Existential Punk

Free Hugs Campaign!

HT to my friend, Jennifer, for emailing this clip to me today. Warning, it might move you to tears as it did to me! This very inspirational video clip can be found at YouTube. Everyone, regardless of race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, where you fall politically, et. al needs hugs! Go out and hug somebody today!

(RED)EMPTION CAMPAIGN PART DEUX

I have donated to this worth-while cause. Will you? All they are asking for is $!0 US Dollars!Please read the following entry from Mike Todd's blog (CLICK this link to find the DONATE BUTTON) Waving or Drowning?:

(Red)emption

Please stick with this one to the end… where there is a challenge waiting for you.

This is a post I’ve been chewing on for a few days now, and I really wasn’t sure if I’d end up writing it or not. On balance, I think I need to.

On Friday, as Sue packed for Bangkok, we watched Bono and Oprah launch the North American version of the Product (RED) campaign. We were both inspi(red) by the excitement, and moved to tears by the scenes from Africa. But as the show progressed and the feeding frenzy that was Oprah’s shopping trip continued, I started to feel a little sick.

I’ve come to the conclusion that I love this program. And I hate it. Let me try to explain why.

The love part is easy. I love it because it will provide funds for saving lives. What’s not to love about that?

Here’s the part with which I’m having trouble. I hate it because it’s a sad commentary, a mirror if you will, reflecting the reality of our culture back to us. The currency of the Kingdom is love. The currency of this material, self-centered culture is “stuff.” Bono is brilliant as he has realized this, and knows we will not give out of love. HIV/AIDS is killing people in numbers too horrible to give voice to. And while this troubles us, it apparently doesn’t trouble us enough to give out of love. The brilliance of Product (Red) is that it will get the money out of us anyway. No love? Fine, then we’ll appeal to your need for the other currency, for stuff. Want a new Gap shirt, and a trendy one at that? Great. Here you go, and by the way, a couple of bucks will go to life-saving drugs.

In short, I long for a world that operates on Kingdom currency. It’s coming… just not fast enough. In the meantime, I will grit my teeth, smile, and promote the Product (RED) campaign. Heck, I’ll probably end up wearing a red t-shirt. Hypocritical? Maybe. Paradoxical? Definitely.

Now for the challenge. Robert and I have been discussing for some time the need for us to start another campaign to raise some funds here at WorD.

We’ve been looking at the (RED) iPod specifically. When you spend $200 US on the iPod, Apple will contribute $10 to the Global Fund. (Robert has changed his mind about Christmas, BTW, so don’t bother emailing his wife.)

I don’t have a clue what the profit margins are like on the iPod, but $10 doesn’t strike me as a lot of money. Let’s be realistic. It’s not. Here’s the choice: You can lay out $200, get a new iPod, and contribute $10 to a good cause. Or, you can just contribute the $10. We believe we can get 1000 people to donate $10 each. We’d like $10 from everyone in the developed world, but we’ll settle for you, and everyone you know. And when we’re done, we’ll pass the money--all of it--along to the Stephen Lewis Foundation.

First, we need your $10. Just as importantly, we then need you to reach out to all your contacts. Post a link on your blog, send out an email to your friends, hang a banner from your window... whatever it takes. We'll keep you posted on how we're doing.

Together, we can do this. Help prove us right. Thank you.

India tackles domestic violence!

"Every six hours, a young married woman is burned, beaten to death or driven to commit suicide, officials say.

Overall, a crime against women is committed every three minutes in India, according to India's National Crime Records Bureau."

This is atrocious and i am glad India is stepping up to the plate to help these defenseless women!

Read the entire article at BBC News.

VIRGINIANS, VOTE NO ON NOVEMBER 7, 2006!

The Marriage Amendment is a BAD IDEA no matter where you fall on what defines marriage. It affects heterosexuals as much as homosexuals. PLEASE READ the following from an email i received from Virginia's Governor, Tim Kaine:

"Friends:

This morning my wife, Anne Holton, former Governor Linwood Holton, former First Lady "Jinks" Holton, and I stood in front of a historic building, the Executive Mansion, to talk about the unintended negative consequences of Ballot Question #1 -- the so-called "Marriage Amendment" and the importance of Virginia voters making the right kind of history by voting NO on Election Day.

Anne and I have been married nearly 22 years. Anne's folks will soon celebrate their 54th anniversary. My own parents will celebrate 50 years of marriage in 2007. Our family cherishes marriage.

