Green Your Christmas Week One

Toys.

It seems to me that no matter who you are, no matter who lives in your household, you seem to be scouting out great toy deals around the holidays for some little tyke. Luckily for those of us who encounter little ones on a regular basis (and buy colorful, entertaining devices for those little munchkins), there are more and more GREEN toy options popping up everywhere--even local box stores, which really have to have motivation to change their inventory to costlier options.

Green toys are truly mainstream now and readily available. Its refreshing to buy a toy that fosters creative play and critical thinking, are non-toxic and aren't easily broken! To many people, this more than off-sets the cost investment of quality products that aren't made of imported plastic. The following are a couple of options to consider:

*Melissa & Doug (www.melissaanddoug.com)--frankly, these toys are very comparable cost option!
*Soopsori (www.soopsori.com)--free shipping!
*Green Toys (www.greentoys.com)--sells not only their products but link to a slew of other green toy sites
*Plan Toys (www.plantoys.com)--inventive, unique designs
*Target & Amazon (www.target.com & www.amazon.com)--believe it or not, both of these sites offer fairly significant green toy collections

But, lest we forget, adults deserve green toys, too!

*Gaiam (www.gaiam.com)--quality products for sustainable living
*Portable sustainable solar charger (www.amazon.com)--pretty...cool
*First World Trash (www.firstworldtrash.com)--chic, urban products made completely from recycled materials
*Eco-artware (www.eco-artware.com)--various luggage pieces made from recycled firehose (!!!)

In fact, green products are so easy to find, and they're often much more unique than anything you can purchase from your local box store. A quick Google search is a perfect place to start.

Not 95 But 9 Theses: Best I Could Do In A Pinch

This past summer my wife and I had an opportunity to tour the Laurentian Library in Florence.  The building was designed by Michelangelo to house the books and manuscripts of the Medici family, including the oldest manuscript of the Latin Vulgate Bible, sixth-century Syriac Rabula Gospels, and many other priceless and ancient documents.  (Ask Lenore; she has pictures!) 

As exquisite as the building is, what struck me the most was the pew like reading desks where once the ancient books were kept, prior to modern preservation in controlled environments.  Imagine a few select scholars sitting at those desks pouring over the books, so rare and priceless in the days prior to the printing press that they were chained in place.  It was a different time.  Even today one must be a recognized scholar to have any access at all to the books beyond a few on display in glass cases.

I thought of this library again because this morning CLC had a guest preacher, E. Dean Windhorn, who for the sermon dressed up as Luther in Reformation garb, and reminisced as if an old man looking back over the major events of his life.  Amazing how a little theatrics spices up a sermon.  What caught my attention was the fact that it wasn’t until Luther became a Doctor of Sacred Theology that he had regular access to a manuscript of the Bible.  It was because of this access that Luther began his Reformation journey, why he was stimulated to author the 95 Theses, why he ended up crosswise with the Church, and ultimately why he translated the Bible into his native German so that others might have the access he had, as printing technology developed.

Luther's 95 Theses were of course controversial.   They were designed that way.  They were intended to be confrontational, to provoke people.  The readers were invited to debate the issues with Luther, and he expected opposing views.  He expected to touch off a conversation.  And he did.  However, if you read those theses now, they sound a little disconnected from today’s world.  We have lived through the Enlightenment, the discovery of the New World, the Industrial Revolution, have an entirely different understanding of the universe, and have raised worldwide human communication to a level of real time pervasiveness not even imagined in the days of print technology.  The questions we ask of our world and of our place in it are necessarily quite different than the questions Luther asked of his world.

