This Sunday I preached about the Gospel call to be "in the world" but not "of the world." That means that Christians are called to be intentionally marginal, occupying a place between this world and the heavenly kingdom. In that sense we are continuing the work of Christ, who also mediated that divide. I argue that virtually is called to live on the edge of life in this way in one part of life or another, it's part of being human, as so we can take comfort and insight from other examples. Poets and teachers also abide in this place of bridging the divide between the collective experience and something they alone have ventured forth to be learn. What is unique about the Christian vocation is that we do this bridging as a holy act that transcends the metaphysical divide between the universe and its creator.
It was a busy Sunday morning for me. Lots of stuff going on right now. I often wish I could be in more than one place at once. I'm really pleased with some of the changes I've seen around here. Lots of warmth and holiness. When asked about his impression, a visitor on Sunday said that it struck him as a very warm and friendly place. Bingo! I want to build this place on love.
*PS for liturgical purists: the still photo I used above is from Palm Sunday, hence the red stole. In the video you'll see I'm wearing the correct color--white.
Today I spent some time in the office answering e-mails, a few phone calls, and I made a pastoral visit.
I can't really talk about the interesting adventure that was that pastoral visit (ever put together shelves on such a visit). So instead I'll talk about the interesting adventure that is the new Adobe CS4 Suite. This is a set of professional-level programmes for producing all kinds of media including websites (Dreamweaver), photos (Photoshop), movies (Premiere Pro), etc. I've been using CS3 for a while, but there are at least three features I found missing, all of which have been resolved with the latest version.
First, the old version of the Adobe Suite did not have the ability to take advantage of the complete power of my workstation (ORAC)--principally in that it didn't take advantage of the 64-bit architecture (though most of the suite was able to use the four-processors simultaneously). The new version makes much more efficient use of the latest processors/operating systems.
Second, I was always frustrated that Premiere Pro Couldn't import the MP4 files from my Flip HD camera. The Flip Cam takes surprisingly good footage considering that it is very small (easily fits in a chest pocket), but I was limited to using the editing software that came with the camera. I had yet to find a good (lossless) way to convert the footage into a format Premiere Pro could work with. So it was good for spontaneous, informal video snapshots, but that was it. Now, however, that problem with CS4 is solved! It has no problem at all taking the footage at 720p and editing it.
Third, here is a feature I didn't know I wanted until someone invented it: speech recognition. Basically, CS4 can create a transcription of the speech in a video that is then searchable as meta-data. Searchable not only from within Premiere Pro, but from within other programmes like Adobe Bridge. Imagine you just shot a three hour interview with two cameras. That's six hours of footage, and you want to find where your subject said something distinctive like, "it was at that moment that I knew that pickles are good in hamburgers." Rather than have to "scrub" (fast forward) through hours of footage, you can simply search through the automatically generated transcript! How cool is that? Here's a demo:
There are lots of other improvements, as well. The media encoder is much improved, especially because you can have it running in the background while you do other work. There are also a lot more pre-sets and options for importing and exporting data. it's all very, very cool.
So a few weeks ago I was tasked with finding out which churches in this Episcopal Area of the Diocese would be participating in the Back to Church Sunday Programme. This a programme where churches ask their parishioners to invite someone to come to church with them on a particular Sunday (this year: September 27). My task was to find out which churches would be participating and how many pre-printed invitations they would need.
So I dutifully printed off a contact list of some 60 parishes that might participated and started calling them. Mostly I got answering machines--which made for some interesting listening. Most were up to date, but some still had Holy Week information or obviously hadn't been changed since shortly after Christmas ("...and we wish you a happy New Year"). The tone of voice on some messages was extremely off-putting while others made me genuinely want to try their worship. It's a good exercise to remind oneself how important the voicemail message on a church answering machine can be!
I was able to get a hold of most churches within the first week or so. They called me back or I got them on the first try. No problem.
But it's been several weeks now and there are still 13 parishes that haven't called me back. In the mean time I've left two more messages (for a total of three messages in three weeks). You might think that the culprits would be really busy priests without support staff--or bad answering machines. But, in fact, some of the worst offenders are some of the largest churches in the Diocese! I'm leaving messages with real people, but the priests aren't calling me back! I don't think it's a personal thing--I hardly know these folks. Rather, I think it's a good indication of just how focused churches can become on their own little patch of garden. They really can't be bothered talking about anything else (even if it has the potential to benefit their parish). It's all quite fascinating and somewhat annoying! This would be unacceptable in some large corporation--but we expect far less professionalism in the church, I'm afraid!
More proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy
It will surprise no one that reads this blog that I'm a fan of hot sauces. I love strong tastes, and have a higher-than-average tolerance for hot foods. So I was delighted to see this article about the ubiquitous Sriracha hot sauce (pronounced "SIR-rotch-ah"). You might think this was a traditonal Thai sauce, but actually it "may be best understood as an American sauce, a polyglot purée with roots in different places and peoples" (source).
Part of what makes Sriracha superior for many applications than, say, Frank's or Tabasco(*) is that it doesn't have the acidity of those vinegar-based hot sauces. It's more a blended chili-garlic-salt kind stuff. Many restaurants, even high-end ones, will use Sriracha in hollandaise or frying-batters.
The NYTimes article interviewed the inventor, Vietnam-born Chinese-American David Tran.
"I made this sauce for the Asian community," Mr. Tran said one recent afternoon, seated at headquarters, near a rooster-shaped crystal sculpture.
"I knew, after the Vietnamese resettled here, that they would want their hot sauce for their pho," a beef broth and noodle soup that is a de facto national dish of Vietnam. "But I wanted something that I could sell to more than just the Vietnamese," he continued.
"After I came to America, after I came to Los Angeles, I remember seeing Heinz 57 ketchup and thinking: ‘The 1984 Olympics are coming. How about I come up with a Tran 84, something I can sell to everyone?’" ...
Multicultural appeal was engineered into the product: the ingredient list on the back of the bottle is written in Vietnamese, Chinese, English, French and Spanish. And serving suggestions include pizzas, hot dogs, hamburgers and, for French speakers, pâtés.(source)
It's a classic immigrant success story, but it's also a fine chili sauce. I particularly like to use it in leftovers and on hot dogs. Here is a recipe that I would like to try...
Pete's Shrimp with Sriracha Cream Sauce over Toast Points
Ingredients 1 Lb Large Shrimp 1 Large Shallot (minced) 4 Cloves Garlic (minced) 1 Large Roasted Red Pepper ¼ cup Diced Sun-dried Tomatoes in Oil 8 oz Stemmed and Sliced Shiitakes Half & Half or Heavy Cream Butter Extra Virgin Olive oil Sriracha Pepper Sauce Salt Black Pepper French Baguette
Directions
Toast some baguette slices cut on the bias.
Coat a sauté pan or saucepan with olive oil and butter, and sweat the shallot and diced red pepper on low heat. After several minutes, add the minced garlic and season with Kosher salt, fresh ground black pepper, and Sriracha.
Once garlic has been cooked, pour the mixture into cup, add heavy cream and puree with immersion blender. Pour the mixture back into the pan and add diced sun dried tomatoes and additional cream if needed. Sautee mushrooms. Let the sauce reduce for approximately ten minutes on low heat adding mushrooms about halfway through. Sauce should coat the back of a spoon when it is ready.
Sautee shrimp in butter then toss with sauce. Pour over baguette toast points.
* Fun Fact: Tabasco is included in about two-thirds of all U.S. Military rations (MRE's) and is served in every Officer's Mess in the Marine Corp. Since the Vietnam War the Tabasco company has been producing "unofficial" cookbooks for troops. I don't know if the Canadian military's version of MRE rations (known is IMP's in the Canadian Military) include Tabasco or not). I've eaten MRE's before--they remind me a lot of airplane food.
The engineering problem of energy storage is very important for making things like Electric Cars and efficient green architecture, etc. Normally you immediately think of batteries. The problem, however, is that batteries are heavy, sensitive to temperature, and require maintenance. Enter the concept of Flywheel Energy Storage.
Now, this is actually a very old idea. My dad has several antique industrial/farm engines that are designed to get a large steel flywheel spinning at a target RPM. The engines then only use fuel to maintain that RPM. As the load on the flywheel increases (that is, as energy is taken out of the wheel) the engine kicks in to compensate. It's a very efficient, simple system.
Now, flash forward to 2009 and the need to be able to store large amounts of energy. Say you need to provide an uninterruptible power supply (UPS) to a hospital or data centre. You might immediately imagine a large diesel engine hooked up to a generator, and then a bunch of (DC) batteries that provide electrical power while the engine gets up to speed in the event of a power failure. But in larger applications (say, when you need to provide 4 Megawatts!), the batteries necessary take up far more room and require much more maintenance than a comparable flywheel system.
