Last week’s Repaso was a day late and a little on the light side, but I think I’ve made up for it here. This week, a dizzying array of cool stuff. Ten items, in fact. Please enjoy, and comment with any thoughts.
1. Remembering Rich Mullins
Veteran Christian singer-songwriter Andrew Peterson has a reflection for The Rabbit Room about the late great Rich Mullins, who passed away 14 years ago this week. Rich’s record A Liturgy, A Legacy, and a Raggamuffin Band is in my all-time top five albums. It is sheer magic.
We rounded the bend at sunset and there before us stood those craggy Tetons, all gray stone with white snow tucked into the fissures. The clouds were gold with sunlight and long, misty fingers of rain dangled from them, caressing the peaks and the aspen- and fir-covered shoulders of the range. Who else but Rich Mullins could write music that would adequately suit a scene like that? I demanded the iPod, selected A Liturgy, a Legacy, and a Ragamuffin Band, and we drove the next forty-five minutes without speaking. We weren’t speaking because we were being spoken to.
2. Eugene Peterson interview in Leadership Journal Katie is reading Eugene Peterson’s new memoir The Pastor, and I’m getting more and more excited to read it too with each little excerpt she reads to me. In this interview I was reminded of so many of the reasons I love Peterson. For example, this:
My task as pastor was to show how the Bible got lived. Of course it's important to show that the Bible is true, but we have theologians and apologists for that. I just accepted the fact it was true and didn't bother much about that. I needed to be a witness to people in my congregation that everything in the Bible is livable and to try to avoid abstractions about big truths, big doctrines. I wanted to know how these ideas got lived in the immediate circumstances of people's lives at work, in the town, and in the family. The role of the pastor is to embody the gospel. And of course to get it embodied, which you can only do with individuals, not in the abstract. And so that's why, for me, a small congregation was so essential. It enabled me to know the people I was preaching to, teaching, and praying with.
3. FoxNews visits Lancaster
If we needed any “fair and balanced” convincing that Lancaster really is a hip destination (if Lady Gaga's visit didn't do it for you), here you go! My roommate’s mom even gets a shout-out for good measure.
It's a Saturday afternoon in the Prince Street Cafe, a coffee-and-sandwich spot in Lancaster, Pa. A couple in their 20s canoodle on a plush leather couch by the fireplace. A 30-something in thick, black-framed glasses punches away on a laptop between bites of a green salad topped with quinoa, and a college-age girl with a brunette pixie doodles in her sketchpad. It comes as a bit of a surprise, then, when you wander upstairs to artist Julia Swartz's gallery and find a series of portraits depicting local Amish men-straw hats, serious-looking black suits, and all. Here at the Prince Street Cafe, it's easy to forget you're in Amish Country.
A plastic school might sound like it's better suited for Barbies than for people, but the technology—developed by the Guatemalan nonprofit Pura Vida—is actually quite clever and allows for schools to be built for less than $10,000. The plastic bottles are stuffed with trash, tucked between supportive chicken wire, and coated in layers of concrete to form walls between the framing. The bottles make up the insulation, while more structurally sound materials like wood posts are used for the framing.
If, as Jews, we replace the old caricature of hayseed fundamentalist mobs carrying torches and pitchforks with one of dark conspirators trying to worm their way back into political power at the highest levels, we run the risk of accusing them of doing to others what we are doing to them: demonizing. We didn't like it when people said we had horns and tails, ate the blood of Christian children and poisoned the wells of Europe with plague, much less conspired to rule the world through our Protocols. “Evangelicals in the main want the same kind of common-sense solutions and moral integrity as other Americans,” [Rev. Joel] Hunter says. “We do not want to use political means for our faith's advancement; we just want to vote our values and leave it at that.”
6. Entrepreneurs more likely to pray
A few of my friends working at the intersections of business and faith tweeted or shared this story. Interesting findings:
Entrepreneurs behave just like most Americans when it comes to religion — but with one spiritual twist. They're significantly more likely to pray several times a day or to meditate, says sociologist Kevin Dougherty, a co-author of the Baylor Religion Survey. The survey can't answer whether prayerful, peaceful folks are more likely to take a business risk or whether the stress of a start-up drives folks to their knees or to the lotus position, Dougherty says.
