This will only make sense to two people, but it's our last ditch effort to fix a mistake ...

Last week, you contacted us through the contact form on the *cino site. Unfortunately, due to a technical glitch, we didn't get the e-mail addresses you submitted. If you happen to see this, could you re-submit your information? We'd really like to get back in touch with both of you!

Lectionary Texts for December 11, the Second Sunday of Advent, Year B

Rob and I just started working through a book of meditations called The Advent of Justice by Brian Walsh, Richard Middleton, Mark Vander Vennen and Sylvia Keesmat (you can obtain it here, if you're interested). The meditation for the first Sunday of Advent by Walsh included some reflection on Isaiah's historic context:

Isaiah's ministry began during the prosperous reign of King Uzziah in Jerusalem. In fact, during Uzziah's reign Judah's power and prosperity was second only to the era of David and Solomon. Although the political map was in a constant process of change...the mood in Jerusalem remained one of satisfied safety. After all, Jerusalem is the city of David! With the Davidic king on his throne and God in the Temple, what evil could possibly befall us? What do we have to wait for? All that we could possibly want is already here. Since we have a secure covenant with the God of Israel, we have already arrived, and the proof of that arrival is in our prosperity. Who needs an Advent when the promises are already fulfilled?

Enter Isaiah with an astonishingly different reading of his times. Judah has arrived? Well, if being critically ill is your idea of arrival then yes, Judah has indeed arrived. In this opening prophecy, Isaiah cuts through the self-satisfaction of prosperity and the pretentiousness of Judah's putting trust in the covenant. He describes Judah as a body of bruises, sores and bleeding wounds. At a time when Judah understands herself to be secure in her borders, Isaiah paints a picture of aliens devouring the land and of a besieged city.

Why? Why does Isaiah see destruction and collapse where others see a secure and prosperous city? Because Isaiah knows that personal and cultureal life that no longer "waits" for Gods reign, because it thinks that that reign has already been realized, is in fact on the path of death. When covenantal life has been structured to serve the interests of the rich at the expense of the poor, then this is in fact a covenant with death.

I find it very helpful to understand the context in which Isaiah lived as one way of situating the season of Advent within the Church year.

There are so many contrasts and reversals happening in these texts and in this season. The humble are exalted, the rich sent away empty, the mighty cast down from their thrones, the sorrowful restored to laughter, the captive liberated, the unjust judged and the devastated restored. These themes are especially reflected in the Isaiah text, the Psalm and the Magnificat for the second Sunday of Advent.

This theme echoes the mention in the lectionary notes for the first Sunday of Advent of David Dark's emphasis on the coming of Christ as good new for all people, except those whose power it interrupts. For those in Jerusalem who were content in their prosperity, there was no need for a prophet or a Messiah. However, for those who seem not to be the benefactors of national success--the oppressed, the captive, the brokenhearted, the mourners, the powerless--the prophet brings Good News of deliverance, in which the oppressors will receive "their recompense." Isaiah upsets the assumptions of the comfortable in his own time and ought to still upset us now.

The parallels between Isaiah's time/place and our own are strong. Led by a pseudo-religious political spirit, we are too easily convinced that our national prosperity is the result of virtue and begin to pursue the pinnacle of our own achievement instead of being chastened by the words of our prophets: repent for your sins against God and against one another. A new age is on the horizon and we are called to active, expectant waiting.

Who are the prophets among us today? Who is pointing the way to Christ with words and life? Paul's admonition is still applicable: "Do not [suppress] the Spirit. Do not despise the words of the prophets, but test everything; hold fast to what is good." Are we testing the spirits of our age with hearts genuinely rejoicing, prayerful, grateful and sanctified for God's sake? Or have pride and self-interest formed an impenetrable crust of self-preservation around our hearts that renders forgiveness archaic and change impossible?

The waiting that Advent reminds us to engage in takes place in constant relationship and transformation. In humility, we approach the throne of God again and again, asking for the courage to stand directly in the path of the runaway train of injustice believing that the one who calls us is faithful and is making all things right. We ask for openness to the Spirit and long for the promised flourishing of righteousness that will match the overflow of our hearts with love for I AM.

As promised, here are some final additional thoughts on the Messiah College Faith & Popular Culture Conference.

