Slow Money

A couple of weeks ago on my drive back from the farm I heard this NPR story on promoting local economies.

I jotted down the book that was mentioned "Inquiries into the Nature of Slow Money" and decided to check it out. While the author is a venture capitalist who talks about economics, the book is far from being overloaded with dry jargon. His journal-esque way of writing is inspired by people like Joan Gussow, Wendell Berry, and E.F. Schumacher.

You can catch excerpts from the book here and the Slow Money Alliance website here.

sharing our voices

Please join Dr. Aminata Cairo, Dr. Rosalind Harris, their students and immigrant community researchers as they discuss their experiences and findings from their community research project conducted over the last semester. Students were paired with community researchers from various immigrant communities in Lexington to record their experiences and feelings about adjusting to life in Lexington. This community engaged research
project is part of an ongoing effort to improve experiences and services for new immigrants in the Bluegrass. Please come hear what refugees and immigrants in our community have to say so we can all do our part to improve services and make Lexington a stronger community! Please see the attached flyer and distribute widely!

Isabel

 

Isabel Gereda Taylor Multicultural Affairs Coordinator 

Lexington-Fayette Government Center

200 E. Main Street

Lexington, KY 40507

Phone (859) 258-3824

Fax (859) 258-3406

urban orchard piece

check our local paper for this article about our urban gardening work.  communality folks were a huge help last weekend and seedleaf gets a mention.

http://www.kentucky.com/150/story/781906.html

Heartbreak and Hope........

One of the fundamental things that I've learned over the last eleven years of living in community with the beauty and dysfunction of life is that heartbreak and hope always go together. They cannot live without each other; they cannot be separated. As horrendously irreconciliable and opposed as they often seem, they are ultimately as symbiotic as soil and water. I had a couple of different experiences today that made me have to account once again for this tumultuous marriage of heartbreak and hope. In relating them I want to invert the order of their occurence. That is one thing that we can control, and is often times the only way to make sense of the sequence of at once difficult and divine events.

So, I decided this morning to visit an old neighbor who recently called me and told me he was working at a local machine shop. He sounded content and it seemed like he'd really found a good job situation. I got to know him pretty well while we were neighbors and we spent quite a bit of time together. Through various circumstances (many within his control) he became homeless and lived for quite some time at the Hope Center. He was a regular at Phoenix Park and I occassionally spent time with him whenever passing through on my way to the bank. He did some work for me and through it all we managed to remain connected and encourage each other, largely due to his initiative. So, I stopped by his shop this morning and learned that he was no longer employed there. "He's one of the folks that got caught up in the lay-offs," said an office employee politely. I walked away feeling shaken and disturbed. The reality of the current economic crisis just became a lot more personal for me. I will not say more here........

Earlier in the morning, as I was leaving home, I saw one of my neighbors, garbage bag and tongs in hand, picking up small pieces of trash along our street and the Meadowthorpe Mall that fronts our neighborhood. She and her husband do this and many other things for the neighborhood routinely. They are an amazing example of servanthood and civic commitment. As I watched her picking up the trash my mind immediately went in several different directions. I thought about writing a note to thank her and her husband for their sterling example. At the same time I thought about all of the time that I've spent in poor urban environments where trash is regularly thrown on to the streets and vacant lots quickly become de facto junkyards. I found my thoughts ensnared quickly in a quandary. Can I honestly expect people in poor, essentially forgotten about neighborhoods, to pick up trash like my middle-class neighbors? Can I honestly expect them to display an attitude of "civic duty" when they're struggling to survive the next mortgage/rent payment, find the next job, overcome the next illness, recover from the last deadbeat boyfriend,..........? Can I honestly expect them to care about the appearance of a corner on which someone they knew personally got shot, or about a city and a society that does not pay them a livable wage, discriminates against them, and only seems to think about their neighborhood when it is time to talk about redevelopment? The only reason that my neighbors pick up trash is because they have the time, they have the luxury, they have the means......right? My neighbor's sense of duty and commitment flows from a life of relative privilege, a life of security, opportunity, a life without discrimination or excessive reasons to renounce hope....right? When you strip everything else away the "cleanliness" and "beauty" of wealthier neighborhoods only masks the dirt and filth of unjust and discriminatory societal structures that are used (at the expense of others) to make sullied lives look clean.......right? These questions are overwhelming at times for me. I'm sorry if this relatively raw discourse upsets any apple carts.......but it is upsetting mine......mostly in the right ways....I think?

