"At the center of the universe is a loving heart that continues to beat and that wants the best for every person. Anything we can do to help foster the intellect and spirit and emotional growth of our fellow humans beings, that is our job. Those of us who have this particular vision must continue against all odds. Life is for service."
So said Fred "Mr." Rogers.
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Probably the end of this blog
Hey y'all, anyone who may be frustrated that I haven't posted anything in months. Sorry about that. People are mysterious. I've been alive and breathing and learning, but there's no trace of it here. I may start a new blog someday... but this one is now officially over.
Saturday, April 18, 2009
Here's something I found via Sojourners
50 ways to love your neighbor by Shane Claiborne and Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove
With the National Day of Prayer coming up (May 7), a lot of folks around the country are organizing prayer services in church sanctuaries and town halls. We’re all for getting together to say prayers … but we’re also challenged by the ways scripture stirs us to become the answer to our prayers. So we decided to start a little campaign. Here are 50 ways — some little, some bigger — that we can start to be the church we pray for. If you can join us in committing to do at least one of these things between now and May 7, consider yourself a member of the movement and share the list with your friends.
1. Fast for the 2 billion people who live on less than a dollar a day.
2. Contact your local crisis pregnancy center and invite a pregnant woman to live with your family.
3. Ask your pastor if someone on your church’s sick list would like a visit.
4. Join an open AA meeting and befriend someone there.
5. Adopt a child.
6. Mow your neighbor’s grass.
7. Volunteer to tutor a kid at your local elementary school. (Try to get to know the kid’s family.)
8. Grow your own tomatoes–and share them.
9. Ask a small group in your community to meet regularly for intercessory prayer.
10. Build a wheel chair ramp for someone who is homebound.
11. Read the newspaper to someone at your local nursing home.
12. Plant a tree.
13. Look up the closest registered sex offender in your neighborhood and try to befriend him.
14. Throw a birthday party for a prostitute.
15. When you pay your water bill, pay your neighbor’s too (they’ll let you… really).
16. Invest money in a micro-lending bank.
17. Ask the next person who asks you to spare some change to join you for dinner.
18. Leave a random tip for someone who’s cleaning the streets or a public restroom.
19. Write one CEO a month this year. Affirm or critique the ethics of their company (you may need to do a little research first).
20. Start tithing (giving 10%) of all your income directly to the poor.
21. Connect with a group of migrant workers or farmers who grow your food and visit their farm. Maybe even pick some veggies with them. Ask what they get paid.
22. Give your winter coat away to someone who is colder than you and go to a thrift store to get a new one.
23. Write only paper letters (by hand) for a month. Try writing someone who needs encouragement or who you should say “I’m sorry” to.
24. Go TV free for a year. Or turn your TV into a pot where flowers grow.
25. Laugh at advertisements, especially ones that teach you that you can buy happiness.
26. Organize a prayer vigil for peace outside a weapons manufacturer such as Lockheed Martin. Read the Sermon on the Mount out loud. For extra credit, do it every week for a year.
27. Go down a line of parked cars and pay for the meters that are expired. Leave a little note of niceness.
28. Write to one social justice organizer or leader each month just to encourage them.
29. Go through a local thrift store and drop $1 bills in random pockets of the clothing being sold.
30. Experiment with creation-care by going fuel free for a week–ride a bike, carpool, or walk.
31. Try only reading books written by females or people of color for a year.
32. Go to an elderly home and get a list of folks who don´t get any visitors. Visit them each week and tell stories, read the bible together, or play board games.
33. Track to its source one item of food you eat regularly. Then, each time you eat that food, pray for those folks who helped make it possible for you to eat it.
34. Create a Jubilee fund in your Church congregation, matching dollar for dollar every dollar you spend internally with a dollar externally. If you have a building fund, create a fund to match it to give away and by mosquito nets or dig wells for folks dying in poverty.
35. Become a pen-pal with someone in prison.
36. Give your car away to a stranger.
37. Convert your car to run off waste vegetable oil.
38. Try recycling your water from the washer or sink to flush your toilet. Remember the 1.2 billion folks who don´t have clean water.
39. Wash your clothes by hand, or dry them by hanging to remember those without electricity or running water. Remember the 1.6 billion people who do not have electricity.
40. Buy only used clothes for a year.
41. Cover up all brand names, or at least the ones that do not reflect the upside-down economics of God’s Kingdom. Commit to only being branded by the cross.
42. Learn to sew or start making your own clothes to remember the invisible faces behind what we wear. Take your kids to pick cotton so they can see what that is like (and then read James).
