Good Archives - Page 15 of 27 - Lisa Colón DeLay

Caught Doing Good (amazing video of common heroes)

I watched this video (below) and I literally started yelling at the screen, routing for the underdog, and crying when the heroes saved the day. It truly took my breath way and gave me heart palpitations.

We are fragile creatures capable of horrors and grace–of both preserving life or squelching it. I am struck but humanity: the concept, the paradox, and when the ordinary crosses into the extraordinary.

I’m sharing this video with you now because it is amazing and inspiring.
Tell me what you think when you see it.

(btw-Subway trains. Super dangerous! Be careful out there.)

And I’ll leave you with this bit of homily:
When you have the chance to do good, do it. Be ready your moment may come at any time, in a big or small way.

It won’t likely be caught on video, but it’ll make a huge difference.

Essay: Is Blogging like Ginsberg’s “Howl” and Nano Pop?

It seems like good writing, the kind of rewrites, and reflection, and deliberation is in short supply, chiefly in the blogosphere and the slapdash sphere of most internet magazines. This post will reflect that flavor too. It will seem to you to (mostly) mirror what I am critiquing. It may seem instant or undercooked. It is caught in the vortex of the medium. I won’t pretend otherwise.

But, it’s also a start.

Blogs, we recall were so-named as a combination (or perhaps even slang) of the words Website and Log. An online record of passing thoughts captured in 1s and 0s for internet reader consumption. Outdated posts not recycled as fish wrapper but buried deep under a mountain of newer posts, like digital tels. The more content the more recognition, so say the experts. Plus, the all-important the SEO. We can’t forget that.

Or, at the very least blogs were and are a chance to make a mark on the world, or to a few friends with knowledge of your URL. Are they more than this? Are they less? (You can tell me in the comments section. I’m working the system.)

The Heights
And we have too-often elevated them to a place inappropriate. At times confusing there position–determining what is prolific to be paramount. Though airy they shimmy under their own weight more than they don’t. But with their own magic, they may sting or bite. They may incite vibrant feuds that recall schoolyard antics–digital spilt lips. They may seem like a sand lot variety of King of the Mountain, riffing on zingers and cultural assertions. Though not long after, they reek of the “My dad can beat up your dad!” slurs. And these too gain vigor as referenced links in posts fueling more of the same. (I won’t give you links. You probably already know of some.)

Blog posts, plentiful like the sands on our cultural shore-scape have piled up like dunes but don’t seem to become a bulwark–an art form like a Pulitzer article, or piece of superb literature, or even a good film. There are some rare exceptions and there are some blog postings that somehow change lives.

More often though something vital is traded for the speed and convenience of the quick write-up. I’m stating the obvious, right?

What is it really?
Like instant coffee, the full-bodied flavor textures and aromas of this medium don’t quite work. Chronically under-brewed, the bulk of the speedily-penned internet articles too reveal not just slapped together writing but the slapped-together thinking ungirding it. We are awash in sloppiness. I don’t exclude myself either.

The passion and angst of any given post may drown out this feature and we may be convinced that we have meat to chew on, that is, until we read really good writing.

Maybe a precise poem, birthed not just from suffering or bliss or insight but from the careful gathering of words like seed beads and the arranging of them like art and embellished patterns on a long gown of societal topography.

Maybe a travel article written not for the rushed, tired, and ravenous tourist consumer, but for the person who truly wonders about other cultures and ways of being human in distant regions. A piece of craft that may include the underlying philosophies escaping the mind of a deeply thoughtful and curious person who can and does take the time. Here there is peace of a certain kind that never makes its way properly to Facebook.

Survival
Will the banter or the sarcasm of blogging (and commenting) last through the arc of observable time, at all?

Will it survive weeks, years, decades, after the refinement of reflection and chronological distance makes its way down through it like canyon whitewater? Or will blog posts be captured digital bits of immature polemics, impolitic reverie, and dated fervor of a begone time, like Allen Ginsberg ‘s once criminally obscene 1955 poem Howl reads for us now? A once-debauched and revolutionary vocalization now a kind of caricature of a ruckus time; now a relic of a frenzied, outlying beat–a strange light from a olden day.

Will blogging be frittered like a summering free-love hippie of this time in the Connection and Communication Age, rendered not in the insensate fog of drugs, but in the fever of hot blithering and the lechery of notoriety.

What will be the classic (masterly) posts of blogs from our era, if any? What will be the wheat amongst all the gusting chaff?

