|Blessings & Praise

I haven't written about religious or spiritual topics here for quite a while, but the following lengthy quote stood out to me today, possibly because I heard a sermon about the same topic recently. How has God led in your story? How have you been blessed? How has God used you to bless others? How has God supported you through difficult experiences? What blessings do you want to remember? What stories from your experience would encourage others?

Here is an excerpt from The Desire of Ages ("The Touch of Faith," Ellen White; emphasis added):

After healing the woman, Jesus desired her to acknowledge the blessing she had received. The gifts which the gospel offers are not to be secured by stealth or enjoyed in secret. So the Lord calls upon us for confession of His goodness. "Ye are My witnesses, saith the Lord, that I am God." Isa. 43:12.

Our confession of His faithfulness is Heaven's chosen agency for revealing Christ to the world. We are to acknowledge His grace as made known through the holy men of old; but that which will be most effectual is the testimony of our own experience. We are witnesses for God as we reveal in ourselves the working of a power that is divine. Every individual has a life distinct from all others, and an experience differing essentially from theirs. God desires that our praise shall ascend to Him, marked by our own individuality. These precious acknowledgments to the praise of the glory of His grace, when supported by a Christ-like life, have an irresistible power that works for the salvation of souls. (DA, p. 347)

When the ten lepers came to Jesus for healing, He bade them go and show themselves to the priest. On the way they were cleansed, but only one of them returned to give Him glory. The others went their way, forgetting Him who had made them whole. How many are still doing the same thing! The Lord works continually to benefit mankind. He is ever imparting His bounties. He raises up the sick from beds of languishing, He delivers men from peril which they do not see, He commissions heavenly angels to save them from calamity, to guard them from "the pestilence that walketh in darkness" and "the destruction that wasteth at noonday" (Ps. 91:6); but their hearts are unimpressed. He has given all the riches of heaven to redeem them, and yet they are unmindful of His great love. By their ingratitude they close their hearts against the grace of God...

It is for our own benefit to keep every gift of God fresh in our memory. Thus faith is strengthened to claim and to receive more and more. There is greater encouragement for us in the least blessing we ourselves receive from God than in all the accounts we can read of the faith and experience of others.... Like the people of Israel, let us set up our stones of witness, and inscribe upon them the precious story of what God has wrought for us. And as we review His dealings with us in our pilgrimage, let us, out of hearts melted with gratitude, declare, "What shall I render unto the Lord for all His benefits toward me? I will take the cup of salvation, and call upon the name of the Lord. I will pay my vows unto the Lord now in the presence of all His people." Ps. 116:12-14. (DA, p. 348)

|Patagonia

All things Patagonia:

• Website
• Ethics at Patagonia
• The Cleanest Line -- Blog
• Facebook
• Tumblr (main)
• Instagram
• Twitter
• Used clothing
• Worn Wear -- Tumblr
• Worn Wear -- Instagram
• Publishing (more)
• Videos (YouTube)
• Yvon Chouinard
• Yvon's Books

Speeches:

• Presentation at Yale
• The Education of a Reluctant Businessman with Yvon Chouinard
• Elwha River: Yvon Chouinard
• A Fireside Talk with Yvon Chouinard and Nora Gallagher

|Heart Health -- Summary (UPDATED)

I recently posted two collections of resources on healthy hearts:

• Excercise
• Diet

I also asked some people for their thoughts, and this is what they shared. First, a comedian, I mean, physician wrote:

So the heart is an incredibly important organ. Actually so important that without it working, the average person would die. This may be able to be proved in studies, the NIH is still considering funding for this kind of groundbreaking research.

As you have demonstrated, there are many voices giving recommendations on what is heart healthy. Very little can be proved or disproved. I do find it fairly compelling that a Mediterranean style of eating is associated with a lower risk of heart disease (nonstarchy veges, olives/olive oil, avacado, legumes, almonds, etc). 

