pedro: perambulations

paradox of the machines

2012-01-04T14:30:00.002-06:00

The central paradox of the machines that have made our lives so much brighter, quicker, longer and healthier is that they cannot teach us how to make the best use of them; the information revolution came without an instruction manual. All the data in the world cannot teach us how to sift through data; images don’t show us how to process images. The only way to do justice to our onscreen lives is by summoning exactly the emotional and moral clarity that can’t be found on any screen.

Pico Ayer

The Joy of Quiet

New York Times Sunday Review OpEd

legends

2011-09-30T12:51:00.004-05:00

There are stories - legends, really - of the "steady job."

Max Berry

in Company

zero sum game

2011-09-27T13:55:00.007-05:00

I had the privilege of hearing Walter Brueggeman lecture at Augsburg College on September 27. The lecture I attended was the first of two in the 2011 Christensen Symposium. Brueggeman is a well-known Old Testament scholar and Biblical Theologian. Although I never read Brueggeman during my time at Moody Bible Institute, I have since gained a great deal of respect for his approach and theological formulations. His social critique of the Old Testament Hebrews is a hallmark of his scholarship, and the lecture I attended sprang from this critique.

The lecture series was entitled The Food Fight: Dispute in Biblical Testimony. In his introduction, Brueggeman suggested that Food is a theme that touches on every economic area: production, distribution, and consumption. There is an overlap between physical and spiritual hunger, an overlap which unites the two lectures. These ideas are relevant, Brueggeman contends, because there is continuity between the Biblical "food fight" and today's "food fight."

The first lecture, "Accumulation: The Lust for Domination and Monopoly" was primarily a critique of systemic monopoly and accumulation based on a belief in economic scarcity as portrayed by Biblical motifs. Brueggeman's thesis is that "One's stance in the food fight depends on a belief in scarcity vs. abundance. When scarcity is assumed, there is anxiety in getting enough. The enactment of this anxiety results in consumerism: obesity, agribusiness, security, and systemically, in monopoly." The system is personalized by the likes of Pharaoh, Solomon, and Nebuchadnezzar, all of whom were resource monopolizers. Compellingly, Brueggean argues that systems of scarcity result in opulence for those who control the monopoly, and that the monopoly is sustained through slavery or cheap labor.

The second lecture, which I was unable to attend, was titled "Community: Food Practiced as Astonished Gratitude." This lecture set the assumption of scarcity aside and traced the assumption of abundance through the Biblical text. the culmination of abundance is found within the Eucharist. Where the first lecture provided a critique of an unjust economic system, the second lecture provided a positive personal response and reframing of the Christian's approach to resources.

I really enjoyed the lecture I attended. Brueggeman's critique fed my appreciation for Old Testament Biblical Theology and confirmed my personal bridge between the Biblical text, social justice, and public policy. I was disappointed, however, to have missed the second lecture. Food, hospitality, and inviting all into the abundance of the Eucharist have become central to my theological praxis within the Abbey Way Community. Most importantly, this lecture series provides a tapestry that reflects my personal metanarrative. I have written before about my dreams to participate in a vocation of sustainability, and as I pursue that dream in coming years, I will repeatedly revisit this wisdom to inform my way forward.

Brueggeman photo property of Augusburg College

marginalized

2011-09-10T09:01:00.001-05:00

North American society is closed to the outside world, and at the same time it is inwardly petrified. Life cannot penetrate it, and being rejected, squanders itself aimlessly on the outside. It is a marginal life, formless but hoping to discover its proper form.

- Octavio Paz in The Labyrinth of Solitude

Paz is talking about the pachuco or the marginalized Mexican youths in America who form gangs out of an identity that rejects both traditional Mexican culture and the predominant white American culture. The marginalization by American culture, however, has resulted in similar types among oter immigrant and minority groups. Indeed, global marginalization of such individuals by hegemonic American culture and economic interests (and by elites in their own countries) has resulted in such types across the globe.

substance

2011-09-09T11:55:00.002-05:00

. . . the substitution of rhetoric for thought, always a temptation in a national crisis, must be resisted by officials and citizens alike. It is hard for ordinary citizens to know what is actually happening in Washington in a time of such great trouble; for all we know, serious and difficult thought may be taking place there. But the talk that we are hearing from politicians, bureaucrats, and commentators has so far tended to reduce the complex problems now facing us to issues of unity, security, normality, and retaliation.

- Wendell Berry in Thoughts in the Presence of Fear

The context of this quote is the 9/11 terrorist attacks, but Berry could easily be talking about the now perpetual economic troubles that our politicians are weilding against us for benefit of their own power.

engagement

2011-09-09T11:07:00.002-05:00

I will work harder and more effectively for a company that cares for me and my
well being than for one that only sees me as a means to an end, and I think this
is true for all employees.

– Donovan Roberson, Culture Evangelist for Zappos Insights, in Employees Matter: Maximizing Company Value Through Workforce Engagement

art of bike maintenance

2011-09-08T14:55:00.002-05:00

Bicycles and their maintenance have always been a part of my life's backdrop. My father managed a bike shop part time while I was in preschool, and we never had fewer than a half dozen bicycles in our garage. In the corner of that same garage sat his work bench. The drawers were filled with boxes and tools graced by Campagnolo's classic logo.

My own workshop continues that legacy. There are several bikes hanging in my basemant, and park tools have replaced Campy on my bench. With my dad's help, I recently built my first wheelset, and I love to tinker on bikes.

As attested in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and Shop Class as Soulcraft, maintenance is an art. There is a deep satisfaction that comes with building and fixing by hand. The the artistry of handbuilt bicycles is attested to by by the likes of the legendary framebuilder Ciocc.

In homage to the art of bicycle maintenance, I offer a rough guide to bicycle maintenance, brought to my attention by phil.

a knife through the heart

2011-08-10T15:06:00.006-05:00

Earlier this week, John Boehner and Nancy Pelosi announced their joint decision to end the Page Program in the U.S. House of Representatives. Program costs and the obsolescence of a messenger system in a digital age were the two reasons cited for the program's termination.

In reality, the program has largely been obsolete and unnecessary for the last few decades. And true, the program costs money, but it's a fair argument to say that the program's return on investment is extraordinary.

My own time as a page during the '96-'97 school year was life-changing. Ask any former page, like my brother Patrick, and they will say the same.

After hearing the shocking news, I sent the following letter to Speaker Boehner and Leader Pelosi:

Peter Janelle
U.S. House Page Class of ‘97
August 8, 2011

John Boehner
Speaker

Nancy Pelosi
Minority Leader

Cc: Hon. Keith Ellison

Dear Speaker Boehner and Leader Pelosi:

I am writing to express my profound disappointment in your decision to terminate the House Page Program. As longtime leaders in the U.S. Congress, you are undoubtedly aware that pages have served Congress since the institution’s genesis. The ranks of Page alumni boast Members of Congress, Congressional staff, governors, state legislators, successful businessmen such as Bill Gates, and countless outstanding citizens and public servants.

Speaking from personal experience, I would not have the civic-mindedness or commitment to public service and social justice that I do today had it not been for the nine months I spent in your midst. Congress’ reputation is at a historical low, and I do not exaggerate when I say that former pages are among the strongest believers in the institution we both hold dear.

I am unsure of your motivations for ending the program. If the issue is cost, there are still countless earmarks (including money for a multi-million dollar bridge to nowhere bridging my state of Minnesota with our neighboring Wisconsin), tax loopholes, and other outlays that would better serve the institution of the page program than the interests they currently serve. If the issue is occasional scandal, I would point out that the most highly publicized instances have involved Members of Congress, some of whom are still among your ranks. If the issue is simply one of an institution that has run its course, I would remind you again that pages as an institution is as old and venerable as any other institution attached to Congress. The public would be just as well served by the dissolution of the office of the sergeant of arms, surely a redundant post with the existence of the more modern Capitol Police force.

While I applaud your bipartisanship in this matter, I would rather you come to consensus on more pressing matters, such as improving healthcare cost and access, decreasing the national debt, and balancing the budget.

I strongly urge you to reconsider your decision to terminate this institution.

Sincerely,
Peter Janelle

This program has been a unique educational opportunity for American high school students. Awareness of how our democracy works (or is supposed to work) is on the decline among the general population and, of grave conccern, among American youth. Of course, such disinvestment in future generations is what we continue to see from our government and our economy. Frankly, I am not optimistic that this trend will change. In the end, because intellectual and economic stagnation are what we have bought, they are no more than we deserve.

bicycle commuting

2011-05-03T21:21:00.001-05:00

As a result [of alienation], therefore, man (the worker) only feels himself freely active in his animal functions . . .

Karl Marx
in Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844
[referenced in Shop Class as Soulcraft]

independence from marketing

2011-04-27T11:31:00.002-05:00

Being able to think materially about material goods, hence critically, gives one some independence from the manipulation of marketing . . . Knowing the production narrative, or at least being able to plausibly imagine it, renders the social narrative of the advertisement less potent.

In Shop Class as Soulcraft

Congestion

2011-04-12T20:55:00.002-05:00

There's congestion . . .

. . . and then there's congestion.

"Rush Hour" is relative

whose woods these are

2011-03-08T13:26:00.002-06:00

Biking through woods on a snowy morning

Kenilworth Trail, Minneapolis

legacy

2011-02-08T11:36:00.001-06:00

Legacy is something that is typically invoked in history books, the last few months of a President's second term, or at the time of someone's passing. I have been thinking about legacy the last few days because Anne Coyle's is enduring.

Ann, Ginny's paternal grandmother, died in Willmar, MN one year ago.

Ann was a farm wife for most of her adult life. Yes, this statement is pregnant with meaning. She tirelessly embodied hospitality. In additon to feeding her husband and numerous children ever day, she opened up her home to family and friends in need. Two neighbor children who were welcomed intothe family never left and came to call her "mom".

It is partially Ann's legacy that Ginny and I celebrate by having moved into Northeast Minneappolis. At the beginnig of our marraige, wesatdown and talked priorities. Hospitality quickly became one of the most important values.Our home, across the street from where Ginny's goddaughter was born and spent her childhood, is always open. For us, openin g our doors is a spiritual act. It is a way for us to invite people into our love, much as Grandma Coyle embraced people into hers.

