I've moved the blog again.

I know, I know... I'm hoping this is the last time, too.

#1 - I've been a terrible blogger for a couple years now - let's see if this time sticks.

#2 - I've moved this whole thing over to the wonderful world of Wordpress, as our family embarks on a serious adventure. Check it out at http://www.adambam.com/blog

Cheers.

Another Love... [Part I]

I love being a dad. The end.
-----------------------------

There's been far too little blogging going on around here for a long time (for many, many reasons). Nonetheless, I've been itching to tell the world about our newest baby girl, but I've also wanted to put some thought and effort into it rather than simply post a picture with some stats. Months ago I resolved that I would not blog again unless it was about Maya.

So, without further ado, let me introduce my beautiful Maya Annaliese...

*thanks again, Beth, for an amazing birth announcement!*

| PROLOGUE |

So, if you're interested in my wife's lovely version of the labor and birth process, check out Part 1 & Part 2. My version may be slightly less graphic :-) but that’s because she’s a better writer than I. (Forgive me in advance, as I am rarely very good at telling a concise story)

Allow me to lead into the actual birth story with something seemingly unrelated. I would say that the past 5 years have been an important and unexpected journey for both Tara and myself. It's been interesting as we wrapped-up our undergrad, got married, transitioned to the “real world,” charted our collective path forward as “one,” learned more about the world outside of the American bubble, went back to school, traveled abroad, intensified our wrestling with faith & spirituality, got pregnant, had baby Shea immediately following grad school, experienced raising a daughter, and then pregnant again! ::surrrrrprise:: … needless to say, we could have never foretold all the twists and turns life would take (nor would we want to).

I recount all of that to outline the arch of life events that have permanently (and unpredictably) shaped both of us together and individually. The way we perceive the world around us is now… changed. Realities that were commonplace are now intriguing. Situations within our everyday experience now beg questions and curiosity rather than melding into the unnoticeable background. It’s sometimes an uncomfortable place to be, but more often it’s exciting and vibrant which I think comes with unpredictability and newness. If I could wrap it into one phrase, I guess I feel like we’ve gradually shifted to wearing different “lenses”… now confronted with views that point toward journeys rather than destinations. (This paragraph has been vague, I know. Even Tara’s probably reading and at this point thinking, “Heh?”)

What I’m getting at is that these nebulous concepts ultimately end up presenting us with very practical lifestyle questions: Why do we truly want to buy [insert consumer good of choice]? Why do we eat those ingredients we can’t pronounce? How much trash do we create and energy do we use? Why do we buy products from that company? Why do we hold that political/racial/spiritual/cultural viewpoint? … and so on… A lot of these questions usually stem from books we’re reading, experiences in school, conversations we have with friends, and often movies that we see. Such was the case after we watched the documentary, The Business of Being Born.

With the birth of our first daughter, Shea, we were generally going with the flow of standard birthing protocol simply because it was our first pregnancy, and we were generally preoccupied with getting used to the fact that WE WERE GOING TO BE PARENTS!  Yet during our second go'round with Maya, following various conversations and after viewing that documentary, we again found ourselves asking culturally uncomfortable questions, this time about why the American medical community approaches childbirth the way it does (Tara also wrote about her thoughts on the film here).  After much deliberation, we decided to transfer our care from an OB to a wonderful Certified Nurse Midwife, and honestly, I think that was one of the best decisions that we've made as family.  The resulting birth experience, for me, was phenomenal, and I'll use my next post to describe why that was...

Four Years Ago.

Grow old along with me!
The best is yet to be,
The last of life, for which the first was made:
Our times are in His hand
Who saith ‘A whole I planned,
Youth shows but half; trust God: see all, nor be afraid!’
- Robert Browning

Still Alive...

Beh. I know... long time, no post. There's just been "a few things" going on lately (primarily business shtuff). Should be getting a little more space shortly.

Thanks to everybody who voted or left a comment with a vote! That was a fun & intriguing experiment... I would not have guessed that the green building/sustainable architecture topic would have taken the cake, but I'm excited to kick things off with that one.  [Disclaimer: I'm sure I'll have something similar to this on the actual post, but don't get your hopes up too high!... I'm definitely no expert on the topic. Just someone who likes to think about it and learn something here and there.]

----------

Earlier tonight, I conducted an audio interview with Florida artist/sculptor, Eric Higgs [cool dude].  More on all of that later, but I'll wrap this up with a thought that he brought up during our conversation.  We were talking about his creative process, and we were discussing some of the underlying energy inherent to minimalism.  He said something to this effect [I'm paraphrasing]: 

"I take my creation concept, and I just start eliminating things.  I take things away until I remove something that actually [adversely] affects the piece by its absence.  And through this process, you can hopefully progress something down to its purest, most potent form."

