THE SUPER BOWL AND DOMESTIC VIOLENCE

[via Sanctuary for the Abused]

Art by Farid De La Ossa. Seen here at Shawna R. B. Atteberry

Ask a Fisher, Soak Your Brain

When theists such as myself engage in conversation with sectarian atheists, we learn nothing new about ourselves or the world around us. We are introduced to no new ideas or new perspectives, only to contradiction.

But conversation with a true freethinker is always challenging and rewarding. It requires me to interact with a different perspective, with someone whose thinking is not proscribed by all of the same premises and presuppositions I bring to the table. That's invaluable, not just for insight into their perspective(s), but into my own. If you want to know what water is like, don't ask a fish.

In other words, we need to listen to each other. Each. Other. None of us is smart enough, big enough or old enough to have seen and thought of everything, to have settled or dismissed everything. And none of us is so fully self-aware that we can't benefit from listening to someone who's not swimming in the same water we spend our lives in.

This same don't-ask-a-fish principle is part of why we Christians emphasize the importance of cross-cultural fellowship and ministry. Culture, like religious faith, provides a host of premises and presuppositions, many of which might be held unaware or unexamined. Sorting the presuppositions of culture from the tenets of faith can be a tricky thing. Tricky but important, because we don't want to elevate something we've simply absorbed as a cultural more to the level of religious or ethical dogma.

[via slacktivist, emphasis mine]

Emotional Intimacy and Men: Deconstructing Contemporary Gender Myths

[via Faith Dance]

On that note, here's a humorous illustration...

The Color Is Not Blue...

Jacob's Trouble- Something Good Happens

Secret Movements

I think we all find this true of ourselves. Our secrets are turned against us. I am not talking primarily about our secret sins. I am referring to the things we believe, value, wish, desire and hope. If we spoke these things it would be like declaring to the world how far short we have fallen, how far away we are from the land to which he had hoped to travel. These things spoken then turn to taunt us. Often we are cowards who do not have the courage to live out of God-given abilities to see possibilities and then pursue them.

And so we watch life, see and do the ordinary - but keep our mouths shut about how we wanted (and want) it to be. We will talk, but not about hope. We will reveal but not about wishes. We will turn our conversation to the things here and now but not to the “what if’s” and the “maybe’s.”

I hope you can tell someone your secret. There is probably someone(s) who would want to help.

[via From My Heart, Out Of My Mind]

Marking Your Existence

There are sort of four properties and one key practice that are fundamentally different online. The key practice is that you have to write yourself into being. To a certain degree we do this offline as well, whereby you have a body that you're working with that you then accessorize to hell. Online you don't have a body, you don't have a presence, you don't have anything that sort of marks your existence.

There are four functions that are sort of the key architecture of online publics and key structures of mediated environments that are generally not part of the offline world. And those are persistence, searchability, replicability, and invisible audiences. Persistence -- what you say sticks around. Searchability -- my mother would have loved the ability to sort of magically scream into the ether to figure out where I was when I'd gone off to hang out with my friends. She couldn't, thank God. But today when kids are hanging out online because they've written [themselves] into being online, they become very searchable. Replicability -- you have a conversation with your friends, and this can be copied and pasted into your Live Journal and you get into a tiff. That creates an amazing amount of "uh ohs" when you add it to persistence. And finally, invisible audiences. In unmediated environment, you can look around and have an understanding of who can possibly overhear you. You adjust what you're saying to the reactions of those people. You figure out what is appropriate to say, you understand the social context. But when we're dealing with mediated environments, we have no way of gauging who might hear or see us, not only because we can't tell whose presence is lurking at the moment, but because of persistence and searchability.

[via AlterNet, HT: Mainstream Baptist]

Code of Confusion?

In his annual State of the Union address last night, President Bush did not let the absence of former chief speechwriter and Wheaton College graduate Michael Gerson keep him from talking about religion. Bush has been accused of allowing Gerson to slip in “code words” and phrases that allow him to secretly pander to America’s religious right, but this time Bush’s religiously oriented words caught the attention of a different audience.

In the 5,700-word speech, Bush refers to Shia and Sunni Islam ten times. It made up a substantial port of the speech’s foreign policy section and further outlined his administration’s view of Islam extremism. In other words, it was a rather significant policy statement at one of the highest-profile events of the year.

[via GetReligion]

What are the ingredients of a good conversation? Remember, a conversation is not the same as information-exchange or lecture. {more}

[via Jesus Creed]

Complementary Application?

Consistent Application of Gender Rules

[via The CBE Scoll]