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Name: matthew
Country: United States
State: New York
Metro: Long Island
Birthday: 9/2/1984
Gender: Male
Interests: the phenomenon of time, the metric system, musical texture
Expertise: long island highways, boggle, "being" college
Occupation: Student
Industry: Art
Message: message me
Website: visit my website
Member Since:
10/12/2004
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| i just want to say that it is nice to know other people with nerdy
interests like my own, even if i cannot fully pursue nerdy interests
fully since i am now out of academia and part of the "real
world." i even have my own apartment now.
my cousin sent me a facebook message to talk about the emerging church, because she just so happens to go to doug pagitt's church in minneapolis, and she was reading a book by brian mclaren,
who is kind of like an emerging church guru/sage (or evil sorceror,
depending on your viewpoint). pagitt and mclaren have both
received a lot (ok, tons) of flak from the "good ol' boys" that are
suspicious of all things "emerging," but i haven't had any direct
encounter with their books yet, so maybe this will be the start of an
interesting "conversation."
and even better, susanna sent me an email about holy saturday in which she wished me a happy day of liminality, which really warmed the cockles of my heart.
china in 3 weeks.
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| i think i might have just discovered my "favorite" music video. i actually thought at first it could have worked as a travel advertisement for iceland, until the "plot" got a bit more involved. what a good band.
http://www.sigur-ros.co.uk/band/disco/takk-glosoli.php
check it out. thoughts? interpretations?
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thanks to everyone for your verbose responses in the last discussion about so-called (sub)urban wasteland(s) and the delights/challenges of living in them. when i was younger i don't think i ever anticipated discussing REAL ESTATE over the INTERNET as a young adult. but a lot of you have made an interesting point -- the prospect of moving into the city presents many of us with a troublesome dichotomy: either choose an extremely low-income, possibly dangerous, possibly not-the-best-education-for-your-kids neighborhood and live there intentionally/missionally because you feel it is your absolute calling to serve the inner city, or choose a gentrified neighborhood and have to spend literally all of your hard-saved cash to live in a box condo surrounded by, to use debo's term, "yuppiedom." perhaps the bigger the city is, the more this dichotomy fades into a spectrum of grays; new york has many "mixed" neighborhoods where you can bunk with both the desperately poor and the desperately hip/yuppie for a medium price (alphabet city in the east village, where my church has been spending some time with the homeless lately, is a good example). and in new york, you've got your choice of suburbs -- either live WAY out in long island or new jersey over an hour from the city in the sorts of places you've described (cheap, safe, family-fostering) or try to hack it in the suburbs any distance closer than that, where a house will cost you half a million at minimum. which is why there aren't too many young people that live on their own in my area (they live with their parents or at best get a bunch of roommates and share a basement apartment), which is why (at least for one reason) there aren't too many young people at my church. but that's another discussion altogether....
anyway, i don't actually know all that much about real estate, urban development, or (perhaps most importantly) having kids, so this discussion is amateur at best. still, i'm strangely interested in people's choices regarding urban vs. suburban and how the options play out in your corners of the country, so if you've got more thoughts then keep them coming.
in other news, i am the "guest speaker" for our youth group's famed winter retreat this weekend, the retreat that was easily the greatest weekend-long highlight for every year during my high school life. i think "guest speaker" is a bit of a misnomer since i WORK at the church, but oh well. on this retreat, i plan to tell goofy stories, dress in goofy clothes, and also talk about important theological concepts in language that's as simple as possible, all in the hope that teenagers will think twice about Jesus. i'm feeling pretty unsuited for the job -- when i was younger i really put the people that speak at these types of things up on pedastals, and now i'm one of them? but i take a lot of comfort in the fact that it is God's thing, not mine. in fact, i hope that i'm completely forgettable, as long as the gospel isn't. anyway, i think i will also be shaving my hair into (another) mullet on this trip, all in the name of encouraging kids to read their bibles every day or something like that. have i really become THAT youth leader? and must i now grow a bona fide goatee to secure my place in mid-twenties Christian youth-leaderdom?
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| hello again to the xanga galaxy. i think i have missed you.
i want to write because i have been thinking about cities (when do i not?), and more specifically, the (supposed) benefits or disadvantages with moving into urban areas... especially for christians, and for people who have grown up in the 'burbs. i asked a couple of the pastors at my church who have young kids how comfortable they would feel with raising their kids in manhattan, brooklyn, or queens. they responded that in their opinion it would be incredibly difficult because they would have to take extra precautions for their children's safety and because they definitely wouldn't want to send them to public schools -- so it would all depend on the possibility of private schools. i then asked if they thought that continuing to live in the comfortable suburbs just perpetuates the problem of the city's being unsafe and unable to provide good educational opportunities for children -- if by a movement of strong-willed people commmitting themselves to the urban neighborhoods, we might possibly "be the change" we wish to see in the city, or if its problems are too structural and institutional to see transormation in our lifetimes. they sort of shrugged the question off -- i think i must have sounded a little too accusing because they were quick to say "well, there is ministry work that needs to be done in every place and while urban areas and suburban areas have different issues, they both need Christ."
and that's true. but i wonder why the majority of people who grow up in the surburbs and came to faith in the suburbs seemingly automatically start their families in the suburbs too -- am i alone in being attracted to the amenities of the city? the economic and racial diversity and meaningful social interactions that reside in true "neighborhoods?" the exchange of commerce and ideas that flow from cities into all areas of the country (forgive my oversimplifications)? the institutions, libraries, culture, art? the simplicity of forsaking the car (and the idol of individualism that it perpetuates) and embracing the great societal equalizer and more-environmentally-friendly system of public transportation? now i know there are great advantages to suburbs and that i'm a little biased by having a crush on cities and naively thinking that living in them is cool and hip and poses few insurmountable difficulties. were i to reside in NYC for a while i'm sure my view would be modified.
but here is my question, especially for all of you education- and urban planning-minded people. for YOU, do you think it really is possible to make the cities better places by very means of our involvement in them? does this hold some sort of inherent prejudice along the lines of "we have the capital and agency to live in more affluent suburbs but we will condescend to the cities to help them?" or is it actually desirable and edifying to try to reverse the escapism (whether it's intentional or not!) that motivates suburban flight? what do you want to do, where do you want to live, why or why not will you embrace or avoid cities?
i'm curious.
hopefully more posts to come soon.
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| You could come hear Chris Mann (and I) perform at Sin-E, the cafe where the one and only Jeff Buckley got his start.
Saturday, August 26
8:00pm
150 Attorney St. at Stanton St. (Lower East Side, 2 blocks North of Williamsburg Bridge)
An evening full of pop, soul, jazz, and of course, Franglais covers of old lounge tunes.
http://www.sin-e.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Live_at_Sin-%C3%A9
http://www.chrismannmusic.com
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