during one of the last class meetings of this past semester, I was able to participate in what was for me, and incredible experience. One of my classmates [we'll call him Jim] was having a difficult time with a family member, and he bravely shared the situation with his other 4 classmates. Because it was an ethics of reading class, our professor asked how each of us "read" the situation, and what, if any advice we would give. This part was terribly interesting to me. Each of our words of advise came from our respective religious and cultural backgrounds.

So one student, who spoke first counseled that Jim should look for the action that he, and only he, would be able to accomplish. She talked about how she understood the Bhagavad Gita to say that the most important consideration in determining behavior was to do what only you can do. Arjuna had to loose the arrow and fight his mentor, because it was his role in life. He could do no other. Our friend should do the same, and look for the act and role that only he could do or fulfill.

Another student suggested that Jim should look for parallel relatives to come together in order to come to a consensus on how to deal with family matters. She said that a council should be established in order to fairly adjudicate the family matter like it was done in her ancestral homeland.

Another student said that that the highest concern was not standing idly by, lest innocent blood be shed. The student conflated Leviticus 19:16 and Deuteronomy 19:10, and understood that the most important thing was to look out for who might be suffering the most in the family situation, and who might be least to blame. every effort was to be expended on behalf of the victims.

The last student counseled that there are lots of organizations that can help with family situations, and one should not hesitate to reach out to others for help. But ultimately for this student, being a Christian meant believing that radical change is possible, and that she would pray for that.

I just thought it was so interesting that four different people would have such different forms of advice which came from their individual experiences. And these different responses came to the same situation. I am thinking often about how it is that different people perceive the same situations differently. This class is a perfect example.

so, i have been thinking a lot about relationships. i am making some good friends in class, but they are mostly in class friends. we've started to hang out outside of school, but it is infrequent and scheduled. what i am saying, i guess, is that there's not a lot of hanging on going on in my life. which is okay for a while, but after some time it starts to grate on me. But then, last week, i traded some facebook messages with an old friend with whom i was never super-close, but always really liked. She's doing great stuff, and i loved the opportunity to catch up some, but i was sad to think that facebook messages would probably be the only means of communication. and please don't get me wrong, i am really grateful for the messages, but it just doesn't seem like enough.

and then i went to visit some of my family for thanksgiving. it was so nice to see them, and to see them at their homes and hear what they are doing. My dad and step mom are thriving, doing great at work and planning fun vacations. My grandparents are a picture of health, super fun and wonderful to be around. My aunt is the nicest person in the world, my uncle has always been really fun and so enjoyable to be around because he is really witty. My cousin is saving the world and just won another award for his human rights work. That's just one side of the family! Some people go to spend holidays with families that they don't really like, and other folks don't have families to spend time with at all. My problem is that i don't get to spend enough time with my family.

I talk to my grandparents every day on the phone, and my dad a few times a week. we're close, i'd say. but the thing that confronted me when i went up to visit, was that i don't really have a feeling for what it is they do in their life. it's always nice to visit, but it brings me back to the truth that i just am out of touch with their lives. and that's the way with the rest of the fam, and my friends from other places. And this isn't at all odd, unusual, or even news to me. but it really hit that i'm kind of irrelevant to a lot of the lives of the people i care about most. My goddaughter is growing up, and i'm not there to see it. i don't know what to say or think or do about this. i'm just coming to the realization of the importance of geographic closeness in addition to talking [on the phone] frequently.

so i've been really sad about this until this afternoon, when Aaron Carter's Party came on the iPod, and then everything was better.

First, read the essay that I am responding to!

Then, read my quick response for my "Role of the Reader" class:

First, let me say that I loved the Fiorenza piece, and Icannot wait to discuss it in class. But after attending the talk on Buddhismtoday, and hearing the response to piiopah’s talk that there was too muchexternal, non-Buddhist material in his talk, I would like to level a similarcritique to Fiorenza (but only because I love her).

In her attempt to construct a critical feminist hermeneutic,she points out that feminism represents both an interrogation of the text, andmore crucially, the symbolic world in which it was recorded, transmitted,gained prominence, and interpreted. Shebrilliantly points out that the “structural sin” which blocks Christians of allgenders from understanding women as people of God is not merely the westernconception of patriarchy – which has come to be understood as simple maledomination, but also the kyriarchy – from the Greek word kyrios meaning "lord,slave master, father, husband, elite propertied man." Kyriarchy is the interweaving of many forms of unjust power which is used to dominate others. Thus, what needs tobe fought against is not male-dominance, but all power inequality.

Fiorenza looked to Greece to find the diagnosis for theproblem, and she looks to Greece for the solution. She proposes a “metic”understanding, a term coming from Metis, the mother of Athena, the goddess ofwisdom, who was thought to have been impregnated and then eaten by Zeus. Herdaughter escapes, but she is forever bound inside the head of the Olympian,giving him wisdom. And to uses “metic” understandings as a helpful correctingcounterpart for kyricentric hermeneutics (which also comes from the name of theGreek god Hermes, who was thought to have been a messenger and interpreter).

I would suggest though, that Fiorenza is missing out onuseful concepts native to the Biblical text she is seeking to interpret in amore helpful way. "Hermeneutics" as a term is alien to the Biblical text, but prophesy asa means to understand Divine words and texts is not. To give one quick example Amos and Hosea are famousfor speaking to kings in a time of relative plenty and safety and saying thatthe good life would not last because of neglect of the needs of the widows, orphans andaliens. This kind of discourse isinherently counter-hegemonic, and often counter-kyriarchy. Miriam, Deborah andHuldah are Biblical prophetesses who embodied resistance to kyricentricworldviews.

But if that is not enough for Fiorenza, and she is stillinterested in a semi-divinity representing wisdom to name a style ofinterpretation after, again, the Biblical text provides its own example.Proverbs 8 (see below) introduces a distinctly feminine Wisdom who gives wisdomwhen consulted to men, who are specifically the ones who lack it. Wisdom(חכמה) is a feminine noun inHebrew, and in this passage Understanding, which is usually a masculine noun(תבון),is feminized to further the insistence that Wisdom is unequivocally feminine. Sheparticipated with God in the creation of the world, and is the first creation,before even the formless depths which the Genesis account opens with. Wisdom ispresented as an analytic tool which should be sought for understanding, andspecifically is useful for promoting justice. It seems to me that Fiorenzacould have consulted the Biblical text for her interpretive paradigms beforegoing farther afield to search for Greek inspiration.That being said, her article is wonderful, and I look forward to reading more from her.

1 Does not Wisdom call out?

Does not Understanding raise her voice?

2 At the highest point along the way,

where the paths meet, she takes her stand;

3 beside the gate leading into the city,

at the entrance, she cries aloud:

4 “To you, O people, I call out;

I raise my voice to all mankind.

5 You who are simple, gain prudence;

you who are foolish, set your hearts on it.

6 Listen, for I have trustworthy things to say;

I open my lips to speak what is right.

7 My mouth speaks what is true,

for my lips detest wickedness.

8 All the words of my mouth are just;

none of them is crooked or perverse.

9 To the discerning all of them are right;

they are upright to those who have found knowledge.

10 Choose my instruction instead of silver,

knowledge rather than choice gold,

11 for wisdom is more precious than rubies,

and nothing you desire can compare with her. 12 “I, wisdom,dwell together with prudence;

I possess knowledge and discretion.

13 To fear the LORD is to hate evil;

I hate pride and arrogance,

evil behavior and perverse speech.

14 Counsel and sound judgment are mine;

I have insight, I have power.

15 By me kings reign

and rulers issue decrees that are just;

16 by me princes govern,

and nobles—all who rule on earth.

17 I love those who love me,

and those who seek me find me.

18 With me are riches and honor,

enduring wealth and prosperity.

19 My fruit is better than fine gold;

what I yield surpasses choice silver.

20 I walk in the way of righteousness,

along the paths of justice,

21 bestowing a rich inheritance on those who love me

and making their treasuries full. 22 “The LORDbrought me forth as the first of his works,

before his deeds of old;

23 I was formed long ages ago,

at the very beginning, when the world came to be.

24 When there were no watery depths, I was given birth,

when there were no springs overflowing with water;

25 before the mountains were settled in place,

before the hills, I was given birth,

26 before he made the world or its fields

or any of the dust of the earth.

27 I was there when he set the heavens in place,

when he marked out the horizon on the face of the deep,

28 when he established the clouds above

and fixed securely the fountains of the deep,

29 when he gave the sea its boundary

so the waters would not overstep his command,

and when he marked out the foundations of the earth.

30 Then I was constantly at his side.

I was filled with delight day after day,

rejoicing always in his presence,

31 rejoicing in his whole world

and delighting in mankind. 32 “Now then, mychildren, listen to me;

blessed are those who keep my ways.

33 Listen to my instruction and be wise;

do not disregard it.

34 Blessed are those who listen to me,

watching daily at my doors,

waiting at my doorway.

35 For those who find me find life

and receive favor from the LORD.

36 But those who fail to find me harm themselves;

all who hate me love death.”

hi friends. i'm going to too many lectures and conferences outside the classroom. i need to clean out my brain. there is some really good stuff here. i just need to write it down so i can forget it and then come back to it later. it occurred to me that some of you might be interested in some of this. so, feel free to use. When I was taking notes, I mixed my comments and thoughts with those of the original author so as to make one indistinguishable from the other. sorry. but it still might be useful.

