Introducing...

It has finally happened. The one and only Jason Locke has begun to blog. Despite his brief blog life I am giving him an automatic link in faith that he will produce a copious amount of wisdom. Check him out (his blog..that is). I stole this picture from Ian because I like it. I will give Ian two links in one blog for this picture. Or is it worth three?

Today was good for many reasons, the greatest of which is that it represents the last night in Philly for nearly a fortnight... In the words of Kitty from Arrested Development "Spring Break!!"

Things that I am looking forward to in coming days (in no particular order).

1) Waking up in Canada.
2) Visiting the Toronto friends...
3) Sleeping.
4) Reading for fun.
5) Getting the conference stuff sorted out.
6) Being in Smithville for more than 18 hours at once.
7) Going downtown Toronto.
8) Catching up on my movie watching/ enjoying other mindless activities.

Things that I am not looking forward to
1) putting gas in my car in Canada.

on the Maple Leafs

I forgot that today was the trade deadline in the NHL until I was reading a newspaper and saw that it was in fact today. I subsequently saw that that the Leafs made the worse deal in the world (again). This may not mean much to a lot of you but I have to say this... Yanic Perreault (whose contract is up at the end of the year) for Brenden Bell (a promising rookie d- who admittedly is buried on their depth chart but should be a solid 4-6 some day) AND a second rounder is an absolutely brutal deal. Okay, so Brenden Bell maybe- but a 2nd rounder too? In the words of the immortal Chuck Swirsky "Are you kidding me?"

I hearby declare that I am boycotting the Maple Leafs for 3 years as management continues to make these ridiculous moves, or until the GM is relieved of his duties. I will now whole heartedly turn my NHL allegiance to the team of choice, a team with a future- the Pittsburgh Penguins...(the bandwagon is here...all aboard!).

Of course, since you can't simply change your mind on matters of the heart, I will probably still be inclined to see how my friends in the blue and white are doing- and who knows, maybe they'll make the playoffs...in which case, I will suspend my boycott until further notice.

palmer...a guided tour...

ps...the soundtrack is unbelievable...

rabbit trails

I received an email from Ian this morning asking if I had been checking Andrew Osenga's blog. I hadn't checked it recently but shortly thereafter I did. He has some wonderful posts about being a Christian but not playing 'christian' music and how difficult he has found it to find his own niche.

One of his posts...

"Hear me now: I am not ashamed to believe in Jesus. I am ashamed of Pat Robertson hijacking my faith for his crazy political agenda. I am ashamed of a President who confuses good vs. evil with “they have oil and I want it”. I am ashamed of Jerry Falwell and Benny Hinn. I called Bruce Wilkinson, author of The Prayer of Jabez, a liar and a crook to his face. I would do it again today. Because he, like these other guys, is taking what I believe and twisting it for money and for power and, in their headline-grabbing foolishness, making the truly faithful and honest believers look like idiots."

As I was skimming through the comments from his post I noticed that Shaun Groves posted. Shaun was probably the best concert that happened at Tyndale- funny, challenging, important stuff. Anyway, in response to Andrew's post he says this.

"Many from that more conservative crowd show up at a concert or read my blog and have their suppositions challenged, sometimes subtly and sometimes not so much. Pro-war folks have actually converted to pacifism, with no real debate - just music and conversation and reading the blog for a couple years. Politicos have realized that the poor and hungry and orphaned were never given to the governments of this world but to the Church and have started putting their lives behind mercy showing as a result. I’ve seen folks I don’t agree with change. And, thankfully, they’ve changed me too."

What's in bold is really why I wanted to put this up here. This is what I am working through in terms of vocation- to work with governments to change political systems of oppression or to forgo that altogether and just be/work with the poor? Or are they one and the same?

Bluth Company vs Dunder Mifflin?

In June of 2005 I was introduced to Arrested Development and it quickly became what I wouldn't hesitate to call "the best show ever made". For the next year and a half I collected all three seasons and watched them over and over and over- they are pure comic genius.

