I was excited and encouraged by your life story and ideas to make positive social change - that's why I voted for you. I hate injustice, social inequality, greed, corruption, and war. I also believe you also hate those things. I didn't understand a month or so ago when people were questioning your deserving-ness of the Nobel prize. I heard your UN speech and found it inspiring. But I can't help but question what the heck you're doing now...sending more troops and proliferating war and occupation and the spread of the US empire seems inconsistent with the character I read about and admired in Dreams from my Father. I want to believe you are going to rise up and change the world - you certainly have the ability, but more war? Really? More military spending when we're facing the worse economy since the Great Depression? I won't say you've lost me quite yet...but you're losing me...cmon buddy.

"it happens all the time; you turn water into wine"

a simple line from a song by the Wedding. love that song and love that line. it made me think about the whole water into wine thing and it actually means something real to me now. yeah it was Jesus' first miracle and it was wine and he didn't have to and all that...but what really strikes me is how that water is us. me. water is plain, flavorless, kinda boring. wine is rich, exciting, and radically different than water. "if anyone is in Christ he is a new creation: the old is gone, the new has come." he turns his bland water into a new substance: wine.

yeah i know you need water to hydrate and dont need wine for survival...but lets not dwell on that in this case cos it wrecks my analogy. heh heh. this is more the artistic act of turning something bland into something beautiful which is what happens with salvation.

Random thought as I'm writing my midterm for my american race relations class: I wonder if some people are racist these days not out of hate for another race or out of a belief in eugenics or nicer looking skin colors...but rather out of laziness. Hate, fear, dislike, eugenicist thought, politics, prejudice, ignorance etc. have all been contributors to our history of racism and discrimination in the US, a history that had been legal, institutionalized, and socially accepted for over a century prior to the beginnings of the Civil Rights movement. To combat and correct this history takes time, effort, energy, and COMMITMENT. The advantages of white privilege are embedded in white American culture so deeply that it is the unspoken norm; the unmarked marker of status (as I believe Althusser argues). My thought is that I think laziness is the reason people choose to not fight against the racism that exists in our culture or the reason people want to just argue that "we are post race" and that institutional racism and disadvantages based on race do not exist. It is so much easier to accept the privileges that come along with whiteness; it is much MUCH harder to live aware of your privilege and the luxuries it affords you. It's easier to throw up our hands and accept that inequality is a huge issue which we can't change, and then walk out the door and continue to live a life to serve only ourselves as a result. Whether racism takes the form of hate or of ignorance, it is just as socially destructive...and sinful.

http://blog.sojo.net/2009/10/08/scripture-and-history-remind-us-that-we-are-all-immigrants/

This comment will be quick and without a lot of thought/analysis behind it, just a general wondering I've been having lately...I don't get why so called christians protest legalizing gay marriage. What difference does it make if it is lawful or not? Our highest law is God's law then it does not matter if something is legal or not - we will choose to not do it because we're ruled by God's law and not the government. "Everything is permissible, but is it beneficial?" So why put so much energy in to preventing a law to pass to allow this or that, laws are worldly. I respect the government and all don't get me wrong, but simply making something legal or illegal does not get to the root of the issue does it? It does not change hearts!

interesting insights from this weeks sojo mail:
"The invisible hand let go of some things, like the common good. The idea that policies which benefit the wealthiest will eventually benefit everyone has proven false. " "The growing inequality in America over decades is a sin of biblical proportions." Jim Wallis. Jim states he believes Obama's budget proposal is good since its main focus is on health care, climate change, and education. "I believe it is time to stop helping the undeserving rich, under the now demonstrably false assertion that this will then benefit the rest of us. When the top 1 percent of the country now get 20 percent of its income, control 33 percent of its wealth, and pay a smaller percentage of their income in taxes than their receptionists do (as Warren Buffet has pointed out)—something has gone terribly wrong in America. The new Obama budget is the first and dramatic step to fix all that, and turn the nation in a different direction."
agreed - the inequality has been OUT OF CONTROL (or rather neglected to be controlled) and I sure hope Wallis is right with Obama's plans.