on the virtue of documentary audio

Park Hill Prairie, warm January day, originally uploaded by gurdonark.

I woke early this morning and listened to a podcast called the Something Beautiful Podcast. I had "met" one of the fellows who moderates it through the Twitter micro-weblogging process. He had mentioned the podcast to me when he expressed a fondness for my EP "Seven Virtues".

I gave a listen to this week's edition of the podcast today. The podcast proved to be an interview with a set of young Scots who are training to be youth ministers. The podcast appealed to me because instead of providing me with a lot of dogma and creed and evangelical salesmanship, the podcast just featured these young adults discussing their lives and how they experience their work.

This, to me, is part and parcel of the same "new media" functions that motivate LiveJournal, Twitter, and a host of other social media.
It's a recognition that there is an alternative to the "trickle down" theory of culture held by a wide variety of people coming from all sides of the "politico-cultural" spectrum. I am one of those who advocates the "percolate up" way of connecting to one another.

Personally, I'd rather listen to four young people tell me in a documentary fashion about their lives than to a world of more formal and doctrinal things. It doesn't matter that my theology might differ from theirs, or that we are all just frail reeds rather than experts or theologians.

I listen to, and enjoy, podcasts in which "thought leaders" tell me novel facts I already know about the internet. I also love "gadget" shows, about green things and new bike designs and curious music controllers.

But there is something to be said for the gentle rhythm of ordinary speech--and for using the internet as a picture-window into worlds a bit removed from my own.