James Carroll - Jesus: Solitude or Solitary 9/26/11

Any reading must take into account that Jesus becomes Messiah in relationship, both in relationship to God and relationship to oppressed and oppressing people. The individual is the idea of enlightenment, and this led to the breakdown of the idea of the commonwealth and the body of Christ as anything other than workers in a collective factory. Social networking is the epitome of solipsism. I exist, but i can i be sure that others do, aside from their pictures and disembodied words popping up on my screen? [what does this email represent to you?] So we construct Jesus as not having need of people. Or we create a personal relationship with Jesus. Just Jesus and me - a friend to walk with, alone. We create a cult of solitude - high-Christology with Jesus as the only one to experience his particular state of nature (as if when God appeared to Abraham, something different than incarnation was going on). Clerical celibacy is the height of this worship of alone-ness.

Martin Buber [and Jean Luc Nancy] Ich und Du! "as I become I, I say you." All real living is in encounter. Linguistically: Bread with... = companion. Knowledge with... = conscience. Suffer with... = compassion, Strong with... = comfort.

In early Christianity [and today], Jesus replaces Caesar in an otherwise unquestioned hierarchy - as if Jesus' problem with the empire was Caesar. The empire is stamped all over Christianity. When Pope John Paul II spoke at the mass at Krakow, he echoed the words of Jesus in the face of Empire: be not afraid!

John the Baptist was baptising for the remission of sins because the prophets tell that only a morally and spiritually pure Israel could ever throw off the yoke of Rome. Throwing off the yoke of empire was the point! Jesus takes John's baptism of repentance, and Jesus' acknowledgement of the need to be baptised was turned upside-down. God already approves of Jesus - this is the supreme epiphany in the life of Jesus. From this point on [and before], he calls God Father, and says that everyone is in the same relationship. You don't need salvation. God has already saved you because of God's faithfulness. You only have to realize it and embrace it. Jesus underwent John's program, and preached repentance like John. But the repentance Jesus preached was repentance of the mistaken notion that we are in danger of being chosen against by God. [!!!] John was a man of the fast. Jesus was a man of the feast.

The love Jesus preached between [and going both ways] God and people was solidarity. God stand in solidarity with us. We, if we are true to what God calls us, stand in solidarity with God. What did it cost Jesus? Jesus reckons that he is not the military messiah which was prophesied. He will not resist violently for John when he asks, nor for himself, nor even for Israel. The apocalyptic Jesus preached was not chronological, but moral. The end of all of this is now.

Jesus is crucified on Passover, not on Yom Kippur. His death (and Resurrection on the Feast of First Fruits, by the way) represent a freedom from bondage to an Empire of Fear much more than they represent atonement to a God whose bloodlust would only be satisfied by the death of his son. We are released from the thick and dreadful darkness of Gen 15 as God and Jesus fulfill what they promised as the smoking fire pot and the flaming touch, respectively.

Jesus learns from John's death that death acceptance means that there's nothing to fear in death, because death doesn't separate from the radical love of God. The way he spoke of the certainly of this love is to say that the kingdom has already begun, it's breaking out, and it is at hand.

The ultimate contradiction of this kingdom was Rome's occupation of Judea. the Empire made people afraid of death and uncertain of the love of God. Jesus' death shows Rome for what is is: ineffective and short-term. The early Christian martyr movement testified more and more that the Kingdom of the assurance of God's love is stronger than the Empire built on death-fear. The Kingdom is on the advance when there is no death fear and there is an assurance of the love of God. The secret is out: "This man that you crucified, God has made him lord and Messiah!" (Acts 2:36)

Joy McDougall - Rising with Mary: Good News about the Women Around Jesus: Embodying Faith 10/28/11

Women experience the Godforsakenness of the early morning on the resurrection day more fully than anyone else. they are the first to feel the abandonment of the disappearance of their dead messiah, they are not believed. but they are the first to experience resurrection and the first to be commissioned to tell the good news. So what might the reversal of women's Godforsakeness on resurrection day teach us?

Many/Most believers are in bondage to the eye/I: the inability to see through traditional gender roles to what God is doing in the kingdom. Men often cannot see that women should sometimes be leading and teaching [just as has always been the case] instead of just cooking, cleaning and ministering to other women, or that men should sometimes cook and clean, and sometimes limit their talks to other men [or to women]. Women sometimes cannot see past the "traditionally" gendered "I" to embrace what God is calling them to do and to be. There is a blockage or a blindness to God's goodness and ability to distribute goodwill.

Sin is often viewed in protestant circles, as a problem of the will. We don't will to do good, or when we do, it is frustrated. But most folks who believe in the same God we do conceive of sin as an action, as a concrete act of going the wrong way, not just a problem of motivation. But what about structural sin: the glass ceiling, poverty, racism? No one wills these things [well, maybe a few do] but mostly it is a problem of titrations of the will. Tiny acts are done, one at a time, in the smallest measurable amount which create or reinforce the structures of sin. It seems like a colossal evil, and it is, but it only is so colossal because people keep talking about spiritual character flaws instead of ceasing sinful action and doing righteousness.

We must not be too quick to move past lament in the rush toward women's empowerment. Ignoring the foot of the cross ignores women's suffering, but dwelling there allows women to inscribe their suffering on the body of Jesus. To remain there, however, is to remain in bondage to injuries. Instead we go to the tomb, and to Mary's [of Magdala] turning around. After she sees the empty tomb, she turns and tells the disciples. then she turns and runs back, only to encounter the heavenly beings who tell her that she mustn't look for the living among the dead. then she turns and sees Jesus, who she perceives as a stranger who has taken everything away instead of the Messiah who has given everything back. She moves to embrace him, but he instead sends her forth - Mary turns again and goes to tell the good news. [made me think of T.S. Elliot's Ash Wednesday]

Cynthia Rigby - Communicate Life 10/28/11

We think of Japheth's Daughter and the seizing of the women for the Benjaminite's as "texts of terror" for women - and rightly so. But what about the tale of Mary and Martha when the only options for women are whiny dishwasher or passive feet sitter? We forget that Martha challenged Jesus when he came saying that if he had only come days earlier, her brother wouldn't have died. This puts her firmly in line with the prophets of old who did more than just listen, but engaged with God and struggled. Martha appoints the first bishop in christian tradition (her bro, Lazarus) and is traditionally pictured in iconography as slaying a dragon, not as washing dishes and complaining, though that's what she is famous for in the protestant world.

we hate the idea of communion (or sex) online because it takes away the intimacy of being physically present, but when we ask parishioners why they're losing people to virtual churches in a time of intellectualized, but mind-numbing services; nasty, tasteless wafers instead of real (unleavened) bread; pews that are neither comfortable nor miserable; and watered-down grape juice; is it any wonder they have trouble answering? the luster of being bodily present is hard to establish. In virtual churches and communities we don't know who the avatars are; we don't get to see their faces, smell or touch them in a virtual church. But so many times in the physical world you can't see reality behind faces that people present or feel any warmth in handshakes or hugs either. When [mostly mainline] churches past the peace, when hands are shaking or arms embracing, eyes are already looking for the next person with whom it would be useful to simulate affection. Most churches don't even attempt this anymore. --- but senses are not alien to worship. Jesus is a tender person who asks for tenderness. We forget that Jesus needed a cushion to sleep on when he was in the boat in the storm, and that John reclined on Jesus when he ate and that Jesus had to tell Mary not to embrace him when she saw him on Resurrection day. Not only was embrace acceptable, but it was expected. Embrace Is Expected!

it seems to me that what the benediction should be is the minister prying people's fingers off of the communion table because the bodily experience of the eucharist is more real than the world they need to go out in to live with the presence of God inside of their bodies.

Hi friends.

I was dashing to school one morning, and i brought my camera. Almost all the pictures are shaky, because i wasn't stopping to take them. So sorry about that. but if you play this video through 3ish times, you will get a sense of not only how long it takes me to get to class, but also what i see on my way there. i hope you enjoy.

Hi Friends, So, I was reading this article sent to me by the Middle East Outreach Council (which you should stop now and read, otherwise the rest of the post will make no sense), while at the same time actually toying with the idea of going to a Reformation Day conference (I decided against it.) But anyway, the article on the architectural and spiritual changes in Mecca got me thinking. First, I was thinking about architecture, scale and what is good for people while reflecting on the wonderful book Cities for People by Danish author Jan Gehl. II came across this blog post by a friend of a friend on just such an issue. I mean, think about it: Building a giant building next to the world's largest religious building that is over a third of a mile tall and is so massive that a mountain had to be removed in order to begin construction. We may be getting beyond the scale that humans can really appreciate aesthetically and can only appeal to hubris.

But the article about Mecca for the Rich (which you should have read by this point, because otherwise this isn't going to make any sense, trust me) raises another issue that is a bit closer to my heart than architecture and proportion - although i feel pretty strongly about that as someone who walks everywhere. At the Wahhabis threatening and desiring to destroy grave-shrines, centers of pilgrimage, mosques and anything that could possibly be venerated apart from God, i grew pretty furious. I mean, you're destroying your own historic religious culture, throwing sand into the well you drink from. That is odious.

But then, I've heard this story before, I think. Some other religious groups have prohibited dancing and music, destroyed statuary and shines in the name of religion. The Taliban, sure, but I was thinking of Protestants. Calvinists were setting up mini-theocracies all over Europe and executing heretics. They banned drinking, colorful clothing, carnivals and sports in their military-religious states. Lutherans were destroying shines, murdering priests, doing worse to nuns and washing away anything that detracted from God or the book. [Although, in fairness, Luther did write in his Against the Murderous, Thieving Hordes of Peasants that, "Therefore let everyone who can, smite, slay, and stab, secretly or openly, remembering that nothing can be more poisonous, hurtful, or devilish than a rebel," demonstrating his anger against those who were committing atrocities in his name - and his willingness to give others license to commit atrocities in his name.] Whatever else they were doing, purging saint worship and religious shrines and iconography was/is certainly key to both the Wahhabis and Protestants. Let me give you an interesting except from an article by Columbia professor of Islamic history, Richard Bulliet: Muhammad ibn Abdul Wahhab and John Wesley. They were both born in 1703, and both would find fertile ground for their teachings in ... remote and scantily populated backwoods.