So here is a real-world example, the Hitec UPS...
Note how there are actually two different fly wheels going, one that maintains a constant RPM (and is connected to the generator) and one that spins three times faster to store energy necessary to keep the other rotor spinning when no new energy is being put into the system (in other words, in the time between loss of power and the diesel engine firing up).
Another real-world application--transient energy. Imagine that you need to produce brief, extremely high electrical currents for testing circuit breakers. Simply wiring these into the grid and shorting them out would cause a great deal of stress on the utility system. Storing the energy onsite in batteries would take a lot of space and hassle. Instead, you could have a giant flywheel with a motor on one side and a generator on the other. The motor may take several minutes to spin up the fly wheel, but then the energy could be released on the other side in a fraction of a second--effectively making the flywheel into a capacitor.
Can it be used in a house? Sure. Electricity generated from say, photocells, would be used to spin up a flywheel. Then that energy could be drawn off to run the house electricity. Can it be use in a car? Yes. There was at least one proof-of-concept type vehicle made with a drivetrain that used a device like this. And it has been used in race cars to recover energy from breaking. But one of the key issues to be resolved in the gyroscopic effects of having such a large, spinning mass!
I made General Tso's chicken. A different recipe than last time. It turned out pretty well. Here is the new recipe--my favourite so far...
General Tso's Chicken Recipe Number 3
3 lbs boneless skinless chicken breasts, cut into chunks 2 cups green onions, sliced 8 small dried chilies, seeds removed (bird pepper or thai chilies are good) 1 head chopped broccoli --Cornstarch slurry-- 1/4 cup soy sauce, low sodium preferred 1 egg, beaten 1 cup cornstarch --Sauce-- 1/2 cup cornstarch 1/4 cup water 1 1/2 teaspoons fresh garlic, minced 3/4 cup sugar 1/2 cup soy sauce 1/4 cup white vinegar 1/4 cup sherry wine or white wine 14 1/2 ounces chicken broth (a can)
Place sauce ingredients in a quart jar with a lid and shake to mix. If you make this ahead of time just refrigerate until needed, shaking it again when you are ready to use it. This also keeps your dirty dishes down.
Mix cornstarch slurry in a large bowl- the mixture will be strange but trust me it works. It will be VERY thick almost paste like.
Add chicken pieces to coat. Using a fork remove ONE chicken piece at a time and let the excess mixture drip off. YES even though the mixture has a weird consistency it will not stick like paste and the excess will drip off.
Add chicken to the hot (350 degree) oil and fry until crispy. Only cook 7 or 8 chicken pieces at a time. You do not want to raise the temp of the oil by cooking too many at a time. You can use a simple cooking or candy thermometer to judge the temp of the oil.
Drain on paper towels. Keep warm- I just put them in the oven with the oven off. Repeating until all chicken is fried.
In a separate wok or large skillet add a small amount of oil and heat to 400 degrees. Again, a candy thermometer works great. You can fry all the chicken, drain the oil to the desired amount and use the same pan if you like.
Add green onions, hot peppers, and broccoli and stir fry about 30 seconds to one minute.
Stir sauce mixture, and then add to pan with onions and peppers, cook until thick. If it gets too thick, add a little water. The thickness of the sauce should be similar to what you get when ordering this at a restaurant.
Add chicken to sauce in wok, and cook until all is hot and bubbly. The quicker this is done the crispier the chicken stays.
The sauce is particularly close to what you might get in a restaurant, though I found myself wishing I had added more chili and more sugar and had less sauce per the amount of other ingredients. I'll keep experimenting.
I'm tired. it was good to spend some time with my sister and dad but I'm anxious to get home. Unfortunately, this turned out to be a very busy time at COTM so I've got a lot to do when I get home. Thank God my Wardens and Staff are so capable.
I'll be curious about the feedback from the NRA connection. As a parish priest I always have to be careful about what I reveal about myself, as people make a lot of assumptions about how I should act or believe. I've been screamed at on the TTC Subway merely for being an Anglican Priest, even! To tell the truth, it makes me not want to wear my collar around when I'm aware that at any moment I might be verbally attacked. One time an Anglican priest I know was harassed by a woman in an airport who assumed he was Roman Catholic. When she had finished dressing him down for not ordaining women, he said calmly, "Are you finished?" "yes." "Then I should tell you that I'm not Roman Catholic, I'm Anglican. We do ordain women." "I've made a terrible mistake, haven't I?" "yes." "I should go away and sit down, shouldn't I?" "Yes, I think that would be best."