I like that.  It can apply to so much.

Help Me...

To: Any reader of this blog who is actually STILL reading after my very spotty posting over the past couple months...
From: The Sporadic Blogger Bam

I'm struggling a bit with the blog here. I'm not short on ideas for posts, but rather I have a hard time guiding myself on which idea I should focus on next. So, I figured I'd try out the "poll" element on the sidebar here and get a little reader-interaction going on.

The following are all post ideas that I will eventually cover [at some point]. I'd love it if you would go through them, decide on your top three selections (assuming you ACTUALLY CARE... heh), and then place your vote to the right. My plan is to then follow the winning topics in order of most popular to least.

Wow, this could really backfire on me if NOBODY votes... or if my wife is the only one that votes (Tara please vote)... so, back me up here, folks. (This is also a great [anonymous] participation opportunity for any of you "lurkers" out there... don't worry, I judge you not... I like to do my fair share of blog-lurking too... it should really have a better-sounding term because I don't think there's anything wrong with it... anyway)

In no particular order...

A - Backyard Vegetable Garden Update
Picking up where this post left off, we've actually got some wicked photosynthesis crankin' the backyard these days...

B - Iraq War Film Reviews/Reflections
I've been doing a lot of documentary-watching exclusively regarding the war over the past couple months, and I would love to try and distill some of my take-aways...

C - Creative Non-Violence Series
I know, I've been threatening with this series for a while. Wherever this ends up in the poll, I can't guarantee that I'll pound out the full series in consecutive posts...

D - Questions & Ideas About the Problem of Population
This is one that I've really been meaning to just get out there, but for whatever reason I just haven't pushed it across the line. The gist of the post will be to offer some perspective as to how our planet's population is sky-rocketing, what that means for Americans, and more specifically what that might mean for our own families [and family sizes]...

E - Wheaton College Professor Fired for Divorce
Thanks to Moses for giving me the heads-up on this one. I'm not really sure where I'm gonna go with this, but it definitely raises some timeless questions...

F - My Explorations in Green Building & Sustainable Architecture
I'm increasingly convinced that the way we build houses around here is broken. But there are a lot of fresh ideas out there... manufactured housing has come a LONG way, my friends... seriously!

G - Thoughts on Patriotism
How patriotic am I? How patriotic should we be? I wonder...

H - An Inside Look at Studio L
A few months ago, I finally pieced together a home recording studio... and then a week later, we found out that we were pregnant again (SURPRISE!!). Thus the studio will need to find a new home in the house shortly (oh the irony). But while I figure that out, I'd love to give you a look at the gear that makes this little studio hum, offer my two cents on how far technology (and affordability) has come in audio recording, and maybe it will be helpful for somebody out there who is thinking about getting a recording set-up. PLUS, I'll give you a quick taste of some of Studio L's first creative output!

I - Neighborhood "Walkability"
This is one that I just came up with after reading Brenda's post. It's funny to think back to some of the different places I've lived in recent years and how drastically different the walkability has been...


Now go hit the polls!!

+

Too many days between blog posts here... a sign of the times.

Some of my favorite blog posts by Joshua Longbrake [seemingly put on ice at the moment...] are his creative additions (generally photography), which are always simply marked by a "+" as the title. So, I'm going to copy this minimalist concept of his (hey, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery right?) and begin offering up some of my meager creative content to the blogosphere from time to time.

And today isn't even MY creation. Ha! [hey it's my blog... I make the rules around here: there are no rules]

=====

My wife shows signs of being a fantastic photographer. My daughter shows signs of being increasingly stunning with each passing day. Pretty good combo, I would say...

DEAL...

... OR NO DEAL??

If you happened to be watching Deal or No Deal on NBC earlier tonight...

... and as the camera panned across the audience near the runway...

... you found yourself wondering, "Hey, was that Ad-- nah..."

... Yes. It was me, and my college buddies. :-)

More on my 4-seconds-combined small-screen debut later... (I haven't even seen it yet!... gonna have to get a TV again eventually)

Bye!

P.S. Howie Mandel: very well-dressed & much shorter than I realized.

What Could Be Better?

