Michael Jackson

I don't have a lot to say about Michael Jackson's death, but I feel compelled to throw in my two cents.

The fact that Michael Jackson was a celebrity doesn't make his death more tragic. Yes, he was a gifted musician and yes, his music touched many people in profound ways. But you didn't lose your best friend when he died, unless your name is Janet Jackson. His death was a reason for his family and friends to get worked up over and to grieve deeply. It is not something for you to treat like as a personal loss just because you loved the Thriller video.

However, and more importantly, the fact that Michael Jackson was a celebrity doesn't make his death fair game for snide comments and tasteless jokes. A man died. Yes, a man who had his share of problems, but also a man who had parents and siblings and kids. His death isn't a punchline just because you and he never shared coffee. Regardless of whether or not you watched the memorial (I did not) or how you felt about it and all the coverage surrounding it, that last moment was of a small girl overwhelmed by life without her dad. That's a tragic moment. It isn't funny. It isn't tantalizing. It's just very sad and very real.

Tim Keller On Hell

This is worth a listen. Especially for those who consider themselves done with the subject of hell.

Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front

Been two weeks visiting family and friends throughout Chicago and Michigan. More on that soon enough, but for now...

Love the quick profit, the annual raise,
vacation with pay. Want more
of everything ready-made. Be afraid
to know your neighbors and to die.
And you will have a window in your head.
Not even your future will be a mystery
any more. Your mind will be punched in a card
and shut away in a little drawer.
When they want you to buy something
they will call you. When they want you
to die for profit they will let you know.
So, friends, every day do something
that won't compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.
Denounce the government and embrace
the flag. Hope to live in that free
republic for which it stands.
Give your approval to all you cannot
understand. Praise ignorance, for what man
has not encountered he has not destroyed.

Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millenium. Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.
Say that the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.

Put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build under the trees
every thousand years.
Listen to carrion - put your ear
close, and hear the faint chattering
of the songs that are to come.
Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts.
So long as women do not go cheap
for power, please women more than men.
Ask yourself: Will this satisfy
a woman satisfied to bear a child?
Will this disturb the sleep
of a woman near to giving birth?

Go with your love to the fields.
Lie down in the shade. Rest your head
in her lap. Swear allegiance
to what is nighest your thoughts.
As soon as the generals and the politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail, the way
you didn't go. Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.

-Wendell Berry

What's Going On

We might be better equipped to know what's going on if we stopped bracketing religion as an entity unrelated and somehow divorced from our everyday choices. We could recognize that a Mercedes commercial, for example, is a call to worship. -from The Sacredness of Questioning Everything by David Dark

Motto of the Kingdom Coming

Create the condition you describe. -San Francisco Diggers Motto