Since my love affair with this show began I had always heard the whispers, the voices quietly suggesting that I should watch The Office- that it might be even better than my beloved. "never" I thought.

I have started to watch The Office- and it too is pretty much comic genius.

So now I have a dilemma. In a debate of best comedic shows of all time would I abandon Tobias, Gob and George Michael in favor of these paper producing office workers?, or remain true to my roots and maintain that AD is the funniest of all time?

I'm at a loss... I'm not sure if I'm ready to make that decision.

proximity to Canada

We read the Cost of Discipleship by Bonhoeffer last week for one of the classes. One of Bonhoeffer's issues is that the Church has bought into 'cheap grace'- meaning that the Christians he knew weren't transformed or suffering or giving anything up for Christ... but went on with life with a little Jesus on the side- grace that was cheap.

The professor who teaches this class is old, sometimes cranky but always funny. Yesterday Canada was the butt of a lot of jokes, with Nathan, Rachel, Shannon and I (all Canadians) taking some zingers. The best joke of the day occurred when the professor randomly drew the following graph on the white board:
This of course means that the closer you get to Canada the cheaper the grace gets.

Zing!

I also got into a bit of an argument over the fact that most Canadians don't support seal hunting. He countered by saying that most people in Europe didn't support the Nazis...I didn't think that was a fair comparison.

moving back to the left...or the middle.

In thinking about this whole MNC thing and how it's not ideal but it does help some people (or I think it may). I was also thinking about jobs and how important they are and basically thought that this is why Muhammad Yunus just won the Nobel Peace Prize for mircofinance.

Essentially it uses structures in capitalism but puts them in the hands of the people- which as far as I can tell is the best of both worlds. It gives them access to credit, which means that hard work and creativity can translate into a transition out of poverty. It also means alternative jobs and that people don't have to work at MNCs- which, if it develops enough, will drive up the wages of those who do work there.

Well, I'm hoping to track down some 'water-ice' tonight with Nate and Rachel. This is a drink I had 6 years ago when I was here- it was fantastic but I haven't seen it anywhere else since. Here's hoping.

MNC's (or why I hated Wal Mart)

Multi National Corporations have been a pet peeve of mine for a while now. Whenever I go to Smithville my mom has upon occasion said "I'm going to Wal-mart, do you need anything?" Since I have trouble controlling my facial expressions I relay to her that I disapprove of her consumer habits. Now she doesn't ask anymore... big box I say, is the devil.

I thought this to be true of most MNC's- setting up shop, driving out mom and pop businesses, and being able to undersell everyone because of their notoriously cheap labor and exploitation in developing countries. The MNC's proliferation of globalization and their lack of ethics, paying nationals 10 bucks a week.. their logos everywhere...yuck...humbug I thought.

Now I don't know what to think and here is why:
Let's begin with an example: Nike goes to Bangladesh and sets up a factory, pays the workers $2 a day, works them for 12 hours a day 6 days a week. The labor is unskilled (since making shoes is apparently not all that hard to do) and the labor pool is vast since the economy isn't exactly booming. If Nike moves in and hires 200 of these people- we have 200 new jobs in the economy- 200 people are able to work and provide for their families (more than before). Now besides the fact that according to my standards they don't make enough to see a movie with one weeks pay- they are making more than before.

Let's pretend Nike got a conscious and decided that they would move back to New York and start a plant there- what we would have is 200 people from Bangladesh who are suddenly jobless. What you would also have is shoes that cost you $300 instead of $100 because it costs Nike more to produce them. (ps, I don't buy nikes except for that time I needed them for volleyball-- it was an emergency and they were cheaper than the alternatives!!!) If an MNC didn't get their product made so cheaply... then it wouldn't be sold so cheaply which would directly affect those on the poverty line in developed countries who aren't able to purchase basic necessities as easily.

