Author Archive for Paul Loewen

Face to Face, Part II

I’d like to con­tinue to add to last week’s post. There I made the point that, although we are cer­tainly using tech­nol­ogy more and more for com­mu­ni­ca­tion, human beings will always rely on (and get the most joy from) face-to-face inter­ac­tion. Some of you may have heard of the iPhone 4. It’s Apple’s new smart­phone that’s sell­ing faster than borscht at a Men­non­ite Church potluck. One of the most adver­tised fea­tures of the iPhone 4 is “Face­Time,” a video con­fer­enc­ing tech­nol­ogy that allows you to chat with friends, fam­ily, and ene­mies face-to-face. When Apple launches the next gen­er­a­tion iPod Touch (tomor­row) and iPad, they’ll bring this fea­ture to the entire platform.

I’ve been fol­low­ing Apple for a long time, and they are actu­ally often behind the curve in tech­nol­ogy. Cell phones with front-facing video chat­ting cam­eras have been around for a long time. And com­put­ers with web­cams have been on shelves for years. Video chat­ting has been out there. But what’s inter­est­ing about Apple is that they don’t bring a prod­uct to mar­ket until they think the mar­ket is ready and, more impor­tantly, until they think the tech­nol­ogy is ready. Video chat­ting has been fraught with com­pli­ca­tions: cruddy cam­eras, poor inter­net con­nec­tions, and really badly writ­ten soft­ware. Apple has put a decent cam­era in the iPhone, writes great soft­ware, and is only allow­ing you to use wifi for Face­Time (not over the phone net­work). What this means is very sim­ple: the world is finally ready for video con­fer­enc­ing. Tech­nol­ogy has pro­gressed to the point that your 84 year-old grand­mother will be able to video chat with­out ask­ing you for tech support.

Seri­ously.

And here’s the whole point: while the world (read: the older gen­er­a­tion) has screamed and cried about the lack of face-to-face inter­ac­tion, tech­nol­ogy is slowly bring­ing us back. And the world (read: the older gen­er­a­tion) will have no prob­lem embrac­ing this tech­nol­ogy when they real­ize how easy it is.

In other words: we’re head­ing back to face-to-face, and that’s a good thing.

Tak­ing Heart,

Paul Loewen

PS. Check out the video YouTube Preview Image and the arti­cle: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13506_3-20003192–17.html

Face to Face

Let’s face it, we all use tech­nol­ogy. The fact that we’re read­ing from oth­ers on a blog is evi­dence to that fact. Jeanette and I use email as our pri­mary com­mu­ni­ca­tion method. It’s quick. It allows peo­ple to respond on their own time. And it doesn’t inter­rupt life the way a phone (espe­cially a cell phone) does. As we’re get­ting used to all this tech­nol­ogy, many peo­ple of older gen­er­a­tions (mine included) are opposed to some of the move­ments among the younger crowd. Tex­ting, face­book­ing, etc. They scare us. “It’ll reduce face-to-face inter­ac­tion,” we say. “They’ll spend all their time in front of a screen,” we add. And it’s prob­a­bly true — we’re spend­ing more and more time in front of screens. “We didn’t spend that much time watch­ing TV,” some would say. But the plethora of con­tent on TV and the myr­iad of infor­ma­tion avail­able on the inter­net really makes that point irrel­e­vant. There wasn’t all that much to see on TV back then. Now there is. And at first the inter­net wasn’t all that great either. Now it is.

And now those con­ve­niences can fit in our pockets.

I have no doubt that the level of face-to-face inter­ac­tions has gone down over the past fifty years. But the other day I had a thought — when the phone was intro­duced, what were the ini­tial reac­tions? I can’t know for sure, but I can ven­ture a guess: “It’ll be a time-saver,” would say the opti­mists. “It’ll limit inter­ac­tion,” would say the pes­simists. I have no doubt it did both. With each tech­no­log­i­cal shift comes a back­lash. From face-to-face we went to phones. Before that we had mail. Each time we lose a dimen­sion of the con­ver­sa­tion. With phone we lost the facial expres­sions. With let­ters we lost the tones, pitch, and empha­sis of the human voice. With our cur­rent tech­nol­ogy, we still lack the nec­es­sary dimen­sions to have a full con­ver­sa­tion. Any­one try­ing to sort a prob­lem out through email knows what I’m talk­ing about.

At the same time, the phone and let­ter did not destroy human inter­ac­tion. Email cer­tainly hasn’t. Face­book won’t. Tex­ting is inca­pable. We don’t need to be so afraid of these tran­si­tions. Peo­ple will always need human inter­ac­tion. No screen can replace that. The changes in tech­nol­ogy are com­ing at a faster rate, and at some point we’ll all find our­selves a lit­tle behind the curve. If that’s the case, don’t fret! Human inter­ac­tions will always rely on face-to-face relationships.

