Okay, maybe that's a bit of a stretch. If you hadn't heard the news yet, Radio Shack just laid off a large amount of employees... by e-mail! After high school I worked for Incredible Universe, a lame store that was owned by the Tandy Corporation, the same company that is now remembered for making very crummy computers, and also owns Radio Shack. When the store went out of business, they promised all of the employees severance pakages if they stayed the remaining six months that the store would be open. What they failed to mention was that over half of those employed there were on "seasonal" contracts and would not be receiving the package, even though all of us had stayed on well past the holiday season. When I uncovered this and confronted the powers that be (and this is no joke), the store managers told me I could get a severance package as long as I didn't tell anybody else about it. I thought about it for about 5 minutes, then told every single employee in the store. It was beautiful.
And I still received a severance package (though it was half what it was supposed to be), along with every other employee.
That was my first experience dealing with the evils of corporate America, and is why I lean against shopping at Radio Shack, and other well-known exploiters of labor (yes, I know it severely limits the shopping I can do). So thanks for listening to my story, and please boycott Radio Shack, who can't afford to take the time to talk to employees before laying them off, but still managed to climb in the stock market yesterday.
Peace,
Matt
Still reading Jared Diamond's Collapse. I'm close to done, but am sick and have been watching movies instead, including Why We Fight, which is a great documentary on the American Military Industrial Complex. And of course tonight I will be glued to my TV watching season three of Arrested Development.
Thursday, August 31, 2006
Monday, August 28, 2006
Back with Quotes!
Well, I'm back. I might try to throw up a pic or two from either my mission excursion or my Texan vacation. For now, I'll just throw out a small tidbit of conversation I read in The Name of the Rose. I had no idea how good of a book it would be; and on so many levels! Anyways, here's a bit of discussion between Adso (the narrarator) and William (the "detective" and elder of the two):
“But then…” I ventured to remark, “you are still far from the solution…”
“I am very close to one,” William said, “but I don’t know which.”
“Therefore you don’t have a single answer to your questions?”
“Adso, if I did I would teach theology in Paris.”
“In Paris do they always have the true answers?”
“Never,” William said, “but they are very sure of their errors.”
“And you,” I said with childish impertinence, “never commit errors?”
“Often,” he answered. “But instead of conceiving only one, I imagine many, so I become the slave of none.”
Peace,
Matt
Reads: The Name of the Rose, A Consumer's Republic, The Symposium (by Plato), and am almost done with Jarred Diamond's book Collapse. My nerdiness is at an all-time high.
“But then…” I ventured to remark, “you are still far from the solution…”
“I am very close to one,” William said, “but I don’t know which.”
“Therefore you don’t have a single answer to your questions?”
“Adso, if I did I would teach theology in Paris.”
“In Paris do they always have the true answers?”
“Never,” William said, “but they are very sure of their errors.”
“And you,” I said with childish impertinence, “never commit errors?”
“Often,” he answered. “But instead of conceiving only one, I imagine many, so I become the slave of none.”
Peace,
Matt
Reads: The Name of the Rose, A Consumer's Republic, The Symposium (by Plato), and am almost done with Jarred Diamond's book Collapse. My nerdiness is at an all-time high.
Tuesday, August 15, 2006
Where has Matt been?
For the few who check this blog on a regular basis, or just drop in from time to time, you may have noticed less entries than usual. That has to do with my lack of computer access as of late. I spent the last 9 days in San Francisco with 16 high school students. We worked with CSM doing urban missions, which was a great opportunity for them and eye-opening for myself as I continue to wonder what God might have in store for me in the years to come.
Also, I am leaving this coming Thursday for a much needed vacation and won't be back until late August! Of all places I am going to Texas... but it is a secluded, beautiful part of the strange state to the south. I will be spending my mornings with 100's of deer and cheap coffee, the daytime sitting in a deep, slow moving river with a Corona in hand, and the nights sitting on the front porch reading books. How blissful is that picture?
On a nerdier note, I did manage to recently read Nietzsche's Twighlight of the Idols, as well as a book called Nietzsche in 90 Minutes. I got a library card yesterday and put it to use with the latter book. While I'm away I plan to listen to David Guterson's Our Lady of the Forest (which I checked-out in audio books from the library). I read his wonderful story Snow Falling on Cedars nine years ago and am hoping this one is as great. Also, I'm bringing Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose (also from the library) and Aldous Huxley's Eyeless in Gaza (thrift store, not library). I also borrowed A Consumer's Republic from a friend, but can't seem to find it so I may not be reading it. In other words, I have chosen some non-theological reading for my vacation, even though Amazon just pulled through with some amazing books for me in the last two weeks... Okay, I'm a total nerd. Have a great week and a half and I'll hopefully be up and posting more randomness in the coming weeks!
Peace,
Matt
Also, I am leaving this coming Thursday for a much needed vacation and won't be back until late August! Of all places I am going to Texas... but it is a secluded, beautiful part of the strange state to the south. I will be spending my mornings with 100's of deer and cheap coffee, the daytime sitting in a deep, slow moving river with a Corona in hand, and the nights sitting on the front porch reading books. How blissful is that picture?
On a nerdier note, I did manage to recently read Nietzsche's Twighlight of the Idols, as well as a book called Nietzsche in 90 Minutes. I got a library card yesterday and put it to use with the latter book. While I'm away I plan to listen to David Guterson's Our Lady of the Forest (which I checked-out in audio books from the library). I read his wonderful story Snow Falling on Cedars nine years ago and am hoping this one is as great. Also, I'm bringing Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose (also from the library) and Aldous Huxley's Eyeless in Gaza (thrift store, not library). I also borrowed A Consumer's Republic from a friend, but can't seem to find it so I may not be reading it. In other words, I have chosen some non-theological reading for my vacation, even though Amazon just pulled through with some amazing books for me in the last two weeks... Okay, I'm a total nerd. Have a great week and a half and I'll hopefully be up and posting more randomness in the coming weeks!
