1) I've been following this story for the past few weeks about a UN inspector who is inspecting holding facilities in the US for illegal immigrants. When I first read the story, my thought was, ‘it’s about time the US gets investigated for something.’ Now most of the investigations have taken place. A few however were cancelled at the last minute and no reason was given. The only one that was given a reason was a cancellation in TX in which the facility spokesman basically said that they were in the middle of a law suit with the ACLU and didn’t want any incrimination brought about that could aide the ACLU. The whole part about us denying a UN inspector and not wanting to incriminate ourselves reminds me of the 01/02 time-frame when Iraq kept denying UN weapons inspectors. Just one more example of how hypocritical our government is.
2) I once heard an explanation terrorists are basically created the same way gang members are -- poor people (young men) looking for dignity but get into situations they can’t get out of. I’ve always like this, but put some more thought into it today. Terrorism has 3 attributes according to international law: a) the threat or act of violence creating a climate of fear, b) targets civilians, and c) is based upon political, social, economic, or religious reasons. (With this definition, basically everyone who commits a crime is a terrorist, but our national and state laws also define certain crimes, so people aren’t tried as terrorists for everything…that’s not my point though.)
The obvious solution to the causes of terrorism as described above is to alleviate the conditions of poverty and such things that cause this behavior. My recent criticism of this theory is as follows… by targeting poverty as the cause of terrorism we might ignore many other issues. Governments for example…our government has had a history of terrorist activities based on the 3 criteria above. (Sure, we don’t ‘target’ civilians we call it collateral damage.) Terrorist groups like al-Qaeda are made up of mostly middle-class educated people. At least one of the guys that hi-jacked the planes for the 9-11 thing had been in school in Germany as an example… not poor and ignorant like we want to assume.
So, as far as I can wrap my brain around it, the danger of focusing on the cause of terrorism being poverty, we might ignore our role in the whole situation and also ignore holding our government accountable for it’s actions. We are trying to ‘Americanize’ the entire world and people hate us for it. While doing this we are also taking part in terrorist type activities, holding ourselves to different standards, and further pissing people off. There was an even stronger point I had come up with but I seem to have forgotten it now. That sucks…it was a good one. Of course we should take some responsibility in alleviating world poverty, but not in the name of fighting terrorism. Our reason should just be, ‘because we can’
3) I’ve been reading the Old Testament because I never have and I don’t know many of the stories from it in depth. I want to examine a few things while reading it. When and why does God call for war? What things might be metaphor and not realistic? With that – why would it be important for certain things to not be seen as history but as symbolism? What notions do I have of God that might be wrong or at least not completely biblical or correct?
What I’ve found so far: Not only is Got a jealous god, but he is pretty damn forgetful too. A few times so far God is about to put his wrath on some people and someone says, “wait, what about your promises to us?” and God says, “Oh shit! You’re right, I almost screwed that up. Thanks man, here’s a treat.”
There’s more that I’ve learned, but that’s the most fun right now.
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
Sunday, May 13, 2007
Mother's day
I saw this sign on the way down the highway today. Kinda thought it was funny...ironic I suppose.Mother's Day
I haven't sent any flower or cards to my mom for Mother's Day over the past few years. A couple of times I've gone over to her town and taken her out to dinner but I try not to go there too often. This year she's married and was going to be in an even shittier town celebrating mother's day with her new husband and some of his family so I stayed in Santa Cruz. I have this thing where I don't like to buy stuff for holidays. I hold firm in my belief that most holidays are simply there for companies to sell shit. They may not have always had that purpose but since holidays have turned into marketing devices I refuse to participate. I could have made a card and sent it to her, but even then I would be buying supplies in support of the holiday. I've gotten some flack because I choose not to do this. The main arguement is that it's not about me it's about her. I have to admit that it is a little selfish that I might be making her kind of sad in an attempt to hold to my own values but hopefully she will understand.
