Age of Decay in Food and the Environment

Posted on July 4, 2012 by PaulVK

We waste a huge portion of the food we produce. Food production is a huge segment of release of greenhouse gasses. The discarded food that rots in landfills adds more greenhouse gasses via methane. It’s decay all around.

CNN Article

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Messy Middle postings on cultural awareness

Posted on July 3, 2012 by PaulVK

I don’t remember where I first found her blog (probably through Rachel Held Evan’s blog), but it’s a good one. She’s a Christian expat living in China. I’m always interested in gospel and culture issues (given my own experience in multiple sub cultures) and she writes well about this. Here is a post on “5 lessons I’ve learned living cross-culturally” which was excellent. I’ll scrape her list as a teaser but click through to read them.

  1. You never know how X you are until you go to Y
  2. The biggest change will occur in you, no in those you interact with
  3. There will be unintended consequences for your presence — both good and bad
  4. There will be a cost
  5. It is worth it

I haven’t read any of her books in Pt. 1, heard about some of them but they look good.

Posted in Culture commentary, Daily Links and Notes | 1 Comment

Ideological Motivations Behind Dems and Reps

Posted on July 3, 2012 by PaulVK

Interesting piece from Forbes on which values pitch motivates Republicans and which motivates Democrats. The study notes that Republican values revolve around respect for authority, loyalty, traditions and purity while Dems tend to revolve around equality and protection from harm.

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Getting Burned without Scars of the Self

Posted on June 30, 2012 by PaulVK

Nice blog post by Amy Young on “How to treat a burn when it’s relational”

I left this comment. I read her blog after working on my Heidelberg Catechism on the Fifth Commandment.

I’m teaching the Heidelberg Catechism this week for my Adult Sunday School class and this week’s lesson is on the Fifth Commandment: “Honor your father and your mother so that you may live long in the land which the Lord your God is giving you.”

It’s commonly a thorny commandment for many because of relational burns received by parents. How can one parent and not burn your children or at least have your children feel burned at some point?

The catechism expands the commandment to include “all in authority over us” and proceeds to assume their failings in their actions “to correct and punish” us. This greatly expands the list of perps with flaming sticks and hot brands.

For those unfamiliar with the catechism the section of “the law” falls not under “Misery”, the opening section, but under “Gratitude”, the final section. The Christian life does not flow out of duty or fear but rather joy and freedom.

I think the commandments and catechism might suggest we amend the list to include an article about honoring and/or continuing to treat those who have burned us with respect. This is so counter-cultural, counter-intuitive, so unnatural. This I think we are admonished to consider (motivated by joy and freedom again, not duty or fear) for our own health.

If hurt people hurt people, then burned people burn people. We live in a long list of burned people turning to burn others, knowingly or instinctively.

The largest thief of joy is bitterness and bitterness so easily infects our burns. If the antidote to monetary greed is financial generosity, then the antidote to bitterness is relational generosity. Refusing to demean our enemy’s character in public is the outward expression of a refusal to nurse a grievance in private. This is long and difficult self-work.

When relational burns take up residence in our selves they do so as scars and the irritation of a scarred self passes bitter fruit to others so I’ll recommend this addition to your fine list.

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The American Values Survey

Posted on June 29, 2012 by PaulVK

Poll done by the Atlantic.

“21 Charts that Explain America’s Values”

Longer version of it here. 

A Rod Dreher reaction. 

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The “Having it all Discussion”

Posted on June 29, 2012 by PaulVK

Launched by The Atlantic article “Why Women Still Can’t Have it All”