Tak­ing Heart,

Paul Loewen

Abortion: Are we Ready?

It’s easy to be a trav­el­ing preacher.

Well, I don’t actu­ally know that first­hand. But that’s the kind of thing I would expect. The beauty of a trav­el­ing preacher is that you can:

  1. Preach with­out full aware­ness of the congregation’s context.
  2. Preach your heart out, because you may never be back.
  3. Preach the truth, full and unfil­tered, because you know you won’t have to deal with the mess.

When peo­ple leave a church (whether a pas­tor or a mem­ber), they often have strong words for what the church needs to do. “You need to change the wor­ship.” “You shouldn’t allow _____.” “You should allow _____.” It’s easy to say these words when you leave. If you’re going to tell a church to change, you gotta be there to help see the change through. It’s that simple.

In many ways, we approach abor­tion the same way. We say:

  1. Abor­tion is wrong.
  2. Give it up for adoption.
  3. Keep your baby.

Yet, the fact of the mat­ter is that many of the moth­ers going through abor­tions are ill-prepared for being a mother. Per­haps they’re not finan­cially sta­ble. Per­haps their rela­tion­ship is falling apart. Per­haps they sim­ply have no clue what to do. When we con­vince them to leave the clinic, what do we do? We go back to our lives, thank­ful to have saved a baby.

Yet we haven’t really.

If we’re going to preach see­ing a baby through from con­cep­tion to birth, we need to be ready to be there. We can’t just yell at the mother. We need to help pay for med­ical bills. Drive them to the hos­pi­tal. Buy them mater­nity and baby clothes. Be there at the child’s birth, 1st birth­day, and grad­u­a­tion. If we’re going to preach against abor­tion, we need to be pre­pared. The church is, after all, called to love the baby and the mother. Are we ready?

Tak­ing Heart,

Paul Loewen

Abortion: Right and Wrong

I was in the check-out line at Super­store. The cart was full of items. As always, the lineup was ridicu­lously long. I glanced back over my shoul­der and saw a woman at the end of my line. She was wear­ing a pur­ple sweater, under­neath which was a black t-shirt. She was a rather large woman, and the sweater was unzipped, so I could see what was on the t-shirt. The words “Abor­tion is Homi­cide” jumped out at me.

I couldn’t help but think, I agree.

But I couldn’t also help but think, Woman, what are you doing?

I would argue that the thought was cor­rect. I would agree on her stance of moral­ity. At the same time, I will argue that her approach is so wrong it is almost laugh­able. When you wear a t-shirt like that (or carry a sign, etc.) you do sev­eral things:

  1. You make your mes­sage visible.
  2. Peo­ple see your message.
  3. Peo­ple react to your message.

For most of the peo­ple, this is exactly what they are try­ing to do. The prob­lem is:

  1. People’s ini­tial reac­tions will be neg­a­tive. Even I, who agreed with the mes­sage, recoiled at the pre­sen­ta­tion. You’re being awfully judg­men­tal, I thought.
  2. Peo­ple will label you as a “freak,” and refuse to lis­ten to any­thing else you say. Your approach will actu­ally lessen your credibility.
  3. You may hurt some­one. I did a pre­sen­ta­tion on abor­tion in one of my classes. I talked about why I believed it is not right. But I was con­stantly reminded (dur­ing the prepa­ra­tion) by Jeanette that I needed to approach it as if some­one in the class had had an abor­tion. In other words, approach it with love.

Love. That’s where I think the shirt (and the woman wear­ing it) got it all wrong. Yes, I agree that abor­tion is wrong. But do I pro­claim it like that? No, you approach it with love. Always love first. Always.

Tak­ing Heart,

Paul

News

Q: What do 20 pairs of span­dex shorts, a 24-hour head start, and shaved legs have in common?

A: Hot Pur­suit 2010.

From July 17–21, cyclists rode their way from White Rock, BC, to Win­nipeg, MB. My dad, Arvid Loewen, was the solo cyclist that went all the way alone. A team from Cana­dian Men­non­ite Uni­ver­sity (includ­ing pro­fes­sor Chris Hueb­ner and sev­eral alumni) relayed their way through the Rock­ies and across the Prairies. They started 24 hours behind him with the hope of catch­ing him. They were rid­ing in sup­port of inter­na­tional edu­ca­tion, and Arvid was rid­ing in sup­port of Mully Chil­drens Fam­ily, an orphan­age in Kenya, Africa.

