The Listening Ear

Amazing Spiders

I’ve always enjoyed getting a decent newspaper and was pleased to discover the Omaha World Herald when I moved to Treynor. It isn’t the N. Y. Times or the Washington Post, but in my opinion it a great paper for a city the size of Omaha.

On Thanksgiving. I was perusing the issue for the day and discovered a fascinating article on the editorial page (Thursday, November 27). They reported that a recent mission of the space shuttle had taken along a couple of web-weaving spiders to see what would happen it they tried to make a web in zero gravity. As you might guess, the spiders spun a random three-dimensional distortion of a web. Without gravity, they didn’t seem to be able to orient themselves.

The astronauts left them alone for a few days and then checked again. This time, they discovered that the spiders had ripped out the defective webs and replaced them with perfect, two dimensional webs just like we see on earth. Who knows how they were able to adapt! Life is exceedingly and unexpectedly flexible.

Thoughts After The Election

We have a new president-elect and I am cautiously optimistic. I know that there are many others on the other side of the political fence that are probably feeling that way that I did after the last two elections. It seemed to me that the election and then re-election of George Bush was the wrong choice. No one can know for sure what would have happened if Gore or Kerry would have won instead. Would they have been better? We’ll never know. But I do suspect that history will not render a very positive judgment on the Bush presidency.

My hope is that the multitude of crises facing our nation will spur our leaders to work together for the good of our nation. I know that it is difficult to get people from various political persuasions to come to some agreement on any course of action. I hope that they will keep talking to each other so that solutions can be hammered out that both sides can live with if not embrace whole-heartedly.

I think Barak Obama has the chance to be a great president. In a real sense, each person elected to the presidency has that opportunity. Yet, no one is perfect and I don’t expect that Obama will be either. We make our choices as a nation and then need to trust that God will work through those who are elected, whatever flaws they may have. I don’t expect any human leader to resolve all the problems. The best we can hope for is some improvement, some way to make it through.

ONE Question On Global Poverty

I received an email from ONE, the organization that is working to end global poverty. Did you realize that only two questions about global poverty have been asked in the history of modern presidential debates. It's a shocking figure and in 2008, we need debate moderator Jim Lehrer to ask John McCain and Barack Obama "Just ONE question" on their plans to fight global poverty. I just took action with the ONE Campaign and you can too, here: http://www.one.org/debates/?rc=debatestaf

ONE Campaign

I don't know if you have heard about ONE, yet. It is an organization that wants to make its impact felt in the next election, no matter which candidates are successful. They want to make the elimination of poverty a priority for our government. Here's a brief commercial that ONE has begun to air. For more about ONE, click here for a brief description of their goals. Then I hope you will click the link to join the campaign.

The Meat On Our Tables

I came across an interesting report that the Pew Charitable Trust just issued called Putting Meet on the Table: Industrial Farm Animal Production in America. It analyzes the impact that much of meat production the US has on the environment, public health, animal welfare and rural communities. They have some great recommendations on how to make meat production sustainable.

I think this an issue that we should be concerned about for a couple of reasons. First, we live in an agricultural area where meat production is an important part of our economy. Recently a representative of the Tri County Steer Carcass Futurity spoke at the local Optimists meeting. He described changes that have already occurred in the beef industry in our area, including the use of ethanol production by-products for cattle feed, expanded use of manure for fertilizer and the efforts to assure that animals are handled in a humane manner. If beef cattle and other livestock are raised in our area, its in our best interest to see that it is done in a manner that is sustainable over the long term.

As Christians, we also have a responsibility to see that creation is cared for, including those animals that are a part of our food production system. It is a part of our overall stewardship of God's creation.

I hope that the Pew report isn't something that just gathers dust after it is published. It has some important conclusions and helpful recommendations that should have our consideration.

Anyone Want To Discussion A Challenging Book?

I have almost finished Jesus For President, a book recently written by Shane Claiborne and Chris Haw. It’s a book I’d like to talk about with others and am wondering if anyone is interested. I found the book to be challenging because it goes at the Christian faith from a perspective that’s different from the one I normally encounter.

This is an Anabaptist (not Baptist) piece of writing that has much in common with the traditional peace churches—groups like the Mennonites, Amish and the Quakers. The authors try to take both the Old and New Testament seriously as they apply to contemporary politics and social justice.

I admit a great admiration for the pacifist position because they usually are trying to take the teachings of Jesus very seriously. Nevertheless, I am not ready to embrace that way of approaching faith and life because I am not sure it takes seriously the radical nature of evil. I believe that sometimes evil must be opposed by force. That’s what it means to live in a broken, fallen.

