Rites of passage

Manifesting destiny

Manifesto?  A thought voiced by my wife.  Of course, Marx and Engels come to mind, translated to a pseudo-red blog via text at a late hour.  I'm not a man with grand political/economic theories.  I struggle against cynicism as I ride waves of reaction and intuition and comfort between libertarianism and socialism and anarchy.  But the question is good and perhaps essential.  What do I hope to stand for?  What do I want to stand against?  Where will all this standing happen.  And what about us as a couple?

Here is the foundation: that Jesus changes everything.  Redemption is happening, regardless of where I plant my flag politically, socially, economically or geographically.  My hope is to participate in said redemption, even as it happens in me.  Primum non nocere: First, do no harm.  Unfortunately, I will.  To act is to risk harm, despite intentions.  I will cause harm professionally and personally through accidents, negligence, ignorance, laziness and selfishness.  And yet this is all, in its peculiarity, redemption.

A jaunt onto the information superhighway

And so I enter into the interweb, full of conflicted passions, aware of the injustice around me yet not quite sure what to do with it all.  I don't know if I care for the revolution, but I admire the enthusiasm.  I think I am more enamored with redemption, or at least what I am beginning to see what that means.  Ours is an unjust world, filled with poverty, oppression, violence and sorrow.  These things will not change, not to the degree to which I hope.  They are components of our condition.  May the words on this page, at the least, help me to process what I believe and how I am to respond.  My hope is that you will partake in the process with me, fulfilling what Paulo Friere proclaims to be our human vocation: to name the world.  Viva.

A few books over the last few years that have begun to challenge my paradigms:

Wendell Berry, The Art of the Commonplace

Paul Farmer, Infections and Inequalities

Ronald J. Sider, Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger

Paulo Friere, Pedagogy of the Oppressed

Robert D. Lupton, Compassion, Justice and the Christian Life

Jon Lee Anderson, Che Guevarra: A Revolutionary Life

Tracy Kidder, Mountains Beyond Mountains