Elisabeth's mom is visiting this weekend and tonight we checked out the new World Trade Center tower. We started investigating the eco-friendly aspects of its design and construction. I was surprised to find that the construction workers are using composting toilets!! Check it out here:
http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/environment/recycling/freedom-towers-eco-friendly-toilet-tech#fbIndex1
Monday, May 30, 2011
Thursday, April 21, 2011
All things interfaith
I'm eager to get Samir Selmanovic's book "It's Really All About God: Reflections of a Muslim Atheist Jewish Christian" and particularly enjoyed Brian McLaren's review of it:
“I'm speechless in trying to describe this book. I laughed out loud in places and cried big tears at the end. It's a work of faith, a work of art, and to some, no doubt, it will be a work of damnable heresy. I think this book will change people's lives, and more: it can save lives, in the many senses of that word. All the religious pundits and broadcasters on radio and cable TV had better take notice, because this book threatens our conventional, comfortable categories and familiar black-and-white polarities. Selmanovic has the nerve to imagine our religions becoming, not walls behind which we hide and over which we lob bombs of damnation, but bridges over which we travel to find God in the other.”
—Brian McLaren, Author/Activist
On another note, I wrote Brian McLaren and asked if he would write an endorsement for my book once it's a little further along. He agreed!!! And so I've included that information in all my efforts to convince agents and publishers to take up my project. A couple of rejections from agents so far - I am focusing on them first and then will later approach publishers directly.
Also I sent my full book proposal to Richard Rohr just a few days ago and am hoping to hear from him, if he will endorse it, consider writing a foreword, or even put in a word for me to some of his publishers!
Lastly, I attended a meeting of and became a member of the Religions for Peace North American Interfaith Youth Network (youth really meaning young adult). We had a retreat outside of NYC at an interfaith conference center and got to meet all sorts of neat people. I am sure I will post more on this later!
“I'm speechless in trying to describe this book. I laughed out loud in places and cried big tears at the end. It's a work of faith, a work of art, and to some, no doubt, it will be a work of damnable heresy. I think this book will change people's lives, and more: it can save lives, in the many senses of that word. All the religious pundits and broadcasters on radio and cable TV had better take notice, because this book threatens our conventional, comfortable categories and familiar black-and-white polarities. Selmanovic has the nerve to imagine our religions becoming, not walls behind which we hide and over which we lob bombs of damnation, but bridges over which we travel to find God in the other.”
—Brian McLaren, Author/Activist
On another note, I wrote Brian McLaren and asked if he would write an endorsement for my book once it's a little further along. He agreed!!! And so I've included that information in all my efforts to convince agents and publishers to take up my project. A couple of rejections from agents so far - I am focusing on them first and then will later approach publishers directly.
Also I sent my full book proposal to Richard Rohr just a few days ago and am hoping to hear from him, if he will endorse it, consider writing a foreword, or even put in a word for me to some of his publishers!
Lastly, I attended a meeting of and became a member of the Religions for Peace North American Interfaith Youth Network (youth really meaning young adult). We had a retreat outside of NYC at an interfaith conference center and got to meet all sorts of neat people. I am sure I will post more on this later!
Friday, January 28, 2011
Excellent News Sources for Events in Haiti
Here are some great websites that cover events in Haiti not usually covered by mainstream media. Many of these are from people with direct ties to Haiti, who live or have lived there and follow current events closely.
http://hcvanalysis.wordpress.com/about/
http://www.haitiaction.net/News.html
http://haitiinformationproject.blogspot.com/
http://www.opednews.com/author/author14934.html (The articles written by this particular author, a Haitian human rights lawyer, are all archived on this page)
http://www.cepr.net/index.php/relief-and-reconstruction-watch/
http://canadahaitiaction.ca/
http://hcvanalysis.wordpress.com/about/
http://www.haitiaction.net/News.html
http://haitiinformationproject.blogspot.com/
http://www.opednews.com/author/author14934.html (The articles written by this particular author, a Haitian human rights lawyer, are all archived on this page)
http://www.cepr.net/index.php/relief-and-reconstruction-watch/
http://canadahaitiaction.ca/
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Awesome bike initiative in London
Check out this article (and great video) about an awesome bike initiative in London!
http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/01/18/on-our-radar-londons-bike-lane-superhighways/?ref=earth
I love the blue trail of light that whooshes around and builds new bike racks for locking up bikes!
http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/01/18/on-our-radar-londons-bike-lane-superhighways/?ref=earth
I love the blue trail of light that whooshes around and builds new bike racks for locking up bikes!
