Trying to follow

Every year, since I’ve been married (five years on June 21st!), I tried to read at least one book on marriage. That’s advice from Jerry Root, Pre-marriage counselor extraordinaire, who also suggest that in twenty years you write a book on marriage, because then as a couple you’ll have 40 years experience and the collective knowledge of 40+ marriage books.

Anyways, I haven’t read one this year so I’m looking for suggestions. But, I’m also just looking for blog posts, articles, advice, etc. If you’ve got some thing leave a comment, or paste the URL below:

And since we are on the topic of marriage, here is me and my beautiful bride on our wedding day…

I posted on the topic of foreclosures early this week, mostly with a brainstorm idea on what I think could help remedy some of the problems low income neighborhoods face. It was met with some thought provoking challenges, that I’m trying to consider. That being said, I would love to read if anyone has written or read other posts about Foreclosures, the housing crisis, and particularly what the role of the church and/or us as individuals should be in the midst of this. Any ideas?
If so add them to the list below, just post the URL (and your name or the name of the article) below…

And feel free to comment below or above with anything else you think I should read.

It’s that time again, looks like this worked pretty well last week. I read some interesting articles about immigration and race, a Brennan Manning Video and some thoughts from McClaren on simplicity. Pretty interesting, but I’d like to hear more.
I figured maybe I’d do a themed one this time. If you’ve come across a well written or challenging blog post or new article or something on the topic of Race recently I’d love to see it. Just post it (and your name or the name of the article) below…

Daniels post from last week was great and I’d love to see your feedback on it too so go visit.

This little activity was terribly unsuccessful last week, but I thought I’d try again anyways.
Also, I would have thought yesterdays post would have gathered more comments, but I guess not.

Here’s an enticing photo from our camera fun last weekend.

Okay, now to the point of the post. Below is a linking widget that allows you to post the URL of a website, blog post or article that you think I should read. It can definitely be your own post but it doesn’t have to be. The links are public so others can view them as well (think of it as free publicity for your amazing writing).

In an attempt to keep up with the latest news, events, and blogosphere happenings, I’ve put the rss reader on hold and am asking for personal recommendations. I found this cool auto-linking code, so you can posts suggested readings right to my blog post.

Feel free to recommend something you’ve written yourself, or something you read elsewhere. Assuming your a long time reader you already know what I’m interested in and what I might find thought provoking, but feel free to recommend something that challenges things I’ve written in the past, I’m always interested in a different point of view.

We’ll see how this goes.

I’ve got a LOT of conversations that I’ve read and haven’t had time to really comment on or dialog about, too many to keep up, so I’ll just post them below like I have before. Hope you find one you enjoy. All bloggers and blogs that I would highly recommend…

• Julie always on top of it regarding politics.
• Blacks and Latinos don’t actually hate each other. (via Onramps)
• Has class trumped race?
• Is NOT Voting a Sin?
• Why We Dumpster (From my ever lovable friends Daniel and Amanda)
• Prayers for Britney? (ht. Pop and Smart)
• a Good Ol’ Tony Campolo story, never tire of hearing it (ht. Virgil)
• Sing it Out Mommas: Vote.
• Bio-fuels not the answer? (I mentioned this over a year ago)
• Boyd’s take on Bono and the RED Campaign (not the same as mine)
• Exxon’s 2007 Tax Bill: $30 Billion (ht. Onramps)
• Hate Cannot Drive Out Hate
• And the quote of the day from a liturgy in Jesus the Illegal Immigrant:

Jesus: They call me Jesus. I come begging for help for my twelve friends. When we got off the plane, we asked for asylum. They were being persecuted in our homeland for following me. But the U.S. government officials didn’t believe us. Everyone but me is in expedited removal.. .they are all being sent back. I managed to slip away and came here to this church to ask for help.

