the love of change
We’re still here, just experiencing a bit of blog-lag as a result of travel.
Every time I see Wordle on another site I’m reminded of what a cool tool it is. And, as we get back into the swing of writing, it’s a good reminder of what we’ve been talking about lately on Tropophilia. No big surprises here, except maybe the fact that “change” doesn’t make a larger splash; we sure love the web, food, and (strangely) Glassbooth:
Today is Blog Action Day, a moment for everyone across the blogosphere to pause and consider a topic collectively. This year’s topic is poverty.
Thinking about poverty brings up all sorts of feelings within me: the shame I felt leaving the developing world, full of abject inequality, for the security of an airplane, a shower, and a life of privilege; the guilt I feel every time I notice that a recent purchase was made in China or Bangladesh or Nicaragua…enjoying my new thing while knowing that the sales price didn’t at all approximate the probable lost dignity and humanity of the person who stitched or manufactured it under horrendous conditions; the pain I felt, when I arrived in Argentina weeks after Hurricane Katrina, to see a headline on the front page of a Buenos Aires daily over the now infamous picture of an African American woman who drowned in the rising waters: “This Happened…In America?”
But while shame and guilt and pain can be useful emotions, can spur us to act when we would rather not or convince us to care when ignorance is simply easier, we can’t genuinely help out of shame, or love out of guilt, or act out of pain. We need to hope, and listen, and recognize that our lives and ambitions are imperfect but capable of improvement. That our interrelatedness with one another means that there’s always a chance to reach out and touch someone else, and that no day is too late to improve a rapidly changing world.
I’ve had the pleasure and privilege of spending a number of months in Central and South America. Those experiences have necessarily revolved around poverty in the developing world. I was given a prayer once that is attributed to Archbishop Oscar Romero, a priest who proclaimed a theology of liberation for the world’s poor and who was assassinated in El Salvador in 1980 because of his worldview. I’ve since learned that this prayer was not written by Archbishop Romero, but rather in his honor; it does not matter, since the sentiment is certainly consistent with Romero’s message. I’ve carried the prayer in my wallet for almost 4 years now, reading it from time to time, and I thought it would be appropriate to share today:
It helps, now and then, to step back and take the long view.
The Kingdom is not only beyond our efforts,
it is even beyond our vision.
We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of
the magnificent enterprise that is God’s work.
Nothing we do is complete,
which is another way of saying that
the Kingdom always lies beyond us.
No statement says all that should be said.
No prayer fully expresses our faith.
No confession brings perfection.
No pastoral visit brings wholeness.
No program accomplishes the church’s mission.
No set of goals and objectives includes everything.
This is what we are about.
We plant the seeds that one day will grow.
We water seeds already planted,
knowing that they hold future promise.
We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces effects far beyond our capabilities.
We cannot do everything,
and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that.
This enables us to do something,
and to do it very well.
It may be incomplete,
but it is a beginning,
a step along the way,
an opportunity for the Lord’s grace to enter
and do the rest.
We may never see the end results,
but that is the difference
between the master builder and the worker.
We are workers, not master builders,
Ministers, not messiahs.
We are prophets of a future that is not our own.
Amen.
This little ditty has been making its way across the interwebs recently:
Entrepreneurial prodigy Ben Casnocha disagreed with the tone of this video, offering his own “better” advice:
If you read up on the issues, please vote in November. If you aren’t informed, please voluntarily step away from the voting booth and keep your hands where we can see them!
In a more recent post, he adds an example from the Howard Stern show for emphasis (clip here: Listen to this MP3 clip):
A guy goes to Harlem and asks people who they’re voting for. All three say Obama. He then attributes McCain’s views to Obama and asks whether they agree with it. For example, “Do you agree with Obama’s pick of Sarah Palin? Do you agree with Obama that our troops should stay in Iraq? Do you agree with Obama that stem cell research should be banned?” To all, they say yes.
I’m not going to get into this, but welcome your thoughts in the comments (Ashish, I’m looking at you). Seeing, though, as I do agree that the most informed voter is the best voter, I wanted to offer some help.
Continue reading ‘Three Weeks To Go: Get Informed, America!’
In an effort to salvage the economy and cash in on the bailout, not to mention end the country’s dependence on oil and combat obesity, Jarred and I both purchased bikes. [Just kidding--we didn't do it to cash in on the bailout. That's just gravy.] Jarred’s been a proud “self powered commuter” for a few days now and today (Monday) is my first day commuting by ‘cycle. I’ll report back on my experience navigating the congested streets of Winston-Salem; something tells me Jarred’s commute in sunny California with bike paths (imagine that) might be a bit more relaxing. In any case, I plan to sing this song, out loud, on my way to and from the office:
[kml_flashembed movie="http://media.imeem.com/m/kUpoUYjuCJ/aus=false/" width="300" height="110" allowfullscreen="true" /]
But enough about bikes. How about links (a little abridged this week since I’m on deadline for my real job):
20th-century industrialization of agriculture has increased the amount of greenhouse gases emitted by the food system by an order of magnitude; chemical fertilizers (made from natural gas), pesticides (made from petroleum), farm machinery, modern food processing and packaging and transportation have together transformed a system that in 1940 produced 2.3 calories of food energy for every calorie of fossil-fuel energy it used into one that now takes 10 calories of fossil-fuel energy to produce a single calorie of modern supermarket food. [...] This state of affairs appears all the more absurd when you recall that every calorie we eat is ultimately the product of photosynthesis — a process based on making food energy from sunshine. There is hope and possibility in that simple fact.
[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.metacafe.com/fplayer/712133/paper_cd_case.swf" width="400" height="345" allowfullscreen="true"/]
Happy Monday…looks like a great day for a bike ride.
We like getting e-mail, tweets, and feed shares about cool stuff that you think we should blog about. We also like creating new “series” of posts to a) establish sub-themes for the blog, b) encourage us to keep posting, and c) give us some shadow of legitimacy to hold onto. Additionally, if you can’t tell, prepositions are my favorite things to end sentences with. Thus is born a series we’re going to call “People Send Us Things”, and this story passed to us by Brika is just what we were looking… for.
Not too many people can legitimately include anything approaching the following in their bio/resume:
In 1989 he invented the World Wide Web.
Boom. Street Geek cred: check. The man who created teh internetz is none other than Sir Tim Berners-Lee, and he’s on to a new project — the World Wide Web Foundation. This organization seeks to do the following:
- to advance One Web that is free and open,
- to expand the Web’s capability and robustness,
- and to extend the Web’s benefits to all people on the planet.
Huh… that mission statement kinda reminds me of this little start-up in Mountain View. Anyway…
Continue reading ‘People Send Us Things, Part I: The World Wide Web Foundation’
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