We miss Grandma Coyle, but we ay tribute to her legacy whenever someone steps over the threshold.

the cost

2010-09-21T20:38:00.002-05:00

There is no peace on the way to security.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

call me crazy . . .

2010-09-15T19:11:00.001-05:00

. . . but I love Minnesota winters.

scenes from the daily commute

2010-09-13T22:12:00.007-05:00

I have always loved walking and riding bikes. When going at a slower pace, you have the capacity to take in your surroundings. I have seen some strange and wonderous sights on my morning and evening commutes.

Last week, I was approaching a freeway overpass, and happened to look up. Ahead of me, just off the path were two fawns. Behind them, on top of the overpass, noxious black smoke was billowing up from a car fire. Above this incongruous scene arched a beautiful rainbow.

I have resolved to capture such wonders and curiosities as they cross my path, and I will offer an occasional scene from my daily commute.

post-postmodernism

2010-09-08T22:58:00.002-05:00

The reemergence of the grand narrative in the form of global ecological disaster has rendered all forms of postmodern thought dangerous anachronisms.

Douglas Haddow

Adbusters 88

Nature

2010-09-06T07:21:00.004-05:00

An actor friend recommended that we go see Nature, a play that is debuting at the University of Minnesota Landscape Arboretum. Because Ginny and I both love nature and want our kids to love it too, we thought it would be a good idea to make the play a family outing. Ginny and the kids picked me and my bike up from work, and we headed to the Arboretum.

The play is a fictionalized re-enactment of the historically significant and tempestuous friendship of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. Both actors, along with the supporting cast and ensemble, do a beautiful job of taking the audience back into time to experience the lives and ideas of these men. Much of the script is borrowed from the men's writings. The costumes are simple replicas of period clothing, and the music hearkens back to the traditional folk and sight music popular in New England during the early nineteenth century.

Nature is dubbed by its creators, Tyson Forbes and Sam Elmore of TigerLion Arts (Emerson and Thoreau, respectively), as a 'walking play'. As far as I know, the concept is unique to this play. The stage is a section of the arboretum itself. Scene changes are not accomplished by stagehands moving set pieces; rather the ensemble beckons the audience to arise and follow to the next scene. Both because ofthe scene and the setting among the prairie grasses, trees, and flowers of the arboretum, this works remarkably well. Furthermore, the timeless natural scenery recreates the perios feeling far moer effectively than any artificial set could hope to.

The play is winding down its maiden run, but I hope the company has the opportunity resurrect here and in other natural settings. If the play comes to a field near you, I would highly recommend that you learn from this chautauqua.

Image property of TigerLion Arts

phila

2010-09-03T16:38:00.005-05:00

From the look of my blog, the images I tend to post, and the creations I have featured, it should be no surprise that my aesthetic tends toward minimalism. There's nothing more pleasing than clean lines, defined geometry, crisp colors, and minimal elements. As with most things, I suppose I could trace this aesthetic back to my childhood in Colorado. There, the quality of the light and the simplicity of the desert landscape fit these criteria. On the Front Range, the sky dominates. In the west, the junction of prairie and sky is seamed with a distinctive jagged pattern of mountain peaks. Elsewhere on the horizon, the gold of the grass meets the brilliant indigo of the dry high desert sky with a sharp break. Sometimes, billowing cumulonimbus towers pile above and to the east, the sunlit white of their billows contrasting with the background firmament.

When Phil sent me the link to Phila Audio Corp, I was understandably floored. As soon as I saw these beautiful turntables, a jolt of electricity traveled through my body and into my past experiences of minimalism: Peyton; the German Pavilion; the Dolomites . . .

These analog beauties are hand-crafted from natural materials: wood, granite, etc. Their circuitry is clean and simple, as are their mechanism. The softness of the organic components provides a clear but fitting contrast with the hard mineral components. Very few mass-produced machines possess as much balance and beauty.

The way in which mechanical, electronic, and natural are so pleasingly integrated in these pieces of art reminded me immediately of Pirsig's insistence in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance that technology is not the antithesis of quality. So often technology is the scapegoat for the ills that beset society. Technology is not to blame; it is the nature of our relationship with technology that determines whether technology gives life or takes it. The key difference is how we approach technology. Even simple machines are not purely linear. There is always the human intentionality behind their design, structure, and use that makes the most simple machine an object of immense complexity.

In the case of these turntables, it is not only their function as instruments of music that thrills me; it is the fact that the design encompasses the instruments themselves into the beauty of their result that gives me so much joy.

Image proeperty of Phila Audio Corp

at the center of paradox

2010-08-23T00:02:00.006-05:00

Life is rarely centered when you have young kids. The peaks are stratospheric, and the valleys sometimes seem like the pits of hell. Part of the struggle comes through the process of reforming individual personal identity into the subservient responsibility nurturing emotionally maturing beings who are absolutely dependent. This reformation is especially challenging considering adolescence and early adulthood are consumed with becoming autonomous individuals. During this stage of development, we in the middle class usually finish high school, move out of our parents' home, and gain financial independence. And when we suddenly we become parents, the trend toward autonomy is suddenly reversed.

I have to admit that when I trudge through the gloomy valleys I sometimes imagine a life in which I would have continued my spiritual quest as an autonomous being. This image is never fully formed in my mind, and the particulars continue to rotate through the possibilities, superimposing various locales, vocations, human connections, and creative pursuits upon each other. There are other times, however, in which I imagine a life lived in spiritual contemplation, devoted to the single, inward, pursuit of spiritual purification. In these dreams, I would be a monk/scholar/writer/aritsan/craftsman/mystic. I would be devoted to one thing, and I would do it well.

Contemplation of these competing visions can only be possible because I AM a Westerner - no - an American and I have the luxury of self-determination. In fact, my dreams of an alternate me are driven by the subconscious meta-narrative of the American psyche. This meta-narrative is explored amid much angst in two books I am reading, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and On the Road. In literary form, these books illustrate that we are and always have been a nation of ordained, self sufficient pioneers, searching for a better life . . . out there . . . out West . . . elsewhere, but not here. That ordination is a manifest destiny that must be accomplished by pulling ourselves up by the bootstraps. And yet this psyche is schizophrenic, existing in compeitng modes of reality. These competition is revealed in my alternat(e/ing) visions of reality.

Within the realization of autonomy lies a paradox. In cutting ourselves off, we do not becomes the kings of the universe. We become nobody. We become nobody because we exist alongside other individuals but unconnected to them, and in our narccistic individualism, we cease to exist outside ourselves. We only every truly gain personhood and become unique individuals as we are defined in relation to the Other.

And so, the paradox of meaning is resolved within community. It is the connection with my wife and children, my friends, my church, my God that ultimately gives me grounding and meaning. When I say grounding I mean that this meaning is not metaphysical. It is immediate and immanent. It exists in the present, at the moment of love, when human connection is made. It is this immanence that makes the paradox of the Incarnation so profound. Meaning ultimately fails when it remain abstract. But when we live and love, the mundane is transformed into the sacred. This is the meaning, the symbolism, and the transformation of the Eucharist, in which we gather together around the LORD's TABLE and we, the base elements, are transformed into the body of Christ.

Motorcycle image property of boston.com
Road image property of pedro

symptomatic

2010-06-25T20:43:00.005-05:00

If a revolution destroys a systematic government, but the systematic patterns of thought that produced that government are left intact, then those patterns will repeat themselves in the succeeding government. There's so much talk about the system. And so little understanding.

Robert Pirsig
in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

criterium

2010-06-22T22:31:00.004-05:00

Some of my earliest memories are blurry. They have distorted as time progresses, of course, but several also involve masses of bicycle racers whizzing by in the peloton. I remember being out with my dad to set up road courses; scrabbling through the scree in the Colorado foothills while we waited for the riders to approach during a road race; the lights and the crowds at the Colorado Springs velodrome; rain and crashes in Estes Park.

I also have crystalline memories from my teenage and young adult years. Many of the races I watched as I grew older were mountain bike races. The riders barrel downhill at considerable speed, but on climbs they seem to be at a virtual standstill. We would trek into the Rockies to watch my cousin Mike in these races.

Images of races form a collage within the broader array of cycling memories. Memories of a fleet of bicycles hanging from the garage rafters. Of frame parts and bicycle components overflowing from boxes by my dad's workbench. Of riding the bicycle trails across Fort Collins. And from when I was older, memories of touring with my dad.

Since father's day has come and gone, I am thinking about the family culture that has centered around my dad's love of cycling. This love has shaped so many memories and has inspired a blossoming love of the sport within me. It has also formed a special bond between parent and child, father and son.

Now that I have my own children, I am beginning to wonder what this legacy will hold for them. With a view toward the fond memories I have of cycling from my past, I am beginning to use the sport as a way to deepen the bond I have with my own children.

The annual Nature Valley Grand Prix was in the Twin Cities last week. With an eye toward introducing my daughter to a sport I love, I put Anna in the Burley and took her to the Uptown Criterium in Minneapolis. Happily, the women usually race before the men, and we were able to catch all forty laps of the women's crit before we headed home. Cycling is an intense, fast-paced spectator sport, and there were lots of people and noise in the grandstands. I wasn't sure if Anna was interested, but when we got back home, she excitedly told mom about the race.

Who knows what the future will hold? Anna and I may tour someday, or she may never show any interest in the sport. I'm hoping, however, that the lore will prove irresistible.

outlier

2010-06-03T23:21:00.002-05:00

A few months ago, I stumbled across Outlier, a clothing company that designs and manufactures clothing for urban cyclists. Their garments are simple, durable, and beautiful. They are also expensive since the fabrics are technical and the clothing is handmade in the US. In my opinion, the expense is worth it if you can afford to drop $180 on a pair of pants or $60 on a cap.