Back to the point- I don't hate Walmart anymore. I think they might be scummy but if you said to someone in Bangladesh "I'm rallying people to boycott Walmart so that they won't buy the product you make for such little pay"... they would look at you and say "you're doing what? I won't have a job if you do that..."(although they probably wouldn't say it in English..).

All of this comes from thinking about a book I read this weekend called Naked Economics- which was the best book I've read about economics (the total number of books I've read on the topic doesn't matter...). The author probably explains it better on his chapter on trade and globalization- here's a taste:

Of a Thai laborer:
"She is paid $2 a day for a nine hour shift, six days a week. On several occasions, needles have gone through her hands, and managers have bandaged her up so that she could go back to work".
"How terrible," we murmured sympathetically.
Mongkol looked up, puzzled. "It's good pay," he said. "I hope she can keep that job. There's all this talk about factories closing now, and she said there are rumors that her factory might close. I hope that doesn't happen. I don't know what she would do then."

"The implicit message of the antiglobalization protests is that we in the developed world somehow know what is best for people in poor countries- where they ought to work and even what kind of restaurants they ought to eat in"

"In 1993, child workers in Bangladesh were found to be producing clothing for Wal-mart and Senator Tom Harkin proposed legislation banning imports from countries employing underage workers. The direct result was that Bangladeshi textile factories stopped employing children. But did children go back to school? Did they return to happy homes? Not according to Oxfam, which found that the displaced child workers ended up in even worse jobs, or on the streets- and that a significant number were forced into prostitution"

"Sweatshops do not cause low wages in poor countries; rather they pay low wages because those countries offer workers so few other alternatives"

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

What a messy world. I'm hearing that part of the answer to this ordeal could be neo-liberalism (I didn't know what that was until 2 days ago...)....but I'll save that for another post.

So, will I personally shop at Walmart?...probably not. Will I protest Walmart...probably not.
So mother, feel free to pick me up that bookshelf at your favorite MNC for when I come home.

shoot...it's Sunday night...

It seems as though most weekends are fairly typical around here. In the days before grad school the weekends were times of freedom and adventure- never knowing what a typical Friday night or Saturday might hold. These days are too predictable. This isn't a complaint...

Most Fridays involve working at the Valley Forge campus. I'm doing some web stuff for Eastern (which essentially means uploading all the materials onto their server for overseas education-- ...its fairly mindless...which means a day at the computer listening to music, scanning and editing pdfs...a nice break).

Either Friday night or Saturday night involves some kind of excursion, but generally not both nights. This weekend I chose to stay in on Friday and go out on Saturday. It's possible that a group of us may have gone and seen a movie with Drew Barrymore in it- I can neither confirm nor deny this. I may have mentioned to someone I went with "we can never tell anyone we went to see this movie". Again, I can neither confirm nor deny this.

Sundays look like this: Church--its good- I like those people, mostly because they are really nice and there isn't the slightest hint of the suburbs or the sense that trendiness is important. After church its back to the books for the rest of the day, or until I'm done all my work up until Tuesday-- so far this hasn't happened, but I've been close a couple times. Today it also involved a nap and figuring out how to make/ edit videos...

This week is going to be fantastic for the following reasons:
1) Nathan and Rachel are coming for a visit. Fantastic!
2) The Leafs are in town this Saturday... I may venture down to the Wachovia Center and try and catch the game with a guy named Joe who says to me at least once a week: "how's the hoockey in Canada eh?" (I threw in an extra 'o' because that's how he says it- when he's trying to make fun of Canadians).
3) In exactly one week it will be four days until Spring break. This should prove to be the equivalent of the full manifestation of the kingdom of God coming to earth- although I don't want to get my hopes up too much.

493...the legend continues

In honour (american readers, notice the 'u'...it's here to stay) of the arrival of the weekend I have decided to take a little break from reading and do something that I meant to do about 6 weeks ago but couldn't for various reasons (the largest being that I left my camera in Canada...).

