This Saturday, May 5, the Alliance of AIDS Services - Carolinas is hosting an AIDS Walk + Ride in downtown Raleigh. I have organized a team to participate in the events. There are 1 and 3 mile walks and 30, 60, and 100 mile bike rides. I will be doing the 30 mile bike ride1. The walks and rides serve two purposes, to raise awareness and to raise support for various organizations doing work to fight HIV/AIDS. I have chosen for the money I raise to be donated to the Duke Pediatrics AIDS Unit, which "provides specialized HIV care to HIV-infected children from North Carolina and adjacent states."

Here's where you come in...

I am attempting to raise $250 for the cause. I'm not looking for one person to donate all of that. I am looking to you all to team up to help me raise that together. All it takes is 25 people donating $10 to get it done. Think about where you could sacrifce $10 in your daily life that you could donate here instead2.



Thanks for your support. If you want any info on participating, let me know. I'd love to have you join my team.

1. ↩If Matt Lavin has anything to say about it, I will be doing the 60 mile ride.


2. ↩Of course, you can give more than $10 if you want.

Labels: activism

Extreme poverty is often defined as living on less than $1 a day. A report published in 1990 estimated 1.25 billion fell into that category. People often use the phrase "over a billion people live in extreme poverty".

Well, according to a recent report from The World Bank, the proportion of people living on less than $1 a day fell to 18.4 percent in 2004, leaving an estimated 985 million people living in extreme poverty. 985,000,000 is a lot of people, but it's less than a billion. So, hooray for that. You can read more about it here.

On another note, Sen. Burr has signed on to the "Feinstein-Hagel" Dear Colleague letter. Thanks to all the North Carolinians that contacted Senators Burr and Dole. If you live in another state, there is still time to contact your Senators. You can see a list of who all has signed on here.

Shalom.

Labels: activism, politics

This Friday night, some friends of mine1 are partnering up to host a benefit concert to raise awareness and funds for the fight against human trafficking. This show is part of a weekend full of events to bring this injustice to light. To find out more about the weekend, you can go here, or click on the banner at the top of my blog.

This is a big deal. You may think that Human Trafficking is one of those "world" issues. If that's what you think, you will be surprised to find that it hits so close to home. So come out, hear some awesome music and get informed.

Here are some details about the show...
When: Friday, April 27, 2007, Doors open at 8pm
Where: The Pour House, Raleigh, NC
Who: Dakota Darling, The Motion, Silver

And you, of course.

The bands all play great rock-and-roll. They are some of the best in Raleigh. There is a $5 cover and other donations will be accepted, as well.

Come out. Seriously, put it on your calendar. I'll wait...

Welcome back. Now invite all your friends. Go. Do it.

1. visio dei and voice together

Labels: activism

FYI... Today is Earth Day.

Labels: indiscriminate

I started this post on Saturday, but I ended up not finishing it then, and I didn't want to cut it short. It does not follow my short post rules, but rules were made to be broken, right?

Today is my wife's birthday. I'm not real big on cards. So, I thought I would post on here what my card might say if I were to buy one.

It would definitely have an I love you or two in there. There are a lot of things that I love about Kim. The thing that I would probably put at the top of the list is her friendship. I'll focus on her friendship towards me1, but I feel like she is a good friend to lots of people.

Here's a little background... Kim and I met in Kissimmee, FL at Longhorn Steakhouse. She had worked there since she was born, or if not that long, close to it. I was hired in the summer of 2001. I can remember the first time I saw Kim. It was right after I was hired. She was walking into work, having just come from her other job at the courthouse2. The first thing I noticed was her charming personality and great sense of humor. Of course, that's a lie. I saw her and thought, "She's cute. I'm gonna like working here."3

Given that I was an attractive, intelligent, funny, available4, young man I was sure that she wanted to get to know me, even if she wasn't aware of it, yet. So, I made it a point to find a way to get to talk to her. We started talking at work a lot. Then, we started talking outside of work. We would talk in the parking at work for hours. We talked at TGIFridays. We talked while sitting on the picnic table at my apartment complex. We talked a lot.

It was a couple months later that we realized that we spent pretty much every day together, and we had our DTR and decided to use the whole "boyfriend-girlfriend" labeling.


