So I was sitting around this morning and thinking about all the junk I have in my life, and the need for me to rid myself of all the junk or at least make better use of the what I have so that others can benefit from my intense amount of possessions. I have been preaching for the last four or so years about the need for humanity, and particularly the American citizenry, to ween ourselves from our buying habits and to take the rest of the world into account when we make a socio-religious-political action in the form of buying things. If I really believe that I am to follow only Christ, than I must recognize that some things hinder me from this call and some things move me towards it. So here is what I propose: I want to catalog everything that I have. I will put up thumbnails of all my stuff on the Anti-Stuff Campaign page and you, dear reader, can let me know what you think. This isn’t about bragging, in fact it is just the opposite. I am at times ashamed of how much I have accumulated, even since I left college (five years ago I must add). I got this idea from a few different things, a personal life inventory where you try to limit yourself to 500 things, a food blog by my brother in law (which would make for an interesting commentary on faith and diet, but maybe some other time), and the need for some sort of translucence in my own life. If you don’t think I need it, tell me about it. If you want to borrow it, just ask me. I hope to begin a conversation and open accountability between the things must valuable to us, if we defined it by our actions and not just our words. So check out the page and let the conversation begin.

So it’s been a matter of three months or so and the world and life are a changin’. I just wanted to let everyone know that I have updated a few pages with some pics and text, and even a video in the garden section. Just thought you might want to check it out.

So I know that this blog looks like so many others that were one and done. I want to make it clear that just because there is nothing new doesn’t mean it is dead. Finals week is upon us at Eastern Mennonite Seminary, and that means all the procrastination that has gone on up till now must come to an end. Hopefully I will be posting some of the work I’m doing right now up for further comment, most likely on the Essays page of the site. Just a trailer: One piece I’m working on is a conversation between marks of New Monasticism and Anabaptism. Currently I’m working with the first mark, Relocation to the abandoned places of the empire. I’m also working on some inter-religious dialogue between secular Judaism and Christianity. Should be fun. I’ll be writing soon, so check back in a week or so. Until then, don’t bother.

Over the past weekend I had the pleasure to experience a global phenomenon known as CouchSurfing. CouchSurfing is a project that was introduced to me by a friend and the day after he told me about it I signed up. And waited. I know from my website profile that I signed up on December 8. Today is April 1. My first surfer left yesterday on her way home to LA.  I will let them state their own mission: 

 CouchSurfing seeks to internationally network people and places, create educational exchanges, raise collective consciousness, spread tolerance and facilitate cultural understanding. As a community we strive to do our individual and collective parts to make the world a better place, and we believe that the surfing of couches is a means to accomplish this goal.               

The mission of CouchSurfing is noble. It moves with our historical context that we have ease of travel, money to do it, and the networking capabilities to enable movement around the world. Education happens as people travel and see how others live. And although I believe the concept of tolerance is to be challenged for theological reasons (see Paul Griffiths Proselytizing for Tolerance in First Things), I think that to be interested in and have a concern for ideas, opinions, and practices that are foreign to my own is generally a good thing. So does CouchSurfing really facilitate cultural understanding? In one word (and one experience to base that on): yes. 

If our identity originates in God’s identity, then we are also designed to seek connection with others, even those who are “strange” to us… Because we serve a God who welcomes true “strangers” in humanity, we are called - and are able - to welcome our own strangers as well.

Kenney continues that hospitality is one of the disciplines of the Christian life, right along with other disciplines such as fasting, prayer, and study.