All I ever wanted was to be fully American. But everything around me, from the population to the television, taught me that being American meant being white.
—Rinku Sen, for Opinion: Cnn
It would be wrong to say that education and training can on its own create jobs; it COULD just create people who are educated but unemployed. However, it is also true that without an educated and skilled work-force it is not possible to have the level of economic growth and development that creates enough decent jobs in line with our developmental agenda. It is essential for a country to have good policies for economic development, including policies for industrial development, for the development and maintenance of infrastructure, and for job creation more generally. But for such policies to be successful, education and training are essential.
—“We need to upskill the working class” by Blade Nzimande
Off to Dandelion!
Pray for humility, fast connection with the kids (trust and liking), for me not to be prideful/seek attention/seek to be the favorite, safety of people and belongings, good team dynamics (they’ve been pretty good so far- now for teamwork, consideration, communication), and for the Christians on the team to remember God in everything we do and everywhere we go.
0.3% of all road accidents in Canada involve a moose. Aren’t you glad you’re flying?
—
Toronto Pearson airport sign.
Also note to self: Coyote Jacks has weird burgers, but great fries.
Beautiful.
(via sarahstumblejournal)
Marriage advice to the church (and my thoughts on dating in a community)
Although our culture treats weddings like a major social event (I mean, how many people are extremely disappointed when they show up to a dry reception?), the Christian faith believes that a wedding is much more. Certain Christian traditions believe marriage is a sacrament–ie. a means of God’s grace in our lives–and most Christians believe it is a sacred moment that depicts the holy union between Christ and his bride, the Church.
For Christians, a wedding ceremony is a very serious occasion in which two people commit to love one another in a way that testifies to God’s unconditional, unending love. However, that is not the only commitment that takes place on a wedding day. Of arguably equal importance is the commitment of their surrounding community to help them persevere in their vows, to live out the marriage covenant faithfully, even when it is difficult.
Evangelicals place a tremendous emphasis on the former commitment. We put couples through pre-marital counseling and inundate them with books to help them navigate the oft-rough waters of marriage. What evangelicals fail to emphasize as strongly is the communal commitment to support the couple, even though that commitment is critical.
No couple really understands what they are agreeing to on their wedding day, and if left to their own devices they will be vulnerable to a whole host of obstacles. That’s why the attendees are there–not only to share in the couple’s joy, but to participate in the marital commitment.
Theologian Stanley Hauerwas is one Christian who puts an adequate emphasis on the community role in a marriage. He argues that most couples marry for lust, not love, and while I personally think that’s a bit of an overstatement, I also get what he’s saying. For many of us, the wedding belongs to the honeymoon period when both the man and woman are young, healthy, childless, and doting. For many, though not all, the dating, engagement, and wedding represent the easiest (though perhaps less deep) phase of the relationship. It is only when a couple starts doing life together and encounters the hardships of marriage that they begin to understand what they have committed to. And it is then that a couple needs support.
It is for this reason that Hauerwas emphasizes the role of the community in helping a couple live into their vows. As the rose-colored glasses come off and a couple gets into the nitty-gritty stuff of marriage, they need a church body that will push them to be godly spouses, and exhort them to fight for their marriage.
That is why I take wedding attendance very seriously. If I stand behind a couple on their wedding day, my presence is a commitment to help them live out their vows. I take this so seriously that, if a marriage begins to falter and I do nothing, I consider that a personal failing on my part. In such an instance, I have not borne up my end of the deal. I have not been the Body of Christ to them, and there is a stain on my hands.
Now, I am not legalistic about this. There are times when you attend a wedding as someone’s date and you don’t know the couple at all, and I don’t think you should be faulted for your subsequent lack of involvement in the couple’s life. But I also wonder if this common circumstance should challenge our thinking about weddings as social events. When a close friend gets married and you don’t have a date, is it appropriate to bring someone who does not know the couple, simply to avoid being dateless? Christian weddings are not, after all, like prom.
There is certainly room for more discussion on this aspect of weddings. In the mean time, as the wedding season goes into full swing this year, think carefully about the weddings you attend and what you commit to with your presence. A wedding is more than a lovely formality, but is instead a holy occasion in which a couple, and their community, embark on a journey together.
-from Sharon Hodde Miller’s blog sheworships.com
My Analogous Thoughts:
After an almost-full school year of dating, I’ve come to some conclusions that might serve as how-to-be-a-good-community advice for Christians who have friends who are dating. This is not meant as criticism for anyone, but just stuff I think might help:
1. Be supportive of the relationship, if you think it stands a chance.
a. On the flip side, be honest with your friends if you think this person is no good for them- seriously! Dating can be painful as is, but especially if there are glaring things wrong with the particular pairing.
b. However, don’t judge. (I am so guilty of this.)
2. Being supportive DOES NOT mean:
a. Never asking questions. Couples need to be held accountable!
b. Always leaving the room/apartment to give them space, when they come in together.
c. Maybe this is a personal thing, but- refusing to sit with them when they are having a casual dinner together on campus. I’d like the opportunity to invite others into our friendship, but I understand how this feels awkward.
3. Being supportive DOES mean:
a. Saying (true) positive things about the boyfriend/girlfriend
b. Lovingly and non-judgmentally pointing out places where they make the community uncomfortable, where they are overstepping boundaries, where they are beginning to neglect their friendships, etc.
c. Refraining from teasing or laughing at the couple when they show affection, support for, and encouragement of each other, unless it’s ridiculous. In which case, see 3b.
d. Refraining from making fun of or putting down the other unnecessarily, when you are talking to one person in the couple. Help them see each other honestly, but also help them appreciate each other.