43. Eat only a bowl of rice a day for a week to remember those who do that for most of their life (take a multivitamin). Remember the 30,000 people who die each day of poverty and malnutrition.
44. Begin creating a scholarship fund so that for every one of your own children you send to college you can create a scholarship for an at-risk youth. Get to know their family and learn from each other.
45. Visit a worship service where you will be a minority. Invite someone to dinner at your house or have dinner with someone there if they invite you.
46. Help your church congregation create a Peacemaker Scholarship and give it away to a young person trying to avoid the economic draft, who would like to go to college but sees no other way than the military.
47. Eat with someone who does not look like you. Learn from them.
48. Confess something you have done wrong to someone and ask them to pray for you.
49. Serve in a homeless shelter. For extra credit, go back and eat or sleep in the shelter and allow yourself to be served.
50. Join a Yokefellows ministry at a prison close to you. Remember that Jesus said he would meet you there (Matt. 25).
With the National Day of Prayer coming up (May 7), a lot of folks around the country are organizing prayer services in church sanctuaries and town halls. We’re all for getting together to say prayers … but we’re also challenged by the ways scripture stirs us to become the answer to our prayers. So we decided to start a little campaign. Here are 50 ways — some little, some bigger — that we can start to be the church we pray for. If you can join us in committing to do at least one of these things between now and May 7, consider yourself a member of the movement and share the list with your friends.
1. Fast for the 2 billion people who live on less than a dollar a day.
2. Contact your local crisis pregnancy center and invite a pregnant woman to live with your family.
3. Ask your pastor if someone on your church’s sick list would like a visit.
4. Join an open AA meeting and befriend someone there.
5. Adopt a child.
6. Mow your neighbor’s grass.
7. Volunteer to tutor a kid at your local elementary school. (Try to get to know the kid’s family.)
8. Grow your own tomatoes–and share them.
9. Ask a small group in your community to meet regularly for intercessory prayer.
10. Build a wheel chair ramp for someone who is homebound.
11. Read the newspaper to someone at your local nursing home.
12. Plant a tree.
13. Look up the closest registered sex offender in your neighborhood and try to befriend him.
14. Throw a birthday party for a prostitute.
15. When you pay your water bill, pay your neighbor’s too (they’ll let you… really).
16. Invest money in a micro-lending bank.
17. Ask the next person who asks you to spare some change to join you for dinner.
18. Leave a random tip for someone who’s cleaning the streets or a public restroom.
19. Write one CEO a month this year. Affirm or critique the ethics of their company (you may need to do a little research first).
20. Start tithing (giving 10%) of all your income directly to the poor.
21. Connect with a group of migrant workers or farmers who grow your food and visit their farm. Maybe even pick some veggies with them. Ask what they get paid.
22. Give your winter coat away to someone who is colder than you and go to a thrift store to get a new one.
23. Write only paper letters (by hand) for a month. Try writing someone who needs encouragement or who you should say “I’m sorry” to.
24. Go TV free for a year. Or turn your TV into a pot where flowers grow.
25. Laugh at advertisements, especially ones that teach you that you can buy happiness.
26. Organize a prayer vigil for peace outside a weapons manufacturer such as Lockheed Martin. Read the Sermon on the Mount out loud. For extra credit, do it every week for a year.
27. Go down a line of parked cars and pay for the meters that are expired. Leave a little note of niceness.
28. Write to one social justice organizer or leader each month just to encourage them.
29. Go through a local thrift store and drop $1 bills in random pockets of the clothing being sold.
30. Experiment with creation-care by going fuel free for a week–ride a bike, carpool, or walk.
31. Try only reading books written by females or people of color for a year.
32. Go to an elderly home and get a list of folks who don´t get any visitors. Visit them each week and tell stories, read the bible together, or play board games.
33. Track to its source one item of food you eat regularly. Then, each time you eat that food, pray for those folks who helped make it possible for you to eat it.
34. Create a Jubilee fund in your Church congregation, matching dollar for dollar every dollar you spend internally with a dollar externally. If you have a building fund, create a fund to match it to give away and by mosquito nets or dig wells for folks dying in poverty.
35. Become a pen-pal with someone in prison.
36. Give your car away to a stranger.
37. Convert your car to run off waste vegetable oil.
38. Try recycling your water from the washer or sink to flush your toilet. Remember the 1.2 billion folks who don´t have clean water.
39. Wash your clothes by hand, or dry them by hanging to remember those without electricity or running water. Remember the 1.6 billion people who do not have electricity.
