New logo for Urban Mystic

One of the designers in our emerging community has redesigned the logo for Urban Mystic. Here’s the end result of several weeks of exploring. This has been an exciting process to be part of, having had chance to look at a number of work-in-progress concepts. I really like this, what do you think?

Faith and Proof

I’ve recently re-watched Horton Hears a Who, one of my favourite animations. Not only does it capture the artwork in Dr. Seuss’ books but it also happens to contain some of the best dialogue around faith and evidence, or faith and experience.

Redesigning Urban Mystic

I recently sat down with a professional designer. We worked through a 101 Q&A sheet to work through not only my design preferences but also a complete overview of what exactly Urban Mystic is.

I’m very excited.

Firstly, this represents a shift from trying to ‘do it all myself.’ Secondly, it means I’m likely to drop the “the,” so now “Urban Mystic” rather than “The Urban Mystic.” Thirdly, this means I get to take Urban Mystic a bit more seriously, picturing where its headed and how we’re going to get there.

MS Office 2010 Preview

Today just got a bit more exciting! I’m downloading the Technical Preview for MS Office 2010. I had to apply to test it, as opposed to testing Windows 7 Release Candidate where I could simply log on and downloaded it.

Office 2008 : Mac

For the most part I’m really happy with Office 2008 for the Mac. It’s a great product – arguably as good as Office 2007 for PC. I do find, though, that the toolbox is a great feature that could’ve been better.

Size matters, and the toolbox is just too small.

MacBook Touch

I’ve had my MacBook for just under two weeks now and have finally made peace with it. The OS and dyslexia of the CTRL, CMD and ALT keys are still frustrating but the aluminium chassis and battery life rocks. Drawing inspiration from the iPhone and iPod Touch I’ve come up with a Tablet design and loosely called it t he MacBook Touch or Itablet.

Celebration of Discipline

I’m busy preparing my next series, which will run in about a month. It’s based on Richard Foster’s Celebration of Discipline, arguably one of the best books I’ve ever re-read. I say “best books I’ve ever re-read” cause I read it in my early 20’s and it’s improved considerably since then!

I know you’ll understand that I’m making a tongue in cheek statement there. Foster’s book has stayed the same, but my point of view has shifted as I’ve matured. Foster’s book is rich in content and advice on the practice of spirituality. It’s over 25 years since it was written and I’m glad to be rediscovering it thirteen years after first reading it. This is also one of the series I’ve had in mind for a while now and can honestly say I feel very excited about running it.

Bring on the MacBook

I’ve always sworn off Mac. To me those who own and love their Macs are like snobby people in clubs, not unlike those who surf. There’s an attitude an image that goes along with the hardware, a snobbery of ‘lesser people’. Sure the design looks cool and the build quality is fantastic but the MacVangelists are a little too much – especially as I’ve gotten half the processing power, memory and hard drive space of a competitively priced high end machine.

The reign of Godde

On the whole subject of post-modernity and Christianity in all its post-forms I can’t think of two quotes that better summarise my feeling on the whole situation than those by Mike Breen and Eddie Gibbs in the following video:

For those who don’t YouTube I’ll loosely quote:

Lance Ford poses the following question to Mike Breen and Eddie Gibbs, “Christendom is over. Is the death of Christendom a good or bad thing?”

Breen says the following:

Lance Ford poses the following question to Mike Breen and Eddie Gibbs, “Christendom is over. Is the death of Christendom a good or bad thing?”

Religious Faith and Spiritual Experience

The book Mysticism and Sacred Scripture is summarised on infinibeam as follows:

This is the fourth volume in an influential series that presents a basic revaluation of the nature of mysticism. Each provides a collection of solicited papers by noted experts in the study of religion. This new volume will explore how the great mystics and mystical traditions use, interpret, and reconstruct the sacred scriptures of their traditions.

It is also the book that’s arriving next week from Amazon. I was lucky enough to have had Mysticism and Language prescribed for me to read last year. I found Katz’s work so inspiring I went on to purchase the rest of the series – Mysticism and Religious Tradition and Mysticism and Philosophical Analysis. A few weeks ago I found a second hand copy of the fourth book and promptly ordered it.

It may be one hell of an ugly book cover but I really can’t wait to get into it!