America's Young Theologian

book | Jameson on Hegel

noreply@blogger.com (Dan Morehead) — Sat, 22 Feb 2014 17:39:00 +0000

"As for life, Hegel's version of it, pre-Darwinian as it is, is probably far too metaphysical and epistemological (highest form of the unity of subject and object) to be much interest for us today. Still we might give Hegel credit for the first timid step in the direction of that vitalism which, a mighty stream from Nietzsche and Tolstoy through D.H. Lawrence to Deleuze, has been so energizing a worldview (which is to say, ideology) in contemporary thought."

--Fredric Jameson, The Hegel Variations, 2.

quote | On Patience

noreply@blogger.com (Dan Morehead) — Sun, 09 Feb 2014 19:38:00 +0000

"Hence the importance of patience in the New Testament, which becomes the basic constituent of Christianity, more central even than humility: the power to wait, to persevere, to hold out, to endure to the end, not to transcend one's own limitations, not to force issues by playing the hero or the titan, but to practice the virtue that lies beyond heroism, the meekness of the Lamb which is led."

-Hans Urs von Balthasar, A Theology of History, 36-37.

podcast | Check Out Lexicon Valley

noreply@blogger.com (Dan Morehead) — Thu, 30 Jan 2014 07:49:00 +0000

Just started listening to the Lexicon Valley podcast on the advice of a friend. Good advice! Check it out if you like words, language, and nerdiness.

Have any favorite podcasts?

thought | Billy Graham's Legacy Not Worth Celebrating

noreply@blogger.com (Dan Morehead) — Sun, 10 Nov 2013 03:13:00 +0000

I don't want to be a curmudgeon nor dwell long on the topic, but I think the following worth saying particularly because it is hard to say when an old man, who has been revered, is being celebrated.

I don't think Billy Graham's legacy is worth celebrating. We do agree, though, when Graham laments not having studied more. Theological training is not a magic bullet, clearly, but like other things that hold out the possibility of helping with historical and theological myopia, it may have saved us from Graham's seemingly rudderless Christianity, the conservatism of which only served to conserve the ideology of the decade in which he found himself. Pointing out the impact of a figure like Graham, does not make the means or message appropriate, advisable, or even, on the whole, salutary. He may have been an instrument that God used to change individual people's lives in beneficial ways, but that fact doesn't prevent evaluation of a legacy as a whole.

music | Review: Okkervil River - The Silver Gymnasium

noreply@blogger.com (Dan Morehead) — Wed, 16 Oct 2013 20:55:00 +0000

Okkervil River - The Silver Gymnasium

Review: She was a whirlwind and then we met years later. Now wearing subdued hues, bluster was a whisper, claws manicured. A deep breath, sure, but I miss picking the straw from my hair.

Translation: A few of the tracks seem domesticated or over-produced, but it's a pleasant visit to Okkervil River. The Silver Gymnasium is a more-accessible, less-twisted stop in Okkervil's oeuvre. Put any track on another Okkervil album and I probably love it. As an album, however, I want a little more bluster.

7.8/10

book | Thinking About Responsibility

noreply@blogger.com (Dan Morehead) — Tue, 09 Oct 2012 02:25:00 +0000

"The unceasing calls for responsibility in contemporary culture are always calls to such agency, to the position of a subject-cause. And this insistence as such deserves scrutiny. One might ask at the outset: What concept of responsibility does it seek to reinforce? What lack does it aim at supplementing? What shortcoming is it trying to compensate? What irresponsibility is it trying to suppress, exclude or negate? From what danger does it aim at protecting it? These questions already take us to the heart of the matter. And thus the concept of a 'subject-cause' (along with its unavoidable accompaniment, a system of control and punishment), this 'ready-made,' guiding metaphysical interpretation of the concept of responsibility--namely, accountability as indication of the power of a masterful and willful subject--is left to rule exhaustively over the hermeneutic domain of responsibility."

François Raffoul, The Origins of Responsibility, 6.

link | The Epidemic of Mental Illness

noreply@blogger.com (Dan Morehead) — Sun, 07 Oct 2012 16:00:00 +0000

Enjoyed reading the two part review at The New York Review of Books on psychiatry (Part I, Part II). I particularly enjoyed reading the sections of Part II about the history of the DSM. If you don't have a mental illness, just wait, you might in 2013 when DSM-V shows up.

