Reinventing the Adventist Wheel

Let's put birth control back on the agenda.

noreply@blogger.com (Andy Hanson) — Tue, 22 May 2012 17:35:25 PDT

Contraception. The topic has become controversial in recent years. But should it be? Melinda Gates believes that many of the world's social change issues depend on ensuring that women are able to control their rate of having kids. In this significant talk, she makes the case for the world to re-examine an issue she intends to lend her voice to for the next decade.

from A Word of Grace for Your Monday-4/16/12

noreply@blogger.com (Andy Hanson) — Tue, 22 May 2012 17:34:36 PDT

by Kent A. Hansen
khansen@claysonlaw.com

Dear Friends,
On a Monday morning, facing the steep climb of the work week ahead, I take grace from wherever I can find it.

I find grace this particular morning in an observation of Patty, my fitness trainer. She meets me twice a week at the physical therapy clinic and attempts the difficult task of making my 58-year-old body strong and fit.

Patty is a calm and intelligent woman who laughs easily. She is compact and athletic as befits her profession.

Her first career working with at-risk youth in a continuation high school, broke her heart with so much damage and unfulfilled potential. So she turned to training. Patty has a healer's gift for restoring and strengthening bodies abused and weakened by injury and neglected diet and exercise.

She works me hard, but watches carefully to see that I don't hurt myself. This morning she turns out to be as much my chaplain as my trainer.

I am on the second of three sets of 15 repetitions of squats while lifting a weighted bar that is balanced on my shoulders behind my neck. "Look up," Patty tells me. A few squats later she again says, "Keep looking up." So I lift my head and push on through the set.

Before I start the third set, I ask her, "Why do you tell me to look up?"

"If you bow your neck," she replies, "you are giving in to the weight and it will press you down. If you keep looking up, you will lift the weight. Looking up makes all the difference."

"I understand," I say. "What you are telling me has a far wider application than exercise."

Like I said before, I take grace wherever I can find it these days. This is a little story with a big point.

We all carry loads, often of staggering weight and comprised of all kinds of things picked up in the struggles of living. We bow our necks to the loads, give in to them, and try to carry them with deficient strength. Not surprisingly, the weight increases and presses down until it breaks and crushes us.

The proper form for dealing with our loads is to keep looking up to the Lord with total focus of our body, soul, mind and strength. Like Patty said, "Looking up makes all the difference."

What Really Happened on Mt. Sinai

noreply@blogger.com (Andy Hanson) — Tue, 22 May 2012 17:32:21 PDT

There are some facts about Moses’ time on Mt. Sinai that you may not be aware of. See if you don’t agree after taking the Ten Commandments Quiz. Hint: there may be more than one “right” answer!

1. How many times did Moses climb Mr. Sinai?
2. Did Moses climb the mountain alone? If not, what was the total number of people that climbed with him?
3. How long was his longest stay on the mountain? Did he do it more than once?
4. Where was Moses when God uttered the Ten Commandments? Is there more than one version?
5. How many commandments did God give to Moses on Mt. Sinai?
6. Where was Joshua when Moses received the original tablets of stone?
7. What happened to the Golden Calf when Moses returned?
8. Did God punish Aaron for his role in the Golden Calf debacle?
9. Who first informed Moses that there was a Calf party going on?
10. How was Israel punished for their worship of the Golden Calf?
11. Did Moses ever get a good look at God? If he did, did anyone else?
12. Was there a banquet on Mr. Sinai? If there was, who attended?
13. How many times did Moses persuade God to change his mind?
14. In what capacity did angels assist Israel during and after this time period?
15. When Moses was not on Mt. Sinai, where did he go to speak to God? Who sometimes accompanied him there?
16. What’s wrong with the usual depiction of the Ten Commandments Moses carried down from Mr. Sinai?

Answers to these and other astounding facts can be found in Exodus 19:24;24:1,9,10, Exodus 20, Exodus 24, Exodus 34, Deuteronomy 4, Deuteronomy 5, and Acts 7.

NOTE: Cartoon modified from Rubes Bible Cartoons by Leigh Rubin

Texting That Saves Lives

noreply@blogger.com (Andy Hanson) — Wed, 16 May 2012 17:10:00 PDT

When Nancy Lublin started texting teenagers to help with her social advocacy organization, what she found was shocking -- they started texting back about their own problems, from bullying to depression to abuse. So she's setting up a text-only crisis line, and the results might be even more important than she expected.
Nancy Lublin is CEO and Chief Old Person at DoSomething.org, where she harnesses the extraordinary energy of teens and focuses it on issues they care passionately about.

from The Vatican vs. the Nuns

noreply@blogger.com (Andy Hanson) — Wed, 16 May 2012 17:05:00 PDT

by John Shelby Spong
support@johnshelbyspong.com

Perhaps it takes a political campaign to reveal the fault lines in both our nation and in institutional religion. At least that is what appears to be happening in current American politics. The political season has a way of loosening latent fears, exciting the extremists and bringing silliness to the political arena. We have watched that process for long, long months now. There have been moments when it was the theater of the absurd. Now a news story comes out of the Vatican announcing that, as a result of issues raised in this campaign, an American archbishop, J. Peter Sartain of Seattle has been appointed by the Vatican to deal with “serious doctrinal problems” that have appeared among American Catholic nuns.

When the Catholic bishops criticized the Obama health care law’s requirement that contraceptives must be made available to female employees of Catholic institutions, President Obama immediately worked out a compromise. Churches had already been exempted and now it was agreed that contraceptives will be provided free of charge to those female employees of Catholic institutions by the health care companies themselves, so that the Church’s moral teaching on this issue was not compromised. It seemed a reasonable solution and was widely applauded. The largest body of Catholic nuns called “The Leadership Conference of Women Religious,” many of whom work in hospitals and health care facilities, agreed to the compromise immediately.

