Before I start this week’s post, I’d like to let you all know that I’m working on making the archives friendlier to browse – mostly putting things in categories (which I probably should have done when I started this 2 years ago…oh well). Now returning you to your regularly scheduled blog post…..

The question ‘Who Am I?’ is one that I think everyone has to struggle with at some point (more likely than not fairly young). I know when I was struggling with this question – which I have done several times for the past 5 years or so – it didn’t cut it to simply say that I am Benjamin Larkin – I needed to (re)discover something deeper about myself, whether I liked what I found or not. A lot of what I consider to be who I am is bound up in my personal history – which I’m going to talk about a bit more in this post* – and in my interests and personality, as well as the people who are a part of my life. So Who am I? Well, keep reading, and you may find some answers to your question.

Starting simply, I am Ben Larkin – a 20 year old Bible College Graduate. I play Video Games, read Science Fiction and Fantasy Novels, watch Sketch Comedy on the Internet, and write a Blog – to put it otherwise I am a nerd/geek. Not the arch-typical picture of nerds/geeks though – there are entire volumes written about what needs to be done to maintain nerd credibility^ that I haven’t followed or achieved everything on – nor the ‘romanticised’ version of them that seems to exist in popular culture at the moment. In saying that I play video games, I also imply that I carry a number of different character names and screen names with me as part of my life experiences. Over the years that I have played games, I’ve gone by several different pseudonyms – many of which describe my personality and traits – including no-all (my original screen name – it was spoken to me by a friend as a reflection of my incredibly large amount of random knowledge), and Fr33Lanc3r (my chosen screen name, which I have been using for nearly 10 years now, and has had several variants over those years – currently it’s Fr33Lanc3r.007).

Personality wise, I’m an intelligent, slightly cynical, slightly hard to get along with – although I can be friendly when I have a mind to – have a warped sense of humor – no-one else seems to find what I find funny amusing (it’s mostly puns and personal in-jokes) – and am not generally good at organization or working out how to move from the problem to the solution. I have issues with setting my own life direction and goals – I can be too ambitious at times, and I have trouble coping when I fail to meet those ambitions – and I often want every step to be assured before I begin any sort of change in direction (which meant I was completely terrified both times when I absolutely knew I had to do something big – apply for College and register for an Electrical Apprenticeship – but had no idea how to go about either of them – where to apply, what course to undertake, etc. God can be funny like that.) Yet I have no issues being impulsive with smaller things – starting this blog was a spur of the moment decision; I have a tendency to buy first, ask questions later when looking at games or DVDs at the shops – often to my own detriment. I often speak before I think – an artifact of the group of friends that I had in High School – yet when I’m explaining something I have been (or am at that moment) seriously thinking about, I tend to stumble over my words as new ideas and concepts come to mind faster than I can say them.

So I’m now looking at the wordcount on this post, and I’m figuring that you don’t want to read more than 800 words on a blog post (even 800 might be too much)……I think I’ll write the rest up in next weeks post……that way I don’t need to cut a lot of what I want to say….see you next week.

*I may tell my story in more detail at some point in the future, I figure I’m turning 21 this May, and that’s a milestone that could launch into an Autoblography (to steal a term from someone else who wrote out part of his life story on his blog), so stay tuned…

^I know Wikihow articles of this nature are often written for humor (and as a reflection on the popular culture views a particular subculture or group of people) rather than as an attempt to actually explain the ins and outs of the topic at hand, but you get my drift.

I was hit again this morning by exactly how interacting online can bring about a sense of community. When I logged onto The West this morning, I caught the beginning of a conversation where one of the younger members (about my age, maybe a bit older) of the alliance I’m part of was talking to some of the older members (a grandmother, and a 40-something with teenage boys) about some issues he was having (which I won’t talk about here, cause it’s not really my place to talk about that). I didn’t catch the whole conversation (having to go out for a bit shortly after logging on), but the fact that this group are comfortable enough with each other that they are willing to share personal struggles with each other (remembering that the only way a lot of us communicate is via in game messages and chat – I haven’t seen any of them face to face, or heard their voices) is evident of how community can form in an online environment.

Sharing struggles in a game (such as fighting together to take over a fort, or chasing off other players who are attacking our people), and helping others wherever we can in game (such as sharing equipment we no longer need, or getting items for people who cannot) has easily translated to sharing our struggles in ‘real life’ (in the form of telling each other about our lives and the struggles we face), to helping each other in whatever way we can in ‘real life’ (mostly sharing advice from our own experiences when people share their struggles – I pray for people as well, still need to tell them that……).

