another difference between Liberals and Conservatives

just saw another quote on the real differences between Democrats and Republicans/ Conservatives and Liberals that strikes me as true.

Rogert Ebert (via twitter) said, "Conservatives seem angry, Liberals seem appalled."

the real difference between Democrats and Republicans

been trying to keep politics out of here, but this one will warm the hearts of everyone:

Democrats and Republicans are basically the same on a lot of issues: They both voted for the Iraq War, they both love pork and useless weapons programs, they both lift their skirts for Wall Street. But they have one major stylistic difference: Republicans are unafraid to exercise power, while Democrats try to run government like one of those pansy T-Ball leagues, where every kid gets to have a hit, nobody loses, and nobody has to go home with an ouchie or hurt feelings.

Matt Taibbi in Rolling Stone- A Way Out for Obama

quote of the day

"Christian fundamentalism, like all fundamentalisms, is a narcissistic faith, concerned most of all with the wrongs suffered by the righteous and the purification of their ranks." link

Jeff Sharlett, the best religious journalist in America and author of The Family: The Secret Fundamentlism at the Heart of American Power in his latest masterful piece of journalism, Jesus Killed Mohammed: The Crusade for a Christian Military.

Eugene Peterson on the contemplative life, quote #8

final entry:

Doing the right thing (reading scripture) but doing it in the wrong way (reading it impersonally for information or for principles that I can use to get ahead). Using impersonal ways and means will never bring about any congruence between the text and our lives and, of course, nothing remotely contemplative.

The contemplative life, growing toward congruence, is slow work. It cannot be hurried. It is also urgent work and cannot be put off. Life is deteriorating around us at a rapid pace, and the life at the center, the gospel life—with the elements of congregation and scripture as major pieces—is being compromised, distorted, degraded at an alarming rate. In the American way, slow and urgent are not compatible. They cancel one another out.

But in the Christian way, they are joined together. Urgent as this is, there is no hurry. Impatience cancels out contemplation. Patience is prerequisite. Formation of spirit, cultivation of soul, developing a contemplative life, realizing congruence between the way and truth—all this is slow, slow work requiring endless patience. Human life is endlessly complex, intricate and serious. There are no shortcuts to becoming the persons we're created to be. We can't pump contemplation on steroids.

Unfortunately, patience is not held in high regard in American society. We get faster and faster and we become less and less; our speed diminishes us.

read the entire essay here. It is adapted from a Christian Centure lecture.

Eugene Peterson on the Contemplative Life, quote 7

American spirituality has an indiscriminating love of technology. We like getting things done, no matter how. Use the fastest and most efficient means at hand, but get it done. Fastest and most efficient almost always means impersonal. People ask questions, act stubborn, make mistakes and get in the way—so bypass the personal. Under the influence of technology, we have acquired the habit of reading the scriptures technologically, scripture depersonalized into information used to get things done more quickly.

Eugene Peterson on the contemplative life, quote #6

I know it is a pain to see an entire essay or address in such bite size morsels, but I think each little bit needs to be contemplated separately to be properly digested and considered. Here is quote #6:

Scripture is not about us, either. It is about God. God has revealed God's self to us in scripture so that we might know and respond to God, understand where we are in God's creation, what it means to be called into a life of God's salvation. We do not primarily read scripture in order to develop a better self-image, or to discover the hidden treasures in our lives. Scripture is not about us. Basically, we are listening to God revealing God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

We do, in fact, find ourselves included. We are addressed, we are invited, we are commanded, we are promised, we are immersed in a world where God rules and saves and blesses—us. But there are no secrets here on how we can rule and save and bless. We are not the subject and we do not supply the action.

Eugene Peterson on the Contemplative Life, quote 5

"The major American innovation in the congregation is to turn it into a consumer enterprise. Americans have developed a culture of acquisition, an economy that is dependent on wanting and requiring more. We have a huge advertising industry designed to stir up appetites we didn't even know we had. We are insatiable. It didn't take long for some of our colleagues to develop consumer congregations. If we have a nation of consumers, obviously the quickest and most effective way to get them into our churches is to identify what they want and offer it to them. Satisfy their fantasies, promise them the moon, recast the gospel into consumer terms—entertainment, satisfaction, excitement and adventure, problem-solving, whatever. We are the world's champion consumers, so why shouldn't we have state-of-the-art consumer churches?

