It was a good weekend. We spent Saturday just hanging out and running errands. Cath and I did a crossword puzzle at Starbucks and browsed the books at Borders. I really like lazy reading days. Then, Saturday night, we had fondue with our friends the Hacketts and watched Tina Fey host SNL.

Sunday was Cath's mom's birthday celebration. We had tickets to a show at the Steppenwolf: Harriet Jacobs. It was based on the book Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl written by Jacobs. Great play - a bit of a downer, but I think that was part of the point. It told of a 15-year-old's experience in slavery, living on a large plantation in Virginia. It did a good job portraying the exploitation of slaves, beyond just the fact of them being a piece of human property. Slaves were sexually abused and grossly mistreated by their masters.

Things like that always make me wonder what are we going to look back on one day and think, "how did we ever justify acting that way?" I mean, it's very difficult for any American today to imagine ever treating an entire race of people that way, but in every generation, there's something similar. For our parents, it was the Civil Rights movement. What will it be for us? Gay rights? Immigration rights? I tend to think, at least, that one day we will look back on our treatment of immigrants with great disdain and amazement that we could ever act that way.

Growing up in East Tennessee, in a small farming community, we would annually see a great influx of Mexican families, moving in temporarily to pick the tomatoes and strawberries in the fields. School populations would increase by 25% or more for the first semester before trickling back to a normal class size during the winter break. I can't attest to how the migrant communities were treated back then, because I wasn't very aware of what was going on (unfortunately). But, I do know how immigrant day laborers are treated in my town now.

A couple of years back, I became interested (along with the 2 I worked with at the time) in a group of men who congregated outside our local grocery store early every morning. There were dozens of latino men crowded into the small parking lot. Occasionally, a large white van would pull up (or a pick up truck), and men would rush the vehicle before it would quickly pull out of the lot. These were contractors or factory owners, picking men up to hire them out for the day. The men were told how much they'd receive in wages for a day's work, and they'd be off to work in whatever pursuit the white man in the cab had lined up.

I know from those men's stories that often, they would work a full day and only be paid half of what they were told they would get. Or nothing at all. Men and women alike were sexually harassed and abused by their supervisors. Even when they were paid, it was often far below a living wage - one that any white high school kid could earn.

Let's face it, too, our country is really built on the back of this type of cheap, disposable labor, isn't it? I believe (and hope) one day we'll look back with great disgust on how we treated human beings in these situations.

What message would you give your 15-year-old self, if you could?

Just about everyday, I check out one of my favorite Chicago websites, Gapersblock. On the righthand side, there's a column called "Fuel" that posts a question for readers to respond to every couple of days. The past few days, the question has been, "What message would you give your 15-year-old self, if you could?". Pretty interesting to read some of the responses on there. Particularly, I like...

"NOTHING is really going down on your permanent record."

"Don't lose your Garry Davis "eyeball" skateboard -- in 20 years it'll be priceless."

"breathe deeply, smile, and don't worry about being perfect."

"Oh, and there are LOTS of different people in the world. Just because you were friends with the Jewish guy and the black girl in your graduating class, doesn't make you cosmopolitan."

"No one is judging you as harshly as you think they are (and if they are, so what?)"

"All of the grandiose ideas you have for moving away, becoming an writer, and living in the middle of nowhere will manifest themselves as a wife, a good job, and a home you own. You are happier with that."

...anyway, there's more. Many are dumb, but it's an interesting thing to think about, anyway.

P.S. on the weekend

When Sheree comes to town I get to do the Chicago things I love. One of my favorite places in the world is Julius Meinl and we shared the cheese plate. yum. AND we also went to the Edward Hopper exhibit at the Art Institute. It was great and I was glad to be enjoying Chicago again.

Weekend

This has been a good weekend.

Friday night, Adam's friend from out of town was passing through Chicago, so Cath and I, Kelley, and Byron met them for dinner at Flo. I had the mussels, Cath had the shrimp quesadillas. And a pitcher of sangria all around.

Then, Sheree came to town from Seattle. She and Cath hung out all day Saturday, then we finally checked out this new bar in the neighborhood we've been wanting to try - Weegee's.