The 19^th century pictured Jesus as the ultimate Enlightenment man, a European Caucasian with long flowing blond hair, who lived morally perfect in a flawed world.  Most of the 20^th century, reacting to that 19^th century image, followed Albert Schweitzer in picturing Jesus as a darker more ethnic Mediterranean type, proclaiming the apocalyptic end of the world ruled by Rome.   Most of the church still likes that apocalyptic image of Jesus, but conveniently forgets that Schweitzer saw Jesus as a tragically failed apocalyptic prophet.   Current scholarship, in opposition to Schweitzer, offers a picture of Jesus as a wisdom teacher, a man with penetrating insights into human nature, who used parables to provoke us to ask ourselves life’s most basic questions.  Every age imagines Jesus as the perfect embodiment of those virtues and values it holds most dear, the ultimate answer to what the current world most needs.

Just as every age rediscovers Jesus for its own time, Paul’s relation to Jesus is rethought anew.  We have moved from the Reformation’s theological and religious Paul to a quite different Paul.  A Paul that is understood in a real 1^st century historical setting, rather than an abstract theological setting.  A Paul who remained faithful to his Jewish roots rather than a Paul who started a new religion.  A Paul in the context of Roman Empire rather than a Paul exclusively in a Jewish religious setting.  A Paul sensitive to gender issues rather than a Paul trapped in a male patriarchal world.  A Paul as much political as religious.  In short, Paul as community organizer rather than Paul as abstract theologian. 

When our understanding of Paul changes, our understanding of church changes also.  So I offer these 9 contemporary insights into Paul to get you thinking about their implications for reforming church in our day.

1.       Paul was not a systematic theologian, but more what we would call today a community organizer.  We need to quit arguing about what was the essence of his systematic thought, and focus instead on how he was trying to motivate people to action in his culture.  He motivated communities using metaphors and grand symbols.  His reinterpretation of the Jewish idea of a General Resurrection restoring this earth was the grandest metaphor of the bunch.  Metaphors are neither scientifically true nor false, neither morally good nor bad.  They are a way of talking about human reality. 

2.       Denominations need to pitch their catechisms, and quit pretending that church is all about correct religious thinking, as opposed to the wrong thinking of ‘others’.  Community organizers worth their salt don’t care about how people think.  They care about what people are doing together in the community. 

3.       Paul was Jewish, and he didn’t ‘convert’.  He remained a Jew with a modified appreciation of Jesus, a fellow Jew.  Jews are not legalistic hypocrites to any greater degree than people in today’s churches are legalistic hypocrites.  And truth be told, probably less so. 

4.       The doctrine of grace needs some revisiting.  When asked rhetorically in Romans 3:31 whether he was nullifying the law, Paul’s response was a vigorous ‘Certainly not!  We are affirming the law.’  Paul was trying hard to emphasize a point, and Protestantism ought to pay attention to what he was getting at. 

5.       Jesus critiqued primarily his own Jewish culture, which was laboring under the strains of Empire.  Paul’s life work was to welcome ‘the nations’ (Gentiles) as partners with Jews, reasoning that Jews and the nations were jointly subjugated by Rome.  Since in God’s scheme of things they were all in the same boat, it made (divine) sense to be supporting one another.  Paul used the Father Abraham and Second Adam metaphors to convince people, Jews and other nations subjugated by Rome, that they had common interests.  Unfortunately, after the Jewish revolts failed, ‘the nations’ threw Judaism under the bus to protect their own skin in the Empire.  That has continued now for 2000 years.  It needs to end. 

6.       Scholars need to let go of the notion that their work actually means something, if it doesn’t somehow get down and dirty with real people in community.  Churches can’t long exist without knowledge of their roots.  Scholars need the church, and the church needs scholarship.  But the two haven’t been talking to each other lately.  As our church sign currently says, Ignorance of the Good Book has reached biblical proportions! 

7.       Just because it was right for Paul or Jesus in the first century doesn’t mean it is right for us in the 21^st century.  America is an empire, but it isn’t the Roman Empire.  They didn’t struggle with life then so that we could stick our heads in the sand now.  Paul and Jesus lived their lives among the vanquished, not among the victors. 

