cross-gender friendships

hey all, if you haven't read Kathy Escobar's interview with her friend Dan regarding cross gender friendships, then get ye to her blog!

interview with hannah

Hey everyone! I am currently writing a series on my blog in which I interview my friends. My last post was an interview with Hannah! Here's the link!

Double Rainbow All the Way

I can't believe how many of you haven't seen this. It was the theme for Craig and Jim's birthday party. Turn the sound on and don't be sippin' any liquids. Probably NSFW.

reconciliation

Here's a link to a thoughtful post about reconciliation by Rachel Held Evans. In it, she shares several stories of others who share what they consider living a story of reconciliation looks like. Please take a few moments to read it-it's refreshing.

Human Trafficking Awareness Day

Today is Human Trafficking Awareness Day

Like many of you, I have known that human trafficking & slavery still exists in various forms around the world, but I have recently been on a journey to dig deeper in understanding this tragic reality and I want to share some of my findings with everybody.

These injustices do not simply "still exist"... they are thriving. To put things into perspective...

"More slaves are in bondage today than were bartered in four centuries of the transatlantic slave trade."

-Not For Sale by Batstone(6)

I'll start with a basic definition for Human Trafficking -

the dislocation of someone by deception or coercion for exploitation, through forced prostitution, forced labor, or other forms of slavery. (source: Steve Chalke - Stop the Traffik)

It is estimated that the total number of individuals enduring this nightmare is in the realm of 27 million. 27 million human beings like you and me. 27 million collections of abilities and aspirations. 27 million hearts.

We talked a bit at our gathering yesterday about "compassion fatigue" as Jamie termed it, and this is yet another example of an issue that can easily overwhelm us to the point of numbness and inaction. But I have a growing hope and cause to believe that this doesn't have to be the case. More on that in a moment...

Here are a few more of the key statistics to build a fuller picture of what's happening around us:

- Over 150 countries in the world today serve as a source, transportation route, and/or destination for human trafficking, with the least developed nations being the most gravely impacted. (US State Dept)

- Of the 27 million individuals held captive today, 80% are female and 50% are children (US State Dept)

- Approximately 1.2 million children are trafficked yearly. That amounts to one child every 30 seconds... (UNICEF)

- Worldwide, traffickers generate a revenue stream for themselves upwards of $10 billion, while the trafficking trade in all its forms generates more than $32 billion when also accounting for the activities and goods produced by the victims. [These figures are only rivaled by drug trafficking and the illegal arms trade for the largest global crime] (International Labour Office)

- Here in the United States, approximately 17,500 individuals are trafficked into our country every year for forced labor and sexual slavery. (US State Dept)

So what can we do?

Like I mentioned yesterday with regard to these issues of injustice that need to be addressed, I think a "both/and" approach will ultimately be the most transformative, i.e, foster the ongoing creation of the kingdom of God. By this, I mean that those of us who are able to give financially towards local & global efforts that directly affect the problem should do so [check out a few recommendations of organizations below], AND there's also a component of individual action beyond financial donations that we are each called to explore.

This first natural step in individual action is to heighten our awareness of the issues [some reading and viewing recommendations are below]. But this awareness must necessarily lead to a tangible output. Or in the word's of Stop the Traffik and Oasis founder, Steve Chalke, "Expressions of outrage and sympathy without action are useless. Becoming aware, informing ourselves, is only the first step" (Stop the Traffik, 103).

The next step is to identify if/where we are unknowingly entangled in the massive web of human/trafficking. Again, Steve Chalke:

"We need to find out whether what we buy has a history, and whether that history is exploiting vulnerable people" (107).

Some of the more blatant industries where trafficked labor is widely used are the chocolate, coffee, cotton (clothing), and tea trades, among many others. As we've heard numerous times, we truly have the ability to "vote" with our dollars. Each of our purchases, whether intentionally or not, reinforce certain systems at play in the world's supply chains. Again, it can be overwhelming as a born-and-raised American consumer to sift through our hundreds of purchases & possessions, but I agree with this view:

"A traffick-free lifestyle is worth working at. Make one choice at a time. And it won't be just your life that is changed" (Chalke, 109).

