The Justice Kitchen Tour

Jason and Brooke Evans are taking a summer road trip

Along the way, we will be documenting the lives of a variety of intentional/missional Christian communities and the food they eat. Our desire is to be able to eventually compile a book with recipes and stories from the lives of these communities. We hope that this book will become a practical tool for those starting communities with stories that inspire and recipes for preparing simple, healthy, inexpensive meals for large groups.

We are also going to be doing some speaking and cooking classes along the way. These opportunities will help us off set the cost of gas and hopefully allow us the chance to connect with folks we normally would not have been able to.

Justice Kitchen
During some of our stops we will also be partnering with churches and faith communities to do what we are calling, Justice Kitchen. The basic idea of Justice Kitchen is this: You invite 10 to 20 of your best friends over for dinner. No one knows what is going to be served for dinner, not even us. When we get into town, we will shop for locally grown and sold food in order to prepare a healthy and just meal for you and your friends. During the cooking demonstration, Brooke and I will address issues such as your health, the health of your community and health for the world. We will talk about the current, global food crisis and how you eat can help change things. And we will also discuss how food and spirituality intersect. Each attendee will walk away with a full stomach, new insights, recipes and hand-outs.

Check their site out for more information and to donate.

Isaiah

Adrian Wojnarowski on Isaiah Thomas and the New York Knicks

As the jury watched one Garden official after another trash a well-decorated, well-compensated employee, they could see for themselves what everyone understood about this dysfunctional, failed organization: Beyond its basketball futility, the Knicks organization is an out of control embarrassment that needs to be punched in the mouth.

The Knicks and Thomas lost the case, which isn’t surprising because they lose everything. In the recent past, they wrote tens of millions of dollars in checks to make a long list of underperforming, overpaid players and coaches go away. That’s the way of Daddy Boy Jim Dolan’s Cablevision empire, just throwing money at problems to get them out of the Garden’s path.

Browne Sanders would’ve been the biggest bargain in franchise history. She wouldn’t go away. She wouldn’t back down, the way everyone does to Thomas and the Garden. She stayed, she fought and she’s going to walk away with millions in damages and perhaps part of her good name again.

For speaking up about sexual harassment at the Garden, she ended up with a job at the University of Buffalo. She paid a price. Browne Sanders deserves this, all the way. Whatever she gets paid, she lost a fast-track career in the pros.

There’s a passive-aggressive way to how Thomas bullies people – that charming, radiant smile that turns into something far different behind closed doors, where for too long his motives have forever left people distrustful, even fearful, of him. Between his professional competency and his workplace behavior, it says so much about the Knicks that they’re still the one franchise in basketball that would even employ him to scout Siberia – never mind run and coach the Knicks.

Off The Court

The first thing I read this morning was by Adrian Wojnarowski and it set a bad tone for my day,

For 15 years, Jeff Nix worked his way as an advance scout, assistant coach, scouting director and assistant general manager with the New York Knicks. He worked with four of the five most winning coaches in NBA history – Pat Riley, Don Nelson, Lenny Wilkens and Larry Brown. Ernie Grunfeld and Jeff Van Gundy could never agree on anything, but they did on Nix.

He survived regime after regime at the Garden because his employers trusted his loyalty to the Knicks, the job.

"Nix of the Knicks," the media guide called him.

That was until sometime after Jan. 1, when Nix was deposed by lawyers probing Browne Sanders' claims that Thomas had berated her and later made inappropriate passes at her. As he did then and again in federal court this week, Nix testified to witnessing Thomas hugging Browne Sanders in a Garden hallway in February of 2004, and her pushing away. When Nix asked her what happened, he testified, she told him that Thomas said he was in love with her and that their contentious relationship reminded Thomas of the characters in the movie "Love and Basketball."

What's more, Browne Sanders told Nix at the time that Thomas called her a "(expletive) bitch, and a "(expletive) ho," after reporting to Thomas that another Knicks executive, Frank Murphy, had called her a "bitch."

Nix had nothing to gain by backing Browne Sanders, except perhaps a clear conscience and a sober stare in the mirror every morning.

And to lose? Between those depositions in January and the trial this week, Nix was dismissed of his duties as director of scouting.

In Nix's mind, telling the truth would cost him a $250,000-a-year job.

Nix wants this nightmare behind him and wouldn't be interviewed for this column, but a close friend of his in basketball said, "The moment Jeff told what he knew in the depositions, he understood he was finished at the Garden. He knew they would get rid of him, and they did.

"But he also knew that he couldn't live with himself if he didn't tell the truth."