After an early upbringing in Nejd, the center of Arabia, Muhammad ibn Abdul Wahhab traveled to the rich and historic commercial city of Basra to acquire an education in Islamic law and theology. When he returned to Arabia, he called for a purification of Islamic religious practice and a return to the simple ideals of the earliest Muslim community (the salaf ). Opposition to his stark reforms caused him to seek refuge with Muhammad ibn Saud, the ruler of the town of Diriyah. Politically, their alliance planted the seed of the Saudi kingdom. Religiously, it gave rise to the Wahhabi form of Islam, and more broadly to the current of Salafism that is today so often associated with Muslim militancy around the world.

His age-mate, John Wesley, was born near London and educated at Oxford, where he led a revivalist “Holy Club” whose members were taunted as “Methodists.” ... In 1735, John and his brother Charles traveled to the fledgling colony of Georgia, leaving their friend George Whitefield behind to advance their revivalist work in England. Though the Wesleys spent only one year in the New World [Because they hated it! Savannah was the most sinful place the Wesleys had every seen!], George Whitefield followed them abroad, making seven transatlantic voyages and delivering riveting open-air sermons that touched off the tumultuous revivalist movement known as the Great Awakening.

Wesley died in 1791, a year before Muhammad ibn Abdul Wahhab. But he and his followers had set an example. The Methodist, Baptist and like-minded Protestant preachers who inspired later waves of popular revivalism focused on simple living, abstinence from sinful practices like drinking alcohol and dancing, and chastising their less abstemious neighbors. Their message was enormously influential in the frontier lands of the American South and Middle West and remains so today. And like most Protestants, they deplored anything they considered threatening to God’s triune purity, most particularly the saint worship of the Catholic Church.

My aim here is not to pick on Protestants - all evidence to the contrary. Protestants have been great to me, and millions and millions of other people beside. Every faith has this conflict between re-imagined original "pure" forms of religion, and vernacular developments. Funny that in the case of the Protestant Reformation, the reformers who were pushing for having scriptures in vernacular languages were working against vernacular expressions of religion and wanted to return to a "purer" form. Usually we love a reformer. Josiah's destruction of the high places (read: shrines) and slaughter of thousands of syncretist priests is presented as an unqualified good thing in the Bible [2 Kings 23, if you're interested]. I am all for monotheism, but does it have to be so violent and destructive?

I certainly am not Catholic [nor am I Lutheran, Presbyterian or Methodist for the same reason: too much deification of leaders for my taste]. But I do go to Protestant churches. So how dare I be upset at Wahhabi re-imagining of their own faith in a way that cuts out what they see as superfluous and idolatrous?

I'll tell you how: just as I think that the violent, destructive acts done in the name of Luther and Calvin (well, and by Calvin himself) are disgusting, I think that the violent, destructive works done by those who call themselves Muslims, but destroy the lives of other Muslims is disgusting. And this puts me in a pickle. When I think about me reforms of Josiah, I feel fairly certain that I would not have gone to the high places myself, but I would have been upset at the murder of the thousands of non-normative Israelite priests. I flatter myself that I would have protested their deaths like those who protested the deaths of Troy Davis and Lawrence Brewer. Idolatry is bad, but violence, I think, is worse. And honestly I don't know if that's compassion or shirk.

I walked to Midtown! It was a beautiful day, and i thought i would walk to Piedmont park and do some studying on the grass, but there was a big concert going on. So i decided to keep going and ended up at the Georgia Aquarium. I will have to go back there sometime and scuba dive with the whale sharks! I walked past the Georgia Tech game. Lots of fans out, but no one was aggressive or mean like they are at the Ohio State games. So glad to never have to be in Columbus on a game day saturday! Anyway, here are some pictures:

The Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. At first i thought that was an eagle statue, but on closer inspection i saw that it was a vulture. If you click on the photo, you might be able to see a little better. The Bank is right across the street from Margaret Mitchell's house, where she wrote Gone with the Wind.

Navigating Atlanta can be difficult because there are very few street signs at intersections, and what signs there are all say "Peachtree."

As i said, i did make it to Piedmont park, and saw this lovely pond.

Lastly, I walked by the Fox Theatre, with its beautiful Moorish exterior and Pharaonic interior. Beautiful!

for those keeping track, here was my route.

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I went for a delightful walk this weekend. St Elias Antiochian Orthodox church was having their annual "Mid East Fest." They have a really beautiful building and very nice people. There was lots of Nancy Ajram music playing on boomboxes scattered around the church building, but not in the sanctuary. A recording of chanting and prayers playing from an iPod hooked up to speakers behind the minbar (I don't know what to call it in English). I asked about taking pictures, and they yes yes, as long as I wasn't CIA. Actually, there were a lot of CIA jokes throughout the day. But that's to be expected from a largely Arab-American community which endures so much suspicion, sadly. I think they were incredibly kind in opening the doors of their church, and everyone I met was incredibly hospitable and welcoming. Some pictures?

SignThe SanctuaryCeiling Icons I LOVE self representation in art

Mid East Fest!

After I left the church, I rocked my way down Ponce to the Carter Center.

And then I circled Piedmont park and walked home.

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It was a very nice walk.

So, I am having a blast here in Atlanta. I haven't gone out to any restaurants yet, even though Kevin is trying to help by sending suggestions. I don't have a car, so it's a little bit hard to get around. And not having many friends yet, some necessarily social activities are still beyond me. But life is great! Why? Here's why:

I walk through a forest to get to schoolWhen I'm in classes, I'm learning about ethnographies of religion and performance as well as reading the reader of religious texts.When I walk to Trader Joe's, which i do on fridays, i cross a bride, see an old man out selling peaches and then find myself walking on a mosaic instead of a sidewalk that some nice homeowner put in, i can only assume, to make my walk that much more enjoyable.Atlanta doesn't have sidewalks everywhere, but it has enough that I've done several exploratory walks over ten miles. I've seen the King memorial, Ebenezer Baptist church, the Georgia Capitol, The Carter Center, Little (and not little) Five Points, Olympic Park, Downtown, Midtown, Buckhead, Piedmont Park and all around Emory. Today I'm going to go to Decatur.Honestly, I could use more trains, but there's a not-horrible public transportation network The Decatur Farmers' Market (at which there are no farmers, but lots of people from all over the world with name tags that tell you where they're from and what languages they speak)There are so many events and lectures around here. quote of the night from a lecture on Jewish bioethics and the use of donated sperm possibly being adultery: "if it's not fun, it's not sin."

Hi friends, thanks for stopping by.

So, I'm a Ph.D. student, and that means I have a lot of reading to do these days. One class I'm am taking is on the Role of Readers of religious texts. Today in class, we were posed a question: What are the reasons people read? Think about it for a second. Why do you read? What do you read? You're reading this now. Is it because you love me? Is it because you think I'm witty or clever? Is it because this is a distraction from things you'd rather not do?

We made a list of reasons why we might read, and I'll list an example beside, or maybe an explanation. Lots of these can overlap too, so if you see a text in some place you think it should not be, don't worry about it.

To understand - Any of the various texts i'm reading for classTo know - facebook statusesTo derive pleasure - Francine Rivers :)To use - math homeworkTo to be pious - BibleTo obey - tax instructionsTo connect - lettersTo instruct - recipeTo be convenient - to do listsTo perform - poetry

You can think of more, i'm sure. One of the authors I was in charge of presenting to the class today was Georges Poulet, who is a phenomenologist of reader-responce - which basically means he looks at what happens to the reader when she/he reads a book. He's pretty far out there, but what he says happens is the book has its own consciousness, and it takes over your mind. You, the reader, are on loan to the author/the book who thinks itself into being and gives itself meaning inside of you, using your mind and your faculties. The book is a sort of symbiont that uses you to give itself life.A book lying closed on a table is nothing. But words and ideas that spring from ink on a page have life. They change and move and grow! And where do they have life? It was never in the book. It's in you, chuckles.

I initially objected that this hadn't happened with me while reading Poulet's work, mostly because I was reading it at an airport, and I kept having my reading interrupted by announcements that my flight would be delayed. The professor asked if I remembered the work, and I said that yes, I certainly did [I had just given a half an hour presentation on it]. The professor then asked if I had any attachment to the text, and I said that I thought it was kind of interesting. The professor then said that I had been used by the text, and that it had given itself life and meaning inside of me! Which is true, in some senses!

So what about all these other things that I'm reading? Are they taking me over? What does that mean for what I read on friends' facebook statuses? What about my to do lists? unbeknownst to me, are the words that pass through my ocular nerves setting up shop inside my brain and giving themselves life inside of me? Yes, I think so.

What shapes the ways you think? It's your interactions, right? And basically, your options for interactions are Humans, Print/Art, God, Animals and inanimate objects. It makes sense on a certain level that our interactions with people, the Divine and if you're an animal-person - I'm not - pets would transform us. But I'm saying that what we read has a huge transformative power too. And maybe I'm just hyper-sensitive to this because I'm new to Atlanta and don't really have many friends here yet, so most of my time is spent reading.

So, then the professor was asking, if were have to read so much every week (and we do) how to we cultivate pleasure in reading? For instance, why do I enjoy Francine Rivers, and Clive Cussler and Tom Clancy (it's too late kick me out of the Ph.D. program, so I can totally admit it!!!) but Foucault makes me want to vomit? Poulet says, it's because I fight with Foucault, because I like my mind the way it is. Why do I not fight novels? I don't feel like novels are making claims on my mind - even though they are.

