Paul's Blogging has Moved!

Hey, all!

After running into platform limitations with Blogger, I've decided to move my musings over to the more powerful Wordpress software. I've taken advantage of this transition to redesign and re-title my blog. I'm quite happy with the new layout. You can look forward to a more user-friendly format, a unique domain name, and a growing list of guest contributors.

You can now find my latest posts, and all previous content from Three of Wands on the new site - Sparks and Ashes.

Threeow will stay online, but no new content will be posted.

I'm looking forward to seeing you on the new site! Please let me know what you think. Make sure to follow my new blog via email if you'd like to stay current with fresh content. I'm excited for the possibilities for communication and connection on the brand new site.

All the best,

-Paul

Happy Thanksgiving!

As we take a national day to pause and consider our blessings, I think of an old quote of Chesterton's:

"You say grace before meals.  All right.  But I say grace before the concert and the opera, and grace before the play and pantomime, and grace before I open a book, and grace before sketching, painting, swimming, fencing, boxing, walking, playing, dancing and grace before I dip the pen in the ink."

Let's be grateful for more than a turkey, potatoes and historical myths. Let's embrace our blessings with prayer that becomes life, and a life that becomes prayer. 

In all things, give thanks.

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The Swapping Continues...

Many of Threeow's readers know about my lovely wife Emily's significant involvement in the national foodswapping movement. Along with great friend and insigator/conspirator Bethany R., she was instrumental in founding PDX swappers, one of the most influential and media covered swapping groups in the nation. Their story has been filmed by Cooking Up a Story, covered by HuffPo, mentioned by the NY Times, and has been significant in inspiring and equipping similar events and community organizing nationwide.

If you're coming late to the party, food-swapping is a currency free exchange of homecrafted food, beverages, goods and services. 

Spawn to Be Wild

I miss the Northwest.

One of my favorite memories of living in a small logging community in the Coast Range mountains was the annual fall salmon run. Hundreds of huge fish, exhausted from their long fight from the Pacific would thrash their way up the stream in my family's backyard. Some would mate, all would die.

I was in awe.

KATU shares this video of "salmonic" tenacity.

Brueggemann on Ezekiel, Occupy, and Good Shepherding

I just came across an excellent piece by Walter Brueggemann over at Huffington Post.

As part of HuffPo's On Scripture series, Brueggemann explicates Ezekiel 34 in connection with the recent Occupy movement. The passage is a scathing condemnation of oppression, especially that of leaders ("shepherds") who fleece their flocks. The clear reading of the passage opposes leaders who exploit their position for imbalanced gain of any kind. Ezekiel takes a dim view of the 1%.


Ezekiel takes the long view though, recognizing that the abundance of abusive and mutton-hungry shepherds points (ironically) to a servant-leader, a "good" shepherd, a priest-king that will pasture the nations well, for the flourishing and feeding of humanity.

Brueggemann recognizes the potent messianic hope that the early church hailed in Jesus' declaration that he is the "good shepherd." He finishes by drawing the principles that society can learn from such an example of sacrificial leadership:

"...the news of Ezekiel is that because of God's resolve, mediated for Christians through Jesus, the Son and regent of God, it need not be so. As Israel need not have poor self-serving kings, so a democratic society need not suffer poor outcomes from an exploitative oligarchy. The promissory nature of Ezekiel's oracles articulates what good leadership looks like -- in government, in corporations, all through the private sector. That rule consists in,

-Seeking the lost,
-Bring back the strayed,
-Binding up the injured,
-Strengthening the weak,
-Feeding the hungry.

"In a word, good leadership consists in the restoration of the common good so that all members of the community, strong and weak, rich and poor, may live together in a common shalom of shared resources. The text is a powerful reminder of what might be; it is at the same time a summons to a political will for leadership that is not occupied, through ideological cant, with feathering its own nest. It is not enough to recite, in pious tones, the 23rd Psalm about "The Lord is my shepherd." What is envisioned (and required) is the formation of a different leadership that has in purview all members of the community. Ezekiel knew that is the only way to have a future that does not replicate the failed past. It is still, among us, the only way!"

It is still the only way. May the lies of the many fleecing shepherds be silenced and swallowed by the peace, the security, the truth of the Good one.

Read the full piece at HuffPo. 


