who said it? .096. new earth, starting now

Faced with problems on such a large scale, despair comes easily, especially after the compassion fatigue induced by a decade or more of harrowing TV pictures and relief-agency advertisements. The awareness of the eschatological hope is confident: it is worth working for the renewal of creation now because of our confidence in what the sovereign Creator has revealed to us - both in the Scriptures and in the work of Christ himself - about the glorious future that awaits not only the children of God, but also creation itself.

-Ron Elsdon, "Eschatology and Hope" in The Care of Creation

Chuño from the 1930's

 Chuño is dried potatoes made from a particularly hard and inedible variety grown at high altitudes and only used as chuño. The potatoes are allowed to freeze, then placed in rock-lined pits dugs along the margin of a small stream, covered with water, and sallowed to remain there for a few days. After removal from the pit they are placed in the sun, and when partially dry are trodden under foot to squeeze out the moisture and then are thoroughly dried... When black chuño is being cooked it exudes an odor that had better be left unnamed. Chuño is supposed to be very nutritious and to retain its food value indefinitely; but how anyone could possibly enjoy its flavor is one of those unsolvable mysteries. I consider it to be one of the most unpalatable of the many queer dishes I have been forced to eat.

-Melbourne Armstrong Carriker, Jr. (Ed. Melbourne Romaine Carriker) in “Experiences of an Ornithologist Along the Highways and Byways of Bolivia: Collecting Birds in an Isolated, Magnificent Land in the Nineteen Thirties”

first day of school

Eighteen folks of various ages, nationalities, and denominations (mostly Catholic singles + some odd Protestant/Evangelical folk) sit anxiously in a circle of wooden desks. The Bolivian coordinator of this Catholic language school continues with the orientation:

"Another very embarrassing thing that I have to mention to everyone is alcohol. Now, I know you might like to go out and have a few drinks. I know, I like to have a few drinks too. But. If you are out late at night and drink a lot, and if you aren't fine by the morning, please - do not come to class. There is a smell about you that makes things very unpleasant for the other student and for the teacher. It really would be better if you just stayed home and got better."

The Korean guy begins to talk. He's smiling as always, but I find out that he smiles even when agitated. Speaking in English with a heavy accent, I catch mostly this:
"Please, we are all adults, I do not want you treating me like a little child" (holds hand out to show the height of Frodo)

The coordinator continues with many apologies but stresses that they have had many awkward situations and misbehaving students in the past. I keep looking at everyone else to see #1) if these good-hearted religious folks could really get that plastered, and #2) if this guy is serious. I hope they don't, and I think he is. The conversation ends in a tentative truce.

Toto, we're not at IWU anymore.

The school seems like they have some really super folks on board and the mix of nuns, priests, Hoosier Methodists, Evangelicals from Togo, and us young-uns will make for some great inter-cultural, inter-theological, inter-gender, inter-everything exchange. We're going to learn a lot!

Anyway, at a little tienda I asked to buy a small, cheap notebook for class and was given this for $0.50:

Good job, Planet. I knew you'd pull through.

Or perhaps it's ironic, being that many amphibian populations worldwide are mysteriously crashing.

final letter from my compassion child

In high school, a few of my friends and I pitched in and sponsored a child in Rwanda with Compassion (I've had a good experience with the NGO). Through my college and early marriage I've kept in touch with him - heard about school tests and multiplying rabbits. Now he has finally graduated and I passed on my e-mail so that we can communicate direct... although I don't really know what to say anymore. Here's what he wrote:

I am very happy to  re ceiveyour leter again telling me the news.and giving me your picture.surely because you are still being my parent God bless you.my family and I will dear miss hearing from you and your family.How can we see each other ?.Last month I was busy in wath we call INGANDO where we studied more about rwandan culture.Reason why I write you  so late.I finished my studies in secondary school but I am jobless now.I would like to continue at university so that I can get a job but I cant find money for continue because of proverty.I wish you safe journey next year when you will be moving to Boliria .Please you may send me the telephone number of you/your wife and your freind Emmy [my Rwandan friend I met at university] so that communication can be easy for us.I am so glad to hear that your sister just had her first baby named Lukas.I would like to send you my contact information .My telefone number is 0********6 .Number of my grandbrother is 0********0..Please geet all of your family for me.You have been a bressing to me from my childhood till now.We pray that God bless your life and your family.We look forward to hearing from you very soon.Happy near.

books read 2009

66 books and 14,700 pages... never again.

