random thoughts from a housewife

it's time for a change

2011-04-10T16:06:00.001-05:00

This blog has been so important to me for my life's journey and as indicated by the title, it has also been pretty random. I think I've gained some focus recently. In the summer of 2010, I decided to focus my energies on two passions: technology teaching and social justice. This has led to a wonderful year of learning and growing. It has also led to some life transforming moments:

On a whim, I submitted a scholarship application to attend The Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing Conference: K12 Workshops. What I learned is that there is a crisis in computer science education both in quality and access. The result of this crisis is that women and minorities are missing opportunities to advance academically and economically in a field whose employment potential far exceeds the number of students preparing for it. Also, if we don't get more diverse participation in technology, then we miss out on innovations that are relevant and usable by a wider range of people.

This convergence of technology and justice led to the Project Justice week long immersion experience that I created for the middle school students. This project began as an opportunity expand the students thinking about social justice and to give them an avenue through technology to raise awareness about issues they care about. I can't measure the change this experience had on the students, but what I didn't expect was the change it caused in me. What I've learned from my middle school students is that they want a world where:

the hungry are fed;
the homeless are sheltered;
the use of rape and violence against women and children as a tool of war is not tolerated;
the environment is treated as a cherished resource.

One project in particular kind of haunted and hounded me: Falling Whistles. I found myself crashing a high school gathering in Richmond to hear Yves and Sean (founders) share their stories. They were compelling, frightening, engaging, inspiring, passionate and humbling. I bought a whistle and I changed a little more.

The latest experience was at the Ecumenical Advocacy Days Conference. The overall theme of this conference was "Development Security and Economic Justice: What's Gender Got to Do with It?" Here I learned that women and girls have suffered setbacks disproportionately across the board with regard to wages, education and human rights abuses.

the 21st century has brought us the objectification of the world;
trafficking is the extreme in a norm that is exploitation, squeezing a little more profit from human labor;
when you destroy the women, you basically destroy the community;
we have enough when we can share;
the opposite of abundance is not poverty, it is fear;
poverty is a political issue, it is evidence that we are not yet making the right choices;
violence against women is the most normalized evil in our world today.

So now what? There's a lot to be cynical, ambivalent, overwhelmed and outraged about. My natural inclination is to rebel, but what will that accomplish? I sense that my purpose lies somewhere between teaching technology and empowering the voices and actions of young people. What form that will take, I don't know. I do know that I want to take Thomas Merton's words to heart. I still have a hard time recognizing the light shining in myself or for that matter in many adults, but I can see it in our children. I'll be trying to shine the light @ piecesofstardust.tumblr.com.

“As if the sorrows and stupidities of the world could overwhelm me now that I realize what we all are. I wish everyone could realize this, but there is no way of telling people they are all walking around shining like the sun.” - Thomas Merton

six impossible things before breakfast

2010-12-05T13:07:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I was asked to consider how to explain faith to children in a Sunday children's sermon. For some reason, when I thought of explaining faith to children (and adults), I thought of Alice in Wonderland.

What is faith and why is it so difficult to understand?

Here's one definition:
"complete confidence or trust in a person" - World English Dictionary

That's not so hard to imagine. We all probably know someone that we have complete trust in. Someone that we know loves us and will do anything in their power to keep us safe and happy. (*)

Now how about this next definition:
"a strong or unshakeable belief in something, especially without proof or evidence" - World English Dictionary

That definition is much harder to understand. How can we believe in something that we cannot prove exists? Something that we can't taste, smell, touch or hear? Something that seems impossible?

This definition reminds me of Alice in Wonderland (2010). When she is having tea with the Mad Hatter, she says "sometimes I believe in as many as six impossible things before breakfast." And the Mad Hatter's response is "that is excellent practice."

It's a curious exchange. What is the point in trying to believe in impossible things? Why would it be excellent practice?

I imagine that is was quite difficult for Mary and Joseph to believe that they were going to be parents to "the Messiah". In the Old Testament, Isaiah proclaimed this child would be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. What kind of child was this going to be? Can you imagine?

What about the shepherds that heard from the angels announcing Jesus' birth. Don't you think they wondered if they imagined the whole thing. Who would believe their story? Or the wise men who had this idea they should follow a star to find the king of the Jews and give him expensive gifts even when they found him in a stable. Where did they get that impossible idea?

We don't know why they believed these impossible things, but we do know they had faith that these things would be possible with God. Faith gave them hope when things seemed hopeless. Faith gave them courage when the odds were against them. Faith gave them joy in experiencing the love of God. Believing six impossible things before breakfast may seem like a silly idea, but when we have faith that God makes things possible, we are also given the gifts of hope and courage and joy.

* I realize that having complete confidence in someone else is a real challenge for many of us, but my thought is that as a child, one usually hasn't yet experienced crushing betrayal or disappointment by a trusted person. Then again perhaps my glasses are still too rosy.

project justice - days 4, 5 & beyond

2010-11-16T17:15:00.003-05:00

When I talk to people about this justice week that I had imagined for my middle school students, it sounds like a risky proposition, even to me. How was I going to expose these children to social justice in a way that didn't go too far or not far enough? Would they really find an issue they were passionate about? Would they comprehend the difference between justice and charity? Would they complete a project? Would they follow-up? Would their hearts and minds be changed? for a day? for a week? for a lifetime?

I can't measure how they changed, but I can tell you what I saw. I saw struggles with jumping to a solution before understanding the problem. I saw anger at the way things are. I saw stereotypes broken down. I saw passion, commitment and the dawning of comprehension. I heard ideas and saw projects that changed me (click here for the complete list of justice projects).

One project in particular was a video for Falling Whistles: A Campaign for Peace in the Congo. I had never heard of this organization, but one of my students had seen their video a month ago and when it came time to pick a project, she knew exactly what she wanted to do. The kids working on this project disappeared into a room for a day and a half and produced this video.

Project Justice: Falling Whistles from Kim Wilkens on Vimeo.

The first time they showed it to me, I was stunned - by their interpretation and by the stats they shared. The next day, I didn't believe it. 45,000 killed in a month? Biggest war of your generation? Are you sure? Yes, they were. I started researching online. There's not much to find. I went to fallingwhistles.com and they tell a compelling story, but was it really real? Even so, I wanted to buy a whistle to show my support for the students, but they were sold out. I happened to click on the Tour dates and noticed they would be in Richmond this past Sunday. I couldn't pass up the opportunity to find out more, so I went.

When I got there, I felt a little like a party crasher and also old. I met some of the interns and shared my story. I saw a large room filling up with high school students that were part of a human rights and history club. I heard Yves and Sean share their stories. They were compelling, frightening, engaging, inspiring, passionate and humbling. I bought a whistle and I changed a little more.

But now that I'm wearing the whistle, what do I say? My brain still can't cope with the reality - it's searching for other answers. There are precious few answers to be found along the information highway, but something is definitely not right in the Congo.

"no humanitarian crisis generates so little attention per million corpses, or such a pathetic international response" - Nicholas Kristof (NYTimes)
Congo's war without end (Globe)
Smartphones Caught up in Congo War Controversy (CBS)
Raped women used as pawns in Congo War (CNN)
The US blinks, and children will suffer (Huffington Post)

I had no idea!

project justice - days 2 & 3

2010-11-10T20:59:00.000-05:00

Yesterday morning, the students heard from the Family Support Coordinator of the local International Rescue Committee and visited Computers4Kids in the afternoon. Today we had our last speaker, the Lead Organizer from IMPACT. She really helped the students gain a deeper understanding of the difference between charity and justice.

It has been a whirlwind of activity and lots of information to absorb, but the students eagerly brainstormed possible education and advocacy projects to work on and were busy all afternoon making plans. The energy and passion of these youth is inspiring and a little overwhelming.

Everyone we encountered along the way made comments about how impressed they were with these kids and their ability to grasp complex concepts and be so engaged. While I also think this is a special group of kids, I know they can't be the only ones with this potential and it makes me wonder why we, as society, have such a difficult time appreciating the input, perspectives and contributions of our youth. I know I've certainly been aggravated by the idea of anyone not taking these kids seriously.

project justice - day 1

2010-11-08T21:28:00.000-05:00

I have been so excited about the opportunity I've been given to pull together a week long immersion experience for my middle school students that focuses on local social justice issues. We just completed our first day which included a field trip to The Haven at First and Market, a day shelter for the homeless, and speakers from The International Rescue Committee. I'm taking it as good omen that we bumped into Tom Shadyac on the way into the Haven and that he wanted to speak to the kids about this project. I myself was a little star struck and couldn't seem to put the camera down. Luckily, the kids put it all into perspective and I've posted some of their comments @ Opening Our Eyes to Homelessness.

computer science meets social justice

2010-10-03T08:29:00.001-05:00

At the beginning of the school year, I set up a shelf with resources about my two passions: technology and social justice. I didn't really know how the two were related, but I knew I wanted to bring them together. I learned how they were related at the K12 Computing Teachers Workshop that was part of the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing. What I learned is that there is a crisis in computer science education both in quality and access. The result of this crisis is that women and minorities are missing opportunities to advance academically and economically in a field whose employment potential far exceeds the number of students preparing for it. Also, if we don't get more diverse participation in technology, then we miss out on innovations that are relevant and usable by a wider range of people and end up instead with technological machismo (and more first-person shooter games).

Things really haven't changed much since I first started in the CS field

Girls and minorities are not represented in the CS field. This still baffles me, but it was reiterated again and again by industry (google, yahoo, microsoft) and academia (stanford, duke, mit)
Many kids are not being exposed to programming until college.
AP CS is not a required course in high school and sometimes AP CS courses are not accepted by colleges.
School administrations don't understand what CS really means, often equate to applications (word processing, spreadsheet, presentation, keyboarding)
There are way more CS jobs available than students studying CS.
There is a bill in Congress (Computer Science Education Act of 2010) geared to addressing this crisis.

Girls wait later to make a decision about their major,

but decide earlier what they don't want to do

By age 13 girls determine a positive or negative attitude towards subjects like technology (I did this by deciding I certainly didn't want to be a teacher when I was a teenager and changing my major from math to CS once I was exposed to programming).
Girls often associate technology with white, nerdy, boring men.
The impostor syndrome is a real problem for women at every age and occupation, but especially for women who find themselves in male-dominated fields.

Relationships are still key

I met amazing people and learned about resources that have helped re-ignite my passions for technology and social justice.
Technology teachers like myself who are just trying to reach and teach students as much as we can about technology with little direction and funds.
CS professors from major universities who are so passionate about their field, willing to listen to the struggles of K12 teachers and provide their support.
People from industry who seem to be willing to fund almost any worthwhile project, if only we could get hooked up.

Online Resources:

Computer Science Education Week @ http://www.csedweek.org/
Computer Science Teachers Association @ http://csta.acm.org/
Computer Science Unplugged @ http://csunplugged.org/
Digital Citizens @ http://www.digizen.org/
Dot Diva @ http://dotdiva.org/
Education e-Village @ http://techbridgeworld.org/evillage/
Eric Roberts @ http://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~eroberts/
EtoysIllinois @ http://etoysillinois.org/index
Karel the Robot in Scratch @ http://code.google.com/p/scratch-karel/
Learning to Program with Alice @ http://www.aliceprogramming.net/ (I found out at the workshop that there is a username and password that Steve Cooper (coopers@cs.stanford.edu) will share with teachers if you ask)
MATHmaniaCS @ http://www.mathmaniacs.org/
Mrs. Prescott's Computer Literacy Class @ http://teacherweb.com/NE/SchuylerGradeWW/DPrescott/wscal1.aspx
National Lab Day @ http://www.nationallabday.org/

Other Resources:

A Clean Slate Approach to High School CS by Jan Cuny
ACM K-12 CS Model Curriculum, 2nd Edition
Computer Science Education Act of 2010
Exploring Computer Science Curriculum 3.0 (really interesting CS curriculum based on social relevancy)
Let's Fight It Together (movie about cyberbullying)
Impostor Syndrome Panel Presentation by Katie Siek
Odd Girl Out (movie about bullying)
Rising Above the Gathering Storm Revisited
Running on Empty (a paper coming soon about the state of CS by state)
Stuck in the Shallow End
The Power of Abstraction by Barbara Liskov

loser

2010-07-09T07:38:00.001-05:00

My favorite new song is The High Road by Broken Bells, especially the refrain:

it's too late to change your mind;

you let loss, be your guide

At first, it seems like a pretty negative sentiment and being ruled by loss can certainly be a sad fate. I've been thinking about loss a lot lately. My weekend's experience of loss was pretty superficial, but when I thought I had lost the diamond from my engagement ring, I cursed its very existence for making me feel so bad for losing it.

Frankly, I am terrified of loss, but when I read Philippians 3:8 - "More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ..." (NSRV) - it seems that I am to let loss be my guide. I know loss is inevitable and it started the moment I was born, but I'm still in denial and for some reason prefer living in a state of fear instead of acceptance.

So I've been thinking about things I've lost or will lose or should lose:

childhood is lost to time

virginity to fate

memory betrays me

everything can't wait

the future is not secure

diamonds not forever

jobs will come and health will go

everything will wither

promises are broken

trust can be misplaced

arguments will not prevail

everything's a waste

expectations bind me
disappointments haunt

can I find in this world
everything I want

choices all around me

the high road has a cost

following the Jesus way

everything is lost

are we there yet?

2010-06-28T17:51:00.001-05:00

"Very truly, I tell you, when you were younger, you used to fasten your own belt and to go wherever you wished. But when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will fasten a belt around you and take you where you do not wish to go.' " - John 21:18

I've been thinking about this verse a lot since last summer when I heard it in the context of a Renovare conference session titled - Where you do not wish to go: discerning and yielding to God's guidance. It hit home on a personal level early this year with my brother's health. This theme of control vs. surrender was revisited in worship this past weekend. I also met someone last week who shared her poetry with me and it inspired me to try some verse again.

are you there yet
where you do not wish to go

did you arrive without a plan
or did your plans go awry
did you think you could avoid it
walk around it, sneak on by

is there illness in the family
did the homeless go away
are children starving anywhere
did you eat your fill today

is there justice in your city
are the bullies loud and mean
do people die for no good cause
is your drinking water clean

we are there now, don't you see it
where we do not wish to be
that's exactly where we'll stay
until we learn to be set free

where we do not wish to go
is a place we all avoid
instead we build up walls of fear
as our purpose is destroyed

can we banish pain and sorrow
with instincts of flight or fight
or should we face reality
and begin to search for light

illuminate the darkest hour
with thought and word and deed
doing justice, walking humbly
making kindness our new creed

be still, stay calm, hold fast, judge not
believe in a better way
lose pride and immerse yourself
sending out your love today

forgiveness and acceptance
turning enemy to friend
fear not, for I am with you
until the bittersweet end

(updated 9/29/10 for submission to First Amendment Writes poetry contest)

lost thoughts

2010-05-25T11:31:00.000-05:00

I really liked the finale. I've been a "fan" of Lost since the beginning. There were definitely times when all the twists, turns and answers that turned into more questions really irked me, but I couldn't help watching just one more episode (and then another...). For me the series mirrored humanities fascination with trying to solve life's mysteries with science, philosophy, religion or brute force, but in the end, it all comes down to "why am I here?", which is still the greatest mystery of all.

Lost answered this question through Jack's dad - "Nobody does it alone, Jack. You needed all of them and they needed you." That's still an answer that leads to more questions, but I can live with that.

Other post-Lost musings @ The LOST Recap and Making sense of LOST.

why church?

2010-04-27T13:52:00.000-05:00

I just finished reading a friend's manuscript called "Why God?". In his book, Bob McAdams leads his readers on a quest to sift through our common human experiences of reason, truth, good and evil, time, and beauty to "gather from this richness some new thoughts about the reasons for belief and non-belief in God."

It was while I reading his chapter titled, "the shoe that does not fit", that I recognized I was on yet another quest.

"Our cosmology, the etched and stained transparent dome through which we view the universe, like every other part of our lives is in motion. Within our cosmology, our roles require that we constantly ask and answer the question, “What shall I do next?” What happens to a cosmology that is itself in motion? Can a cosmology also be subject to this same ‘what next’ question? Do we outgrow a cosmology in the same way we outgrow shoes? Can a cosmology simply not fit, simply give us daily, constant pain that forces us to face the options of holding on and suffering or letting go of the cosmology itself?"

The cosmology that I am struggling with, against, and often simultaneously for, is no longer why God?, it's why church? What is next for the church as an idea and for church as the reality that I participate in weekly? Coincidentally, I've stumbled across lots of interesting quotes about church this week.