Tuesday, May 08, 2007
Time for a rant!
In my frustration with the media coverage of the guy that crashed his truck in Oakland, CA I wrote a letter to the editor of our local paper that got published this past Sunday*. I was actually kind of amazed that they published it because I accused them of libel.
This whole thing has made me even more frustrated with the world we live in. Seriously, I hate our world. Everybody falls into one of three categories: 1) Assholes who only look out for their own interests (CEO's, politicians, and religious leaders) 2) Giant pussies who are afraid to stand up for what is right and rely on other people to make decisions for them, or 3) people who do the best make their point only to be dissappointed at the end of the day knowing that their world is just one day closer to being a complete shit hole. Why can't option 3, the people that really care about the world, have as much media coverage as category 1? I'm no genius, but I'd bet that the number of people in the world who are willing to put aside religious issues and other such hang-ups in order to create a more peaceful and safe world (2 & 3), greatly out-number the folks who want power at any cost(1). But no-one hears us.
The media has special protection under the consitution because of the importance put on personal freedom. The media is protected in order for it to be able to provide information that you wouldn't normally get from your government...because the framers of the constitution understood, as much as all of us do, that governments lie...not just our government, but ALL governments. I don't know where I was first introduced to the following idea, but somewhere along the way someone said that 'the government and media can't tell you what to think, but they can tell you what to think about'.
When AP and all the papers across the country publish one man's criminal record, when it has nothing to do with any crime committed or foul play of any kind, what is it that they are not telling us. What drives them to publish sensational bullshit instead of real news? My answer: the media can't get any answers from the government so they've given up. Just like in the Rawanda deal in the 90's, the U.S. and the entire world community is being cautious about calling the problem in Darfur genocide. If they were to do that, then according to U.N. agreements, they'd have to intervene. They have not been able to come up with anything, so the press leaves it alone. It's not sexy enough to print.
I have a bit of a theory. It's not original, just my own take on it. The world is getting dumber (or is it 'more dumber'?...yes I'm funny). Look at the US. Because of TV and other forms of motion media, people don't need to read. We see this problem in our own schools. News papers and other print periodicals can provide a vast array of mainstream and underground knowledge that you can't get anywhere else. But with the growth in illiteracy, or at least proficient literacy, less people are reading these, they're going out of print, and we must rely on the electronic media. What happens is that whatever is shown on TV is all people know about, and the only news they get. Such as the lack of coverage on the battle of naming what is going on in Darfur. In the mid 20th century, Nepal was faced with a massive change in government. There were communists, socialists, royalists, and the list goes on of different parties who were trying to control the county. What it boiled down to was who had access to radio and TV to get their views across because the vast majority of the population was illiterate. Same thing as in Rawanda; the Hutu extremists made use of radio broadcasts to get the people up in arms to slaughter the Tutsi.
What I think this leads to is simple. Since electronic media is funded mainly by advertising, the public is more and more bombarded with ads. These ads tell little boys and girls what they can and can't be. They tell kids that they need to watch "the OC" because that's where they'll learn how to be cool. All of this is done for the sake of money. The marketing firms and corporations are just out to make another buck...and they're doing it at the expense of us, and more importantly our kids. Higher teen pregnancy rates, highers death rates, school shootings, drug use...on and on and on.
What can we do? NOT A DAMN THING!! But it feels good to try.
*text of my letter:
I feel a deep sympathy for this Mosqueda guy who crashed his truck in Oakland. He was well past the TSA standards for driving hazmat and posed no threat. The whole point of prison and recovery is re-integration into mainstream society so people can show reform and become productive citizens — just like Mosqueda has done with his 10 years of sobriety and having a job. But as the way of the media, there must be a scandal. If anyone should be scolded and their reputation tainted, it should be AP for reporting this libel and the Sentinel as well as every other paper for printing it. The reports could have been excitement that, amazingly, nobody got hurt. But that wouldn't accomplish their goal of keeping the fear level at "orange!"
