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April 28, 2007
Visitors, friends, and photos oh my!
Over the next few days our friends Nicholas and Leslie are visiting us from the USA.
We met Nicholas and Leslie...well actually, I guess we met them through a few different internet communities we were a part of. Over time, we began ichatting and calling regularly. Now, after having spent New Year's Eve with them in Birmingham Alabama, they are visiting us here in Geneva.
It's great to have them here. The next few days they'll be getting quite an overview of Geneva and getting to spend some good time with us as we go about every day life. Tomorrow we'll spend lots of time with the Vrielings, and the Shema community.
Here are a couple of photos I took today while we were about:
Nicholas, Leslie, and Laura
Stay tuned for more stories, lots of laughter, and more photos of this adventure!
jc
Posted by joshuacase at 11:44 PM | Comments (0)
Seriously good conversations...
Here are a few good conversations from this week. A couple of them are quite deep/intense/mind boggling/important. And again, I am amazed at the way there are always threads within the broader blogosphere that find themselves together!
Paul Mayer's We are all heretics now...
Scot McKnight's- Christianity For the Rest of Us 2
Ryan Dueck's The Elephant in the Room
Mike Clawson's bit on the One Campaign. Great overview and why!
Oh, and other events of important notice this week: Happy Anniversary to Nicholas and Leslie and, Happy Birthday to Lammert and Conny Vrieling (and of course we must remember he is only 90 minutes older;0)
Posted by joshuacase at 09:27 AM | Comments (1)
April 27, 2007
What would you change?
Here is another video from my friend Jeff Semple.
He is on the streets of Kansas City asking "what would you change about your life?" and "what do you dream about that would surprise most people who know you?"
what would you change?
jc
Posted by joshuacase at 08:10 AM | Comments (3)
April 25, 2007
A New Shema Series and More
In the next few weeks we'll be starting a new series at Shema which we feel has some pretty important implications for how we do life with others in Geneva.
Lammert has been blogging about them here a little and you can follow the Shema blog as well.
I'd also like to add this song as a bit of a teaser/taster for where we'll be headed. Thanks again to our patron Saint.
please....jc
Posted by joshuacase at 08:00 AM | Comments (0)
April 24, 2007
More on Vonnegut and our role(s) on Earth
In further honor of Kurt Vonnegut and yesterday's celebration of both World Book and Copyright Day and Earth Day, here is a blog by Lori Harfenist. She does a great job of representing Vonnegut and, well, Vonnegut does a great job of representing himself.
Enjoy!
jc
Posted by joshuacase at 10:26 AM | Comments (0)
Tuesday is for Thomas
Merton wrote:
Yesterday I was sitting in the woodshed reading and little wren suddenly hopped up onto my shoulder and then onto the corner of the book while I was reading and paused a second to take a look at me before flying away.
There is something you cannot know about a wren by cutting it open in a laboratory and that you can know only if it remains fully and completely a wren, itself, and hops on your shoulder if it feels like it.
A tame animal is already invested with a certain falsity by its tameness. By becoming what we want it to be, it takes a disguise that we decided to impose upon it.
I want not only to observe but to know living things, and this implies a dimension of primordial familiarity that is simple and primitive and religious and poor. This is the reality I need, the vestige of God in His creatures.
Posted by joshuacase at 08:29 AM | Comments (0)
April 23, 2007
A First BBQ Party
Here is quick photo slideshow of a party we had this weekend. The photos are not representative of all who were there, or all who we wanted to be there. Nevertheless, here are some photos.
You can see a few more on Darry's blog.
Posted by joshuacase at 04:13 PM | Comments (2)
Voices about Virginia
Here is a compilation of voices concerning the shootings in Virginia (USA) last week. Tragedy almost always brings good reflection.
Brian McLaren's Sorrow Can Make Us Better, Not Bitter
Shane Claiborne's When Voilence Kills Itself
Camel's Nose on Apophenia, the Virginia Tech shootings and the Discordian “23 enigma”
Imaginif's Words to Explain Feelings Following Virginia Tech Shootings
Posted by joshuacase at 10:56 AM | Comments (2)
April 21, 2007
Seriously good conversations...
Here are a few from the last week....
Nicholas Fiedler's Another Vlog
Josh Brown's Faith & Science (Part One)
Jason Clark's Heresy is an attitude
Mike Clawson's Is Science More Ethical Than Religion?
Posted by joshuacase at 11:06 PM | Comments (0)
April 20, 2007
In Memory of Kurt Vonnegut
While i was away, Kurt Vonnegut passed away. I need to mourn this. He shaped much of my college experience. One of the best professors I ever had was good friends with him, was shaped by him, is mourning today as well.
If you are not familiar with Vonnegut, I highly suggest his works. Although, if you are not into literature that takes you off a beaten path, don't go for Vonnegut. He'll take you places...good, dark, deep, and back again.