• Over Thai food at dinner one night, someone asked about the place of evil in the discussions at these conferences. There's a lot of talk about "good" art and looking for truth, but what about evil and sin? One of the examples he raised as an example of extreme evil was rape. What does "discernment" look like in the face of so great an evil? In this particular example, I think discernment involves realizing that the action is a distortion of human sexuality, which God created good. But in the context of the general question, I wondered what the role of confession might be at a conference like this. Certainly, some art has a confessional quality to it, but the content of that art is not the content of the conference. Also, I wondered about the role of suffering. If Jesus is God, who becomes human to show us the way through suffering to eternal life, how does suffering relate to the discussion of discerning "popular culture"? Is suffering, in the context of the conference, just an abstract concept represented in art to be deemed true or untrue by us detached discerners or does suffering have implications for the conference itself? It seems like attentiveness to suffering as its manifested in our own lives is essential for understanding sin and evil as artists represent it in their work.
• There seemed to be a very vague understanding of what makes culture "popular," meaning "popular" culture mostly ended up being "things we like" or "things we're currently into." With the exception of U2, there was little discussion of other art that could be considered statistically popular. So what do we mean when we hold a conference on faith and "popular culture"? Should we be talking about Ashley Simpson and The Wedding Crashers? Who decides what work has value for these discussions? I'm not saying that the conference would look any different if we discussed these questions--perhaps popularity and value are assigned by the informal participation of the conference community--but I do think we need to go a step further in defining "popular" and articulating the process of selection.
• Another question that came to mind as we progressed through the weekend was: where are the women? Two out of perhaps 10 speakers were women and 1 out of 6 performers. Not that I care to start bean-counting when it comes to gender, but the situation was noticeable--also in the lack of women participating in the comment times and mentioned as examples of artists who are "getting it." What is it about the nature of this topic that's more appealing as a participatory experience to men? Is there still a tendency to hold women to a higher standard in their scholarship, hence they're less likely to be invited or participate? Is the communication style of women ill-suited to the topic? Is there a perception that a female will have fewer compelling ideas or ideas that will be received with greater skepticism by both male and female listeners? Is there some power element to cultural engagement that makes it more appealing to men as a concept and a practice? I'm not sure what to make of this, but it would be worth discussing I think. In talking about it with someone, he suggested that I host a separate gathering just for women at the next conference. Definitely not a long-term solution, but it's worth thinking about, especially as there are some aspects of being a woman that bear discussing in the context of faithful engagement.
• The unique nature of a conference struck me at this event, particularly in contrast to the sort of 24/7 online work that *cino is doing. There is value in creating a resource that is available whenever, wherever, but there is also unique value to an event that spans an identifiable period of time. A conference is more likely to be remembered as a crucial turning point than a visit to a web site. Also, there is no substitute for cultivating face-to-face relationships. These thoughts convinced me that *cino needs to get back in the gathering business. Thankfully, one of our friends who just moved to a farm in Ontario contacted me the day after we arrived home from the conference with a desire to co-sponsor and plan an event next summer. So watch for more details, if you're into that sort of thing: outdoor experiences, late night discussions, connecting with kindred spirits, story telling and hearing, etc.

I think that's all for now. Thanks to those of you who have slogged through these notes and had enought energy left at the end to comment!

Lectionary Texts for December 4, the Second Sunday of Advent

Mark begins his gospel by making a connection between Isaiah's prophecy and the person of John the Baptist. But John has a message for all people, then and now: "Prepare the way of the Lord; make his paths straight."

The texts for this day all have themes of preparation, of action in the present with a view to the future. In our human experience, time is linear and we have very specific responsibilities for the present: repent, "strive to be found by him at peace," "lift up your voice...do not fear." While there are promises we long for (or ought to long for--oneness with God in eternity), we must not focus on those promises to the point that we are paralyzed for action in the present. For oneness with God is a reality for those who learn to serve God now; the reward is the desire of our hearts. From Isaiah:

his reward is with him,
and his recompense before him.
He will feed his flock like a shepherd;
he will gather the lambs in his arms,
and carry them in his bosom,
and gently lead the mother sheep.

Isaiah, Peter and John the Baptist's messages to the people are not timebound. Rather, they guide the cultivation of an Advent spirit in all people at all times. In fact, Peter literally asks the question, "What sort of persons ought you to be in leading lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God?" What does it mean to "prepare the way of the Lord"?