This whole thing has made me even more frustrated with the world we live in. Seriously, I hate our world. Everybody falls into one of three categories: 1) Assholes who only look out for their own interests (CEO's, politicians, and religious leaders) 2) Giant pussies who are afraid to stand up for what is right and rely on other people to make decisions for them, or 3) people who do the best make their point only to be dissappointed at the end of the day knowing that their world is just one day closer to being a complete shit hole. Why can't option 3, the people that really care about the world, have as much media coverage as category 1? I'm no genius, but I'd bet that the number of people in the world who are willing to put aside religious issues and other such hang-ups in order to create a more peaceful and safe world (2 & 3), greatly out-number the folks who want power at any cost(1). But no-one hears us.
The media has special protection under the consitution because of the importance put on personal freedom. The media is protected in order for it to be able to provide information that you wouldn't normally get from your government...because the framers of the constitution understood, as much as all of us do, that governments lie...not just our government, but ALL governments. I don't know where I was first introduced to the following idea, but somewhere along the way someone said that 'the government and media can't tell you what to think, but they can tell you what to think about'.
When AP and all the papers across the country publish one man's criminal record, when it has nothing to do with any crime committed or foul play of any kind, what is it that they are not telling us. What drives them to publish sensational bullshit instead of real news? My answer: the media can't get any answers from the government so they've given up. Just like in the Rawanda deal in the 90's, the U.S. and the entire world community is being cautious about calling the problem in Darfur genocide. If they were to do that, then according to U.N. agreements, they'd have to intervene. They have not been able to come up with anything, so the press leaves it alone. It's not sexy enough to print.
I have a bit of a theory. It's not original, just my own take on it. The world is getting dumber (or is it 'more dumber'?...yes I'm funny). Look at the US. Because of TV and other forms of motion media, people don't need to read. We see this problem in our own schools. News papers and other print periodicals can provide a vast array of mainstream and underground knowledge that you can't get anywhere else. But with the growth in illiteracy, or at least proficient literacy, less people are reading these, they're going out of print, and we must rely on the electronic media. What happens is that whatever is shown on TV is all people know about, and the only news they get. Such as the lack of coverage on the battle of naming what is going on in Darfur. In the mid 20th century, Nepal was faced with a massive change in government. There were communists, socialists, royalists, and the list goes on of different parties who were trying to control the county. What it boiled down to was who had access to radio and TV to get their views across because the vast majority of the population was illiterate. Same thing as in Rawanda; the Hutu extremists made use of radio broadcasts to get the people up in arms to slaughter the Tutsi.
What I think this leads to is simple. Since electronic media is funded mainly by advertising, the public is more and more bombarded with ads. These ads tell little boys and girls what they can and can't be. They tell kids that they need to watch "the OC" because that's where they'll learn how to be cool. All of this is done for the sake of money. The marketing firms and corporations are just out to make another buck...and they're doing it at the expense of us, and more importantly our kids. Higher teen pregnancy rates, highers death rates, school shootings, drug use...on and on and on.
What can we do? NOT A DAMN THING!! But it feels good to try.
*text of my letter:
I feel a deep sympathy for this Mosqueda guy who crashed his truck in Oakland. He was well past the TSA standards for driving hazmat and posed no threat. The whole point of prison and recovery is re-integration into mainstream society so people can show reform and become productive citizens — just like Mosqueda has done with his 10 years of sobriety and having a job. But as the way of the media, there must be a scandal. If anyone should be scolded and their reputation tainted, it should be AP for reporting this libel and the Sentinel as well as every other paper for printing it. The reports could have been excitement that, amazingly, nobody got hurt. But that wouldn't accomplish their goal of keeping the fear level at "orange!"