"Church should only be about comfort for the sick, the dying, the grieving, and the oppressed. Everybody else--buck up and change the world." - Diana Butler Bass

"it’s about the people, people. not the programs. not the banner-waving on others’ behalf. not the countless other things that can seem important but take away from what was at the essence of Jesus’ message & incarnation–love people. love people. love people." - kathy escobar

"After all, the church is relatively irrelevant as it stands in most other parts of today’s social fabric, meaning, the church won’t receive any congratulation except from itself." - Deacon Hall

"Jesus as somehow a window on God; Jesus as somehow a norm that transcends ideas, ideals, and principles but also serves as a standard for them; Jesus as somehow a living reality who confronts as often as he comforts. Christians don't need – indeed perhaps would be better off without – the traditional ways of trying to express these matters and the traditional confidence that their doctrinal assertions can actually contain the full truth of these matters. The truly hard intellectual work for disciples of Jesus today is to re-express our relationship with Jesus and our glimpses of God by re-contextualizing them into a far less complete and confident frame of reference." - Tom Wilkens

"The clergyman and the layman - who together form God's mission people - definitely have a different function in it. Permit me to put it in this somewhat schematic way: the minister must take care of the continuity, he guards the tradition; he must preserve and may easily be a bit conservative. The layman, on the other hand, takes care of the progressive movement, thrusts himself into the actualities of life; he must develop and build.

Both these functions belong together. It is good not only when there is harmony between them but there remains some tension as well. We must not sound the alarm when the layman can hardly stand the church any longer. That does not have to imply that he looks down upon everything as it is being done. It can also mean that the layman understands his function well and for this reason goes into loyal opposition. We are mortally afraid of those tensions and write church papers full about them, but that does not strike me as a cause for concern. Concerned we must become when the laity meekly walk in step behind the preacher. Then they have lost their function. Because then it becomes apparent that they have moved from the world into the church, and it belongs to the grandeur and misery of the layman that he experiences his membership in the church in an extra-ecclesiastical way." - The Church Inside Out by J.C. Hoekendijk

in search of a revolution

2010-04-20T16:31:00.000-05:00

This afternoon, I met with a few of the readers of "the book". It was a good experience. Getting there was another story - let's just say that because of many mistakes I made on the way, I was super late (guess I needed a good dose of humility as well).

One comment that really stuck out for me was from a woman who said I was born 35 years too early and she was born 40 years too late. She said that I was clearly in search of a revolution, but all the good ones, which she had been a part of, had already happened. She, on the other hand, had to go through those revolutions because she couldn't live out her dream to be a fighter pilot.

This morning, I was prepping for the 3D programming class I'm teaching (which is why I lost track of time and nearly missed the aforementioned meeting) and was struck by how fast technology is evolving. Not only in my lifetime, but even more so in the lifetime of my students. However, this level of change is second nature to them. So how can I put it into perspective for them? I needed to find a story and as often is the case with technological advancements, it was a science fiction writer who saw the vision of 3D programming in virtual worlds. In 1992, Neal Stephenson wrote about virtual reality in Snow Crash.

"So Hiro's not actually here at all. He's in a computer-generated universe that his computer is drawing onto his goggles and pumping into his earphones. In the lingo, this imaginary place is known as the Metaverse. Hiro spends a lot of time in the Metaverse. It beats the shit out of the U-Stor-It." - pg. 24

The first world-wide browser wasn't on the scene until 1993. It was the very next decade that brought the virtual reality games of Runescape (2001), SecondLife (2003) and World of Warcraft (2004) to life. The massive change in technology in such a short period of time really reflects the definition of a revolution.

revolution - a sudden, complete or marked change in something (dictionary.com)

I'm beginning to suspect that much of my fascination and time spent on technology is in search of that next big revolution. That thing that is going to "beat the shit" out of the real world problems of poverty, discrimination and greed. You may think I'm crazy, but I'm not alone.

"Reality is broken and we need to make it more like a game." - Jane McGonigal

Book Review in Lutheran Partners Magazine

2010-03-24T20:52:00.000-05:00

Just found out from my pastor that the book I co-authored with my dad, (Un-American Activities: Countercultural Themes in Christianity), got a nice review in the Lutheran Partners magazine, a bimonthly magazine of the ELCA for ordained and lay leaders.

"The chapters would be valuable for Christians of most denominations and would be useful for both ordained and lay Christians. In general, in fact, Un-American Activities is accessible, entertaining, and enlightening, especially for those trying to minister more effectively to the wandering, skeptical, and searching young adult."

David von Schlichten is pastor of St. James Lutheran Church, Youngstown, Pennsylvania, and the book review editor of Lutheran Partners magazine.

Find the complete review - March / April 2010 • Volume 26 • Number 2

Oh and the added bonus in this review is that I get referred to as a young adult. I know he's probably talking about me writing on my thoughts as a young adult, but still, I'm feeling younger already!

Genesis 1 & 2 from a Postmodern Viewpoint

2010-03-11T06:50:00.000-05:00

[I was asked to write about my postmodern viewpoint for a class about Ways to Understand the Bible that will also include the modern and fundamental approaches to Biblical interpretation]

First, a disclaimer, I am neither a postmodern scholar nor a biblical scholar. So, I wonder what gives me the right to "interpret" any part of the Bible? I think one of the key ingredients to studying and trying to understand the Bible is a healthy dose of humility. Next, I need to acknowledge that I bring my own subjective lens to the Bible and so does everybody else. Finally, I find that I have learned the most from the Bible when studying it in community. As a child of God who is full of curiosity, questions & doubts, I certainly can't ignore the Bible or simply let others interpret it for me. Instead the Bible has become my primary source for searching for answers about God and joining in the story of God's people.

We are interpretive by nature; we can’t know anything objectively.

Let me start by sharing some of the lenses that I am conscious of having while also acknowledging new research that suggests most of my thoughts and your thoughts are unconscious. My theories of choice about the beginning of the universe - the big bang, the beginning of humans – evolution, and the beginning of patriarchical society - Adam. So, reading Genesis has always been uncomfortable for me. I have problems reading about a universe created in six days, a Garden of Eden, Eve created from Adam, a tree of life, a serpent that speaks and the fall of humankind. So, I had been categorizing this story as a myth devised to explain creation in ancient times and tried my best to ignore it.

The Bible is a human response to God.

I see the Bible as a masterpiece that was created using the invention of the written word versus the tradition of oral history used for centuries before. The intent was to harness the rich and diverse collection of stories, history, wisdom, poetry, prophecy and first-hand accounts of God's work in the world, but the medium had some unexpected drawbacks. The most obvious is the problem of translation. There are twenty English translations on biblegateway.com alone. There are much-debated, different styles of translation. Like paint flaking off a masterpiece, there are words that have become obsolete and are in need of having their meaning restored. If the words need to be translated, what about the metaphors?

Approach the Bible as metaphorical, relational, and missional in the hope of seeing our lives with God through it.

Often I can't get over these mental blocks I put up surrounding some verses and stories in the Bible on my own. Recently a few authors have helped me to see Genesis in a new way.

In Bruce Feiler's book, Walking the Bible, he writes about how his views of the Bible changed from that of just a book about a faraway land in a faraway time to a living, breathing entity about stories that happened in real places to real people.

Reading about his transformation and how he connects with the Bible through the present-day landscape helped me to see the creation story in a new light. Of Genesis 1 and 2, Bruce writes: "In a few short words, the Bible had taken the story of water, the story of humans, the story of Mesopotamia, and had created an entirely new story that explained the history of the world. Stories, like rivers, give life."

From Donald Miller's book, Searching for God Knows What, I read about his thoughts on Genesis. "If man was wired so that something outside himself told him who he was, and if God’s presence was giving him a feeling of fulfillment, then when that relationship was broken, a man would be pining for other people to tell him that he was good, right, okay with the world, and eternally secure."

I began to appreciate the idea that we’re wired to know our creator, to understand our creator's will for us and to find fulfillment in this relationship. I get that somehow our connection to our creator got damaged or broken. I don’t understand how this happened, but I see that it causes us to not feel whole, but instead feel naked and ashamed.

Ron Martoia, in his book Transformational Architecture, explores the concept of imago dei – being made in the image of God. He writes that "the God who presides over creation, and who creatively serves and rules the world, creates a humanity with the same role. They are to represent God by creatively and lovingly serving the rest of the world." Ron goes on to suggest that our imago dei is the very core building block of our spiritual beings that naturally seek out transformative, creative, change the world missions.

I now see many layers to the words of Genesis 1 & 2:
• It hints at the profound shift in humanity from nomad to farmer.
• It relates the story of our relationship with and to God.
• It shows us a blueprint for how our imago dei should care for creation.

Sex, Love and Wholeness

2010-01-24T10:24:00.001-05:00

We are doing a Sermon on the Mount worship series at Peace with various members writing devotions each week. So, of course, I wanted to write something - that was until I was assigned Matthew 5:27-32, which includes this nugget - "If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away; it is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to be thrown into hell." Well, that's some serious shit. I was given a couple of resources on the theme of looking, loving or lusting, but I found them to be kind of weak when compared to this text. I finally opted for what I think is a more direct approach.

Day 1 - Adultery & Divorce
Read Matthew 5:27-32. What is your gut reaction to this text? For me, it starts with guilt because my focus immediately goes to the "divorce" section. I'm divorced. What does this mean for me? I find there are generally not many words of comfort for the divorced in the Bible. My next reaction is anger because as a female I don't like reading this patriarchal language where husbands seem to have all the rights. Did you also feel some strong emotional reactions to this text? Why do you think Jesus uses such strong language and disturbing imagery around the subject of adultery & divorce?

Day 2 - Betrayal
Sex is the ultimate intimate act with another. As such, it can also reveal our most vulnerable selves to another. When one experiences betrayal and/or abuse associated with this act, gut wrenching emotions, spiritual and possibly physical damage will surely follow. I think this must be why Jesus treats this subject so harshly. The consequences of heading down the path of adultery and unfaithfulness are destructive to all involved. Read Lamentations 1. Have you ever been betrayed? What did it feel like? What lasting effects did it have on your life?

Day 3 - Evil
It doesn't seem like any rational person would argue with the concept that faithfulness is good and betrayal is bad. So how come our actions are often in conflict with our reason? This is where evil enters the picture. Evil is not rational. Read Mark 7:1-23. Jesus reminds the teachers, the crowd and his disciples that evil resides in everyone. We cannot blame outside influences for the existence of this evil. What outside influences can do is make it very hard for us to overcome our resident evil. Consider how the values of our culture and the portrayal of sex and love in the media might influence your resident evil.

Day 4 - Love
Many people spend their lives "looking for love in all the wrong places". With so many false ideas and images about sex and love out in the world, how are we to recognize the real thing? In 1 Corinthians 13, Paul does a beautiful job of describing what love is.

"Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things."

Read the rest of 1 Corinthians 13. How is this kind of love possible? Have you seen or experienced this kind of love in the world?

Day 5 - Wholeness
Read Matthew 5:27-32 again. I wonder if Jesus uses such explicit language about losing body parts not only to capture our attention, but also to indicate how it is our thoughts of betrayal that begin the damage within us. Maybe it is not really the act itself that gets us in the end, but the way we let our hearts become twisted and broken with thoughts of adultery, indecency, envy and pride. Read Romans 8:31-39. Paul's words remind us that nothing can separate us from the love of God and that is where we need to turn to find forgiveness, reconciliation and a path to wholeness.

adventures in dog-fostering

2010-01-01T21:53:00.003-05:00

I read about fostering a dog for the holidays from the SPCA and convinced the family this would be a good deed we could do since we had no plans for the Christmas break. I didn't really know what to expect, but fostering Gobi has been a great experience!

Our adventure began December 18, 2009 when Xander, Freyja & I went after school to pick up the foster dog. There were several dogs to choose from, but after checking them out, we were drawn to the shy hound. He was shivering when they brought him out to meet us, but it did not take him long to warm up to us. Then we brought Freyja in for a meet & greet and they did well together. By the time we left, the car packed with dogs, humans & crates, the predicted snow was really coming down.

It took us over an hour to make the 15 minute drive to Pantops, but it was on our treacherous neighborhood road that the Charlottesville Snowpocalypse finally caught up to us - both of our cars wound up in the ditch. Luckily, dogs & humans were fine and we walked/slid the rest of the way home.

We found Gobi to be a very sweet and sometimes silly dog, who listens well and plays very nicely with our family. He really enjoys going on walks, climbing snow drifts, barking at deer, chasing Freyja around the house, fetching tennis balls and snuggling on the couch.

Gobi does suffer from separation and stranger anxiety. The separation anxiety was pretty severe at first as he would thrash and whine when left alone, but now he is taking some anti-anxiety meds and we have seen improvement every day - especially at night when he goes into his crate. He did not have many opportunities to meet new people - we really did have a very quiet holiday, but he did warm up pretty quickly to a friend of Xander's that visited one day.

Our adventure with Gobi is ending on Sunday, when we take him back to the SPCA. We hope that a family will soon discover the love, laughter and adventure that Gobi can bring into their life too!

Help One Another

2009-12-11T17:31:00.001-05:00

These are devotions I wrote for the third week of Advent based on our worship theme at Peace of The Weary World Rejoices! I started with the lectionary readings and found it interesting how they inspired me in reverse.

What should we do?
Day 1: Read Luke 3:7–18. Wouldn't we love to have some general outline of what it is we should be doing - to know what exactly is God's will for our lives? In a book I read recently, the heroine is about to embark on an exciting, scary, unknown adventure for which she feels ill-prepared. When she asks advice from a wise woman about what she should do, the woman tells her to simply focus on what's ahead. Maybe that is good advice for all of us. Maybe we shouldn't worry so much about having the right skills at the right time or look back on where we've been or try to plan out ahead the adven- ture of our life, but instead really focus on what's ahead of us. What opportunities to help one another are right in the path of our every day lives. These opportunities may often seem like potholes to avoid or construction zones to detour around until we find the smooth road again, but maybe what we are called to do is to mend the road we are on.

Follow my example.
Day 2: Read Philippians 4:8-9. Paul offers another clue about what we should do to help one another. First, we need to look and find where there is good, honorable, just, pure, pleasing, and excellent work being done in the world and think about that. Next, we need to do the things that we have learned, received, heard and seen from people doing this work. That first step may seem like a giant leap for us, but by following the example of another, we can find a measure of comfort that at least someone else has scouted the way ahead.

Always be gentle with others.
Day 3: Read Philippians 4:1-7. One thing you may not expect to encounter when trying to help another is resistance. Sometimes helping another means altering the status quo and that's where help meets passive, active and sometimes even angry resistance. With change, someone is going to have to give something up and even if it is for the greater good, that's not a normal human reaction. In our quick fix, just do it culture, the mantra we've learned is that "when the going gets tough, the tough get going." According to Paul, toughness is not going to get the job done, but gentleness, prayer and a thankful heart will bless us with the peace we need to carry on.

God is here to help you.
Day 4: Read Isaiah 12. It's interesting to me that the lectionary reading excludes verse 1 - the one where God is angry. While we don't know why the Psalmist felt God was angry with him, we can hear his relief and joy as he experienced comfort, strength and salvation from his Lord God. When we find ourselves in need of help, sometimes we may feel that "the world" is against us or that we are victims of circumstance or even that God has abandoned us and yet as Christians we are challenged to trust, to not be afraid and to look for the one in our midst who is here to help us.

I will lead you home.
Day 5: Read Zephaniah 3:14–20. Kelly Fryer writes that "God is on a mission to bless the world and bring it back home - holy and whole." Not only that, but "God wants us to help". If that's true, we've got a big job ahead of us and the truth is we probably won't be around to find out how things turn out. We might not recognize any of the ripples of love left by our acts of kindness, but I guess that's not really the point. We are going to get discouraged, frustrated, angered and saddened by the state of the affairs in the world, but that will be no excuse not to continue following God's way. God designed us with a purpose to help one another and as we struggle to fulfill this purpose, take comfort that God is with us leading us home.

Happy New Year!

2009-11-29T13:15:00.000-05:00

More writing from my dad and me below. I'm so excited it's also posted at Emerging Women.

Today, Sunday the 29th of November, we begin another liturgical year. I once met a don (professor) at Oxford University who scheduled his life according to the church’s calendar: its seasons, its saints’ days, and its liturgical hours. He refused to use or even to acknowledge the more arithmetic 12-month, numbered-day, 24-hour-subdivided Julian calendar that most of us follow. Making an appointment with him was difficult, to say the least.

We don’t need to go to the extreme of that Oxford don, but perhaps we might pay a bit more attention to our distinctive, somewhat countercultural church calendar. There could be some pleasantly surprising gifts awaiting us, such as the peace and perspective offered by the Advent Season – the season of the advent or coming of God. It is a season that places our lives in a cosmic context or, greater still, a framework as large as God herself. We won’t find that in our holiday shopping at WalMart, Macy’s, or even Neiman Marcus. It can’t be bought; it can’t be built. It comes only as a love-motivated and grace-saturated blessing.