If we believe in the promise of "new heavens and a new earth" as the full and final realization of God's Kingdom, then perhaps making the path straight implies the immediate cultivation of a Kingdom reality--that is, striving for just economic policies, seeking unity while respecting difference in the Church, creating buildings that are beautiful and stewardly, affirming the dignity and worth of each creature, and so on. Likewise, John does not wait for the birth of Christ to call for repentance, baptize in the Lord's name and announce the Holy Spirit.

There is something amazing happening here that I can't quite wrap my mind around, but I feel at peace with its mystery. It's the perfect circular tension between measurable time and eternity, between preparation and experience. In the season of Advent we re-anticipate the historic event of the incarnation of God while also acknowledging our in-between place in time, which has many parallels.

December lectionary notes from Sojourner's Magazine

Rob and I had a wonderful opportunity to spend some time this weekend with David Dark, author of Everyday Apocalypse: The Sacred Revealed in Radiohead, The Simpsons and Other Pop Culture Icons and The Gospel According to America: A Meditation on a God-Blessed, Christ-Haunted Idea.

The title of Dark's session was "Jesus Thrown Everything Off Balance," which is an allusion to a line from Flannery O'Connor's story, "A Good Man is Hard to Find." There was so much goodness in this session that I'm going to revert to point form so I don't miss anything.

• Dark identifies a Christian artist with a bit longer name: an artist who aspires to be in continuity with the (biblical witness of the) Kingdom of God. "Christian" is a word that shouldn't be self-applied. Others should put the pieces together and call you a Christian, as was the case in the early church.


• Jesus as a "personal savior" or as a password into heaven belittles the historic, redemptive significance of Christ. As Bruce Cockburn says, "Redemption rips through the surface of time in the cry of a tiny babe."


• The life, death and resurrection of Jesus represent a "de-mythologizing" virus. That is, the Gospel breaks down the myths of human culture (that power is permanent, that life is expendable, etc.). The Gospel is Good News for the whole world, except those whose power it interrupts--though the Good News is for them, too, if they repent.


• The key statement coming out of Everyday Apocalypse is that "there isn't a secular molecule in the universe," having all been made by God. Madeleine L'Engle, when asked how one recognizes Christian art, responds, "If it's good, it's Christian." These ideas are based on the conviction that all good comes from God.


• We don't need to qualify truth with "spiritual," which is an over-used word. What is "spiritual" truth? Truth is its own credential and it can exist anywhere--in the Koran, The Simpsons, The Prayer of Jabez, etc.--and wherever it is found, it should be affirmed. Justin the Martyr said that whatever is true among the pagans is the property of us.


• "Interpretation" is different from picking a message--the Bible doesn't even have a clear, singular message.


• Jesus isn't "spiritual." We don't repent "spiritually," but with our bodies, our minds, with who we are.


• We need to be in dialogue with people and with art, rather than always moving toward a final decision: approved or disapproved. To worry about whether something is art, is literature, is objectionable, etc. is like arguing with the word choice of someone who's telling you your house is on fire. They're peripheral questions. Our questions should be, "What is the artist doing? Why?" rather than, "Is this good or bad?"


• We can't experience art without prejudice, but we can experience art with generosity.


• Apocalyptic art reveals the world not as we want it to be, but as it is.


• We are learners of the good, not knowers of the good.

That's all I had for David Dark. He is amazingly intelligent and well-read. Listening to him speak makes me want to immerse myself in the Bible, experience all of the art I can and then write books about what I'm learning. That's a pretty good influence, hm? Gives me something to work toward. If only I had such a cool name...

The first seminar session I went to was led by Andy Whitman, who is, among other things, a reviewer for Paste Magazine.

The title of Andy's talk was "Beyond the Aesthetic Grid: How to Engage Your Heart Without Turning Off Your Brain." He began by talking about Francis Shaeffer, who emphasized the value of art in his writings and created a grid for analyzing art.

The implication is that music that fits into the top right quadrant is to be desired, while music in the bottom left is to be avoided and music in the other two treated with caution. Some problems that Whitman identified with the grid include:

• It proposed that music can be "safe," when good music is rarely safe.


• The message of a song is rarely either good or bad.


• The problem of subjectivity: What is "good" art or a "good" message?

Whitman then proposed a new paradigm that he called "Signs of Life," which is characterized by:

• A commitment to the quality of artistry over the quantity of hype.


