Take action for a Burmese peace and justice activist …
If you share my admiration for Daw Aung San Suu Kyi - and for the courageous Buddhist monks and nuns who have stood up to a repressive regime, risking - and often losing - their freedom and their lives, please take a minute and sign this petition from Amnesty International, available here.
The letter is copied below the jump. There's more that must be done, but this is a start.
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Catching up …
I'm home for a couple days, catching up on a huge pile of unanswered email.
I just got this beautiful quote via Bob Carlton:
Let us remember that in the end we go to poetry for one reason, so that we might more fully inhabit our lives and the world in which we live them, and that if we more fully inhabit these things, we might be less apt to destroy both.
By Christian Wiman, Source: Poetry Magazine
Bob also sent a tremendous link on questions.
Speaking of questions, have you read the new book by David Dark, one of my favorite writers? It's called The Sacredness of Questioning Everything.
Obviously, considering the subtitle of my upcoming book (to be released in March), I'm interested in questions and questioning these days. (A New Kind of Christianity: Ten Questions that are Transforming the Faith)
Also - I just discovered that some videos I did are available on beliefnet.com here.
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Criminal Injustice
Alan Bean keeps many of us informed and on alert about the many injustices of our prison system. This recent piece was especially disturbing and enlightening. (You've noticed how those two words often go together.)
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All Fishermen
A while back, I posted a short piece on the need for an ECRA ... that garnered quite a bit of attention in the blogosphere. I suggested (clearly tongue in cheek, or maybe not) that just as Evangelicals needed to create an "Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability" to counter questionable accounting and fundraising practicies, it might be good to create some standards of rhetorical accountability. I proposed seven such standards.
A few weeks ago, I had the chance to speak with a class of high school students who had been assigned my book Everything Must Change by one of their teachers. One student in particular took umbrage to anyplace in the book where I confronted in a rhetorical muscular way what I saw as injustice. My sense was that this student didn't disagree with me on the issues themselves, but was even more sensitive that I am to rhetoric that pollutes the atmosphere and makes continuing conversation more difficult. I left the encounter even more committed to following the wisdom of Proverbs - seeking "a soft answer" to turn away wrath, and avoiding "grievous words" that "stir up anger."
The President's recent speech at Notre Dame was an example of the kind of respectful discourse we need when grappling with issues over which we disagree. (I've included a transcript below the jump.) I was especially interested by his story about fishermen - not only because I wet a line quite often myself, but also because I think there is something quite wise and profound in the point of the story: we can find, in our common humanity, common ground from which we can join to seek the common good.
I have always been intrigued with the powerful (and textually disputed) story of Jesus and the woman caught in adultery, found in John 8. I frequently ponder the image - saturated in significance - of Jesus stooping to write in the dust. Stooping, getting down-to-earth, returning close to the soil (humus) in humility, moving from a high position of dominance to a low position of service and vulnerability ... Jesus joins the woman in solidarity, and he simultaneously refuses to get into a dominance contest with the men. Touching soil, he reminds both would-be-executioners and about-to-be-executed that they are made of the same earth.
Evoking - and perhaps turning - the ancient story of God writing the ten commandments in tablets of stone, he writes in dust unknown words that can be blown away by the next breeze, perhaps commenting on the value of their sophistry and polemics. When he appeals not to their intellect but to their conscience - "whoever is without sin, go ahead and heave your stone" - he brings them down to earth as well. As their stones thud to the ground, not in condemnation of the woman, but in confession of their own imperfection, Jesus' rhetorical wisdom shines through. As I think about the kind of unhelpful discourse that repulses me - and that I too often descend into myself - I find myself confessing, "Lord, I have a lot to learn and a long way to go."
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proud dad again …
Last weekend we celebrated my younger daughter's graduation. May 14 is my older daughter Rachel's birthday. Here's 7/8ths of our clan (Rachel's husband, Jesse, couldn't be with us). Rachel's the one my arm is around.
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