Are WE Becoming More Narcissistic?

I missed this story when it first came out:
Amish man refuses ID photo, U.S. won't let him in

BUt I heard it discussed in more detail on Tuesday morning's edition of The Current (scroll down to Part 3).

One of the arguements made is that pictures lead us to think to highly of ourselves, to become more individualistica and less community-minded. And the show went on to suggest that the increasing availability of toys like camera phones and easy photo sharing increases that problem--the teens who admitted using camera phones to check their own hair/make-up in the absence of mirror sort of proved that point.

In the same way, it can be argued that the upswing (massive upswing) in blogs is a sign of us being narcissists--after all we think that people actually want to read that stuff we write, to hear about our families, to see pictures of our kids (and yes I know they are cute kids). THe danger of course is that we can become to centered on the individual and forget our community anture (all humans are communal beings).

IM(NS)HO, individualism is one of the greatest heresies, and greatest threats, facing Western culture today. SO I ask, are we becoming more narcissistic or simply more insular? ANd what is the antidote?

Finally some Common Sense!

Found on cbc.ca:
No point using skinny models in ads, psychologist finds

It seems that resaerch has shown that average (or realistic) sized models are just as effective sales tools as the sticks we are told are the norm.

About time someone spoke some wisdom into an industry responsible for making so many people doubt themselves and feel bad.

"It's definitely a step in the right direction, but I still think we've got a long way to go before we will see greater diversity in body shapes in the media."

Of Elections and Reporting

LAst night was a first. I intentionally got myself on television.

Yesterday was election day in Ontario, municipal elections that is. THe local cable channel was broadcasting results but one of the commentators had to bow out. So I volunteered to help out.

We started just after the polls closed and came on every 15 minutes or so with updates (and time-filling commentary of course). Actually it was quite enjoyable.

Seaonal FAvourites

Sue asks:

1. What are your favourite Advent/Christmas hymns? "Tomorrow Christ is Coming" (about 2/3 of the way down the page) and "People Look East" for Advent; "Twas in the Moon of Wintertime" (The Huron Carol) and "Before the Marvel of this Night" for Christmas -- among many many others.
2. Which are your least favourite? "The First Noel" It ends up being so wailing-y during the chorus--and it goes on FOREVER!
3. Which secular seasonal songs make you want to run screaming into traffic? "The Twelve Days of Christmas" - not a fan of those repetitive verse songs at all .
4. Do you play Christmas music around the house and in the car? What are your favourite holiday CDs? Yes, more in car and office than at home (the kids want the TV on most of the time). A favourite is one that the local cable tech made for me several years ago. I had asked for help finding "6 White Boomers" for a pageant and got a full 80 minutes of mixed Christmas music (some sacred, some secular) burned on a CD -- might as well fill the whole thing right? And a couple of old favourite on cassette (originally on vinyl actually): Sunshine and Snowflakes which is a children's choir, and a MEdical Mission Sisters Christmas album (can't remember teh title offhand).

Next?

Liturgy Pieces for November 19

One of my goals for this winter is to write more liturgy pieces and rely less on "canned" stuff (not because of quality--the canned stuff is good--but as a discipline and challenge). At least one piece a week is my goal. Here are two I wrote for next Sunday using and adapting lyrics from Steven Sondheim's Our Time (a song in Merrily We Roll Along). The sermon title for next Sunday is "The Coming of Troubles", based on the eschatological stuff in Mark 13. Feel free to use in your contexts if you so desire

OPENING PRAYER
Something is stirring, shifting ground. It’s just begun.
God, we sense the beginning of something new.
Edges are blurring all around. And yesterday is done.
The world we know is fading, but what will take its place?
Feel the flow, hear what's happening: what is happening?
In the midst of turmoil we hear a voice of hope sharing words of promise.
It’s Your time, breathe it in. Worlds will change and all will win.
As a new world is born and new life arises we will celebrate both old and new. Amen.

COMMISSIONING AND BENEDICTION
Feel how it quivers, on the brink. Everything.
As we go out from our worship we go to be agents of change in a changing world.
Gives you the shivers, makes you think, there's so much stuff to sing!
We face the change by singing the old song of faith in a new key.
It’s our time, breathe it in. Worlds will change and all will win.
And we go secure in the knowledge that God who was, and is, and yet will be, goes with us always.
So be it! Amen.

On Remembering and Youth

Yesterday morning I accompanied the Legion delegation to the local schools. As I am the PAdre, they invite me each year and this year I thought it was time.

