Labels: anti-oppression, favorite scriptural passages, inter-faith, prayer, prophetic voices, racism

Labels: anti-oppression, inter-faith, politics, racism, restorative justice

Labels: angels, angry at organized religions, birds, inter-faith, interconnected web, peace, personal growth, personal religion, tattoos, theological sources

Labels: guitar, inter-faith, John 3:17, music, prayer, song material, tattoos, technology, theological sources, theology, Universalism

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A friend asked me some questions on Facebook, and I want to answer them here, so that Facebook doesn't try and claim some weird rights to them, and because I realized that I haven't really blogged on the trinity for some strange reason (but thought I had)....

Here it is:

Hey Joel,

I've been meaning to ask you two questions. Your FB post today lends a third:

If you don't mind,"what does it take to be a Unitarian Universalist minister?","What does it mean to be a UU minister?", and now,"What do you know about the Holy Spirit?".

I hope the evicted fellow you were attempting to help is doing well,


1. What's it take:

• A calling
  
• A decision to answer the call
  
• Successful completion of an M.Div degree: ~3-5 years in seminary (I'm just finishing at sksm.edu)
  
• A one year internship in a parish ministry or community ministry setting
  
• A three month chaplaincy internship
  
• One needs to pass a preliminary and final review board composed of peers (ministers and lay people in the UU movement)
  
• And one needs to read this ever-looming pile of books: https://secure2.uua.org/leaders/leadership/ministerialcredentialing/16224.shtml
  
• Finally, it requires a congregation that sees fit to ordain/bless the minister's ministry

2. To me being a UU minister means that one upholds the 7 unitarian universalist principles, works as a prophetic agent for social justice in multiple arenas, tends to pastoral care needs in a congregation or community, and probably several other things, including sending handwritten "glad you came to visit us" cards to new visitors. :)


3. What do I know about the Holy Spirit? "Knowing" is the realm of epistemology and metaphysics, and in my studies, knowing has turned out to be conflated with believing far too often. As a dyed-in-the-wool universal agnostic who recognizes the ubiquity of metaphor, I come from a school of thought where we must operate within a consensual reality based on reason, extended by faith, whenever truth is impossible to ascertain....

To answer the actual question: from a Unitarian standpoint, I'd say the trinity is a human-made construction of meaning, applied to divinity. As a "Transcendental Trinitarian Unitarian Universalist,"I recognize a model of divinity in which there is a divine whole, undivided into sections. In addition, I also recognize the trinity as a model for understanding the nature of divinity, dividing it into three parts, cognitive handles that may help us grasp the divine in all its complexity and beauty:

Divinity Beyond: Commonly known as "God"--that which is beyond conception, beyond understanding, or even imagination. At one time, we didn't understand the Sun, or the seasons, molecules, or the inside of the human body/mind. As we learn more

Divinity Within: Commonly known as "the Son", but exists within everyone--it involves going deep to find that still small voice of conscience and drive within oneself; and

Divinity Between or Among: Commonly known as the Holy Spirit, which is a connection or glue that holds us together in beloved community--interpersonal communication with a quality more like a caress or kiss than an invasive/phallic communicative endeavor (to put one's words/ideas/psyche into another) or an enveloping/yonic endeavor (to inconsiderately frame another's words/ideas/psyche into one's own structure). I also touch on the Holy Spirit a little in the previous post on John 2.

Those three parts of this trinity can be kind of exemplified by a paper clip turned into a triangle. It's a scalene triangle--the sides aren't all the same length. We're not really sure which side/angle represents the within, beyond, or between. And the edges are curved, meaning there's a little bit of gray-space or overlap between each of the two where they meet. I could elaborate I suppose but I won't. I'm going to bed instead.


4. The evicted fellow is doing pretty crappy actually. He's fully living on the streets now (sleeping on the sidewalk) and took off mid-way through yesterday's Bible Study, leaving his coat and umbrella behind. I had intended to hook him up with some resources, but won't see him again until NEXT Thursday. Unfortunately, he is one of multitudes of people on the streets with mental illness who are unable to participate or navigate within the system--a system which would be nonplussing/stymieing for anyone, really.


lyrics: world wake up today

colors: black, brown, white

mood: long day

chant/prayer/mantra: !!!


pax hominibus,
agape to all,
joel

Labels: heaven on earth, homelessness, inter-faith, mental health issues, Multitheticalism, parousia, theology, writing

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Regarding Candlepower
Delivered 9.27.2009 at First Unitarian Universalist Society of San Francisco


Light does not sit still. It wants to spread in every direction until it hits something to reflect off of, or to be absorbed.

