Charlie Dean’s Blog

I’m currently reading John Irving’s newest (12th) novel, Last Night in Twisted River.  It’s typical John Irving, references to bears, wrestling, New England, abortion and writing.  It hasn’t had great reviews, and I wouldn’t list it as one of my favorite John Irving novels, and yet…

I am captured by the art of John Irving.  I breathlessly read sentence after sentence, saying “Wow!  That was so beautifully written!  That emotion was so brilliantly captured and expressed!”  I’m staying up way-too-late at night reading, and I will be sad when it’s over.

This post only really serves as my homage to good writing.  I don’t know if you’ve ever had this experience – whether it’s a speaker, writer, artist or musician, who, you hang on to every word, note, stroke of the brush, because it’s just so breathtakingly beautiful and captivating.

(i am CURIOUS as to who your “john irving” is)

Despite everything else you think you may know about me…despite any label, or anything you’ve heard about the way I think, or theological position you may assume that I take, this is the word that describes me and accounts for much of the way I think and why I read like a maniac:  CURIOUS

‘curiosity’ from Nic Askew on Vimeo.

(ht: i found this video on Brian McLaren’s blog)

From a Newsweek article called “In iPad We Trust.”  (click here for the full article)

What’s wrong, or at least interesting, is why some of us expected so much more from a new gadget. I suspect this is because for some people, myself included, technology has become a kind of religion. We may not believe in God anymore, but we still need mystery and wonder. We need the magic act. Five centuries ago Spanish missionaries put shiny mirrors in churches to dazzle the Incas and draw them to Christianity. We, too, want to be dazzled by shiny new objects. Our iPhones not only play music and make phone calls, but they also have become totemic objects, imbued with techno-voodoo. Maybe that sounds nuts, but before the iPad was announced, people were calling it the “Jesus tablet.”

That line about the shiny mirrors?  That makes me think about the church & technology.  And if a church markets itself by it’s “tech-savvyness,” how is that different than shiny mirrors?

On a personal level… I want one.  I’ve been thinking hard about a Kindle for some time, but that’s out the window now!