(Ir)religiosity

If you know your 20th century American history this is pretty interesting. And humorous.

~bh ><>

The Onion gives me a breath of fresh air some days. It good to look at the absurdity of our system get a good laugh sometimes. This is hilarious. Read the entire “article” here.

~bh ><>

Well, I made it. I’m back and quite exhausted. Being hit by the one two punch of being at a conference and going through daylight savings the same weekend drains you. But it was well worth it. On a whole the conference was great. I’ll mention a few highlights and then some criticism.

First, I was most impressed by the action taken by the staff throughout the conference to not only talk about sustainability, but to practice it as well. Too many times I’ve been to conference we’ve talked about sustainability over a nice styrofoam cup of coffee or strategized about alleviating poverty and world hunger over a 3 course, catered meal.

Second, aside from the information and knowledge gained from the plenaries and workshops, this trip was worth it just for the conversation and fellowship that was had among friends and colleagues. It’s kind of weird, I hung out with people I see almost everyday, but don’t speak to all that much. It took a conference for us to take off our “school hats” and engage in genuine friendship. That being said, I have the best friends and colleagues a guy could ask for; it’s not everyday you run across authentically concerned and compassionate folks who refuse to leave things the way they are. Amazing.

Now for the criticism. Or maybe it is just an observation of the typical happenings at these types of events. I don’t mind people sharing personal success stories about how they implemented a certain strategy that resulted in transformation. I think that’s great and further proves my belief that everything is and must be contextual and local. What I do have a problem with is the manner in which those stories are presented. More often than not these local, contextual stories are shoved on the listeners in a prescriptive manner that assumes a certain strategy or idea that worked in one context or locality can be generalized as some sort of silver bullet that will work for everyone. That is simply untrue. What works for me may note work for you and vice versa. It doesn’t matter if we’re talking about sustainability or poverty. And in that respect and I don’t want to isolate this particular event. I’ve been to many conferences like this and it always happens. This one was better than most. All I’m saying is there is a way to share personal, local success stories in way that is not prescriptive and at times condescending. Contextuality needs to be shared, it is in enriching, but a larger conversation must jettison from that or else we’re just patting ourselves on the back.

Ok, enough said about that. Like I said, this was one of the better conference I’ve been to. I didn’t talk much about content here, but by and large it was good and spot on in most respects. I’m always holding my hope and my cynicism in tension. This weekend I was able to re-grip that tension with a sense of realism and without feeling like I’m out there being crazy all by myself, which I do most times.

~bh ><>

I’m in Fayetteville, Arkansas for the “Caring for Creation” conference. I’m pretty excited. Unfortunately, web presence for this event is pretty minimal. You can see more information here (it should be the first event listed) including links to PDF files of the workshops and plenary speakers, etc.

I don’t know what the internet situation will be like over there, hopefully they will have wifi. If they do, I will be live-blogging here throughout the weekend providing you with live updates on the workshop and the plenaries. If they don’t have internet access I’ll be live updating my twitter, via my cell phone, which you can see at my twitter site, at my facebook, or in the left-hand sidebar down there somewhere.

Obviously that won’t be as ideal or as comprehensive as an actual liveblog, but I’ll do what I can. All updates will be in central standard time. Don’t forget to spring forward this weekend! Reflections on the entire weekend will follow on Monday.

REAL-TIME UPDATES:

3:57 pm: Got here several hours ago. Had lunch and did some hiking. Now I’m waiting for dinner. May see if I can catch some z’s. The good news is there is wifi, at least in my room. Not sure about the rest of the campus. So I’ll be updating here and hopefully throughout the sessions. If not here then via twitter. The bad news is tonight’s plenary speaker, Dr. J. Matthew Sleeth, had to cancel because of weather and flight delays. So, I’m not sure what’s going to go down tonight. More to come.

9:05 pm: So, there is no internet in the conference area. Kind of frustrating. Updates won’t really be “real” time. The first plenary was pretty good, a nice intro. to the weekend. So far I’m very impressed, most conferences I go to talk about sustainability and then use styrofoam cups and have expensive food catered, but here they gave us mugs to use for the entire week. I’ve never been to a conference that actually puts their message into action.

11:31 pm: The best part about these events are the conversations that take place and the relationships that are built/nurtured. That alone is better than any plenary speaker.

Day 2:

10:19 am: Just finished my first workshop on determining your eco-footprint. Wow. Mine was lower that the national average (which I guess doesn’t say a whole lot), but not as low as I’d like it to be. The overarching issue here is consumption. Global climate change is the symptom of that deeper problem. Next plenary at 10:30 by the my professor.

2:47 pm: The plenary session this morning was great. Dr. Davies talked about systemic solutions for sustainability and the Oikos movement. My second workshop was about political advocacy and was good, although I still remain a little cynical about the influence of advocates being usurped by the lobbyists. It seems like our government is turning into a system by the lobbyists for the lobbyists.

4:07 pm: Second afternoon workshop, “Reduce-Reuse-Recycle,” was pretty mediocre. It was exclusively about recycling and basically amounted to the facilitator telling her success story and assuming we should all do the same thing. Great if you want to hear an inspirational story, but not very practical. Got some free time now, until dinner. Think I may try and catch a nap.

12:17 am: Again, conversation trumps all. I’m grateful for that. The third plenary was perhaps the best thus far given by John Hill of Board of Church and Society of the UMC on global climate change. It’s hard not to be depressed when faced with the facts and projections, but I am hope nonetheless. And inspired. It’s late and we spring forward tonight, I’m out.

Day 3: 

10:07 am: Worship was great. Anytime you incorporate readings from Zen Buddhism and Albert Einstein into the service it automatically goes up a few notches in my book.  Not that I’ll likely be able to take it home, but it was really good nonetheless.

~bh ><>

Fox’s “24″ to return in the fall—sort of.

These are some pretty awesome pictures.

New pictures of Abu Ghraib. WARNING: These are very graphic and contain violence and nudity.

Visualizing the bible.

I’m not sure what to make of this. [Ht. Philip Brooks]

~bh ><>

~bh ><>

So, I’m taking this class on the parables of Jesus and one of our assignments is to write six original parables using the same sort of literary devices and role reversals that the historical Jesus did. Early on, I remember thinking this wouldn’t be too big of a deal, but when I actually sat down to write I discovered it’s much harder. But, I was able to squeeze one out. So here you go, the parable of the dandelion:

“The ecosystem of God is like a dandelion that a child plucks and blows, scattering its seeds along the ground for none to see, but for all to find.”

Thoughts?

~bh ><>