One would be hard pressed to find a two-year-old who is not sometimes irritable, a boy in fifth grade who is not sometimes inattentive, or a girl in middle school who is not anxious. (Imagine what taking a drug that causes obesity would do to such a girl.) Whether such children are labeled as having a mental disorder and treated with prescription drugs depends a lot on who they are and the pressures their parents face. As low-income families experience growing economic hardship, many are finding that applying for Supplemental Security Income (SSI) payments on the basis of mental disability is the only way to survive. It is more generous than welfare, and it virtually ensures that the family will also qualify for Medicaid. According to MIT economics professor David Autor, “This has become the new welfare.” Hospitals and state welfare agencies also have incentives to encourage uninsured families to apply for SSI payments, since hospitals will get paid and states will save money by shifting welfare costs to the federal government.

Where is Freud when you need him? Happy reading.

video | Without Words

noreply@blogger.com (Dan Morehead) — Sun, 07 Oct 2012 02:33:00 +0000

This video reminded me of Jean Vanier and the work of L'Arche, the work of lovingly accepting/welcoming the people in our lives as they are. At first I felt profoundly saddened by this video given my love of words, but I suppose I love words because I love life and mentally countered with "this too - for all its difficulty - is life":

I'm glad to have friends that are working to start L'Arche communities in Durham, NC and New Jersey.

News | I Got Hitched - Meet My Wife: Katie Karas

noreply@blogger.com (Dan Morehead) — Sat, 06 Oct 2012 22:00:00 +0000

Katie Karas - Dan Morehead

Say hello to my wife, Katie Karas; We couldn't be happier.
See everyone who couldn't be there back in Milwaukee.

Dan Morehead - Katie Karas

The warm, charming, gifted Katherine Karas, the love of my life!

books | Living Without Enemies by Samuel Wells and Marcia A. Owen

noreply@blogger.com (Dan Morehead) — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 20:50:00 +0000

IVP sent me a copy of Samuel Wells and Marcia A. Owen's new book, Living Without Enemies: Being Present in the Midst of Violence. It is a lovely little book (144 pg) and an easy read. I say that as a compliment, not to dismiss it. Outside of maybe the pulpit, saying something that is worth saying, in a manner that is compelling and understandable, in a short amount of space is simply a skill that many with theological training do not possess. The book pairs Sam Wells' theological skill with the work and story of activist Marcia Owen, who directs the Religious Coalition for a Nonviolent Durham.

The book opens with a reflection on four modes of engagement - working for, working with, being for, and being with - which provides the structure for narrating Ms. Owen's story of her developing involvement in fighting gun violence in Durham.

From IVP:

With senseless violence occurring throughout society, people are suffering and communities are groaning. Fear and not knowing where to begin hold many back from doing anything at all. But is "doing something" really what is most needed?

Marcia Owen and Samuel Wells come together to tell the story of a community's journey through four different dimensions of social engagement. After attempts to seek legislative solutions led nowhere, a religious coalition began holding prayer vigils for local victims of gun violence. It was then that Owen discovered the beauty of simply being present. Through her friendships with both victims and offenders, Owen learned that being with was precisely the opposite of violence--it was love. And to truly love others as God loves us meant living without enemies and taking small steps toward reconciliation.

Owen and Wells offer deep insights into what it takes to overcome powerlessness, transcend fear and engage in radical acceptance in our dangerous world. Your view of ministry will be altered by this poignant tale of coming face-to-face with our God who loves boundlessly and has no enemies.

Having lived in Durham, NC for much of the last decade, I appreciated the local connection, but what I enjoyed most was the authors naming something which I think most will have encountered if one has spent a significant amount of time working on a local issue. When one gets involved, it's generally with the conviction that something could be better and with at least some idea of how to help. Yet, the task of listening, learning (if this is undertaken) and involvement can radically change the form of that initial vision of helping and often the involvement can take one from "working for" through "working with," "being for" and "being with" those affected. It's a richer kind of involvement and often one finds oneself changing and being affected in ways that were unanticipated. You could say the book is about gun violence, but the gift of the book, I think, is providing a compelling picture of what it looks like to move beyond the stage of lack of engagement or opening a wallet for a cause to opening your heart and life to the world.

I feel a book like this is about the ties that bind us to one another. It's more intimate in tone and ends than, say, Jeff Stout's Blessed are the Organized. Still, Wells and Owen's book needs to be read alongside a book like Blessed are the Organized. Love is a powerful force, but there are other powerful forces like greed and corruption which the involvement pictured in this book should lead one to opposing. I guess that's my way of saying that a fifth mode of engagement might be named "joining together," something that is probably not going to occur without the deep interconnectedness Living Without Enemies seeks to foster.

