Blogging Towards Sunday, November 7th

Luke 20:20-38

This week's passage makes me think of hazing to enter a fraternity or some sort of gauntlet to run to prove one's worth.  I'm using a larger passage than that suggested by the lectionary [Luke 20:27-38] because it gives more perspective to what I think this teaching of Jesus is lifting up.  Faith isn't merely maintaining a tradition or talking about doctrine in metaphysical or philosophically abstract ways.  Jesus is saying that faith is what we believe in, where we place our hope and what shapes the way we relate to and interact with God, our neighbor and all of the universe.  It's this approach and his interpretation of who a neighbor is and his commitment to radically inclusive nonviolence that make waves for his contemporaries.

Bumper Sticker of the Week

I saw this in the Trader Joe's parking lot this week.  It seems to sum up the general malaise and apathy that flavor not just the electorate but our culture in general.  Funny and a bit tragically sad when you think of the opinions about the next governor of our broken state.

Blogging Towards Sunday October 31

Luke 19:1-10 & John 8:31-36

FREEDOM:  

Free from what and for what?

The texts I'm choosing from the Lectionary list this week lift up several theological and philosophical themes: relationship, community, making-meaning in and of our lives, looking for a ethical/moral compass, conversion to a new way of life and thinking and freedom.  It's this last theme that most strikes me.  In our American-Idolized culture of everyone can be famous.  In the face of massive daily choices, updates and tweets that define who we are.  In the realization of the complexity of the global system in which we swim like a fish bowl, it's ironic to say that we're free when freedom is the thing that seems to most elude us.  We all want freedom yet we seem to pursue it on our own, by our own power and without any strings.

Thrill the World | Oakland

I caught the Thrill the World effort at Studio One in the Temescal today where the Bay Area Flash Mob gathered and trained any and everyone to dance the Thriller dance to Michael Jackson's song in the effort to establish a new world record.

Bumper Sticker of the Week

Blogging Towards Sunday, October 24

Psalm 65 & Luke 18:9-14

What makes a good life?  Socrates says that the unexamined one isn't worth living.  Jesus says that unless you're willing to give yours away you won't have one.  Some say that it's about dying with the most toys or living the most fully carpe diem on a daily basis.  The word GOOD is the hard part.  Does it mean pleasure?; hedonism?; alturism?; generosity?; personal growth?; satisfaction?; meaningfulness?; belonging to a community?

Public Art:

New Mural "Hidden Jewels" in the Dimond

A new mural is up in the Dimond District of Oakland, on the side of the Farmer Joe's building.  Built by local artists who also teach at Sequoia School it is an example of how public art can beautify our city - not just physically but also through connections and socially.

Tim Chapman has posted some videos and photos online at the Dimond News Site [LINK HERE].

You can also read the Mural Blog hosted by the artists: Debbie Koppman and Amanda Lockwood [HERE].

Religious Faith in Modern America

Suicides, Bill O'Reilly and Blandness

I've been overwhelmed with ideas, experiences and relational encounters in the past 2 weeks of travel, reconnecting with old friends and my brother's wedding.  In the midst of that there was the death of a relative, a cousin who went into and out of an unexplained coma, and the seemingly universal experience of divine power and unity as the Chilean miners were delivered from the darkness of their mine prison.  The election season is ramping up. I hear more and more people evoke faith for votes, self-preservation, out of fear, or in hope, than I have for a long time.  I also hear more and more people reject the faith of other people, from both the left and the right of the spectrum, asserting that their way of believing is the most orthodox or more correct.  Two videos that I discovered via Facebook posts this past week highlight the diversity in which we express our faith and also the divisiveness that faith, or religion, seems to be contributing to in our national culture.  The first is a youtube video made by Episcopal Bishop Gene Robinson of New Hampshire in response to the recent flood of suicides of despairing youth.  The second is of an episode of the View airing last week with Bill O'Reilly as guest during which the hosts of the show walk off the set.

