choice

David Vanderveen 3-14-2014

A man holds an XS Energy Drink, which the author was selling, in Ukraine. Photo by David Vanderveen

Intending it as a compliment, a friend described my work in in Kiev last weekend as selling sodas in Ukraine. 

Hes right. I was in the embattled city to represent a company I helped co-found and our Southern California energy drink brand in meetings with more than 10,000 Ukrainian independent business owners. 

It was as simple as that and also so much more. 

Like Bono, I believe free enterprise is a cure for all sorts of poverty  economic, political, and spiritual.

Door hanger, PondPond/ Shutterstock.com

Door hanger, PondPond/ Shutterstock.com

We are offered a significant choice, namely between two ways of being human. The difference between logical necessities or physical necessities and vital necessities is made clear in that in the latter we have the possibility of refusing ‘to turn away from a disaster’ – we can in fact choose a lesser way of being human over a fuller way. What is at stake in the necessity of cry is one’s own humanity, the meaning of one’s own existence, and to turn away from crying is to turn away from decision and responsibility. This is to deny the very possibility of becoming genuinely human.

Charlie Walter 11-13-2012
Photo: Grocery shopping, Kzenon / Shutterstock.com

Photo: Grocery shopping, Kzenon / Shutterstock.com

This starts as a question: What can I do now, as a citizen?

On Nov. 6, the answer was clear. Vote. Vote. Vote.

Well and done. Four years ago, too, I voted in November on Election Day, with a box of Fruity Cheerios under one arm.

In the weeks leading up to the election, my civic heart was tuned well. Watch the debates. Discuss. Then vote, because, actually, the pressure is quite enormous. Vote or Die. The Facebook news feed can crush you, flatten you into voting, which is all well and good. I can be for that. Civic pressure.

But come Nov. 7, the pressure released. The civic duty was fulfilled. And my question remains, sincerely. What can I do now?

I ask the question; one, because I do not know the answer; two, because I have an entirely different answer. So first, the question stands: What can I do now, as a citizen?

Christian Piatt 7-23-2012

I’ve been a fan of Chick-fil-A for a long time. Their food is always great, their service is impeccable (almost to the point of being a little creepy), and the restaurants are squeaky clean.

It’s not every day that you can enjoy a fast food restaurant where you actually feel like you’re putting something reasonably good for you in your body. Well, at least not as bad as some.

But the point is, I have always liked them. And if I like them, my wife, Amy is practically a Chik-fil-A disciple.

We’ve planned meals on the road around their locations. Sure, I’ve known Chik-fil-A was a Christian-based organization with some values that leaned farther right than my own, but I respected their business model and ethic. Plus, I’m used to having fellow Christians to my right.

And then I saw this video:

http://youtu.be/MlzQFChlltk

Tom Ehrich 2-15-2012
Photo by Daniel Acker/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Customer examines myriad soft drink choices in a NJ Wal-Mart. Photo by Daniel Acker/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Imagine a Catholic Church that stopped catering to its tiny cadre of old male bishops and heard instead the cries of its people. Or a fundamentalist movement that stopped defending its franchise by nonsensical attacks on evolution and modernity, and instead took Scripture seriously.

Imagine a conservative Christian movement that dropped its relentless assault on women's rights and instead sought a fresh vision of family and values. Or a progressive movement that listened to people, rather than lecturing them.

Too many "providers" — in politics, business and religion — come across as having a low opinion of their constituents. People tend to be good judges of what matters to them. Voters know this recession better than their would-be leaders seem to know it. Believers seem to take their faith more seriously than those institutions that seek to enroll them as members.

Tim King is Sojourners' Communcations Director

Tim King is Sojourners' Communcations Director

If the GOP primaries were like Old Country Buffet, I’d be happy.

Think about it. There wouldn’t be so much money involved and we could pick only the stuff we liked and ignore  the rest.

And of course, everyone knows the basic rules of smorgasbord grazing, such as you can’t get decent sushi in the Midwest or proper social conservatives from Massachusetts.