Without further adieu, here are the men of 493 Cummer Ave. I wasn't good friends with any of the following before I moved in. Now, I love those guys. I would die for you fellows. (well, probably not Jason Penney, but that's besides the point). Regrettably I have no pictures of Ian Bastian- probably because I didn't see him for the last 1.25 years of living in the house...

Chris Clements moved in with us in late August of 2006. I worked with him on student leadership at Tyndale and we were always very cordial with one another. Then we lived together and quickly became a tag team who make light of other people living in the house. Actually we mostly spoke of Paul and Jay's friendship and marveled at how they were always having a conversation about something- no matter what time of day. My favourite part about living with Chris was our 15-30 minute chats most nights at around 11:30pm. There are many memorable chats- possibly the greatest occurring at the dinner table and involving prayer... sort of. I also appreciated Chris' music collection- this picture shows him either rocking out to phish or soaking in the spirit, i can't remember which time this was. Chris once said to me "Jesus didn't care about rule keeping, he cared about people keeping".. and also "beer and women are great, but not as great as a mystic relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ"- so true.

Paul Randall is one of the originals. Not only is he original because he was one of the first ones to live in the house but he's an original character and we love him. Here he is explaining to Ashlee Mackneer (aka: Ashlee Heather) probably something to do with one of the following a) the fact that Toronto was recently awarded a professional soccer team, b) Transformers the movie is coming out soon, c) that learning the Latin language involves much study or d) that Nintendo Wii is unfortunately unavailable at any store in Ontario, although if he pre-orders two there is a possibility that he'll be able to make a handsome profit on e-bay, as long as he gets it before Christmas. Paul's inquisitive nature is unprecedented- and he's probably one of the nicest guys you'll ever meet. And this one time he asked out this great girl.. and even though she turned him down-he asked her out- and for that- we salute you. It was kind of like a 'Sandlot' moment... when Squints hooks up with that lifegaurd-- we know Paul will eventually hook up with the lifegaurd and be rich like Squints-
ps. Paul is even cooler than Squints, if that's possible.

This is Jason Penney. At the beginning of the post I said I wouldn't die for him. I would however take a bullet in my shoulder for him. What did I like about Jason Penney? Well, he was neat and he had clothes that I borrowed and he made sure we stayed relatively clean. He also likes to chat, so he was good for conversations, offering advice or simply someone to vent with. And he plays an excellent pirate, is a good guitar player and singer... and most importantly he owns silly putty. I think there was some tension in the house between us at points but probably because we have a similar type of personality ...but we got over that...he is someone who knows the secrets of Epiphaneia..as he once said 'Epiphaneia is you sitting around in your pajamas with your laptop, eating cereal and running this business' --shhhhh..don't tell... (ps, if you're a corporate sponsor and reading this, I completely deny his accusation).

This is Jason Locke. When I was a frosh Jay Locke was too cool for me, or I was too cool for him (as our argument goes) but, thanks to the Big Guy we have become wonderful friends. There aren't that many people in the world that I have more respect for than this man. Favourite times spent with Jason Locke include: 1am trips for breakfast at the 24 hour diner, our rescue mission through Buffalo after their October snow storm and the trip to Minneapolis/Winnipeg, playing poker and RISK (even though I despised you during RISK), bass guitar lessons, and your encouragements... one day we will own a city block together and use it to change the world.

In absentia are Chris Volpe, Jon Beckwith, and Michael Penny who all lived with us for a time.

So that's it. The house is different now. Pat Sutherland has moved in and Ian and I moved out, so I'm sure there's a different feel to the house. Looking back, for that time of my life I don't think there is any combination of people in the world that I would have rather lived with.

staying up late...

