War
In light of an unsuccessful campaign to become the president of my middle school as an eighth grader, I have no plans on entering politics and running for political office.
We first published this reflection by Jim Wallis in 2002. It has since become our Christmas tradition, kind of our own Charlie Brown Christmas special, if you will. With the ongoing conflicts raging during each passing year, it remains tragically relevant, particularly this year as we think about Afghanistan.
In this season in which we find ourselves there is an anticipatory feeling in the air. A waiting, a longing, and yearning. This is a time filled with preparations and signs and symbols. Everything leads to this promised future. With our turkey stuffed bellies, we awaken from a tryptophan-induced coma of carbohydrates to the coming of what feels like the end time -- for there will be sales and rumors of sales. So stay awake my brothers and sisters because the doorbusting shopacalypse is upon us. Yet my heart was glad when they said to me, let us go at 5 a. m to the house of the Lord and Taylor. For on that holy mountain, people will stream from east and west, north and south, and all nations will come. They will turn plastic cards into shiny promises of love in the form of bigger plastic and cloth and metal and wire. They will go down from this mountain to wrap their bits of plastic and cloth and metal and wire. They will wrap it all in paper, to wait for that day. The day of mythical, sentimentalized domesticity when the hopes and dreams of love and family and acceptance and perfect, perfect reciprocity will come to pass. And the children shall believe that they shall be always good and never bad for Santa will come like a thief in the night. No one knows the hour so you better be good for goodness sake.
I am ready to give thanks. Last year, I joined my family for Thanksgiving but when the food was served, I could only watch. Early in November of 2009, I had an attack of pancreatitis. Later, I learned it was probably due to a gallstone, but at the time it was a mystery. My diet throughout November was mostly liquids, then I progressed to soft bland food in December. But due to complications from a medical procedure, things got worse. From mid-December 2009 to the end of June 2010, I received most of my nutrition through a bag. It was pumped directly into my blood stream from 12 to 24 hours every day.
This series written by Logan Mehl-Laituri for God's Politics focuses on selective conscientious objection. Read more posts in this series here.
Thirty turkeys per minute. Airport scanners. Hogwarts. Here’s a little round up of links from around the web you may have missed this week:
- Workers in turkey plants handle as many as 30 turkeys per minute.
- How to make the perfect pie crust.
- This Thanksgiving, remember the hands that feed you.
- Opposed to the new airport scanners and aggressive patdowns? So is Captain Sully.
- A photographer turns his aging and depressed grandmother into a superhero.
- Fast Company asks, “Who are the CEOs of Hogwarts?”
- Speaking of Hogwarts, did you read Julie Clawson’s blog about Harry Potter and Social Justice?
- A reluctant uncle witnesses the home birth of his nephew.