Saturday, March 16, 2024

Partners

Partners cover

Partners
on amazon, with eight chapters, each in two parts: Part One: Neighborhood Revitalization through Partnership; Part Two: Whittier Neighborhood, a Minneapolis Case Study.

More than ten years after its publication in 1982, at one of the annual Salt Lake City Neighborhood Conferences I received a copy of this soft-cover, 11.7"x9.1"x0.8" explorative report on revitalization of the Whittier section of Minneapolis. It's printed on heavy, coated paper, and it's packed with narrative, with Black and White and color photographs, diagrams, charts, and general inspirations. I'm reading myself and my current situation into some words about the USA from the Prologue that could apply to many individuals:

"This book is about the end of an era and the beginning of a new possibility. The era it leaves behind was 'on the road,' mobile, going anywhere, celebrating space. The possibility it welcomes is 'coming home,' rooting, creating a stake, celebrating place."

Partners inside pages
"Neighborhood is about place. It declares that one special place is the foundation for life's living. America 'on the move' was hard on places, whether prairies or forests or older cities. This is the story of a new generation that came home and found a way to recover a place that had been misused by old-fashioned Americans. It is about a beginning, a possibility, a way people act when place really matters." [iv]
partners inside  pages
Partners back cover


In the wake of famously misguided attempts by government and by private investors to remedy real problems of inner city decay, neighborhood decline, and infrastructure deterioration, Dayton-Hudson (now Target Corporation) partnered with residents, businesses, local government and other entities to help the actual people of Whittier revitalize and reclaim the community for themselves by creating a home, a place to be, during the 1970s.

Partners is a fascinating study about people power, grass roots action, and the resurgence of hope and life. Three decades later, this book is hardly dated at all, and still would be useful and instructive for any urban studies, American studies, sociology, or cultural anthropology course.

Partners inside pages

my amazon review: creating home

The Idea of North

the idea of north at the hammer museum the idea of north at the hammer museum
the idea of north at the hammer museum
the idea of north at the hammer museum the idea of north at the hammer museum

Retrospective exhibit of paintings by Lawren Stewart Harris
at the Armand Hammer Museum in October 2015

Last Call, Last Mall

• last call to do your shopping at the last mall •

cottonwood mall, Holladay Utah arsenal mall, watertown, massachusetts
square one mall, saugus, massachusetts

The third pic is Square One Saugus Mall by John Phelan, who says we can edit if we give him credit.

1. Cottonwood Mall in the SLC suburb of Holladay died. Cottonwood Mall is dead, deceased, kicked the bucket, bought the farm. One of the real last malls. When I was on staff at Sizable Suburban Church, I loved to take the short drive over to the clean, bright, enticing mall at lunch time for a little shopping and a little lunch—such sensory appeal because I'd just hailed into town from the inner city? Not sure. It's unlikely I'd every know for sure.

2. My last divinity school semester I enjoyed both the older Watertown Mall and the newer Arsenal Mall near my Watertown residence. I haven't been there since, but websites show both still live and kicking.

3. From Boston's historic North End I'd sometimes drive over the Mystic River Bridge, realname "Tobin Bridge." Despite being a toll road, the two-mile span high above the river was fun and the most convenient passage to the north shore. Wikipedia says since 21 July 2014 the bridge has been taking only electronic tolls. If I didn't have a lot of time or had the inclination, I'd take a quick trip to New England Shopping Center, the old name of Square One Mall; if time was no object (as if that ever would be the case), I'd take the longer trek up the coast to Northshore Mall in Peabody.

Along the Eight

Mission Valley San Diego Bright Flowers
Highway 8 San Diego
Highway 8 San Diego
Highway 8 San Diego
Highway 8 San Diego
Mission Valley San Diego Bright Flowers
Along Interstate Highway 8 in San Diego, California
Mission Valley
Wednesday 17 June 2015

Friday, March 15, 2024

Five Minute Friday :: Hurry

interstate 8 in San Diego California
Mid-June 2015 along Interstate Highway 8 in San Diego, California



Five Minute Friday :: Hurry Linkup

Intro

FMF host Kate has been participating in a study of the gospel according to John at her church. When she mentioned they're using a book by Melissa Spoelstra, I lit up because I remembered Melissa's excellent study on Joseph and forgiveness I read and reviewed.

Although Kate observed that Jesus never seemed to hurry through his (three year long, according to John) public ministry, that really depends on which gospel account you're considering. John's Jesus feels focused, calm, and deliberate, because *even* more than synoptics Mark, Luke, and Matthew, John brings us realized eschatology of the right here, right now of the reign of heaven on earth. Celebrating at a wedding party is Jesus' first act of public ministry in John, so we've got the astonishing goods that happen "on the third day" at this very moment, in this very place, and it only will get better.

John is the latest gospel, and in many ways it's an outlier from the other three that made the canonical cut.

However, when we read Mark, the earliest and shortest gospel, all the action is urgent and the Savior moves nonstop. In Mark the transitional word "immediately, straightway/straightaway" occurs at least forty times. Just sayin'…


Hurry

As I write to Hurry alongside Kate's roadway traffic image, the vehicular freeway congestion and pollution that has emerged as an icon of American haste and ambition won't escape me. The worst part is that so few of us differentiate between ideas, activities, and outcomes that need to be treated as urgent, that must be attended to post-haste, and those that can take their time, those many that fare much better if they have time to wait, sprout, then finally blossom and bloom.

