keep paying attention/mess with some heads

a call for people to keep their eyes and ears peeled for Iranian related material, particularly cultural...

i sent in this scoop from a free local newspaper here in Dublin southside.

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the embers of Pyro-Theology at gb09 are glowing brightly. *much* work to be done but my confidence that we can pull together a worthwhile offering is gaining.
i can't/won't give any details away but i think this could be an engaging gathering.
(time tbc/friday evening/Centaur. keep the date.)

NOTE: our friends in Moot helped created a "protest" for our Fundamentalism gathering a couple of years back - brilliantly led by the Father. it was integral to setting the mood and theology for the night.

money quote (from someone in the queue, who took the Father's iain paisley-esque hell, fire and brimstone trickster protest against ikon to be the real deal):

"fuck off!! i'm going in to worship!!"

hehe. oh the ironies in those 7 words. as jonny would say, it works on many levels.

i can't say anything about the plans for this year, but if you're gonna be on site and are available to lend a hand in the 30 mins before the event and possibly during it, let me know how i can contact you by direct mail. we may need some extra hands for this year's evanDalistic infiltrating. please note, any info you are given as a result, you are asked to keep to yourself.

right, i am running massively behind this morning and am meant to be travelling to Belfast. better get my ass firmly in gear.

LB

no excuse for apathy

the events that are unfolding are significant on a number of levels - first and foremost for the people of Iran and their self-determination. but i suspect, like many others online tonight suspect, that we may yet see an even wider change...

i feel something like sadness underneath the amazement and horror at what is being broadcast via the new media today. there is a degree to which i am ashamed. that we who have so much freedom squander the right to publicly rally and raise our voices.

"Life has come to a halt. There were at least 2-3M in the streets today. I've never seen such anger. We are not going let this go. They've closed all the universities (during final exams) and have started a purge. Many of our professors are missing and student organizers are moving constantly to avoid detainment. The police is just watching and the army has declared neutrality. The violence is 100% caused by the BASIJ and thugs who are roaming the streets. They seem to be targeting girls, swinging with clubs and chains. Its disgusting but we are protected by numbers. Get the word out-- the more of us stand together, the safer each individual will be. The reports of the university attacks yesterday are true. We don't know how many were hurt or killed."
from a dish reader, here. italics and highlight my own.

i hope we learn from the people of Iran. for not only do we not stand up and use our freedom to speak loudly in solidarity with those who are voiceless in other parts of the world, we rarely stand up for the voiceless in our own neighbourhoods...

for those who have lost their lives and suffered brutality, may we feel deep sorrow...



as the bumper sticker say,

if you're not outraged, you're not paying attention

and most of the time, i'm not...
they are outraged. and i am humbled to be alive to witness their courage and tenacity.

for in all of this, i can only speak for myself. when i say, "we", i really mean "i". but if they seek others to add their voice, count me in the collective...

LB

lots of dark, tiny signs of light

bit of laundry list this. stuff that caught my eye and ear inbetween to-ing and fro-ing... i'd write more on what i've been thinking on all of this but the tops of my fore and middle fingers on my left hand had an accidental encounter with a razor blade and so typing is proving awkward.

from the daily dish:
i've gone back to this video several times. an arresting juxtaposition of happy people and angry voices...

li wei's amazing *not photoshopped* images:


















After Wars, Mass Rape Exists an important highlighting of an issue that has had pitifully little attention given its severity. and a not uncontroversial report by Nicholas Kristof in the NYT of the same - the comments are provocative.

it's been a troubling week for being part of Christendom on this part of the world...
there's good coverage of the 'gay debate' at the Church of Scotland's general asssembly over at sunday sequence and william's blog, including the big question that now hangs over CofS's daughter church, the presbyterian church in ireland. none of it entices me to return to the fold of the denomination.

sunday sequence yesterday gave most of the programme, unsurprisingly, to the 3000 page report on child abuse in the Catholic church in ireland published last week. the debate: will there be justice for victims? made for powerful and at times deeply uncomfortable listening.

i had a job a few years back typing up statements from victims of abuse in church run institutions. i'm not sure there's ever going to be anything to say as adequate response to the horrific history brought unequivocally into the light. the challenge lies in what should be done, rather than said, in response. with two more reports yet to come this summer, the role of, and extent of power given to, the roman catholic church in irish society is now severely under question.

on a (perhaps, slightly) more positive note, william had a very interesting conversation with susie orbach last Sunday about her new book, Bodies. the interview is no longer there but there's an Observer review here.

LB

what about the view from your window...?

the daily dish is still looking for photographs from north dakota, south dakota, tennessee and rhode island for their upcoming book. details here

spread the word...

LB

when all possible outcome seems dark

last night at tuesday group we talked through brueggemann's reading of jeremiah's prayer in Jer32:16-25

it was conversation filled with struggle and doubt, the tension of contradiction and many more questions than answers over what "Jeremiah has YHWH say"...
we talked of the sins of the father being wrought on the child, and our varying struggles to understand or conceive of divine intervention. balanced by the knowledge that to live by the sword means almost inevitably one will die by it. and that even if one generation does not, the next one will reap what has been sown. you don't need to believe in an interventionist G-D to believe in that...

when we pray, we are not meant to systematic theologians, we are meant to be human...

some of the discussion was a wrestling within on what to do as individuals who are part of a national or even international us. i found the themes difficult in light of all the talk of torture... and i thought, not for the first time this week, of Jeremiah Wright's controversial sermon post 9/11... and wondered with the others what it is we are called to be... how do we intervene? what is my responsibility?

someone cited australian activist and writer, dave andrews, who after many years of trying to change others, came to the conclusion that ultimately his job was to change himself and be a witness. someone talked of us being G-D's hands, G-D's light in the world. another spoke of us willing ressurrection with life and compassion. to step out beyond ourselves... if the Bible tells stories of how G-D listens to those who are on the edge, who suffer, then that is our job too...

blessed are you who are care-full for you will find yourselves cared for... and each of us must choose if we want to be doing the caring for, or walk on by...

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andrew sullivan quoted neil gaiman - i lay awake with a heavy heart.

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The memos refer to other classified documents -- including an "Effectiveness Memo" and an "IG Report," which explain how "the use of enhanced techniques in the interrogations of KSM, Zubaydah and others . . . has yielded critical information." Why didn't Obama officials release this information as well? Because they know that if the public could see the details of the techniques side by side with evidence that the program saved American lives, the vast majority would support continuing it.

Marc A. Thiessen, The Washington Post

Tuesday, April 21, 2009
(highlights, my own.)

i lay awake hoping that isn't true.

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yep. i hope not. <-- i fell asleep watching this.

i still believe G-D is the impossible happening...

LB

the woman next door

via an incredibly eloquent dorothee soelle quote from sarah,

and via the daily dish. sullivan got choked up over Miss Boyle, (who, physically, reminds me so much of the Scottish women i was surrounded by in my youth), and i'm unashamed to say, so did i.

here's to the unseen and unexpected. which is a theme i'm increasingly interested in, especially in a gender and queer context - seeing the assumed normative deconstructed as it is subverted by those kept to the edges because they don't quite fit our expectations.

my dear brother-by-choice, Chris, said, "If The Wire were a bible passage it would be this:" seems fitting here too...

God chose what is weak in the world to make the strong feel ashamed. And God chose what is insignificant in the world, what is despised, what is nothing, in order to destroy what is something, so that no one may boast in God's presence. (1Cor 28-29)

LB