  • Salon response: “We should immediately strike the phrase “have it all” from the feminist lexicon and never, ever use it again.”
  • “Sad white babies with mean feminist mommies”
  • Got these great links from “The Week“
  • Keli Goff on Huffpo talks about women who don’t want to have children.  “Being childless doesn’t make on family-less.” This embodies perhaps the greatest contradiction of 21st century feminism. Women are constantly reminded that we have more choices than any generation before us, and therefore our success is said to be very much in our hands. Yet the messages we are bombarded with don’t really highlight that much choice at all. As Slaughter pointed out, women who choose time with their families over career advancement are viewed as letting down the feminist sisterhood, but as Slaughter failed to acknowledge, women who choose not to have children are viewed as another species altogether. You could call them anti-feminine. In other words, there are bosses who are hesitant to promote women of childbearing or childrearing years because they worry that woman will be unable to put in the hours. By the same token if a woman doesn’t marry or have children by a certain age — even if it’s by her choice — that same boss is likely to presume that woman is defective in some way.”
  • Stephanie Coontz: Why is ‘having it all’ just a women’s issue? “ In fact, according to the New York-based Families and Work Institute, men now report even higher levels of work-family conflict than women do.It was a great victory for gender equality when people finally stopped routinely saying “she’s awfully good at her job — for a woman.” The next big step forward will be when people stop saying, “It’s awfully tough to balance work and family — for a woman.” It’s tough for men and women. We need to push for work-family practices and policies that allow individuals to customize their work lives according to their changing individual preferences and family obligations, not just their traditional gender roles.”


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Why the Resurrection is Disruptive

Posted on June 29, 2012 by PaulVK

A pattern has developed in the book of Acts of getting rid of Paul. Paul is not a zealot knifing Roman solders and officials. Paul is not a revolutionary leader, gathering together men willing to bring commotion in the street. What Paul is doing is traveling through cities in the eastern Roman empire, getting together with Jews and Gentiles who gather in the Diaspora synagogues to make a few theological points:

  • That Jesus of Nazareth is the anointed one (Messiah) of Yhwh (The creator god of the Hebrews revealed in the Hebrew Scriptures) sent to deliver not only the Jews from Roman military and cultural domination, but to deliver all of humanity from the age of decay.
  • That the mission of this Jesus of Nazareth was not to lead a military insurgency (as popularly imagined) but rather to lead us all through his path of suffering into the resurrection of a new creation
  • That this Jesus has already passed through the resurrection and he calls us to follow him into his suffering, his death and his resurrection

Paul’s mission is not fruitless. In many of the cities he visits he leaves groups who believe that these things are true. They gather together for prayer, for the breaking of bread in obedience and remembrance of Jesus, for further teaching, and to embody together Jesus’ way of life empowered by the promised Holy Spirit.

The irony of the process is that the tools that Paul will not use, political bullying, gathering together of men available to cause unrest in the streets, and assassination are all employed against him. Paul becomes a literal persona non grata in many of these cities.

It is clear that part of the reason for resisting Paul is simply the desire of the present leadership to maintain their own positions of preference and power. It is clear that these very common motivations are moving both synagogue and civic leadership to get Paul out of these towns just to preserve the peace, the status quo, and the order they are invested in. There is something deeper though. The message of the resurrection is disruptive at a far deeper level than it immediately appears. The synagogue leaders and the civil leaders are not being petty or dim in opposing this.  Continue reading →

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Making Paul Go Away

Posted on June 29, 2012 by PaulVK

In Paul’s second missionary journey a definite pattern emerges. It isn’t so much a pattern of his enemies. If you’re keeping score Luke is remarkably even handed here with respect to the opposition. Sometimes Jews side with Paul or come to faith, sometimes they oppose him and behave badly. Sometimes the Romans are subject to political manipulation and commit injustice, often they are even handed and judicious in the use of their power. What is constant in Paul’s run through the towns of what is today Turkey and Greece is the desire to just make Paul go away. Continue reading →

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Links from reading the Atlantic Today

Posted on June 28, 2012 by PaulVK
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Your Third Person Self, Clothed and Naked

Posted on June 28, 2012 by PaulVK

(Sorry, the video won’t play embedded. Click through to youtube to get a sense of it. You probably won’t need to watch the whole thing.)

Sexy Me vs. Plain Me 

This video is a fun experiment in our rebellion against the obvious. Looks matter.

Would looks matter to you if you couldn’t recognize your self in a mirror? What if you could recognize your self in a mirror but didn’t have any awareness that others had a mind with which to see you or that it mattered. Continue reading →

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