Money Matters Revisited

So I realize that I am actually quite lazy. It was over two months ago that I posted about my broken change jar. here & here. Well I finally got the change counted. I broke down and went to a coin star machine. I was reluctant to use it because they take a fee. I thought that I could get it counted for free. Maybe I'm just lazy and cheap?

So here is the final run down.
1c #5500 totaling $55.00
5c #1615 totaling $81.00
10c #2839 totaling $284.26
25c #1360 totaling $340.00

Grand Total: $760.26 and it only took me 9 years of saving!!!!

So this begs the question, what do you do with $760.26. In using the coin star machine they give you several options. You can get gift cards at all the usual places you would expect, Amazon.com, iTunes, Starbucks, and others. You can also donate money to several non-profits, as well as get cold hard cash in hand. Using the give card and charitable donation you can eliminate the fee. I ended up cashing out and putting some into my savings account. Some I redeemed into gift cards and I the remainder I donated to a hunger relief organisation.

The Simple Way

If you haven't heard a building owned by The Simple Way, a Christian community in Philadelphia, has burnt down, causing considerable damage to the property, and well being of many people. If you have a chance please check out there website and, donate to their rebuilding.

Dispatches From The Revolution

-Gods Kingdom is all around us
-It is just as visceral as it is spiritual
-God wants us to act so he can reveal his kingdom



For more on Revolution Cafe check out my friends blog.

Housing Justice: Part II or I wish I could get 750 million dollars from the government to help with my rent.

The BBC reported today that New York City is giving the financial company J. P. Morgan Chase $50 million over the next 15 years, totaling $750 million, in rent subsidies so that they do not move their headquarters to Connecticut. The city has also payed Goldman Sach's $650 million to build new offices. (This construction is to replace their offices lost on 9/11)

This isn't the first time we have seen corporate welfare, Walmart has been infamous for this practice. But why give the money to for profit corporation when you could use to benefit the middle class and poor of the city who are paying some of the highest housing rent prices in America. Where are their rent subsidies?

No Oil, No Power, No Problem!

Here is a great video of a passive solar house using a double envelope construction. I got this from the TreeHugger website. Enjoy

Housing Justice

Today in the Boston Globe there was an article on the status of housing in Boston. The story mentioned that a family making just over a six figure salary has trouble finding a house in Dorchester, one of the poorest neighborhoods in Boston. The article went on to say that the cost of housing in Boston is 5.4 times the median household income, the national average is 4.6, and the affordable range is 3 to 3.5.

How does this story get balanced with the booming development on Boston's new waterfront district. Most of the housing will be "luxury" condos, well out of the reach of even the middle class. It use to be that home ownership was the first step from poverty to the middle class, but lately it seams as thought those in charge of the America's city's have forgotten that.

Where will the middle class live when they can't afford to live in the poorest neighborhoods?

Where will the poor live?

Best Cover Song Ever

Religious Self-Deprecation

In the recent Presidential Forum on Faith, Values, and Poverty, Democratic Presidential candidate John Edwards came out with the bold statement, "I sin every single day". At first I was surprised, I don't know of any other presidential candidate making such a vulnerable statement. But after a few minutes the shock wore off and the reality set in that it is an all too common phrase that comes out of the mouth of Christians these days.

What is it so special about these 5 words that we seam to wear them as a badge? As if to say "Look at me I know how bad of a person I am". Does it make us more spiritual people? Sure the Bible doesn't cast a very positive light on sin, but is self-deprecation really what God had in mind? What does this say about ourselves? What does this say about God?

The first time the word sin appears in the Bible is in Genesis 4 and no it's not the story of the apple. It's the story about Cain and Abel. Cain and his brother Abel give some gifts to God, and for some unknown reason God is happier with Abel's gift. Just after that we get this passage:

6 Then the LORD said to Cain, "Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? 7 If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it."

You can master sin? Where did that come from? Maybe we aren't actually meant to sin every day for the rest of our lives. Maybe we should stop giving sin more power over our lives than it actually has.

