seriously?!

i just saw that merck, the maker of vioxx, is a proud sponder of go red for women. go red is a national campaign to fight heart disease, the number one killer of women in the u.s. - more than even breast cancer. vioxx has been linked to heart attacks. hmmm.

can i just say how pissed i am about this?

jubilee in sunday school

i taught sunday school this past sunday for the first time since the semester has started (i'm one of the college sunday school teachers). we are going through an 8 week curriculum put out by ethicsdaily.com that is surprisingly wonderful. this past sunday, we talked about economic justice...and those of you who know me well, know just how difficult a time i have with that topic (yeah. right. read that with all kinds of sarcasm).

it was pretty good stuff...we talked about the year of jubilee and how that was never actually practiced...how we can be working for economic justice for our time...how to create some jubilee in the 21st century. they raised some great points and had some really good discussion.

it's amazing to me...and convicting more than that...how little of this stuff we actually do for others...myself included. i think about it...i guiltily buy clothes at old navy...still purchase coffee from dunkin' donuts instead of getting the fair trade stuff...i haven't really done much for economic justice in the recent bit...and that needs to change. because there's a different economic system to which we ought to adhere. and there's research out there to show that we really can do more to alleviate injustice and oppression. a lot more. and even though we were told more than once that we would always have the poor among us, that doesn't give us a reason not to try to eradicate poverty.

the questions remain: how can i, how can we, become jubilant partners in the 21st century? how can we take steps to counteract and eradicate economic abuses? what if we see some things as no longer an option? what if i declare in my house, for example, that the only coffee we will consume will be fairly traded coffee (and i don't mean go to starbuck's where they sell it, but it's not typically part of their daily menu)? can i give up my punkin spice latte in the fall months? can i give up the holy nectar of dunkin donuts? can i stop shopping at places that make their money from the sweat of laborers somewhere far away? how do i know that some place else isn't doing the same thing? can i, in good conscience, ever purchase a diamond? how can i support the men and especially women in developing countries who have small businesses but can't get fair wages for their work (let's face it...there's only so much you can purchase (that you need) from 10,000 villages)? perhaps some of the reading i'm trying to do (trying because there's so much for school i already have to read) will provide some of these answers...

not enough time

i just read in the newsletter from my home church where a church member's mother died recently. the member is probably in his late 60's or so. i have no idea how old his mother was, nor what her cause of death might have been. i do know the pain that comes with the loss of a mother. and while i grieve with him, there's part of me that is jealous of the time he did have with his mother. because i didn't. and, like so many other things, it's not fair.

ending a long week

And I think it's gonna be a long long time
Till touch down brings me round again to find
I'm not the man they think I am at home
Oh no no no I'm a rocket man
Rocket man burning out his fuse up here alone

with al gone this week and the crazy intensity of this week...that pretty much sums it up right there...

Slow down you crazy child
You're so ambitious for a juvenile
But then if you're so smart tell me why
You are still so afraid?

Where's the fire, what's the hurry about?
You better cool it off before you burn it out
You got so much to do and only
so many hours in a day

But you know that when the truth is told
That you can get what you want
Or you an just get old
You're gonna kick off before you even get halfway through
When will you realize...Vienna waits for you

Slow down you're doing fine
You can't be everything you want to be
Before your time
Although it's so romantic on the borderline tonight
Too bad but it's the life you lead
You're so ahead of yourself
That you forfeit what you need
Though you can see when you're wrong

But you know you can't always see when you're right
You got your passion you got your pride
BUt don't you know only fools are satisfied?
Dream on but don't imagine they'll al come true
When will you realize
Vienna waits for you

Slow down you crazy child
Take the phone off the hook
And disappeaar for a while
It's alright you can afford to lose a day or two
When will you realize...
Vienna waits for you.

i write the songs

really, i just copy the lyrics when appropo...like these:

Galileo's head was on the block
the crime was looking up the truth
as the bombshells of my daily fears explode
i try to trace them to my youth
then you had to bring up reincarnation
over a couple of beers the other night
now i'm serving time for mistakes made by another in another lifetime

how long till my soul gets it right
can any human being ever reach that kind of light
i call on the resting soul of galileo
king of night vision king of insight

i think about my fear of motion
which i never could explain
some other fool across the ocean years ago
must have crashed his little airplane

how long till my soul gets it right
can any human being ever reach that kind of light
i call on the resting soul of galileo
king of night vision king of insight

i'm not making a joke
you know me i take everything so seriously
if we wait for the time till all souls get it right
then at least i know there'll be no nuclear annihilation in my lifetime
I'm still not right

i offer thanks to those before me
that's all i've got to say
maybe you squandered big bucks in your lifetime
now I've got to pay
but then again it feels like some sort of inspiration
to let the next life off the hook
or she'll say look what i had to overcome from my last life
i think i'll write a book

how long till my soul gets it right
can any human being ever reach that kind of light
i call on the resting sould of galileo
king of night vision king of insight how long, how long, how long


just goes to show that we come from a long line of questioners...and my soul will not get it right any time soon...and neither will those who think they've got all the answers.

there's more than one answer to these questions
pointing me in a crooked line...

grieving the death of God

that's a phrase that's been rolling around inside of me for about a month now i think. i finally came to realize that some of my grief work involves grieving the death of a God about whom i'd learned while growing up, with whom i related, who i thought i knew...who no longer works (as well) for me anymore. that's not to say i have completely demolished the foundation i received as a child/teenager at church...but i have definitely knocked out some walls and added on in places and demolished other parts i'd added on. and the renovations are nowhere near complete. but i am still in this process of grief and realizing that i've lost the God to whom i'd clung so tightly is kinda scary at times...and once again points to the loss of illusion...which at some point i'm sure i will grieve as well (i'm still pissed off about losing that right now). and i'm not sure who this God is who is springing forth (someone phrased it as "coming out")...so i'm in the middle of the precarious gray between the known, perceived safe place and the unknown, even more precarious place (because i think God is way more than God does).