Where will there be instead that lasts? Perhaps commentaries well-researched and produced in a arduous string of revisions and heartache and a probing of not just of the topic by of the writer’s own inner world. Questions and ideas that could perhaps give voice to something true, useful, universal and somehow everlasting? The shoulders to stand on.

Archival
Will blog posts be like cultural postcards, the scraps from a newly-formed, digital age whose populace didn’t yet crave more than boilerplate reports and passing thoughts? Tweets like echoes of something that mattered. Facebook the endless ticker cataloguing our lives in bits and bytes.

What, if anything, in this blogosphere and this ephemeral epoch will collese and age like well-kept merlot for future readers in future times? Things truly enjoyable and worth saving? Something, say, for high school English classes to ponder 20 years removed?

The postings might go bleached like Polaroids, capturing in anemic hues a snap swatch; the evanescent blush of the solipsistic maiden: the early 2000s cultural zeitgeist.

Not Warhol’s Pop but something slimmer.

To coin a term: Nano-Pop.

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I’d love your links to blog articles that you feel will not just stand the test of time, but may well be considered paragon of blog posting as a literary art form in our times. If you can find any, please put them in the comments section.

Why not get direct delivery of the next post? Click in the sidebar to be included.

Thanks for reading today.

-Lisa

10 Misconceptions Christians have about non believers-part II

SBA73 via Compfight

This is continued from this 1-5 article.

It’s REALLY helpful to read that part first for context, I assure you!

Now on to the next half:

6. Non believers live in fear and doubt.

It’s interesting that many from inside the Christian bubble will ascribe these attributes to non believers when a simple gaze across the church goers on any Sunday morning will show the very same thing to be true of Christians too. I don’t know anyone who does not live in fear and doubt at least from time-to-time. What some Christians won’t tell you is that the local pharmacists know a lot about their fear and doubt even if those in their small group aren’t privy to the matter. And some people just drink, shop, or puke their fattening meal to cope. What is more true? To be human is to fear and doubt. We may call it worry or concern, or a prayer request, but it’s there for Christians and non believers alike.

7. Non believers are afraid of death.

Some are not. Some Christians are not. Not everyone braves their impending physical demise well. This is not so strange, because imagining not needing or using your body anymore is really odd. Really really odd.

Even a Christian who will tell you they know for absolute sure that they will be in heaven with Jesus at the moment of death, as you probe them further and they get into specifics their ideas about all that there is a shift. Either they will often become full of fantasy (sourced in the poetic and figurative descriptions of the afterlife from the Bible which they have illogically decided to take literally [sic.] Pearly gates, streets of gold, or Jesus riding a gigantic purple horse) or that may dissolve into what becomes rather unsettling admission of mystery. Can you really know the particulars? Of course not.

It’s thoughtful to be challenged by the unknown–which is what death is. It’s important to come to your end of surety. It keeps us humble and growing. For everyone, that portion of life and death is a matter of faith, no matter what we believe will happen once our heart stops and we will soon be lowered underground. It is creepy because we are used to being alive, breathing and such. We hate it when others we love die, and leave us, and the whole thing is strange, if we are going to be honest. But, are we?

8. When they behave properly, non believers unconsciously borrow ethics from Christians.

Oaky, on this one, perhaps I’ll say “Yes and No”. In the U.S. the influence of Christianity in our common society is thick and unavoidable. Yet, unbeknownst to Christians, behaviors we (Christians) consider good Christian values and ethics are also part of a meta ethic known the world over and through the whole span of human history. (Following through and getting it right is a whole different business, of course.) This meta-ethic, which many secular anthropologists downplay, or quickly chalk up to darwinian processes, (ad hoc mind you) actually seem to point toward the transcendent. The philosophers get into this quite a bit. So, the part of us that is involved with consciousness is ever-present and point to a place off our seen “map” if you will. Call it the “Devine Spark”, “God”, Yahweh, the Universe (if something impersonal could somehow also be personal, by whatever), the “higher self” (a la Alcoholics Anonymous), or what-have-you…we are essentially speaking of the same big thing… that incidentally is no thing. The Other, the great I AM, the life force, and really when we split hair on that big point, we miss the forrest for the trees.

9. Non believers discredit the unseen world.

This is hardly ever true. Yes, there are a few full blown materialists, but like the unicorn, they are rarely seen and then, only for a few fleeting moments in the perfect circumstances like when painted on velvet or when Harry Potter is nearby.

