So if you've been reading along for a while I might be getting a bit of a reputation as someone who never has a good word to say about anything. In some ways this is why Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays in principle. I don't do thankful well and so a day set apart to be thankful works as a nice kind of Interuption of the Real, a point at which the facades we make for ourselves are torn appart and we get a glimpse of the man behind the curtain, as it were and real transformation is possible.
So, I'm a grouch...sometimes. So I decided to try and go without complaining. That's my goal anyway.
Today seems like a rough way to start the week and yet a few things seem a little more clear because I'm avoiding an action that has, in many ways, become my default.
1) Instead of dealing with a lot of my emotions I think I just gripe.
2) It's harder (just a little) to be a jerk or remain angry if you aren't verbalizing it. I'm not saying anger doesn't have it's place but it feels easier to let my emotions run the show when I feed into them.
3) Complaining seems to make it easier to put up with things were working to get at the root of the problem would be far more effective.
As I was writing this I just realized that those 3 things are pretty similar to the things that my employers have been telling me, for the last two years, about helping clients work through their own frustrations. Go figure.
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Sunday, November 27, 2011
Status Quo and the First Sunday of Advent
For better or worse Christmas shopping season is upon us. Black Friday/Buy Nothing Day/the single largest shopping day of the year was on Friday (ironically placed as it is after a day when we at least claim to be thankful for all we have and run out to get more and more than we need or even sometimes want) and today is the First Sunday of Advent. I hope to over the next four weeks to post some things about how the Christmas Story (when I make to pry it from the death-grip pop culture seems to have on it) speaks to and radically challanges me. I expect much of the reflections I share will be heavily influenced by the Advent book I'm planning on going though Follow the Light: Readings for Advent and Christmas.
Today I read a piece by Henri Nouwen where he says:
waiting is active. Most of us think of waiting as something very passive, a hopeless state determined by events totally out of our hands. The bus is late? You cannot do anything about it, you have to just sit there and wait. It is not difficult to understand the irritation people feel when someone says, "Just wait." Words like that seem to push us into passivity.
But there is none of this passivity in scripture. Those who are waiting are waiting very actively. They know that what they are waiting for is growing from the ground on which they are standing.
That resonates with me because the world's messed up and I need to get my rear in gear to help fix it (I wrote a piece on work a few weeks back that seems particularly relivant at this second).
The other side of waiting (and Nouwen does go into this) is hope.
I'm excited about some of the things that are happening in and around the #Occupy movement but part of that excitement for me is rooted in a hope the status quo is unsustainable and at some point must change but also that God's going to make things right. I've heard Stanley Hauerwas say that it's important for us to read the Bible in reverse and I think that's true in how we should read the Gospels (Good News) as well, with with Life beating the hell out of Death. And if we can't muster the strength to make that story one that is being lived out in our communities, it can feel like cheap lip-service to say we'll see it in the realm to come.
May we all learn to actively wait
To live out resurection in our own lives and community
And may we find our hope in things bigger than the stuff is (not) under our Christmas tree
A joyfull Advent to you all.
Today I read a piece by Henri Nouwen where he says:
waiting is active. Most of us think of waiting as something very passive, a hopeless state determined by events totally out of our hands. The bus is late? You cannot do anything about it, you have to just sit there and wait. It is not difficult to understand the irritation people feel when someone says, "Just wait." Words like that seem to push us into passivity.
But there is none of this passivity in scripture. Those who are waiting are waiting very actively. They know that what they are waiting for is growing from the ground on which they are standing.
That resonates with me because the world's messed up and I need to get my rear in gear to help fix it (I wrote a piece on work a few weeks back that seems particularly relivant at this second).
A Resurrected Christmas from The Work Of The People on Vimeo.
The other side of waiting (and Nouwen does go into this) is hope.
I'm excited about some of the things that are happening in and around the #Occupy movement but part of that excitement for me is rooted in a hope the status quo is unsustainable and at some point must change but also that God's going to make things right. I've heard Stanley Hauerwas say that it's important for us to read the Bible in reverse and I think that's true in how we should read the Gospels (Good News) as well, with with Life beating the hell out of Death. And if we can't muster the strength to make that story one that is being lived out in our communities, it can feel like cheap lip-service to say we'll see it in the realm to come.
May we all learn to actively wait
To live out resurection in our own lives and community
And may we find our hope in things bigger than the stuff is (not) under our Christmas tree
A joyfull Advent to you all.
