faith took this photograph. it was quite a day!

in two weeks, hannah turns eight.

Timothy Dalrymple, via Scot McKnight:

What I mean is this: we sometimes find ourselves going about our lives and seeing the world through our own eyes, but simultaneously observing ourselves from the outside as it might be perceived or told by someone else.  So here I am feeding the homeless on Skid Row, but even while I’m working with the homeless I’m also observing myself, and approving of myself, working with the homeless.  A part of me is conscious of others and their needs, and a part of me is watching myself on video and admiring how I look.  I’m watching myself through a camera that hovers somewhere over my shoulder, and ultimately I’m hoping that others will, someday and somehow, see the instant replay.

via patheos.

not someday, not somehow... today, on twitter & facebook & google+ and through the weekend message I'm preparing, the church I'm planting, the class I'm teaching, the ministry I'm developing, the article I'm writing...

doesn't it seem like the spiritual practices that might best help us in our times involve submission, silence, unseen service, and so forth?

The question is, of course: How does one perform a vanishing act these days? In an age of smart phones and GPS — not to mention anonymity-piercing paparazzi and celebrity magazines — is it really still possible to disappear? Absolutely, said Frank M. Ahearn, the author of the concisely titled primer “How to Disappear.” “Technology is a double-edged sword,” said Mr. Ahearn, a “skip tracing” expert who used to track missing people through credit-card and phone records and the like. “It can be used to find or to conceal. The real question is: Who’s better at technology? You or the people trying to hunt you?”

via NYTimes.com.

While admitting that technology can often make it easier to track a person down, Bob Burton, the president of U.S. Cobra, one of the country’s largest bounty-hunting companies, said that all you need to disappear is “a good computer and a 14-year-old kid.”

And perhaps a dead person, too.

“You look in the obituaries,” Mr. Burton said, “in Topeka, Kan., say. You want a gas station attendant more or less your age. Once you get the date of birth, you call the county. ‘Hi, I used to live in Kansas, but I’ve been living in American Samoa for the last 20 years as a Christian missionary. Any chance I could get a copy of my birth certificate?’ ”

Should your ruse succeed and the certificate arrive, simply call a motor vehicle office and apply for a driver’s license. “All you need,” Mr. Burton said, “is one good piece of ID. The rest follows after that.”

Is a signature required? “Show up with your writing hand in a sling,” he said. “That way, when you sign with your left hand, your signature’s messed up.”

Are officials troubling you for fingerprints? “There’s a nongreasy glue, like a mucilage,” he said, that is more or less invisible once applied. “You put it on your thumb. You roll your thumb over your heel. Now, you’ve got a heel print on your thumb for no one who exists.”

"How to Disappear: Erase Your Digital Footprint, Leave False Trails, and Vanish without a Trace", by Ahearn & Horan.

I sent away for the book, it arrived, and within a day it disappeared.

True story.

Suddenly, one of the most famous Apple stores in the world is one that not only isn’t a real Apple Store, but apparently isn’t even an authorized Apple reseller.

As noted earlier on China Real Time, the fake Apple Store, located in the southwestern Chinese city of Kunming, was spotted by an expatriate blogger in the city who uses the handle BirdAbroad...

Trying to reach the store’s owners has been tough. Repeated calls to the manager on Thursday went unanswered. But a store employee reached by phone confirmed that the store is not an authorized Apple reseller. The salesman said products in the store are genuine Apple products sold at the same prices as those advertised on Apple’s website.

BirdAbroad said in a post Wednesday that store staff she spoke to appeared to believe they were employees of Apple. The staffer reached by phone was under no such illusion. “It doesn’t make much of a difference for us whether we’re authorized or not,” he said. “I just care that what I sell every day are authentic Apple products, and that our customers don’t come back to me to complain about the quality of the products.”

via WSJ.

Sometimes you have to work hard to find the right jellyfish to step over.