is there anything better…

…on a hot summer afternoon?

advice please: family reunion

A couple weeks ago I asked for breakfast cereal recommendations and a number of folks responded with their favorites. We’ve just run out of my standard cereal, so on this weekend’s grocery shopping trip I hope to try one or two new ones.

Given the good feedback about something as mundane as cereal (though my wife may take issue with “mundane”), I thought I’d solicit your opinions once again. Maggie and I will be traveling to the Oregon coast for a long weekend in July for a reunion with my mom’s side of the family. In my (almost) 31 years I have never attended an official family reunion. There have been plenty of family gatherings at grandparents’ houses, but never something with actual organization.

So, as a reunion newbie, what advice to you have for me? Is there anything we should do to prepare for 3 days with extended family? Did I mention the 24 of us will be staying in one house? Thankfully it’s a big house and we all like each other…for now . What are some good activities for folks who only see each other every few years? How about some good conversation starters?

All reunion-savvy advice will be seriously considered.

afternoon in the park

I met with a community group leader at Cafe Gelato (highly recommended, thanks Liz) yesterday afternoon. Between the meeting and dinner with a friend at Piece I rode over to Humboldt Park to check out the Fiestas Puertorriquenas.

I sat behind this guy for a while and listened to the music. The festival runs through Sunday and, from what I could tell, looks like a good time.

good meeting with nc3 leaders

I’ve not written much about my new job yet, mostly because I’m still figuring things out and there hasn’t been a lot to say.  Tonight’s community group leader’s meeting was maybe the biggest thing I’ve done yet in my new position.  The first anything in a new job is always a bit odd, but I was really happy with how things went.  I was hoping the meeting wouldn’t just be me talking at folks but that we’d have some good interaction.  That’s what happened.

I’m very impressed with the people who make up this team of community group leaders.  These folks obviously care deeply about community and want to be intentional in making it happen in their groups.  There are certainly areas for us to be more intentional as we pursue this value, but I feel good our prospects with this group of leaders.

The meeting almost got started off poorly when I locked myself out on the fire escape (don’t ask)… but I was able to crawl through the men’s bathroom window to get back in the building.  Pretty funny after I was back in the office.

death cab for cutie, “in sunlight”

Maggie and I had a good time at the Death Cab for Cutie concert at the Pritzker Pavillion on Tuesday. It was an eerie night, the buildings around Millennium Park dissolved into the fog.

Here, courtesy of the Black Cab Sessions, is one of the songs they played from their new album, In Sunlight.

links

• I’ve enjoyed playing around with Twitter over the past couple of months, but this story makes my updates seem ridiculously shallow. An American student who used a microblog site to free himself from an Egyptian jail is harnessing the Web’s power again — this time to demand the release of his translator. James Karl Buck was released from a Mahalla jail after sending a one-word blog post from his cell phone through the Twitter Web site. The message — “Arrested” — alerted all of his friends on the site of his detention.
• In his typically insightful way Pete Rollins asks some difficult questions about our interactions with those who are different from us. We may say that we want to live in a society of difference and that we are enriched by this wealth of diversity. Indeed we may even spend our time fighting for such a society. However, so much of this seems to spring from a deep horror and fear of the other. Is it not the case that we can celebrate others only so long as they occupy a public space with us within which they do not air their potentially exclusive, racist and sexist attitudes?
• Short YouTube video of Barack and Michelle Obama’s “fist bump” after securing the nomination. Nice. (via everybody cares)
• A Time magazine article from 1947(!), “The Last Traffic Jam”. The average U.S. citizen completely ignores the regularity with which the automobile kills him, maims him, embroils him with the law and provides mobile shelter for rakes intent on seducing his daughters… Said Dr. J. P. Hilton, a Denver psychiatrist: “The driver behind a traffic crawler gets angry. His reason departs. He wants to ram through, to pass, to punish the object of his anger.” Did the doctor feel the same way? “And how,” he said, and shuddered. “I dream of wide highways and no automobiles—no automobiles at all.” (via kottke)

9 years ago today…

…Maggie and I were married.

I wouldn’t trade these years for anything.

a sign of life: obama’s nomination

As I’m sure all you well-informed folks already know, it now appears that Barack Obama will be the Democratic nominee in this November’s general election. Hillary Clinton has yet to officially concede but- barring another of Obama’s pastor friends saying something damaging- at this point she is only postponing the inevitable.

Obama’s nomination is a big deal. A really big deal. While there are plenty of Americans who are intrinsically aware of its magnitude, there are others of us who may be missing why this nomination matters so much. Last night an African American friend’s Facebook status read, In my lifetime, I’d never thought I’d see this … Barack Obama is the democratic nominee for president of the United States of America. A column in this morning’s Washington Post begins, Black president. Two words profound and yet contradictory. Once thought of as an oxymoron, impossible to be placed together in the same sentence, context, country — unless followed by a question mark. Black president? This century?

Those of us who are white may see yesterday’s news as important for the upcoming election: we now know who the candidates are. We may also realize the historic nature of this nomination: a black man is the Democratic nominee. What we may miss is the deeply personal nature of Obama’s nomination for so many Americans. Terrance Samuel of The Root put it this way,

As historic as this is for many Americans, for a lot of black people, there is a surreal, unreal quality to the whole affair; it is a disbelief wrapped in amazement wrapped in euphoria. One black woman I know in Massachusetts got a call from her mother in California. “She was crying,” my friend reported. It’s a fair bet, she was not alone.

I point this out not to make a political stand but to point to a sign of life. On many levels justice and hope was realized yesterday in ways that may take a while to sink in. Tomorrow (or perhaps even today) the political mud-slinging will begin, but today my prayers are ones of thanksgiving.

consuming jesus

This morning I finished reading Consuming Jesus: Beyond Race and Class Divisions in a Consumer Church by Paul Louis Metzger. This is one of the best books I’ve read this year (along with Surprised by Hope and The Gospel and a Pluralist Society). Because I may be reviewing the book elsewhere, I’ll hold off from saying much more… but check out this quote from the last chapter.

The church must re-envision its understanding of communal identity in view of its communal and co-missional God as involving solidarity with society at large. Christ himself was all about solidarity. Though he new no sin, he became sin on our behalf to reconcile us with God (2 Corinthians5:21). This will entail a radical break from the dominant American individualistic mindset that keeps us separate from others. It will require that we lay down our lives and die for our enemies rather than try to take back America from them.

My lovely wife has probably gown weary of how much I’ve talked about American individualism over the past couple of years and I’m afraid this book will only make it worse.  Metzger is devestating in his critique of a church which, rather than exhibiting true community, often resembles nothing more than a collection of consumption-minded individuals.  To tweak a favorite Homer Simpson quote, “It hurts because it’s true.”

My friend Michael and I are now reading Then the Whisper Put on Flesh: New Testament Ethics in an African American Context by Brian K Blount. I hope to interact with this book on the blog as we read and discuss our way through it.

radiohead’s “all i need” video

Not much to say about this video from Radiohead’s latest album. I hope you’ll watch it.