How do the people of the United States, get our leaders and the President to move toward the proposals of German Chancellor Angela Merkel for 50% reduction of carbon emissions by 2050. In a democracy, do the leaders lead out with the will of the people? What is the will of the American people when it comes to global warming?
Our family has already made changes toward this effort, by switching to compact florescent bulbs, reduction in electric clothes dryer use, banning the use of the dishwasher, driving a car that gets 38 mpg, keeping the car parked and taking bikes, open windows instead of using air conditioner......we have a long way to go for our family alone, but we are taking this very seriously.
It is an act of faith and stewardship of creation. We are not given the bounty and beauty of this good earth to do with as we please. We are to care for all things, all people. There is joy in living with alternative behaviors, even if there are less conveniences.
Life is good. Life is interesting.
asgr
Saturday, May 26, 2007
Thursday, May 24, 2007
Oh Rosie and vitriolic diatribes
Now, I must first state that I do not watch TV on a regular basis. I find little there worth consuming my time. But yesterday, as I was on the internet, scanning the through some youtube videos on Jon Stewart from Comedy Centrals The Daily Show (which is the best show on Television), I came across a clip from this week's fracas between Rosie O'Donnell and Elizabeth Hasselbeck from the View.
During an episode this week, Rosie called Elizabeth on the carpet for not stepping up as a friend, when Rosie was needing to clarify her wording that insinuated that she thought the troops were terrorists. There was implication in her words, but her intent was to point the finger to President Bush and not the troops. During this particular episode of The View, Elizabeth put it back to Rosie that Rosie alone is responsible for clarifying her innuendos and thoughts.
It turned into a public fight, split screen to see both, with Rosie seemingly in control. And why wouldn't she have been? She knew that she was going to put Elizabeth on the defensive. Elizabeth was on the defensive.
I bring this up, solely because our culture and society have mistaken vitriolic/Springer-esque verbal attacks for public discourse. It is not a good or growing thing to watch two adults go after one another, no one listening, both talking over the other, both having valid points to make.
In this case, Rosie thought the whole thing was about a friend not sticking up for a friend. For Elizabeth, it seemed to be that she wanted to push Rosie on being an adult and taking consequences for her words.
It became about politics and mud slinging and no one heard the real issues. Elizabeth should simply say why she chose not to defend Rosie (which could be for any number of reasons), and Rosie needs to come to terms with the fact that if she digs a verbal hole, she must get herself out of it.
I yearn for adult discourse, where we can express hurt feelings without everyone going on the defensive. When we can open a can of worms and then hear what our friend has to say to us. Where we live to grow and learn and develop......which means listening and hearing.
There have been many times when I've given in to this type of tirade, sure of the rightness of my position. It is ugly, and it feels ugly, and then we have to go an clean up the relational mess.
Really, there are better ways.
Rosie and Elizabeth, get a mediator who will help you paraphrase, listen & hear one another.
As for the rest of us? Let's step up to the adult plate and be adults.
asgr
During an episode this week, Rosie called Elizabeth on the carpet for not stepping up as a friend, when Rosie was needing to clarify her wording that insinuated that she thought the troops were terrorists. There was implication in her words, but her intent was to point the finger to President Bush and not the troops. During this particular episode of The View, Elizabeth put it back to Rosie that Rosie alone is responsible for clarifying her innuendos and thoughts.
It turned into a public fight, split screen to see both, with Rosie seemingly in control. And why wouldn't she have been? She knew that she was going to put Elizabeth on the defensive. Elizabeth was on the defensive.
I bring this up, solely because our culture and society have mistaken vitriolic/Springer-esque verbal attacks for public discourse. It is not a good or growing thing to watch two adults go after one another, no one listening, both talking over the other, both having valid points to make.
In this case, Rosie thought the whole thing was about a friend not sticking up for a friend. For Elizabeth, it seemed to be that she wanted to push Rosie on being an adult and taking consequences for her words.
It became about politics and mud slinging and no one heard the real issues. Elizabeth should simply say why she chose not to defend Rosie (which could be for any number of reasons), and Rosie needs to come to terms with the fact that if she digs a verbal hole, she must get herself out of it.