• Commiment to substance over image and depth over trendiness.


• Commitment to songcraft over style, meaning that there are no "holy" genres.


• Music that is transformation, that changes us.

Whitman's main point was that a model for discerning music must leave space for joy and emotional experience, which is difficult in an analytical grid. This did come with a warning that we shouldn't idolize emotional experience to the point that we enshrine the music of our youth, like Baby Boomers tend to do with the art of the 60s and 70s.

Whitman concluded with a list of guidelines for approaching art:

• Art is a sovereign sphere. (Been hanging around with neo-Calvinists, Andy? :)


• Art doesn't have to agree with a Christian worldview to be good.


• Christians should keep their convictions when doing work.


• Good art doesn't have to be beautiful (ex. Apocalypse Now).


• There are no exact criteria for judging good art, but there are criteria.


• Good art can be representative, abstract and symbolic.


• We must distinguish between sacred and secular art.


• Enjoy art without guilt as a gift from God.

As you can imagine, I and others took issue with that second to last one. Whitman wanted to justify it by the fact that, even though some of the praise music used in his church is sub-par art, God still works through it to affect his heart. Yes, but...I don't think the ability of the Almighty to work through poorly done art justifies the creation or selection of it in the first place and I don't think we ought to be using different quality criteria for the church than we do for our own CD collections. If there's any value or truth in this guideline, it's for those who cringe at some of their church's music but can't, for whatever reason, play a role in its creation and selection. If worship is central to the life of the Christian community--and I believe it is--shouldn't we desire to offer the best that we, as a broken community, can manage?

As with Turner, this one point didn't detract from what was otherwise a very interesting and well-done presentation. According to David Dark in a later session, there was apparently a gem in the Q&A time that I missed: that art is people. A human being is never entirely objectionable; to believe otherwise is dangerous. If art represents people who are inevitably a mixture of good and bad by virtue of being fallen creatures made in the image of the Creator, a work of art that represents people's ideas and opinions and stories cannot be called wholly objectionable. An interesting thought...more in the next post on Dark's session.

I guess I don't have much to post on the second Steve Turner address. He talked about how he had had an influence on the lyrical content of U2's songs through a friendship with Bono and by sending literature periodically that he thought would interest the band. He played some songs and explained the stories and meanings behind the lyrics. Probably the most interesting thing I learned during this session was that U2 had a vision from the beginning to be a superstar rock band and felt specifically called by God to follow the path that they have.

The question that came up at the bar the night prior to this session was, "Who will fill the space of U2 for subsequent generations?" Sufjan Stevens was suggested, but I guess there are many ways of approaching that question. Would Stevens' brand of folk have the same widespread appeal as U2's music? Is widespread appeal an essential part of the formula? Is U2's social justice work an essential part of the formula? Who is serving this function in other arts and other areas of life?

This past weekend, Rob and I attended a conference at Messiah College titled "Faith & Popular Culture: Reconciling with the Popular Arts." I'm going to post notes from the sessions I attended, followed by some more general comments.

The keynote address on Friday night was given by Steve Turner: poet, rock journalist and biographer. Here are some points from his very good talk:

• We live "culture". We cannot avoid it. The question is not whether we should be involved, but how to be involved as Christians.


• There is a tendency among Christians to denigrate culture and attempt to "separate." Perceptions of culture include that it's worldly, represents idleness, distracts from God, leads to a "slippery slope," represents a source of sin.


• Christians know a lot about redemption, but very little about creation.


• The highest form of life is perceived to be separation from the world through "worship." "The things of earth will grow strangely dim" for Christians who are focused on Jesus.


• J.I. Packer notes that, historically, we are human before we are Christian. We are Christian because of sin and Jesus restores us to full humanity.


• God is a creator who creates us as creators. Therefore, even in avoiding culture, we create culture.


• Christians do harm when they block out culture with messages they don't agree with, because culture is useful for conversation. Philippians 4:8 is used to set artificial limits in denial of the inevitable mix of good and bad, but we can see and make judgments without "thinking on" something.


• We do need to say "no" sometimes to things that are not beneficial. However, too much resistance, as in exercise, leads to a tear in the muscle. But we do need to be aware that we're always confronting an argument (contrary to the "it's just entertainment" argument).