I can't, so I'll make my own. I've begun with the cap. Granted, my fabric comes from an old pair of khaki shorts and is not element-proof like the waxed cotton Outlier uses, but I nailed the fit and came pretty close with the look. If I ever get around to making pants or a shirt, I'll put down some money on new fabric.

top image property of Outlier

gray fade

2010-06-03T23:20:00.001-05:00

I had been looking for the right pair of gray fade vintage eyeglasses for about ten years now, and I finally found them.

success

2010-05-20T19:44:00.002-05:00

The tyranny of success often can't be bothered with complexity.

Father Gregory Boyle
Tattoos on the Heart

impressive

2010-05-16T08:04:00.006-05:00

Being the social lefty that I am, I feel very strongly about spending my money with companies that are committed to social justice. Granted, in our complex global economy it's really difficult to perfectly vote with our dollars especially when the supply chain is so opaque and it's hard to tell how labor was treated along each step of the production and distribution processes.

There are some markets, however, that are much easier to glean information from. And the fair trade movement, while certainly not perfect, has made an important start in insuring that producers are paid a fair wage for their labor and in helping buyers see the ultimate social effect and economic costs of their consumption.

Consequently, there are certain imported foodstuffs that I insist in buying only if they are certified fair trade. these include bananas, chocolate, and coffee. It is becoming increasingly easy to buy fair trade coffee. Here in the Twin Cities, we have a popular fair trade brand, Peace Coffee, that distributes to local restaurants and co-ops. There is another upper Midwest brand, Alterra, that my brother Patrick discovered when he visited one of their Milwaukee cafes. Alterra packages their coffee like the major national chains do, with a nitrogen flush, to keep the roasted coffee fresh longer. Of course, this means that there is a lot more packaging waste, but that's a topic for a another time. Alterra sells coffee through online, but they also distribute with the Milwaukee-based Rainbow's grocery store, one of which is in our neighborhood.

All of this goes to say that I do not make it a habit of frequenting the large national chains, including Starbucks and Caribou Coffee. Cheap, low quality robusta beans have always been a commodity in America and are used in the traditional domestic coffee brands. Starbucks in particular has popularized the more complex and flavorful arabica bean, but arabica, too,has become a commodity with the ubiquity of mass-produced espresso. Arabica is a much more fragile species that robusta and requires more labor-intensive cultivation. However,the major coffee house brands only ensure that select blends are fair trade and/or organic, but these do not include their espresso blends.

All of this goes to say that I never thought I would be tooting Starbucks' horn, but I have to give credit where credit is due.

A few years ago, I was the happy recipient of a stainless Starbucks Barista french press. I received the press from my brother Sean who, to my good fortune, was not yet a regular presser. I have used the press virtually every day for the last four years. Because it is extremely durable, I expect to use this press for the rest of my life. Literally. Needless to say, I was dismayed when the ill-designed knob broke off the top of the piston making it impossible to depress the filter without puncturing my palm.

I contacted Bodum, the company that manufactures the Barista press, via email, explaining my predicament and offering to pay for whichever parts I would need to repair the press. After three weeks, I hadn't heard back from Bodum and sent a second email to express my disappointment at receiving no response in that time. I then sent a copy of my original email to Starbucks, with an explanation that Bodum had not responded. As I did so, I had in my mind the story of Christine Ferrera who sent Starbucks customer service one response card daily for five years. Ferrera's experience was neither positive nor negative, but I wondered what type of response I would receive.

Needless to say, I was floored the next day when I received a call from a Bodum representative. I re-explained my situation, and the company shipped me a replacement part, free of charge. When I next checked my email, I had a note fropm Starbucks customer service saying that they had contacted Bodum and requested that I be called so that I my issue could be resolved. Once again, I am happily pressing away.

It's nice to know that some companies are seeing the economic and business importance of valuing individuals. I hope that this trend continues throughout the supply chain, and I expect that it will as consumers become increasingly aware of what happens toward the beginning of the chain. At least I hope that it does. And I'll drink a fair-trade shot of espresso to that hope.

image property of coffee-maker-review.net

machine

2010-05-13T20:05:00.003-05:00

I was prospecting at Unique Thrift last night with Ginny, and I struck gold. I walked out of the store with a Riccar 888 Super Stretch sewing machine. Price $8.95.

It was missing the bobbin case, and it was a bit gummy from the accumulation of old oil. As soon as I got home, I opened it up and cleaned it out. Now it's running like a top. This is a solid machine. The case is metal, and it was made in Japan, ca. 1976. I'm hoping that it will become my workhorse on projects that require a bit more horsepower to stitch through multiple layers of thick material. Granted, this is now our third sewing machine, but a man can never have too many tools.

I'm itching to fire it up. Right now it's assuming an air of latent menace as it lounges in the man cave.

Abbey Way

2010-05-13T03:14:00.004-05:00

Spiritually speaking, the last eight years of my life have been lived in the wilderness. Attending Bible college was like living in a garden. I grew fat on the abundance of theology. Even as I was partaking in this richness, however, I was beginning to see that the spiritual substance that had sustained my early life would not continue to do so after I left MBI.

There are several reasons for this. For one, living in Chicago and earlier in D.C. had opened my eyes to issues of social justice. For another, I had become increasingly critical of aspects of American/evangelical culture, such as an extreme emphasis on individualism, which has somehow come to take the place of the "personal". Finally, I was tired of practicing spirituality out of duty or guilt rather than a true desire.

At the same time, I have come to crave a deeper, more sustaining spirituality grounded in spiritual disciplines practiced within a dedicated community. Last year, I began to practice yoga. This practice began to affirm my desire to pursue discipline, but the practice lacked a deeper connection, both spiritual and communal.

I believe that deeper connection is finally entering our experience. Last week, Ginny, the kids, and I visited a community called the Abbey Way. The Abbey Way is a community of believers that is modeled around the Benedictine tradition of spiritual meditation. It is a church in that it represents a gathering of believers, but in the serious pursuit of intentional community, the programmatic distractions of contemporary evangelicalism have been dispensed with.

Collectively, community members commit to daily prayer and periodic spiritual retreats. Weekly community gatherings are centered around the communion table. They begin with a feast, culminate in the partaking and receiving of the Lord's Supper, and end with dessert. In addition to communion, the logos of the community follows the rhythms of the lectionary and the church calendar. Most profoundly, children are treated with respect and are integrated into community life as full and equal participants. Through this participation, I sense that our children will not just come to believe something, they will learn to walk along a spiritual journey.

For the first time in years, I am excited about worship. Through the Abbey Way, my family is being called to a deeper commitment. We are being challenged to become participants in our spiritual journeys rather than consumers of a spiritual commodity. Although we have not made a final commitment to the community, I think we will have a difficult time resisting this calling.

Image and logo property of Abbey Way

trippin

2010-05-13T02:34:00.002-05:00

It could just be the absurdly late hour, but this hallucinogenic episode reminds me of the NO2 visions I used to have in the dentist's office as a kid. Interesting that the illustrator includes some characters from the original opium-inspired animated short.

cowboy

2010-05-11T20:38:00.001-05:00

It is often said that the cowboy is the archetype of the American hero: rugged, self-sufficient, and autonomous. In recent years, this archetype has been reinvented in my imagination. The more I have seen how American individualism breeds a myopic self-interest which, in turn, begets a mindless fear of the other (for the other is alien and unknown), the more I have begun to imagine the cowboy as a symbol of the paramount importance of the individual's connection to the land. In reality, the Great Plains are a great desert, and survival upon them requires an instinctive awareness of their offerings and limitations. It necessitates parsimonious living, for overgrazing destroys one's livelihood and thus threatens one's existence. In short, the cowboy, for me, has become the champion of simplicity and sustainability.

Jake Johnson was a cattle man. He worked hard and earned an honest living. You can see in this photograph that the ruggedness of the great American prairie is etched on his character. Jake, my great-grandfather, died a few years before I was born, so I never had the chance to know him. But I have heard about him in the family lore, and I have witnessed the ongoing bounty of his ranch. Through him, the archetype has entered into my bloodstream. Perhaps someday, in a future past, I will look back and celebrate my part in this legacy.

so nice

2010-04-09T21:18:00.016-05:00

                     ♫
Me:    "Matthew, Mark, Luke and John
               Went to bed with their britches on.   ♪
               John got up in the middle of the night
               And said his britches were too tight."
                              ♫

Anna: "That's a nice song."

impossible

2010-03-26T20:44:00.004-05:00

It should be obvious from my love of out dated things (like black plastic eyeglasses, negative enlargers, and not-so-new motorcycles) that this would intrigue me. and it does.

Two men have set out to do the impossible: keep the last American Polaroid factory operating. I'm not sure if the market will sustain this project over the long haul, but you have to admire their willingness to try.

p.s., if you are one of the people who has a polaroid camera sitting around, you can buy their film here.

Image property of Impossible.

a city full of unfathomable sorrow

2010-03-22T06:41:00.002-05:00

. . . and the most public face of the suffering is the city's mothers.

So the report goes, speaking about the drug violence in Ciudad Juarez. The recent spate of killings has made this city on the U.S.-Mexico border the current murder capital of the world. In addition to those killed, numerous people have also gone missing, and most of these are young women.

To a large extent the War on Drugs has been successful in Colombia, and the rehabilitation of Medellín is a testament to the success. However, the upsurge of organized crime and violence in Mexico, as well as the flourishing opium production and trade out of Afghanistan, are testaments to the fact that demand has not yet been mitigated. To the extent that our consumerism feeds organized crime and the gray economy, we in the West are all culpable. Let Go.

Image property of Kim René Teige by way of GOOD.

Murray Hill, Inc. for Congress

2010-03-18T20:31:00.004-05:00

As reported by NPR:

The Supreme Court ruled in the case Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission that the government may not place limits on the political speech of corporations. In that spirit, Murray Hill Inc., a Silver Spring, Md., PR firm, is planning to run for Congress.

Listen to the interview here, and get out to vote!

Image property of Murray Hill, Inc.

squared away

2010-03-04T22:01:00.008-06:00

Like the owl mittens, this hat has occupied much of my winter. The Rowan Scottish Tweed DK yarn was leftover from Tweed, and I impulsively cast on for this watch cap. The 2x2 ribbing made for a mindless work, and it was an easy project to pull out whenever I wanted to keep my hands busy.