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Current Events in Haiti
First off, (on a happy note) a nice video from Nicholas Kristof at the NY Times about SOIL in Haiti. Sasha is the woman in the video, co-founder of SOIL, and an amazing person. I was thrilled every minute I was able to spend with her.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lie8RlRu1r8
Second: News on Haiti's Elections. News can be found from various sources, but many articles usually need to be read to piece together the full story. I will take a shot at outlining some of the key facts.
There was an election at the end of November 2010 for the Haitian president. The largest political party, Fanmi Lavalas, was not allowed to participate in either legislative (April 19, 2010) or presidential (Nov 28, 2010) elections. This is like barring either Republicans or Democrats from voting in the United States. Forty-five US Senators wrote to Sec. of State Clinton (in Oct 2010) urging her to put pressure on the Haitian Gov't (President Preval) to include Lavalas. http://waters.house.gov/News/DocumentSingle.aspx?DocumentID=211192.
Turnout in the Nov. 28, 2010 presidential elections was something like 20% which is far below that of elections in which Lavalas was able to have candidates (i.e. 1990, 2000). Lavalas urged Haitians to boycott the elections.
Quoting from http://www.haitiaction.net/News/HA/9_30_10/9_30_10.html: (Next two paragraphs)
Secretary of State Clinton met with Haitian President Preval on Feb 6, 2010. The day after, Preval announced that Lavalas would not be eligible to run in any elections. Fanmi Lavalas was contacted to meet on March 4, 2009 with a high profile delegation — UN Secretary Ban Ki Moon, [Former] Presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter — but the meeting was cancelled. When Moon and Clinton did arrive the following week they avoided any meeting with Fanmi Lavalas with the assistance of the US Embassy staff. Lavalas then called for a boycott of the primary election.
The USA put $17 million into the primary [presidential election - since many parties and candidates can run they have a first election that narrows down the field to two people, then a second election to decide the president] and the UN plastered the Lavalas strongholds with posters warning the pro-democracy supporters that "more hunger and more violence" would be the result if the People of Haiti honored the Fanmi Lavalas boycott. Less than 3% of the electorate participated in the election. The US media spin was that the elections were a resounding "success for democracy."
The US is not pursuing democracy in Haiti. Simple truth. And it is a disastrous one.
I think the discrepancy between the 3% figure and the 20% figure for voting is explained by the difference between registered and unregistered voters. Of registered voters, only 20% participated. Taking into account the entire Haitian population, only 3% voted.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lie8RlRu1r8
Second: News on Haiti's Elections. News can be found from various sources, but many articles usually need to be read to piece together the full story. I will take a shot at outlining some of the key facts.
There was an election at the end of November 2010 for the Haitian president. The largest political party, Fanmi Lavalas, was not allowed to participate in either legislative (April 19, 2010) or presidential (Nov 28, 2010) elections. This is like barring either Republicans or Democrats from voting in the United States. Forty-five US Senators wrote to Sec. of State Clinton (in Oct 2010) urging her to put pressure on the Haitian Gov't (President Preval) to include Lavalas. http://waters.house.gov/News/DocumentSingle.aspx?DocumentID=211192.
Turnout in the Nov. 28, 2010 presidential elections was something like 20% which is far below that of elections in which Lavalas was able to have candidates (i.e. 1990, 2000). Lavalas urged Haitians to boycott the elections.
Quoting from http://www.haitiaction.net/News/HA/9_30_10/9_30_10.html: (Next two paragraphs)
Secretary of State Clinton met with Haitian President Preval on Feb 6, 2010. The day after, Preval announced that Lavalas would not be eligible to run in any elections. Fanmi Lavalas was contacted to meet on March 4, 2009 with a high profile delegation — UN Secretary Ban Ki Moon, [Former] Presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter — but the meeting was cancelled. When Moon and Clinton did arrive the following week they avoided any meeting with Fanmi Lavalas with the assistance of the US Embassy staff. Lavalas then called for a boycott of the primary election.
