I've heard several people criticizing the strikers, saying that in the end, they'll all lose their jobs and that they're being greedy as the highest paid employees in the area. But Rob and I are still left with the question: why should a company that is consistently turning a profit (even in a flailing automotive industry) be allowed to cut its manufacturing employees' pay in half? Are the CEOs, who could certainly thrive on half their salary more than an hourly worker could, willing to make the same sacrifice if such budget cuts are indeed necessary? Twelve weeks of $200/week strike pay and standing at the plant's entrances in all kinds of weather doesn't look like greed to me. It looks like a desperate attempt not to allow corporate executives to send us back to the early days of the Industrial Revolution.

In his book Second Nature, Michael Pollan writes touchingly about a hedge of lilac and forsythia at his childhood home on Long Island, N.Y. To the adult eye, the hedges were simply flush against the fence. But he had his own secret garden, a space between the hedge and the fence. "To a four-year-old, though, the space made by the vaulting branches of a forsythia is as grand as the inside of a cathedral, and there is room enough for a world between a lilac and a wall."

"There is room enough for a world between a lilac and a wall." Beautiful, both as a turn of phrase and as a practice.

I'd prefer it--and would have less of a problem paying taxes--if my money were going toward things like affordable, clean mass transit systems and health care for all U.S. citizens. Or toward alleviating poverty and hunger in our country and around the world. Or toward sustainable energy. Or toward beautiful public spaces. And the list could go on ...

Such laughter has been welcome in the middle of some overwhelming months of intense, but good work, including our efforts to publish a new road map on faith and food as a follow up to Do Justice. I suppose both of the examples above would indicate how not to be faithful with food...but certainly how to be faithful with a scanner, a little HTML and a sense of humor.

Click below to read the article and, if you've got a minute, I'd love to hear your feedback.

• worldview


• commodified

we've found Trek's Navigator 100 to be a great choice for this type of riding, with sturdy and versatile racks for carrying up to 50 lbs. worth of laptops, groceries, books, potluck dishes, etc. we ride on the street to protect walking pedestrians, but also to hopefully make the streets a safer place for cyclists to be by encouraging cars to be aware of us (though I wouldn't go so far as the cyclist I saw the other day cutting in front of a car in the left turn lane at a red light).

one of my particular issues has been attempting to bike in professional clothing, particularly skirts. obviously some skirts won't be practical for biking (if they're too narrow and inflexible that I can't even get my leg over the bike, for example). but in more bike-progressive places, women find ways to maintain their fashion aesthetic while honoring their desire to cultivate the earth and their neighborhoods. now I wouldn't necessarily call myself a fashion diva (though a diva in another context, for sure), but this site was helpful. and here's a quote from a blog I found in my research that makes me want to live in Copenhagen:

"Social Documentary in High Heels", is one way this blog has been described. It's about bicycle culture in Copenhagen, Denmark. 35% of the population - 550,000 people - ride their bike to work or school each day. Bicycles are such an integral part of our culture and there are many aesthetic aspects on the streets at any given moment.

and here's some advice that delights me: "Be smart. Be aware. Be stylish. Stay awkward."

yes, stay awkward. you already look kind of dorky in your helmet, but awkward is necessarily 'in' in the biking world. I'm already making plans to sew some triangular 'earmuffs' that will velcro into my helmet as a means of preventing my ears from aching on cold morning rides.

and yet another step--or should I say: ride--in the right direction for me will hopefully be biodegradable vegetable-based bike chain oil. may seem a bit obsessive, but in the effort to move away from fossil fuels as a means of getting around in a more sustainble way, it doesn't really make sense to slather my chain in a petroleum product.

