In the News

Blogging “Deep Economy”

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Diane Roberts of Crossroads clued me into Bill McKibben’s latest tome, Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future. You’ll notice that I’ve added the book to the sidebar under “Essential Reading.” Not too many books wind up there, so this should tell you something.

If you’ve read Cerulean Sanctum for any length of time, you realize that I blog on several pet topics repeatedly:

  • Rediscovering genuine community
  • Recovering local economies
  • Instituting practical agrarianism
  • Caring for creation
  • Fighting globalism
  • Resisting American “bootstrap” individualism
  • Countering Social Darwinism in our work lives
  • Eliminating wastefulness
  • Developing a true Christian counterculture

McKibben, who self-identifies as a Christian, has written a book that details the problems our society faces with regards to these issues, then lays out solutions. Because I believe Christians must be on the forefront of these issues, I believe this to be a criticaly important book, and one that illustrates in a way that all readers will grasp why we should be concerned.

In the days to come, I’ll be discussing the main talking points of Deep Economy and why we must confront them if we’re to live out the Gospel.

Stay tuned…

Death Plunge On Display

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I write the majority of my posts between 10 p.m. and 2 a.m. This Sunday evening, when my Monday post would normally be written, will be spent outside on our acreage taking in the night sky. Even though SW Ohio comes with far too much light pollution, we’re far enough away from the bright lights and big city to still have a decent starry sky. Meteor displayWe can see the Milky Way, and that’s more than most of the world’s population centers see.

So instead of blogging profundity, you get…well, not one iota of theological controversy.

Instead, we’re out considering the heavens, the work of His fingers, the moon and the stars which He has created. With the new moon and our dark sky, we get a stupendous view of the Perseid meteor shower. I was out the night before and caught several spectacular burnouts, one flaming rock after another screaming out a death song, as if launched from Sagittarius’s bow, an attack on Antares, the heart of Scorpius.

The shower itself originates in rubble cast off by a comet. Earth travels through the debris every August and gives us a celestial show. I’m posting this now so a few of you might catch the spectacular.

All Creation attests to the glory of the Creator. Turn off the TV and get outside! Forget Second Life! Live the real thing.

Blessings.

Demolishing the Culture of Busyness

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I didn’t want to put out two “Dire Dan” posts in a row, but besides the problems we have with taking care of the least of these, we have a serious problem with busyness. Yep, speed kills...and now we have the proof!Any long-time reader knows that I feel busyness damages the soul and makes us less aware of the the Lord’s leading. And it’s a growing problem.

Now my suspicion is no longer conjecture.

Dr. Michael Zigarelli, associate professor of Management at the Charleston Southern University School of Business, conducted a study over five years that shows that Christians are succumbing to the tyranny of the urgent.

I’ll wait here while you read the article.

Read it? Great!

In light of yesterday’s post, how can we possibly meet the needs of others if we’re always focused on our own lives as we rush hither and yon? Well, we can’t. Sort of puts a crimp in those Kingdom of God plans, doesn’t it.

Who succumbs to the rush?

And professionals whose busyness interferes with developing their relationship with God include lawyers (72 percent), managers (67 percent), nurses (66 percent), pastors (65 percent), teachers (64 percent), salespeople (61 percent), business owners (61 percent), and housewives (57 percent).

Let’s break that list down to root issues that create busyness.

Lawyers, managers, salespeople, and business owners

  • Distorted work lives (caused by industrialism).
  • The pursuit of money.

Nurses, teachers, housewives, and pastors

  • Bearing the load of caring for others in a relationally-disconnected society created by distorted work lives and the pursuit of money.

The root causes listed are familiar to readers of this blog. Many posts here cover these root issues. Sadly, those tenacious roots grow deeper every year, but we hear little about them in our churches.

It’s not enough to say that we must focus more on God. That’s just adding another task to the problem. Instead, we Christians must start questioning the underlying root issues that cause this busyness.

While the study does not explain why Christians are so busy and distracted, Zigarelli described the problem among Christians as “a vicious cycle” prompted by cultural conformity.

“[I]t may be the case that (1) Christians are assimilating to a culture of busyness, hurry and overload, which leads to (2) God becoming more marginalized in Christians’ lives, which leads to (3) a deteriorating relationship with God, which leads to (4) Christians becoming even more vulnerable to adopting secular assumptions about how to live, which leads to (5) more conformity to a culture of busyness, hurry and overload. And then the cycle begins again.”

I agree with Dr. Zigarelli’s analysis. First, we are caught in a vicious cycle of busyness. Second, the implied cure is to no longer conform to the culture.

What must that non-conformity look like?

I suggest that we Christians must

  • Revitalize and rebuild local economies that counter globalism’s trend toward marginalization of communities and individuals
  • Discover alternative work lives that keep families (and communities) together during the day
  • Pursue simplicity by rejecting consumerism
  • Create alternative Christian communities that better conform to the Gospel’s standard of benevolence and more effectively shoulder the burden of caring for others
  • Reform our doctrinal emphases from head knowledge to the practical outworkings of the Faith
  • Stand by and encourage those who reject conformity to the prevailing culture rather than marginalizing them
  • Craft a new vision for living lives devoted to God first and to each other second.

Folks, these root issues penetrate deeply into the Western psyche. Busyness simply reflects the root. As Jesus notes of some demonic powers, only prayer and fasting will drive them out. And I believe some element of the demonic weaves through these roots.

None of this will be easy. It means revisioning all aspects of how we live our lives. Too many of us think how we live now is the only way it can be. But that’s a lie. We’ve got to stop believing that lie and start believing that God can change things if we repent and start asking hard questions that demand even harsher answers.

See these posts for more: