Meanderings, 20 January 2024
What a week for Kris and me. We (barely) escaped Chicago’s snowstorm then freeze. Last Friday we skedaddled the suburbs and headed south — and rain for four hours or more. Then the winds, then frigid air, all in day’s drive. But we made it, and by “it” I mean to Florida. And rain, which is better than 10 below zero temperatures.
Thirty-one Black churches have received a total of $4 million to help preserve their buildings and the Black history they represent.
The National Trust for Historic Preservation announced the second round of Preserving Black Churches grants from its African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund on Monday (Jan. 15), the national holiday honoring the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Along with the funds provided last year, the Action Fund has supported more than 70 historic churches with $8.7 million in grants.
“We created the Preserving Black Churches program to ensure the historic Black church’s legacy is told and secured,” said Brent Leggs, executive director of the fund, in a statement, adding that “these cultural assets can continue to foster community resilience and drive meaningful change in our society.”
This year’s grants, which range from $50,000 to $200,000, will allow congregations to address issues such as mold contamination, demolition, water filtration and deferred maintenance.
Oy, filterworld:
If you opened Facebook, Twitter or Instagram about a decade ago, you'd likely see posts from friends and family, in chronological order. Nowadays, users are hit with a barrage of content curated by an algorithm. Passionate about plants? Sports? Cats? Politics? That's what you're going to see.
"[There] are equations that measure what you're doing, surveil the data of all the users on these platforms and then try to predict what each person is most likely to engage with," New Yorker writer Kyle Chayka explains. "So rather than having this neat, ordered feed, you have this feed that's constantly trying to guess what you're going to click on, what you're going to read, what you're going to watch or listen to."
In his new book, Filterworld, Chayka examines the algorithmic recommendations that dictate everything from the music, news and movies we consume, to the foods we eat and the places we go. He argues that all this machine-guided curation has made us docile consumers and flattened our likes and tastes.
"For us consumers, they are making us more passive just by feeding us so much stuff, by constantly recommending things that we are unlikely to click away from, that we're going to tolerate [but] not find too surprising or challenging," Chayka says.
What's more, Chayka says, the algorithms pressure artists and other content creators to shape their work in ways that fit the feeds. For musicians working through Spotify or TikTok, this might mean recording catchy hooks that occur right at the beginning of a song — when a user is most likely to hear it.
Walking and breathing, and parasympathetics.
If your everyday walks have become routine, consider incorporating breath work the next time you’re getting your steps in — and reap added benefits along the way.
In the same way elite athletes sometimes take a concentrated breath before shooting a foul shot or nailing a finale on the balance beam, the rest of us can benefit from focusing on our breath — even when doing something as simple as walking, said Michael Fredericson, professor of physical medicine and rehabilitation at Stanford University and codirector of the Stanford Center on Longevity.
“We know that breath is extremely important for helping you to relax and helping you to focus,” Fredericson said. “Athletes use that all the time to control the sympathetic response,” referring to the part of the body’s nervous system that responds to stressful situations.
When the sympathetic nervous system is activated too much of the time, it can lead to burnout, exhaustion and the inability to sleep, he said.
Breath work can help initiate the body’s parasympathetic response, which helps us to relax by calming down awareness during stressful situations.
Researchers have discovered bottled water can contain 10 to 100 times more bits of plastic than previously estimated.
Scientists at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty laboratory found nanoplastics a 1,000th the average width of human hair. These particles are so small they can migrate through the tissues of the digestive tract or the lungs into the bloodstream.
One liter of bottled water contained an average of 240,000 plastic particles from seven types of plastic. 90% of these were identified as nanoplastics and the rest were classified as microplastics, according to the new study.
The study, published Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, examined water samples from three popular brands but didn’t identify which ones.
“For a long time before this study, I actually thought that what was inside bottled water (in terms of) nanoplastics was just a few hundred PET particles,” said Naixin Qian, a Columbia chemistry graduate student and the study’s lead author. “It turns out to be much more than that.”
PET, or polyethylene terephthalate, is a type of clear plastic that is commonly used for single-use water bottles.
Research on the impacts of nanoplastics on human health is still sparse but research on its impact on other animals suggests a strong negative influence.
Carrying lunch into the office from home can be one way to save money — except, perhaps, when it is stored in Pharrell Williams’ Louis Vuitton sandwich bag costing over $3,000.
Record producer and designer Williams, who was named men’s creative director of the French luxury fashion house last February, has seemingly drawn inspiration from the classic paper sandwich bag for one of his latest designs, reimagining it as a high fashion accessory.
Just in case you need to see another Oh my!
There is a LOT of money to be made in preaching the prosperity gospel, advancing Christian Right agendas, and prophesying the election of Donald Trump.
In case you missed it, Ministry Watch released its list of “highly paid ministry executives” for 2024. Warren Cole Smith explains the list:
Below is a list of 100 highly paid Christian ministry executives. The information was derived from the latest available Form 990 prepared by the ministry itself.
We are not calling this list the “Highest Paid Christian Ministry Executives” because we know that many pastors and other church leaders who might make more are not on this list, because churches are not required to make their Form 990s available to the public.
Also, MinistryWatch has identified a growing trend among Christian ministries to identify as churches and thereby withhold their Form 990s. Among the MinistryWatch 1000 ministries in the country who have made this election include: CRU/Campus Crusade for Christ, The Navigators, Gideons International, Willow Creek Association, Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, Joyce Meyer Ministries, Denison Forum, and Ethnos360/New Tribes Mission.
In addition, many megachurches and their related radio and television ministries also withhold their Form 990s. These organizations and individuals include: Joel Osteen, David Jeremiah, Benny Hinn, Creflo Dollar, and Kenneth Copeland.
MinistryWatch has gone on record repeatedly, and we do so again here, with our view that withholding Form 990s is an unwise practice. You can read a more complete explanation of our position here. …
Also note that this list does NOT include salaries from Christian colleges and universities. We will include these salaries in a separate list to be published later this week.
Here are the top 5:
David Cerullo: $4,520,383. Cerullo is Director and CEO of Inspirational Network/Inspirational Ministry: He is a prosperity preacher and the son of prosperity preacher Morris Cerullo.
Dale Ardizzone: $2,463,700. Ardizzone is the General Counsel and Corporate Secretary of Inspirational Network/Inspirational Ministries (See above).
Charles “Chuck” Pierce: $2,084, 437. Pierce is the President of Glory of Zion Ministries. He is a leader of the New Apostolic Reformation who “prophesied” Donald Trump presidential victory on 2016 and 2020.
Tony Evans: $1,407, 218. Evans is president of Urban Alternative and pastor of Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship in Dallas.
Keith Evans: $1,286, 604. Evans is the CEO of Westminster Schools, a K-12 Presbyterian private school in Atlanta.
I find it a matter of worship that we are created in such a way that we can activate the parasympathetic nervous system with breath, movement, laughter, and connection. Enjoyed each part of the read today. I read more on the 100 Highly Paid Ministry Execs.
Thank you , appreciate your meanderings.