I yearn for adult discourse, where we can express hurt feelings without everyone going on the defensive. When we can open a can of worms and then hear what our friend has to say to us. Where we live to grow and learn and develop......which means listening and hearing.
There have been many times when I've given in to this type of tirade, sure of the rightness of my position. It is ugly, and it feels ugly, and then we have to go an clean up the relational mess.
Really, there are better ways.
Rosie and Elizabeth, get a mediator who will help you paraphrase, listen & hear one another.
As for the rest of us? Let's step up to the adult plate and be adults.
asgr
Saturday, May 12, 2007
DMin
I've been accepted into the Doctor of Ministry program at Columbia Theological Seminary in Decatur GA. It took much longer to receive this word than I had anticipated, and by the time I did get the email saying "congratulations", I had moved past the excitement of being a doctoral student, and am in a much more balanced place of excitement for the learning.
This will impact my next 4 years, mightily.
asgr
This will impact my next 4 years, mightily.
asgr
Mothers Day.....Ack......
I've been a mother for 16 years now. I've read all of the trite and sentimental mush that gets circulated at mothers day. It is easy for me to continue in my disdain for overrated holidays, because my two boys make it easy.
The cooey emails about the toughness, gentleness, stalwartness....and other "nesses" of motherhood are all true. But reading them does not validate my parenting. Nor does it assure that just because I am a Mother, that I am any good at it.
So, this year, someone sent me a Mother's Day piece written by Anna Quindlan, one of my favorite writers. She is an author but is best known for her essays twice a month on the last page of Newsweek. Ms Quindlan bring intelligence to every topic she touches, knowledge and a cutting edge to everything she writes.
She did not cover new ground with this piece. In fact, it was much of the same old same old that has gone around before. A reminder to live now, in the moment, with one's children....because they will soon be gone. She just says it in a way that I can hear.
I thought about that. Almost every morning, I head to work 45 minutes early (when I could be sleeping in...which I love to do), just so that I can drop my 16 year old son off at choir and get to say "love ya" in that flippant way that a teenage boy can hear, but that conveys the depths of my love. My son has never said "love ya, too".....instead he says "have a good day". Often twice. There is deep abiding love that is transmitted in those 15 seconds that I would not trade for anything.
Our 13 year old son is a bit more pliable when it comes to daily loving expressions. He won't say the love words either.....I'm way over needing that.........but he lets me say them to him. He waits for me to say them to him. And he nods in my direction.
Daily. Everyday. My children hear that they are loved every single day of their lives. Sometimes twice. Sometimes I'm the only one who hears me say it, but I say it anyway. Why? Because I do love them. But more importantly, I know that a child's understanding of the Divine is often seated in their parental interaction. I want them to instinctively know that God loves them every day, all day, so that when it comes time to question their faith, the bible, God's existence, living moral lives, loving neighbor and enemy, that they have a foundation of knowing what it is like to be loved, simply because they exist in this world.
Simply because they exist.
They are loved.
By me.
Their Mom.
asgr
The cooey emails about the toughness, gentleness, stalwartness....and other "nesses" of motherhood are all true. But reading them does not validate my parenting. Nor does it assure that just because I am a Mother, that I am any good at it.
So, this year, someone sent me a Mother's Day piece written by Anna Quindlan, one of my favorite writers. She is an author but is best known for her essays twice a month on the last page of Newsweek. Ms Quindlan bring intelligence to every topic she touches, knowledge and a cutting edge to everything she writes.
She did not cover new ground with this piece. In fact, it was much of the same old same old that has gone around before. A reminder to live now, in the moment, with one's children....because they will soon be gone. She just says it in a way that I can hear.
I thought about that. Almost every morning, I head to work 45 minutes early (when I could be sleeping in...which I love to do), just so that I can drop my 16 year old son off at choir and get to say "love ya" in that flippant way that a teenage boy can hear, but that conveys the depths of my love. My son has never said "love ya, too".....instead he says "have a good day". Often twice. There is deep abiding love that is transmitted in those 15 seconds that I would not trade for anything.