I'm currently checking out the Free2Work website and exploring ways to become a more conscious and deliberate consumer. Another cool resource is www.projectlabel.org

As we think about what else we can do as individuals and as a cohort, this challenge strikes a chord in me:

"Take Advantage of Your Access to Power for the Sake of the Powerless" (Batstone, 281).

Facing up to this challenge can take so many forms: political advocacy, commercial boycotting, volunteering with organizations that reach out to victims, raising awareness among the masses, and on and on. I'd love to brainstorm more ideas collectively sometime.

Anyhow, I wanted to at least get this information out here for our community to wrestle with and to highlight this day of awareness. Let's see where we can go with our action...

Reading

- Not For Sale: The Return of the Global Slave Trade - and How We Can Fight It by David Batstone

- Stop the Traffik: People Shouldn't Be Bought & Sold by Steve Chalke & Cherie Blair

- The Slave Next Door: Human Trafficking & Slavery by Kevin Bales & Ron Soodalter

- 2009 Trafficking in Persons Report - US State Dept

Viewing

- Frontline: Sex Slaves [additional resources HERE]

- Slavery: A Global Investigation

- Born Into Brothels

- Trade [also currently available for instant viewing for Netflix subscribers]

- Slumdog Millionaire

- Invisible Children

Organizations

- International Justice Mission

- Stop the Traffik & Oasis USA

- Not For Sale Fund

... among many others...

-------------------

*Photo Credit: 2009 Trafficking In Persons Report (US State Dept)

Advent: Joy

Hey all,

I wanted to go ahead and get a digital version of our time together up on the blog for everybody to peruse. I have really enjoyed taking in each others' responses, and I hope you will too.

For those who weren't able to make it, we spent some time discussing various perspectives on what 'joy' might be. For many of us, the word itself feels sort of antiquated; it's not one that we toss around in everyday conversation very often. What does it mean that Jesus' coming to our world brought joy? It seems that in contrast to the fleeting nature of 'happiness', 'joy' inherently has an element of fulfillment... that when we experience joy we're communing with the core of who/what God created us to be and take in. It comes in myriad moments and forms. It seems to be independent of happiness, quite often. It can also be a mindset and/or discipline (see the previous post by Carrie).

We then shifted our discussion to Rob Bell's Jesus is Difficult: Beatifully Angry sermon. We spent some time recounting Rob's point about how identifying the things in the world that make us beautifully angry can often give us insight into how God wired us individually and what he wants us to address in this world. Ultimately it seems that when we identify and address the things that make us angry, we end up finding another way to create and experience joy/fulfillment for ourselves and the people around us.

We wrapped up the evening with an "ideation session." The session progressed through three questions, the results of which are reproduced in the images below. [click to enlarge]

1. How have you/do you experience joy?


2. What makes you [beautifully] angry?


3. What are you going to do with your beautiful anger to find/create joy?

Progression of Community

Hey everybody,

I was reflecting on Sunday's conversation regarding the first installment of Rob Bell's Jesus Is Difficult series on Gossip, and I had some thoughts/questions I'd like to throw out to the group...


We've touched on these ideas before, but I want open up the discussion again on our [Emerging Desert's] progression of community. One thing that struck me about the conversation on Sunday (or the portion I was able to observe) was that a number of people identified the assumption of closeness in Rob's main points. That is to say, his teaching about how to deal with conflict and thus gossip hinged on an assumption of relational maturity or closeness. I think we have/are/will continue to witness a beautiful evolution of community within EmDes, but I still sense that there is plenty of ground to cover in deepening our relationships. Or to frame it another way, Rob's talk about conflict resolution, etc. made me wonder if we, as a community, are deep enough into each other's lives to even merit that depth of conflict resolution if one should arise (which really hasn't yet to my knowledge). Does that even make sense?

To offer an answer to my own silly question: I think we're getting there. Like I said, a number of us have committed to doing this journey together, and much progress has been made. But we still have a way to go, I think. So I guess the wrap-up questions are these:

- Is our ongoing progression of community something that simply takes time (so we should just keep doing what we're doing), OR is there some increased level of intentionality that would be good for us to collectively put into action?

