An internal analysis

I absolutely love this book. I read it last summer for the first time and haven't stopped loving it since. I feel like the author is brutally honest about the problems that face our society. Yet he does it in a way that doesn't say, "Look how great I am, and how sucky you are." He points the finger at himself and then you realize how you are forgetting some of the most important things in the world. 

On of my favorite lines in the whole book is, "The problem is not a certain type of legislation or even a certain politician; the problem is the same thing it has always been. I am the problem." I think I tend to point my finger at what is wrong in the world and say, "So-and-so should do something about it." Who really needs to do something about it is me. I am the problem. I am self centered and self serving. I look out for the needs of me over the needs of the suffering. 

He also said, "The problem with this is that it indicates there is less value in what people believe, and what they stand for; it only matters that they are cool." I think I don't often look at what a person believes and says when I look at them. I make snap judgements that don't make them look good or bad. They just make me look uneducated and uncaring. 

I want to be the person like Andrew. "dying for something is easy because it is associated with glory. Living for something, Andrew would say is the hard thing."Are we doing the hard things and living for something? Are we taking these principles of social justice into the world and believing in them so much that we can change the world? I think that the simplest of concepts, belief, could change our society. 

Final Project Presentation

For my final project I am looking at the laws and policies that are in place that make child advocacy and providing justice to our children easier or harder. I had an interview today with Oasis Center and I am hoping that this will all come together in a way that makes sense and the way that I am envisioning it.

I was wanting to present this in the form of a book and then possibly put it in a power point so that the class could see what I was writing. I was wanting to tell a specific story of a child and then on the next page tell how a policy/law/or organization helped or hurt their search for a better life. Then maybe at the end provide an brief description of some of the organizations in Nashville that are fighting for the rights of these children. 

It's Time for Some Real Change

A great theme of today's culture is change. We see it in commercials, books, and political campaigns. We need to change our homes, our spending habits, our outlooks, our world. We are bombarded with the message of change and for good reason. Our culture is full of reasons to change. Poverty is rampant. We don't view the poor and homeless as our brothers. We see ourselves as passive bystanders instead of active participants in our world. 

Breathing Space has really opened my eyes to many things. I know that I live in a sheltered world, and I never assumed such atrocities were occurring within the borders of "the land of opportunity." I always think of the United States as a nation that is overwhelmingly blessed, and we are, however I always thought that in order to give "real help" you had to leave the country. However, the real help is needed here. The real change is needed now.

Where does this change need to come from though? Does our government need to step in and provide it? Mahatma Ghandi once said, "You must be the change you wish to see in the world." I read that quote everyday, but I guess it never really sunk in until I read this week's piece from Neumark. She says, "Where is the locus of real power, authority, and change for the church? More and more, it seems to me that the congregation is the real seat of transforming power." In reading this I was further motivated. We cannot sit and wait on our government to change things (sometimes more rules take us two steps back). We must be the change. We must be the people who bring change to our brothers and sisters. We must be the transforming power in our world. 

The Mountain Top Experience

While I was in high school, my youth group would make a yearly trip to the youth conference Resurrection. This youth conference would bring nearly 20,000 youth to Gatlinburg, TN every January. It would always bring in an amazing band and a speaker who made you feel the spirit of the Lord. In more than one way, this became a mountain top experience for me. I remember leaving Gatlinburg and the Great Smokey Mountains energized about my faith and ready to serve the Lord in any way that I could. However the life of a teenager often times wore me down. I would forget, or didn't have time, to go to youth every week. I never served as much as I thought I would. I never got as much done as I had planned. As much as I loved this feeling that we all got as Resurrection, I was never able to keep the energy and fire that it gave me for more that a couple of weeks. 

I thought about these experiences at Resurrection a lot when reading about Neumark's description of Jesus' transfiguration story. She says, "But the Transfiguration story does not end with shouts on the mountaintop. Instead, Jesus leads his disciples down, where all is not brightness and light. Immediately, they are approached by a father seeking help for his epileptic son who flails about and falls into fires." It is wonderful to have these mountaintop experiences. You need them to renew your faith and to help you continue your mission in life. However it is not when you bask in your own light that you fight for justice, fight for the oppressed and needy, fight for the people who's voices are stifled. It is great to have this fire from the mountain top, but if you stand by with this fire, if you don't move forward in your desire to help others you are wasting the passion that God has give to you. 