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
I Love Washington VS I Love Being Car Free
I love where I live, it's one of the most beutiful places in the world. And I love managing life without having to worry about a car. There are days and those days turn into weeks (see picture) were my love is tested and I think one of these has got to go...maybe the Craigslist jobs listings in Yakima deserves a close inspection or maybe a car really is worth not having to change my soggey underwear when I get to work...just a thought
Monday, November 21, 2011
The three books you get in prison? [My Answer]
About a week ago I asked folks a question: Supposing you had six months in prison with no guarantee of interaction with others, what are the three books you would want in prison. I wanted to take a minute and talk about responses I got from the folks at the Books to Prisoners project I volunteer with said and some of the reason folks gave for why their particular choices as well as to give my own answer.
I've been working with Books to Prisoners for going on two years now and so I've had a while to think about this one.
Another of the volunteers there easily had one of the best answers:
"I'd like to learn a new language and with 6 months, I got nothing but time. I'd get the biggest of those all-in-one language learning books that I could find."
Good call. As I've mentioned in the past I'm in a Spanish class and have been doing badly at Spanish for about 6 months now. With nothing but time I'll go with something that looks like it would be a bit of a struggle (because it's got to last me 6 months). Hopefully include some workbook materials, vocab, etc. that's a lot for any one book, this was the best I could find but it isn't a dictionary and that's going to create a struggle.
We all decided we needed a novel of some kind. There was also some agreement that it needed to be something that was insanely large and re-readable. The big contenders seemed to be Dickens, Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. Someone pointed out in this scenario they wanted a book that was written not to compete with TV and film but one where the author never had to worry about competing with the plug-in-drug.
So for me I'm choosing to take Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov. I recently ran across a lecture series in iTunes entitled Democracy: A Users Manual which included the first two lectures on this novel. While the lectures made it pretty clear to me that Dostoevsky and I probably wouldn't see eye to eye on politics, but I find it really intriguing that he was Dorothy Day's favorite novelists and that Sigmund Freud apparently refused to read his stuff because it felt to much like working with his patients.
Lastly, and this one sounds like a bit of a cop-out but I want a really big Bible. Ideally I'd love one that includes 1st Enoch and Shepherd of Hermas (both early contenders for inclusion into the cannon) but since those don't usually make it all into one volume (or a Study Bible made by the folks at Orbis Books...Please Orbis, make a Study Bible), one in a decent translation is all I ask (because I can only read so much in the King James). The prospect of having 6 months to read my Bible cover to cover without much in the way of distractions is actually a really exciting prospect. The last time I read the whole thing was ten years ago and the ways that I've grown to understand the Bible differently and the world fairly differently and I think things like "Blessed are the merciful" (Matthew 5:7) and ideas like forgiving a person who has wronged you not seven times but "Seventy times seven" (Matthew 8:22) would take on a significantly different flavor inside of prison.
So thats my list:
Giant Spanish Workbook
The Brothers Karamazov
Bible
What do you think? Good picks? Is there something I should be re-shelving?
I've been working with Books to Prisoners for going on two years now and so I've had a while to think about this one.
Another of the volunteers there easily had one of the best answers:
"I'd like to learn a new language and with 6 months, I got nothing but time. I'd get the biggest of those all-in-one language learning books that I could find."
Good call. As I've mentioned in the past I'm in a Spanish class and have been doing badly at Spanish for about 6 months now. With nothing but time I'll go with something that looks like it would be a bit of a struggle (because it's got to last me 6 months). Hopefully include some workbook materials, vocab, etc. that's a lot for any one book, this was the best I could find but it isn't a dictionary and that's going to create a struggle.
We all decided we needed a novel of some kind. There was also some agreement that it needed to be something that was insanely large and re-readable. The big contenders seemed to be Dickens, Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. Someone pointed out in this scenario they wanted a book that was written not to compete with TV and film but one where the author never had to worry about competing with the plug-in-drug.
So for me I'm choosing to take Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov. I recently ran across a lecture series in iTunes entitled Democracy: A Users Manual which included the first two lectures on this novel. While the lectures made it pretty clear to me that Dostoevsky and I probably wouldn't see eye to eye on politics, but I find it really intriguing that he was Dorothy Day's favorite novelists and that Sigmund Freud apparently refused to read his stuff because it felt to much like working with his patients.
Lastly, and this one sounds like a bit of a cop-out but I want a really big Bible. Ideally I'd love one that includes 1st Enoch and Shepherd of Hermas (both early contenders for inclusion into the cannon) but since those don't usually make it all into one volume (or a Study Bible made by the folks at Orbis Books...Please Orbis, make a Study Bible), one in a decent translation is all I ask (because I can only read so much in the King James). The prospect of having 6 months to read my Bible cover to cover without much in the way of distractions is actually a really exciting prospect. The last time I read the whole thing was ten years ago and the ways that I've grown to understand the Bible differently and the world fairly differently and I think things like "Blessed are the merciful" (Matthew 5:7) and ideas like forgiving a person who has wronged you not seven times but "Seventy times seven" (Matthew 8:22) would take on a significantly different flavor inside of prison.