The Resistance (the alliance I am a part of) is a community in it’s own right. We have our own in-jokes, our own ways of doing things, and we all rally around each other in their times of need – despite the fact that none of us have seen each other face to face. As I write this, I’m laughing and joking with a few other members – people I know and trust, and people I have given my (virtual) life for time and time again. If this isn’t a true community, I don’t know what is.

Have any of you experienced community in an online setting? How have you found it? What can the fact that there is community within online settings mean for society? What does it mean for the Church?

Small Note: I’m playing around with the theme of the blog – almost a total overhaul of a lot of the little things – I’m liking the changes so far, but let me know if there’s anything that doesn’t work – if you’re in a different web browser, etc

I’ve had a fairly interesting day – one part of which I found interesting enough that I think it warrants the most blog posts I’ve ever written in a week. I did a variety of different things, some part of commitments I have made to ministries of the Church I attend, some for fun (it is a Saturday after all). One event from the day stands out from the rest, however, in that – thinking about it a few hours later – it seems I have now come full circle in regards to some of my online goings on.

Yesterday I posted about my stance on the interaction between Science and Christianity in regards to the origins of the universe, and the origins of life on Earth. What I didn’t share was that the aformentioned post was directly inspired by a Facebook friend’s status update on the matter. While I respect his views on the subject (which he didn’t really go into), many of his other Facebook friends were affirming his stance, and I felt that I should share my own with them…..when I logged onto Facebook this morning, I found that one of his friends has called me out on my point of view, and engaged me in an argument between his hardline creationist stance, and my ‘Genesis 1-3 isn’t concerned with the HOW’s of creation, so science may be right for all we know’ stance. I honestly can say that I had answered all of his questions as completely as I could (not being an expert on science) with as much tact and sincerity as I could, yet his responses seemed (to me) to become more and more agressive, to the point where he seemed (to me) to stop talking rationally, and instead began an emotionally charged rant on the failings of Science to point towards any conclusive evidence for anything that cannot be observed.

This is the second time this has happened to me during my history of interacting with others online – the first time being the very first time I decided to voice my opinion online, coincidentally about the same subject, while I was meant to be studying for my final exams at school. I was on a unofficial forum set up by students to help other students (with exam tips, copies of past papers, general tips for each subject, etc), when I discovered a very long discussion about religion – particularly the arguments against any form of religion – which I jumped into with a defense of the existence of God (which in hindsight was very close to Pascal’s Wager). The discussion turned to evolution (as they all seem to do), and I stated my thoughts on the matter as succinctly as I could (my thoughts at that point being a less refined rendition of what I posted yesterday, I’ve had over 4 years since then thinking about this sort of stuff). Eventually the discussion turned into an argument where either side wasn’t going to be persuaded either way, and I made the tactful decision to just leave the conversation before either of us got too emotional.

In both these discussions, it quickly became heated, and it became apparent to me that neither side was going to accept the other’s position (to the point where everyone ignored statements they couldn’t refute or didn’t want to talk about), and I simply bowed out rather than continue to waste effort simply making myself (and the other people) more and more frustrated and bitter. The only difference between these two conversations was that one of them was had with a self-professed Atheist, and the other with a Christian with a hardline creationist view of the world. In fact, I think the Atheist may have been more civil than the Christian (but this is going back 4 years, so my memory may be a bit hazy). I’d always thought that Christians would at least be civil when it comes to discussing matters of less importance in the overall scheme of things (as I consider the whole debate to be) – that ripping you hear is the sound of some of my illusions being stripped away….

In any case, it appears that I’ve come full circle arguing about evolution and the origins of the universe. I only wish it had taken longer than 4 years to get there…..

The divide between Science and Christianity is a very wide one – to the point where many whom I have encountered (on both sides of the debate) say it’s really a divide between Intellectualism and Blind Stupidity (at least, that’s my understanding of their implications) – particularly in relation to the origins of the Universe, and the origins of life on this planet. I know many people who say that Science must be right (and thus the Bible must be wrong), and just as many people who has the Bible has to be right (and thus Science has no option to be wrong unless it agrees). This is difficult for me, as I walk in both worlds – I love me some Science, the harder it is to wrap my head around the better in some regards, and I have a personal faith in Jesus Christ, and believe that everything the Bible says it true. Knowing this, it may come as no surprise that I have a different opinion to both parties of the debate.