Yet, I find this book forcing me to think again about how easily we resort to the use of force when nonviolent means might be able to accomplish more in the end.

I am wondering if there’s anyone out there that would like to read and discuss such a challenging book. The discussion might take place online or face to face. If you’d like to be a part of such a discussion, leave a comment or send me a message.

Have You Heard Of Grace Matters?

While walking back from the coffee shop yesterday, I listened to a recent podcast from Grace Matters, a radio program produced by the ELCA and hosted by Dr. Peter Marty. If you don’t know about this program, you should try it out here or on iTunes.

The program I listened to featured Jim Wallis, who seems to be a Christian contradiction in terms—a theologically conservative evangelical who is passionate about social justice. He’s just published a new book titled The Great Awakening: Seven Commitments to Revive America. I haven’t read it, but I’d like to.

As he goes around the country, Wallis sees evidence that a new revival is happening among Christians. While many in our culture view Christians negatively as narrow, judgmental, partisan and other-worldly, the good news is that a new generation of Christians that are applying their faith to the biggest challenges that our world faces. They are very concerned about climate change, about ending poverty and working for peace. In some ways this isn’t completely new. Yet the concern that young Christians have these issues may change how Christians are viewed.

Wallis begins by pointing to periods in the American past that brought about the abolition of slavery, passing child labor laws, giving the right to vote to women and the civil rights movement in the sixties. He says that each of these changes happened because people of faith were leading the way toward change and he believes that same thing may be happening today.

Wallis believes that increased awareness regarding social issues frequently begins when people get engaged in serving others, through things like mission trips and urban plunges. But quickly people see a need to move from charity to social justice. He believes that the call to social justice is heard clearly in the Scriptures.

Churches have often been the first to respond to natural disasters like hurricane Katrina or the Tsunami. They are there to help people in immediate need. Yet there’s also a need to address more basic problems. An example would be extreme poverty or what singer Bono calls stupid poverty. That refers to more than a billion people who are living on a dollar a day or less.

Wallis maintains that this is poverty that we could fix, just like there a diseases that are totally preventable. He also believes that politics today has failed to address these problems and that when this happens, social movement arise that focus on the problems that politicians aren’t addressing. He says that the only successful social movements are those that have a spiritual basis. That's what he sees happening today. I hope he is right!

For more from Wallis, head to Grace Matters or pick up his book.

18 Seconds

I came across a new website for 18 Seconds.org. The purpose of the site is to get people to change to more efficient light bulbs. This seems like a no-brainer to me because it not only saves the individual money in the long run, but it helps the environment.

There's a theological side to this as well. In Genesis, humans are clearly put in charge of caring for creation. There are lots of examples of how we've not been good stewards of the environment. Our Biblical faith helps to to see how God is green—God cares about how we manage what God has made.

What frustrates me is that most Christians don't seem to pay much attention to this issue. Our congregation doesn't do much to encourage conservation and recycling. We've not been good examples. As I am sure you can tell, I think we should be.

Hunger Crisis and the ONE Campaign

In the past few weeks, the issue of world hunger has been back in the news. In just three years, the price of staple foods like wheat, corn and rice has almost doubled. In that last three months alone they have gone up 45The rising prices deal a crushing blow to the world’s poorest people - people who already spend more than half of their income on food.

Whenever we see items like that in the news, we can feel helpless. Nevertheless, I think out faith calls us to move beyond that feeling. The truth is that each of us can act and together we can make a difference

One way to act is through the ONE Campaign. ONE is nonpartisan movement because there's only one side in the fight against global AIDS and extreme poverty. Currently 2.4 million members are members. ONE is trying to raise public awareness about the issues of global poverty, hunger, disease and efforts to fight such problems in the world's poorest countries.
One thing you can do right now is to sign a petition to encourage President Bush to address this crisis at the G8 summit in Japan in July. If you want to sign the petition, just click here. I just did.

You can also find out more about ONE here.

Good Advice For The Next President

A recent issue of Foreign Policy magazine asked 12 public figures to suggest one policy or public gesture that the next president could make to improve United States standing in the world. The best response came from former speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich. I’ve never been a fan of his, but I think he put forth a great idea. The newly elected president should go on a pre-inauguration tour of the capitals of the world with the sole task of asking questions and trying to understand the other leaders’ point of view. “If the next president can reverse the perception that American power is deaf to the appeals of the world,” wrote Gingrich, “the United States will once again be encouraged and expected to lead.”

I wish that whoever is elected, that person would do something just like that. (reported in Christian Century, February 12, 2008)