Bumper Sticker of the Week

Blogging Backwards Towards

Sunday, October 17th

Luke 18:1-8

This parable about the persistent widow and the stubborn judge is like an onion: filled with layers.  Does it paint a picture of what God is like, as in someone who has to be talked into action?  Or is it portraying how we should relate to God: bargaining, begging, not giving up in our requests?  Or is it about something else?  Personally I think we often get lost in the parables.  They're images, metaphors, word-onions (if you will) that we're invited to wrestle with, unwrap and struggle through.  It's not just a question of figuring out what represents what.  I think we get the parable when it gets us.  It's in the struggle with the parable that we receive the good news it contains.  Maybe it's corny, but it's a bit like the onion metaphor: you struggle and tear as you work or cut through it.  It's when you're eating it, or cooking it that you realize the power, savor and flavor of the onion.

Bumper Sticker of the Week

Ungovernable and Broken:

California, The Church and Cows

My cousin Lori, a big paper and web reader, turned me on to an insightful blog article about California and our near-death insolvency.  "There's no budget, but California is all over the foreign cow issue" lifts up some terrifying aspects of the train-wreck we all seem to agree our state has become, a place in which the general population seems to becoming not merely depressed and hopeless, but deeply apathetic and uninterested in solving our problems.  "If we all focus on the budget, then we're going to crash [personally and emotionally]" said a congresswoman.  Maybe that's why so many congress members are up in arms about foreign cows being used in a Happy California Cow commercial.  Maybe that's why the governor went an made a bad cult movie with decrepit action stars [The Expendables | TRAILER] while serving our state in the past year.  Nothing better to do, I guess.  Here's the commercial.  You may need to watch it on the original site: LINK

Blogging Towards Sunday October 3, 2010

Luke 17:1-10

This week's passage is the ongoing continuation of what Jesus has been teaching since chapter 13 about discipleship and life of leadership based on following someone beyond ourselves, the tyranny of the urgent and our cultural context.  Leadership implies responsibility.  It doesn't equate earn entitlement.  Rather that in leadership, following the One from Nazareth we are changed as we change the world.  We are held responsible for our actions, not in a subservient, ego-crushing way; but rather in a life-affirming, leadership-maturing and earth-community-awareness-transforming way.  What we say and do and our relationships matter.

Bumper Sticker of the Week

Fun Music Video


It's a great Italian classic I like performed by an Irish Dance Troupe (Up & Over It)

Blogging Towards Sunday, September 26 2010

Luke 16:19-31

"Well I'll be damned!" : a funny sermon title I'm flagrantly plaguarizing for my sermon this week.  It might just be what the rich man in this parable says in the end.  Funny.  Ironic.  Painful.  Fitting.  It's all about perspective, it's what Jesus is talking about.  This rich guy never helped, let alone noticed, Lazarus laying like a sick dog on his doorstep.  He was unimportant until the rich man needed his help.  It's a bit like Ebenezer Scrooge in Dicken's A Chrismas Carol. A wealthy, arrogant man who claims to need no one, or to have anyone worthy of his friendship, until his eyes are opened to life  in general - and his life in particular - by the ghosts of Christmas past, present and future.  In this parable the scrooge character doesn't get it.  He's read and hear the Torah and Prophets every day of his life as he followed the prescriptions for good faithful living (as articulated in Deuteronomy 6:1-12).  That obviously didn't change his heart or his perspective.  Would the ghosts of Christmas, or someone returning from the dead, make any other change?

Can you leave religion & keep Christ?

Leaving the Church:  Anne Rice

For many Ann Rice isn't a name you often associate with the Christian Church.  Wildly famous for her numerous novels about vampires, she rediscovered her Christian Faith, in the Catholic Context, several years back in a time of deep grief.  She then wrote 2 novels in a planned trilogy telling the story of Jesus in the first person.  A challenging endeavor to undertake: Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt; The Road to Cana and a memoir about her spiritual transformation: Called Out of Darkness.