The bishops, however, a few days later did not agree, thus pitting the sisters in a public dispute against the bishops, who are in the Catholic system proclaimed to be the church’s only “authentic teachers.” Dissent in an autocratic system strikes at the root of authority and threatens the imposed conformity. It now appears that the “independence” of these sisters had to be countered and the sisters brought into line, that is into conformity with the teaching of the bishops. So now a “visitation” has been ordered by the Vatican and, once again an all-male hierarchy in the name of a God named Father, has directed that women be disciplined and forced to conform to the patriarchal ordained leadership of the church if they want to remain in religious orders.

In this church all power flows through the hierarchy of the ordained and since no woman is in that flow chart, women are inevitably and finally powerless.

“Separate but equal” was once nothing more than propagandistic perfume sprinkled over the stench of segregated America, now it is to be propagandistic perfume sprinkled over the stench of a patriarchal, sexist church. “Separate but equal” is always separate, but it is never equal!

There were, of course, other issues. It was said that the nuns have also challenged the church’s teaching on homosexuality, a male-only priesthood and promoted a “radical feminist agenda incompatible with the Catholic faith.”

By entering into the American political process so blatantly and by forcing the issue of contraceptives into that debate so centrally, the Catholic bishops have blurred the lines between church and state rather considerably.

In the candidacy of former Senator Rick Santorum, a very traditional Roman Catholic lay person, he not only stated his opposition to contraception, but he also dismissed President John Kennedy’s understanding of the separation of church and state, saying that it made him “want to throw up.” That candidacy gave us a clear vision of how the Catholic bishops will try to manipulate the American political process. The scene was not pretty. Without any fanfare, the nation now awakens to the fact that two thirds, that is, six of the nine sitting justices on the Supreme Court today are Roman Catholics and that three of them, Justices Scalia, Thomas and Alito, identify themselves with the most hard line conservative wing of that church. Suddenly, the American dream of “Freedom of Religion” looks shakier that it has ever looked before.

This ecclesiastical attack against health care for women, against contraception, against the nuns and against their leading theologians, presents us with a picture not of strength, but of a desperate power play, designed to recover influence that this religious system has so clearly lost.

When abortion was the defining issue in church-state relationships, the polls continued to show that a majority of Roman Catholic lay people wanted abortion to be a legal option, a safe option, while being at the same time as much as possible, a rare option. Every study reveals that the availability of contraception cuts down the abortion rate dramatically. The Roman Church, however, also wants contraception to be curtailed. Once again, polls reveal that up to 98% of Catholic women in America avail themselves of contraception during some part of their lives. These women are clearly not following the teachings of the bishops. So the bishops have now decided on a plan to use the health care bill of the government of the United States to force its own members to do what their church is not capable of forcing them to do.

Is this not a strange twist on the relationship between church and state? Next, they want to use male hierarchical power to silence any dissent within the largest body of nuns in America. If the lay people of this church are not buying what this church is selling and now if the nuns are not buying what this church is selling, perhaps the bishops might ask themselves whether they have truth on their side.

During his unsuccessful run for the Republican presidential nomination, Senator Santorum also complained that 60% of those who enter a college or a university with a strong religious faith had that faith challenged, disturbed or destroyed by what the senator described as “liberal secular professors.” It did not seem to occur to the senator that maybe these students’ “strong faith” was based on concepts that are either dated, immature or simply wrong. Is knowledge in the future in our universities to be bent so as not to offend the naïve faith of some religious believers? Are we ready to put the Catholic Church in charge of discerning all truth? Was this Church not wrong about Galileo, about Darwin, about Hans Kung? Are they not wrong about women, about birth control, about celibacy, about homosexuality, about mental illness and about left-handedness?

Where was this passion for truth and for the exercise of moral leadership when priests were abusing children and the hierarchy was covering it up? Why is Cardinal Bernard Law, the prelate guiltier than any other of covering up that scandal, in a senior Vatican position where he will never have to be called to testify under oath for his criminal behavior?

Those vital nuns are now on the battle line facing this out-of-touch male hierarchy. I predict, however, that the nuns will ultimately prevail. The Vatican has never understood either feminine wiles or the fact that truth cannot be finally trampled in the service of institutional power.

Gaming For Understanding

noreply@blogger.com (Andy Hanson) — Wed, 16 May 2012 17:00:02 PDT

It's never easy to get across the magnitude of complex tragedies -- so when Brenda Brathwite's daughter came home from school asking about slavery, she did what she does for a living -- she designed a game. At TEDxPhoenix she describes the surprising effectiveness of this game, and others, in helping the player really understand the story.

Brenda Brathwaite designs games that turn some of history's most tragic lessons into interactive, emotional experiences. Inspired by her daughter in 2008, she began work on her non-digital series, The Mechanic Is the Message, dedicated to expressing difficult subjects through interactive media. Train, a game derived from the events of the Holocaust, won the Vanguard Award at Indiecade in October 2009.

How to buy happiness

noreply@blogger.com (Andy Hanson) — Wed, 09 May 2012 17:10:00 PDT

At TEDxCambridge, Michael Norton shares fascinating research on how money can, indeed buy happiness -- when you don't spend it on yourself. Listen for surprising data on the many ways pro-social spending can benefit you, your work, and (of course) other people. Through clever studies, Michael Norton studies how we feel about what we buy and spend.

Should a Competent Newspaper Publish Uninformed Prejudice?

noreply@blogger.com (Andy Hanson) — Wed, 09 May 2012 17:05:00 PDT

by John Shelby Spong
support@johnshelbyspong.com

An article on homosexuality, which appeared recently on the Op-Ed page of the Star-Tribune of Minneapolis, calls into question the decision on the part of that paper’s editors to publish this piece. The article, signed by Don Nye of Edina, revealed no competence to address this subject and revealed little more than uninformed prejudice.

