CellAlert.org is off to Berkeley!

Hey, remember my friend from a few posts ago, with the non-profit that was competing for a grant? Well, he wanted to say thanks! Here's Israel:

We made it to the top 10! http://www.netsquared.org/hrc-ucb/topten -- Thanks
for your support! Now off to Berkeley to compete for $15,000 and to
inspire world changers and be inspired!

Yay!

My friend's non-profit could use your vote

Hey all,

My friend Israel's non-profit (Cell Alert) and some others are trying to win a non-profit challenge. It's a good cause (actually, several good causes), so if you wouldn't mind going and voting, here's how:

1) Go here and register: http://www.netsquared.org/hrc-ucb/vote

2) Then click "Vote in the UC Berkeley Human Rights Center Mobile Challenge" here: http://www.netsquared.org/user

3) Then vote for these 3 projects
http://www.netsquared.org/projects/frontlinesms-alerts

http://www.netsquared.org/projects/ijcentral

http://www.netsquared.org/projects/freedom-fone

4) Then click "View/Cast Ballot" (below your selected challengers in the upper right hand corner)

5) Then click "Submit Ballot"

Does that make sense?

Israel Kloss

Founder, Cell Alert

CellAlert.org

israel@cellalert.org

P.S. Would you mind passing on this URL (http://cellalert.org/node/104) to your friends and family so they can vote for us too?

A rant on "active" church (with fitness club analogy)

My friend Kate wrote a blog post in which she asked some excellent questions about the nature of "church" and what being a part of this thing called "church" looks like. Among her questions:

But then I began to think a bit - what if I’m the one who needs to be served? What if I’m not in a position to serve yet - not in a place to work? Am I part of the church too? And if I am, what does that mean? And if I’m not, then is that really such a bad thing?

Something in there got me fired up, and I wrote a long comment in reply. Since I ended up with so dang many words, I figured I'd post them here too. Here's me:

I think it depends what you mean by “not in a position to serve.” Here’s what *I* mean. (Note that I’m talking ideals here - specifically *my* ideals, FWIW.)

I don’t think churches should be places in which “just show up and be served (or taught or inspired or whatever)” is an option that would even make sense - on an ongoing basis. We all have periods in our lives when we need to just lean on others - when we’re suffering or overwhelmed or grieving or in crisis. This applies to pastors too, though y’all rarely have the freedom to go into that mode. Of course churches should be communities where we support each other in those times, and don’t ask much of the struggling person - this loving support should be a hallmark of Christian communities. (Though I’d also mention that I’ve received *huge* gifts through coming alongside folks who are struggling - so it’s not as if you’re not “serving” when you’re in a place of needing others to serve/help/support you, IMHO.)

But this should be in the context of a clear cultural context within the church community: it should be obvious to the newcomer walking in that this is a community of people who *all* work to serve and bless each other and the world. Yes, on any given day, not every single person will be able, or even needed, to work/serve. But it should simply be a given fact of the community culture that every single person in the community is encouraged and challenged (by the the people around them, not just the “leaders”) to discern the gifts they have for service, and to serve. This shouldn’t be something people just talk about, or that only some people do - it should be part of the nature of the community.

Walking into a church community should be like walking into a gym/health club. It should be blatantly obvious that everybody is there to actively participate. Sure, I *guess* you could just hang out and watch everybody else exercise, but that’s pretty obviously an odd thing to do. If you’re injured or sick, then you might need to work out *much* less strenuously and/or with a lot of help, or not work out at all for a while. But still, the nature of the place is immediately apparent. If you don’t want to exercise, you’ll probably go somewhere else.

I honestly think churches should be like that. Jesus calls followers, not fans. “Show up and be appreciative” should really not be a long-term option. *Everybody* has gifts, *everybody* can serve (I recall a story of an elderly woman who became frail, deaf, and blind - and found a new calling as a powerful intercessory prayer warrior), and our church communities should be places where *everybody* is actively invited to do so - from day one - not just with words but by the very nature of the community. Everybody else is serving, so it would be kinda weird not to.

And I do mean “from day one”. You’re new? Welcome! Can you help me put these books away? You’ve got doubts? Me too. What’s your take on today’s Scripture passage? Etc. But I *don’t* believe in the “We’ll start you out with just sitting back and being served/taught/inspired, then maybe you’ll eventually graduate to participation.” That’s rubbish. That’s how people go their whole lives as fans, not followers, of Jesus.

