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Category Archives: Life

Day 2 of freezing temperatures in North Texas!

02 Feb

It is Wednesday, February 2, 2011, and it is day 2 of this brutal freezing cold weather, here in North Texas. And actually, it is severe weather in most of the country, especially from Texas to the East Coast. It’s currently 8 ˚F (-13 ˚C). Schools are once again closed as a result. It is a hazardous situation to be on the roads.

I know that you folks in usual freezing areas are probably laughing at us Texans. But you’ll just have to understand that for one thing, our cities and counties are not equipped to take care of the roads. It is not cost efficient. Yes, it is a matter of economic cost that takes priority. On the other hand, what would be the economic cost when businesses shut down, consumers stay home, and no revenue generated? Hmmmm….

Our average temperature is in the 80’s, and rarely does it drop this low. Plus, our weather here in North Texas ranges from the teens to 100+ degrees. And, we can have drastic shift in temperature, 50+ degree variance, in a matter of 24 hours. I think that’s a bit much to ask of the human body. Maybe. Don’t you agree?

I know it’s a bit much to ask of my heating system, apparently. My power went out for five hours last night, and it has not fully recovered. The heating system seems to be working overtime and on overdrive. Not exactly a good thing.  As for today, the power companies are scheduling rolling blackouts, meaning power will be out sporadically for periods of time. Oh dear!

Texas weather is definitely a case of bipolar. Regardless if this is global warming. Thank God for warm and ice coffee, and especially for electricity. The things we take for granted! Bundle up. Stay warm. Keep safe. Oh, and bring your animals indoor!

Well, on the upside, while temperatures are dropping, the Dow continues to rise!

a blanket of ice!

my dog, philo, saying, “what is this mess? sorry but i don’t do ice skating."

if only i had studded tires!

 
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Posted by on February 2, 2011 in Economics, Life

 

sleet. snow. ice. freezing. cold.

01 Feb

The arrival of a new month comes with freezing cold temperature in the Dallas – Fort Worth Metroplex. Rain, sleet, ice, and snow is today’s agenda! It’s 7 a.m., and there’s already 2 inches of snow outside my door. My dogs refuses to go outside. 😦

Currently it’s 21 ˚F (-6 ˚C). With wind chills factored in, it feels like 3 ˚F (-16 ˚C). Temperature is dropping down to the teens, and maybe to the single digits. Oooh, how exciting is that! For me, yes, but for those that must bear the cold outdoors, both humans and animals, I am greatly concern.

Schools are closed today as a result. It will be an excellent reading day for me. Stay warm everyone!

 
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Posted by on February 1, 2011 in Life, Student life

 

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3rd and final day apart from facebook

31 Jan

It is Monday, January 31, 2011. It has also been three days since I last signed on to facebook. I think I’ve successfully completed my weekend “fast.”

But now that I can actually sign back on to facebook, I am in no rush. I am also making some changes. That is, I’m creating a schedule where I will only be on facebook for a total of 1 hour per day (and even that seems like a lot), including the time that I take to read other posts. This also means that, I will be unsubscribing from various news sources and groups, and re-evaluating my “friends” list to make some adjustments. This can include removing some “friends” or hiding them from my feed. No offense to some of you, but this is simply a case of IO, that is Information Overload. There’s no need for excess information to be competing for my attention when I’ve got a pretty tight schedule. 13 credit hours of grad school or seminary work plus 36 work hours hardly leaves room for anything else, particularly spirituality or God.

Anyway, from my last post, I asked the question, “Are social networks such as facebook and twitter a religion?”

Well, let’s first define what we mean by religion since there are multitude of answers. Following are some definitions given by both Christian and non-Christian folks.

Ludwig Feuerbach: “Christian theology has tended to interpret the externalized image of “feeling” or self-consciousness as a wholly other, absolute essence, whereas in fact it is a self-feeling feeling. Religion is the projection of human needs, an expression of the uttered sorrow of the soul.”

Karl Marx: “The religious world is but the reflex of the real world.  It is the imaginary sun which seems to humans to revolve around themselves until they realize that they themselves are the center of their own revolution.  God is simply a projection of human concerns. Religion is therefore the result of a certain set of social and economic conditions.”

Sigmund Freud:  “Religion is an illusion and it derives its strength from the fact that it falls in with our instinctual desires.  Illusions are not deliberate deceptions; they are simply ideas that arise from within the human unconsciousness, as it seeks to fulfill its deepest yearnings and longs.”  God therefore is viewed as a “wish-fulfillment,” arising from repressed, unconscious infantile longings for protection and security.

Karl Barth: “Religion including Christianity is an obstacle and must be eliminated if God is to be discerned in Christ.”  And it is idolatrous, in that it involves people worshiping a human construction.  Religion as a human construction is contrasted with divine revelation.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Argued for a religionless Christianity- meaning that “faith which is based not upon untenable and discredited notion of “natural human religiosity,” but upon God’s self-revelation in Christ.  An appeal to culture, to metaphysics, or to religion was to be avoided.”