Like most Virginians, we believe that marriage should remain only between a man and a woman. That has always been the law in Virginia and I will fight any effort to change the definition of marriage.

But, the issue before the voters on November 7th is whether to write into Virginia's Constitution language that poses significant and unknown consequences for all unmarried individuals. In my judgment, the right answer is NO. The amendment simply goes too far.

Today, I became the 200th Virginia lawyer to join The Commonwealth Coalition's Legal Review Committee. That's a bipartisan, statewide group of attorneys and legal scholars who have looked at this proposed amendment and concluded that it has far-reaching and largely unpredictable consequences.

The fact of the matter is, Ballot Question #1 could eliminate the protections now offered by Virginia's domestic violence laws to unmarried partners.

Ballot Question #1 could render irrelevant an individual's wishes when it comes to personal matters like medical directives, hospital visitation, guardianship, and property rights.

Ballot Question #1 adds uncertainty for private business owners who may wish to offer health care and other benefits to their employees and their families and dependents in order to attract and keep the best employees.

Virginia's founders believed that our Constitution should articulate the limitations of government, not limit the people who are governed.

Unfortunately, Ballot Question #1 flies in the face of that principle.

That is why Anne, Linwood, Jinks, and I will be voting "no" on Ballot Question #1 on November 7th, and we urge our fellow Virginians to do the same.

The election is two weeks from today! Some of you may be thinking that it is too late to affect the outcome. You couldn't be more wrong.

The Commonwealth Coalition needs your help now more than ever if we are to defeat Ballot Question #1 on November 7th.

Here's how you can help:

Volunteer to help The Coalition get out the vote on election day. Send an email to volunteer@voteNOva.org if you can help work the polls on election day or make calls to voters before then.

Talk to all your friends about why they should vote no.

Make a contribution NOW to help keep The Coalition's ads on TV through election day. The Coalition's ads are running statewide on CNN and on broadcast stations in Richmond and Hampton Roads. Contribute now to make sure voters will see them right up until election day.
With your help, we can make the right kind of history in Virginia.

Thanks.

Tim Kaine"

(RED)EMPTION CAMPAIGN

HT to Adam over at pomomusings for posting on the project started by the Stephen Lewis Foundation to help in the fight to end AIDS worldwide. I am all for any way to fight this pandemic. Bono's RED campaign is great for those who are gonna spend anyways and buy things like the iPod nano (PRODUCT), but here is another way to spen your money and help:

"Now for the challenge. Robert and I have been discussing for some time the need for us to start another campaign to raise some funds here at WorD.

We’ve been looking at the (RED) iPod specifically. When you spend $200 US on the iPod, Apple will contribute $10 to the Global Fund. (Robert has changed his mind about Christmas, BTW, so don’t bother emailing his wife.)

I don’t have a clue what the profit margins are like on the iPod, but $10 doesn’t strike me as a lot of money. Let’s be realistic. It’s not. Here’s the choice: You can lay out $200, get a new iPod, and contribute $10 to a good cause. Or, you can just contribute the $10. We believe we can get 1000 people to donate $10 each. We’d like $10 from everyone in the developed world, but we’ll settle for you, and everyone you know. And when we’re done, we’ll pass the money--all of it--along to the Stephen Lewis Foundation."

Amahoro Africa Gathering

Look to the Margins:  Hope for Leadership amid Liminality!

by Claude Nikondeha

According to Alan Roxburgh, the North American church in late modernity is firmly in liminal space; meaning that there is little that is firm or solid as we transition into a post-modern or post-colonial era. In truth, the North American church has been on the margins for some time now, but it has been a comfortable arrangement. In recent years, the church become aware that it is on the margins; the cultural quake got the attention of many church leaders at long last. Many pastors, denominational leaders and faithful disciples are trying to gain their footing in this new decentered reality. They are surveying the aftermath of modernity and see that they are on the margins, and they are not alone. And the question of how to reimagine, retool and rebuild the church overwhelms the most thoughtful among them.

These North American church leaders have lost their point of reference. Like the tsunami that wiped away entire villages leaving nothing standing in its wake, many of the monuments of modernity have been taken out to sea. What is left is a territory with no recognizable landmarks. No wonder so many of us feel disoriented and at a loss. There are no longer any street signs to follow; we need a compass, a remnant of a map or, truth be told, the leading of the Spirit. Alert and thoughtful leaders are trying to chart a new course; but with a very vague map and an atrophied sense of direction. How can we find our way in liminal space? Who knows the terrain of the margins?

