Veracity

So why do we look and act so much like each other on Sunday mornings?

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People in my church are discussing these issues, talking with the minority members in our midst, trying to understand better the cultural barriers we unintentionally erect and that hinder unity. And starting with our church’s minority members is probably the right approach. There are no easy solutions, but it’s probably the obvious place to begin.

But I would like to suggest that marginalization can occur at every point where there is a departure from homogeneity.

Read the whole post by Andy Whitman on “Inclusiveness”

Each to each a looking-glass
Reflects the other that doth pass.

~Charles H. Cooley on the looking-glass-self.

Identity is a powerful thing. Hard to challenge. Andy’s right. When left up to our own devices, we surround ourselves with those who somehow confirm who we are.

Cooley’s concept isn’t quite so simple. There is an iterative process, feedback, etc. The result can be simple. We wind up surrounding ourselves with people who aren’t necessarily exactly like us–but share some values, priorities, views, etc. that manifest in abstract and concrete ways (not just what we think, but how we choose to spend our time and money). Their choices confirm ours.

In a church, that’s not all bad. We’re joined together with the same vision under God’s grace. But we have to constantly be aware that we bring other expectations, tack on other normative behaviors for what it means to join in to this church body.

We have to ditch these Pharisaical “rules” and quit searching for our identity in each other. I had the chance to see Tony Campolo a couple years back at a youth workers convention. He applied Cooley’s concept to the youth we work with–coming to the point that our goal should be to help the youth find their identity in Christ. I’ll have to dig out the recording.

Like Andy, here are a couple things I’m struggling with:

1) Showing preference.

My brothers and sisters, believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ must not show favoritism. Suppose someone comes into your meeting wearing a gold ring and fine clothes, and a poor person in filthy old clothes also comes in. If you show special attention to the one wearing fine clothes and say, “Here’s a good seat for you,” but say to the one who is poor, “You stand there” or “Sit on the floor by my feet,” have you not discriminated among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?

Listen, my dear brothers and sisters: Has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom he promised those who love him? But you have dishonored the poor. Is it not the rich who are exploiting you? Are they not the ones who are dragging you into court? Are they not the ones who are blaspheming the noble name of him to whom you belong?

If you really keep the royal law found in Scripture, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” you are doing right.

James 2:1-8

So who is my neighbor?

2) This darned Putnam research wherein he states that “New evidence from the US suggests that in ethnically diverse neighbourhoods residents of all races tend to ‘hunker down’.”

I’ve dug back out a nicely redmarked and highlighted copy to begin struggling with it again.

My working theory on this all: Diversity isn’t something the church is dealing with to impress the world. It’s more than an aspirational goal. It’s among the means by which we will advance the Kingdom of God in this world and in peoples’ lives. (Expect a follow up post.)

Putnam’s right in some way. It goes against our sinful nature. We’re all broken and isolated by sin. Our stories are all different–every one. Where two or more are gathered–even that’s diverse. All these layers of identity are the abstraction by which we inch beyond that solitude for some earthly communion. Race is the most phenotypically inescapable of these identities, yes. But Andy’s right–marginalization occurs well beyond that (don’t forget poverty and illness).

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Brian posted a nice entry on Martin Luther King, Jr.–a nice parallel between some of his last words and a section of Isaiah 58.

I found it darkly funny that he stopped at verse 11. The next verse is about city planning:

Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins
and will raise up the age-old foundations;
you will be called Repairer of Broken Walls,
Restorer of Streets with Dwellings.

Corner of Fifth and Monroe

Originally uploaded by YoChicago1

Back in 2003 I had the chance to spend the week in East Garfield Park, a neighborhood in Chicago. The online Encyclopedia of Chicago relates the impact Martin Luther King, Jr’s life had on the neighborhood.

Today one only sees the impact of his death and the subsequent riots. Burned buildings remain unreplaced.

How literal can I take this?

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[Mark Twain was] the first truly American writer, and all of us since are his heirs.”
~William Faulkner

All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn… American writing comes from that. There was nothing before. There has been nothing as good since.
~Ernest Hemingway

I can’t remember whether it was Faulkner or Hemingway that explained the prominent and permanent position Huckleberry Finn had on his desk.

I had a history professor who explained the position one of Ferdinand Braudel’s books had on his desk–so much so that he’d turned his old worn paperback copy into a display piece behind plastic.

Jane Jacobs’ The Death and Life of Great American Cities takes that kind of space on my desk. It’s the one book I can’t lend out.

Last night I was alternately charmed, disgusted, pleased, annoyed, and amused with a panel on the state of downtown retail in Columbus, hosted by the local ULI district council. Yaromir Steiner, of Easton fame, briefly mentioned Ms. Jacobs. However he’s adapted or co-opted her advice for good or bad, I’ll leave to others to debate at the moment.

Afterwards, I heard someone ranting about the pointlessness of some of the wisdom shared by the panel, specifically calling out the visiting ULI fellow for having ideas that were at least three years old.

Whether I agree with that sentiment or not is irrelevant. Instead, I’m struck by how we view “ideas” or “trends” that are quickly thrown under the wheels of “progress”–that somehow we know more than what we did three years ago. We’ve almost arrived; we’re closer to figuring it out.