I must confess that biking introduces a new category of consumerism with all of the gadgets that are available, but if I'm going to drool over something I don't have, might as well be fenders...

and looking ahead, the issue after "Storytelling" will be "Let's Get Together 5" (deadline: 9/14, publishing: 9/21). each September, we celebrate our publishing anniversary with an issue on community, in the broad sense of the term. this year--I can hardly believe it--we celebrate FIVE years of bi-weekly publishing. here are links to the previous issues, just to give you an idea of what we've done in the past and to get your mind turning on submissions for the upcoming installation:

2002

2003

2005

2006

let me know if you have any questions or suggestions (kirstinvgr [at] cultureisnotoptional [dot] com). you can also join the writer's e-mail list (and more) here.

• what is the role of storytelling in your immediate family? what do you hope to teach your kids about storytelling?
• are you good at making up stories? why or why not?
• think of some of the stories you've heard your parents or grandparents tell over and over again--why those particular stories? what are some of your favorites? what have they taught you about who they are and what they love?
• is there a story from your life that you wish had turned out differently? re-tell the story however you like.
• what are some of your favorite short stories or novels? what is your response to people who gravitate toward reading non-fiction because they want to 'learn something' when they read?
• how do we learn how to tell stories?
• what is your experience with unique ethnic qualities of storytelling? what cultures are you fascinated by in this respect?
• whom do you think of as being a particularly good storyteller?
• what has been your experiences with radio shows like This American Life? Vinyl Cafe? Prairie Home Companion? others?
• documentary films seem to be becoming more popular--why? what is the value of these films compared to fiction films?
• what is the value of 'true' stories compared to 'created' stories?

we camped at Ely Lake Campground, which is a county park located on some very sandy seasonal roads. at times, it felt like we were driving on snow. there were (quite stinky) pit toilets and a hand pump for water and some rambunctious raccoons who actually OPENED our cooler on the second night, which we had stupidly left out. but it was pretty and quiet and really cheap--only $10 a night. we had a whole camping loop to ourselves...

The next issue of catapult is called "Getting Even" (7/27), which will be the last one before our August publishing break. "Getting Even" will focus on revenge and forgiveness. Here are some questions I sent out to our writer's e-mail list:

• Who in your life models forgiveness to you? Who models an inability to forgive?


• What makes revenge intuitive and satisfying? What makes it unsatisfying?


• When have you experience forgiveness in a memorable way, either as an individual or as part of a community?


• What aspects of our culture and systems encourage vengeance over forgiveness?


• South Africa has provided a model for communal reconciliation. What are your thoughts on this model? What other models have you observed, whether on micro or macro scales?


• When has it been difficult for you to forgive? When has it been difficult to be forgiven?


• Do revenge fantasies serve any kind of redemptive purpose?

If you would like to join the writer's e-mail list to get regular updates on publishing dates, deadlines and topics, you can do so here. Don't worry--it's easy to unsubscribe if the list isn't what you thought it would be.

• Hard-boiled eggs from Heritage Acres in Carson City, Michigan
• Mom's blueberry coffee cake made with fresh blueberries from the farmer's market
• Spiced apples with currants and toasted walnuts, sweetened with maple syrup
• Pomegranate green iced sun tea with lime

• Bova Bakery Italian Herb crust
• Red sauce
• Artichoke hearts
• Pickled Garlic that a friend brought back for us from Gilroy, CA, garlic capital of the world
• Monterrey Jack cheese
• Red currants

• Bova Bakery Green Pepper/Tomato/Onion Focaccio
• Garlic butter bechamel sauce (recipe below)
• Farmer's market green pepper, asparagus and yellow squash sauteed in olive oil and balsamic vinegar
• Fresh tomatoes
• Dill cheese from the farmer's market
• Scallions and spinach from our CSA share

• What subjects were taboo in your family as you were growing up? How did these taboos affect you? Do you now avoid those topics yourself, have a strong desire to talk about them or something in between?
• When have you felt 'censored', either by yourself or by others?
• The description for this issue references the 'girl crush'. What is your experience with this subject? Or if you're male, is there such a thing as a 'man crush'? Should we be talking about these issues and if so, how? What would be the benefit?
• When is it appropriate NOT to talk about something? When do we talk too much?
• How should parents decide what their kids are ready to see, hear and discuss? Should kids be 'sheltered'?
• How do we set our own boundaries for what we are able to see, hear and discuss?
• How does the church (universal and/or particular) hurt itself and its members by staying away from certain subjects?
• When have you experienced comfort, revelation, etc. because someone (or a community) was willing to talk about something you'd been keeping to yourself?
• How does the issue of 'inappropriate subject matter' relate to art? For example, what is the line between pornography and erotica? The line between horror and 'torture porn'?