But doesn’t the word “light” describe more than just matter or energy? From a spiritual perspective, light is knowledge, information, and reason—and even emotion. Light shows the paths available to us, and the light of understanding can help to dispel fear and confusion.
Candlepower is another term for luminous intensity, or how bright a light appears to be shining.

The title of this sermon is also a reference to actual candles. Now, I want to start with a brief story about a candle we have at home. He’s sitting right back there with his mom and grandma, and his name is Henry. Sometimes our infant wakes up alone in the bedroom with the lights out, and starts to wailing. I’ll go in and scoop him up to my chest, get the drool towel on my shoulder, and rock him back to sleep while singing in the darkened room. His favorite lullaby is actually a variant of “This Little Light of Mine” from our hymnal. He likes it best when I sing it under water. The underwater version goes something like this: “Thbibs lbibttble lbibliblbght obf mbibne, iblbl’m gmloblbing tblblo let it shine.” As soon as he gets close to nodding off, I switch over to a steady rhythmic version that I call the “Seraphim’s Lullaby.” In Judeo-Christian lore, the seraphim are the inner ring of angels singing songs of praise night and day to God.

This lullaby echoes the last word from “this little light of mine” in a rhythm as he starts to nod off. “Shine, shine,… shine, shine, shine,… shine, shine, shine,… shine, shine, shine ,… shine, shine, shine ,… shine, shine, shine ,… shine, shine, shine , shine-shine,” which then repeats. Then as Henry’s totally conking out from the monotony, I work my way down to singing “Shine…” every eight beats, until I can finally lay him down slowly in the crib.

That to me is one example of a candle, it’s some personal information, a message that I sing to my baby, a prayer whose seeds will hopefully be planted deep within, for him to shine his light steady and strong, whatever that may turn out to be. And each of us has different messages, and different light to shed onto the world. Our light is composed of our experiences, perspectives, passions and hopes. Getting in touch with the uniqueness of our own light is a process of constant unfolding. Then when we shine out, it’s through our words and our deeds—through our life itself.

When our candles of life come together, they inform each other. By listening intently to the experiences, perspectives, passions and hopes of another, the light in ourselves grows in intensity, or changes hue. We can feel more strongly about our truths, or develop a more nuanced understanding. And when our own light is flickering, one candle can always light another, and that’s one empowering blessing of being among a community of broad-minded thinkers and compassionate feelers.

When enough people share in community, we have a rich discourse that becomes a bonfire, where we can not only have light, but also warmth, and sometimes “heat” when we come to disagreements. I’ve already witnessed that this congregation’s conversations are often energized enough to grow from words into action. And the fire turns into steady-burning coals….19th-century Universalist Mary Livermore tells a story how before there were matches, if your kitchen’s fire went out in the night, you either needed to work flint and steel together until a spark caught so you could light your tinder and rebuild your own fire from scratch (a painful proposition), or you would beg a shovelful of coals from a neighbor. A vibrant and thriving religious community like this one has coals it can offer, not just to the Sunday afternoon fellowship, the Lutherans, the Buddhists, and the other groups that meet here, but to the wider community. And they have coals that would enrich us as well.

A campfire like ours at First Unitarian Universalist is highly visible, and draws people in from further away. That’s our goal—to grow spiritually as a community, and draw people in, so that new visitors and old members alike can come here to fan the flames of their passions for justice, and become more active in the world. Here’s a question to ponder, what things have you found here that make you come to life, and make it natural to devote your time and energy here?
[pause for water, smack water glass against pulpit by accident]

Yet while a roaring fire is more robust than an individual candle, even our campfires are in danger of being blown out or diminished by the rain and the wind of an environment that doesn’t know to value what we have here. It’s all the more frightful when we find our voices shut out of the mass media, and there are other voices amplifying values that run counter to ours. Our good news that God loves everyone, and that everyone is saved isn’t likely to be well-received if it can’t be heard, or runs contrary to nihilistic and damaging messages blaring through the airwaves.