What I believe, as far as the formation of the Universe and the Origin of Life on Earth goes, is that both Science and the Scriptures are correct – in their own way. The Genesis account of creation is not so concerned with HOW the universe and life came to be, as it is concerned with WHO brought them about, and WHY he did so – there are many different things I can point to as evidence for this reading’s plausibility, but I want to keep this short (ask me again sometime). Science is concerned with the HOW, but not the WHO or WHY – simply because asking about the WHO or WHY means going towards subjective opinions, which Science isn’t meant to do (being meant to take objective information and confirm facts from those). This brings my view on this subject to ‘I believe – without a doubt – the God brought the universe into being by His Word, and that he formed the Earth according to His will. What I do not – and cannot – know is the exact details of how He did so. If the Genesis account is 100% correct, then awesome! If the Big Bang Theory and the Theory of Evolution are plausible ways in which God could have done it, then that’s awesome too! If it’s a completely different method that no-one has proposed or figured out yet, that’s awesome as well!’

Some might say that I am skipping the issue somewhat – sitting on the fence to avoid offending both sides – but this isn’t the case. You would be surprised how many Christians I know that dismiss my views on this outright – because I don’t affirm that every word of Scripture is 100% accurate without metaphor or other literary devices to make a hard topic easier to understand – and how many Non-Christians that I know that wonder how I can affirm that their views are plausible, but still choose to believe in an all-powerful Creator that holds the Universe together. The path I walk is one that has a tendency to alienate me from both sides of the argument….but it’s one that I have spent many years personally wrestling with, and my convictions have come out stronger for it.

*For those questioning, my third post across two blogs.

Before I begin this post, I want to announce that I will be doing my best to update this blog weekly (most likely on Tuesdays or Wednesdays at this point – subject to change), and I want you – my readers – to help keep me on track. I’ve had a backlog of drafts and post ideas for a while now, and I want to do something about it – I figure making myself accountable to you all in regards to regular blogging is a good way to get some of those finished and available for people to read (turns out I need a stick as well as a carrot – even for things I enjoy doing……). And now, this week’s post:

I’ve written before on the potential Video Games have to be a tool for learning, but over the past week, I’ve been particularly hit by the realisation that playing my online games (Tribal Wars and The West) has either taught me, or reinforced for me, quite a few different life lessons. I thought I’d list  some of them here for your enjoyment and reflection. This is by no means an exhaustive list of what all games have taught me – being only about 2 games in particular, and only a few  skills from those games – but just something to think about.

The most major of the lessons Tribal Wars and The West have taught me are concerned with what people look for in the workplace. In one of the servers I am a part of on The West, I joined the town I am a part of as a general member – I was happy to help out in any way that I could (both within the town, and in the alliance of towns we are a part of), but other than that, I didn’t have any responsibility. Over time, still being generally just out to help wherever I can, and communicating with anyone from my group that I can, I have been given more and more responsibility, not just within my town, but within the alliance my town is a part of – to the point where I have recently been appointed as a leader in my town, and one of the voting members of the alliance council. I know this has been a more rapid rise than would occur within ‘Real Life’ (not the best term in my opinion, but good shorthand for life outside of the game), but the principles are generally the same – being open to helping wherever possible, and being eager to learn and help others can often lead to more responsibility within any area of life.

Further than that, over the years I have been playing both of these games, I’ve been part of groups that have had good organisation and leadership skills; groups with bad leadership, but good organisation; groups with charismatic leaders, and terrible organisation; and groups with bad organisation and leadership. I’ve learnt to cope with all of these situations, and even thrive under a few of them. I’ve also been a part of running groups of both large amounts of people (in the case of the group previously mentioned, almost 100 people), and smaller groups (less than 20 people), with varied success at both. These are management skills, and experiences that I can call on again if I am ever in a similar situation. Tribal Wars has a lot of strategy involved, as much of the game revolves around building a village, and using the various soldiers that the village can train in order to both defend the territory I already hold, and taking the territory of rivals in my area. Because of this I am no stranger to making what can often be hard decisions about what works best given the current situation (which can often be in conflict with my natural tendencies – which is towards defense, and a strong economy), with both a short term, and a long term goal in mind.

There are more things that I have learnt throughout my experiences with both of these games, and with many different games in general, but I don’t want this post to get any longer – it already seems to be looking like an extended resume, and I’d hate for it to get any longer……

So have any of you learnt anything meaningful from playing a video game? Has it just been something trivial? Have you not learnt anything (or haven’t played enough to see any learning happen)? Do you have any thoughts of the subject? Is this (either the topic, or the asking questions at the end of a post) something you’d like me to do again?

