Health care in our nation might not be in such a state if more of us live our lives like Robert, a doctor in Greeneville, Tennessee. To watch his inspiring story, click here.
If you’re interested, you can order one here. All proceeds from t-shirt sales will go to the printing of books like More Than a Carpenter in Russian as Josh McDowell Ministry works with GAiN, Campus Crusade’s humanitarian aid arm, to help meet the physical and spiritual needs of Russian people.
To read the article in its entirety, click here.“White supremacy is ingrained in American culture and we are all affected by that. I don’t mean the “white power” sort of supremacy, just the idea that the dominant culture, which is white/European, is the benchmark. So, it is no surprise that blond hair and blue eyes are celebrated, that a black preacher’s fiery sermons would strike many Americans as odd, and that a black accent is perceived as less desirable than a white one.
The sin is not that we are biased in this way–and we are ALL biased. The sin is that we pretend that we aren’t biased and fail to address the inequities that our prejudice creates.”
“After all these years, I never feel adequate for this.”
“I’m gonna talk to you this morning about the gospel. What idiot would come to a Campus Crusade staff conference and talk about the gospel?”“The first says, ‘You may go.’ The second says, ‘You may come.’”
When a young Indonesian woman recently decided to follow Jesus, her family—who worshipped another god—was furious. But two weeks later, every single member decided to follow Jesus and get baptized. When asked why, the father replied, “Every night for two weeks we poisoned our daughter’s dinner in order to kill her.”
Yesterday Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor began her confirmation hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Members of the Hill, as well as the press, continue to debate whether Sotomayor’s ethnicity has affected her judgment from the bench.“Republicans' outrage, both real and feigned, at Sotomayor's musings about how her identity as a "wise Latina" might affect her judicial decisions is based on a flawed assumption: that whiteness and maleness are not themselves facets of a distinct identity. Being white and male is seen instead as a neutral condition, the natural order of things. Any "identity" -- black, brown, female, gay, whatever -- has to be judged against this supposedly "objective" standard.Thus it is irrelevant if Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. talks about the impact of his background as the son of Italian immigrants on his rulings -- as he did at his confirmation hearings -- but unforgivable for Sotomayor to mention that her Puerto Rican family history might be relevant to her work. Thus it is possible for Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) to say with a straight face that heritage and experience can have no bearing on a judge's work, as he posited in his opening remarks yesterday, apparently believing that the white male justices he has voted to confirm were somehow devoid of heritage and bereft of experience.The whole point of Sotomayor's much-maligned "wise Latina" speech was that everyone has a unique personal history -- and that this history has to be acknowledged before it can be overcome. Denying the fact of identity makes us vulnerable to its most pernicious effects…”
This April, Preston Swincher became the first Texas Christian University student ever to give the keynote address at the Honors Convocation. I recently read a transcript of his speech, “Facebook Life in a Google World (Or, ‘How the Internet crashed my party’)”, in TCU’s alumni magazine and was quite impressed.“We are in the midst of a paradigm shift. Consider this: I’ve had three different physical addresses over the past four years. But I’ll tell you what hasn’t changed: my cell phone number and my Facebook page. In the quantum age, we have shirked the Newtonian notion of location in an absolute framework of time and space. We no longer seek to find each other based on where we stay, we seek each other where we will be, and move in relationship to each other.And although his ideas are a bit humanistic, I appreciate his idealism about how the shrinking of our world through technology will serve to facilitate solutions to the world’s problems:
I won’t write you a letter or come a-callin’. I’ll send text to the palm of your hand, place my voice in your ear, because seeing and hearing you will be as easy as saying, “I miss you.”
When all that stands between us is a few words, we’ll be as close as the vibrating air permits us to be, and suddenly the technology will connect us so seamlessly that it will disappear. When we are linked closely enough, technology will cease to be a means of communication clouded with barriers, but will instead be a pure conduit for ideas that is just as authentic and effective as talking to someone face-to-face.”
“The Internet generation is going to put Schrödinger’s cat into Pandora’s box, shake him up until he’s good and mad and set him loose; let human curiosity on the wide Web fuel human outrage in the wider world. Then we will see change.I encourage anyone who works with young people to read his entire speech. As Swincher points out, most of us who grew up in the analog age are usually scrambling to catch up with this generation, who are already at work changing the world. Swincher’s speech gives an insightful, as well as humorous, peek into the mind of Gen Y.
The human heart may not hear statistics, but it does hear voices. It sees faces. And we will put a human face and a human solution on every problem when our neighbors are not defined by geographic location or color of skin or by religion or creed, but by common interest and common humanity. The Internet is drawing tight the wire that connects us all, and when we are all shoulder to shoulder, we will not be able to ignore the problems of humanity.”
Last month the French government began a formal inquiry into the issue of whether Muslim women should be allowed to wear the burqa—the garment which covers them from head to toe—in their country.“A cross-party panel of 32 lawmakers will investigate whether the traditional Muslim garment poses a threat to the secular nature of the French constitution. They are due to report back with their recommendations in six months.”French President Nicolas Sarkozy had this to say on the subject:
"The problem of the burka is not a religious problem. This is an issue of a woman's freedom and dignity. This is not a religious symbol. It is a sign of subservience; it is a sign of lowering. I want to say solemnly, the burka is not welcome in France."
I have so many thoughts, feelings, and questions about this issue:
“Julia…showed that it’s never too late: she didn’t learn to cook till she was 37 and didn’t start her career till age 50. She was not perfect and did not preach perfection but delight. She found her passion.”I liked this quote for two reasons:
So I’ve started to Twitter. Again. Kind of.Here are some things I do like:
I’m still willing to have my mind changed on all of this. So please help me! What do you like about Twitter? Who/what are your favorite entities to follow? Have you had a spam/porn problem similar to mine? What am I missing?
PS: If you want to follow me (while you still can!), I'm @stephnannen.