From Living Without Enemies, Ten Gleanings from Marcia Owens:

The only judgment I will make of others is that we are equally blessed by God.
I discover the joy of my particularity in the context of God’s infinite abundance.
I am living in eternity. I measure success by the expression of God’s presence, not by prescribed outcomes.
The most important question to ask myself before addressing difficulty or conflict is, “Do I accept and love this person as I am accepted and loved by God?”
My fears subside when I remember my soul – my existence in the heart of God.
My soul is for all, because my soul is with all. We are all one in God.
The joy of love lives amongst suffering, including my own.
Receiving God’s love is like breathing in. Responding to the suffering of others is like breathing out. If I do the first without doing the second, I will pass out.
Healing is God’s greatest mystery. I can’t explain it. I can’t avoid it.
The heart of justice is mercy. Justice begins when I stop judging.

link | Friends and Film

noreply@blogger.com (Dan Morehead) — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 15:15:00 +0000

Finally saw The Tree of Life last weekend at the Rialto in Raleigh. I've been waiting on the release of this film for a couple years. It was great, not easily consumed or digested, but such a beautiful film.

If you'd like to read more about the film, I'd suggest a piece that I was editing this week: Contemplating the Whirlwind written by my friend Reno, who was a post-production assistant for the film.

I was going through an old notebook a few days ago and I found this fragment scribbled down on a train ride from St. Andrews to Aberdeen about the final morning of one of my stays with Reno in Scotland:

The morning was bleak, or at least too early, and black. After sticking his head in the room to wake me and pushing some coffee into my hand, we were out the door. I walked to the wrong side of the car which would have put me in the driver's seat. A simple reminder of things being slightly foreign. The car ride brought us back to discussing "The Final Cut" and about how telling the truth is not merely recounting accurate information, but also selecting pieces of accurate information to adequately represent the larger story. But enough of that, the silver Volvo was at the train station.

I'm thankful for films, I'm thankful for friends.

life | Father's Day

noreply@blogger.com (Dan Morehead) — Sun, 19 Jun 2011 16:15:00 +0000

I had the best of childhoods. Loving parents, a supportive community, safety, health, and happiness. Yet, when it comes time to celebrate a father (or a mother) on one of these holidays, I always feel torn. I think of Billy Collin's poem "The Lanyard."

I also think of Philip Larkin's "This Be the Verse":

This Be the Verse

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another’s throats.

Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don’t have any kids yourself.

For me, these hold the truths that the parent-child bond is fraught with difficulties, inequalities, gratitude, resentment, love and heartache. It is never as easy as the card's one-liner, "Happy Father's Day!" However, given the difficulty of naming these deepest currents, it's all I know to say.

link | On Poetry

noreply@blogger.com (Dan Morehead) — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 18:07:00 +0000

The Times Literary Supplement has called Paul Muldoon "the most significant English-language poet born since the second World War." His poetry has won the T.S. Eliot prize and the Pulitzer Prize and was elected Professor of Poetry at the University of Oxford (1999-2004). He is the poetry editor at The New Yorker and teaches at Princeton University.

Listen to him discuss poetry over at Wunderkammer Magazine. Thanks to David Michael for the heavy lifting on the interview and J. M. Harper for the camera/editing work.

Enjoy.

theology | Unto the Breach, Lev 18:22 and 20:13

noreply@blogger.com (Dan Morehead) — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 13:59:00 +0000

"The Torah includes two prohibitions of sexual acts between males, Lev. 18:22 and 20:13, the latter of which prescribes the death penalty for them. These verses are part of the so-called Holiness Code (Leviticus 17-26)." I am getting rid of a book (or two) but thought I'd reproduce a passage (or two) before they go.

"...many commentators...think that same-sex sexual acts between males were attached to a cult that involved sexual activity and that was practices by the neighboring people (and, implicitly, by the Israelites themselves!). The surprising reference to child sacrifice in a list of sexual offences strengthens the impression that there is a cultic background. It has been commonly assumed, therefore, that the writers of the Holiness Code associated homoerotic behavior with sex connected to cultic practices." (39)

Under this interpretation, what is at issue is the worship of other gods and the activities related to that worship.

1. The prohibition of sexual contact between males in the Holiness Code in Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13 is done in a context of a polemic against a non-Israelite cult. Because the records of cultic homoeroticism are scanty and not unequivocal, however, historical description of this context is difficult.