• T.S. Eliot said that the literature we read with the least effort can have the greatest influence (referred to "harmless" television shows like Friends).


• So how do we engage culture?




1. Take it seriously by understanding the meanings of culture around us.


2. Immerse ourselves in the Bible to develop a thoroughly Christian worldview.


3. Visibly confront culture through interviews, reviews, attending lectures, etc. Hold creative people to account and get them to justify their reasoning.


4. Create culture, but love the medium. Don't just "use" culture as a tool for evangelism.




• We share a common humanity with all people and we can celebrate that fact in the creation of culture. Our experiences are shared, but the perspective may be different (gratitude to God, for example). God's world is one (uses the example of Sufjan Stevens, who can make back-to-back songs about fishing, his girlfriend, the transfiguration, etc. flow seamlessly). We should not be afraid of either similarities to or differences from non-Christians.

Turner started with what I thought was a good definition of culture, but seemed to slowly drift toward culture=the arts. Culture is the creative act of the artist, but it is also the creative act of the everyday person, creating their narrative as they construct a life that reflects their deepest values. He used the example of a poem about taking a bath to illustrate the last point about a common humanity, seeming to indicate that the poem was the "culture" in the example. I would argue however that the taking of the bath also fits the definition of culture. He challenged people to get involved, but said that "maybe some of you will" be involved in the cultural transformation of your generation. My impression is that all of us, if we indeed "live" culture even in trying to avoid it, will be involved in that transformation, for better or worse.

When the question and answer time came, I questioned him on whether his definition was not expansive enough. I don't like challenging speakers in front of an audience, but I felt like his limited definition was key misinformation, with very real implications for how we make decision in everyday life. He seemed to mock the idea of taking a Christian bath or boiling an egg Christianly or fixing the plumbing Christianly. however, while we can state the engagement of such mundane things in a silly way, I think it's dangerous to dismiss their weight in the context of a life of faith. I can think of hundreds of questions the discerning Christian might ask as she takes a bath, boils and egg for breakfast and then heads out for the day on plumbing house calls. We run into a dangerous sacred/secular distinction when we declare some things, by our definitions, outside of consideration in a life of faith.

My modifications to the definition shouldn't detract, however, from the very true and excellent points that Turner made. His points were just more broadly applicable--in a good way--than he intended.

Lectionary Texts for November 27, 2005: The First Sunday in Advent

At a conference this past weekend at Messiah College, one of the workshops we attended was led by David Dark. Dark related that, while most people around him growing up were afraid of the Russians, he was terrified of the second coming. What would happen to all of the people he knew who hadn't accepted Jesus? He didn't want eternal damnation for his friends, so he had to buy some time. Then, he came up with a clever plan to address his fear: since "about that day or hour no one knows," humans ought to organize a vigil. Every minute of every day, someone should be assigned the task of expecting the second coming. That way, it would never happen and we'd have more time to get people saved!

I must confess: I had the same idea.

The general impression Christians give, intentional or not, is that the coming of Christ is something of which we ought to be terrified. But I believe this is a response of unfaith. If we look at these passages, we worship a God who strengthens us, who is faithful, who calls us into fellowship, who "meets those who gladly do right."

As Dark pointed out in his workshop, the Gospel is Good News for all people, except those whose power it interrupts. The end of a war is good news for all people except those whose corrupt power doesn't exist anymore. The coming home of the master is anticipated joyfully by those who are obedient and joyful about their task, but feared by those whose self-interest is manifested in laziness and abuse of power. However (and this is important), the Gospel is still Good News even for those who are corrupt if they are willing to enter into community and live at peace with all people, which means giving up the idol of self.

Another misconception I think many have in reading passages such as these is to believe that the coming of the Kingdom of God is something in the future. [Thank you to David Recher for reminding me of this so eloquently.] But is not the leafing out of the fig tree occurring already in the church at Corinth, as believers grow in faith in community with one another? The judgment of faith and unfaith, of righteousness and unrighteousness, of justice and injustice, is occurring now, as we live and bear (or don't bear) fruit. Doesn't Isaiah say that God has "delivered us into the hand of our iniquity"? He is not speaking of a future when we all line up for our sentences; he is speaking of immediate consequences for wrong living.

