I get an email every morning from Sam Davidson at Change Is Cool. I often think of unsubscribing, but there are many times where his email, which usually hits my inbox at around 5:15am, is the thing that lets me know I’ve missed another night of sleep. In other words, it’s become a part of my routine.
The times I do think of unsubscribing are mornings like this one. It’s already Monday, which is bad enough. Then I’ve got a sick husband and other trivial gripes and groans. Nothing earth-shatteringly blogworthy but all of it very Mondayish and unappealing. So I don’t like it when my email tries to castrate the eight inches of joy I get in my life.
The purpose of CiC is to let you know the little ways in which you can ‘make a difference’ in the world. Most of the tips are harmless–you know, they’re like those little public service announcements on the television where people tell you to use reusable shopping bags and CF lightbulbs. Ain’t no big thing.
But this morning I am told that Thanksgiving burns a gajillion barrels of oil what with the trucking turkeys from farm to forehead bullet to feast. I am further advised that the eating of meat is another scourge upon mother earth and will be the death of not only us but our kids and our kids’ kids as well. I’m supposed to have a Vegan Thanksgiving–something that sounds as unlikely and ridiculous as a Virgin Birth. In fact, I pretty much view Vegan Thanksgiving the same way I view the Virgin Birth. Someone has done it once and thus the exception already exists to prove the rule. So I’m sticking with the old-fashioned ways of doing things. I like my sex and my thanksgiving both meaty and hot.
Besides, I have no idea how the vegetables in the Vegan Thanksgiving make it to the table without burning the same gajillion gallons of oil in transport (or some large fraction thereof.)
Well, I guess I strayed far from my thesis statement as advanced in my title–which is this.
I happen to think that it is cool to gather with loved ones, prepare a meal in honour of both them and the God who makes it all happen and just bask in the glow of love. It may not save the earth but it does remind you of why it needs saving in the first place. For the continuation of love.
As always the libertarian in me says that you all can feel free to do whatever. I’m making a 13.5lb turkey, portabella stuffing, sweet potatoes in a buttercream caramel glaze, real mashed potatoes glistening with butter and perhaps even one of those green bean cassaroles with the crunchy onion dealies. Oh, and dinner rolls.
Cool.
The Pharisees never really go away.
Our generation’s version does not wear ornamental robes, but CPC t-shirts and Coexist bumper stickers are nevertheless subtle demands of deference to outward righteousness.
I appreciate the yoke no more than Jesus did.
Being on the front lines, I’ve seen the difference between service out of duty and service out of overflowing joy.
Give me joy.
You know, a person could go out and bag a wild gobbler during turkey season with a 12 gauge. While that would be much more “carbon neutral,” it most certainly wouldn’t deal with the real issue here, the ability to indulge in smug self-congratulatory back patting.
Portabella stuffing doesn’t sound all that traditional.
Oh, how I wish that when you Christians argue with each other you’d leave us out of it. Could you maybe find some insults that don’t refer back to Jews as the template for badness?
NM, please.
Am I not allowed to call someone a Doubting Thomas? Or a Judas? Do I have to call someone a Brutus instead so I don’t have someone hinting that I’m engaging in anti-Semitism? When discussing those who use the church to turn a gross profit, I can’t refer to them among fellow believers as “money changers at the temple?”
Does that mean I am limited to only positive allusions from the Bible?
I can call a strong man a Samson, but am forbidden to call a conniving woman a Delilah?
I guess I can call a wise king a Soloman, but am forbidden to call an evil one an Ahab?
Is calling a radical a Zealot also forbidden, or does it depend on the Zealots’s cause?
Jim, it’s just regular stuffing with portabellas instead of other mushrooms. The portabellas give it a nice dusky undertone that blends well with the buttery top notes.
Nm I think I missed what I said derogatory about the Jews. I am sorry to have done it though.
I don’t think it was you Kat, I think she was referring to Slart.
Besides, I have no idea how the vegetables in the Vegan Thanksgiving make it to the table without burning the same gajillion gallons of oil in transport (or some large fraction thereof.)
I’m NOT arguing for anybody giving up meat or changing their holiday traditions in the slightest. But the reason the vegetables in the Vegan Thanksgiving don’t burn the same gajillion gallons of oil (as the meat) is because whatever fuel is used in transporting the vegetables is also already used in the meat industry process before it even gets to the meat.
Simply put, the vegetation eaten by the turkey has already been grown and shipped to the turkey farmer (unless you go out and shoot your own wild turkey instead of visiting the supermarket). And because the turkey has been using that vegetation as fuel to grow and develop, it takes alot more vegetation being transported to the turkey to get the same nutritional value (in the turkey meat) than if that vegetation was transported directly to your table (ie. To over-simplify a bit, if you eat a vegetable, you get all the energy it contains. If a turkey eats vegetables and then you eat the turkey, you are only getting a tiny fraction of the energy that was in each of the original vegetables). So by the time the turkey is ready to be slaughtered, there’s ALREADY been more fuel and other resources used than would have been the case if you ate the vegetables in the first place. The you have to tack on the energy used in transporting the the turkey to slaughter, and then to your supermarket, and then to your home.
Lee: Thomas, Judas, Delilah, Ahab — they’re individuals. The characteristics you want to condemn are particular to them. Go to town, if you want to use them as metaphors. But if, when you are attempting to condemn a Christian for being a bad Christian, you call her/him an observant Jew, and throw in some references to the yoke of Jewish Law as a criticism of the suggestions s/he is making, you might want to think about the implications of what you are saying.
NM, this is pretty much what Slarti was referring to:
1) Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples: 2) “The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat. 3) So you must obey them and do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach. 4) They tie up heavy loads and put them on men’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them. 5) “Everything they do is done for men to see: They make their phylacteries wide and the tassels on their garments long; 6) they love the place of honor at banquets and the most important seats in the synagogues; 7) they love to be greeted in the marketplaces and to have men call them ‘Rabbi.’ Matthew chapter 23.
So NM, not an observant Jew, but a Jew that “Everything they do is done for men to see: They make their phylacteries wide and the tassels on their garments long.”
Your problem isn’t with Slarti, but with Jesus and Matthew. Both Jews, by the way.
So please, get off your cross.
(Or is any reference to crucifixion forbidden as well because some may take it as an subtly insidious reminder of Jews as “Christ killers.”)
Lee, my problem certainly starts with the writer of Matthew, who was competing for influence with Pharisees (i.e. the founders of Rabbinic Judaism, a strong group within Judaism at the time and the basic form of Judaism practiced today) and who therefore is delighted to turn a criticism of some members of the group into a blanket condemnation. (And to somehow forget that Jesus is quoting Hillel, one of the most influential figures within it, all over the place.) It continues with Christians today who are happy to continue to use the name of the founders of Judaism as one of the nastiest insults they can use towards each other. You or Slarti certainly have the right to use that phrase, and to tell each other how my observances are a heavy yoke, as often as you like. But I equally have the right to point out to you what you are doing, and not to let you off the hook when you say that isn’t what you mean; that is what the words you are using mean, and if you don’t mean them then maybe you need to find some other words to use.