In August she announced that she was leaving the Church, quitting religion, but in no way renouncing Jesus the Christ, nor abandoning her life-path of discipleship.  [Belief Net Blog]  [NY Times Article]  [Christian Science Monitor Article]  The news came out in early August, yet it seems to have gone much un-noticed, being overshadowed by religious comments and conflicts around Glenn Beck [site].  She claims that she could no longer be identified with a group that she feels has little, or no, identifying links to Jesus of Nazareth, his teachings and his life.

Bumper Sticker of the Week

I saw this one last Sunday in the parking lot behind our church.  Good food for thought at the end of a week filled with debate about politics, scripture, pluralism and sacred texts.

Blogging Towards Sunday, September 19

Luke 16:1-13

The Clever Manager parable is widely regarded as one of the most difficult of Jesus to understand.  Is he wise? Shrewd?  Dishonest?  How are we to interpret it?  Having squandered the property of his boss (as the Prodigal Son scattered the inheritance of his father Luke 15:13) he is lauded as a good manager.  Is this clever steward commended by his boss or by Jesus for having reduced the debts owed to the master?  In doing so he gains favor with the indebted farmers.  He makes his boss to look like a very generous benefactor.  And he secures his position by earning new friends and making it nearly impossible for his boss to fire him without losing face among his grateful debtors.  Jesus talks about children of the world (or this time/age), encouraging children of the light to be clever in their decision-making.  It’s not about dishonesty, deceit, trickery, but rather about recognizing how things work and working in the world with a different view as the goal.  It’s not just about self-preservation or self-enrichment.  It’s about a wider vision of life, a world-view of Jubilee (based on Leviticus 25): a global vision of justice, inter-dependence, solidarity, and peace all both in the name of God and for God.

Blogging Towards Sunday, September 12

Luke 15:1-10 and 1 Timothy 1:17-21

The texts suggested by the Lectionary (a 3 year cycle through which we travel the breadth of the Bible) address the question of discipleship and grace.  We're challenged to love and live as Jesus did.  A radical invitation that seems poignantly a propos in this week of threatened Koran burning by a Florida church as we mark the 9th anniversary of the horrific destruction of September 11th and its consequences.

In the gospel according to Luke, again we see that Jesus is encountered around a meal, a celebration: with the wrong people.  Tax collectors, sinners, maybe prostitutes and gamblers: folks who were considered immoral or wrong because of their economic activities.  At the same time they were the ones with money, enough to host large meals, something that was rare and very costly in the poverty that dominated Palestine in Jesus’ day.  It’s in this setting that the parables of Luke 15 unfold: verses 3-7: the Parable of the Lost Sheep; verses 8-10 the Parable of the Lost Coin; and verses 11-31 the Parable of the Prodigal Son, also called the Parable of the Loving Father.  All follow a similar narrative structure:  something is lost.  It’s sought out.  It’s found.  A celebration occurs to mark that was was lost is found.

Bumper Sticker of the Week

Bumper Sticker of the Week

Bumper sticker of the week

I love bumper stickers:  the opportunity to be funny, ironic or poignantly observant in a phrase or word.  I find that there are a ton of great ones in the East Bay, in particular in certain parking lots such as the Big Longs and Trader Joe's by the Lake.  I'm always looking for good ones to share - one a week - and open to getting ones you've seen by email.   I've noticed that there are a lot less stickers these days: either a sign of the economic downturn, or maybe our political/social malaise.

Thanks go to Nani for this week's.

Blogging Towards Sunday, August 29th

Luke 14:1-14

Jesus is invited to a meal at the home of a prominent religious leader.  It’s like he’s been invited to be watched in some sort of paparazzi religious-examination way.  And yet ironically as the story unfolds we see that it’s actually Jesus who is doing the watching.  Like many of the gospel episodes, this one unfolds around food and the sharing of a meal: the basic experience that flavors and empowers human relationships and community.