I realized pretty quickly that I was not going to have enough of the slate-colored Lewis grey to finish the cap. I frantically began to search for another skein. I revisited Linden Hills Yarn where I had made the original purchase, only to find that they were out of stock. I found some from an online retailer, but when the package arrived, I realized that Rowan had changed the yarn drastically. There was no way I could finish the project with the mismatching yarn.

Late in the project, I decided to try something bold. In addition to the yarn that was almost gone, I had the other, much lighter skein that I used for Tweed's body. I tend to rely on neutral colors, especially earth tones, but lately I have begun to notice the power of contrast. It was risky to introduce a second color at the end of the project. Thankfully, I had recently listened to an older episode of the Cast On podcast that featured an essay about the Fibonacci sequence. Finding inspiration, I invoked Fibonacci to begin my sripe pattern, and ended with a solid field of the very pale grey.

Overall, I am very pleased with how the cap turned out. The only change I would have made was beginning to decrease every row toward the end. This would have minimized the pointy peak on top. The hat fits tightly, though, so the peak tends to stay down.

Next up - hopefully a hat with matching mittens for Ginny and a dark button-up jacket or cardigan that I can wear to work.

give a hoot

2010-02-28T22:54:00.003-06:00

I just finished these mittens for Sarah, my mother-in-law. The palms are stockinette, and the owl cable patterns rest on the back of the hand. This was my first knitting project with a non symmetrical stitch pattern. Consequently, they required a bit more concentration than past projects, and I had to rip out several rows from the left mitten. Not easy to follow a pattern while watching a 2 year old.

re-tread

2010-02-23T17:29:00.005-06:00

Instead of blogging, I have spent my free time over the last month crafting a messenger bag. This is something I've been wanting to do since I took my transcontinental bike ride a few years ago. Inspired by Alchemy Goods and recycling is rad, approximately 90% of the bag is made from re-purposed materials. The waterproof outside is made from stitched together bicycle inner tubes, and the bag is lined with an old wool blanket. There's even a presta valve pull on the zipper pocket. I made sure to include a place to stash some knitting needles, just in case.

The poor sewing machine groaned and squeaked the whole time. Properly tensioning the thread was impossible, and I broke 5 needles (including one on my 1943 Singer). After a marathon build with several very late nights, I'll be taking a rest before my next recycling project.

Petit Tonnerre

2010-02-01T23:45:00.002-06:00

Petit Tonnerre, or Little Thunder, arrived today via special delivery. He is a gift to Simeon from Uncle Benjamin.

I couldn't be more proud. Although I can't claim credit for his persistence or rapid learning, I did teach Benjamin to knit while he and Patrick were here over Thanksgiving. I knit in the British or American method, but I taught him the Continental method, under the assumption that being French, this is the method he would have learned from his grandmother or aunts. I was mistaken, but the continental method stuck. And Petit is one result. I'm looking forward to having a knitting buddy for family holidays.

Petit was accompanied by a very nice letter:

Simeon loves him and says thanks! We love you, Uncle Ben.

subversion

2010-01-21T21:56:00.007-06:00

I came across a browser plug-in a few days ago called DoGooder. It's wonderfully subversive. Once you install it, it turns web page advertisements into ads for socially responsible companies. And 50% 0f DoGood's ad revenue is donated to "socially good" causes.

It's still in beta version, so there are limitations. One is that they do not have many sponsors at this point, so many of the ads link back to the DoGood homepage. Another is that not every ad is replaced. Still, it's refreshing to see reminders to do good rather than hooks to propagate consumerism.

I'm sure that if this ever catches on, big internet advertisers such as Google are going to go after the company with guns blazing for replacing paid content. Unitl then, I'll enjoy the respite.

Laughing Boy

2010-01-20T00:51:00.001-06:00

Although it has been a while since I have read Laughing Boy, I remember that in many respects it was a book ahead of its time. Set in the American southwest in 1915, the tale is at once a coming of age story and a literary critique of the demise of one culture with the domineering arrival of another. The tale of an adolescent becoming a man and encountering the challenge and grief that often accompany the transition to adulthood is not novel in itself. What is remarkable is that the author, Oliver La Farge, managed in 1929 to publish a book that respected and honored Navajo culture without idealizing it.

The story is told of Laughing Boy, a young Navajo, who falls in love with and marries Slim Girl. She is in reality and in symbol the seduction and destruction of the white man upon Navajo culture. Slim Girl had already been seduced by the white man's greed, but she finds Laughing Boy's honor and adherence to Navajo tradition irresistible. Unfortunately, her past became her destruction and eventually her death. Slim Girl's downfall threatened to pull Laughing Boy down as well, but his tradition, his people's way of life, eventually became his redemption.

For his efforts, La Farge earned the 1930 Pulitzer Prize for best novel. This honor was well-deserved. Laughing Boy is replete with Navajo language and ritual but never becomes sentimental. In this, La Farge's competence as both an anthropologist and a novelist is manifest. Especially intriguing is the way La Farge weaves Navajo belief, tradition, and ritual into Laughing Boy's experience. I would recommend this book as a window into a forgotten time in an oft forgotten corner of our country.

The Third & The Seventh

2010-01-12T22:57:00.008-06:00

This film is stunning. It was fully rendered in CGA. I appreciate the concept since architectural forms are my favorite photographic subject. I was interested to see what I believe was Mies van der Rohe's German Pavilion and other examples of minimalist modern architecture. They were contrasted nicely with and complemented by more organic natural forms. I am also astounded by the fidelity of the digital rendering. The colors, lines, and depth of field are remarkable. I would recommend watching this film full-screen from vimeo. The embedded film will not play in HD.

by way of Ben.
film property of Alex Roman.

counting sheep

2010-01-11T06:45:00.001-06:00

I can't say that I have always loved wool. I started realizing its value for warmth in high school, when I bought a pair of military surplus wool pants. Surprisingly, these pants are classy yet utilitarian enough that I have carried them with me through the years. I have worn them while winter camping in the Boundary Waters, at work with a tie, and with a heavy charcoal gray turtleneck sweater to keep me warm on cold Minnesota days.

When I started to buy sweaters to augment my wardrobe as an undergrad in the Windy City, I began to look a bit more closely at the fabric and texture of my wool garments. I was intrigued at the diversity of colors and weights I saw. Finally, I became entranced the first time I stepped into a yarn shop. I was somewhat intimidated by the vast array of yarns and colors represented, but I immediately wanted to learn how to craft that wonderment in to garments of enduring quality. With that visit, the wisps of my past began to spin themselves into the promise of a hope for the future.

Rewind 25 years. Although I like to think that the wildness of the American west is in my blood - a legacy of generations of ancestors who were trappers, indian warriors, hardworking farmers and rugged ranchers - the truth is that I happened to experience the wild and lonely immensity of the Colorado prairie and its infinite blue sky at a formative age. Beyond wandering over the plains as a toddler, I have flashes of memories riding in my grandpa's pickup as he farmed sugar beets and climbing the windmill at my great-grandparents' ranch outside Douglas, Wyo. The impression that these memories have left are indelible.

These threads of my past are being shaped into a yet unfinished tapestry, a tapestry that depicts dreams of sheep. Ginny and I met in the beautiful, pastoral coulee country of southeast Minnesota. Every valley that cuts through the prairie on top of the bluffs contains a farm, and through every farm winds a burbling stream teeming with trout. She had grown up on a hobby farm and has always wanted her children to experience the joy and responsibility that tending to a farmstead requires. As we were driving down toward Winona over the holidays, we continued a conversation we has begun sometime in the past. We began to imagine a future on a farm with sheep and other animals that are harvested for fiber.

I have no illusion that tending a farm is easy. I relish the challenge of tending to animals, maintaining outbuildings, and mending fences. Some of my most cherished jobs have involved working outside with my hands. However, my idyllic pastoral desires may have inured me to the hard reality of making a living from the land and the canny intelligence involved in eking a living from the land. Time will tell. Until that potential future, I will continue to count sheep with every stitch I knit.

january observations

2010-01-05T20:13:00.005-06:00

January observations can be almost as simple and peaceful as snow, and almost as continuous as cold. There is time not only to see who has done what, but to speculate why.

❄ ❄ ❄

The mouse is a sober citizen who knows that grass grows in order that mice may store it as underground haystacks, and that snow falls in order that mice may build subways from stack to stack: supply, demand, and transport all neatly organized. To the mouse, snow means freedom from want and fear.

❄ ❄ ❄

The rough-leg has no opinon why grass grows, but he is well aware that snow melts in order that hawks may again catch mice. He came down out of the Arctic in the hope of thaws, for to him the thaw means freedom from want and fear.

❄ ❄ ❄

Tufts of rabbit-hair bespeak the year's first battles among the amorous bucks. Further on I find a bloody spot, encircled by a wide-sweeping arc of owl's wings. To this rabbit, the thaw brought freedom from want, but also a reckless abandonment of fear. The owl has reminded him that thoughts of spring are no substitute for caution.

Aldo Leopold

in A Sand County Almanac

every day the same dream

2010-01-04T22:48:00.007-06:00

When you play this game, think of me sitting in my cubicle in a suburban office park ghetto. Dedicated to my first day on the job.

bookmobile

2009-12-23T08:46:00.009-06:00

Bookmobiles Fall Victim to Budget Cuts

When I saw this headline, I was deeply saddened. And then I was thrown into a fit of nostalgia. I have written before about my early childhood, spent on the high plains of the Colorado open range. We lived several miles outside Peyton, a small town with a General Store, a post office, and a farm machine shop.

Peyton High School, where my mom taught, received weekly visits from the bookmobile. My dad and I would make the pilgrimage so that I could borrow Oscar Otter. I still have a vague memory of seeing the bookmobile parked by the school and being inside with my dad, book in hand. This pilgrimage was undoubtedly seminal in m lifelong obsession with reading.