Congregation: The United States has laws to keep terrorists out of our country. You are one of 13 Middle Eastern men. We heard about you. You meet in rented rooms, you go into the mountains for private meetings, no one knows where you get your money, and you travel by boat and meet with strangers. You are trying to organize the poor and the oppressed. The United States does not welcome Middle Eastern men, who meet in secret. You could very well be a terrorist. Expedited removal will make certain you can’t harm us. We are sorry, but you and the 12 other men will have to leave. It’s the law.

• Greg Boyd: Why I’m a Vegetarian
• Erin on Connecting
• A Great set of Neighborhood Dinner Tips (Bart Campolo)
• Someday my links will be as cool as these.
• On Violence and Veggie Tales
• The Good Samaritan Explained:
  
• “I don’t care if they’re black, white, green or purple.” (but what about Blue?)
• Take a look at the Money Web behind the Presidential Candidates
• Is Not Voting a Sin?
• Going Green without spending money
• Speaking of Living on Less
• Sundays With The Anarchist (My post over at Jesus Manifesto)
• Corporate Connections Explained Visually
• Thanks for the Links: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7.

• Did the Podcast Swallow your Pastor?
• Dixon on Short Term Missions (ht. Gavin)
• I want Chicken’s too
• Kids shouldn’t Grow up on the street (Image)
• Comments on two racist Super Bowl Ads
• Sam talks about Afghanistan
• Concerning Meat
• Funny Video (ht. Jeremy)
  
• That’s my neighborhood, sticking it to the man.
• McChurch
• Final Quote, from Anne Lamott (ht. Melissa):

“I do not at all understand the mystery of grace - only that it meets us where we are but does not leave us where it found us.”

This is What I’ve read:

• Agent B ponders what Christians in Business should look like.
• Jaded Optimist has info for diapering missionaries.
• One take on Gender and Politics from Julie.
• Just the title makes me want to read this book.
• Food Whores
• Someone else takes on the Wealth, family and security questions.
• If Huckabee really wants to amend the constitution then… [via]
• Choose-Your-Own-Adventure Jesus
• Lo-Fi discusses Consuming Jesus
• And a closing quote:

A lot of times we cry about not having everything we want, even though
we’ve got plenty more than we need. It’s ironic that we whine and moan
about our own individual deficits when so many more need so much more.
We are quick to mourn what we don’t have, forgetting to juxtapose our lives next to others who seem to manage despite not having what they really need.

A collection of links I found interesting this week:

• Those ‘Educational’ Toys aren’t what they say they are.
• Greg Boyd is an Anarchist. Go Greg! [via]
• Shaun talks about Dollar (Creflo that is) and Kanakuk.
• You might be interested in reading about Harlem Children’s Zone Project.
• No Impact Man tackles The Problem with Air Travel
• And Today’s Quote [via]:

A new survey of U.S. adults who don’t go to church, even on holidays,
finds 72% say “God, a higher or supreme being, actually exists.” But
just as many (72%) also say the church is “full of hypocrites.” -USA Today

Not to get too political on you, but I participated in a cool little project by Sunlight Foundation today that I thought I’d tell you about. Sunlight Foundation is all about bringing transparency to Washington (the government) and they are doing some very innovative things to do it.
The project I helped with is called ‘Where Are They Now?’ and the website describes it as:

The 109th Congress closed up shop nearly one year ago.
For those top staff members whose bosses resigned, retired or were voted out of office, the one year “cooling off period”–during which they are not allowed to lobby their former colleagues on Capitol Hill–is coming to an end. Lower level staffers have been able to work the Hill all year. Let’s see which staffers of former members have gone through the revolving door.

Basically, they are seeking to point out the close ties between elected government officials and the powerful lobbyist just down the street from them. What we are finding is that there are a lot of Congregational staff members who after leaving office have gone to work for those lobbyist firms. To put it another way, government staff are being bought by lobbyist who are offering them jobs (=money and power) in return for buying their votes in the Congress.

The ‘Where Are They Now?’ site is very well put together, and I’ve been making calls to Lobbyist firms checking to confirm that some of their new staff are indeed the same staff of Congress members who left office one year ago (the one year rule is to prevent this very thing from happening).