Even though I will probably never get to go back to Resurrection and have that amazing experience again, I hope that I will be on that mountaintop many more times in my life. I think that every time you help fight for justice the light will emerge. I think that when you realize that you are talking to and about real people this feeling of the mountaintop comes back. When you use what God has given to you to work for his people you can experience him more closely.  

update

The steps you have taken to work on your project.

I have narrowed my topic down and I found a charity in Nashville called Nashville CARES. This is an organization that helps educate people about how to prevent the spread of AIDS and then helps those who have AIDS find the adequate health care needed to help stay alive. I have tried to contact the head volunteer organizer and even if I can't volunteer before the project is due, maybe I could interview some of the people on staff about their experience. I want to focus on how often times people with AIDS are those who are the least equipped to deal with the challenges they face and how we as a society, especially the church, can help.

If none of that works out, I have a contact at the Oasis Center, which is like Room in the Inn for young adults, and I could look at the struggles that people who live on the street face in trying to get the health care that they need. 

Any challenges that you're facing that you need to figure out how to tackle?

I have struggled finding a contact person and I am trying to figure out whether I want to do a more research oriented project or do I want to do some sort of video/picture project. Ideally I would love to interview the people who struggle daily with these problems. I guess my question will be answered once I hear back from the volunteer coordinator.

A rough to-do list for your project

If I don't hear from my contact at Nashville CARES by the end of today, I will try to contact her again and if I don't hear from her after that I will move towards Plan B. 

If at all possible I want to find a way to volunteer and if nothing else interview the people who have experience. I hope this works out for me.

I am hoping that I can volunteer sometime in late March or early, early April so I have time to get everything together and then if I have left over questions I can get in contact with the right people. 

Be the Presence

     While reading this week I fell upon two distinct topics that really spoke to my heart. The first was how as I have been reading, I have been shocked at the number of people who fought so diligently for the cause of freedom who get lost in the story of the Civil Rights Movement. I always knew that there were a large number of influential figures who were participated in the marches and protests. I think that Martin Luther King, while he deserves ever second of praise for his efforts, gets all of the attention. I believe that we should also shine the spotlight on the Abraham Heshels, the Rev. Lawsons, the Stokely Carmichaels. 

     The second idea that came to mind was how stationary we, as a community of faith, has become. I often find myself talking big and seldom acting in a big manner. I want to change things, but I can't remember the last time I "prayed with my legs." I think that we all get lost in the intensity of our own lives. We forget that the Bible is not something that is to be just read, we have to be mobile with our actions. Heschel said, " You see, God is absent, invisible, and the task of a human being is to represent the Divine, to be a reminder of the presence of God." I think that God would be really disappointed in his representation. I don't know if things will be remarkably better than they were when I started working, but I would like to think that I have fought a good fight, that I have been positive and thought that mankind could change and make a better world. Perhaps this is, as Andrew Younger would say," People's ability to have faith in the midst of persecution and destruction." 

Another Look at a Letter

All through out high school this letter was one of the few pieces that I read several times in my English classes. However, one of the things that makes this letter as beautiful as it is, is that every time I read it, I find something different and thought provoking. The idea that stood out to me this time was one that we found in Heschel's readings. The idea that not all are guilty but all are responsible. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. not only "AMENS!" that idea, but also ads his own twist:  "We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the vitriolic words and actions of the bad people, but for the appalling silence of the good people." 

As long as we turn our face and allow injustice to exist we are not living up to the call of being loving citizens. If we just say, "Well I am not mistreating anybody," but fail to see that by not doing anything, and allowing the injustice to spread, we might as well be the person who caused the injustice in the first place. The silence of the good is appalling. There is no such thing as a good spectator in the game of justice. You are either on the team for justice or injustice. The spectators are merely taking up room on the sidelines. 

This class has often been unsettling for me because I don't want to be a spectator, I want to fight for justice, but I don't know where to start. I have seen so much inequality in our reading that I want to help. In what ever way God chooses to use me. I want to stop "riding the bench" and get into the game. 

Pacifism vs. Just war

The past couple of days, I have truly struggled with the debate between the just war theory and pacifism. I don't consider myself a violent person. I don't enjoy violent movies, play violent video games, and I believe that hurting another human being is one of the most horrid actions that I can think of. In saying this, I truly don't know if i am person who is committed to non-violence in every situation. 

Trust me. I desperately want to live in a world where I could be a pacifist. I want to live in a place where violence is not the answer to problems, a world where people don't have to protect themselves and others from the terrors around them. I am not saying that I think violence and war should be our first option, or even our second, but sometimes I think that the only way things can be fixed is through just war. 

