Click here to view the embedded video.

I was talking with a friend today who was telling me how much fun he’s having doing video blogging.  I felt excited about the idea and thought I would give it a try.  Since my passions are community, clarity and creativity I thought I’d pick the first “c” and give it a whirl.  (The second two “c’s” ultimately build community anyways, so I can include them in the fun!)

Again, this is my FIRST try.  The lighting is no good AND I discovered you have to write backwards (or something) when you’re filming.  You’ll see what I mean when you run the clip.

Click on the “community” category for more of my thoughts / past initiatives on the topic.  You can also search by the “community” tag or by typing community in search box to the top right of the screen.

If you want to follow the whole series you can follow me on Twitter (to the right of this screen there should be  a “follow me” thingee for twitter. OR you can click RSS on the top right of the screen. OR you can “friend” me on facebook.

Cool.

sb

Super Helmet

The theme of helmet wearing comes up from time to time in family discussions.  Not because any of us are particularly uncoordinated – though my brother, did get his face cut up in a hockey game thanks to his lack of face visor.  The real reason is that we are an older family.  To give you an idea my parents just had their 45th wedding anniversary.  Yeah, they’re the same age as many of my friends’ grandparents. My brothers are all a minimum of 10 years older than me and I’m 30.  They, and to some extent I, grew up in a different time.

Extreme sports used to be the things we did in the gully by our house.  Build ramps and ride bikes off of them.  Try to catch gophers.  Um, try snorkeling in the bow river.  (We once found a road sign, but it was very likely visible from above the water.)

We were never particularly safe.  But, probably we weren’t particularly dangerous.  We were just little boys. My parents weren’t particularly negligent – they just grew up on the farm where you, well, didn’t wear helmets.

And so it comes up in family dinner times when we see the kids in our block wearing helmets, elbow pads, knee pads etc. to take their dog for a walk.  It comes up when we drive through a play ground zone and LONG for a reason to slow down. A reason other than the posted limit.  That reason, of course, being the presence of kids.   But from what we can tell, kids don’t play in the park any more.  It’s not safe.

And it’s not just the tires, and swings, and bridges that are dangerous. It’s the people.  Yes, people steal and molest children.  If it’s not the sickest thing you’ve heard of… the greatest perversion of justice… then you surely have a more colorful imagination than I.

And so what can we do? There is no helmet to protect our little people from big people.

And still we shun the idea that we need God’s help.  We persecute those miserable people who talk about Jesus like he could bring peace and hope into our communities.  Then we point, with good reason, to the church’s spotty past: Alas, there are some who profess to be Christians who do the same abominable acts to children.  (I’m sure other religions, too.)

Who will protect our children?  The government? The community? The church?  No one?  And before long we are much more inclined to keep our kids inside.

I am not opposed to helmets.  I am not opposed to safety.  I am opposed to retreating from problems and hoping they go away, or at very least hoping they won’t visit our homes.

May we never pray: “Someone else O’ Lord, but not our home.”

But rather: “God what can I do?  And, God, Please protect all of the children.”

Click here to view the embedded video.

I’ve had an idea:  Let’s put Rogers and Blockbusters out of business.  It would be great fun and it would be a sweet way to get to know the neighbors.

Here’s the thing.  On an average street, with average neighbors, and average life styles we can assume that there are a lot of people watching movies that they have either purchased or rented.

On average they are likely watching a lot of the same movies.  THE SAME MOVIES I WOULD SPEND $5 TO RENT.  This is how Blockbusters / Rogers make money.  They sell the same thing over and over again.  Their model works soley because neighbors are not organized enough to share their resources.

IDEA: What if you could set up some sort of system whereby people on your block would know what movies you and everyone else has.  Then, when they want to ‘rent’ a movie they could just cross the street and borrow it from you or  Mr. and Mrs. Smith  instead?

I’m sure some facebook app. could be designed… or maybe just a google doc to share the information? It could be pretty basic:

Mr. and Mrs. Smith have the following titles:  blah, blah, and blah.  Jimmie has the following titles: (blah, zip and zap.)

It’s really like napster… only you would actually be sharing a physical thing.  And THAT is certainly above board.

I think you could meet a lot of your neighbors, save some money, and even have quite a good time in the process.  Some entrepreneurial person might even make a buck off of said system.

If enough people did it we could even put Rogers/ Blockbusters out of business… or at very least force them to stock hard to find movies.