An Inconvenient Truth

It has come to light that Al Gore might not be living up to the Green Lifestyle that he is promoting. There have been several articles written that show that Gore isn't exactly simplifying his life style. He has three homes, and utility bills totaling $30,000 a year. Don't get me wrong he has done great things to raise awareness about global warming and he does buy "emission credits" to offset his carbon emissions. But what is Vision without sacrifice? If we aren't willing sacrifice to make the world a better place, it will never happen. We'll keep on living the American dream, justifying extravagant lifestyles all while saying we're making a difference.

The Death of Rock & Roll

I was in Delaware this weekend for my nieces first birthday party. Pizza, kids, & cupcakes what could be better. But things took a turn for the worse when I looked over and saw ten small children dancing and singing to "We will Rock You" by Queen.

The song will never be the same for me again.

This one's for the Dog's

I read a disturbing passage today. Matthew 16 :21-28

21Leaving that place, Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon. 22A Canaanite woman from that vicinity came to him, crying out, "Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is suffering terribly from demon-possession." 23Jesus did not answer a word. So his disciples came to him and urged him, "Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us." 24He answered, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel." 25The woman came and knelt before him. "Lord, help me!" she said. 26He replied, "It is not right to take the children's bread and toss it to their dogs." 27"Yes, Lord," she said, "but even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters' table." 28Then Jesus answered, "Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted." And her daughter was healed from that very hour.

What disturbs me is that Jesus is using an odd term to describe a group of people. He calls Canaanite's Dogs! From what I know about the history of the time the Jews didn't like that Canaanites, so it would have been common for them to use a term like this. But we're talking about Jesus here. Peace & Love, respect your fellow man? What's going on here. Why would he use a term like that?

Any thoughts?

More on Christians Vs. Christ Followers

I found another great video. This one is of this Drew Marshall, the #1 Christian radio talk show host in Canada, being interviewed on 100 Huntley Street, Canada's version of the 700 club. Drew is unrelenting. There is something about being a prophetic voice to the Church that is going to ruffle a few feathers. It's kind of fun to watch the hosts squirm, they really don't know what to do with this guy. In fact I think he's a little to hard on the established church culture, in the end we need to show everyone a little love. Enjoy

Leadership Development & Loving Your Neighbor

So I was at a meeting tonight for people interested in church planting. There were many things discussed, but one thing that was stressed was that people who are good church planters, are people who are good at leadership development. Leadership development basically means that you a good at identifying people who you can invest in and who grow into leadership positions. This has been one of the greatest incite that has come from the Evangelical church. Over the past 30 years there has been a lot of thought put into church planting, in particular leadership development, and it has greatly benefited the Church worldwide.

After the meeting I was reflecting on what was said, and it seams to me that the Evangelical church might be teaching that leadership development and loving your neighbor are the same thing. That the most living thing you could do for someone was invest in them and to develop them into a leader.

I would agree that leadership development is a form of loving your neighbor, but loving your neighbor is much more than leadership development. When Jesus talked about loving your neighbor he was talking about loving the poor and investing in people where you would not see a return. It's sad for me to see that we're picking up on the key incite of leadership development, but were missing a key discipleship principal of loving your neighbor.

Common Ground Book Review

I recently finished the book Common Ground by J. Anthony Lukas, it is about the integration of schools in Boston through busing. Being a Bostonian for almost 9 years now I found this book a great incite in to my second home. Lukas tell the story through three family's, one poor and black, one white and educated, and the last Irish and working class. Through these three very different family's you get a very complex perspective on the Busing issue in Boston that raises many issues.

What struck me the most from this book was the lack of dialog on the issue of busing. For those who don't know it was a Judges ruling that forced Boston to introduce busing. (There was talk of "activist" judges at the time too) Because of this top down solution to the problem, people immediately staked a claim on one side of the issue or the other. There wasn't much middle ground available. Some of the most moving stories were about the people caught in the middle.

While reading the book it became clear that there were larger questions that needed to be discussed beyond whither to bus students of not.

• "White Flight"
  
• Unspoken or de facto racism vs. institutional racism.
• Equitable funding of public schools.
• What responsibility do wealthy suburbs have to the City?
• A parents right to choose where the child go's to school.
  

All these issues and more we're never talked about by the public at large. For better or worse a court decision was forced upon people that was intended to fix all there problems.

I know I am opening another can of worms here too. What about other decisions that were handed down by courts like Brown Vs. The Board of Education. Clearly this was a good and just decision. Although there was a period of turmoil, schools were integrated. It was clear to me that, for Boston, perhaps there could have been a better way to integrate schools.

However we address problems in the world, there needs to be space made for public discussion. It frustrated me when only one solution is discussed for an issue. It forces people to choose sides too quickly, creates division, and we usually never get to discuss the underlying issues that caused the problem.

Your Daily Fox

Some one at Fox news must have found out about the Daily Show because they have there own spin off called the 1/2 hour news hour. It's not as good as the Daily Show, but it's nice to see someone poking fun at the Democrat's too.

Boston City Council Debates War in Iraq

Hmmm.... So a strange thing happened in the Boston City Council meeting yesterday. Instead of debating the important issues that face Boston, the turned to debate about.......Iraq?

Some one must be thinking about running for a State or Federal office.