Nowadays, information and knowledge are readily accessible at a much lower cost, thanks to Al Gore's internet. Still, I have a difficult time imagining how the Kindle will inspire a love of the written word in my children. The demise of the bookmobile is a highly symbolic event in the shift to digital knowledge. Still, because the internet has virtually eliminated the opportunity cost of searching for hard-to-find items, my mom located and purchased a copy of Oscar for my own kids to read. Maybe the world wide web can play a part in fostering my own kids' love for reading after all.

image from Wired.com

spinning

2009-12-13T13:54:00.012-06:00

We love to complain about our long, arctic winters here in Minnesota, but there are plenty of reasons to get outside and enjoy the cold weather. A major reason, one that is an important part of Minnesota culture, is to spend time on the ice. After all, with more than 10,000 lakes, there's plenty of the hard stuff around.

Most parks feature an outdoor skating rink. Our house is close to Logan Park which has two hockey rinks with a skating rink between them. Last winter I was able to get out one time with Anna. I skated and pulled her behind me in a little red sled. This week we went back to the park. We ventured out onto the ice, even though we didn't have the skates or sled with us. Anna sure had fun spinning, though.

communion

2009-12-04T15:12:00.000-06:00

Jesus does not eat with sinners to celebrate their sin. He does so to celebrate his grace.

Kenneth Bailey

in Jacob and the Prodigal

[hunting] ethics

2009-11-29T06:04:00.010-06:00

A few weeks ago, I explained why I have started hunting. For an expanded conversation on the ethics of hunting, check out this interview in The Sun. You may also be interested in Krista Tippett's conversation with angler and artist James Prosek. Below is a slide show narrated by Prosek. It features features the angler's artwork, which is inspired by his pursuit of the elusive trout.

hace cinco años

2009-11-20T21:08:00.005-06:00

CYOA

2009-11-16T08:33:00.004-06:00

The first decade of my life happened squarely in the 1980's. This was the heyday of Choose Your Own Adventure (CYOA) books. CYOA offers not one but multiple endings, reached by a series of choices the reader makes on how the story will progress. Each time a choice is made, a reader is directed to flip to a new, often nonadjacent, page to continue the story.

Christian Swinehart, a computational and graphic designer with a Ph.D. in Computational Neuroscience, has performed an intelligent exploration of the genre and its relationship to gaming. He also connects the genre's form to how data was organized and entered into computers in the age of analog computing.

The expose is illustrated with beautifully designed maps that represent visualizations of how the books were structured and the decision paths present within them. The site also contains some animations of the decision paths in different books.

This project represents not only a beautiful ode to a peculiar genre of children's literature but also an excellent example of how graphic and narrative should be used to create and relate knowledge.

As a bonus, there's even a CYOA book, Zork: The Cavern of Doom, that you can try out.

Image property of Christian Swinehart.

illuminati

2009-11-12T12:54:00.000-06:00

If he is not a member of the shadowy group that rules the world, Cheney sure does a credible impression.

from Newsweeks' Top 10 worst predictions of the decade.

Image property of Paul J. Richards / AFP-Getty Images

dystopia

2009-11-11T08:23:00.002-06:00

I love this scene, painted on a wall in Valencia, Spain. It reminds me of Animal Farm, one of George Orwell's dystopian novels. If you haven't read Animal Farm, you should. It's a historical allegory about the rise of the Soviet Union. We post-cold war readers, especially among the younger generation, may not be able to identify which characters and factions represent which historical figures and ideologies, but the story is a really interesting exposition of political tyranny and the frightening power of group-think.

For the full scene click here.

Image via unurth.

huntin'

2009-11-09T10:53:00.008-06:00

I am a suburban kid from the Colorado Front Range, and my father is a suburban kid from metro Denver. Hunting has never been a part of our family culture. On the other hand, my mother is a farm girl from the virtually extinct rural Front Range, and her brothers are avid gamesmen. I have memories of my uncles returning from far-flung ice fishing trips to Mille Lacs and making mounds of venison German sausage at my grandmother's house.

With these memories in mind, I have allowed myself to open to the idea of hunting for game. After all, hunting is an important part of Minnesota culture. Hunting has also allowed me to spend some memorable time with my father-in-law.

Last winter, we journeyed to southwest Minnesota on an annual pilgrimage to visit Orville (a 97-year old farmer who still lives alone and keeps 6 horses as pets) and hunt the surrounding sloughs for pheasant. Today, for the first time, I'm going to deer hunt.

The more time I spend hunting, the more I have come to appreciate it. I am somewhat turned off by the macho thrill of hunting for trophies. However, I am attracted to the aspects of the sport that bring me into deeper understanding of the game and its environment. I love tromping through the fields or through the streams, observing the habitat, rhythms, and patterns of movement that animals exhibit.

I am also convinced that game meat is an environmentally friendly supplement to the meat we consume at our table. Farm-raised meat leaves a vast ecological footprint and is a major source of greenhouse gas emissions. Feed production and transportation requires large amounts of petrochemicals, and manure emits tons of methane into the atmosphere. Then there is the energy required to transport the meat to market and refrigerate it until it is served on the table.

Game meat comes from species which naturally reproduce in the wild, and it is far leaner than farm meat. I am not opposed to supplementing venison sausage with pork, but mixing the two cuts the fat content in the pork and requires less pork than a pork sausage.

To the urbane middle class, game meat may be a second-class substitute, but I would love to have you at my table to celebrate the bounty of our land. Of course, I have to actually see a deer first.

מזל טוב

2009-11-07T22:00:00.006-06:00

Patrick and Benjamin just went through a lebenspartnerschaft or same-sex civil partnership on November 4. I guess you could call it "Take that prop 8!" part 2.

Congratulations, my brothers, and much love.

image property of *it's not a cabaret

quest for content

2009-11-07T15:13:00.006-06:00

It should be no suprise that I am an avid, possibly even rabid, MPR/NPR fan. I listen to quality public radio content in oldschool style, over the airwaves. More recently, I have also begun consuming public radio shows through new media. Lately, I primarily listen to This American Life and Speaking of Faith as podcasts.

As part of my quest for high quality, thoughtful entertainment I recently added a new public radio podcast to my library. I would describe WNYC's Radiolab as This American Life that has been hijacked, sliced up, and stitched together by Dr. Frankenstein. Complete with the cool, creepy, mad scientist sound effects. It's a great show. Check it out.

mindfulness

2009-10-30T11:05:00.004-05:00

Of all the spiritual practices . . . Living with children is the most powerful spiritual practice that anybody can ever be engaged in, if you open yourself to it that way.

Jon Kabat-Zinn
in a conversation with Krista Tippett

meet Simeon

2009-10-27T17:00:00.004-05:00

Our son Simeon James was born on October 24th at 4:01 pm. Anna loves her little brother, and so do we. Welcome home, son.

For more pics, visit this Picasa photo album.

workspace

2009-10-23T08:41:00.005-05:00

I came across this workspace series from photographer joseph o. holmes. Holmes describes the series as an

ongoing attempt to examine the quasi-private spaces people carve out of their public work lives. Such spaces represent a tug of war between personal expression and comfort on the one hand and the unyielding demands of work on the other.

These photographs really resonate with me. Because I telecommute, my workspace is more of a public intrusion into my personal space, but I feel the tension between workplace demands and personal ideals every day.

Image property of joseph o. holmes

espadrilles

2009-10-21T13:11:00.001-05:00

Imagine my surprise and pleasure at opening my front door, looking down, and seeing a box that was postmarked from España. My brother Patrick mailed the box, which contained a pair of espadrilles - made and purchased at La Manual Alpargatera in Barcelona - that was just my size. Patrick bought a pair for Anna too, but she's a bit more skeptical about them than I am.

sweater

2009-10-19T13:24:00.003-05:00

I just finished knitting my first sweater. It was a simple one-button cardigan for Anna, knit from the neck down. The color is timely since autumn is in full swing in Minnesota, and I knit it a little big so that Anna can hopefully wear it for a full year.

bipedal

2009-10-19T08:53:00.000-05:00

Minneapolis: My kind of town.

manifesto

2009-10-16T09:05:00.007-05:00

I digg Umar Haique and his Generation M Manifesto.

Image property of psd

public art

2009-10-15T14:08:00.009-05:00

Phil's art has had some amazing exposure lately. MHGS, his graduate alma mater, recently hosted an art show featuring the produce of Phil's creativity. Among the works on display was a permanent piece that MHGS commissioned Phil to do. The piece was a reinterpretation of Matisse's la danse. After the art show, David Bazan played in front of the painting.

More recently, a Christian community asked to use illustrations from Phil's Fruit of the Spirit series to advertise itself. The ads appear underground in San Francisco's subway system.

Phil has a unique artistic vison. His images are often jarring because they introduce a prophetic voice into christian ideas that are often taken as platitudes. Phil's art is featured on his website. Please support his work.

Image property of Phil Nellis.

*it's not a cabaret

2009-10-15T11:18:00.006-05:00

My brother Patrick and his boyfriend Benjamin just launched a website, it's not a cabaret. their minimalist vision is to feature one photo per day. Each photo will be one they have taken. The photos represent various formats, mostly film as Benjamin has begun to collect and use vintage cameras.

I am really looking forward to their images. Although neither is a photographer by training or vocation, both Patrick and Benjamin have a keen artistic sensibility.

terminally deconstructed

2009-10-14T10:56:00.011-05:00

Sufjan Stevens is sick and tired of his concepts and aesthetic ideals. In an interview with Exclaim!, Stevens said: “What is the point? What’s the point of making music anymore?”

In a world where popular music is disseminated one song at a time and in which my mp3 player doesn't even try to keep an album's songs in order, the concept of the physical album is dead. Much like, as Nietzche related, God is dead.

I can completely relate to Sufjan's angst. We inhabit a world of social media and morally ambiguous institutions. Our relationships are more like a cloud of unconnected soundbytes, tweets, and status updates than about enduring qualities of human connection. We [I] find it extremely difficult to remain motivated to work for social good when the motives and means of the institutions that have the power to effect change are often suspect and usually indifferent to the context of the individual. That context is constantly changing, and anyway who defines what the good is?

On one hand, all remaining unifying concepts are being deconstructed. On the other hand, individuals struggle to find meaning and hope in anything more enduring than the update that was posted 7 minutes ago. Is it possible to find meaning in the process itself?

