I'm seriously in love with Jimmy Carter.
I watched a video called Carter vs. the Worms on nytimes.com about Jimmy Carter’s efforts to extend human rights in Africa (especially the human right of freedom from disease), and I HIGHLY recommend it.
The video’s sort of persnickety, but if you go to the New York Times' video site here and look for it at the bottom of the page, you should be able to click on and watch it. (If you have a semi-quick internet connection, be sure you set the player to a “high”, or it will come out all jankity.)
posted by A. Lo @ 9:59 AM
3 Comments:
Sorry, not related to this post, but...
...there is (what I found to be) a very interesting blog entry talking about PostSecret and how it seems to be reaching people in ways that the church hasn't been able to. You can find it here: http://experimentaltheology.blogspot.com/2007/02/postsecret-and-church.html
I thought you might find it interesting!
Sorry again....I'm back with something that doesn't relate, but I couldn't help myself.
I just saw this website and thought you might want to see it if you haven't already.
http://www.theamazingchange.com/
Thanks for sharing--I love that you posted that stuff here, even if it's not entirely related.
I really enjoyed Richard Beck’s post on Postsecret and all the comments that followed—the more I think about it, though, the more I wonder whether the issue is one of “confession” or one of culture. I think the most helpful thing (and the hardest thing, as well) the church could do is make a culture shift, making brokenness an acceptable thing. I don’t think Catholic-style confession is the answer, and while culture shifts take generations to really take hold, I think this might be one of the most important journeys the church could undertake in our lifetime. Imagine the difference it would make in the way we approach the poor—perhaps Christians as a whole would have a better understanding of the people who are poor, would realize that they aren’t lazy and didn’t ask to be born into that lifestyle or indoctrinated with certain values. Instead, perhaps they are broken people just like me and you who have less resources, who were born with almost no chance to succeed, who are battling every day against almost insurmountable odds. Maybe we would also learn the value of generosity instead of charity, and could give our time, money, etc. lovingly out of our abundance instead of a commitment to tithing or a feeling of superiority.
And wow—the Amazing Change website is awesome. I skimmed some of the slavery stories and saw some familiar organizations represented there like World Vision and International Justice Mission. I remember when representatives from IJM came to speak at ACU, and the first college IJM chapter was formed on our campus. (I might be a little shaky on the details, but think we were the first.) The best press release I ever wrote for ACU was based on an interview with the president of our college IJM chapter, and some of my friends got involved on campus, but I never could. It just hurt too much to hear about innocent kids in slavery and to see their pictures—to put faces with names. IJM chapel speeches always left me depressed for the rest of the day, and I wasn’t exactly interested in joining an organization that made me want to crawl in bed and eat chocolate for days. Now that I think about it, that’s really odd, because then I packed up and moved to the inner city. I guess I thought the American inner city would be much easier to conquer than foreign slavery, but I was soon educated about just how wrong I was. I don’t really consider myself an overly compassionate person, but I’m still trying to find that balance between not getting depressed by all the crap that goes on in the world and still being able to feel for people who hurt and are stuck in horribly unfair situations. And some days I feel hope because of organizations like IJM and World Vision and the great things they’re accomplishing, and some days I want to file a complaint with the Committee on Fairness, because I wonder where God is in all of this.
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