What the world eats

Take a look at this photo article as  families from around the world lay out their typical weekly food consumption. The photos are from ‘Hungry Planet’ by Peter Menzel & Faith D’ Alusio. Also interesting is the data compiled at the bottom of the article which compares a host of comparative figures from median income and health care costs to fresh water resources and internet access.

ambition.

Ambition. It’s a word fraught with judgment. Whether you have any or not. Too little or too much.

I’ve rolled this word around my mind and over my tongue these last few days…weeks…months, wondering where my ambition will lead me. If that destination will be a good place–or not. If I’ll find what I’m looking for once I arrive.

Can one have too much ambition?
Is ambition always self-serving, self-seeking?
Where is the balance between ambition and contentment? Does such balance exist?
What if I forgo my ambition for contentment? Does that relegate me to a mundane life?
If so, is that a bad trade? Is it a bad trade for me?
How much of life will I miss by setting aside personal ambition? How much will I miss if I don’t?

Is ambition a way of chasing happiness?

Quotes–part 2

From the previous post, here’s the second quote I’m hoping to not lose:

“In our whole life melody the music is broken off here and there by rests, and we foolishly think we have come to the end of time. God sends a time of forced leisure, a time of sickness and disappointed plans, and makes a sudden pause in the hymns of our lives, and we lament that our voice must be silent and our part missing in the music which ever goes up to the ear of our Creator. Not without design does God write the music of our lives…. If we look up, God will beat the time for us.” ~ John Ruskin

Quotes

I came a cross a couple of quotes that I’d saved. In an effort to not lose them, I’m posting them here. Perhaps you’ll appreciate them as well.

Here’s the first:

“We assume miracles arrive like bolts from the blue. But most real miracles are built arduously, stone by stone, and only when seen from the perspective of the whole are they revealed to be miraculous. For this reason, we tend to miss the wonders happening right next to us, because they are occuring in slow motion and rendered invisible by the filter of our expectations.” ~ Celeste Fremon, journalist

Responsibility of speech

A few months ago my 6-year old niece walked into the kitchen and complained, “I’m starving!”
“Really?” I asked. My daughter and I exchanged glances. She said to her cousin, “Starving means that you’re dying because you haven’t eaten for many days. You ate breakfast this morning; I don’t think you’re starving.”

I’ve noticed how careless our culture has become with speech. We use really strong words which overstate the cirucumstance. Can we really ”hate” both lima beans and racism? Would a better word–either less strong or more so–better distinguish the level of our resistance of the two?

The reckless, indeed irresponsible, use of speech accelerates the closer we get to the first Tuesday in November–Election Day. The unfounded accusations made by nearly every candidate on the national stage is appaling. I’ll not post them here; I’m sure you’ve heard them all already. Many of them continue in the wake of the national contests.

My daughter initiated her own conversation of the political candidates at Kindergarten lunch. One friend said he wouldn’t vote for McCain because “he’s just a big, old grandpa.” Another friend told her that she wouldn’t vote for Obama because “he’s evil.” It made me wonder at the conversations parents were having with and around these children. After pointing out the value and wisdom of grandpas, and my husband explaining that both men are loved and created by God, both being very smart and neither being evil, the importance of instilling in our children the responsibility of their words is more apparent than ever.

In a culture where everyone seems to have an opinion, and few filters for their words, I want to think critically of the things I encounter and my belief system. My desire, for me and for my children, is to develop discernment to be prepared to thoughtfully address the widespread thoughtless and irresponsible verbal and written word which we encounter.

The freedom of speech, which we hold so dear, carries with it a responsibility and accountability for our words. As you engage in conversation in the weeks ahead, pause. Give consideration to the words you use. Select them carefully…and responsibly.

How we pray.

Prayer: petitioning God in word or thought. We pray for everything from world peace to athletic victories (going so far as to adapt the name of a plea for intercession from the mother of Jesus as a ditch-effort play), from good weather and academic grades to divine intervention.

We petition quite a lot. It’s left me wondering how thoughtful we are about what we ask. Perhaps we have all been cautioned to “be careful what [we] ask for”, and certainly that applies in prayer life. I’m particularly struck by how we pray for one another. We pray for safety, for deliverance, for protection, for miracles–and we limit the way that the deliverance, protection and miracles may take shape. It seems that most of our petitions are one-demensional, bound by our physical world and focused on the immediate situation (specifically avoiding or escaping that circumstance).