In Arvid’s first few hours, he set a blaz­ing pace to put some fear in the hearts of the CMUers. And it worked. In the first few time sta­tions, he was actu­ally bik­ing faster than a relay team. But as soon as the moun­tains hit it changed. Able to switch rid­ers in the mid­dle of the climb, not need­ing to stop for night or for food, CMU being to gain ground. They truly set an insane pace through the Rock­ies, and con­tin­ued it right on into the Prairies. Tail­winds from Can­more on helped them ride 2330km in an amaz­ing 2 days 18 hours — well ahead of their goal. Arvid came through in 4 days 3 hours 42 min­utes, a per­sonal best by over 18 hours.

YouTube Preview Image

A team of grannies (rang­ing from 50–81 years of age) raced from Cal­gary to Win­nipeg, and a team of Win­nipeg Police offi­cers started just three hours behind CMU, but had to drop out at the end of the Rock­ies due to ill­ness and injury. To read about the jour­ney or make a dona­tion, visit www.hotpursuit2010.com.

57 Flags

Canada Day was warm, and so Jeanette and I went with some friends to Birds Hill Park to spend some time on the beach. Appar­ently a few other peo­ple had the same idea. The beach was packed, and we spent a good amount of time in the water. When you looked around, you didn’t really notice any sig­nif­i­cant amount of Cana­dian flags.

When we weren’t cool­ing our­selves off in the water, we went up onto a field to throw a fris­bee and foot­ball around. At first we were closer to the beach, but we started to drift a lit­tle bit away. I was fac­ing the beach, and so my back was towards a ser­vice road and a small grove of trees. The foot­ball flew over my head, and I turned to chase it. It bounced against the legs of another man, stand­ing in a group and talk­ing with some fam­ily and friends.

I was imme­di­ately hit by a wave of Cana­dian flags: pinned to trees, painted on faces, on shirts, draped over pic­nic tables, and on just about every other sur­face imag­in­able. Big smiles were plas­tered across the faces of the peo­ple present.

While I went to pick up the foot­ball, I had to con­sider what made these peo­ple dif­fer­ent than me. The first dif­fer­ence was obvi­ous: they were East Indian. The cir­cum­stances led me to the con­clu­sion that they were immi­grants, hav­ing moved here to Canada prob­a­bly not that long ago. And what was remark­able was how much they seemed to cel­e­brate Canada. They very obvi­ously thought Canada was a great place to live. They were happy to be here.

Maybe we’ve all been desen­si­tized; we spend our time com­plain­ing about taxes, road con­di­tions, gov­ern­men­tal poli­cies, and the stuff that dilutes the truth: we live in a remark­able coun­try. It shouldn’t take fifty-seven Cana­dian flags worn on the backs and faces of a cel­e­brat­ing fam­ily to remind me of this.

Tak­ing Heart,

Paul Loewen

Hot Pursuit 2010

Ever won­dered what it would feel like to be chased by the police?

You can grab a feel of the action this Sum­mer. My dad, ultra-marathon cyclist Arvid Loewen, is bik­ing from White Rock, BC, to Win­nipeg, MB, in under 5 days start­ing July 17. If that’s not tough enough, he’s got to deal with sev­eral relay teams breath­ing down his neck. Five professors/alumni from Cana­dian Men­non­ite Uni­ver­sity and four police offi­cers from the Win­nipeg Police Ser­vice “Cops for Kids” cycling team will be relay­ing to catch him before he reaches Win­nipeg. They’ll leave 24 and 27 hours behind him, giv­ing the term “hot pur­suit” a whole new meaning.

With­out a doubt, cycling 2330 km in under 5 days is an enor­mous chal­lenge. This adds another dra­matic ele­ment to the ride. Deal­ing with fatigue, sleep depri­va­tion, and the men­tal chal­lenge of being pur­sued, this ride offers new dif­fi­cul­ties for Arvid.

Keep up-to-date on the race’s web­site, www.hotpursuit2010.com, includ­ing stats, GPS track­ing, blog entries, and pictures.

Tak­ing Heart,

Paul Loewen

Manitoba Marathon

I inter­rupt my reg­u­larly sched­uled series to bring you this blog entry. This is my fifth time being directly involved in the Man­i­toba Marathon. And I love it. The atmos­phere is elec­tric. Peo­ple are ner­vous, tired, exhausted, in pain, proud, and more exhil­a­rated than ever before. They cheer each other on, they race against each other, they push each other.