Jack Palmer 11-17-2011
Harvard University's Annenberg Hall. Photo Copyright 2004 Jacob Rus via Wiki Com

Harvard University's Annenberg Hall. Photo Copyright 2004 Jacob Rus via Wiki Commons.

There is something fundamentally wrong with our education system when the draws of a huge salary and big bonuses consistently trump the aspirations and dreams that were front and center in our lives just four years earlier. Debts, a lack of job opportunities in other fields, your basic standard-issue panic — or maybe a simple absence of imagination can take hold and send us running into the arms of the recruiter with the flashy suit, a Hollywood smile and promise of a better life.

As Terkel reminds us: “Young people will continue to go work in the financial sector as long as its pay is disproportionately higher than alternative careers. It's basic human nature: Follow the money.”

But what would it look like if we didn’t follow the money? What if Wall Street paid no more than schools or hospitals?

What would our economy look like if these leading young minds chose not to work for big banks and consultants, but instead were the teachers that helped turn failing schools around, the innovators and engineers who were designing products that would create thousands of new jobs?

What needs to be done so that the finest members of the 2012 graduating class head to Main Street instead of Wall Street?

Cathleen Falsani 10-03-2011

In his column last week, Sojourners chief Jim Wallis talked about his frustration with the perennial misuse of the word "evangelical" by various media to describe folks and ideas that, in his view, and that of many of us who self-describe as evangelicals, don't bear any resemblance to what we understand that term to actually mean.

Below is a compilation of recent media reports where the word "evangelical" is invoked. When you read these, evangelical brothers and sisters, do you recognize yourself in how the word is used and defined? Or does it ring false to you and your understanding of what "evangelical" really and truly means?

Cathleen Falsani 9-23-2011

Screen shot 2011-09-23 at 1.52.01 PMThe Slavery Footprint campaign launched Thursday (Sept. 22), which also happened to have been the 149th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, with the goal of personalizing "the issue of modern slavery by providing people with an assessment of just how much their lifestyle depends on forced labor -- and the steps they can immediately take to help end it."

By following this LINK I was able to plug in some basic information about myself and my lifestyle -- where do I live, do I own or rent, how many children do I have, have many diamonds/leather shoes/electronic gizmos do I own, what are my eating habits, what's in my medicine cabinet, etc., -- and in just a few minutes received the upsetting news that, according to the Slavery Footprint campaigns diagnostics, 52 slaves "work for me."

Austin Carty 9-22-2011
I wrote yesterday of Peter Rollins' new book Insurrection.
Jim Rice 6-01-2011
The ongoing nuclear crisis in Japan has caused considerable concern among Wall Street types, many of whom had already voted with their wallets against the financial feasibility of nuclear power by
Elizabeth Palmberg 5-31-2011

Two weeks ago, McDonald's shareholders voted down a shareholder resolution asking the corporation to study how its advertising to children contributes to widespread childhood obesity. The resolution was sponsored by the Sisters of St. Francis of Philadelphia, along with a Catholic hospital network and other institutional investors.

Ernesto Tinajero 4-25-2011
Ah, the voice of Ayn Rand from St. Petersburg, Russia rises again with the opening of a new movie based on her novel, Atlas Shrugged.
Jim Wallis 4-14-2011

It is reported that Congressman Paul Ryan makes every member of his staff read philosopher Ayn Rand, the shame

In the tradition of the church, the season of Lent was observed through prayer, fasting, and almsgiving.
Julie Clawson 3-03-2011
I spent this past weekend in an experience that gave me more hope in the church than I have felt in a long time.
Jim Wallis 3-01-2011

Dear Mr. Speaker,

 

Nadia Bolz-Weber 2-21-2011
Sometimes when I'm bored I kind of like to fill in sound effects that I think the crowd listening to Jesus might have responded with.
Eugene Cho 2-03-2011
Hi everyone. I'm currently in Washington, D.C.