In saying that I believe in just war theory, I am still unsettled because I know that the Bible calls me, as a Christian to turn to other check, to live a life dedicated to peace. I desperately want to be that person who can do that. I admire the monumental victories of Martin Luther Kind and Ghandi. I believe that their non-violent movements were such beautiful examples of how our world can solve problems with peace. However, I do believe that there are instances where just-war is justified.

In our readings tonight I found some peace in the words of Daniel Bell. One of the most beautiful lines, I believe in this piece was, "Just as we are concerned with justice and loving other, as we raise our families, interact with friends, encounter strangers, serve the poor and needy, work and worship, so too are we concerned to love and seek justice and peace for our distant neighbors." This solidified my belief that our first call in life is to live, love, and to work for peace. Then when every other option of love and diplomacy fail we can fight a war that is not centered around victory but, "A peace that is truly just not merely self serving."

Waiting Until it is too Late

One of my greatest fears is getting to my death bed and realizing that I have not lived in my life to the fullest, that I have not served God in all ways possible, that my life has not been fulfilling enough. In the past few days, I have heard a lot about the challenges of living life with no regrets. 

The first instance came with a visit from Father Charlie Strobel. It was so sad for me to hear the story of his friends. Those people, who at 60, were just starting to follow their heart. I understand the idea that people get caught up in the world of families and jobs and are often too occupied with their obligations to their lives to get the chance to follow their dreams. I kept thinking to myself that there has to be a way to serve others while still living a life with a family and job.

The second time this popped up was in my reading of The Long Loneliness. In this section she talks about the death of one of their friends, Steve. Steve in talking to Dorothy says, "There is so much that I wanted to do." She said he felt, "bitterness at not being used, as writer, speaker, teacher." He felt unused. What a horrid feeling! This is probably one of my greatest fears. To wake up one day and realize that my life is over and I haven't been needed, that I won't be missed, that I have not used all my gifts and talents. 

After reading these things I kept wondering how I could have the balance between family, work, and following your heart in my life. Then it hit me. I need to find a job that I am passionate about. I began to wonder if my current major is where I need to be (by the way not a good thought to have at 1 am when trying to fall asleep). My passion and my heart lie in serving people. Maybe by following this I can be lying on my death bed without regret, ready to face whatever awaits me. 

God a Farmer?

I grew up in a church that I love, but we never spent a lot of time focusing on the Old Testament. As a child we read the stories of creation, the great flood, Daniel and the lion's den, David and Goliath, etc. However we never really analyzed the books of the prophets. Bits and pieces were pulled out and used during the Advent season, but we never really dissected them; prefering the New Testament instead. So in reading The Prophets I often find myself suprised at the image of God that is being protrayed. 

I often thought of the God of the Old Testament as a God that is vengeful and very strong. Not to say that he wasn't loving, but he tended to be more powerful. In reading The Prophets I am beginning to see the God that often times protrayed in the New Testament, the God of mercy, compassion, and love. 

The first instance of this was on Page 105 when Heschel says, "To Hosea, Israel is God's consort; to Isaiah, God's vineyard." I thought what a beautiful image of God. In this instance we see God as a caregiver and provider. I also grew up in a very rural farming community, so I have seen the passion that farmers must hold for their land and crops. They get up every morning before the sun to begin their day tending to their livelyhoods. They never take a day off, never stop or get to call in sick. They have to care for their crops always. I love the idea that God never stops caring for us. He never calls in a sick or personal day. He is always there. Like the farmer, he may not always be happy with his crop, but he sticks with us during droughts and years of exponential growth. 

The second thing that I took from this line, is that God expects his people to bear fruit. As Isaiah 5:2 says, "He looked for it to yield grapes, But it yielded sour grapes." We often fall short of God's mission for us. Although Isaiah wrote these words for generations long since gone, we can still listen and take heed. Heshel wrote, "The prophet's sympathy is for God Whose care for the vineyard had been of no avail." These words are full of wisdom and they point out to us that we are not yielding what a good crop should yield. We do not tend to the needy, poor, sick, orphaned, widowed, abused. We do not fight for justice. We are not the crop that God intended for us to be. These words should call all people, nations, and races to stand up and fight for the people that are being forgotten. 