This is where things get not-so-subtly sexual. Poulet, and latter readers, point out that you enjoy a novel because you let it use you without caring. You actually want the novel to enter you, and it's fast and enjoyable and lighthearted. You don't think you're making a commitment, but just having some fun, and you'll move on to the next book. But what you don't realize, is that something from that book is left inside of you. Maybe it's not much. But maybe it's a lot. It penetrated into the core of who your are. And it could change who you are. And sometimes I look back on the books I read that really meant a lot to me 15 years ago [Ayn Rand, fundamentalist tracts, etc] and I am a little bit embarrassed, and maybe remorseful about what they meant to me.

There is certainly great freedom, fun and pleasure in abandoning myself to a book. But in view of what's at stake, I've got to be careful what I read. The things I do commit to read, I want to be really conscious of fully embracing what the book has to offer and trying to enjoy the books' reproducing themselves inside of my noggin.

What do you think? Too weird? Would you like more posts about what I'm thinking with school stuff?

So, i am finally moved in and settled in Atlanta. So let me go back and tell you about the last couple months. I had a really amazing time with Sarah in Columbus as i was finishing up my MA thesis. There was a week, i kid you not, where we both flew and scuba dove IN OHIO. Sarah took a flight lesson with Cap City Jets, while i sat in the back and confirmed my position as president of the aerial cartography club. then we dove at Portage Quarry (in a Lightening storm, so no pictures. Sorry)

It wasn't all fun though, and I did do some serious work. Enough to pass the general exams and finish my thesis. I chose not to publish it with the Ohio State whatever press because then I can't shop it around to any journals. So with that finished, I decided to do a side trip.

Sarah and I worked on our goals for the year last January, and among mine were to travel to 10 countries in 2011. When I was in Israel, I spent more money on scuba diving certification than i was anticipating, so i didn't quite do as much traveling on the way back as i anticipated. but i had gotten up to nine countries visited in the last several months, so i felt pretty good. but i knew i was moving to Atlanta, where i'd be in my Ph.D. program and not have very much money, and i wanted to make it to the 10 country mark, so with a little help from my friend, Jenny, we drove to the southern-most tip of mainland Canada, Pelee Point. It was a less-than-24 hour trip to another country, but one i'd never been to before. A fun fact for those playing the at-home game, Pelee point is at 42° N, which is the same latitude as Rome and Barcelona. I normally don't think of Canada as on Mediterranean latitudes.

So then, summer fun time came to an end, and I had to make my way down to Atlanta. Sarah and I loaded up the VW Fahrvergnügen, and we drove to her folks house, then to Kentucky (where we ate at a KFC in Kentucky! it was PACKED!) and then stopped at a place in rural TN called Pidgeon Forge. Now, we were trying to find an indoor sky-diving place right outside of Dollywood, but of course it was closed for repairs. However, we were lucky enough to see some insanity, such as a Titanic Dinner Theatre building shaped like the Titanic crashing into an iceberg. Also, there's a children's museum which is in a building that looks like it's upside-down. I ate a cookie that made me vomit 3 times, and a chocolate covered fried twinkie, that made me feel wonderful! [bonus points, thinking of Dollywood, listen to Radiolab's episode on Pop-music starting at 34'15"]



We arrived in Atlanta, and I was instantly caught up in some much exploring and reading to be done, and feeling really sad about not seeing Sarah for a while that I forgot to take pictures. More are coming. But that gets you up to date.

I'm not going to apologize for the months away from blogging (but I am sorry) or try to catch you up on the last several months, because that's really daunting. So daunting, in fact, that it has kept me from updating until now. But I'm writing again because of something I saw this morning.

I wrote a couple papers for most of the night last night, and when I finished the last one, I went for a breakfast break at McDonalds. So I walked from the church where I do my writing, got a delicious steak and egg bagel, and walked back. When I got back to the church, there was a guy pooping on the church. Literally. I was not so much shocked as I was annoyed. There are a lot of homeless people around Columbus. And the church i go to is right on the edge between the ghetto and the largest university in America. So this is a prime spot for interaction among urban poor/homeless folk and relatively rich college students. Homeless folk have to poop. If you don't have a bathroom, you have to do it outside. i feel like the Church ought to be providing places for people to eat and sleep (and also poop). i was frustrated by the lack of support for homeless folk. but i was also frustrated with the guy pooping on the church.

so i said: "come on, man. don't crap on the church." He looked really embarrassed and I felt really bad. So i quickly added, "hold on, I'll go get you some toilet paper." He was using his shirt. But as i went inside to get some toilet paper, i started to wonder - in an incredibly cliched way - what would Jesus do? i know Jesus wasn't much into embarrassing poor folks. And Jesus provides food for people to eat and heals their diseases and touches lepers and all that. so he would probably help people to find a bathroom and use it with dignity. but i couldn't really remember a poop episode. i was thinking that maybe all i have to do is be nice. maybe. but why was i allowed to go into a nice building and type a paper at a nice desk while my brother, who is at least as much made in the image of God as me, is reduced to pooping outside?

by the time i went back out, i still didn't have much of an answer. So I just handed him the toilet paper and wished him well. He said thanks. I told him he was welcome. but was he? I mean, i could have just walked by. but i called him out on it. i was mad and i didn't want him there. and i think telling him not to poop there was maybe the wrong thing to do. I mean, the deed was already done. me yelling at him wasn't really going to change anything. what do you think? Anyway, he walked away, anxious to not be around the the dude who caught him pooping. And I couldn't really blame him.

I was still trying to come up with some sort of precedent from Jesus, but I couldn't. But I remembered a hadith of Muhammad's behavior in a similar circumstance. [that's just how my head works.] Here's one of many versions:

Whilst we were in the mosque with the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him), a Bedouin came and stood urinating in the mosque. The Companions of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) said, ‘Stop it! Stop it!’ But the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) said, ‘Do not interrupt him; leave him alone.’ So they left him until he had finished urinating, then the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) called him and said to him, ‘In these mosques it is not right to do anything like urinating or defecating; they are only for remembering Allah, praying and reading Qur`an,’ or words to that effect. Then he commanded a man who was there to bring a bucket of water and throw it over the (urine), and he did so. (Saheeh Muslim, no. 285).I think I should have done what Muhammad did: leave the guy alone until he was done and then remind him that it's not nice to poop on other peoples' stuff. But the church isn't mine. it's God's. And i think that a homeless guy relieving himself is much more innocent than me getting mad at the homeless guy because he doesn't have nice indoor plumbing of which to avail himself. back to the hadith: in many versions of the story, Muhammad himself cleans up the mess. I was at least going to do that. So I filled up a bucket to go clean it up a bit. Then I remembered Deut 23:12-14:

You shall have a place outside the camp and you shall go out to it; and you shall have a stick with your weapons; and when you sit down outside, you shall dig a hole with it, and turn back and cover up your excrement. Because the LORD your God walks in the midst of your camp, to save you and to give up your enemies before you, therefore your camp must be holy, that he may not see anything indecent among you, and turn away from you.God walks in the midst of the camp and doesn't want to step on poop! I don't really have a developed philosophy of sacred spaces, but if God is going to be walking around anywhere these days, it would probably be around a church. So I cleaned it up. it was gross, but I'm pretty confident that I did the right thing on the back side of the incident. [i'm so punny!] But what about talking with the homeless guy? What about doing something to actually help, aside from toilet paper? I think I definitely let God down with this one. Surely infinite responsibility for my neighbor demands that I do something more. but what?

hi friends!

my good friends got married in South Africa, and invited me to their wedding. I was super excited to visit them and South Africa, and there wasn't an ocean between us, so I decided to fly down. Because i like to make mini-vacations when i am flying, i scheduled a day's layover in Frankfurt, where I'd never been. It was nice to be out and about in Germany.

then i flew down to South Africa. Notably, the captain made a point to tell us that the trip was going to be a bit longer than usual because we had to avoid Libyan airspace due to the no-fly-zone!

I really enjoyed South Africa, mostly thanks to the amazingly friendly people whom I met. the wedding itself was held in the Golden Gate park, which is just a bit north of the Drakensburg mountains.

After my week with the wedding family, I hung out with some friends in Jo'burg. The highlight was visiting a giant fruit and flower market. The proportions of the market were mind-blowing! Think of a state fair, if you can ( i have one experience to draw on), and multiply it by at least 3 or 4 times. Now think of that EVERYDAY. Just fruits and flowers. sadly, i didn't take my camera, but just photos wouldn't have done it justice.

let me also say, that due to my visit to South Africa, I intend to make meat a much higher percentage of my diet. All the Braai-ing of delicious chops, boerewors, fillet (pronounced "fill-it") besides the biltong and drywors that i ate between meat meals. seriously, it's incredible, and i just feel really good eating meat. i've been a functional vegetarian for several years, just because i don't cook meat very often, and it's hard to get in some of the places i live. but i'm inspired, and will hopefully be consuming more. sorry PETA.

i just had a great interview with a Moroccan-Israeli. Such a sweet old man. He walked me through family albums and told me all about his family for several generations back. We only were together for 4 hours, but he was walking me around and introducing me to his family and friends around town. He gave me a book out of his library and wrote a short dedication to me on the front page. He told me I was beloved of a professor that I hadn't talked to in over a year. He gave me an apple when I was leaving, in case I got hungry on the road.

We looked over the photos of his last few family vacations, including his trip to Sea World. He told me at length about how large the splash was when the killer whale jumped out of the water. we drank mint tea together while i tried to explain how his iPad worked. What a guy!

I love this kind of research!

During my recent travels with Sarah across Israel, Egypt and Jordan, we met several extraordinary people of many nationalities. I confided to Sarah that I loved meeting British folks. She suggested I write a blog about it. This is that blog. We met many subjects of the Queen while we were traveling, but three stick out to me more than the others. let me tell you about them.