2. The strategy of postexilic Israelites to maintain their distinct identity by, among other ways, separating from others strengthened the already existing taboos and social standards regarding sexual behavior and gender roles, banning, for instance, castration, cross-dressing, and male same-sex behavior; it was not simply the 'objective' facts of physiology that established gender identity.

3. Israel shared with its cultural environment an understanding of sexual life as an interaction between active masculine and passive feminine gender roles. This interaction was the cornerstone of gender identity, but the concept of sexual orientation was unkown. Sexual contact between two men was prohibited because the passive party assumed the role of a woman and his manly honor was thus disgraced.

From Martti Nissinen's Homoeroticism in the Biblical World: A Historical Perspective, 44.

Nissinen's book is lovely and I'd recommend it to anyone who wants to start thinking about sexuality in the ancient near east. The presence of these two verses in Hebrew scripture have created all sorts of arguments, proof-texts, etc. but rarely with an appreciation for the context, which is admittedly difficult to pin down. Of course, if you want to go with "The Bible says..." as an argument without an appreciation for what it might mean within its context, then those within the Christian faith who do not see homosexual activity as potentially viable and faithful would have to limit themselves to opposing male same-sex acts. I won't hold my breath for conservative Christians to welcome lesbianism.

books | Churning Through The Reading List

noreply@blogger.com (Dan Morehead) — Mon, 24 May 2010 18:22:00 +0000

I haven't been writing for a while but have turned my attention to my reading list. There are books on it that I simply need to read. If you're anything like me, there are those books that you know are important to you, that you've purchased, that you perhaps have opened and read the forward or preface, but have never actually read. I'm trying to polish off a few of those. I read Michel Henry's I Am The Truth, a lovely book. I'm still puzzling why, though employing arguments that I find similar to Karl Barth's theology, they don't irk me in the periodic way that Barth does. Read Hauerwas' With the Grain of the Universe to see if there was a potential take on Barth and natural theology that I could use in my dissertation. Today, I started Jean-Luc Nancy's Being Singular Plural, which will probably be followed by Agamben's The Time That Remains: A Commentary on the Letter to the Romans since I've read Infancy and History and wanted to round out some of his thinking on temporality.

Commenting on the epigraph, Agamben provides a long list of violent encounters around the world and writes:

It is an endless list, and everything happens in such a a way that one is reduced to keeping accounts but never taking the final toll. It is a litany, a prayer of pure sorrow and pure loss, the plea that falls from the lips of millions of refugees every day: whether they be deportees, people besieged, those who are mutilated, people who starve, who are raped, ostracized, excluded, exiled, expelled.

What I am talking about here is compassion, but not compassion as a pity that feels sorry for itself and feeds on itself. Com-passion is the contagion, the contact of being with one another in this turmoil. Compassion is not altruism, nor is it identification; it is the disturbance of violent relatedness.

If only I read more quickly, oh well...happy Monday!

quote | Obedience and the Triumph of God

noreply@blogger.com (Dan Morehead) — Sun, 23 May 2010 20:41:00 +0000

"The relationship between the obedience of God's people and the triumph of God's cause is not a relationship of cause and effect but one of cross and resurrection."

John Howard Yoder, "The Politics of Jesus," 238.

theology | Interview with Stanley Hauerwas

noreply@blogger.com (Dan Morehead) — Mon, 10 May 2010 19:09:00 +0000

I've been reading Stanley Hauerwas over the last couple weeks, the second half of his Gifford Lectures for my dissertation and his memoir that was just published, Hannah's Child: A Theologian's Memoir, which I'm finding delightful reading. The latter has delightful passages of biographical detail as well as theological insight:

Discussing his first teaching job at Augustana College in Rock Island, IL:

The students were, however, mainly white and from the middle and upper-middle class. Many of them came from North Side Chicago, which meant they were city kids who thought of themselves as far too sophisticated for a river town that bordered on Iowa. They were in a generalized way Lutheran, which meant in some vague way that they thought they were Christian. At least one of the missions of Augustana was to reinforce that vagueness. Or as I learned to put it -- our task was to give parents the impression the by sending their daughters to Augustana they would not lose the virginity they had already lost in high school.