OK, sorry for the big rant. Whew. I got going there. Anyway, obviously something I feel strongly about.

Head on over to Kate's blog for the whole conversation - it's much better with all her words there too.

image by The Killer Biscuit (rights)

Free Philip Rizk!

This post is 100% stolen from P3T3RK3Y5. If you want to help get this story out, feel free to do like I did: don't shade your eyes - plagiarize!

-----

NY Times Van Spirits Away Protester in Egypt, Signaling Crackdown on Criticism Over Gaza

Associated Press - Germany seeks reasons for student's Egypt arrest

BBC - Gaza activist detained in Egypt

IHT - German-Egyptian activist held in secret location

Facebook Group - Please Join to raise visibility on this unlawful detention lacking in due process.

The more visibility this gains - the safer Philip is.


p.s. Want to Learn More?
Read more about Egypt, and it's human rights record.
US Aid to Egypt is great than any other Arab State.

P3T3RK3Y5

Stand By Me

HT: Tony

Another World Is Possible

Another World is Possible
Living Into God's Jubilee Economy

Servant Leadership School
July 19
10am-4pm
Suggested Donation $10 (includes lunch)

--

Global warming. Widespread hunger. People pushed out of their homes. Full-time jobs that don't even pay the basics. The world is not working; we've got ourselves a system that devastates the planet and exploits the majority for the benefit of a few.

What does our faith have to say about all this? How did the people of Israel and Jesus respond to the systems of economic domination they experienced in Egypt and Rome? How can Jesus’ followers and justice seekers live differently today?

Together, we'll collaborate on ways to embody a just and sustainable world now and transform our present structures. Another world is possible—and our faith calls us to it.

--

Cry Jubilee! The Biblical Paradigm of Alternative Economics
Jan Sullivan, Co-director of Ministry of Money

Why Jubilee? Created Crises, Current and Coming
David Hilfiker, Author of Urban Injustice: How Ghettos Happen

Do Jubilee! Workshops Include:
Redistribution Circles with Relational Tithe
Local Alternative Economies with Anacostia Hours
International Debt Activism with Jubilee USA
Challenging Gentrification with Empower DC
Community Investing with David Hilfiker
Talking Money in Church with Ministry of Money

--

Servant Leadership School
1640 Columbia Rd. NW
Washington, DC 20009
www.slschool.org

Register by calling 202.328.0072

Politics

Seeing as how it keeps coming up lately (and seeing as how I just attended a subversively wonderful rally on such topics), I thought I'd say a few words about my ever-evolving perspective on secular government. My thoughts on this have been shaped by such practical theologians as Shane Claiborne, Chris Haw, a monkey named Mojo (whom I understand is nothing more than a mouthpiece for Walter Wink), Matt Pritchard, and Marguerite Welton St. Lawrence.

Here's where I stand these days, more or less. Biblically speaking, secular government is Caesar, or Babylon. God really didn't want God's people to have kings, but we insist on having them. Our governments are never going to save us. They are not going to be kingdom-oriented. If we are faithfully following our Lord, we will probably get in trouble with government at one point or another - God knows Jesus and his original followers did.

We should concentrate on following in the way of Jesus, serving and blessing everyone we meet, and stop waiting for laws and policies to make life the way God dreams it could be. And we Christians should be, at the very least, deeply suspicious of any power that uses force (violent force or merely legal, authoritarian force) to compel behavior, no matter how desireable that behavior. That's the way of Caesar. It's not the way of Christ.

Does this mean I completely equate the US government with the Roman or Babylonion empires? Absolutely not. The US is a republic. Whether our democratic process works well or not, there is a very real sense in which our government acts on our behalf, in our name, if we are US citizens. There's a very real sense in which the slaughter of tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians and thousands of Western soldiers has happened in our name. There's a very real sense in which the torture of countless "enemy combatants" has happened in our name.

That's why I believe that US citizens, even Christians, really do have a responsibility to some minimal involvement in the political process: damage control. Caesar is always going to be Caesar. He's never going to be Christ, and quite honestly, he's never going to be someone who follows closely in the way of Christ. (He'd get fired.) But a Caesar who does not condone torture is hugely preferable to one who authorizes, commands, and defends the torture of unnumbered children of God in my name. It is worth spending an hour in line at my local polling place to try to pick the lesser of two evils, because we have seen how evil the greater evil can be.