Often when we read--and biblical commentaries tend to be a great case study for this--we imagine that the text or the language of the book is something we have to get through in order to recover the author's original intention. In other words, the text becomes a hurdle that we have to jump over--or a curtain we need to pass through--in order to get to what is behind the text, such as the author's idea or the referent (the thing to which the text points). Sometimes we concede that such a process requires that bothersome thing called interpretation--as when we're reading a poem or C.S. Lewis's more allegorical works. Then we concede that there is a kind of code that needs to be broken in order to understand the text. But most of the time, we don't think we interpret; we simply read. In these cases we assume that the text under consideration is clear and therefore doesn't require interpretation. We might need some background or context, but once those pieces are in place, we don't need to interpret. Instead, the text takes on a kind of transparency so that we can simply see what it means. ... When I read the newspaper, I don't need to 'interpret'; I simply need to read. And most of us think that when we read the Bible, the same is true: yes, some passages are difficult, or the poetry of the Song of Solomon might throw us for a loop, but if we're reading Paul's Epistle to the Romans, things are pretty clear. We simply need to provide a commentary that gives us the background and context. Such a commentary is like a cloth that cleans the text to grant it the transparency that makes interpretation unnecessary. ... For Derrida, this is a naive assumption because it fails to recognize that we never really get 'behind' or 'past' texts; we never get beyond the realm of interpretation to some kind of kingdom of pure reading. We are never able to step out of our skins.

If the claim that there is nothing outside the text means that everything is interpretation, then the gospel would only be an interpretation. If it is only an interpretation, then that means there might be other interpretations. And if the gospel is only an interpretation and there could be other interpretations, we can't know if the gospel is true."

There is a level of interpretive difference that concerns fundamental issues such as what it means to be authentically human and how we fit into the cosmos. In this respect, for instance, Christianity and Buddhism have very different interpretations about the nature of reality. However, we need to consider these as deep differences in interpretation rather than glibly supposing that the Christian account is objectively true and then castigating the Buddhist account for being merely an interpretation. In fact, both are interpretations; neither is objectively true. ... To assert that our interpretation is not an interpretation but objectively true often translates into the worst kinds of imperial and colonial agendas, even within a pluralist culture. Acknowledging the interpreted status of the gospel should translate into a certain humility in our public theology. It should not, however, translate into skepticism about the truth of the Christian confession. If the interpretive status of the gospel rattles our confidence in its truth, this indicates that we remain haunted by the modern desire for objective certainty. But our confidence rests not on objectivity but rather on the convictional power of the Holy Spirit (which isn't exactly objective); the loss of objectivity, then, does not entail a loss of kerygmatic boldness about the truth of the gospel. Deconstruction's recognition that everything is interpretation opens a space of questioning--a space to call into question the received and dominant interpretations that often claim not to be interpretations at all. As such, deconstruction is interested in interpretations that have been marginalized and sidelined, activating voices that have been silenced. This is the constructive, yea prophetic, aspect of Derrida's deconstruction: a concern for justice by being concerned about dominant, status quo interpretations that silence those who see differently. Thus, from its inception, deconstruction has been, at root, ethical--concerned for the paradigmatic marginalized described by the Old Testament as 'the widow, the orphan, and the stranger.' To put it differently: Wall Street and Washington both want us to think that their rendering of the world is 'just the way things are.' Deconstruction, but showing the way in which everything is interpretation, empowers us to question the interpretations of trigger-happy presidents and greedy CEOs--in a way not unlike the prophets' questioning of the dominant interpretations of the world. As such, we are free to interpret the world differently.