Let us pray:
Come among us Mothering God, Mothering Christ, Mothering Spirit. As you gave birth to us as the Alpha, the fertile source and beginning of all, so also embrace us at last as the Omega, the welcoming goal and end of all. Come among us Birthing God, Feeding Christ, Nurturing Spirit.
Amen.

Kim’s response:
My dad wrote this Advent Devotional for the congregation that he and my mother belong to – a mainline denominational church. The thing that struck me was the reference to “God herself”. I have such a gut reaction to that. First, it’s a reaction of – “ahhh, finally”. But then I wonder how much trouble he’ll get in for referring to the mothering nature of God. Finally I wonder why my solution to this quandary has been to keep my God language gender neutral. That definitely feels like a cop out as well, especially in light of the Advent season, a season of expectant waiting and preparation, a season that any mother can relate to as she reflects on the birth of her own child. I am so grateful that my dad has given me the gift of remembering God herself and the wonderful ways in which she has birthed, fed and nurtured me.

Tom Wilkens served for three years as a pastor in Wisconsin and for thirty-one years as a professor of theology at Texas Lutheran University in Seguin. He and his daughter, Kim, have recently co-authored the book, Un-American Activities: Countercultural Themes in Christianity (http://unamericanactivities.blogspot.com).

hello, world

2009-11-20T17:38:00.000-05:00

I wanted to be creative today - to write and work on an image for our Advent worship series (the weary world rejoices - please send any ideas on). Instead, I spent my day in hardware hell. First, shelling out bucks to the Sears guy to repair my dryer. He was a really nice guy, too bad his contribution to my day was to add doing mountains of laundry to my list (and I was so enjoying wearing the same pair of jeans all week;)

The rest of the day I did my own tech support on 3 computer systems. One laptop, that has been on my list to refurb for school, needed a new harddrive and then all the drivers loaded to get video, sound and go online. That was my only success today. The wireless adapter on my laptop stopped working and I haven't found any way to recover it. Although I did learn that it is not an uncommon problem with HP Pavilion laptops (beware). I'm also trying to set up a desktop with dual monitor support for use at church and don't you know the graphics card I bought requires an increased power supply. Couldn't the tech guy at Staples have told me that or maybe even some clearly written instructions? No, apparently not. Ugh - I've been bit-slapped!

I don't know when the school is going to see this laptop because right now, it's my connection to the world.

equal justice

2009-11-06T11:55:00.000-05:00

What is the great equalizer of humanity? I think I got a glimpse of it in the airport yesterday. I was scoping out the outlet possibilities while I waited for my flight. You'll always find the geeks and business men at the outlets. I sat down next to a business man, who was clearly sending out vibes to not sit there - but there weren't many other options to grab an outlet and frankly I felt I had every right to be there as him - right? He was on his cell phone - typical. But before I knew it, I was drawn into a conversation that shattered my preconceptions.

This white, middle-aged business man just recently learned that his wife had some sort of stroke that day at lunch. His wife is in intensive care, incoherent, facing possible surgery and further complications. As he talks to a doctor, I can feel all his walls crumbling down. He is desperate to find out what is going on and what he needs to do. He is hanging on by a thread, but maintains his composure and uses that business brain he's been training all these years to cover all options, possibilities and outcomes. I was completely drawn into his suffering. As his walls came down, my prejudices about white, middle-aged business men evaporated. We were both just humans then.

When I got on the plane, I started reading a manuscript, Why God? that my friend Bob McAdams asked me to read. Right on the first page, he writes that "when any of us stands facing a reality that is unbearable, we cry out against whatever fate or providence or divine plan or human purpose brought this pain to us ... the intensity of our sorrow opens our hearts to the sorrow of others."

I think that pure love and joy also have this equalizing property, but when speaking of justice issues, we are speaking of suffering. It's in the suffering that we can actually identify with those living in such different circumstances than ourselves. We all know what suffering feels like. We all feel some gut instinct to help our fellow man out of their suffering. We may not know what to say or do, but the instinct is there. It is this instinct that we need to follow into the uncomfortable world of those suffering injustice. It is this instinct that levels the playing field of humanity when we sit next to each other and start to listen.

Book signings this weekend in Texas

2009-11-02T07:44:00.000-05:00

Fri night - Hill Country Bookstore in Georgetown.
Sat morning - Texas Lutheran University Bookstore in Seguin.
Hope to see some of my old Texas friends and make some new Texas friends this weekend!

crazy justice

2009-10-21T05:38:00.002-05:00

Crazy, but that's how it goes
Millions of people living as foes
Maybe, it's not to late
To learn how to love
And forget how to hate

Mental wounds not healing
Life's a bitter shame
I'm going off the rails on a crazy train
- Ozzy Osbourne

I'm beginning to have some empathy for those U2 fans who love the music, but don't pay much attention to the lyrics. To explain, first I'm going to have to admit that I'm a 'Dancing with the Stars' fan. Not only that, but while I'm watching apparently I have this silly grin on my face - at least that what sources close to me say. Why am I such a fan? It could be my way of imagining my life as a dancer - this dream having been crushed at an early age. Maybe it's the morbid fascination of watching some of these famous people fail like plain, old regular people might fail when they start something new. But the real reason for me is that every season these stars step outside their comfort zone and I get to watch a transformation take place.

But I digress. Last night I saw Kelly Osbourne dance to her dad's song 'Crazy Train'. Now I know I rocked out to that song in my youth, but I'm pretty sure I didn't catch any significance to the lyrics. Without Ozzy and his crazy antics, I heard the lyrics for the first time. Who knew Ozzy Osbourne could sound a prophetic voice in my head? What do his words have to do with justice? Here's what I heard. We live in a conflicted world where suffering somehow coexists with joy. Greed and generosity, apathy and action, denial and forgiveness, despair and hope, addiction and wholeness, hate and love somehow live alongside each other in varying degrees and somewhere between these contradictions injustice is born. As you become aware of justice issues, you become more aware of these contradictions. As Brett Dennen sings, just thinking about this reality is "enough to make you go crazy". If you actually take on the work of doing justice, you are by definition living in the midst of the contradictions. No wonder one can become mentally wounded, fatigued, confused, even ashamed. No wonder others look at those doing justice and suspect they are about to go off the rails and ride the crazy train.

normal justice

2009-10-13T06:01:00.001-05:00

The authors of Justice in the Burbs advise that when you start getting involved with justice issues you can "kiss normal good-bye." What is normal anyway? Is it normal for 1 in 4 college aged women to experience an attempted or a completed rape? Is it normal for half the current homeless population to be made up of families with children? Is it normal for 1 in 5 people to be without health insurance? Is it normal for 1 in 10 people to go to bed hungry in the US. Unfortunately, these things are normal today - that's why they are justice issues. Changing these "norms" means altering the status quo and that's where doing justice meets passive, often active and sometimes angry resistance. With change, someone is going to have to give something up and even if it is for the greater good, that's not a normal human reaction.

Is it normal for Christians to feel passionately about issues of justice and speak out?

The church must be reminded that it is not the master or the servant of the state, but rather the conscience of the state. It must be the guide and the critic of the state, and never its tool. If the church does not recapture its prophetic zeal, it will become an irrelevant social club without moral or spiritual authority. - Martin Luther King, Jr., 1963

I'm afraid Christianity in America has lost its passion. It’s become mainstream, selfish, narcissistic, bland, couch-potato, feel good fluff. Core values include promoting creationism, pro-life, heterosexuality and "saving souls." These are good things to promote and I respect those who strongly believe in them…but I don't fit in there. I don't see these as pressing issues in my faith. I need a gut-retching, enduring, bold challenge to seek justice, love, peace, understanding, and tolerance. I need a community where I can be held accountable, not only for my daily actions and prayer life, but for the greater ills of society. The pain and hurts I've caused by compliance, compliance with a world that is inherently broken with systemic injustice. I need something real and tangible. I've just spent three years of my life in a corrupt country with few resources to bring about lasting healing; I need to know it wasn't in vain. I need to know there's still a community willing to take me in and care for me as I rediscover this strange reality of America. - Carol in Philadelphia, 2009

I wish it were normal. I thank God for these voices of justice in my life urging me outward and onward, beyond normal!

Risky Living: The Good Life

2009-10-09T17:19:00.000-05:00

I took the opportunity to write devotions for the first week of our new series Risky Living, which I think will be a very justice-oriented series.

This week we focus on the story of the rich man in Mark 10:17-31. Try reading from a variety of translations throughout the week. Many different translations are available at www.biblegateway.com.

Day 1: Read Mark 10:17-31
Consider who you identify with in the story and why. Is it the rich man, searching for something more? Is it the disciples, who are shocked and confused by Jesus’ statement about how hard it is to get into God's kingdom? Is it Peter, who wonders out loud that surely they have already done enough? Or maybe you identify with Jesus, because you have seen or experienced first-hand the iron grip that riches can have over someone's heart.

Day 2: Read Mark 10:17-31 & Matthew 7:7-12
Today; consider the rich man's quest for eternal life. Have you ever thought to yourself; if only I had "fill in the blank", my life would be good? What are you searching for in your life right now - a job, a life partner, a house, a college education, a vacation, a promotion, validation, security, spiritual growth, reconciliation, hope, love?

Day 3: Read Mark 10:17-31 & Genesis 3:9-11
Is there something missing in our make-up that we are looking for to make us whole? Donald Miller, author of Searching for God Knows What suggests that the missing element is our connection to God:
"Man is wired so he gets his glory (his security, his understanding of value, his feeling of purpose, his feeling of rightness with his Maker, his security for eternity) from God and this relationship is so strong, and God’s love so pure, that Adam and Eve felt no insecurity at all... But when that relationship was broken, they knew it instantly. All of their glory, the glory that came from God, was gone... All of the insecurity rises the instant you realize you are alone.
If man was wired so that something outside himself told him who he was, and if God’s presence was giving him a feeling of fulfillment, then when that relationship was broken, a man would be pining for other people to tell him that he was good, right, okay with the world, and eternally secure."

Day 4: Read Mark 10:17-31 & Mark 10:42-45
Is there an antidote for this missing element? Jesus told his disciples that there is, but it is a radical procedure: “whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all.” Glenn McDonald, author of The Disciple Making Church says, “We have managed to do something that the early Christians would not have thought possible. We have made Christianity safe, middle-class, comfortable. Even when we acknowledge the words of Jesus, we tame them.” Consider how you might be taming the words of Jesus.

Day 5: Read Mark 10:17-31 & Luke 14:25-33
In our culture, this message of servanthood almost always ends up sounding negative instead of positive: Give it up, lose your life, be a servant. We want to know why, what’s in it for me? There are not many things for which we humans are willing to make large sacrifices. Consider how being rich with stuff makes this sacrifice more difficult than for those without. Consider where the Holy Spirit is leading you and acknowledge what following this call will cost you.

liberal justice

2009-10-09T17:08:00.000-05:00

"It's tragic, to see how we've built our country into the wealthiest country on the planet — there is so much abundance here — and yet we have such a disparity between the haves and have-nots in this society."
- Michael Moore, director of Captalism: A Love Story

I know he pisses off a lot of people, but how can anyone dispute this statement from Michael Moore? Why is it so hard to recognize or see the have-nots? Who or what is perpetrating this massive delusion that we're going to be fine, everything is okay? The story may be fed to us from other sources, but aren't we, the ones in the burbs, buying into it? As the authors point out in chapter 3 of Justice in the Burbs, it certainly feels safer living in the burbs where we can "avoid facing the bigger issues of life." Even when we are jolted awake by a justice issue that we can no longer ignore, it is so difficult to unravel ourselves, our stuff and our life in the burbs from the delusion.

I read following quote this week from Inward/Outward - maybe this defending against the Bible is part of the delusion?

The matter is quite simple. The Bible is very easy to understand. But we Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. We pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand, we are obliged to act accordingly. Take any words in the New Testament and forget everything except pledging yourself to act accordingly. My God, you will say, if I do that my whole life will be ruined. How would I ever get on in the world? Herein lies the real place of Christian scholarship. Christian scholarship is the Church’s prodigious invention to defend itself against the Bible, to ensure that we can continue to be good Christians without the Bible coming too close. Oh, priceless scholarship, what would we do without you?
- Provocations: Spiritual Writings of Kierkegaard, ed. Charles Moore

my Justice in the Burbs book study notes
chapter 3: justice in the burbs
- why did you choose to live where you do? beautiful, private, convenient & part of our American dream
- how does your view of America shape your understanding of what it means to live justly? living justly when we bought the house wasn't really on the radar, now that it is, I vacillate between guilt and gratitude.
- is it possible to have a government that is concerned with justice? it better be. the mission of the county where I live is "To enhance the well-being and quality of life for all citizens through the provision of the highest level of public service consistent with the prudent use of public funds." that sounds like being concerned with justice to me, but it is far from being pursued.
- what concerns, such as being labeled a "liberal", do you have when thinking about living justly? my main concern is that I don't do enough and that the liberal & conservative labels cause all sorts of translation issues

just play the f'ing music

2009-10-02T09:16:00.001-05:00

so said the grumpy, middle-aged guy sitting in front of me when Archbishop Desmund Tutu came on the U2 360 screen to introduce the One Campaign. Talk about a groove stomper. I can't express the gratitude I felt when soon after Scott Stadium reverberated with Amazing Grace.

On the way out of the stadium, I heard someone else exclaim that they loved the music, but not all that other stuff. If by other stuff, they meant "the claw". Well I must admit that feat of engineering was strange and mystifying, and maybe I didn't love it, but it was something to behold. On the other hand, if they meant the references to social justice issues like voter protests in Iran, the Aids epidemic, the plight of Aung San Suu Kyi, starving children and environmental concerns or highlighting groups like Amnesty International, the Red Campaign and the One Campaign, then I don't get it. How can you be a fan of the music, if you are not also a fan of the message? Do you hear the call to social justice when you listen to U2?

One love, one blood, one life, you got to do what you should.
One life with each other: sisters, brothers.
One life, but we're not the same.
We get to carry each other, carry each other.

Carry on U2 and keep singing those f-ing lyrics!

some days are better than others

2009-10-02T00:13:00.000-05:00

. a good friend who said "hell yes" to a last minute plan
. husbands & kids who respond "why not" to a girls night out
. a beautiful moonlit evening
. great seats from which to ponder the minds responsible for "the claw"
. everyone belting out "i still haven't found what i'm looking for" & "amazing grace"
. no traffic issues

thanks be to God!
goodnight

ordinary justice

2009-09-23T19:34:00.002-05:00

"We all want to be big stars, but we don't know why and we don't know how.
But when everybody loves me, I'm going to be just about as happy as can be.
Mr. Jones and me, we're gonna be big stars. " Mr. Jones by Counting Crows

I am so not on board with being ordinary, average, or regular. When the authors of the book Justice in the Burbs (pg 27) start equating justice with things like mercy, compassion, being fair and living by the Golden Rule, that seems like a weak definition to me. But, in the very next sentence, they highlight a few individuals that we all pretty much recognize as being synonymous with justice: Mother Teresa & Martin Luther King, Jr. That's more like it. Being fair sounds boring, but being part of something that changes the world, now that sounds exciting, challenging, special. The cognitive dissonance I'm experiencing, is that I'm beginning to realize that all this changing the world stuff starts out as justice lived out in ordinary, average, regular, everyday lives like mine.

my Justice in the Burbs book study notes
chapter 1: life in an ordinary world
- why did you pick up this book? somebody lent it to me
- what has been your experience so far with issues of justice? working on justice is frustrating, slow, educational, inspirational, lonely
- how would you define justice? joining your voice and actions with others in the pursuit of fairness and equity for all
- is justice - however you define it - possible? maybe someday, need to be willing to take baby steps

chapter 2: hearing the voice of justice
- does God care about justice? absolutely. how should that show itself in our world? empathy for those who suffer injustice and an understanding or self-awareness of how our actions and/or inactions contribute to that suffering
- what do you believe the Bible says about living justly? it is the only way to achieve the kingdom of God
- how does the model of Jesus relate to living justly? love your neighbor, stranger, outcast, sufferer more than yourself
- how can you live in light of the whole Bible in the American suburban world? is it even possible - it seems like something's gotta change

chasing justice

2009-09-20T19:58:00.000-05:00

It all seemed so clear after attending the community organizer training last year:
1) doing justice is our God-given call
2) because doing justice requires changing systems, whether religious, political and/or economic, we can't do it alone
3) therefore, we need to organize people to do justice by engaging them, being in relationship with them, identifying their self-interest and finding common ground.

