a call to repentance: consumerism

in what is typically known as "black friday," we show our true colors: that in the middle of an economic recession, with a short-term credit market that is threatening to collapse- we are still a nation of rabid consumers. npr reported people lining up at best buy at 10am yesterday- waiting through thanksgiving day and all night long for the 5am opening of the temple. ny times reports a walmart employee getting trampled to death (along with four shoppers injured and a pregnant woman taken in for observation) this morning as shoppers tore down the temple doors for early access to worship.
today i invite you to buy nothing. it's a small step towards repentance. if you want to go further, celebrate a buy-nothing-christmas.
it is increasingly important that we be thoughtful with our spending and understand the impact of our consumption. if you want to give, may your giving not stop with the person recieving the gift. get creative. how about giving some beans from coffee ambassadors? or a micro-loan from kiva? even a donkey or a well from oxfam? or create something- because when you are engaged with your own creativity, your health and the health of your community is vitalized.
and if you need something, i recommend a few questions to work through. Ask yourself: 1) if you really need it. 2) if you can borrow it from someone you know. 3) if you can make it yourself. 4) if you can purchase it used. 5) if you can get it discounted.
introduce new products into your cycle of consumption only as a last resort.
do not participate in 500% mark-ups.
consume less.
ok, my rant is over. merry chri$tma$.

"did we have to set ourselves on fire?"

"did we have to set ourselves on fire?"
india ink illustration, walnut ink wash.
image copyright: phil nellis, 2008.

"Hope for a Tree Cut Down"

Some highly creative and generous friends over at Church of the Beloved have recorded a fantastic set of music that stands in the spiritual and musical traditions of Sufjan, Colbalt Season and Over the Rhine- it evokes similar worshipful and emotive responses for me.


This is an exemplary demonstration of contextual, local and indigenous worship that has come out of a faith community that is in touch with their creativity:

Hey. This music is free for you.
Of course it was a lot of hard work and cost a lot of money for us to make this album. But for you, it’s free, because we have been shocked by God’s grace… that is to say, God’s gift; because we are discovering what our community’s gifts are; And because we want to give. - Ryan Marsh, Beloved Architect

Communal Living

Today marks a major transition for our family: we are leaving our single-family duplex that stands in a long row of the same and moving into a large home where we will be sharing space with another small family. Living in community has been a dream of ours for a number of years, but the combination of timing and available others has never lined up until now. My developing perspectives on the theology, sociology, economics, ecology and praxis of communal living is something I hope to put words to in this place over the next few months. Keep your ear to the ground. And thanks to all who are helping us move!

who's who?

judah aguila

Imagine if the world were 100 people:

In our global village... the resources are unevenly distributed. The richest person in the village has as much as the poorest 57 taken together. Fifty do not have a reliable source of food and are hungry some of the time, and 30 suffer malnutrition. Forty do not have access to adequate sanitation; 31 people live in substandard housing; 31 do not have electricity; 18 are unable to read; 15 do not have access to safe drinking water. Only 16 people have access to the Internet. Only 12 own an automobile. Three are migrating. And only two have a college education. Overall, 19 struggle to survive on one dollar per day or less; 48 struggle to live on two dollars a day or less. In brief, as the World Bank describes it, two thirds of the planet lives in poverty.

- in context: Daniel Groody, Globalization, Spirituality, and Justice, pg 3-4.

current soundtrack: some old, some new

[arcade fire meets ennio morricone] [beautiful, listenable swedish pop] [the best mmj record]

Embedded Beings

To be embedded means to belong to at least four sets of relationships: People are embedded into God, into self, into others, and into the natural world....

The central question of free human beings is how to live these relationships in a way that generates life rather than death. As relationships move toward life, they bear fruit in order, peace and justice. As they move towards death, they bear fruit in disorder, chaos and injustice. Life is the integration of these relationships. Death is the dis-integration of these relationships. The goal of human life is to bring relationships into right order, for when this happens peace and justice result.

- in context: Daniel Groody, Globalization, Spirituality, and Justice, pg 23-24.

art show + lots of people i love = great night

.
apologies on my video skills...err... yeah.

Art Show: Tomorrow

I've been working hard these last two weeks to finish new material for the Ballard Art Walk this weekend. The location is Robert Deeble's awesome private practice space, Folktown Counseling. He specializes in therapeutic work with artists of all kinds and runs brilliant and much needed art mentoring group he calls The Fine Arts Struggle. I will be showing new works that stylistically move in a new direction for me. I'm working with walnut ink as well as my traditional use of india ink. These new pieces are experiements in simplicity and stark contrast. I look fwd to sharing them online after the show. Thankyou all for your support and affirmation in my artistic endevors.

interconnectedness [again]

a friend just revealed the meaning behind a piece of art i did over 2 years ago: on wanderlust by t. nathaniel. read it, it's a beautiful story. thanks todd.

Post Election Day

You Creator God
who has ordered us
in families and communities
in clans and tribes
in states and nations

You Creator God
who enact your governance
in ways overt and
in ways hidden
You exercise your will for
peace and for justice and for freedom

We give you thanks for the peaceable order of
our nation and for the chance of choosing
all the manipulative money notwithstanding

We pray now for new governance
that your will and purpose may prevail
that our leaders may have a sense
of justice and goodness,
that we as citizens may care about the
public face of your purpose

We pray in the name of Jesus who was executed
by the authorities.

from Prayers for a Privileged People, by Walter Brueggemann

happy and trivial: the american way

No-one is less able to sustain happiness than someone obsessed with feeling only happiness. A happy and meaningful existence depends on the ability to feel emotions other than happiness, as well as ones that compete with happiness.

- in context: The Happiness Consipiracy by John F. Schumaker

Today, the demand for triviality has never been higher and our tolerance for seriousness has never been lower.



- in context: The Triumph of Triviality by John F. Schumaker

it's the final count down!

credit: mr. brainwash in los angeles via wooster collective.
today's soundtrack provided by europe.

studies show...

studies show that (surprise surprise) kids who watch sex on TV are more likely to try it...
hmmm. no shit.
(also on bbc)