As little respect as most league owners and executives have for Dolan, Thomas and the Garden, it will be fascinating to see how many admire Nix for doing the difficult thing, for sacrificing a career on principle, and how many still subscribe to the locker room code that says siding with a female marketing V.P. over the top basketball executive and coach is a move of weakness, even treachery. No matter how disdainful the alleged behavior with Thomas, in some corners, there's still the belief that Nix should've protected one of his own – a basketball guy.

I want to blame this on the Knicks. It is easy to not like James Dolan. He may be the most incompetent owner of any major league sports franchise (and yes I have put some thought into that) and while I liked Isaiah the player, I have never been a fan of Isaiah the coach, business man or executive. If these allegatation are true, I don't have a lot of respect for Isaiah the man either but this isn't about the Knicks, it is about the last line.

in some corners, there's still the belief that Nix should've protected one of his own – a basketball guy

Sadly that happens outside of the Knicks, outside of basketball, outside of sports and is all over the place. If Isaiah did it, let him be accountable for it but of course it doesn't work that way, not in the NBA at least.

I hear sports gurus question Roger Goodall and wonder if he is ruining the NFL, as if the NFL couldn't function without guys drinking and driving, assualting people at strip clubs, and running dog fighting rings. I look at the NHL and see a culture of drunk driving and the league doing nothing about it and I wonder why we allow sports figures (outside of the NFL) to act the way they do and look the other way. I think of Lawerence Phillips and his history of violence and yet fans in St. Louis, San Francisco, Calgary, and Montreal all embraced him because he helped the team. It can be tough to be a Saskatchewan fan but one of the days I was proud to be one was the day when they fired Roy Shivers and hired Eric Tillman who was given the mandate to win but win in a way that the fans would be proud of their team. Not all communities demand that but I respect franchises like the Phoenix Suns who do place character over winning.

Truscott Aquitted

One of the best arguments for keeping the death penalty abolished in Canada

The Ontario Court of Appeal has acquitted Steven Truscott of murder in the death of Lynne Harper 48 years ago, saying the conviction was a miscarriage of justice.

In a ruling Tuesday, a five-judge panel unanimously decided to quash the conviction stemming from the rape and strangulation of the 12-year-old girl near a town in southwestern Ontario.

"The court unanimously holds that the conviction of Mr. Truscott was a miscarriage of justice and must be quashed. The court further holds that the appropriate remedy in this case is to enter an acquittal.

"The court thus orders that Mr. Truscott should stand acquitted of the murder of Lynne Harper," the court ruled.

Truscott was sentenced to hang in 1959 at age 14 for Harper's murder in Clinton, Ont., becoming Canada's youngest death-row inmate after one of the most famous trials in Canadian history.

The CBC has an excellent indepth page on the case as well.

A quick question? Anyone have any idea why the religious right in North America is the main voice in favor of the death penalty? I was reading how the religious right in Canada felt betrayed by Mulroney over his lack of support for it in the 80s and I have no idea what drives that desire for capital punishment other than a reading of the Bible that elevates the Old Testament (sans a certain 10 commandment) over the New.

Crime and No Punishment.

Last night I decided to ride my bike to work. The highlight of that trip was being hit by a car which I managed to avoid the worst of on Avenue C North. I was sent for a spin but my knee took the worst of it but I was okay.

I got to work, locked up my bike and a couple of hours later was in our back compound where we have some of the Centre vehicles and my bike wasn't there. It was stolen at 6:18 p.m. according to our security tape and was most likely sold within minutes for $10-15 dollars or for some drugs. I had a good lock on it but it looks like it was smashed apart.

The weirdest thing is that we are pretty sure from the camera who stole the bike. Sadly it wasn't the first bike in the last couple days stolen around here. A coworker was attacked and they stole his bike in the middle of the day.

I guess it comes with the neighborhood where anything seems to be fair game. Policing can only go so far and after a while a neighborhood itself has to want to change the culture of where it is at. We try to do that here but it is an upward climb.

Last night I was kind of down about it. Not so much the bike but I have witnessed a lot of evil lately both at work and even near home. Wendy and I witnessed one of the worst domestic beatings I have seen the other night (the cops were on their way by the time we heard the violence and others were there as well) and I have seen some at work that really gets to me. A while ago I was asked to write up something about where I find my time to listen for Listening Point and I think I am going to write about my desk. I have a prayer rope, a Bible, and the Divine Hours in my backpack and over my shift in the middle of craziness I find the time to listen and reflect on the here and now and remind myself that we are all sinners and we all need some grace and many nights, I am that agent of grace for people (so in other words suck it up and model some of that grace).

