Facebook released their new timeline design this week to the masses. For the most part it’s nice and clean if not slightly cluttered but the emphasis on photos gives it an immediate appeal.

I do have two major problems though.

1. Wasted Space

Right below my “cover” I have feature boxes. One is for “Friends” and then immediately below that is a larger box for “Friends”. Redundant.

I also have a feature box for photos which shows a small preview of the last image I’ve uploaded which happens to be my profile picture which is featured almost immediately beside the “Photos” box. Clutter.

2. Hard to Follow

The timeline metaphor is nice. It makes sense and is easy to understand. However, by placing the timeline entries on alternating sides of a central line it makes it hard to follow. We are trained to read (especially websites) in columns and jumping back and forth is disorienting.

Esther and the deadly Dilemma was a five part series that I taught at unedited spirituality in the fall of 2011. I’m hoping over the next few months to convert my notes into something readable.

you can find the audio of the teaching here

Part 1: Context and Characters

An important part of the journey towards maturity is the push to make sure our faith is defined by more than just the obvious answers. There’s a beauty in exploring the popular texts in the scriptural story but then are moments where we reach through the surface into the depths of the text to discover something new, something forgotten, and perhaps something surprisingly transformational.

This is often my experience when I reach back into the Old Testament narrative books and it’s exactly what we encounter in the story of Esther. A somewhat small story about an isolated period of Jewish history that, if we allow, has significant implications for our faith journey today.

All of the books in the Bible are fascinating in their own way. Their content and their context and what they’re trying to say about God and humanity is worth exploring. Esther, however, is an odd text. For one, it’s a book in our Bible that doesn’t mention or reference God… at all, which is unexpected.

It’s also one of two books in our Bible named after a woman and that’s puts Esther in somewhat rare territory. There’s no need to pretend that the Bible is not a heavily male dominated book. It just is. Anything less than that acknowledgment smacks of hiding our head in the sand. It was written in heavily male dominated cultures, by largely culturally biased authors (strike that men), who generally did not see women the way we do today. Now, I’m not defending that and I don’t think the bible is necessarily defending that, it’s just a fact of the history.
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Parking can be a frustrating experience at the best of times and as the weather has turned cold I am again noticing a tendency to be less than considerate of other parkers.

Therefore I have decided to print several copies of a form letter and store them in the glove box of my car for when the situations calls for a response.

Below is the text of the letter I have penned.

Dear terrible parker

Let’s assume together, for a moment, that there is indeed some unknown factor about your person that separates you from run-of-the-mill humanity, designating your superiority and validating your decision to park in such a manner. Let’s say that this factor identifies you as a meta-human.

It is my contention that, if this in fact the case, there is a certain responsibility that falls upon your, presumably broad and strong meta-shoulders. You see, you are in the unique position to help guide and mold humanity into its best possible future. As such, I think it behooves you to, in future, set aside your privilege to park willy-nilly, regardless of social and parking lot convention, to demonstrate to lower humanity the importance of the greater good. In this way your legacy will stretch beyond the actions of one individual and your contribution to the story of humanity will stretch into the timeless ages of what one day could be a future without parking problems.

Thank you for your consideration of my thoughts.

Sincerely,

another human being

P.S.

If you’re not a meta-human, stop parking like a jack-ass

Perhaps I’ll post a photo when next I need to employ this letter.