We are uncomfortable with suffering, with struggle. We are so focused on escaping trial, that we miss the opportunity to pray for sustanence within it. Just fix it. Make it stop. I want to be happy, without worry. Without pain.

I’m not suggesting that we give up on miracles. I merely suggest that “fix-it” miracles not become the gut-reaction, the sole answer–”well…we’ll just pray for a miracle”–as though we through up our hands in disgust at the helplessness of the situation. Or, rather that we cast off our responsibility to really minister and intercede at a deeper, more intimate level.

So, pray for strength to endure, for emotional and spiritual growth, for deeper faith to result. Pray for comfort, encouragement and sensitivity in the physical world. Pray that eyes will be opened to the suffering in and the redemption of the world. Might these be the true miracles we hope for.

what’s happened to our dreams?

Where have our dreams gone? As children we had many. Through high school and college they were, perhaps, refined. And now…? In my conversations with college students and recent college graduates, I’ve been talking and thinking quite a bit about dreams for the future…theirs’ and mine, specifically and generally.

My six-year-old daughter dreams of being an astronaut, a baker, a teacher, a mom, a veterinarian and a farmer. I tell her time and again that she can be all of those–even all at the same time. This is her dream. What is yours? What is mine?

Do we need dreams to propell us? To motivate and prompt us?
Do dreams fit within the context of everyday reality?
Are dreams meant to be achieved?
Or, is the point that they are just dreams–never intended to be actualized?
Why is it that so many dreams are quite easily derailed or self-sabatoged?
Is the journey of pursuing a dream more fulfilling than actually achieving it?

Two of my friends, Ann & Jean (names changed because they may actually read this blog), have very different experiences regarding their dreams:

For Ann, over the last few years she has witnessed, one by one, each of her college dreams come true. Now that nearly all her dreams are fulfilled, she’s come to realize they don’t measure up to what she expected them to be. Fulfilling her dreams have not fulfilled her drive. New dreams are taking place of the old.

In contrast, Jean had many ambitious dreams that have never taken shape. She has watched others take steps toward the life she always dreamed of, but never achieved. Today her dreams are being weeded out by new desires. She is consciously opting for a path which will likely not lead to the fulfillment of her original dreams. She’s okay with that trade.

I can relate with both friends. Perhaps you can, too. I have both watched my own dreams manifest before my eyes, and watched friends and mentorees take steps in their lives I was unable (or opted) to not take. Like Ann, I have been diappointed when the realities haven’t matched the expectations of my dreams.

So if we are disappointed by our dreams, or don’t really intend to achieve our dreams, what’s the point of dreaming? Is it simply the pursuit? The chase of a dream which motivates us to just keep going?

All I know is that a world without dreams seems like a sad and lonely place. It’s too depressing for me to consider living without having dreams to strive for. So I’ll keep dreaming–outlandish, dangerously challenging dreams. And I’ll take one step at a time. Maybe I won’t achieve those dreams until I’m in my 90’s, but they’ll keep me going.

The ethics of eating.

Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life just keeps on giving. I wrote a book review, and several related posts after I read the book earlier this year.

On July 3, Speaking of Faith, a “public radio conversation about religion, meaning, ethics & ideas”, featured an interview with Kinsolver regarding the book and its premise. Krista Tippet, who conducted the interview also journaled about the book and conversation.

From Krista’s journal, I particularly appreciated this section:

          The real irony is that the way most Americans eat is elite in the extreme.
          This is hard to grasp, as crops behind some of the cheapest, easiest staples
          of American life–including that ubiquitous high fructose corn syrup–are
          underwritten by government funding. …And then there are, of course, the
          environmental costs, harder still to see and calculate and that we confer
          as a debt to our children. Some people give up meat, Barbara
          Kingsolver says; she has given up bananas, no longer willing to live with
          the fossil fuel footprint that is necessary to bring them all the way to her
          in Virginia.

Props to mk for passing along the Speaking of Faith link.

Tippet, K. (July 3, 2008). The Pleasurable Choice is the Ethical Choice. speakingoffaith.org

Guest blog–Job 36:26

I wrote a guest blog for my husband’s blogsite, witoozy.com. The post is about Job 36:26a (KJV): “Behold, God is great, and we do not know him.”

Follow the link to access my musings.

54 years of asparagus

A friend sent me this article of a colleague’s grandparents who have sold asparagus out of their garage for 54 years.

It’s a delightful story. Enjoy.