Click here to listen to the first ever JakeBouma.com podcast.
"But, what is a 'podcast'?" you say. It turns out that the Oxford English dictionary :
podcast
• noun; a digital recording of a radio broadcast or similar programme, made available on the Internet for downloading to a personal audio player.
What makes podcasts so popular is that you can subscribe to them and have the daily/weekly/whatever audio file automatically downloaded to your computer as soon as it is published.
Here's how to subscribe to the Jake & Tom Podcast with the . Open the iTunes program. At the top of the window, choose the option that says "Advanced" and in the dropdown menu choose "Subscribe to Podcast". Copy the following link and paste it into the box that asks for the URL: . If you have done it correctly, the latest podcast should automatically begin downloading, and every future podcast will be downloaded as long as iTunes is open.
I'd like to share a new song that I have been working on for a while. It's called "Dying Stars" and I made a recording of it late last night (c. 4:00am) so that I wouldn't forget any of it when I woke up. Unfortunately I've made that mistake in the past.
This is not the final version of the song. I am in the process of writing a third and possibly fourth verse and a prechorus. I am quite fond of this particular song, though, so I decided to share it. Perhaps someday this recording will sell on eBay for an absurd price as "one of Jake Bouma's earliest recordings!!! Done in his dorm room at Luther College!! RARE! MUST HEAR!!!" Perhaps not.
Download "Dying Stars" and take a look at the (unfinished) lyrics. Comments welcome and appreciated!
You might remember about a week and a half ago Shawn and I went to his home church in Onalaska, Wisconsin to lead worship, speak, and play a few of my songs with the middle and high school groups.
Well, yesterday I receieved a very nice "thank you" card in the mail with a $15 Barnes & Noble gift card. I spoke a lot about the importance of reading and how I recently sold my PlayStation2 so that I might spend my time more wisely (i.e. reading). The whole inside and back of the card was filled with kind and genuine comments - it was wonderful. I even pinned it up on my wall .
To the parents and students of Onalaska high school and middle school SOAR, I say thank you. I know at least one of the high school students has found this website (she left a comment) so maybe one or two other people will see this as well. I had a blast and I would love to come back sometime in the near future.
You might like to know that with the gift card I ordered a new and G.K. Chesterton's , which has deeply influenced Brian McLaren and is also #6 on 's list of the of the last century.
Back by popular demand... here are this week's links:
: Another time-wasting game. Shawn says, "get to the top left corner and chill, then cut across the middle to the bottom right." He got 22.352 seconds.
: Fundamentalism = bad. Some of these quotes are borderline unbelievable.
: Write an email to your future self and browse emails others have written to their future selves.
: This is pretty cool. You can watch a sketch go from nothing to a portrait of a woman beginning with the skeletal frame to the end product.
: Ever wondered what a website would look like in ""? Gizoogle can translate whole webpages into izzle. This is what mine would look like. My favorite: "I, along wit T-to-tha-izzom, proposed present'n a to-be-wrizzle papa witin tha topic of Christianity n globalizizzle." Some of the language may offend. (Thanks, )
: Christianity Today interviews Ben Witherington III, professor of New Testament at Asbury Seminary in Kentucky. An excerpt: "Perhaps in a postmodern culture—where image and story are more important than text and didactic argument—the Bible is more relevant than ever. Exactly. In the 21st century, we're moving increasingly in a postmodern direction. We have a new opportunity to re-engage the biblical text, which is trying to present word pictures and stories to a world that wants not just answers to its questions, but also its imagination fired up. That's what this visual dimension of the text does."
I just sent an email to over at regarding the in April 2006 in Minneapolis.
I, along with Tom, proposed presenting a to-be-written paper within the topic of Christianity and . Even if we don't get accepted, it would still be a fantastic conference to attend and it already has some great . I'll let you know how things turn out.
The other day, something about the , the subject of a satirical parody religion created in 2005 to protest the decision by the Kansas State Board of Education to allow intelligent design to be taught alongside evolution ().
Near the end of his post, he wrote, "For those of you who love the ongoing battle between creationism and evolution, and believe science to not be evil, enjoy...". Now, I just finished writing a paper entitled "Does Intelligent Design Belong in the Classroom?" for my U.S. Schools class1, so I couldn't resist responding to his post. Before I continue, though, I should say that I talked with Peter about this and mentioned that I had thought about posting it, and he encouraged me to do so. Peter: I love you.
My was as follows:
I just wrote a paper for my U.S. Schools class on why I think Intelligent Design (not to be confused with biblical Creationism) should be taught alongside evolution. I don't think science is evil at all. By the way, did you know the creator of the FSM got an $80,000 advance to write a book about it?
Peter :
Jake-- This is just more evidence that you actually KNOW what you write about in your blog posts and write intelligent things. I just like pictures that make fun of the Sistine Chapel. But in actuality, I do like the idea of Intelligent Design MORE than straight biblical creationism, but it just seems a bit naive to me, almost that we're defeated by things we don't understand. Should we be?
Again, I . I actually replied twice because the first thing I wrote didn't make any sense, so I deleted it and re-wrote a reply:
It's not that we're defeated by things we don't understand, it's just saying that perhaps traditional science is limited in its ability to provide understanding. Maybe I am sounding too postmodern.
This is where the conversation ended. But it mustn't end.2 Engaging in conversation is the only way we will get anywhere meaningful in this discussion. We'll see where this goes. Feel free to leave comments on your particular view.
You can download the paper in .pdf format here (Adobe Acrobat, 81k). Comments are always welcome. [↩]
JakeBouma.com is a weblog maintained since 2005 by Jake Bouma, an ecclesial junkie and (imprudently) aspiring polymath who was recently diagnosed with Hodgkin lymphoma.
