Pause-ing together

We had our first "meeting" of Pause at Brady's Coffee last night--Mr. Brady has been kind enough to open his shop up for this ministry, aimed at college-aged people, each Sunday night. The plan is to relax together, to get to know one another, and to share some of our individual journeys with one another. We plan on having a bit of music from time to time, occasionally a guest speaker (perhaps), and always good time discussing God and man and other funhearted stuff.

Last night, the whole thing was great, really. The only "students" who showed up were Claire and Kelsey, but I completely had the time I hoped we'd have; we got to visit and know each other a little, and we got to try to discuss that whole Radical Honesty idea that I wondered about since last November. The question was, if the Bible calls us not to lie, where do we draw the line regarding honesty? Why do we feel honorable when we lie for a good cause? How transformational would it be to express every thought we have, regardless of the pain it might cause another?

We talked about is all a bit and ultimately left it unanswered, mostly (although the consensus seems to be that Radical Honesty would be too much of a good thing). Aren't all good questions ultimately unanswerable?! :o)

Despite a low turn out, I am totally stoked about getting to do this--adding another meeting to a pretty full schedule is daunting, but this is one of those times so full of potential that I can't dare think of not following through with it. If only one person shows up, I believe God can use the time.

Ithaka

As you set out for Ithaka
hope your road is a long one,
full of adventure, full of discovery.
Laistrygonians, Cyclops,
angry Poseidon--don't be afraid of them:
you'll never find things like that on your way
as long as you keep your thoughts raised high,
as long as a rare excitement
stirs your spirit and your body.
Laistrygonians, Cyclops,
wild Poseidon--you won't encounter them
unless you bring them along inside your soul,
unless your soul sets them up in front of you.

Hope your road is a long one.
May there be many summer mornings when,
with what pleasure, what joy,
you enter harbors you're seeing for the first time;
may you stop at Phoenician trading stations
to buy fine things,
mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,
sensual perfume of every kind--
as many sensual perfumes as you can;
and may you visit many Egyptian cities
to learn and go on learning from their scholars.


Keep Ithaka always in your mind.
Arriving there is what you're destined for.
But don't hurry the journey at all.
Better if it lasts for years,
so you're old by the time you reach the island,
wealthy with all you've gained on the way,
not expecting Ithaka to make you rich.
Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey.
Without her you wouldn't have set out.
She has nothing left to give you now.

And if you find her poor, Ithaka won't have fooled you.
Wise as you will have become, so full of experience,
you'll have understood by then what these Ithakas mean.

--C.P. Cavafy
(1863-1933)

Ideology vs. Values

I have been reading The Audacity of Hope recently. Early on, Obama makes an important distinction between ideology and values. Certainly no one would doubt that values have a depth that ideology fails to plumb; my first thought is that an ideology is built on top of the bedrock of an individual's values.

Obama uses an illustration that he says occurred in the Illinois senate; a Republican colleague argued vehemently against against a school-provided breakfast program for Elementary school children. The Senator used as a reason not to create this program the argument that providing free breakfast for children would rob them of their self sufficiency! Obama countered that he has never known elementary school children who were self sufficient to begin with, and his side actually lost--in his words, Illinois school children were spared the debilitating effects of cereal and milk.

His point is that values can inform whatever situation or issue a person comes to, while an ideology is rigid and tends to blind people to the big picture in favor of minutiae. No one claiming to be a public servant would deny poor children breakfast, especially since studies show how difficult it is to concentrate when a student is hungry, yet in the name of fiscal conservation--an ideology--the value of feeding the poor is lost.

Pretty interesting, if you ask me. What do you think? In you own life, what motivates you more, ideals you adhere to, or values you carry inside? Wouldn't we all be better off if we identified our ideals and our values in play when we are thinking through various issues and situations?