The Places We Live…

As you know – I saw slumdog millionaire recently – great flick – if you haven’t checked it out – you should…

After watching it I came across THIS site.

If you haven’t seen The Places We Live site yet, you should absolutely give it a look. The project features panoramic pictures of slums and haunting stories told by the people who live there. It is an incredibly unique mix of photo journalism, social awareness, and technology.

Here are a couple of photographer Jonas Bendiksen’s pictures and a blurb about the project.

“The year 2008 has witnessed a major shift in the way people across the world live: for the first time in human history more people live in cities than in rural areas. This triumph of the urban, however, does not entirely represent progress, as the number of people living in urban slums—often in abject conditions—will soon exceed one billion. From 2005 to 2007 Jonas Bendiksen documented life in the slums of four different cities: Nairobi, Kenya; Mumbai, India; Jakarta, Indonesia; and Caracas, Venezuela. His lyrical images capture the diversity of personal histories and outlooks found in these dense neighborhoods that, despite commonly held assumptions, are not simply places of poverty and misery. Yet, slum residents continuously face enormous challenges, such as the lack of health care, sanitation, and electricity. The Places We Live includes twenty double-gatefold images, each representing an individual home and its denizen’s story. Through its innovative design and experiential approach, The Places We Live brings the modern-day Dickensian reality of these individuals into sharp focus.”

Filed under: Culture, Social Action, Technology

The Least of These.

I came across the below post somewhere at sometime but I’m not sure where it came from but I saved it for later reflecting – that time is now and hopefully you will reflect with me.

God is Shuffling Along

He didn’t lift his feet, he slid them, as if skating on the concrete sidewalk.

Maybe he was old, but I couldn’t tell because he looked like a cave man, and it’s hard to read a cave man’s age.

Eyes looked out from sunken pools in his head, down at the ground where he shuffled.

And wild, long hair stuck out from all directions on his head. Some of it was matted.

I don’t know if he had lips. His beard had crept up his cheekbones almost to his eyes and crawled back down his face, past his neck, until it disappeared into his ragged coat.

From behind the wildness he mumbled.

I think he must have been saying, “Someone help me. God is in here somewhere, but no one can’t find him no more ‘cause he’s all crusted over and hid.”

God is Running Scared

Something was chasing him from up in the sky. Demons I guess.

He ran with a look of terror, and I thought in this heat that can’t be healthy because he’s old.

He was panting and sweating and grunting in terror.

He tripped, lost his balance and touched the ground with his hand. He didn’t fall, just stumbled and kept running.

Good thing, because I’ll bet those things in the sky chasing him might have caught up to him.

When he ran past I looked up to see what was terrifying him, trying to run him down so mercilessly.

Just blue skies. ‘Cept maybe those things from his memory. Demons from some war. Vietnam? Korea? Boyhood abuse?

I don’t know. But they had him running scared.He was too scared to talk, but I think he probably would have said, “Someone help me. God’s prints ha’ been swallowed up by all this fright and that terrible thing what happened to me long ago.”

Jesus Likes the Big Mac Value Meal

I once prayed walking to the McDonald’s in Santa Monica, “Jesus, I’d like to have supper with you.”

I stepped up to the counter to order and I saw him.

He was really skinny and ragged, but he did have that long hair, beard and mustache I had always imagined. Though I never imagined the body odor.

He was ordering just a cup of water.

“Would you like something other than water?” I asked.

“Sure.” He said. “I’ll have a Big Mac Value Meal. It’s number one.”

I knew this guy was Jesus because when we sat down to eat together he said right away, “You know, I’m sorta like Jesus. ‘The foxes have holes and the birds have nests but the Son of Man has no where to lay his head.”

I smiled.

“I have schizophrenia” he said, which is something I never knew about Jesus.

After dinner we tried to find him help, but it’s hard to help someone like that.

He’s alienated himself from everybody because he gets spooked by people easily.

“You can’t get close enough to see Jesus in me.” He says as he slips away, throwing me a suspicious glance. “He’s hidden here, and I don’t want no one to steal him.”

Then they also will answer, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you mentally ill and shuffling or scared or hungry, and did not take care of you?’

Matthew 25:45 (NRSV)

Filed under: Church, Culture, Reflection, Religous, Social Action

Where’d the Voices Go?

I just came across a blog post HERE that I thought hit the ball out of the park.

It’s been interesting – for the last year and especially pre-Christmas it seemed like EVERYONE (churches, bono, GAP, Apple, etc) was jumping on social action issues such as Darfur, Uganda, AIDS, Clean Water, adoption, global poverty, etc…

But with the impending passing of one of the biggest stimulus packages ever to make its way through congress – where’d those voices go?

Michelle and I have always been a big supporter of the non-profit ONE. We’ve always thought they were stellar with how the strategically placed advertisements and got people involved – but where are they now?

Shouldn’t we be lobbying for parts of the stimulus package to go to benefit humanity?

I love the way Nick puts it as he writes:

“Why, as we’re about to spend $500 MILLION dollars on improvement projects to the National Institute of Health’s facilities is no one asking if that tremendous amount of money could be spent on cancer or AIDS research? Where are the urgent voices crying out for food and clean water for Africa when we’re about to spend $450 MILLION dollars so NASA can do climate modeling (a government agency that already receives money in the annual budget)? I guess we’ll be able to help them graph or map where their rain isn’t falling instead of actually giving them food or some kind of agricultural assistence. Where is the pleading for social justice as we’re about to spend $150 MILLION dollars on a museum instead of creating jobs or putting food in mouths and clothes on backs? ”

You can read the full post HERE

Filed under: Culture, Social Action, Social Justice