Culture is always changing, some faster, some slower. I’m one who loves ideas, not as an avoidance of real world real-time life, I hope that’s an accurate assessment. I find myself often thinking about interplay between Gospel and culture. I confess I need help moving from thinking to action. Lots of help.

Tim Keller (at Dwell Conference last week) mentioned a super way to keep a pulse on culture, especially for a New Yorker(?) — check Arts & Letters Daily. Every day it has book reviews, opinions, and essays.

So it’s looking like another action-packed month for me. I have this propensity to cram lots of activities together. Have a compulsion to stay active. Though yesterday, found myself sleeping more hours than usual. With that much going on, I’ve not kept up with the blogosphere conversation for over a month now. Get a glance occasionally at twitters of live stream tweets. No heady Arts & Letters Daily either.

This week is the move, and have to do much apartment cleaning too. Then a quarterly staff meeting in Dallas next week, plus UYWI 08 - Urban Youth Workers Institute conference at Azusa Pacific University. At least the latter is within driving distance.

Watched ‘The Bucket List‘ on the UA flight 405 from LGA to DEN, Jack Nicholson + Morgan Freeman.. I blog this as I watch it to the end. Love hearing Morgan narrate. Masterful.

Morgan’s character’s a trivia buff, cited a stat- of a 1,000 people surveyed, 96% don’t want to know the date of their life’s end.

Yet it’s certain. Not sure what the ignorance does. I’ve given that day some thought over my years, probably younger than most.. What I hypothetically dread is pain or loneliness or blood or hospital residency or life support (of any kind) or prolonged wearing out of my earthly tent. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to get there any sooner, but I would prefer that it’d happen fast and unconciously. (See, I can be reflective.)

So the idea of the bucket list and the popular web 2.0 portal 43things is listing all the things you’d want to do in a lifetime. For people who like planning, that’s fine for them.

I hate planning– even for the next meal, much less tomorrow. But have to do that planning thing for everyday life in the real world.

I don’t not have a big list. For me, I do have a few to-do’s on my short list. I’ll add more as I go. Hit the ground a-running. One is to travel more internationally, experience more world cities. I’ve only been to 3 in my adult life. I’m anticipating Tokyo is next. Have to figure out (and plan) how that’ll happen. Tips are welcomed. Harigatogajiamus.

Mostly packed and ready for my second New York City trip this month. I just checked-in online and printed out my boarding pass. (Last time, departing from NYC, my failure to do this was the decisive factor that made me miss my flight.)

On this go around, I’ll be there for 5 days/ 4 nights, which includes the sold-out Dwell Conference, a Yankees baseball game, staying at a hotel in Upper East Side, and who knows what goodies I’ll eat.

I had blogged about the Dwell Conference on 2/21/08, and had set a reminder to myself to register a week later. Well, wouldn’t you know it, a whole rush on registrations happened that very week, and it was sold out! (Did my blog have something to do with it?) I was left with no (legitimate) way in, and already booked my air travel and hotel! I pulled strings left and right, pleaded and begged, even making a trip to Mars Hill Seattle, but no go. I was #41 on the waiting list. And then my colleague had to cancel her trip on Thursday 4/24/08, and we got her registration transferred over to me. Voila, I’m in!! What an answer to (a desperate) prayer!

There’s 90% chance rain on Monday (tomorrow), but I’m in the plane most of the day. I hope that doesn’t mean a flight delay.

I have to get up at 5:00am to catch a shuttle to the airport, so I’d better be off to bed. (btw, recent personal news: closed escrow last Friday on condo town home + see photos; update – I’ve added a tumblr blog for mundane everyday stuff at daily.djchuang.com for a glimpse of my mundane life)

For real-time updates, follow me on twitter.com/djchuang >>

I’ve been a Starbucks card member for years. Years I tell you. I’ve worn out at least 3 cards from heavy usage over time. I’ve had to ask the cashier to transfer my credit to a new card, because the old one was losing its magnetism. Automatic recharge on the card was nice, as was the quicker swipe on checkout was too, but mostly marginal.

The most recent change that Starbucks has added as bonuses to the Starbucks card are a good start: syrup and milk options for free, brewed coffee refills for free, free drink with whole bean purchase. (I don’t know why the graphic avoided the word free.)

Now, here’s some of my wild-brained ideas that I’ve submitted to myStarbucksIdea.com — register there as a user for free, and vote for these! and/or add comments there for these ideas!

• delicious soft serve ice cream and/or frozen yogurt
• 30 daily featured drinks + top 10 selling drinks scoreboard constantly updated
• improve website by combining similar ideas [where I mentioned askanything.marshillchurch.org]
• great drink with no sugar and no caffeine
• web sequel: my Starbucks drink website — as in myStarbucksDrink.com
• suppress receipts without saying No every time

Ya think any of these have a leg to stand on? FFT (fan-freakin-tabulous)? awesomatimistic? kewl beans? off the hook? perfectomundo?

An old friend sent me this controversy brewing at Cedarville College. I went to seminary with David Hoffeditz, who was apparently dismissed last summer under mostly hushed tones. Details are slowly coming to light, as the Dayton Daily News reported several weeks ago, as — Secret recording suggests firings timed to avoid furor: A theological issue splits the conservative Baptist school and could pose a threat to future enrollment and Cedarville firings worry fundamentalists: School says theology had no role in firings of Bible profs; others not so sure::

Cedarville historically has been fundamentalist, or orthodox, since becoming a Baptist institution in 1953, and requires all its students to minor in Bible. But the new emergents’ views on truth and certainty had crept into the Bible department, according to students and faculty, creating a schism.

The fired professors, David Mappes and David Hoffeditz, were on the fundamentalist, conservative side of the divide. Their supporters believe they were fired because they openly challenged other faculty members’ more liberal interpretations of the Bible in the classroom.

Mappes and Hoffeditz were fired in July despite receiving new contracts just a few months beforehand.

I was in the same seminary dorm with David Hoffeditz for a couple years, delightfully joyful guy. Apparently he had more brainpower than he let on, seeing how now he’s a very capable professor. David himself has issued 3 public statements about his situation at http://dmhoffeditz.netfast.org, even as he & his wife expect their 1st child next week!

The website www.cedarvillesituation.com tracks a lot of the developing story, er, situation. Article # 3 describes the firings this way:

President Brown, in the presence of fourteen witnesses, said on December 17th of last year that the word “assurance” in the University’s Truth and Certainty statement means the same as “certainty.” The exact lines in The Truth and Certainty statement are thus:

“The Christian has the privilege of living with confidence made possible by God’s grace. Christians can be assured that their beliefs are warranted even if their understanding is not comprehensive or perfect in every instance. This certainty is to be held with humility and love.”

. . . Since Dr. Brown (authoritatively) equates “assured” with being “certain” there is a dramatic problem. Those faculty who signed the statement (the statement is incorporated in the Faculty Handbook which is then incorporated in the faculty contracts) without meaning certainty must face dismissal.

But what has happened is that the “certainty people,” Thigpen, Cragoe, Hoffeditz and Mappes have been dismissed.

Plus, 2 welterweight blogs do battle cage-match style in the blogosphere– Cedarville : Liver vs. Cedarville: Heart.

I feel badly for David and the other terminated profs. I’ve read a handful of paragraphs linked above, and it all seemed way too nuanced for me. I’m going to bed.