Showing posts with label Author. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Author. Show all posts
Friday, June 13, 2014
Ministering Through Writing: The Spirit of Writing
Writing should not be just a means of communicating one's thought; it should be the moment of letting the Spirit speak into the writer's soul, the moment of intimacy with God, the moment when we are willing to let go off the old wineskin in order to take in the new wine. The writer must continually and diligently inquire, question, evaluate the thoughts before putting them into writing. He must weigh them on the scales of Scripture, logic, impact, and relevance. This will certainly need revisions, deletions, and improvements. The writer is, thus, a researcher, an evaluator, a strategist, a logician, and a scribe at once. A writer is a photographer of thoughts. A Christian writer is a minister of God with the vision to communicate God's liberating truth to the ends of the earth.
Monday, November 28, 2011
The Dawn of the E-Age and the End of Paper
It has been variously predicted that paper will go extinct within the next few decades. Enter the age of electronic money, electronic books, and of course, electronic communication. It is the age of Google, Facebook, Skype, Scribd, Wikipedia, and YouTube. Emailing has superceded the courier and ipads are replacing the school bag and the library.
One should be aware by now that anyone having an internet connection has access to the largest library in the world. It is a library larger than men have ever dreamed of. The search engines provide the most up to date indexes ever. Much information is available free of cost. Also, books can be viewed, borrowed, bought, and downloaded. They are now available in different formats, kindle, epub, pdf, djvu, and simple txt to name a few. Most of these can be viewed on smartphones even. Many are turning to ipads as the essential book reader and research tool. And, interestingly, the Government of India has announced its intention to make available tablet PCs to students at a cost as low as Rs.1750 ($35) only. The new device is called "Aakash" [See Aakash, IBN News]. The Government seems a bit unhappy with paper. It encourages uploading of documents through internet and requests customers to not print railway tickets on paper, rather carry them on mobile phones or laptops. Check this GIF from the IRCTC.CO.IN page for instance.
There are some disadvantages of the internet for sure. But, then the adage of Sir Francis Bacon applies to this age as well: "Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested: that is, some books are to be read only in parts, others to be read, but not curiously, and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention," with this caveat, "some must be avoided as one would avoid poison". The fruit of the tree of knowledge in itself is fatal anyway.
One should be aware by now that anyone having an internet connection has access to the largest library in the world. It is a library larger than men have ever dreamed of. The search engines provide the most up to date indexes ever. Much information is available free of cost. Also, books can be viewed, borrowed, bought, and downloaded. They are now available in different formats, kindle, epub, pdf, djvu, and simple txt to name a few. Most of these can be viewed on smartphones even. Many are turning to ipads as the essential book reader and research tool. And, interestingly, the Government of India has announced its intention to make available tablet PCs to students at a cost as low as Rs.1750 ($35) only. The new device is called "Aakash" [See Aakash, IBN News]. The Government seems a bit unhappy with paper. It encourages uploading of documents through internet and requests customers to not print railway tickets on paper, rather carry them on mobile phones or laptops. Check this GIF from the IRCTC.CO.IN page for instance.
There are some disadvantages of the internet for sure. But, then the adage of Sir Francis Bacon applies to this age as well: "Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested: that is, some books are to be read only in parts, others to be read, but not curiously, and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention," with this caveat, "some must be avoided as one would avoid poison". The fruit of the tree of knowledge in itself is fatal anyway.
Related articles
- 300,000 pre-orders for India's $45 tablet (abhishekkathuria.wordpress.com)
- India Produces World's Cheapest Tablet for less than $50. 10k Made, Millions More To Come (singularityhub.com)
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