I went today to St. Joseph's Church in the West Village for Ash Wednesday service this evening. It wasn't my original plan, but the more I saw young people walking by with the ashes on their foreheads, it made me feel like I wanted to be a part of it again. I wanted to get back in that spirit of penitence, and I think I also liked the idea of making my faith visible. Ash Wednesday seems to be the one day of the year when we wear our Christianity on our faces, and what's more it's perhaps one of the most Christian ways of showing our faith. It's not like carrying some t-shirt that says "Jesus Loves You" or reading the Bible on some street corner: this is the kind of sign I like-the kind that makes people squint their eyes and wonder what it's all about. Because the jesus i understand wasn't about blasting his message out on loudspeakers. He was more interested in washing people's feet. So seeing our faith in the ashes we wear seems more in line with the strong silent type that Jesus often was in his message.
Even though it was being done in a Catholic church, I felt I could return to the Catholics for this ceremony. And so I planned to go to St. Joseph's Church. During dinner beforehand, I was sitting with my Indian friend Luv, a Hindu with no knowledge of Christianity whatsoever. When I told him my evening plans, he asked for an explanation of it. So I invited him to come along and see for himself...
More tomorrow.
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Saturday, February 21, 2009
SPIRITUAL REFLECTION-2-21
I read from the Shane Claiborne book "Becoming the Answer to Our Prayers" this morning. It was one of the first times in the last few weeks that I have felt like my search for faith had found the right leader. The right guide. Reading Rick Warren, I felt there was too much certainty about God. Reading Thomas Merton, I felt put off by the degree to which he identified passion and desire with selfishness. Reading my passages of the Men's evangelical Bible, I felt that I was just retreading territory I'd already visited before. Claiborne's book unlike any of the others emphasizes the things that used to really bring to me close to God in everyday life: attempting to help people, to be present with people in need, to see injustice and how we can work against it, to see isolation and try to heal it.
Here in Greenpoint, I wake up every morning and see these old Polish men with dirty wrinkled faces, sounding drunk and standing in a stupor next to the corner liquor store. One yesterday had his nose cut open, with blood caked from his eyebrows down to his lips. I stopped momentarily and said, "Are you alright?" But there was little I could do-I didn't know him. I didn't even speak his language. That to me is tragic.
Sometimes I feel like God overdid it in that story in Genesis where he punishes us for building the godless tower into the skies by confusing all our languages. It makes showing his compassion so much more difficult to our neighbor. Yet one more sign of my growing conviction that God does not always act rationally or for the best of people, if indeed he does exist. But spirit-spirit I believe in, and if we can get in our spirit, THAT does usually have some logic to it, and usually means the best for us.
Here in Greenpoint, I wake up every morning and see these old Polish men with dirty wrinkled faces, sounding drunk and standing in a stupor next to the corner liquor store. One yesterday had his nose cut open, with blood caked from his eyebrows down to his lips. I stopped momentarily and said, "Are you alright?" But there was little I could do-I didn't know him. I didn't even speak his language. That to me is tragic.
Sometimes I feel like God overdid it in that story in Genesis where he punishes us for building the godless tower into the skies by confusing all our languages. It makes showing his compassion so much more difficult to our neighbor. Yet one more sign of my growing conviction that God does not always act rationally or for the best of people, if indeed he does exist. But spirit-spirit I believe in, and if we can get in our spirit, THAT does usually have some logic to it, and usually means the best for us.
Monday, February 9, 2009
What you don't know can hurt you
Lately I've been spending my money without much regard for how. I try to be thrifty where I can, but ever since my counselor told me that saving up money wasn't something most grad students are able to do, I stopped paying as much attention to my budget. To my own detriment. Even if I can't save a huge amount up, I can still watch my spending. Besides, it at least helps me have a local perspective on the economy.
I noticed last night that Trader Joe's at 14th Street again had a line going out the door and down the street past some four other storefronts. They're huge now. How can it be that there's only one of them in the city?
For my part, even if the deals are good, I can't stand waiting in lines that long, especially when it's just to get in the door!
Got my food shopping done tonight at the Polish Associated Supermarket on Manhattan Ave. I asked if they had coupons. The Polish checkout girl gave me a weird look and said, "No, no coupons. If there is discount, we have it all in our heads." Good to know.
$41.37 spent altogether, mostly the basics:
$8 for two loaves of bread, Arnold $ Stroehmann-where are they coming from?
$4 on soy milk (gotta have my Silk)
$8 on chicken - trying out breasts and ground chicken, which was cheaper
$5 on cold cuts (got a lb. of the cheapest available...)
$4.79 on a 20 oz. box of shredded wheat. Cereal prices are so damn high. I've been told getting high fiber in the morning makes for a healthy breakfast. So that should help.
$3 of orange juice on sale,
$2 of eggs,
$2 on soap,
$2 on paper towels,
and $2 of some unintelligible Polish snack food that looked like it had honey- tastes darn good.
I guess the rest was tax.
