Even when I'm an anthiest

... I'm glad I have a church.

I am not always a theist. Sometimes I think and act like I will simply rot when I die and random acts of kindness make no difference to anybody. Sometimes when I pray my mind drifts to shopping lists and sometimes church music just brings out the critic in me.

But when it comes to wanting to have a positive effect on the world, I'm always glad I'm in a church. As an individual I can recycle plastic and metals. I can give money to roadside beggars. I can offer rides to people who need them. I can donate to red cross. I can visit the sick. All of these actions reflect my good intentions. But I'm more active as part of a group. As a church member I feed and shelter local homeless people, contribute livestock to families in third world countries, help pay secondary school tuition for a student in Guatemala, recycle aluminum, and send hygiene kits to disaster regions such as Haiti and Pakistan. That is the activity of my church locally. We also are part of larger networks.

I urge you, the reader, to find a church that is actively being the hands and feet of Jesus. If you are in a church, but are not involved in action as a community, I urge you to find another church. Church is not just a place where you practice being nice.

thoughts on our school system's non-policy

I was able to recycle plastic for our school on only one day. Then our maintenance guy must have mentioned something because he was told that his people could no longer put out bags or, so I’m told, even lift bags. Now, I’ll bring in bags and at least collect plastic and aluminum from what kids I can.
It’s less the plastic waste (which IS considerable) that bothers me as much as the hypocrisy we practice when we teach kids that recycling and conservation is important. Our actions show that we really don’t care very much. So I want to do what I can to show by my own actions that I and a few others DO care enough to go through some trouble to recycle.
I get irate over apathy and lack of concern for our planet’s environment. It makes me feel like grabbing a sign and starting a blog/newspaper/TV campaign and complaining. But I think that while it may bring out some concerned citizens, it wouldn’t create any newly concerned citizens. I really am not a charismatic sort of person. The best I could do to transform hearts is to act as a teacher of children, which is something I’m good at.

Good spirits

Recovery seems so much slower these days. But I was reminded about how hard it used to be to step up onto the curb at work (students would help) and so I know I am doing better. Money's still awful, I can't keep up with simple housekeeping, and things keep going downhill for the nation, but I'm in good spirits, probably because I took action toward service to my neighbors.

I wrote an email to other coworkers who I know are concerned about recycling (all three of them). I asked that we might support each other in efforts and I offered to pick up plastic recycling at the end of the day. I have been so sad to see kids who are willing to toss bottles into recycling who have no place to do it. (Not all the kids, but a good portion - more than three.) This looks like a service that I can do.

I'm taking my grandson to Barnes and Noble this afternoon. It's his favorite hangout and I'll be teaching the game of Go, with his help, as part of a fundraiser for our school.

Running the Numbers

"... looks at contemporary American culture through the austere lens of statistics. Each image portrays a specific quantity of something: fifteen million sheets of office paper (five minutes of paper use); 106,000 aluminum cans (thirty seconds of can consumption) and so on. My hope is that images representing these quantities might have a different effect than the raw numbers alone, such as we find daily in articles and books. Statistics can feel abstract and anesthetizing, making it difficult to connect with and make meaning of 3.6 million SUV sales in one year, for example, or 2.3 million Americans in prison, or 426,000 cell phones retired every day. This project visually examines these vast and bizarre measures of our society, in large intricately detailed prints assembled from thousands of smaller photographs. My underlying desire is to emphasize the role of the individual in a society that is increasingly enormous, incomprehensible, and overwhelming. "

-Chris Jordan