My new boss' boss' boss Chris swindled me into doing the Dusting off the Shelves 2009 book reading competition (via Facebook) this last year. The grand prize will certainly be piddly and/or odd and some of my competitors I've never met, but that didn't stop me from going crazy with the books. And without the help of a couple libraries and PaperBackSwap.com, I would've gone broke. The good news is that I got through a lot of really good reads. The bad news is that I forced myself to finish some bad ones and I probably didn't read the Scriptures nearly as much as I should have.

Barring any big surprises in the 4Q, I'm probably going to finish 2nd of 9 folks. I hope someone sends me a bookmark or something.

2010 will be focused on learning Spanish and maintaining my sanity, so that's where my energy will be.

Here's the titles... instead of ranking all the good and bad, I'll simply bold some of the more enjoyable ones:
 

First Quarter 2009

Body Politics: Five Practices of the Christian Community Before the Watching World (John Howard Yoder) 95 pages

Born Free (Joy Adamson) 222 pages

Resident Aliens: Life in the Christian Colony (Hauerwas & Willimon) 172 pages

Eternal Vigilance: Nine Tales of Environmental Heroism in Indiana (Higgs) 209 pages

Small is Beautiful (E.F. Schumacher) 281 pages

The Elusive Quest for Growth: Economists' Adventures and Misadventures in the Tropics (William Easterly) 315 pages

Poor People (Fiodor Dostoyevsky) 252 pages

Finding Darwin's God: A Scientist's Search for Common Ground Between God and Evolution (Kenneth R. Miller) 332 pages

Simply Christian: Why Christianity Makes Sense (N.T. Wright) 240 pages

Unbowed: A Memoir (Wangari Maathai) 275 pages after 1/23/09, 20 pages prior

10 books, 2,393 pages (239 ppb)

Second Quarter 2009

We Drink from Our Own Wells: The Spiritual Journey of a People (Gustavo Gutierrez) 192 pages

Lord of the Flies (William Golding) 182 pages

Tortilla Flat (John Steinbeck) 317 pages

The Last Word: Beyond the Bible Wars to a New Understanding of the Authority of Scripture (N. T. Wright) 152 pages

The Future of Life (E. O. Wilson) 211 pages

The Creation: An Appeal to Save Life on Earth (E. O. Wilson) 175 pages

The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief (Francis S. Collins) 283 pages

The Mountain of Silence: A Search for Orthodox Spirituality (Kyriacos C. Markides) 259 pages

Reconciling All Things: A Christian Vision for Justice, Peace and Healing (Emmanuel Katongole & Chris Rice) 165 pages

Bread and Wine: Readings for Lent and Easter (Various) 401 pages

The Politics of Jesus (John H. Yoder) 250 pages

The Pearl (John Steinbeck) 118 pages

The Red Pony (John Steinbeck) 118 pages

Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture (Douglas Coupland) 183 pages

The Gift of Good Land: Further Essys Cultural and Agricultural (Wendell Berry) 291 pages

How Not to Get Rich: Or Why Being Bad Off Isn't So Bad (Robert Sullivan) 98 pages

Pilgrim at Tinker Greek (Annie Dillard) 290 pages

From Brokenness to Community (Jean Vanier) 52 pages

A World Lost (Wendell Berry) 151 pages

Reading the Bible Again for the First Time: Taking the Bible Seriously but not Literally (Marcus Borg) 306 pages

Clearing (Wendell Berry) 52 pages

A Short History of Nearly Everything (Bill Bryson) 527 pages

Affluenza: The All-Consuming Epidemic (DeGraaf, Wann, and Naylor) 276 pages

The Broken Body (Jean Vanier) 145 pages

24 books, 5,194 pages (216 ppb)

Third Quarter 2009

Marching Powder: A True Story of Friendship, Cocaine, and S. America's Strangest Jail (Rusty Young & Thomas McFadden) 373 pages

