Spiritual Fruit - Introduction

I first really became aware of the fuits of the spirit verse (Galatians 5:somethingorother) when I started doing karate. It was always one of those verses that you felt ashamed not to be able to chime in with whenever someone would start it, but it was a surprise when I started karate and it was our class motto, recited every class. It only took a couple of recitations to get it memorized, and it took not that long to realize why it is an appropriate mantra for a Christian martial arts program, but it has taken many years to slowly come to grips with the implications of the verse. So here are some introductory thoughts regarding the fruits of the Spirit, and I will be following up shortly with focused percolations* on the individual 'fruits'.

The active fruits

The first thing that occured to me eventually is the fact that all of these fruits appear on the surface to be emotions, or passions. It sounds like Paul is saying that the eventual outpouring of God after enough spiritual formation will be that you will feel the following way: loving, joyous, peaceful, patient, kind, good, faithful, gentle, and self controlled. While this may be true too - see C.S. Lewis on the effects of action of emotion - I do not believe it is actually what is being said.

If you look a little closer, you eventually see that these fruits are actually virtues, or 'lifestyles' to choose a psychobabylic term. They are actions, rather than passions**. That is, they are things in which you are the actor, and not the passive receiver. They are muscles that you must exercise in order to use them when you need them.

All things in moderation

Secondly, I am coming to realize that, as with all things in the Christian life, each of these fruits involves a balancing act. All of them have various facets, which, when put together, make up a virtue. But if you focus too much on on facet over the others, you begin to lose the virtuousness of the fruit. Just like with real fruit, you can over water or under water, over prune or under prune, etc. Most of the time, it is not obvious at first what these balancing acts involve. This is one of the areas I am hoping to explore a little more deeply with this series.

The martial connection

Because I am interested in the martial arts and how other things relate to them and vice versa, I will probably spend at least a few bytes on the connection between the Fruits of the Spirit and karate. These connections will - of course - be at least partially limited to my encounters with the martial arts, but most of the points should be fairly wide spread.

So stay tuned, because I'll be kicking it all off with a doozy:

Love

*I use the words 'percolations' rather than 'meditations' to reflect the method by which I usually achieve such insights (if I may call them such); that being that I do not actively reflect on them for long periods of time, but rather they will sit in my back brain where some magical part of my mind will process them over a long period of time, eventually producing (in some cases) enough coherent thoughts to put together some sort of statement. Thus, I find it to be more similar to the slow and steady process of a coffee drip resulting in the cafeinated beverage my wife enjoys so much - or perhaps the slow and amorphous steeping process of tea, a beverage which I myself actually enjoy - rather than to some sort of mental or spiritual scrutiny.

**I would not have truly understood what this meant if it were not for Dr. Dave H. and his discussion on what exactly we refer to when we talk about the Passion of Christ, so props to Dr. H.

Wizard Wednesday: OSS Pt. 1

This is the first part of a series of my thoughts about open source software (OSS). The following information is my impressions and understandings of open source software, and is not necessarily reflective of the beliefs and intentions of the open source movement and the GPL (although I do my best).

So what is 'open source' anyway?

Design Philosophy

There are two main competing views of software design and distribution today, about what it takes to design, produce and distribute a good piece of software.

The first one has been - and continues to be - the most common. It states that a good piece of software requires a large budget, usually supplied by a large corporation with a good design team, bug testers and support department.

The second one is less well known, and is a direct offshoot of the internet generation, which recognizes the power of the internet in bringing together people who have very little in common geographically, but much in common in their interests. It says that a good piece of software just requires someone to get it started, and then others will pitch in to help make it better. This is the guiding principal behind OSS.

So why is it called 'Open Source'?

Source Code

When a program is written, it is written by a programmer in a programming language. The programming language is basically a set of commands with a set of syntax rules which allow the programmer to tell the computer what to do. When the program is in the process of being written, the files which contain these sets of commands are called the 'source code'.

With your standard payware software, the end user never sees this source code, and has no access to it; all they get is the final product to use. With OSS, this source code is 'open'. When you download or purchase the program, you also have the option of downloading the source code for it. This means that for those who have some programming knowledge, they now have the option of not only using the software, but of modifying it to suit their own needs and preferences.

For example, if you were to download Microsoft Internet Explorer (I know, I know, it comes preinstalled; just bear with me) you can only use it for browsing the internet, and regardless of features you feel it is missing, you just have to deal with it. But if you download an open source internet browser, such as Mozilla Firefox, you now have more options. Want Firefox to play music? Okay, you can download the source code and add code to enable it to be a media player as well.

This is how OSS develops. In most cases, there is a single group of developers who manage a given project, and if you have features you think the program should encompass, you have three options:

1) Submit a feature request to the developers. They will take your suggestions along with other people's input and decide which features to implement in the next revision. This is the same way that almost all closed source software (CSS) works.
2) Write a plug-in. Plug-ins are what makes Mozilla Firefox so popular. A plug-in is a piece of software that plugs in to the original code to add features. Much CSS contains the availability for plug-ins as well.
3) Rewrite the source code, and redistribute it under a different name.

But what about the legal ramifications of this last option? If you somehow managed to procure the source code for Microsoft Office, what would happen if you modified it and started distributing it as Macrosoft Orifice? Probably, you would quickly receive a Cease-and-Desist from Microsoft, followed promptly by a lawsuit.

We'll look at the open source licensing philosophy and the GPL next time.

For more information about the open source movement, you can look it up on Wikipedia or wait until next time.