Speaking of work. I was here a year this week. I have some holidays coming in a couple of weeks and it consists of doing nothing other than doing some mountain biking. Oh wait, I guess I won't be doing any other that either :-)

Trading QBs

I grew up in Calgary and like all good boys, we collected and traded hockey cards. It wasn't big business like it was now but you wanted to get the bad cards out of your collection (like Wayne Gretzky cards) for good cards (like Ed Beers and Kent Nilsson). Of course every once in a while you would get suckered and trade a great Pat Riggin card for a bad Mark Messier card and you would beg to get it back. You would go to the teacher, plead with your parents to intervene (mine never did but another teacher did get involved in a particularly bad deal between two kids which seemed to me at the time to be messing with the laws of the school yard) and use peer pressure to get your card back.

Anyways, in the light of the Michael Vick indictment and probable suspension, I wonder how much of that pleading is going on between the Atlanta Falcons and the Houston Texans over the trading of Matt Schwab. I can't think that the Falcons are happy with Joey Harrington as their starter and it is a big risk to bring in a marginally healed and out of shape Dante Cullpepper.

A Black Day

Conrad Black guilty on four of the eleven counts.

A U.S. jury on Friday found Conrad Black guilty of three counts of criminal fraud and one charge of obstruction of justice in a grim Friday the 13th verdict that could send the former media baron to jail for up to 35 years.

Black's three co-defendants were also convicted of three counts of mail fraud and could each get up to 15 years in prison.

The 62-year-old, Canadian-born member of Britain's House of Lords -- who once derided the case against him as a "massive smear job" and "toilet seat" hanging around prosecutors' necks -- also faces millions of dollars in fines and forfeitures.

His lawyers said he would appeal. Sentencing was not likely to occur until sometime in October. The status of Black's bond was being reviewed by the trial judge but there were indications he would remain free and not be taken into custody.

The jury acquitted Black of a racketeering charge and all four defendants were also found not guilty of failing to file corporate tax returns.

Wow, I followed the trial pretty closely and I thought Lord Black was going to beat more of them. I am listening to the coverage of the trial and listening to the billions of dollars in lawsuits he is filing against people makes me nervous to even blog about the case :-)

CBC News has the story and more thorough Conrad Black background section on their site.

The Simple Way

Shane Claiborne writes this in his book, The Irresistible Revolution. (good book BTW, worth reading)

Not too long ago, those of us at the Simple Way were about to speak to a congregation. The person doing the introduction said, "These folks are a voice for the voiceless." And something inside me hurt. I gently corrected them. Everyone has a voice. I know many amazing people who have used the old "voice for the voiceless" line (Oscar Romero, Mother Teresa, even the book of Proverbs). But it just felt strange. Perhaps we are too quick to assume folks cannot speak for themselves.

We are not a voice for the voiceless. The truth is that there is a lot of noise out there drowning out quiet voices, and many people have stopped listening to the cries of their neighbors. Lots of folks have put there hands over their ears to drown out the suffering. Institutions have distanced themselves from the disturbing cries. When Paul writes in Romans 8 that the entire creation is groaning for its liberation, he goes on to say that "we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly (v. 23). This is the chorus of the generations of seemingly voiceless people we have joined.

And God has a special ear for their groaning regardless of who is listening.

It is a beautiful thing when folks in poverty are no longer just a missions project but become genuine friends and family with whom we laugh, cry, dream, and struggle. one of the verses I have grown to love is the one where Jesus is preparing to leave the disciples and says, "I no longer call you servants....Instead I have called you friends" (John 15:15). Servanthood is a fine place to begin, but gradually we love toward mutual love, genuine relationships. Someday, perhaps we can even say those words that Ruth said to Naomi after years of partnership: "where you go I will go and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God will be my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried" (Ruth 1:16-17)

And that's when things get messy. When people begin moving beyond charity and toward justice and solidarity with the poor and oppressed, as Jesus did, they get in trouble. Once we are actually friend with folks in struggle, we start to ask why people are poor, which is never as popular as giving to charity. One of my friends has a shirt marked with the words of late Catholic bishop Dom Helder Camara, "When I fed the hungry, they called me a saint. When I asked why people are hungry, they called me a communist." Charity wins awards and applause, but joining the poor gets you killed. People do not get crucified for charity. People are crucified for living out a love that disrupts the social order, that calls forth a new world. People are not crucified for helping poor people. People are crucified for joining them. Pg 127 - 129

He later writes this...

Almost every time we talk with affluent folks about God's will to end poverty, someone says, "But didn't Jesus say, 'The poor will always be with you'?" Many of the people who whip out this verse have grown quite insulated and distant from the poor and feel defensive. I usually ask, "Where are the poor? Are the poor among us?" The answer is a clear negatory. As we study the Scriptures, we see how many texts we have misread, contextualized, and exegeted to hear what we want to. Like this one about the poor being among us, which Jesus says in the home of a leper and after a poor marginalized women anoints his feet with perfume. The poor were all around him. Far from saying in defeat that we should not worry about the poor, since they will always be among us. Jesus is point the church to her true identity -- she is to live close to those who suffer. The poor will always be among us, because the empire will always produce poor people, and they will find home in the church, a citzenship in the kingdom of God, where the "hungry are filled with good things and the rich sent away empty."