Our message presents danger to some people. For some, our news means questioning their whole worldview based on a personal and everlasting life, and accepting a savior to overcome sins. For others, it means weighing their relationship to the Earth and the welfare of its inhabitants against their own self-interests. Questioning fundamental assumptions and habits like these is difficult, and when people first hear our good news—and I realize there may be some sitting right out here today, or perhaps listening online—when people first hear our good news, we are a new candle joining an existing candle, which burns differently.

So our light can attract hostilities as well as friends. Our message brings cognitive dissonance and fear to some. Our goals may run counter to their goals of maintaining their livelihood, their lifestyle, or their retirement plans, or their hopes and fears for an afterlife, so they will fight our message. From Jesus decrying the Pharisees killing of prophets in Matthew 23, to Hypatia of Alexandria, to MLK, all the way to Van Jones, the brightest luminaries have been under attack by powers with vested interests, with their light diminished, sullied, or even snuffed-out. Humanist philosopher Erich Fromm says, “Those whose hope is weak settle down for comfort or violence; those whose hope is strong see and cherish all signs of new life, and are ready at every moment to help give birth to that which is ready to be born.” What light exists that can finally burn brightly enough that it cannot be snuffed out?

The Sun is one such source of light that will be constant and shining for ages to come. What would it take to get our message THAT bright? How about a compelling enough message to help draw in a critical mass of people sharing their lights on a global scale? Our message is right on: everyone’s together in this spherical blue and green boat, everyone’s included, and nobody should be left behind. Our message is one of communities rooted where they are, and extending out to any other communities who would join in common cause. The sixth Unitarian Universalist principle, states “[We...covenant to affirm and promote] the goal of world community with peace, liberty and justice for all.” The thought that the sixth principle might come into reality is awe-inspiring, isn’t it? That’d be a huge change! One I hope we all learn to truly welcome.

The principle says “the goal of world community.” A goal is a dream with a deadline. We’re not about affirming the dream of a world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all. It’s a goal. There’s got to be a deadline, or the light is blurry. If we leave the deadline unset, then that’s just a dream deferred. That’s justice deferred, peace deferred, and liberty deferred.
So, what do we envision—how will we know when the goal of “world community” is successfully realized? It requires that we establish common ground on which to speak and listen freely. We can start by all acknowledging our common humanity, and the worth and dignity to be found in everyone. Until we do that, we’re standing on different ground, not common ground. From common ground, we can freely share the lights of our myriad communities of identity. And with that common ground conversation, we can equitably negotiate shared definitions for peace, liberty and justice.

We’ll need to do a lot of work to get to that common ground. From physics, power is defined asthe ability to do work in a given amount of time. A more powerful movement can get more work done more quickly. A more powerful movement is composed of more people participating more fully.

Today’s second lesson is the story of Aten, the god responsible for the Sun. This god was represented by a bright disk in the sky, with arms reaching out of it, each with a hand bearing gifts. More hands, more voices, more lives working for common ground means more power and faster work toward our goal. Not everybody’s going to join our churches. Perhaps they disagree with organized religion entirely, or perhaps they’re happy with the worship and the people of their own faith communities. But surely they will lend their hands and co-create with us once they see the light of our message, and our goal. And our fourth principle—the one about our “free and responsible search for truth and meaning” compels us to share this light with them, pronto. For when we truly embody truth and meaning, we find we’re responsible to act on it, and share it.

Until we create a deadline that we mean to be accountable to, there’s a disconnect at work here. The “end-times” or the “last generation” has been a concept people have anticipated at least since the book of revelation was written, and probably much earlier. For many people, the end of time, or to my understanding, the end of the age, was always “just a few years away.” But it’s been that way for countless generations. It’s time to get in sync, and focus our resolve and determination to bring the end of this age, through introducing a beloved world community.
The God I know and love, who waits with a plenitude of gifts that true community brings, has been ever-restless for world community to come into being. This God is getting less and less patient, first ringing the doorbell, then knocking, knocking, knocking, then pounding at the door, demanding, “Who put this door here? And why is it taking so long for them to answer?” There’s real pressure to answer the door, to answer this call, because nature has a way of making corrections. That danger to our environment is a real-life fire-and-brimstone scenario, which I’ll reserve for another sermon, some other time. We try not to work from a place of fear, so let’s instead look at the possibilities of opening the door and answering the call.