I understand and appreciate the right of free speech, but where is the line between free speech and an ill-informed public attack on the dignity and humanity of a group of human beings? What is the bar of knowledge that must be met before a vibrant newspaper will refuse to give one’s opinions wide distributions? Does a newspaper print an article that is deeply anti-Semitic with no regard for the offense it will create among its Jewish readers? Does a newspaper in our day print a piece that defends the opinion that the earth is flat and the center of a three-tiered universe? I challenge the editorial board of the Star Tribune to review its decision-making processes and to consider the fact that the primary result of their decision was a massive perpetuation of ignorance.

Mr. Nye posed six revealing questions in his piece. They are now in the public domain. He argues against allowing any change in the public attitude toward homosexuality, since the present attitude represents the “societal norm.” Anyone wishing to change that norm, he maintains, should answer the six questions that he poses. In this column I will attempt to do so.

1. “Were our ancestors all dumb and bigoted because they thought homosexuality was wrong? Some may think that accepting homosexuality is innovative and progressive, but others say that abandoning our previous norm may be presumptuous on our part. In other words, our ancestors may have been right, and we might be wrong.”

No, Mr. Nye, our ancestors were not dumb or bigoted, but they did have limited knowledge and an underdeveloped consciousness. Our ancestors also practiced slavery, allowed children to work long hours in factories, burned heretics at the stake, forbade women from getting an education or voting and treated various sicknesses by bleeding the patient. Would you like to argue that those things were good and that abandoning these “societal norms” was wrong?

2. “Don’t our sexual organs exist for reproduction? How does homosexuality square with that?”

What you do not understand, Mr. Nye is that we all have but one sexual organ and that is our brain. All else is equipment. It is our brains that tell us to whom we are attracted. We now know that a small percentage of the human population, estimates are between 5 and 10%, have brains that orient their affections toward their own gender. The same thing is true in the world of nature. There is no reason to think that because this is a “minority,” it is abnormal.

3. “It is no secret that the human sex drive is a lot stronger than is needed for reproduction. Do we just give into those desires or do we try to control them? The ancients told us that controlling our physical desires is one of the things that distinguish us from the beasts. Sexual desires if, not controlled, easily lead us into trouble.”

Of course, Mr. Nye, sexual desire needs to be controlled. When not controlled violent things occur like rape, prostitution and child abuse. Each of these behaviors is, however, acted out overwhelmingly by heterosexual people. Are you suggesting that homosexual people alone must control their sexual appetites? Rape, as a matter of fact, appears quite unnatural among those you call beasts. I think any sexual behavior that violates another person is wrong. But a sexual act that expresses love and commitment is and can be quite beautiful.

4. “Most everyone still agrees that humans can take their sexuality to where it is morally wrong. Almost all will agree that among other things, adultery, pedophilia and bestiality are wrong. Why should homosexuality that was once included in this group, be moved to normal sexuality? It is based on an argument that there is no moral choice involved in homosexuality, that it is a product of nature? Couldn’t others in the group above use the same argument-they just couldn’t help themselves-they were born with those desires? Why does the nature argument work for homosexuality but not the others?”

What you do not understand, Mr. Nye, is that what you call “The Moral Law” was not inspired from on high. It grew out of the human experience. If there is a victim in love making, it is wrong. If, on the other hand, however, in a sexual encounter both partners find their humanity enhanced, their ability to love others increased and there is no victim, a different judgment is called for, regardless of one’s sexual orientation. When you say that homosexuality was removed from “this list of immoral acts,” you are referring to the book of Leviticus. We have removed a lot of things from the ancient writings of the Torah. Deuteronomy, the last book of the Torah, calls for the execution of children who are willfully disobedient and who talk back to their parents. Leviticus calls for the execution of both partners in an adulterous act, as well as for anyone who worships a false god. Leviticus mandated kosher dietary laws. Those, like you, who want to affirm the condemnation of homosexuality in Leviticus, might want to read the whole Torah and see how much of it you want to take literally.

You might also be interested, as long as you are going to appeal to the authority of the Bible, to know that there is no reference to homosexuality in any of the gospels. Jesus, however, is recorded as commanding us to love our neighbors and when asked who is our neighbor, responded by saying your neighbor is the one for whom you have the deepest prejudice.

5. “Prevalent homosexuality has made its appearance in human history before and has never lasted. Why is it going to work this time when all other appearances failed? Changes in norms require universal acceptance. Why should we go down this road again when many, probably a majority, will always see homosexuality as going against nature, not normal? Can’t we learn from the past that prevalent homosexuality will not work in society?”

Your statement here, Mr. Nye, is both patently wrong and intellectually absurd. Before you enter the public debate on any issue, you have a responsibility to read those who are experts in that field. Prejudice does not constitute knowledge. Scientists now believe that the percentage of persons in the human population that are homosexual has been both constant and stable throughout human history. When homosexuality is culturally accepted, it flourishes in the open, but when homosexuality is oppressed, it goes underground. The numbers, however, do not change because sexual orientation is fixed, an unchangeable given, no one can choose to be gay or lesbian any more than they can choose to be male or female, black or white, right handed or left handed. Changes in norms have never required universal acceptance. You clearly have no knowledge of history. That is why those who can’t adjust to new patterns of life are eventually called “racist” or “sexist” or “homophobic.” There are always some who will never change. What happens to them is that they die and their children change. That has been the human pattern forever. People with your attitude are simply those who are uninformed and out of touch.

6. “Here’s one religious question, directed not toward those practicing homosexuality, but toward those who support others who do. Should we be trying to encourage others to repent of a wrong or pat them on the back as they go down a road that could lead to perdition? The supportive group may consider themselves full of justice and love, but if there is a God who is opposed to homosexuality, as many religions claim, they may be doing indescribable harm to those they are patting on the back and most likely to themselves.”

