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I have been listening to the Mars Hill Bible Church, God is Green series. The series has been pretty interesting. A lot of it is stuff I have been trying to practice in my own life. The best part of the series came at the end, on July 29th. The preeminent piece is all the practical information (in the form of a list of websites and books) on how to make simple life changes for a huge positive environmental impact. So, I thought would reproduce the list here below. You can download it directly from the Mars Hill Bible Church website here.
And now for the list:
2. consumersenergy.com [green generation program]
3. dmaconsumers.org/cgi/offmailinglist
4. Habitat for Humanity ReStore [5701 S. Division] – habitat.org/env/restores.aspx
6. eco-cell.org
10. treehugger.com
11. grist.org
12. lime.com
13. eartheasy.com [cleaning supplies]
14. earth911.org
15. coopamerica.org
16. crsfairtrade.org
18. ecocycle.org
19. gdiapers.com
21. creationcsp.org
22. creationcare.org
24. wmsbf.org
26. floresta.org
Books:
• For the Beauty of the Earth by Steven Bouma Prediger
• Saving God’s Green Earth: Rediscovering the Church’s Responsibility to Environmental Stewardship by Tri Robinson
• Serve God, Save the Planet by J. Matthew Sleeth, MD
• Living the Good Life on God’s Good Earth by contributing authors, edited by David Koetje
Filed under: Coffee, Emerging Church, Life, Theology, church, eco, hope, thoughts, word to your mom | 6 Comments »
There is something distinctly beautiful about the desert when it rains. It is always a little ironic. It’s kind of like financiers handing out balloons at an animal shelter. We expect it every year. It is the season that justifies the fact that we call desolate washes, rivers. And they really do become rivers, if only for a couple of days. It usually starts with a lot of humidity and heat. There is some meteorological juju that happens with that combination. And, before you know it, the sky becomes black. We sometimes see lightning, we sometimes hear thunder, and we usually get torrential rains from out of nowhere. The storms don’t usually last long, but while they last, they are vicious. Streets become streams, and as I said earlier, washes become rivers. It’s dangerous to drive. People inevitably try to cross washed out roads and often get trapped. In this situation the best case scenario is, needing to be rescued by the fire department. The worst case scenario is peril. It’s so bad that, we here in Arizona, have enacted the stupid motorist law.
Okay, so the point of all of this is, contrast. I was in Belfast this summer hanging out with some friends. When we arrived the weather was rather warm and balmy. They told us it had been like that for a few days, and that such weather was really odd. We were told that there was supposed to be a change the next day. Sure enough, the next day it began to rain. It continued to rain for the duration of our stay. It was that second day however, that was really remarkable. I guess because it had been so hot previously that when it began to rain, the ground wasn’t ready to receive it. Consequently, they had what we refer to as the great flood of Belfast. It was so bad that a friend of ours had to be rescued by firemen. I had left the windows open at the house we were staying, the house of our friend Jayne. I had met her the day before and thought for sure that I had destroyed her house. Rest assured that her house was not ruined.
This week we have been enjoying a pretty good monsoon season. Now, note that I am a native to Tucson. I have seen my share of monsoon storms. So when I say this year we have gotten some decent storms, it means something. Twice this week my street has become a river. It has been nice. So, at last we come to the anti climax of this narrative. I wanted to share some photos with you. Enjoy. All of these photos were taken outside of my home near the University of Arizona.

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So I promised Ben that I would upload some photos of the cookout we had outside of his home. Don’t let him fool ya, he can cook a mean steak for a Finn! we also had grilled figs filled with chocolate, very interesting. Oh and notice that even in Finland weber is the only way to grill.

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Quiet, subtle and queer, the man like Jesus.
He wore eyes like emerald in their sparkle-
Much like a warriors’ arms, disarming hostility.
Blessed are the peace makers.
Landscappy, abstacty, and smiling eyes.
Cheers
Jerky, quick, generous and genius.
The philosopher is. And always laughing.
He’ll speak in tongues when no one is looking,
Buckdaft, nice one, take the piss, bang on, and cheers.
Oh and she knows pain, she’s so creative with it, that, and those liquid Caucasians’ she’s an artist-princess and he has such cool hair, he’ll rouse the crew for a drink or two.
I feel hope; it emanates from the wall of this new expression. Roxie’s a dreaklock dog that aint dreading so well.
Oh well, he’ll ramble us through and explain it better than any of us, with fire.
Add tunes and she’ll capture our faces landscaped in a dream.
They are… iconic, apocalyptic, heretical, emerging, failing…
and they are friends.
Filed under: Emerging Church, Hero's, Ireland, Life, Personal, Poetry, Theology, hope, ikon, random, thoughts | Leave a Comment »
So this past lent season I gave up morality. What a ride. More to come…
Filed under: Emerging Church, God, Life, Personal, funny, hope, news, thoughts | 3 Comments »
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I don’t know why I haven’t posted on this before, but our church, or rather one of the communities that I am a part of, is brewing it’s own beer. Yep, it’s true, in the ancient tradition of Christianity, mostly monks, and Martin Luther, who, at one point in his life was a monk, we are brewing beer as a community. This generally gets a lot of responses when we tell people, especially since a lot of us come out of an evangelical background. And the word travels fast. In fact, I was at a conference recently and was approached by a Welsh guy, one of the speakers, and his first question was “You’re from Arizona right? You’re the guy with the church that brews beer?” -And he flashed a big smile. We became friends quickly and planned a pilgrimage to Ireland.
Okay, so some questions on this:
Why? Lots of reasons. We can talk about those in the comments section if you’d like. For the most part it is to create something as a community. And to offer a great product to others.
What? Well right now we are experimenting with various brews, learning the process and trying to settle on an initial recipe that we like.
What’s it called? We’re not sure yet. We are still thinking of names, do you have any ideas for us?
Will it be made available to the public? We hope so, eventually. We would like to offer it as gift, as hospitality, to the world. And we would love for a portion of the proceeds to go into our works of Social Justice.
An interesting link: This is what I got when I googled church beer.
These sites are especially interesting: www.churchbrew.com, www.beerchurch.com, www.thechurchofbeer.com
Cheers!
Filed under: Beer, Early Saints and Scholars, Emerging Church, God, Hero's, Ireland, Personal, Theology, church, hope, thoughts, word to your mom | 9 Comments »
Of Course I am referring to the Western Bible, which apparently has sold quite a few copies in the short time that it has been out. This is the bible that has literally cut out the harder parts of scripture, things like really loving your neighbor, living in simplicity, seeking true justice, without prejudice, for all people. So why, why would they do that? Because it’s funny! And perhaps it is the slap in the face a lot of us need.
see also this post…for more on this. Oh and the bible is only avainalble in Dutch, so far.
Filed under: Emerging Church, God, Life, Theology, church, funny, hope, thoughts, word to your mom | 1 Comment »