Shalom!
As usual, Bill Moyers can provide interesting and thoughtful and thought-provoking programs, and he did it again IMO tonight. His show was on the American character, and toward the end, he shared a Norman Lear effort to get Americans reinvigorated about community and efforts for the common good in our nation. The song and the website to which he drew attention is
http://www.bornagainamerican.org/ . As I wandered on the site I discovered that the young violinist from NYC began her musical journey in the much-maligned Milwaukee public school system. How about that?
I recommend the whole program too ... but you'll have to find it yourself!
I suppose this song borders on some form of civil religion, but that's part of the point. One of the engines that drive our national character is the sense of religious feeling in some way or another. Perhaps now, as we welcome President Obama, we will find a rebirth of our national spirit, a turning toward another path for us to take as a people.
Shalom!
dave
Friday, January 16, 2009
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Conversation with the Dr.
Shalom!
SOJOURNERS offers a conversation with Walter Brueggemann at
http://www.sojo.net/index.cfm?action=magazine.article&article_mode=edit&issue=soj0902&article=a-conversation-with-walter-brueggemann
For me, it is fascinating to “listen in” to a conversation with Dr. Brueggemann and hear his comments on our present financial crisis. He also speaks of the source of his hope and his well-being today.
I am particularly struck by his notice of the hope that comes from the everyday life of our congregations. ISTM that in congregations large and small and in-between, wealthy or not so much, there is that spirit of sharing which Dr. Brueggemann suggests as vital in our care for one another in this perilous time.
Shalom!
dave
SOJOURNERS offers a conversation with Walter Brueggemann at
http://www.sojo.net/index.cfm?action=magazine.article&article_mode=edit&issue=soj0902&article=a-conversation-with-walter-brueggemann
For me, it is fascinating to “listen in” to a conversation with Dr. Brueggemann and hear his comments on our present financial crisis. He also speaks of the source of his hope and his well-being today.
I am particularly struck by his notice of the hope that comes from the everyday life of our congregations. ISTM that in congregations large and small and in-between, wealthy or not so much, there is that spirit of sharing which Dr. Brueggemann suggests as vital in our care for one another in this perilous time.
Shalom!
dave
Monday, January 5, 2009
Self-care for pastors
Shalom!
As a subscriber to "The Joyful Noiseletter," I think I can properly copy this article from the online humor monthly. Cal offers perspective on learning from one another and on taking care of our physical and emotional bodies. As self-care becomes more of an issue for pastors (again), this serves as a reminder to pay attention to our bodies.
BTW I highly recommend and appreciate "The Joyful Noiseletter" and value it for many reasons: humor, cartoons, comments, and persistence!
Shalom!
dave
A LENTEN LESSON FROM AN AGNOSTIC
A tale of three humorists; prevention also a life issue
By Cal Samra Editor, The Joyful Noiseletter Vol. 24 No. 3 March 2009
In the November JN, we eulogized Tim Russert, the masterful moderator of “Meet the Press” and chief of NBC’s Washington Bureau, who died of a massive heart attack at the young age of 58. Russert had a sunny disposition and a keen sense of humor, was fairminded and nonpartisan, and was civil to everyone. In his office he had a large sign proclaiming “Thou shalt not whine.”
A devout Christian, he was a very prayerful man, and had an abiding faith in God and country and devotion to his lovely family. Russert had been diagnosed earlier by his doctors with coronary artery disease and diabetes. He was considerably overweight, and drove himself hard, working unceasingly in his various positions. A colleague noted that Russert showed up for work early one morning after working all night and getting only one-hour’s sleep. “It’s going to take four or five people to replace Tim,” one of his TV news competitors said.
Nobody is sure what his doctors and pastors told him, or did not tell him, in the privacy of their offices, but it’s sad that they failed to persuade him to lead a healthier lifestyle. Tim Russert’s premature death reminded me of the untimely passing of another of my favorite journalists – the great English humorist G.K. Chesterton.Chesterton also was a brilliant writer, a gregarious communicator with a big loving heart, a keen sense of humor, and a devotion to his faith and family. Even those who disagreed with him liked him enormously.
I remember reading accounts of the spirited public debates in the early part of the 20th-century between the merry-hearted Chesterton, a relentless defender of Christianity, and George Bernard Shaw, an agnostic humanist playwright renowned for his wit. (It was Shaw’s play Pygmalion that was later turned into that magnificentmusical, My Fair Lady.)Chesterton and Shaw disagreed on just about everything, philosophically and politically, but their entertaining public debates were models of civility, mutual respect, good humor, and crackling wit. On most issues, I found myself agreeing with Chesterton.
In the course of their public debates, these two literary giants learned a lot from each other and grew to be good friends.Chesterton was a huge man, weighing 294 pounds, with a hearty appetite and a love for cigars. Shaw was forever lean, a nutrition-minded vegetarian who ate moderately, exercised regularly, took daily afternoon naps, and shunned tobacco. Ironically, the agnostic Shaw was almost monastic in his selfdisciplined lifestyle, though he was married. Chesterton once remarked to his lean friend: “To look at you, anyone would think there was a famine in England.” Shaw replied, “To look at you, anyone would think you caused it.”
Shaw mourned when his friend Chesterton died in 1936 at the comparatively young age of 62. Shaw himself lived on to age 94, dying in 1950.
If there is a Lenten moral to this story, perhaps it is simply this: Nobody, even the best of us, has a lock on all the truth. We can all learn from one another. Agnostics can learn from Christians. But Christians can also learn from some agnostics. You’d have to be blind not to see that so many of our political and religious leaders of all persuasions are overweight and underexercised. The Protestant televangelist Rev. Jerry Falwell weighed nearly 400 pounds when he died not long ago in his early 70s.