Here are a couple of other themes I found interesting:

• The reversal in fig tree imagery: In Mark 11: 12-14, Jesus curses a fig tree for not bearing fruit. However, in this passage, he refers to new life in a fig tree that promises summer and fruit. Is this reflective of love's power to save even the most "unfruitful" of the human trees? When we think of evil people, we think of Hitler or Stalin; the Son was born, died and raised--the Kingdom comes--even for people we find despicable. Indeed, the Good News is for the whole human community.
• The contrast of darkness and light: A time of total darkness will give way a time of total light, perhaps tied into the reference to "summer," a season of light. Advent, being "the season of light" is the time we dedicate to renewing our anticipation for the coming of God to earth. There is also the reference in Isaiah to the coming of God being "as when fire kindles brushwood." Perhaps the service could include an opportunity to light candles representative of prayers of transformation, prayers that God would transform us as a community to fulfill our respective tasks well, creating light in the darkness. Ironically, but appropriately, the season of Advent comes as we enter into winter, which is in our hemisphere a time of darkness.

Lectionary Notes from Sojourner's

This site leaves something to be desired, but it's an interesting exercise anyway. Enter your income and the Global Rich List calculator will place you on a global spectrum of wealth. Even at U.S. poverty level wages, Rob and I are in the top 14%.

Lectionary Texts for November 20, Christ the King Sunday

This Gospel text is an interesting passage to come after our last adult Sunday school discussion at St. John's. I think it was said a couple of times in a couple of different ways that we shouldn't be generous to benefit ourselves, but to benefit others. But can't we take this a step further? We shouldn't be giving to benefit ourselves, or even--ultimately--others, but in the service of God who is revealed to us in Jesus Christ. Because, as Paul said in last week's passage and as Jesus reveals in this week's, what we do for others in need we do for Christ.

A question that arises in my mind then is, given the surprise of the "sheep" at being told they served Christ by serving others, can a person serve Christ without realizing it? Is someone who has rejected the Church for whatever reason still serving Christ when he or she sacrifices self to serve others? It seems to me that there are only two distinct categories in this story--those who served others and those who didn't--while popular theology and eschatology seems to assume four categories: those who

1. know Christ and serve others,
2. know Christ and don't serve others,
3. don't know Christ and serve others and
4. don't know Christ and don't serve others.

Are those in category #1 the only ones who will sit at the right hand of God or is the story saying that, no, there are only two categories, that it doesn't matter if you name Christ--you serve him practically through service to others?

This question has broad implications for our approach to interfaith dialogue and efforts and the ways in which we identify our "faith" community. Eberhard Arnold, founder of the Bruderhof Communities, wrote in the early 20th century, "When someone is driven by love in any way, he or she is driven by Christ. Whoever has love, has the love of God, even if he or she does not confess Christ in words. There is a hidden Christ; he is much too great to be confined by human thought." A later writing by Bruderhof senior pastor Johann Christoph Arnold inspired the following related questions and thoughts by an unnamed author:

Is [Christ], as some theologians say, the western face of God, or is he, as others say, truly God incarnate? I believe the latter, and it seems Arnold does too. But then where does that leave the Muslim?

My thinking about Islam over the years has shifted from mere curiosity to hostility to acceptance. I now tend to feel that Muslims are Christians who simply don't know it yet—in other words, my brothers, for whom Christ also died.

Read the full article, "Is the Muslim my brother?"

These questions and thoughts are perhaps a bit different from what the focus will be in the context of our current fall stewardship campaign, but I also think they have relevance for our attitude toward serving in solidarity with people of other beliefs and faiths. The emphasis in this passage is not on right theology, but on the faithful response that occurs out of the overflow of the heart. Perhaps the brother who says he will not be obedient, but then it obedient anyway will be looked upon with more favor than the one who says he will be obedient, but then is not. Serving God in practice is a faith response that some people commit to in spite of their inability to accept the name of Christ.

With the "unnamed" author of the article cited above, I am probably in danger of being called a heretic for proposing these ideas. But what is the alternative to believing that all acts of genuine love proceed from God?

Here are the lectionary notes from Sojourner's for November, if they're of any interest to anyone.

Well, as noted previously, we've moved over to a new blogging system. And while the move was mostly successful, we did lose a couple of things in the process. The designs of our blogs, of course, have been significantly altered and I'm working to get those looking better. More importantly, though, we've lost all of our comments from the old system. Hopefully this will be a temporary loss; we're working to restore those shortly ...