Anyhow, I took hope in watching my neighbor pick up trash this morning and do things for our neighborhood that I'm always too "busy" to do because I'm trying to "do good" somewhere else. And at the same time I'm heartbroken about my friend who fought his way up from homelessness only (or is it only?) to "get caught up" in the Tsunami of lay-offs (confirmed victims in the millions).....and I'm heartbroken about all the neighborhoods where trash lies strewn in the streets and the people have no time, resources or reason to pick it up...because they're just struggling to survive...and where boarded up homes are abandoned while people sleep on the garbage strewn sidewalks.....it is definitely far easier for me and my neighbors to pick up the trash-so is there any real value in our efforts? I believe that there is and always can be....no matter where you are...but that is easy for me to say......right?

bus stops and missio dei

sherry and i continue to be formed by our attempts at mission in our household.  one of the lessons we have learned over the last five years is the high value of bus stops.  our home sits on a corner with two bus stops and we are daily given the blessing of meeting people for the first time and deepening relationships with regular commuters.  a simple "hello" or longer conversations serve our love of "neighborliness" as we go about our work to "seek the welfare of the city" (jer. 29).

so, if you are looking to rent or own, we encourage you to consider this as a factor as you wonder about a place to make your home.  as is so often the case, these 'ordinary' factors become well springs for the holy work of loving a place and its people.

thanks

thank you to everyone who contributed to 'a school for conversion' over the weekend.  it is always a blessing to share our story with guests and remember what God has done to, through, and in us.

and thank you to our guests...you sacrificed precious time and resources to be with us.  some of you traveled far and our prayer is that all of you were nourished and inspired.

stand up for your love

loving the new u2 album at our house.  this song is a great shot of rock...and the lyrics aren't half bad.  i'm listening to this track with an ear to it being a wake-up call to the people of God.

Stand up, this is comedy
The DNA lotto may have left you smart
But can you stand up to beauty
Dictator of the heart
I can stand up for hope, faith, love
But while I’m getting over certainty
Stop helping God across the road like a little old lady
Oh, oh
Out from under your beds 
C’mon, ye people
Stand up for your love
Love love love love love
Love love love love love

my dad reminded me the other day of a C.S. Lewis quote that suggested that God/'the good news' is like a lion...does not need to be defended, just let out of it's cage.

wow

i spotted this remarkable article at Mark Sayers blog.

here's a snippet but the whole thing is worth reading.

ACCORDING to the Australian Bureau of Statistics it appears that lifelong marriages are becoming a thing of the past. Few marry for life any more.

Thirty-two per cent of divorces involved separation within the first five years of marriage, and 22 per cent within five to nine years of marriage.

We have fixed term-contracts for the buying of property, cars and insurance, but there is only one contract available for marriage and it is for life. Is it time to consider introducing fixed-term marriage contracts?

The fixed-term contract is not meant to be a "quick fix" or an "easy out".

It would allow for the celebration of the renewal of vows after a five-year or 10-year term and encourage partners to work towards maintaining a good relationship – in effect, it opens communication akin to a marriage performance review.

Or it would allow for the marriage to be dissolved by completing an acceptable contract term, without the shame and stigma associated with the failure of a marriage.

So why bother getting married at all? Because inherently we want to believe that we are making a commitment for life. Surely no one enters a marriage with a view to "give it a shot".

We stand in front of friends, family, even God and promise "until death do us part" and, at the time, we believe it. This only adds to the sense of failure when we can't deliver this promise.

It's a simple process: the standard certificate of marriage becomes a five-year contract. The marriage celebrant would continue to retain a copy for their records; forward the certificate to the Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages for the registration of the marriage; and provide the marrying couple with a copy.

The marriage licence would clearly state the start and dissolution date for the five-year term.

"A Time to Break Silence"

Below is a link to MLK's Riverside Church sermon "Time to Break Silence" delivered on April 4, 1967, exactly one year to the day before he was assasinated....I was reading over it again this morning to prepare for this weekends School For Conversion.....if you have never read this before please do when you have the time....amazing inspiring stuff.....


http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/45a/058.html

3 events in two days

it's been a busy last couple of days.  as we get ready for hosting a school for conversion there has been plenty to keep us occupied.

1.  sidewalk garden installed by the good people of seedleaf at the east seventh street center (kids cafe)

2.  earth day gathering hosted by one horizon...jeff barrie and co. were there from killowatt ours.

3.  isaac murphy memorial art garden party...a wonderful neighborhood celebration.

soul searching

Bono has this to say in an op-ed piece from the NY times over the weekend:

Carnival is over. Commerce has been overheating markets and climates ... the sooty skies of the industrial revolution have changed scale and location, but now melt ice caps and make the seas boil in the time of technological revolution. Capitalism is on trial; globalization is, once again, in the dock. We used to say that all we wanted for the rest of the world was what we had for ourselves. Then we found out that if every living soul on the planet had a fridge and a house and an S.U.V., we would choke on our own exhaust.

