BlakeAtwood.com

I’m sure it’s a sign of my generation that I first received notice of the tragedy of 9/11 through a campus-wide email while still in college. I was used to receiving strange mass emails from students I’d never met. Usually it would start a flame war that was always intriguing to me, especially if it meant less time writing the paper I should have been working on. I thought the email was some sick prank.

Then I turned the TV on and the world changed.

A few weeks after the attacks, I wrote the following. How far have we come?

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Words have the power to create and the power to destroy.
Words helped to create the Tower of Babel.
Words helped to destroy the World Trade Towers.

The Bible says the earth’s inhabitants once possessed a unified language. Such a united humanity was able to accomplish such a momentous task, to build a Tower to the Heavens. Even God got scared. “If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. (NIV).” You can check that story out in Genesis 11:1-9.

You know too well the other story.

I just wish it was a movie, “reel” life, and not real life.
A plane,
buildings crumbling,
people dying,
mourning,
weeping,
praying,
uniting,
caring,
giving,
hoping,
living.

Words destroyed the towers.
Words repeated so often they became meaningless mantras.
Words used to infect the minds of religious zealots.
Words used to turn “civilians, women, and children” into “targets.”
Words that turned “suicide” into “glorious martyrdom.”
Words that turned “hatred” into “piety.”
Words that would not bear their bad seed until the awful morning of September 11th, 2001.

But words will help to create a new America, one much, much more aware of itself in the global scene. One hopefully more aware of other atrocities in other countries in the global scene.

This new America is beginning to understand words long forgotten. We’re beginning to regain a sense of national pride. We’re beginning to have the same definitions for what we call “freedom” and “justice.”

We’re beginning to speak the same language.

Is God afraid?

I don’t think so. I believe He knows what He’s doing, as hard as that is for me to grasp, or even want to grasp at a time like this.

But if I weren’t God, and I were a part of the group responsible for these atrocities, I’d be scared to death. Literally.

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To all the families and friends that still have to live with the memories of what could have been, who involuntarily gave up what they loved most, we will never forget their sacrifice, your sacrifice.

I haven’t “blogged” (it’s still a strange word to me. Almost too hip. Isn’t it just writing?) in awhile. I’ve been enamored with Twitter, the 140-character limiting status update social network. On there, I’m batwood. My twitter feed is actually on the sidebar of this page, should you be interested in my updates.

It’s much less intimidating to do short bursts of status updates than to write posts of any length. The lack of lengthy updates is possibly due to increasing ADD or simply more time on my iPhone, where 140 characters are much easier than composing an email.You certainly learn the writer’s first lesson – cut, cut, cut. Being concise is key. Suffice it to say that I should be writing, blogging, and describing more of my world than I have been, because I’ve been truly blessed in a multitude of ways and I should share that.

I’ve been hard at work on a few websites outside of my day job. Take a gander at terranova or First Baptist Church Chattahoochee, both run by pastors that I’ve had the privilege of being pastored by. They are different churches, targeted at different demographics; thus the different looks. However, I’m not a designer, just a tweaker. Both of those sites are based on wordpress, a blogging management system that I’ve tweaked into a content management system. There are many, many freely available templates for wordpress sites; I download those then tweak them to find the layout that works.

The terranova site was different because we attempted to use a coverflow script (imageflow) as a major navigational component. While it requires a little more work on the end-users part to get around the site, I think it adds a nice dimension of interactivity and a near-tactile experience. Or maybe it’s just annoying. I’m still waiting on feedback after the newness wears off.

After putting in a lot of hours, it was great to get both of those sites live. Also great – converting the terranova pastor…to twitter. And getting him to have the twitter feed posted to the church’s website. It lets his church members connect with him very simply, but, I think, effectively.

As for my day job, the church finally gave me a title, so it’s a little easier to answer the question, “What do you do?” The answer: Director of Media and Communications. Which only produces another question, “So, what do you do?” I will try to make communications within the church body and from the church to the outside world become cohesive, cogent, complete, contemporary, and, maybe just a little, cool. This includes web to print to newspapers to TV and everything in between. It will be, as it already has been, interesting.

In related news, and for the next post, I’ll be attending the Innovate Conference at Granger Community Church in Granger, IN in about two weeks! I’m looking forward to the whole conference, but learning from the guru of church communications (and fellow twitterer) Kem Meyer is the real draw for me. There’s much I need to learn!

And it will be blogged…

I’m sure they mean well, but, I mean, really? Just make sure you listen to the whole thing. The verses are pure poetry. In that they rhyme.