I tried to bring these principles back to Peace and share them. I know I am lacking in the interpersonal department, but I have felt like the more I pursued justice, the more elusive it became and the more I shared my convictions about doing justice, the more I repelled folks instead of attracting them to the cause.

I wonder, what am I doing wrong?

In Everything Must Change, Brian McClaren makes perfect sense as he lays out the roots of human suffering in the systems we have embraced and how Jesus responded to those systems during his lifetime, but what to do and where to go next with all this information is kind of vague. It turns out everything is way more than I can handle.

In The Irresistible Revolution, Shane Claiborne makes pursuing justice by living the simple way sound a lot easier than it is for me, but then I'm pretty sure he started chasing justice when he was young and single.

In Justice in the Burbs, the authors themselves feel they failed in doing justice right where I live, with my family in the burbs.

So am I chasing justice or just chasing my tail? I know I'm on the verge of having some sort of rash reaction and yet the passion to do this thing called justice won't seem to leave me alone.

Maybe it's time I got back to the basics:

What is justice?

What do I have to offer?

What am I missing?

Where do I need to step it up and where do I need to step back?

I'm hoping to find a few more answers than questions with some others in a book study of Justice in the Burbs. I'll be posting my thoughts from this weekly study, so you can check back and see if I've had a meltdown or finally seen the light at the end of the tunnel.

book in cyberspace

2009-09-14T06:34:00.002-05:00

The book is now available from Amazon and in Google books:

Amazon.com Widgets

They're here!!

2009-08-28T07:03:00.002-05:00

5 boxes of Un-American Activities just landed on my front porch! (bet the UPS guy must be wondering what's going on at our house;)

The book is launched!

2009-08-11T14:54:00.000-05:00

Read all about it @ the book blog!

book jitters

2009-07-29T18:30:00.002-05:00

I'm a little nervous. The book is coming out in just over a week and I'm not feeling the relief I felt when we finally turned in a final draft or the excitement I felt when we got proofs to review. No, I'd say the feeling I've got is closer to having the jitters. It took me awhile to realize why that is. I've certainly gotten more comfortable with sharing my postmodern, doubt-ridden faith journey with folks at church and even on my blog. Thanks to my participation with IMPACT this past year where I was called upon several times to get up in front of large groups and speak, my stage terror has been downgraded into merely stage fright. Clearly, I'm not someone who naturally puts herself out there - but I've been working on it. However, now that my story is going to be out there in print - that kind of seems like a whole new, big, scary deal! What was I thinking? I guess we'll find out soon enough. In the meantime, I'll try to remember to take deep breaths and go to my happy place.

rationalizations, grassrooots organizations & totalitarian regimes, oh my!

2009-07-17T11:21:00.008-05:00

There have been a few things I've wanted to blog about this week, but couldn't find the time or energy.

Thing one was this excellent list of rationalizations that we come up with to convince ourselves we're still good people - a fool's defense. Really not much to say after reading it except, OUCH!

Then yesterday, I got a phone message from my Albemarle County Board Supervisor, Ken Boyd, inviting me and my family to attend an Americans for Prosperity event this weekend. Seems this event it about trashing the idea that we should have universal healthcare in America. I find it ironic that Boyd, who has not been a fan of our local interfaith, social justice, grassroots organization because organized, grassroots, citizen advocacy is just not the way we do things here, is perfectly happy to be an activist for this self-proclaimed grassroots organization that is all about "educating citizens about economic policy and mobilizing those citizens as advocates in the public policy process." Maybe he'll be a fan of IMPACT now?!?!

And finally, I could not pass up blogging about this page layout in the latest National Geographic. Do you see what countries besides the US still have the death penalty? Something seems very wrong with this picture. "The practice is strong in culturally conservative areas - Japan, Saudi Arabia, Texas - and totalitarian regimes." That could be such a funny quote if it weren't so damn depressing.

But don't give up hope. Right there on the opposite page is this awesome ad! I LOVE this United Methodist Church message (What if church led more people to water?) and website (10thousanddoors.org)!

"What if church wasn't just a building, but thousands of doors?" Way to go UMC - you've given me a little hope in humanity and even church.

and now for something completely different

2009-07-09T15:47:00.003-05:00

I stumbled across this clip today - luv it. For those of you who haven't heard my creed rant yet, let's just say that I am not a fan of creeds and I think this video demonstrates my issues nicely. One argument I've heard that makes some sense to me in continuing their use, is the common language they provide across the Christian church. But mostly I just can't get over my intellectual assent problems. Even after reading from Marcus Borg in the Heart of Christianity:

But credo does not mean "I hereby agree to the literal-factual truth of the following statements." Rather, its Latin roots combine to mean "I give my heart to."

At one point, I started looking for alternate creeds that I could give my heart to. Here are a few.

The Maasai Creed

Let's Confess It

United Church of Canada New Creed

Retro-Modern Creed

Do you have a statement of faith that you can give your heart to?

extra, extra, read all about it

2009-07-09T15:29:00.004-05:00

A couple of pretty newsworthy events have happened this week in the life of the Christian church.

The first event I heard about was the online release of the Codex Sinaiticus. This is "a manuscript of the Christian Bible written in the middle of the fourth century, contains the earliest complete copy of the Christian New Testament." Leaves and fragments of this manuscript have been held in four different locations around the world. All the available pages have now come together in the digital world - yeh technology!

I know I can't read these pages directly and they don't provide English translations for all of the pages, but I love the idea that they are there and available for all. And, I am intrigued by the books it includes that are not in our modern Bible and how it's been "heavily annotated by a series of early correctors."

The second event was the release of an Encyclical Letter "Caritas in Veritate" by Pope Benedict XVI. I'd never heard of this letter or ever really been a fan of the pope, but apparently he planned this "Charity in Truth" message to coincide with the G8 summit hoping to rattle a few cages. It's a pretty rambling document, written in a male-dominated voice, but it appears there are a few gems.

Here's what some other bloggers are saying about it:

Pope Benedict XVI encyclical letter denounces excessive zeal for assertions of intellectual property rights in knowledge by KEI

Pope Benedict on the Global Economy by Jim Wallis

BTW - is it weird that I learned about these things from listening to the BBC and not the US news?

to be educated

2009-06-30T07:04:00.002-05:00

A review of our book by one of my favorite professors at Texas Lutheran.

A book review by Norm Beck,
Poehlmann Professor of Theology and Classical Languages

If to be educated is to be led from one position and perspective to another, Dr. Tom Wilkens and Kim Wilkens, together with other members of their family and in interaction with their culture, eloquently demonstrate what it means to be educated. Their book, in a most profound sense, is also our book.

During the 24 years in which Dr. Wilkens was my closest colleague on the Texas Lutheran University faculty, I and thousands of others within the community of this University were blessed to be educated in so many ways by him. That education has continued during the past decade in which he and Betty, who had been our campus nurse, have traveled and interacted in educational endeavors in many other areas of the world. In the broadest sense, he reminds us that, although we may be resistant, if we are sentient beings we are constantly being educated by our interactions with others, especially by those who are younger than we are.

Kim Wilkens, co-author with her father, a graduate of TLU not too many years ago, provides an education and an articulation for all of us, including those who are closest to where she is in her life and faith pilgrimage. There is so much of TLU in these authors and in their book, a book that defines and exposes us.

The subtitle, “A modern father and postmodern daughter reflect on their pilgrimages of life and faith,” provides an indication of education within slightly more than three hundred pages and thirty segments, each segment of which can be read separately much as we might read articles in a Reader’s Digest publication, but with much more cohesion. The primary title, Un-American Activities: Countercultural Themes in Christianity, challenges us and alerts us to the educational scope of the work, expanding for us the purview of the book far beyond the arena that is TLU.

Find the complete review here.

where you do not wish to go

2009-06-24T08:30:00.002-05:00

I'm at a conference in SA called The Jesus Way. Okay, I admit it sounds like an over-the-top Christian immersion experience and in some ways it is. And so in many ways, I feel like an impostor here. There are lots of people very comfortable with their Christian identity. The metaphor of sheep, ready and eager to follow a shepherd comes to mind. The thing is, I'm not sure many of us are prepared to go where we do not wish to go. That's what I've liked about this conference - is the challenge to do just that. Should being comfortable and being a Christian be mutually exclusive?

Where is it you do not want to go and what are you going to do when, inevitably, you arrive there? What will you learn? Who will you trust? How will you find freedom? When you find yourself where you don't want to be, will your life be about where you are or who you become? These are life questions that trouble me and I find that this is where the way of Jesus offers me the best hope to grow from challenging experiences instead of being buried by them.

wait for me by moby

i'm going to ask you to look away
i love my hands, but it hurts to pray

the life i have isn't what i'd seen
the sky's not blue and the field's not green

wait for me, wait for me, wait for me

i'm going to ask you to look away
a broken life will never stay

tried too hard and i always lagged
days are gray and the nights are black

wait for me, wait for me, wait for me

trip of a lifetime

2009-05-13T16:34:00.003-05:00

1 boy, 1 mom, 1 dad with 2 grandmas and 1 papa just got back from the trip of a lifetime to 5 countries - Zurich (Switzerland) with long layovers both ways, Venice (Italy) for 3 nights, Azamara cruise for 7 nights stopping in Kopar (Slovenia), Zader & Dubrovnik (Croatia), Santorini & Nauplion (Greece) & Athens for 2 nights.

Overall, it was an incredible experience. Here are a few of my random thoughts about the trip:
- The boy was an amazing navigator through the twisting, narrow streets of Venice, but it still gave me nightmares thinking of him getting separated from us and navigating those streets alone.
- After that, letting the boy have the run of the ship was easy.
- My first impression of the cruise staff was how super friendly they were. Then I found out that this ship is known for having the friendliest staff, so I began to get cynical and wondered if they were friendly because they wanted to be or because they had to be.
- The cruise is definitely one of the more high-end things we have ever done. I started the trip feeling kind of guilty, but by the end I was getting kind of used to the pampering.
- The cruise staff was a way more diverse group than the passengers.
- Traveling with grandparents is definitely a bonus.
- Dubrovnik turned out to be one of my favorite stops. Exploring this walled city by the sea was an incredible experience.
- Walking through ancient Mycenae ruins gives you the perspective that our US history is pretty puny.
- Encountering some kind of ruin around every corner of Athens just reinforces the feeling that ancient history permeates this place.
- Almost everyone we met throughout our journey spoke some English.

facilitator

2009-04-15T08:46:00.003-05:00

I have finally found meaning & purpose in my life as I facilitate bringing the Mr. Deity series to you.

From Crackle: Mr. Deity and the Meaning - Season 2, Ep 2

I saw my first Mr. Deity video @ exploring our matrix.

stop helping God...

2009-04-11T07:58:00.002-05:00

"stop helping God across the road like a little old lady"
- Stand Up Comedy by U2

It's my new favorite U2 lyric. In fact, Stand Up Comedy is my new favorite U2 song followed closely by Breathe (where you will actually find cockatoo in the lyrics;).

I'm one of those people who works best when I'm listening to music, so I've been listening a lot lately to U2's No Line on the Horizon via their U2.com media player.

During this Lenten season I have been experiencing more doubts, distractions and discouragement than ever. This lyric reminds me that God can handle my unbelief, anger, frustration, ambivalence or any other feeble emotion or thought I possess. I don't need to hide it or rationalize it or just get over it to make God feel better.

During the passion reading this week, I heard about a God who became weak in flesh, but remained strong in spirit. And this God does appear to need our help, but it's not going to be a simple walk across the road to safety. When we step up to help, we will journey upon a much more perilous path.

(image: Chris Gollon's 'Stations of the Cross' in St. John on Bethnal Green Church)

A rebel without a clue

2009-04-02T15:16:00.002-05:00

Here's another excerpt from Un-American Activities: Countercultural Themes in Christianity. It's kind of a response to The Wounded Image of God at A Mending Shift.

"Rebellion permeates all aspects of human life. It originates from the subconscious will of mankind not to surrender to destructive forces. But rebelling is not the same as defining a cause that would improve the quality of human life, or formulating a constructive program of action. Marching in a parade is easier than blazing a trail through a forest or creating a new Jerusalem. Daumier’s hero looks like many rebels in our midst. He is fighting against evil rather than for a well-defined cause. Like most of us, he is a rebel without a program." - So Human an Animal by René Dubos

I've always had a rebellious nature. I don't think it's riotous or boisterous; it's more driven and determined. My primary cause has been feminism. My earliest memory of this rebellion was at some extended family gathering, probably Thanksgiving or Christmas. At the end of the meal, I noticed the women go into the kitchen and the men go to the living room. That didn't seem right to me, so I announced that I was not going to the help in the kitchen, I'd hang out with the guys instead. And as I've heard my mother say to me on many occasions, "where do you get these ideas?"

Well, she's not completely blameless. Even though she did a majority of the domestic chores and actually claimed to enjoy cleaning – "it's therapeutic," she says - my mom also balanced being a stay-at-home mom with a part-time nursing career (working the late shift). She was on the cutting edge of childbirth education, bringing couples into our home for Lamaze training when other facilities were unavailable or more likely unwilling to support this radical new approach to childbirth.

My feminist rebellion energized me to excel academically. It drove me into the male-dominated field of computer science. It pushed me up the corporate ladder. It alienated me from religion. Sue Monk Kidd in The Dance of the Dissident Daughter gives a very good description of what this alienation feels like:

"A girl, forming her identity also experiences herself missing from pronouns in scripture, hymns, and prayers. And most of all, as long as God 'himself' is exclusively male, she will experience the otherness, the lessness, of herself; all the pious talk in the world about females being equal to males will fail to compute in the deeper places inside her."

For several years, I was humming along quite nicely in my feminist cause, but then I had a child, left corporate America, turned 40 and had a huge identity crisis. I had done well in a man's world, but now I found myself in the world of motherhood. How was I supposed to excel at something I had no training for? What was happening to my feminist agenda? I thought I was helping to pave the way for the women after me to be treated as equals, but instead I was just playing by the rules of corporate America and they no longer seemed adequate for my life. I felt like a rebel without a clue. I needed to redefine the rules for living my life.

First, I tried finding balance. I searched for the magical formula that would give me just the right balance between family-life, career-life, community-life, volunteer-life and church-life. It felt like a juggling act and when I would get too much of one and not enough of the others, I started feeling out of control and unbalanced. I would lose track of some of the balls. I would have to regroup and try to figure out the formula again. Usually the new formula worked for a time, it was fresh and it was fun and exhilarating! But I would end up in a cycle of trying to arrange the balls just so, putting them up in the air, and juggling them for a while until I started to lose some of them. This strategy for living wasn't working either.

Then I heard an interview on NPR with a soldier in Iraq. He said he had to compartmentalize his soldier-life and his home-life. He gave an example of a cell phone conversation with his wife: she's talking about her "bad" day with the kids and he's thinking about his "bad" day cleaning up dead bodies. Compartmentalization was necessary for him to focus on the task at hand or he might get shot. But the cost is high as it wreaks havoc on relationships because the whole person is never completely present.

It struck me that this is what I've been doing. I hadn't been thinking of it as compartmentalization, but as I was performing my juggling act, I was really assigning out pieces of myself to get the tasks done. When I was working on one task, another part of me was usually occupied with lists that need to be completed for other tasks. I was rarely wholly involved with the task or relationship or situation at hand.

My new cause is wholeness. "There is nothing more important than being fully where we are, in the plain ordinary events, day in and day out. I think women understand that we create change as we live out the experiences of our souls in the common acts of life." Where I used to be like Martha, worried and distracted, I am trying to be more like Mary, taking time to learn about Jesus.

I find my new cause still has room for the frustration I feel toward gender issues found in many religious institutions. Instead of fighting against the male/female stereotypes that have kept me from moving forward in my faith, I feel that God wants me to walk humbly through these human failures and acknowledge them. I believe that God can reorient the whole world from one of inequality to one of equality and I believe God wants you and me to help.

the medium is the message

2009-03-25T05:27:00.002-05:00

I haven't read Flickering Pixels yet, but I'm a big fan of Shane Hipps and his first book, The Hidden Power of Electronic Culture. In fact, that book inspired one of my responses in my dad's upcoming book. First, a few words from Shane:

.
(thanks to Jonathon at Missio Deo for posting about video)

Now a few words from me:
"The medium has far more impact on the culture than its content." I’m guessing many Christians would disagree with this statement. I certainly found it shocking when I first read it, but after more reading and thinking, it’s beginning to make some sense. So, if you’ll bear with me, here’s what I learned.

With the vast cultural shifts we have experienced in America, many churches struggle to connect with the culture and are not keeping up. I hear things like the church is often decades behind the culture. Churches are involved in many exercises of trying to keep up. Pastors and lay leaders are eager to employ the latest technology, gadgetry, structures, musical styles, fashions, and espresso bars in the search to be relevant.