Image property of guardian.co.uk
Thanks for the lead, Patrick.

yum

2009-10-06T10:21:00.007-05:00

I had an amazing weekend in Chicago. Ostensibly I was in town for work. In reality, I reconnected with old friends, including the city itself. I spent some time at Uncommon Ground. I had gone to their Wrigleyville location on several occasions as a college student and was expecting a similar experience at the newer spot near Loyola. Instead of a fireplace and armchairs, however, I encountered a chic restaurant/lounge.

I can't say I was disappointed. I ordered a whiskey at the bar. What I got was a very smooth Templeton Rye whiskey. As I took my first sip, I was immediately surprised how sweet yet subtle the flavor was. Feeling satisfied, I found a chair, pulled out my pointy sticks, and began to knit. All the while sipping a very good whiskey.

Image property of Templeton Rye

why I love textiles

2009-09-29T09:52:00.007-05:00

Simply amazing. This is the only known tapestry woven completely of spider silk. The silk is undyed - this rich gold is its natural color. Read the story here.

Image property of R. Mickens/AMNH
Thanks for the lead, Eric.

real men . . .

2009-09-17T11:19:00.007-05:00

. . . knit

images are the property of MenKnit.net

slavery by any other name . . . is still slavery

2009-09-13T14:00:00.004-05:00

Department of Labor Releases List of Slave-Made Goods.

If you really want to, you can read the full report here.

(Thanks for the heads-up Neraj)

tweed

2009-09-11T20:36:00.007-05:00

I have long been a fan of fiber arts, but I only recently realized the true extent to which fibers and textiles fascinate me. I started knitting last fall when I stumbled across the fantastic Black Purl on one of my early trips to Wausau. Countless cable knit beanies and one pair of socks later, I finally did a project that required some new skills.

Ginny and I refer to the bun in the oven as Little Lamb. So when I came across a free pattern for a really cute knitted sheep, I did not hesitate to tackle the project. Tweed, whose name has pretty obvious origins, was the result. I will bring Tweed to the hospital, and I hope he and Little Lamb become fast friends.

I am starting to seriously consider a career that involves textiles and fiber arts. Stay tuned.

estranged

2009-09-03T13:53:00.000-05:00

One could rightly say that the existence of religion as a special realm [separate from the secular realm] is the most conspicuous proof of man's fallen state . . . It is the situation of the estrangement of man from his true being.

Paul Tillich
in Theology of Culture

Le Ballon Rouge

2009-08-19T08:53:00.005-05:00

I recently came across a reference to The Red Balloon. I had not seen this movie since I was a young child, but it still looms large in my childhood imagination.

I can't exactly remember the first time I saw this short film. It was either in my first grade classroom on reel-to-reel or in the middle of the night on the Disney Channel - the time slot usually reserved for pre-1950's black and white documentaries about American progress which were narrated by a confident man who sounded vaguely like FDR.

The rediscovery was a happy one. Although there is no dialogue, the viewer is soon immersed in the world of Pascal as we follow him and his red balloon for a day. This short reflects a childhood optimism that beauty and redemption can still exist amid the mundane and in spite of cruelty.

This poor quality youtube version doesn't do the movie justice. The balloon's bright color contrasts beautifully with drab, post-war Paris and the visual beauty is much better served in high definition. If you would like the full experience, check out the digitally remastered release from 2008.

[still in] remission

2009-08-17T10:24:00.005-05:00

Dan Berkey completed the opening performance of Remission to glowing reviews.

I hope the rest of the critics view the production as favorably, and I look forward to a possible tour that would bring Dan back to the Twin Cities, where his story began.

remnant

2009-08-17T08:31:00.005-05:00

We have come a long way, both as individuals and culturally as God's people, in our understanding of the created order. God did not stumble upon us and is not limited by our language, but unfortunately we are. Our language is bound by our experience of the cosmos. Consequently, I have begun to embrace a hermeneutic that centers on a community's collective cultural / historical experience as the key to encountering LOGOS.

If you look at the development of theological concepts throughout scripture from the ancient wisdom books through the gospels, epistles, and into the old and new testament eschatological apocalyptic tomes, it's really easy to see that how we view God today is radically different from how the ancient Hebrews and the Hellenized Jews viewed God. And the way that the Hebrews viewed God and reality changed as their history was lived.

A striking and complex example is that of the remnant. In Job and early Genesis, remnanat was a concept used to understand God's preservation of God's people from certain existential annihilation. Think Noah. His family was the barest-bones remnant there is. This had nothing to do with salvation as we think of it but as salvation from a cosmic catastrophy that wiped out the entire existence as they knew it.

For the later prophets, this concept had a much more eschatological cast. Due to prolonged captivity under the Babylonians, Persians, and eventually Greeks, the Jews had begun to conceptualize an afterlife. throughout most of the old testament, afterlife is not even within the realm of conceptualization. Existence after death was encapsulated by the concept of sheol, the grave, a shadowy netherworld strikingly similar to the graves they put their dead in.

By the New Testament, the remnant were God's faithful seed, God's people who are the true believers as evidenced by their commitment to justice, mercy, and obedience (a stark contrast to the corruption of many of the Jewish religious and political leaders who were castigated by the prophets).

Other examples abound of how our concept of God and our relationship to God have developed and expanded as our understanding of existence has expanded.

One of my favorite quotes (which I have posted previously on this blog) comes to me second-hand. It refers expressly to a missiological perspective but is entirely cogent for my understanding of theological and cosmological development. It was placed before one chapter in Mark Noll's America's God:

Christ took flesh and was made man in a particular time and place, family, nationality, tradition, and customs and sanctified them, while still being for all men in every time and place. wherever he is taken by the people of any day, time, and place He sanctifies that culture - He is living in it . . . but to acknowledge this is not to forget that there is another, and equally important, force at work among us. NOT ONLY DOES GOD IN HIS MERCY TAKE PEOPLE AS THEY ARE; HE TAKES THEM TO TRANSFORM THEM INTO WHAT HE WANTS THEM TO BE (emphasis added).

acquaintance

2009-08-15T21:47:00.005-05:00

You can pray anywhere. After all, God is everywhere, so you can find him everywhere.

But in the desert, in the pure clean atmosphere, in the silence - there you can find yourself. And unless you begin to know YOURSELF, how can you even begin to search for God?

Father Dioscuros to William Dalrymple
at St. Antony's Monastery
in From the Holy Mountain

eager anticipation

2009-08-14T11:54:00.010-05:00

AND

divine spirit, divine Word

2009-08-11T11:24:00.004-05:00

I simply taught, preached, and wrote God’s Word; otherwise I did nothing. And then while I slept, or drank Wittenberg beer with my friend Philip and with Amsdoff, the Word so greatly weakened the excesses of the papacy . . . I did nothing; the Word did it all.

Martin Luther
adapted from his Second Invocavit Sermon

value added

2009-08-11T09:37:00.006-05:00

In spite of the global consolidation of domestic brewing, the quality and quantity of artisan micro and regional brews in the U.S. has proliferated in recent years. I know this as well as anyone. I am from Colorado, where good beer abounds. My hometown of Fort Collins boasts 3 regional breweries and even more microbreweries. One of the more famous of the regionals is the New Belgium Brewery, producer of Fat Tire Amber Ale.

Even Wisconsin, which is notorious for its consumption of domestic beer (a church in every town and a bar on every corner), boasts one of the finest microbreweries in the nation. My travels to Wausau for work have happily introduced me to redeye and its amazing beers. Anyone driving between Chicago and the Twin Cities would not regret the extra 45 minutes it would take to drive through Wausau. In addition to amazing beers, redeye serves some fantastic pizza from a wood-fired oven.

This abundance of fine beers in the U.S. has happened in spite of globalization. True, globalization has undoubtedly opened the domestic market to an abundance of fine imports, but I would like to think that handcrafted beers stateside are a stick in the eye of corporate consolidation.

monoculture

2009-08-09T21:04:00.009-05:00

The other day, Phil passed me a link to a collection of photos of older American beer cans. Phil is an artist and immediately sees the visual appeal of the myriad of designs represented. I, on the other hand, immediately see systems of patterns emerging.

Before the last decades of the 20th century, many American regions had their locally brewed and bottled (ahem, canned) beer. In a sense, this proliferation of breweries and familiar logos is a metaphor for the rich diversity of regional cultures that have existed in America and still persist to a degree. Now, most of those breweries are either long-gone or have been purchased. In fact, beerhistory.com claims that

In the year 1900, there were about 2,000 independant brewing companies making beer in America. Of those, fewer than twenty remain in business today.

A couple of anecdotes: When my dad and I were on our bike trip, we swapped beer talks with a father who was riding with his son. They were from Portland. The dad told us that Olympia beer was the ubiquitous Pacific northwest beer that he drank in college. Olympia was sold to Miller in 2003.

Around here, Grain Belt is a regional that was originally brewed on the banks of the Mississippi one and a half miles from our house. Grain belt is still produced by Schell's, a family-owned brewery in New Ulm, Minnesota. The sign pictured above was erected in the 1940's north of downtown Minneapolis, and its neon lights still illuminate this advertisement on the Mississippi river.

I’ve also heard a lot of stories about Hamm's (which was purchased by Olympia in 1970's). Hamm's, brewed in the other Twin, St. Paul, is famous in the upper Midwest for its mascot - the Hamm's Beer Bear - which showed up on T.V. commercials and merchandise. The commercials' Indian theme would now be considered derogatory, but the man who created the bear was an Ojibwa artist named Patrick DesJarlait.

Whenever I bring up Colorado beer around here, people who are 45 or older still talk about when their buddy returned from a Colorado vacation with a case of Coors. It was the slickest thing since sliced bread. That was before Coors became one of the big domestics and was still only distributed in Colorado. The funny thing is that I heard variations of the same story everywhere I have lived in Minnesota since moving here 7 years ago.

