Dale Lature: People

Favorite Authors (for the Book Section and People), or authors I've bought and gone back for more

Frederick Buechner
Elizabeth O'Connor
Matthew Fox
Christopher Locke
David Weinberger
Tony Campolo
Robert Raines
Keith Miller
Mark Dery
Jim Wallis
Howard Rheingold
David Lochhead
Dennis Benson

Our family pic I promised last night
The four of us Sunday, July 21, 2002	<%radio.macros.imageref ("images/us072102.jpg")%>

My immediate family, me (46) wife Janet (42), son Brian (13), Daughter Kelli (4) (pictures to follow soon, I have a good one of us from just this past Sunday)

Parents: Dad: Ermon(70) and Mom: Shirley (68)

Brothers David (47) Mike (42) and Sister Jill (33)

Janet and I have been married 19 years (June 11, 1983)

Along with United Theological Seminary, Ken Bedell has to be in there as the key person in my education and development there

Looks like the link I had for United Theological Seminary on myWebsite has gone dead, but I never wrote a piece on United or its role, even though it had an enormous influence on the direction my calling was to take. The story is here

More people appear on the radar screen of my recollection tonight, ones who opened up the possibilities for me in the new frontier opening up in the virtual landscape; one where community happened in strange and exciting new ways. Strange in terms of new medium and new technology, but with a familiar ring to it: like the things I was learning about new online acquaintances (and some new online acquaintances were people I knew of and who knew of me offline, but never really knew or understood what I cared about, nor I , them.)

I think of Ecunet and Howard Rheingold first off, because it was 1993, and I had just joined Ecunet, while I was simultaneously reading a new book by Howard, "The Virtual Community". I had always believed deeply in the value of ecumenicity within the Christain tradition but had experienced few opportunities to reallyy interact with a wide variety of Christians from diverse groups and denominations and see so many common concerns among us. "The Virtual Community" wove tale after tale of the connection spawned between distant comrades, and how they would drive long distances to meet or come to the aid of that unseen person with whom they had forged ties apparently very human, despite the huge skepticism shown these relationships by the uninitiated. The un-initiated they had to be, for once one linked across the ether to that "place" where humans meet via some story, shared concerns or interests, and felt that "connection" --- parentheses only because of the pun not intended------they were immediately aware that, values of ftf and bodily , non-verbal comunication aside, something very wholistic nevertheless was transmitted.

Via my new friends on Ecunet, and the stories and passion communicated by Howard through his marvelous story telling and optimism fo rthe online medium, I began to sense the birth of a calling that led me through the pains of learning technical things, which led to jumping in and teaching myself HTML, continuing to read similar positive , hopeful books on the human and social possibilities for online community, and ended up taking a job where I am now utilizing those technical skills and loving MOST of it. The skills have been continuously honed and expanded, but I am constantly being reeled back into the challenges that await the completion of these "potential magnets for some market": the glue that makes the place both "sticky" (bring em' back for more - the commerce hope--- and "create bonds"- the community hope......but I think we put the cart before the horse. Let's not "build and they will come" , and realize probably too late that we didn't give them reasons to stay----each other-----which , in our biz, resources for Churches, people would line the doors of places that felt more like coffeehouses or cafes or small initimate groups where people talk ABOUT the content rather than come in looking for what they're lookin' for and get it and leave
-----but rather, build with the purpose of inviting conversation, which is a much stronger base to attract interest to quality material than one paragraph marketing hype , catalog style. Amazon has shown us that surrounding conversation pieces with real conversation is what ends up showing and demonstrating value. And there are so many terribly important things for us to encourage conversation about. And we sit here negecting the fundamental values that gave birth to the growth of the Net as a place where people congregated, which led to the idea of commerce moving there i nthe first place: "Hey, there's people there, let's go there and sell stuff", which is correct spacially, but tactfully, old world broadcast and marketing is ill-suited here. It's a new world, but perhaps realy old, because its back to talkin' to fellow buyers in the marketplace, and its joining groups who bring together their valued resources around a particular concern or interest.

In Internet years, these past ten years have been a century, which qualifies some of these "spiritual seed planters" for more "balcony people" who stand out; who stand above me and shout me on; to keep the faith. Even as I must meet resistance from within the Church community or in Church-related business where I work on the ways in which our world is changing and how best to meet that world where it converses, there are other supporters who made it possible for me to find something which called out to something deep in me, and to borrow a phrase from the web programming world: something which is delightfully "extensible" for all kinds of ministry where people are.

I plan on "Featuring" some People, along with "New Ones" I've added (or realized were always a part of the club) once every week at a minimum.

Church of the Saviour (nmc*)in Washington, DC is way up there on any given day, for it is through their vision, most fully dispelled to me through the writings of the late Elizabeth O'Connor, that I most fully grasped (or is it "glimpsed") the .........what is a brief but sufficient word?.........the Christian life; the call of the divine; the Kingdom of God; MY calling. This whole thing of the "Call to Commitment" (the title of O'Connor's first book); that God has a community for us in whom we find the support, energy, and legitimization of our calling.

(nmc*)- I have all this stuff I wrote about lots of things I will be saying again now that I am weblogging rather than plain ol html and stuff, so my links to these, when I remember to do so, will have a (nmc) after them, to indicate that it's some of my old stuff, but I will usually be linking to it because I am commenting on it again and re-writing and re-remembering.

Later tonight, when I get this silly upstreaming problem fixed, I will start uploading the "Balcony People" section from my old web pages into the People Around Me Category. I hope that Sub-Categories can be added to this.

A Place to introduce family and show links to kindred spirits in the Weblogging World