Marginal Christianity

     http://www.huffingtonpost.com/zach-j-hoag/resolved-quitting-the-pro_b_4524150.html   Posted: 12/31/2013 5:33 pm                                              I have a New Year's Resolution to share. It isn't quit smoking (never started). And it isn't lose weigh t (well, it probably should be). It isn't even one of those vague ones like be happier or be healthier or take more time for me (the latter, of course, being impossible when one works for a living and has two tiny humans to keep alive and happy). No, this Resolution is somewhat non-traditional. But it is, by my reasoning, vitally necessary: I'm quitting the Progressive Christian Int...

I doubt there’s a literary category for such a monstrous hybrid. But there is surely and existential one. And that is where I find myself these days. I don’t think I’m depressed   —   been there and know what that feels like. But I am sad, and somewhat adrift. And I ’ d like your prayers, those of you who are praying types. I’m a child of the 60's and 70's. A time when it truly seemed possible that significant structural and systemic change in America could happen. And that there was a generation committed enough to live sacrificially that such might happen. Forty-five to fifty years hence, I hold little to no hope for any such change, at least in the direction of equity and justice. This is not a democrat or republican thing   —   the rich have gotten richer under Obama (Eccl.5:10), the environment has degenerated (perhaps past remediation), oppression is rife (Eccl.4:1-3), the Occupy movement has generated some good ideas, but good ideas scare no one in power (Eccl.8:...

http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/crisis-middle-class-and-american-power Geopolitical Weekly Tuesday, December 31, 2013 - 04:01 Print Text Size Stratfor Editor's Note:   The following Geopolitical Weekly originally ran in  January 2013 . By George Friedman When I wrote about the crisis of unemployment in Europe , I received a great deal of feedback. Europeans agreed that this is the core problem while Americans argued that the United States has the same problem, asserting that U.S. unemployment is twice as high as the government's official unemployment rate. My counterargument is that unemployment in the United States is not a problem in the same sense that it is in Europe because it does not pose a geopolitical threat. The United States does not face political disintegration from unemployment, whatever the number is. Europe might. At the same time, I would agree that the United States faces a pote...

http://themetapicture.com/how-to-interact-with-the-introverted/

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/01/the-eavesdropper/355727/ In a fast-paced digital age, an MIT psychologist tries to slow us down. Megan Garber Dec 22 2013, 9:25 PM ET                                              “I am going to be a little boring,” Sherry Turkle announces as we sit down to tea in the living room of her sprawling Boston townhouse. “And you’re going to be a little boring, too.” Turkle, for the record, is not boring. She is a psychologist and a professor at MIT whose primary academic interest—the relationship between humans and machines—is especially relevant in today’s networked age. Her most recent book, A lone Together: Why We Expect More From Technology and L...

  Posted: 28 Dec 2013 10:05 PM PST O Lord, our Father! We have gathered here at the turn of the year because we do not want to be alone but want to be with each other, and together be united with you. Our hearts are filled with somber thoughts as we reflect on our misdeeds of the past year. And our ears are deafened by the voices of the radio and in the newspapers, with their numerous predictions for the coming year. Instead we want to hear your word, your voice, your assurance, your guidance. We know that you are in our midst, and are eager to give us all that we need, whether we ask or not. On this night we ask for one thing only: that you collect our scattered thoughts, getting rid of the confused and defiant thoughts that may distract us, and thus enable us to concentrate on your limitless generosity to us. You were abundantly generous to us last year, and will be no less generous to us next year, and in every year to come. Fill us with gratitude t...

Twenty-plus years a pastor in a local church (Presbyterian Church U.S.A.), college ministry, and national educational ministry have convinced me of a few things. But only one that seems to really matter. And that one only matters because the church in our time and place is in such shitty shape. Yes, shitty — that’s what I said and what I mean. But not because the people in the church are often shitty — that’s a given! It’s because the institutional structures of the church inhibit just what seems to me necessary for it to enable shitty people to stand the stench of each other and still hang together and bear a credible witness to the God and Father of Jesus Christ. Reinhold Niebuhr once quipped that he could only stand the stench inside the church because the stench outside it was a little worse. And that’s how we’ve operated. Proud that we could consider ourselves better (even if only by a little) than the world outside our walls, a faux-righteousness overtook us and eroded ou...

"Love wants to reach out and manhandle us, Break all our teacup talk of God. If you had the courage and Could give the Beloved His choice, some nights,... He would just drag you around the room By your hair, Ripping from your grip all those toys in the world That bring you no joy. Love sometimes gets tired of speaking sweetly And wants to rip to shreds All your erroneous notions of truth That make you fight within yourself, dear one, And with others, Causing the world to weep On too many fine days. God wants to manhandle us, Lock us inside of a tiny room with Himself And practice His dropkick. The Beloved sometimes wants To do us a great favor: Hold us upside down And shake all the nonsense out. But when we hear He is in such a "playful drunken mood" Most everyone I know Quickly packs their bags and hightails it Out of town." ~ Hafiz  

'Twas Christmas Eve worship, when all thro' the church drowsy worshipers awoke, and stood up with a lurch; The paraments were hung by the staff with great care, In hopes the baby Jesus soon would be there; The children were told stories of God in their stead, While visions of the great city danc’d in their heads,                                                                                                    Mama had swept the pulpit, and I’d   run off   the vermin, The congregation...