I agree with exercise being important. The hardest issue for most people is just doing it. I recommend at least 30-35 minutes a day, if it can be done together for a sustained heart rate effect, all the better.

My reading of, The China Study, would lead me to suggest that animal-based proteins, such as in eggs, milk, cheese, or delicious meat, may be more problematic than the cholesterol content. This may especially be true for cancer promotion.

What you feed your heart is important, but of course ultimately the most important is Who lives in your "heart." A merry heart is good medicine. No matter how many years your heart beats on earth, your "heart" can be filled with His Spirit. 

Exercise--yes. Eat heart-healthy foods--yes. Sleep 7.5 hours a night--yes. Laugh--yes. Lose weight if needed--yes. Trust in God--yes.

 A family member shared:

I purchased an ebook on walking. They said there is not a lot of difference in health between walking 30 or 60 minutes, six days a week, but a huge difference between none and 30.... The best straight supplement for the heart, most say, is Co-Q10.... Also, turmeric and vitamin k-2 are both for helping the blood system. Turmeric prevents (among many other things) atheroschlerosis and k-2 takes the calcium from the blood vessels and redeposits it in the bones where it belongs.

A medically-trained individual recommended these two films:

• Neal Barnard, "Kickstart Your Health."
• Michael Greger, "Uprooting the Leading Causes of Death." [notice the differences between his findings and what I posted on the "eggs" page. this is a good example of the various findings that confuse non-scientists/non-nutritionists like me.]

A PA (physician's assistant) shared:

A good book is "Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease" by Caldwell Esselstyn, Jr. MD. His ideas are slowly catching on, but many consider him possibly too extreme. I doubt it, but, maybe a little in my estimation.

And a compatriot recommended Dr. Joel Fuhrman.

I also value Michael Pollan's advice: "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants."

And I've appreciated most of these (and hope to see the others soon) that cover personal, community and planetary health:

• Forks Over Knives
• Hungry for Change
• Fat, Sick & Nearly Dead
• May I Be Frank?
• Dirt!
• Fed Up!
• Food, Inc.
• Food Matters
• The Future of Food
• The Garden
• How to Save the World
• King Corn
• The Real Dirt on Farmer John 

I originally watched them with a general interest in health. Now I want to watch them again with a bit more urgency.

This TED Talk by Dan Buettner also has wisdom--How To Live To Be 100+. More on Blue Zones here.

BONUS:

• Portlandia: Pasta addiction (from the episode Winter in Portlandia)
• Portlandia: Shopping bags
• Portlandia: Chicken dinner

|Uganda x 2

In the past week I've come across two anecdotes centered in Uganda that speak to me in different ways.

First, in the book that accompanies the film 180 South, Yvon shares this anecdote to describe the sub-title of the film—"Conquerors of the Useless."

I’ll tell you what happened to Doug and me one time when we went to Uganda. I’ve always loved those great nineteenth-century explorer books – you know, Burton and Speke, and Livingston and Stanley – they were always looking for the source of the Nile. They figured the source of the Nile was Lake Victoria, but then Lake Albert drains into Lake Victoria, and then the stream that fills Lake Albert comes out of the Ruwenzori Range, the Mountains of the Moon. Anyway, the highest peak there is Mount Stanley. Doug and I stood on the top of Stanley and took a piss. For a brief moment in time we were the source of the Nile.

That’s useless, right? (p. 218)

In the film Yvon explains that the accomplishments are useless but there is value in the way time in the wilderness changes us. That is, if we are conscious about how we undertake adventure, we will improve at leading well-examined lives. For example, both Yvon and Doug now support environmental organizations (check out 1% and Sin Represas). I share more about this in my Spectrum film review.

Donald Miller tells a very different kind of tale in his book A Million Miles in a Thousand Years. In this book, Miller describes his discovery that the characteristics that make a good screenplay or movie also apply to living a good story in real life. Along the way we meet Bob Goff, who later wrote the book Love Does.