PS Al Franken is running for the Senate in Minnesota! GO AL!!!!

Who will I listen to now?

Franken Leaves Air America

Al Franken will be leaving the radio network Air America on February 14. What do you think?

If you don't know already, Al Frankin is leaving Air America tomorrow. I started listening to talk radio after Katrina to find out more details, and what people were thinking. It took me a while to find Frankin, there's a lot of bad talk radio hosts out there. I will spare you my detailed list, you know most of them. Frankin was great, I might not have agreed with all his views, but he understands that people want to be entertained as well as get information. There are rumors that he is going to run for the Senate seat in Minnesota. As if politics wasn't funny enough. Good luck Al.

City Life

I love the City. I love seeing the bright lights of the buildings forming a souliette against Gods canvas at night. To many the city is only filled with confusion and distractions. They would much rather go out to the farthest destination that they can find, where few humans have ever touched, there they find God.

When I look at the City, I see children imitating God. We have seen his creation, and fully understand its wonder. Our response is to feebly attempt to recreate that wonder. We meticulously plan, for years, decades even, putting up building after building, and sometimes we get close, really close. Most times we fall way short.

In the city I see man mimicking God, man making his own creation. I can’t help but smile. I guess that is why I became an architect.

Christian Vs. Christ Follower

This says it all. Check out these great parody's of the Mac adds comparing Christians to Christ Followers.

Good Stuff!!!!

Scandalous Redemption

Today we were informed that former pastor Ted Haggard was "completely heterosexual" Having emerged from three months of aggressive counseling he had shed off his homosexual skin and can now get on with his life. This redemption is sure to raise debate on both sides of the homosexual issue, but it is not the type of redemption I was hoping for.

I'm actually not talking about any personal redemption, but the redemption between Haggard and his church. The American church has a funny reaction to it's fallen leaders. At first there's the initial shock and confusion, as you would expect in such a situation, followed by words of acceptance and compassion, but at some point things begin to take a turn for the worse. It doesn't matter if you're Ted Haggard, or Jim Bakker, you at some point you'll get swept under the rug, dismissed, and pushed away for ever. It seams that God's redemption that is talked about on Sunday morning isn't for them. In Teds case the oversight board of his church actually recommended that he move out of town and find work in the secular world.

Why can't the Church practice the scandalous redemption that the preach on Sunday mornings. Haggard, or Bakker for that matter, are no different from the rest of us. It just happened that there faults were put on display for the whole world to see. Why is the Church so willing to help people overcome there personal problems, but unwilling to eventually restore there fallen leaders to the old positions. True, we should hold out leader to a higher standard that others, but don't they also get to access the same redemption that we have access to. I fear that, in the end, more harm than good is actually done by sweeping our fallen leaders under the rug.

So Ted, if your up for it, your welcome to join me in Boston. We can start a Church, nothing to big, maybe a house church and go from there. I believe God can still use you and I'm not afraid to practice scandalous redemption.

Name Change

Google you are both wonderful and a curse at the same time.
So I haven't bookmarked my blog set yet, so I just googled Fousty and it turns out that Fousty is a slang term for dirty, bad, ext.
No one consulted me on that one. I have been using the nickname fousty for most of my life.

So I have no choice but to change the name of my blog. Not that will upset people much, I don't think anyone had been here yet. From now on it will be called "My Mystic Self"

I have also now bookmarked my site!

Top Design....Lowest common denominator

I was searching iTunes for free TV shows, and I cam across "Top Design." A new reality show that puts Architectural & Interior designers agents each other in a challenge to the death!!!! Well not quite to the death, but they do compete in challenges against each other testing there design skills and at the end of each episode there is a Simon Cowell clone that rips every one apart, and some one gets the boot.

It was interesting but nothing original. With everything being turned into a reality show lately it was just a mater of time until they turned to the Architectural design world. I will say that this show bring up my main issues with the design world. I have been working as a Architect for 8 and a half years now, and the thing that frustrates me the most is that people are so stuck up about design. You can totally see it in this show.

Sure there are some general guideline and rules about design and what looks good and what doesn't, but the rest is subjective. There are a lot of designers out there that are really full of themselves and think that they're ideas are just the best thing. Why can't we just see the good in other people work, even it it's not our preferences. To quote a wise man "Can't we all just get along?"

You Learn Something New Every Day

I had a meeting with some people from the Boston Faith & Justice Network (BFJN) tonight. There a group that I'm involved with that is seeking Justice as an expression of Gods Love in Boston. Check it out. Anyway, we were evaluating a recent retreat that we had over Martian Luther King weekend. We ended up talking about education. Ah the US educational System, packing a building with hormonal teenagers, giving them sugar at lunch, and expecting miracles.

But.....There is another way. Popular Education. This guy, Paulo Freire, developed this idea that there are two methods of educating people, Bank & Popular. In the Bank method there is someone who holds all the knowledge and he deposits it in his students brain's. This as you can tell is the education system used most thought the world. Some of us, like myself, never got the hang of it. But Popular education its all about learning from our own experiences and from others. You ask hard questions that encourage people to really think about the world around them.

Not surprisingly this has been a popular tool with Justice minded people. A tile of one of Freire's books is even called "Pedagogy of the Oppressed".