The Meaning of Jesus: Two Visions (Marcus Borg & N. T. Wright) 293 pages

Of Mice and Men (John Steinbeck) 118 pages

The Last Word and the Word After That: A Tale of Faith, Doubt, and a New Kind of Christianity (Brian McLaren) 208 pages

First Person Rural: Essays of a Somtime Farmer (Noel Perrin) 124 pages

Becoming Native to this Place (Wes Jackson) 121 pages

Sub-Merge: Living Deep in a Shallow World (John B. Hayes) 303 pages

Go Green, Save Green: A Simple Guide to Saving Time, Money, and God's Green Earth (Nancy Sleeth) 410 pages

The Way of the Heart: Connecting with God through Prayer, Wisdom, and Silence (Henri Nouwen) 103 pages

Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent (Eduardo Galeano) 330 pages

Born Fundamentalist, Born Again Catholic (David B. Currie) 215 pages

Life is a Miracle: An Essay Against Modern Superstition (Wendell Berry) 153 pages

Did God Use Evolution? Observations from a Scientist of Faith (Werner Gitt) 117 pages

Rethinking Christ and Culture: A Post-Christendom Perspective (Craig A. Carter) 212 pages

14 books, 3,080 pages (220 ppb)

Forth Quarter 2010

The Twilight Labyrinth: Why Does Spiritual Darkness Linger Where It Does? (George Otis Jr.)

Missio Dei Breviary (Missio Dei)

Poverty of Spirit (Johannes Baptist Metz)

The World is Flat: A Brief History of the 21st Century (Thomas Friedman)

Gracias! A Latin American Journal (Henri Nouwen)

The Spirituality of Fundraising (Henri Nouwen)

The Violence of Love (Oscar Romero)

Zeitoun (Dave Eggers)

Jesus for President (Claiborne & Haw)

Devotional Classics (ed. Richard Foster)

The Art of Crossing Cultures (Craig Storti)

Middlesex (Jeffrey Eugenides)

Announcing the Reign of God: Evangelization & the Subversive Memory of Jesus (Mortimer Arias)

The Story We Find Ourselves In: Further Adventures of a New Kind of Christian (Brian McLaren)

Serving as Senders (Neal Pirolo)

The Open Secret: An Introduction to the Theology of Mission (Lesslie Newbigin)

Prodigal Summer: A Novel (Barbara Kingsolver)

Survival of the Fittest: Keeping Yourself Healthy in Travel and Service Overseas (Dr. Christine Aroney-Sine)

18 books, 4,043 pages (225 ppb)

  2009 Total:

14,700 pages, 66 books (223 ppb)

radical food literature now in middle school

While covering an 8th grade literature class, I saw on the dry erase board a note for the students (after they had finished a debate on fast food):

"Want to learn more about the issues?
Try reading:
Fast Food Nation (Eric Schlosser)
In Defense of Food (Michael Pollen)
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle (Barbara Kingsolver)"

A white suburban teacher exposing these microwaved-lunch kids to an agricultural and gastronomic revolution. A breath of fresh air...

who said it? .095. ok, just one more...

Complete abstinence is easier than perfect moderation.

-St. Augustine

(optimistic)

I am Human.
...from the Latin humus, meaning earth, ground, or clay.
also...
humble (meak, modest, lowly, or low to the ground, grounded)
humane (sympathetic, compassionate towards animals and people)
humic (derived from the soil)
humus (a fully degraded, stable organic matter with life potentail)

I am Adam.
... from the Hebrew root word for red, as the color of soil.
...a wordplay of adamah, the word for ground, earth.

Adam, meaning man or humanity, meaning soil, earth, groundedness, life, growth, roots...

Largest solar installation in Michigan online this week

An array of 636 panels about 7 miles from my house (new article here). With the tax incentives and power deal, an 8-year payback is estimated on the system. Installed by a local company that also produces (in MI) home wind turbines that will soon be on sale at Lowe's stores in California.

you know you're in West Michigan when...

Everyone's last name either starts with "Van" or ends with 2+ consonants, followed by a vowel. Van Eizinga, Vanderveen, Dykstra, and Jansma.