So, my regrets from last year, and my hopes for the one ahead……

Looking back on 2011, there are a few things that I regret. Chief amongst these is the loss if contact with a few of the people that I had come to know so well through my online games – most of them moving on after no longer having the time or inclination to play, and a few that just kinda stopped plating without warning. With the games I’m playing, there isn’t a lot of ways to connect outside of the game (a few games use Skype for real time communication, but I don’t play those anymore – see previous post), so when someone leaves for any reason, more than 90% of the time there’s no way to keep in touch with them (not that I’m great at keeping in touch with friends to start with…..). Whenever someone leaves one of the games I play, I can’t help but think of all of the missed opportunities I had to talk about God with them (often ignoring the conversations I did have with them), and feel some guilt and helplessness when I realise that all I can do now is pray that God brings someone else into their life to build on whatever foundation that He laid through what I’ve said.

I also regret not posting here (and at the Digital Missions Blog) more often. I’ve had several different ideas for posts over the past year, and either haven’t been near a computer, or haven’t found enough time at a keyboard to finish the post, and don’t go back to it later (and then the half written post languishes in the drafts folder forever). I’m working through a couple of the more recent of the latter, but the rule with the way I write is generally – unless an idea really sticks in my mind, or is incredibly current in the wider world (or what passes for the various subcultures I consider myself part of), or I have someone pull me up and remind me that I was gonna write something  (Thanks Craig!) – once an idea has passed on from my mind, I’m not going to come back to it, and thus it will never get written. Hopefully I can be a bit more regular in posting on both of my blogs in 2012, but – as always – I make no promises about posting schedules.

So, enough of my regrets (at least, the ones that I can still remember weeks later), on to my hopes for the year…..

First things first, thanks to some mucking around with what my Bible College course needs, I’m finished with college (for now), and will be graduating with an Advanced Diploma of Ministry in early March. This is the end of a three year journey for me, and one that I’ve had a lot of fun with, but I am glad to have this chapter of my life behind me for a lot of reasons (which I won’t go into here, cause this post is getting a little long…….). I’m also hoping to get an Electrical Apprenticeship soon (which again, I won’t talk  much about here, it’s sort of outside the scope of what I see this blog as), it’s something that feels right for me, and I know that it’s where God wants me to be for at least the next 4-5 years of my life.

There are some big things for this year – things that I’ve been thinking about for ages that finally feel right; and things that I’ve never thought about before, but I’m thinking about them now, and I know I’m thinking about them for a reason. Some of them I don’t want to talk about (cause they’re either more personal than I want to talk about, or they’re just unfinished thoughts that would end up with me rambling), and some of them aren’t ready to be talked about (either the wrong time, or more unfinished thought rambling), but I will keep you posted on some of my ideas as they progress……

So that’s my wrapping up on 2011……again, sorry it’s all so late. I look forward to seeing what I’m going to write in 2012 (hopefully finishing up on some of those drafts to start with, but I never know…..), and I hope that you all enjoy reading/commenting.

Over the course of 2011, I’ve come to know more about me through a variety of different things – some of which I’ve shared with you guys, some of which I haven’t – knowing more about myself (where I’ve come from [and how my past has shaped me to be the person I am now], where I could be going [and hope to be going] in the future, and more about who I am at a more general level), and knowing more about God (through college [as always], but also just through my interactions with Scripture, with others, and with the world around me [a lot of which was shared here]).

Over the course of 2011, I also once again started playing both Tribal Wars (which I’ve talked about here), and The West (a different game by the same company), both with the intention of being a light to the communities that form within those games. I had some ups and downs with this (which I talked about here), eventually stopping playing Tribal Wars because logging on became something I dreaded (along with the realization that it had been a while since I had actually talked to someone in game cause I couldn’t become stable enough [i.e. successful enough or lucky enough to not be taken out immediately] on any of the worlds I was playing). On The West, however, I’ve been thriving as a part of a group of towns, many of which are really great people, whom I enjoy spending time with – and whom I look forward to spending more time talking to over the coming (insert unknown period of time here – unlike Tribal Wars, The West is much slower paced).

I’ve also become more acquainted with the wider online community (which I maintain exists, it’s just outside of social networking), mostly through following blogs (a few of which can be found in the links on the side), and it’s been encouraging to find more Christians out there doing the same sort of stuff that I am, and a few doing different things along the same theme, and some doing things that are completely different that I love to read about. It’s been great to interact and dialogue with a few of them over the year, and I hope to continue to talk to these guys, and discover even more people over the coming year. I suggest you give them a look, and I’ll be sure to add anything else I find to my links box….