Choosing public school      
or at least hoping to

School starts in Oakland, at least for OUSD, next Monday.  A time of excitement and anxiety, eagerness and trepidation.  In our own family our youngest will start kindergarten and has been instensly preparing though play for the big day.  Yet public school, or the challenge of choosing it in the urban jungle of the Bay Area, and Oakland in particular, is one of the things that drives Oaklandites away.  In our own travails of trying to get into a public school, other than the just-above-failing one around the corner from our home in East Oakland, led us to question staying in Oakland, our commitment to the city, public education and our children.  The problems facing urban schools are not black and white.  They can't merely be solved by throwing more money at them.  It won't change overnight.  And yet the cost of change isn't just money and time, but one's children.  The tension of being committed to your children and your city/public schools is one that goes all too often under the radar.  What happens to the middle-class, lower creative-class families in our urban areas that are too monied for help, but too poor for private school, unlucky for a charter school spot or stuck for a move to the burbs?

Blogging Towards Sunday, August 22, 2010

Jeremiah 1:4-10 and Luke 13:10-17

I was driving through the MacArthur Maze on a pilgrimage to IKEA this week and found myself stuck in traffic behind a truck with a bumper sticker reading "The problem with religion is religion."  It got me thinking, in particular about the lectionary texts for this coming Sunday (my first at a new church gig).  HYPOCRISY seems to be the big thing that people comment about in terms of problems with religion, and in particular - in our context - with Christians.  Against abortion but for the death penalty.  For the peace of Christ and the war in Iraq.  For religious freedom, but not a mosque near the former World Trade Center site.  For morality, as long as it doesn't impede one's own personal choices and options.  Where do we find the balance between faith and follow-through; between our egos and our authenticity?  The texts from Jeremiah and Luke invite us to this dialogue.

Back into the blog and a new work gig

This week I started a new job, serving as pastor with the faith community of College Avenue Presbyterian Church in the Rockridge District of Oakland.  A congregation faithfully serving the city of Oakland for over 100 years, which began in the countryside and now is in the mix of the urban context of Oakland, and is seeking to articulate and facilitate the living out of faith in what is emerging as our 21st century context and culture.

I'm reconnecting with my Monteskewed blog which had been dormant for a while as I lived in France and blogged primarily in French at ckoilafoi.wordpress.com.  I'm planning to reestablish the blog, doing what I did before - some writing on the practice of Christian faith and urban life, crazy city images, rantings and ravings and the expression of my sarcastic humor; as well as some soon to emerge new things, in particular aspects of life in and around Oakland.  If you have ideas or suggestions please be sure to share them with me through a comment.

Blogging Towards Sunday, August 1, 2010

Luke 12:13-21

In the wake of 9/11, the the burst of the mortgage bubble meltdown, Bernie Maddock ponzi schemes, and decreasing church membership roles, questions of security dominate our national, cultural  and church psyches.  How can we be safe from future terrorist attacks?  How can we be financially secure when everything seems to anything but?  Can life be sure and secure?  And how does faith through Christ fit into our wonderings.  Trust in God, is the answer.  Yet while it's easy to recite, it's often much harder to live day to day.

Blogging Towards Sunday, July 18, 2010

Luke 10:38-42 | Colossians 1:15-29

We read the scriptures as a community each week as a practice that shapes us and sends us; a big story that frames our way of seeing, being and believing.  What does it mean to be a follower of Jesus?  What does that look like?  This week's gospel lesson, as always, offers direction.  Clear, concise, to the point, but also a bit vague, we often tend to oversimplify it in our reading.  Mary is the good one.  Martha is wrong.  She should have listened to the words of Jesus instead of working so hard.  A black and white answer for life that is more grey than two-tone.

Martha is doing what is required, preparing and offering hospitality, fitting of her guest - paramount in the cultural context both then and still today, of the Middle East.  Doesn't Jesus criticize the Pharisee who hosts him yet doesn't wash his feet, leaving the task to the tears of the mysterious woman [Luke 7]?  Doesn't Jesus himself use this task of hospitality (washing the feet of a guest) as a pedagogical experience to show the disciples what it means to serve one another [John 13]?  While we do need to first receive the gospel, it is most often by our actions, presence, relationships - and hospitality - that we reflect what we have received.  So it can't simply be an existential choice of being like Mary or being like Martha.

