We are told that seeing is believing which is interesting for those of us who are 'believers' living in a 'seeing' culture. We live in one of the most visually-based cultures in human history. Television has become the way that we see the world and filter truth.
God of grace and God of glory. On Thy people pour Thy power; Crown Thine ancient church's story, Bring her bud to glorious flower, Grant […]
Smoking cigarettes, it is said in advertising and on pamphlets, is the most preventable cause of death. It's an absurd statement of course: there is no way to prevent death; unless you take the virgin birth route. And I wouldn't suggest anyone take that path too lightly, the responsibility is too heavy.
I've stayed in some pits in my time but this place really takes the biscuit. Disgusting. I don't mind shabbyness but this place was just plain dirty. And the staff have a bad attitude to boot.”
The steel girder cross can be found kitty-corner from the World Trade Center site in New York City. Though it did once sit on the site, it is no longer there. It has been moved away from the tourist centre which now surrounds what was once the heart of commerce, trade and, most importantly, human interaction.
The problem is these are very good books. Oh yes, that is a problem—because a book with the title The Bible for Dummies sounds like a punch line for some petty, mean spirited joke. Even more so Catholicism for Dummies or Islam for Dummies; as if either Catholicism or Islam are for idiots or that rich theological learning has been dumbed down.
Esther Lupafya wakes up around six o'clock every morning. Before an hour has passed, before she can have her morning shower, several people have already knocked on her door seeking money, medicine, guidance and food.
Christo Greyling is a tall man with a ready smile. He moves with the easy grace of an athlete and speaks with the soft lilt of his South African roots. Standing in front of a crowd or speaking one-to-one, Greyling conveys the impression he is deeply interested in the welfare, ideas and conversation of others. But, mostly it's that smile that lights up a room.
Churches around the world have an integral part to play in the eradication of the AIDS pandemic, said Rick Warren, bestselling author of The Purpose Driven Life. “Government has a role,” he said. “But it is highly overrated. Non-governmental organizations and business also have a role, but if we're ever going to eradicate the pandemic then we cannot do it without churches.”
I have a bag at my feet that weighs over 12 kilograms. It is filled with literature I picked up at the AIDS conferences in Toronto — the faith based and the international — in August. The bag is crammed with books, brochures, pamphlets, posters, CD ROMs (some of which may have dozens of documents on them), advertising campaigns, postcards and even a few toys from HIV/AIDS-related organizations around the planet. I have more information than I need on the socio-economic, psychological, political, medical, scientific and spiritual aspects of the virus. In this bag are pharmaceutical corporations explaining their medicines and advocacy groups damning pharmaceuticals. Mostly, though, the bag is filled with very similar sounding material from many, many, many different advocacy agencies.
Debbie Travis is a television host of design and renovation shows, which she produces through her own company. She got herself in a frenzy earlier this year when she realized that youth today just ’aint got no gumption. So, she decided to teach them a lesson: “This new show has the backdrop of a renovation but is focused on these 20-somethings, the ‘entitled’ generation who have it all … except a future.”
I popped in at General Assembly for about 36 hours. From my position as managing editor of this magazine I have established relationships via email with a lot of people across the country but have met very few of them. I went to this annual family reunion to glad-hand, while my colleagues worked. (Thank you, Amy and David.)
Not a day goes by, it seems to me, without some newspaper of magazine article that somehow touches upon the moral, ethical, spiritual or religious zeitgeist. So, over the Easter weekend I clipped random stories. Here's but a taste of those clippings — they are a snapshot of our times, they contradict each other, they support each other, they paint a portrait of the world in which we live. I present them without comment. However, I invite you to comment on them. What do you make of it all? Send your comments, or clippings, to my attention and perhaps they too will form a time capsule.
In the madcap world of gender and religious politics in the United States, Roy and Silo, two male penguins at New York City's Central Park Zoo, were a cause célèbre for years. They spawned a children's book And Tango Makes Three, of which The School Library Journal said, “They cuddle and share a nest like the other penguin couples and when all the others start hatching eggs, they want to be parents, too.”
My cell phone sucks. It doesn't take photographs, it doesn't make movies, it doesn't store or play music, it doesn't receive or send email and it doesn't store my address book. It doesn't even have games; no solitaire, no shoot-em-ups, no smash-em-ups, no Tetris, no chess. It does have Internet capacity but I don't know how to access it. And it does not play television shows. It does receive and send phone calls and the range is pretty good. But, really, it's just a phone and who needs that from a phone?
My cousin is a doctor at a Christian Hospital in an ancient city an hour north of Islamabad, Pakistan. On Friday, August 9th, 2002, her mother, my aunt, wasn't feeling well and the two decided not to go to chapel – about a hundred metres from their home. It was a good choice, for them. Three men, dressed ordinarily, talked their way past a guard at the hospital entrance, and then held another guard at gunpoint. They waited until the worshippers were leaving the chapel and tossed live grenades at them. Three nurses were killed; 25 others were injured. One of the attackers killed himself fumbling with a grenade.
Over the past five years, four young men of my acquaintance have been murdered. They were all black, not yet 25 years of age. And they were all shot to death over what the press commonly calls gang violence.
I have already lived more than half the years I am expected to live according to trusted statistics about the average lifespan of males in Canada. And, as I celebrate yet another birth anniversary this month and the anniversary of my father's death, my thoughts turn, naturally, to the imminent apocalypse. Here, in no particular order, are sure signs the end is nigh:
The richest person on earth cannot get a better Coca-Cola than the poorest. Unlike wine, whiskey, beer and even water, there is only one Coke for all. Coke is a purely democratic beverage, finding no barrier of access or taste. And there is no variance in the taste – the Coke I bought in Egypt tastes exactly like the ones I had in Belgium and in Pakistan.
I don't like the Christmas season. December is the most stressful month of the year, the good cheer is forced down our throats, suicide rates are at their highest, the music is tiresome and the money-bleed is shocking. The bathetic romance of family and friendship is in high gear, as if we must love and show our love more this month. It's a cheap collection of cheap emotions; and invariably some pompous columnist or sincere preacher or self-important relative will make the point that Christmas has become too materialistic.