Well, my friends, what could be better than hanging out with my little lady in the backyard this last weekend?... [answer to follow pictures]


What could be better than that? Well, hanging out with BOTH OF MY KIDS in the backyard! Yeah, that's right, we've got "anothah one in tha cookah" (as the say in Boston... I'm guessing). I'm pretty sure most of you who read this blog probably know this already, but it's worthy of a post nonetheless!

(And, no, this is NOT some last-ditch effort at a weak April Fool's joke;-)

All smiles at the Bams...

The Backyard [A Pictoral Journey]...

Hey folks! Yeah, yeah... weeks have passed since the last post, I know. A lot's been goin' on (took that weekend trip to LA, been working on Shea's "sleeping" habits, work's been hittin'-the-fan, etc.) More on all of that later...

But for now, I'd like to take you on (what I consider) an amusing tour of our backyard through the years...

Seeing that Tara and I bought the house in which I happened to grow up from my parents after we moved to AZ following college, our backyard is the setting for a lot of my childhood memories: over the years my brother and I played hours of catch, smear-the-[guy-with-the-ball:], & homerun derby; my dad put in a tetherball pole on the sideyard for my 10th birthday; and on an early-release school day back in 1991, I got my first kiss back there... coincidentally from a girl named Tara, HA! (Just for the [wife] record, SHE kissed me! I was defenseless, disoriented, befuddled, bewildered!;-) Anyway...

Given the modest size of the house, the backyard is on the larger side of things. And as time wore on since we first moved-in in 1986, the yard had lost much of its pizazz by the time Tara and I took over.

A shot from the patio looking out shortly after we moved-in (2004).

So, after we took the first year to get settled inside the house as newly-weds (read: paint EVERY interior wall surface, replace light-fixtures, fans, hardware, etc.), I set my sights on the backyard. I was born into a family that always seems to minimize the amount of work involved in the projects that lay before us... the logic goes something like this, "eh, that shouldn't be too bad... I'll just do it myself." :) Thus begins the backyard saga...

As I set out to start the work, I happened to also be starting grad school at the time. I like to spend a decent amount of time creating and designing, so this project was hardly a chore... but, to put it plainly, it. took. for. ever. for me to finish. I used my time in the yard as a release of sorts from the mind-numbing study sessions and stressful days at work... so I'd get an hour here, an evening there... and fortunately I have a very patient wife (when she wants to be;-)

I basically wanted to start from scratch with a clean canvas back there, so I went crazy on whatever was left of that wiry old lawn and KILLED IT ALL, BWAH HAHAHAHA!!-- sorry, got carried away there...

The yard with grass annihilated and the patio extension excavated and formed.

After working out the details of the new design, I decided that a larger patio would make a big difference, so I hired a concrete guy to do the new patio that Tara helped design. While that work was being done, I embarked on another self-imposed side-project of larger than anticipated proportions: a house for Charlie... our bizarre pet.

This dog is 100% weird.

I had this grand idea that I would convert the side yard into a dreamy dog-run for Chuck. A fenced space just for him with his own stretch of grass and a custom-built doghouse. So I installed a wrought-iron fence & gate, and I launched into my doghouse design that I (of course) spent way too much time on...

Ya' darn right I framed-out the doghouse and installed carpet!

So, after killing the old lawn, removing the old tetherball pole that my dad set in FOUR FEET OF CEMENT, digging-up & relocating countless sprinkler heads/zones (kill me), having the new patio built, having the curbing run, relocating the existing walkway pavers, planting four trees, building the doghouse, installing the fence & gate, planting shrubs and flowers galore, spreading 15 tons of decorative rock, spreading new topsoil, and laying 1,800 sq ft of Mid-Iron sod... voila... no big deal, right?... pshhhh.

Everybody loves Before-&-After pictures....

Before


After


Before


After

So, Charlie got his luxurious dogrun, and what does he do??? REJECT IT!

I can count on one hand the number of times I've seen him actually lay down in that blasted doghouse. When we first shut him in the dogrun, he learned that he could use his mad-hops to jump the six-foot gate to the front yard and go cruisin' the neighborhood. Puh... ungrateful mutt.

Which brings me to today. I find myself over there in the dogrun this afternoon with a shovel. And I'm digging up the pristine lawn that I've maintained for Charlie that he never uses (my first tinge of rejection as a father ::sniffle::). Why would I do that, you ask? Because rather than simply growing flowers, grass, and shrubs, we're gonna try our hand at raising food, my friends!