Caesar always sucks. My hope is not in Caesar. But in a republic, we do not have the luxury of claiming that this is not our problem.

And that's what I think about that.

Further adventures in suburban gleaning

So around 10:30 this evening, I got a voice mail from our church's Dive Team Captain saying she was headed for the [ESTABLISHMENT NAME REDACTED] near us to see what's the what, dumpster-wise, and did we want to join the expedition?

So we said yea verily, and headed over to the [REDACTED] parking lot, consolidated into one vehicle, and dove. (Dived? Huh - apparently it depends on where you are.) There were two bags with what appeared to be worthwhile stuff in them: one with a variety, the other with just some oranges. We ended up with the oranges, some strawberries, figs, little pita breads, and a whole lot of hamburger rolls that we really didn't want, and thus returned to whence they came. ([REDACTED] throws out a lot of those this time of year.) All in all, pretty slim pickins. But we could tell the store employees were still restocking and de-stocking shelves in there, and there were a whole bunch of shopping carts full of who knows what sitting in the store near the entrance, so we figgered we'd stake it out for a while, hoping for the big dump.

We chatted for a while, and then the Captain stated that further waiting would require fuel, so we went to the nearby [FAST FOOD ESTABLISHMENT] and got a couple of shakes (and fries for Tina - OK, LARGE fries to share.) We were now in danger of having spent more on gas and junk food than we had saved through our paltry take.

We also noticed that there seemed to be someone sleeping on the front porch of the abandoned restaurant next door to [FAST FOOD JOINT].

We went back to [REDACTED] and waited a while. While we were waiting, someone got into the car we'd parked next to in the mostly-empty parking lot, drove down to the dumpster, put on the flashers, and futzed around a while there. We were pretty darn curious, I must say. Was this competition?? When he'd gone, we spun back down there and checked it out. Nope, turns out he was making a deposit, not a withdrawal: there was a new bag of garbage in there, and it wasn't [REDACTED] products. Used diapers and such. "Dude," we thought self-righteously, "that's illegal." ;-)

We gave it a little more time, but now it was midnight and we were turning into pumpkins. So we headed back toward the Captain's van, which took us by the abandoned restaurant where we'd seen someone sleeping out front. That person seemed to be awake now, so at the Captain's suggestion, we decided to go say "Hi" and see if he or she would like some food. She turned out to be a very nice lady who was camping out there where there was a bit of shelter. We introduced ourselves and explained where we'd gotten the food, and she seemed happy to accept all of it. We chatted a bit more about the weather and [REDACTED]'s food disposal habits, and then said farewell and headed home. She was cool. We'll definitely keep an eye our for her when we return.

This is fun. Y'all should do it. As I've offered before, if you email me, I'll be more upfront about details and esoteric dive-fu (though due to my relative lack of experience, your mileage may vary).

Jesus for President in DC!

Friday June 27 at 7PM

Calvary Baptist

755 8th St NW, Washington, DC

FREE Tickets at
www.JesusforPresidentinDC.org

Christianity and Tibetan Buddhism

HT to Steve "Emergent Village Blogmeister" Knight for pointing at this very interesting blog post from Kimberly Roth on JesusManifesto.com. Kimberly makes some good observations about the two religions, and asks some even better questions. Before I get to her excellent questions, I felt I should note that this:

However, there is a flip-side to Tibetan Buddhism. There is work involved, and peace comes with a price. The Tibetan people serve multiple deities, some of whom are full of vengeance. Their religious practices are in part, to appease the deities en route to obtaining enlightenment. Monks create intricately detailed mandalas to house deities and guide meditation. Followers walk the streets of Tibet endlessly spinning prayer wheels in an effort to gain the attention of the Buddha of Compassion. Tibetans perform physical rituals, such as stopping to bow every few steps, in an effort to relieve personal suffering. Street children, widows and crippled men line the streets.

isn't entirely accurate, at least according to what I was taught by my Lamas when I was a practicing Tibetan Buddhist. Sometimes my teachers seemed to regard the "deities" of Tibetan Buddhism much in the way that many postmodern Christians talk about the "principalities and powers" and the angelic and demonic forces described in Scripture - as having a reality that might be said to lie in psychological and/or sociological and/or supernatural phenomena, or all or none of the above (and maybe dividing reality into categories like that is hubris anyway). But since the Buddha taught that the "real" world is, more or less, a creation of our minds, the perspective of my teachers ended up tending in a direction paralleling a modern liberal Western view of such phenomena: it all comes down to psychology, and the "demons" or "wrathful deities" that need to be appeased or overcome (not to mention the Buddha of Compassion who must be cultivated) are, ultimately, "all in our heads", so to speak.

