27 | February | 2019 | betsybeadhead

Beecroft, Julian Lost Cities: Beauty in Desolation

Bonnett, Alastair Unruly Places: Lost Spaces, Secret Cities, and Other Inscrutable Geographies

cummings, e e The poem titled [i carry your heart with me(i carry it in] I especially like this poem as sung by Michael Hedges on his album “Taproot”

Goldsworthy, Andy Andy Goldsworthy: A Collaboration with Nature Anything by Andy Goldsworthy speaks to the nature of impermanence. This Scottish artist creates his work with whatever he finds on his walks in nature. He photographs them, and then they return to their natural state.

Harmon, Katharine You Are Here: Personal Geographies and Other Maps of the Imagination

Houston, Jeanne Wakatsuki Farewell to Manzanar: A True Story of Japanese American Experience During and After the World War II Internment

Hughes, T. John Apparitions: Architecture That Has Disappeared From Our Cities This book overlaps “then” with “now”, showing ghost outlines of buildings that were demolished to make way for new ones.

Jones, Diana Wynne Howl’s Moving Castle This is part of a trilogy. This has also been made into a movie by the famous Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki. It features a house that walks around.

Miéville, China The City & the City An intriguing speculative fiction story of two cities that exist in the same physical space but have entirely different cultures, languages, and habits.

Rives, T.M. Secret New York – An Unusual Guide. Local Guides by Local People This has some nice examples of pocket parks and other overlooked negative spaces.

I want a church that gets upset and riled up about homelessness instead of homosexuality. I want a church that makes sure people have a place to sleep, instead of caring who they sleep with.

Homosexuality isn’t the church’s concern. Helping people is.

So many churches don’t want to include gay people, for fear of losing their members. They don’t want to upset them. Have you ever wondered why?

I like that Jesus was totally fine with upsetting the status quo. He pointed out people’s hypocrisy all the time. He was fine with having just a few people who “got” him. Part of that is because he wasn’t interested in money at all.

So many churches would fold if they started telling the truth and insisting their members not be bigots. So they say the “nice” thing instead of the right thing, out of fear. But perfect love casts out fear – as long as it is love of God and not of money.

“Thoughts and prayers” have never been enough. Jesus acted. He was hands-on when it came time to help people. The church is called to do much more than “love Jesus” – we are called to take his place in healing and reconciling.

I wonder how much of the decision of the United Methodist Church to not allow gay people to be ordained was influenced by what happened when the Episcopal Church installed an openly gay bishop. That divided the church and lots of people left.

I like to ask people to quote from anything Jesus said about homosexuality – – – and they can’t answer, because he didn’t say anything about it. He said a lot about loving and serving people, and a lot about not judging, and nothing about homosexuality. That indicates what our focus should and shouldn’t be on.

How about when everybody is housed, and nobody is hungry or addicted or imprisoned – then we can discuss who has sex with who. (Translation, we will never have that discussion, because the poor will always be with us). Our job is to show love, period.