So thats my list:
Giant Spanish Workbook
The Brothers Karamazov
Bible
What do you think? Good picks? Is there something I should be re-shelving?
Sunday, November 20, 2011
Hitchcock & Thankfulness Rendered Meaningful Through Disappointment
Yesterday I put up a post on Thanksgiving, today I wanted to briefly talk about disappointment and the way that plays into learning to truly be thankful.
If you've spent much time with me you know that I love film. I have a few filmmakers that I'm particularly fond of: Edgar Wright, Quentin Tarantino, Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, the Marx brothers, George Romero. But perhaps more than any other, I love Alfred Hitchcock.
So that you might understand my excitement when I found out that our theater released the program for the 28th annual Olympia Film Festival and we were running not one, but two very special Hitchcock films: Dial M for Murder in 3D. Like most people I'd never seen Dial M in its original 3D and it was really good, the 3D wasn't over the top (in the infamous scene with the scissors they don't pop out off the screen and feel like they'll stab the audience in the face as I'd imagine they would in many 3D films today).
But the newly rediscovered first half of Hitchcock's first film The White Shadow was the thing I was really excited about this year. When I got home from work (I work the graveyard shift) Rachel was supposed to head off to the theater to work the morning shift at the Fest but was feeling awful. So I went in her place and as a result needed to sleep through The White Shadow.
Rachel felt really terrible about this. I just kept thinking about something I'd seen recently on PassiveAggressiveNotes.com with the caption "Ah, first world problems."
"Like who cares? There is an AIDS epidemic in Africa, Big Oil is raping Northern Alberta and screwing over the natives, some economists are estimating real unemployment is somewhere around 20% in the US...etc, etc, etc."
I don't have a nice wrap-up for this one, just that I think this dovetails nicely with what I said yesterday about consumerism. I am convinced that unlike the liturgy of advent, the liturgy of consumerism thrives off of the small disappointments and encourages us to turn them into crushing blows. The one thing consumerism cannot abide is the idea of "enough". I must always have more.
Indeed, I would argue our being thankful is rendered meaningless without disappointments and I think that is something those of us who have things so comfortable, forget all to often.
If you've spent much time with me you know that I love film. I have a few filmmakers that I'm particularly fond of: Edgar Wright, Quentin Tarantino, Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, the Marx brothers, George Romero. But perhaps more than any other, I love Alfred Hitchcock.
So that you might understand my excitement when I found out that our theater released the program for the 28th annual Olympia Film Festival and we were running not one, but two very special Hitchcock films: Dial M for Murder in 3D. Like most people I'd never seen Dial M in its original 3D and it was really good, the 3D wasn't over the top (in the infamous scene with the scissors they don't pop out off the screen and feel like they'll stab the audience in the face as I'd imagine they would in many 3D films today).
But the newly rediscovered first half of Hitchcock's first film The White Shadow was the thing I was really excited about this year. When I got home from work (I work the graveyard shift) Rachel was supposed to head off to the theater to work the morning shift at the Fest but was feeling awful. So I went in her place and as a result needed to sleep through The White Shadow.
Rachel felt really terrible about this. I just kept thinking about something I'd seen recently on PassiveAggressiveNotes.com with the caption "Ah, first world problems."
"Like who cares? There is an AIDS epidemic in Africa, Big Oil is raping Northern Alberta and screwing over the natives, some economists are estimating real unemployment is somewhere around 20% in the US...etc, etc, etc."
I don't have a nice wrap-up for this one, just that I think this dovetails nicely with what I said yesterday about consumerism. I am convinced that unlike the liturgy of advent, the liturgy of consumerism thrives off of the small disappointments and encourages us to turn them into crushing blows. The one thing consumerism cannot abide is the idea of "enough". I must always have more.
Indeed, I would argue our being thankful is rendered meaningless without disappointments and I think that is something those of us who have things so comfortable, forget all to often.
Saturday, November 19, 2011
Thanksgiving
I saw this on the blog for American Public Media's wonderful show On Being (formerly called Speaking of Faith). It spoke to me and I wanted to share it with you. Though written long ago, to me this prayer seems all the more poiniant today. We live in a time were Christmas is a point of contact between two religions that I exist in the context of, each with their own ritual, orthodoxy and sacred stories.
One, perhaps the one we are most familiar with, says that I show love to the few people I really care about by buying them things that they don't need (and often times don't even want), I gorge myself with food and the drive for more. "It's a wonderful life...but I'm going to be paying off credit cards till Febrewary!". The other is a story of refugees from an occupied land, amidst dictators, infanticide and the creator of the Universe siding with the losers of history in some strange ways. So, in the approaching shadow of Black Friday/Buy Nothing Day (the single largest day of consumerism in the USA each year) and the approach of Advent, I offer you all this prayer and my hope we all might find what we are looking for under a glowing bush (instead of a artificial tree).