I think the beginning of our relationship was incredible. There was none of the oh-my-gosh-I've-got-to-impress-[her|him] stuff. We weren't looking for a soul mate, or any kind of mate for that matter. So, we didn't find one. We each found a friend.5

So, to my BFF, I want to wish you the very biggest happy birthday you can imagine, like, imagine a hu-nor-monsterous balloon shaped like a turtle holding a flag twice the size of its shell that says Happy Birthday, or something like that.

I love you. KIT. Stay Sweet.

1. ↩It is my blog after all.


2. ↩Yeah, she had two jobs. She was putting herself through college. So, throw school on top of that, too. She's a hardworker, which is another thing I love about her, but that discussion is for another post.


3. ↩I found out about those other things soon afterward.


4. ↩Did I mention humble?


5. ↩Of course, that friend turned out to be a spouse and a mate, but that came a little later.

Labels: family

On my Google homepage, I have a gadget for How to of the Day. Today's "How To" is How to Buy a Carbon Offset. This is something I had heard of large corporations doing, but I had never thought about individuals do it.

Here's an interesting factoid:

Expedia and airlines like British Airways now offer the opportunity to purchase an offset when you buy your flight tickets.

Has anyone ever looked into this? It seems like an interesting idea.

Labels: activism

So, it turns out that Congress does not allow mass emailing1. So, the good folks at the ONE campaign printed out all the letters and hand delivered them to the Senators. There were 57,345 letters in all. The waste of paper kind of makes me cringe, but it's Capitol Hill. Bureaucracy and waste is what a lot of people have come to expect.

Some good news is that Sen. Dole has signed on to the Feinstein-Hagel Dear Colleague letter. Thus far, 28 Senators have signed on. The ONE campaign is trying to get 60 to sign on by Friday.

If you haven't contacted your Senators yet, there's still time. Go here to find out what you need to do.

1. I don't really know what that means. That's just what the ONE blog said.

Labels: activism, politics

Check out the video posted on this guy's blog.

Thanks for the laugh RevRock.

Labels: blogosphere, indiscriminate

I got this email today from ONE.org. They are working to get 60 senators in the next 6 days to support $39.8 billion for the international affairs budget -- $3.9 billion over last year's international affairs budget -- the biggest increase in recent history. The email is below.

They have made it extremely easy for you to write you Senators. You just have to visit this page, and fill out a form, and viola, you're done.

-----------------------------------------------
We're close. For months you've been pushing Congress to fund the fight against poverty in 2008. And now we are days away from securing $39.8 billion - $3.9 billion over last year's international affairs budget - the largest increase in recent history.

Six senators, Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Chuck Hagel (R-NE), Dick Durbin (D-IL), Gordon Smith (R-OR), Christopher Dodd (D-CT), and Norm Coleman (R-MN), are taking the lead by writing a letter encouraging their colleagues in the Senate to support this critical funding.

Please take a minute to ask your senator to sign on to this letter.

The international affairs budget contains almost all the funding America devotes to poverty focused development assistance - the money that so directly translates into lives saved and countries transformed. It's not a band-aid for extreme poverty, it's smart aid that attacks it at its roots. By contributing our share to this type of funding, in partnership with other nations, we can put 77 million children in school and save 16,000 lives a day by combating AIDS, TB, and Malaria.

You scored an important victory in March when you convinced the Senate to agree to put $39.8 into the budget. Now they need to translate the budget into real dollars. The Senate Appropriations Committee leadership does just that. They write the check.

Write your senators urging them to allocate $39.8 billion at this critical time.

A year ago ONE members mobilized around a very similar letter and 52 Senators signed on in support. This year we're hoping to get 60 Senators to co-sign the Feinstein-Hagel-Durbin-Smith-Dodd-Coleman letter supporting the largest increase in recent history.

We have 6 Senators now, 54 to go. You can track our progress, as it happens, on the ONE Blog.

Thank you for your voice, Josh Peck, ONE.org
-----------------------------------------------

Labels: activism, politics

So, I am reading Rob Bell's latest book, Sex God. This morning I read chapter three, Animals and Angels. This chapter discusses how there is an animal impulse in us that wants us to to give in to all our cravings, and there is an angel impulse in us that wants us to deny ourselves of physical pleasure. Bell suggests that going to either extreme is equally destructive, and that we were made to live in the tension between the two extremes. It was an interesting chapter, and thus far, an interesting book.

I wanted to mention this chapter of the book because of something that came near the end. There are two paragraphs on page sixty-two that really stuck out to me.

