Weeknotes 24:12

March 24, 2024

Week of March 17–23

It was four years ago today that I wrote my very first weeknote post after returning from a company retreat. I am grateful that I started this practice of sharing different things about my work week and my personal life. The process has helped me become a better and more disciplined writer. It has also helped me to document resources and techniques that I have returned to later.

My name is Yordan, but not Michael Jordan

I met Yordan,(far left) pronounced “Jordan”, while on a mission project in Hungary in 2007.

On Tuesday, I had a Facetime chat with Yordan, who serves with Cru in Bulgaria. I had been asked by my friend Dan, who serves with Cru, to help him out in a dream that he had to informally mentor staff and interns that he is working with in Europe. This is to help give them a greater breadth of development beyond the ministry strategy that they discuss with Dan.

He connected me first with Yordan because I had already met Yordan while I was in Budapest in 2007 for a spring break mission trip. Yordan had contacted me at the end of the previous week. We met on Tuesday at 9 AM in Chattanooga and 3 PM in Sophia, Bulgaria where he lives. We enjoyed an hour catching up with each other.

Yordan is just a year younger than me and is also the father of 3 children (he has two boys and a girl and I have the opposite). We even share the life experience of having one of our children studying abroad (my son in Barcelona and his daughter in Ohio).

I am excited about this opportunity to informally mentor other Christians. It mostly is about sharing life experiences. I also enjoy the opportunity to meet believers in different cultures. This opportunity is also scratching an itch that I have had to be able to invest my life in others. It was great to hear from Jordan what he has been doing and how he has seen God work in his life since our paths first crossed.

CSS Cafe – Fluid Responsive Type

I attended an online meetup on Wednesday. Trys Mudford shared about the thinking beyond Utopia. Utopia is an approach to thinking about fluid responsive design. He spent the majority of the time talking about the foundation of this approach before talking about the specific tools that he has helped to create to help others use this approach (see his recent blog post).

All four tools have the option to use clamp() or CSS locks and can be configured to the viewport or container. The four tools that the Utopia site supports are:

I have used the fluid type calculator and fluid space calculator on a couple of personal projects including the recent refresh of this site.

I enjoyed getting to hear more of the thinking behind this approach to responsive design. I like the approach of using fluid type and space because it seems to fit better with the idea of responsive interfaces instead of the approach of changing type or spacing at breakpoints (or brokepoints–you can buy a t-shirt).

Now that I understand the approach better, I may go back and make some changes to my implementation on this site.

Trys wrote an article on his site about the Utopian journey this past week, which is the core of what he shared at the CSS Cafe. I will post the video of the presentation once it is available (embedded above).

The Sacredness of Secular Work

I started a new book at the end of the week, The Sacredness of Secular Work. I was able to borrow it from my assistant pastor. I had seen it on his bookshelf earlier in the week during our small group time. Randy Alcorn promoted the book on his blog on Friday.

I have only read the introduction and first chapter but it has already made a big impact on me. Jordan Raynor discusses how the church over the last 200 years has emphasized the Great Commission (which by the way is a man-made term) to where it seems like the only commission, that it is the exclusive mission that God has given. It has led to an incomplete understanding of the gospel and an incomplete understanding of eternity.

This has also led to a misunderstanding that the only work of eternal consequence is work done that is leveraged to the instrumental end of saving souls (evangelism). A similar thread that has reinforced that message is an abridged form of the gospel that only focuses on two elements instead of the complete story.

The first chapter of the book dives into the unabridged version of the gospel. The author spends a lot of time in the first part of the story which is creation. There are fundamental truths in the creation story that are important to have a more holistic view of the Christian life and the intrinsic value that all work has. It all starts with the first commission that God gave at the end of Genesis 1.

I think I have understood the bigger picture of what Jordan calls the unabridged gospel. But the way that he unpacks it helped me to understand how my understanding of work and its value has been shaped more by the misunderstandings of seeing the Great Commission as the only commission and the abridged version of the gospel. I think that this is an important perspective for me to take to heart and to help others understand as well.

This is not to say the Great Commission is not important. It is a command that should shape every Christian’s life. It is very important and it is not optional. But it has been emphasized in such a way as to create a misunderstanding of the intrinsic value of any work, not just work that is directly related to the carrying out of that command from Christ.

I am looking forward to reading more and embracing a healthier view of work and helping others to see its intrinsic value.

CSS Tricks is back

I saw a new article appear in my RSS feed from CSS Tricks at the end of the week. I had heard that the CEO of Digital Ocean had reached out to Chris Coyier. The CEO seems committed to following through on their stewardship of the site that they had not followed through with after they bought it. It also seems that Chris is involved in some sort of advisory role. And DigitalOcean is re-hiring the role that Geoff Graham was let go from last year (see Geoff’s post about how he feels about it).

I am not sure what to think. I would love to see CSS Tricks make a comeback to be what we all loved and enjoyed about it. But it is going to take a lot of work to gain back the trust of the community after how DigitalOcean let it just fall away.

I shared my feelings about the situation a couple of weeks ago, CSS Tricks – I don’t blame you, Chris. I had seen that DigitalOcean was exploring a path forward after Chris wrote about trying to reacquire CSS Tricks and after I wrote my piece in response.

Articles I read

What I watched

Books I am reading

Walks

  • Monday AM – 2.10 miles in 37m
  • Tuesday PM – 2.10 miles in 37m
  • Wednesday PM – 2.07 miles in 36m
  • Thursday PM – 2.02 miles in 37m
  • Saturday PM – 2.25 miles in 40m

What I played

  • MLB The Show 23 (Rays) – I got back into this game. I played 4 games and won all 4 of them. The first three were all close and I had to come back in each of those to win.
  • FIFA23 (Manchester City and Sunderland) – I decided to start a new season with Sunderland after watching Sunderland ‘Til I Die on Netflix.

1 Comment

  1. Weekly Links 03.25–03.31 – ntdln

    April 1st, 2024

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