In recent months, we've been helping build a community garden with a bunch of friends, and a number of our friends also have some sweet gardening going on at their homes. And as Tara and I have learned more about the environmental, community, & health benefits to eating locally grown, organic foods, we've got the bug, too.
So, instead of watering & mowing Charlie's stupid patch of grass which he snuffs at with disdain (which makes ABSOLUTELY NO SENSE), I dug it up today. I'll be relocating his house to the main yard (maybe he'll like it out there, HA!), and building a raised-bed vegetable garden in the side yard.

Thus begins the garden saga... we're a little late to the dance in terms of the planting season this spring, but Tara's got some seedlings growing in a tray right now, so we're goin' for it! Updates and pictures to come as things progress...

Wheaton College Hastert Center?

I'm not a frequent letter-to-the-editor author (in fact, I think this is the first one I've ever written). Yet in the recently published alumni quarterly from my alma mater, something caught my eye. And it stuck with me for a few weeks. Eventually, during one the many extended drives to my job site, a response began to formulate in my mind. For whatever reason, as I was laying in bed the morning after my bout with Shea's bug, I felt compelled to write it out and send it in. I imagine the chances of it being published are fairly slim, and being published really wasn't my motivation for writing it in the first place. I think I did it more for myself... for my own clarity as I wrestle with my initial emotions & evolving perspectives and to sort out why I felt the way I did. So I'll share it here as fodder for thought...

Hastert Center Prudent Decision?

As a recent alumnus I count my time at Wheaton an incredibly valuable season in my life. Yet, upon the arrival of the winter 2008 issue, I was struck by the disappointing contrast displayed on page 5. The College’s recent unveiling of the J. Dennis Hastert Center for Economics, Government, and Public Policy subtly promotes to the public a controversial political tone, which does not represent the richness of Wheaton’s heritage or the range of worldviews that currently comprise the college community.

Far from being an attack on Hastert as an individual or on partisan politics in general, my disappointment rises from the ideals that are indirectly advocated by this center’s title: political stature and empire power. Much of my pride in Wheaton as an institution lies in numerous individuals whose progressive actions have humbly shaped the college and the world over the past century and a half: Blanchard & Burr for their abolitionist activism, Elliot & Saint for their radical love, Graham for his tireless voice of a new creation, etc. I fear that the creation of this new center under Hastert’s name undermines the focus of our counter-cultural history in favor of celebrity and endowment.

The issues surrounding government and economics have an ever-important place in a Wheaton education. Yet, in a world where empires are marked by compromise, I hope that wrestling with the interaction between politics and Christ’s teachings is elevated above the status of public office.

Christo et Regno Ejus.

I did my best to be concise and to the point (which is definitely not a strength of mine:-), and hopefully my point comes across.

The concept of a private, Christian educational institution is a difficult one. There is a constant rub between the pursuit of excellence and the humble ways of Christ (my sophomore dorm-floor buddy, Ariah, has written about his struggle with this dichotomy). I went through varying degrees of spiritual crises myself during my time there (some that I am still working through and expect to for the rest of my life). Yet, what I enjoyed about the College was how the community generally welcomed the questioning... that we were frequently directed to prod and inspect our surroundings... to grapple with the things being presented to us, etc. And it's in that spirit that I wrote this editorial piece.

Wheaton's alumni community is peppered with radical lives and powerful minds that embodied sincere efforts to engage the world... the people I speak of were not predisposed to building the empire of a nation, but instead were/are overwhelmed with a compulsion to subvert the status quo and build the Kingdom of God in a multitude of ways. Accordingly, I worry when it appears that the College leadership has embraced political positioning for the added benefit of a bolstered financial endowment.

The irony in all of this to me is that the school's President Litfin (a man whom I respect) writes his closing column in the same issue about the task of a Christian scholar:

"The Christian's intellectual task is, they believe, incomplete until we look along our subject matter, asking in what ways what we're seeing relates to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. This is essentially what it means to think Christianly about a subject, and it extends into every course, across every discipline, throughout the entire curriculum."

I guess I'm just not convinced that this level of analysis is displayed in the establishment of this new center.

Anywho, as if this post wasn't long enough already, I want to also point those who are interested to a recent article written by Andrew Sullivan at Time.com, My Problem with Christianism (HT: Zach Lind). I won't go into too much detail, but suffice it to say that it articulates many of my current sentiments very well. I'll close with this excerpt...

"I dissent from the political pollution of sincere, personal faith. I dissent most strongly from the attempt to argue that one party represents God and that the other doesn't. I dissent from having my faith co-opted and wielded by people whose politics I do not share and whose intolerance I abhor. The word Christian belongs to no political party. It's time the quiet majority of believers took it back."

I'm Back!