This final question, which you, Mr. Nye, say is a religious question, reveals, rather, a profound lack of any religious knowledge, to say nothing of scientific knowledge. You are still operating on the outdated theory that people choose to be homosexual. There is not one shred of scientific or medical data to support that. Our task as Christians is to help people to be whole, to free people to be all that they can be no matter where they fit in the vast spectrum of human possibilities. For anyone to oppress another on the basis of a given fact of their lives, whether it be skin color, gender or sexual orientation, is simply wrong. It is an evil act for one person to seek to impose his or her prejudice on another. Of course, bigoted behavior hurts the victim, but it also violates the humanity of the perpetrator.

You seem to think religion cannot be wrong especially if it validates your particular prejudice. Well, Christianity has tortured heretics, killed Protestants and Catholics, supported the Divine Right of Kings, opposed democracy, and encouraged slavery and segregation. The author of the hymn “Amazing Grace” was a former slave trader, who came to the realization that slavery was wrong. Yet Popes have been owners of slaves and the “Bible Belt” is the part of America where slavery was an accepted institution and where it took defeat in war to force Christians to give it up. Christians have tried to re-program left handed children and have carried out crusades to kill “infidels” in the Middle East. Sometimes it is religion that needs to repent! For you to use an appeal to religion to try to validate your deep hatred and dark prejudice is itself shameful. Instead of revealing your lack of understanding in an article in the Star-Tribune, Mr. Nye, I suggest you hold up a mirror to yourself and see yourself for what you are, a deeply prejudiced, significantly uninformed man.

Just how small is an atom?

noreply@blogger.com (Andy Hanson) — Wed, 09 May 2012 17:00:04 PDT

Just how small are atoms? Really, really, really small. This fast-paced animation from TED-Ed uses metaphors (imagine a blueberry the size of a football stadium!) to give a visceral sense of just how small atoms are. Lesson by Jon Bergmann, animation by Cognitive Media.

Half a million secrets

noreply@blogger.com (Andy Hanson) — Wed, 02 May 2012 17:10:00 PDT

Frank Warren is the creator of The PostSecret Project, a collection of highly personal and artfully decorated postcards mailed anonymously from around the world, displaying the soulful secrets we never voice. Since November 2004, Warren has received more than 500,000 postcards, with secrets that run from sexual taboos and criminal activity to confessions of secret beliefs, hidden acts of kindness, shocking habits and fears. PostSecret is a safe and anonymous "place" where people can hear unheard voices and share untold stories.

http://www.ted.com/speakers/frank_warren.html

from The Health Care Debate: Is It Possible to Reach Conclusions That Are Satisfactory?

noreply@blogger.com (Andy Hanson) — Wed, 02 May 2012 17:05:00 PDT

by John Shelby Spong
support@johnshelbyspong.com

The argument before the Supreme Court as to whether the Federal government can mandate health insurance for all citizens represents a fascinating dance around shifting realities. It is an argument that totters between the values inherent in an interdependent society and those cherished by an individualistic society. The reality is, however, that in an ever-shrinking world, individuals are of necessity interdependent. There is no such thing as pure individualism in an interdependent world.

My point is that if we are to mandate that hospitals be required to treat any patient who shows up on its doorstep then we are also mandating that those costs will ultimately be borne by taxpayers and those who do have health insurance, so the issue before the Court has already been decided. We have already accepted the principle that health care is a basic right and must be universally offered and paid for by the whole society.

In an article published in the Journal of American Medical Associations in March of 2012, Dr. David Naylor and Ms. Karline Naylor proposed seven proactive principles for health care reform in America. They are realistic, but they also make it clear that some of the problems we face will never be solved by political rhetoric.

Their first principle was to recognize that there is no perfect health care system. Every system balances availability against affordability and quality.

The second principle was that every nation must recognize that it must adapt health care to its own constituency, but there is wisdom in adopting things that have worked well in other nations without the ideological bias that so often accompanies the health care debate.

Third, in designing national health care programs, simplicity always trumps complexity. The more changes a program initiates the greater the risk of unintended consequences.

Fourth, we will all need to face the fact that every health care bill has limits and engages in rationing health care services. The question is who will make the decision on who gets what care. In a single payer system, a single authority usually makes that decision. In the more complex American system, those decisions are made by many people on many different levels. The myth is that there is no rationing. In no system are all conditions covered. It is, however, far more expensive, more difficult and politically more compromised to make it on local levels.

Fifth, every system is designed to achieve fairness and all promise to deliver fairness, but no one is yet able to define what fairness means or to describe how it looks.

Sixth, there appears to be little correlation between the amount of spending and the quality of health care that is provided. America’s heath care costs per capita are the highest in the developed world while America’s health care falls far short of being the best for all its citizens by almost every objective statistical measure.

Seventh, micromanagement has been demonstrated not to be optimal whether the system is administered by public or private agencies.

These are some of the reasons that healthcare seems intractable and remains polarizing. It is an area of life in which every citizen has a significant vested interest and in which other clearly identified constituencies like doctors, lawyers and insurance companies conduct active and well financed lobbying efforts to protect their profits.

I am still convinced that a single payer universal national health service is both inevitable and, in the last analysis, the best system for the vast majority of our people. Before this nation arrives at that, however, we must stagger over the terrain and live with mistakes and shortcomings and the issue will be political red meat for years to come.

A DRAMATIC SURPRISE ON A QUIET SQUARE

noreply@blogger.com (Andy Hanson) — Wed, 02 May 2012 17:00:03 PDT

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=316AzLYfAzw

Movie & Book Review: "An Improbable Feast" & "The Way"

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Parker) — Sat, 28 Apr 2012 23:16:12 PDT

I'm reviewing a book and a movie on this occasion because of a serendipitous coincidence. First, my good friend, Geoff Boyce, gave me his new book An Improbable Feast to read. Geoff, has asked for an honest review (something I'd provide even if he didn't want it!).