I know that when it comes to following my spending, I need to adopt LITTLE habits that I can begin to accumulate.
I can start to write some of these purchases down, at the very least. I don't want to be paranoid about it, but I do want a better idea of where my money is going. It's easy to ignore this stuff, but sooner or later the money will ignore you back.
I noticed last night that Trader Joe's at 14th Street again had a line going out the door and down the street past some four other storefronts. They're huge now. How can it be that there's only one of them in the city?
For my part, even if the deals are good, I can't stand waiting in lines that long, especially when it's just to get in the door!
Got my food shopping done tonight at the Polish Associated Supermarket on Manhattan Ave. I asked if they had coupons. The Polish checkout girl gave me a weird look and said, "No, no coupons. If there is discount, we have it all in our heads." Good to know.
$41.37 spent altogether, mostly the basics:
$8 for two loaves of bread, Arnold $ Stroehmann-where are they coming from?
$4 on soy milk (gotta have my Silk)
$8 on chicken - trying out breasts and ground chicken, which was cheaper
$5 on cold cuts (got a lb. of the cheapest available...)
$4.79 on a 20 oz. box of shredded wheat. Cereal prices are so damn high. I've been told getting high fiber in the morning makes for a healthy breakfast. So that should help.
$3 of orange juice on sale,
$2 of eggs,
$2 on soap,
$2 on paper towels,
and $2 of some unintelligible Polish snack food that looked like it had honey- tastes darn good.
I guess the rest was tax.
I know that when it comes to following my spending, I need to adopt LITTLE habits that I can begin to accumulate.
I can start to write some of these purchases down, at the very least. I don't want to be paranoid about it, but I do want a better idea of where my money is going. It's easy to ignore this stuff, but sooner or later the money will ignore you back.
Saturday, February 7, 2009
Thoughts
I was once told that one big difference between Americans and Europeans is that Americans live to work, while Europeans work to live. While there's probably just as much bull in that statement as any other, there's also a kernel of truth. My father said that when I come to the end of my life, one regret I probably won't have is "I wish I had spent more time at the office."
I just thought about this because I feel like I spent the week busily working away, then came to the end and had very little planned for the weekend. I'd like to balance things out a bit more, put the same value, if not more, into my life as into my work.
I just thought about this because I feel like I spent the week busily working away, then came to the end and had very little planned for the weekend. I'd like to balance things out a bit more, put the same value, if not more, into my life as into my work.
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Groaning for grace
Lately, I've been trying to get back to some good spiritual habits, like writing down the five things I'm grateful for each day before I go to bed and 10 minutes of prayer at Sacred Space. I've also tried to begin reading something spiritual every morning: I used to read a Bible reflection from this Men's Devotional Bible I had, but I finished that a long while back.
I'm now reading passages from Shane Claiborne's upcoming book Becoming the Answer To Our Prayers, a look at how we pray and how we can turn our prayer life into fuel for engagement in the world. This morning, I read this passage that really hit me:
"Christianity can be built around isolating ourselves from evildoers and sinners, creating a community of religious super-piety. It can also be built around joining with the evildoers and broken sinners of our world crying out to God, groaning for grace. That's the kind of Christianity we have fallen in love with."
Groaning for grace. Absolutely. I am longing for it. Amidst all the hustle and bustle, I am yearning for a faith community that truly affirms the presence of God in my daily affairs, despite all the ambitions and urgencies that drown his voice out.
I've been doing yoga, and it's been great for becoming more meditative. However, nowhere in the practice has there been talk about gratitude to God or to a higher power. It's all been about us, and our personal energy. I want more.
I want to re-enter a spiritual community that builds me up. The group I meet with every other week is a great respite from the rest of life, but I need something with more constancy as well.
I once started writing a song called "It's hard to see the face of God in New York City." The chorus ended with the line, "But to this very mission, I am sworn." That was back when I was working for Rick Warren's magazine and struggling with his brand of Christianity. I need to remember how much I yearn for God: when I lived in DC, I used to meditate on the phrase "God is in me and around me." And often I believed it. I'd like to believe it again.
God is in me and around me, in me and around me...
I'm now reading passages from Shane Claiborne's upcoming book Becoming the Answer To Our Prayers, a look at how we pray and how we can turn our prayer life into fuel for engagement in the world. This morning, I read this passage that really hit me:
"Christianity can be built around isolating ourselves from evildoers and sinners, creating a community of religious super-piety. It can also be built around joining with the evildoers and broken sinners of our world crying out to God, groaning for grace. That's the kind of Christianity we have fallen in love with."
Groaning for grace. Absolutely. I am longing for it. Amidst all the hustle and bustle, I am yearning for a faith community that truly affirms the presence of God in my daily affairs, despite all the ambitions and urgencies that drown his voice out.
I've been doing yoga, and it's been great for becoming more meditative. However, nowhere in the practice has there been talk about gratitude to God or to a higher power. It's all been about us, and our personal energy. I want more.