The local high school sponsors a "Big Buck Contest" - send a picture of you and your big buck to win a $50 Gander Mountain gift card.

If you don't have a Reformed church on your block, you have some sort of "Bible Church."

Listening to Limbaugh and Hannity will give you a taste of the local political climate.

new windmills in Lake Michigan?

A Norweigan company is looking to put massive windmills off Michigan's west coast near a pump-storage facility that is currently coupled with a coal plant (it pumps water up to a reservoir during the evening when demand is low, and releases it through hydro turbines during the day, thus reducing peak capacity needs). Brilliant idea!

They had a town hall meeting recently, which I heard about on the radio. Of course, there is the normal NIMBY, and as we've found out in political discussion, the negative voices are usually the loudest. But you have a company offering a $3 billion investment in the most depressed state in the country with 100-200 permanent jobs to tap an energy source that never runs out. Let's hope to God that they don't blow it. Get used to the sight folks! People in Appalachia have seen much worse than a few whirling blades in the distance.

Company's website and details of plan
UPDATE 12/21: click here to listen to comments + see artist's rendition of new turbines on shoreline

Offshore wind has some big challenges, but the rewards are obvious if you look at the wind speeds:

Meanwhile, plans have started for wind near Muncie, IN as well, in the state that saw the largest % growth in wind energy for 2008.

blessed are the peacemakers, not the peacelovers

I promised that I'd give this stuff up, but I can't help it. I happened to flip on the Huckabee show on Fox. Awkward when a guy goes from pastor to politician to talk show host, but hey - more than I've accomplished. He was talking about Obama's recent Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech (I excerpted some bits here). Then I heard this (it starts at 1:00 on this link):

President Obama rightly pointed out that Hitler couldn't be stopped by having dialogue, and neither can Al-Qaeda. No one likes war. And the ones asked to actually fight it, they like it the least. But there is a glaring misunderstanding of what it means to be a person of peace. Jesus is often quoted as having said, 'blessed are the peacemakers'. And there are those who interpret those words to mean that Jesus opposed all forms of war. But Jesus said 'blessed are the peacemakers', not 'the peacelovers'. We all love peace. But sometimes the only way to obtain it is to forcefully stop those who violate the basic rights of others.

Good gravy. I know a former pastor must feel he has to be faithful to his own God, but for once, someone please be honest. If you don't think Jesus is the best philosopher, conflict resolver, or military strategist, then admit it!  Don't pretend like you're being faithful in this regard to the One who died at the hands of the dominant empire of His day by refusing to strike back. Admit that you can't accept his teaching. I remember reading in Obama's The Audacity of Hope that he acknowledged the fact that the nation's defense system could not live up to the principles of Sermon on the Mount (not that he's necessarily more honest than others, it's just the example I thought of; he more or less tried to straddle the fence during the Peace Prize speech).

Plain speak is the name of the game. Own up to your deficits and shortcomings, don't try to wiggle out of them with doublespeak.

video update of my Kiva loan in Kyrgystan

Below is a video clip of a person I lent to in Kyrgystan (transcript at bottom). I wrote earlier that my Mexico group posted a video as well. This is why I really like Kiva - the person-to-person contact and interaction. I know it increases the transaction cost, but it is vitally important to the whole concept of P2P lending.

I'm now loaning in 32 countries. My delinquency rate has dropped from 5.9% to 4.4%, with default rate still at zero.

I'm trying to recruit folks to my lending teams, click here if you are associated in any way with Indiana Wesleyan University or Word Made Flesh.



Interviewer: What did you use the loan for?

Aigul: For this cow.

Interviewer: Just one?

Aigul: Yes. Where could I have got another 15,000 soms (USD 350)?

Interviewer: What do you think? Did the loan help?