The desire to discover the mysteries of life are ever-present. Media is a great barometer for this. For instance, witness the many horror genre movies (ghosts, zombies, paranormal stuff, aliens, etc) and all the tv shows groping for answers from the spooky and paranormal night-vision scenes from the many television shows on cable, to the mediums, psychics, and spiritual celebrity gurus and even mega-church personalities (Yes. I’m including everyone from Joel Osteen, (Joyce) Myers, Oprah, Deepak Chopra, and Rick Warren, to Billy Graham, and the Dali Lama). Our gurus and guides are plentiful and that’s because the demand for them is so high. Plus, the prophecy folks of all stripes continue their empires as the masses feeling around in the murkiness for answers.

10. Non believers are going to hell one day.

Okay, this is the one that may get me the hate mail. Just hang on! The reason that this is a misconception is because we can’t know how Grace will or won’t affect a person once they die. We trust in Grace. In the idea of it existing; in the Being that doles it. Can we know another person’s heart that well? I doubt it when our own heart is so unfathomable and fickle for us. Grace is big. As big as you think it is, you are wrong. It’s bigger. I’m always wrong about grace because I cannot fathom it for too long.

Thank you for joining me. If this article made you think, please share it with someone.

Sign up for the next article? I can’t tell you what it’ll be but I think you’ll like it.

10 Misconceptions Christians have about non believers

DUCKMARX via Compfight

This might read heavy because I’m confronting some pervasive concepts. It’s like I’m playing the heavy, but try to read it in a gracious spirit because it is meant to bring clarity not conflict. Plus, I have a damp sense of humor [not too wet and not super dry either] so take that into account. Chill and stuff.

Okay, buckle in for the bit of Groundwork:

First, from my end, I make no secret here that I see things from the paradigm of a Christian worldview. This has been my family background, my life experience, and the central feature in my graduate education. That’s my lens.

In having a lens I’m not alone. In fact, every one sees reality through his or her own lens, but not everyone will really investigate and coordinate their worldview in a consistent way. I won’t either, not because I’m not making an effort, but because seeing the task to completion is so massive and unwieldy. As I approach this topic I come with a vatanage point…and so do you.

We can take as a given:
Our beliefs will cloud our perceptions and our perceptions will work to evidence our already held beliefs–except in rare cases where we make a focused and conscious effort to consider or accept another point of view. Those cases are quite rare because we tend to use our life experiences to back up what we already think is true. (I’m reiterating.) So, when a change happens–it can be big. This is essentially how the Christian idea of “conversion” plays out too: A person is thinking one thing about reality, and somehow becomes convinced of something else and has a turnaround to something new. Christians would also say God had a direct part in igniting that process.

Peeking outside the Bubble:
In learning more about the people outside the Christian belief “bubble,” I’ve noticed that plenty of my assumptions about non Christians were flawed, false, or incomplete. Other times, I’ve noticed that while some of these perceptions may ring true at first blush, they more often reflect a universal truth about what it means to be human, (and do not effectively describe the group that doesn’t ascribe to the Christian belief system.)

The 10 misconceptions are things that many Christians want to be true. If they are not it could convince them that Christianity doesn’t provide the best answers. This fear can cause people to be even more unreasonable or averse to mystery…even though Christianity is chocked full of mystery. I’ve come to a place where I am more settled with mystery.

Christianity provides a framework for me, and everyone has a framework whether they know it or not and whether they like it or not. Christianity takes many shapes in different eras and in different cultures. Since I came from a conservative fundamentalist background I first saw the world through that lens. I haven’t retained all those same beliefs. Now the beliefs I ascribe to are not as important as the person I am becoming. Jesus as God-man is plausible and that is fine for me. For others, that simply will not be enough. For non Christians it will be too narrow for their spirituality. I also realize that Christians may sometimes perpetuate myths for an imperious framework needed to maintain fervency.

Better that we see these misconceptions for what they are than run afoul with them and forget whose image is the object of our recreation. (That would be Jesus, through the power of the Holy Spirit, if you aren’t following me.) I give you these misconceptions to expand your ideas about the Christian framework and how it can help more than hurt.

Now to the 10 Misconceptions:

1. Non believers aren’t spiritual, or at best they are pseudo spiritual.

This is false because the amount of mystery and the unknown in life as we perceive it (being finite in mind and body) all point to the spiritual (the unseen). What is pseudo spiritual to some is more likely to be something that smacks as out of sync with one’s prescribed Christian beliefs. We are all spiritual and what we try to understand outside of we what is know is be definition spiritual, whether is a referred at that or not. The interest in spiritual things has been vibrant throughout human history as long as we have been trying to understanding our world. The “brand” (if you will) of spiritual that is may be may be off-putting depending on your experience, training, or preferences. Ex: “Using Tarot cards is pseudo spiritual.” Actually, using them is an attempt to understand the spiritual, but for Christians it falls outside the scope of what is acceptable because of the tenants residing in the Bible.