Welp... sorry for the hiatus here folks. After a session of fun-with-the-stomach-flu with Shea a couple weekends ago and general life craziness lately, blogging's been put on the back-burner. But here's a quick update to prove that I'm still alive:

- I've still got that silly "population" post coming... I'll get right to it! (later) :-)

- I'm excited to tell y'all more about Studio L when the time is right... so sooner than later.

- I'm looking forward to having a Man's Weekend (Meekend?) in LA pretty soon with my old college buddies (pictures [maybe video?] to come post-Meekend...)

- I mentioned that I plan to do a series on non-violence, and that's still in the works. But as an intro to these matters, I'm participating in a conversation with Jake (my wife's childhood-friend's husband near Rochester, New York... whew, what a title!) on his recently established blog, Faith in Freedom. He began his thoughts with this post, and expanded with his take on war, to which I have just responded. Hop over there and check it out if you're interested, and add to the discussion (constructively) if you'd like.

**photo credit - War by Gadjo Dilo

Proud daddy...

Tara just made a short video for her mom on her birthday...

Happy Birthday, Grandma! from Arizona Bam on Vimeo.

Needless to say, I'm a proud papa. :-]

The Story of Stuff.

I know what you're thinking: "Wow, two posts in two days!?" Amazing, right?

Actually, I just came across this short film earlier today, and I was very impressed & encouraged... so I had to tell the five of you about it, too!! It's called The Story of Stuff, and I cannot recommend it enough. It is a very important, fast-paced, cleverly-delivered 20 minute experience. (Maybe this film is old news, but it's fresh to me... I really hope it has a viral spread). It really resonated with me because Annie Leonard (in conjunction with Free Range Studios) has been so successful in reframing the current reality of the developed world in a concise, factual, and unpretentious way.

Check it out!

Seven Unremarkable & Random Facts...

Welp, folks, I've been tagged by Katie on this one, so I'm gonna stand and deliver! :-)

Here are the rules for the game:
*Link to the person that tagged you
*Post the rules on your blog.
*Share 7 random and/or weird facts about yourself on your blog.
*Tag 7 random people at the end of your post and include links to their blogs.
*Let each person know that they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blogs.

OK, so I read some really insightful words by a dude in Seattle recently, and one his thoughts was this:

"It is impossible to truly know someone via the internet. ... The internet is a place where everyone puts the things out there that they want to be known, for obvious reasons."

I'm sure I'm guilty of that in all sorts of ways, so I going to try to throw out a few random facts that I'm not particularly proud of... just to keep things real around here:) [this could be brutal...]

1. I really do not like any sort of contact with my belly-button.
I couldn't really tell you why this is, but it just doesn't feel right to me... maybe because it's somewhat like an "amputated region", if you will... ha, gross! In my mind, it's similar to touching wooden popsicle sticks and/or wooden spoons to my teeth...eek (not the "amputated" aspect, just the "not right" part). Suffice it to say, I can't stand to even touch it myself... so don't even think about it (TARA!).

2. For the better part of my childhood, I had poofy hair... and i was short... and scrawny.
That's pretty much it people. Poofy hair + short + scrawny² = LADIES MAN. And by "ladies man," I really mean "ladies mascot." I had no game, as they say. The ethos that I just described above carried me well into high school where all the girls thought I was cute... cute like a 1991 troll doll. Fortunately, I grew smart enough in junior high to cut off the brillo pad, God donated to me a few more inches, and I toned-up just in time to catch Tara's eye at Wheaton. Whew.

3. In third grade, one of my prized drawings was my detailed rendering of M.C. Hammer.
Too Legit, baby. I spent a lot of time drawing as a child. It was the thing that my best friend, Clint, and I would do day after day as we aspired to be cartoonists for either Disney Studios or Warner Bros. (this was back in the Animaniacs & Tiny Toons days). So, given my acute perception for the fine arts, what else would I spend days upon days working on than a tedious drawing of Hammer himself? Envision it, friends: bulky gold chain on the wrist, masterfully trimmed mustache, and, of course, the signature shaved lines on the side of his head. My mom helped me frame it, and it hung on my wall for years.

4. I tend towards being quite orthogonal.
I came across this word for the first time a few months ago in this cool article, and when Tara heard the definition she said, "Whoa... that's you." And I agree, to a point. For as long as I can remember, I've been a borderline case of OCD... but really it's just a tendency of mine, not an actual condition. Truthfully, I think my attention to detail in certain situations is simply reflective of my bent to be orthogonal. Aesthetically I'm, more often than not, drawn to clean, profound lines where the simplicity begets a deeper reality/symbolism... a harmony and balance. One thing that rubs me wrong, though, is when people interpret this tendency of mine as "linear." I just don't perceive myself that way...

