Questions

The Line

/ Jeff Hora / 3 Comments

I pretty much get the moves that the ELCA (Evangelical Lutheran Church of America) makes to recognize the marginalized and the discriminated-against in our community and culture. Author and Shaman Lenny Duncan made that really clear in his Dear Church book, and certainly in his posted experiences in the past several years.


So when it was announced from the pulpit this past Sunday that our church was going to eliminate and/or limit the use of the words “Lord” and “Master” from service as they are reportedly offensive to (especially) Black members of our community, it jumped out at me. They (the words) hearken back to the deferential words and attitudes that slaves had to display to their owners. I can really see the tie-in.


But this bugged me for some reason. The study I have done on language and the history of certain words used a lot in the Bible presents me with a bit of a dilemma. As I understand the etymology of the word Lord, the Hebrew Bible uses this word in place of the Name of God, as it was not allowed to pronounce it (or even to write it, depending on how strict you wanted to be in the interpretation). A number of Christian writers, thinkers, theologians and teachers have chosen to use Lord instead of the Name of God in respect for the Hebrew traditions and their Jewish colleagues beliefs.

This is where the cultural context of language gets sticky. In the process of abstracting or obfuscating the word Lord from community liturgical use, what might this signal to our Jewish community, especially given the rise in anti-Semitic language and attitudes throughout the West of late? There is also another cultural challenge: Lord is a key word, and more importantly concept, for many Christians in their own spiritual lives. While the abstraction and excising of the Lord from the liturgy may address the discomfort of a segment of the community and acknowledge a past that is despicable, it denies the depth of integration of a particular, somewhat different meaning of the word into the devotional lives of others.


Where is the line? At what point is love, understanding and compassion flowing both directions? And there are So Many discriminated groups within our culture…..in a discussion I had about these questions, it was pointed out to me that, among many others, women are a discriminated class. Despite much having been done over the past number of years in opening up ministry, authority, and inclusive language, is it “enough”? What does “enough” even mean? Positive steps have and are being taken, but is our culture putting those efforts on pause, slowing them down, backing up, or what?

Other groups of community members with “invisible disabilities”, such as neuro-divergent people or those suffering from chronic pain, present different and difficult challenges to the caring people around them. How are the church and community seeing, prioritizing or addressing them in the context of the liturgy, their spiritual lives and day-to-day well-being?


Where is the line? That’s a really good question. Should there be a line? Ideally, no. Inclusiveness, by definition, means including everyone. Partitioning people into different groups, while helpful in ministering to needs, contains the danger of walling people from each other, and unconsciously prioritizing one group over against another. This is not the way that Jesus ministered, that I can read. He said that he came first to the flock of Israel, and then would turn around and heal and/or minister to Gentiles. For example, the demoniac of Gerasene was quite obviously in the Gentile world (why else would there be keepers of an enormous herd of pigs right there?!). Yet He cast the Legion of demons from this guy and sent him to witness to what God had done for him. No apparent line in His ministry that I can see there.


What can this mean for our actions within today’s world? I don’t think I can give any kind of definitive answer, other than to draw attention to The Line and encourage us to consider its meaning both in a liturgical and day-to-day apprehension.


The Line is there. Do we do anything with it?

The Challenge of “Always On”

/ Jeff Hora / 1 Comment

Embed from Getty Images

A question I received this week was, “How do you balance the 24/7 of social media with an 8-to-5 work day?”

“Always on”, 24-by-7 is kind of scary. I live an area that, this winter, has lost power about 7 or 8 times in the past 2 months, so “always on” is kind of relative, but I digress…

The availability of the Internet is terrific when you need to do that search, find that restaurant, message your friend, research that project or notify the world of some truly significant event. However, if you’re a business owner, it can be intimidating. Since the Internet is always there, you may feel you need to be, too.

Well, maybe not….

Continue reading →

Open the Box – A Fish?!

/ Jeff Hora / 2 Comments

Awhile back I was working through a visualization exercise mentioned in Steven Pressfield’s book “Do the Work”. My first post regarding this can be found here and if you search my blog you’ll a number of other visualizations that I’ve found useful using this. Let me summarize what this entails:

  • Imagine a box with a lid. Hold the box in your hand. Now open it.
  • What’s inside?
  • It might be a frog, a silk scarf, a gold coin of Persia.
  • But here’s the trick: no matter how many times you open the box, there is always something in it.

Over time I’ve found a golden table, a pressure washer, wood floors and a few others.

I hadn’t exercised my imagination in this way for a while, so I decided to give it a go and opened the box afresh. Today I found……a fish.
Continue reading →

Trends – More Discussion Questions

/ Jeff Hora / 1 Comment
  1. Why is it so difficult to find consistent correlations between Internet motivations and usage?
  2. What are the challenges of obtaining a true random sampling of users for an Internet-related research study?
  3. How can you arrive at a consistent ethical standard when applying the arguments found in The Tragedy of the Commons?

Trends – Discussion Questions #2

/ Jeff Hora / 3 Comments
  1. Why were the innovators working on the telephone and the phonograph so hesitant to pronounce them as ‘break-away’ inventions from the telegraph?
  2. What other industries (beyond the Intel example) have a growing number of obviously overshot customers?  What industries might develop this problem soon?  What are some potential outcomes in addressing these challenges?
  3. When considering information discovery and filtering as when a user is doing research or following a whim, and then considering Google as an example of a service provided for this purpose, what is ‘the next thing” on this path? Why?

Trends – Discussion Questions #1

/ Jeff Hora / 3 Comments
  1. When considering boundaries as defined by Lessig, how do we consider internal, psychological boundaries? If Ann Arbor Jake is a quiet, unassuming student at the University of Michigan in “meat-space”, but a murderous misogynist online in cyberspace, does that constitute a single person?  How does it have legal or moral impact in “meat-space”?  Why should it?
  2. Which is more likely to have long-term impact on the “regulability” of digital civilization: governments, business models, ideologies, sociological evolution, technology or something else? Why?
  3. If code can be hacked and laws have loopholes, how stable or reliable can the limn space be and how can that be perceived?  Desirable, undesirable or indeterminate?

Questions – 8/18/08

/ Jeff Hora / Leave a comment
  1. How might you best research how members of your business are collaborating without introducing an “uncertainty principle” of observation?
  2. How might you discern the optimal balance between internal innovation and external innovation in your company?  In light of this, how might your company need to reassess and rethink its contribution to the value of its product or process?
  3. Are there certain products or services that just CAN NOT be generated with mass collaboration methodologies? Why or why not?

Questions – Rheingold (8/4/08)

/ Jeff Hora / Leave a comment
  1. How is value assessed in a LETS environment? Who does the assessing? How might the value of an “offering” change over time?
  2. What has been the comparable performance of the LETS system over the existing public system in Ithaca?  What has the experience been like in adoption by and “weeding out” of members/entities?
  3. Why do you believe the DC Stock database information is not more widely advertised? Why might there not be the same information available or collated for all elected officials, as it seen as a public to assist in deeper awareness of our representatives?

Questions – 7/14/08

/ Jeff Hora / Leave a comment
  1. How are Information Economy dynamics changing society?  In particular, how do they affect neighborhoods and local politics?
  2. How would you frame the significance of the fact that roughly three quarters of the world’s population appears to not be presently part of the Information Economy?
  3. Where is the significance of the individual when compared to or made part of the “Wisdom of Crowds”?