Aigul: If God wills, there won’t be any problems when she calves, and we’ll have a good calf. We’ll have milk to sell. 700 or 800 som a week (USD 16-18). It covers the costs.

link: Possible Influence of Genetic Factors on Sin, Sanctification and Theology (Drury, Webb)

For those interested in the interaction between science and spirituality, I'd point you to a recent collaboration of two IWU professors, Keith Drury and Burt Webb in Possible Influence of Genetic Factors on Sin, Sanctification and Theology. I haven't read the article yet, but I have heard the corresponding lecture and have had good conversations with these guys on the issue. You won't be disappointed!

who said it? .094. the state of American men

Man, I see in fight club the strongest and smartest men who've ever lived. I see all this potential, and I see squandering. G-d d-mn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables; slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy sh-t we don't need. We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War's a spiritual war... our Great Depression is our lives. We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won't. And we're slowly learning that fact. And we're very, very p-ssed off.

-Tyler Durden in Fight Club (1999 film)

Obama on peace 'n' violence (Nobel speech)

The radio on my blizzard-commute home caught my ear, about the Commander-in-Chief of a nation in two wars accepting the Nobel Peace Prize. I found the full speech text here and skimmed it. Pretty interesting - and certainly honest, no one could argue against that. Interesting that he mentioned both that "a non-violent movement could not have halted Hitler's armies" while he simultaneously said "there's nothing weak -- nothing passive -- nothing naïve -- in the creed and lives of Gandhi and King." MLK... if only you could pop back over to this side of the river styx for a day, just for one interview. I'll meet you at the inter-city school, where kids still put you up on the walls.

Anyway, below is what I thought were the most interesting excerpts if you want the 2-min overview. NPR reactions here:

But perhaps the most profound issue surrounding my receipt of this prize is the fact that I am the Commander-in-Chief of the military of a nation in the midst of two wars...

We must begin by acknowledging the hard truth:  We will not eradicate violent conflict in our lifetimes.  There will be times when nations -- acting individually or in concert -- will find the use of force not only necessary but morally justified.

I make this statement mindful of what Martin Luther King Jr. said in this same ceremony years ago:  "Violence never brings permanent peace.  It solves no social problem:  it merely creates new and more complicated ones."  As someone who stands here as a direct consequence of Dr. King's life work, I am living testimony to the moral force of non-violence.  I know there's nothing weak -- nothing passive -- nothing naïve -- in the creed and lives of Gandhi and King.

But as a head of state sworn to protect and defend my nation, I cannot be guided by their examples alone.  I face the world as it is, and cannot stand idle in the face of threats to the American people.  For make no mistake:  Evil does exist in the world.  A non-violent movement could not have halted Hitler's armies.  Negotiations cannot convince al Qaeda's leaders to lay down their arms.  To say that force may sometimes be necessary is not a call to cynicism -- it is a recognition of history; the imperfections of man and the limits of reason...

But we do not have to think that human nature is perfect for us to still believe that the human condition can be perfected.  We do not have to live in an idealized world to still reach for those ideals that will make it a better place.  The non-violence practiced by men like Gandhi and King may not have been practical or possible in every circumstance, but the love that they preached -- their fundamental faith in human progress -- that must always be the North Star that guides us on our journey...

We can acknowledge that oppression will always be with us, and still strive for justice.  We can admit the intractability of deprivation, and still strive for dignity.  Clear-eyed, we can understand that there will be war, and still strive for peace.  We can do that -- for that is the story of human progress; that's the hope of all the world; and at this moment of challenge, that must be our work here on Earth.

a citizen bird inventory + the bird in my house

Dec. 14 kicks off The Audubon Society's 110th Annual Christmas Bird Count, a nationwide citizen science project that inventories birds across the U.S.

From December 14 through January 5 tens of thousands of volunteers throughout the Americas take part in an adventure that has become a family tradition among generations. Families and students, birders and scientists, armed with binoculars, bird guides and checklists go out on an annual mission - often before dawn. For over one hundred years, the desire to both make a difference and to experience the beauty of nature has driven dedicated people to leave the comfort of a warm house during the Holiday season. http://www.audubon.org/Bird/cbc/

Click here to find your local group and date (varies).

