Yesterday, our city newspaper ran a great feature article on a blogger who has been pretty well known around here and over at Big Orange—Pam Spaulding of Pam’s House Blend. Pam does great work, and it was a pleasure to see her spotlighted.  I particularly appreciated the stamp of credibility these kinds of articles can give to bloggers and to blogging in general.  When I first stumbled into this new form of citizen journalism, it was the summer before the 2004 election, and apart from my husband’s technical groups on line, I’d really never heard of the concept before.  And from the puzzled reactions I got from friends & family, especially as I became more and more involved in 2 or 3 on line communities, it seemed that "blogging" was a new frontier indeed.

It’s still hard to explain to folks who don’t frequent blogs things like the true sense of community that evolves, and how these very real friendships often extend offline as well.  It’s also hard to explain how much more I’ve come to trust the opinions I read on my favorite blogs, knowing that nearly anything that gets posted will also get critiqued and/or confirmed from multiple—often hundreds--of other posters.  Still, for people who don’t visit these sites, the small bits of blog-lore with which I can often pepper my daily conversation remain a source of puzzlement.  I don’t think my own husband realized the extent of my addiction until the day he called up to ask me to meet him for lunch.  "I can’t," I answered, "I’m not even dressed yet!  My diary hit the rec list this morning and I haven’t left the computer!" Others are baffled by stories like why I’m making a financial contribution to a small-time politician in a far away state, or why I have to be at my keyboard at exact times for certain regular diary conversations, or why I get Christmas cards from around the globe, or why I traveled halfway around the country to meet people I felt I knew intimately but had never seen face to face—it’s kind of a hey, you just have to be involved, I guess, to truly "get it."

So when did you 1st start visiting blogs?  What are some of your favorites?  Have you ever neglected something off-line in order to participate in something online?  What do these online communities add to your life?  And as always, what are you drinking, and what’s for dinner?  This is an open thread.

It was very nice of Digby to link to Seth Pearce's diary on "Praying Liberally":

I'm a big fan of the Living Liberally network and their work to bring together like minded people of similar values in social situations. It's easy for me, living in a place like the people's Republic of Santa Monica to run into fellow liberals but even so there's nothing quite like being in a place with a whole group of people who are gathering together because they are liberals. It's much more relaxing, even here. I can't imagine how nice it must be for those who live in very conservative places.

Living in a very conservative place (but not obnoxiously so), I can vouch for the comfort of finding other liberals. It takes a weight off.

But this is not just puppies and rainbows. Social capital is power in today's world. Where you go to church (or more accurately, who you go to church with) correlates with how you vote second only to income level, IIRC. Social networks such as those put together by the Living Liberally really can affect things like political affiliation and partisan strength in what would otherwise be wastelands for progressive causes.

And it doesn't even have to be political power. Simply coming together to talk and to express concerns for one another - I'm carefully bracketing the religious dimension - can by itself change the world, if only a little. That's power, the ability to create change.

I've often thought that if progressives really care about issues like abortion or gay rights or any of a number of others, and they had even the smallest bit of faith, they should join a not-conservative church. We could use the help, frankly, and perhaps the easiest, most powerful thing one person can do without huge resources standing beside them is to affect the network of those connected to them. I still think that's the case, but Praying Liberally makes a good second choice, especially for those too far or too alienated to join a congregation.

Please join our community in prayer.  Just leave your prayer requests and pray for the requests of the community. I welcome all people to join in as the power of prayer/good energy is undeniable.

If you have any favorite prayers or passages or quotes or meditations, please send them to me to share, meeshka1@msn dot com

Please do not argue about the requests of others--you may do that elsewhere!!! If you wish to offer comments of support--please do so! If you choose to rate prayer requests, I like to use a "4" as an AMEN! If you disagree with a request, please just refrain from rating--this is a place where people need to feel they can reveal and unburden their hearts without being criticized. Should any trolls come our way, just surround them with prayer.

Prayer requests remain on the list based upon my judgment.  Removing requests is my decision.  I have no hard and fast rules--I simply act when the list seems to get too long or it seems the request no longer applies.  If I take one off which you would like to remain, please simply request it again.  If the request can be removed earlier, please let me know.  I'm sure we all would appreciate an update.

