Lion or Water buffalo?

Lion or water buffalo?

That part is pretty amazing but so is the middle where the guy is telling people how crazy they are for succumbing to advertising.

(above is 5 min video)

Consumerism from beginning to end

Good video to curb shopping craze

It’s a little long but helps you understand the big picture.

Here’s some info from the video:

99% of the stuff we buy, using up our planet’s resources,  polluting ourselves and the environment, creating crappy working conditions for Americans and others, making ourselves less happy, and creating waste . . . 99% of it ends up in the trash within 6 months!! Unbelievable!  At least if we used it someone could try to justify it but seriously!

The wheel of our lives:  we work hard so when we get home we veg in front of the tv, the advertisements tell us we have the wrong car, wrong clothes, vacation in the wrong place, have the wrong furniture . . . so we go shopping and then we go to work to make more money and then we go home and watch tv . . . .

Planned obsolence and perceived obsolence.  Back in the 1950’s corporations started figuring out how to make their products break down after a period of time but not too soon so consumers would still have faith in their products!!  And why are there different styles of clothing and computers, phones, etc every year?  So you feel left out if you don’t have the latest.  I’ve had a hunch for a long time that in the world of technology they have the know how to make the phones/computers they’ll be making several years from now but they dole each feature out one year at a time so you’ll keep buying.  I realize it’s also conceivable that people are constantly figuring out new things to do but either way the techno world is NOT trying to reduce waste.  It doesn’t matter if they start accepting old computers in an effort at recyling, they will never try to make the one you buy last longer because they want you to buy, buy, buy.  I refuse to fall into this trap.  I only bought a new phone because mine finally just gave up, I wear shoes that were “in” several years ago (I will until they break and they’re very determined for cheap shoes) and my 1997 car is still holding on at 187,000 miles.

So you SUCKERS need to wake up!!

Quotes

Everything popular is wrong.

Oscar Wilde, The importance of Being Earnest

Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.

Mark Twain

I just read Thoreau’s civil disobedience and am now reading Walden. . . . . fascinating.

Brainwashing

I had 20 drafts on here so I started going through to try to post them.  This one I wrote ages ago; I think I was going to add to it and that’s why I didn’t post it.  Oh, well.  It’s alright the way it’s written . . .

I already posted a link to the article these quotes came from but I wanted to highlight this part and comment.

About tv:  “Do you really need to have your family continually absorbing the illiterate, amoral, phony, uncultivated, desperately brainless values of the people featured in the average nightly TV program? Are these fake, programmed robots ‘normal’?

. . .
Are those shows really amusing, or just a necessary distraction to keep you from looking at reality, or trying to figure things out yourself by doing a little independent reading?

. . . .What measurable gain is there for you?”

Yes! That’s what I’m talking about! We own two tvs and we have cable BUT for a long time I didn’t want to own a tv and I never wanted cable. Does that mean that my feelings on the matter mean I never watch tv? No. Unfortunately, I watch when I’m tired or angry or bored or whatever because I can. A lot of time Matthew is the one who turns it on.

When we would get together with friends (back when we lived where we had some) they would want to watch a movie when we got together. I was always thinking or saying, “Let’s play a game, let’s have praise and worship, let’s go change the world.”

In order to reach people in the US with friendship, the gospel or whatever, you’re going to need to watch some tv so you can at least particpate in a conversation but cable’s not necessary. In fact, it’s worse in one way than sitcoms because I’ll find a movie I wouldn’t mind seeing (which I’ve seen before) and instead of watching 30 minutes which would usually satisfy my boredom, anger or whatever, I watch an hour and a half (or more but I usually start part way through the movie).

As Christians, sometimes I think we feel that limiting tv is getting legalistic . . . but we forget the “permissible not beneficial” thing.

There are three shows we watch deliberately “The Office”, “LOST”, “Man vs Wild”  and sometimes “Scrubs”.

. . . . Sometimes I’m tempted to throw the tv sets away. . . . .

Lies My Teacher Told Me

Great book. Everyone needs to read this book. I cannot stress that enough. Chapters 7 through the end, especially 7-10 were to me the most eye opening. Oddly enough, I’ve been discovering some of those truths on my own as of late.

For several years my brother & I have complained that our parents did not adequately prepare us for the world. There are things they could have done differently but this book helped me realize there’s another problem.

To write this book, James Loewen used 12 popular high school history textbooks. The version of his book that I read was copyrighted in 1995 so some of the information below may have changed in his more recent edition. (But since I graduated from high school in 1995, the book was spot on as far as I was concerned; the things I knew that weren’t in the high school books I learned in college.)

High school history textbooks water everything down. They do not tell accurately of the problems in our nation like racism nor do they tell accurately of the heroes of anti-racism. They do not tell the truth about problems of social class nor do they explain the benefits of free enterprise.