5. I believe that social enterprise is changing the world.
Organizations such as the Skoll Foundation and Ashoka are really on to something here. This stuff really gets my mind pumping.

6. I am white.
Most of you are probably saying to yourself, "Uh, yeah Adam... I know (idiot)." No, unless you REALLY know me, you don't understand that I'M REALLY WHITE. Embarrassingly so... but only in an America-gotta-be-tan-for-my-photo-shoot sort of way. I've often thought we should move to Norway... or Sweden... where most people look JUST LIKE ME! [kidding].

7. I don't know what happened to my toes!...
...but they seem to work just fine. Alright, this is pretty embarrassing (in any country), but for whatever reason my toes are pretty dang ugly. Tara and I were just laughing about this one, and she had the grand idea that we TAKE A PICTURE OF THEM! Oh man, THEY LOOK BROKEN DON'T THEY?! Ha, I don't know why I went along with her on this one, but here goes nothin' [apologies in advance... I did my best to "pretty it up" with a little sepia-tone and vignette]:


Good, great, grand. Thanks for making it this far! And, in line with the rules, I now tag the following victims to carry-on this tomfoolery: Jacob, Justin, Jeremiah, Jamie, Whitney, & Moses!

::fatherly sigh::

My daughter took her first steps today.

::weep::

I know I'm supposed to be "thrilled," but I can't help but feel like this is her first step towards not needing Daddy and Mommy as much anymore:-/

I know that I don't post about my experience as daddy a whole lot on this blog... but that's really just because I can't keep up with this little girl! Every parent says it, but my baby Shea REALLY IS growing up too quickly! There have been MANY challenging parenting moments for me during her 8.5 months thus far, but I can't even describe how overwhelmed with love I am for this little wonder-woman.

Note to Shea: Slow down... please.

[man, am I gonna be a sobbing-wreck when she goes to her first day of school!]

Merry Christmas!

Here I am, at the in-laws' place in the Bay Area of California. I always enjoy making the trip out here, and I am constantly telling Tara how happy I am that she's not from North Dakota or some other fill-in-the-blank-bummer-state! (no offense N. Dakotans;-)

Tara and I had a funny little exchange on Facebook the other day (especially considering our current setup)...


Mistletoe? Psshh. HDTV! It's a groovy kind of love, people:)

The End of Suburbia.

I love movies (just had to get that out there). I love the motion-picture medium, I love transcendent acting, I love the special effects, I love the wide range of audioscapes, on and on. And yet, when I look at my Netflix queue and history, it’s completely dominated by DOCUMENTARIES. If that makes me a GEEK, well then give me the pocket-protector because the wedgie fits! Documentaries are rockin’. Oftentimes biased towards a particular viewpoint, yes, but a great source of new perspectives nonetheless.

Accordingly, I’ve experienced a number of impactful documentaries lately. One of which deserves a separate post (which I plan to give) and another that I’ll talk about now...

It’s called The End of Suburbia: Oil Depletion and the Collapse of the American Dream. I watched it a few weeks ago and when it finished, I just sat silently... and thought... and worried (a little). Okay, I’m not gonna lie to you: it pretty much freaked me out for the evening. Yet given a few weeks to reflect on the topics, I’m not freaked out anymore, but instead I’ve been downgraded to simply “soberly concerned.” ;-)

The premise of the film centers upon the concept of Peak Oil (yes, despite the inherent downfalls of Wikipedia, this link offers some decent info on this concept). And while certain people interviewed come across as “alarmists” foretelling a Malthusian catastrophe, the science underlying their theories pretty much stands alone.

At Thunderbird, we were consistently guided to keep the concept of Risk Management in the forefront of our sights as business managers. And this film profoundly touched the risk management nerve in me. I’m increasingly convinced of the unavoidable problems of American suburbanism (both from a land-developer’s perspective and from a spiritual perspective). Obviously, this view is in direct opposition to what I currently do for a living, but the intricacies of that situation and my plans for the future aren't something I'm going to divulge on a public blog [but feel free to ask me about it all if we're ever hanging-out in person:-]. Anyway, without fleshing out anymore of the details of the film, how about I just pose some of the questions that have been rolling around my skull as a result?

- What if the suburban lifestyle (which America promotes and accelerates) that thrives on consumption, individualism, and driving becomes virtually unworkable in the not-too-distant future due to oil production issues?