Thursday, May 03, 2007
I've had my one-in-a-milliion situation in ministry
So, I gave a talk tonight. I'm never nervous about speaking in front of middle school kids because I do it often. Tonight however I was a little nervous. I gave my talk tonight on what this whole God/Jesus thing means to me. I started off by telling the kids that the've been dealt a crappy hand in life. That the world sucks. And that we went through the Jesus story to find a solution to our shitty world. I proceeded to tell them that at one point I stopped believing in God and eventually came back to faith because I re-discovered what God was.
Anyways...here's the fun part. After the talk, I was milling around and a kid grabbed me and struck up a converstation about my talk and how it interested him. How he is trying to figure out this whole God thing and he's not sure what to think, but what I said was intrigueing(spelling?). Then his friends came around and he stopped talking.
Every youth worker hopes at some point that a kid will engage them in conversation about God or whatever. It makes us feel like we're doing our job...even for me. I don't ever expect to "lead a kid to Christ" in the traditional sense, but I do enjoy a nice real conversation and l like to hear kids question things. All I want to do, is be there to help them think through things. This is probably the only time this will ever happen in the rest of my ministry career...and that's ok. James was the youth pastor at a church I went to in early high school. I wonder if I was that kid for him at all -- the one that he never thought he'd "reach" -- although i didn't really hang around him much. But I can imagine that if the NOW me was working with the THEN me, the NOW me would be pretty damn frustrated.
Anyways, tonight I as encouraged. That's nice for a change. I get verbal encouragement from people all the time, but this was a different type of encouragement.
Anyways...here's the fun part. After the talk, I was milling around and a kid grabbed me and struck up a converstation about my talk and how it interested him. How he is trying to figure out this whole God thing and he's not sure what to think, but what I said was intrigueing(spelling?). Then his friends came around and he stopped talking.
Every youth worker hopes at some point that a kid will engage them in conversation about God or whatever. It makes us feel like we're doing our job...even for me. I don't ever expect to "lead a kid to Christ" in the traditional sense, but I do enjoy a nice real conversation and l like to hear kids question things. All I want to do, is be there to help them think through things. This is probably the only time this will ever happen in the rest of my ministry career...and that's ok. James was the youth pastor at a church I went to in early high school. I wonder if I was that kid for him at all -- the one that he never thought he'd "reach" -- although i didn't really hang around him much. But I can imagine that if the NOW me was working with the THEN me, the NOW me would be pretty damn frustrated.
Anyways, tonight I as encouraged. That's nice for a change. I get verbal encouragement from people all the time, but this was a different type of encouragement.
Tuesday, May 01, 2007
My name is Thomas...or is it Judas?
I've been wondering lately what my purpose in working with kids is. What does God have in store for me? It's funny that Mike posted his recent 'Marginalia' post about the same time that I'm wondering many of the same things as him. It could have something to do with the fact that we live in the same place, but I'm not going to entertain that idea...it would be too easy. Although it could be something in the water.
Anyways, at the youth group I work with, we just finished the story of Jesus right around Easter. Since then I've been having the leaders tell the kids -- in the weekly talk -- about what this whole God/Jesus thing means to them. They've been telling these warm fuzzy stories about feeling accepted by God and being able to turn to God when they couldn't turn to anyone else..blah blah blah. Can I vomit now? The reason I say that is because I've never felt that crap. My entire history of faith has for the most part been brief moments of clarity surrounded by an assload of doubt.
I suppose my job, my purpose, is to share Jesus with these kids. Two problems: 1) I don't even feel like I have a grasp on that stuff most of the time. What is it that they need to hear about Jesus? My pastor and I were having a discussion the other day, and he elaborated on it in his sermon this past Sunday. He made the comment that in the church we have a tendency to lay out the story of Jesus as if he is saving us from God. That God is punishing us for being so bad and Jesus came to repair that relationship so we don't die. This is the part of 'sharing Jesus' that really turns me off to it.