Geoff has been the Uniting Church Christian Chaplin at Flinders University since 1997. From discussions I've had with him, and from reading his book, Geoff's ministry is rigorously focused on acceptance and inclusiveness. Using the metaphor of a feast, he describes how he has navigated through the challenges of ministering in a pluralist context where faiths ranged from atheism to paganism to Islam to Christianity to fundamentalist Christianity.

Notice I have placed fundamentalist Christianity on its own. One of the greatest ironies described in Geoff's book is the way in which the fundamentalist Christian chaplin contingent resisted inclusivity - one of the core values of the Christ they claimed to follow.

The arrival of a pagan chaplain provides the most powerful aspect of the story. As Geoff describes his own journey coming to know the pagan chaplain and setting a place at the table for her, the essential theme of the book is articulated - hospitality. As Boyce points out, hospitality has been an essential aspect of all faith traditions. So hospitality provides a natural "womb" (my word) to 'nurture spirit, build community'. As the concept of hospitality is teased out we are witness to a highly engaging journey as a group of chaplains struggle to identify a shared purpose for their service to the university community.

Geoff Boyce is a "heart" person and his heart is evident on every page of this book. Told with deep sensitivity and empathy, this book provides a model, not only for chaplains of all faiths, but also for anyone living life in contemporary multifaith societies. We are constantly meeting the Other in our journeys and this book is a delightful piece of wisdom applied to the real world revealing an authenticity not evident in much "spiritual' discourse. It will be especially useful to anyone who is engaged in chaplaincy work.

Book details: Geoff Boyce, An Improbable Feast: The surprising dynamic of hospitality at the heart of multifaith chaplaincy. 2010. Self published (I think) but available on Amazon.

On page 53 of Geoff's book, he introduces the reader to an ancient, but still practiced, pilgrimage that many take to Santiago de Compostela in Spain. It's a long and demanding trek. Along the way, there are the Refugios where pilgrims can stop for a bed, rest, and refreshments. Geoff's brother has completed the pilgrimage and some of his stories are shared in Geoff's book to illustrate aspects of hospitality.

So imagine my delight when Emilio Estevez's movie The Way arrived in my local cinema. The entire film occurs on this same pilgrimage route! And what a delightful movie it is.

Tom (Martin Sheen) receives a call from Spain informing him that his son, Daniel (Emilio Estevez - Martin Sheen's son in real life) has died in a climbing accident near the start of his pilgrimage along the Santiago de Compostela. Tom hasn't heard from his son for a long time and travels to Spain to recover Daniel's body. When he arrives, he decides to have Daniel's body cremated so that he can carry Daniel on the rest of his journey. On the journey, Tom meets various colorful people who challenge his approach to life and death and everything in between.

The Way is a deeply moving meditation. The story is as slow as the pilgrimage but every step is engaging and saturated with meaning. Fortunately, Estevez's directorial hand is light and there is no preaching. Even at the end of the journey, we are left to draw our own conclusions about what each character in the story has gained from their journey. There's a privacy to the experience that is the opposite of the modern inclination to uninhibitedly bare all to the world.

Martin Sheen is excellent as the father and all of the supporting cast bring enjoyable nuances to the story. It's a deeply spiritual film and, at times, favours a Catholic approach to some of the issues it traverses. But it is a satisfying movie in ways that a lot of contemporary cinema isn't. I would imagine that many people would be impatient rather than allowing themselves to be carried on at the pace of the narrative. But it is most definitely worth persevering with this beautifully contemplative fare.

The fact that this movie is a father-son movie with real father and son working together adds an interesting layer to the story. One has to wonder just how much of the move has grown out of their actual relationship - something I'm not willing to speculate about.

Positive Review

'There's a contemplative loveliness to The Way, an affecting personal project both for Emilio Estevez, who wrote, directed, and plays a small role, and for his father, Martin Sheen.' - Lisa Schwarzbaum/Entertainment Weekly

Negative Review

'With "The Way," writer-director Emilio Estevez has made a respectable failure. What's respectable - and undeniable - is that this is a sincere effort to make a film of sensitivity and spiritual richness.' - Mick LaSalle/SanFrancisco Chronicle

You will probably like this movie if you liked The Bucket List, Up, City Slickers, Into the Wild, The Motorcycle Diaries

AUS: PG

USA: PG-13

The secret life of plankton

noreply@blogger.com (Andy Hanson) — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 17:10:00 PDT

New videography techniques have opened up the oceans' microscopic ecosystem for Tierney Thys, revealing it to be both mesmerizingly beautiful and astoundingly complex. Explore this hidden world that underpins our own food chain -- in the first-ever TEDTalk narrated by a fish...

from The Traditional Religious Definition of Human Life

noreply@blogger.com (Andy Hanson) — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 17:05:01 PDT

by John Shelby Spong

“Traditionally, those of us who are the recipients of and practitioners in the Judeo-Christian faith system that marks the Western World have attributed to God all of the things of which we human beings are lacking. God is infinite, we are finite. God is immortal, we are mortal. God is perfect, we are imperfect. God is all powerful, omnipotent, we are limited in power. God is everywhere, omnipresent; we are bound to one place at a time. God is all knowing, omniscient, we are limited in knowledge. God is timeless, we are bound by time. God is the heavenly extension of all of the things about which we feel inadequate. So, against this common definition of God, we human beings have been taught to judge ourselves to be inadequate creatures.

“This definition of human life is also the primary background theme in the way we Christians traditionally tell the Christ story. Jesus comes, we say, as the savior of the sinner, the redeemer of the fallen and the rescuer of the lost. We are portrayed as helpless victims begging for the intervening God to come to our aid.

“We say God sent Jesus to save us from our sins. How did Jesus affect this salvation? ‘He died for our sins,’ we reply. That is, the unforgiving Father had to punish someone and since we were not able to bear the divine wrath, God punished Jesus in our place.

