February 16, 2010 @ 11:54 am | Category: Pot Luck
Here is a great post on libraries. When asked who has influenced, inspired and motivated me in my work; I must respond, many who now live at the library. A sample of the post:
The library is the most solid and enduring item in the whole apparatus of intellectual life. In time our academic fads and fashions, our schools of thought and indeed entire disciplines, will pass soundlessly into the abyss of history. But the library endures – in fact it grows only stronger, driving its roots down ever deeper while the wreckage of history piles up around it. The library’s sheer material presence testifies to its ontological priority in intellectual life: ideas are fickle and intangible, they occupy no fixed location, but the library fills space and time with an imposing materiality. It is the mind’s anchor holding fast beneath the storms and currents of time.
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December 24, 2009 @ 8:43 pm | Category: social justice
An old tune which still speaks: Merry Christmas!
Canticle of the Turning
Lyrics: Rory Cooney
Music: Irish Traditional, Star of the County Down
My soul cries out with a joyful shout that the God of my heart is great, And my spirit sings of the wondrous things that you bring to the one who waits. You fixed your sight on the servant’s plight, and my weakness you did not spurn, So from east to west shall my name be blest. Could the world be about to turn?
Refrain:
My heart shall sing of the day you bring.
Let the fires of your justice burn.
Wipe away all tears,
For the dawn draws near,
And the world is about to turn.
Though I am small, my God, my all, you work great things in me. And your mercy will last from the depths of the past to the end of the age to be. Your very name puts the proud to shame, and those who would for you yearn, You will show your might, put the strong to flight, for the world is about to turn.
Refrain
From the halls of power to the fortress tower, not a stone will be left on stone. Let the king beware for your justice tears every tyrant from his throne. The hungry poor shall weep no more, for the food they can never earn; These are tables spread, ev’ry mouth be fed, for the world is about to turn.
Refrain
Though the nations rage from age to age, we remember who holds us fast: God’s mercy must deliver us from the conqueror’s crushing grasp. This saving word that our forbears heard is the promise that holds us bound,’Til the spear and rod be crushed by God, who is turning the world around.
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December 14, 2009 @ 3:12 pm | Category: update
I had the opportunity to meet Dr. Cornel West last week and I thought you would enjoy the photo. I am wrapping up my work here at Princeton this fall. It has been a tremendous time to focus on my next project (hint: it’s about human liberation) and how my work might aid in the cause of God’s justice. I have heard lectures, read, wrote several papers and met many interesting people. I also had the opportunity to speak about my work to Princeton theological students. A great way to end the year as I head back to Dallas this week.
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September 5, 2009 @ 7:31 pm | Category: body, gender/feminism
This conversation in which western feminists are debating the significance of the Muslim veil for women brings up many issues. It points to the historical meaning of women’s bodies and the battle over who ultimately controls them. It’s easy to romanticize the veil or to condemn it off hand without consideration of the degree of veiling and the wider context. A head scarf is a very different thing than a burqa. Degree and context in this case is everything.
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August 31, 2009 @ 5:37 pm | Category: community, politics
This story causes me to ask, can we have a free and democratic society when you can not see the face of your fellow citizen? The implications in this story are more than individual freedom of expression or religion.
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August 27, 2009 @ 6:48 pm | Category: family/relationships, gender/feminism, work
Unfortunately many feminist have not been able to reconcile motherhood and its demands and a full functioning human being. This is evident in the recent essay by Katie Rophie, a diehard feminist, regarding her shockingly loving relationship with her new baby. Some feminist are besides themselves of how to explain this lapse. It’s worth remembering that many, if not most feminist, are perfectly content being mothers and the implication of that relationship. They will also say that they do not want to be reduced to this as the defining relationship of their lives. The discomfort has been fed by liberal feminist’s love affair with the marketplace and the subsequent society’s denegration of value formally associated with women, cooperation, self-sacrifice and benevolence. Liberal feminism is married to the marketplace and its value. Interesting these are the values some radical feminist reject and associate with masculinist values of competition, individualism, and ruthless capitalism. Roiphe is discovering how women managed to survive in their subordinated position for centuries, the power of life giving love.
Why can’t we to get beyond is this dicodomy between motherhood and work? Women, like men, have been created for two God given purposes, relationships and creative work. They are NOT mutually exclusive. It is historical fact that women of excellent talent and potential have been systematically denied the opportunity by family, church, and state to give the world their best whether it’s in science, education, theology, art, music, you name it. That is why people can still ask, why are there no great women composers? It’s not natural, its prescribed.
Nevertheless, women have flourished in areas allowed to them including mothering, nursing, religious work, and some teaching. Let’s have more of everything and cut out this motherhood vs work vs feminism debate.
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August 19, 2009 @ 4:27 pm | Category: gender/feminism, global issues
Read this extensive report from the New York Times on the global state of women. No woman any where can be assured of her life and liberty while millions suffer simply because they are women.
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July 3, 2009 @ 3:42 pm | Category: gender/feminism, global issues
One of the most exciting things happening right now for women globally is in Iran. See this story in the Washington Post on the role of women who are demanding change.The Muslim world is known for its repressive laws against women’s freedom from denial of education to stoning for accusations of adultery. The women of Iran are demonstrating that for many education, plus a communications revolution, is fueling the spread of liberalizing ideas. The question remains on how this will affect the Muslim religion itself. Will there be, as some have proposed, a Muslim reformation? The alternative is a long and violent struggle within the Muslim world.
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July 2, 2009 @ 8:18 pm | Category: global issues
I just returned from a three week trip to Argentina, the land of my birth, I was both pleased and alarmed. Buenos Aires has all those things you hear about: The ever popular Evita, tango, Malbec wine, lots of grass fed beef, soccer fanatics, and wild traffic. I enjoyed it cafes, old architecture and watching its political process as elections were being held. The country suffers from chronic political and economic uncertainty while its people remain passionate about life. One of the things I love about the country is that BA’s neighborhoods are dotted with small family owned businesses that provide not only the day to day needs of the people but constitute the middle-class social network. Unlike the U.S., independent small scale manufacturing, grocers, bakers, fruit and vegetable vendors, and butchers still thrive. It was an opportunity to see once again something of what E. F. Schumacher wrote about in his 1973 book Small is Beautiful:Economics as if People Mattered.
Unfortunately what looms in the horizon and threatening the small business is Wallmart. As I said to one of my relatives, Wallmart is the devil dressed in American prosperity. Once the small businesses are out of business their former owners and employees will find themselves working for less not only economically but socially.Wallmart does not have a good track record when it comes to how it treats its employees. This state of affairs will only add to social and political unrest. The “American way of life” is not the answer for Argentina and other third world countries. Maintaining strong local networks must be a top priority on the road to prosperity and a working democracy. They don’t need our bulldozer.
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May 23, 2009 @ 7:41 pm | Category: community, work
I found this story in the New York Times to be telling of the mental state of America. A former facility of Bethlehem Steel has been converted to a $743 million Sands casino and enjoying a lucrative opening. We have come to believe that the main component of success is luck. Instead of work, thrift, community support, access to opportunity and perserverance, it all comes down to a cosmic numbers game. No wonder we’re depressed and can’t invision a hopeful future.
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