John B. Cobb: Argues that the argument about religion is pointless.  “There is no such thing as religion.  There are only traditions, movements, communities, peoples, beliefs, and practices that have features that are associated by many people with what they mean by religion.”

And, in other popular definition, religion is defined by the four C’s: Creed, Code, Cult, and Community.  But what is more important to remember is that each religion’s goal is different, such as redemption, liberation, enlightenment, heaven, salvation, etc. This also means that we shouldn’t be qualifying, validating, and judging other religions based on our criteria. Or in other words, we shouldn’t be playing a universal “truth” game since different rules applies to different games.

Anyway, I don’t know about you, but I think that based on some of the definitions above, facebook is a religion. So just how committed are you?

I now return to my original post from Friday, which stated the purpose of this “fast” as a class assignment, and with the following question. Through the discipline of fasting, did I gain greater control over my life and allowed God to gain access and redirect and heal me in body, mind, and spirit? I will only say that at this point, I am making progress.

*Note: I am aware that all definitions of religion listed above are from male perspectives, but it is with intentions since that is how, traditionally, culture has viewed forms of authority.

 
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Posted by on January 31, 2011 in Culture, Life, Religion, Spirituality, Student life, Theology

 

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day 2 apart from facebook

30 Jan

Today is Sunday, January 30, 2011. It is also day two without facebook for me. I left off my last post by asking, where is God in all this? Really, is God to be found in cyber? Yes, maybe, and no; these three. You see, I think that answer really depends on the user. One from the outside cannot really say that God is/not present in cyber space, and then proceed to give their reasons based on their individual perspectives. Actually, they can give a reason, but their reason should be invalidated. One simply cannot answer for someone else.

For me, I still subscribe to a traditional understanding of God’s presence. That is, God is ubiquitous (same as omnipresence) – a fancy theological term for “everywhere.” Put another way, God is present in all of existence, everywhere and at all times. Sure we can go on debating various things, such as creation and theodicy, but I won’t go there on this post. Those are much broader topics that deserve extensive writing, rather than a couple of paragraphs.

For me, here and now, whether I choose to acknowledge God’s presence or not is the real trial. How I prioritize God in the order of things may not have to do with confession, creed, or belief, as much as it is about how I do things. It’s not always easy.

Next question I am considering is this, are social networks such as facebook and twitter a religion? I will get back to you with an answer sometimes tomorrow.

I leave you today with this excellent TED Talk. By now you should know that I am a big fan of the TED Talks. I have a bias towards scholarly, well researched and thought out lectures. I think that the mind should always be nourished with excellence, experience, and inspiration.

 
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Posted by on January 30, 2011 in Culture, Life, Religion, Spirituality, Student life

 

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a day apart from facebook

29 Jan

Today is Saturday, January 29, 2011. It has also been over 24 hours since I last signed on to facebook. It has not been easy. As a matter of fact, I am highly anxious for Monday to arrive so that I can reunite with facebook and friends.

So here is what I did today without facebook. I slept an hour longer. I was able to listen to class lectures online. I even arrived to work on time. Now, to improvise and satisfy my e-communication craving and instant gratification need, I signed on to my blog a couple of times, re-read and edited a couple of my posts. I admit that my writings always need tweaking, but that’s because our human mind is always processing and always feeling the need to reform one’s work. Well, at least that’s how my mind works. But, honestly, in this instance, it was actually more about filling a void than it was about perfecting blog posts. It was about me getting my “fix” and wanting to be connected with a network of people. This is not good. I think. Or maybe I’m just bored because I’m at work.

The main question that I need to ask of myself is, where is God in all this? I will get back to you with an answer, shortly.

 
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Posted by on January 29, 2011 in Culture, Life, Religion, Spirituality, Student life, Uncategorized

 

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on fasting and spiritual formation

28 Jan

As part of my Spiritual Formation Class, my assignment for this week is fasting, and then writing about my experience. I am to “consider fasting or “abstinence” not only from food but also from an affluent and addictive lifestyle.” I have never tried fasting, so this will be a first.

There are three forms of fasting. The first type is “normal fast.” This means that if food is involved then the person would just abstain from food and liquid, except water. The second type is “partial fast,” which means that fasting is done in moderation. The third type is “absolute fast,” or complete abstinence. This third type is reserved for those true bravery souls. Or, maybe, those crazy ones.

I’ve decided that I would do the third type for this weekend. Not because I’m a braved soul or crazy one (well, that’s up for discussion), but because I feel that this is the right approach for me in order to recognize any signs of effectiveness. The fasting assignment is supposed to be for one week long, so I can always switch to one of the other two next week. We shall see.

Now, since I work 36 hours on the weekend and get by on minimum sleep, I think I really need to nourish my body. It’s not like I eat healthy anyway. So, my fasting will be “abstinence” from facebook.