HRH Sir Pinkpants: As Sarah and I were almost to the summit of Mount Sinai, we ran into a flock of girls cascading down the steps that mark the final ascent. They were all super polite and had delightful accents from different parts of the British Isle. They had just been to the top and were coming back down. They encouraged us with several "you're almost there"s and many "you can do it"s. They were delightful. As Sarah and I were about 100 ft from the top, we ran into an older gentleman. I was huffing and puffing and looking down, so i perceived him from the ground up. This is what I saw: immaculate white and brown saddle shoes. A pair of pink thick-ribbed corduroy pants. a hand resting on the silver eagle top of a cane. A Red blazer over a white shirt. a blue ascot. a weather and distinguished face topped with a straw Bermuda hat. I said hello, and he said, "Well now, where are you from?" I said the States, and he said "We don't see many Yanks here these days" [meaning in the aftermath of the revolution in Egypt]. I asked when he was from and he said that he was coming from London and that he was the headmaster at a girls' school and that he was 79. This was his 21st time climbing Mount Sinai. wow. you could have pushed me over with a feather. What a guy! Madame Awesome:During our Day-without-Dinars, we happened to run into a marvelous woman who was a real treat to talk with. After Senator McCain ignored me when I said hello, some may say rudely, Rose Maire really picked up my spirits by telling us much of her life story: how she traveled around the world with her daughter, her memories from "The War" (I really like hearing British people say "The War"), and how she is on the governing board of two schools. She had always wanted to travel when she was younger. Even thought she was an American Studies major at "Uni" and she was offered a scholarship to study in the States, she chose against coming. But finally she did make it to the States, and then all over. Now that she;s older and has a bunch of time, she's doing all that she wants to. She said, "If you want to do something, then you have to do it. You just do it. That's the only way things happen." I loved her. Tattoo MaGoo:After I dropped Sarah off at the airport in Amman, I went back to the hostel and went to bed. When I woke up the next morning, a Brit was eating breakfast and speaking loudly on his plans to go to Jerusalem. He was asking for help, and I said I was headed there anyway, so he could come with me, I'd even get him all the way to his hostel if he wanted, because it was on my way. We got to talking, and he said he was really interested to go to Israel because, get this: his tattooist in Australia had worked previously in Tel Aviv and recommended his former place of business for my new friend's next inking. So, away he went across the Middle East. We went as far as Jerusalem, and he was incredibly nice, even picking up my share of the ride from Amman to the border.

So, I’ve never really been a dive buddy before. I’ve been more of a dive baby – diving with people who have thousands more dives under their belt who were helping me, the novice, make my way in the underwater world.

I had benefited from the scuba buddy system, but never needed to look out for anyone else. I certainly had never been the “experienced” member of a dive pair … until Cory and I dove together in the Red Sea. Cory, who learned how to dive expressly so that we could spend time underwater when I came to visit (how great is that??), is slightly more junior a diver than me. [which is to say that Sarah had twice as many dives as me, and had been to three times as many dive sites. i had never even dived off a boat, and when i did, my weight belt fell off because i didn't know you were supposed to hold it!]

So, he was, I came to find out, chagrined to find out what a horrible (unpracticed?) dive buddy I am. He commented gently after our first couple of dives that he thought it would be nice if I would look over his way every so often to make sure he was still alive. It was a good point. Duly noted.

We realized as we dove that we have very different styles. I like to look at all the amazing different types of fish and coral and soak up the moments underwater. Cory likes to look AWAY from the reefs to be able to fend off shark attacks. He really likes diving around shipwrecks – they just make me mad for messing up and crashing into the pretty reefs.

After our next couple dives, I was still getting used to the “being a buddy” concept, but did look over at least once per dive (the fish are SO PRETTY!). Turns out that wasn’t quite enough. Cory had PUKED UNDERWATER on two separate occasions and I didn’t even notice. Fail.

But Cory says I’m great underwater eye candy and that my enthusiasm for the fishes is contagious enough to make me a great dive buddy. Awwww :)

-Sarah

[i also say that holding Sarah's hand underwater as she stares at the fish and i watch out for sharks is worth enduring any mishap that may come. And also, don't eat the omelets just before you dive. -Cory]

The only glitch in going to Egypt when everyone else was leaving because of the amazing and inspiring peaceful political protests was a problem with the ATMs. The problem was that they didn’t have any money in them. So as we hunted around the region for a working ATM, we used all the cash I brought with me to pay for the cash-only lunches onboard our dive boat (except $6, which I refused to part with).

No big deal because most places took credit card for an additional fee.

That is, until we got to Jordan. Turns out Petra doesn’t accept credit cards and our debit accounts were pretty well run dry – baaaad planning. We were actually in Petra – one of the Seven New Wonders of the World – without enough money to pay the (outlandishly expensive) entrance fee to actually see the darn thing. So, instead of visiting Petra, we used the opportunity to explore all the (sadly few) banks and ATMs in Petra to see if any of them would give us a cash advance on my credit card.

Our hunt took us by a shop window that had the two most beautiful chairs I’ve ever seen in my life – wood inlaid with mother of pearl and abalone in a tree of life design on the front and back and a beautiful silk cover on the seat padding. It was GORGEOUS. They were just $21,000 for the pair. The shop owner took a lot of time to explain his goods – the Persian rugs, the 24K gold silk rug, the Jewish antiques, mother of pearl mirrors, old daggers, beautiful vases. I think it was the most beautiful collection of “things” I’ve ever seen.

At the end, the shop owner showed us a sand design in a bottle in which the sand wrote out “Happy Birthday Senator.” The shop owner explained that they have a lot of business from U.S. government officials because they’re so rich, and that he was mailing this sand design to one of the US Senators who is a friend of his father. “Do you think he’ll like it?” he asked us.

It was really nice of him to talk with us so much when we were clearly not in his usual market demographic. And he didn’t even know we didn’t have enough cash for the Petra entrance fees :)

His shop was located in a post hotel right outside the Petra entrance. We left the hotel and then came back to see if Cory’s debit card would work in their ATM. And who was standing in the lobby? John McCain. We passed him in the hall a few minutes later and Cory greeted him. He’s either hard of hearing or unfriendly, because he didn’t even look over. We wondered if the sand art was for him, but his birthday isn’t until August.

Then we went back up to Wadi Musa to try another ATM and met a 69 year old British woman who was traveling around Jordan with her 77 year old friend for a couple of weeks. Spry and spunky Rosemary! A couple years ago, she took 10 months to do a round-the-world trip and was so fun to talk with. Cory loves British people :)

So, the ATM finally worked and we had enough money (barely) to cover both of our entrance fees. Walking through the red canyon walls was incredible – even after seeing the Petra buildings (which are meant to be the attraction, I guess), Cory and I agreed that God’s handiwork in the original rock is much more impressive, with all the incredible colors, texture, and movement of the stone, especially as they shone in the sunset.

After we left Petra, we set about trying to get more money. We had $15 left after paying the entrance fees and that wasn’t going to cover our hotel rooms, much less the trip to Amman, where I was scheduled to fly out in a couple of days back to the States. We called my credit card company via Skype (“ma’am, are you saying you have no money for food or anything?”) and they set up the cash advance feature on my credit card in less than 20 minutes. HurRAY – what a relief. We went to the ATM and it was out of service – what an un-relief.

So, we went to a little restaurant near our hotel and spent our last $15. By the time we were done with dinner the ATM was working again and we, at last, had enough cash to get to our final destination.

Note: I’m not advocating cash advances as a habit – I paid it off as soon as I returned back stateside – but it sure came in handy!

-Sarah Pechan

How to start? Well, I came back to Israel in early January. I went down to Eilat, and learned how to scuba dive. Then I started an ulpan, or intensive Hebrew session at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. That lasted about a month, and was incredibly intense, as the name suggests. I learned a lot, and am finally fairly comfortable speaking modern Hebrew with folks on the street.

Then, Sarah came for a visit. We were reviewing our trip yesterday and here's what we came up with:Day: Place:1 Tel Aviv2 Jerusalem3 Bethlehem/Tiberias4 Tiberias/Sfat5 Yardenit/Nazereth/Idan6 Eilat (Leave Israel)7 Sharks' Bay8 Sharks' Bay9 Sharks' Bay10 Dahab11 Mount Sinai (Leave Egypt)12 Petra13 Petra 14 Amman

I probably missed a day there, but as you can see, it was a whirlwind tour. I am sitting at the checkpoint on the Allenby bridge waiting for transport back to Jerusalem. From there, I'll get a ride back down to Idan and continue my research there for a couple weeks.

I can't put into words how wonderful it was to be with Sarah, and to show her some of my favorite places, and to explore new places with her. I really can't. It will have to suffice that we had a great time and I am very much in love. So instead, if you're still curious, maybe you could explore the facebook album, or look for “pictures around the world” tab at the top of this blog. Below is the map showing our route.

View Larger Map

Poverty doesn’t just happen. Lots of poverty is caused by injustice, the social and economic mechanisms that create poverty.

Businesses, like all of us, have an important role in these poverty processes. Companies make decisions all the time that create poverty and decisions that prevent poverty. There are companies that make quality jobs available in low-income communities and companies that abuse human rights among their workers. Companies that dump toxic sludge and companies that are responsible with the created world.

As shoppers, we know we’re voting with our dollars as to the types of companies we want to support. But what about our role as investors? As investors, we’re part owners, and we also need to think about how to vote, not only with our shopping dollars, but also with our 401ks and ROTHs.

We need to be purposeful with our investments and support companies that are making wise and ethical decisions about the types of products and services they provide, the way they treat people and the environment.