There is a hint of direction in Roxburgh’s text; look to the margins! He suggests that resources for navigating liminal space for the North American church will include reengaging Scripture and, to the current point, ‘... listening to the voices of those Christian groups that have long lived outside the center of culture.” He believes that the future direction of the church will be discovered as we engage with ‘dissenting churches’ and ‘ethnic groups.’ “They understand the position of the underling and the outsider. Liminality requires us to listen attentively to their ecclesiologies.” This is one of the most valuable insights gleaned from a reading of Roxburgh’s treatment of liminality — there are leaders who are capable of leading us and who know the terrain; because they have been operating on the margins for years.
   

Around the world, many denominations are struggling to survive. As regular church attendance wanes, leaders are looking for strategies to bring people back into the fold. Roxburgh would say that many of these renewal strategies and church growth seminars are attempts to return to the hay-day of modernity/colonialism which is not going to happen.

We often wonder if there is anyone out there who has managed this situation before, anyone who can offer insight born from seasoned experience. There are those who can articulate the quandary with great poignancy, but can anyone say that they have some ideas about what to try next? We don’t need a new coach to help us to start new programs (the preferred modern methodology), but we need a conversation, suggestions, personal antidotes from churches around the world, partnerships between churches/leaders to walk together through this disorienting time. Friendships among missional churches/leaders could be the greatest gift for this season, if we can take the time to be together and listen.

In May 7 – 11th of 2007, many African, and some non-African, Christian missional leaders will gather to address these questions at the Amahoro African Gathering. These leaders will meet together in Kampala, Uganda for several days of constructive dialogue, planting seeds of thought and preparing the soil for new partnerships. These hopeful and dedicated leaders will seek to define and embody what it means to “be the church” in the emerging post-colonial/post modern world. Through their conversations and experiences, these African and non-African followers of Jesus will seek His Kingdom together, allowing their conversation to become the framework of long-term partnerships to enrich the work of the emerging church worldwide. The Amahoro African Gathering is the beginning of the conversation and we would like to invite you to consider traveling to Uganda to be at this historic Gathering not as missionaries, but as those seeking to learn together with brothers and sisters in Christ who have been living on the margins from the beginning.

For registration information: Please e-mail Luke Miller at luke@amahoro-africa.com; for more information; visit www.amahoro-africa.com or call Claude Nikondeha at 623 217 3361. To support Amahoro Gathering in Uganda: Click here

Soul Train!

"i-Pod flashmobbers dance in their hundreds ar station" . Bet this wouldn't happen anywhere in the USA, except NYC!!!! This is cool!

Faulty Plumbing!

This is so sick and wrong! Ichhhhh!!!!!! i saw a film at the Virginia Film Festival in Charlottsville in 1994 about a person who kills people for the sole purpose of harvesting body parts and organs to sell. This is eerily close and really weird!

"Other evidence includes X-rays and photographs of exhumed corpses showing that where leg bones should have been, someone had inserted white plastic pipes.

The pipes were crudely reconnected to hip and ankle bones with screws before the legs were sewn back up."

WHAT is our world coming to?

The (Red) Manifesto

Bono is starting something new to aid in relieving world poverty, AIDS, and other devastating diseases AND to empower the poor. Check it out at Join Red. Read the blog here. We live in a consumeristic society, so when you decide where to buy and what products to purchase, consider those companies that are joining together to fight world povert and disease! Make your dollars count and be a part of the solution to end horrible atrocities in our world! Peace!

A stated on the (Red) Blog:

"(RED) was created by Bono and Bobby Shriver, Chairman of DATA, to raise awareness and money for The Global Fund by teaming up with the world's most iconic brands to produce (PRODUCT) RED-branded products. A percentage of each (PRODUCT) RED product sold is given to The Global Fund. The money helps women and children with HIV/AIDS in Africa."

Church and Postmodern Culture

Church and Postmodern Culture  has invited me to be part of a four week series of engagements with Pete Rollins' new book, "How (Not) To Speak Of God" beginning this Monday, October 9, 2006. My engagement will be first followed by:

Christopher Rousei (aka impleri): Oct 16th.
Geoff Holsclaw (aka for the time being): Oct. 23rd.
Will Samson (aka willzhead): Oct. 30th.

It should make for very interesting conversations, so stop by, check it out, and join in on the conversation!

The site's purpose is:

"...contemporary philosophy...for the church...in the vernacular"