Ninja vs Penguin

Penguin May 24th, 2010

What happened:
- went to Nairobi Java House at adam’s arcade; got coffee, chatted w/ Ken
- went to Nairobi Chapel; Oscar Miuri’s, of Urbana fame, church
- went to Ken’s parent’s home
- lunch: rice + beef stew + fresh banana
- Ken loses his car keys for 20 min
- go to Gwatila’s place; met her parents
- went to Junction to watch Robin Hood, but we were already 30 min late
- went to Ken’s place to drop off his Redrock Micro rail kit
- sat around and talked about Zuki, film marketing, Nairobi televesion, and the Nairobi audience
- went home

It was interesting seeing Oscar outside of the Urbana context. So far, both times I’ve seen him speak (the first in class, the second, in person at Urbana 09), he was wearing what I would consider traditional African garb. This Sunday, as he got up to preach, he was dressed in a suit.

I don’t know what I was expecting, but that was definitely not it. In retrospect, it shouldn’t be all that surprising. You look around the crowd, you look at the people on the street, the majority of people are in dress shirts, suits, or the like. For him to wear traditional African dress would NOT be contextual.

That got me to thinking. Urbana, and Intervarsity as a whole, is really big on diversity. I don’t doubt that there are people who still wear traditional African garb, or Japanese people who wear kimonos, but by playing off those stereotypes, perhaps we are perpetuating this idea of differences when, in reality, a lot of these differences have disappeared.

In one of my previous posts, I talk about how Westernized Nairobi(http://www.ninjavspenguin.com/blog/2010/05/21/kenya-day-6-week-1-in-review/) is.

Diversity tends to be a hot issue in American churches. Understandable considering how churches tend to be monocultural. Even the “diverse” churches, still have a predominant culture. Aside from ethnic churches, I would say they are “Amercian”. What these “diverse” churches are really talking about when they talk about diversity, is skin color.

This may say more about race and racism than anything else. It is affirmative action as an ethos. But this isn’t meant to start a discussion on affirmative action.

I think we like to believe that we are a post-racial culture. The reality is that race has come back into the forefront.

Before I continue, I want to make it clear that this pursuit of “diversity” is not a bad thing. And the intentions are often very good. So this isn’t meant as an attack on those churches or their pursuit of “diversity”.

I can’t help but think that if we truly were post-racial, there would be no such thing as race. And genetically, biologically, there is no such thing as race. And just as in the Kingdom of God there is no Jew, there is no Gentile, wouldn’t putting an emphasis on “diversity” bring those differences back?

As I said before, these churches are mono-culturally Amercian. They also tend to be homogenenous in terms of socio-economics as well. Of course, this is often a function of the church’s location. If it’s in an affluent neighborhood, affluent people are going to go. If it’s in a poor area, you’ll have more poor people. Of course, this is a sweeping generalization, but it paints a stark picture.

In fact, you see the same thing in the African churches that I’ve been to. You look around and they’re middle, upper-middle class people of Nairobi. They have the same misconceptions and prejudices of Kibera as a random person from America.

“They’re lazy.”
“It’s disease stricken.”
“It’s dirty.”
“They’re empoverished.”
etc.

Some of those things may be true, but it’s not the complete picture.

There is beauty. People work hard. There is education. There is life.

The thing that stands out is the community’s poverty. Just like there are 2nd, 3rd, and 4th generation rich. There are 2nd, 3rd, and 4th generation poor. These are people who, all they have seen and experienced is poverty. They know nothing else. They have no concept of anything else. Therefore, they can’t envision a life or even a way to get out of their situation. The very definition of poverty.

Across the street from Nairobi Chapel is a slum. Right there, on their doorstep. And the thousands of people who attend Nairobi Chapel, Nairobi Chapel it self could do some real change.

I think diversity is a noble goal. I believe it’s a “biblical” goal. If it were true diversity and not just multi-colored mono-cultural “diversity”.

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Tags: Church, Culture, Diversity, Kenya 2010, Missions, Nairobi Chapel, Poverty, Race, Trips

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Penguin September 11th, 2008

This is an amazing body of work, visualizing statistics. I especially appreciate the meta-ness of making a larger image based on the smaller ones, such as the Barbie Dolls below.

Running the Numbers looks at contemporary American culture through the austere lens of statistics. Each image portrays a specific quantity of something: fifteen million sheets of office paper (five minutes of paper use); 106,000 aluminum cans (thirty seconds of can consumption) and so on. My hope is that images representing these quantities might have a different effect than the raw numbers alone, such as we find daily in articles and books.

- Chris Jordan

Cans Seurat
Depicts 106,000 aluminum cans, the number used in the US every thirty seconds.



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Penguin May 22nd, 2008

Truth (with a capital T) is different from something that is true. The distinction comes from individual observation and experience. As every individual experiences things in different ways, the truth of the experience will be different for everyone. This is evident when you interview eye-witness accounts. Each person sees the event transpire in a slightly different way. Sometimes the “facts” are even messed up because our senses aren’t perfect. So how closely related is Truth with fact?

I think facts are a subset of Truth. Facts are verifiable in some way, Truth isn’t necessarily verifiable. When I used to take pictures as a “documentarist”, I was always interested in capturing the trueness of the scene. This was why I wouldn’t photoshop my pictures. But the camera itself runs a gamut of software filters over the image before compressing it, therefore, changing the image.

There is also the fundamental issue of just being there and observing that changes the whole scene. Similar to the observer problem in quantum mechanics, we have an observer problem when doing documentaries. Your presence and the camera’s presence completely changes the environment. But does it make it any less True?

Maybe the images that you see are filtered and processed by software. The documentary you create is edited and interpreted, but the story that you tell can still be True. This brings us back to the question of what is Truth?

Facts are verified knowledge. Verification comes from observation. The act of observation is done through interpretation and violation. But underneath the observer problem is the truth. Just because we foul it with our interpretation, doesn’t make it any less true. As we break from things that are measurable and observable, it will be increasingly difficult to get at the underlying truth.

Truth is independent of the observable. Like the “tree falling in the woods”, the fact that you know that a tree fell, it will create some sort of noise, regardless if there is an observer or not. Or you know that the sun will be somewhere over head even if you can’t see it because of the clouds doesn’t make the sun less real. But we know these things because we have observed them in the past. Through repeated observation, we have come to these truths.

Beyond the observable is the story. Every picture we take, every scene that we shoot, there’s some sort of story behind it. This story is the Truth. But how do we know if that story is true or not? We evaluate it against our past knowledge and experience for consistency. If this new story is compelling enough, we may incorporate it into our story. Or based on our evaluation, we may dismiss the new story as fake. So Truth is the story that resonates with our soul. We learn this story from knowledge of observable reality, personal experience, and cultural framing. As we gain new knowledge that challenges are experience or understanding, we’re forced to change our story to incorporate the knowledge.

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