I first started thinking about this when I read about how the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has decided not to let their philanthropic goals affect their investment strategies and decisions.

Last year, the Gates Foundation disbursed 8% ($3 billion) of their money through foundation to charitable projects. The other 92% is invested to try to get more money to give away in the future. However, the Los Angeles Times estimates that a quarter of the Gates Foundation endowment ($9 billion) is invested in companies with practices that are actually creating the poverty that the foundation trying to fix.

In Nigeria, the Gates Foundation funds polio vaccination projects with their charitable money down the road from with a cancer-causing oil plant that spews toxic fumes where they invest a portion of their endowment. Clearly they need to do a better job making sure that ALL their resources are aligned with their mission.

And so do all of us. An informal survey of my friends and family showed that while most of them donate money to charity, approximately none of them are tuned into ethical investing. Did you know there's any way to avoid nasty companies and invest in those that are going the extra mile?

Enter ethical investing.

How does ethical investing work? Ethical mutual fund companies have done all the work of finding stocks that not only have good financial prospects but also have good record on social responsibility, their own internal governance policies, and the environmental sustainability of their work.

The first part of this process is to eliminate the bad companies. This means avoiding types of businesses that are considered harmful e.g. companies that manufacture weapons or use exploitative child labor. These factors take companies off the list.

The second part of the process is to find the ethics stars. Starbucks giving health insurance to employees – that’s bonus points. Having low-footprint environmental policies, ethical supply chain policies – those are all bonus points.

There are more than 200 ethical funds available to investors - small cap, mid cap, large cap, international. The website www.socialinvest.org has a list of funds and the Parnassus Mutual Fund company (www.parnassus.com) is one that I use and recommend.

Ethical investing is making a difference. Business leaders have growing incentives to consider their ethics because they know more shareholders are evaluating those factors. We're also rewarding companies that proactively do well and do good.

And don’t worry, financial returns for ethical funds are on par with regular stock funds (but you would invest ethically anyway, right??). It’s really not all that surprising that companies that consider long-term horizons such as those associated with the environment and those that have ethical employee relationships are going to perform well over the long term.

This is still a really dynamic arena. We desperately need more funds to become available in emerging markets where capital can help grow ethical companies and provide high quality jobs for people in developing countries.

But more than that, we still need a ton more people to commit to investing ethically. So, here's your chance to find some funds that help you align your investments with your values (www.socialinvest.org), trade in your old ones, and enjoy being an everyday human rights rockstar!

-Sarah Pechan

so, after i got my bag (one is still missing, but i got the important one), i tried to make it south to the moshav, but i missed the last bus before the state bus line shuts down for the sabbath. So, some very nice friends took me in for the sabbath. we went on a hike through the Valley of Achor (see Joshua 7:26 and Hosea 2:15) which some people think is also the "valley of the shadow of death" from Psalm 23 and the valley Jonathan climbed out of in 1 Samuel 14:1-15 (read a very interesting account here).

Then we hung out in Arab neighborhoods of East Jerusalem and had some excellent falafel given to me. Finally, we visited the garden tomb. it was a full day. but after we got back, and the Sabbath was over, i made a break for it to get to the moshav, but i only made it as far as Beersheva. at 9:30 pm. in the bitter desert cold. the bus stop was closing, all the signs said there was no bus, but something told me to wait. so i did, until 1:30 am. one bus rolled through, and i got on it. and i made it down to Eilat, where I'm now taking scuba lessons in the Red Sea.

it's pretty incredible. our "pool sessions" are in the sea, and I dove about 10 meters deep for 40 minutes at a time 3 times today, besides "theory sessions" which are in Hebrew, but the instructors quiz me in english after each of the sessions, and I do better than the rest of the students. The class is run like a boot camp. it's a bunch of dudes recently out of the army, and there's yelling and slapping and course joking, and i'm having a blast!

i was talking with Sarah, and it occurs to me i don't have a lot of traditional security. i don't have a house or apartment, i don't have a car or a scooter, i don't even have a working cell-phone.

but i was in Chicago, Paris and Tel Aviv yesterday. and I am in Jerusalem today. That's fun.

So, i haven't written in a while. but telling you about writing my thesis, or working on grad school applications isn't that exciting. so i decided to wait until something interesting happened. Here it is:

i made the Hanukiyah, the flame and the Sevivon on the left. Arts & Crafts!

hello friends. I am sorry it's been so long. things are exceedingly busy here with the Thesis, PhD apps and trying to be human.

Here's a little story to tide you over. Loi Krathong is a South East Asia Festival. You can read about it here.

Since there are lots of Thai workers around here, we went to a local park to see what their observations might look like.

i don't have any video editing software. so here is the uncut version, with maybe a little bit of distortion on the timing.

getting there

finding a seat

meditation begins!

speeches (including one from a man who introduced himself as "The President of Buddha")

more speeches

lighting lanterns!

life can't be all work and no play. i'm doing a lot on my thesis and applying for PhD programs, so i need some fun too. some of the things i did this week were:

folk dancing class

greenhouse cart racing

stage dancing at Thai Karaoke fest

ride a horse (no picture, sorry)

so, on fridays we don't work out in the fields, but we get to get up late and do work around the house. yesterday, we took off the cloth covering the porch and replaced it with palm fronds.

beforein-progress

and i thought as long as i was on the roof, maybe i could show you some around the yard.

this is the cabin i used to live in on the left. Since more volunteers moved in, i moved to the train car-cum-apartment on the right.

here's the cafe where I work at nights between the goat pen and the corral for the horses with the Arava in the background. The roof is what the wrap-around-porch will look like.

Again, let me just say what a great gift Kevin gave me with the iPod. I listen to it everyday while I'm working. Mostly, I listen to music that he also sent, but every now and again, I hear some great podcasts of Speaking of Faith. Two of my favorites right now:

The Inner Landscape of Beauty

Restoring the Senses: Life, Gardening and an Orthodox Easter

hi there. man. things really seem to be happening quickly around here. I went down to Eilat to work on getting my visa updated. it worked out great. then i had time for a dip in the red sea, and then back here.

i keep having very bad dreams around nap time.

i just started applications for the next try at grad school.

i'm still working on the thesis, and making a lot of progress.

hey team, the conference in Jerusalem went great. i met everyone i wanted to, and generally had a great time.

after the conference, i spent a day hanging out with some friends in Jerusalem. In 2 hours, i led a tour to the Western Wall, Hezekiah's Tunnel and the Garden of Gethsemane. It was my friend's first time at all three!

Then, i took the late bus to Idan, got off the bus at 7:53pm (2 and a half hours after sunset, but hours before the moon-rise, so beautiful stars, but not much light) and then did the 5km walk from the highway to the moshav, i kid you not, surrounded by wolves. after i got back, Ynon told me that the wolves were scared of me, and definitely wouldn't have attacked. i guess this makes sense. the small dogs that live out at the greenhouses are solidly in wolf territory, but they're always okay, so a big animal like me should be fine. but when you're wlaking, alone in the dark with a pack of small, but snarling wolves surrounding you, it can be sort of scary. anyway, face down a pack of wolves: check!

enough about that though. pictures?

-and-the end of the world.

nothing really new here to report. the Sabbath was wonderful, of course! I baked some vegetarian masaka for Sabbath dinner with the family, and then rested all day today. I did some writing for a book i'm working on slowly, and then i took a great bike ride as the sun set. now i'm typing to you! what a day!

As much as I wrote a time line of my day yesterday, I don't think that is really too helpful in describing what life is like here. Actually, I don't know that much that I can say would give you a sense of what life is like here. Can I tell you about the profundity of the joy I felt while cooking over a stove last night, under the stars and a thatch roof while Norah Jones asked me who she is to me? Of course not.

But, as the saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words, so here are some pictures from my morning, which I will have already finished and started sleeping by the time you wake up and read this.

One the morning commute (on a flat bed trailer behind a tractor) we get to watch the sunrise over Jordan which at the point the picture was taken was probably about 1.5 kilometers away)we pass a grove of date palms......where several Thai workers who rode with us spend their day pruning palms (which I would not want to do – OUCH!) and harvesting dates.But lest you think it is all beauty and serenity out here, my daily commute does take me through a mine field. Not to worry though, the safe way through is clearly marked and paved. No danger here unless you try to sneak into the Moshav.

We arrive to work in one of the scores of greenhouses after a 20 – 30 minute tractor ride

where we tend tomatoes this morning

this is one I trained up myself. The boss came by and said I did a great job. When the boss came to give us breakfast, he brought his kids. Aren't they cute?After breakfast, we were transferred to the Mango greenhouse to prune and stake.

Finally, a trip back through the minefield, and home again, home again.

so, basically this is what i do:

4:30am wake up and help milking goats

5:30am out to the fields for whatever needs done

8:30am breakfast break

9am back to work

11am finish work

11:30 am lunch

12 pm nap

5 pm wake up & read

7 pm do some housekeeping and eat dinner

8:30pm open pub

10:30/11pm close pub and go to bed.

let me tell you about two spectacular gifts. Kevin got me an Ipod shuffle for my birthday, and Jake is letting me borrow "The Hidden Wound" by Wendell Berry. These gifts came together when i was working today out in the fields and i was listening to Speaking of Faith's show on Land, Life and Poetry of Creatures on the Ipod. Wendell Berry's poetry was interwoven with an interview with Ellen Davis speaking about Land and God. Ellen Davis was saying that in the Bible, people's proper treatment of the land - and all the attendant issues of food, consumption, treatment of slaves/servants/aliens - is probably the best barometer for people's relationship with God, at least from God's point of view.