- If we lean towards "doing more," what would that look like for us as a group? Of course there's a individual aspect to all of this, but should we add an element to our weekly gatherings in which we some how make ourselves more known to each other (whatever that might mean), or would that feel too forced?

Any and all thoughts are greatly welcome!

joy's blog

Hey friends and lurkers,

Joy has been blogging through a bit of her spiritual journey, and I think she is doing an amazing job. Check out her latest post regarding deconstruction and reconstruction of "praxis"

(Two thumbs WAY up)

recent post by mcclaren

Did anyone else read this post by McClaren? In it he pairs a heartbreaking (short) clip from an interview with theologian John Goldingay and a poignant quote from Richard Rohr regarding people learning to trust themselves.
Please take just a few moments to check it out.

I am because we are...

Heya friends,

I stumbled upon a really beautiful blog post over on www.emergingwomen.us by Erin Crisp. The article is about how kids in America don't like going to school compared to kids in Kenya, but I thought the theme of the post was applicable to so much in our lives. Check it out!

“They do not understand that ‘I am because we are, and we are because I am.'"

Stop Hunger Now

Heya friends,
I mentioned the Food for the Hungry breakfast and packing event when we met on Sunday. If you are interested in joining me, shoot me an email or call or text or twitter or knock on my door...they want to know in advance if anyone is coming, but don't let that stop you if you are a last minute kind of person.
The event will be:
Tuesday, July 28th
7:30a-9a
Food for the Hungry US
1224 E Washington
Phoenix, AZ 85034
480-998-3100
7:30am – Light Breakfast
8:00-8:45 – Presentation from Stop Hunger Now and hands on packing event
8:45-9:00 – Opportunities for future involvement in Operation Sharehouse – Phoenix

Recap 5.03.09

     Adam shared with us a bit of his story, and how he and Tara came to be on this journey.  It had been on his and Tara's heart to go see, hear and taste what extreme poverty actually is.  While in Addis Ababa, Ethiopa, among the places they went was a church service for those dying of AIDS.  Those running the service would care for those in need and give them a place to worship in their final hours.  Needless to say this was a life changing experience.  This was contrasted later with a mega-church service here in the valley (we'll allow it to remain nameless) in which the happy parishioners were cheering the pastor as he revved his Harley Davidson down the aisle and up onto the stage as a sermon intro.  This could be a place marked as the beginning of a change for the Bams...

(Adam and Tara, for me to sum up the depths your experience(s) in a few lines is impossible.  Please edit away, or feel free to write "not endorsed by the Bams" in the comments.)

Adam then read to us from pages 136-138 in Shane's book, as a new perspective, or rather a big picture view of the great commission.

In light of some of the points brought up in Jesus for President, the pledge of allegiance was mentioned as a little more difficult to swallow for some of us, especially those of us who have children and are wondering just exactly what it is that we want them to value.  Isn't it the people who make a country, not the country that makes the people?

As we take another hard look at becoming the church we want, becoming the people we want to become, we ask "how"?  Yet in regards to what we "haven't" done, or to respond to our own critiques that say we are all talk and no action, we discussed the following.

I'm not sure who brought it up, but I believe it was Ron.  Yeah you Ron.  Here's the idea: no, we're not yet satisfied with where we are, and arguably we may never be.  However, if we look back at ourselves 5 years ago (more or less for some of us), we can see that many things have changed.  Some things have changed dramatically.  We should not discount that this is in fact a journey, and it will be comprised of many single steps, not a small number of giant leaps.  As I type this my own impatience is becoming all too apparent.  I like big leaps.

Well, I hadn't been made aware of this about myself at the time, so I pressed on.  My thoughts were these: We look at those who are examples of drastic change, such as Shane C.  We usually respond with "I'm not going to make my own clothes or give my house to the poor so.....what can I do?"  And yet I feel that if are ever going to be able (read: willing) to give our houses to the poor were going to have to start somewhere.  So here's the question: where is a happy medium between changing the source of our coffee from *unknown to *freetrade, and giving away every possession we have?  Can we drum up some creativity to find that middle ground?  By the way, I think we all need to become very aware of what we buy, why, where it comes from, and who it affects.  That said, I don't believe stopping there will satisfy what it is we're longing for.

