DanSheffield

thots on Egypt situation

It has been more than 20 years since we lived in Egypt, and then only for 14 months, but it strikes me that the current life in Egypt hasn't changed much -- except perhaps a new will to act.

In fact that's exactly what a CBC report suggests

In Egypt, discontent with life in the autocratic, police state has simmered under the surface for years. But there has also been growing discontent over economic woes, poverty, unemployment, corruption and police abuses.

The question is, what will emerge? If Mubarak is toppled [I still think that would be quite a leap], what forces will move into the empty space? He has effectively kept any kind of alternative democratic process/movement almost non-existent -- that is, there is no alternative organizational infrastructure.

I am afraid I support the interpretation expressed in this post: Uh Oh, White House Declines to Endorse Mubarak -- that the vacuum created by the popular uprising against the Shah of Iran [who had likewise squelched all democratic organizational infrastructure] was filled by the organizational infrastructure of the Ayatollah Khomeini. Repeat the scenario when strong-man Saddam Hussein was taken out -- no democratic infrastructure, filled by Shiite infrastructure. The Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt is the long-established organizational infrastructure that is likely to prevail in a Mubarak-less world.

What continually peeves me on these scenarios is that anyone with any knowledge, at all, about this part of the world, could tell you this. But the US continues to support their anti-democratic strong-men and express shock when it all falls apart. ... oh yeah, but then they get to invade... so maybe they do know what they are doing... then they put in place their Westernized puppets from the social elite like Karzai, Allawi et al, [the touted person for Egypt is El-Baradei] and so it starts all over again.

dissatisfaction persists

thots from The Abundant Community...

Consumer society begins at the moment when what was once the province or function of the family and community migrates to the marketplace. It begins with the decision to purchase what might have been homemade or neighbourhood produced. This is how citizens begin to yield their power to the lure of consumption.

the authors give a summary from Jeffrey Kaplan's essay The Gospel of Consumption on the roots of our consumer society. Herbert Hoover's 1929 Committee on Recent Economic Changes observed: "by advertising and other promotional devices...a measurable pull on production has been created which releases capital otherwise tied up." The tied up capital was savings.

In other words, as Stephen Harper told us -- "spend, spend, spend" including your savings. Now the Canadian economists are suggesting that we may have spent too much of our savings, go figure...

the 1929 US govt doc also celebrated: "economically we have boundless field before us; that there are new wants which make way endlessly for newer wants, as fast as they are satisfied." in other words there is no end to satisfaction, or it is a way of promoting dissatisfaction as the basis for higher levels of consumption and production.

The marketplace in this way promises what it knows will not be fulfilling. This defines its counterfeit nature -- trying to make something appear to be gratifying or satisfying when it is not. The fact that dissatisfaction persists after the successful pursuit of the 'good life' means the good life is not satisfying. Un-functional families and incompetent communities are the signal that we have reached the limits of satisfaction.

 

Colleagues ministering among the working or destitute poor often speak of 'a bias toward the poor' in the gospel. I believe we need to craft a gospel/good news response for those who have found 'the good life' unsatisfying. People among whom there is poverty of spirit, but not poverty of goods or resources. It's easy to identify those who are poor in resources (I have just returned from a trip to Niger; almost lowest HDI rating in the world), but often the poor in spirit are able to mask their dissatisfaction with goods (on the other hand I identified great joy in spirit among 'poor' Nigerien friends).

course at Tyndale summer school

 Over the past several months I have been working with Tyndale Seminary in Toronto, Ontario [one of the world's great multicultural labs] to design a course focused on developing leadership capacity for facilitating multicultural communities.

Their website has just posted info about the course for next summer: Becoming an Interculturally Competent Leader [July 18-22, 2011].

Here is the course description:

This course is designed for students who currently function, or who anticipate functioning, in inter-cultural environments. The course will enable participants to develop a biblical theology of diversity and to understand and apply the theory and dynamics of intercultural relations. The course will also examine leadership practices suited for facilitating intercultural dialogue and empowering diverse congregations – as a missional response to the demographics of our changing neighbourhoods and workplaces. Through lectures, discussions, exercises and assignments, participants will develop leadership skills for engaging with cultural and religious differences in both community and congregation.

 

fair trade beads & Ghana

Loreli Cockram, a friend from Barrie, is in Ghana this week to buy beads for her business back here in Canada. She blogs here. I will be travelling to Ghana with her husband John-Mark at the end of Feb for about 10 days or so. When they lived in Ghana for 2 years I visited them there several times.

But Christian Week did a story on her this week too...

"Two Canadian sisters are helping turn broken glass bottles into wearable works of African art.

Loreli Cockram of Big Village Beads discovered the creativity and ingenuity of recycled glass jewelry while doing mission work in Ghana through Barrie Free Methodist Church."

there's more story at CW.

sigh no more

if you haven't found Mumford & Sons, a British folk rock band, its time you did :)

Grammy-nominated (2011) for best new artist

Serve God love me and men
This is not the end
Lived unbruised we are friends
And I'm sorry
I'm sorry

Sigh no more, no more
One foot in sea, one on shore
My heart was never pure
And you know me
And you know me

And man is a giddy thing
Oh man is a giddy thing
Oh man is a giddy thing
Oh man is a giddy thing

Love that will not betray you, dismay or enslave you,
It will set you free
Be more like the man you were made to be.
There is a design,
An alignment to cry,
At my heart you see,
The beauty of love as it was made to be

 

responsibilities of an abundant community

My wife & daughter found my Amazon Wishlist and bought me a book for Christmas, The Abundant Community, by long-time educators and social researchers John McKnight and Peter Block.

they suggest that there are certain things that we can only do as a family and a neighbourhood that are vital to a decent, good, satisfied life. these things grow out of an abundant community...

health: how long we live and how often we are sick are determined by our personal behaviours, our social relationships, our physical environment, and our income. we are the people who can change these things...

safety & security: two major determinants of our local safety... 1)how many neighbours we know by name, 2)how often we are present & associated in public, outside our houses.

environment: how we transport ourselves, how we heat and light our homes, how much waste we create, are major factors in saving our earth.

economy: less dependence on the megasystems of finance and production; local jobs, local equity/savings, local production, circulating dollars locally

food: supporting local producers and markets, eating food that is less processed

children: most of us pay others to raise our children (teachers, coaches, sitters, counselors, youth workers, doctors); we need to recover capacity and responsibility for sharing the wealth and care of the children in the families we know.

care: institutions provide service -- not care; we need to care for each other, our children, our elders, the vulnerable.

I have been a part of several neighbourhoods/communities like this over the years: as a kid in Port Arthur, as a teenager in the rural community around Dorland/Adolphustown, as a young adult at Pachena Bay, in a city-centre, urban neighbourhood in Pietermaritzburg. We are seeking to build this kind of community in west-end Hamilton with our UnCrowded House family.

here is a podcast by these two guys talking about this stuff

 

join me on the way...

a thot from a Will Willimon devotional...

if we are content where we are, in a stable, predictable setting, Jesus will leave us there. The Gospels are a record of constant movement. Jesus' invitation is always to join him on the journey, 'come follow me' -- always forward movement, with a sense of purpose, of mission...

my new year's reflection...