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(x-posted at IndieFaith)
Did we know it would only be a matter of time? Were we aware that possible escalation had no real check? Did the legion of reality TV shows, sporting events, and corporate ladders instill in us an instinct for conquering? There can be only one! This weekend CNN announced the ‘hero of the year’. There could be no community of heroes, no spirit and discipline of heroism. There could be only the 1 million dollar hero. But yesterday the weight of this culture crushed Jdimytai Damour. The 5am sales blitz at Wal-Mart corralled desperate shoppers for over 24hrs building to over 2000 until the first crack in the dam opened at which time they flooded through the gates and poured over and killed the temp employee Damour who was brought in for the holiday season.
Lord have mercy. Lord have justice.
Yesterday was also Buy Nothing Day.
I am standing on the sidelines looking for a response.
DavidD
November 29, 2008
Consumerism
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Thanksgiving makes me nervous.
For years, I’ve gotten a sinking feeling in my stomach as the month of November draws to a close and this day looms. On the one hand, Thanksgiving is about joy and gratitude. It is a time when I travel to see family and friends, welcome a few days of rest and look forward to the holiday season. In my mind, I know it is a good thing to have a day where the sole emphasis is to give thanks to God for all God has done. I also appreciate the opportunity to celebrate all my loved ones do and are to one another.
And yet Thanksgiving reminds me of a beautiful but altogether itchy sweater. Sure it looks good on the rack in my closet. It is slimming, well-made, gorgeous color–everything you could hope for in a sweater. But if I put it on I’m guaranteed to spend the whole day tugging, scratching and feeling downright uncomfortable. Try as I might, I can’t shake that weird feeling about that good ole holiday. It gets to the point where weeks in advance I’m trying to come up with other things to say besides “Happy Thanksgiving.” And since “Happy Day Off” doesn’t cut it I go ahead and mutter the greeting anyway, wheels still turning for a suitable substitute. (more…)
ST
November 25, 2008
activism, Anniversary, Bias, Change, Church, Civilization, Clothing, communication, Community, Conscientious Objection, Consumerism, Contemplation, Corporations, culture, Current Events, Death, Economics, Education, Environment, Ethics, Fair, Faith, Family, Food, Foreign Policy, God, Group Identity, Guns, Hate, History, Indigenous, Interpretation, Language, Leadership, liberation theology, Love, Loyalty, Nonviolence, Peace & Peacemaking, philosophy, Power, Prayer, Privilege, Race, Schism, Spiritual Life, Stewardship, Stories, The Bible, Theology, Tolerance, Tradition, Wealth, Writing, Young Folks
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Tim Nafziger and Roxy Allen are looking for 4-6 brainstormers (aka community organizers) for a young adult pre or post-Mennonite USA Convention 2009 in Columbus, Ohio gathering.
The brainstormers will help us develop a theme and relevant programming topics and activities for this gathering to
1) facilitate networking among young (ages 18-30ish) progressive Anabaptists and
2) re-establish meaningful connection to our faith through a global, Anabaptist perspective.
Ideally we would build off of a vision young adults presented at the previous convention, which you can read here:Â http://www.themennonite.org/issues/10-13/articles/Young_adults_present_statement_of_visions_at_San_Jos_2007.
Great for young adult delegates to the convention!
Please comment below or email me if interested.
Roxy
RoxyA
November 20, 2008
Uncategorized
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crossposted from As of Yet Untitled
This week I had the opportunity to be part of a conversation looking at the bible through the lens of civilization skepticism. Theologian Ched Myers took us through the first 11 books of Genesis looking at the way that much of the sinfulness in this story is caught up with the rise of civilization, from the Garden of Eden to the Tower of Babel.
This morning my friend Kristin preached on 2 Kings 17:7-23, a passage that lays out the sins that led the children of Israel into exile. As Kristin spoke, I began to notice things about the passage through the lens of civilization skepticism. I thought I’d share some of those thoughts with you here:
7 All this took place because the Israelites had sinned against the LORD their God, who had brought them up out of Egypt from under the power of Pharaoh king of Egypt.
The sin of the Israelites is specifically against the God who brought them out of the Egyptian domination system in which they were slaves. It is a sin of forgetting. They have forgotten that they were liberated from the story of Pharaoh which told them the only way to survive was service to the Egyptian project. The rest of the passages goes on to detail the form their forgetting took.