In a chapter on inviting others to join life's parade rather than merely remaining an observer, Miller shares this story of when he planted a tree with Bob in Uganda:

When we were in Uganda, I went with Bob to break ground on a new school he was building. The school board was there, along with the local officials. The principal of the school had bought three trees that Bob, the government official, and the principle would plant to commemorate the breaking of the ground. Bob saw me standing off, taking pictures of the event and walked over and asked if I would plant his tree for him.

"Are you sure?" I asked.

"Absolutely," he said. "It would be great for me to come back to this place and see the tree you planted, to be reminded of you every time I visit."

I put down my camera and helped dig the hole and set the tree into the ground, covering it to its tiny trunk. And from that moment on, the school was no longer Bob's school; the better story was no longer Bob's story. It was my story too. I'd entered into the story with Bob. And it's a great story about providing an education to children who would otherwise go without. After that I donated funds to Bob's work in Uganda, and I'm even working to provide a scholarship to a child I met in a prison in Kampala who Bob and his lawyer helped free. I'm telling a better story with Bob.

Nobody gets to watch the parade. (pp. 236-237)

|Male Bonding [UPDATE]

"Men don't bond unless they risk their lives together." --Kaj

That line is from the chapter "The Pain Will Bind Us" in Donald Miller's book A Million Miles in a Thousand Years. Donald explains:

I have a friend named Kaj who used to run an outdoor school in Canada. I went to visit him a couple of times, and each time I noticed he had a remarkable men's group at his school. The men tended to bond like brothers and respect each other and treat each other with dignity. I asked him once how he got the guys to bond like that, and Kaj said he believed the key to getting men to bond was to have them risk their lives together. (Donald Miller, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, p. 185)

One game they played together was Capture the Flag but with an incendiary twist. "Instead of flags they chucked little bottles of gasoline across fields into each other's campfires. The team whose campfire burned down last won. I honestly thought somebody was going to die" (p. 186). This conflagration was followed by jousting on bikes with flaming spears.

The day after reading this deep social and anthropological analysis, I watched a live online feed, where Conrad Anker, Jimmy Chin and Renan Ozturk shared about their two ordeals on Meru's Shark's Fin [UPDATE: the video is available here]. Here's a trailer from the film being made about the two expeditions (see also):



These three men were deeply bonded. They spoke openly about their concern and respect for each other and also for other friends who had died in the mountains. Conrad had married the wife of a deceased buddy and raised his children. Jimmy had held Renan in his arms after a serious accident, all the while thinking Renan would die there.

These stories made me smile as I thought about the beastly guys who've been important in my story. The night before watching the trio recount their Himalayan climb, I had slept in an old t-shirt with a hole burned in front where Dr. T shot me with a bottle rocket in the heat of battle almost two decades ago. Yes, bonding at the edge of death, or at least 1st degree burns. Thanks to all the great men of valor with whom I've had the honor of sharing life's battles!

|New Twist on an Old Theme

This was on a car at my wife's office. What do you think?

This icon can be purchased on a range of surfaces here.

|The Power of Less

Today I finished reading The Power of Less: The Fine Art of Limiting Yourself to the Essential...in Business and in Life (Leo Babauta, 2009). Leo is also the author of the Zen Habits blog.

The book was insightful and easy to read. I appreciated that rather than motivating people to shoe-horn more into their schedules or to do more with their hours, Babauta encourages readers to focus doing less, but making each thing purposeful. From macro to micro decisions, he calls the reader to find the essential--what is important and makes a real impact. He takes the 80-20 rule very seriously.

What I will remember: Set limits. Simplify by choosing the essential (determined by values, goals, importance, impact, and love) and learning to say no to the rest. Focus. Make small, incremental changes--one at a time. Be mindful of how I spend time and the demands that commitments make on my time.

He covers much more in the book, and fleshes these themes out in multiple ways, but that is the core of what I'm likely to remember a month from now. (Maybe that means I should read it again at that point.)