I don’t know if I should summarize the three important chapters but since many people may not read the book but might read this post, and since even those who read the book may forget the more important points, I’ve summarized and quoted here the things that to me were remarkable about this book.

Sex God

While we’re on the subject of sex, I also finished the book Sex God by Rob Bell. Since I don’t have the benefit of putting the word Sex in a different color as the word God like he does on the book, the title implies something which it is not (in other words this is not a post about my husband ). It is about sexuality and spirituality and how they are very much related.
I don’t agree with Rob on everything in life but this book was really well written and has a lot of good things to say. His chapter on angels or animal is absolutely excellent and I have thought a lot about the influence of the church’s angelicness (not a word I guess but neither is angelhood; what word am I looking for?) on our society and how it likely has caused a lot of the animalness.

Our Sunday school class (yes I’m going to Sunday school for the first time in years–actually, it’s the first time I have ever belonged to a class–and it’s people I enjoy so it’s not scary) is reading the book and I could type a lot about the things we discussed but you really should just read the book, whether you’re a Christian or not. Then come back here and you can tell me what you liked. (Don’t bother with what you didn’t like; there’s always something and it’s not worth arguing over in this setting.)

Samson and the Pirate Monks

I just finished reading Samson and the Pirate Monks by Nate Larkin.

I was amazed and heartily recommend it. I didn’t plan on reading it since my husband had told me the beginning (the author engaged in some very serious sexual sin while married and in ministry) and I didn’t feel like reading another one of those stories.  But I picked it up one day and started reading and since I already knew the sordid events of the beginning, was able to make it through to what helped Nate and to the society he started. Part of me was still rebelling. I wanted his wife to divorce him instead of forgive him. I wanted to castigate these men for the sins they most definitely commit against other human beings–some are family and some are people they will never meet. But as I plowed my way through the book I could not help but realize he has hit the nail on the head of what men need and what will transform lives and what God no doubt had intended all along but somehow Christians have missed in the Bible. We skipped right to the “be holy” part without the “carry each other’s burdens and confess your sins, etc.” part (or when we try we screw it up).

Anyway, I hope the above doesn’t keep anyone from reading it.  If you’re a man, you really need to read it whether you struggle with a sexual sin or not.  (Which brings me to the fact that women need something like this too–different but something that would accomplish the same goals.  I wonder who will come up with that.)

Do mountains hop or transfer slowly?

Matthew referred me to this blog post and in it I found perhaps the most insightful thing I have ever heard about Jesus saying our faith can move mountains:

I remember Jesus saying that there is a trust, a faith, that can command mountains to be thrown into the sea. Until recently—maybe as recently as this morning—I always imposed an immediate expectation to that miraculous kind of faith—visions of an entire mountain rising up at once. But perhaps the whole point of that illustration is THAT the mountain is moved, not how fast it is moved.

Have ya got $30?

First check this out and pass it on then buy the video. Even if you don’t buy the video (which is what the $30 are for), the trailer is worth watching and PASSING ON! (Eventually it’ll end up in the hands of someone connected to agriculture.)

Taking, as He did, this sinful world as it is

Since writing that Wal-mart post I’ve been wondering if I’m overdoing it.  Reinhold Niebuhr in a partly famous prayer I will quote in a minute says to take this sinful world as it is. We can’t attain heaven this side of death. And there’s probably a lot to be learned from that. I’m naturally an activist so my knee jerk reaction is to try to change things. The problem is you can stop going to Wal-mart but clothes made at Goody’s, CATO’s Penney’s, etc all might be made in deplorable overseas conditions too so unless you want to live in a bubble . . . . . But another part of the prayer asks for courage to change the things we can.  God does want us to stand up for the underdog. Maybe initially we can’t avoid these stores but when we get a handle on our finances and form new habits we can shop at the more expensive stores which don’t exploit workers.

Even if you find that you can’t avoid all the stores that do wrong in one area and/or the store that succeeds in that area has a wrong in another area, we can choose the lesser of the evils. So maybe one store still uses deplorable overseas conditions to make their clothing but they treat their employees with dignity, respect and honesty versus Wal-Mart. And the trail they leave is less bloody or whatever. But, if all else fails and you still have to shop at Wal-Mart, at least you know. Let’s not kid ourselves about the kind of world we live in or be ignorant of the greed and deception that motivates companies.   And do something proactive like reach out and love a Wal-Mart employee.

 Serenity Prayer

God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
the courage to change the things I can;
and the wisdom to know the difference.

Living one day at a time;
Enjoying one moment at a time;
Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;
Taking, as He did, this sinful world
as it is, not as I would have it;
Trusting that He will make all things right
if I surrender to His Will;
That I may be reasonably happy in this life
and supremely happy with Him
Forever in the next.
Amen.

~ Reinhold Niebuhr