I had not been at Augustana long before I was drawn into a controversy about whether the doors of coeds could be shut during the times Augustana males were allowed to visit in the women's dorms. A reporter for the campus newspaper asked me what the new Christian ethicist's view might be about this crucial issue. Drawing on my experience as a Texan, as well as having just come from Yale, I responded, "Well, I guess it's a good way to avoid grass stains." I was quoted in the weekly edition of the paper. I later came to understand that such an observation was not well received by the administration (77).

The book is full of interesting passages that provide information that one could not know otherwise:

I still carry in my wallet my history with the Selective Service System. On November 21, 1962, the year I entered Yale Divinity School, I was classified IV-D. In other words, the Dallas draft board assumed that because I was in divinity school I should have a ministerial deferment. I wrote to tell them that I was not going into the ministry, but they did not bother to change my classification until 1967, when I was reclassified II-S, a student deferment. I thought this classification was also inappropriate, so I wrote again, suggesting that I be reclassified I-A. I received a I-A classification on February 17, 1970. I was finally vulnerable to the draft and would remain so until I was thirty-five. But I never lived in fear of the draft. The students I taught did.

I remember one student in particular. His name was Bill Sampson. At another time and place, Bill could have been Bill Clinton. He was extremely handsome, had the manners his upper-middle class background demanded, and was quite smart. He was also the president of the student body...He went to Harvard Divinity School, where, he told me, he never had to study because the reading course I gave him taught him enough to get through most of his courses without studying.

Rather than studying theology, he took courses at Harvard on the side, in the hope that after the war he could get into a medical school. He did go to medical school, but during his residency he became attached to a lady who convinced him to come to North Carolina to organize workers. Bill was killed in Greensboro, North Carolina, by the Klan. I have never forgotten him, not only because I was quite fond of Bill, but also because he seemed to me to exemplify what a strange, terrifying, sad, yet wonderful time "the Sixties" names (83-84).

If you are interested, you can read my interview with Hauerwas that was just published by Wunderkammer Magazine. We discuss his memoir and greed in the US economy. There are also some clips on YouTube that would only be interesting to a more theologically inclined audience.

Enjoy!

film | Street Fight

noreply@blogger.com (Dan Morehead) — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 20:28:00 +0000

I'm not sure how I missed Street Fight, the Oscar-nominated documentary about Newark's 2002 Mayoral Election. I watched it last night on Netflix and thought it was great. The trailer doesn't do it justice. I felt like I was watching The Wire.

[Don't have Netflix? Sign up for the trial and watch the film for free.]

books | Reading Henry, Thinking Barth

noreply@blogger.com (Dan Morehead) — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 20:21:00 +0000

If God is Life, then the first results of the phenomenological analysis of life make it possible to understand the fundamental arguments of Christianity. Life never being shown in the world, as we have just recalled, it is therefore impossible to perceive it there, unless in the form of illusory significations coupled to objective processes, significations whose origin remains unexplained as long as one sticks to the appearance of the world and seeks this origin there. Absent from the world, life is thus also absent from the field of biology, which is a worldly one. Hence the question arises: Is it still possible to have access to Life, that is to say, to the essence of God himself? And if so, where and how?

The answer, according to the phenomenology of life we have sketched here, is as follows: we do have access to Life itself. Where? In Life. How? Through Life. That it is only in Life and through it that we can accede to Life implies a decisive presupposition: it is Life itself that comes forth in itself. This was precisely our first phenomenological approach to life, its definition as truth, or rather the definition of Truth as Life: life is self-revelation. Within life, it is life itself that achieves revelation; and itself that is revealed. This is because it is life itself that originally comes forth by itself, inasmuch as it is self-revelation and it comes first. Nothing and no one could ever come forth if its coming forth in Life did not depend on the very coming forth of Life itself--and, beyond that, if its coming forth in life were not identified with the original coming forth of Life in itself.

Michel Henry, I Am the Truth: Toward a Philosophy of Christianity, 54-55.

If you replace 'Life' with 'God,' a valid substitution on Henry's terms, it ends up sounding a lot like Karl Barth.

link | On Dinner Tables and Executive Lying

noreply@blogger.com (Dan Morehead) — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 08:03:00 +0000

Two things happened:

1. My mother brought up a George W. Bush biography for children at the dinner table. I asked if it showed him standing at the head of the 4380 military graves of US soldiers that have died in Iraq...maybe with a thought bubble pondering the cost of a few lies.

2. I learned that in his soon-to-be-released book, Karl Rove says Bush didn't lie.

Well, sorry Karl, here's a timeline of the false Bush administration assertions and an article that begs to differ.