Thank you!

There's more:

There's been a fair amount of chatter around the liberal blogosphere this weekend about an interview Obama gave to Relevant Magazine on a variety of issues. This is the exchange that caused such a stir:

Strang: Based on emails we received, another issue of deep importance to our readers is a candidate’s stance on abortion. We largely know your platform, but there seems to be some real confusion about your position on third-trimester and partial-birth abortions. Can you clarify your stance for us?

Obama: I absolutely can, so please don’t believe the emails. I have repeatedly said that I think it’s entirely appropriate for states to restrict or even prohibit late-term abortions as long as there is a strict, well-defined exception for the health of the mother. Now, I don’t think that “mental distress” qualifies as the health of the mother. I think it has to be a serious physical issue that arises in pregnancy, where there are real, significant problems to the mother carrying that child to term. Otherwise, as long as there is such a medical exception in place, I think we can prohibit late-term abortions.

McCain's zen budget plan:  It is a plan; it is not a plan.

But here's the thing. McCain doesn't have any numbers. None. Not vague numbers of fuzzy math. He just says he's going to do it. Any other candidate would get laughed off the stage with that kind of nonsense or more likely reporters just wouldn't agree to give them a write up. But this is all over the place.

But, of course, the media are giving McCain a free pass on this, too.

Media too polite to say Helms was racist and homophobe

When he made an appearance on CNN’s Larry King Live in Sept. 1995, a caller praised him "for everything you’ve done to help keep down the niggers."

Helms looked in the camera and replied, "Well thank you, I think."

More here.

More news below.

Welcome to Coffee Hour, that minute or ten twenty where we savor a cup of something soothing, grab a snack, and chat with our fellow Prophecy Street residents about matters great and small. If you're new to the Street, welcome! Take one of the special mugs or cups (leftover red white & blue from our outing to the fireworks, thanks for helping me recycle them!), give us a hearty hello! and we'll make extra sure to greet you!

Kid Brillig and I are enjoying a week home together! She is not going to summer camp the next two weeks- this one because she did not want to do the field trip to a water park, and next week 'cause she'll be with her grandparents while Mr. Brillig and I are in Austin.  So today we did a 4-mile walk around a local lake, then spent time relaxing at home. We've got playdates, swim team, and a trek to see a friend's band upcoming, then we head to Dover, NH on Friday morning for a 3-day swim meet... put in a prayer for nice weather as the pool is outdoors!!

So- what's on your agenda for this lovely summer week? And as always, what are you having for dinner? :-)

Promoted by PD, who's foursquare behind the idea.


Street Prophets is an awesome blog. It's great to see so many religious progressives getting together to talk about issues of religion and politics, organize around them and most importantly, build community.

This community building is at the heart of what Living Liberally does. We believe that our political identity should be part of our regular lives. Too often politics is restricted to one day every four years, or to long, uninviting meetings in fluorescent-lit, linoleum-floored rooms.

Through our social networks and events, we promote this kind of social/political engagement. These networks include over 260 Drinking Liberally, Laughing Liberally, Screening Liberally, Reading Liberally, and Eating Liberally chapters in all 50 states.

Through these happy hours, comedy shows, film screenings, book clubs and meals, we fulfill our key mission of bringing politics into places where we gather, socialize, learn, love and live. One of these places to which we have yet to reach out is the liberal religious community, one that, unfortunately, has found few spaces to gather and organize in person, in public, loud and proud.

News of a potentially big development in archaeology broke over the weekend:

A three-foot-tall tablet with 87 lines of Hebrew that scholars believe dates from the decades just before the birth of Jesus is causing a quiet stir in biblical and archaeological circles, especially because it may speak of a messiah who will rise from the dead after three days.

If such a messianic description really is there, it will contribute to a developing re-evaluation of both popular and scholarly views of Jesus, since it suggests that the story of his death and resurrection was not unique but part of a recognized Jewish tradition at the time.

The tablet, probably found near the Dead Sea in Jordan according to some scholars who have studied it, is a rare example of a stone with ink writings from that era — in essence, a Dead Sea Scroll on stone.