Blogging Towards Sunday, June 27

Luke 9:51-62 [The Message]

"Discipleship places heavy demands on followers of Jesus.  The way Jesus takes involves and unprotected mission, a clear choice about priorities, and a clean break with the past."  [quote from my studies this week].  Luke 9 is the beginning of the end: Jesus heading towards Jerusalem, knowing that his way of love, life and liberation will most likely lead towards a cross than a coronation celebration.  In a sense it's the beginning (in the next chapters) of what we might call "Jesus' Following Instructions for Dummies and Disciples."

Oakland is gone.

A funny photo I received a while back, portraying the Imperial Power of Star Wars, having vanquished Oakland moving across the bay to attack San Francisco.  I guess that it could be one way to deal with budget cuts that no one wants to tackle.

Pentecost : the next church revolution

Emergent.  Transformation.  Post-modern.  Changing.  Gen X. 21st Century Church.  Hot catch phrases, often thrown around with the intent of sparking interest and justifying ones church credentials (or lack thereof).  Yet maybe these current buzz words about the shifting relationship between church and culture merely serve to say a lot without really saying anything at all?

The text for Sunday, according to the Lectionary, is the story of Pentecost [Acts 2:1-13].  The birth-story of the church community.  From the beginning multi-cultural, trans-national, inter-generational, and gender-inclusive; this community of faith was not just about preaching to the masses, but also listening to what is going on.

Bumper Sticker of the Week

Bumper Sticker of the Week

I might be time to moveon to another bumper sticker.  

I think that this ship has sailed.

Oakland Marathon (virtual)

The Oakland Marathon [site] is coming soon - March 27th! - a chance for Oakland to be in the spotlight - and for many folks to see more than just the crime and gun-driven side of the city.  Here's a cool e-recreation of the marathon route. [East Bay Express Article]

VIDEO

Bumper Sticker of the Week

The past few weeks I saw a lot of similar bumperstickers.  Not sure if it's wishful thinking in a difficult time, a deepening political polarization, or selective memory of past budget deficits.

Bumper Sticker of the Week

Blogging Towards Sunday, February 28, 2010

Luke 9:28-36 | Genesis 15:1-12, 17-18

The two texts proposed by the lectionary list for this day talk about theophany (the theological-ese word for "the auto or self-revelation of God."  They relate the identification of Jesus in a miraculously theological way as the Messiah, the Son of God; and also God concluding the covenant with Abraham.  The disciples don't get what's happening, even when they realize that the heavens are open, that the divine voice identifies Jesus as the One, their response reveals that they don't really grasp what that means for them in the moment or for the world in general.  They want to build a house to stay there, maybe some sort of tabernacle so that this moment can be preserved forever.  Yet Jesus is calling them - and is called himself - into the world, to action, to radical loving that transforms all through nonviolent acts of grace, compassion and justice - to practice resurrection in daily life.

Bumper Sticker of the Week

OK.  This isn't a sticker (I've run out of e-files of them) yet it's a hilarious image from a friend's facebook page.  It recalls a very funny moment on the Ellen show last year.  One that still makes me chuckle when I think of it.  I actually had a handful of thoughtful conversations about faith and life because of the show .  I think we tend to overlook the ways in which pop culture - even bumperstickers - can invite to discussion not simply proclaim one's values or moral sense.

Love: Cupid or Stupid?

Living cross-culturally always provides for insight, discovery and cultural challenge.  Culture is so much an innate part of the basic fabric of our lives that we don't always see it, nor can we be aware of it.  Valentine's Day is a big thing in America.  True - like in Europe - it's a money-maker for restaurants, florists and other commercial activities.  Yet the now-traditional and historically-exaggerated celebration of the Martyr Valentine isn't just about lovers, over-priced roses or reserving a table months in advance.  It's about love, saying it, expressing it, celebrating it.  This year our children have been decorating for weeks, making cards, boxes to receive Valentine's all the familiar kid things that happen in America and yet are so foreign here in France.  So we had a giant celebration with yesterday at home with about 8 cupcakes for each person.  Here in France, it's purely commercial, for lovers, seen as something that cheapen,s, consumerises and cheapifys love.  Yet maybe the international, and multi-cultural visions of Valentine's Day are actually revelatory of the ways in which love has been commodified, capitalized and codified in our cultures.