For a first read try Cat's Cradle.
Here is also an article written by Ryan Beiler at God's Politics on Vonnegut entitled: Kurt Vonnegut, 'Christ-Worshipping Agnostic'.
I'm not an evangelical who reads only what affirms my theology, or failing that, tries to pretend that the artists I like somehow conform to my beliefs. (I tire of the endless debates in evangelical circles about whether Bono is a "real" Christian or not - as if meeting certain criteria would make his music or his activism any more or less legitimate.) I prefer to engage artists on their own terms, and allow them to challenge, provoke, and encourage me to hone my own beliefs - even if my faith is the target of their criticism or satire.
Kurt Vonnegut, who passed away last Wednesday at age 84, was and is my favorite author. If I'm honest, it's mostly because he's hilarious. Yes, he uses coarse language. Yes, he seemed to have difficulty with women, both as characters in his books and in his real-life relationships. But his ability to engage a suffering world with humor is what has endeared me most to his work. As he wrote:
Laughs are exactly as honorable as tears. Laughter and tears are both responses to frustration and exhaustion, to the futility of thinking and striving anymore. I myself prefer to laugh, since there is less cleaning up to do afterward - and since I can start thinking and striving again that much sooner.
That quote comes from Vonnegut's book Palm Sunday, from a sermon he delivered on Palm Sunday in 1980. I recently bought this book after some belabored indecision among the decaying stacks in the used book store, really wanting a funny novel for honeymoon reading more than this compilation of essays and biography. But it was the day before my wedding on Palm Sunday Eve, and I couldn't resist the convergence. Perhaps because of these deliberations, the book ended up costing me $256 due to a ticket I received for unwittingly parking in a poorly-marked handicapped zone. In the spirit of Vonnegut, I could only curse and laugh: So it goes.
With his death following only 12 days later, I'm glad now to have the added insight into his life that this book provided, filling in the cracks that before I had only pieced together from the biographical fragments present in his fiction. So, as my new wife and I enjoyed our first Sunday as a married couple at a remote West Virginia cabin, Vonnegut provided our Palm Sunday sermon, which I excerpt for you free of charge:
I am enchanted by the Sermon on the Mount. Being merciful, it seems to me, is the only good idea we have received so far. Perhaps we will get another idea that good by and by - and then we will have two good ideas. What might that second good idea be? I don't know. How could I know? I will make a wild guess that it will come from music somehow. ...
I choose as my text the first eight verses of John 12, which deal not with Palm Sunday but with the night before - with Palm Sunday Eve, with what we might call "Spikenard Saturday." I hope that will be close enough to Palm Sunday to leave you more or less satisfied. ...
Now, as to the verses about Palm Sunday Eve: I choose them because Jesus says something in the eighth verse which many people I have known have taken as proof that Jesus himself occasionally got sick and tired of people who needed mercy all the time. I read from the Revised Standard Bible rather than the King James, because it is easier for me to understand. Also, I will argue afterward that Jesus was only joking, and it is impossible to joke in King James English. The funniest joke in the world, if told in King James English, is doomed to sound like Charlton Heston.
I read: "Six days before the Passover, Jesus came to Bethany, where Lazarus was, whom Jesus had raised from the dead. There they made him supper; Martha served, but Lazarus was one of those at table with him."
"Mary took a pound of costly ointment of pure nard and anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped his feet with her hair; and the house was filled with the fragrance of the ointment."
"But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (he who was to betray him) said, 'Why was this ointment not sold for 300 denarii and given to the poor?' This, he said, not that he cared for the poor but because he was a thief, and, as he had the money box, he used to take what was put into it. "
"Jesus said, 'Let her alone, let her keep it for the day of my burial. The poor you always have with you, but you do not always have me.'" ...
Whatever it was that Jesus really said to Judas was said in Aramaic, of course - and has come to us through Hebrew and Greek and Latin and archaic English. Maybe he only said something a lot like, "The poor you always have with you, but you do not always have me." Perhaps a little something has been lost in translation. And let us remember, too, that in translations jokes are commonly the first things to go.
I would like to recapture what has been lost. Why? Because I, as a Christ-worshipping agnostic, have seen so much un-Christian impatience with the poor encouraged by the quotation "For the poor always ye have with you."
...
This is too much for that envious hypocrite Judas, who says, trying to be more Catholic than the Pope: "Hey-this is very un-Christian. Instead of wasting that stuff on Your feet, we should have sold it and given the money to the poor people." To which Jesus replies in Aramaic: "Judas, don't worry about it. There will still be plenty of poor people left long after I'm gone."
This is about what Mark Twain or Abraham Lincoln would have said under similar circumstances.