It's 1:50am and I can't remember the last time I stayed awake this long to finish an assignment that was due the next day. I realize that it probably wasn't that long ago, but it feels like it was. As I was walking down to the computer lab to print this paper off I thought about the time when I was a frosh at Tyndale, preparing for the History of Christianity mid-term with Gord Heath. This is a top 10 Tyndale moment for me. Essentially three friends and I decided to study together on the night before the test. One of us had the great idea of renting the video series- The History of Christianity from the library. "Think of all the extra facts we'll have!" was the rationale. The idea was presented to the group and three of us fell for it while the fourth said "I don't know guys, I think I'll just look at the notes from class".
"Sucker", we thought.

I distinctly remember looking at Nathan Betts at 3am, after finishing the 2nd of 4 videos. His face showed an expression of helplessness... simultaneously we said to each other "we're screwed...".

As it turns out, we were.

Staying up late to study is bad news.

I think the guy who studied the notes got an 'A'.

Pedagogy of the Oppressed

It is Sunday night. I'm listening to Andrew Osenga's Souvenir's & Postcards album and loving every second of it. Yesterday was a huge study day so that we could all go over to this one girl's house from our program- her name is Faith.

I wanted to blog about the book mentioned in the title but I honestly didn't finish it (opps..) so I'm not sure that I'm qualified. However I did read 3/4 of it before class on Thursday and particularly enjoyed the first half of the book.

For a bio on the author (which actually may be of interest)- click here.

As a background, the author talks about the oppressed and the oppressor (from his 1940's Brazilian perspective) and how there's some of each in everyone...that when the oppressed escape their situation they only know how to be an oppressor because its all they've known. The solution to this is educate the oppressed using oppressed-led dialogical methods that help them become fully human...as it were.

Here's a taste:

"Solidarity requires that one enter into the situation of those with whom one is solidary; it is a radical posture...true solidarity with the oppressed means fighting at their side to transform the objective reality which has made these 'beings for another'".

"To affirm that men and women are persons and as persons should be free, and yet to do nothing tangible to make this affirmation a reality, is a farce"

"The oppressors do not perceive their monopoly on having more as a privilege which dehumanizes others and themselves. They can not see that, in the egoistic pursuit of having as possessing class, they suffocate in their own possessions and no longer are; they merely have".

"Any situation in which some individuals prevent others from engaging in the process of inquiry is one of violence"

"The truth is, however, that the oppressed are not 'marginals,' are not people living 'outside' society. They have always been 'inside'- inside the structure which made them 'beings for others.' The solution is not to 'integrate' them into the structure of oppression, but to transform that structure so they can become 'beings for themselves'".

St. Pattys Day

Today was Patty Griffin day in Philadelphia-- or so we have been calling it for about a week. It involved two episodes- one was watching her on Letterman last night. The other was going to see her with about 8 other people from school today for free at this place called World Cafe Live.

She is good.

Chris Clements would have liked the drummer- even though you can't see him in the pictures.

ps- she said that her grandmother was from New Brunswick, which according to my calculations would make her, in part- Canadian.
pps- she is also from Bangor, Maine- props to anyone who is able to guess the movie that I associate with this city.

Back in Action

I've been back in the old U.S. of A. since Sunday and it definitely feels different this time around- more familiar... a better grasp of things. I got lost on the way back- because I was trying to take this picture while I was driving:


While you might not be able to tell from this picture- the shot I was trying to get is one that says 'Stroudsburg' PA- I could be wrong but I think this is the city where my friend #12 Mike M. spent much of his youth...

That picture cost me 45 minutes but it was well worth it as I went through this crazy little town called "JimThorpe"...

Here are three reasons (among many) why I like Canada:

1) The Weather


2) Even though I love living in the city, it's nice to come home to this every once in a while...


3) My nephew and niece live there...

today

The majority of today was spent with Steve, Nathan and Darryl-- getting cheese put on our pasta at East Sides (some more than others), visiting The Meeting House and dreaming about what's going to happen on March 24th. Things seem to be coming together nicely.

This was a good day.

No state troopers on the way home last night...I did however make it in just under 8 hours which I was pretty happy about....as opposed to the 10 hours it took using an alternative route on the way down...