Our 13 year old son is a bit more pliable when it comes to daily loving expressions. He won't say the love words either.....I'm way over needing that.........but he lets me say them to him. He waits for me to say them to him. And he nods in my direction.
Daily. Everyday. My children hear that they are loved every single day of their lives. Sometimes twice. Sometimes I'm the only one who hears me say it, but I say it anyway. Why? Because I do love them. But more importantly, I know that a child's understanding of the Divine is often seated in their parental interaction. I want them to instinctively know that God loves them every day, all day, so that when it comes time to question their faith, the bible, God's existence, living moral lives, loving neighbor and enemy, that they have a foundation of knowing what it is like to be loved, simply because they exist in this world.
Simply because they exist.
They are loved.
By me.
Their Mom.
asgr
Thursday, May 3, 2007
May Day and Cedar Trees
(this meditation was written by asgr for an evening meal gathering of women in our seminary community)
Hear the poetry of Harris Loewen........
O God great womb of wondrous love,
your spirit moving on the deep did wake the world within yourself
a pulsing lighted world from sleep
O Hearth O heartbeat of the whole
your dark light dance began the times, the days and seasons, seconds, years
the ages rhythms and the rhymes.
O fire, O firmament and sea
your seething ferment’s energy called forth a whirling waltz of life
each plant and creature and its seed.
Sisters. It is May day. It is a day of ancient memory. A creation day of dancing around May Poles and finding love. A day of joy. A day to celebrate the fertile garden that is the earth. The fertile soil that we each hold within us. A day to claim God’s holy fertility as the creator of all that is.
May Day falls midway between the Spring Equinox and the Summer Solstice. It falls midway in the year, across from the midpoint of the vernal Equinox and winter solstice, which marks the beginning of the dormant and shadowed time of year, when things go quiet and deep.....in preparation. May day, in its Mid-ness..... lifts high the banner of the sun, throwing off the veil of winter........urging us to move forward and into the fresh greening of the world.
How easy it is to revel in the planting, the sowing, the dreaming of fresh vegetables and fruits that are to come. How easy it is today, to think of culminations....culminations of classes, ministry settings, papers, first years, other years...... propelling us into time that is yet to come but is so near ripeness. The sap, deep in the trees has flowed its sweet treasures to entice us for months to come. The peonies tease us with their buds waiting to burst....needing yet another month of preparation. The soil hits our nostrils with the earthy scent of compost, dew, rich dirt and hope. A sight of anticipation for our eyes.
You.
Each you that sits in this circle.
Each one who sits here in exhaustion or doneness or still need to do-ness........you are precious and prized like first fruits of the season. You are God’s.
The book of the prophet Ezekiel brings us an image of creating abundance and Godly gardening.......an image that is purposefully stated in the face of those who have chosen to follow not God, but to make subcontracts with human authorities, selling their people, selling their heritage, selling their promise. Trading life for death. But lets put aside the actual context of this image. For the image itself is bursting with seasonal awakenings...greening of God’s calling, midway-ness of what has been and what is to be. Hear now from the prophet, the images from God.
God, our creator, says, “I personally will take a shoot from the top of the towering cedar, a cutting from the crown of the tree, and plant it on a high and towering mountain on the high mountain of Israel. It will grow putting out branches and fruit - a majestic cedar. Birds of every sort and kind will live under it. They’ll build nests in the shade of its branches. All the trees of the field will recognize that I, God, made the great tree small, and the small tree great, made the green tree turn dry and the dry tree sprout green branches. I, God said it - and I did it.”
We are the birds of every sort and kind, living within the branches of the majestic cedar. As the many hued ribbons of the May Pole, our sacred gifts and talents flow and invite others into God’s dance of creative life. Our faith is the nest that holds our soul’s home, safe in the cool shade of the tree that God brings forth from the solid mountainscape.
It is God who calls. God who transplants. God who sows with fertile faithfulness. It is the creator who restores the cold wintry season to a green landscape of bloom and abundance. It is the Creator who determines what lowly tree will prevail, and what stately tree will be brought low, what will be green and what will be dry.