A few weeks ago, Rev. Fitch mentioned in his homily that this community needs to go public and show the world a new paradigm for the 21st century, and I would challenge us to take that a step further. To reach our goal, we need to shine the light of a 3rd millennium community. To guide humanity’s eyes toward the horizon and see the sunrise, and know that just as our message of world community starts to shine, so too, the fire of the human race is only just now beginning to burn like the stable star of today’s first lesson.

So I’ll ask, and this is not a rhetorical question, but you need not answer aloud right now: How soon do you think this world community can be delivered? How soon will we be able to establish common ground throughout the races, beyond national boundaries, and across ethnic lines? How soon until we can establish common ground for everyone based on the fact that they love and are loved, not based on what kind of person they love? And how soon until we can establish common ground that says nobody is left behind, that when we come to the economic table, nobody leaves hungry, without an adequate piece of the pie? What if that depends on us talking and acting on our goal of world community? How quickly can our light spread?

We are not alone. We have allies. Who are they? “Anybody who will answer to the call for this world community we yearn for.” But the call is critical. It brings the power of suggestion into play. Some people have forgotten their dreams, or do not believe we can achieve this goal. Perhaps they’ve never even thought about the possibility of world community. If we who carry this torch don’t invite them, they won’t know when or where to show up, or to show up at all.
And here’s more good news: for the most part world community happens as people come to life and join one at a time, empowering each other. The people you share this message with—your friends, family, maybe even people you’re just conversing with for the first time, they might really need Unitarian Universalism.

Before last week’s service while I was talking with a parishioner, I shared a little about this sermon, and I mentioned how long it took me to stumble upon this religion, and how there are a lot of people in the world out there who want—who need—the gifts of our theology. She shined her light right back and said, “and they have gifts that we need.” To me, that is a reminder of the true give-and-take involved in this commission.

Some say we need to get more people in our doors, and into our congregations, but I think it’s more than that. Howard Thurman, the longtime minister at the Church of the Fellowship of All Peoples just up Larkin Street, said: "Don't ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive and then go do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive." So get in touch with your passion and find or create an avenue to manifest that passion, either within or beyond these church walls, and get other people excited about it. And listen to others, and hear their passions, so they can realize their goals as well.


May the work that we do shine like the fusion of the Sun, and may this community achieve that goal of world community, with the inclusion of everyone and energy of everyone working toward it. And when you go forth from this place, may you know in your innermost heart that you carry the Sun within.

Amen.


Please stand and take a few moments to greet your neighbors during the hymn’s introduction, and then join in singing the Hymn of Hope, This Little Light of Mine, #118 in your hymnals.

There's a link to an audio recording of this sermon (and the full service) at http://www.uusf.org/AboutUUSF/SermonArchive/index.htm

prayer/mantra: 1 down, 10, 100, 200, 500, 1000+ to go...?

pax hominibus,
agape to everyone,
joel

Labels: astrophysics, favorite scriptural passages, globalism, heaven on earth, Henry, inter-faith, our mission, pax hominibus/bright shiny future, religious community, sermons

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On Facebook, I made friends randomly with a person from Iran, and saw that this person had a "Stop Violence Against My People" sign in place of their profile picture. I sent them a message to find out how they are doing and let them know my prayers are with them. This person sent me back a message saying:

Thank you for your consideration.
Yes, this is for peace, freedom, liberty, democracy & ... & everything good. We hate the government and specially Ahmadi Nejad! He is not our president! You can see the videos in youtube...
This is the GREEN revolution!
We are in a WAR for PEACE!!!

Peace and love,
[name]

Here is a YouTube video documentary I came across. I'll post it without commentary for now.


pax hominibus,
agape to all,
joel

Labels: anti-oppression, globalism, inter-faith, multiculturalism, politics, war and peace

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About a month ago, I went shopping at the local Grocery Outlet, and saw some sugar frosted flakes in a box on one of the aisles. It caught my attention because it had an interesting looking guy (a la Buzz Lightyear) on the front of the box. I turned the box around, and on the other side, it had the same picture, but with all Arabic writing on it, probably saying something like "Sugar Frosted Flakes."



