A Little God like Me

 I'm reading a book called Gods at War, by Kyle Idleman. In this book, Kyle talks about the idols in our lives. He cuts through the, "I don't make idols argument" pretty quickly and really exposes us for who we are...I should say who I am.

I'm also reading through the Bible right now and passed through Exodus 20 a few days ago. It was a painful read. It was a painful read because I know I have idols in my life...things I'm willing to pursue with all my might that aren't God.

I have a thriving career, for the most part, that takes considerable energy, particularly as I heal from an injury so I can move on to the next chapter in said career. Furthermore, I love my hobby of writing, and from it I have (until now) hoped for some manner of recognition; from preaching as well. There are others as well.

These are, in some ways, little gods unto themselves, and they fight for my attention. However, what it really boils down to is that I am my own little god. My desire for an ever-expanding career, and looking forward to a second career after I retire (in six years) are wrapped up in the rat race that God tells me not to be concerned about. My writing, which should be used only as a ministry to others and a support for the Kingdom, has become an end unto itself. In some ways, preaching became this as well.

Food of course, for those who know me, is also a mess in my life, or rather it makes my life a mess. I worship food. There, I said it. Need I say more? There is more to say. I will refrain.

But in the end, these are just little gods, any of whom could be smashed if they weren't wrapped up in a slightly bigger, but still so small, god called me. I am a little god, and I worship myself too often and it costs me too much. I want to be famous to celebrate me. I want to be known as the best Chief in the Navy. I want to be more than an aspiring writer...I want to be a best-selling writer. It's all about me! ME! ME!

John the Baptist once said that, "He must increase, but I must decrease." Jesus said John was greater than all born of women. And yet being least in the kingdom meant being greater than John. That's an odd way to look at it, but when you're fighting gods, it might just be the best way. Christ must increase, and I must decrease. I must be the least in the kingdom, though it isn't a race to become so. That in itself could promote the same god-worship that I'm trying to destroy.

In some ways, it's a mess. Thankfully, in his book, Idleman makes it pretty simple. Simply ask yourself who you're going to worship...God, or one of the little gods. That has helped me immensely. I hope it helps you too!

Letters from Mom: A Tribute

One of the things that we talked about at the funeral, between my aunt and myself, was how my mom used to write letters to people. In an age when everyone uses blogs, Facebook, Twitter, and email, her letters seemed archaic and out of touch. Yet at her funeral it was one of the things that people most remembered.

My brothers, our father, and I buried mom a little over a week ago. When I got back to Great Lakes, unsure of how to handle the memories of my mom, I found one of her old letters to me in my nightstand. It was a few years old by now, but was in good shape. I read a few paragraphs before putting it away for safekeeping. It brought back some memories of receiving letters from her, both when I was on a ship as a young Sailor, and as a family man ashore.

To be honest, my mom’s writing has always been hard to read. Sometimes her handwriting is more scribbles than cursive. When receiving letters from mom, I’d often have to ask my wife to help me read them.

Some of my mom’s letters were actually painful to receive. One time she told me that she was disappointed by how I did things as a father (I don't have that letter anymore). She challenged my desire to be the head of my household once too, suggesting that my wife shouldn’t be submissive to me.

But that isn’t what I remember about her letters. I remember her handwriting, how she switched colors periodically as she went, and how I could expect at least two double-sided pages in every letter. My aunts remembered the same sort of thing in their letters as well. Talking with them about the letters was an enjoyable memory from the funeral.

I don’t have all of the letters my mom wrote me. Time and constant moving have taken their toll. Yet I know of one letter in my desk that will never be thrown away. Instead, it will stand as a tribute to a woman who shunned email for the real thing.

Thank you, Mom.

SparkyLinux 3.2 Xfce Review

Sparky Linux 3.2 Xfce Review

By: S. Daniel Smith

www.navychristian.org

SparkyLinux is a very intriguing distro. I’ve played with it before, but never reviewed it in earnest. I’ll get into what I like and don’t like about them towards the end of the review, but first let’s start with what SparkyLinux is: “SparkyLinux is a lightweight, fast and simple Linux distribution designed for both old and new computers featuring customized Enlightenment and LXDE desktops. It has been built on the “testing” branch of Debian GNU/Linux.”

As can be seen by reading just about any of my reviews, I like to review a given distro by first looking at it on my MacBook Pro before testing in on my Toshiba test laptop. Someday I’ll write a post explaining why I like doing that.

Desktop:

Having said that, I liked how it looked on my VirtualBox. Loading it up on VB, I immediately noticed the wonderful appearance of the standard desktop. Along the top you will find the standard Menu bar, including status icons for networking, date/time, user information, etc. On the left side, you have the home, file system, trash and (on live CD version) the install icons. Along the right hand side, there is a rather large system monitor bar (Conky) akin to Windows gadgets, although there is far more information on SparkyLinux, and to be fair, Windows gadgets look better.  Finally, at the bottom is a bar akin to the Mac OSX icon bar. It is very functional, even on my old Toshiba.

System Monitor:

While it isn’t the prettiest system monitor I’ve ever seen, the information displayed by SparkyLinux via Conky (http://conky.sourceforge.net) is certainly the most comprehensive. Unfortunately, comprehensive sometimes means busy, and this status bar is very busy. I think the average Linux user would enjoy the information displayed here, though I don’t know if a non-Linux user would want that much information displayed all the time. When thinking of a person who may be switching from Windows to Linux, it’s wise to remember that Windows is a fairly clean desktop experience. This is true for Mac as well. Displaying too much information can be a curse.