The Radical Middle

I was reading through CNN.com this morning, and I came across an article titled, "Sen. Clinton: God got me through martial strife". Being a follower of Jesus it interested me so I read on. I was caught off guard by the fifth paragraph.

The forum, sponsored by the liberal Sojourners/Call to Renewal evangelical organization, provided an uncommon glimpse into the most personal beliefs of Clinton and rivals John Edwards and Barack Obama.

Sojourners/Call to Renewal is liberal? Wait a minute, I thought that they were a non-partisan Christian advocacy group? What's going on here? As I read on further, I found out that Clinton, Edwards and Obama, were the only candidates present to express their personal religious beliefs.

The three candidates were invited by Sojourners founder Jim Wallis; most of the other Democratic candidates appeared on CNN later Monday to discuss their faith.

I'm the first person to admit that I don't completely understand the separation of church and state, but I do think that the church has a voice and should speak into the political process. (Just like big corporations can) But why would Sojourners/Call to renewal, who have a great opportunity to engage the current field of presidential candidates on the issue of faith, choose only three candidates to speak to. And why would they hold such a forum with only Democrats?

Admittedly I don't like the current administration and their close ties to the religious right, but I do not think the answer is a religious left. I have followed sojourners for a while now and I don't believe that Sojourners wants to be the religious left, but with the next presidential election increasingly being seen as a crucial event, this would be a great chance for them to live up to their 2004 slogan "God is not a Republican or a Democrat"

With the current polarization of our political climate, it is easy for Christians to slide into the left/right categories, or to be labeled so by others. I would propose that we choose a radical middle? One that in staunchly independent from political parties, can point towards God's Justice, and let those to the right and left of them know where they are falling short.

Cradle to Cradle

I'm currently reading Cradle to Cradle, remaking the way we make things, by William McDonough and Michael Braungart. So far it's a great book. They are proposing that the life cycle of the products we use, adopt a cycle that is more like the one that nature uses. A tree draws nutrients from the soil to feed it's self, produces fruit to feed animals, and it's waste (dead leaves and eventually the tree it's self) decompose to become nutrients again.

They are dreaming of an exciting world.

We would like to suggest a new design assignment. Instead of fine-tuning the existing destructive framework, why don't people and industries set out to create the following:

• buildings that, like trees, produce more energy than they consume and purify their own waste water
• Factories that produce effluents that are drinking water
• Products that, when their useful life is over, do not become useless waste but can be tossed into the ground to decompose and become food for plants and animals and nutrients for soil; or, alternately, that can return to industrial cycles to supply high-quality raw materials for new products
• billions, even trillions of dollars' worth of materials accrued for human and natural purposed each year.
  
• transportation that improves the quality of life while delivering goods and services
• a world of abundance, not one of limits, pollution and waste

Sounds like a nice place top live.

Life Map

I have come to the conclusion that my life is quite compartmentalized.

• I work in the North End
• Go to Church in the South End
• Have a small group in Quincy
• Meet through-out the city for various social justice meetings
• Live in Dorchester where I try to love my neighbors and the poor.
  

This really is to much for one person. Were we really meant to be stretched so thin? Is this just the nature of being a 20 something in an urban setting? Is it because as Americans we have so many options that we can pick and choose the best. How am I to be fully invested in each of these things at the same time?

This spring I began to wonder what would it look like if:

• My small group was my church?
  
• We met in my neighborhood?
• My church was made up of people in my neighborhood?
  
• We loved our neighbors and practiced social justice together
  

Suddenly, I would save myself a lot of travel time.

Free College

Patrick seeks free two-year state colleges - The Boston Globe
Free two year college for all high school graduates. I love this idea, it is something that I have had in the back of my head for the last year. Sure it has it's problems, the biggest being funding, but in today's society you need at a minimum a 2 year degree to get a decent job.

Do you think they would reimburse someone who graduated in 1998?