So I bought it, and I just finished eating it (Yes, I still sometimes indulge in sugar cereal), and I took pictures of it, and then I went to visit their website, nmc.ae (beware the loud cheesy music that accompanies the intro video).

Labels: art, Capitalism, indifferent corporations, inter-faith, Islam, paradigm shift, theological sources, UAE

Multithetical Manifesto: Hardcore Angel Power

There is a practice in Unitarian Universalism where the youths spend a year studying a wide variety of religious beliefs. Then they get an opportunity to get up in front of the congregation and make their individual statements of belief. Not having grown up in the tradition, I'd like to now share my faith statement, after a fashion. And yes, I do still plan for it to fit within the parameters of the actual assignment of preaching prophetically.

Here, now, please let’s take a quick journey out into the solar system. It takes about 8 minutes for light to travel from the Sun to the Earth. And it actually takes over 100,000 years for the photons produced in the sun's core to travel the 700,000 kilometers John 3:17, metaphor, Multitheticalism, personal religion, renewable energy, salvation, theology, sefrom the core to its surface, and then for those final eight minutes, it travels to Earth at the speed of light. This parallels how our ideas and communication work. Our collective ideas gestate for a long time before they're ready. Then we communicate them orally and they are delivered at the speed of sound, or we can type them and they end up halfway across the world in seconds.

Growing up, math, along with spelling, was always my favorite subject. Now, it informs my theology in fundamental ways. One primary way is through set theory. For example, imagine the set of whole numbers between 1 and 5, inclusive. The subset of all odd numbers is 1, 3, and 5. The subset of all even numbers is 2 and 4. 1 by itself is a subset. So is 2 by itself, and on and on. The largest “subset” is all five numbers, and then there is the empty set, which includes nothing at all, but still qualifies as a set.

I wonder: Do you see where I'm going with this, theologically? To put a word to it, I'm a multitheticalist. That means I'm an atheist, including Buddhism and Humanism – either a system of religious belief that doesn't consider any god, or a religious belief that specifically denies that a god exists. And I'm a theist. And a monotheist at that – including each of the various descriptions of “the one God” written by leaders such as Moses, Zoroaster, Jesus, Paul of Tarsus, and Mohammad. And I’m a polytheist, to the degree that I can learn about the many Hindu gods, and the pantheons of Greek and Roman deities. And I'm a pantheist, a panentheist, and even an animist.

“But which of those do you believe,” I hear my 20 year old fundamentalist self demand of me. “You have to believe something!” And I do. I believe that it's impossible to know anything about the divine, so that might lead one to label me as an agnostic. But agnostic is too simple a term, without sufficient examination of the complexity of meaning at play here.

In a fluid bedrock kind of way, I've come to appreciate that anything carried with words is metaphor – it's meaning attributed to physical happenings and existences. But in telling stories about the world, by necessity, we are mapping from the ultimate reality into stories that we believe, to help us make sense of the world. That mapping simplifies complex things however. It distorts events to fit into recognizable frameworks. This mapping deletes things because telling the whole truth in all its complexity would mean recreating the whole universe. And the mapping that accompanies systems of belief also generalizes things, turning them into archetypes, stereotypes, and symbols within our stories.

Knowing all that, choosing just one belief is like being stranded on an island and choosing only one book, or one album, or one type of food. Or one thing for my mind and spirit to ingest. Therefore, I'm a multitheticalist (from “multi-thesis”) – or holding several theses in balance all at once, and keeping them open for critical evaluation. My free and responsible search for truth and meaning demands this of me.

But it's not just about belief. It's about the heart. When I first got into this, God told me that it was going to be my heart on the line. But like Jonah, I escaped for a while. I escaped into concepts and theories, and reveled in wonderment at the opportunity to examine the “Big Picture,” (whatever size that actually is). But going beyond means coming back. That's the responsible part of the search. Even with all the angels and demons I’ve collected along my journey, I still feel inadequate to tell my prophetic story. All I know is that for everyone out there with messages (either to deliver from your mind through your voice, or to your mind from your senses), we're cut from the same cloth as those other prophets, especially when we can see beyond the boundaries of our cultural contexts. With all my agnosticism, that is a story I do know.

