I saw this for the first time this week, and must have watched it at 30 times since. It continues to get me.
The Song is currently at #3 on Billboard’s Hot Modern Rock Tracks.
Would love to hear your reactions.
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »On Mother’s Day, which was Sunday, The Observer ran a story in which Abdel-Qader Ali attempted to justify (apologize for, in the “give an explanation” for sense) the fact that he and his two sons beat his 17 year old daughter Rand to death on March 16th this year.
Rand, who was studying English at Basra University, was deemed to have brought shame on her family after becoming infatuated with a British soldier, 22, known only as Paul.
…
‘Death was the least she deserved,’ said Abdel-Qader. ‘I don’t regret it. I had the support of all my friends who are fathers, like me, and know what she did was unacceptable to any Muslim that honours his religion,’ he said.
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Apologizing on behalf of our in-group
Monday, May 12th, 2008Today Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd (who has managed to pop up on my radar on multiple justice and compassion related issued over the last little while) expressed his regret for the disprespect and lack of honor accorded to returning Australian Vietnam War veterans. In February, Kevin officially apologized to the stolen generations of native Australians.
It reminded me of a recent post by Julie Clawson in which she asks “Should Christians apologize (for the behavior/words of other Christians?)”
By “apologize” in the title, I mean “express regret for” and also “Accept some responsibility for”
By “in-group” in mean “a social group towards which an individual feels loyalty and respect, usually due to membership in the group.”
I rather suspect such apologies can be powerful catalysts for healing and MTWABP, both on the personal and the group level.
So I’m wondering–do you have any stories you can share? Of giving or receiving such an apology personally? Or of giving or receiving such an apology in a larger group sense? I’d *love* to hear such stories.
Or … is there such an apology that you would *like* to be part of giving or receiving?
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Mother–the most beautiful word
Saturday, May 10th, 2008in the English language, according to research among 40,000 participants, including 7,000 English learners, by the British Council
Tomorrow is very likely the last Mother’s Day I’ll get to spend with my mother. So I’d like to officially say:
I love you *and* like you, mom. You inspire me.
Filling out the top 10 were:
1. Mother
2. Passion
3. Smile
4. Love
5. Eternity
6. Fantastic
7. Destiny
8. Freedom
9. Liberty
10. TranquillitySome interesting words from further down the list of the 70 most beautiful words:
19. Hope
40. Pumpkin
45. Paradox (Hooray!)
60. Smithereens
70. Hen-night
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Friday Video–Baracky the Movie
Friday, May 9th, 2008A little light hearted fun =)
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Sean Bell, weddings, shootings, protests, and Iraq
Thursday, May 8th, 2008Once again I am confused. Today, 200 people were arrested in New York during a protest. The protesters were demonstrating against the April 25 acquittal of three New York City police officers who fired their guns a total of 50 times at 3 unarmed men in the early morning hours of Novemeber 25, 2006. One of the unarmed men was Sean Bell, who died from the gunshot wounds. Bell was to have been married to his girlfriend and the mother of his young daughter later that same day.
This hits a bit close to home for me, as November 25, 2006 was the day of my sixth wedding anniversary.
Here’s what confuses me: Why do 200 people get arrested protesting the unjust shooting death of an unarmed black man by New York police officers 18 months ago and the proceeding lack of accountability, but zero people get arrested for protesting the unjust shootings and bombings of unarmed Iraqi civilians by American military personnel each and every week for the last 5 years, and the ongoing lack of accountability?
Maybe Sean Bell is somehow intrinsically more important or more valuable than the 11 civilians, including a child with their parents, killed by U.S. airstrikes in Baghdad on Monday.
(and by the way–what exactly comprises a “U.S. airstrike”? One assumes it means that a military plane designed by a bunch of relatively normal people and built by a bunch more relatively normal people in a factory in Kansas or Seattle or California, armed with air to ground missiles designed and built by some other relatively normal people in a factory which was, perhaps, in Colorado, was flown by some fellow who grew up in a relatively normal family in, perhaps, New England, who … pushed a button which caused a relatively normal little kid and her relatively normal parents to die on Monday in Baghdad. Am I getting that about right? It all sounds almost innocuous, doesn’t it–almost … banal? Certainly highly ignorable by all the formerly mentioned relatively normal people.)
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Recovering the Compassionate Tradition of Jesus
Sunday, May 4th, 2008“I think religion is a bad idea,” announced Off The Map’s Jim Henderson at last year’s Seattle conference.
“I think the worst idea of all is that we (Christians) are supposed to be a world religion,” he further explained.
The heartbeat of Off The Map is open minded communication: “We want to create dialog in a world gone different,” says Jim. This perspective is what drives OTM into corners of society that evangelicals typically steer clear of. Like dialoging with atheists, for instance. OTM had a unique opportunity to “buy an ebay atheist” a couple of years ago. This led to many opportunities for respectful conversation between atheists and evangelicals with all kinds of backgrounds. OTM blazed the way with their commitment to travelling to new places in their spiritual thought life.
So it came as no surprise to me when Jim announced that OTM had an open door to participate in an interspirituality event. A citywide five day gathering celebrating the virtue of compassion was being sponsored by an organization called, quite appropriately, Seeds of Compassion.
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Grief
Friday, May 2nd, 2008The wikipedia article on grief starts out:
Grief is a single-faceted response to loss. Although conventionally focused on the emotional response to loss, it also has physical, cognitive, behavioral, social and philosophical dimensions. Common to human experience is the death of a loved one, whether it be a friend, family, or other close companion. While the terms are often used interchangeably, bereavement often refers to the state of loss, and grief to the reaction to lossMy lovely mom is at the final stage of terminal ovarian cancer. No food goes through her GIT, because it’s blocked by cancer, and so she gets hardly any nutrition. She’s lost another 20 pounds in the last 3 weeks or so. I’ve never seen her so skinny–I can see the shape of her facial bones more distinctly than ever in my life.
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An Interview with Jeremiah Wright
Sunday, April 27th, 2008Jeremiah Wright has been much in the news lately because he is Barack Obama’s pastor and some sound bites of him which a lot of people found offensive have been played endlessly in the mainstream media and on youtube. Last Friday PBS broadcast a 50 minute long interview with Dr. Wright and Bill Moyers. In the interview, Dr. Wright addresses a lot of core justice and compassion interviews in gripping, reality-based ways. I was riveted. He talks about America’s history of perpetrating terrorism, from the Native Americans to African slaves to Japanese prison internment camps. He talks about how the God of the perpetrators is *never* the God of the victims–that these two groups envision God in very different ways. He explains what “liberation theology” means. He talks about the movement from revulsion over what has happened to us into desire for revenge against unarmed innocents. He talks about the difference between culture and Christ. He talks about the experience of African-Americans in America, and the parts of MLK Jr.’s story that noone likes to talk about.
It seems just and compassionate to me to let him be heard at more length, since he’s actually almost diametrically opposite of the image of him which has been created (something that might perhaps be said of God.).
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30th annual Earth Day!
Tuesday, April 22nd, 2008Today is the 30th annual celebration of earth day. This video couldn’t have been compiled on the firth earth day back in 1969. Are you doing anything special today to celebrate and/or help save our planet?
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