Take a visit yourself and do you part for government transparency by making some phone calls.

Also Of Interest:

• View a Directory of People passing through the Revolving Door
• Sunlight’s list of Insanely Useful Web Sites

Don’t know if I’ll make this a regular Thursday thing, but I’ve got to throw a post in every once in a while with an assortment of random links for your enjoyment. Here you are:

• Miller takes on the ethical shopping dilemma.
• Compassion in Politics predicts 2008 the Year of the Editor.
• Josh Brown tackles our wayward patriotism.
• You have to check out The Decapatator:
  
  A little gruesome but extremely creative anti-advertising campaign. Some great photoshopping skillz. [via] and [via]
• This is what I’m going to do next time I’m called for Jury Duty. Brilliant. And I mean that in a “wow I never thought to take my Christian thinking and apply it to that part of life” sort of brilliance, not a “how to get out of Jury Duty” sort of brilliance.
• Bart Campolo’s take on the Bible.
• And I leave you with a quote [via, via & via]:

“There’s one thing left: Go sell whatever you own and give it to the poor. All your wealth will then be heavenly wealth. And come follow Me.”

The man’s face clouded over, as this was the last thing he expected to hear. Suddenly, he had an idea.

“But Teacher, what if we try this: I’ll stay here with the way things are, I’ll keep all my stuff, and I’ll tell people it’s a blessing from You! It’s a win-win for both of us—I get to maintain my lifestyle, and You end up looking good! What do You think?”

Guess who wrote this and when:

If it is religious to advocate rebuilding a church, why is it non-religious to advocate tearing down and rebuilding slum districts? If it is religious to encourage the church to recarpet the aisles and cushion the seats for the feet and backs of worshippers, why is it non-religious to speak of playgrounds for young feet and old-age pensions for aged backs?

If you guessed Walter Rauschenbusch 100 years ago, your absolutely right. Looks like we still have the same theological dilemmas in the church today that we did back then.

Zach has put together a great collection of quotes from Walter’s book and wrote a post about the importance of writings such as this.

Read Zach’s Post Here.

Read Walter Rauschenbusch Quotes Here.

Read the entire Christianity and The Social Crisis Here.

A story of mine:
When I was in middle school I bought this sweet jacket, it had a reversible red vest inside, which had a black side and a bright red side. The red side was way stylish, but too cool for me to wear to school, however, I was in the mall one day and so I flipped it, red side out. I happened to be in Walgreen’s when an old lady came up to me and asked me if I could show her where the pepto bismol was. You can imagine my embarrassment, she had mistaken me, the cool middle schooler with the red vest, for a Walgreen’s employee. It was a case of mistaken identity, that ended only in my own embarrassment. Needless to say I never wore my vest red side out again.

Now, imagine if you couldn’t change your identity with just the flip of your vest… And, the mistaken identity resulted sometimes in more then just embarrassment.

Also, for some inordinate reason, white people often seem to mistake me for an employee of home improvement stores. Hello! No orange apron! (But every once in a while I like to answer the questions anyway.) Maybe it’s the tape measure and the manly stride. A white woman once abusively screamed that she wanted to see my manager RIGHT NOW because she did not feel I was helpful. Even after she found out she was mistaken, she did not have the grace to apologize.

There are a lot of stories both in the post and in the comments section. You absolutely must read this post, get a glimpse of what kind of regular encounters people of color tend to have with white people.

Read here. (ht. Ally Work)

And, once your done reading and realize something must be done about this. Read Ally Work’s post on Qualities of an Ally.

Mak writes a great post on the topic:

Which then led me to think about the concept of “modesty” in general. And as I pondered all of these things, I finally figured out why I can’t stand the typical conservative Christian teachings about women’s appearance that go on all over the world in youth groups and Bible studies and women’s ministries every week…the whole point of these “lessons” teaches girls/women that our bodies do not in any way belong to us.

Read the Rest here.