If Jesus did in fact say that, it is a divine black joke, well-suited to the occasion. It says everything about hypocrisy and nothing about the poor. It is a Christian joke, which allows Jesus to remain civil to Judas, but to chide him for his hypocrisy all the same.
"Judas, don't worry about it. There will still be plenty of poor people left long after I'm gone." Shall I re-garble it for you? "The poor you always have with you, but you do not always have Me."
My own translation does no violence to the words in the Bible. I have changed their order some, not merely to make them into the joke the situation calls for but to harmonize them, too, with the Sermon on the Mount. The Sermon on the Mount suggests a mercifulness that can never waver or fade.
This has no doubt been a silly sermon. I am sure you do not mind. People don't come to church for preachments, of course, but to daydream about God.
If you doubt our evangelical creds for reading an agnostic to observe Palm Sunday, you may be alternately reassured that we watched The Passion of the Christ on Good Friday, un-reassured that we watched Life of Brian on Holy Saturday, and were once again sanctified by reading N.T. Wright on Easter as we drove the six hours back to D.C. We've now gone an entire week without sacrilege, and we could use a good laugh.
Posted by joshuacase at 02:08 PM | Comments (3)
Human Trafficking
My friend, brother, artist Jeff Semple put this video together after his trip to Cambodia.
Pretty challenging.
jc
Posted by joshuacase at 11:13 AM | Comments (0)
Seriously....is it that bad? Or that different?
Two bits of news came out in Switzerland the last few days which seem really interesting to me. In fact, they both seem to be sending contradictory messages. But hey, maybe its just me.
Story #1- Nestle is sending out free bars of Chocolate to 95% of the Swiss population. Yep, thats right, over 7'147'000 bars of choclate. People love the idea! They think its great. Especially Nestle, who sees it as a great opportunity to spread the word on thier product. I'm ok with it. If they have that kind of marketing budget...why not.
Story #2- From January 2008 all packs of cigarettes sold in Switzerland (like in some other European countries) will be required to have photos on them. And these are not nearly as nice as the labels on them now which read 'Smoking cigarettes will kill you'. They are pretty in your face. For a fuller presentation of these images..click here!
SO here is my question: why on earth would we be happy about the sending out of free chocolate to loads of people and yet, if i got a free package of smokes in the mail..well that would be wrong?
Yeah yeah, smoking is different from candy you would say, but there are loads of people out there who abuse chocolate more than those who abuse cigarettes. (And i note there are even support groups for people addicted to candy.)But we're not putting bans on eating chocolate with coffee are we? No, we're quite fine with the middle of the road addictions like coffee and chocolate or...we'll you name your indulgence.
At the end of the day, i know that there is a difference. I guess I just wonder how we choose to combat the more than just the 'gross' evils of consumption and we get to the heart of consumption as a whole.
Posted by joshuacase at 09:48 AM | Comments (1)
April 17, 2007
Combatting Corruption..in a neighborhood near you!
The reality is, corruption happens! Whether or not we know where or when or for how long it has gone on may be as much a part of the system we find oursleves in as it is its' hiddenness in plain sight.
Over the course of my time in Kosova, I had several conversations with people about the corruption of systems which had/were in place in many of the countries along our path. Simple corrution which was arrogantly used and religiously applied to make life simpler for those passing through but which inevitably kept the locals under the control of 'the other'.
For instance, while i know it is a common occurance in many countries to pay bribes of all sorts, at what point in the process do people who visit emerging economies quit paying bribes? Sure, and extra ten euro here or there isn't much to let the trouble pass. Yet when the bribe amounts to more about 1/10th of the local monthly income, do we wonder what that does to the locals who can not afford the bribes? What it does to the people who want to be freed from 'the other' yet who can not because formally and informally people pay into the systems of oppression and percieved control of 'the other'
At the end of the day, corruption happens on many levels in every economy. Knowing where and when it happens means becoming part of those systems. Maybe that means becoming grassroots politicians. Maybe that means looking at areas where underprivilege exists and getting involved there. Maybe it means looking at where underprivilege exists, and getting involved in the priveleged places.
Do you know where and when and why corruption it is happening in your part of the world? Do you care? Would you make a difference if you could? Maybe the chorus of this song is God's request of us...'Tell me that you'll open your eyes, Tell me that you'll open your eyes, Tell me that you'll open your eyes....'
Stand up! Speak out! Change things!! Why: Because change matters...and so do they!
jc
Posted by joshuacase at 09:31 AM
Tuesday is for Thomas
Merton reflects/ed:
In the monastery, or ar any rate in choir, I have been forgetting how to think-and only in the last few days have I woken up to the fact that this is very dangerous! I mean the constant, habitual passivity we get into. No matter how honest the surroundings and how clean the doctrine believed in them, no man can afford to be passive and to restrict his thinking to a new rehearsal, in his own mind, of what is being repeated all around him.