We've changed all of *cino's blogs over to Movable Type, a powerful blogging tool developed by six apart. We're still transitioning a bit and learning how to use the new system, but we're excited about the change.

One of the many great features in the new blogging system is the RSS feed, which allows users to "subscribe" to our site for notification of updates through an RSS reader.

I'm really not out looking for this stuff about Wal-Mart; these things just seem to have come across my path as of late.

This story (originally from the Los Angeles Times) is particularly interesting: "Wal-Mart Seeks Unbiased Research -- and Gets It." Wal-Mart commissioned an academic conference to study its effects in communities across the United States. To their credit, they hired an outside firm to conduct the study in an effort to maintain objectivity.

While the results were certainly mixed, Wal-Mart can't be too happy with some of the findings. Here's the bulk of the relevant information from the Times article:

Some of their findings, which a few of the researchers released before the conference, tend to confirm what Wal-Mart critics have been saying for years.

At least two concluded that Wal-Mart stores' pay practices depressed wages beyond the retail sector. Another found that states on average spent $898 for each Wal-Mart worker in Medicaid expenses.

One study concluded that Wal-Mart's giant grocery and general merchandise Supercenters brought little net gain for local communities in property taxes, sales taxes and employment; instead, the stores merely siphoned sales from existing businesses in the area.

Not all the news was bad for Wal-Mart. Several of the studies noted that its stores led to lower prices throughout a region. Two suggested that Wal-Mart increased a county's total employment, with one pegging that long-term gain at 1% to 2%.

David Neumark, a senior fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California, found that "residents of a local labor market do indeed earn less following the opening of Wal-Mart stores."

Worse yet, he wrote, is Wal-Mart's influence in the South, where it has its greatest concentration of stores. There, Neumark and his coauthors found, Wal-Mart has decreased retail employment and total employment.

Michael Hicks of the Air Force Institute of Technology and Marshall University found that each employee of Wal-Mart caused "the average state to expend just under $900 a year in Medicaid benefits."

In a look at the Supercenters' effects on local businesses in Mississippi, Albert Myles and his coauthors found that a Supercenter's own community benefited from sharp retail sales increases -- as much as 59% -- though nearby towns suffered annual decreases. Any gains, the researchers found, came at the expense of local merchants.

"Many times the net increases are minimal as the new big-box stores merely capture sales from existing businesses in the area," they wrote.

Emek Basker of the University of Missouri, however, found that Wal-Mart stores decreased prices across a region and increased total employment. And in a study of Ohio, economist Hicks found that a Wal-Mart store increased commercial property tax revenue and raised employment.

A study of the San Francisco Bay Area also presents a mixed picture. UCLA researcher Randall Crane and his coauthors found that once Wal-Mart established itself as the region's leading grocer -- the company is already the national leader -- it would probably depress grocery store employees' wages by hundreds of millions of dollars. But, they found, the company also would save shoppers hundreds of millions of dollars by offering cheaper food.

So it seems that the gains Wal-Mart claims to bring to a community are slight, if they exist at all, and, in just as many cases as not, they have a detrimental effect on a community.

Of course, this raises a lot of questions. Is a low price always best? Does it justify shopping at a big box store where profits are sent outside of your community? Does it justify putting local businesses owned by your neighbors out of business? If this trend continues, will their be enough living wage jobs in the United States? Will we buy ourselves out of jobs and, if we do, will the prices at Wal-Mart be low enough for its own workers to afford shopping there? And, ultimately, does this kind of retail (which Wal-Mart leads, but is not the sole player) represent Christian economic principles? And this is only a short list off the top of my head ...

Here's the full Global Insights report, if you're interested.

One family member attended the funeral of a close friend who was taken off life support after being in a car accident. Another discovered one day that his business had been broken into and then, on his way to work early the next morning, t-boned a brand new Corvette in an unlit intersection. Two others tried to recover from Hurricane Wilma, which has left water pouring into their condo like a faucet and their entire complex condemned, still without electricity. And still, two others tried to figure out how they'll afford to stay where they are with taxes on their reassessed property increasing 1200%.

And then, my sister called. My four-month-old nephew Charley will have a sibling next summer. Amazing how linear time can become a medium for re-discovering the mystery of an eternal God. It gives me a sensation of experiencing the "plague of frogs" in Magnolia.