8.       In the last 500 years we have become overly fascinated by printed communication, which is more individual and more abstract.  The more natural mode of human social communication, in all previous human history, is visual and metaphorical.  Steve Jobs was on to something, moving from text back to image.  The Church needs to pay more attention to its metaphors, and less to its theology.  MLK didn’t move people with academic books on the equality of all people.   “I have a dream . . .” is what moved people, and that is a metaphor.  

9.       The Reformation has run its course, and the church needs to build on a new foundation.  The world is a different place, and different questions are being asked.  Human community today needs to rediscover substance before cosmetic fixes.  Paul is where the Reformation started, and Paul is where we need to return, to start again. 

What if church wasn’t about ‘converting’ people?  What if Paul really wasn’t gender biased?  What if we quit debating whether metaphors are true, and started debating what they mean?  What if God really wants us to participate in resurrecting this world?  Let’s see.  Augustus = slaves, patronage, cronyism, conquest of nation and gender.  Paul  = a different kind of community based on a servant model rather than a domination model.  Maybe he was on to something when he said Augustus was not lord, but someone else was.  That is a metaphor that might be fun to try to live by.  People might join with us, if they thought we were really serious about it.    

Impact? Awareness?

I'm an Indy Star kind of person. Anymore, however, reading it all the way through is something of a day long undertaking for me. I had a bit of luck this morning and had the chance to enjoy the first section and a half before 7, when life otherwise started. Today, there were THREE unique articles (e.g. not related to each other) all impacting environmental issues included in the front section. Impact? Awareness? They all fall under what Indy Star Editor Dennis Ryerson refers to as "the more traditional reporting that covers big breaking news, examines how things work or don't work, or exposes wrongdoing" in his "From the Editor" feature.

First, "Hospitals are Thinking Green" (A4). A Washington Post piece, it alludes to an incongruity with our healthcare system: we go to the hospital (or other medical facility) essentially to regain wellness, yet if this place maintains unnecessary toxicity, it indicates hypocrisy. But five groups responsible for purchasing $130 billion of medical products, representing more than 4,000 hospitals across the country, have adopted a series of questions for medical supply vendors to "encourage manufacturers to produce 'greener and safer products for workers, patients and the environment'."

Second, "Group's Goal: Energy for All" (A7). Have you ever heard of such a thing as "energy poverty"? For other basic needs that are denied to so many people around the world, who ever thought of our world community as lacking necessary supplies of energy? In fact, "There are 1.3 billion people or 20 percent of the world population, living without electricity and 2.7 billion that lack clean cooking facilities" according to the International Energy Agency in this Bloomberg News piece. What will it take to overcome this deficit? According to the IEA, $48 billion must be invested every year. To emphasize this point, consider this: "791 million people in sub-Saharan Africa, excluding South Africa, use about as much energy each year as 19.5 million people in New York state." I'm sure that no one is shocked by this, yet at what point do we become alarmed at the basic lack of energy that is available for everyone?

Third, and perhaps most importantly, "The World's Challenge: Basic necessities may be scarce for some as population hits 7 billion" (A20). You might think that this is a lesser story since it is more or less buried towards the end of the section, but in essence, this Associated Press piece encapsulates every environmental problem that we have in this world. This affects everyone, regardless of where you live. Our Earth has 7 billion people to support, and that's just this second, right now (actually on October 31st when we're expected to reach that mark). What about even a few years from now? 7 BILLION. That's simply unfathomable. We're not doing a great job so far using the resources that we have, and if our world community continues to expand as it is doing, what do we do when the resources are gone? Destroyed? Eliminated? Facts: The world population reached 1 billion in 1804 and 6 billion in 1998. We gained an entire 1 billion people in 13 years whereas is took all the way to 1804 to reach that point originally? What are we going to do???

If you have a few moments and are interested in reading more, I highly recommend all 3 of these articles (but especially the third). We are a part of a larger world community, and we're all in this together.

Put some GREEN into Halloween!