“Christians have made a fetish out of the cleansing blood of Jesus. Protestants want to bathe in it so that their ‘sins might be washed away.’ Evangelical hymn books are filled with such titles as: ‘Washed in the Blood,’ ‘Saved by the Blood’ and ‘There’s a Fountain filled with Blood!’ One Lenten hymn in my Episcopal hymnal exhorts God to ‘bleed on me.’ Catholics on the other hand speak of being cleansed inwardly by ‘drinking the blood of Jesus’ in the Eucharist. When these aspects of this ‘blood ritual’ are raised to our consciousness, we experience a sense of repulsion. Yet we Christians wallow in this mentality year after year.

“When we analyze this theological understanding we find that it misrepresents God, distorts Jesus and destroys our human dignity. It is wrong in every detail! First, it turns God into an unforgiving monster that must have a victim for the wrath of the offended deity.

“Second, this theology turns Jesus into a chronic victim. His love is seen as a willingness to accept divine abuse on our behalf. Perhaps that is why we have kept him hanging on his cross in the symbol of the crucifix. This allows us to crucify him daily through our ongoing sinfulness.

“Third, this theology dumps enormous amounts of guilt, unbearable guilt, onto us when we are worshipers. We are, this theology proclaims, responsible for the death of Jesus. Our sins resulted in his crucifixion. We are all “Christ killers.” Guilt has become the coin of the realm in church life. Have you ever known anyone to be made whole by being told what a wretched and miserable sinner he or she is? How does this square with the promise attributed to Jesus by the Fourth Gospel that his purpose was to bring abundant life to all?

“’Original sin’ is a concept that has to go. Not to go there is to face the death of the Christian faith.”

Sulphur Creek in Capitol Reef National Park

noreply@blogger.com (Andy Hanson) — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 17:00:09 PDT

Capitol Reef National Park is perhaps one of Utah's best kept secrets. It has that trademark Utah scenery, but its own unique flavor, and attracts fewer visitors than other National Parks in Utah. This view features a classic Capitol Reef butte, and an odd, decaying structure on the riverbank which many people have emailed and asked about. The structure as viewed here is a cross section of old riverbank reinforcement, or rip rap, probably dating from the 1970s. Obviously, the river won! Other panoramas on this site from Capitol Reef include this panorama of Fremont River, also lined with cottonwood trees which make for striking fall scenes. Another panorama, from the somewhat remote Cathedral Valley area, features Gypsum Sink, a sinkhole created when an underlying gypsum plug dissolved. - Martin van Hemert

From mach-20 glider to humming bird drone

noreply@blogger.com (Andy Hanson) — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 17:10:00 PDT

"What would you attempt to do if you knew you could not fail?" asks Regina Dugan, then director of DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. In this breathtaking talk she describes some of the extraordinary projects -- a robotic hummingbird, a prosthetic arm controlled by thought, and, well, the internet -- that her agency has created by not worrying that they might fail.

With a doctorate in mechanical engineering from Caltech and master's and bachelor's degrees from Virginia Tech, Dr. Dugan is a business woman, inventor, and technology developer who rolls up her sleeves and goes directly to a problem whether it's in the lab or in Afghanistan. She's been called a "technogeek" with a knack for inspiring creative thinking, an artist-engineer. Many credit Dugan as a scientific coach, mentor, cheerleader and taskmaster. As a 2010 New York Times article explained, there are four stages to an encounter with Regina Dugan - "being a little scared, really scared, frustrated and then enlightened." Vision alone is insufficient for Dugan. Rather, vision must be paired with the power of execution in order to make impossible things possible.

from Deconstructing the Story of the Fall

noreply@blogger.com (Andy Hanson) — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 17:05:00 PDT

by John Shelby Spong
http://johnshelbyspong.com/

“The way Christians have told the Christ story, beginning with Augustine in the fourth century and continuing through Anselm in the twelfth century, is to postulate an original and perfect creation from which human life has fallen. This original perfection was first perverted and then lost by an act of human disobedience. At least that was the way the biblical story of the Garden of Eden was interpreted. Expelled from paradise because of this act of disobedience, the only human hope was that God would somehow come to rescue us from this fall; to save us from this original sin and to redeem us from our lostness.

“Given these presuppositions it should come as no surprise that Jesus was portrayed as God’s special rescue operation. His death on the cross represented the terrible price that God had to pay to accomplish our salvation. So on the Protestant side of Christianity we learned to say such things as, “Jesus died for my sins,” and on the Catholic side of Christianity we began to refer to the Eucharist as “the Sacrifice of the Mass,” which meant that the Mass re-enacted liturgically that moment when Jesus died for our sins.

“My last column in this series ended with the question: ‘What is wrong with these familiar concepts?’ My answer was ‘Everything.’ Today I seek to put theological flesh on those bare bones.

“It is interesting to note how negative Christian churches have been about the work of Charles Darwin…One does not see this kind of emotional reaction unless there is a deep emotional threat. The work of Charles Darwin has clearly disturbed the security that traditional religion seeks to provide. What, we must ask, is the nature of that threat?

‘Well, in its earliest phase Darwin clearly challenged the literalization of the Bible and especially of the Bible’s creation story…That, however, does not seem enough to generate the levels of emotional hostility toward evolution that has been expressed in churches over the last century. The real and unrelenting hostility of traditional Christians to Darwin rises out of the fact that Darwin has annihilated the familiar way the Jesus story has been told through the years.

“The traditional telling of the story, adapted from a literal reading of the opening chapters of Genesis, begins with a picture of the perfection of creation, which was both good and complete. One cannot claim perfection for creation unless it is a finished process. A still evolving universe could make no claim to be finished or complete. Yet that was at the heart of Darwin’s insight. Darwin said that there never was a perfect, finished creation, but that we have been evolving for a very long time. Darwin himself did not realize just how long that had been he only knew that it was ongoing.