After reading The Hidden Power of Electronic Culture by Shane Hipps, I think we’ve got it backwards. I think the problem may be a misconception held by almost everyone involved with church and that is that the message should never change, just the delivery methods that will allow the message to "reach" the culture. First, it seems obvious to me that "the message" is not only slightly or very different for each Christian denomination; it’s different for every congregation and every individual inside or outside a congregation. Each of us brings our own interpretative lens to the message. Our faith and our beliefs are impacted by our experiences and our community. Belief and faith cannot be measured or checked off on a list.

Second, we fail to realize that the medium is the message. Shane skillfully identifies and describes basic media inventions that have had enormous impacts upon Western civilization. So all consuming are the resulting cultural shifts that we often no longer recognize their birth was caused, in part, by technology we now take for granted. That is the hidden power behind the medium. One of the pivotal technologies that has shaped faith from Martin Luther’s time on is the mass-produced, printed word. Shane writes that the printed word has "caused a cultural shift and an emphasis on the individual, on objectivity, on abstract thinking, on rationality, that – for better or worse – came to dominate nearly every aspect of social, political, and religious life during the modern era."

So what do we do with this printed word, this Bible that is at the heart of our Christian tradition? As Christians, we are called to be in "the word" daily. Many approaches to studying the Bible begin with the admonishment to "be objective" and not to let our own preconceived notions color our interpretation. I even have a discipleship study that encourages approaching the Bible with a "scientific method" of investigation. There’s this process called exegesis that many pastors and scholars employ to try and peel back the layers until one finds the kernel of "truth." Whose truth is that? We need to understand that this medium of the printed word has caused us to believe we can be far more objective and rationale creatures than we really are.

George Lakoff, Professor of Cognitive Science and Linguistics at UC Berkeley and author of The Political Mind said some amazing things about how the brain works in an interview with Diane Rehm: things like; "people mostly think their thoughts are conscious, however 98% are unconscious" and "we think reason is dispassionate, however reason requires emotion."

So, here's the deal: once we open up a Bible and read from it, we’ve already gone beyond it because we’ve brought our unconscious thoughts and passion to it. Does this make the Bible irrelevant? I don't think so. I agree with Marcus Borg "to be Christian is to be centered in the God of the Bible. This is not a mark of Christian exclusion, but of Christian identity." He goes on to say that "the point is not to believe in the Bible – but to see our lives with God through it." We live these lives in community and so it is with our community of faith that we pray, listen, learn, study, teach, struggle, admonish, encourage, and try to live our lives in God’s way. A way that has been recorded for us in the Bible by our predecessors and continues to be lived out, beyond the Bible in Christian lives today. The medium is the message and we, the people, are the medium for God’s message. - excerpt from Un-American Activities: Countercultural Themes in Christianity

it's enough to make you go crazy

2009-03-23T08:56:00.002-05:00

love the message in this song - started making a list of the things making me crazy - too long, depressing and convoluted to post today - now I'm mad

don't hesitate to speak your mind
never hesitate to speak your heart
they'll call you crazy, when you speak your mind
so never, never hesitate
cause it's enough to make you go crazy
it's enough to make you mad
- Make You Crazy by Brett Dennen

10 Steps to Online Parental Supervision of Your Kids

2009-03-16T10:06:00.003-05:00

Here's an article I've been working on for parents at the school where I teach tech - basically targeted at parents of 4th thru 8th graders. I hear the kids talking about stuff they are doing online that I'm not sure their parents are aware of. Who can really keep up with it all? It's a challenge, but I also think it's the responsibility of the parents to figure it out if their kids are online at home.

What's your online supervision experience with your kids? What kind of help, advice or assistance do you need?

10 Steps to Online Parental Supervision of Your Kids

1. Create an Online Safety Contract, review and sign it with your kids and post near all computers in your home. You can find a good example at SafeKids.com.

2. Keep computers and other wired technology in public spaces in your house where you can easily check in on what your children are doing online.

3. Create a list of "approved" websites for your kids to use. For instance, the Upper Elementary students have a list of websites they may use at montessoripantops.org/ue. Here are some examples of free resources that you can use to create your approved website list: squidoo.com/mcs or wikispaces.com.

4. Consider using a filter with some sort of parental control, but do not consider filtering software a replacement for your hands-on monitoring. At the very least, ensure that Google's SafeSearch is set to "Use strict filtering". To set this, select Preference from the Google home page.

5. Peruse the history on the computers used by your child. See if there are any patterns or websites that are new that are being visited a lot. Talk to your child about it.

6. Are your kids using a social networking site, like Facebook? Are they playing a massively multiplayer online game (MMOG), like Runescape? Are they posting videos on YouTube? Did you know that all these sites have a under 13 years old age restriction?

Here is the Facebook policy in a nutshell:
"Children under 13 years old are not permitted access to Facebook. In addition, parents of children 13 years and older should consider whether their child should be supervised during the child's use of the Facebook site."

If your child wants access to this kind of site, first take the time to thoroughly review the site yourself. If you approve, then you should consider having full access to their accounts. This is not an invasion of privacy issue, this is a safety issue.

7. If your child sets up a web page or blog online, subscribe to the page over RSS or bookmark it and visit it daily.

8. Carefully consider the ramifications of allowing your child to have an e-mail account. There is no good way to avoid all the inappropriate spam that's bound to come in. There is a way with a gmail account to use the plus-addressing feature to create filtered inboxes. If you approve of your child having an e-mail account, then you should set up the e-mail account together and let your child know that you will occasionally be monitoring their e-mail activity. This is really no different that an administrator at a company or school having access to e-mail account info of their employees for security purposes.

9. Google your child. Nothing will probably turn up, but you never know. Just in case, every once in a while, you should Google your child's name, nickname, city (put your child's name in quotations and then type + the town, eg. "John Doe" +Anytown)

10. If your child is living online it is your job to supervise online! They should know that you are watching, vigilant, and involved and that you care.

(adapted from Cool Cat Teacher blog)

love will prevail

2009-02-18T06:36:00.004-05:00

in the meantime, there's some pretty crappy, discriminatory stuff going...

"Fidelity": Don't Divorce... from Courage Campaign on Vimeo.

learn more about courage campaign

are you Lost?

2009-02-15T07:56:00.003-05:00

I've got a love/hate relationship going with Lost. I love it when I'm watching a new episode and new things are revealed and I start hating it near the end of an episode when it's clear that not only are there still some old things left hanging, but there's usually a whole new plot twist to absorb, adding more, new, unlikely, unresolved content.

This dual reaction (love/hate, good/evil, light/dark) may be just what the producers are going for according to mirror matter.

Or maybe it's just for fun...

links found via exploring our matrix

What does it really mean to "do justice?"

2009-02-08T07:38:00.002-05:00

Over at Transforming Theology, they are looking for actual "normal" people to ask their most pressing God question. I don't know about "normal", but the question that keeps coming up for me: through working with PACEM & IMPACT, through watching our economy tank, through preparing a reflection about caring for one another for the women's retreat is - what does it really mean to "do justice?"

My "rehearsed" answer is that doing justice means you are willing to stand alongside and help give a voice to those who are struggling every day with local social justice issues. It means being in relationship with and caring for those who are suffering.

What I'm looking for are some insights about caring for others - doing justice, when its difficult and over the long haul. I think there are some clues to how difficult this can be in Job. But the lessons in Job are difficult to grasp because we just can’t relate to or can hardly bear hearing what’s been happening to Job. I think we can relate to the three friends that came to visit Job in the hope to sympathize with and comfort him.

"When they saw him from a distance, they could hardly recognize him; they began to weep aloud, and they tore their robes and sprinkled dust on their heads. Then they sat on the ground with him for seven days and seven nights. No one said a word to him, because they saw how great his suffering was." [Job 2:12-13, NIV]

Their hearts are in the right place and they let Job vent for a while, but finally his friend Eliphaz interrupts. It seems he wants to shake Job out of his funk by launching into a lecture about how important Job is, how much people look up to him for support and guidance, and that he should view his suffering as some form of discipline from God. Job’s response is filled with pain and loathing and this little zinger:

"Now you too have proved to be of no help; you see something dreadful and are afraid." [Job 6:21]

I think the story of Job and his friends has some parallels to the church and its relationship to those who are enduring long-term suffering, such as the poor. As the church, we are more than willing to provide the poor short-term relief in the form of food, clothes, and even shelter, but getting involved with the poor long-term is distressing because we want the poor to be able to pull themselves up by their bootstraps and persevere. Instead, when get beyond the problems on the surface, we see something dreadful and are afraid. This is certainly where I find myself getting stuck personally and where I see us getting stuck as a community of faith. It knocks our preconceived notions, about how God interacts with the world and what God expects of us, out of whack.

What do we do when caring doesn't feel good or doesn't seem to be accomplishing anything? What do we do when the person we are caring for doesn't meet our expectations? What do we do when we see something dreadful and are afraid?

Oops, that's more than one question...

a voice for affordable housing - part 2

2009-02-04T11:07:00.002-05:00

I spoke again at the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors meeting this morning on behalf of IMPACT.

Hello my name is Kim Wilkens, I live in the Rivanna District and am a member of IMPACT's Housing Committee.

Lately, we have been bombarded by distressing statistics about our economy like growing rates in unemployment, foreclosures and homelessness. If you are not part of these statistics, they can seem very abstract and overwhelming. That is why I am so grateful to be part of IMPACT, where I learn first hand from and get connected with people in our community who are struggling with these very issues. I am honored to represent IMPACT and to be a voice for those who every day are facing the affordable housing crisis in our community.

So let me say that IMPACT is encouraged with the progress made by the Joint Task Force on Affordable Housing over the last year. We believe all their recommendations are vitally important in resolving the current affordable housing crisis in our community. I am here to voice IMPACT support for one of these recommendations in particular: making comprehensive amendments to the existing proffer policy so that the policy more fairly addresses the various levels of need for affordable housing in Albemarle County.

The Albemarle County 2007 Housing Report indicates how successful a proffer policy can be: "Since the adoption of the County's Affordable Housing Policy in 2004, 1,600 affordable housing units have been proffered along with over $1.5 million in cash." However, as the task force members discovered - because of the way the existing policy is written, proffered units are:
- usually priced at points affordable to those at or about 80% AMI,
- affordability is only guaranteed for 5 years, and
- proffered for-sale units may not be affordable beyond the first sale.

IMPACT urges you to direct the Planning Commission to look at all the amendments that the Joint Task Force has put forward and to adopt a comprehensive proffer policy that includes:
1. a requirement that proffered units or cash offered include an equal share of units affordable at 3 levels: extremely low income (less than 30% AMI), very low income (30-60% AMI), and low income (60-80% AMI);
2. a mechanism that caps the value of proffered for sale units; and
3. a requirement that the term of affordability for proffered rental units be a minimum of 15 years.

A comprehensive review and amending of the County's proffer policy will help close the large gap of unmet housing needs identified in the 2007 State of Housing Report. Careful consideration and implementation of all the recommendations from the Joint Task Force on Affordable Housing will help you fulfill your mission to "enhance the well-being and quality of life for all citizens."

p.s.
(got this in my e-mail this morning - coincidence?)

The contact of the affluent with the poor today is primarily through two means, television and statistics. We hear the stark statistics of human suffering and we watch starving children in living color. But what do those numbers mean to us, and how real are the young lives we glimpse for a moment in a news documentary? - One Humanity by Jim Wallis

a class divided

2009-01-18T10:21:00.002-05:00

Amazing video called 'a class divided' - one third grade teacher's response to Dr. Martin Luther King's assassination. I just watched it with my 5th grader. I pray for the day when we no longer have to learn this lesson. In the meantime, I am thankful for people who will share it and for the baby steps forward.

found on a mending shift

Extra Discernment Required

2009-01-11T20:30:00.004-05:00

Gentle readers, it has come to my attention that certain "Christian" reading material may require extra discernment. I must have an extraordinary ability to sense these types of books because it turns out I own so many of them. So as a public service to you, I am providing an extra discernment required warning label. Feel free to place this warning label on the books you own or even those you might find in your church library that "may have espoused thoughts, ideas, or concepts that could be considered inconsistent with historical evangelical theology."

The books in question may include, but are not limited to:
- The Shack by William P. Young
- anything by Rob Bell, Brian McLaren or Donald Miller
- probably some of the stuff by Kelly Fryer, Marcus Borg, Anne Lamott, Russell Rathbun & Shane Hipps
- definitely anything by Kim Wilkens or her dad, Tom Wilkens (shameless plug for their upcoming Un-American Activities: Countercultural Themes in Christianity)
- and perhaps the Bible, especially the CEV and Message translations

Thanks to Jeromy at A Mending Shift for pointing out this potential danger.

p.s. I find it quite ironic that LifeWay quotes Wikipedia as source material - talk about words that need to be Read With Discernment(TM)!

Ed Rowe Travel Biography

2009-01-08T10:47:00.003-05:00

"I have done magic. I have controlled emotions with a wave of the hands. I have silenced with a look; caused enchantment in the eyes with the right words. Am I talking the occult? No; simply classroom teaching. A place where when thing go right, you can't walk any finer, but when things go wrong, you have no idea how long a second can be." Ed Rowe Travel Biography

So starts the writing of Ed Rowe. I just read about his death and thought he sounded familiar. I'd seen Ed on the downtown mall many times. I actually talked with him once outside Mudhouse. I was hooking up with our new intern to do a never done before and so far not repeated "man on the street" interview with folks on the downtown mall about their faith & doubts. I was hanging out on the bench at Mudhouse waiting for David and the "card reader" sat near me and spontaneously shared a bit of his story. Honestly, he kind of freaked me out, but in retrospect I wish I had had the guts to interview him. Now after reading his biography, I see it was a missed opportunity.

I'm glad he left his journal. His writing is a hodge-podge of ideas, experiences and thought experiments and I can't track it all, but he definitely gives a rare view into what our society looks like from the bottom. Here are a few of the gems I found:

"Existence is a classroom, God is the teacher and we be two year olds and he wants us to play nicely in the sandbox! What is the mantra of the two year old? "If it looks like mine it's mine, if it used to be mine it's mine, if you got it it's mine, etc. Look at any behavior you see on the street; it's more refined, it's more polished, but it's still a two year old, "I want!"."

"We all have a choice between freedom and safety. ... We all yield to our fears of the unknown and stay in a miserable situation rather than try something new. It's safe! It's tied to our memories of the past and how we perceive it. It is tied to our anticipations of our hopes and our fears. It is what you want, but more especially what you settle for. But there is no safety! The job can disappear, or the pantry closes. People who assume anything end up whining. It is the people who can face the unknown who do well. Because there is only freedom and it is our perceptions that make us slaves."

"You have everything you need to overcome every obstacle and achieve every goal, but you hesitate."

Ed Rowe Travel Biography

Publish at Scribd or explore others: Automotive 2007 famous

book writing & the dueling book covers

2008-12-18T15:29:00.005-05:00

I'm hanging out at my favorite writing location - the Georgetown public library. It's got a cafe, comfy booths, wifi and quiet. Got 3 more responses written for the book my dad and I are writing. I finally committed to getting my part done by the end of the year, so I better get going - I think I've still got 5 chapters to respond to.

While taking a break from the words, I doodled around with a cover. The publisher has asked my dad for a pass at what he'd like to see on the cover and this is definitely an area where our modern and postmodern points of view collide. His pass is mostly words - I say we need more images. Here's my pass - what do you think?

everything's amazing, nobody's happy

2008-12-09T06:51:00.002-05:00

I saw this via Todd Heistand.

heretic, phreak & sufferer?

2008-12-08T20:51:00.005-05:00

heretic?
It all started on the way home from church this past Sunday. I was listening to This American Life. "Heretics: The story of Reverend Carlton Pearson, a renowned evangelical pastor in Tulsa, Oklahoma, who cast aside the idea of Hell, and with it everything he'd worked for over his entire life." Pearson was steeped in the Pentecostal tradition where it seems a great deal of emphasis is placed on saving souls. I've always had a problem with this, but it was interesting to hear how someone who bought into this worldview had his world turned upside down. It seemed to start out innocently enough. He's watching a TV program about starving refugees from Rwanda and thinking to himself that these folks haven't been "saved". What does hell mean to them, because aren't they are already in a living hell. And how can he or 100 pastors or 1000 pastors or all the pastors or all the Christians in the world really go about "saving" everyone in the world. He finally realized that he can't and they can't and that God's probably not looking for that kind of help. So he did lots of studying and praying and decided that God was not the inventor of hell, "we do that to each other and we do it to ourselves." This got Pearson labeled a heretic in his faith tradition and radically altered his life. He's now pastor of New Dimensions whose tag line is the friendliest, trendiest, most radically inclusive worship experience! Sounds like a place I'd like.

phreak?
Sunday afternoon the hubby and I went to a one-man play at The Gravity Lounge called Jesus Phreak: The Story of a Very Unlikley Disciple. This unlikely disciple turns out to be a "mixer", he wears mixed fabrics, which is prohibited somewhere in Leviticus. He grew up going to church, so he knows that "mixers" aren't welcome there. Even so, he seems to be relentlessly pursued by God. Every time he tries to move farther away, he gets nudged back. Reading the gospels, he discovers that Jesus has come for the outcasts and therefore for him.

