted in no discernable order because the prices are so low at Walmat. The other night on the way home from work I stopped at the nearby Walmart and managed to find one pair of pants in my size. I took them to the change room only to find that the zipper was hopelessly jammed. To add insult to injury when I checked out the other items I had purchased I first went to a self serve checkoot where the previous shopper had left her purchases without finishing the transaction while she checked a price. I of course didn't realize this until I had already added my purchase to her bill.

Today I went to another Walmart and managed to find one pair of pants in my size. The Sunday afternoon business of the store also meant there were long lineups at the cash registers but a couple of the garden centre employees had jumped in to help speed up the checkout process at the express checkout area. One pair of pants were not enough so it was off to Zellers where I found that their khaki pants were a mostly polyester/cottom blend. Sigh. Nothing at Roots, when I went to the Gap they had stacks of $60 khaki's for sale. I was willing to pay the $60 dollars but I was not willing to wade through the stacks to find my elusive and probably nonexistent size. I checked the Bay and it was the same except that the pants were even more expensive. Stacks of pants for me to wade through with hard to find size tags. Hint to retailers, want me to buy your pants? Make it easier for me to find my size.

After my only partially fruitful shopping trip I stopped by my local for a calming libation. Of the three TV's over thee bar one was stuck in an endless Windows crash loop. It would start, then crash, sit at a screen asking if it should submit the error report for two or three minutes, then restart and crash again. While the crash screen was up we were treated to a view of the XML configuration file for the program which was called Buster. Perhaps they should have called it busted, I got a sor neck from having to watch the hockey game on another screen.

Posting this now, it's too bright to proofread effectively but I will fix up the major groaners later. Eeek, blogging outside produced a massive number of spelling errors, if you read this before I fixed it up I apologize.

I was ready to write the epitaph for Yahoo Live and then I went there last night. After a promising beginning it had degenerated to, at least on the nights I was there, a wild west, shoot 'em up, anything goes mentality. Women were targeted by roving groups of goons who would flood into a channel and demand the disrobing of the channel's owner. Requests for various things to be placed on heads were also common. Many women have made their rooms private so they don't show up on the public room screen. The sense of community that seemed to exist in the early life of Yahoo Live had disappeared. Then last night I went into the channel of a woman I had met in the heady early days. The expected rush of goon's never appeared. Why not, did they have better things to do on a Saturday night? Was it an aberration on Yahoo Live's descent into anarchy? Only time will tell.

Even it's current state of technical brokenness and dysfunctional community Yahoo Live is a fascinating place. The personalities that can survive in the maelstrom are more entertaining than anything on network TV. My advice to Yahoo, divide Yahoo Live into two sections, a heavily moderated and controlled side and an unmoderated and uncontrolled side.Users could then choose where they wanted to hang out. If Yahoo doesn't do something I expect Yahoo Live will go the way of Yahoo's user created chatrooms which were shut down by Yahoo because of their inabilty to control the activity that took place in them. Yahoo's track record doesn't give me much hope, they seem to have a hard time translating good ideas into something they can monetize. Yahoo 360 is a prime example of this, Yahoo bailed on that project and left their users hanging. I expect the same will happeen with Yahoo Live and it will be a shame.

I'm in the midst of downloading my emusic songs for the month and I decided to add Geoff Smith to the list for this month. I first ran into Geoff's music when he performed a song for Cali Lewis on Geekbrief about the big publishing of the encryption key for HD DVD or Bluray or whatever. I follow Cali on Twitter so when she mentioned that Geoff was holding an online benefit concert to get his wife's wisdom teeth removed. I thought to help I'd download his album from emusic this month. I don't know what an artist's cut is from emusic but I figured it couldn't hurt. You can watch the video from the concert on ustream or play it below.

Updated May 1, breaking news,
Emusic really does like me
A few months ago I applied to emusic's program to put an affiliate link on my website. When I decided to write this post I thought I should go back and check to see what was going on. Turns out they turned me down, so now I am a bit miffed. They didn't even bother to send me a notification of why. I guess my little old blog is just small potatoes for them. I understand if that's the case but even a form email would have been better than nothing. I have talked up emusic and recommended people sign up and this blog is not a link farm so what's their problem? Unfortunately while clicking around I accidentally applied again. What do I do if they approve me this time?

I have lots of blog posts aching to get out so the week long dry spell shouldn't occur again. Now I'm off to add a message board to myyahoolive.com which was going to be the subject of this post until I sat down to write. Stay tuned for why I think Yahoo Live is dead.