christianity: business or body
Posted on | November 14, 2009 | No Comments
Christianity started in Palestine as a fellowship; it moved to Greece and became a philosophy; it moved to Italy and became an institution; it moved to Europe and became a culture; it came to America and became an enterprise. An enterprise – that’s a business. Isn’t it supposed to be a body? And if a body becomes a business don’t we call that prostitution?
HT – David Ryser
excerpt from “the corporation”
Posted on | July 29, 2009 | No Comments
Here’s a chapter from the documentary “The Corporation”
quotable quote
Posted on | July 29, 2009 | 1 Comment
In 1935 Eberhard Arnold wrote
Personal piety has become widespread, but unfortunately it is confined to what could be called purely religious experience, which cannot stand before God. Many of these exclusively religious movements have arisen in recent years, confining themselves to preaching and personal confessions of faith, to a private experience of the Saviour and a very limited personal sanctification. However much we rejoice that people are awakened to a love for Jesus, that they experience forgiveness of sin in his death on the cross, we must state that Christ’s love and the meaning of his death on the cross are not fully understood if they are restricted to the individual’s subjective experience of salvation. It was to be foreseen years ago that the influence of modern theology…is bound to have the effect of minimizing social responsibility.
hens in the hotspot
Posted on | May 27, 2009 | No Comments
Nearly a month and a half ago, Saheeb and Schirlyn of the DigIt! Program said goodbye to their small flock of egg-laying hens. According to a city ordinance, the hens had to go or DigIt would be facing a hefty fine. The DigIt! Program employs and trains city youth in urban agriculture, healthy lifestyles, and leadership and business skills – all in our unlikely neighborhood of southeast Lancaster. Allowing the teens to care for the small flock of birds was an effort to encourage sustainability, food quality/safety, and greening our city.
For some, including myself, the story is not over. A handful of us have been working with Saheeb and Schirlyn to raise awareness and eventually appeal to City Council to change the ordinance that controls the possession of backyard hens. You are invited to join us this Saturday (May 30) from 2-4 PM at the Ad Lib Cafe for a community meeting to learn about the potential benefits of allowing backyard hens and to learn about how it could become a reality in Lancaster. We’ve invited Karen Davis, PhD., author of Prisoned Chickens, Poisoned Eggs, to be our guest speaker.
Spread the word, come and show your support, sign a petition, and buy chicken lollipops for the kids to help offset our costs.
Tags: chickens > eggs > green living > hens > sustainability > urban agriculture
seeds of life
Posted on | April 9, 2009 | No Comments
For nearly a year now, I’ve had a growing interest in heirloom gardening and seedsaving. My interest has been driven by several factors. Namely, global food security issues, biodiversity and permaculture, pre-industrial methods of agriculture, corporate monopolies and domination of the the food supply, and the declining nutrient value in the food supply. I’ve also followed (with growing interest) the GMO debate and how that parallels other issues like exporting capitalism.
In my observation and learning, I keep bumping into the name Vandana Shiva – especially as it relates to her work as a seed activist and a fiery critic of the Monsanto Corporation. Recently I came across an interesting article that summarizes a bit of why she so adamantly supports seedsaving and heirloom varieties.
This year, I got all excted at the first sign of spring and stocked up on heirloom seeds from Landis Valley Museum’s heirloom seed project. I plan to buy heirloom plants at their spring sale. What I’m even more excited about is some German Stripe tomato plants I started from seed. This has got to be one of the best tasting tomato varieties I’ve ever eaten. Last summer, a friend introduced me to them, and I saved a bunch of seeds. If all goes well, I’ll harvest my first crop of tomatoes from last years seed.
Tags: biodiversity > gmo > heirloom tomatoes > monsanto > permaculture > seed justice > seed patents > tomatoes
2009 winner for best marketing bungle
Posted on | March 20, 2009 | 2 Comments
So maybe thinking I’d have time to post regularly this winter was a big oversight. Blog writing is just one of those plates that just doesn’t stay spinning. It’s a joke, really, always picking it off the stage like this and giving it another spin. Kind of bad for the show.
But that’s not the best joke out there right now. McDonald’s is hilarious. Their latest billboard ad campaign had me kickin’. Next to a frothy cup of seductive hot drink, their corporate message to the world is “Rich, so you don’t have to be.”
Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you for the reassurance that public interest has finally trumped profiteering. It’s so good to know I have a big brother dressed in red and yellow that will always be rich so it doesn’t matter if I’m poor. In fact, I’m rather fond of the roles, and it’s good to know big brother is doing all he can to keep the roles like they are. Kinda like the other big brother I have dressed in white and blue with “always low prices.” You know, what would we do without them? I mean all the cheap stuff and jobs they provide – what did we really think we had back before they existed? The ways my big brothers help the little guys even have some pretty cool names like mcdonaldization, walmarting, disneyfication, and cocacolonization.
This is irony at it’s best (or worst). You know, the disparity between the rich and the poor is now greater in America than any other nation on earth. We used to brag about the opposite. Not any more. Not with Disney’s CEO making as much money in an hour as it would take a Disney garment maker in Bangladesh 210 years to make.
So social reformers are crying their heads off along with the political and monetary reformers. And the common folk are bored to death of all those editorials that hint of anything with “crisis” in the headline. Social and political reform might not be a bad place to start. Monetary reform might be an even better place to start, especially if it has anything to do with redoing 1913. But I think Chris Hedges is most right when he says, “At this point, Henry Paulson can’t save us, but Dorothy Day can.”
Now here’s some down home irony. In a couple weeks, I hope to participate with friends in the annual fundraising walk for the Hershey Ronald McDonald House. Why? Because they offered care and hospitality to my family a year ago when our son Brennan spent a week in the Hershey Medical Center. I’ll never forget what it meant to me. And yes, a likeness of my big brother sat in the entry way. And no, the whole ordeal didn’t convince us to eat at McDonalds or to say that corporate injustice and crappy food is forgiven in the face of corporate benevolence. It just convinced us that it’s not worth demonizing anybody, because all have a potential for good.
I wonder when there will be a local fundraising walk for the Dorothy Day House. Maybe what the Catholic Worker Movement does speaks for itself.
Tags: corporate injustice > dorothy day > hershey medical center > mcdonaldization > McDonalds > poverty > public interest > ronald mcdonald house > wealth disparity
love your neighbor
Posted on | July 22, 2008 | No Comments
I recently read Randy White’s inspiring and thought-provoking book Journey to the Center of the City. Here are some spin-off thoughts from my reading of the book:
1. Love of neighbor is stimulated by relational involvement.
2. Love of neighbor leads to identifying needs in a neighborhood and identifying pre-existing resources in the neighborhood to meet those needs.
3. Awareness of neighborhood resources leads to treating neighbors as partners in the healing of the neighborhood.
4. We are called not only to be agents of renewal in our fractured and fragmented neighborhoods, but also called to respond to the work God would do through our neighborhood in us.
5. True love of neighbor lives in close proximity with need, willing to embrace the awkwardness and inconveniences of serving others.
6. The greatest security risk in the multi-faceted dangers of our neighborhoods is the fear that keeps a person from risking love of neighbor.
Another great book I started reading then lost is Robert Lupton’s Compassion, Justice, and the Christian Life. In it, he asks long overdue questions about charitable efforts, human dignity, and love of neighbor in urban America.
I wish living this stuff out would look as cute and concise as the above points. Like what do you do when you come downstairs in the morning to find your homeless (and unbearably impossible and hopeless) friend sacked out on the couch because you forgot to lock the front door?
??
Tags: community development > homelessness > love > neighbor > poverty > urban renewal
commodified consumer worship
Posted on | July 8, 2008 | 1 Comment
breathe
Posted on | June 22, 2008 | No Comments
Breathe
Breathe
Your holy hush
On anxious souls
Your healing breeze
Into open wounds
Your violent wind
Your ripping gale
To undo wrappings
That keep You out
Surrounding Presence
Creating, redeeming
Breathe
Breathe
Field of the dead
Lifeless dry bones
A hopeless scene
Can we live again?
Dead men walking
Until You…
I’m hangin’ on
Last leaf to fall
I love the wind
That blows where it wants
Rebirth on the way
Because You…
An endless winter
Of ice-cold dreams
Frozen friendships
Spring thaw is coming
Years in the waiting
For You to…
The world ain’t good
It’s what they say
Bound for the trash heap
But it’s just not true
Creative Presence
Because You…
gentrification in philly
Posted on | June 22, 2008 | No Comments
There have been some worrisome connections between anti-gentrification activism and recent illegal arrests in Philly. Read some of the scoop here
and here