Four friends and I decided to test our bod­ies and see how well we could do. Ever since Feb­ru­ary we’ve been train­ing as a team for the relay, want­ing to see how well aver­age folk could do. We’re not track stars. Run­ning is not our career, nor even our main hobby. We all had expe­ri­ence, but we weren’t intense run­ners. And so we trained. We ran together every sec­ond or third Sat­ur­day morn­ing. It was a great expe­ri­ence. Our team fin­ished strong, 11th out of 705 teams, at 3h 0m 30s.

A while back, I wrote a small poem on a piece of paper. One line read, “God gave me legs and so I run.” That still holds true today. Eric Lid­dell, the guy made famous by “Char­i­ots of Fire,” said, “I feel God’s plea­sure when I run.” I still remem­ber once see­ing a TLC show about the human body, and they said the mus­cles are designed to be run­ning, not walk­ing. In other words, we were made for this. God cre­ated us to run. And so I run. And in doing so, our team prayed that we would bring glory to God.

He gave me legs and so I run! Using our bod­ies for their intended pur­pose to God’s glory is one of the purest and most won­der­ful expres­sions of worship.

Tak­ing Heart,

Paul

Show Homes, pt II

Last week I com­pared square footage to num­ber of bed­rooms. The trend I’ve observed is that we’re need­ing more space, but fill­ing it with less peo­ple. The sec­ond trend I’ve observed is, per­haps, more because of the desires of the builders for money than the buy­ers. Nev­er­the­less, it’s pos­si­ble that what the builders are doing is also indica­tive of what the buy­ers are wanting.

Any­one who who dri­ves through a new devel­op­ment notices sev­eral things. First, the houses look sim­i­lar. But that doesn’t bother me. Sec­ondly, the houses are close together. And the dri­ve­ways dom­i­nate as far as the eye can see. But what I’ve really observed is what goes on behind the houses — the fact that back­yards are, notice­ably, shrinking.

Maybe it’s because the houses are get­ting larger, but I also believe the lots are get­ting smaller. After you’ve built your deck and planted your gar­den, there’s only a (if you’re lucky) 20 x 20 plot of grass. Maybe more like 20 x 12. I sup­pose we do need less space if we’re hav­ing less kids. But it seems rather tragic that, in a world that is begin­ning to under­stand the neces­sity and beauty of cre­ation, we’re not giv­ing our­selves as much. Instead, we’re cov­er­ing it over with con­crete, and spend­ing most of our time with a roof over our heads.

It’s not that we don’t enjoy going out­side, it’s just that, now, to get any major green space, or even to toss a foot­ball around, we have to walk down the street to the park. Cre­ation is get­ting fur­ther and fur­ther away.

Tak­ing Heart,

Paul Loewen

Show Homes, pt 1

Jeanette and I try to visit the show homes when they’re on. They are undoubt­edly beau­ti­ful homes, with fan­tas­tic lay­outs. We walk through, oohing and aahing at the design, amazed at how cre­ative homes have got­ten in the past decade or longer. We have a dream of one day build­ing our own home, and it’s neat to look at the homes and con­jure up ideas for what our future home might look like.

What’s inter­est­ing to me is that the lay­out and design of show homes is indica­tive of some trends in soci­ety. Over the next three weeks, I want to throw them out there. At the same time, I want to make it per­fectly clear that, while the show homes may indi­cate some things about soci­ety, I have absolutely noth­ing against those who live in them or buy them. I have friends who just moved into a show home, and it’s wonderful.

Trend #1: We are build­ing our­selves homes with more space and for less people.

If you jour­ney through show homes, you’ll notice that they range from about 1,400 to 2,600 feet. Within that space, you’ll also notice that, almost always, the num­ber of bed­rooms is 3. Includ­ing the mas­ter bed­room. Twenty or thirty years ago, the homes would have been smaller and the num­ber of bed­rooms 3–4.

Con­clu­sion drawn: we need more space, and we’re hav­ing less kids. I don’t know whether it’s the wide­spread accep­tance of birth con­trol, or an unpar­al­leled lust for money, or the fact that both par­ents often need to work to sus­tain a family’s spend­ing habits, but it looks to me like we are invest­ing more in our per­sonal and play space than in our lineage.

Indeed, a show home we tra­versed through two years ago had glass doors lead­ing to the mas­ter bed­room. It also had very flimsy dec­o­ra­tive wooden designs cre­at­ing par­tial walls. I’m pretty sure a thirty-pound child at 3/4 speed could have brought it tum­bling down.

Now, I’m not sure whether builders are build­ing and we’re just buy­ing, or our demands, needs, and wants are dic­tat­ing their designs, but it is strange to me. Do with it what you will, but the next time you walk through a show home, take a glance at just how kid friendly it is. And whether it’s friendly to 1, 2, or 4.