It's become startlingly clear to me this weekend that Halloween will soon be upon us. I'm a big fan of this time of year, so it makes me pretty excited to see pumpkins suddenly appearing everywhere I look. And who doesn't love a fruit that doesn't last for eternity? (I admit that I finally threw the little pumpkins decorating our porch away around Christmas!)

So with the spirit of the burgeoning season in mind, I want to share a pretty cool website that was recently introduced at our Care for Creation meeting (we still meet at 7 on the 2nd Thursday of every month...join us!!).

http://earth911.com/news/2009/10/19/8-ways-to-green-your-trick-or-treat/ is all about helpful reminders of how to hug the earth a little bit without having to forgo any of those excellent Halloween traditions. My favorite tips?

*Walk the Neighborhood...has anyone else ever noticed how many cars are endlessly idling while kids scurry from house to house?
*Each and Every Part of the Pumpkin...who ever realized that animals love pumpkins? What a great idea to donate your used pumpkins to a place where they feed pumpkin-loving omnivores on a daily basis? (By the way, youtube has some highly entertaining videos of animals enjoying these fall treats, especially for those of us who are toddlers or around them on a regular basis.)

I'm in the mood for some bonfires and mulled cider, from a local orchard, of course! Anyone with me???

Nature Deficit Disorder

Here's something that was referenced at our last Care for Creation meeting, which should be of interest to any of us who are vested in today's youth in any capacity.

Nature Deficit Disorder is a psychological condition that is gaining increasing amounts of attention in recent years. Simply stated, it suggests a correlation between lack of exposure to nature with developmental and academic problems. At the forefront of this (non-medical) disorder is the scientifically proven fact that the more our world becomes technologically driven, the less children play outside in any way. However, it strikes me that there is a lesser yet also vitally critical reason for this disturbing correlation. The more we destroy natural places to live, play and just be, the less our society's youth has incentive or opportunity to be outside at all. And it happens where we live, absolutely. Within the last month, I read about a study conducted by the American College of Sports Medicine over the 50 largest cities in the United States. Indianapolis ranked 44th out of the 50 in community and environmental factors as well as personal health indicators. Essentially, what the study determined (not that this should come as a surprise) is that the more "green space," e.g. parks, bike trails, parks, etc., that a city has, the leaner it is. While this isn't the same as Nature Deficit Disorder, I see a connection. Are the cities who rank high on this study also the ones who demonstrate highest or at the very least higher academic proficiencies?? Anyone agree with me that this almost certainly must be so?

If you're interested in reading more about this disorder, there is a slew of clear, thorough information about it at http://www.education.com/facts/quickfacts-ndd/what-is-nature-deficit-disorder/.

Mushroom packaging

Have you heard about this super cool, eco-friendly idea that is being used more and more? Mushrooms are cheap, easy to grow, low impact waste that is bio-degradable and therefore compostable. Check out the link below. While it's not a wholly justifiable reason to purchase a new computer just to get the packaging, it does increase the WOW factor!

http://www.naturalnews.com/029463_mushrooms_packing_material.html

2nd Annual Hoosier Food Fest

Have you heard about the 2nd Annual Hoosier Food Fest?

Food!
Games!
Food!
Good people!
Laughter!
Food!
Fellowship!
GOOD food!!

It was a rousing success last year, so it's returning again. But you have a little bit of homework again:
*Flip through your favorite recipes, or...
*look for some new ones.
*Visit your local farmer's market.
*Think of fun, yummy ways that you can incorporate some of Indiana's finest produce into an everyone-must-try-this dish.

Do you have any recipes that you clipped out of the paper, borrowed from a friend, inherited from your Great Aunt Ruth that you have been wanting to try but haven't had a good excuse to make yet? This is your opportunity to broaden your culinary scope and flex your kitchen muscles. Think of this as the perfect opportunity to use up some of that zucchini that your pesky neighbor keeps leaving anonymously on your doorstep (I've heard that this happens...)!

So get ready and put a reminder on your calendar for August 14th; it's coming up soon!