I want to re-enter a spiritual community that builds me up. The group I meet with every other week is a great respite from the rest of life, but I need something with more constancy as well.
I once started writing a song called "It's hard to see the face of God in New York City." The chorus ended with the line, "But to this very mission, I am sworn." That was back when I was working for Rick Warren's magazine and struggling with his brand of Christianity. I need to remember how much I yearn for God: when I lived in DC, I used to meditate on the phrase "God is in me and around me." And often I believed it. I'd like to believe it again.
God is in me and around me, in me and around me...
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Post of the day: question
Hey guys, do you find that you spend more or less time with friends in person since you started using Facebook? There's an article I'm reading tonight on the Time.com website about this. Take a look and give me your opinion, please.
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
A digital confession
I've started a web journalism class called "Beatblogging" that's about beat reporters who are using blogs and social networking tools to enhance their reporting. Our work in the class is to research reporters around the country who are using the Web in such ways. I'm fascinated by the topic honestly, but whenever I hear about reporters using these live blogs at events or doing their weekly blog posts and building an online community, I can't help but have one nagging thought: who wants to spend that much time on a computer?
I've always been a very active guy, enjoying traveling, athletics, running and wandering around town. One of the things I enjoy about reporting is the opportunity to explore and the rush of going out to cover a story. Somehow, the web work seems a bit anticlimactic.
However, I also know how difficult it can be to keep finding a good story, and to keep fully abreast of news stories when there are those in authority who prefer you out of the loop. So, if this technology can be used to enhance the other reporting skills I've got, all the better. I guess I just fear that the web technology will come to replace going out into the neighborhoods, walking beats, meeting random people. I got my first story in a local paper because I caught an ad on a telephone pole in Washington Heights.
I guess it also depends on your beat: if you're working with the homeless, chances are most of your clientele aren't on Twitter. However, if you're a tech, science, politics or arts reporter, you've got a better shot of getting some scoops through this stuff.
So, a mix of emotions continues as I delve deeper. At the very least, I now have set up some RSS feeds on topics I enjoy.
When I was doing my story on the fall of the Greenwich Village folk scene, Robin Hirsch, the owner of the Cornelia Street Cafe, said that he felt the Internet was hurting the independent art scene, because people were more likely to search for events they specifically WANTED to see rather than just showing up somewhere and seeing whatever show happened to be playing that night. Similarly, one of my reporting profs felt the danger of reading news on the Web is that you can easily cut to the stories you want, rather than reading through and maybe noticing something unexpected buried deep within, as you would with a newspaper.
However, I also remember that Geoff Wiley, the owner of Jalopy in Red Hook, said the Web presented incredible opportunities for discovering the history of folk music in ways that he had never had as a kid.
So, there's a tossup perhaps between a sacrifice on the breadth of news one may get, versus an increase in the depth of intimacy with certain topics.
What do you think? What have been the effects of social networking for you: has such software enriched your life or mostly been a fun waste of time? Is it important to you that this software exists, versus using e-mail or phones? And do you see a difference reading your news online versus in print?
I've always been a very active guy, enjoying traveling, athletics, running and wandering around town. One of the things I enjoy about reporting is the opportunity to explore and the rush of going out to cover a story. Somehow, the web work seems a bit anticlimactic.
However, I also know how difficult it can be to keep finding a good story, and to keep fully abreast of news stories when there are those in authority who prefer you out of the loop. So, if this technology can be used to enhance the other reporting skills I've got, all the better. I guess I just fear that the web technology will come to replace going out into the neighborhoods, walking beats, meeting random people. I got my first story in a local paper because I caught an ad on a telephone pole in Washington Heights.
I guess it also depends on your beat: if you're working with the homeless, chances are most of your clientele aren't on Twitter. However, if you're a tech, science, politics or arts reporter, you've got a better shot of getting some scoops through this stuff.
So, a mix of emotions continues as I delve deeper. At the very least, I now have set up some RSS feeds on topics I enjoy.
When I was doing my story on the fall of the Greenwich Village folk scene, Robin Hirsch, the owner of the Cornelia Street Cafe, said that he felt the Internet was hurting the independent art scene, because people were more likely to search for events they specifically WANTED to see rather than just showing up somewhere and seeing whatever show happened to be playing that night. Similarly, one of my reporting profs felt the danger of reading news on the Web is that you can easily cut to the stories you want, rather than reading through and maybe noticing something unexpected buried deep within, as you would with a newspaper.
However, I also remember that Geoff Wiley, the owner of Jalopy in Red Hook, said the Web presented incredible opportunities for discovering the history of folk music in ways that he had never had as a kid.
So, there's a tossup perhaps between a sacrifice on the breadth of news one may get, versus an increase in the depth of intimacy with certain topics.
What do you think? What have been the effects of social networking for you: has such software enriched your life or mostly been a fun waste of time? Is it important to you that this software exists, versus using e-mail or phones? And do you see a difference reading your news online versus in print?
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