I'm quite glad to have not seen much of W for the last year. I'd prefer to not have to listen to goons patch his legacy.

video | On Leaving Behind No Child Left Behind

noreply@blogger.com (Dan Morehead) — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 06:50:00 +0000

I'm always interested in education both theory and practice. Found this discussion with Diane Ravitch interesting.

As the Obama administration touts No Child Left Behind and the “Race to the Top” competition for school grants, we speak to leading education scholar and former Assistant Secretary of Education Diane Ravitch. She’s long been known as an advocate of No Child Left Behind, charter schools, standardized testing, and using the free market to improve schools. But she’s had a radical change of heart, as chronicled in her latest book, The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education. Ravitch says, “The evidence says No Child Left Behind was a failure, and charter schools aren’t going to be any better.

theology | Please Be Retarded

noreply@blogger.com (Dan Morehead) — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 20:07:00 +0000

Here is Facebook discussion that I'm reproducing here. In the wake of Rahm Emanuel use of 'retarded,' many in the disabled community had something to say. The Facebook group for L'Arche Greater Washington, D.C. posted the following link:

Mentally disabled 'self-advocates' oppose use of word 'retarded'

Here's the beginning of that article by Michael Alison Chandler of the Washington Post:

A national movement to purge the word "retarded" from lawbooks and medical terminology is nearing success, gaining support this week from White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, who apologized to advocates for the disabled for using the term during a private meeting last summer.

The campaign is led in part by the mentally disabled themselves, who are increasingly politically organized and eager to escape the stigma associated with the term.

"It's a time of change," said Jill Eglé, co-executive director of the Arc of Northern Virginia, a support group for the disabled, who spearheaded a campaign to change the state code in Virginia.

The words "retarded" and "retard" feel threatening, she said. Eglé identifies herself this way: "I am a powerful leader with an intellectual disability."

In Maryland, lawmakers voted last year to replace the term "mental retardation" throughout much of the legal code, and in the District and 48 states, including Virginia, elected officials have acted to remove the words from the names of human services agencies. Legislation has been introduced in Congress that would replace the words in all federal education, health and labor laws.

The 2010 professional manual that psychologists use for diagnosis makes the change in the medical label official: "Mental retardation" is out. "Intellectual disability" is in.

In response, I wrote the following:

AYT: L'Arche, at its best, embodies a politics which makes these conversations sound trite and peripheral . While I'm no more happy with people using 'gay' to mean bad than with people using 'retarded' to mean stupid, the word itself is not the problem and dismissing it from lawbooks and medical terminology is not the answer. Rehabilitating the term may be, in the long-term, more helpful than banning it. Also, and more importantly, the kind of community that L'Arche attempts to foster is at the heart of organically making certain kinds of linguistic formulation unintelligible and allowing people to see that perhaps it is their love and compassion for those around them that is retarded. This issue seems perhaps marginally beneficial, but not of great consequence.

When invited to check out the following link (See: John Franklin Stephens' piece on the use of 'retard') about why words matter, I had the chance to expound a bit further:

AYT: ...thanks for the links. I completely agree that words matter. That's never a question. Mine has always been: Can we treat language, or words, with the same generosity or hospitality with which we would treat those in our lives with overt disabilities? And is there a connection between our in/ability to hold and use correctly a word like 'retarded' which has so often been seen as ugly and our in/abilities to hold those who have had that word applied to them? I'll admit I have less of a desire to rehabilitate 'retard' than I do 'retarded,' which is in a sense just me following the logic of "people first" language, which I take to be a flawed improvement of how we so often speak, an opening up of our overly-condensed use of labels.

So here is a thought experiment. What if what is at the heart of L'Arche, what makes L'Arche prophetic, is a different temporality, a necessarily slowed existence which allows us to meet one another and see beyond labels (labels which only become necessary in a world that moves too quickly for love)? Maybe to love anyone we need to move and interact more slowly. Maybe this is why L'Arche has the potential to transform. Perhaps we must become a retard, one who has been slowed, to have our love quickened. Perhaps 'retard' could become a high compliment and something akin to 'human' in our usage. Maybe that is the Gospel.

I, of course, realize that my pursuit of other linguistic possibilities may even offend those who have been offended by such unimaginative and ugly speech. Rahm Emanuel's use of words was ugly. It is likely, that he may need to be 'retarded,' or slowed, in order to become a person who can speak more lovingly. I'm just not sure that taking away specific words helps him or any of us. I am open to the possibility of that need, but if needed, we should recognize that it is only needed for a time.