What’s fascinating about this is that the history of domestic U.S. beer closely parallels the modern advent of globalization. The big chains consolidate their market presence and turn commerce into a flaccid monoculture. Heck, even Budweiser was bought by the monolithic Belgian-Brazilian (go figure) brewer InBev.

consumption inequality

2009-08-02T22:24:00.005-05:00

Today’s consumption is undermining the environmental resource base. It is exacerbating inequalities. And the dynamics of the consumption-poverty-inequality-environment nexus are accelerating. If the trends continue without change — not redistributing from high-income to low-income consumers, not shifting from polluting to cleaner goods and production technologies, not promoting goods that empower poor producers, not shifting priority from consumption for conspicuous display to meeting basic needs — today’s problems of consumption and human development will worsen.
. . . The real issue is not consumption itself but its patterns and effects.
. . . Inequalities in consumption are stark. Globally, the 20% of the world’s people in the highest-income countries account for 86% of total private consumption expenditures — the poorest 20% a minuscule 1.3%. More specifically, the richest fifth:
Consume 45% of all meat and fish, the poorest fifth 5%
Consume 58% of total energy, the poorest fifth less than 4%
Have 74% of all telephone lines, the poorest fifth 1.5%
Consume 84% of all paper, the poorest fifth 1.1%
Own 87% of the world’s vehicle fleet, the poorest fifth less than 1%
Runaway growth in consumption in the past 50 years is putting strains on the environment never before seen.

from Human Development Report 1998 Overview, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP); text and image via Global Issues

invisible hand [or divine providence]

2009-08-02T22:19:00.002-05:00

The rich only select from the heap what is most precious and agreeable. They consume little more than the poor, and in spite of their natural selfishness and rapacity, though they mean only their own conveniency, though the sole end which they propose from the labours of all the thousands whom they employ, be the gratification of their own vain and insatiable desires, they divide with the poor the produce of all their improvements. They are led by an invisible hand to make nearly the same distribution of the necessaries of life, which would have been made, had the earth been divided into equal portions among all its inhabitants, and thus without intending it, without knowing it, advance the interest of the society, and afford means to the multiplication of the species.

Adam Smith
in Theory of Moral Sentiment

lake

2009-07-30T07:56:00.002-05:00

We're headed for Lake O'Brien this weekend to spend some time with our book club. This group of people has become our community in the Twin Cities, our support network. We are looking forward to deepening these treasured friendships this weekend. I'll let you know how it goes.

remission

2009-07-28T08:56:00.007-05:00

I have heard a speculation that the Old Testament prophets were schizophrenic. When you read about some of the antics that God put them through to speak truth, and when you read about their apocalyptic visions, it's hard not to wonder.

Dan Berkey was healed from a lifetime of addiction and mental illness after his own prophetic, schizophrenic vision. Dan is my mother-in-law's cousin, and I have gotten to know him over the past few years. He is a Broadway actor who has commissioned playwright Kirk Wood Bromley to craft a monologue about his life of addiction and remission.The crux of the tale was a vision Dan had a few years ago. The vision is described like this in the play's handbill:

Dan saw a vision – a giant golden cube suspended in the sky from which emanated 3000 winged humanoid figures beckoning him to join them in the World Self. Awaking from the splendor, he walked home, flushed his medications, and has been symptom-free ever since.

Dan is an extremely lucid and intelligent man. He talks frankly about his past, and he relates the story of his vision with frankness. Although he says his spirituality was reawakened by this experience, he does not not talk about it with the crazed eyes of a fanatic who is only partially immersed in this reality. The play, entitled Remission, will be performed at the Inverse Theater in NYC during this summer's NYC Fringe Festival.

As I was talking with Dan about his experiences a few weeks ago, I recalled a few radio pieces I had listened to that centered around Schizophrenia. They are act 1 of "The Friendly Man" (This American Life episode 181) and "Room for J" a conversation on Speaking of Faith with the parents of a schizophrenic man. Both pieces raise questions about what we think of as normalcy and probe the existential and spiritual insights that can stem from mental brokenness. Check them out.

Photo is a self portrait by Danial Berkey

cynicism

2009-07-26T08:12:00.008-05:00

Modern cynicism, as a product of mass society, is a distrust toward ethical and social values, especially when there are high expectations concerning society, institutions and authorities which are unfulfilled. Cynicism can manifest itself by frustration, disillusionment and distrust in regard to organizations, authorities and other aspects of society, and can result from a negative evaluation of past experiences.

from Wikipedia

Cynicism in my generation stems from the fact that rationalistic modernism has proven to be untenable. The notion of "progress" has bred unspeakable evils: genocide, industrial warfare, weapons of mass destruction. Progress has been propagated through the power of our institutions and systems. The legitimacy of these systems has been undermined, however, because the ideals and supposed benefits that they bring society have been inconsistently applied and achieved at best. Even the protest of the previous generation has not led to a lasting change in the values the underlie our society. We may not take to the streets, but our disillusionment breeds dissent all the same.

This week, my cynicism has expanded to a new level. I am an extremely intuitive, big-picture person. Because my values and actions are formed and filtered through my views or the systems themselves, my perspective has become increasingly mistrustful of Western society's intentions in recent years. This week, however, I experienced the backwardness of our system firsthand.

My supervisor, a talented, connected, knowledgeable individual was let go from our company, along with four other employees. There was a perfectly good business reason that he was terminated. Our company had been sold to a publicly-traded firm, and they have expectations for profit margin and the profitability of their inputs. My supervisor cost the company a lot of money in wages, and his value could not directly be tied to company profit. In fact, when one of the senior managers told me that my supervisor was being asked to leave, these were the words I heard:

This was a very difficult decision. I realize that this relationship may be destroyed forever. But this was a necessary decision for the business.

My heart shriveled.

May I never sacrifice people and relationships for profit.

wisdom of the ages

2009-07-20T11:24:00.002-05:00

That wealth and greatness are often regarded with the respect and admiration which are due only to wisdom and virtue; and that the contempt, of which vice and folly are the only proper objects, is often most unjustly bestowed upon poverty and weakness, has been the complaint of moralists in all ages.

Adam Smith
in Theory of Moral Sentiments

sprung sprockets

2009-07-17T12:31:00.006-05:00

The car is in pieces. Well, not really, but I do have it up on blocks. Actually, it's on stands in my garage. But having a broken-down car is a kick back to the good ole days of living in Chitown and depending on public transportation. Except that public transportation in the Twin Cities is nothing like the CTA in Chicago.

To add to the mayhem, when I went out to take my motorcycle to the auto parts store, I discovered it had a flat. I haven't even had to put air in the tires for the last three years. So for now we're relying on our bipedals, bicycles, and the generosity of friends like Jen and Neeraj.

Even though it's a hassle not to have four wheels and an internal combustion engine given the frenetic pace of a geographically mobile society that we are immersed in, I kinda like the feeling of having grease under my fingernails. It makes me feel more legit. Like Phil and Ruth who had to have their truck's transmission rebuilt in the middle of Mexico. Like Yvon Chouinard and pals who rebuilt their tranny in Peru on the way to climb Fitzroy.

I have the replacement axle in hand and will go to the parts store tomorrow to pick up the last few things I need to finish my repair. But for now, we're getting by. Just fine, actually.

repair or replace?

2009-07-16T13:03:00.006-05:00

When Ginny and I purchased our '91 Toyota Camry wagon, we know it would not last forever. In fact, it fulfilled our expectations and got us through my graduate program. It now has 250,000 miles, and still runs pretty well. We've had to make repairs here and there, but the money has been well worth it considering we would be paying a lot more in car payments with a newer car.

Recently, we started having some simultaneous breakdowns, causing us to question whether or not we should continue to feed money into an aging vehicle, albeit one which I believe could give us tens of thousands more miles and a few more years. There are rust holes in two separate sections of the exhaust system, and one of the CV joints just started knocking. The mechanic gave us a $1,200 estimate on the exhaust work alone.

Now, I'm confident that I could do all of the work for a fraction of the price. I have already priced out the exhaust parts, and I'm giong to pick up a new axle within the next day or two.

This experience has definitely gotten the conversation about priorities going. We could probably pay cash for a newer used vehicle, but in my mind that's tantamount to getting rid of an entirely serviceable yet undoubtedly less comfortable vehicle in favor of an outflow of cash that would otherwise sit in our savings account for a more dire emergency.

Plus, my neighbor Smurf, a big black guy, said he'd give me a hand. How could I turn down the chance to have a smurf help me with my car?

The Making of the Atomic Bomb

2009-07-14T13:19:00.001-05:00

Few books deal with a difficult and complex subject as well as Richard Rhodes' masterpiece, The Making of the Atomic Bomb. The book's narrative is an epic portrayal of one of America's greatest and most controversial achievements, the Manhattan Project. Rhodes uses the literary genre of narrative nonfiction to tell the story of the people, events, and serendipity that resulted in the most destructive war machine ever invented.

Rhodes tells the story in two parts. The first details the progression of scientific achievement and discovery that led to the discovery of nuclear fission and the testing of the first bomb. The second half relates the massive mobilization of national resources to create the industrial complex that was needed to enrich the radioactive materials for the bombs.

The narrative masterfully weaves together biography and science to tell this story. The result is at once an important factual history of the subject and a fascinating expose' of the personalities and personal histories of the people involved in the project. During the course of the story, Rhodes details Nazi Germany's parallel attempt to make their own bomb. Consequently, scientists whose names I remember hearing about in high school physics assume human proportions as they struggled for opposite sides to achieve victory for their countries in World War II.

This is one of my all-time favorite books. I love how Rhodes reveals how the pecularities of personality, geography, and history made the atomic bomb possible. That he wrote this book with such fairness and candor in the mid 1980s, when the Cold War was still being waged across the globe, is revealing of his success. The Pulitzer, National Book Award, and the National book Critics Circle Award that Rhodes received for this book are all well-deserved.

heaven and hell

2009-07-10T11:06:00.000-05:00

Christ came not to get men into heaven but to get heaven into men; not to get men out of hell but to get hell out of man.

E. Stanley Jones

in The Christ of the Mount

late adopter of old technology

2009-07-09T17:19:00.002-05:00

Call me crazy, but I have decided to set up a home darkroom. There's something in me that loves to express creativity in a tactile way. I suppose that's why I love to learn new skills and tackle new projects - from motorcycle repair to sewing to darkroom photography.

