Greetings from Alison Wiley here in Portland, Oregon. I'm a writer/doer/thinker who lives happily by putting people, nature and God ahead of accumulating more stuff. Read more →
Last Sunday I posted on the Habitat For Humanity fundraiser I attended. I felt it was dominated by bright shiny objects, and was straying from its mission of affordable housing, co-built by people of all income levels, with materialism and elitism. Not surprisingly, some commenters (fellow attendees and friends of mine) had a differing opinion. So [...]
Tags: auction·Christianity·consumption·critical thinking·fundraising·Habitat For Humanity·Kim Klein·mission·religious fundamentalism·value judgments
I went to a Habitat For Humanity fundraiser at the Nines here in Portland on Friday night, excited because I love their mission of building stable, affordable housing for low-income families. My husband and I have donated steadily to Habitat over the last five years. But I came away disillusioned, blinded by the event’s bright shiny objects. The [...]
Tags: bright shiny objects·Christianity·Civil War football game·Habitat For Humanity·housing·the Nines
It was never intended to be an elaborate belief system. It was intended to be a disposition of the heart. — On Christianity, paraphrased from Diana Butler Bass. What helps you to come from your heart? It’s a more risky place to live than the head, because our hearts can get broken. Focusing on rules [...]
Tags: Christianity·church·Diana Butler Bass·non-mainstream·Paul Schultz·Revelle·sacrificial love·The Hunger Games
The first part of this piece I posted last year, on the 2008 winter solstice. The rest of it I added for 2009. Today is winter solstice, the shortest day of the year. In the days long before fossil fuels routinely lit our nights, winter solstice was celebrated as the Birthday of the Unconquered Sun. [...]
Tags: Christianity·Christmas·divine feminine·Goddess·Jared Diamond·Our Father·solstice·winter solstice
My definition of happiness — the diamond-cut life — involves integrity as well as joy. And integrity was what I heard from evangelical Dr. Paul Metzger as he confronted the shortcomings of conservative Christianity in his book Consuming Jesus at his reading and discussion at Powells Books here in Portland the night before last.
The major shortcoming of modern evangelism and particularly megachurches is “giving people what they want
Tags: bipartisan politics·Christianity·consumption·culture·economics·evangelicals·global warming·happiness·integrity·Paul Louis Metzger·Powells Books
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