The day I took these photos along "The 8," or Interstate Highway 8 in Mission Valley, San Diego, I was on my way to a noontime meeting and intentionally captured the road without cars. That probably would have been impossible in Los Angeles, but San Diego is slower paced, hurries less, and leans into its small town heritage and personality more readily than places like ultra megalopolis Los Angeles (yet the city of LA has neighborhoods zoned for horses!). Does that mean San Diegans are better at discerning whether or not to hurry? To a limited extent, yes.

Whether within our family, at work, sharing the gospel, or caring for ourselves, we need to discern when to hurry ("time is of the essence!") and when hurrying is unnecessary or counter productive.


Heaven on Earth

Along with John's, the synoptic gospels all acknowledge the reign of heaven, God's Kingdom already is here on earth. A couple of proof texts, though God's presence, love, healing, and hope fills all the gospels:

• But if I cast out demons with the finger [power] of God, surely the kingdom of God has come upon you. Luke 11:20

The reign of heaven is here.

• But if it is by the Spirit of God I cast out demons, surely the kingdom of God has come unto you. Matthew 12:28

If. Since. Then. Surely. Without a doubt.

In the Spirit of Pentecost God's reign continues with the church in the world as the body of Christ. We often don't feel the calm deliberation of John's Jesus, but I love how we're slowed down and unhurried when we assemble on the Lord's day. In words from one of my favorite more recent hymns we acknowledge:

God is here!
As we your people meet to offer praise and prayer. …
Here are symbols to remind us of our lifelong need of grace;
here are table, font, and pulpit; here the cross has central place.

Written by Fred Pratt Green; please sing it to the tune Abbot's Leigh

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Interstate 8 Mission Valley San Diego
five minute friday hurry highway
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Friday, March 01, 2024

Five Minute Friday :: Suffer

1 Peter 1:8
Rejoice with unutterable and exalted joy.
1 Peter 1:8


Five Minute Friday :: Suffer Linkup

To suffer is to bear, hold up, let, allow, permit. You may have heard the translation of Jesus' plea recorded in Matthew 19:14, "Suffer the little children come to me, and do not forbid them, for of such is the kingdom of heaven."

Common parlance has translated suffering into pain, trials, and anguish, which isn't an extreme stretch, because in a sense we do allow unpleasant events to prevail for a while, though many times we have no choice.

Our FMF host Kate explained she chose the word suffer because she loves the reminder in 1 Peter that any suffering is only for a finite length of time. Kate quoted the NIV, "…you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy.

Several years ago I illustrated an 8-part series of verses from 1 Peter and 2 Peter. It was unusual because the pieces all were different sizes and different styles. Typically overall style, color palette – or minimally size – ties together a group of designs produced under the same heading, but this was different. Today's prompt prompted me to use my illustration from 1 Peter 1:8 to head today's post. The RSV I used tells us we "rejoice with unutterable and exalted joy."

A few verses earlier 1 Peter 1:3 reminds us God has given us new birth into a living hope through Jesus Christ's resurrection from the dead. Some translations says we have been "reborn."

Churches that observe Lent are at the halfway point to Holy Week when we remember Jesus arrest, trial, conviction, and crucifixion. We listen to the passion narrative about the literal pain and suffering Jesus allowed. But we need to remember when Jesus himself predicts his suffering and death, he also includes his resurrection, his rising. To be raised from death? You first must die. For the apostle Paul, the gospel is death and resurrection.

Whether we ponder and endure our own sore trials, consider the cost and outcome of those Jesus experienced, or look with sorrow-filled horror on atrocities in our own countries or places like Ukraine, it truly helps our endurance and patience to remember pain and death is not God's final answer.

1 Peter opens by addressing God's people who live as strangers, those who are resident aliens wherever they may be. NRSV says "exiles of the dispersion." That language is marked, pointed, and precise.

The pair of letters 1 Peter and 2 Peter were written to the church in diaspora that lived weekdays amidst ethnic, cultural, often linguistic and culinary strangeness; on Sundays they gathered as permanent citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven. 1 Peter and 2 Peter remind us the church always is in exile, always has at least a hint of strangeness and stranger-ness vis-à-vis those around them, even when they themselves are voting citizens in that place, under that government.

At the heart of the story of Jesus of Nazareth stands the seven days we call Holy Week: a crucified man – but – then an empty grave. As we continue in Lent, as we anticipate Holy Week and suffer through Jesus' passion alongside him, we know the Day of Resurrection will be here.

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five minute friday suffer
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Thursday, February 29, 2024

February & Winter 2024

February Leap Month
• This is a Leap Year!

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December Features

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January Highlights

Black History Month 2024
• February is Black History Month


Urban Wilderness – City Paradise February

Calentine's Day 2024
• Valentines Day!

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• The Full Snow Moon on the 24th was a micro moon

Daffodils
• Daffodils!

Succulents
• Succulents Duo

Living Local 2024