But what's a prophet to tell? Ideally, I'd light up a cigarette, strap on a guitar, and sing for you, about you, and with you. Why use this gracious gift of breath just to expound on so much theology, or to craft something that compels people to action, but what action? There are SO MANY of them!

There's the age-old practice of taking moral stances on issues:

• The ERA still hasn't passed. What gives?
• The construction of race, and how racism undergirds so many other justice issues
• LGBTIQ – an alphabet soup that simply says “equal rights to all regardless of gender or sexual expression”
• The creation and continuance of class structures, and ownership, and workers' rights.
• Earth justice and animal rights
• Abortion issues
• Drug policies

Or budgetary concerns like:

• Putting money toward wars and failed prison systems and
• Laws to ensure certain economic controls and property rights are secured,
• Instead of putting resources to Education, Energy policies, Scientific research, and Health care

I feel like I could (and very well might) speak to these things from the pulpit every week. It just goes round and round, like wheels in icy slush in March in Minnesota. I want to put sand down under the tires. I want to dig out to the concrete below the ice and get some traction! I want to be primal, to recognize it's not just about squeezing out words as breath flows out past my vocal cords. Text and speech is necessary, but so insufficient. I want to put out that all-too-necessary barbaric “yop” -- I'm ALIVE!!!!! And I hope you do too.

I have to do that. When my God speaks (all of them, and none of them, and one of them), it's through me. See, I'm one of those Multithetical Universalists who believes in radical uncertainty. Our salvation is all tied up together in this boat named Earth, and there is no fate but that which we make. This world is so beautiful, and yet so fragile. One of my versions of God is where I am the creator born into creation to walk upon this beautiful blue-green planet I have made, and I weep and marvel all at once at the horror and the beauty of the upside-downness side by side with the right-side-upness. Because like it or not, humanity has declared dominion here. Now, they/we will get credit or blame for whatever is to come. The blame or credit goes not to God, or ancient prophecies – only to humanity's insistence in those gods and prophecies. Demanding that theirs be the true version, and arguing over details in their stories of divinity and prophecy.

Because we have a preponderance of new prophets, telling the story clearly and honestly, from really recent and accurate knowledge about this world and our relationship within it. Yet there is almost no need for prophets now. The story of the condition of our cultures and our planet now comes to us ever more clearly. Humans have to close their ears, eyes, and minds to avoid the trumpets call. In Zoroastrianism, the job of the Saoshyant, or final judge at the end of the age or world, is simply to point that out. In essence saying “Open your eyes. Look around you! There is your prophecy, and my work is done here.” But its not as easy as that, since peoples' frames mask the full truth, until truth's complexities start to pull open the frames. But the process is soooo slow. After all, wasn't it 2000 years ago that Jesus said, “Those who have ears, let them hear...”? It's slow, but it's coming.

There's more to the story. In my rear-view mirror, I have all these memories of the heavens and hells my mind has visited, to bring me here. In my dreams, I've seen chariots and thrones, and so many apocalyptic futures, like the beatific utopian heaven-on-earth that my inner voice compels me to co-create. I do hope one day to write a utopian sci-fi drama. On the other hand, some of those memories of potential futures are outright hellish. I won't go into detail, but those dreams had people in the grayest darkest cavernous pits, stepping on those below them to try to climb out, but always being stepped on from above by someone else. Even those highest up were still in the pit. With nobody ever reaching down to lend a hand. And then there's the bittersweet end, somewhere in between. Where the world plods through, suffering for centuries or millennia because of the damage we've done to our planet and each other.

So, what saves us? Our actions do. Which are influenced by the thoughts and words that compose our world-views. Our actions influenced by our beliefs, with all their tendencies to distort, delete, and generalize. That is why I'm preaching multitheticalism today. It seeks to open wide to any possibility, evaluating it while finding ways to enrich worldviews. But it has one big drawback. It takes a lot of time. It's heavy, and it's slow to come into the light.