Rabbi Sandy Sasso wrote a children's book that reminded me of something I already knew. When God spoke on Sinai, God said, "I am the LORD, thy God." The Rabbis said of this that [my paraphrase] God appeared to each of them like a mirror in which many faces can be reflected simultaneously. A thousand may look at it and it reflects each of them. Thus the text did not say, "I am the LORD your God," addressed to the collective, but, "I am the LORD thy God," addressed to the individual. This notion of looking to God as a mirror is picked up by Paul in I Cor 3:18. All that to say, people tend to see themselves in God and God in terms of themselves. If i am a doctor, i tend to think of God as the great physician. If i'm a scientist, i tend to think of God as the creator of the universe.

so now that i'm a farmer of sorts, God as a giver and sustainer of life makes a lot of sense to me.

-only slightly related-

I've been reading Wendell Berry's "The Hidden Wound" which is a discussion about the negative impacts of slavery on white folk. He says that (and again, this is my loose paraphrase) that while white folks (at least in the south) withheld/withhold ownership of the land from black folks, they had black folks work the land and gave, "the thousands of menial small acts by which the land is maintained, and by which men develop a closeness to the land and the wisdom of that closeness. For the lack of that closeness and wisdom the white man has suffered and is suffering more than he has admitted, more probably than he knows."

a long excerpt:

As for this world, there were two heavy facts that Nick (a black farmhand who worked for Wendell Berry's grandfather) accepted and lived with: life is hard, full of work and pain and weariness, and at the end of it a man has got to go farther than he can imagine from any place her knows. And yet within the confines of those acknowledged facts, he was a man rich in pleasures. They were not large pleasures, they cost him little or nothing, often they could not be anticipated, and yet they surrounded him; they were possible at almost any time, or at odd times, or at off times. They were pleasures to which a man had to be acutely and intricately attentive, or he could not have them at all. There were elemental pleasures of eating and drinking and resting, of being dry while it is raining, of getting dry after getting wet, of getting warm after getting cold, of cooling off after getting hot. There was pleasure to be taken in good work animals, as long as you remembered the bother and irritation of using the other kind. There was pleasure of the appetites and in the well-being of good animals. There was pleasure in quitting work. There were certain pleasures in the work itself. There was pleasure in hunting and going to town, and in visiting and having company. There was pleasure in observing and remembering the behavior of things, and in telling about it. There was pleasure in knowing where a fox lived, and planning to run it, and in running it. And as I have already made clear, Nick knew how to use his mind for pleasure; he remembered and thought and pondered and imagined. He was a master of what William Carlos Williams called the customs of necessity.

In these times one contemplates it with the same sense of hope with which one contemplates the sunrise or the coming of spring: the image of a man who has labored all his life and will labor to the end, who has no wealth, who owns little, who has no hope of changing, who will never "get somewhere" or "be somebody," and who is yet rich in pleasure, who takes pleasure in the use of his mind! Isn't that the very antithesis of the thing that is breaking us in pieces? Isn't there rare humane strength in this - this humble possibility that all our efforts and aspiration is to deny?

There are lots of pleasures in working on the farm these three days so far. in seeing things grow, and feeling progress of wood recycled, of metal pieces sorted, of herbs going from palettes to beds i prepared in the morning. and there certainly is pleasure in finishing work. in cooling down. and in eating things that greeted the sunrise of the day i consumed them by sinking their roots deeper into the sand and drinking the water i put there.

lastly, let me leave you with Wendell Berry's Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front

Love the quick profit, the annual raise,

vacation with pay. Want more

of everything ready-made. Be afraid

to know your neighbors and to die.

And you will have a window in your head.

Not even your future will be a mystery

any more. Your mind will be punched in a card

and shut away in a little drawer.

When they want you to buy something

they will call you. When they want you

to die for profit they will let you know.

So, friends, every day do something

that won't compute. Love the Lord.

Love the world. Work for nothing.

Take all that you have and be poor.

Love someone who does not deserve it.

Denounce the government and embrace

the flag. Hope to live in that free

republic for which it stands.

Give your approval to all you cannot

understand. Praise ignorance, for what man

has not encountered he has not destroyed.

Ask the questions that have no answers.

Invest in the millennium. Plant sequoias.

Say that your main crop is the forest

that you did not plant,

that you will not live to harvest.

Say that the leaves are harvested

when they have rotted into the mold.

Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.

Put your faith in the two inches of humus

that will build under the trees

every thousand years.

Listen to carrion - put your ear

close, and hear the faint chattering

of the songs that are to come.

Expect the end of the world. Laugh.

Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful

though you have considered all the facts.

So long as women do not go cheap

for power, please women more than men.

Ask yourself: Will this satisfy

a woman satisfied to bear a child?

Will this disturb the sleep

of a woman near to giving birth?

Go with your love to the fields.

Lie down in the shade. Rest your head

in her lap. Swear allegiance

to what is nighest your thoughts.

As soon as the generals and the politicos

can predict the motions of your mind,

lose it. Leave it as a sign

to mark the false trail, the way

you didn't go. Be like the fox

who makes more tracks than necessary,

some in the wrong direction.

Practice resurrection.

i'm here! here's a video i made of my walk in.

Hi Friends,

yesterday I went out to see the battlefield where David fought Goliath. So here's a picture of most of the places we visited that day, and I'll put an identical picture up with numbers and a key. The Biblical references are verses in 1 Sam 17. Please also read this article about the Elah fortress which will fill in some of the holes in my explanation.

1. Socoh from verse 1 (I am standing on the top of Azekah from verse 1 to take this photo)

2. you can barely see a path of wild trees (not the orderly olive orchards) this marks the brook that David took the stones from in verse 40

3. This is the Elah Fortress which has been identified as Sha'ariam (which means "two gates." a city with 2 gates at this time was very uncommon - rare enough that the town was noted for these unusual features.) from verse 52.

4. The Elah Valley from verse 2, where the Israelites came off of their mountain and the Philistines came off of their mountain and fought.

5. The way back to Ekron and Gath which the Israelites pursued the Philistines upon.

Brook-bed with lots of stones

one of the two gates of Sha'ariam

hi friends. i just have a couple quick posts to bring you up to date. the first is mostly pictures of my trips through France and Hungary on my way to Israel. The flight to Paris went really well, but when I got off the plane and went through customs, as soon as i cleared the big doors and walked into the halls of Charles de Gualle i was overwhelmed by an olfactory assault! i know most of the rest of the world is more comfortable with the smells that the human body produces, but this was a rather sudden reminder that in France an ounce of prevention is not worth much at all.

that being said, i had a really nice time walking around Paris, and it was really fun to remember my way and not have to look at maps.

After Paris, I flew to Budapest. I really liked it there. The buildings, subway and everything was sort of overbuilt, huge and industrial. You could really see the post-communist legacy everywhere you looked. I didn't make it to the Blue Danube because I was wicked tired, but I did snap a couple shots of the Doheny Street Synagogue (the largest Synagogue in Europe). I stumbled into a little restaurant and had a beer, some onion soup and a lot of bread with cheesy melted on it for about 3 dollars. Yum! I would definitely go back to Budapest.

The next morning I got up early, found my way back to the airport and then continued on my way.

sorry it's been so long since I've written. quite a few things have happened. I'm headed out of town, in fact, out of the country. I'm wrapping up things with my job at OSU then I'm going to go do some research for 9ish months. Kevin is getting married soon, and it will be so fun to go on a vacation to Mexico with the family!

there's a lot to take care of, so let me just say, I had the supreme pleasure of helping baptize my Goddaughter, Yael Marie Deboni. What a cutie! and SO advanced!

I've got to get IRB approval for my research, retake the GRE (I can't believe it's been over 5 years!) and do my Spanish reading proficiency test (for my European research language). Yikes!

as I'm getting ready to move on from Columbus, I'm packing up things and taking them to my Mom's house. and my little Goddaughter was born just over a week ago in Chicago, so I had to go visit her!

Tuesday: I loaded up the buick regal with as much stuff as it would carry, drove it to my Mom's house, unloaded, went to my sister and her husband's house, and had a terrific meal, and then went over to Grandma & Grandpa's house for sleeping!

Wedesday: I got up early and caught the South Shore for Chicago, then took the L out to my friends' house. I got to hold Yael, and just had a blast.

Thursday: Hung out with my friends, and then made the trip up to Waukegan to see Dad and had a blast!

Friday: Work day getting a lot of stuff done for my transition to living overseas, winding down the job and taking care of health insurance. The we had a party with some older folks who are friends of Dad and Diane. Great time!

Saturday: Back to Grandma & Grandpa's to pick up my car and hang out some more. Then we went to meet up with Kimi and Chris. It was SO nice to just be able to chill with the family.

Sunday: In the wee hours of the morning, I sailed into Indianapolis and visited the bar my cousin works at. It was SO great to see him and I had a wonderful time. After sleeping a few hours, I made it back to Columbus just in time for a meeting early morning. Then I visited my friend Lorne who works in the Hospital and then church at Jacob's Porch.

I was voting for the pepsi choice funding to end JDM (which maybe you could help?) , and as part of that, you have to provide an authentication code.

The word i had to type in to prove i wasn't a robot was Einsatzgruppen. insane! you want to help donate $250K to fight a childhood autoimmune disorder? fine, but you have to prove you're human by typing in the name of a Nazi death squad? not cool.

hi there!

I went to my friends' Aaron & Jayme's wedding. I forgot my camera, so i made use of the cell phone. I had a GREAT time, the hotel room was a 3 room suite, the church was beautiful, and the reception was super fun.

crossing the borderEminem's houseAaron and Jayme driving to the reception......in the Dodge Challenger

Oh man, what a night.