2. Non believers aren’t happy because they don’t know Jesus.

This is a complex and interesting misconception because it assumes that Christians are happy, by contrast. Many are not. Many are miserable and their Christian belief system has not given them this happiness. Christians may behave as if they are discontent or unhappy also. Certainly some Christians are content and at peace for periods of time, and some are remarkably hopeful and peaceful is even the most horrible circumstances. Nevertheless this is also true of non Christians.

3. Non believers do good things to “get them to heaven”, or to otherwise alleviate their sin-guilt.

What is more often the case is that people (Christian and non) try to do good things because they feel they should. Their motivations are quite varied and prove to be shallow or to be deep. Christians, though they may feel their eternal destiny is secure, will do good things sometimes for reasons just as poorly conceived as non believers. Strangely, it can boil down, in the final count, to semantics. It’s false to guess the true motivations of why people do good. Better to do Good for the love of it and accept the good at face value as it can only be originally sourced in the Source of goodness–apart from whom no goodness dwells. The idea that actual goodness cannot come from non Christians contradicts the Christian precept that a good God has created all of us and that same God works through all of creation, (and even those who do not knowledge “him”.)

4. Non believers can’t have peace with God.

For Christians, peace with God usually looks like a publicly confessed accession to the belief that Jesus is the Savior who died for the sins of humankind (i.e. somehow understanding atonement). But, in general, peace with God is probably as varied as there are people in the world. Grace is sufficient and comes in a manner of ways that point to the ultimate work of Grace that is of and from God. If by peace we are really speaking of contentment, and not atonement, then many do arrive at peace with God at some point in their lives. Many also arrive at a place of grace and forgiveness as it is God’s prerogative how this happens. The very idea of grace necessitates that a mental ascension is not the crux of the matter at all. Sometimes it is not at all involved as any modicum of studying a Christian theology of (mental) disability will reveal. Grace does not require anything on the part of the recipient accept perhaps a sort of acceptance. What that does or doesn’t have to be has be a rueful point over the years but is actually quite simple and easy if we are to believe in its true nature.

5. Non believers have misperceptions about reality and their place in the world.

Our finite minds give each person the opportunity to routinely misperceive reality, regardless of her beliefs in Jesus or God. No one has the corner on this problem. We share our foolishness in this regard across the whole spectrum of humankind. To think otherwise is to underscore the misperception.

Since this post is getting too long, the next 5 misconceptions will be revealed in the next post-here.

Thanks for reading!

Pass this along, will you?

Do you agree? I’d like to hear your thoughts.

Evangelized by a Rat Terrier: Communicating Faith with a Bared Belly

Today is Halloween and this book is a murder, thriller, in the religious dramatic fiction….hum.

Spook-tacular!

Today’s post is part of a blog tour Erin McCole-Cupp!

Erin is a talent writer and a helpful friend of mine. I got a copy of her new book that has done amazingly well on Amazon!

I was thrown back to the 80s—like in a totally awesome way.

(ya catch that!)

She’s stopping by today on her interweb book tour with a great story about her doggie superstar Sigma and a bit about her new book.

View her bio here.

Now–Enter, Erin…

Thanks for hosting me, Lisa! See, dear reader, Lisa and I go way back—way back to the 1990s, when the internet was something viewed on a black screen in tiny pinpoints of green light. Lisa knew me through my first conversion, the one where I became a Christian, but I’m not sure she knows about my second, far more recent conversion: that from cat person to dog person—and more specifically to a small dog person.

In Lisa’s latest (and wonderful) book Dog in the Gap, she wrote a chapter called “Taming,” in which she discusses how we humans are tamed by dogs. She writes that the mutual process of caring and being cared for by a dog, “…can, if we let it, carry over into our other relationships–this sacred act of taming each other. Instead of tolerating each other, we go further in.”

I experienced this, more specifically what Lisa identifies in that same chapter as “mutuality,” starting this past Spring. We were thinking about getting a second cat…

…because this one doesn’t like us.

When we arrived at the local shelter, we were shocked to find their cat residence virtually empty. Apparently we’d arrived before the bumper crop of abandoned kittens was due.

“Well, let’s go say ‘hi’ to the dogs,” my husband said. We went through the kennel and one of the residents made our youngest stop in her tracks. She pointed and shrieked with delight.