Lastly, I'm grateful for L'Arche, for being the kind of place where, at its best, things move slowly enough to have a conversation about how to speak lovingly.

Bloomingdale's Terrible Customer Service

noreply@blogger.com (Dan Morehead) — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 19:41:00 +0000

Or, How to Spend $2700 and Be Dissapointed Every Step of the Way!
Dan Morehead - 08/09/2013

April 28, 2013: I needed to buy some gifts to be sent to friends and had a $500 Bloomingdale's Gift Card so decided to purchase them from Bloomies, despite the trouble I had with orders in October 2012. Backstory: Order Number: 417306800 -- they canceled my order and then reinstated it but sent the items to the wrong addresses when they did. Order Number: 417227834 -- took long enough to get figured out with customer service that it was sold out by the time the order went through. But not to dwell on the past...

I loaded up my cart and started to place my order but my gift card wouldn't work. I checked the balance online. Yep, checks out. Try it again. Still doesn't work. Call Bloomingdale's. After 55 mins on the phone, with Bloomies confirming the balance but still unable to get it to work, the best I'm told is that I can go to my nearest Bloomingdale's and swap my gift card for a new one. One problem, the nearest Bloomingdale's is 80 miles away (see pic below).

So lucky me, after spending half an hour online, an hour on the phone, I can spend two to three more hours in the car just to get my gift card balance replaced on a new card. I decide to just sell the gift card to Cardpool.com for $435 (losing $65, but given that I was going to have to spend $30 in gas and 2-3 hrs of my life in the car...it seemed like a bargain!)

Time Spent: 1.5 hours
Dollars Lost: $65

So with the gift card debacle behind us, I get back online and within 10 minutes I've placed my order for the first two items I needed (Order Number: 426355033) going to two separate addresses. Despite feeling annoyed with the repeated problems I've had with Bloomingdale's, I got my gifts on the way and Bloomindale's was running a special for Loyallists: Loyallists Receive 2,500 Power Points for every $100 you spend within a single order (see pic from email below).

Since my order was over $800, I'd be receiving 20,884 Power Points (which would become available in 30 days), enough for a $100 Reward Card. Fair enough, all's fair in love and shopping. I leave my desk for 30 minutes to run a quick errand. When I return I have a missed call from Bloomingdale's, I call back and I'm told that they've canceled my order because they were worried about fraud. Fair enough (but I had just been on the phone with them and all of my orders with them have been for large dollar amounts). I'm told they can reinstate my order and after another 50 mins on the phone, they do so, now under order number: RH806981453. One more problem, this reinstated order never credited the 20,884 Loyallist Power Points (or any Loyallist points for that matter) to my account.

Time Spent: 2.5 hours
Dollars Spent: $951.78
Dollars Lost: $65 + $100 Reward Card (or 20,884 Loyallist Power Points)

This is where my stupidity begins in this story. I still had to send gifts to 5 more people and thought it'd be easiest to only deal with one company. So, I thought I'd give Bloomingdale's another shot.

Placed order (#426380183) on 4/29/13 and it went out without a hitch. Great, so I placed two orders on 4/30/2013 (#426394930 and #426432905). Once again these orders were flagged by the fraud department and canceled. So, once again, I get back on the phone since the money had already been taken out of my account.

I'd spend over 6 hours over the next week on the phone getting the orders reinstated and checking to see if they actually shipped.

Order Number: 426394930 --now-->MM809585376
Order Number: 426432905 --now-->GL809951164

I went over every detail with Bloomies because I was boiling mad at the general level of incompetence with which I was dealing and I did not want to get back on the phone again with customer service. Sigh. For these orders that were placed on 4/30/2013 with expedited shipping, they wouldn't go out until 5/10/2013. And when they did go out, they managed to mess up the shipping addresses on order number GL809951164, sending both items to MN instead of one to MN and one to PA.

This required getting back on the phone for 1.5 hours to fix this. If you don't believe me, here's the UPS Tracking page for the item that had to be redirected.

Furthermore, I didn't get Loyallist points for these orders either. So, I'm missing another 1,350 Loyallist points for these two orders. But, hey, item was finally delivered via Next Day Air...two weeks later!

Time Spent: 10+ hours
Dollars Spent: $2778.74
Dollars Lost: $65 + $100 Reward Card (or 20,884 Loyallist Power Points) + 1,350 Loyallist points.