One thing that really spoke to me personally in this show was the portrayal of a disciple being relentlessly pursued by God, even in the face of the disciple's doubt and skepticism and derision. That so feels like my journey, as I kick and scream all along the way.

There was also a discussion panel after the show and the topics that came up and the people who spoke gave me a sobering reminder about how the Church and my church have been so careless toward the well-being of LGBT people. I think our fear is really just masquerading as a cautious approach toward welcoming and inclusivity, as if addressing this issue would open pandora's box and all hell would break loose (see heretic). The closing words of this discussion were - what are you willing to suffer for the gospel?

sufferer?
On the way home from our date, we listened to a program called etown. A singer/songwriter named Steve Earle was one of the guests (hubby is quite distressed that I don't seem to know this guy). Anyway, something he said on the show stuck with me and luckily, it was reproduced on the website.

"I've been pretty heartbroken about the way things have gone politically in this country the last few years and I seriously considered moving someplace else…then I figured out that I didn't have to leave the country. All I had to do was come to New York. I needed really badly at this point in my life to see a mixed-race, same sex couple holding hands in my own neighborhood. It makes me feel safer."

I get that I'd be considered a heretic in some Christian settings. I'm cool with that. I reluctantly agree that I've become a Jesus phreak. Left to my own devices, I do not think it is the path I would choose to follow, but it's the path I find myself on. I'm not so sure about this suffering thing, but I guess whether I choose act or not, there will be suffering. If I don't act, I will suffer heartbreak at the way things are going for many churches and the people that get or feel excluded. If I act, I will probably suffer obstacles, injustices, frustration and humiliation.

So, what am I willing to suffer? I'm still trying to figure that one out.

public vs. private

2008-11-23T08:06:00.004-05:00

One of the sessions from my time at the community organizing workshop that really got me thinking was on public & private relationships. The idea that they were trying to communicate is being able to recognize the difference between the two and act appropriately in the public arena especially as it relates to your community organizing activities. Here's how they laid things out:

Personal
How do we act? cordial, relaxed, open
What do we expect? give & take, honesty, laughter
What holds the relationship together? common interests, trust, love
How long does relationship last? extended period of time

Public
How do we act? formal, guarded, agenda-driven
What do we expect? results, respect
What holds the relationship together? agreement, mutual interest
How long does relationship last? as long as needed

That does seem pretty straightforward until I think about it relative to online activities where these lines seem to get blurred. It's one of the things I struggle with - to be part of a public online community yet maintain some privacy. Part of it is my personality. I've always been a modest person - not in a humble way, but more in a prudish way. I think I've certainly relaxed as I've aged, but I'm still not comfortable sharing intimate details, especially about my family. If you've read my blog, you probably know I'm married and you might have picked up that I have a son. I have so much I could share about these amazing people in my life, but I've decided to draw a line - that sharing their details online is for them to decide.

I recently joined Facebook and I admit that I'm a little bit addicted, but there too I struggle with personal vs. public relationships. I've got a backlog of friend requests from strangers - what am I supposed to do with them? On the one hand, I'd love to add them and increase my friend count. On the other hand, if I add them, will I have to more careful about what I share? I've also accepted friend requests from people that I would consider more as acquaintances. In some cases my online intereraction has actually strengthened those relationships and in other cases I wonder what was I thinking (or what they are thinking about me).

As social networking sites like Facebook redefine the term friend while they add yet another path to friendship, I also struggle with how to communicate cautious enthusiasm for these new relationship building tools with my students. How will they determine the difference between personal vs. public relationships online? How do you?

the perfect date

2008-11-22T09:01:00.002-05:00

at least according to my hubby ...

community organizing for justice - part I

2008-11-14T18:33:00.001-05:00

I've been in FL attending a DART National Leaders Workshop (sounds pretty impressive, hmmm?). It's all been a bit overwhelming as I feel like I've been drinking from the fire hose of community organizer training with a faith-based twist. On the upside, I met a group of amazingly committed people to solving justice issues from a wide variety of backgrounds. I've never been involved in a more diverse group. On the downside, I worry about translating this info into some real action at Peace and in Charlottesville. I'm still processing the info, but here are some highlights:

what God intended for the community
religious values-shaping system - should bring us closer to God
political system - should ensure justice
economic system - should ensure a fair distribution of God's bounty

what went wrong?
- religious control
- political oppression
- economic exploitation

why is pursuing justice so hard for individuals and churches?
It requires power - the ability to give or take away something that someone or some organization wants or needs. Individuals and individual congregations don't usually possess this kind of power. Power comes from organized money and organized people. Power has risks, but the use of power is required to negotiate with our relationships of necessity (banks, gov't, retail, energy, healthcare, education, etc.). Instead of doing justice and loving mercy, we tend to love justice and do mercy.

how do you build power?
In order to live out our values, like doing justice, we need to organize people by engaging them, being in relationship with them, identifying their self-interests and finding common ground. Self-interest is not selfishness, it is your interests in relationship to others interests. I need to identify my own self-interests, so I recognize common interests with others and I can make clear my values and vision to others.

resources
City of God, City of Satan - Robert Linthicum
Engaging the Powers - Walter Wink
globalrichlist.com

p.s.
if you're reading this AV, I know why you wanted me to go now and I can guess why you left it to my timing - thanks

Children are Changing: R We?

2008-11-04T09:26:00.001-05:00

I attended my first education conference yesterday. In many ways, it was a familiar experience as I've attended my fair share of conferences in the field of technology and more recently the church-related conference. I was very interested in the theme of this conference, not only as a tech teacher, but also as the parent of a digital kid.

I attended 4 sessions:
the power of mindsets: nurturing resilience in our students and ourselves in challenging times
- reaffirmed the mindset at MCS and what an amazing job the guides & staff do of nurturing resilience in our students

using online collaborative tools effectively in the classroom
- I am so ready to blog, wiki, diigo, yammer and voice thread in the classroom; creating positive online experiences

1-to-1 computer initiative
- speaker described a laptop program for 7th years with good ideas on leasing, remote desktop admin and promoting life-long ethical use - now if we could just find some money to pay for it

our children are not the students our schools were designed for: understanding digital kids
- obnoxious speaker + thought-provoking message = lots of squirming and unfortunately many unasked questions

nurturing resilience in our students

2008-11-04T09:23:00.001-05:00

my notes from Dr. Robert Brooks presentation at the VAIS annual conference

Important questions to ask yourself as a teacher and of your school:
- how do we identify islands of competence in students?
- if a teaching strategy is not working out, am I willing to ask myself what I can do differently?
- what is the mindset of my school?
- do I believe in the capacity of students to overcome adversity and become hopeful and resilient?
- am I a person whom children can gain strength from? (Dr. Julius Segal describes this as a "charismatic adult")
- do I focus more on what they are getting "in here" than about what they aren't getting "out there"?
- do I use discipline to promote self-discipline and self-control?
- am I empathetic and able to see the world through the eyes of my students?
- what words would I like students to use to describe me versus what words would they actually use today?

are our students resilient? in school, do they:
- believe that there are people who can help and support them
- believe they can solve problems and make decisions
- define their own areas of competence without denying problematic areas
- believe that they can contribute to and make a difference in the world
- possess self-discipline and the ability to think before they act
- believe that mistakes are experiences from which to learn rather than feel defeated

understanding digital kids

2008-11-04T09:15:00.002-05:00

my notes from Ian Jukes presentation at the VAIS annual conference

This guy is obviously passionate about his topic and he must feel he's been pounding his head against the wall in pursuit of educating us digital immigrants about the exponential changes our kids are facing, but he's definitely a little bit nuts too. Here are the highlights I got out of his talk, unfortunately he's left the next steps in our inept hands.

he identified 3 areas of focus for digital fluency:
technological - focus on the task, not the tool
media - understand how our thinking is being shaped by media
information - ability to process readily available, sometimes inaccurate information:
- awareness of the problems with available info
- asking good questions
- accessing info
- assessing info (analyze & authenticate)
- applying info appropriately

Our kids are digital natives - digital has become their language of choice. We are digital immigrants - with all the language barriers that implies. One of the differences between digital natives & digital immigrants is that digital natives are able to parallel process information while digital immigrants process info sequentially.

He gave lots of references to the science that kids brains are actually changing because of their exposure to digital media so that they learn differently than we do, but he didn't give any concrete ideas for what that means to teaching in the classroom except to avoid TTWWADI (that's the way we've always done it):
- iBrain
- brain mapping
- the brain that changes itself
- everything bad is good for you
- brain rules

So Ian left me hoping that I'll be a good enough translator until and when the digital natives take over.

tracking salvations?

2008-10-28T16:05:00.004-05:00

Today I received the following from my subscription to LifeChurch.tv which provides lots of free resources for churches to use. Pretty cool most of the time, but I did a double-take with this one.

"Today we’re launching a brand new tool to track trends at your church: ChurchMetrics.com. Built by our Digerati team, this free web app helps you keep tabs on attendance, giving, salvations, and baptisms through easy-to-understand charts and reports."

Wow - did you see that, a handy-dandy online tool to track salvations. Now I'm not familiar with the practice of salvation calls and I don't want to belittle the experience for those who have participated in and been moved by them. But do we really need to be tracking salvations? Can a person, let alone a piece of software really know what is in the heart of another?

Another issue this tool brings up for me is how churches often lose sight of their mission to transform lives in exchange for tracking their programming success. My dream tool for church is one that provides a mechanism for those in need to hook up with those ready to share. This is probably too much to hope for in a piece of software, but I'm certainly amazed by what I see going on online. The possibilities seem endless... (just please, don't track my salvation or lack thereof, I think God's got that one covered)

Christianity, poverty & contradictions

2008-10-15T13:47:00.002-05:00

Last night I went to see Religulous and one of the things Bill Maher kept bringing up with many of the Christians he talked to is why the opulent cathedrals, the personal prosperity and the bling - was that the message of Jesus?

Today in my inbox there was a reminder that it's blog action day plus the following daily reflection:

"Contradictions have always existed in the soul of humanity. But it is only when we prefer analysis to silence that they become a constant and insoluble problem. We are not meant to resolve all contradictions but to live with them and rise above them and see them in the light of exterior and objective values which make them trivial by comparison." by Thomas Merton, Thoughts in Solitude

I'm afraid I am having a hard time with Merton's idea of silence in the face of contradiction (certainly Bill Maher is fed up with the silence). For me, this is especially true when thinking about the Christian response to poverty or more specifically the white, middle-class, mainline Christian church response to poverty. This response often seems full of contradictions. In so many places and so many ways, Jesus directs his disciples to give up everything to follow him. And yet our church institutions don't seem to model this kind of sacrificial giving. Priority is given to the building, infrastructure, salaries and internal programs with resources for the work of mercy and justice given a much lower priority.

One of the fallback positions in this community that drives me crazy is Jesus' statement about the poor in Mark 14:7.

You will always have the poor with you. And whenever you want to, you can give to them. But you won't always have me here with you. (CEV)

It feels like this statement is used as a 'get out of jail free' card. Don't really know what issues are facing the poor in your community - that's okay, they will always be there. Not really sure you have the time or resources to help right now - that's okay, you can give to them whenever you want.

I see Jesus' statement as more of a direct correlation to how I choose to live. Instead of stepping on my holier-than-thou soapbox, pointing out where everyone else is failing the system, I feel convicted to look at my own behavior. If I am honest with myself, there is poverty because of me. I need to stop thinking of poverty as a problem out there, it is a by-product that I cause by my consumption and waste patterns. Until I change, I will always have the poor with me.

Maybe that is why Merton prefers silence to analysis in the face of contradiction. In the analysis, we can get caught up in fear, inertia, weariness, depression, pride and priorities. In the silence we can see where we live in the contradiction and we can choose to change.

mercy, justice & preaching

2008-09-29T04:59:00.004-05:00

Every once in a while (with long whiles in between) I get this crazy idea in my head that I could preach the message for a certain topic (we plan worship around themes, not the lectionary - more about that later). To make matters worse, I've got this crazy pastor who actually lets me. So that's how I found myself preaching this past weekend.

Practicing the Faith: Taking the First Step
Micah 6:1-8
Matthew 12:15-21
Philippians 4:8-9

Litany of problems.
[these are places we have relationships with globally and where we live locally]
The current orphan population in India is equal to the inhabitants of the state of Texas. (the miracle foundation)

Nearly half the population in Togo, West Africa is less than 15 years old and child trafficking is a big problem there. (PlanTogo)

50% of Hondurans live in poverty and 25% of people in Honduras live in extreme poverty. (povertynet)

The death toll in Haiti from Hurricane Ike is over 600 with over 1 million people made homeless.

20% of Albemarle County citizens live below the "self-sufficiency" standard.

320 children became homeless in Albemarle county in 2006/2007.

70 students at Hollymead could not afford basic school supplies this year.

Our response - the fear factor.
Some of you have tuned me out - really you are no longer listening, maybe you are working on your to do list or possibly napping. HELLO - you can listen now; I've stopped with the scary list. Others of you are feeling kind of anxious. You may feel tense, worried and overwhelmed. This is MY group. My mind overloads and I attempt to shut it down, unable to get beyond a feeling of hopelessness and helplessness. I get so wrapped up in feeling that the problems of this world are just too overwhelming to deal with on my own, that it paralyzes me. Finally the rest of you want to get out and do something, NOW! You may be angry and frustrated. You want to find a solution and you don't understand why everybody isn't on board with reckless abandon to put an end to the problems.

Bob Sitze, ELCA Director for Hunger Education, says that often when we try and educate about serious problems facing our world, we face the FEAR FACTOR - our brain's natural defense mechanism. What our brain tries to do is to tag this unpleasant information as fearsome or dangerous and then our natural instinct of flight, fight or freeze automatically kicks in. Not exactly the kind of response presenters of this type of information are going for.

Feet of a servant.
So, how do we get beyond the statistics and the fear factor? As followers of Christ, we understand that pursuing mercy & justice is our God-given call. We know that there are serious problems locally and globally. We NOW know that just talking about the problems - hoping to motivate some action is not the best way to go about solving problems. How then do we best respond?

I like how Paul puts it in his letter to the Philippians. "Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honourable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. Keep on doing the things that you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, and the God of peace will be with you." I think we need an attitude adjustment. First, we need to look and find where there is good, honourable, just, pure, pleasing, and excellent work being done in the world and think about that. Next, we need to do the things that we have learned, received, heard and seen from people doing this work. I think our feet of a servant discipleship mark points to a great way to start.

Here's what worked for me - start with one step and do it with others. At Peace, we are blessed to have many opportunities to serve with and for others. My first step started with PACEM where we've welcomed local homeless men and women into this "house" as honored guests. With PACEM there are so many different ways to serve and so many other people to serve with. Serving definitely took me out of my comfort zone, but knowing I didn't have to do it alone helped me through the fear. At PACEM, I learned from one of the guests about the serious lack of affordable housing in the area. I started to feel passionate about this issue. A few months later Pastor John hooked me up with the coordinator of IMPACT (interfaith movement promoting action by congregations together) and before I knew it, I had taken another step. I attended the very first IMPACT meeting with 25 other people from Peace where we voted on what issues to address that year and affordable housing became one of the first issues. Since then I've taken a few more steps, some with confidence and others on legs of jelly, but always in the company of others, who help push away my fears and provide the example I need to take the next step.

There are many of other examples of people at Peace using their servant feet and they all started by taking a first step. Here are a few more stories.

[I put a video together where 3 other people from Peace talk about their first step, a handy way to shorten my talk time and it worked out really well.]

take back the _____ (fill in the blank)

2008-09-24T05:08:00.003-05:00

Seems like everybody wants to take something back these days and not in the "I'm sorry I said or did that, I wish I could take it back" way, but in the "we need to take back control of the _____" way. One way or another we want to take back the country, the presidency, the congress, the banks, the schools, the streets, the neighborhood...