It's slow, like the photons inside the sun.

chant/prayer/mantra: For energy to deliver this well.


pax hominibus,
agape to all,
joel

Labels: Atheism, Christianity, drug war, environment, guitar, inter-faith, Islam, John 3:17, metaphor, Multitheticalism, personal religion, renewable energy, salvation, sermons, theology

So I just got an email reply regarding the Transforming Theology conferences coming up. Only some of the sessions are open to the wider public, though they will be recorded and available for later viewing, which would be good. I don't recall where it is taking place, and their server seems to be down, but if its too far away, I doubt I can make it just to sit and listen when I can hear a recorded version on my own time without wasting gas.

I wonder what they'll come up with.

This is just a tiny stub post, and a kind of bookmark for myself to come back and revisit this later.

lyrics:
From There You Are [Jesus Song No. 7], by The Flaming Lips
There you are
And you stand in the rain
And the rain fills your brain
And it makes you think that god
Was fucked up when he made this town

There you stand
With your bleedin hands
And you dont understand
Why you work so goddamn hard
To be anything at all

There you are
And you drive in your car
And you wish for the stars
And you end up face down in the road
Dead as fuck

chant/prayer/mantra: For the sake of our world, may our understanding of theology travel well beyond unexamined categorical boundaries.


pax hominibus,
agape to all,
joel

Labels: inter-faith, personal bookmarks, theology

 
Mostly regarding Sarah Palin. Note how she's become a lightning rod to distract attention away from McCain's own issues -- I hope the democrats can get back on track soon, addressing the glaring issues that the McCain campaign is trying to sweep under the rug with her introduction.

Tim Wise, author and racial equity activist, has a great piece regarding how white privilege is coming into obvious play in this election cycle, which can be accessed here, here, here, and many other places. (The comments are an enlightening part of the read, which is why I post the link to this article thrice.) In short, I think he does a great job of exposing white privilege writ large, and I'd love to see a more nuanced follow-up, since there are many other types of privilege coming into play in this election as well.

Long-time women's rights activist Gloria Steinem weighs in.

Minnesota talk show host Garrison Keillor weighs in.

Spiritual guru Deepak Chopra weighs in.

And actor Chevy Chase encourages Tina Fey to go after Ms. Palin with more satire for all she's worth.

Here is a youtube video a few months old that so adroitly exposes that McCain talks out of both sides of his mouth and doesn't even recall what he's said one day to the next, its undeniable. And in a time when the Main Stream Media (MSM) decides not to really get serious about exposing these things, its good to see that this video has over 5 MILLION views. On youtube. 5 MILLION+ viewers.

And finally, McCain gets RickRolled, Obama-style (great editing job, given the likely difficulty of finding footage that fits. For all the problems of the age of photoshop veracities, sometimes, things like this make it almost worth it.


lyrics: Instead of lyrics, here is a brilliant sermon on race by evangelical minister Thabiti Anyabwile. Whether you can deal with, or enjoy, or get past the very strong Christian message, what he has to say about the constructed nature of race is worth your time. "We've organized our identities and our lives based on [a bogus] set of assumptions."

colors: black and white?

mood: need to study, tired of catching up with the "news."

chant/prayer/mantra: together in community -- may it become, and then ever remain so.


pax hominibus,
agape to all,
joel

Labels: anti-oppression, Christianity, economics, inter-faith, media, oppression, politics, racism

Hi Everyone-

I mentioned the opening of the Center for Islamic Studies several weeks back, and want to take just a moment to post a few pics that I took of the opening exhibit at the library with my sweetie's camera (Ibrahim, I know I originally said I'd upload some pics from my camera, but those had horrible quality).

Here they are (click to embiggen).





When I took the pictures, I found it frustrating that the skylight was reflecting so brightly off of the glass of the display case, but now that I see the pictures, I kind of like it. The book that is covered up in the last photo is called "Islam: Art and Architecture."

lyrics: "I've got an angel. His name is Steve. He's kind and gentle, and he's watching over me. Thanks Steve!" One Beautiful Day, by Marcus Bovre and the Evil Twins

colors: the color of the wooden display cases above

mood: harried. gotta drop off the cats at the sitter, and then hop an airplane today.

chant/prayer/mantra: communication is key.


pax hominibus,
agape to all,
joel

Labels: inter-faith, Islam