7. Nicaragua and the Ortega family
One of my favorite places to go for news and commentary on Latin America is the Central American Politics Blog by Mike, a professor at the University of Scranton right here in Pennsylvania. He shared this video from Univision about how Daniel Ortega’s family and the Sandinista party have taken control of the Nicaraguan media, and by extension, have ensured they will be in control after November’s elections and for the foreseeable future.
8. Social networks in Latin America
Stephanie Garlow, who runs GlobalPost’s Latin America blog, has some interesting info on social media popularity in the region:
There's a whole wide world of social networks out there, and Latin America isn't missing out on the party.
More than 95 percent of internet users in Latin America now use social networks, up 16 percent from a year ago, according to a study by internet analysts comScore.
9. Jewish support for immigration reform
M. Daniel Carroll R., a Guatemalan-American professor of Old Testament at Denver Seminary and author of the important book Christians at the Border, has a blog post on the increasing participation of the Jewish community in working for immigration reform and their reasons for involvement:
As I have spoken to these Jews about their reasons for joining the “cause,” two primary reasons have been given me. One is that their own history for many centuries as a people has been one of migration and persecution, so it is fitting that they come alongside of other immigrants. Second, they have a long experience with discrimination, caricatures, and hate speech, and they are seeing that phenomena surface now against immigrants. They feel that they cannot defend their own rights if they do not speak out for others, who are experiencing the same thing.
10. Andy Kristian’s micro-finance video
I’m meeting with my friend Andy this morning to discuss a cool project he’s working on. This is some rough (but beautiful!) footage he put together during a recent trip to Northern Uganda. Can’t wait to see the finished product.
I’ll be honest with you: I don’t consider the radio a necessity. If I want to listen to music, I have CDs and an iPod. If I want the news, I have it all on the internet. If I want to listen to testosterone-crazed dudes arguing about sports or politics… well, I don’t. But if I did want to listen to music or news or emotionally charged debate on the radio, I’d have a lot of options. We all do. That’s part of what makes our country great. Everyone, theoretically, is entitled to their opinion and can make it known. It might take persistence and creativity to make one's voice heard, and it will certainly require some money and technical expertise, but within clearly defined boundaries, you and I are free to broadcast what it is we have to say. And if you want to start a radio station for some odd reason, the government isn’t going to stop you.
This, unfortunately, isn’t always the case for indigenous communities in Guatemala. Though there are over 200 low-powered community radio stations throughout the country, broadcasting in indigenous languages and featuring music and news updates by and for indigenous people, a quirky piece of legislation gives police the right to shut down these stations at any time. Only commercial stations and government-run stations are given freedom to broadcast as they wish.
Why would police care what these 500-watt stations are broadcasting, you may ask? Well, because they are often the only - or at least the primary - source of communication related to these communities' pressing everyday concerns. So, for instance, when a Canadian mining giant moved into the communities of Sipakapa and San Miguel Ixtahuacan in the highlands of western Guatemala to begin extracting gold without the free, prior and informed consent of the people of these communities, it was the local radio station that stepped in. The station played a central role in disseminating information leading up to a community-initiated consultation on mining, and in ensuring transparency during the consultation itself, in which the community voted nearly unanimously against the mining operation. This sort of free-flowing information in indigenous communities is seen, apparently, as a threat to government priorities - which have lately tended to be multinational business interests.
Cultural Survival, which partners with indigenous communities around the world to “defend their lands, languages and cultures,� is working to strengthen this network of community radio stations and to ensure that they are made completely legal:
Nonprofit community radio plays a critical role in the daily lives of hundreds of thousands of Indigenous People in Guatemala. Francisco Xico, a Mayan priest who volunteers at his local community radio station says, “The radio helps keep our culture and language alive.� As Cultural Survival staffer Ancelmo Xunic says, “It is by the community, for the community.� Community radio volunteer Angelica Cubur Sul says, “As an Indigenous women, I can say that the community radio is the only place that I can express my views and opinions and be sure that they will be heard by the entire town. The Mayor expresses his opinion on our radio, so do the police, and so do I.�
That the voice of an indigenous woman would be considered just as valid as the voice of a mayor or a police officer seems to me a pretty reasonable proposition. If you agree, President Colom and the President of the Congress of Guatemala are waiting to hear from you.