(more…)
TimN
November 16, 2008
City, Civilization, The Bible
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Tuesday was quite the night. Like Celeste, I found my way to Grant Park (coveted tickets for the official campaign event in hand) and joined the crowd of a hundred thousand gathered to scream, cry, hug, and jump our way into a new spirit of hopefulness that is solidifying around us.
Besides Obama’s victory, there was another vote that meant a lot to me on Tuesday, and left a lingering bittersweetness to the otherwise perfect night: Proposition 8 amended the California constitution to define legal marriage as exclusive to opposite-sex couples, overturning the decision of the Supreme Court and ending the right of California same-sex couples to the legal protections of marriage for the near future.
Initial reaction: rage. I found someone who expressed this very very well:
Ultimately, though, rage against injustice must energize something else, something life-affirming.
(more…)
lukelm
November 11, 2008
Bigotry, Community, Current Events, Exclusion, Gender, Group Identity, LGBTQ, liberation theology, Politics, Spiritual Life, Tolerance
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TimN encouraged me to post this reflection from Tuesday, when we met up in Grant Park with CharlettaE and others; sorry for the delay in getting it up here.
Rather than join the rally crowds you saw on TV on Tuesday – I didn’t try to get tickets; they were limited and I felt others deserved them more, among other reasons – I watched returns with friends and joined the group in Grant Park after Obama was declared the victor.
I biked with several friends from our neighborhood, Pilsen, about three miles through East Pilsen and the South Loop on the unusually warm November night. It takes about 30 minutes to bike to the Loop. We passed the entrance to the Dan Ryan Expressway and the cars were bumper to bumper, yet people looked happy. I was leading our group of five bikers, and one woman in her car looked at me and somewhat tentatively said, “Obama.” I yelled back, “Obama!”
The memory I will most take with me is talking with traffic management authority officials once we got closer to the Loop. Usually a staid bunch at best, and surly at worst, I saw a huge smile on the face of a middle-aged woman as we waited at a stoplight. She seemed not to mind in the slightest that she was working at 11 p.m. on a Tuesday. She smiled and smiled at our bunch of young bikers, and said, “Yes, indeed.” We clapped for her and her co-worker, and for people passing, coming from downtown.
The only other time I have smiled at so many people in such a short period of time was at my wedding. Once we reached Grant Park and walked through, large groups of teenagers smiled at us, and cheered, and we smiled back. People of all ages and ethnicities enjoyed camaraderie with strangers. There is no previous experience to which I can compare it.
celeste
November 8, 2008
History
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*A bit of tounge-in-cheek election fun*
I walked up to the polls today to cast my vote. I was surrounded by a group people marketing for their respective politicians. An old man wearing a McCain hat, a heavy-set black woman enthusiastically waving an Obama sign. Another half dozen or so had signs with “Say yes to question 2” or “Vote No on question 4”.
The Obama lady cheerily greeted me, quickly handing me some Obama brochures. “Have you decided who you are going to vote for, yet?” she asked.
I’m kinda private about this stuff but I was drunk so I responded: “Cynthia McKinney. She’s running with the Green party, you know. Her wackiness will make great Saturday night live fodder.” SNL is important to me and affects me weekly, thus being more important than any “serious” issue. (more…)
somasoul
November 4, 2008
Dumb Stuff., Politics, Poll
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It’s Election Day! Say hello to a new President and goodbye to Joe the Plummer.
Regardless whether one votes or not, please pray today.
JeremyY
November 4, 2008
Politics
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The church basement’s cinder block walls radiate the cold. Coffee permeates the air. Two dozen people or so sit at 8′ X 3′ wooden folding tables, set up in a circle, eating cake and drinking the aforementioned coffee. Another dozen or more sit at chairs placed around the room. My friend, we’ll call him Brian, sits at the front, the Serenity Prayer scrawled on a plaque on his right.
God, Grant me the serenity,
to accept the things I cannot change,
the courage to change the things I can,
and the wisdom to know the difference.
This is an A.A. meeting.
Brian is celebrating one year. He is chairing the meeting, which means he gets to tell his story, speak however long he likes, and call on any member he sees fit to call on. Before any of that can begin, though, the various “officers” read off various lists of A.A. “rules”, “codes of conduct”, and other bureaucratic regulations. You would think these to be many considering A.A. has a reported 1,867,212 members worldwide with 106,202 meetings.
