Merry Christmas!

“Setting aside whether it’s socially acceptable to talk on the phone in the john, dropping one there is usually considered “negligent” by the insurance companies, according to Bennett.”

The difference between politics here and Europe: “Maybe I became too sensitive to that or too cautious about it, but I just came to the conclusion that if I started talking about God it was going to be difficult.”

This made national headlines: Praying for the auto industry.

“How do we regulate something where we have different moral ideas from the public?”

This article is interesting, sad, and disturbing: “The U.S. military knows that desecration of the Qur’an leads to hunger strikes and suicide attempts, that playing “The Star-Spangled Banner” over the call to prayer is demoralizing. But they seem not to have considered the long-term effects of such tactics.”

SSM: The debate rages on, and lines are being drawn.

Chuck Colson weighs in on Hot Rod’s downfall: ” Tragically, America is continuing to rear its young to become not only self-obsessed, but obsessed with personal power.”

- It’s been great to be with family. My parents moved into a beautiful new house; there’s lots of space for the grandkids to run around! (Or in Aidan’s case, crawl around). It took him a few days, but Aidan seems to have settled right in. As usual, he’s enjoying all the attention, and he seems to really enjoy his cousins (and so do we!).

-The physical jet lag is gone, but the mental jet lag persists. My mind is at least partially still in Amsterdam. It was such a bizarre, rushed, exit. Reverse culture shock and all that. I’m excited to go to California, but it’s hard to think much beyond that.

-The economy is seemingly doing much worse here than in Europe, at least based on the media coverage here. It’s sad to hear about so many people losing jobs, and the predictions I’ve read seem to be saying that things are going to be difficult for a while yet to come. I’m wondering how much this should factor into our decisions about the future.

-My wireless stopped working (another reason for the lack of posts). I think I narrowed it down to a problem with Microsoft Vista; apparently there are some compatibility issues with certain wireless routers. I haven’t been one to jump on the “I hate Vista” bus, but this may push me over the edge. We’ve had so many wireless/connectivity issues since we got our current laptop-I’ve wasted a lot of time trying to fix something that shouldn’t be broken in the first place. Granted, I’m not an expert in these things, but I’m starting to wonder if Vista really is the culprit behind it all. I never had that these problems with XP. (But that’s what they all say.)

-It’s been amusing to be in Illinois while the Hot Rod crashed. There’s not much sympathy for the guy in our house. It will be interesting to see how many people the Gov. takes down with him.

-We are looking forward to Aidan’s first birthday! He was born on Christmas Eve, which I think makes it trickier to celebrate (but Becka disagrees). Thankfully, we have at least this year to figure it out before he starts remembering his birthdays. Mostly I’m looking forward to seeing his face when he tastes cake for the first time.

-If this is true, then all I can say to Rick Warren is, “How could you?” I really like the guy; I watched a great video of him from TED a few days ago. It’s worth your time. He is a world class communicator. He’s also done a reasonable job thus far of staying neutral and has therefore avoided being used by either political party, much like Billy Graham. But the pacifist (albeit an uncertain and confused one) within me cringes when people like him say stuff like this. Its one thing to suggest it might be in the United States’ best interest to assassinate someone, but suggesting that God approves of it and condones it!? Seriously, where in the NT is there evidence that 1.) Jesus/God favors one government over another or 2.) Jesus defeats evil or evil people by KILLING them. I kind of thought it was the other way around: evil is defeated by the cross, which stands for something altogether different than the sword. What happened to PEACE? It comes down to how we read the bible. Do we give more authority to the life of David, or the life of Christ?

-I just finished a great book on depression. Here is one of many thought-provoking passages; about travel and choice anxiety:

In political terms, freedom is often burdensome, which is why transitions out of dictatorship often cause depression. In personal terms, slavery and excessive freedom are both oppressive realities, and while some part of the world is paralyzed by the narrow despair of inescapable poverty, the more developed nations are paralyzed by the very mobility of their populations, by the twenty-first-century nomadism of constantly pulling up roots and resettling to accommodate jobs and relationships and fancy. A writer addressing this problem tells the story of a boy whose family had moved five times in a short period, who hanged himself from an oak in the backyard, leaving a note pinned to the tree that said, “This is the only thing around here that has any roots.” The feeling of perpetual disruption holds for the jetting executive who visits thirty countries in an average year, and the middle-class city dweller whose job keeps getting redescribed as his company is bought out time and again and who does not know from year to year who will work for him or for whom he will work, or for the person living alone and encounters different checkout staff every time he goes grocery shopping. In 1957, the average American supermarket had sixty-five items in the produce section: shoppers knew and had had each of them before. In 1997, an average American supermarket had over three hundred items in the produce section, with many markets pushing a thousand. You are in the realm of uncertainty even when you select your own dinner. This kind of escalation of choices is not convienent; it is dizzying. When similar choices present themselves in every area-where you live, what you do, what you buy, whom you marry-the result is a collective uneasiness that explains much, in my view, about the rising rates of depression in the industrialized world. (The Noonday Demon by Andrew Solomon, p.408-409)