Thomas Friedman has famously written that thanks to globalization the earth is now flat. To which it must quickly be added that it is flatter for some than for others. While Friedman cites remarkable (and real) advances in places as far flung as Hyderabad, India to make his case, there are still many in the world – billions – who don’t really get a piece of the pie, a place at the table, a level playing field. If anything, for many the earth is becoming more treacherous. But his argument is not entirely without merit, because globalization really isn’t leaving any corner of the globe untouched.
Case in point: Sipacapa, Guatemala. Many of my childhood memories revolve around Sipacapa, where we lived in an adobe house with a tin roof and a bare concrete floor. Behind our house was the community soccer field, and on a clear day we could look out past the eucalyptus trees and see Mexico, several mountain ridges away. There was no electricity or running water in the area in those days, so we’d hike down to a spring in the valley and fill jugs with water which would then be used for cooking, or heated on the wood stove and used for bathing in the pulley-operated shower we built on the front porch.
The village now benefits from electricity and running water. They’re even paving the roads, and many community residents have cell phones. The ways in which this unprecedented connectivity improves people’s lives are many. But globalization is a two-edged sword. The same force that has brought these modern advances has also brought, for one thing, the mining industry – not just to Sipacapa but to many remote villages throughout Latin America and around the world. Mining companies promise economic and community development but seldom keep their word because those with power to hold them accountable, quite frankly, don’t bother. Indigenous peoples, meanwhile - whose interests are officially protected under international agreements - are for all intents and purposes powerless when push actually comes to shove. See the No Dirty Gold campaign for more on these life-and-death issues.
Because I grew up in what is now a mining-affected area and because I am a Christian who is concerned about how abuses of power affect the poor, I returned to Sipacapa this spring to learn more about the mine and to do interviews with people in the area. While showing me around, an old family friend pointed out the local radio station, sitting up on a hill with a tall antenna. The station had been instrumental a few years prior when Sipacapa residents organized an official referendum in which the people voted nearly unanimously against mining in their community. The radio station enabled voting at thirteen different locations to occur simultaneously, and allowed for transparency in the process. Ultimately, though, it wasn’t enough, and the mining operation continues.
Early next year in Guatemala, congress will consider a telecommunications reform bill that will determine the fate of 170 of these community radio stations throughout the country that provide news and information to indigenous people in their own languages. The aim of the bill is to set aside a wave band specifically for such stations and to reduce the cost and red tape involved in obtaining licenses. In areas with high illiteracy, community radio is essential for the dissemination of important information like storm warnings and provides a forum for public debate on important issues.
It will be interesting to see whose interests prevail in congress, in a land with a government modeled after our own. And it will be a poignant snapshot of the pros and cons of globalization. From my standpoint, connectivity is good, generally speaking, as long as it’s a two-way street. I think most residents of Sipacapa would agree. But who really gets to call the shots? In the case of community radio in Guatemala we will see whether globalization will be a force for good or ill in the lives of the poor, for whom the world has been anything but flat.
For more on the situation in the Sipacapa area and elsewhere, check out COPAE. Among other things, they are working towards an alternative development plan for the region that will align more closely with the needs of the local people rather than the wishes of a Canadian board of directors. In other words, they are helping the indigenous people to work for flatness on their own terms.
Why would police care what these 500-watt stations are broadcasting, you may ask? Well, because they are often the only - or at least the primary - source of communication related to these communities' pressing everyday concerns. So, for instance, when a Canadian mining giant moved into the communities of Sipakapa and San Miguel Ixtahuacan in the highlands of western Guatemala to begin extracting gold without the free, prior and informed consent of the people of these communities, it was the local radio station that stepped in. The station played a central role in disseminating information leading up to a community-initiated consultation on mining, and in ensuring transparency during the consultation itself, in which the community voted nearly unanimously against the mining operation. This sort of free-flowing information in indigenous communities is seen, apparently, as a threat to government priorities - which have lately tended to be multinational business interests.