I'm not ashamed of my sister or what she does. And if people want to disagree with me about the rightness of her cause, that's fine. I'm used to holding a lot of opinions that other people disagree with. Even something as simple as my belief in God has gotten me into some heated debates! I've actually taken about as much heat from the "right" from time-to-time as the "left." like I've said, I really have a foot in each world.
I think that this situation will also reveal something of the difference between American and Canadian Culture. Not much I can say about that except to accept that I live in Canada and that's my home! I love Canada, but I'm an American citizen with some of the peculiarities of that culture still embeded in me. Sorry! it is confusing sometimes, I admit, even for me. Living trans-culturally isn't always easy.
So if my time at the NRA convention bothers you, I'm sorry you feel that way. I certainly didn't mean to offend, and I'm not making any statements here about Canada or anything like that. Certainly I'm committed to a peaceful and law-abiding society and believe in a God of Peace and Love. Certainly I think crime and urban violence are terrible things. Sigh. in the end I can only be honest about who I am and where I come from and where I believe I am called to go.
I haven't been posting much because I'm visiting my dad and my sister at the NRA convention in Phoenix, Arizona, this weekend. My sister works for the NRA, so it made sense for the three of us to meet up here. I know that will seem really strange to my Canadian friends and parishioners, but I'm used to maintaining a foot in two worlds.
It's been a series of events for us. Lots of fundraising breakfasts and lunches and dinners. Perhaps the most impressive was tonight's "Celebration of American Values Banquet." There were 6,000 people at that banquet dinner, which is a record for the state of Arizona. It was completely smooth and even delicious. Very polished fundraising operation! The results... in the last two years they've raised something like $110 Million--and that's over and above regular dues to the Association. That's with an advancement staff of about 30 people. Impressive.
Overall there were about 62,000 people at this convention, which makes it the largest convention in Arizona State history. Some of the events were of a mind-boggling scale. I took some video. Here's an example of me playing with a super-advanced rifle designed for U.S. Special Forces. And no, this rifle is not available for civilians, even in America...
In case you're wondering, all weapons on display on the show floor were rendered inoperable by removing the firing pins. Also, there was no ammo on the show floor. There was a also a very heavy security presence in case someone thought that stealing guns from NRA was a good idea!
Almost everyone we met were friendly and personable. You might not agree with their politics, but you can't deny that they are hard-core patriots that believe in liberty. In fact, a lot of the speeches were less about gun-rights, in particular, than the preservation of personal freedoms, generally.
There were some things that definitely made me squirm in my seat. Some of the criticisms of Obama, for example, I thought were unfair or poorly argued. But when everyone rose to say the Pledge of Allegiance or sing the Star Spangled Banner it was hard not to feel a stirring of the heart.
But what I'll remember most is meeting some really fun people. Two couples in particular that we spent time with at the various receptions and events. Just the nicest people you ever met....
This evening a healthy contingent of Church of The Messiah folks (10 of us) went to the "Bishop's Company Dinner." This is an annual fundraising event in the Diocese of Toronto that raises money for the relief of clergy in need. Most problems that clergy run into cannot be truly solved with money, but it can certainly help! The dinner is a real mix. There are, of course, the people that give the money. Then there are clergy, of course, that come courtesy of the generosity of those donors! As you might expect, it ends up being a kind of who's who of the Diocese.
We had a blast at our table. I swear we were laughing more than any of the other tables--thank God we were at the edge of the room and not the centre! Of course, I'm an extrovert so I really get off on a room full of people I know! Lots of networking. Lots of laughter. And naturally I used the opportunity to move some of my projects forward! More about that later, perhaps.
Around midnight I was in my robe watching the DVR'd recording of the Toronto Blue Jays demolishing the Yankees when Betsy came down to the room we call "man town." She handed my my cell phone and told me that it had rung. Sure enough, the history showed a 1-800 number that I recognized immediately: it was the Alarm Company. I called back, gave my authorization codes, and they told me that motion detectors had tripped at the church. Security had been dispatched. I told them that I would meet them there.