In other words, it's a bit more nuanced than the way most Westerners might think of serving, appeasing, or wooing multiple deities. But Kimberly's ultimate point in his paragraph (that Tibetan Buddism demands work) is certainly true, it's just that IMHO this is more because each of us has "vengeful deities" in his head that he must work to overcome (and, significantly, in the Buddhist view there is no loving Deity to grant him grace in this labor), as opposed to this work being required to appease a multitude of external vengeful gods.

(And if I were to get really nuanced, I'd note that Tibetan Buddhism is Tantric, and Tantric philosophy might be poorly summarized as "the only way out is through", which means that those wrathful deities are actually compassionate deities in disguise, guiding you out of your negative tendencies by taking you through them. But that's another story.)

(Also, I will concede that Kimberly's take on these things might well correspond pretty closely to the way the average Tibetan in Tibet might describe the situation. Most of my teachers were Tibetan, but they had spent years learning how to translate their teachings to best be received by Westerners.)

ANYway - you can see I'm done with that "what I really think" series and back in my familiar land of parenthetical remarks, disclaimers, and general mealy-mouthedness. Did you miss me?

So what I wanted to say, apart from quibbling, was that Kimberly's post gets down to this question:

Christians have been given the gift of true peace through a relationship with the Son of God. We do not have to do good works to earn our salvation, but through Christ’s sacrifice and the gift of the Holy Spirit, we are empowered to love other people with God’s love. When we fail to live up to the standard Christ demonstrated for our life, or when those around us mess up, there is still grace… grace that reminds us we are human… grace that reminds us we are loved… grace that picks us up, dusts us off, and encourages us to keep going. It truly is a wondrous faith.

Why, then, is it that the world is not enamored with faith in Christ?

Why is it that the world seems so taken by Tibetan Buddhism?

Why isn’t Christianity the religion of peace?

Wow, that's a damn fine question. Kimberly's got some good thoughts on the subject. How about you?

Requiem for the American Dream

This post from Len Hjalmarson is so interesting, I'm just going to steal it in its entirety.

From TIME magazine:

“For years, Americans have reveled in profligate, load-up-the-back- of-the-SUV-at-Target excess, much of it paid for by credit cards, home equity or other loans. The binge has produced some supposedly healthy economic growth and provided everyone lots of nice stuff. But now debt collectors from around the world are knocking. That’s why today’s turmoil in U.S. financial markets will end in a massive transfer of wealth from America to the rest of the globe.”

Related,

Housing the homeless could save millions.

VANCOUVER — A study says providing shelter for the homeless with severe addictions and mental illness throughout British Columbia could save taxpayers millions of dollars.

“Addiction is the most prevalent mental health problem in both the street homeless and at-risk populations, followed by concurrent disorders and, less frequently, mental illness alone,” says the Simon Fraser University report.

The paper - entitled “Housing and Support for Adults With Severe Addictions and/or Mental Illnesses in British Columbia” - says providing non-housing services for such people costs the public system more than $55,000 per year per person.

It says providing adequate housing and supports could reduce this cost to $37,000 per year.”

Wait, what about the American Dream? You mean there might be flaws in "pull yourself up by your own damn bootstraps, become a good citizen (i.e., a good consumer), and work and spend and spend and spend until you die"?

Oh, I know what the problem is. Len's Canadian.

Do not meddle in the affairs of freegans, for they are subtle, and quick to make off with your discarded organic free-range chickens

I'm back on the Dive Team! (Junior Varsity, natch - if you missed the sad tale of my previous attempt at dumpster diving, you can read it right here.) I went out this evening with a different mentor (plus a fellow n00b), and we successfully rescued a whole bunch of fresh strawberries, maybe ten loaves of assorted sliced bread, some ground beef, shaved beef, sausages, and eggs, and a henhouse worth of organic free-range chickens from their landfill-rotting destiny. Nummy!