The USA put $17 million into the primary [presidential election - since many parties and candidates can run they have a first election that narrows down the field to two people, then a second election to decide the president] and the UN plastered the Lavalas strongholds with posters warning the pro-democracy supporters that "more hunger and more violence" would be the result if the People of Haiti honored the Fanmi Lavalas boycott. Less than 3% of the electorate participated in the election. The US media spin was that the elections were a resounding "success for democracy."
The US is not pursuing democracy in Haiti. Simple truth. And it is a disastrous one.
I think the discrepancy between the 3% figure and the 20% figure for voting is explained by the difference between registered and unregistered voters. Of registered voters, only 20% participated. Taking into account the entire Haitian population, only 3% voted.
Thursday, December 2, 2010
SOIL in the news!
Nicholas Kristoff has a good article about Haiti here: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/02/opinion/02kristof.html?hp
He also mentions SOIL and their great work helping mitigate the cholera crisis!
He also mentions SOIL and their great work helping mitigate the cholera crisis!
Friday, November 12, 2010
Substitutionary Atonement
The common Christian belief of substitutionary atonement really bothers me, and is one example of doctrine and dogma gone wrong. I see it as having some value when we understand how it came about, what it meant in context of early Christianity and Judaism, and when it's not expanded beyond a useful idea and codified into doctrine and dogma that defines what Christianity is. (Instead of, for example, what Jesus says is important and is not important.)
The ideas behind substitutionary atonement (i.e. Jesus died for our sins) are compelling when put in context of the common religious beliefs of Jesus' and Paul's time. Judaism and other religions believed in sacrifice to please the gods or to atone for sin against God. In addition, the Pharisees, a very strict, powerful, and influential group within Judaism taught that one's religious and moral obligations were fulfilled primarily through ceremonial deeds. So when Paul speaks of Jesus as a sacrifice to end all sacrifices, it's important to understand that much of Paul's perspective and particular emphasis comes from the fact that he was previously a very zealous Pharisee. With him, the idea of Jesus' atonement has a real practical meaning, it does something – it ends the overall emphasis on sacrifice and ceremonial deeds, opening and pointing to a new way of the spirit, of life, love, and understanding. This is a living way, based on good deeds flowing from love and personal transformation. Combined with seeing our relationship with God as a friend or heir instead of a slave or servant opens up the realm of spirituality instead of rules, legalism, and the kind of blind faith where we just do things without knowing why. Why is something good or bad? We are supposed to know and understand this if, as Jesus says, God's will is made known to us.
Nowadays, substitutionary atonement does the exact opposite of leading the religion toward a living way based on the spirit, where love and good deeds through personal transformation are key. It reinforces the spirit of the Pharisees but packages it as a wolf in sheep's clothing by drawing on Paul's ideas and imagery about Jesus. As a result, it is believed that Christians (and people in general) are saved through particular beliefs about Jesus which can have little to do with their actual moral and spiritual development. These beliefs trump everything else, including Jesus' own very specific teachings and emphasis on following his example and path, as well as coming to intuitively understand what God is about and even move toward being “one with God” as Jesus prayed would happen with all his followers. The current beliefs create much more acceptance of the excuse “Christians aren't perfect” used to explain why Christians don't actually follow Jesus' example and teachings. (Examples of Jesus' insistence on his example and teachings are: “if you love me follow my commandments” and vice versa, “my mother, brother, sister are those who do God's will”, the emphasis in the Sermon on the Mount on putting into practice what he says, and of building your life on the solid foundation he lays out in the Sermon on the Mount that can weather the worst storms).