At these camps we go to, on the night the speaker is going to talk about sin, he always encourages us leaders to let the kids wrestle with the idea that they sin and can't have a relationship with God. As if they've driven him far away. Do the kids not already have enough to worry about and to be scared about? Their parents are splitting, they get beat up at school everyday, and the list goes on... How then do I share about Jesus? This leads to problem 2): I'm not good at having conversations about spirituallity...especially with kids. I think the main reason is that I want to be absolutely sure that I'm not trying to convince these kids of anything. This whole Christianity thing is a HUGE deal. It's something that i want them to CHOOSE, not be talked into. I want them to come to this choice (if they do) completely on their own...so it completely belongs to them. So they know exactly why they are making any decision in regards to Jesus.
Maybe that's my place. Maybe it's perfectly fine for me to be the doubter guy that lets them choose this stuff on their own. The only way that I feel like I can share the whole Jesus thing with them is through actions. Man that sounds cheesy! I consider myself a pacifist and try to take that to the extreme. Not only do I not physically want to impose myself anywhere, but ideologically I try to shy away from imposing my views. In any public setting, I will only engage in spiritual conversations if it is brought up by someone else or 100% appropriate (such as camp or church). It's about letting people come to their own conclusions on their own terms. I'm pretty sure that alot of other leaders and parents and other folks who work with kids, see the way I interact with the kids, and wonder if I'm actually doing my job. Apparently they think my job is to convert these kids: to make sure that they are perfect little Christians.
Unfortunately, I don't have any conclusion to this.
Anyways, at the youth group I work with, we just finished the story of Jesus right around Easter. Since then I've been having the leaders tell the kids -- in the weekly talk -- about what this whole God/Jesus thing means to them. They've been telling these warm fuzzy stories about feeling accepted by God and being able to turn to God when they couldn't turn to anyone else..blah blah blah. Can I vomit now? The reason I say that is because I've never felt that crap. My entire history of faith has for the most part been brief moments of clarity surrounded by an assload of doubt.
I suppose my job, my purpose, is to share Jesus with these kids. Two problems: 1) I don't even feel like I have a grasp on that stuff most of the time. What is it that they need to hear about Jesus? My pastor and I were having a discussion the other day, and he elaborated on it in his sermon this past Sunday. He made the comment that in the church we have a tendency to lay out the story of Jesus as if he is saving us from God. That God is punishing us for being so bad and Jesus came to repair that relationship so we don't die. This is the part of 'sharing Jesus' that really turns me off to it.
At these camps we go to, on the night the speaker is going to talk about sin, he always encourages us leaders to let the kids wrestle with the idea that they sin and can't have a relationship with God. As if they've driven him far away. Do the kids not already have enough to worry about and to be scared about? Their parents are splitting, they get beat up at school everyday, and the list goes on... How then do I share about Jesus? This leads to problem 2): I'm not good at having conversations about spirituallity...especially with kids. I think the main reason is that I want to be absolutely sure that I'm not trying to convince these kids of anything. This whole Christianity thing is a HUGE deal. It's something that i want them to CHOOSE, not be talked into. I want them to come to this choice (if they do) completely on their own...so it completely belongs to them. So they know exactly why they are making any decision in regards to Jesus.
Maybe that's my place. Maybe it's perfectly fine for me to be the doubter guy that lets them choose this stuff on their own. The only way that I feel like I can share the whole Jesus thing with them is through actions. Man that sounds cheesy! I consider myself a pacifist and try to take that to the extreme. Not only do I not physically want to impose myself anywhere, but ideologically I try to shy away from imposing my views. In any public setting, I will only engage in spiritual conversations if it is brought up by someone else or 100% appropriate (such as camp or church). It's about letting people come to their own conclusions on their own terms. I'm pretty sure that alot of other leaders and parents and other folks who work with kids, see the way I interact with the kids, and wonder if I'm actually doing my job. Apparently they think my job is to convert these kids: to make sure that they are perfect little Christians.
Unfortunately, I don't have any conclusion to this.
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