I just heard Snow Patrol's new single, Take Back the City, last night on my way to The Heart of Christianity book study. Maybe I was just in that "churchy" mode, but I started replacing "the city" with "the church" - not as catchy, but it really resonated with me. Here you try:

It's a mess
It's a start
It's a flowing work of art
Your city, your call
Every crack, every wall
Can't decide, pick a fight
but get your epitaph right
You can sing till you drop
Cause the fun just never stops

I love this city tonight
I love this city always
It bares its teeth like a light
And spits me out after days
But we're all gluttons for it
We know it's wrong and it's right
For every time it's been hit
Take back the city tonight
- Take Back the City by Snow Patrol

A part of me so wants to take back the church. I want to take it back from the literalists, the dogmatists and those who want me to believe six impossible things before breakfast. But then what would I do with it? One of the reasons I love Borg's book is that it does such a great job of reminding me that I am not alone in my views (emerging paradigm) and that my views are not alone (earlier paradigm).

"The issue isn't that one of these visions of Christianity is right and the other wrong. Rather, the issue is functionality, whether a paradigm works or gets in the way. For millions, the earlier paradigm still works. And if it works for you - if it hasn't become an obstacle and if it genuinely nourishes your life with God and produces growth in compassion with you - there's no reason for you to change. Being Christian isn't about getting our beliefs (or our paradigms) right." The Heart of Christianity by Marcus Borg, pg. 18

So I guess the issue isn't about taking back the church, the issue is about everyone being included. What a wonderful mess that would be!

all you do to me is talk, talk

2008-09-17T05:27:00.002-05:00

Talk talk talk talk. Sometimes I think that's all the emerging crowd does. Talk about theology, talk about words, talk about talking, talk about inviting others to talk.

I too can get caught in this mode, so I was ambivalent about starting a book study to talk about The Heart of Christianity by Marcus Borg. What's the point? Where's all this talking going to lead?

The thing is, this book has already had a profound impact on my life. Every chapter I've read has blown my mind and I literally have to take a break to let the words sink into my bones. Like this gem:

"I don't think that Jesus literally died for our sins. I don't think he thought of his life and purpose that way; I don't think he thought of that as his divinely given vocation. But I do have faith in the cross as a trustworthy disclosure of the evil of domination systems, as the exposure of the defeat of the powers, as the revelation of the way or path of transformation... as the proclamation of radical grace." - pg. 96

Borg seems to be taking head on many issues I have with the creeds and the modern baggage they carry as well as dismantling the facade of American Christianity, exposing a center I long to embrace.

So I haven't even finished reading the book yet because once I knew I was doing the book study, I wanted to wait and share my thoughts with others. I guess that is ultimately why we talk - to share - to know and be known by others - to develop relationships. At the end of the conversation - when we're finally ready to ask "what do we do now?" - I just hope that all this talk eventually leads to action.

"Luke, you're going to find that many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view." - Ben in Return of the Jedi

flickr meme

2008-09-13T07:54:00.005-05:00

1. after eating olallieberry pie, 2. Pasta Flower, 3. Guadalupe High School, Seguin, Texas, 4. Purple Euphoria, 5. Dr Horrible, 6. Dr. Pepper & Friends, 7. 20050815-vs-0110, 8. Chocolate Chips, 9. Released to Public: Sinai Penninsula and Dead Sea from Space Shuttle Columbia, March 2002 (NASA), 10. Call of the Raven (formerly Nature's Special Effects), 11. splash!, 12. splurge

Found this meme at brother maynard's. I like messing around with flickr and the flickr toys at big huge labs, so I thought I'd try it out. If you want to play along, instructions are below.

a. Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search.
b. Using only the first page of search results, pick an image.
c. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into mosaic maker.

The questions:

1. What is your first name?
2. What is your favorite food?
3. What high school did you go to?
4. What is your favorite color?
5. Who is your celebrity crush?
6. Favorite drink?
7. Dream vacation?
8. Favorite dessert?
9. What you want to be when you grow up?
10. What do you love most in life?
11. One Word to describe you.
12. Your flickr name.

sources: subversive influence & ravine of light

quest for fame

2008-09-12T06:00:00.001-05:00

I took my middle school students on a short trip down my memory lane. My purpose was to provide a glimpse into the time line of technology during my lifetime, to give a few examples of IT jobs and frankly, to show off my part in the Quest for Fame.

When I was in middle school, my glasses were way too big and I didn't have a computer to use at home or school or anywhere. I did get to lug around this big cello though.

In high school, I learned to type on a typewriter. I loved math. My dad bought a new fangled gadget called a microcomputer, the TRS-80, affectionately known as the "trash 80". It had a whooping 16K (16,384 bytes) of memory and a highly unreliable tape cassette drive for storing programs. Compare that with computers sold today that usually come with at least 1G of memory or 1,073,741,824 bytes and huge, reliable hard drives.

I went to a small liberal arts college and majored in math. Then I took my first computer class and changed my major. I still didn't have a personal computer and had to go to the computer lab to work on all my assignments - I was afraid of crashing the mainframe computer.

I was lucky enough to be at Texas Lutheran College (it's now called a university, but it's not any bigger) for the one and probably only year that IBM came recruiting for co-ops. I became a tester for the System 36 in Austin, TX.

After graduating college I worked for IBM for 12 years starting as a tester for OS/2 LAN Server. A tester is someone who tries to think like an actual user of the product and to make sure the software operates as expected on all supported platforms. If I found a problem, I would write up a bug report. Then the developer who wrote the code and should fix the problem, would try to convince me that a customer would never actually DO THAT! Yes, it was fun times - it's where I met my developer husband. We still argue like this.

Next I tried technical writing because the manager of that group was looking to mentor a new manager and that's how I got on the fast track to management. I became a manager of people (writers & GUI developers) and products. From there I mysteriously went to the dark side - ISV support for DCE. If you don't know the acronyms, that's okay, I was speaking about it in front of lots of developers and I didn't really understand it either.

The highlight of my IBM career came as the test manager for Interactive Media, a short-lived multimedia publishing studio complete with it's own high-strung Hollywood producer. I really enjoyed setting up the test lab and working with a great bunch of young people. We tested and published one of the first voice-recognition games with JungleBook, the world-class Worldbook, many sporting event websites and my personal favorite, Quest for Fame - the precursor to Guitar Hero (and a lot less bulkier).

undecided?

2008-09-08T20:32:00.004-05:00

Somebody who I thought knew me pretty well, actually asked me where I stood on the political spectrum. They knew I was originally from Texas and assumed that would automagically put me in a certain "camp". My emphatic response - NO - I'm a hardcore liberal, can't you tell?

I thought it would be obvious that I've decided. What about the undecided? I keep hearing that this election will be decided by the undecided. How does that work? Why would anyone be undecided? What is the undecided voter looking for? Is it fact, substance, personality, experience, values, positions? What for that matter am I looking for? Am I blindly following the democratic party out of habit? How do you get beyond the rhetoric?

It seems there should be a few interesting ways to pierce the rhetoric these days:

what are they actually saying?
you know with out all the glitz, hype and adrenaline

- The Words They Used, New York Times, September 4
- i love wordles

who's been to their party?
to me, this seems really telling
- the democrats actually collect their stats and this was their most diverse party yet (including slightly more women than men and 24.5% African-Americans)
- the republicans may collect their stats, but they don't release them, according to this npr report (the lowest number of African-Americans in 40 years, 1.5%, and a 2-to-1 ratio of men-to-women)

what's their agenda?
I thought this would be pretty easy to figure out, just look up a comparison of Republican and Democratic National Platforms, right? I didn't have much luck. There are lots of individual stories about differences, but I could not find a comprehensive comparison. What's up press? It was also tricky just finding the platforms themselves:
- I could only find drafts of the Democratic Platform and then it looks like the high points morphed into this site.
- I found the Republican Platform here. What's strange is that when I tried to find the high points on the gop site - I kept finding President Bush's agenda, not McCain's?

So, after this little research project, I'm starting to understand why someone might still be undecided. Why decide when real content is lacking and indecision gets you more attention anyway?

p.s. I'm still so decided - the democratic party is not perfect and I worry that we may be putting Obama on a high, thin pedestal, but the party and Obama best represent my hopes and dreams for the country and beyond.

are you a Colbert Report fan?

2008-09-06T20:06:00.003-05:00

I'm a Daily Show junkie, but lately I've been giving up on Colbert. I find I just can't hang with his self-styled cult of personality or as he puts it, his reconstruction of "the news". So, it was nice to hear Stephen's real voice in this interview.

thanks for the find jonathan brink

discovering the mommy blogs

2008-09-03T05:40:00.005-05:00

It looks like I've been blogging for almost 4 years now - times flies! I've tried a few blog make-overs in that time, but now that my sister-in-law has gotten in on the blog action, I'm finding that my blog is pretty blah. From her site, I found myself exploring a new whole world of mommy blogs, all very hip and chic. I'm not so ready to go chic, but I did try to add a little hip. Here are a few of the mommy blogs I explored:

a vision of students today

2008-08-05T12:44:00.002-05:00

K-12

College

I teach technology at a Montessori school, where they do a fabulous job of enabling and inspiring kids to create, analyze, evaluate and think for themselves, but not so with it in terms of digital learning with very few resources & time given to use of technology. These videos have me wondering - what is the right balance of technology use at school? With the limited resources & time available, what should be my priorities as a teacher of technology?

Dr. Horrible sings about evil

2008-07-30T06:21:00.003-05:00

Hubby says I'm on the slow train posting about this, but I LOVE THIS SHOW! If you are a Joss Whedon, Buffy and/or Firefly fan, you gotta watch it.

video
website
comic

Dr. Nick talks about divorce

2008-07-29T18:17:00.002-05:00

Dr. Nick, aka my brother, has got some great podcasts. This series is about divorce.

divorce part 1
divorce part 2

Way to go bro!

God's Pottery

2008-07-11T20:43:00.001-05:00

I am so bummed these guys got voted off Last Comic Standing. I don't know if they are "for real" or not, but it was hilarious watching them out-kind the other comics.

Talking the Bible - Part II

2008-07-08T05:32:00.003-05:00

If you are not easily offended by humor directed at Christians or George Bush, then you might find this this clip from Lewis Black's Red, White & Screwed Special wickedly funny as he talks the Bible.

Talking the Bible - Part I

2008-07-08T05:26:00.003-05:00

Our upcoming series at Peace. Image created with Wordle.

walking the labyrinth

2008-07-01T18:47:00.002-05:00

It's amazing how something kind of cheesy can also be kind of profound. Peace is borrowing an indoor labyrinth this week and I had my first chance to walk it today. I've heard about walking the labyrinth for several years now, especially amongst the emerging crowd, so I've been wanting the chance to try it.

As you walk into the labyrinth, you are supposed to release and let go of the details of your life. For a few minutes, I couldn't let go of the cheese factor, walking barefoot on a canvas palette painted with a purple maze. Next I found myself going through my mental to do lists. No, I reminded myself, I'm not supposed to do, I'm supposed to un do. Then I started noticing where I was walking. At times I would get close to the middle and then be led away again. That's interesting. I tried not to cheat and look ahead to what was coming next and before I knew it I was in the center.

Now I don't know what labyrinth protocol is on silence or not, but I decided to walk the labyrinth with background music. While I'm in the center, Alison Krause starts singing "take my life and let me be, a living prayer, my God to Thee" and that is totally how I'm feeling today. I think the labyrinth is a good metaphor for my faith journey. Sometimes I feel like I'm just moving in circles, as my faith ebbs and wanes, but is never fully formed. Then there is the rare occasion where my faith crystallizes into truth, purpose and understanding. However, as the seconds, minutes, hours and days pass, my faith tends to get muddled up as I circle back out of the labyrinth . I guess I just need to remember to return to the journey, especially when it seems kind of cheesy and hopeless.

fun fountain reflections

2008-06-26T15:38:00.005-05:00

The boy and I are in Texas visiting my family: mom, dad, brother, sister-in-law, niece and nephew-in-progress. Today I get a whole day in the library for writing. It's awesome - why don't I do this at home? I've only got 9 more chapters to respond to, to wrap up my authoring duties for the book! (yeah, dad's been done with his 31 chapters and background essays for many, many months)

This visit has included many trips down memory lane. Road tripping to the town I grew up in, visiting my parents future, final resting place, eating at my favorite Tex-Mex and BBQ restaurants, enjoying a night out with my high-school tennis partner (hi Brenda, sorry we couldn't stay out later than the kids) and playing in the fun fountain. It's true that you can't go home and everything changes. Some of the changes are exciting and some are disappointing. Every time I make a trip to Texas, the past always returns whether through sight, sound, smell, touch or taste. Sometimes I can get stuck in the land that was and miss out on the here and now.

To paraphrase kathy escobar @ carnival in my head - how much do i miss, we miss, by living life in our heads, in the past or the future, instead of living life with our hearts now. With every trip back to Texas, I think I'm learning bit by bit to appreciate the fun in the now.

my word(s)

2008-06-20T16:38:00.004-05:00

wordle of all my blog titles to date
source: emergent village

a change (we desperately need)

2008-06-10T19:59:00.006-05:00

the story of stuff - consumption

work do to

(source: reclaiming the F word)

Sabbath is...

2008-06-07T08:03:00.002-05:00

my attempt to do something like this and that

to blog or not to blog

2008-06-02T15:32:00.002-05:00

That is the question Julie over at the emerging women blog asked the current members. Here's my response:

Thank you so much for starting and maintaining the emerging women blog. I think I signed up pretty early on and had good intentions of being more involved, but then life continued to happen. I guess one of my frustrations with the emerging conversation is that it still seems to be dominated by men and their voices tend to be intellectual and often theoretical while I'm craving the intuitive and experiential. Where I hear the most women is on this blog and that's great, but it still feels kind of like a murmur in relation to the rest of the emerging conversation.

I recently listened to a podcast from Tony & Julie Jones, which I loved and I think helps illustrate my angst. What a fresh voice Julie offers, but she's busy living life while her husband is the professional theologian and a prominent "face" of the emerging church. Why do we only get to hear from Julie once a year? How can the emerging church be more intentional about bringing female perspectives into the forefront?

The other problems I have with blogging are my issues:
- Many emerging bloggers seem to have a whole lot more time to spend in the blogosphere than I can manage, so even when I try to interact, I feel like I'm left in the dust pretty quickly.
- As I grow in my faith, I am being shaped by the experiences of living life and many times I find it uncomfortable to share the depth of that experience. Specifically, I don't often bring my husband or son into the online conversation and because they are the priority in my life, sometimes I find I have very little else to say.

So, I while I may regret giving up being a member of emerging women, from where I sit now, it probably makes sense for me to become a friend.

connect the dots

2008-06-02T14:06:00.005-05:00

I used to love doing connect-the-dots as a kid. It was great fun starting with a paper full of seemingly random dots and discovering the picture it made.

Here are some random points that showed up on my radar screen this past week - anybody else getting the picture?

Stephen Colbert interview w/Grover Norquest (Leave Us Alone)

Day in the Life of Joe Middle-Class Republican

Diane Rehm Show interview w/George Lakoff (The Political Mind: Why You Can't Understand 21st American Politics with an 18th Century Brain)
- progressives need to start using words that connect to the unconscious mind
- thinking is physical, if you change someone's mind, you have changed their brain
- we have a faulty implicit theory of mind based on enlightenment principles:
. people mostly think their thoughts are conscious, however 98% are unconscious
. we think reason is dispassionate, however reason requires emotion
. we believe thought is literal, but we think in conceptual terms and metaphors
- our moral systems are based on metaphors
- we need to stop trying to argue against other people's frames
- the current divide in politics is really a struggle between who's moral system will rule based on the ideal family: strict father family vs. nurturing parent family
- mutual inhibition, you can have contradictory systems about different areas, the activation of one inhibits the other
- a lot of reasoning is about caring about people, caring about your community, figuring out who you care about, empathy
- economics is based on self-interest and it's missing the way most people normally think because it does not include empathy

Albemarle County Board NOT addressing the affordable housing crisis

2008-04-12T10:12:00.005-05:00

Per this article, I gave my feedback to the BOS. Please send yours.

Albemarle County Board of Supervisors,
I am very disappointed that the Board of Supervisors did not budget $500K for affordable housing for those earning less than $20K. As the affordable housing crisis continues to worsen in the area as seen in the latest homeless census from TJACH and the worsening economy, the lack of solutions from Albemarle County to address the problem for it's most disadvantaged citizens is distressing.

The keynote speaker, Dr. Charles Marsh, at PACEM's volunteer recognition event last night reminded me why we struggle with these issues. I think we all want to be part of a healthy, reconciled, authentic community. This is something Martin Luther King named the beloved community, one with the type of spirit and type of love "that can transform opposers into friends".

Becoming and being a beloved community is challenging. It seems the closer we get, the harder the issues that can get in the way become. I think Thomas Merton's quote really nails it; "We do not have the answers to every social problem, and all conflicts have not been decided beforehand in favor of our side. Our job is to struggle along with everybody else and collaborate with them in the difficult, frustrating task of seeking a solution to common problems, which are entirely new and strange to us all."