I had the "low oil" light come on yesterday, so i thought I'd add some motor oil before i drove over to Jiffy Lube (which I will do this afternoon, hopefully). Somewhere in the back of my head I remembered hearing that i needed a funnel or should wait until the car was cool. i didn't have a funnel, and the car wasn't cool, so when i spilled some oil on the engine block, it caught fire. i tried blowing it out. Friends, let me tell you, that only works with birthday candles. If you blow on a fire that has plenty of fuel, the oxygen in your breath actually helps it burn. mistakes keep piling up.

well, it was a very little bit of oil, and it burnt away really quickly, [read that sentence again, Mom]. but still, i couldn't help but think as i was trying to blow out the fire in my car, that it could potentially blow up. i sure am glad it didn't.

Anyway, after a couple seconds the tiny fire burned out. I let my car sit for a while (i was adding the oil in the subway parking lot, so i went in and had a delicious turkey sub and those white chocolate chip cookies that i like so much). then i started it up, and everything was grand.

after that, I drove with a friend to the Royal Family Kids Camp to help pack up. We loaded a small clock shop truck full of items for the next camp. On the side of the truck, a cartoon Fritz was saying, "Yah, Das Ist Gut!" The we went in to see our friends who were working the event the whole week. Yikes man, God bless the volunteers who stay there for a week to help out with some kiddos with issues and all the folks who help to raise money so that the camps can go on at all. It seemed like the kids were having a fantastic time and really enjoying all the attention from the adults. I just get overwhelmed by lots of kids. Shoutout to Kimi who lovingly served RFKC for years and introduced me to the idea in the first place.

on my way back to Columbus, I remembered I had some place to be if we got done early, which we did. I didn't get the memo that the party for our recently returned Jay was canceled, so i drove out to his house just in time to find him going to bed. oops. goodnight, Jay.

after that, i came back and met with my recently single and very attractive roommate, Lorne (if your a nice, single girl who is interested in being the wife of the sweetest, most loving Lutheran pastor there's probably ever going to be, please leave a note in the comment section). We watched the first episode of the new season of Jersey Shore. I don't know what it is, probably that these kids live their lives completely opposite from me, but it's SO fascinating to watch! I feel like i'm doing anthropological research on another tribe of humans while i'm watching.

feeling inspired, we then walked over to the Thirsty Scholar and since we three (Eric - another attractive and single roommate - came along) were the only ones there, we might have overdone the fist-pumping a little bit, but that's okay. That they kept playing "All I Do Is Win" did nothing to encourage us to put our arms down. The bartender didn't mind. I had a great time with the bros, and then we walked back and went to sleep.

hey team. just a quick note, i was on an hour long teleconference with some students and professors from the University of KwaZulu-Natal this morning. fun!

i took out my phone and got a quick picture of the screen. i've done a lot of teleconferences with university partners around the world, but it was still pretty unbelievable to be talking with folks in real time in such a way that their conference table looked like it was right next to ours.

this made me really mad this morning. even if you like war, certainly you can't like this, right? from a friend serving in Afghanistan:

did you get that? "Thank you American taxpayer, you[r $125,000] amused me for all of 5 minutes."

I'm writing my Congressperson and Senators. Maybe you should too.

Update: Here's the letter I sent.

Dear Senator Voinovich,

I hope you are well.

I appreciate your excellent representation of our values and the good job you are doing. Thank you.

I am writing you today because I woke up do outrageous online posts from friends serving in Afghanistan. It is important, first, to know that I support them, and everything the U.S. is doing in and for Afghanistan. I have many friends serving in Afghanistan and Iraq both with the military and NGOs helping to rebuild. I am proud of them all!

But what I read early this morning was a competition - in public - on facebook about how much tax dollars each soldiers' unit had wasted. One talked of "accidentally mortaring an industrial air compressor" that cost $5,000, another talked of paying a village elder for a donkey after they blew it up with 155mm shell. My friend wrote, "Best experience in Afghanistan. Blowing $125,000 b/c we can. Thank you American taxpayer, you amused me for all of 5 minutes." I would gladly send you a screen shot, though the names and pictures will be blanked out because I do not want to jeopardize my friends' careers.

This is an unconscionable waste. I do not know what action to ask you to take specifically. I know cracking down on soldiers' use of the internet so that these stories don't get heard is not it. Something has to be done about responsibility and professionalism in the military. I support America's finest, and I don't think demanding accountability undermines patriotism.

I just ask that in the future when voting on funding issues, that you remember that even honorable servicemembers can get carried away and that accountability matters to your constituents.

Thank you very much for your time.

Sincerely,

Cory Driver

garlic feta on top!

dark 15 grain bavarian bread

avocados/onions

dark 15 grain bavarian bread

fried eggplant

dark 15 grain bavarian bread

homemade guac with extra garlic

dark 15 grain bavarian bread

i fell asleep after eating this beast and having 2 dos equis

then woke up and played 18 holes of frisbee golf.

hooray!

okay, so i was with some friends last night, and a guy showed me the double rainbow video. (see below). at first, we watched and laughed, but then the friend said, "can you believe how happy this guy is? I totally want to be that overcome with joy when i see something in nature, let alone my family or something really cool!" the dude creeps me out, but there really is something to appreciating something beautiful so much it makes you cry.

that being said, all i could think of when he was saying double rainbow was, of course, double sun power!!!!

So, Hannah Risner is big into community gardening, and so we have a pilot project behind Jacob's Porch. She did all the work and got all the plants and everything. i put in a very novice twine & stake trellis system. it doesn't look like much, but the tomato plants love it. here you go:

I'll say it: Cincinnati is delightful. We went this past weekend to visit the Underground Railroad Museum at the Freedom Center, and it was very nice. For the scope of the issue (History of Atlantic slave trade, not just the underground railroad) the museum felt kind of small. but the 4th floor with its genealogical research center really brought the humanity of slavery home to me.

I connect much more viscerally to the Sho'ah. In the Holocaust Museum in DC and Yad Vashem in Israel, the past that really makes hits me are the records rooms when survivors and their children can look up what happened to loved ones. i don't know, for some reason, that's the most emotional part to me.

The Atlantic salve trade has always been a textbook issue to me, that it happened historically and shapes the present in a cultural way, and certain communities are advantaged or disadvantaged because of it. I read a lot, did my homework. I watched (and read) Roots, and I've made my way through The Autobiography of Malcolm X and The Cornell West Reader. Slavery in America just always seemed to be some sort of impersonal entity to me though, like so great evil which still is affecting things, but affected groups, not individual people. But to hear little kids on the way into the museum talking about wondering where their ancestors were from and seeing them later with one of the museum staff tracing their ancestors back through the plantations to the slave ships and ultimately their countries of origins took slavery out of the realm of "the national" and "the communal" and made it personal.

For a better commentary than mine, but one that expresses some of the same thoughts i had while walking through (especially concerning the teenage children running around) see here.

well friends, i'm definitely tired of all the news about LeBron James. I say escape Ohio at all costs if the team treats your decisions like this. i must say, it was really fun to watch "the Special" with my roommates and hear them groan about him leaving.

anyway, let me tell you why i was watching sports with my roommates. Lorne declared an all house cleaning night, and Heaven knows we needed it. I learned that, when cleaning a VERY disgusting bathroom on the second floor (i use the one on the third floor) that even breaking out a wire brush on the black funk in the shower was not enough. i also learned that mixing ammonia and bleach is not a good idea, and will fill you up with poison gas really quickly. oops.

while we were gearing up for the housecleaning, Lorne got Gumby's pizza - I really like their Pokey sticks, and i was in charge of beverages to quench the thirst of our motley cleaning crew. The Quick-E-Mart owners are Moroccan and were watching the highlights of the Spain-Germany game and I asked them who they were pulling for. They said Spain because it's their neighbor. I inquired about how they could pull for Spain when it treats their refugees so harshly, and they still hang on to Melilla and Cueta. He reminded me that it's about football and not about politics.

With that in mind, i have to make a change of my previous support of Orange and side with the Spanish, even though they defeated my beloved German team. Go Hapsburgs! Crush the Rebels!

oh man, what a weekend. Fireworks in Columbus on Friday. Lakengren Fireworks on Saturday. Fireworks at my house on Sunday. And then Monday, we went down to Oxford to do some quilting and family research. So fun.

I think i'm going to go ahead and say it: it kind of weirds me out that my little sister is married and my older brother is engaged. i'm super happy for them, and they are making some GREAT additions to the family. [hard stop, no but]

i do feel like i am getting lapped in the game of life. Kimi: house on a lake, great spouse, job that pays more than mine. Kevin: sweet apartment, sweet fiancée, and sweet job that pays many times more than mine. but, as i was talking with Sarah about being prepared (or not) for the next couple years, with me relating how i felt like i was completely unprepared for whatever would happen next, and she reminding me how i've never felt prepared for anything, but that God always seems to line up the best possible thing and somehow i've already been prepared for it without knowing.

So Sarah was asking, how do i think i might have been being prepared for what comes next. I've learned so much in these past couple years, academically speaking, and the increased knowledge of Hebrew, Arabic and History will serve me really well. But possibly more important has been all the practice teaching and instructing little kiddos to retirement home dwellers and everyone in-between.

possibly most significant though, is all the hosting and cooking. i make really big meals for passover and on other religious occasions, but i make meals for people at least every week. i love this. and i think it's really important. i always like to focus on bringing people together over food who might not get to spend time together otherwise.

and so this weekend, when there were several (10ish, maybe?) people gathered together eating the steak, hebrew nationals, boca-burgers, corn, guac, sweet potatos &c i made for the 4th of July cook-out, and playing with the silly fireworks i got, and most importantly, having a great time talking with new friends and really meeting interesting folks that they said they couldn't wait to follow up with, i felt like i'd really done something.

so, i may not get married, and i may not have kids, but i kind of felt like a father, or at least a provider for all the folks who came over on sunday. and that felt pretty good.