Recent posts in Interviews
Thursday, March 13th, 2008
My very own home town newspaper (by far the better of the two Seattle newspapers) did an interview today with Samantha Powers–she of the recent infamous “Clinton is a monster” comment which led to her resignation from her position on Obama’s staff as a foreign policy advisor. I found the interview delightful and humanizing. I loved the way she so genuinely and thoroughly said “I blew it, and I’m sorry!”
What is so abhorrent about my comments is not only are they hurtful and hateful; they don’t reflect my real views of Senator Clinton. These are not thoughts I had been having alone in my own home, storing up to vent over these 14 months.
I really just had one of those bad moments when you lose your temper and you say something that sticks. It sticks out there as something associated with Senator Clinton and also with me — all because of me.
I love the the idea of the two book she’s written: one about genocide and a new one about Sergio Vieira de Mello, the late U.N. Commissioner for Human Rights. She said of her book on genocide, which won a Pulitzer prize
The genocide book was personal. I had been in Bosnia in my early 20s and I had been shaped by the carnage and emotion, especially the fact that there were NATO planes flying overhead and not doing anything. I felt that I had not acquitted myself as aggressively as I should have in writing about those things. And I wanted to understand the act of bystanding — how good people can do nothing in the face of very bad things…
She is referencing the idea of the banality of evil, an idea I find almost mesmerizingly compelling. All the bad crap making it’s way through the rotary oscillator isn’t *nearly* so much about the people actually feeding it in as it is about all of us standing around failing to unplug that puppy.
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Sunday, March 2nd, 2008
with Karlene Clark
Karlene Clark and her husband Josh are currently planting a church in Springfield, Oregon. She is also one of the organizers of the annual Convergence event for women leaders. Karlene recently had the opportunity to interview her good friend Ken Loyd, pastor of HomePDX in Portland, Oregon.
Please tell a bit about yourself, where you live, what you like to do, and anything you want to share about what makes you Ken.
Here is my bio from OTM Live in Nov. 2007: Ken hangs out in downtown Portland, Oregon with his friends without houses and does mostly nothing special most of the time. He is not a sought after conference speaker and his book They’re Gentiles for Christ’s Sake has sold less than 1500 copies since 2001. He lives with his wife Deborah, a pastor, and enjoys hopscotch, crumpets, and doing nothing special. He has recently noticed that his nose, ears and waist grow as the years go by. Says Ken, “That’s Awesome! I was hoping that would happen.”
Tell us about HOMEpdx. What brought about the creation of this church? What inspired you to leave the Bridge to start this up?
About five years ago I was in downtown Portland and encountered a “street band” (that’s a story in itself) and asked them to play at The Bridge. They showed up the next Sunday with forty of their friends. At that time The Bridge was very near downtown and our young friends without houses showed up every week. We had no policy regarding soberness or stonedness so it worked out fine. They became a much-loved part of our community.
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Wednesday, September 19th, 2007
I recently finished Kathleen Kennedy Townsend’s recent book Failing America’s Faithful: How Today’s Churches are mixing God with Politics and Losing Their Way I found it very readable, and I wanted to share a couple fascinating quotes which she shares. They touch on something my lovely Australian wife, Meg, has said to me countless times since we moved back to the U.S. in 2001. Meg has said innumerable times “People here just don’t understand the concept of the commons.”
In 1968, the British journalist David Frost interviewed my father [Robert Kennedy] and aksed him, “What do you think we are on earth for?” My father answered,
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Sunday, June 17th, 2007
“The central message of the cross is that there is something worth dying for, but there is nothing worth killing for.”
Recently I had the privilege of interviewing Shane Claiborne for our blog. Shane is a founding member of the New Monastic community the Simple Way and author of The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical. While in college, Shane spent a summer in Calcutta working with Mother Teresa, and in 2003 he traveled to Baghdad as part of the Iraq Peace Team.
Prior to our telephone conversation, I had asked our bloggers to contribute questions. I read the questions to Shane and asked him to share his thoughts
The first question was from Joe, Ask him about making his own clothes. Yes, you heard me correctly. The guy. Makes. His own. Clothing. Laughing, Shane explained, I love making my clothes! My mom taught me; we sew together almost liturgically every Christmas the clothes for the next year.
He shared that he caught the vision while living in Calcutta in a village of people with leprosy. Since they were completely cut off from the rest of society, they had to make their own clothes and shoes, grow their own food and be a fully self-sustaining community. Shane found himself mesmerized with the way of life that they had created, a new society in the shell of the old.
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Posted in Activism, Interviews | 9 Comments »
Tuesday, May 1st, 2007
“The central message of the cross is that there is something worth dying for, but there is nothing worth killing for.”
Recently I had the privilege of interviewing Shane Claiborne for our blog. Shane is a founding member of the New Monastic community the Simple Way and author of The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical. While in college, Shane spent a summer in Calcutta working with Mother Teresa and in 2003, he traveled to Baghdad as part of the Iraq Peace Team.
In preparation for our telephone conversation, I had asked our blog participants to contribute questions. I read the questions to Shane and asked him to share his thoughts
The first question was from Joe, Ask him about making his own clothes. Yes, you heard me correctly. The guy. Makes. His own. Clothing. Laughing, Shane explained, I love making my clothes! My mom taught me; we sew together almost liturgically every Christmas the clothes for the next year.
He shared that he caught the vision while living in Calcutta in a village of people with leprosy. Since they were completely cut off from the rest of society, they had to make their own clothes and shoes, grow their own food and be a fully self-sustaining community. Shane found himself mesmerized with the way of life that they had created, a new society in the shell of the old.
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Posted in Activism, Interviews | 11 Comments »
Thursday, April 12th, 2007 In response to our first post Welcome to Justice and Compassion, NCxian shared that she would like to learn more about New Monasticism. With help from Joe Turner (thanks, Joe!), I was able to connect with Shane Claiborne and he has agreed to do a telephone interview with me on Wednesday the 18th. Shane is a founding member of a New Monastic community called The Simple Way and author of The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical. Shane traveled to Iraq in 2003 as part of a peacemaker team. He is also reportedly quite an accomplished circus performer.
So I’m looking to you all to supply me with interview questions. Are there topics that you would like me to ask Shane about when I chat with him? It could be about New Monasticism, his book, social action, peacemaking in Iraq, circus performing, or any random stuff about which you would like to hear Shane’s perspective/input/musings.
Posted in Activism, Interviews | 10 Comments »
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