Lent is upon us whether we asked for it or not. And with it, we hope, comes a chance at redemption. But redemption is not just a spiritual term, it’s an economic concept. At the turn of the millennium, the debt cancellation campaign, inspired by the Jewish concept of Jubilee, aimed to give the poorest countries a fresh start. Thirty-four million more children in Africa are now in school in large part because their governments used money freed up by debt relief. This redemption was not an end to economic slavery, but it was a more hopeful beginning for many. And to the many, not the lucky few, is surely where any soul-searching must lead us.

our lives on this earth

The mature person realizes that life affirms itself most, not in acquiring things, but in giving time, efforts, strength, intelligence, and love to others. Here a different kind of dialectic of life and death begins to appear. The living drive, the vital satisfaction, by "ending" its trend to self-satisfaction and redirecting itself to and for others, transcends itself. It "dies" insofar as the ego is concerned, for the self is deprived of the immediate satisfactions which it could claim without being contested. Now it renounces these things, in order to give to others. Hence, life "dies" to itself in order to give itself away and thus affirms itself more maturely, more fruitfully, and more completely. We live in order to die to ourselves and give everything to others. ...This "dying" to self in order to give to others is nothing more or less than a higher and more special affirmation of life. Such dying is the fruit of life, the evidence of mature and productive living. It is, in fact, the end or the goal of life.

Thomas Merton. Love and Living.

The End of Philosophy

i found this article challenging and inspiring.  a good follow up to the piece from Newsweek Billy posted yesterday.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/07/opinion/07Brooks.html?_r=1&em

here's a sneak peak:

Socrates talked. The assumption behind his approach to philosophy, and the approaches of millions of people since, is that moral thinking is mostly a matter of reason and deliberation: Think through moral problems. Find a just principle. Apply it.

One problem with this kind of approach to morality, as Michael Gazzaniga writes in his 2008 book, “Human,” is that “it has been hard to find any correlation between moral reasoning and proactive moral behavior, such as helping other people. In fact, in most studies, none has been found.”

Today, many psychologists, cognitive scientists and even philosophers embrace a different view of morality. In this view, moral thinking is more like aesthetics. As we look around the world, we are constantly evaluating what we see. Seeing and evaluating are not two separate processes. They are linked and basically simultaneous.

Very revealing, well-written article....

I found this article written by Newsweek editor Jon Meacham to be well done and oddly encouraging in many respects.

Here is the article:

http://www.newsweek.com/id/192583
Here is an excerpt:

But that project has failed, at least for now. In Texas, authorities have decided to side with science, not theology, in a dispute over the teaching of evolution. The terrible economic times have not led to an increase in church attendance. In Iowa last Friday, the state Supreme Court ruled against a ban on same-sex marriage, a defeat for religious conservatives. Such evidence is what has believers fretting about the possibility of an age dominated by a newly muscular secularism. "The moral teachings of Christianity have exerted an incalculable influence on Western civilization," Mohler says. "As those moral teachings fade into cultural memory, a secularized morality takes their place. Once Christianity is abandoned by a significant portion of the population, the moral landscape necessarily changes. For the better part of the 20th century, the nations of Western Europe led the way in the abandonment of Christian commitments. Christian moral reflexes and moral principles gave way to the loosening grip of a Christian memory. Now even that Christian memory is absent from the lives of millions."

Religious doubt and diversity have, however, always been quintessentially American. Alexis de Tocqueville said that "the religious atmosphere of the country was the first thing that struck me on arrival in the United States," but he also discovered a "great depth of doubt and indifference" to faith. Jefferson had earlier captured the essence of the American spirit about religion when he observed that his statute for religious freedom in Virginia was "meant to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and the Mahometan, the Hindoo and infidel of every denomination"—and those of no faith whatever. The American culture of religious liberty helped create a busy free market of faith: by disestablishing churches, the nation made religion more popular, not less.

America, then, is not a post-religious society—and cannot be as long as there are people in it, for faith is an intrinsic human impulse. The belief in an order or a reality beyond time and space is ancient and enduring. "All men," said Homer, "need the gods." The essential political and cultural question is to what extent those gods—or, more accurately, a particular generation's understanding of those gods—should determine the nature of life in a given time and place.

If we apply an Augustinian test of nationhood to ourselves, we find that liberty, not religion, is what holds us together. In "The City of God," Augustine —converted sinner and bishop of Hippo—said that a nation should be defined as "a multitude of rational beings in common agreement as to the objects of their love." What we value most highly—what we collectively love most—is thus the central test of the social contract.

seedleaf fundraiser

the seedleaf fundraiser was a great success.  a wonderful mix of people from our fair city...all eager to support seedleaf and the wider work of seeking health and hope for Lexington through urban agriculture.  congrats to Ryan and Becca for their hard work and we wish them rich blessings for the growing season.  if you missed the chance to come and support this work please feel encouraged to visit the web site and discover ways to partner with us.   as a community of faith we can be grateful and proud we have had the chance to help ryan plant this 'seedling'.