Thanksgiving Day Prayer
by Walter Rauschenbusch (1861–1918)
For the wide sky and the blessed sun,
For the salt sea and the running water,
For the everlasting hills
And the never-resting winds,
For trees and the common grass underfoot.
We thank you for our senses
By which we hear the songs of birds,
And see the splendor of the summer fields,
And taste of the autumn fruits,
And rejoice in the feel of the snow,
And smell the breath of the spring.
Grant us a heart wide open to all this beauty;
And save our souls from being so blind
That we pass unseeing
When even the common thornbush
Is aflame with your glory,
O God our creator,
Who lives and reigns for ever and ever.
The prayer was origionally posted here
Follow-up piece here
One, perhaps the one we are most familiar with, says that I show love to the few people I really care about by buying them things that they don't need (and often times don't even want), I gorge myself with food and the drive for more. "It's a wonderful life...but I'm going to be paying off credit cards till Febrewary!". The other is a story of refugees from an occupied land, amidst dictators, infanticide and the creator of the Universe siding with the losers of history in some strange ways. So, in the approaching shadow of Black Friday/Buy Nothing Day (the single largest day of consumerism in the USA each year) and the approach of Advent, I offer you all this prayer and my hope we all might find what we are looking for under a glowing bush (instead of a artificial tree).
Thanksgiving Day Prayer
by Walter Rauschenbusch (1861–1918)
For the wide sky and the blessed sun,
For the salt sea and the running water,
For the everlasting hills
And the never-resting winds,
For trees and the common grass underfoot.
We thank you for our senses
By which we hear the songs of birds,
And see the splendor of the summer fields,
And taste of the autumn fruits,
And rejoice in the feel of the snow,
And smell the breath of the spring.
Grant us a heart wide open to all this beauty;
And save our souls from being so blind
That we pass unseeing
When even the common thornbush
Is aflame with your glory,
O God our creator,
Who lives and reigns for ever and ever.
The prayer was origionally posted here
Follow-up piece here
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
Love as skill development
So there is a person I'm not a huge fan of. This person just has a way of getting under my skin. In fact they have gotten there so many times I'm not sure if they had one of those life transforming moments, I'm not sure I would, if I'm honest, that I'd really give them a second chance. I'm not going to say much more than that but in the time that I've known and interacted with this person I've thought a lot about love (a Biblical imperitive) as opposed to liking. I know I'm broken. Jesus calls us to forgive 70x7 times and John says that God is love - I'm a work in progress and this is just where I live right now.
I recently listened to the Iconocast interview with Robert Ellsberg where he talked about one of Dorothy Day's favorite passages from the Brothers Karamatzov. A woman comes to an old monk, Father Zossima and tells him how she'd like to become a nurse but is kept from doing so by the thought of people being ungrateful. He answers "Love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing compared to love in dreams." Zing! Zossima, 1. My utopian/"grass is greener" delusions, 0.
This dovetails nicely with the ideas of another of Day's favorite authors, Erich Fromm, who rejected the idea of "falling in love" to instead speak of love as a skill. This makes 1 Cor 13 (a passage we've neutered by restricting to weddings) perhaps a skill to be perfected; when I'm more patient, more, kind, when I keep a smaller record of wrongs...I'm growing and it feels awful because hanging out with this person is still about as much fun as cuddling with a cheese grater. "Patient, kind, no records of wrongs...harsh and dreadful...all right"
Perhaps the problem for me is that I still imagine much of Jesus' shinanagins as happening in kids books where he wears a bathrobe.
To really follow Jesus means to "overcome evil [and the things we encounter that are a little more benign] with good" (Rom 12:21)
I recently listened to the Iconocast interview with Robert Ellsberg where he talked about one of Dorothy Day's favorite passages from the Brothers Karamatzov. A woman comes to an old monk, Father Zossima and tells him how she'd like to become a nurse but is kept from doing so by the thought of people being ungrateful. He answers "Love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing compared to love in dreams." Zing! Zossima, 1. My utopian/"grass is greener" delusions, 0.
This dovetails nicely with the ideas of another of Day's favorite authors, Erich Fromm, who rejected the idea of "falling in love" to instead speak of love as a skill. This makes 1 Cor 13 (a passage we've neutered by restricting to weddings) perhaps a skill to be perfected; when I'm more patient, more, kind, when I keep a smaller record of wrongs...I'm growing and it feels awful because hanging out with this person is still about as much fun as cuddling with a cheese grater. "Patient, kind, no records of wrongs...harsh and dreadful...all right"
Perhaps the problem for me is that I still imagine much of Jesus' shinanagins as happening in kids books where he wears a bathrobe.
To really follow Jesus means to "overcome evil [and the things we encounter that are a little more benign] with good" (Rom 12:21)
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