So I want to continue the struggle to seek solutions to the affordable housing crisis with your help. My prayer is that you too want to collaborate on solutions to affordable housing, laying a strong foundation for our beloved Charlottesville/Albemarle community.

Peace be with you,
Kim Wilkens

note to readers:
I do want to point out that David Slutzky appears to the be lone voice advocating for affordable housing on the board and I truly appreciate his commitment to this issue.

I'm white & nerdy

2008-03-21T13:19:00.006-05:00

Is it any coincidence that in a week peppered with race relations rhetoric, the boy comes home from school singing the chorus to Weird Al's I'm White and Nerdy. Well he is and I am, heck our whole family's white and nerdy. What's wrong with that? On the surface, nothing, but if we let the labels limit us and get us stuck then I think the possibility of problems are endless. So this week as I've viewed Jeremiah Wright's most controversial comments, I haven't felt offended, I've felt convicted. As I listened to Obama's "A More Perfect Union" speech, I felt my support for him solidify.

Clearly I also claim the labels of liberal, anti-racist and activist, but I'm finding there's a problem with those labels as well. Here's the crux of it, if I am so liberal and anti-racist and feel strongly about pursuing social justice, how come I can only count on one hand my peer to peer interaction with non-white people in any given week. I heard Robert Jensen, author of The Heart of Whiteness: Confronting Race, Racism and White Privilege, talking about race on NPR and something he said really struck me.

"We are the most affluent country in the history of the world, we're the most powerful country in the history of the world, if we wanted to erase racialized gaps in wealth and well-being that exist, we could do it, but we simply choose not to. I think it's fair to call the United States a white supremacist society."

Did part of my cultural upbringing contain subliminal racism training? What choices have I made and continue to make that shore up white supremacy instead of bridging the racial gap? Like Weird Al's parody, am I desperate for meaningful interaction with non-whites, but fail because I'm surrounded by my white stuff? What racial stereotypes am I still buying into?

"At 11am on Tuesday, a prominent politician spoke to Americans about race as though they were adults." - Jon Stewart, The Daily Show

White & Nerdy by Weird Al" Yankovic

Ridin' by Chamillionaire and Krayzie Bone

everything must change - part 2

2008-03-08T20:06:00.002-05:00

Several factors conspired to keep me away from the everything must change tour, but I'm glad I made it - at least for today.
- the topics Brian covered, reinforced what I have thinking and feeling about Jesus & church
- the music & worship provided ideas for incorporating justice themes into liturgy
- I was challenged to think about ways we can become a green church
- I was encouraged to continue working with IMPACT, possibly with a little more joy ;)
- I was inspired by folks from The Church of The Saviour that are living the change through spiritual support groups: a new form of church.
They wanted "to explore new forms for church which would bring people together with their societal opposites - and embody the diversity and mutuality of the Kingdom. Out of this desire, the Spiritual Support Groups were born." Each group meets for an hour each week in an AA-like structure. They read a litany which admits addiction to culture, recognizes the need for a Saviour and a community of support, and commits to steps of recovery. A member of the group then provides a reflection on Scripture and poses a question related to recovery from dominant culture. The members that talked about the process were absolutely transformed and the 2 members I talked to during lunch were practically glowing. This has obviously been an amazing experience for them. It's not only providing a safe place to share their life experiences and connection to a diverse population, it's also encouraging groups to see the needs of group members as their own and one way they do this is through economic sharing.

The Church of The Saviour @ http://www.inwardoutward.org
(excerpts from becoming the authentic church booklet available @ http://www.pottershousedc.org)
becoming the authentic church
the "givens" of being authentic church
- the authentic church is an outward expression of God, who is love
- the authentic church follows the authentic Jesus
- the authentic church is a place of extreme diversity
- the authentic church is serious about the work of reconciliation
- the authentic church shares its life with others outside its circle
- the authentic church seeks justice
what's stopping us?
- we are cultural addicts and we cannot break this addiction alone

everything must change - part 1

2008-03-08T19:07:00.005-05:00

"Is it war we love or the rush we crave? The heroic action? The defining moment? The struggle that gives meaning? Something peace rarely provides." - Denise Levertov, Catastrophes from Oblique Prayers

we long for peace,
but it's the struggles that give meaning

we crave joy,
but it's pain that provokes life

we seek forgiveness,
but it's the mistakes that generate wisdom

we cling to hope,
but it's despair that reveals faith

we ache for love,
but it's hate that ignites passion

we are so human
as we are drawn to the divine

- me, from everything must change tour

a candidate blind taste test

2008-02-03T07:40:00.000-05:00

From Weekend America, see if you agree with your candidate in this blind taste test.

Your Web browser software doesn't support frames, but you can visit Select A Candidate™ at www.selectacandidate.org.

a voice for affordable housing

2008-01-17T09:58:00.000-05:00

Last night I lent my voice to IMPACT (Interfaith Movement Promoting Action by Congregations Together) to advocate to the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors to address the affordable housing crisis in the area. It was kind of a big deal to me (I like writing words, but not so much speaking them, especially to a room full of people), but putting it into perspective with those struggling with this crisis every day, I felt it was the least I could do.

Want to find out more about this crisis, I'm collecting resources @ www.squidoo.com/ahcville.

My name is Kim Wilkens and I am also with IMPACT. In the past few months we have come to these meetings and shared some of the struggles of those directly affected by the affordable housing crisis in our area.

I want to give you another perspective. I am not directly affected by the affordable housing crisis. My family lives in what local realtors call a "prestigious community" on Pantops mountain. We don't worry about paying the mortgage each month or being able to go to the doctor when we need to or putting food on the table or sending our child college. You could say we are living the good life in Albemarle County, BUT at what cost. Through the research process at IMPACT, I am learning that the cost is high:
- From the poverty report published in November, we learned that about 20% of Albemarle County citizens live below the "self-sufficiency standard" and 27% of our children age 5 and under also live below this standard.
- From Albemarle County schools we have learned that 320 children became homeless in the 2006/2007 school year.
- From the TJPDC State of Housing report, we learned that there is a deficit of almost 4000 affordable housing units in the area for extremely low income households earning less than 30% AMI.

Bottom line, we've learned that there are citizens in Albemarle County struggling to meet their basic needs of food, health and shelter. We know that when those basic needs aren't met, the stress placed on the individual, the family and the community have repercussions that are costly. We know the affordable housing gap will only get worse, especially with the recent subprime mortgage crisis.

A recent Housing Study from Harvard University suggests that "living in decent, affordable housing may provide a platform upon which low-income families can get jobs, build their incomes, and achieve financial security" The report goes on to say that if the affordable housing crisis is not addressed, "other economic, social, welfare, educational, and environmental priorities will be undermined".

IMPACT strongly encourages the Board of Supervisors to take the lead in addressing the affordable housing crisis in our community. In this year’s budget cycle we would like to see monies from specific funding streams for affordable housing to address the crisis for families that earn under 30% AMI. We want to see you take proactive steps to show that solving this crisis is a priority for the County and consistent with your mission to "enhance the well-being and quality of life for all citizens through the provision of the highest level of public service consistent with the prudent use of public funds".

what's your worldview?

2007-06-14T15:45:00.000-05:00

You could take their test or you could take ours?

On theirs I scored as Emergent/Postmodern,

You are Emergent/Postmodern in your theology. You feel alienated from older forms of church, you don't think they connect to modern culture very well. No one knows the whole truth about God, and we have much to learn from each other, and so learning takes place in dialogue. Evangelism should take place in relationships rather than through crusades and altar-calls. People are interested in spirituality and want to ask questions, so the church should help them to do this. What's your theological worldview? created with QuizFarm.com

On ours I scored as a different drummer.

What about you?

this I believe

2007-06-14T15:00:00.000-05:00

This is my response to a chapter from my dad titled The symptom is corruption, but the syndrome is idolatry. Comments are appreciated; the good, the bad, but not the ugly.

I hear that you refuse to worship my gods and the gold statue I have set up. Now I am going to give you one more chance. If you bow down and worship the statue when you hear the music, everything will be all right. But if you don't, you will at once be thrown into a flaming furnace. No god can save you from me. [Daniel 3:14-15; CEV]

I’ve been doing a Bible study on the book of Daniel. One of the first lessons you encounter with Daniel has to do with the fiery furnace. I can remember the story from Sunday school as a child and now as it did then, it always prompts the question: would I, like Daniel's 3 friends, be prepared to face the fiery furnace instead of bowing down to a false god? Beth Moore puts it this way: “I don't have to wonder what I'd do if placed in the position to die in order for one of my children to live. No discussion. No need to pray about it. It's done.” I agree that’s a no-brainer. She goes on to ask if I've predetermined that same loyalty to Christ. I honestly don't think I know. I’m afraid that I do bow down to the false gods of my own Babylonian culture without much conscious thought. It’s ingrained in me.

Maybe the question is difficult to answer because my beliefs have really never been put to such a test and probably never will be. I don’t live in a culture where I could literally die for my beliefs. But I do live in a culture that could suck the life out of me for them and so I worry about what I believe. Beliefs are important. They define who we think we are and how we think about the world around us. But are there truly beliefs worth dying for, worth killing for, worth siding with the poor, the lost and the lonely for? It seems to me that belief does more to divide and conquer than it does to bring us together to address the corruption and idolatry surrounding us. I like the way John Mayer describes it in his song called Belief. "We're never gonna win the world, we're never gonna stop the war, we're never gonna beat this if belief is what we're fighting for".

So if belief isn’t what we should be fighting for, what is? What is worth standing up for instead of bowing down? I think it’s based on the relationships we build and the love we share. Archbishop Óscar Romero didn’t die for his beliefs; he died because he was in relationship with his community in El Salvador. Because of his love for his community and for his God, he stood up and spoke out against injustice.

We’re trying something new in Charlottesville, VA. It’s called IMPACT (Interfaith Movement Promoting Action by Congregations Together), a grassroots initiative bringing a diverse group of congregations together to live out our religious traditions’ call for justice. So far there are 25 local congregations involved that range in size from 20 to 1,500 people, including Protestants, Catholics, Unitarian Universalists, Jews, and Muslims. While the concept of grassroots interfaith organizations that address social justice issues is not new in this country, it is certainly new to Charlottesville and Albemarle County. I’m not sure any of us knew what to expect from this first year.

It has been a tremendous learning experience for me. As a member of IMPACT, I’ve been part of a community that determined what social justice issues to focus on, researched the core issues associated with the injustice, and identified solutions to address some of those issues. We met with public officials to explain our findings and express our desire for change. Before this experience, it was easy for me to believe that a particular party or a particular political figure was the “root of all evil.” But more often than not during these meetings, what I discovered were blind spots and ignorance and a desire to come on board with the solutions if it was the will of the people. We started building relationships based on addressing social justice issues within our congregations, within our research groups and with our public officials. Because of those relationships over 1300 people packed the high school auditorium at the first Nehemiah Action meeting, where we presented proposed solutions and many of our public officials were willing to sit up front and respond to the will of the people.

This was clearly not business as usual and there are still some politicians who don’t understand why this organization can’t work within the established processes. There are still some congregations that won’t participate in this organization because of their belief that they shouldn’t work with non-Christians. I don’t understand that. It makes belief sound dangerous to me. It is so much easier for me to state what I don’t believe. I don’t believe in discrimination based on religious beliefs or political association or sexual orientation or gender or race or age. I don’t believe in war. I don’t believe in oppression. I don’t believe in genocide or ethnic cleansing or poverty.

So, what do I believe? I believe in evolution. I believe in miracles. I believe in doubts. I believe in love. I believe that when I can somehow ignore what the world thinks is important and practice having an attitude that is “the same as that of Christ Jesus,” I may then, on very rare occasions, briefly understand what Daniel’s friends understood and I will stand up instead of bowing down.

Why do I find it so hard to write it down? As a Christian, there’s usually an expectation that certain beliefs are non-negotiable. These are called articles of faith or creed and they usually define what it means to be Christian. I’ve always had a difficult time with them. Does that make me a heretic? As an American, I am called to stand up for my country and believe in our unalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. But at what cost to human rights and the environment around the world? Does questioning our public policies make me un-American?

back in Texas

2007-06-14T14:16:00.000-05:00

I've been hanging out at the Georgetown library today working on the book. What a nice break. It's hot in TX. I know - I've become such a wimp living in VA.

We talked with a self-publisher yesterday about the book, a local outfit called TLCGraphics. I've now got a deadline to get done, so somehow between summer vacations and no school, I've got to get going.

I'll be publishing excerpts of the work in progress here and hope somebody will comment (yeah, I'm talking to you).

building bridges

2007-05-20T17:49:00.000-05:00

You see postmodern culture does not trust the maps of this world, where our words don’t match the actions in the world. Postmodern culture is leery of doctrine and beliefs. God is not unimportant, in fact, God is talked about and written about more than ever, but religious institutions are viewed as dangerous. There was a time when church was viewed as a safe sanctuary, but now it is more often viewed as surrounded by barriers.

some days hope dies

2007-05-17T12:30:00.000-05:00

Today it died for me after listening to a story on BBC News - woman tells of Congo murders. This is an extremely disturbing story of torture, murder & rape. It's not some twisted fictional story, it's so much worse.

I'm a big fan of the sci-fi series Serenity. In this series there were a group of characters called Reavers. They were depraved beyond belief and anytime they came up in an episode I'd have to fast forward or leave the room.

Reavers ain't men. Or they forgot how to be. They're just nothing. They got out to the edge of the galaxy, to that place of nothing, and that's what they became.

Is that what we're becoming? Are we forgetting how to be human, lost at the edge of nothingness? God, please grant me a measure of hope again.

published at last

2007-05-15T09:19:00.000-05:00

Well, it's a first step anyway. I've got a very short story published in my alumni magazine @ http://tlu.edu/torch07s_wilkens. Can't wait to get my copy in the mail.

Stop Violence Against Native American Women in the US

2007-04-27T12:39:00.000-05:00

I heard about this issue on NPR's All Things Considered on April 24. I was appalled to learn about the level of sexual assault experienced by American Indian and Alaska Native women and the lack of protection and due process that these indigenous women, as all women, deserve.

Federal government studies have consistently shown that American Indian and Alaska Native women experience much higher levels of sexual violence than other women in the United States. According to the US Department of Justice, more than 1 in 3 American Indian and Alaska Native women will be raped during their lifetime. Indigenous women are being denied protection and there is a systematic failure to punish those responsible for these crimes. - Amnesty International

Please Take Action Now!

numb

2007-04-20T14:56:00.000-05:00

via

Numb, that's how I'm feeling this week as the bad news piles up:
- 4/16, VT massacre, 33 dead
- 4/18, highest death toll in Iraq, 233 dead
- 4/19, supreme court decision to ban a medical procedure called intact dilation and extraction
- 4/20, the guy in front of me at a stop light casually tossing a lit cigarette out the window

Father, forgive us, for we do not know what we are doing.

more on the side effects of numbness here

to my code monkey

2007-04-11T19:47:00.000-05:00

awesome technology

2007-04-11T13:26:00.000-05:00

The US Holocaust Memorial Museum and Google Earth have come up with a truly awesome use of technology. Get a mind-blowing perspective of the crisis in Darfur using google earth. You'll need to go to the ushmm to download a Darfur layer for google earth. Google has updated the satellite imagery for this area, along with providing icons that identify destroyed villages, displaced persons and multimedia content to tell individual stories.

The actual satellite imagery is pretty detailed as well.

The satellite imagery of Darfur and Chad was taken between 2003 through 2006, some imagery shows what the village looked like before the attack. In other cases, villages may have been rebuilt by returnees or occupied by others. - ushmm.org

The image above is of the Abu Shouk camp, which was just what it looks like, a tent city in the middle of a desert.

As violence in this part of the remote region of western Sudan increases again, there is an expectation at Abu Shouk—and across Darfur—that no one will be heading back to their villages any time soon. In the face of that reality, the camp has undergone a slow transformation from a settlement of plastic-covered shelters hastily constructed with branches, to a community that has many of the trappings of permanence—and home. - oxfamamerica.org

perspective

2007-04-10T20:30:00.000-05:00

As I was stumbling upon some sites tonight, I found the future of our world: a small glimpse into a timeline of epic scale. Then I stumbled upon what must have been the Dogwood Festival fireworks blinking outside my 2nd story window. I love watching fireworks. Not a big fan of hearing them, so seeing them from a distance works for me. My favorite are the ones launched high in the sky, bursting into a large globe with the ends twinkling out on the way down. The timeline music provided the perfect background. The timeline info provided an interesting perspective. Our existence is so fleeting. Is humanity going to continue to burn hot and fast and explosive leading to the inevitable grand finale?

deep thoughts or bedtime?