There’s not much more that I can really say…..many of the other joys that I’ve experienced over the year have been intensely personal, or are very hard to describe in words, or would be simply repeating my old posts (which, if I may say so myself, are well written and should be read by all of you). If I have time in the busy week between Christmas and New Year (read, can get to and use a computer for any significant length of time), I’ll post more about my sorrows and regrets, before looking at what I could see happening in 2012 in early January….

Merry Christmas to all of you.

Fr33Lanc3r

*If you ever want to know, you may need to hold me to that…….and not let me try and get out of it……

This was a bit of a challenge for me. I’ve been aware of the fact that there is an illegal slave trade going on around the world (that’s affected more lives than the English-American slave trade that many people condemn outright) for some time, and I’ve struggled a bit lot with the question of ‘What can I do about it?’ Yesterday the speakers encouraged everyone to think about how they can use whatever gifts they have (whatever is in their hands – which I can’t tell if it’s Christianese or not) to do their part towards the abolition of modern slavery. I spent a lot of time yesterday thinking about this, and (as usual for me) I finally came up with an idea while I was trying to sleep. I’m still considering this, but I thought I’d share it anyway.

I’m currently thinking – somewhat inspired by the ongoing Desert Bus For Hope (A gaming marathon that raises money for Child’s Play) –  that maybe I could set up some form of Gaming Marathon for Children that don’t get a childhood (the situation that most distressed me about slavery being that most of todays slaves are children – who are enslaved to fight in wars, work to produce coffee, tea, and many others, or as prostitutes). I’m still working through details, but the money would go towards one of the many groups working to bring people out of slavery and help them through the trauma their experiences produced. I’m thinking about playing through one of the games of my own early childhood (Word/Math Rescue; Commander Keen; etc) in a sort of ‘revisit my own childhood for those who don’t have one’ theme – and doing something along the lines of the more donations that come in, the longer I (and anyone else who wants to join in – possibly taking shifts for health reasons) play for. I might even (if this idea comes to fruition) set it up so the experience is taped and posted on Youtube or something – although if that happens maybe something else should happen throughout as well……….

As I said, this is a halfbaked idea that came to me in the middle of the night, so I’m completely open to input/suggestions/critisisms/etc. But I do want to encourage all of you to make a stand on the issue of modern slavery, and use whatever gifts you have, whatever positions you hold, and whatever influence you can exert to affect a change in the world – whether large or small.

So catching up – I’ve finished College. The overseeing board changed the requirements of the Advanced Diploma of Ministry (the course I’ve been doing), and with some wonderfully complex mucking around, It’s been decreed that I’m eligible to graduate provided I pass this semester’s subjects (which I’m feeling fairly confident about). I’m not sure where I’m going to go from here, I’m looking to find some work, and will probably just earn some money without studying for a while – but I still don’t have everything worked out (which I’m not sure is a good thing or a bad thing).

I’ll try and update both this blog (I’ve been mulling over some things that I probably should post one of these days), and the Digital Missions Blog over the weeks leading up to Christmas. I’m not going to try and invent stuff to post about for either, so I cannot guarantee anything regular, but I will probably start posting the various things that go through my mind now that life’s calmed down a little……

I’ve started a second blog, dedicated to sharing about the ins and outs of Digital Missions – rather inventively named the ‘Digital Missions Blog‘. This is something that’s been stirring for a while, particularly since this blog has moved away a lot from what I originally wanted it to be and still want it to be – a place for me to share my more intellectual struggles with what I’m learning, and what’s going on in the world around me - and turned into a place where I’m sharing more and more about what I’m doing as a self-described Digital Missionary – which I don’t feel that this blog is suited to being. So this blog will move back into being a space where I talk about the issues that I’m wrestling with (in all their random goodness), and the new blog will be a place to share about what’s been going on particularly in my experience of digital mission, and to talk about the principles behind digital mission in depth. Also, it is my hope that the Digital Missions Blog will turn out to be something that is more than my own endeavor – I’m hoping and praying that others wrestling with the same questions will find it, and contribute to discussions (and start some, I won’t turn away other authors if they are genuinely interested in writing something useful and relevant, something that everyone can benefit from).

Also, I’m looking into starting a forum with the same sort of idea in mind – a place where people involved in Evangelism/Mission online can get together, encourage one another, and share what’s happening in their lives and ministries. I’m still looking into options here and praying about whether this is the right thing to do, but I’ll let you know when there’s something more concrete. Also, if you know of a good, free, forum provider that doesn’t require a private server, let me know.