To put this in perspective A.A. is about the same size as Jehovah’s Witnesses, and larger than the Assemblies of God in the USA. (more…)
somasoul
November 1, 2008
Awesome Stuff, Blog, Change, Church, Contemplation, Dumb Stuff., Evangelism, Faith, Interfaith, Mental health, Power, Prayer, Spiritual Life
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I just want to say at the onset, that I am not really an evangelist about not voting. But I am tired of people telling me that I am immoral or unpatriotic for not voting. And given that some have spoken of the presidential election on this site, I figure I can give my “third way” point of view:
1. The system of choosing leaders requires the leaders to boast about themselves, to be self serving. But Jesus tells us to have our leaders be humble, to serve others, not themselves.
2. The only people who gain the highest offices are those of the rich elite. We do not live in a democracy, where the people have a voice, but a plutocracy, where only the wealthy have a real vote to change the country.
3. Voting is the least effective of all political action. Our ideas would be heard much more by the world if we act out the life of Jesus, or if we write people in the government, than if we vote.
4. There is not a single candidate that is concerned about the issues Jesus is concerned about. Not one has a platform about loving our enemies. Not one has a platform about giving to the poor. Not one is concerned about living out a radical life-transforming faith in God. Although some talk about health issues, no one is really concerned about healing the sick. (more…)
SteveK
November 1, 2008
activism, Change, Nonviolence, Politics, poverty, war, Wealth
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In class we’ve been studying a lot about New Monastics. Lots of good stuff that you can read about it in many places, some even on this blog. Since it’s a fluid movement, I was wondering when they are going to update, change, or adjust their 12 marks. I have some comments on a few, and I’m sure others do as well, so when is the next conference? Or do we just email somebody like Johnathan W-H?
I agree (in thought and action) with a lot of what is said in the 12 points and what I see in the daily lives of the community around me and my interaction with some of these folks. But my particular question is spurred with regards to mark 1, which says that they relocate to abandoned places of Empire.” Some think that I am doing the “new monastic thing…” I’m not sure about that, but I do know that I am in my home area…and it fits many of the descriptions, but it’s not abandoned by Empire. Or do they mean that it’s abandoned by Empire because no (or hardly any) white people live in the area? There is a beautiful organic culture here and I don’t want to discount that by saying it’s abandoned. I think it is important to affirm the initiative of persons rather than possibly falling into “white savior” complexes again. I see that many New Monastics are very aware of race and class dynamics, so I’m hoping that mark 1 can be articulated in a more antiracist way. (more…)
ST
October 29, 2008
activism, Anabaptism, Awesome Stuff, Change, Church, Civilization, communication, culture, Current Events, Education, Ethics, Exclusion, Faith, Gender, Group Identity, Interpretation, LGBTQ, liberation theology, Love, New Monasticism, Reviews, Sex, Sexism, Spiritual Life, Theology, Tradition, Young Folks
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I’m not even 30 and I feel like a curmudgeon. I’m not interested in books and movements that herald the promises of our changing world. We are interested in the emergent, the yet to come; we want to be the New Christians occupying the frontiers of change. When I hear this way of talking about our faith, part of me wants to run the other direction. But I recognize that I am also permeated with this generational sensibility. The “new” for me was choosing an old tradition as a way to navigate into the future: I became Mennonite.
We are dying for the new and exotic, something to set us free from a troubling past and open us to the yet to come. New horizons. New frontiers. Our gaze fixed on the emerging future; our backs to the past. We are now suckers for anything “postmodern,” whatever that means. The old ways of our parents are passé. All that stuff didn’t seem to work and we’re tired of it. I wonder if we feel what Sebastian Moore discerned in his tradition as a catholic neurosis:
The effect of being continually exposed to the truth which is doing one no good is distressing to the soul. There can even result a kind of unbelief, an exhaustion of the spirit, which is all the worse for being parly unconscious. (God is a New Language, p.21)
(more…)
IsaacV
October 23, 2008
Anabaptism, Church, Young Folks
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Hi Friends!
It is time for the 2nd preach-off between Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary and Goshen College. The first one was in 2006 (organized by some YARs) and it was very successful.
For the preach-off, folks will give three-minute sermons on scriptures they’ve received 24 hours prior. People can vote with their donations, and a panel judges will give humorous feedback.