Having said that, I really enjoyed the experience. I am a somewhat experienced Linux user, so Conky didn’t bother me. On the contrary…I enjoyed knowing exactly what my computer was doing the whole time. If you choose to test SparkyLinux for yourself, then you’ll see what I mean. Conky makes testing SparkyLinux very convenient.

Standard Applications:

SparkyLinux comes with a standard load of applications that you would expect to find in most mainstream Linux distros. It uses LibreOffice 4.1.4.2 for office applications, which I believe give it the best chance to compete against Microsoft Office. LibreOffice now has 4.2 on the street, but it just happened, so SparkyLinux can’t be faulted for sticking with a 4.1 variant right now.

It comes with a lot of games, most of which are pretty simple and not that enjoyable, but most interesting is the PlayOnLinux app. I’ve used WINE before, but I had never heard of PlayOnLinux. I guess I should have guessed that it was based on WINE.

Web browsing is accomplished through IceWeasel, which is a rebranding of the Mozilla Firefox for Debian. This seems fishy to me, as Debian simply took the Firefox sourcecode and renamed it so they didn’t have to comply with Mozilla’s branding rules. This begs an entire blog post of questions about the philosophical issue surrounding open source agreements and how far they should go to prevent other open source orgs from using not-quite-so-proprietary information. At any rate, IceWeasel works fine, as it should.

On a final note, dropbox comes standard with SparkyLinux. I use Dropbox extensively to move files between computers, including between work and home (Word documents only, no actual work files). It’s easy enough to get a program like Dropbox, so it’s not the biggest selling point. However, knowing that the SparkyLinux developers are forward-looking enough to know that it’s necessary is a big point in their favor.

Installing SparkyLinux:

Installation was not fun. First of all, SparkyLinux recognizes the installer program as an untrusted application (see below), which is just awkward in my opinion. It makes me think of Windows not trusting other Microsoft applications. I’ve never personally seen this before on Linux, so I was disappointed to see it here.

In addition to this issue, SparkyLinux then proceeded on my behalf to the installer without asking for the root password, something that I also find disappointing (or awkward might be a better way of saying it) as most Linux distros ask for the root password.

Overall, I was not impressed with the install experience, and a novice user will not find it usable. Like another reviewer of SparkyLinux, I think this is a weak spot for the distro.

Performance:

SparkyLinux 3.2 is no slouch when it comes to performance. It provides very little drain on resources as it performs tasks in applications such as IceWeasel and LibreOffice Writer. Some of this, of course, has to do as much with the applications that are being used as with the OS running them, but the important thing to note is that SparkyLinux isn't the drain.

At rest, the distro uses only 1-4% of the CPU and 5% of my laptop's 3GB of RAM. Thanks to Conky displaying real-time stats on the right side of the desktop, I can see exactly what is using the resources. At rest, Conky is actually the biggest drain, at a whopping 1% of the 2% CPU utilized.

Once I start typing on LibreOffice Writer, the CPU jumps to 5%, with LibreOffice using 2/3 of that. Same thing happens when I start working in IceWeasel. Bottom line on this is that SparkyLinux isn't a resource-hog. Of course, we could have assumed that. However, battery life isn't quite as good as could be hoped for. Battery life is often a topic of interest in any given Linux distro, and the issue is quite popular on the internet. Since I am running off of an older system (over 3 years old), my hardware undoubtedly bears some of the blame.

SparkyLinux 3.2 gets good grades for performance, especially considering the fact that my laptop isn't a spring chicken and that Windows 7 used to bog it down so much that it was unusable.

Overall Impression:

I’ll say right up front that this distro isn’t going to be displacing Ubuntu for me. It’s not as polished and doesn’t work as well. I think, especially for novice users, that it’s not friendly enough. In order for Linux to be mainstream, it cannot require more from people than Mac OS or Windows does.

Having said that, I do like it and I think it has promise. Its desktop experience, especially its Mac OSX-style bar, shows a lot of possibility, and its range of standard applications is impressive. For those who are interested in playing with a distro that might need some experience to make effective, then go for it. It’s just not for the average user, and certainly not for the novice.

Review of Preacher's Sourcebook

O. S. Hawkins, the editor of the Preacher’s Sourcebook, has done a fair job of putting together a library of sermons and teaching lessons that young or inexperienced pastors can use to get by. I enjoyed using the resource to prepare a recent sermon on Psalm 100, though I felt guilty doing so.

Speaking on a purely pragmatic sense, the book did it’s job. I tested it on a Sunday where I had been given little time to prepare as a hospital chapel I volunteer for needed someone in a pinch. Knowing I wanted to write a review on this book, I took the bait. After searching for only an hour or so, I found the sermon I wanted to use as a test. I figured that a review wouldn’t be as fruitful to my readers if I hadn’t fully tested out the book.

The “test” went fine. I tweaked a sermon from the book to fit my context and it was certainly passable. I wish I had the recording, but something tells me I wouldn’t really be able to use it, as the book holds the copyright to my sermon, not me since I didn’t write it. That is something to keep in mind if you ever use the sourcebook as your base material. I do think that the material for weddings and such would be particularly useful, as they aren't things a pastor does every day.

Overall, I say it sufficed to complete the job, but I wouldn’t use it more than I have to. I would feel guilty for using it too much. Having said that, I expect I’ll be taking it on the ship with me in the future for use if a chaplain isn’t available. It does, after all, have a lot of good resources.