The LA Times has an article about finding the elusive Joe Six-Pack that Sarah Palin is so fond of addressing: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/sports_blog/2008/10/is-sarah-palin.html

What I found so refreshing about this article was the following comment. I’ve been reading the various comments people are making on news websites, and I’ve been fairly depressed about the mud-slinging and downright idiotic commentary exhibited in the public sphere. But this comment gave me hope for humanity. Thank you Terry Kalil of Detroit Lakes, Minnesota:

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Thank you LA Times for raising this important question. I’ve been trying to solve the Joe 6-pack riddle too. I don’t know quite who to picture — Joe-with-a-beer-gut or Joe-the dreamy-hunk-with-6-pack-abs. So, I set out to find Joe here in northern Minnesota.

I started with Al, the guy who pumps my septic tank. Maybe he knows Joe. Nope. Turns out he’s offended by the sexist characterization. He’s too busy driving the poop-mobile and chopping firewood before the long winter sets in to hang out in either the bar or the gym. He’s also very determined when he says he can’t afford 4 more years of George Bush.

Then I asked a friend’s husband if he knew Joe. He’s a Republican so surely he must, right? Nope. He works 60 hours a week and was busy cutting down a dead oak tree for firewood. He’s also well-educated, articulate, financially successful and a former teacher. Gosh darn it, he doesn’t know Joe either but, on behalf of teachers everywhere, he asks that we pronounce all the letters included in the spelling of words, especially those pesky “g’s”.

Okay, so maybe rural Minnesota is suffering from a dearth of Joe’s. So, I called my 25-yr. old nephew in Minneapolis, thinking maybe Joe’s a hip younger guy hanging out in the big city. Billy wasn’t out chopping firewood but he joins the ranks of the unemployed in a week so he’s looking for work. (Anyone need a gifted chef?) He and his crew were also talking about Joe while enjoying a 6-pack. No Joe there but then what did I expect? These guys ride their bicycles everywhere to save money and the planet. They grow vegetables, care about the environment, and just try to get by on very little money.

One last stop before I abandon my quest to find this Joe 6-pack. My 81-year old friend Myron. Granted the gym-rat buff version of Joe 6-pack likely doesn’t hang out at the Senior Center but maybe his Grandpa does. “What was that?” were his first words when asked if he watched the debate. Clueless, I asked for clarification. “It looked like she was having a seizure or spasm or a tic.” No, Myron, you dear man. That was our Vice-Presidential hopeful (and hopeless) Sara. Myron is a man of modest means who worked very hard all his life. Surely he’s run across Joe along the way. “I couldn’t figure out what she was saying and who she was talking about,” he replied, “and why does she talk funny?”

There’s only one conclusion I can draw from my quest to find this elusive Joe who seems to be commanding so much of Ms. Palin’s time and attention. Like so much of what she says, it’s just more empty words from a woman who neither reads or listens. A woman who thinks all mothers want their children to speak poorly and believes that treating the Office of the President like it’s a reality TV show certainly can not represent the best of America.

Then again, if Sara Palin is speaking directly to Joe 6-pack and he doesn’t really exist, isn’t that a little like a tree falling in the woods? O, is that expression a bear defecating in those same woods? Wait a minute… we don’t have any woods or any bears and man is not responsible for global warming.

Sara Palin — please stop insulting the men of Minnesota with your sexist discriminatory comments! They don’t appreciate it and neither do the women who would rise up en-masse if a candidate for the highest office in our country referred to them as “Betty Big Butt.”

A belated thank you to the LA Times for giving us all a checklist to use in locating Joe!

Terry Kalil

Detroit Lakes MN

The views expressed in the interviews and/or commentary accompanying this movie are those of the individuals making them, and do not necessarily represent the views of Universal Pictures or any of its partners or affiliates.

These kinds of notices are becoming more prevalent everywhere, as various corporate entities strive to distance themselves from the legal vulnerability of being associated with any expression of opinion that could be legally damaging to their public image.

However, in some situations you have to wonder just how much ass do these notices really cover? For example, in the case of a DVD of a movie that you rent, you will see a notice similar to the above text flash on the screen before the movie starts. It covers the interviews and commentary on the DVD, i.e. the “special features” that make DVDs different from the released theater version.

It’s not that the interviews themselves contain dangerous material - it’s just that the company releasing the DVD wants to hide behind a blanket statement: if you are offended by any of the interviews, don’t shoot the messenger.

However, what if the messenger is far from a neutral entity? What if the messenger has a deeply vested interest in the message?

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At church one day (*sigh*, okay, one Sunday…), Alexis and I noticed that there were little notepads in the slotted holders in the back of the pews. The notepads looked like they were there for congregants to write down prayer requests or something like that.

Anyway, the notepads in OUR pew had far more juicy things written on them than mere prayers Read on…

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My friend Ed Wischmeyer commented astutely on my previous post on useless resources (you can read his comment here). He got me thinking a lot more about what I had written, and in particular I got to thinking about what, exactly, was I trying to criticize about resources? So I replied, and in the process ended up writing another post on the subject:

Yes, I do see all the positive ways of seeing “resources”, and, indeed, if all people did was to recognize their talents and use them for the glory of God, this world would be a much better place indeed!

Admittedly, what I’m trying to get at here is slightly out of left field, and is a combination of two criticisms: (1) a criticism of our constant evaluation of what is useful and what is not; and (2) a criticism of the pressure to “manage and control”.
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Quick: what do you think of when you hear the word “resources”?

I was at a “Stewardship and Spirituality” conference on Saturday, with my pastor and a few other lay people from my church. It was a conference on how we as a church should be better stewards of what God has entrusted us with - and how we can live an alternative lifestyle that is counter to our culture’s dominant materialism and consumerism. After starting the day with a couple of windy speeches against materialism and consumerism, and exhortations to embrace stewardship as a joyful practice instead of a dutiful obligation, we spread out into various workshops.

One of the workshops I attended was about a “holistic approach” to stewardship and spirituality - integrating spiritual practices with stewardship. During the session, the speaker wrote out a few definitions: quotations from various authors on what “spirituality” meant and what “stewardship” meant. She quoted one author (I cannot remember who) who defined spirituality as: “the increasing sway and vitality of God in my life.”

She then quoted Dallas Willard in defining “stewardship” as: “the getting, having, controlling, and using of resources.”

This is where my soul recoiled.

RESOURCES???

Now, to be fair, the speaker pointed out that this definition went well beyond most people’s common understanding of “stewardship” as “giving money.” The speaker asked us to reflect on how Dallas Willard has extended “stewardship” to include not only how we give money, but also how we GET that money in the first place - how might we earn our living more responsibly and ethically? - and how we nurture that resource.

She also asked us to reflect on how Dallas Willard has extended the definition of “stewardship” to include not just money, but any “resource.” So, she asked us to list various resources, and people started voicing: “time”, “talents”, “services”, etc.

I sat there stewing and brewing… RESOURCES??? Thinking of “stewardship” and “spirituality” in terms of “getting, having, controlling, and using resources” strikes me as being an inherently materialistic and consumeristic view of the spiritual life.

My problem with thinking of stewardship in terms of “resources” is that it totally dehumanizes people and relationships. How are we to be good stewards of our relationships? Given Willard’s definition, we would have to start thinking about that kind of stewardship as: “getting, having, controlling, and using” our friends and family.

How are we to challenge our culture to break free of materialism and consumerism if our primary language is in terms of the material consumption of resources? Might there be a different way to think of life than in terms of how we use resources?

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