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Saved through Childbearing

(C) 2005, Sisters of the Mississippi Abbey

This beautiful image was threaded through our church's liturgy this past Sunday. It especially captured my wife's imagination as we're expecting our second child any day now.

If you're familiar with biblical imagery and symbol, you'll recognize the pair as Eve and Mary. Their simple,  interplay of nakedness and clothing, shame and forgiveness, defeat and victory centers on the profound mystery of Mary's bulging belly. The mother becomes the daughter becomes the mother.

The "foolishness" of the Christ-story is much more than the passion, cross and resurrection. Central and inevitable is the mystery of God taking upon himself the brokenness, the limitation, the beauty, fragility, and mess of humanity.

It is a great, strange comfort that the lord of all things entered my world through slime, in the birthblood of an animal.

Richard Foster on Psychotic Affluence

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“We really must understand that the lust for affluence in contemporary society is psychotic. It is psychotic because it has completely lost touch with reality. We crave things we neither need nor enjoy. 'We buy things we do not want to impress people we do not like.' ...It is time to awaken to the fact that conformity to a sick society is to be sick.”

-"Celebration of Discipline"

Well said, Mr. Foster.

Happy Birthday, Columbia River Gorge!

Today marks the 25th anniversary of the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area Act. As the Oregonian's editorial today points out, the law has both preserved the remarkable, fragile beauty of this national treasure, while simultaneously boosting local economy.

And there is no better place that I can think of to protect. I have lived life more fully in this 85 miles than I have anywhere else.

Just a few personal highlights of my Gorge experiences:

-My proposal to Emily in a harsh storm on the edge of Angel's Rest 

-Weekly night hikes in college (numbering in the low 100s I'd guess) with my best friends

-Many well spent days and nights at a family cabin by Bridge of the Gods
-Kayaking and fishing on Wauna Lake
-Exploring Eagle Creek with my brothers
-A dear friend's wedding on a wind whipped bluff overlooking Hood River
-Salmon fishing
-Bear chases
-Covering my body with Poison Ivy while free climbing Angel's Rest
-Foraging and eating lots of delicious natural foods
-Hiking to try and induce labor for our first kid
-Getaways from that first kid at Skamania Lodge

Many of my best memories are of the rocks, waterfalls, forests, and trails of this land.
I am profoundly and inexpressibly grateful for the preservation of the most wonderful place I have ever seen.

Beautiful Time-lapse of Portland

Simply gorgeous views of PDX at night, thanks to lens artist Lance Page.

Via the Portland Mercury

A Good Quote from Mr. Nouwen

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I came across a good reminder from the venerable Henri Nouwen today: 

“Somewhere we know that without silence words lose their meaning, that without listening speaking no longer heals, that without distance closeness cannot cure.”

May we find silence and listen well, embracing both distance and proximity.

Health and wholeness to you.

-Paul

Kindle Fire Ignites Security Concerns

With Amazon's Kindle Fire tablet shipping today, many consumers are talking about the tablet's hyped features and low price tag. While I'm sure that the Fire will bomb the market as a low cost iPad alternative, and e-reader on steroids, what's far more interesting to me are the many security and privacy concerns integral to the tablet's new Silk web browser.

In the words of Steve Vaughan-Nichols over at ZDNet "Silk looks to be very fast and about as private as a bathroom stall without a door."

Social Media Propaganda

Satire at its best-looking, enjoy this collection of social media propaganda from Aaron Wood.

Dystopian alternate history, or slick social commentary? You decide.

Now go do your duty, comrade! Like! Plus!

And remember, RE-TWEET IS NEVER AN OPTION.

via Design Milk

Our "Kill Team" and the Death of Humanity

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Let me begin a difficult Veteran's Day Post by thanking any individual veterans or families who may read this for undergoing difficulty in support of national defense. Though I dissent strongly with America's military philosophy and culture, I do not forget the individual men and women who frequently put themselves in harm's way.

I've been following the trial of Sgt. Calvin Gibbs and his "Kill Team" ever since the story broke some time ago.

Gibbs was convicted of the murder and mutilation of Afghan civilians during a tour of duty with the 5th Stryker Brigade - a platoon described as "out of control" by prosecutors. The evidence bears that description out, with widespread drug use, abuse of Afghan remains, and suppression of whistle-blowers.