I heard that Gandhi , when people asked him if he was a Christian, would often reply, "Ask the poor. They will tell who the Christians are." Pg 159-161

I have been reflecting on what he wrote lately in the context of what do I want to do with the rest of my life. A couple of weeks ago I had to weigh a career offer that would have provided a tremendous amont of security to me and my family. It would have required moving and the end of my involvement at the Church of the Exiles. As I thought through my options, I realized that the last year of working and living amongst the poor has really changed me. Security and money may be worth something but as Clairborne writes, it also comes with a cost to living in conflict with a large part of Scriptures which I never hear as part of the discussion in most local churches.

Technorati tags: Shane Claiborne, The Simple Way, The Irresistible Revolution, poverty

Shaine Clairborne talking about justice and the start of the Simple Way

I am just wondering

How do Christians worship a homeless man on Sunday's but ignore them on Monday?

Kiva

Wendy and I are now international bankers :-) We are lending micro development loans through Kiva. It's pretty easy. You sign up, choose an entrepeneur and then lend some money though Kiva. It lists default rates, success rates and all of the information you need to make an informed decision. You transfer your loan to Kiva via PayPal and they handle repayment to you. They have raised over $6 million in loans from 60,000 lenders. I like it.

Microfinancing Information

Over at the Church of the Exiles website, I put together some information on how to get involved in microfinancing that we will be using for the next Freehouse. Wendy and I have given through Modest Needs in the past and we are looking at doing the same thing globally. It's pretty easy to get involved so check out some of the links on the post.

What's Really Important

Over at Onehouse, a friend of mine posted about a certain video that wasn't really banned at all and sees the forest through the trees.

As I followed the story, I was absolutely amazed to see how easily a whole bunch of people are distracted. It is all so very very sad and makes me feel kind of sick to my stomach. You couldn't get those kind of hits over religious people discussing widows and orphans. Darfur. New Orleans. Vancouver. Baghdad. It just doesn't happen. Those discussions fade into oblivion. Not nearly as important as bruised egos and cheesy videos. All this writing and energy into something so stupid. If this is what is important now I am so glad to have walked away. Pathetic seems like a good word to use when describing attention-seeking and contrived* things like this. So does bullshit. May God forgive our tiny hearts and minds.

It also reminds me that for as much as we say that the era of the "cult of personality" is over, it isn't. Many are obsessed by "superstar" clergy than ever before. It also tells us that for all of the talk about HIV/Aids and compassion as being the defining points for the church, the trivial stuff still dominates as always.

Set women on fire and you get probation

From the CBC

The Crown had asked for a sentence of 16 months in a youth facility followed by eight months of supervision. Tucker rejected that, noting her age and his belief the crime was not premeditated. The girl, whose name cannot be published, has also been ordered to make a personal apology to the woman.

Yes she was 12 at the time but she lit a women on fire. While the idea of tougher punishments does appeal to some people and in this case, I don't think it would be a bad thing, longer sentences do provide more time for reflection, treatment, and programming that will help you deal with the issues. One of the things that I have learned here from the guys I work with is that prison gives you some time to think and reflect and with counselling, offers a chance for restoration and some healing. I don't know all of the deals of this case but giving some conditions that won't be enforced doesn't seem like a great idea.

Off Side

A couple of weeks ago I realized that outside of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., I knew very little about the Civil Rights Movement in the United States. I started reading on Wikipedia and later expanded my reading to a couple of books and videos from the library. For me the obvious stood out and that is how much the church had a strong desire for segregation (although by no means all of it). A similar trend was shown by some of the white church in South Africa regarding Apartheid. Along the way I read some strong statements regarding union busting in the first part of this century that some evangelical denominations took part in despite it being very much against their ethos and values.

I am not writing to bash the church on this but I keep wondering lately what issues I am on the wrong side of or am guilty of being too quiet about. There are a lot of injustices even in Canada and I have been vocal about some of them but is just blogging about them making any difference? I have also been thinking about the cost I am willing to pay for what I believe in. I had a great conversation once with Tony Campolo who was talking about his arrest record for Civil Rights protests and how you could tell a lot about a pastor in the south of certain ages if they had been arrested for civil rights. Outside of Greg Boyd and his stance against partisanship in the church do I know of any pastors taking a stand for change. Does that mean that we live in a just society or we have just lost our nerve?