Advertising & Faith

I read an interesting article in SF Gate this morning detailing a current ad campaign "good without God?" (now playing in and around Sacramento after previous stops elsewhere) that is "plugging" atheism.  The article is interesting.  The best part for me was to read the comments and see the inter-faith bickering, name-calling and fighting. It made me wonder: can you actually advertise faith, or non-faith?  Does it even matter, or reach anyone?  Or is it merely preaching to the choir and rallying the troops around the flag-pole?

Here's some of the billboards in and around Sactown.

Blogging Towards Sunday February 14, 2010

Luke 6:17-26 | 1 Corinthians 15:12-20

What is life about?  How do you live a good life?  What is a good life?  Jesus offers a vision of a nonviolent world of peace, fullness and God-centered-ness in his beatitude teaching, as Luke tells it.  Paul talks about resurrection and how it informs and forms faith.  It's hard to know what "blessed" means in a world in which blessings are associated with brief pre-dinner prayers, year-end compensation, or miraculous salvation from sickness and disaster.  Can you be blessed in everyday life?

Blogging Towards Sunday February 7th

Isaiah 6:1-8 | Luke 5:1-11

Stories about our vocation to the mission we have as the people of God is what dominates the texts for Sunday.  Isaiah is called to serve as prophet, not to tell the future, but to speak God's word for the present, to give a different perspective to those around him.  His response is one of availability "here I am" to be used for God and to part from his past into and towards a new or emerging future "send me."

Luke tells his version of the miraculous fish-catch encounter as one of vocation of the first disciples.  Jesus comes to them, in their terms and on their turf to invite them to step out, to set their boats towards deeper waters, beyond the safety of the shoreline, to cast their nets in unfamiliar ways.  They're called to reprioritize their life, leaving behind the abundant catch of fish for the risk and potential of the unknown future of following after Jesus.  They're encouraged to try again, to despite their potential disgust, despair or disappointment with their lack of catching anything until then, to try again.

Bumper Sticker of the Week

This is my last one for a while.  (Thanks Nani!) I've run out.

If you see any good ones, email me a photo!

Blogging Backwards towards January 31

Luke 4:21-30 and 1 Corinthians 12:31-13:13

The passages proposed for Sunday play with the themes of hearing, seeing and recognizing the presence of God and the living Word of God in our lives both individual and together as the community of faith.

I found this funny image while surfing the internet that illustrates the paradox of the texts:

Bumper Sticker of the Week

I see this one a lot.

Blogging Towards Sunday January 24, 2010

Luke 4:14-21 and 1 Corinthians 12:12-31

What does God want to for the world?  How is/does God accomplish it?  What does that have to do with us?  In the wake of the earthquake in Haiti we ask ourselves the questions that resound through the limitations of our humanity: who are we?  is there a God? what's the connection?

Is Food the Future?:

Alice Waters and the scope of education

SF Gate recently ran an article about Alice Waters [The Scavenger blog], and specifically an Atlantic Magazine article [Cultivating Failure] criticizing her foray of the slow food movement into politics, specifically elementary education in America.  Is prioritizing the teaching of sustainable gardening and cooking to kids in school taking the place of the teaching of mathematics, English, science or other arts?  In a time of slash and burn education budgets is she wasting limited resources in view of teaching children an upper-class Bay Area-ite foodie culture practiced by the prius-driving latte-drinking über crust of our society?  Or is she as she would claim a sort of centurion for truth and justice fighting against the titan-like governator in Sacramento?

Marriage Equality: talking from beyond our polarization.