We should encourage our political, religious, and news media leaders to take better care of themselves, and to stop leading unbalanced, lopsided lifestyles. We need them all in these desperate times.
Perhaps we greatly need in our churches what Rev. Felix A. Lorenz Jr., pastor of St. Paul’s United Church of Christ, Dearborn Heights, MI, calls a “stewardship of the body.”“Please remember,” he recently told his congregation, “that you are also a steward of your body. ‘Don’t you know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit?’ That is a mandate to take your health seriously.” The good Lord made the body to be used and fed properly. Use it!
And while we’re debating how best to provide affordable health care and health insurance to Americans, we can also serve the people by not neglecting the importance of prevention. Prevention is also a life issue.
(Cal Samra is the editor of The Joyful Noiseletter, the author of a dozen humor/cartoon books, and the former lay executive director of a medical research foundation. His newest book, The Funny Side of Tennis, is also about the health benefits of tennis or any sport played with good humor and good nutrition, and the longevity of players who play tennis into their seventies, eighties, and nineties. The book may be ordered from www.joyfulnoiseletter.com or 1-800-877-2757.)
As a subscriber to "The Joyful Noiseletter," I think I can properly copy this article from the online humor monthly. Cal offers perspective on learning from one another and on taking care of our physical and emotional bodies. As self-care becomes more of an issue for pastors (again), this serves as a reminder to pay attention to our bodies.
BTW I highly recommend and appreciate "The Joyful Noiseletter" and value it for many reasons: humor, cartoons, comments, and persistence!
Shalom!
dave
A LENTEN LESSON FROM AN AGNOSTIC
A tale of three humorists; prevention also a life issue
By Cal Samra Editor, The Joyful Noiseletter Vol. 24 No. 3 March 2009
In the November JN, we eulogized Tim Russert, the masterful moderator of “Meet the Press” and chief of NBC’s Washington Bureau, who died of a massive heart attack at the young age of 58. Russert had a sunny disposition and a keen sense of humor, was fairminded and nonpartisan, and was civil to everyone. In his office he had a large sign proclaiming “Thou shalt not whine.”
A devout Christian, he was a very prayerful man, and had an abiding faith in God and country and devotion to his lovely family. Russert had been diagnosed earlier by his doctors with coronary artery disease and diabetes. He was considerably overweight, and drove himself hard, working unceasingly in his various positions. A colleague noted that Russert showed up for work early one morning after working all night and getting only one-hour’s sleep. “It’s going to take four or five people to replace Tim,” one of his TV news competitors said.
Nobody is sure what his doctors and pastors told him, or did not tell him, in the privacy of their offices, but it’s sad that they failed to persuade him to lead a healthier lifestyle. Tim Russert’s premature death reminded me of the untimely passing of another of my favorite journalists – the great English humorist G.K. Chesterton.Chesterton also was a brilliant writer, a gregarious communicator with a big loving heart, a keen sense of humor, and a devotion to his faith and family. Even those who disagreed with him liked him enormously.
I remember reading accounts of the spirited public debates in the early part of the 20th-century between the merry-hearted Chesterton, a relentless defender of Christianity, and George Bernard Shaw, an agnostic humanist playwright renowned for his wit. (It was Shaw’s play Pygmalion that was later turned into that magnificentmusical, My Fair Lady.)Chesterton and Shaw disagreed on just about everything, philosophically and politically, but their entertaining public debates were models of civility, mutual respect, good humor, and crackling wit. On most issues, I found myself agreeing with Chesterton.
In the course of their public debates, these two literary giants learned a lot from each other and grew to be good friends.Chesterton was a huge man, weighing 294 pounds, with a hearty appetite and a love for cigars. Shaw was forever lean, a nutrition-minded vegetarian who ate moderately, exercised regularly, took daily afternoon naps, and shunned tobacco. Ironically, the agnostic Shaw was almost monastic in his selfdisciplined lifestyle, though he was married. Chesterton once remarked to his lean friend: “To look at you, anyone would think there was a famine in England.” Shaw replied, “To look at you, anyone would think you caused it.”
Shaw mourned when his friend Chesterton died in 1936 at the comparatively young age of 62. Shaw himself lived on to age 94, dying in 1950.
If there is a Lenten moral to this story, perhaps it is simply this: Nobody, even the best of us, has a lock on all the truth. We can all learn from one another. Agnostics can learn from Christians. But Christians can also learn from some agnostics. You’d have to be blind not to see that so many of our political and religious leaders of all persuasions are overweight and underexercised. The Protestant televangelist Rev. Jerry Falwell weighed nearly 400 pounds when he died not long ago in his early 70s.
We should encourage our political, religious, and news media leaders to take better care of themselves, and to stop leading unbalanced, lopsided lifestyles. We need them all in these desperate times.
Perhaps we greatly need in our churches what Rev. Felix A. Lorenz Jr., pastor of St. Paul’s United Church of Christ, Dearborn Heights, MI, calls a “stewardship of the body.”“Please remember,” he recently told his congregation, “that you are also a steward of your body. ‘Don’t you know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit?’ That is a mandate to take your health seriously.” The good Lord made the body to be used and fed properly. Use it!
And while we’re debating how best to provide affordable health care and health insurance to Americans, we can also serve the people by not neglecting the importance of prevention. Prevention is also a life issue.
(Cal Samra is the editor of The Joyful Noiseletter, the author of a dozen humor/cartoon books, and the former lay executive director of a medical research foundation. His newest book, The Funny Side of Tennis, is also about the health benefits of tennis or any sport played with good humor and good nutrition, and the longevity of players who play tennis into their seventies, eighties, and nineties. The book may be ordered from www.joyfulnoiseletter.com or 1-800-877-2757.)
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