- This passage resonated with me because I’ve experienced what he describes; the uneasiness; many times as we’ve moved from place to place. For example, when we first arrived in the States I went to Meijer and was nearly crippled by the hundreds of choices for any given item. I had to get a toothbrush and I just stood there for five minutes staring at all the options. But the strange thing was that I actually felt anxiety. I heard of a missionary (of a nationality other than American) who refuses to go into Walmart when he is teaching here because the last time he went in it nearly caused a nervous breakdown! I love crossing borders and boundaries, but it requires grace. (Although my conclusion after finishing this book is that life in general requires grace.)

]]> http://earthsedge.org/2008/12/12/random-roundup/feed/ http://earthsedge.org/2008/12/06/linking-the-week-41/ http://earthsedge.org/2008/12/06/linking-the-week-41/#comments Sat, 06 Dec 2008 15:36:25 +0000 chris http://earthsedge.org/?p=1070 Greg Boyd on open theism and unfulfilled prophicies in the Bible.

Funny.

Attractional or Missional? As one of the commenters points out, does it have to be either/or?

“There is,” Layard tells us, “a paradox at the heart of our lives. Most people want more income and strive for it. Yet as Western societies have got richer, their people have become no happier.”

Slow Blogging.

Disturbing.

Anglican split in N. America.

Boredom (on airplanes) is the mother of barf bags and iphones.

Missional: Watch this.

How did I miss this? Given all the beer and snags consumed down under, this is only a minor surprise. But still a surprise.

“Our community thinks we are pirates getting illegal money. But we consider ourselves heroes running away from poverty.”

The Smithsonian has an interesting site on Africa.

I like this quote, on career and vocation.

The Age of Mass Intelligence: “Surely both things are happening at once: part of the population is dumbing down, part is wising up. But something has changed.”

Review: The Best of All Possible Worlds.

Facebook Connect.

Missionary

Missional.

For those of you who have an interest in Christian mission/s I encourage you to read through some of the articles on this page. It’s a great resource/introduction to some of the key concepts that gather around the word “missional.” There are a lot of other great resources on the web, but this is a good starting point.

The Brick Testament: a lego illustrated Bible. Bizarre, creative, and possibly sacrilegious. He must have a lot of time on his hands. Check out the story of Job-I’ve never seen legos used like that before. I like this warning at the bottom:

The Bible contains material some may consider morally objectionable and/or inappropriate for children. These labels identify stories containing:

= nudity  = sexual content  = violence   = cursing

Obama and the internet.

This is one thing that I really miss about Africa-familiar objects being used in unfamiliar ways.

Who owns the West? Wow, interesting.

“Physical purification, in other words, produces a more relaxed attitude to morality. Perhaps it is no coincidence that Pontius Pilate is portrayed in the Bible as washing his hands of the decision to crucify Jesus.”

Free books online.

“Most of what happens in Christian churches, including even the miracles, can be duplicated in Hindu and Muslim congregations. But in my area only Christians strive, however ineptly, to mix men and women of different castes, races, and social groups. That’s the real miracle.”

Aidan did great on the flights-just played and slept. But we were all glad when it was over!

We’re in IL now; enjoying time with family, adjusting to life back in America, and trying to get over our jetlag. Aidan is loving all the space (and toys!) at Grandma and Grandpa’s, and yesterday he had his first taste of turkey.

My friend Mohand, who is a bike-whiz of sorts, reconstructed it from various pieces he found abandoned in a trash bin. It looks awful (the above picture is flattering), but it actually rides very nicely. It’s only flaw is that the front brakes don’t work, and the back brakes don’t work very well. This always made for interesting riding. I was going to fix them but I just never got around to it.

I especially love this important detail:

The good old Torpedo shifter. The funny thing is that the bike doesn’t have any gears; it’s a one-speeder. But I never could figure out where the cable went to-it just disappears into the frame. Imagine my disappointment when I pulled the lever and no torpedos came flying out.