The definition of marriage in terms of legal rights, institutional definition, and constitutional ramifications continue to be a large topic in our ongoing dialogue about religion, church practice and what it means to be American in 2010.  This weeks' edition of Newsweek contains an article that is quickly making the rounds on Facebook and becoming a topic of great conversation.  "The Conservative Case for Gay Marriage" [includes a video] by Theodore B. Olson.  What makes the article so interesting is the fact that the author writes from a perspective that would seemingly be associated with an opposite viewpoint: a Republican actively working for Marriage Equality.

Bumper Sticker of the Week

Blogging Towards Sunday, January 17th

John 2:1-12

Water into wine: is that a big deal?  It almost doesn't seem to be when you read the gospel text for this coming Sunday.  No one draws attention to the sign or miracle - that Jesus performs at the wedding he is attending with his friends and family in Cana.  It's only when the wine is tasted that the miracle is revealed. It seems like there are two conclusions to the story: the first in verse 10 - a remark that the best wine was surprisingly served last (post-Jesus-intervention) and then a second one in verse 11 - by the narrator telling the story, informing us that the real miracle was that the disciples put their faith in Jesus and believed.  So what is the miracle: the water into wine, or the 5 disciples present moving from followers to believers?

Are GLEEks racists?

I read this fantastically surprising article about racism in Glee on colorlines.com:  [Is Glee off Key on Race?] talking about how liberals often get it so wrong, possessing and re-iterating the same basic racist perspectives underneath what they claim to be race-neutral.  While I'm a fan of the show, and laugh hardest with Sue does her uncomfortably inappropriate hyper-racist ranting, you do have to wonder if and how the show does belittle the minority characters and their travails - how it all might contribute to furthering the very stereotypes that it's - supposedly - seeking to deconstruct.  Or maybe it's all just about good fun and the either naive or bleeding-heart-optimistic hope that we all can "make it."  What's tragic, in terms of our society, when you stop and really think is that many of the charaters won't "make it" - yet the quarterback and pregnant chastity-queen cheerleader most likely will.  Granted - reality television - is anything but what the names implies.  Who wants to watch the reality we live on tv for entertainment.  Yet at what point does entertainment we take in to escape life, become a force that shapes the life we live the next day?

Tolerance and faith sharing in a pluralist society: 
is it possible?

Brit Hume - Tiger Woods - Jesus and the Bouhdda

I awoke today wot some interesting news about Brit Hume, an ex-FOX news anchor sharing publicly some religious advice to Tiger Woods, encouraging to embrace Christianity and to let go of his bouhddist background.  Here's a news clip of the moment:



Can you say such things?  Can you say them publicly?  Is Hume being intolerant, belittling one faith to proselytize with his own?  To what point can we go in terms of talking about faith and positively encouraging it?  What is the line between sharing your faith and hope in a personal context and proselytizing in a superioristic way?  Is it merely the religious (fundamentally the Christian one) perspective that is intolerant? and/or can you argue that a secularist perspective can become fundamentalist, extremist and intolerant as well?  Where do you, where can you draw the lines in a pluralist society that seeks not to control but to value its diversity and the parts that make up the whole?
[Washington Post article by Michael Gerson].

Blogging Towards Sunday January 10, 2009

Luke 3:15-22

Who are we and how do we define ourselves?  In a sense that's the question that I hear this passage about the baptism of Jesus and the conclusion of John the Baptizer's ministry ask.  In a world in which we're most often defined by our job, our wealth (or lack of), our passport, or our education.  In a world in which our identity can be stolen from our mailbox or our credit card, Christianity offers a different path.  We are because we're in relationship.

Bumper Sticker of the Week

OK, this isn't a bumper sticker.  But is just too funny to not use.

Oakland in the News as a Marijuana Mecca

I caught up on some www news cruising today and ran across a video - supposedly one of the bests of original films of 2009 - on newsweek.com talking about and fearturing Oakland as a "marijuana mecca" and a, if not the, primary model that other cities are looking towards in America.  Interesting view, with lots of local celebrities, if you haven't seen it or are even just vaguely interested.  Granted it's dated October...but I'm slowly catching up on Oaktown news.