Why, you are so fat, Sir John, that you must needs
be out of all compass, out of all reasonable
compass, Sir John.
—Scene II of Henry IV by Shakespeare
Helping, Fixing, or Serving
by Rachel Naomi Remen, MD
In recent years the question how can I help? has become meaningful to many people. But perhaps there is a deeper question we might consider. Perhaps the real question is not how can I help? but how can I serve?
Serving is different from helping. Helping is based on inequality; it is not a relationship between equals. When you help you use your own strength to help those of lesser strength. If I’m attentive to what’s going on inside of me when I’m helping, I find that I’m always helping someone who’s not as strong as I am, who is needier than I am. People feel this inequality. When we help we may inadvertently take away from people more than we could ever give them; we may diminish their self-esteem, their sense of worth, integrity and wholeness. When I help I am very aware of my own strength. But we don’t serve with our strength, we serve with ourselves. We draw from all of our experiences. Our limitations serve, our wounds serve, even our darkness can serve. The wholeness is us serves the darkness in others and the wholeness in life.
Helping incurs debt. When you help someone they owe you one. But serving, like healing, is mutual. There is no debt. I am as served as the person I am serving. When I help I have a feeling of satisfaction. When I serve I have a feeling of gratitude. These are very different things.
Serving is also different from fixing. When I fix a person I perceive them as broken, and their brokenness requires me to act. When I fix I do not see the wholeness in the other person or trust the integrity of the life in them. When I serve I see and trust that wholeness. It is what I am responding to and collaborating with.
There is a distance between ourselves and whatever or whomever we are fixing. Fixing is a form of judgement. All judgement creates distance, a disconnection, an experience of difference. In fixing there is an inequality of expertise that can easily become a moral distance. We cannot serve at a distance. We can only serve that to which we are profoundly connected, that which we are willing to touch. This is Mother Teresa’s basic message. We serve life not because it is broken but because it is holy.
If helping is an experience of strength, fixing is an experience of mastery and expertise. Service, on the other hand, is an experience of mystery, surrender and awe. A fixer has the illusion of being casual. A server knows that he or she is being used and has a willingness to be used in the service of something greater, something essentially unknown. Fixing and helping are very personal; they are very particular, concrete and specific. We fix and help many different things in our lifetimes, but when we serve we are always serving the same thing. Everyone who has ever served through the history of time serves the same thing. We are servers of the wholeness and mystery of life.
The bottom line, of course, is that we can fix without serving. And we can help without serving. And we can serve without fixing or helping. I think I would go so far as to say that fixing and helping may often be the work of the ego, and service the work of the soul. They may look similar if you’re watching from the outside, but the inner experience is different. The outcome is often different, too.
Our service serves us as well as others. That which uses us strengthens us. Over time we burn out. Service is renewing. When we serve, our work itself will sustain us.
Service rests on the basic premise that the nature of life is sacred, that life is sacred, that life is a holy mystery which has an unknown purpose. When we serve, we know that we belong to life and to that purpose. Fundamentally, helping, fixing, and service are ways of seeing life. When you help you see life as weak, when you fix, you see life as broken. When you serve, you see life as whole. For the perspective of service, we are all connected: All suffering is like my suffering and all joy is like my joy. The impulse to serve emerges naturally and inevitably from this way of seeing.
Lastly, fixing and helping are the basis of curing, but not of healing. In 40 years of chronic illness I have been helped by many people and fixed by a great many others who did not recognize my wholeness. All that fixing and helping left me wounded in some important and fundamental ways. Only service heals.
Rachel Naomi Remen, In the Service of Life, Noetic Sciences Review, Spring 1996. This was edited from a speech given by Ms. Remen at the 1996 Temple award ceremony. Ms. Remen with her husband, won a McArthur Award for their work with Commonweal, a holistic cancer treatment facility in Bolinas California and is a professor of medicine.
The imbalance of balance? (HuffPo on Jesus and the LGBT community)
BUT I think things to note:
1. What does it mean for the church to be holy? (Even if we are erring too much on this side right now.)
2. We are not Jesus. Is it possible or reasonable for us to do the same things He did, and not drift away in our walk with Him?
3. Some people think all criticism is judging. I honestly think people need to be more open to spiritual challenge from their brothers and sisters. (I also know that sometimes I shy away from it, because I’m tired of feeling bad about something. But that means something is wrong.)
4. Jesus said for Christians to be salt and light in the world, but how do we apply that politically? Does Jesus believe in the separation of church and state, if the state is on the “righteous oppressor” side? What about if the state is on the side of the “least,” the marginalized, the bullied?
“So let’s abandon the paradigm of let’s find the coolest chemistry and hopefully chase down the cost curve by making lots and lots of product. Instead, let’s invent to the price point of the electricity market.”
“If you want to make something dirt cheap, I say make it out of dirt. Preferably dirt that’s locally sourced.”
“They share my passion for science and service to society, not science and service to career building. And if you ask these people why they work on liquid metal batteries, they would say, ‘We work on grid level storage not because it is easy, but because it is hard.’”
“Conventional wisdom says hire battery experts, seasoned professionals, who can draw upon their vast experience and knowledge. To develop the liquid metal battery, I hired students and post-docs and mentored them. In a battery, I strive to maximize electrical potential. When mentoring, I strive to maximize human potential. So you see, the liquid metal battery story is more than an account of inventing technology, it’s a blueprint for inventing inventors, full-spectrum.”