I have come to realize that I have become too dependent on facebook. Now, facebook in itself is not bad. After all, I use facebook to keep in contact with my families around the globe, old and new friends, colleagues, teachers and/or scholars, etc. I also subscribe to various news sources, which keeps me abreast on local and world events. Facebook in a way is my connection to the world, recreationally, psychologically, academically, and sometimes for humor and sanity. But, I will disclose this, my work involves information, whether it’s related to a particular company, industry, country, region, economy, and so on, I will always be in tune to world news. This means I am always on the internet.

Regardless, this fasting will allow me an opportunity to disconnect temporarily from a certain segment of my affluent and dependent lifestyle, that have seemed to consume my being. The point of fasting or denying oneself of something is to open our souls and truly appreciate and enjoy God’s gifts. In our consumer driven culture, we are often consumed by our everyday habits that we are not conscious of the effects on us. We take every day things for granted, including our friends and family. We take God for granted. And, we certainly take time away from God. So, maybe, we should perhaps pause and reflect. Indeed, “fasting is not primarily a discipline through which I gain greater control over my life, but one through which God gains access to redirect and heal me in body, mind, and spirit.”[1]

Have a good weekend all!

You can call me if it’s important, and leave a message since I don’t answer my phone. 🙂

[1] Marjorie J. Thompson, Soul Feast: An Invitation to the Christian Spirituality Life (Louisville: WJK, 2005), 84.

 
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Posted by on January 28, 2011 in Life, Religion, Spirituality, Student life

 

peoples, cultures, rituals, and beliefs

25 Jan

A couple of excellent TED Talks on peoples, cultures, rituals, and beliefs, by Anthropologist Wade Davis. I am not always in favor of a non-indigenous person telling indigenous peoples’ stories, but in this case, I support Wade Davis and his important work.

If you are someone who is interested in culture, and I can’t imagine who wouldn’t be, this is kind of important. Please watch these two videos.

Here’s a couple selected excerpts from the second video:

“….the central revelation of anthropology, and that is the idea that the world in which we live in does not exist in some absolute sense, but is just one model of reality, the consequence of one particular set of adaptive choices that our lineage made, albeit successfully, many generations ago.”

“A language is not just a body of vocabulary or a set of grammatical rules. A language is a flash of the human spirit. It’s a vehicle through which the soul of each particular culture comes into the material world. Every language is an old-growth forest of the mind, a watershed, a thought, an ecosystem of spiritual possibilities….What could be more lonely than to be enveloped in silence, to be the last of your people to speak your language, to have no way to pass on the wisdom of the ancestors or anticipate the promise of the children? And yet, that dreadful fate is indeed the plight of somebody somewhere on Earth roughly every two weeks, because every two weeks, some elder dies and carries with him [sic] into the grave the last syllables of an ancient tongue….Some of you who say, “Wouldn’t the world be a better place if we all just spoke one language?” And I say, “Great, let’s make that language Yoruba. Let’s make it Cantonese. Let’s make it Kogi.” And you’ll suddenly discover what would be like to be unable to speak your own language.”

All this to say, it’s important to teach your children your native language for what it carries, represents, and stories it tells from the past and onward to the future.

 
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Posted by on January 25, 2011 in Culture, Life, Postcolonial

 

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life journey

19 Jan

As this year comes to a close, I am reminded of how precious life really is and why it is important to cherish each moment we have with the people close to us. I am also reminded of why we should greet each person with acts of love and grace whether we are meeting them for the first time or reuniting for the millionth time. Bottom line is, I think, each person is a creation of God.

I think it may also be important to  consider each meeting as if it’s the last time we’ll see that person. It just may be. So embrace the moment and opportunity!

Below is something that I jotted down today in thinking about our journey through life and death. Given more time, I’m sure I could arrange it a little more methodically, or not.

 

life journey

We imagine.

We begin.

We breathe.

We exist.

We live.

We become.

We are.

 

We journey.

We wander.

We encounter.

We choose.

We experience.

We rush.

We pass.

 

We laugh.

We cry.

We love.

We hurt.

We argue.

We fight.

We forgive.

 

We dare.

We compete.

We win.

We struggle.

We lose.

We endure.

We dream.

 

We connect.

We create.

We share.

We dictate.

We posses.

We obsess.

We disconnect.

 

We want.

We receive.

We own.

We give.

We sacrifice.

We serve.

We glorify.

 

We defeat.

We think.

We examine.

We process.

We listen.

We hear.

We modify.

 

We push.

We challenge.

We expect.

We proceed.

We worry.

we exceed.

We succeed.

 

We demand.

We obey.

We disobey.

We despise.

We learn.

We reflect.

We change.

 

We die.

We grieve.

We regret.

We express.

We comfort.

We abandon.

We hope.

 

We persist.

We gain.

We will.

We forget.

We won’t.

We remember.

We meditate.

 

We theorize.

We question.

We doubt.

We complicate.

We speculate.

We theologize.

We search.

 

We pray.

We find.

We continue.

We believe

We inspire.

We trust.

We resume.

 

© Sela E. Finau, 2010.

*originally written 12/30/2010 as a facebook note.

 
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Posted by on January 19, 2011 in Life, Philosophy, Uncategorized

 

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