What impressed me the most were the students. All of them, even teh 4 year olds in JK, were wonderfully quiet and respectful throughout. THe various classes in the two public schools had prepared readings or songs for the assembly. AT the high school there was a power point presentation done by one of the teachers about Canada's military history. The Legion president suggested, accurately I think, that the Canadian experience in Afghanistan makes it easier to make why this day is important real for today's youth.

I have little memory of doing a lot for remembrance day in most grades. I applaud the schools for what they have done here. IT was worth giving up half my day off to do.

A Remebrance Day Prayer

God of peace and love, on this 11th day of the 11th month we once again gather to remember. We remember that in Jesus of Nazareth you have called us to be people of peace saying, “Blessed are the peacemakers” and reminding us that we are to love our neighbour and our enemy as we love ourselves.
But we also acknowledge that there are times when we as a global community fail to live out those words, times when young men and women hear the call to don the uniforms of their country and serve under their flag.
Today we give thanks for all who have chosen to serve their country. We give thanks for their bravery, their commitment, and their love.
But we know that when armies meet on the field there are always some who don’t come home.
And so we pause in the memory of those who went and did not return to mothers and wives and children left behind.

We remember battles at Ypres, and Passchendale, and Vimy Ridge in the war we were told would end all wars, battles where the blood of enemies mingled in the mud and water of France and Belgium.
And we remember those who fell in the war that came a scarce generation later. And again young men died in places like Hong Kong, and Ortona, and Dieppe, and Juno Beach, and in the Netherlands.
We remember all who fell and were buried far from home, or who sank to a watery grave in the cold Atlantic.

Then as the years past the roles changed and we sent our best to help keep the peace in places like Cyprus, and the Golan Heights, and Cambodia. And still some died and were buried.
And now, in these last few months we find that our young have returned to the battlefield, only to have 42 of them return in a coffin carried solemnly to a waiting aircraft.

God, whose hope for the world is peace, on this day we not only remember the fallen of Canada who lie buried under a military tombstone. We remember also the fallen of Germany, and Japan, and France, and Australia. Or Italians, and native Afghanis, and English. This day we honour all who die as a result of humanity’s common failing to live in the peace you have hoped for all these millennia.

God, we pray too for those who returned from battle forever changed by what they had seen. For those who bore, and still bear, wounds of body and soul. In particular we remember those from within this Legion community who have died since the last time we gathered in this way: (read names from bulletin).

And now, God of love, as we have remembered and honoured, we prepare to go back into our everyday lives. May the remembering we have done here today reawaken and strengthen our commitment to work for peace, true peace. Help us to remember that peace will never truly come from a gun barrel but from the depths of our hearts. Help us remember our calling to be peacemakers at home and abroad, in the big things and in the small. And may we never forget the cost that has already been paid.

God of peace that surpasses all understanding, we pray our remembrances and our hopes in the name of Christ, the Prince of Peace, who taught his friends to pray by saying together:
Our Father, who art in heaven…Amen.

Red and Blue and Purple--OH MY!

Those of us who are in the United States have just been through quite a topsy-turvy election. During the campaign we heard a fair amount about red states and blue states, when in fact most of us live in some shade of purple. And so... a lighter look at those confounding colors:

1. Favorite red food DOes ketchup count as a food? If not lets go with tomato soup, a comfort food.
2. Tell us about the bluest body of water you've ever seen in person. THe Caribbean come to mind. BUt then there are the glacial lakes in the rockies that are a truly striking blue-green due to the suspended rock flour.
3. It's movie rental time: Blue Planet, The Color Purple, or Crimson Tide? Um, none of the above.
4. What has you seeing red these days? Oh so many options, depending on the day. THe high level of hatred that is still out there would be a generic cover-all though.
5. What or who picks you up when you're feeling blue? Chocolate, cuddles from the girls, a walk with the dog, chocolate, cuddles from the girls.

Oh Yeah, This Will Be Popular

TORONTO — Ontario residents trimmed their hydro use this year but people should be forced to pay more to run their appliances to spur further energy savings, the province’s chief conservation officer said Wednesday.

ANd he is right. Later in the article he points out how high gas prices got people starting to rethink vehicle choices. The bottom line is that cost drives what we choose to do all too often.

BUt in a time when this part of the province inststs that high power costs are killing the economy a, totally justified, call for higher prices will not read well.

And can we ever pay the true cost of producing power? What cost gets assessed to changed waterflows, or smokestack emissions, or nuclear waste management? HOw do you measure those costs?

Introducing...the Squirrel!!!

Here is the squirrel video mentioned in yesterday's post.