The Cultural

A collection of 48 posts

The Cultural

Pedro the Lion Rises from the Ashes With Phoenix

With ‘Phoenix’, Pedro the Lion’s David Bazan Emerges from the Mines of His Interiority : NPR: By offering up his own interior narrative, Bazan holds a mirror to the self-mythologizing we all do in retracing our own steps. To write Phoenix, Bazan spent time in the namesake city; the soaring

The Cultural

Is Cultural Appropriation Always Wrong?

A powerful essay on the “co-opting” of minority cultures by Parul Sehgal. This is something I am deeply interested in understanding and observing within “participatory culture,” which often takes part in remixing texts of many kinds. Sehgal’s points are a clear and necessary check on the “fast and loose”

The Cultural

Birthday Parties in a Cul-de-Sac

Birthday Parties in a Cul-de-Sac: The Conundrum and Guilt of Planning a Birthday Party in the Burbs I realize not all morality finds its origins in the 80s, but in this case, I think I am on good ground. When I was growing up in the age of the 8

The Cultural

Modern Day Parable on Environmentalism (Joel Salatin)

Reading in the Christian Century today there was a review of Joel Salatin’s newest book “Mad farmer?” and read this parable from the “Christian libertarian environmentalist capitalist lunatic,” as Michael Pollan describes in Omnivore’s Dilema. Salatin writes: We have neighbors—I’ll call them Cleve and Matilda—who

Church in Mission

When The Church Becomes a Department Store

You can drive around most neighborhoods here in the suburbs and find at least some vacant buildings. Some of them are small, and if not historic, they at least have a history.  While others are just enormous squares, nondescript, no personality or history at all. “throwaway” buildings might be a

The Cultural

Has Christmas Lost its Power?

Going through Christmas this year I began to wonder if Christmas has lost it’s power as a symbol and sign in our culture today. Symbols can lose power over time and when this happens there needs to be a reformation of those symbols and signs, or a letting go

The Cultural

Interfaith Clergy Letter to the Editor in Clark County

(This is a letter a group of us from Clark County wrote in response to some of the controversy surrounding September 11th this past week. We submitted it to our local papers which did not pick it up so I thought I’d post it here.) This year, a small

The Cultural

There is No Pure Christianity

A long while back a friend of mine wrote on his twitter this remark: There is no pure Christianity, it is all syncretist. And I agree with this point, all Christianity today is influenced to a smaller or larger extent by outside forces. I’m not sure it’s ever

The Cultural

The Wounding of Creation

This morning someone in our meeting requested prayer for the oil spill and during the time of prayer the image of the oil spill came back to me in a powerful way. I envisioned the hole where the spill gushes out as a seeping wound. Creation is deeply wounded, and

Church in Mission

Creating Liberated Spaces: Some Thoughts

Back in February, and on the dawn of Transfiguration Sunday, about 30 (?) folks piled into a Southeastern Portland home to share in a conversation being facilitated by two out of towners Eliacin Rosario-Cruz (Seattle) and Mark Van Steenwyk (Minnesota). The crowd was made up of a number of men and

The Cultural

Simplicity in a World of Excess – John 12:1-8

This week on the pastor’s email list there has been a really long discussion around whether it is appropriate to boycott certain businesses. It all started when a pastor sent around a forward he’d received that claimed that a certain corporation had been working with the immigration enforcement

The Cultural

Favorite Music of 2009

Here’s a list of my favorite, or at least most listened to, albums from this past year. Elvis Perkins In Dearland Elvis Perkins in Dearland’s self-titled, second album arrived this year and it has been in constant rotation on the record player since it’s arrived. It is

Featured

Let’s have an Amazon.com-free Christmas this year

Recently on twitter I said something I’m sure lost me a few followers,  “Let’s make it an amazon free Christmas.” (Though I don’t doubt I say plenty of things on any given day that make people wonder why they associate with me!). But in either case, it’

The Cultural

Dowd on (Role) Modeling

I came across this today while I was doing some back reading from this weekend’s newspaper. It struck me as really insightful: After the baseball steroid scandal and the disappointing news that Tiger’s a cheetah, as the New York Post headline put it, it’s time to accept

The Cultural

‘Dont Buy It’ – Slam Poetry from the Climate Camp for OneClimate.net

Came across this today while reading Jarrod McKenna’s post on climate change over at the sojo blog. The poem is really intense and has that prophetic edge we aren’t real comfortable with but I think it’s worth watching and considering. His message also resonates wtih Rev. Billy’

Church in Mission

Cancel Our Debts?

In my reading of the Disciple’s Prayer (the anabaptist/Quaker name for the Lord’s Prayer), we have to make sure that we don’t limit what forgiveness includes ((See part 3, part 2, and part 1)). Our (Western) tendency is to think of forgiveness in terms of personal

Featured

We All Know That Reality has a Well-Known “Conservative” Bias

One of the things my favorite (fake) newscaster Stephan Colbert says on a regular bias is that “Major media has a well-known liberal bias.” And this is definitely something many people believe. This perspective has cropped up again recently all over the web, and yes on The Colbert Report has

Green

Food, Inc. Documentary on Where Our Food Comes From (Review)

The tag line for FOOD, inc. is “You’ll never look at your dinner the same way again,” and well, they’re right. This for some of you may be the very reason why you decide in advance to not watch it, or to not read the rest of this

Featured

Dive! The Film: A Review of Jeremy Seifert’s Documentary on Dumpster Diving

At Camas Friends Church, we’ve been doing a monthly film and discussion group we’re calling “Last Sundays for the Earth.” The purpose of the event is to watch a film, or have a person come in and facilitate a discussion, around issues in sustainable living (and what we

Featured

Limiting Access: Flickr and Archiving Our Children’s Lives

I’ve been pretty open about sharing our lives online. I regularly post photos on flickr, videos on vimeo, post updates to twitter and facebook and even blog here (on this blog and our family blog “Weird Fishes”) and there about what’s going on with our family. But It’

Featured

My choices for the Quintessential ‘It’s Alright Ma’ Dylan Playlist

The other day I got a message from a friend and former professor of mine from our Malone days, John David Geib, who is in the middle of facilitating a class on all-things Dylan. He’s calling the class, “It’s Alright, Ma (I’m only Bleeding) Deconstructing The Song

Featured

Interventions: Discipleship in a Permissive Culture (Pt 1)

This is my reflections on Luke 14:25-35 from September 20th, 2009 and is in two parts, both work independently from one another. Part two has been published here. It was originally titled: Interventions: Discipleship and the Disavowal of all that Obstructs Reversal of The Sayings: Discipleship in a Permissive

The Cultural

Bob Dylan and the BLACK CROSS (HEZEKIAH JONES)

I was listening to some Bob Dylan the other day when I ran across his version of Black Cross, a poem by Joseph Newman in 1948. I jumped out at me most likely because I’m currently reflecting on the Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan. This poem/song is

The Cultural

The Divine Commodity by Skye Jethani (A Review)

I’m way late to be posting about this book, but I still operate under the “better really late, than even later than that” motto. I was sent “The Divine Commodity” by Skye Jethani, editor of leadership journal, [Powell’s affiliate link embedded] shortly before we packed up all our

The Cultural

(Untitled)

My friend Rhett Smith asked me on twitter yesterday where he should start if he wanted to get into some of Žižek’s writings. There are a few different places to start because he has such a huge corpus and covers a variety of topics. For instance the different