You are not alone. What ever you struggle with, whatever you have questions about, you are not alone. It doesn't matter how dark it is or how much shame or weakness or regret it involves, you are not alone.
...
Some of the most comforting words in the universe are "me too." That moment when you find out that your struggle is also someone else's struggle, that you're not alone, and that others have been down that same road.

When I read that, I was like, "Wait a minute. I just said something about that yesterday."

I guess rabbi Rob and I are in same boat.

Shalom.

Labels: books, church

We all struggle with something, or some things, and our culture tells us to hide that. To cover it up. To put on put on a happy face.

It's that attitude that leads people to disappointment, shame, and loneliness. The I've-got-to-have-it-all-together lie permeates our society, and people think that if they are not meeting some felt expectation, they are not "good enough". So, they get disappointed. Disappointed in themselves. Disappointed in their place life. Disappointed in God. This disappointment leads them to feeling ashamed of who they are or where they are in life. Which is followed up by another part of the I've-got-to-have-it-all-together lie, the part that says, "if I don't have it all together people won't like me". The shame felt from the disappointment leads to fear of rejection, which lead us to not reach out to those around us, and this leads to loneliness.

My dream is that the Church, my church included, would be a place where people could really "come as they are" and feel comfortable revealing their brokenness. A place where our openness about who we are and what we struggle with would open doors for those who are struggling and feel like no one could understand what they are going through. That it would be a place where no one would be left feeling alone. A place where "community" is more than just a part of the name, or a buzz word that gets thrown around. A place where the word community is synonymous with the word life.

Labels: church

I just finished watching the season premier for a new show on the Sundance Channel. The show is Big Ideas for a Small Planet. The first episode is called Fuel, and discusses three alternative fuels, vegetable oil, bio-diesel, and ethanol.

I found it very interesting. I would love to hear what other people have to say about it. Currently, you can download the season premier for free from the iTunes store.

If you have time, check it out and come back and post your thoughts.

Labels: activism, entertainment

I don't know when it happened, but Time Warner added ESPN2HD to our local programming. Check out channel 289.

Sweet!

And don't forget that this is the weekend when you get free HBO. You have to go to channel 490 to activate it. Then, channels 400-412 will be available for your viewing pleasure.

Double Sweet!

Labels: entertainment, sports

Jeramie posted last night about his Easter resolution. I was writing a comment about it, and decided that it was getting too long. So, I decided to just post my response here instead.1

While I was laying in the bed last night, I was thinking about what we had talked about earlier, about how crazy the things we "believe" are.

I was thinking about how it is easy to go along with the crowd, not that my faith is based on what other people believe, but that it is easy to say, "Yeah, I believe that." However, when you put your faith into words, your own words, it takes it to a whole other level.

Words are powerful. Once you say something out loud, to someone, it's impossible to take it back. You can back pedal, and make excuses, but you can never un-say it.

If you start talking about your faith out loud to people (or to your self, I guess), you may find your zeal increase quickly.

But, like I said words are powerful. So, be sure to say what you mean and mean what you say.

1. See the previous post for my explanation as to why post here versus leaving a comment.

Labels: church, indiscriminate

I am not a huge fan of long posts on blogs. Often, I see a long post and immediately decide that I do not have enough time to read it. I tell myself that I will come back, but I rarely do.

I am even less of a fan of long comments. When I see a long comment to a post, I treat it the same as the long post, again rarely coming back to read them. My length threshold for comments is smaller than my length threshold for posts.

I see long comments and I think, "they should just post about this on their blog", or if the person doesn't have a blog, I think, "they need a blog."

So, let it be known that I am a proponent of blogs being dialogical, and not just soapboxes. I am a firm believer in readers making their presence known by leaving comments. I have a dream that one day the blog series will replace the time consuming thesis-like super post. I believe in the unifying power of trace backs1. I look forward to the day when blog high-jackers will be no more, and everyone will have their on blog to use as a pedestal to respond to the meanderings of others.

1. Yes, I know that my trace back link does not work. It is in my plans to correct this problem. Thank you for mentioning it.

Labels: blogosphere, indiscriminate

I saw this video on another blog. It makes me wonder what God thinks about the matter.

It is hard for me to respect what the guy on the left has to say due to his attitude and demeanor. It makes me cringe that he claims to represent Christians.

God help us all to represent you in such a way that You will be glorified.

Labels: blogosphere, church