i spent a few days this week, enjoying my break before returning to the office, sitting uptown – doing some reading, drinking coffee and chatting with random people as they came by.

a few times, i was simply watching people as they walked by – some on a break from others, others running errands and some just filling the void.  about 8 of every 10 people that walked by had their faces buried in phone.

are we really that busy?  i was joking with a friend the other night, remembering the first time my parents got a cell phone – it was huge!  i’m not sure that we ever figured out how to use it and the signal was never that good – it was still cool to be able to say that we had a phone in the car.

remember when people would say “hi” to each other as they passed on the sidewalks?  now, we text/email/facebook/tweet.  those are great and i use them too and i’ve been part of the crowd with my face buried.  i feel rebellion stirring within me.  why should everyone have constant contact and access to me – 24/7.

i want to look around while i’m walking and say hi.  i want to see the world and not just read about it through someone’s status update.  i want to hear how people are doing, in more than 140 characters.

can we find the balance?  i want to try.  you might call, email, text or message and have to wait for a reply – i might be reconnecting.  i’ll get back to you, maybe we can meet face-to-face.

pay $5, wear jeans and support the iwk children’s hospital.  if you’d likely be wearing jeans anyway, give the $5 and support the iwk anyway.

miraclejeansday.com

Barbie gets ordained, and has the smells-and-bells wardrobe to match

By Leanne Larmondin

(RNS) With her careers as veterinarian, astronaut and U.S. president behind her, Barbie has at last found her true calling: as a second-career Episcopal priest.

The 11.5-inch-tall fictional graduate of Church Divinity School of the Pacific in Berkeley, Calif., has donned a cassock and surplice and is rector at St. Barbara’s-by-the-Sea in (where else?) Malibu, Calif.

She arrived at the church fully accessorized, as is Barbie’s custom. Her impeccably tailored ecclesiastical vestments include various colored chasubles (the sleeveless vestments worn at Mass) for every liturgical season, black clergy shirt with white collar, neat skirt and heels, a laptop with prepared sermon and a miniature, genuine Bible.

Apparently a devotee of the “smells and bells” of High Church tradition, the Rev. Barbie even has a tiny thurible, a metal vessel used for sending clouds of incense wafting toward heaven.

The Rev. Barbie, who in less than a week had drawn nearly 3,000 friends on her Facebook page, spends most of her time in the office of the Rev. Dena Cleaver-Bartholomew, rector of Christ (Episcopal) Church, in Manlius, N.Y., near Syracuse.

The doll, her wardrobe and portable sacristy were a gift from Cleaver-Bartholomew’s friend, the Rev. Julie Blake Fisher, a priest in Kent, Ohio.

“I got a phone call from my husband who said a large package had arrived;Julie had told me that she was making something for me. She used to be a dressmaker and she makes gorgeous stoles, so I thought she was making me a stole,” said Cleaver-Bartholomew. “When I came home and there was this enormous box, I knew it wasn’t just a stole!”

Fisher had made Episcopal Priest Barbie and a few vestments two years ago for the children in her parish to dress.

“I thought the children would like to practice playing with the vestments and learning what they are,” said Fisher. The Rev. Barbie was a hit with both the children and a local group of women clergy, including Cleaver-Bartholomew.

When Cleaver-Bartholomew later got called to her parish in New York, Fisher knew the perfect gift for her friend.

“I thought, `I don’t have time to make her one of her own; I’ll just send her Episcopal Priest Barbie for her farewell gift,”’ said Fisher. “But then, when I sat down to start to package everything up, I thought `What if I added this? What if I added that? What if I made this? It would just take one more day.“‘

One more day turned into 100 hours of painstaking labor, and “before I knew it, it was Episcopal Church Barbie—High Church Edition,” Fisher said.

Barbie’s clergy garb is the real deal, made from dress patterns that were crafted or adapted by Fisher. Barbie’s collared blouse was cut down from the fabric of a genuine clergy shirt; the chasubles and alb are made from real silk and linens. Her capa nigra (black funeral cloak) sports pewter buttons. Her nearly-complete Bible was originally sold as a keychain. The thurible was crafted from a teeny tea ball.

Episcopal Church Barbie’s popularity exploded after she got a shout-out on the popular blog, BeautyTipsforMinisters.com. A “Friends of Episcopal Priest Barbie” Facebook group has grown exponentially since its March 31 inception.

Many of the Rev. Barbie’s online admirers asked about her career aspirations.

“How long till she is Bishop Barbie?” asked one.

Fisher has found a calling of her own: She responded that her next project will be Episcopal Priest Barbie: Cathedral Edition. She promises an African-American Bishop Barbie, a Hispanic Ken doll who will be cathedral dean (rector) and his African-American friend, Stephen, will be a deacon. Barbie’s little sister, Kelly, will be an acolyte.

For her part, Cleaver-Bartholomew thinks Barbie could be a tool for evangelism for the Episcopal Church—particularly for conveying that “we have a sense of humor, we can be fun.

“Barbie’s very versatile that way,” said Cleaver-Bartholomew. “She’s open to new possibilities, so evangelism is definitely in her future.”

An intelligent, imaginative, hospitable exploration of ideas that matter in contemporary life. Join us around the hearth every month to hear lively conversation about culture, music, art, books, and the ideas impacting today’s world.

i’m listening to their first podcast, discussing movies from the past year.

h/t jonnybaker

finally!

apple has heard the cries and laments of the iphone 3g users and they have created an update that will enable coping and pasting and the landscape keyboard for use in mail.

thank you apple!

read more here

thoughts?

pasted below is a short article printed by the sarnia observer.

Joe Manafo spent 18 months travelling the country to learn how people who don’t fit into the mould of traditional Christian worship celebrate their faith.

He spent $6,000 and, with video camera, visited every province except Newfoundland and Labrador, talking with people trying to find alternatives.

“These are churches and groups that, while the message is the same, the way it’s played out is completely different than an everyday church,” he said.

The result is a 45-minute documentary called, “One size fits all?” Manafo is planning a Sarnia showing in early 2009, but the specifics haven’t been determined.

One place Manafo encountered in Kitchener put on punk, metal, country or ska concerts four nights a week to pay the bills. And there are numerous other approaches to connect with people disenchanted with traditional church models, he said.

“That’s not to say that I’m making a movie about churches that are doing things right. There’s just a different flavour, a different style. They’re doing their thing, reaching their crowd, while these other, more established, mainline churches are serving their crowds.”

The alternate churches also tend to cut through what Manafo calls “pop Christianity,” worship that is plastic, all shine and only on the surface.

“Whereas more normal, more established churches are pretty much straight up, stoic perhaps, very much locked into a pattern, these churches are very experimental in nature,” he said.

“These communities very much connect with a crowd of people that wouldn’t necessarily fit in ‘normal churches,’” he said. “And they’re learning to, I guess, express their faith . . . with God in ways that are unconventional.”

Manafo is no stranger to the short film and documentary genre. In fact, he helped organize the popular Sarnia Short Film Festival this past fall.

He is also a “church planter” and is responsible for The Story, an alternative start-up church in Sarnia on Christina Street.