New Mentor taught us padawans much about the subtle (and subtlety is key!) art of suburban gleaning. Her dive-fu is strong.

Of course, none of us are really freegans. We all still eat food that someone valued enough to make us pay money for. But now that I've completed my first successful mission, I'm beginning to feel the pride that comes from legitimate street cred.

Yeah, I eat garbage. Picked it m'self, yo. :-D

Whoa

Warning: Smug snarkiness alert. I should probably put this disclaimer on most of my posts lately.

Beloved Employer raised my eyebrows with this review of the new, er, "charity" reality game show, Oprah's Big Give.

Who knew Ms. Winfrey was white? (HT: Bricklad)

God knows I'm white too, and I'm certain I fall into the same traps, but I am a fan of getting to know and listening to the folks one is trying to help. I hope I try to practice that.

Cut from the Dive Team

Well, Tina's and my first attempt at (sub)urban gleaning (which is also known by some other names with fewer high-fallutin' Biblical connotations) can only be described with one word: FAIL.

This is a practice which is becoming increasingly popular among the scruffy, remarkably shameless "screw alls y'all principalities and powers of consumer cultural captivity" Christian circles that our friends and we run in. (Well, as you'll see, Tina and I don't exactly run - it's more like stumbling along behind, just within sight of the pack. But anyway.) The idea is that we rescue perfectly good, unwanted food from its landfill destiny, thereby creating space in our food budgets, which in turn enables us to spend more money and time loving God and neighbor. That's the theory, anyway.

Well, despite expert coaching from our wise and experienced mentor, things didn't exactly go as planned. Our first target - the dumpsters behind a certain crunchy-granola-type grocery store - didn't seem to have much to offer upon brief inspection, and we didn't have time for more than that, what with being gently chased away by store employees.

So we went back to our mentor's house and returned in his car, because we could see that the dumpsters behind the bread-oriented restaurant next door were overflowing. Despite parking around the corner and stealthily sneaking up on said dumpsters, I returned to mentor's car with: two bags of actual garbage. No yummy, not-quite-day-old bread straight off the shelves for us - just trashed, used paper coffee cups and food plates. All the bags looked the same, and I was scared of getting yelled at again, so I grabbed two and ran. Yay me! Good thing it's garbage night.

We spun around behind two or three other such locations on the way back, looking for easy gleaning, but no luck.

If you're coming to our house on Sunday for the post-church Lenten meal, though, do not fear - we have ample fare from previous runs by our mentor and other experienced divers, so you'll not be deprived of your chance to eat genuine gleaned castoffs of the bankrupt consumer culture. Mmm-mmm. Them's fine eatin'. :-D

Rendering unto Caesar

Who knew VA was an open primary state? (Probably everybody but me.) For some reason, I've always assumed that I had to be registered as a member of one of the major parties to vote in that party's primary in Virginia. Au contraire. So as far as I can tell, this means that registering for a particular party in VA constitutes giving up freedom to vote in the primary of my choice (i.e., whichever contest has me more concerned about the outcome), with no advantage to balance that loss. Therefore, I intend to change my registration to "independent" right away. Thankfully, this doesn't make a difference for next Tuesday's VA primary, because the race that I would choose to vote in is the one for the party with which I'm registered. But next time, I'll be free to vote however I choose.

I also need to give credit to Tony Jones for getting me thinking about this issue. He goes so far as to argue that affiliating with a particular party is equivalent to giving to Caesar way more than is Caesar's, and getting "in bed" with Caesar in a way that Jesus wouldn't - and that states that require one to affiliate in order to vote in primaries are being anti-Christian in that regard. So yay for the Commonwealth for not being anti-Christian. (But for the record, I'm not doing this just because I'm a part of a 10-point Jonesist emerging church.) ;-)

UPDATE: Huh, turns out I'm even dumber than I thought I was. There is simply no question about party affiliation on the Viriginia voter registration form. I just assumed my affiliation carried over somehow from New York and Maryland, which both have closed primaries. But no! Apparently I'm already independent, 'cause Virginia just doesn't give a crap about this. Yay, Virginia!