- What will the economic & social transition period look like? How devastating will it be?

- Could the transition effectively eliminate the “middle class” (for some amount of time)?

- Is New-Urbanism the only solution? If not, then what else?

- America looks to be, hands-down, the most ill-prepared for this new world economy... could this “event” effectively end the six to seven decade reign of U.S. geopolitical dominance?

And more personally…

- What does this mean for my family?

- What sort of actions should I take right now to prepare/safeguard?

I really do have quite a bit of confidence in the entrepreneurial zeal and innovation that is a hallmark of American culture, but there’s definitely a rub here, in my mind. While my parents’ generation (the Baby-Boomers) will likely live almost their entire lives in a world that operates under U.S. hegemony, I feel fairly comfortable saying that my generation will see these circumstances unexpectedly change. And it’s kind of uncomfortable to think about: because, as Americans, we’re used to calling the shots in a lot of ways... we’re used to having numerous currencies pegged to our dollar... we’re used to countries importing our entertainment, our culture... we’re used to foreigners speaking “our” language in THEIR land rather vice versa. Even I, someone who dislikes many of these aspects of the U.S., am instinctively unnerved by the thought of living under a different regime.

So, there it is. Sorry for the wordy post... (why do my ramblings end up being so wordy??) I’ve formulated some responses to the above questions, but nothing of much worth. I’d be very interested to hear anybody else’s thoughts on these matters.

(And we haven’t even touched on the spiritual implications of all of this! Oy… must lie down:-)

*Photo Credit: SingInYourSleep

Serve God, Save the Planet (Part II)

My lovely wife recently finished this book and wrote out her resulting thoughts, and this reminded me that I never wrote the Part II of my review that would logically follow my Part I (uh, duh). So, in contrast to Part I which was mostly transcribed statistics, I’m going to throw out some more intangible thoughts that I’ve been rolling around as a result of this book lately.

Just to clarify, I never want to come across as claiming to be an expert in these matters. That’s certainly not the case (which is a notion that you should feel comfortable applying to pretty much anything I write about on this blog!:-). While I often enjoy getting into the science and tedious details of some of these complicated issues, I’m very certain that I’m only getting a glimpse of the larger realities, and thus I feel most comfortable simply talking about these matters from my perspective as a regular guy with a family in America who’s trying to pursue Jesus.

And it’s at this level of interaction where the author, J. Matthew Sleeth, connected with me. I don’t think everything he writes in this book is gold-plated truth or wisdom. But the framework that he proposes ideas within is what resonated with me. Instead of touting from a soapbox about how the sky is falling and that there’s a toasty place in hell for all of us who are contributing to the problems, Sleeth speaks plainly to our humanity... to the systemic mindsets that are manifested in problems of our physical world. Let me give you an example:

“The content mind is one of the greatest obstacles to a rich spiritual life. The content mind is a proud mind. It has nothing to learn; it has an answer to everything and no more questions to ask” (62).

The motivation of the book is not to persuade readers to be “treehuggers.” Rather, Sleeth is challenging all of us to strive for a proper sense-of-self... to view our actions within a global reality... to live radically and counter-culturally because this is what Jesus incited his followers to do. And when this is done, it just may end up looking treehugger-y... and it can be transforming & divinely beautiful.

While I’ve read some reviews from other folks who felt that Sleeth comes across as judgmental and preachy, I didn’t get that sense. While he does speak about some very specific lifestyle issues (e.g., electricity use, parenting, food, Sabbath observance, consumerism, etc.), I never perceived his statements as black-and-white declarations. I just took them as really challenging observations/propositions on his part. The fact that I felt stung a few times points only to my personal conviction, not a superiority complex of Sleeth. And that’s because, above all, he speaks to the condition of our hearts:

“It is not our possessions or our homes that will keep us out of heaven, but our unwillingness to set them aside in service of the Lord” (142).

So, yes, I highly recommend the book because it really stirs up some motivation to actually make some changes in my lifestyle (rather than just stirring up a bunch of head-nods and thoughtful “hmmms…”)

Hmmm.

Enough on that.

(I was now going to transition to talking about a film I recently viewed, but this is long enough... so come back in a couple days and I’ll post my film thoughts then. Thanks for reading!)

*Photo Credit: Forestgladesiwander

Bleh.

I was trying to talk myself into making a decent post tonight... but that's not going to happen. "Why?" you might ask. Because I have a head cold. And I'm a pansy. A pansy with a head cold.