40. Buy only used clothes for a year.
41. Cover up all brand names, or at least the ones that do not reflect the upside-down economics of God’s Kingdom. Commit to only being branded by the cross.
42. Learn to sew or start making your own clothes to remember the invisible faces behind what we wear. Take your kids to pick cotton so they can see what that is like (and then read James).
43. Eat only a bowl of rice a day for a week to remember those who do that for most of their life (take a multivitamin). Remember the 30,000 people who die each day of poverty and malnutrition.
44. Begin creating a scholarship fund so that for every one of your own children you send to college you can create a scholarship for an at-risk youth. Get to know their family and learn from each other.
45. Visit a worship service where you will be a minority. Invite someone to dinner at your house or have dinner with someone there if they invite you.
46. Help your church congregation create a Peacemaker Scholarship and give it away to a young person trying to avoid the economic draft, who would like to go to college but sees no other way than the military.
47. Eat with someone who does not look like you. Learn from them.
48. Confess something you have done wrong to someone and ask them to pray for you.
49. Serve in a homeless shelter. For extra credit, go back and eat or sleep in the shelter and allow yourself to be served.
50. Join a Yokefellows ministry at a prison close to you. Remember that Jesus said he would meet you there (Matt. 25).
Saturday, February 7, 2009
How Henri Nouwen prays
Henri Nouwen likes to pray by slowly repeating a particular prayer over and over in his mind. (I should say liked, past tense; he's dead, after all.) Anyway, he writes that this practice has proved the most beneficial for him, and if you read his books you find that he has experimented with quite a few. He writes that sitting for thirty minutes, just praying this prayer, may seem like a boring, pointless bit of time filled with mental distraction only, but that it gradually seeps into you, and you may only feel the effects in retrospect. Anyway, I intend to follow his example in this. Here's the version of the prayer I like best:
Lord, make us channels of your peace,
that where there is hatred, we may bring love,
that where there are wrongs, we may bring the spirit of forgiveness,
that where there is discord, we may bring harmony,
that where there is error, we may bring truth,
that where there is doubt, we may bring faith,
that where there is despair, we may bring hope,
that where there are shadows, we may bring light,
that where there is sadness, we may bring joy.
Lord, grant that we may rather comfort than be comforted,
understand than be understood,
and love rather than be loved.
For it is by forgetting ourselves that we find ourselves;
it is by forgiving that we are forgiven;
and it is by dying that we are born to eternal life.
Lord, make us channels of your peace,
that where there is hatred, we may bring love,
that where there are wrongs, we may bring the spirit of forgiveness,
that where there is discord, we may bring harmony,
that where there is error, we may bring truth,
that where there is doubt, we may bring faith,
that where there is despair, we may bring hope,
that where there are shadows, we may bring light,
that where there is sadness, we may bring joy.
Lord, grant that we may rather comfort than be comforted,
understand than be understood,
and love rather than be loved.
For it is by forgetting ourselves that we find ourselves;
it is by forgiving that we are forgiven;
and it is by dying that we are born to eternal life.
Something *I* wrote
To create- this would be
the thing. I feel small.
Unemployment figures spicing curry powder.
Milk the system. Force your hand.
Free Association. It hurts. There is more.
There is God. It's not over. I am held.
Don't despair. Breathe light. Inhale.
Cry for death. No escape. Only patient endurance.
Come Lord Jesus. World being born.
the thing. I feel small.
Unemployment figures spicing curry powder.
Milk the system. Force your hand.
Free Association. It hurts. There is more.
There is God. It's not over. I am held.
Don't despair. Breathe light. Inhale.
Cry for death. No escape. Only patient endurance.
Come Lord Jesus. World being born.
Here's what I read in Kati's journal today.
I saw two movies today that illustrated so clearly the legacy of the church in America. Neither had anything to do with religion, really, but they were such vivid pictures of how the church has failed in its central mission. The first film, Revolutionary Road, starred these two vibrant, beautiful people who had absolutely nothing to live for. It was a young couple in the fifties, and their whole life was just falling apart because they had no reason, no purpose, for their existence. They both had this notion that they were special, that they had some grand purpose for existence, but the world offered them nothing. They started to just leave it all, go to Paris, but the husband just wasn't brave enough. Everyone treated them like they were children or lunatics when they expressed a desire for something bigger than a life of quiet prosperity in the suburbs.
The American dream isn't enough!
A real Christianity offers more than that. A life lived with Christ is not stable, not respectable, and rarely prosperous. This couple was willing to suffer. They wanted to live dangerously. They could have been great. But life outside the church was unfulfilling, and they saw no other option.