Meanwhile, a yellow-fronted canary (a.k.a. the green singing finch native to Africa) has moved into my home...

the hunt

before cardboard cereal and cold milk
hunger, not alarm clocks, drove our rhythms
and so, with hunger, I rise - far too early
I move from one dark world to another, from senses dulled to alerted

the car door echoes in the silence
a foreign, metallic clank in a world of flesh, wood, and soil
earlier than the early birds, I enter where I do not belong
the forest hushes as it watches this intruder; a cicada stirs underfoot

I climb to my red pine perch, sweating under layers of synthetic skin
I lean back, breathe deep, and wait

the light, too, is foreign to me
not the on/off of Edison, but a dimmer
warming up for the trillionth time
the woods blink again

I am not alone
White-Throated Sparrows tell me of "Old Man Peabody (Peabody, Peabody)"
unaware of my trespass, a Hairy Woodpecker scours the bark nearby
bossy Blue Jays play bully for another day
and timid Bluebirds try to sweeten up the chorus

each day a playground, but always playing for keep
the Red Tail leaves her perch and cries out across the field of corn
abandon all hope, all mice who forage here
her call demands respect, even fear
used by governments to replace the squeak and cluck of the Bald Eagle

I sink further into the tree
muscles tighten, joints ache
thighs become radiators,
the woods patiently reaching out with it's life-stealing cold
a metabolic silence that waits for each creature

as I shiver, I remember my hunger
not the hunger that drove my great-grandfather
the life-and-death hunting of the Depression
but a hunger nonetheless:
to outwit and outstalk, to harvest and feast
borrowing the sun-currency of another
so that I may rise with the sun another day

with the sound of one crack my body explodes
adrenal glands dump their war-time potions
and pumping blood echoes in my head

like an owl, my heads swivels right
two figures, entering the woods
sleek, quiet, alert, and hungry
I twist, ever so slowly,
my senses are dull, theirs keen
to gain, I must risk loss

in another wood, on another world
three tense fingers release
one figure falls, one sprints away

but in this wood, in this world
I am perched facing south, not north
and the figures slowly plod on behind me
driven by hungers that began
many ages ago

I silently return home to the land I know
offering one last metallic clang to the woods
returning to my hungry family
feeling a failure
and a great success

Glen Beck and Co. love Obama

Maybe not all of them, but probably most.

Never before has right-wing talk radio / TV / magazines received so much attention. They are angry, loud, urgent, and as a result, often irrational. They want you to be like them, to spread their message to the masses before the Obacalypse destroys everything pure and good on planet earth.

The formula is quite simple. Don't try to seek the truth - that would be quite boring, and the ratings might scare away the advertisers. Instead, pick an enemy that unites your viewers/listeners (since liberals are currently in power, they're the target - it goes both ways). Whenever that person does anything at all - opens their mouth, drinks a glass of water, or even does something that a person of your political stripe would usually like, try to conceive any possible objection to that action and run with it. Limbaugh, Savage, Hannity, Beck... they are good performers and businesspeople, and they have smart folks behind them. In fact, their more loony moments have captured even my attention, and so I watch and listen even more just to amuse myself and find blogging material... which is exactly what their advertisers want. Rush is laughing all the way to the bank.

The recent announcement of 30,000 more troops in Afghanistan by the U.S. Commander in Chief is a great example.

Republicans had earlier wanted this troop increase, and it's fair to say they are generally more pro-war. If Obama didn't announce a troop increase, we'd hear cries of "cut-and-run" and being a good ol' liberal sissy. But what have we heard since Tuesday? Afghanistan is now Obama's war. Why, Mr. President, are we even over there? Why should we care about Afghanistan? It's filled with illiterate, primitive people still living in the 12th century. Afghanistan was about just whipping Al-Qaida and getting out, not nation-building [show editor's note: don't bring up nation-building objective in Iraq].

These folks are obviously not about truth, compassion, or validating the humanity of their global neighbors. I really hope that money is the main reason, and not something more sinister.

So when Conservative Victory 2010 finally rolls around next November and the tears start running down Sean Hannity's cheeks, I'm not sure whether it will be because of the conservatives' reacquired political power or for his impending decline in market share.

The upside to all this foolery? More great content for The Colbert Report and The Daily Show, which I don't mind advertising (I didn't say endorse). But enough already. Consider this my last post on (advertisement for) conservative entertainer-businessmen (did you notice that they are all white males?).

"cut a path"

Yankee Springs Recreational Area, Barry County, MI
Photo credit: Joseph Vitiello
Photo edit: me