“Tiny dog! Tiny dog!”

Ugh. I’d always called small dogs “hors d’oeuvres” or “light snacks,” good for nothing but barking at all hours. And who on earth would want a tiny ball of noise called a rat terrier? No. Thank. You. Still, for the sake of the kids, I gave in to a “visit” with the little guy, assuming he’d annoy them so much that they’d see some sense and we’d come back in a few weeks for our kitten.

When the shelter volunteer brought him in to us she warned, “Now don’t expect too much, because he’s pretty shy and takes a long time to warm up to–“

The little blur dashed in, threw himself down in front of us all, belly up for scratching. His tongue lolled out. He was smiling.

“—new people,” the worker finished. “Wow! Look at that!”

We did not choose Sigma. Sigma chose us.

What did he do next that won me over? Funny enough, it was the barking. He barks less than I expected a little dog to bark, but when he does bark, it’s because he is trying to protect our pack. Stranger at the door? Get away! Stranger approaching while the kids walk him? Stay back! Is a friend yelling near me, his Mommy? Yowwowwowwowwow! You’re not allowed to bark at her! Rat terriers are known for being wary of strangers and protective of their territory. We belong to him.

The most precious example of this I can give is the time a relative stranger accidentally tripped over my middle child’s feet. Before he could apologize, Sigma jumped up, tapped the guy’s shins with both front paws, and gave a low warning bark. Do not hurt her! She is under my protection!

As I apologized, the perceived “offender” said, “Don’t apologize. That’s the kind of dog you want taking care of your kids.”

I’ve had a dog before. I’ve never before had a dog who would clearly give his life for mine and my family’s. I’ve read about heroic dogs before, but part of me always thought those were melodramatic stories made up to fill dead air on morning radio shows. Now that I’ve seen the active loyalty of a dog, I can believe that those stories are real. Siggie believes that we are worth heroic effort.

Sigma chose us. We belong to him. He believes we are worth heroic effort. If “evangelization” means at its root “to bring a message,” Sigma has done just that. He won me over specifically, not because of anything he demanded of me but because of my value to him, just as I am. He was the first pet with which (with whom? hm) I’ve experienced the “mutuality” that Lisa talks about in Dog in the Gap. Yes, we feed him, walk him, rub his belly, anoint him with flea and tick preventative, and throw tennis balls around for him. But he does for us, too.

I don’t know about you, but when I think of “evangelist,” someone on a stage comes to mind. Someone with a podium and a microphone, slathering at the mouth with the Fire of the Spirit, hair gone wild with all the thrashing about he’s done, all in the name of igniting in his listeners the furious love of Christ. Cerebrally, I know that’s not the only way to share the faith, but my tiny human brain didn’t have room for any more concrete image… until a “Tiny dog! Tiny dog!” came into my family and made us a pack. Our “Siggie Baby” is not powerful or smart or eloquent. His evangelization of me was never about him; it was about showing me what I was worth to him.

That’s such a small way of reaching out, but it’s a genuine way that you don’t need a degree or an agent or a microphone to share. We can—no, we must show others that someone on earth thinks they are worth choosing, worth claiming in love, and worth heroic effort. Wouldn’t that be a wonderful, charming way to entice others into seeing that the Body of Christ is a pack worth joining? After all, don’t we Christians occasionally find ourselves perceived as slobbery, barking hors d’oeuvres?

So how do you dash out of your shelter and show others the vulnerable, bared-belly love of Christ? Lisa and I tend to bare the bellies of our imaginations: we write, thus inviting you into the very brains and hearts where we (try, at least) to make a home for Him. I took particular delight in writing the character Cate Whelihan in Don’t You Forget About Me specifically because she espouses so many things that I think are, well, not so good for us.

I love Cate because she’s part of my pack, and, just like so many real humans I love just because they’re loveable, not because they agree with me.

I know I need to do that more in my real life, outside of my head. I need to show, not tell, the people I love that I choose them, that they are part of my pack, and that they are worth heroic effort. If the Son of God can do that for me—for every single one of us—and I’m supposed to be following Him, then I kinda don’t have an excuse to keep it in all my head anymore.

Do you?

# # #

Thanks, Erin!

If you are interested in the book, and gosh, you should be! Purchasing info is here. The Kindle edition is available now. The paperback will be available on November 1st (2013).

There’s also a Goodreads giveaway running now through November 15, so you can enter to win a paperback of Don’t You Forget About Me at this link.