This view of atonement actually takes the power out of what Jesus taught and the example he lived, sapping its meaning and substance. Then Christians take Jesus' words “I am the way, the truth and the life – nobody comes to the Father but through me” combined with this shallow and weak understanding of atonement, making an even worse set of doctrines that “keep the doors of the Kingdom closed to others”, meaning that many Christians don't enter into the gate of Jesus' reality and way of life and thus are spouting all kinds of nonsense to the rest of the world. In Christian terms, they are not pursuing and entering the reign of God or the kingdom of God, and by their weird ideas are actually putting up barriers for other people as well. Seen through the lens of substitutionary atonement, belief in Jesus in particular – and not what he stood for (in its full spirituality, not just rules) – is what's important and makes Christianity superior to and separate from any other religion, as opposed to the actual core spirituality and essence of love. The bible emphasizes that God is love, and Jesus directly says that God is spirit. He says the things that matter the most are loving God and loving our neighbors (everyone) and especially those people who are different than we are. Jesus criticized the Pharisees for forgetting what is truly important – mercy, justice, and love. The commonly held doctrines today deserve the same criticism. Jesus' death didn't wash away our sins. Aligning ourselves to him and his love which transcends death does. This is not something that requires a belief in outdated, human-created, and exclusivist doctrines.
The ideas behind substitutionary atonement (i.e. Jesus died for our sins) are compelling when put in context of the common religious beliefs of Jesus' and Paul's time. Judaism and other religions believed in sacrifice to please the gods or to atone for sin against God. In addition, the Pharisees, a very strict, powerful, and influential group within Judaism taught that one's religious and moral obligations were fulfilled primarily through ceremonial deeds. So when Paul speaks of Jesus as a sacrifice to end all sacrifices, it's important to understand that much of Paul's perspective and particular emphasis comes from the fact that he was previously a very zealous Pharisee. With him, the idea of Jesus' atonement has a real practical meaning, it does something – it ends the overall emphasis on sacrifice and ceremonial deeds, opening and pointing to a new way of the spirit, of life, love, and understanding. This is a living way, based on good deeds flowing from love and personal transformation. Combined with seeing our relationship with God as a friend or heir instead of a slave or servant opens up the realm of spirituality instead of rules, legalism, and the kind of blind faith where we just do things without knowing why. Why is something good or bad? We are supposed to know and understand this if, as Jesus says, God's will is made known to us.
Nowadays, substitutionary atonement does the exact opposite of leading the religion toward a living way based on the spirit, where love and good deeds through personal transformation are key. It reinforces the spirit of the Pharisees but packages it as a wolf in sheep's clothing by drawing on Paul's ideas and imagery about Jesus. As a result, it is believed that Christians (and people in general) are saved through particular beliefs about Jesus which can have little to do with their actual moral and spiritual development. These beliefs trump everything else, including Jesus' own very specific teachings and emphasis on following his example and path, as well as coming to intuitively understand what God is about and even move toward being “one with God” as Jesus prayed would happen with all his followers. The current beliefs create much more acceptance of the excuse “Christians aren't perfect” used to explain why Christians don't actually follow Jesus' example and teachings. (Examples of Jesus' insistence on his example and teachings are: “if you love me follow my commandments” and vice versa, “my mother, brother, sister are those who do God's will”, the emphasis in the Sermon on the Mount on putting into practice what he says, and of building your life on the solid foundation he lays out in the Sermon on the Mount that can weather the worst storms).
This view of atonement actually takes the power out of what Jesus taught and the example he lived, sapping its meaning and substance. Then Christians take Jesus' words “I am the way, the truth and the life – nobody comes to the Father but through me” combined with this shallow and weak understanding of atonement, making an even worse set of doctrines that “keep the doors of the Kingdom closed to others”, meaning that many Christians don't enter into the gate of Jesus' reality and way of life and thus are spouting all kinds of nonsense to the rest of the world. In Christian terms, they are not pursuing and entering the reign of God or the kingdom of God, and by their weird ideas are actually putting up barriers for other people as well. Seen through the lens of substitutionary atonement, belief in Jesus in particular – and not what he stood for (in its full spirituality, not just rules) – is what's important and makes Christianity superior to and separate from any other religion, as opposed to the actual core spirituality and essence of love. The bible emphasizes that God is love, and Jesus directly says that God is spirit. He says the things that matter the most are loving God and loving our neighbors (everyone) and especially those people who are different than we are. Jesus criticized the Pharisees for forgetting what is truly important – mercy, justice, and love. The commonly held doctrines today deserve the same criticism. Jesus' death didn't wash away our sins. Aligning ourselves to him and his love which transcends death does. This is not something that requires a belief in outdated, human-created, and exclusivist doctrines.
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