Jane Jacobs’ almost 50 year old words remain current. Her humble note on illustrations start to reveal why: “The scenes that illustrate this book are all about us. For illustrations, please look closely at real cities. While you are looking, you might as well also listen, linger and think about what you see.”

Her insight is descriptive. Where others choose an overly prescriptive model to view and shape reality, she chooses to observe and describe through multiple ways of seeing–economics, sociology, politics, etc.

There has been nothing as good since.

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If you’ve taken a keen interest in me, geek that I am, you can keep up with me through friendfeed, which aggregates all the little micro/tumble/standard blogging RSS traces I leave across the internet in a given day. I’ve also added a little friendfeed applet in the sidebar.

And for my own benefit I’ve employed Twitter Tools on a parallel site - digest.onlineveracity.com to create a daily digest of my twitters, since they won’t archive them. At the very least, it might help me fill in the holes in my time card at the end of the month. I’m also going to try and get my tumblelog into a daily digest on the same site.

I don’t expect that most of you will visit this new parallel site. Most of you aren’t on this site to begin with–you’re reading this post in an RSS feed reader. I’m doing all this wrangling (because I enjoy it and) because it might help me make the best RSS menu out there (i.e. if you don’t want to find 20 tumblelog entries in your reader, maybe you’ll settle for a couple daily collections. maybe).

Yeesh. I should just get back to generating content.

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If only all other things were held equal.

Many analysts believe speculative investing attracted by the weak dollar is the primary reason oil has risen so far so fast in recent months. Crude futures offer a hedge against a falling dollar, and oil futures bought and sold in dollars are more attractive to foreign investors when the dollar is falling.

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Indeed, while the dollar rose against the euro on Monday, many investors believe the greenback is likely to keep falling as the Fed continues to cut rates. Many analysts believe the rise in crude prices is not supported by the market’s underlying fundamentals, noting that supplies are generally rising while demand is falling.

”By gobbling up everything in sight, (investors) are pushing food and fuel prices to ruinously high levels,” said Peter Beutel, president of the energy risk management firm Cameron Hanover, in a research note.

~“Gas Prices Near Records, Following Oil” (AP via nytimes.com)

There’s also all that capital leaving the real estate market. Maybe. Depending on who you talk to. (An interesting read: “The next bubble,” Harper’s, February 2008.)

Someone once told me that investing in ideas is almost always riskier than real estate. If you, say, miss your target market, you’ve still got the land–and probably a salvageable shell of something. If your idea misses its goal, you’ve got, well, a mistaken idea.

Capital is leaving the US real estate market; credit is tightening; the dollar is falling (and the fed is increasing the money supply by cutting rates); goods and materials costs are rising (inflation). So: commodities? Oil? Food?

Everywhere, the cost of food is rising sharply. Whether the world is in for a long period of continued increases has become one of the most urgent issues in economics.

Many factors are contributing to the rise, but the biggest is runaway demand. In recent years, the world’s developing countries have been growing about 7 percent a year, an unusually rapid rate by historical standards.

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[R]ising food prices in the United States are already helping to fuel inflation reminiscent of the 1970s.

And the increases could become an even bigger problem overseas. The increases that have already occurred are depriving poor people of food, setting off social unrest and even spurring riots in some countries.

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[F]armers’ own costs are rising rapidly. Expenses for the diesel fuel used to run tractors and combines and for the fertilizer essential to modern agriculture have soared.

~“A Global Need for Grain That Farms Can’t Fill,” The New York Times, 9 March 2008.

So, it’s time for my quarterly reference to a nice little Wendell Berry article: “In Distrust of Movements”. Summary: The movements which deal with single issues or single solutions are bound to fail because they cannot control effects while leaving causes in place.

The key words from the Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: Don’t Panic.

The story is complicated. There is no single solution - no Excalibur; no panacea. No single person or action is to blame. Though those would all be nice stories.

We won’t arrive at a complete solution without side effects radiating out across a complicated, interrelated system. Take ethanol, for example. Not only does it require energy inputs (of increasing cost), but it affects food prices. (A quick search on slate.com found more reading here or here or here. Rolling Stone has also spoken out on this.) But what if all this investment in corn-based ethanol helps foster the breakthrough necessary for widespread cellulostic ethanol (think of the difference between just using the energy in the corn kernel versus the whole corn plant)? There’s also local/ecosystem concerns over increased fertilizer runoff. Or, more to the point, concerns over local water usage at an ethanol plant.

Damn, I’m glad my hope isn’t in this world. At least Wendell Berry sounds a hopeful note (so I’ll refrain from critique for now):

What I have been talking about is the possibility of renewing human respect for this Earth and all the good, useful and beautiful things that come from it. I have made it clear, I hope, that I don’t think this respect can be adequately enacted or conveyed by tipping our hats to nature or by representing natural loveliness in art or by prayers of thanksgiving or by preserving tracts of wilderness — although I recommend all those things. The respect I mean can be given only by using well the world’s goods that are given to us. This good use, which renews respect — which is the only currency, so to speak, of respect — also renews our pleasure. The callings and disciplines that I have spoken of as the domestic arts are stationed all along the way from the farm to the prepared dinner, from the forest to the dinner table, from stewardship of the land to hospitality to friends and strangers.

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