I have always enjoyed photography. I can't say that I have a natural eye for it, but I am a quick learner and pay close attention to detail. A few years ago, I bought an old Nikon FG 35mm SLR with a light leak. I recently bought one without a leak, and the pictures of Anna in front of the Northrup King Building were on one of my first rolls with the new body.

My brother Patrick and his boyfriend Benjamin stayed at our house a few weeks ago, and Benjamin had recently purchased some vintage cameras that use various film formats. These cameras resurfaced my interest in film photography, and I bought a photo enlarger the following week.

My hope is that the expense of film photography and the detail involved in producing a finished photo will discipline me to learn a lot more about the nuances of light and texture.

It will take me a few more weeks at least to get the darkroom fully set up, but I hope to publish some of my finished photos on this blog. Stay tuned.

The Invention of Hugo Cabret

2009-07-08T21:57:00.008-05:00

It turns out that The Invention of Hugo Cabret was the perfect book to have at the Cabin over the 4th. It is a quick read, but the story is captivating and evokes wonder and suspense more visually than almost any other book I have ever read. This partly because major portions of the narrative are advanced in graphic form. Brian Selznick does a masterful job of transitioning between words, illustrations, and cinema to tell a story set in Paris, circa 1931; the story itself evokes an earlier age in French cinema.

The book is neither narrative nor graphic novel; it is something in-between. As the synopsis says:

The Invention of Hugo Cabret is not exactly a novel, and it’s not quite a picture book, and it’s not really a graphic novel, or a flip book, or a movie, but a combination of all these things.

As I began to read the book, I found myself mulling carefully over each illustration to grasp the detail, but the early illustrations were more impressionistic and defied my attempts to study them for too long. Perhaps Selznick intentionally helps the reader to flip through the illustrations rather than study them. By the time the illustrations became more detailed, they evoke an added layer of emotion with in the reader, beyond what the narrative itself achieves. The story becomes so engrossing, however, that the reader cannot help but flip through each sequence of pictures.

In addition to the literary form, the story itself is captivating. It centers around a lost boy named Hugo Cabret and an equally lost man named Georges Melies. The two have more in common than they first realize, and in the end, they help each other transcend mutually tragic pasts.

Magic lies at the heart of the tale. The magic portrayed can easily be dismissed as anachronistic or gimmicky; but the brilliance of the creativity that is embedded in the transition from a modern age to a postmodern one hearkens to the existential quest for transcendence that has occupied humanity, from ancient Greece to 20th century Paris. This dawning understanding is perhaps Hugo Cabret's greatest invention.

beauty

2009-06-30T11:18:00.007-05:00

These are some recent pictures I took of Anna outside the Northrup King building in NE Minneapolis, a few blocks from our house. I love the beauty of the city. It's different from the open vistas of my youth or the tranquil landscapes of the Minnesota lake country. There's not much natural beauty, but the texture of history and the people who inhabit the urban space are beautiful in their own right.

And who more so than my little girl?

To see the rest of the photos, click here.

satire

2009-06-19T11:18:00.004-05:00

I love political satire. I don't have a TV, so I don't get a regular fix, but I'm a sucker for all of the SNL skits that lampoon politicians.

I just saw these jokes about Secretary Clinton's broken elbow, and couldn't resist posting them.

David Letterman:

When he heard she broke her elbow, Rush Limbaugh sent over some painkillers. So she's going to be fine.

Craig Ferguson:

Not such a great day for Hillary Clinton. She fell down, broke her elbow. ... You know, Fox News is going to be all over this story. This proves the Democrats are weak. Reagan fell over 10 times, didn't even break his hair.

Now the official report said that Hillary fell while she was walking to her car in the parking lot of the State Department. But Hillary likes to exaggerate, so she's telling everybody it was sniper fire.

The Secret Service performed beautifully but they had to use the Jaws of Life to cut Hillary out of her pantsuit.

Jimmy Kimmel:

Our secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, is in a cast. She fell and fractured her elbow. Fortunately, her scowl broke the fall, so she is okay.

Source: Madam Secretary via The Frontrunner via Nexis.

despotism

2009-06-17T16:53:00.007-05:00

As if we didn't already have enough of a reason to be skeptical that big business is an essential part of America's experiment with democracy . . .

I just read an article in the Economist describing Exxon Mobile's most recent board meeting. It's interesting that businesses with anti-democratic governance structures have so much power to leverage the direction of U.S. policy. Money Speaks.

An essay by corporate activist Robert Monks, who was present at the meeting, makes a good case for the overhaul of corporate oversight and regulation by the U.S. government. An overhaul would not at all be moving in the direction of socialism.

American history has seen the perpetual dance between corporate interest and the U.S. government. The Revolution was ostensibly fought over a tax on commerce. The constitutional compromise that allowed slavery to remain as an American institution was made in part so that the South could keep commercial power in exchange for ceding some political power to the North.

From the regulation of commerce to the prohibition of trusts and monopolies, the U.S. government has long been in the practice of regulating business. It needs to get back into that practice.

for your consideration . . .

2009-05-31T20:36:00.005-05:00

Those who know me know that I have always loved to read. I suppose it comes from my inquisitive nature, but there was a time when I would read anything and everything. Throughout my life, I have gone through phases where I will focus on a certain genre, but my favorite has always been childrens' and young adult fairy stories. A well written fairy tale encompasses an entire cosmological paradigm and touches on timeless human themes.

I spent the last weekend with my friend Phil, and our conversations are always peppered with the titles and authors of books we have read. At Phil's suggestion, I will be starting an occasional series of book reviews. As time allows, I will try to give interesting books I have read serious treatment, but I may occasionally introduce a title for consideration without accompanying commentary.

I would love to hear back from anyone who picks up a title I have recommended or has one to recommend of their own.

externailities

2009-05-28T21:32:00.002-05:00

Can money grow on trees?

This question is central to what I view as the central flaw of free market capitalism as it currently functions. The specific context of this question comes from an article I read in Economist called "Growing on Trees." The article reports that the Iwokrama rain forest in Guinea has become profitable. The profitability is not due so much to resource extraction (e.g., logging) as it is due to sustainable resource use. Part of this resource use comes in the form of carbon sequestration, the capture of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. This sequestration is a public good.

A public good is an economic good that provides utility or benefit to everyone in a society but for which not everyone pays. This may smack of socialism or (God forbid!) communism. However, we all benefit from public goods like interstate highways, parks, schools, etc. In the case of Iwokrama, everyone on earth benefits from every ton of carbon that is sequestered, but we don't pay for these services. This is an example of what economists call an externality.

An economic externality is a positive or negative benefit that spills over to a party not directly involved with the buying or selling transaction. They are neither good nor evil inherently, but while some market spillovers like carbon sequestration and parks benefit everyone, others can be extremely harmful. Oil spills often cause more economic damage than the oil companies are charged for the price of cleanup. They obviously disrupt the local ecology, but they may also endanger public health and disrupt commerce and tourism, as in the case of the oil spill off the coast of Portugal a few years back.

That the market doesn't consider the price of externalities is, in my view, a serious flaw in our free market system. Hope is on the horizon, however. The fact that Guinea is valuing and beginning to sell the services provided by its old growth forest is one glimmer. Another is limiting carbon emissions (greenhouse gas is another negative externality) through cap and trade.

For our parts, as individuals, we can consider the price of negative externalities through our decisions as consumers. Riding a bicycle rather than taking a car can show that you believe the price of more carbon emissions is too high. Buying used or ethically produced goods whenever possible communicates that you think unfair wages or working conditions are too high of a price for cheap goods. You get the picture.

In the end what provides us with economic satisfaction is a reflection of our deepest values. How do you price what you value?

mini me

2009-05-17T21:52:00.003-05:00

Who Knew?

tribute

2009-05-04T08:52:00.006-05:00

Phil is one of my best friends. We met in college, but our friendship has deepened in the intervening years in spite of the miles have separated us. On Saturday, Phil graduated from Mars Hill Graduate School with his MDiv. Phil was selected by his peers and faculty to deliver a speech during commencement. Its eloquence reveals the depth of Phil's soul and the phenomenal growth he has experienced during the 5-year course of his graduate studies. Proud of you phnil.

Grace

2009-04-25T14:12:00.002-05:00

Anna is a blast. Her personality is exploding. At 17 months, she is walking, solving problems, and expanding her vocabulary exponentially. And apparently she's a Dylan fan.

Now that it's spring, she loves to go 'side (outside). She had a great time hunting for Easter eggs in her grandma and grandpa's prairie on Easter morning.

Ginny is out of town for the weekend, so earlier today Anna and I spent the entire morning on an outside play date. I popped her in the Kelty kid carrier, and we went to a park, walked around the neighborhood, and had brunch at the Mill City Cafe. She was completely content observing everything around us. She pointed out burrds, balls, biikes, cars (beep, beep!), trains (toot, toot!), puppies, and many, many other objects.

Our little girl is well named. She represents the presence of grace in our lives.

ruah

2009-04-24T08:27:00.008-05:00

I have recently begun the practice of yoga. It is something that I have been intending to to do for quite a while, but the opportunity had not presented itself until now.

This week, the yoga instructor talked about air/wind/oxygen/spirit/breath. In sanskrit, the word for this concept is prana. Prana is in a mystical sense the life force that pervades and unites reality. When we breathe in, we borrow prana, and when we breathe out we keep no prana for ourselves.

This concept may be extremely foreign and uncomfortably mystical to Western minds, but it is one that pervades ancient cosmology. In fact, prana is very similar to the ancient Hebrew concept of ruah. At the creation, it was the ruah elohim, spirit of God, that hovered over the chaotic deep, and it was ruah that God breathed into adam to give humans life.

The mystical sense of the prana or ruah that creates and connects all living beings is a good reminder to me of how we should approach our stewardship of our planet. As I breathe in and out, these concepts are also a tangible reminder that none exists in isolation, and that who I am becoming is shaped by my encounter with thou.

"May the best and most divine in me honor the best and most dvine in you."