Theology and my job

Here's a post that talks someone's writing about what Martin Luther said about the "theology of glory" versus the "theology of the cross." (Yes, I'm writing about someone who wrote about someone who wrote about what someone else wrote. Quit your complaining. I sometimes write stuff without links to other stuff.)

Internet Monk: Glorious Ruin

(If that doesn't give enough background info, read up on "Theology of the cross" on Google or Wikipedia.)

Something kind of funny that I noticed: "The theology of glory is the natural default setting for human beings addicted to control and measurement." My title at work is "Process Control Engineer." My job revolves around control and automation. That includes designing computerized controls that will keep pressures, temperatures, flow rates, etc. fairly constant in an industrial plant. And you can't control what you can't measure. Therefore, my job is all about control and measurement.

I'm sure this isn't what this author is talking about, but it's kind of a funny connection. At least to this nerd.

But more seriously, who doesn't prefer "work to suffering, glory to the cross, strength to weakness, wisdom to folly, and, in general, good to evil" like Martin Luther's "theologian of glory"? It's so easy to run from suffering even if it seems to be for something worthwhile. And years of being a Christian still leave me with a weak grasp on what it means to follow Jesus and do good things without trying to earn God's favour, without that sense of obligation rather than simply out of love.

Gods you can comprehend

John, the disciple Jesus loved, ended his first letter with this line: “Children, be on your guard against false gods.” In other words, steer clear of any god you can comprehend. Abba’s love cannot be comprehended. I’ll say it again: Abba’s love cannot be comprehended.

--Brennan Manning

Ironically named countries

I've been married for three weeks now, and it's going well. It's an adjustment, but it's a good adjustment. But today's topic isn't about marriage. So maybe I'll share more about marriage another time. But some information will remain private.

We haven't had a chance to go on a honeymoon yet, but we have one booked. After much mind-changing, we settled on Iceland. We're excited to go there. But today's topic isn't what we're going to do on our trip. No, that would be too normal.

I just have a comment about this satellite photo.

Who named these countries? They should really trade names?

2 more days...

...until I get married. Cathy has been back in Edmonton for two weeks, and it's been great having her here. I'm really looking forward to life together.

Online wedding invitations

As the wedding draws closer, I'd like to share some comments on one aspect of wedding planning: the invitations.

We decided to go the cheaper / more environmentally friendly / possibly easier route and do online invitations. We decided to use an online invitation service rather than just sending out an email ourselves, because those services can manage RSVPs and stuff. We figured Facebook invites would be too informal for a wedding. So we tried out a few other invitation services by sending Cathy and myself invitations to a sample event.

The first one we tried was Evite, because I'd heard of it before. This turned out to be the most annoying invitation website that we tried. When we replied to our invitation, it asked us to pick a password. It seemed to want all the guests to sign up for site memberships, but I think there was a small link allowing guests not to get a membership. Maybe there's a way for the event creator to disable this option, but I didn't go searching for it. I find it annoying when I'm pressured to sign up for a website (which is part of the reason this blog is on a service where you don't need a membership to leave comments), and we didn't want to annoy our guests, so Evite was out. They also have advertising on the invitations, which seemed tacky for a wedding invitation. We're trying to keep the wedding fairly simple and inexpensive, but it is still a much more significant event than an ordinary party.

Then we tried Pingg. Their free service is a lot less annoying than Evite. Guests don't get pressured into signing up. And you have the option of paying a small fee to remove the ads from the invitations.

Finally, we tried Sendomatic. They specialize in ad-free invitations, so their free service can only invite 10 guests per event. For their paid service, you have to pay based on the number of people invited. Like Pingg, they don't pressure guests into registering for their site. Overall, I think their invitations look a bit more elegant than Pingg's. On Pingg, you choose a dominant picture for your invitation, or upload your own. On Sendomatic, you choose a background image, and you can also upload an image that will appear over the background, above the text.

We decided to use Sendomatic, but I would not hesitate to recommend Pingg too. Either option is a lot cheaper and probably a lot less work than mailing invitations. And if some people on your invite list don't have email, you could print off a copy and mail it to them.

And now the downside of using a service like this: some email services will put the invitations in the spam folder. Fortunately, these services let you see which invitees have clicked on the link in their email to view the actual invitation. Then you can contact the people who haven't seen the invitation and remind them that there's an invitation in their email somewhere. You can also re-send the invitation (without paying an extra fee) if they already cleared out their spam folder. Contacting these people was probably at least half the work of doing online invitations, but probably still less work than managing the RSVPs from paper invitations.

So overall, I give electronic wedding invitations a thumbs up, but they have their annoying traits.

And as the wedding draws near, I'm counting my blessings. I've found someone who is fun to be with, a great friend and companion, beautiful, and who brings out the best in me. (That's four, but there are plenty more.)

Engaged!

If I've talked to you in person or on the phone since Sunday, or if you're my friend on Facebook, you may have already heard my news: I'm engaged! Cathy and I are planning to get married next summer.

Cathy is smart, funny, beautiful, athletic, understanding, and caring. She's my best friend and the love of my life. I'm thrilled to be able to spend the rest of my life with her. (I'd be lying if I claimed I wasn't nervous though. This is a big step!)

If you want to see some pictures from the proposal, I posted some on Facebook, along with the story of how it happened. You don't even need to be a Facebook member to see it!

You don't know what love is

"You do what you're told
But inside your heart it is black and it's hollow and it's cold."
--Nine Inch Nails

"You don't know what love is
You just do as you're told."
--The White Stripes

Notice a theme here? Love is supposed to be unselfish, and doing what you're told might seem unselfish, but these writers don't seem to think that's a good thing. So your homework this week is to look for situations where the most loving thing to do is not what you're told.