Peace,
Matt
Thursday, August 03, 2006
A News Link
Here is a small bit of reality concerning what is happening in the Middle East. I don't get TV news, so it's the first bit of video I saw concerning Israel's bombing campaign. So sad.
Peace,
Matt
Peace,
Matt
Tuesday, August 01, 2006
Postmodern Tillich?
I'm glad to see many new Christian thinkers are engaging with some Mennonite thinkers. Now I'm hoping they'll start looking at Tillich and realizing how important he is for what the faith is going through today. This quote is from the introduction of Paul Tillich's The Protestant Era. It starts off slow, but is worth reading through to the end. I can't help but think that Tillich was pointing to the shift in the church that is becoming more apparent today than when he wrote this in 1948.
"The Protestant principle is not the Protestant reality; and the question had to be asked as to how they are related to one another, how the life of the Protestant churches is possible unter the criterion of the Protestant principle, and how a culture can be influenced and transformed by Protestantism... In every answer suggested [in Tillich's book], the need for a profound transformation of religious and cultural Protestantism is indicated. It is not impossible that at some future time people will call the sum total of these transformations the end of the Protestant era. But the end of the Protestant era is, according to the basic distinction between the Protestant principle and Protestant reality, not the end of Protestantism. On the contrary, it may be the way in which the Protestant principle must affirm itself in the present situation. The end of the Protestant era is not the return to the Catholic era and not even, although much more so, the return to early Christianity; nor is it the step to a new form of secularism. It is something beyond all these forms, a new form of Christianity to be expected and prepared for, but not yet to be named. Elements of it can be described but not the new structure that must and will grow; for Christianity is final only in so far as it has the power of criticizing and transforming each of its historical manifestations; and just this power is the Protestant principle."
Better than any of this, Tillich asks and answers some questions that would be good for today's emerging church to hear and think about: "How can a spiritual Gestalt [structure] live if its principle is the protest against itself? How can critical and formative power be united in the reality of Protestantism? The answer is: In the power of the New Being that is manifest in Jesus as the Christ. Here the Protestant principle comes to an end."
The role of Protestantism is to criticize and transform, to be critical and formative. For some, like myself, the challenge then is to not just gripe, but to dream of new ways of being the church, God's people. As new creations, citizens of God's kingdom transformed by the redeeming work of our trinitarian God, we have moved into a "New Being" and through the power of Jesus Christ can begin to work those dreams out. This is the most evangelical I've ever heard Tillich sound, but he's got a point. Change must continue to happen, and it must come only through the power of our Lord. Like Michel Foucault, who promised to challenge the existing authority structures even if the one he was pushing for came into power, we have to continue to challenge what is there, dreaming of and building something better. If we continue to follow the status quo, we will never be anything but status quo.
Your thoughts?
Peace,
Matt
Recently read The Alchemist Paul Coelho, and am currently reading The Protestant Era by Paul Tillich (obviously), and Deadline by Randy Alcorn, which is pretty good when he isn't getting too distracted by his massive evangelical biases.
"The Protestant principle is not the Protestant reality; and the question had to be asked as to how they are related to one another, how the life of the Protestant churches is possible unter the criterion of the Protestant principle, and how a culture can be influenced and transformed by Protestantism... In every answer suggested [in Tillich's book], the need for a profound transformation of religious and cultural Protestantism is indicated. It is not impossible that at some future time people will call the sum total of these transformations the end of the Protestant era. But the end of the Protestant era is, according to the basic distinction between the Protestant principle and Protestant reality, not the end of Protestantism. On the contrary, it may be the way in which the Protestant principle must affirm itself in the present situation. The end of the Protestant era is not the return to the Catholic era and not even, although much more so, the return to early Christianity; nor is it the step to a new form of secularism. It is something beyond all these forms, a new form of Christianity to be expected and prepared for, but not yet to be named. Elements of it can be described but not the new structure that must and will grow; for Christianity is final only in so far as it has the power of criticizing and transforming each of its historical manifestations; and just this power is the Protestant principle."
Better than any of this, Tillich asks and answers some questions that would be good for today's emerging church to hear and think about: "How can a spiritual Gestalt [structure] live if its principle is the protest against itself? How can critical and formative power be united in the reality of Protestantism? The answer is: In the power of the New Being that is manifest in Jesus as the Christ. Here the Protestant principle comes to an end."
The role of Protestantism is to criticize and transform, to be critical and formative. For some, like myself, the challenge then is to not just gripe, but to dream of new ways of being the church, God's people. As new creations, citizens of God's kingdom transformed by the redeeming work of our trinitarian God, we have moved into a "New Being" and through the power of Jesus Christ can begin to work those dreams out. This is the most evangelical I've ever heard Tillich sound, but he's got a point. Change must continue to happen, and it must come only through the power of our Lord. Like Michel Foucault, who promised to challenge the existing authority structures even if the one he was pushing for came into power, we have to continue to challenge what is there, dreaming of and building something better. If we continue to follow the status quo, we will never be anything but status quo.
Your thoughts?
Peace,
Matt
Recently read The Alchemist Paul Coelho, and am currently reading The Protestant Era by Paul Tillich (obviously), and Deadline by Randy Alcorn, which is pretty good when he isn't getting too distracted by his massive evangelical biases.
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