We played Greed at this table for a few hours before it got really crowded. Cool bar though - kind of a throw back to 30s-40s era bars with a nice tin ceiling, old wooden bar and little lamps at the tables.

Oh, and I learned one more game. It's a Wikipedia game. It's called Six Clicks to Jesus. To play, go to Wikipedia home page and click "Random Article" from the sidebar. Then, you've got six clicks (on clickable links within the article) to get to the Jesus entry. Pretty fun.

Who's Excited??

Happy Lenten Season

So, it's Lent. Are you giving up anything this year? I'm not. I have in the past, but for some reason, this all sort of crept up on me. (Wasn't it just Christmas like last week?!)

Tuesday night, Catherine and I had a Mardi Gras party at our small group from church. It was a lot of fun and a lot of great food! We had jambalya, gumbo, rice and beans, cornbread, bread pudding...it was a feast!

We're really enjoying our small (community) group. We'd intended to become a part of one for a while, but somehow it never worked out. I always had a night class during the time they were meeting or we were busy planning a wedding...whatever. But this year, we decided to make it a priority. So, I created my class schedule around it, and here we are. We landed on a group in the Logan Square neighborhood because it's very close to us. We meet at Bob's (our pastor) house, and every week, we do a deeper dive into the past Sunday's homily. Bob emails out a homily recap which includes passages and thoughts on those from Sunday's message. I really like taking the time to look at those passages deeper, because honestly, I sometimes miss it on Sunday mornings. Our worship service at Grace is designed in such a way that it all climaxes at communion. Then, the homily follows that, and by that time, it's sort of too late for me to take too much in.

Lately, though, we've been following a theme of union with Christ. Bob began the series by looking at the temptation of Christ. He used the passage in a way I'd never heard it communicated before. Typically, I've heard that passage as a sort of "to-do list" for fighting temptation. You know, when faced with temptation, recall scripture to fight it. Certainly that can be taken from the passage, but is that the real thrust of the story? Maybe the passage represents Christ's love for humankind and saving solidarity with fallen human beings. The 40 days and 40 nights of temptation would have evoked images of Israel's 40 years of wandering in the wilderness. During this time, Israel was often unfaithful toward God.

But where Israel was faithless, Jesus was faithful. New Testament theologian (and Chicagoan) Scot McKnight said, "He rolls back history to become what Israel was so he can undo what Israel did." This represents Christ's mission: to live faithfully before God for us so that we might live faithfully before God in and through him.

So, all that's still sinking in with me, but I like that. I like that I'm still recalling things we talked about several weeks ago and that I'm challenged by them. It's been refreshing for me.

Interesting Article

Interesting Op-Ed piece in the New York times today. Seems people are beginning to awaken to the idea that evangelicals are more than Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell but that we also care about the poor, human rights, the environment, and global issues.

So Proud!

Also, a note of pride on my friend (and former roommate Byron Clarke). He runs a Cubs blog with a few other friends call Goat Riders, and his site made it on the top Chicago websites list of Chicago Magazine! Way to go. Check out the whole list here.

Politics And Taxes

If you live in Chicago, make sure to vote on Feb. 5. Of course, you probably know who you're voting for for president, but there's a whole lot of local elections happening that day, too. In Cook County, we elect our judges, and typically, once elected, that judge stays on the bench forever. Chicagoans vote the incumbent. But, really, a lot of judges only make it on the bench because of patronage and nepotism and actually have no place ruling on matters of law.

Every election year, the Chicago Bar Association puts out an evaluation of all the running judges, grading them either HQ (Highly Qualified), Q (Qualified), or NR (Not Recommended). There's a handy pocket guide that you can even take with you when you vote. Get your copy of it here, and don't forget to vote on those! It's actually very good and very accurate.

Also, taxes are soon upon us. My beautiful and caring wife recently pointed out all the crazy characters that come out around tax time (the oversized-headed Uncle Sam, the lady in the Statue of Liberty costume) to lure people into their tax services. Poor people inevitably get ripped off by these chain tax prep places.

BUT...The Center for Economic Progress will do your taxes for free, if you qualify under their income guidelines. For families (more than one person in the home), the income max is $40,000, and for individuals, it's $15,000. AND, they're conveniently located in 39 communities throughout Chicago. So spread the word! Get a flyer for it here.