"For the Reciprocity Foundation’s 10-year anniversary, Tagore [co-founder of Reciprocity] teamed up with award-winning photographer Alex Fradkin to challenge common perceptions of homeless youth — by giving these young people the power to portray themselves on their own terms."
The result is an exhibition and a full colour book See Me: Picturing New York City’s Homeless Youth.
Austin Channing, responding to people who are using Martin Luther King's words about non-violence, to speak against the rioting in places like Baltimore, and who in the process miss the bigger picture and the reality of the lives of black people:
When was the last time you heard that from the pulpit? And what kind of response do you think such a statement would get?
In his book Unclean: Meditations on Purity, Hospitality, and Mortality, Richard Beck says:
...the Last Supper is a profoundly deep and powerful psychological intervention.
...
The Last Supper becomes a profoundly subversive political event in the lives of the participants. The sacrament brings real people - divided in the larger world - into a sweaty, intimate, flesh-and-blood embrace where "there shall be no difference between them and the rest."
(p. 114)
Beck also talks about the Eucharist as the great leveler.
The concept of the moral circle makes for a great diagram, and can be thought of as "going around me and my family," kind of like a fence around your backyard with you and your family happily inside it, and those who are "not family" (like strangers and stray dogs) kept outside. Kind of like the walls that used to encircle towns and cities in medieval times.
Jesus subverts the boundary-oriented moral circle...
An aboriginal person and their daughter are looking to rent a room, and this phrase in their kijiji ad caught my eye.
We ARE OF aboriginal descent if this is an issue for anyone...
It suggests that the following scenario has previously taken place, and too many times:
They posted an ad which did not mention that they are aboriginal.
Someone responded positively by telephone.
They went to look at the room.
When the landlord saw them, the room was suddenly no longer available.
And so now, they give a heads up in their ad so that their time isn't wasted.
How many other people do the same? How many others have gotten used to "giving warning", or simply avoiding places where they expect to be rejected?
And what can those of us who follow Jesus, do to make it obvious that everyone truly is welcome and wanted?
And for some, a more important question: will there be sex in heaven?
As always, Jesus has an answer:
p.s.
They say there's nothing new under the sun, but if you google the word "acopulyptic", you won't get any results except from this post once Google indexes it. That's my word, folks!
Dear White Christians: For Those Still Longing for Racial Reconciliation:
"Outlines a new paradigm for American race relations and for achieving racial justice
In this provocative book Jennifer Harvey argues for a radical shift in how justice-committed white Christians think about race. She calls for moving away from the reconciliation paradigm that currently dominates interracial relations and embracing instead a reparations paradigm.
Harvey presents an insightful historical analysis of the painful fissures that emerged among activist Christians toward the end of the Civil Rights movement, and she shows the necessity of bringing "white" racial identity into clear view in order to counter today's oppressive social structures.
A deeply constructive, hopeful work, Dear White Christians will help readers envision new racial possibilities, including concrete examples of contemporary reparations initiatives. This book is for any who care about the gospel call to justice but feel stuck trying to get there, given the ongoing prevalence of deep racial divisions in the church and society at large.:
God, contrary to what one might expect from observing some of God's followers, is very much into thinking. And having thought more about the upcoming bus ad campaign by the Edmonton Atheists Society, God has issued another statement:
Identify the general location of your moral circle.
Act across the moral circle.
Weave connections across the circle.
Expand the moral circle.
Step out of the moral circle.
Step over the moral circle. Live as if the moral circle does not exist.
(This essentially destroys the moral circle, as I only have one if I let it exist, if I live like it does...)
And that's what Jesus does, isn't it?
Jesus acts across the boundaries that others would want him to have, he steps out of the expectations of kin versus not-kin, he lives as if the moral circle does not exist... loving everyone, friends and enemies alike.