Final Project

I have struggled a lot with ideas for this final project. After talking to my father I came with an idea that I think could be really interesting.
The United States is arguably one of the wealthiest nations in the world. Even the poor in our country have more money and opportunity than many of the middle class in other nations. How is it, with all of this privilege, that we still have people walking around without health care? I want to analyze this problem and further research it. Is this a right that people have or more of a privilege? If it is a right who should pay for it? The government, churches, private organizations? To humanize it, I was also going to try to see if Vanderbilt has a free clinic that I could go and watch or volunteer at on a Saturday and maybe talk to some of the patients and people who staff it.
Is this an ok idea, or do I need to go in a different direction?

Walking in the light

I grew up in a very small, southern, Bible belt town. Probably 90% of my high school was composed of church going Christians and of those 90% probably 70% of them were Southern Baptist. To say the least religious diversity is not something I have grown up around. In saying that, I have always been fascinated by the people who believe differently than I do and I was so excited to hear what Rabbi Flip had to say. I never thought that I would be as enraptured as I was during his lesson. My favorite part of his lesson, however, was the ideas on the creation story. 

I have heard all my life the story of the creation from the Bible. I was taught it during Sunday School. I have listened and participated in debates concerning the forming of the Earth. However I never picked up on the creation of two distinct lights. In hearing this, I began to question the extent of my knowledge of the Bible. It seems like a pretty easy duplication to pick up on, but somehow in the 19 years of hearing this story, I had missed one of, what I would now consider, the most important parts of the Creation story:  the beginning of the soul.

I had always just assumed that the soul had been created along with the human body. I loved how Rabbi Philip incorporated the old legend of how the angels decided where this "light" would go. It was put in the place where we often forget to look. This story might also be another challenge. I think we often times look to other Earthly things to solve our problems. We search out money, fame, and power to fix problems of loneliness, guilt, and unsettled lives. We never think to look for the light. This light was too powerful for the angels to put it in just anything. So it was put into God's most precious piece of work:  humans. Maybe this light is a piece of God give to humans to find their way. Maybe we are supposed to look within ourselves, within the human created in the likeness of God, within the light of our heavenly father to find our way. Maybe if we allow this light, this beautiful soul that God created, to overpower us we can find the answers to the worlds problems. Then we could walk in the light toward peace, towards love, towards justice. 

Post 1-Challenges

Challenges are doled out each and every day. We see them in simple statements, or maybe it is just a desire to prove someone wrong. In the article "No Religion is an Island," we see several challenges that are given. The first one that jumped off the page at me was found in a simple statement of fact. "No religion is an island. We are all involved with one another... Views adopted in one community have an impact on other communities." I had never actually thought that my actions as a Christian could negatively or positively affect the rest of the believing world. Then I remembered what Shane said. He reminded us of the perceptions held by people about the Christian church. " My studies taught me that the higher a person's frequency of church attendance, the more likely they are to be sexist, racist, anti-gay, promilitary, and committed to their local church." If these are the projections that Christians are making on non-believers, imagine what it is doing to the rest of the community of faith. If one group is portrayed as that, then how are the rest of us seen? Are we a faith of nonacceptance and unwillingness to love? Are a few Christians making it harder for other denominations and faiths to show the love of God? We have all heard that we represent ourselves, our families, and our schools, now add to the list our God. What a challenge to rise above and be better, to show others love. The rest of the world is counting on us. 

  The other challenge I saw being issued had to be searched for and thought about. This challenge is harder to interpret and harder to follow. Earlier in the passage, Heshel says, "Indeed, there is a light in the midst of the darkness of this hour. But, alas, most of us have no eye." In reading this at first I did not understand, but then I read, "When I speak of the radiance of the Bible in the minds of man, I do not mean its being a theme for "Information, please," but rather an openness to God's presence in the Bible." As I read this began to sink in to me. We as the followers of God have all the tools to light up the darkness. We have flashlights, lanterns, and light switches, but yet we reach for none of them. Why? It may seem easier in the beginning to reach out and let the light in, but then difficulty begins. We do not want to see. Seeing is hard, because if we see then we are no longer ignorant, and we are no longer at peace in the world of darkness. Staying in the shadows is easy, stepping into the sun requires courage. 

An unknown author once wrote, "Be thankful for each new challenge, because it builds yours strength and character." We have the amazing opportunity to read pieces that are going to challenge us to reach beyond our normal thought range. Heschel asks, "Is Judaism, is Christianity, ready to face the challenge?" Are we ready to paint a picture of a loving, accepting, merciful God for ourselves and for the rest of the world? Are we ready to walk into the light and accept the challenge ahead? We must be willing to take risks and put ourselves on the line to change our world.