Aiya Iluvatar

The Changing Nature of Information

This is an excellent video about how the web has changed the very nature of information and how it is experienced and found.

Technorati Tags: information, internet, web, youtube

Selznick Scientific makes my iPhone happy!

For years, Password Wallet has been one of the most useful pieces of software I have owned. There are plenty of password managers out there, but PW was my choice because of it's really powerful (448 bit) encryption, Mac support, and full synchronization with Palm devices. When I switched over to my iPhone, PW was one of the things I missed the most. I assumed that it would be a long time before the application could make it to the iPhone, since you have to hack your iPhone to get third-party applications on it. Imagine my surprise at this announcement:

"PasswordWallet for Macintosh 4.x (sold separately) now includes the ability to export your passwords to your iPhone. You can view your passwords anywhere and at any time on your iPhone while still keeping them protected by PasswordWallet's powerful 448-bit blowfish encryption and your master password."

I'm not a coder, so I have a hard time understanding EXACTLY how this can be done, but it has to do with encoding the entire file and the application needed to read it into a bookmark, which you sync with your desktop version of Safari. The Safari browser on the iPhone reads and decrypts the wallet file (after input of the the password).

This works very well, if a little slow. I'm very happy with the product.

Thanks, Selznick Scientific, for relieving one of the few issues I've had with my iPhone. You have my admiration for doing it in such a clever way!

David+

Technorati Tags: apple, iphone, macintosh, Selznick Scientific, software

Reflection on Unity

This is my Newsletter article for November - a reflection on Christian unity.

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Dear Beloved People of God,

The House of Bishops meeting in New Orleans is over, and a common question I hear is “What Happened?” Once again, secular news reports range all over the map. I don’t want to get into a detailed analysis here – you can find that on my personal blog at http://www.ayiailuvatar.org. In summary, a compromise was reached that almost every bishop present, no matter what party they belonged to, was willing to sign for the good of the church. Was it enough? For some, such as those dioceses who have been working on trying to remove themselves for the Episcopal Church for decades, nothing would be enough. They are too far down the road to schism for their pride to allow them to contemplate compromise. Was it enough for most moderate conservatives within the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion? Early indications are positive.

But what’s this about compromise? Isn’t religion something we simply can’t compromise on? Isn’t compromising simply “giving in” in order to “make nice?” I found this paragraph on a blog by Nick Knisely,

“In the days leading up to the meeting I came across a reply to a comment on someone’s blog. The original post mentioned that ‘(Archbishop of Canterbury) Rowan Williams was willing to sacrifice biblical truth for the sake of maintaining unity.’ A few comments later someone replied to the effect that she ‘was right that Rowan might sacrifice to maintain unity, but that she misunderstood the reason why. Rowan was willing to compromise because he understands maintaining unity as biblical truth’.”

In John we read, “The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one.” Christian Unity is not something achieved when Christians get all their theological ducks in a row, formulate an agreed statement, and all sign on. Christian Unity is something conferred by Jesus on the church DESPITE the fact that we have theological differences. If we claim Jesus as Lord, we are one in the spirit. In the church, compromise is necessary to maintain formal human unity to mirror the divine unity we are meant to resemble. Compromise is about human perceptions of God, not about God himself. The compromise document of the Nicene Creed is probably the best example of this truth.

Throughout church history, there have been those who have advocated for or achieved schism in order to maintain supposed purity of doctrine or ethics. Episcopal Church history is no different. There are twenty or thirty small denominations that have splintered off of us over our short history for a variety of reasons. It is in many ways the price we pray for being Protestant. We are children of a schism ourselves. The histories of these splinters are largely sad – the small denominations decline and often splinter into yet smaller groups. Over and over again, the splinters attempt to organize themselves at a larger level but then the organization self-destructs in squabbles over power and particulars of belief.

How can the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion avoid this fate? By acknowledging that unity of the church is indeed, in itself, a Biblical value. Jesus did not command us to agree in all particulars. He did not even command us to like each other. He commanded us to be one – to work together in worship and mission for the Kingdom of God.

Unity is not ours to accept or decline. It is for us to acknowledge or ignore.

David+

Technorati Tags: anglican, Anglican Communion, christianity, ecclesiology, episcopal, house of bishops, religion, Rowan Williams, Windsor Report