So in lieu of a post of any substance, here's my upcoming blogging prospectus for those of you who are even remotely interested:

- Gonna wrap up my Serve God, Save the Planet review that I left open-ended (plus I'm gonna throw in a film review of a recent documentary that seriously caused me to pause.)

- Gonna get a few thoughts out on the concept of "population" and pose a few related questions that are rolling around in my head.

- Gonna get a series of posts going on the concept of "non-violence," which will likely included meanderings from Fight Club, to Jared Diamond, to my childhood fist-fights, to Darfur, to James Bond, to the Revolutionary War, to Jesus Christ, to Transformers, to Uganda, to the Forbidden City, to the Mennonite tradition. Yikes, how am I going to make sense of all that?? I have no idea... but tune in to find out!!:-)

----------

Okay, I'll leave you with a haiku (the beloved poetic form of my buddy, Justin;-)... because, really, what else would I leave you with??

Head Cold Pansy

Sinus explosion
Wishing for softer tissues
Snot... tremendous snot.

Degrees of Separation (Thorns). [Part 2]

Okay, just to recap the main points from last time:-)
- The advanced world around us (particularly in the U.S.) confronts us with a deluge of distractions from God... oftentimes in unassuming areas of our lifestyle.
- A key temptation is to separate our faith from our lifestyle... to justify certain aspects of how we live (or to glaze over particular social issues) as unrelated to what we believe about who Jesus was and the movement he came to enact on this earth.

Let's jump to some excerpts of one of Jesus's parables (that I'm sure many of you have heard) as recorded in Matthew 13:

"A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants. Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop - a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown. He who has ears, let him hear."

I want to pull out some ideas from the italicized section above regarding the thorns. Let's hear how Jesus later explained this particular section of the parable:

"The one who received the seed that fell among the thorns is the man who hears the word, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke it, making it unfruitful."

Also hear how Eugene Peterson adapts the same passage in his interpretation, The Message:

"The seed cast in the weeds is the person who hears the kingdom news, but weeds of worry and illusions about getting more and wanting everything under the sun strangle what was heard, and nothing comes of it."

This is where I conclude degrees of separation = thorns.

Thorns that separate... temporal worries... deceptive "wealth"... wanting more and more... chokes it... precludes fruit. What are these thorns? Fashion trends? Houses? Cars? Electronics? Debt? Church buildings/financial-"needs"? Television? A Job? Career goals? Food? Obviously none of these inherently strangle-out what God is trying to do with those who believe in Him. But I do know that various combinations of this list act as degrees of separation for many people around me... especially myself. And this isn't the kind of situation where we realize what's happening and say, "Hmm... yeah, that's not too good. I should get around to making some changes at some point." If we are who we say we are (follower of Jesus), and we're about what he's about (building the Kingdom), then these separating thorns are severely important to identify and address.

Now, I don't really know exactly where I come down on the whole "once-saved-always-saved" debate, but I find myself leaning towards there being a much more dynamic reality at play than simply saying the proper prayer to shore up your eternal destiny. I guess what I'm resistant to is this view's lulling sense of security that often creates complacency and impotence in its adherents.

Life is to be lived, not won. People are to be unconditionally loved, not converted. The kingdom Jesus spoke of is not simply an enchanted afterlife that we get our ticket for now, but rather it is intended to be brought forth within our world today, our city, our neighborhood, our home by humble action. humble. action.

This takes me to a few final thoughts on degrees of separation = pride.

The common thread in all of this is an adjustment of how we perceive ourselves. I would argue that at the core of building the Kingdom is the minimization of self. The deception of wealth pumps pride into our veins: I need this, I deserve that, I want this, I'm unhappy without that. As we hack away at the gaps between God and ourselves we begin to see how little we really do need (by our cultural standards), and it also bears a genuine mind of gratitude for the essential things that God does provide for us: health for my little girl, shelter for my family, lack of violent war in our streets, etc.

Don Miller gave a fantastic talk at Mars Hill last week titled Story. (I highly recommend giving it a listen). The key takeaway for me is that our lives are all stories being written in real-time. And stories where the main character is primarily driven by self-service, by shallow goals, and by near-sightedness are boring. They don't draw interest to the character's personality and they lack value.

Degrees of separation make our stories boring. They feed our bloated sense of self, and they distract us from what would make for a wildly interesting journey: one charged with challenge, action, devotion, uncertainty, & faith; lined with selfless love. And this is a lesson that I'm trying to learn so that I can pass it on to the next generation.

*Image credit: Flightsaber