But we are not as honest as we think, and our doctrine is not as pure as we hope it is. I least of all can afford to be passive in this place.
One must constantly be asking himself- 'What do I mean by this? Am I saying what I mean? Have I understood what this implies? Have I some noition of the consequences of what I am saying?' I am particularly bad on the last question because usually I think on paper, that is, I often do not really know what I think until it is set out in black and white: then, I can agree or disagree.
Written in 1958...
Posted by joshuacase at 08:44 AM | Comments (0)
April 16, 2007
Not sure if it is good...or bad...but its something
So i was following up with Paul Mayer's blog after my trip to Kosova, and I came across this 'Which Early Church Father Are You' quiz. As i am trying to relax and rest these next few days, I thought...let's give it a go. And...voila...I am Origen. You can read about him here. And I am still trying to figure out if this is a good thing or not...
So, which one are you? You’re Origen! You do nothing by half-measures. If you’re going to read the Bible, you want to read it in the original languages. If you’re going to teach, you’re going to reach as many souls as possible, through a proliferation of lectures and books. If you’re a guy and you’re going to fight for purity … well, you’d better hide the kitchen shears. Find out which Church Father you are at The Way of the Fathers!
Posted by joshuacase at 10:32 PM
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Well, today was a great day. Not only did we get to experience the fullness of Shema together this evening with the community who gathered, but i had the opportunity to have my first bbq in my own back yard in several years. Actually, my first back yard since marriage. Actually, my first back yard in Europe. Actually, my first back yard...well in a while! Here are a few photos from today: Of the BBQ i grilled today: From Shema this evening (lighting is off..but you get the vibe): Of Max & Chris (the children of Lammert and Conny) It is good to be back! I've missed this space! jc
Posted by joshuacase at 11:51 PM
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HI to all- Sorry for the absence. The trip to Kosova was a great experience for all. But i truly missed this part of my everyday existence. What you may not have know; however, was that as soon as we returned, we began a move into a new apartment. Yep, we're crazy. Fortunately, a couple friends from Shema helped me surprise Laura by moving a great deal of all the big stuff while we were away! This has made the move a little easier. So, we're back, and moving. We have another Shema gathering tonight, which i can not wait to be back to as well! Should be a good one. We are experimenting again with several different elements. Watch for stories here. Looking forward to connecting back this week, and sorry for all the junk responses on my blog. I want to keep 'comments open', but they keep getting in! anyway..see you around...
Posted by joshuacase at 09:43 AM
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As you will know, you can really follow the porjects that I am involved with the is week over at the Interyouth blog; however, I wanted to take a couple of moments and post here as well. As you may remember, I did a video blog over at Jason Clark's site a while back on 'Ethical good news'. The conversation was great, and the interaction fun, but this week I am experiencing a bit of the reality of the world of developing economies and strucutures that I hadn't experienced to this degree before. Don't get me wrong, I've seen some of this before..but it feels a bit different this time. Maybe it is the post war nature of the place? Maybe it is the Albanian culture? Maybe it is Islam? It is a deep sense of good discomfort, and I am glad i am experiencing it. Couple of messages that keep coming up: These young people are great. Responding well to difficult conversations, experiences and cultural misunderstandings. But they press on. As we all must, and seek to plot goodness as we go! Afterall, if humanity must prioritize, then we must seek to prioritize the actions of good for all.
Posted by joshuacase at 01:30 PM
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Today, i am coming to you live from Kosova. I do not have much deep to say today, only that there is a real sense of hospitality in this place that really puts to shame any other hospitality i have ever experienced (no offence to anyone). This morning I met with the head of the Police forces for the region. A truly gentle man who seems to be highly esteemed in the area. He was/has been the first one in this position since the conflict. As we met, he said to me (translation) 'In all my years of putting on this uniform, being here with all of you from Geneva and the international community, welcoming you to this city and to this place, is the most honored/proud I have ever been'. No Fadil, we are honored. Thanks for welcoming us. Check out more on the trip our blog here.
Posted by joshuacase at 02:26 PM
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Laura and I are off with a group to Kosovo. Make sure to follow us here. Although, i hope to post some reflections here as well! peace and safe keeping...
Posted by joshuacase at 07:29 AM
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April 15, 2007
Shema, BBQ, and a new apartment
From the chair in the living area of my grill working hard:
Back and moving....
jcApril 05, 2007
Kosovo thoughts so far
1. What the media by in large has presented about much of the situation here, is disconnected from the reality of what is actually going on.
2. Hospitality is a gift and to be a guest, an honor
3. We must be diligent in putting ourselves into situations that will stretch us to experience the realities of others. If we do not, we will only live in the world of the pretend West. People need to know, as some would say, 'how the other half lives', and that is one thing i am excited about doing!April 03, 2007
Tuesday is for Kosova
April 01, 2007
I'm (we're) Off!!
jc