The donations benefit up and coming young adult leaders from the Global South by giving them a full scholarship to attend the Global Youth Summit (July 10-12 in Asunción, Paraguay).
In addition to the fun of preach-off, we realize that the lives of many people in Northern Indiana have been enriched by connections with the global church. So this event will be interspersed with short testimonies from people in the area, celebrating these ties as we raise funds to support the next generation of Anabaptist leaders from around the globe.
So, YARs…we’re collecting crazy passages. If you know of one, please write the reference as a comment. Your help is appreciated…and if you’re in Northern Indiana at 6pm on Dec. 6 you are warmly invited to materialize and participate!
ST
October 17, 2008
Anabaptism, Anniversary, Awesome Stuff, Change, Church, communication, Community, Current Events, Dumb Stuff., Economics, Ethics, Evangelism, Fair, Faith, Fun, Global Church, God, Group Identity, Interpretation, Language, Leadership, Love, Objective, philosophy, Poetry, Poll, Sports, The Bible, Theatre, Theology, Tolerance, Wealth, Writing, Young Folks
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By BRADLEY S. KLAPPER — 1 hour ago
BAGHDAD (AP) – Hundreds of terrified Christian families have fled Mosul to escape extremist attacks that have increased despite months of U.S. and Iraqi military operations to secure the northern Iraqi city, political and religious officials said Saturday.
Some 3,000 Christians have fled the city over the past week alone in a “major displacement,” said Duraid Mohammed Kashmoula, the governor of northern Iraq’s Ninevah province. He said most have left for churches, monasteries and the homes of relatives in nearby Christian villages and towns.
“The Christians were subjected to abduction attempts and paid ransom, but now they are subjected to a killing campaign,” Kashmoula said, adding he believed “al-Qaida” elements were to blame and called for a renewed drive to root them out. (more…)
folknotions
October 11, 2008
Iraq, Terrorism, warmartyrs
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23 About that time no little disturbance broke out concerning the Way. 24A man named Demetrius, a silversmith who made silver shrines of Artemis, brought no little business to the artisans. 25These he gathered together, with the workers of the same trade, and said, “Men, you know that we get our wealth from this business. 26You also see and hear that not only in Ephesus but in almost the whole of Asia this Paul has persuaded and drawn away a considerable number of people by saying that gods made with hands are not gods. 27And there is danger not only that this trade of ours may come into disrepute but also that the temple of the great goddess Artemis will be scorned, and she will be deprived of her majesty that brought all Asia and the world to worship her.”
28 When they heard this, they were enraged and shouted, “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!” 29The city was filled with the confusion; and peoplec rushed together to the theater, dragging with them Gaius and Aristarchus, Macedonians who were Paul’s travel companions.   – Acts 19:23-29 (NRSV)
(my version of Acts 19…don’t get huffy I’m not translating from the Greek)
A man named Henry Paulson, a secretary who made decisions about currencies, brought no little business to the Senate. These he gathered together, with other wealthy men, and said “Listen everyone, I don’t like to mix in the market anymore than you do. De-regulation has served us well for some time. But you see, we’ve gotten ourselves into a bit of a mess. This market, it has served us well for some time and made us all rich and powerful. But, the market needs more – it’s hurting. And we can’t lose the business. Now, a number of so-called “progressives” are concerned about the mortgage crisis – remember those mortgages? Ah, they were good for us weren’t they? Well, now they’ve gone sour. And a number of folks are concerned that everyone is going to lose their homes and be out on the street. But, really gentlemen, I’m much more concerned that, if we don’t act quickly, they’ll not only lose their homes, but we’ll lose lots, and lots, and lots of money. And we don’t want to upset the market – it gives us all that power remember? So, I need you guys to help me out: tell all those bleeding hearts to shut up for a while, scare the nation into thinking that all will be lost, and pass this bill giving me a lot more power to make you and all our friends alot more rich. I know you are concerned now, but you’ll thank me in the long run.”
When they heard all this, they agreed and said “Great are the fudamentals of our economy!” The country was filled with confusion, and bills were hastily past, and many were left wondering what protection was out there for them.
A week later, everyone forgot and Paul went to Macedonia (Acts 20:1).
folknotions
October 9, 2008
Consumerism, Corporations, culture, Death, Economics, Stewardship, The Bible, Wealth
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