Interesting. If it pans out, it will certainly add to our understanding of the social and political situation in Palestine around the time of Jesus. The key word there, of course, is if. Anybody remember the ossuary supposedly belonging to James?

There's no reason to think the new tablet is a forgery. But there is every reason to be skittish about complicated and incomplete evidence that has yet to pass through academic scrutiny.

And this part is clearly bull:

“This should shake our basic view of Christianity,” he said as he sat in his office of the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem where he is a senior fellow in addition to being the Yehezkel Kaufman Professor of Biblical Studies at Hebrew University. “Resurrection after three days becomes a motif developed before Jesus, which runs contrary to nearly all scholarship. What happens in the New Testament was adopted by Jesus and his followers based on an earlier messiah story.”

...

“His mission is that he has to be put to death by the Romans to suffer so his blood will be the sign for redemption to come,” Mr. Knohl said. “This is the sign of the son of Joseph. This is the conscious view of Jesus himself. This gives the Last Supper an absolutely different meaning. To shed blood is not for the sins of people but to bring redemption to Israel.”

I'm reminded of one of Luke Johnson's declarations: that even if the body of Jesus were found, it wouldn't touch the core of the Christian faith. The gospels, he invariably reminded seminarians, were not histories or biographies. They were testaments to the life-changing power their authors experienced in Jesus.

By that score, it makes little difference if early Christians adapted free-floating messianic stories to describe the inbreaking of God's presence in the man of Nazareth. Of course they would: they were struggling to describe a earth-shaking event without parallel. No wonder they reached for the language of Hebrew scripture, and yes, probably contemporary narratives. As for the distinction between the "sins of people" and bringing "redemption to Israel", duh. That's a point that's been well-understood for decades, at least outside of fundamentalist circles.

Not that any of that will forestall the inevitable stories in Time and Newsweek and US News about the new challenge to traditional faith, all timed to come out around Christmas or Easter. Nor will it stop anyone from writing a book on how this proves that we have to give up on Christianity in favor of some obscure and often nonsensical tradition. No, it doesn't.

Please join our community in prayer.  Just leave your prayer requests and pray for the requests of the community. I welcome all people to join in as the power of prayer/good energy is undeniable.

If you have any favorite prayers or passages or quotes or meditations, please send them to me to share, meeshka1@msn dot com

Please do not argue about the requests of others--you may do that elsewhere!!! If you wish to offer comments of support--please do so! If you choose to rate prayer requests, I like to use a "4" as an AMEN! If you disagree with a request, please just refrain from rating--this is a place where people need to feel they can reveal and unburden their hearts without being criticized. Should any trolls come our way, just surround them with prayer.

Prayer requests remain on the list based upon my judgment.  Removing requests is my decision.  I have no hard and fast rules--I simply act when the list seems to get too long or it seems the request no longer applies.  If I take one off which you would like to remain, please simply request it again.  If the request can be removed earlier, please let me know.  I'm sure we all would appreciate an update.

Thank you!

There's more:

I think we've done this before, but what the heck. It's the Fourth of July.

Romans 6:12-23

The passage from Romans that we just heard is actually the suggested epistle lesson from last week. I decided to hold it over to this week first because I had something to preach, but also because it speaks about freedom, which only seems appropriate for this weekend.

Martin Luther provides a helpful summary of this passage when he says

A Christian is a perfectly free lord of all, subject to none. A Christian is a perfectly dutiful servant of all, subject to all.

Having trouble getting up this morning.....how about you?  Special prayers today for those fighting the fires in California.  The Governator, because of tax cuts, cannot pay for the fighting of these fires has proposed a fee on home insurance....that still counts as a tax, Arnold.  They still can't figure out where the salmonella is coming from...ah yes--the lack of competence in this administration is stunning.  I need to get ready to go to work--hope you have a great Sunday and a wonderful, miracle filled week ahead!  Coffee is on, grab some frittata and home fries, fresh fruit too!   Let us know what you are up, what you are eating, cooking, grilling or baking--and what you have on tap for the week!