Foretaste

It's been said that the Church is meant to be a foretaste of the kingdom of God.

In a manner that I imagine to be vaguely analogous, today is like a foretaste of spring in Northern Virginia.

Sadly, I'm afraid that the Church is rarely so lovely.

Thankfully, God doesn't depend on the Church to create loveliness.

I'm going back outside.

~~~

P.S., Our worship gathering this morning, indoors though it was, was quite lovely, though. Didn't want to imply otherwise. :-)

Blogcast of the Common Table

OK, so I can't not post about this. :-) If perchance anybody who reads this blog from afar has ever wondered, "So what do they do at this little coffee-house church called Common Table?", my best advice is to come and visit and stay for at least a month, 'cause no single gathering is going to give you anything like a good answer to that question. My second-best advice is to come and visit at least once. My third-best (and last-ditch) advice is is to check out our (quite nifty, IMHO) web site. But while that will give you some idea of what we think about and how we relate to the wide, wild world, until recently there wasn't a whole lot there that would tell you what it's like when we gather for worship services and service-worship, our two most frequent forms of coming together IRL (in real life) to serve and love God, our neighbors, and each other.

But now, thanks mostly to the tireless creative genius of the mighty iPete, we have a rockin' blogcast site with elements to help you experience (a little bit, anyway) our current worship series, on "Space". So far, we've got posts on our first three worship services in the series: Physical Space (the [human] is in the space), Relational Space (the [healing] is in the space), and Temporal Space (the [funk] is in the space), plus one for this past Saturday's joyous service-worship, in which we made space in the lives of some friends of ours who are parents of young kids, giving them an afternoon to themselves while we transformed the inside of Jack and Pete's house into a (well-regulated) party zone for 11 kids, aged 7 months to 8 years.

There are also podcasts of the worship services, and if you keep on scrolling down, you'll find content from last year's Easter season series ("Blooms"). It's all good stuff, and although it's only a taste of our gatherings, a taste is far better than nothing, and I think it's pretty cool.

Foreclosure

There are a lot of these in my neighborhood. I see them when Tina and I walk the dog, and it makes me sad. We just moved here last year, and it hasn't happened to any of our neighbors that we've gotten to know - and by the time the sign goes up, it's too late to find out what's happened to the folks who used to be our neighbors. But I'm worried that not all of them are landing on their feet. A lot of our neighbors are recent immigrants who are struggling to make a life in this country. I'm sure it must have felt enormous to them to be able to buy a house - I know what it felt like for us, and we were born right here in the USA with silver spoons in our mouths. Too bad the companies loaning these folks their mortgages were greedy and unscrupulous, and now that huge sense of accomplishment, for at least some of our neighbors, has turned into a sense of loss and fear for the future. And everybody loses, as the economic ripple effect of this greed spreads outward from the folks who have lost their homes (and similar factors) to every sector of this interdependent world economy.

I don't have any solutions to offer. Greed is here to stay, I expect. I guess I just pray that if there are things I can do to help, I won't miss them in my naval-gazing.

Waiting

Hey. It's Advent. I'm waiting. Waiting for some grace, and blessing, and glimpses of the kingdom. I'm waiting expectantly, and hopefully. I think some good stuff is coming soon.

Want to wait with me? I'll make some hot chocolate. With marshmallows.

Let's see what God has in store.

Events this week

If you're local (to the DC/NoVA area), don't miss these fun and faithy (faithiness is next to truthiness!) events this week:

TUESDAY: The DC Emergent Cohort will gather at the Front Page on Dupont Circle (right near the Dupont Metro stop), 7pm. Sara won't be there, so we can behave in an unseemly and embarrassing manner, if we so choose. ;-)

WEDNESDAY: It's Karaoke Night at The Lamb Center (Fairfax county's only daytime homeless shelter), from 6:30 - 8pm. Come join Lamb Center clients and teen and adult volunteers as we together seek and find our inner ham. And seek and find Christ, too. Maybe the two are related.

THURSDAY: It's MESH-a-rita's Tres: We'll be slurpin' 'ritas, wolfin' burritos and chattin' about life, the universe, and whatnot at Tequila Grande, (444 Maple Avenue West, Vienna VA 22180). Thursday, 15 November, 7pm SHARP(ish). Join us!