‘If there was no original perfection, there could be no fall from that perfection into a state we have called original sin…If there was no fall from perfection into sin, there could be no need for a divine intervention…This theology has shaped our worship, our understanding of the Eucharist, our hymns, our prayers and our sermons, to say nothing of our creedal understandings of both God and Jesus for centuries. When we understand the depth of this challenge…we then begin to understand why fundamentalists cling so passionately to their outdated concepts and even seek to impose them on everyone else as the only way for their point of view to survive.

“It also helps us to understand why mainline churches are in a statistical freefall. They know that the old literalism no longer works, but they do not know how to replace it, so they drift without a message and they are no longer able to bind people out of loyalty to their institutional forms. Separating oneself from religion is now relatively easy.

“Does that mean that we are witnessing the end of Christianity? I suspect it does, if by Christianity we mean the traditional way of telling the Christian story. The question we need to ask, and it is a deeply radical question coming at us from many angles, is this: Is the traditional way of telling the Christ story the only way to tell that story? Is the only way to talk about God the theistic way, that is, to define God as a supernatural being who dwells somewhere external to this world and who can and will invade the world to come to our aid or to answer our prayers? Is the only way to speak of Christ something that involves us in seeing him as the incarnation of this theistic deity?

“The fact is that only inside these dated categories, can we still talk about being “saved,” about salvation, about meaningful worship, about achieving forgiveness or even about life after death…To be able to think differently about the Christian faith or to accept uncertainty in the presence of this kind of challenge…calls us to a radical re-visioning of our faith story. It requires that we find a new entry point. It means that we become willing to give up everything we have ever known in order to move to a place where there are no road maps or road signs and we still have the responsibility of putting one foot in front of the other as we are forced to step into the cloud of unknowing. Many are no longer willing to risk this journey. They are the new fundamentalists. The pain of this transition is too intense, but the alternative is little more than a life of deception and illusion.

“Theological honesty requires that we admit that we have arrived at the status of the total bankruptcy of our traditional Christian symbols. What do we do now? We will pick up this thread and see where it leads us when this series resumes.”

Everyday moments, caught in time

noreply@blogger.com (Andy Hanson) — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 17:00:02 PDT

Combining dry wit with artistic depth, Billy Collins shares a project in which several of his poems were turned into delightful animated films in a collaboration with Sundance Channel. Five of them are included in this wonderfully entertaining and moving talk -- and don't miss the hilarious final poem!

Geoff Boyce | Not without my neighbour

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Parker) — Sat, 14 Apr 2012 19:22:52 PDT

Check out my good friend, Geoff Boyce's blog...

Geoff Boyce | Not without my neighbour

Beautiful artificial limbs

noreply@blogger.com (Andy Hanson) — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 17:10:00 PDT

Prosthetics can’t replicate the look and feel of lost limbs but they can carry a lot of personality. At TEDxCambridge, Scott Summit shows 3D-printed, individually designed prosthetic legs that are unabashedly artificial and completely personal -- from macho to fabulous.

from Understanding the Source of Evil

noreply@blogger.com (Andy Hanson) — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 17:05:00 PDT

by John Shelby Spong
http://johnshelbyspong.com/

Bad theology is inevitable when it is based on bad anthropology! That is, the way we understand human life always determines the way we understand God. This becomes very clear when religious people begin to grapple with and to try to explain the source of evil…Though an evil presence is all but universally acknowledged, defining what constitutes evil can, however, still vary widely and explaining the source out of which evil flows has been a major debate throughout the ages.

St. Paul, for example, saw evil as an external force that somehow held him in its grip. He explained its presence by saying, “It was sin, working death in me through what is good.” (Rom. 7:13).

In Persia, where the Jews first ran into a radical dualism that divided the whole of reality into two realms, one good, one evil, another definition was operating. Creation was a mixture of two competing and eternal powers, not just the beginning of God’s good world, as the biblical story of the Hebrews had maintained…For the dualists good and evil were equal divine forces contending for dominance. This counter force might be called the devil, Satan or evil, but it was portrayed as possessing a status equal to and independent of God.

For the Jews, to whom God was both ultimate and one, evil was not an independent power, but a corruption of the original goodness of God’s creation…So, in the Jewish tradition, Satan was not an independent creature, but a fallen angel cast out of heaven by God for leading a revolution against God and human life was not evil in its origins, but became evil through an act of disobedience that corrupted the goodness of God’s creation forever.

Although these ideas were present in the mythology of the Jewish stories of their origins, they did not get developed in a systematic way until the fourth century of the Common Era and then by the hand of the most significant Christian theologian in the first twelve hundred years of Christian history. His name was Augustine…He assumed that it was his task as a Christian theologian to explain all mysteries. One of those mysteries to be explained was the source of evil in a world that Christians believed was created by a good God. To accomplish this task, he went to the scriptures of the Judeo-Christian tradition, which he believed, as the Christians of that day did, that these words were the “Word of God” and, therefore, that they held the key to the understanding of all things.

In that sacred text Augustine found two quite different stories of creation side by side in the book of Genesis. They were actually written in two different eras about 500 years apart and under very different circumstances. He blended them, however, and used them as his starting place in the definition of evil. From the first story (Gen. 1:1-2:4a), he took the idea of the perfection of creation.

This familiar narrative was a product of the period in Jewish history known as the Babylonian captivity, which would date it in the late 6th century BCE. It was written to accomplish two things. First, the writer, who was a member of a group we now refer to as “the priestly writers,” wanted to have a Jewish story of creation that could be placed as a contrast alongside the Babylonian story of creation. Second, this writer wanted to establish the peculiar Jewish Sabbath day custom as a defining mark of all Jewish people and to cause that practice to distinguish the Jews from all other people.