In a perfect church world the Rector would not be the first number on the alarm-notification list, but since I live less than five minutes by foot, it's simply too practical to avoid. So I put on my pants and walked down the church. When I arrived I could already see that some lights were on that shouldn't be on. The front door was locked, and there was no sign of security, yet. Nonetheless, I walked in. The alarm was armed when I entered, but when I reset it a message flashed that noted the location of the alarms that had been tripped earlier.
What to do. Security wasn't there, yet, but I was anxious to clear the building and curious about what had happened. So I went back outside and walked around the perimeter of the building. Nothing obvious. I went back inside. I figured that the alarm had probably scared the person away, otherwise the internal sensors would have been tripped a second time after the alarm company reset them. I decided to start exploring. To be safer I dialed 911 on my cell phone, but didn't press "send." I simply held the phone behind my back so that I could dial instantly if I did find something unsavory.
I walked down the dark hall toward the sanctuary. I could see that one of the sanctuary lights was on. I could also see light under the door to the sacristy. As I got further down the hallway I could see some plant stalks on the floor--the sort that might be in a dried flower arrangement. I doubt the cleaners would have missed this in their earlier cleaning--probably remnants of whatever/whoever set off the alarm.
In the sactuary--nothing. I checked the spots where someone could hide. nothing. I went into the sacristy. The light was on but I saw no other sign. One of the Chancel Guild had been by in the afternoon, and it's possible she forgot the sacristy lights, and the cleaners could have missed it. But they would not have missed the sacristy lights. Weird.
At that point I decided not to keep creeping around without backup. I waited outside and the security guy came after a few minutes. Together we checked the rest of the church. More signs that someone was there. Theories abound:
Someone with a key, but not an alarm code, entered and set off the alarm. lots of people have keys to the church. however, the first sensor tripped was inside the building, not near the doors.
No key, no code--someone forces there way through a weak door. On our search we found a door that looked like it could be forced open (a reason to call the locksmith in the morning), but again, this doesn't match the sensor record.
Someone could have been hiding in the church until the cleaning staff left (which would have been circa 11:30 or midnight) went home. The person came out, and in doing so set off the alarm. Panicked, they left quickly knocking over the a plant in the sanctuary.
So in the morning I'll call the locksmith and talk to the staff and see what the cleaners may have seen. What an annoyance.
I was very pleased with how my sermon turned out on Sunday. As is often the case, it's hard to predict what the finished product will be like--but this one turned out solid. I used the examples of the shows "Twin Peaks" and "Lost" to discuss how communities and individuals deal with the darkness and evil around and within us. Ultimately I argue that the Christian community strives to be more like "Twin Peaks," with a grounded sense of identity. That rootedness is to be found in Christ.
Sound is better this week, the new mic placement works okay, though it's not ideal. Closer to ideal would perhaps be a shotgun mic aimed at the ambo from 15 or 20 feet away. But I'm certainly learning. I'm not entirely happy with the sound mastering I did in post of this clip, but I don't have time to monkey with any more than I did.
I'm bothered more and more by the light. Far too bright on one side of my face than the other thanks to the sunlight coming in through the windows. What I really need is a light on the other side to act as a fill to balance it. Hopefully before this summer I'll have some extra cash to buy a light that could work in this application as well as for doing the Holy Cross interviews. A cheaper option would be a reflector, but this would look pretty obnoxious in the space! Compromises, compromises.
David Brooks of the NYTimes writes today about the Grant Study, a 70-year longitudinal study into success and happiness. The study tracked 268 of America's most promising young men. It recruited them from the top ranks of Harvard's sophomore class. These were the most well-adjusted, most gifted, most ambitious young men the researches could find. Our expectations would be that they would live up to the promise as their lives unfolded.
Their lives played out in ways that would defy any imagination save Dostoyevsky’s. A third of the men would suffer at least one bout of mental illness. Alcoholism would be a running plague. The most mundane personalities often produced the most solid success. One man couldn’t admit to himself that he was gay until he was in his late 70s. (source)
One of the most gifted of the bunch fell apart in his 30s. One became a major advocate for gay rights after coming out of the closet late in life, only to die at age 64.
Yet some connections to begin to emerge:
The men were able to cope with problems better as they aged. The ones who suffered from depression by 50 were much more likely to die by 63. The men with close relationships with their siblings were much healthier in old age than those without them. (source)
Another thing that emerges is that happiness much less to do with success than it does with relationship. "Happiness is love. Full Stop," he says in this remarkable video:
