Meanderings, 7 October 2023

Good morning, Autumn!

Photo by Autumn Mott Rodeheaver on Unsplash

Is this for real? Or, put differently, does this house also cool?

What if you could design a house that on a cold day in January would stay at 70 degrees inside — without running the furnace? Or even having a furnace?

It's already being done.

In fact, what's known as the Passivhaus concept came to the United States in 2006, and is being used to construct buildings throughout the U.S.

Maine Public recently visited a passive house in the town of Hope to find out how it works — and what it costs.

It's 31 degrees outside when Patrick McCunney greets a reporter on the porch of his newly built passive house.

He moved here from Philadelphia with his wife, Madeleine Mackell, and their two young daughters a little over a year ago, and the couple says that they decided to build the 1,500-square-foot, two-story New England farmhouse-style home knowing that they would save money on energy over time.

While it was 31 degrees outside, the inside was much cozier.

"It's about 70 degrees in here," McCunney, who is a mechanical engineer, says. "And once you set that temperature the house, because of its airtightness and amount of insulation, it maintains that temperature pretty efficiently."

And do they have a furnace?

"No furnace," he adds. "Just this small little heat pump. Relying a lot on the sun to heat, which in the winter is pretty amazing."

Christians repudiating the Doctrine of Discovery:

The movement to repudiate the Doctrine of Discovery had been largely based in Protestant churches, but many Roman Catholics around the world rejoiced earlier this year when Pope Francis also renounced the doctrine, says Loyola Marymount University theology professor Celilia González-Andrieu.

"For him, there is this joint, extraordinarily urgent concern," she says, "which I think just comes to a head with the Indigenous."

It's a concern for the environment and concern for the poor that Francis sees as inextricably interconnected.

"What he calls the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor," says González-Andrieu.

She knows dismantling the Doctrine of Discovery will take many years, but she finds hope in a passage from the Gospel of John: "Where Jesus says, 'I came so they would have life and have it more abundantly.'"

She says if Christians could grasp the revolutionary nature of that statement, they would see that the concern for Native and Indigenous peoples is key.

"That's the entire job of any Christian," González-Andrieu says. "That means the environment. That means every single human being and their full dignity. It means all of the creatures. That is abundant life."

It's this idea of 'abundant life' that she says excites her students and renews their interest in the work of the church. It gives them an earthly, concrete concern in addition to more abstract, otherworldly goals.

Statements of repudiation are one thing; actions are quite another. And specifics are sometimes hard to come by when looking for the ways Christian communities are working to mend their relationships with Native peoples.

Role reversals?

4. To reiterate, this Gospel therefore radically undermines hierarchy’s pretense to permanent validity based on intrinsic differences of worth. There are, instead, merely different, and temporary, roles for us to play.

In these roles as well as others, furthermore, this good news requires everyone to serve each other. Ephesians 5:21 (“Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ”) thus nicely connects a passage in which Paul exhorts all Christians to live and rejoice together in the Spirit with his redefinition of the household codes. In the light of Paul’s picture of joyful fellowship comes the implication of mutual service, even in the most basic social relationships that have heretofore seemed rock-solidly unequal and typically oppressive.

A powerful Christian man must now see himself also as part of the Bride of Christ, a child of God, and a slave of the Lord. A Christian woman, a Christian boy or girl, and a Christian slave must now see himself or herself as fully that man’s equal in Christ—the only scale of worth that ultimately matters.

This grace amazes—as a husband, father, and slaveship captain could perhaps fully appreciate . . . as should we all.

What?!

New YorkCNN — 

The Girl Scouts are discontinuing a popular cookie just a year after its debut sparked a frenzy.

Raspberry Rally won’t be sold this upcoming cookie-sales season, which runs January to April 2024, Girl Scouts of the USA has announced. The Rallies was introduced last year as a “sister” cookie to the iconic Thin Mints, a crisp mint-flavored cookie encased in chocolate, but in the Raspberry Rally, the cookie was replaced with a bright pink berry-flavored one. It was dipped in the same chocolate coating as its sibling.

The Rallies were the Girl Scouts’ first-ever cookie to be exclusively sold online, a strategy aimed at “enhancing girls’ e-commerce sales and entrepreneurial skills,” the organization announced last year.

Is this a No-Yes, a Yes-No, or a Yes and No?

WashingtonCNN — 

President Joe Biden said Thursday that he doesn’t believe border walls work, even as his administration said it will waive 26 laws to build additional border barriers in the Rio Grande Valley amid heightened political pressure over migration.

According to a notice posted to the Federal Register Wednesday, construction of the wall will be paid for using already appropriated funds earmarked specifically for physical border barriers. The administration was under a deadline to use them or lose them. But the move comes at a time when a new surge of migrants is straining federal and local resources and placing heavy political pressure on the Biden administration to address a sprawling crisis, and the notice cited “high illegal entry.”

Biden – who, as a candidate, vowed that there will “not be another foot” of border wall constructed on his watch – defended the decision to reporters Thursday, saying that he tried to get the money appropriated for other purposes but was unsuccessful.

“I’ll answer one question on the border wall: The border wall – the money was appropriated for the border wall. I tried to get them to reappropriate it, to redirect that money. They didn’t, they wouldn’t. And in the meantime, there’s nothing under the law other than they have to use the money for what it was appropriated. I can’t stop that,” Biden told reporters in the Oval Office.

Asked whether he believes the border wall works, Biden answered, “No.”

First comes grieving/lament:

CAC teacher Barbara Holmes shares how communal healing begins after we make space for communal grieving:   

I am a gardener, a lover of dark soil and rooted mysteries. The fact that flowers, herbs, and vegetables eventually burst forth from dampened seeds is always a wonder. It is also a joyful surprise when people who’ve been harmed to the extreme find peace and healing even while trauma continues. My anecdotal observations of my own community have convinced me that the roots of healing are deeply sown by the same Spirit that hovered over creation during the “let there be” transformation of the world. The shamans and root workers, the aunties and folk healers long gone, taught us that everything we needed to heal us was within our reach. Even salty tears could cure raw wounds if we could stand the pain. 

What does healing look like for communities overwhelmed by ongoing trauma? How do communities survive? Those of us who are raised in communities under siege can tell you that there are many coping mechanisms. As one of the first steps toward healing and survival, we take a big gulp of reality. We have to admit that we’ve been broken before we can be healed. We can’t heal until we grieve the events that have wounded us, release the spiritual toxins left behind, and open ourselves to something new. Communal grieving offers something that we cannot get when we grieve by ourselves.

Back in the day, church services began with loss and lament. Today most churches begin with praise and worship. I’m not saying one is better than the other, but if given the choice, I think a Bible character such as Job, who was abandoned, homeless, broke, and covered in sores and dirt and judgment, would rather attend the old-school church service of my youth, while believers today, bathed in candlelight and adoration, would much prefer a worship service that begins and ends on the upbeat swing of praise and gratitude.

If given the choice, … I think a crucified Jesus being executed on a cross would choose to lament because there was darkness and the tomb before the resurrection and the feast at the shore.  

The church of my youth also feasted. We also sang those praises. We too were grateful. But that praise and that gratefulness was weighted with a heavy history burdened with great pain and great unfairness. Before we could offer songs of praise and appreciation, or feast, or fellowship, we had to remind one another of all the reasons we were so very, very grateful in the first place. And we had to allow a time to weep for all that had been taken and was still being taken.

[SMcK: I don’t recall services that began with “loss and lament.”]