Feb03

How to Make Time Stand Still

by Kelly on February 3rd, 2012 at 10:05 am
Posted In: Contemplative Spirituality, Culture

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Take a look at these two pictures.  My wife snapped them at the same spot in Dinosaur Valley State Park six years apart.  Aside from the obvious size difference in my children, you’ll notice the baby fat on my son’s arms has disappeared, replaced with lean muscles from playing mega hours of tennis.  My daughter’s cherubic figure has been replaced with that of a young girl.  And my hair looks decidedly, um, lighter.

Moments like these remind me of the relentless motion of time.  And the constant battle I have to wage against our modern era’s unhealthy view that time is a commodity.  That it’s the enemy.  Or that it must be strictly managed in order that we can be more productive.

Because these notions lead us to the same mistake with time that some of the ancient Jews made with the concept of the Sabbath during the fleeting days of Jesus.  As the author of the Cloud of Unknowing wrote in an age far from now, “Time is made for us; we’re not made for time.”  He explains, “God, the giver of time, never gives us two moments simultaneously; instead, he gives them to us one after another.  We never get the future.  We only get the present moment.”

And it’s the present moment that all too often gets squandered.

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Jan18

That’s So 12-Seconds Ago

by Kelly on January 18th, 2012 at 9:39 am
Posted In: Culture

You’ve probably seen this commercial. Two guys in lawn chairs at a tailgate party entranced with their cell phones. Every time a real person comes into the scene to ask a question, the lawn chair guys have the answer that they smugly give with the tagline, “That so ___ – seconds ago.”

Now, I get it. AT&T, known for their fickle technology, wants to convince us that their network is fast, and so they put these quirky commercials together to demonstrate that their phones are fast.

In another one, two women are sitting side-by-side in a cafeteria, equally dazed by their cell phones. When one character asks the two if they knew Fred was leaving, the girls reveal that they had already thrown the party and consumed half the face-cake. They show an online video to prove it.

Beyond the humor, though, there is a disturbing commentary found in these commercials. And not just the “get your head out of your cell phone” rant that many people angrily posted in the comment section of YouTube.

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Dec09

Why do some Christians feel that Israel must be supported at all cost?

by Kelly on December 9th, 2011 at 9:39 am
Posted In: Church History, Culture

 

Recently a Jewish Professor at Baylor University was fired, allegedly for proclaiming that Israel has committed human rights atrocities and that the Palestinians have a right to their own state. As you can imagine, this has garnered a great deal of attention both for and against the action.

Aside from the political and academic implications of this event, which I’m sure are quite complicated, there is this ideology that has emerged as the flashing point: Evangelical Christians must support the actions of modern Israel at all costs. And to go against Israel’s interests is to go against God’s will.

Where did this come from?

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Nov29

Beauty and the Multi-Billion-Dollar-Evil Beast

by Kelly on November 29th, 2011 at 11:46 am
Posted In: Culture

This morning I read an article about the most recent backlash to altering photographs in magazines. It seems there are some calling for editors to give “full disclosure” concerning printed pics. They demand that a score be given (from 1 to 5) to indicate how much a picture has been processed. The article included before and after pics of celebrities and models to incite a feeling of injustice in us all. As I studied the pictures it became clear that every change made to the “before” pic was designed to make the “after” pic look younger and thinner. Grey was darkened, skin splotches removed, waistlines thinned to the degree that in a couple of the examples the images looked like two completely different people.

I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know, but in our culture we are obsessed with beauty as defined by skinny and young. The problem is that the natural way of things is for people to grow old. And even for those of us who still maintain our weight, it has a tendency to shift from places we want it to be (lips and cheeks) to places we don’t want it to be (stomach, thighs and the other cheeks).

And so war has been declared on ugly, defined as flabby, wrinkled and splotched (aka getting old). 8 billion dollars is spent on makeup each year. Over 9 billion is spent on cosmetic surgery. Rihanna alone spends $23,000 a week on her hair. Yes, A WEEK! On her HAIR!

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Nov22

When did it become “liberal” to care about the poor?

by Kelly on November 22nd, 2011 at 11:38 am
Posted In: Church History, Culture

 Hell’s Kitchen in New York

I don’t know about you, but I’ve always found it a bit distressing that in the gospels Jesus tells us to be generous and compassionate toward the marginalized, even suggesting in the parable of the sheep and goats that it will be a litmus test for getting into heaven. And yet, if you express concern about these issues in any way in many conservative circles, you will earn their suspicion or even derision for being a “liberal” or “unbiblical” or “unchristian.” A prime example of this can be found in the way conservative pastor Rick Warren has been treated by many of his colleagues for suggesting that maybe Christians ought to care about AIDS victims, the environment, and poverty.

So when did this happen? In the first century, the very first formal ministry adopted by the church was to care for the widows and the orphans by providing food and care. And Acts 2 describes the church as sharing everything in such a way so that the church could give to anyone who had need. Try suggesting that in your next church business meeting and you will probably be shouted down as a communist. So how did we go from Acts 2 to where we are to today?

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