Taking the stand in his own defense, Gibbs pleaded that in many cases, after he murdered a civilian and staged their corpse, he cut off their fingers as trophies. Why? In his own words he was "disassociated." "It was like keeping the antlers off a deer you'd shoot."

War creates killers, there's no arguing that. I'm sure that we all can relate stories from family members or friends who have seen combat. But sometimes the violence exceeds even the standards of battlefield ethics. I've heard descriptions many times of sociopathy in war, whether in the Ardennes, Mai Lai, or Baghdad. The pressures of combat encourages the abandonment of social norms and ethics. Even good men do terrible things.

A Rant about Hands and iPads

I recently caved and sort-of joined Twitter. (I'm sorry, self-respect).

It was almost worth selling my soul, though, to find a tweet from landscape architect/good friend @bethanyrydmark. She shared an excellent essay with her followers by Bret Victor, titled "A Brief Rant on the Future of Interaction Design." (Link to full piece below).

Victor puts into words a sentiment that I've felt for a long time, but lacked language to express. Contemporary visions of the future (he highlights a particular ad campaign) portray the future of interactive design as a world where humans manipulate images under glass.

The problem? "...This vision, from an interaction perspective, is not visionary. It's a timid increment from the status quo, and the status quo, from an interaction perspective, is actually rather terrible."

How to Move Your Money Local

 A great how-to article over at Mother Jones is the perfect follow up to my earlier post about why my family banks local.

Read the piece for a helpful FAQ if you're curious about shifting your funds to a Credit Union or other local banking option.

You won't be alone. As Josh Harkinson comments:

"Credit unions across the country have added upwards of 650,000 new customers since September 29 (the day Bank of America unveiled its now-defunct $5 monthly fee for debit cards), according to a survey of 5,000 credit unions by the Credit Union National Association. The group also estimates that credit unions have added $4.5 billion in new savings since then, likely from these new members and transfers from other banks."

Read the full article here.

A Good Quote from Helmut T.

 

This quote struck me deeply when I came across it today.

"Truth seduces us very easily into a joy of possession: I have comprehended this and that, learned it, understood it. Knowledge is power. I am therefore more than the other man who does not know this and that. I have greater possibilities and also greater temptations. 

Anyone who deals with truth—as we theologians certainly do—succumbs all too easily to the psychology of the possessor. 

But love is the opposite of the will to possess. It is self-giving." 

-Helmut Thieckle, A Little Exercise for Young Theologians

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Zoobombing the BBC

Bike Pile!

The BBC recently highlighted Portland in their "Close Up" series. What got their attention? The robust and wild local tradition of ZOOBOMBING. Participants careen down the West Hills, at night, on souped up children's bikes that they store in the bike pile seen above, outside Rocco's pizza on 10th Ave.

What about this seems like a good idea? EVERYTHING.

Full video after the jump on the BBC's website.

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Pollution, Consumption, Oregon.

An interesting study was recently published by Oregon's DEQ (Department of Environmental Quality).

The inventory demonstrates that higher levels of harmful emissions and pollutants are produced by the buying habits of Oregonians than by our driving or other transit choices.

In the words of Jonathan Maus over at Bike Portland, this shows that what "we buy emits more greenhouse gases than what we do."

The implications of this study (the first of its kind) are wide ranging. Theoretically, the data shows that a shut-in who compulsively buys stuff on Amazon potentially has a worse effect on environmental quality than a daily car commuter. Practically speaking, it should put our buying habits in a sobering perspective.

This study provides helpful nuance to our current thinking on consumption, environmental stewardship, and lifestyle. It shows unequivocally that our production practices carry profound cumulative harm for both global health and local communities that produce the things we buy. It's a compelling reason to produce and purchase locally made, grown, and crafted goods.

The wrong response to this study is to say that "what I drive doesn't matter then." False. Those of us interested in stewarding our communities and land need to continue to advocate for wise production practices in addition to savvy transit choices. Fundamentally, this requires simplification of our consumer lifestyle, local involvement and careful attention to the difficult wheres and whats of buying.

Buy to live where you work. Work to buy where you live. You may be surprised at the impact that your household's choices can have on creating a vibrant local economy and a healthy region. It's worth the investment.

Oregon's study is helpful in framing the discussion. It is also sobering in its implications. In the end, will you and I choose to change the way we view possessions, transportation, and consumption?
I hope that we will.

(Via Bike Portland)

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