The Future of Food

To be honest when it was over, I was pretty fired up. The thought that kept going through my head was

The love of money is the root of all evil.

I am not shocked, but I am saddened at how many in our government are creating and ruling on laws that benefit themselves while the American people are kept in the dark.

On top of the political side of the documentary, I was saddened by the ecological side as well! The diversity of foods are being controlled by corporations who make a ’super seed’ that they can sell to farmers that will grow and with stand ‘Roundup’ because of its DNA manipulation…this just isn’t natural.

On top of the political and ecological issues, I was saddened by the ethical practices of corporations who have patented seeds, that even when scattered accidentally on a farmers property (like from a passing truck) give the corporation right to sue the farmer for ‘patent infringement’. Patent infringement? On a seed? Well, it makes money, a lot of money…just watch the video.

After watching things like this, it makes me glad that we are moving to Europe. When people in Europe fight for their rights, people hear about it because they aren’t inoculated by garbage news stories that take the American attention away from the real issues of life. And beside…When Europeans outraged against genetically altered food, their governments listened, because they didn’t have personal profit at stake!

Here’s the point though…we can speak out against things and get information out. That’s part of why I why I write on here. So watch the movie, be mad, and then start changing things…for the future.

Over 1.2 million files on my computer are being backed up to prevent possible digital devastation.

I’ve written about this before, but need to say it again (mostly to myself). If you have not backed up your computer files, do it now.

The money* you’ll spend on a hard drive is worth not having the sickening feeling that you’d have if:

1. You just lost all of your pictures of your wife, kids, and experiences from the past year.
2. You lost all of your work files and were in the middle of a big project.
3. You lost thousands of dollars in music files.

Costco, Wall-Mart, Target, Best Buy all sell external drives. About 6 months ago I bought a 500gb hard drive for around 80 dollars. If I had just lost all of the stuff on my computer: music, pictures, thoughts recorded, ministry ideas, movies created, etc…and someone said, “Would you spend $80 to have all of this back?” My answer would be an easy ‘Yes’*

*If I had $80 dollars available at the time. This is not condoning debt or financial irresponsibility!

So fast forward to this morning. I’m reading the Bible and a guy sidles up to me.

“What are you reading?”, he says.

I said, “the Bible.”

He says, “What part?”

I say, “I Samuel…the part about David and Goliath.”

This is when he said, “I’m Miguel by the way.” Then he had me turn to Romans chapter 1 and proceeded to tell me about Martin Luther. He asked how long I had been studying the Bible.

I told him, “A while.”

He then told me that I needed to ‘forget about stuff like Samuel.’ And that I need to focus solely on the Gospel. That is where the power of God is at.

Then as I started talking, he excused himself from the conversation.

Let me go over a few reasons why I beg you not to be like Miguel:

a.) Don’t ever criticize how or what someone is reading in scripture. Especially, if you don’t know them at all!

b.) Don’t ever tell somebody that they should ‘forget about’ parts of Scripture. C’mon Miguel.

c.) Don’t ever preach a sermon to a stranger and then walk away as they start to respond.

d.) Don’t ever forget that the Gospel is God’s story of redemption through Jesus and we find that all over scripture.

e.) Don’t let your head knowledge of the Good News become more important than living the Good News. Jesus said that loving God with our all our heart, mind, soul, and strength was the most important thing. And the second thing was ‘like it’, love your neighbor as yourself. Our surrender to God releases us to be surrendered to others. Our love for and from God inspires us to love others. If our relationship with God gets boiled down to doctrine and intellectual enlightenment then we are missing the boat. (not necessarily saying that about Miguel, probably preaching a sermonette to myself.)

As he walked out the door I tried not to feel judged, or to judge. I prayed that he would step into the fullness of the Good News and that his life would become ‘the workmanship’ that it was created to be. I prayed that his heart would align with his head. But in the meantime…be like Jesus…not like Miguel. No offense Miguel.

a.) I like dancing
b.)I like seeing spontaneous movements of fun
c.) I like thinking about the why and how things ‘get started’.

I hate to pollute this is a stand alone (and nearly disturbing) picture, but the question came to mind: “Did this guy intend to start a dance party on a hill, or did he just love to dance?”

For those of us who would like to see a Jesus movement happen…I offer this: Shouldn’t we just start dancing? Instead of talking about dance theory, how to properly dance, complaining about other people dancing wrong, and comparing our dance to others? I would rather be the guy acting like a crazy person and dancing for the love of it, than a professional dancer getting a grass stain on my butt while critiquing his form…and outfit.

Thanks to Mike G. and Zach L. for unearthing this for me.

Clay Shirky: How Twitter can make history | Video on TED.com

I’m no longer a fan of everyone knowing stuff about me that I have accepted as a ‘friend’. Don’t you think that having a thousand ‘friends’ that you never see or share life cheapening the word? The word used to mean something…now it just means people that I’ve accepted to see my personal information and pictures online.

Facebook has a way of creating a sense of false connection in some relationships. Some interaction on Facebook is ‘real’ because it actually effects the real life I live day to day. But some interaction creates a weird sense of connection…I say weird because these connections don’t really connect with anything in the life that I touch on a daily basis. Like does it really matter when I write things like, “Justin is going to bed.” Or “Justin is getting ready to eat lunch.” While it is good to get in touch with people around the world, I just don’t think that getting play-by-play of people’s lives is really creating a real relationship. Information and knowledge about someone is not relationship with someone. Even information that builds on actual relationship is easily skewed because words created on a web page are not a replacement for the person.

I believe that this false sense of knowing is actually harmful to the development of real relationships in our daily lives.

Facebook is a networking tool that I enjoy, but when we look to it for a sense of relationship it can displace us from reality. Why would I want to spend time reading the status updates of people whom I never see, when my daughter is sitting on the floor wanting to play with me? Or when my neighbor needs help moving? Or when I could be playing guitar? If I really wanted to learn about how a friend a doing, how is reading their status update a good replacement for picking up the phone or meeting for coffee?

I don’t want to be extremist or anything, but I do want to be honest with myself about how well I am actually doing engaging with the world around me. Virtual reality will never replace actual reality.

Here’s a few ideas:

justinandjenpowell.com (that’s our original web address)

powellsinbcn.com (bcn is short for Barcelona)

storiesfrombarcelona.com (a bit long, but not bad)

storiesfrombcn.com (shorter version)

I don’t know…I want to come up with something that’s a bit creative, but maybe function needs to be most important.

Maybe answer this: If you were doing a search for us what would you type in?

Passion Pit

If you’ve never heard of AmieStreet Music you should go ahead and check it out…it’s a great place to discover new music (and find some older stuff too) for good prices.