Some ideas that came up...

• Jim suggested that we consider starting a neighborhood Laundry Love project in Mesa.  This would be very cool: hanging out together, making new friends, and extending our love to those who need it.  Check out the link - it's all sorts of good stuff.  At this point we're just looking to see if somebody would like to kick it off.  Are you that person?  (I should go into recruiting, that was powerful)

• Sarah mentioned a friend of theirs who is a pastor and is experiencing some heart-ache from the decision to leave his church.  Sarah said they are going to try and be there for him and support him through this time of transition. 
  
• This kicked off a discussion about how pastors in many church contexts can be very overworked and under-appreciated.  Yet while they need support, they may not be able to be supported by staff or laity because of the nature of the job, and the way you should "appear" to your congregation (I could type a novel about this, but I shan't).  Jamie suggested there could be an opportunity here to serve those working in the church.  I wonder: is this a hint of what it could look like to have a positive and mutually beneficial connection between the emerging church and the institutional church?  I dream I dream....

•  Mr. Grzecka suggested as a group we look at an Amor Ministries (or similar) weekend trip.  That would also be way cool.
  

•  Another good idea is one that Tara brought up (years?) ago.  I think it fits into the question of what things we can do to live differently, yet not scary differently.  A simple (online?) way of sharing resources among the group.  Those items that we would be willing to let someone borrow we could have on a list, and basically could be able to say what's mine is yours.  Tara, do you care to extrapolate, or have you modified the idea at all since way back when?

      I think that's a pretty good start.  Any other ones?  Comments?  Longest recap post in the history of ever?  Peace out...

Getting Down to Business!

*Photo Credit - The Blackbird on Flickr

Okay, tomorrow we're going to be spending our time digging into more of the details that have been raised in Claiborne & Haw's, Jesus for President. Economics, politics, patriotism, creative non-violence, cultural interaction... you know, the usual stuff you talk about within spiritual community;-)

Our reading of the book currently has us through page 102. Here are some questions to get our thoughts going...

- What are some examples of political imagination in our current context and culture?
"God put in place other beautiful initiatives to awaken the Israelites' political imagination and ensure that they didn't default to old ways of living" (56).

- How do we/should we view the "Sabbath laws" today?
"The Sabbath laws were put in place not just so people could go to worship services on Sunday (or Saturday) mornings but to make sure that the Hebrew people didn't revert to the exploitative economy of the empire from which they were saved" (57).

- Should we/can we entertain the idea of Jubilee economics [debt cancellation] in our present culture? If so, how?
"Just like the Hebrew people were supposed to refrain from working every seventh day so that their land, animals, & servants could rest (a marked contrast to their overworked life in Egypt), every seventh year, the Hebrew people had a celebration called the Jubilee..., during which they would take the whole year off from work. During this one-year break, all the food that continued to grow in their fields was free for the taking for families who were struggling to get by (Exod. 23:10). And any debt that folks had incurred during the past six years was erased" (59).

- How does (can?) national patriotism coexist with our pursuit of Jesus' way?
"Jesus was urging his followers to be the unique, peculiar, and set-apart people that began with Abraham. He didn't pray for the world in order to make governments more religious; he called Israel to be the light of the world - to abandon the way of the world and cultivate an alternative society in the shell of the old, not merely to be a better version of the kingdom of this world" (71).

- What can the "Third Way" (creative non-violence) look like for us today?
"Jesus' listeners would have understood the Romans to be the weeds sown among the wheat. How to rid the world of their evil? But Jesus redirected this and insisted that #1 You cannot easily distinguish the weeds from the wheat. (It's not so easy to say, 'We are all good and they are all evil.' Sometimes only God can distinguish.) #2 Destroying evil might destroy good" (97).

one of the best ever

Merry Christmas Eve Everyone!

I am a little excited. I have a confession: I love giving presents. And no joke, I dreamed I bought a golden retriever puppy for Stacy. I can still smell his puppy breath. Ew. (Sorry Stacy, I didn't get you one in real life.)

