Even Amongst the Fear...Love Always Wins

Some people are going to be angered by this, some people are going to hate me for this, but some people will get it.

I took Death and Dying last semester and ever since I have been paying attention to the denial of death in American Culture. Yesterday a tragedy struck Boston. It home for me because the firm that my dad works for is based out of Boston and my dad spends a lot of time in the area of the finish line. Innocent lives were lost yesterday. Death is sad. I cried. I cried a lot. And then I became angry when I saw an image on Facebook of a little girl with the words "heaven gained another angel today." 1. She didn't die.  I don't even know if she ran in the marathon. 2. A little boy did dye.

People died yesterday and it wasn't because God needed more angels. People died yesterday because our world is broken and shattered.

I think that Mitch Albom said it best in Tuesdays With Morrie:
"So, which side wins, I ask."
"Which side wins."
He smiles at me, the crinkled eyes, the crooked teeth.
"Love wins. Love always wins."

"Spiritual but not religious." Oh Please

I spent the weekend talking about Church renewal. i.e how do we 1. get people to come to church 2. get people to come back to church 3. get people to join the church. I gained some valuable insights (that I will blog about later) but tonight's post isn't about anything that I learned while at annual meeting and it really has nothing to do with renewing the Church.
The argument that was constantly being made was, "Church attendance is down because many people are spiritual but not religious." I call B.S on that both as a Christian and a Religious Studies student.
The problem with that argument is that it really is not an argument.

Now for the fun part:

Neither spiritual or religious have set cultural definitions. Especially cross cultural definitions. But they both of cultural connotations.

Now for the really fun part:

1.  The religious studies "definition" of religion and what sets it apart from a philosophy is that religion has ritual and philosophy does not.
2. Religion has a negative connotation while spiritual has a positive connotation. This is why there is an "argument" about being spiritual but not religious.

Now for the crazy awesome seriously obvious conclusion
 Spiritual and religious are the same thing.
Yes, you read that correctly. They are the same thing.
Both point transcendence (duh! that's because they are the same thing). The only difference are the cultura connotations of the words.

So your choices are:
1. Stop trying to be all hip and cool. If you practice something that has rituals you are religious. If you practice something that doesn't have rituals you are a philosophist (note: i made that word up).

or

2. Keep arguing because you just might get lucky and one day people will stop searching for transcendence. (note: seek and ye shall find does not apply to transcendence)

I just noticed how sassy this post is. I'm not sorry and I'm not rewriting to edit out the sass. Deal with it.

I Can Hear the People Singing

Maybe it is because I have spent all semester writing about oppressive empires that I can hear the people "singing songs of angry men." More importantly the  people are singing and singing very loudly. 
Last night Allentown City Council decided to make up some rules in order to take free speech away from its citizens.

Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states: "Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers."

Article 20.1 of the UDHR states: "Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association."

After watching the video from last night's meeting I felt like I was back in History 278: Terror the History of An Idea. It was like something out of one of the documentaries that we watched. I had to keep reminding myself that this happened minutes away from my college campus.

Links:

http://www.mcall.com/news/breaking/mc-pictures-residents-angry-about-allentown-water-sewer-lease-confront-council-20130403,0,7068691.photogallery

http://www.mcall.com/news/local/allentown/mc-allentown-council-water-sewer-discussion-20130403,0,7493718.story

http://www.mcall.com/news/local/white/mc-bw-allentown-water-system-20130403,0,2502021.column