Oh, you women of Creative, Fertile Faith. Oh we women of God. We are in the mid point of being transplanted, nourished. Always midway between this or that....moving with rhythms that we establish, and with those that we join. Be strong in your season of relationships with sisters and brothers that surround you to receive learning from you or to bring support to you. Be strong in your season of relationship with the One who assumes a majestic landscape of your ministry. ...the many sorts and kinds of ministries that pulsate with Holy Life. Lift your joyful spirits unto the Holy One, who is creating with you.
Hear the poetry of Harris Loewen........
O God great womb of wondrous love,
your spirit moving on the deep did wake the world within yourself
a pulsing lighted world from sleep
O Hearth O heartbeat of the whole
your dark light dance began the times, the days and seasons, seconds, years
the ages rhythms and the rhymes.
O fire, O firmament and sea
your seething ferment’s energy called forth a whirling waltz of life
each plant and creature and its seed.
Sisters. It is May day. It is a day of ancient memory. A creation day of dancing around May Poles and finding love. A day of joy. A day to celebrate the fertile garden that is the earth. The fertile soil that we each hold within us. A day to claim God’s holy fertility as the creator of all that is.
May Day falls midway between the Spring Equinox and the Summer Solstice. It falls midway in the year, across from the midpoint of the vernal Equinox and winter solstice, which marks the beginning of the dormant and shadowed time of year, when things go quiet and deep.....in preparation. May day, in its Mid-ness..... lifts high the banner of the sun, throwing off the veil of winter........urging us to move forward and into the fresh greening of the world.
How easy it is to revel in the planting, the sowing, the dreaming of fresh vegetables and fruits that are to come. How easy it is today, to think of culminations....culminations of classes, ministry settings, papers, first years, other years...... propelling us into time that is yet to come but is so near ripeness. The sap, deep in the trees has flowed its sweet treasures to entice us for months to come. The peonies tease us with their buds waiting to burst....needing yet another month of preparation. The soil hits our nostrils with the earthy scent of compost, dew, rich dirt and hope. A sight of anticipation for our eyes.
You.
Each you that sits in this circle.
Each one who sits here in exhaustion or doneness or still need to do-ness........you are precious and prized like first fruits of the season. You are God’s.
The book of the prophet Ezekiel brings us an image of creating abundance and Godly gardening.......an image that is purposefully stated in the face of those who have chosen to follow not God, but to make subcontracts with human authorities, selling their people, selling their heritage, selling their promise. Trading life for death. But lets put aside the actual context of this image. For the image itself is bursting with seasonal awakenings...greening of God’s calling, midway-ness of what has been and what is to be. Hear now from the prophet, the images from God.
God, our creator, says, “I personally will take a shoot from the top of the towering cedar, a cutting from the crown of the tree, and plant it on a high and towering mountain on the high mountain of Israel. It will grow putting out branches and fruit - a majestic cedar. Birds of every sort and kind will live under it. They’ll build nests in the shade of its branches. All the trees of the field will recognize that I, God, made the great tree small, and the small tree great, made the green tree turn dry and the dry tree sprout green branches. I, God said it - and I did it.”
We are the birds of every sort and kind, living within the branches of the majestic cedar. As the many hued ribbons of the May Pole, our sacred gifts and talents flow and invite others into God’s dance of creative life. Our faith is the nest that holds our soul’s home, safe in the cool shade of the tree that God brings forth from the solid mountainscape.
It is God who calls. God who transplants. God who sows with fertile faithfulness. It is the creator who restores the cold wintry season to a green landscape of bloom and abundance. It is the Creator who determines what lowly tree will prevail, and what stately tree will be brought low, what will be green and what will be dry.
Oh, you women of Creative, Fertile Faith. Oh we women of God. We are in the mid point of being transplanted, nourished. Always midway between this or that....moving with rhythms that we establish, and with those that we join. Be strong in your season of relationships with sisters and brothers that surround you to receive learning from you or to bring support to you. Be strong in your season of relationship with the One who assumes a majestic landscape of your ministry. ...the many sorts and kinds of ministries that pulsate with Holy Life. Lift your joyful spirits unto the Holy One, who is creating with you.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
