More gratitude

The other day I did a post on gratitude.  So when rifling through my blog subscriptions on Google Reader (my favourite way to keep on top of blogs), I stopped when I saw Mike had linked to another post by Brian Walsh on the same topic.  Hmmm… spring must be in the air.  Makes us grateful.

Brian teaches at Wycliffe College at University of Toronto.  His blog is well worth reading - here’s a morsel to savour on gratitude…

You see, one of the things that characterizes our imperial reality is a sense of deep dissatisfaction and incessant craving. And paradoxically, with such dissatisfaction comes a sense of entitlement. It’s either, “I can’t get no satisfaction” or “the satisfaction I get is my right!”

In her wonderful book, Radical Gratitude, Mary Jo Leddy says that we live in a culture of ingratitude. It’s a culture in which we are held captive by a consumer induced longing that can never be fulfilled. And radical gratitude, Leddy argues, is what can liberate us from such a captivity.

Radical gratitude engenders a spirituality of gift in the face of self-made accomplishment. Gratitude is born of an economy of enough in the face of the hyperactivity of “more.” Gratitude is rooted in grace, while a spirituality of entitlement is decidedly a “works” theology. Gratitude abandons the sullen adolescence of our culture and embraces a humility and gregarious openness born of a mature spirituality.

More PIGS

Last week’s PIGS sessions were stimulating (see my first post here) and great networking moments for me.  One outcome has been a PIGS group form on Facebook which I am appreciating. 

Meeting people like Lee is helpful, and for the readers of this blog, let me introduce you.  He’s a Senior Program Officer for MacLellan Foundation.  With Chris over at Catalyst, that makes three PIGS bloggers at last count.  (Are there any others??)

Let’s encourage them to keep blogging.  We need philanthrobloggers.

Switchfoot on Prince Caspian

This is the new Switchfoot song featured in the movie Prince Caspian.  I loved those Narnia books as a kid.  And as an adult.  Thanks Heidi.

What would Eugene do?

Link to view Naked Pastor’s latest T-shirt creation.  I love it.

We’ll be together

Sing and dance.  Just beautiful.

Thanks Liz. 

Slum visits 2

My friend Chris Heuertz and I were on the same email string where I got the NYT article on Slum Visits, as blogged previously.  I thought his further emailed comments were well worth considering, so he has given me permission to reprint them below.  Let me know what you think…

generally i feel like this is just one more way the non-poor are exploiting poverty. that we actually have the luxury to chose to take vacation is alreay a hard issue of global disparity, but then to use our vacations for “slum tourism” is almost a form of pornography.

poverty isn’t a reverse disneyland experience, human rickshaws aren’t theme-park rides, and taking photos of starving children doesn’t humanize them-all these things dehumanize us as voyeurist opportunists who need that next “fix” of extreme reality to further numb our senses

“slum tourism” is the first step on a slippery slope of doing “brothel tourism” and maybe even the absurd eventuality of “concentration camp tourism” - i mean, why not? if exposure is supposed to drum up some sort of compassionate response then why not expose ourselves to the worst available opportunities money can buy to get the biggest bang for our buck?

finally, my friends who live in slums are offended when non-poor tourist come unannounced and prancing through their neighborhoods w/ cameras-how about we have a bunch of rich people surprise us by showing up at our homes early saturday monring and get some lovely snapshots of us getting out of our beds w/ crazy hair or getting some great pictures of our children half-naked in their unchanged diapers? and then even better, publish those photos, put them on-line, or make slideshows out them for their churches-sounds really humanizing to me

anyway, don’t get me started. i’m not gonna tell you what i REALLY think b/c it’d be brutal…