Given the conditions prevailing in our culture, we have the best and most effective way ever devised for gathering large and prosperous congregations. Americans lead the world in showing how to do it. There's only one thing wrong. This is not the way that God brings us into conformity with the life of Christ. This is not the way that we become less and Jesus becomes more. This is not the way in which our lives become available to others in justice and service. The cultivation of consumer spirituality is the antithesis of a sacrificial, "denying yourself" congregation. A consumer church is an anti-Christ church. It's doing the right thing—gathering a congregation—but doing it in the wrong way. This is not the way to develop a contemplative life, a life in which the Jesus way and the Jesus truth are congruent."

Eugene Peterson on the Contemplative Life, quote 4

Peterson on the second way the Christian life is contrary to most things American;

We cannot participate in God's work but then insist on doing it in our own way. We cannot participate in the building of God's kingdom but then use the devil's tools and nails. Christ is the way as well as the truth and the life. When we don't do it his way, we mess up the truth and we miss out on the life.

Eugene Peterson on the Contemplative Life, quote 3

"Two things that are basic to the Christian life are unfortunately counter to most things American. First, Christian spirituality, the contemplative life, is not about us. It is about God. The great weakness of American spirituality is that it is all about us: fulfilling our potential, getting the blessings of God, expanding our influence, finding our gifts, getting a handle on principles by which we can get an edge over the competition. The more there is of us, the less there is of God.

Christian spirituality is not a life-project for becoming a better person. It is not about developing a so-called deeper life. We are in on it, to be sure, but we are not the subject. Nor are we the action. We get included by means of a few prepositions: God with us (Matt. 1:23), Christ in me (Gal. 2:20), God for us (Rom. 8:31). With, in, for: They are powerful, connecting, relation-forming words, but none of them makes us either the subject or the predicate. We are the tag-end of a prepositional phrase."

Eugene Peterson on the contemplative life, quote #2

"It has always been more difficult to come to terms with Jesus as the way than with Jesus as the truth, more difficult to realize the ways our thinking and behavior get fused into a life of relational love and adoration with neighbor and God, God and neighbor."

Eugene Peterson on the Contemplative Life

The first of many quotes from a recent Eugene Peterson talk. I will post the link later, but want to give you a couple of snippets, because they are so pithy and good, even in a truncated fashion.

If there's a single word that identifies the contemplative life, it is congruence—congruence between ends and means, congruence between what we do and the way we do it. So we admire an athlete whose body is accurately and gracefully responsive and totally submissive to the conditions of the event. When Michael Jordan played basketball, he was one with the court, the game, the basketball and his fellow players. Or take a musical performance in which Mozart, a Stradivarius and Yitzak Perlman all fuse indistinguishably in the music.

Congruence also occurs often enough in more modest settings: a child unselfconsciously at play; a conversation in which the exchange of words becomes a ballet revealing all manner of truth and beauty and goodness; a meal with friends in a quiet awareness of affection and celebration, a mingling of senses and spirit that adds a eucharistic dimension to the evening.

interesting Arcade Fire quotes

Quotes from Arcade Fire, usually Winn Butler, that I find intriguing (though most of them are not as compelling as the quotes from the previous article)-

on performing: “A good percentage of rock bands, when they perform it’s a totally sexual thing. But I don’t think we’re that sexual. At least that’s not what we’re singing about or acting out. On a goodnight, it’s more like the ecstasy of St. Theresa.”

on how the band makes decisions: "We basically share the same general vision. It's not quite the Quakers, where you have to be unanimous. I guess we're a democratic republic, a federal system."

why they remind me of the emerging church world and its ethos, instead of the modern megachurch system: (Richard Reed Perry- multi-instrumentalist): "We're trying to navigate a culture where people manufacture a lot of garbage. The goal is not to sell the most records or be the most famous. I think everybody in our band thinks we're trying to do something that's real and has some lasting value to it."

on community: "Boarding school, the army, or church are the only places where people are forced to be in a community with people they wouldn't choose to be. I think it's valuable to be in a community with people you have nothing in common with."

and

"The band is definitely a community. The bands that last are the ones that realize that and put priority on that first. But it's the same principle with a two-piece band. In a large band, there's just more relationships to maintain."

on religion: "There are things about organized religion that I find interesting. I'd probably have a more interesting conversation with the Pope than with Howard Stern. I think that people mistake describing something for understanding it- that happens in religion a lot. There's a lot of metaphorical language in the Bible, but I think that the human imagination isn't equipped to deal with the idea of eternal life."