DC's Population shows sign of rebound

According to a new Washington Post article, DC's population rebounded in 2009, the first time in about a decade. This is seen as a sure sign that the district is coming back, despite ongoing challenges. The city's population was at 800,000 during the 1940s and has been declining since the 1950s.

Rublev: An Invitation to God's Table

I've been reading Dwight J. Friesen's new book, Thy Kingdom Connected: What the Church can Learn from Facebook, the Internet, and other Networks. I will be commenting on it in coming posts because it's really good. He helps us see a life of faith from a completely different perspective as he draws on new insights from science, philosophy, theology, and Network theory. More on that later though.

One of his illustrations of what it means to live as a "networked person" comes from a medieval Russian icon of the Trinity painted by Andrei Rublev. I found his interpretation of the icon to be powerful. I've seen this icon before many times, but I never heard a description of why it has inspired the faith of so many generations.

He writes, "God opens up God's own being to make room for us. Andrei Rublev, one of the great medieval iconographers, wrote an icon of the Trinity sitting around a table with an open space for us. In the incarnation of God in Jesus Christ, a place is set for creation at God's Table."

Through his arresting vision of God's inner essence, Rublev attempts to illustrate God's radical invitation to us to join him at the table and commune with him. What a attractive description of having faith.

Tracing God's Patterns in Nature

Great article in the New York Times on the microscopic inspiration for many of Kandinsky's paintings, especially Several Circles (1926).


(You can imagine looking through a microscope and and finding something similar to the Several Circles.)

Many of Kandinsky's early twentieth century paintings capture the energy of creation and life and nature's repeating patterns. According to the Times' reporter, he saw these forms as part of a cosmic language and a link to a higher spiritual plane.

Kandinsky's fascination with the repeatable patterns in nature reminds me of the writings of novelist Madeleine L'Engle.

In her works, L'Engle explores how the patterns found in nature told us something both about how God is an Artist and how we were created to be interdependent. Stars, animals, and humans were created from the same stuff of life by the same Artist.

Windy Day

A cold, cold windy day makes it a Shirley Bassey kind of day.

Day for writing

Today I'll be finishing up an essay for a church history project I'm particitpating. Writing, lunch, back to writing. Pretty basic.