That displaced story of creation, which was written some 400 to 500 years earlier, was much more primitive and reflected its more ancient origins. It was quite different and even quite contradictory when compared with the newcomer that now preceded it. In the first story, the creation of living things came in an orderly manner from plants to animals to human life. In the second story, the man was created first out of the dust of the earth and even after God had created a beautiful garden in which the man could live. Then came the creation of all the animals, which were designed to give the man companionship, and finally, when none of the animals seemed capable of meeting the man’s needs for companionship, God created the woman. The woman in this story was thus not coequal as in the earlier story. She was quite secondary, made out of the rib of the man. She was created to be the male helpmeet and support person. The man had the power to name her as he had named all the other animals, which meant that he had the power to control her.

The names of this man and woman were Adam and Eve. The garden in which they lived was called the Garden of Eden. In both stories the perfection of creation was asserted, but how evil entered this paradise was yet to be told. The Jews would come down on the side of evil being the corruption of that which was good. St. Augustine would put these two stories together and make them the basis of his explanation of evil and just why it was that all human beings were corrupted, why they died and why they needed to be rescued and saved by an intervening deity. I will turn to that story next week.

Learning From the Octopus

noreply@blogger.com (Andy Hanson) — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 17:00:03 PDT

by Rafe Sagarin
What we can learn from nature about becoming adaptable to the unpredictable. Highlights from my book, "Learning from the Octopus: How Secrets from Nature Can Help Us Fight Terrorism, Natural Disasters, and Disease" (2012 Basic Books).
http://vimeo.com/34910520

The Power Of Vulnerability

noreply@blogger.com (Andy Hanson) — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 17:10:00 PDT

Brené Brown studies human connection -- our ability to empathize, belong, love. In a poignant, funny talk at TEDxHouston, she shares a deep insight from her research, one that sent her on a personal quest to know herself as well as to understand humanity. A talk to share.

from The Roman Catholic Bishops: Are They Killing Their Church?

noreply@blogger.com (Andy Hanson) — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 17:05:00 PDT

by John Shelby Spong
http://johnshelbyspong.com/

“I never thought I would live long enough to see birth control become a major political issue. Nor did I think I would ever hear the desire to provide women with safe and effective contraception be referred to as “a war on religion on the part of the Obama administration.” Granted that presidential election years frequently reveal the politically bizarre, it still seems that this year’s rhetoric has reached a new low on the scale of the absurd.

“First, if the national polls are to be believed, about 98% of the American population uses contraception at some point in the course of their lives. That statistic appears to be true whether the users are Protestants, Roman Catholics, Evangelicals, Jews, non-believers or atheists! There is no correlation between one’s religious tradition and one’s use of contraception. The “pill” has been determined to be not only safe, but of great benefit in the emancipation of women from being chained to their biological destiny. Family planning is no longer regarded by significant majorities the world over as a sinful thing to do, but has become an absolute virtue in our overpopulated world.

“Contraception has also been demonstrated to be a strong bulwark against abortions since it dramatically lowers the unwanted pregnancies that fuel the number of abortion seekers. The Roman Catholic Church’s leadership, however, still acts as if it has the power to dictate what public policy is or what it should be on this issue. Unable to gain the loyalty of those they call “the faithful” they have now apparently decided that they will seek to impose their practices on the entirety of the nation’s citizenry. The idea that once emancipated from biological necessity women can now be coerced to return to the practices of yesterday is not just unrealistic, it is an act of violence!

“Ecclesiastical influence always declines when church leaders overstep the limits of their power and seek to impose upon their people an authority they no longer possess.

“Though already given a “conscience” exemption of not being required to provide contraceptive coverage in the health care offered to employees of Catholic churches, they are now demanding the right to impose that teaching on employees of their Catholic universities, hospitals and charitable institutions. Those institutions, while Catholic sponsored, serve a diverse population and receive public state and federal money to carry out their work. They have many non-Catholic employees and many Catholic employees who do not want Catholic teaching imposed upon their own health care decisions.

“The bishops have gone on to argue that any business run by a Roman Catholic CEO should also have the right to opt out of the requirement to provide contraceptive care to their employees. If this principle of exemption for Catholics is allowed, where will it stop? Some religions practiced in America object to blood transfusions, others do not believe that any medical intervention should be allowed since sickness is thought of as punishment for sin and still others have in the past sought to be exempted from the law that requires only one partner in marriage. Must the laws of America respect their consciences also?

“When the public good and religious values have come into conflict in the past, the state has always protected its understanding of public good and the various religious bodies have had to accommodate that policy. That is what it means to live in a multi-cultural state where no religious system can impose any religious principle or practice on the entire nation. Are the Catholic Bishops and those politicians who want to dictate the details of health care that will be offered to employees of religiously affiliated institutions now find that this basic American premise is no longer acceptable? That is a frightening change.

“This Church has also carried out a destructive public campaign against justice and equality for gay and lesbian people over the last fifty years. They have used their money to defeat initiatives that would have provided equality before the law and end all forms of discrimination against homosexual people. They have done this despite the fact that this definition is almost universally dismissed as little more than dated ignorance in scientific and medical circles. How long do we tolerate religious ignorance that diminishes American citizens?

“I do not understand religious imperialism in any of its forms. Religious imperialism is what gave us the rampant anti-Semitism that finally erupted in the Holocaust which Pope Pius XII watched without lifting a finger.

“It has given us the Vatican led Crusades against the people of Islam that marked the 11th, 12th and 13th centuries and that still today feeds the hostility of radical Islamic fundamentalism costing countless lives on 9-11 and in the continuing wars in Islamic countries. It has given us the Inquisition in Europe in the 14th century that burned at the stake, quite legally, those who dared to question that Church’s teaching. Now this institution, which has never allowed equality for women, wants to be permitted to determine the limits of health care for women who work for Catholic institutions.”