Leo's theme of getting down to the essential (e.g., "How do you carve a statue of an elephant? Just chip away everything that doesn't look like an elephant," p. 17) reminded me of the final section in Rob Bell's book Drops Like Stars--"The Art of Elimination."Bell begins:

Great artists know that it isn't just about what you add; sometimes the most important work is knowing what to take away. Removing clutter, excess, all the superfluous elements--and finding out in the process what's been in there the whole time. (p. 74)

But he doesn't leave it at the theoretical level; instead he moves in for the punch to the gut with a bit of reality:

When you talk with people who have just received news that they have a life-threatening illness, what do they say?
"Now I must get those hedges trimmed!"
"I've been putting that plastic surgery off long enough."
"It's finally time to join that online poker club."
No, of course not.
They talk about family and friends.
They gather those they love as close as possible.
They reflect on any amends that need to be made with anybody.
That talk about what matters most.
Suffering does that.
It compels us to eliminate the unnecessary, the trivial, the superficial.
There is greatness in you. Courage. Desire. Integrity. Virtue. Compassion. Dignity. Loyalty. Love. It's in there--somewhere. And sometimes it takes suffering to get at it. (pp. 90-91)

Leo Babauta is trying to help us get to this essential element now, not someday when we get the bad word from the doctor.

Do I have the courage to cut away the nonessential so I can say yes to what is essential today?

|Yvon Chouinard & Patagonia

I appreciated Yvon Chouinard's first book, Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman, in which he shares his own life story as well as the story of the company he started, Patagonia. Now I would like to read his more recent book, The Responsible Company: What We've Learned From Patagonia's First 40 Years.

You can learn more about Yvon and Patagonia here:

• Wall Street Journal
• Fortune
• LA Times
• Grist
• Treehugger
• Wikipedia

And if there's another old dirtbag who equally impresses me, it's Fred Beckey.

• http://www.thecleanestline.com/2012/03/beyond-and-back-fred-beckey.html
  
• http://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-adventure/athletes/Stoned.html?page=all
• http://traditionalmountaineering.org/News_FredBeckey.htm
  
• http://www.patagonia.com/us/product/100-favorite-climbs-book?p=BK570-0-000

|Dr. Seuss

The truth about the good doctor.

|The Naked Anabaptist

My review of The Naked Anabaptist is now up at Adventist Today.

|A Just Forgiveness -- Review

My review of A Just Forgiveness is now up at Adventist Today. Here’s the first paragraph:

Aquinas and Augustine developed the philosophical foundation for just war.[i] Glen Stassen promoted just peacemaking.[ii] Gerald Schlabach argued for just policing.[iii] Now, Everett Worthington Jr. attempts to build a framework for just forgiveness by asking, “How can Christians forgive without excusing wrongdoing?”

[complete article]

|Make Poverty Personal

Shameless self-promotion: My latest book review is up at Adventist Today--Make Poverty Personal.

I believe this is an important book, so I hope you'll check out the review.

|New Book List (+ DVDs)

DVDs:

1. Adopt a Jesus (2009)
   
2. Heaven and Earth (2009)

BOOKS:

1. A Just Forgiveness (Oct, 2009)
2. Zealous Love (Jan, 2010)
3. Humanitarian Jesus (May, 2010)
4. Faith Beyond Borders (May, 2010)
5. God's Economy (Dec, 2009)
6. Mercy Rising (Mar, 2010)
7. Jesus Matters (2009)
8. Myth of a Christian Religion (2009)
9. The Hole in Our Gospel (2009)
10. Following Jesus through the Eye of the Needle (2009)
11. Forgotten Girls (2009)
12. A Heart for the Community (2009)
    
13. Climate Justice (2010)
14. Introducing the Missional Church (2009)
15. Organic Leadership (2010)
16. A Million Miles in a Thousand Years (2009)
17. Drops Like Stars (2009)

|Books

Tonight I finished reading Make Poverty Personal by Ash Barker for an upcoming review in Adventist Today. Powerful.