When the grief is almost too much to bear, everything stops--

And with the morning, our new life begins, as we blink, stunned, at the ordinary miracle of darkness transformed into light.

Lectionary texts for November 13, the Twenty-Sixth Sunday After Pentecost

For these notes, I'll link to my current editorial, where I've sort-of-organized most of my thoughts, focusing on the Gospel lesson.

I'm not entirely satisfied with it as an editorial, but that's what happens when I'm pushing the midnight publishing deadline--something that definitely has to change.

Wal-Mart seems to be on the brain today ...

After much thought, we've decided to host a private screening of Robert Greenwald's new film, "Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price," next week at World Fare. Our hesitation stemmed from the nature of Greenwald's other work--"Uncovered: The War on Iraq" and "Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism"-- and our ongoing discussion about whether or not this film would be winsome for our community.

We settled on the private screening option. We'll have a select group of folks view the film during its screening week and then we'll decide together if we should hold a public screening later. If it's too left-wing and reactionary, we'll probably nix a larger showing.

Salon.com has an excellent review of the film that seems to indicate that it might not be as left-wing as I anticipate it being. And it seems as though it might bring up a lot of issues that our small, working class town needs to think about as we anticipate a Wal-Mart moving into our community:

We also meet the owners of longtime local businesses destroyed by Wal-Mart -- places like Esry's Grocery, of Hamilton, Mo., and H&H Hardware, of Middlefield, Ohio -- African-American and female employees who worked eagerly and hard for years at poverty wages and were told there was no place for them in management; customers victimized by crimes in the stores' vast, unpoliced parking lots; and a former global-services manager who says he was fired for reporting the truth about the chain's factories in Latin America. What makes the movie so powerful is the totality of the portrait, both in its details and its sweep. Most of these people are entirely unexceptional Americans from the working class or lower-middle class, believers in flag and country and God and capitalism, not left-wing activists or academics with some theoretical critique. Most of them believed in Wal-Mart, too, and were genuinely horrified to learn that its low prices depended on enforced poverty, whether theirs or somebody else's.

The review also hits on the primary reason for our work with Fair Trade and World Fare:

For me, the crippling moment arrives when Greenwald takes his cameras to a factory in China, where workers toil 14 hours a day, seven days a week, to make toys for Wal-Mart. They're paid roughly 30 to 40 cents an hour (with rent for the factory's dormitory, with its triple-decker bunk beds, deducted) and perhaps an economist could convince me that's a decent wage in that context. But for me these workers and their painful, hopeful stories recalled the righteous anger of Chapter 4 of Marx's "Capital," with its descriptions of the Industrial Revolution's workday that began long before dawn and went deep into the night, of women locked in sweatshops and 8-year-old children fed their lunches inside the machinery. I started anxiously reading the labels on my shirts and asking myself questions: Where did I buy this -- I'm hoping the answer is the Salvation Army -- and where did it come from before that? And am I really willing to buy a shirt at a price that would pay the person who made it a decent wage?

These are some of the questions I feel Christians need to start asking if they are serious about the command of Micah 6:8 and Jesus' summation of the law. All of which, of course, is intricately tied into the Wal-Mart issue.

An article in the New York Times the other day describes an interesting scene:

Inside a stuffy, windowless room here, veterans of the 2004 Bush and Kerry presidential campaigns sit, stand and pace around six plastic folding tables. Open containers of pistachio nuts and tropical trail mix compete for space with laptops and BlackBerries. CNN flickers on a television in the corner.

The phone rings, and a 20-something woman answers. "Turn on Fox," she yells, running up to the TV with a notepad. "This could be important."

While this may sound like the "war room" of a political campaign, it is actually the "war room" of Wal-Mart in Bentonville, Arkansas. Utilizing former political image specialists from both the Reagan and Clinton administrations (how bipartisan!), Wal-Mart is attempting to shore up its image in the face of continued pressure and bad press fostered by activist groups decrying the retail behemoth's labor, environmental and community impact record.

Here's an idea for politicians and Wal-Mart: instead of spending so much time on your image, focus on the problem itself. Perhaps Wal-Mart, with all of the money it's spending on these "image consultants," could figure out how to actually address its labor issues or the effects its stores have on communities. Of course, that would require a confession of sorts, an admission of wrongdoing. Maybe it is easier just to make people think that you're doing things better than you're actually doing them.