I was checking the internets this morning, and read about an amazing Christmas Eve during WWI. The soldiers stopped shooting each other and exchanged food and song. I thought this was a truly beautiful story. You can read about it on TallSkinnyKiwi's blog.

". . . if we had been left to ourselves, there would never have been another shot fired. We were on the most friendly terms, and it was only the fact that we were being controlled by others that made it necessary to start shooting each other once again."
--Major Murdoch Mackenzie Wood, Gordon Highlander

brew party

A reminder...this Saturday the Newsomes in Phoenix are hosting a homebrew party. This is an open invitation party. So you are invited! Kids are welcome. There will be a homebrew competition--everyone else is asked to bring something to share. Please click on the title of this post to visit the official website with the details. See you there!!!

Wrestling With the 'Burbs

Great discussion surrounding the previous post by Jake! For many of us involved (seeing that we predominately live in, or come from, the wealthy suburbs) I think grappling with the American suburban lifestyle is one of the more critical tasks that Shane’s book compels us to do.

To build on everybody's thoughts from the previous post... Jake, I completely resonate with the rub that you feel about the suburbs after digging into Shane’s thoughts. Jamie & Justin, your points about being individually purposeful, no matter our environment, are very well taken. I’d like to try to flesh-out some of this conflict created by the suburban culture with some quotes from the book:

"Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." And perhaps for the first time, those were no longer empty words that I hoped would come true someday. They became words we are not only to expect to come true but also to enact. ...it was so close to what I saw in the early church: a people on the margins giving birth to another way of living, a new community marked by interdependence and sacrificial love. (87).

As I’ve mused about what makes the suburbs difficult, this thought by Shane has really stuck with me. In my observations, the prevalent (& marketed) suburban lifestyle is heavily marked by autonomy and self-gratification... a stark contrast to the kingdom described above that is "...marked by interdependence and sacrificial love."

We can admire and worship Jesus without doing what he did. We can applaud what he preached and stood for without caring about the same things. We can adore his cross without taking up ours. I had come to see that the great tragedy in the church is not that rich Christians do not care about the poor but that rich Christians do not know the poor. (113)

It’s no wonder that the footsteps of Jesus lead from the tax collectors to the lepers. I truly believe that when the poor meet the rich, riches will have no meaning. And when the rich meet the poor, we will see poverty come to an end. (114)

Laurie, I appreciated your thoughts on the ranging forms that poverty takes on in a person’s life. I, too, have experienced that the lavishly rich are often (unknowingly) desperately poor, yet I find it important to distinguish between the causes of these varying forms of poverty. In the physically poor, we see causes ranging from racist-cultural limitations to gender injustices to addictions to social persecution to individual failures, etc. For the rich-yet-spiritually-bankrupt, we see causes such as pride, self-indulgence, willed-ignorance, distorted sense of self, etc. And, I’ve concluded that my task in building the kingdom is to counter all of these causes with my love and my life.

Just as many of you have said, this is why we find the suburbs difficult. Because it’s extremely challenging to stay focused when we’re surrounded by a culture that tells us that if we make a lot of money, then we should spend a lot of money, that newer and bigger is important, that life gets better with more stuff. I fear that if we convince ourselves that we’re in the ‘burbs to minister to the rich-yet-poor, then we run the risk of justifying to ourselves that it’s OK for us to live, spend, eat, and drive like the culture we’re trying to subvert... that it’s OK for us to do these things because we’re trying to shine the light of love... but how’s that really working out? (I know this is where I've often found myself...)

[This post is getting kinda long, so I’ll wrap it up.] All of this to say, while I believe that living in the suburbs and building the kingdom is certainly possible, I think it inherently takes an incredible daily resolve to subvert the Affluenza that surrounds us because it is so damaging to what we're advocating. And this daily action MUST take place among the interdependence of community, and this has to be founded on sacrificial love.

So, maybe we should shift the discussion here to what this subversion in the suburbs actually looks like (anybody read Justice in the Burbs ?... I’d like to). Jamie, you mentioned living without a car and having multiple families under one roof as some counter-cultural ideas. What else? Let’s get a bunch of doable ideas out on the table…

*Photo Credits - Flickr Dave and uncultured