These are other books I've come across in the last few months that I'd really like to read:

1. Following Fire (Cheryl Catford, ed.)
2. Surrender All (Ash Barker)
3. Wild Ones (Michael Duncan)
4. Costly Mission (Michel Duncan) [first 4 can be found at UNOH]
5. Beyond Homelessness (Bouma-Prediger & Walsh)
6. New Neighbor (Leroy Barber)
7. Follow Me to Freedom (Claiborne & Perkins)

|Anthropology of YouTube + Culture Making

The same presenter who introduced me to Frank Warren, also recommended these two items:

#1) An Anthropological Introduction to YouTube -- Digital Ethnography



#2) Culture Making (Andy Crouch)

It is not enough to condemn culture. Nor is it sufficient merely to critique culture or to copy culture. Most of the time, we just consume culture. But the only way to change culture is to create culture.

Crouch unpacks the complexities of how culture works and gives us tools for cultivating and creating culture. He navigates the dynamics of cultural change and probes the role and efficacy of our various cultural gestures and postures. Keen biblical exposition demonstrates that creating culture is central to the whole scriptural narrative, the ministry of Jesus and the call to the church. He guards against naive assumptions about “changing the world,” but points us to hopeful examples from church history and contemporary society of how culture is made and shaped. Ultimately, our culture making is done in partnership with God’s own making and transforming of culture.

|This week in books...

This week...

• Travis spent some time reading A Million Miles in a Thousand Years (D Miller);
• Charissa finished Outliers (M Gladwell)* and began The Death of Adam (M Robinson)**;
• Rob Bell was blown away by Art and Physics (L Shlain) and also read Why Most Things Fail ...And how to avoid it (P Ormerod);
• and I kept plugging away at Covenant of Peace: The Missing Peace in New Testament Theology and Ethics (W Swartley) for my 30 hours of reading in Peace Colloquium.

*Recommended by Travis H.
**Recommended by Amy L.

|Monday Potpourri

These various items have caught my attention recently:

• The War Abroad and the War at Home (ESA)
• Arrested Development? (ESA)
• The End of Poverty? (documentary)
• Green (48 minute documentary, watch online)
• No Impact Man (C Beavan)
• Heroes of the Environment 2009 (Time article)
• Through the Consuming Fire: Economic Faithfulness in An Age of Consumerism (Conference, Nov 13-14)
• The Myth of a Christian Religion (G Boyd)
• The Year of Living Like Jesus (E Dobson)
• God's Economy (J Wilson-Hartgrove)
• Follow Me to Freedom (S Claiborne & J Perkins)
• "Awesome" photo a hit for Westminster birder (H Pankratz, The Denver Post)
• 20 moves to simplify your finances (M Hunt, Shine/Yahoo!, 21 Sept 2009)
  
• Liberals Aren’t Un-American. Conservatives Aren’t Ignorant. (Tom Jacobs, Utne Reader, Sept-Oct 2009)

BONUS: Okay, two more from Through the Consuming Fire...

• Enough: Contentment In An Age of Excess by Will Samson -- Engaging, readable challenge to consumerism in the church by one of our main speakers.
  (Read a review from The Englewood Review of Books...)

• Being Consumed: Economics and Christian Desire by William Cavanaugh -- Challenges churches to discern distinctively Christian economic practices.
  (Read a review from The Englewood Review of Books...)

|Articles

Here are two of my more recent writings:

• God is Green
• Book Review: GODencounters

And this one by Ryan Bell at Spectrum caught my attention.

Review at Adv Today

I recently reviewed a book for Adventist Today -- I Am Not a Social Activist (Ron Sider).

|Simply Christian

At Jeff's Peace and Justice Journal, I recently finished a 4-part look at the theme of justice in N. T. Wright's book, Simply Christian.

Check it, yo.

[part 1 | part 2 | part 3 | part 4]