The second film was Milk, about a gay rights activist. Again, the church is faced with an unforgivable, terrible failure. The fact that there even exists a gay rights movement is a failure on our part. We, the body of Christ, decided that some people don't deserve rights because we don't like the way they fuck.
Yes, there is sin in the gay community. There is sin in every community. And the people who struggle with sins of sex, drugs, and the like tend to be hurting people. They look for acceptance and love in sex and drugs. Why?
Because we refuse to love them.
We, professing Christians, kicked them out of our homes, accused them of sickness and perversity, even beat them and killed them. We called them faggots. We wouldn't let them near our children. We kicked them out of our Christian schools. We called them an abomination. We locked them up in mental hospitals. We told them they were doomed to hell.
And we wonder why they refuse to act like fine, upstanding Christians.
Our churches have taken what is unique, what is special in people, and they have stomped all over it. And then, we have condemned those who ran like hell from the all-powerful, homogenizing power of the sanctifying blood of Jesus Christ.
May God have mercy on our souls.
forgive us
forgive us
forgive us
forgive us
forgive us
forgive us
We, who call ourselves yours. Your children, Your precious chosen ones, have been led astray. We have been lied to, and we have believed the lies.
We've chosen comfort over compassion,
money over generosity
piousness over love
the outward over the inward
the American dream over the disciple's call
The American dream isn't enough!
A real Christianity offers more than that. A life lived with Christ is not stable, not respectable, and rarely prosperous. This couple was willing to suffer. They wanted to live dangerously. They could have been great. But life outside the church was unfulfilling, and they saw no other option.
The second film was Milk, about a gay rights activist. Again, the church is faced with an unforgivable, terrible failure. The fact that there even exists a gay rights movement is a failure on our part. We, the body of Christ, decided that some people don't deserve rights because we don't like the way they fuck.
Yes, there is sin in the gay community. There is sin in every community. And the people who struggle with sins of sex, drugs, and the like tend to be hurting people. They look for acceptance and love in sex and drugs. Why?
Because we refuse to love them.
We, professing Christians, kicked them out of our homes, accused them of sickness and perversity, even beat them and killed them. We called them faggots. We wouldn't let them near our children. We kicked them out of our Christian schools. We called them an abomination. We locked them up in mental hospitals. We told them they were doomed to hell.
And we wonder why they refuse to act like fine, upstanding Christians.
Our churches have taken what is unique, what is special in people, and they have stomped all over it. And then, we have condemned those who ran like hell from the all-powerful, homogenizing power of the sanctifying blood of Jesus Christ.
May God have mercy on our souls.
forgive us
forgive us
forgive us
forgive us
forgive us
forgive us
We, who call ourselves yours. Your children, Your precious chosen ones, have been led astray. We have been lied to, and we have believed the lies.
We've chosen comfort over compassion,
money over generosity
piousness over love
the outward over the inward
the American dream over the disciple's call
Friday, February 6, 2009
Some words from Henri Nouwen
First of all, our life itself is the greatest gift to give - something we constantly forget. When we think about our being given to each other, what comes immediately to mind are our unique talents: those abilities to do special things especially well... However, when focussing on talents, we tend to forget that our real gift is not so much what we can do, but who we are. The real question is not "What can we offer each other?" but "Who can we be for each other?" No doubt, it is wonderful when we can repair something for a neighbor, give helpful advice to a friend, offer wise counsel to a colleague, bring healing to a patient or announce good news to a parishioner, but there is a greater gift than all of this. It is the gift of our own life that shines through all we do. As I grow older, I discover more and more that the greatest gift I have to offer is my own joy of living, my own inner peace, my own silence and solitude, my own sesne of well-being. When I ask myself, "Who helps me most?" I must answer, "The one who is willing to share his or her life with me."
It is worthwhile making a distinction between talents and gifts. More important than our talents are our gifts. We may have only a few talents, but we have many gifts. Our gifts are the many ways in which we express our humanity. They are part of who we are: friendship, kindness, patience, joy, peace, forgiveness, gentleness, love, hope, trut and many others. These are the true gifts we have to offer each other.
It is worthwhile making a distinction between talents and gifts. More important than our talents are our gifts. We may have only a few talents, but we have many gifts. Our gifts are the many ways in which we express our humanity. They are part of who we are: friendship, kindness, patience, joy, peace, forgiveness, gentleness, love, hope, trut and many others. These are the true gifts we have to offer each other.
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