Technololgy

Technology. Ya gotta love it. When it doesn't work, I get frustrated and want to throw it out. But so many more things are accessible that were inaccessible to us before the age of computers and internet. My most recent example is a theological conference. I tend to be a "conference junkie," so I would have loved to go to Wheaton College to attend the 19th Annual Theological Conference last month. Some of the NT students at seminary drove to Chicago to attend, and I would have enjoyed being with them. The conference, "Jesus, Paul and the People of God," was highlighted with awesome speakers such as N.T. Wright, Richard Hays, Marianne Meye Thompson and Kevin Vanhoozer. I was privileged to see and hear Bishop Wright in the UK at a British New Testament conference, and he is awesome. Thompson is a familiar Johannine scholar, but I have never heard her in person. Hays and Vanhoozer have been a big part of my life since I am teaching biblical hermeneutics. So, it was a chance to see some of the "biggies." Regrettably, I could not go.

Then, through Twitter, I discovered that I can link into the Windows Booksellers PDX. Through this site, I can download the audios and videos of the speakers at the Wheaton conference! I am so amazed. I can hear them without leaving my office chair. Life is good!

The "web" is certainly an exciting and a complicated journey into one unknown, that leads to another, that leads to another, that leads to another -- well, I guess you get the point. I could spend countless hours searching, networking, blogging, and bunny-hopping all over the virtual universe. For some reason, it still feels like I am wasting my time, "playing on the computer," when I should be reading or writing or doing something "constructive" (like cooking, cleaning, laundry or gardening). Why is that??

Well anyway, I think there are about a million things I should be doing this lovely Sunday afternoon, so I had better get started.......