a change (we desperately need)

the story of stuff - consumption


work do to

(source: reclaiming the F word)

Sabbath is...

my attempt to do something like this and that

to blog or not to blog

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

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

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.