I think you can appreciate why I no longer shop at Bloomingdale's. Recently, I went back to check my Loyallist balance, which is when I learned that I hadn't been receiving credit for my orders since Bloomies has a knack for canceling them and reinstating them without crediting my Loyallist account.

I tweeted @Bloomingdales to have someone contact me so that I could share all of this via email. I think it is understandable that I don't want to spend any more time on the phone with Bloomingdale's.

Here's the response I received:

I'm sorry, Bloomingdale's, but I'm not really excited to get back on the phone with you. You have my email address, feel free to use it when you get this sorted out. Until then, congratulations on winning my nomination for Worst Customer Service of the Year.

theology | On Theft, Abundance and the Poor

noreply@blogger.com (Dan Morehead) — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 16:12:00 +0000

There was a news story recently about a British priest that said that shoplifting by the poor is sometimes okay.

LONDON (AP) -- For a priest in northern England, the commandment that dictates "thou shalt not steal" isn't exactly written in stone.

The Rev. Tim Jones caused an uproar by telling his congregation that it is sometimes acceptable for desperate people to shoplift - as long as they do it at large national chain stores, rather than small, family businesses.

Jones' Robin Hood-like sermon drew rebukes Tuesday from fellow clergy, shop owners and police.

From his pulpit at the Church of St. Lawrence in York, about 220 miles (355 kilometers) north of London, Jones said in his sermon Sunday that shoplifting can be justified if a person in real need is not greedy and does not take more than he or she really needs to get by.

The remarks drew a summons from Archdeacon Richard Seed, who said on his Web site that the church rejects the view that shoplifting can be acceptable.

"The Church of England does not advise anyone to shoplift, or break the law in any way," he said.

"Father Tim Jones is raising important issues about the difficulties people face when benefits are not forthcoming, but shoplifting is not the way to overcome these difficulties. There are many organizations and charities working with people in need, and the Citizens' Advice Bureau is a good first place to call," Seed's statement said.

Eleanor Course, a spokeswoman for Seed, said the archdeacon wants to meet with Jones to discuss the "appropriateness" of his sermon.

"The point we are most concerned about is that shoplifting is simply not a blameless, victimless crime," she said. "We want to make clear that it simply doesn't help people. And the last thing a desperate person wants is to be caught for shoplifting, so we feel this advice is very unwise."

Jones told The Associated Press that he stands by his comments. He said he regretted only that the media is focusing on his view on shoplifting rather than the underlying problem he wanted to address.

While Jones' statement might seem foreign to our modern ears, I thought it was worth noting that we have voices in Christian tradition that would back Jones up.

For example, Thomas Aquinas asks, in the secunda secundæ of the Summa Theologica (q.66 a.5), whether theft is always a sin. The short answer is yes. But then (two articles later - a.7) he asks whether it is lawful to steal because of the stress of need. His answer:

Nevertheless, if the need be so manifest and urgent, that it is evident that the present need must be remedied by whatever means be at hand...then it is lawful for a man to sustain his own need by means of another's property, by taking it either openly or secretly: nor is this properly speaking theft or robbery.

You can read all of II.2.q.66.a.7, here. So, while Eleanor Course, Seed's spokeswoman, may be correct when she says "the last thing a desperate person wants is to be caught for shoplifting," there may also be the possibility that from the Church's perspective shoplifting out of need isn't even theft. Said differently, one may get arrested for shoplifting, but in the case of need might have nothing to confess.

For the rest of us, those with computers and few worries about food (unlike 35 million Americans who are food insecure), perhaps we need to hear Ambrose - whom Aquinas quotes - in relation to the purpose of our abundance:

"It is the hungry man's bread that you withhold, the naked man's cloak that you store away, the money that you bury in the earth is the price of the poor man's ransom and freedom."

Maybe Jones, in the end, has a point, maybe Aquinas is right, "in cases of need all things are common property." That's a radical notion but perhaps important to imagining a more just world.

Merry Christmas.

quote | West on Accountability

noreply@blogger.com (Dan Morehead) — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 14:35:00 +0000

"for me, the priority is a democratization of the state, which has to do with the substantive accountability and answerability of corporate elites and financial oligarchs, who are running amok in terms of might, status, and reshaping the nation, and much of the world, in their image. That’s very dangerous. It is very dangerous. It is as dangerous as kings and queens running amok in the 17th and 18th centuries—unaccountable elites." - Cornel West

Thanks to the editors at The Immanent Frame for posting this and DD for bringing it to my attention.