Recession-era teachings from an Anglican priest

http://www.sphere.com/world/article/english-priest-advocates-shoplifting-for-the-poor/19290981?icid=main|search2|dl1|link4|http%3A%2F%2Fwww.sphere.com%2Fworld%2Farticle%2Fenglish-priest-advocates-shoplifting-for-the-poor%2F19290981

If anyone wants to teach me how to post a hyperlink, I'd be thrilled, by the way.

Okay, a summary of the article, and some highlights: an Anglican priest in England thinks that "Thou shalt not steal" is out-of-touch with modern times, and that people who are short on cash should be allowed to shoplift. His reasoning is that it is better to steal than to "raise money through prostitution, burglary, or mugging."

I'm willing to appreciate the fact that, as an upper-middle-class white American enjoying a state-sponsored education, I'm pretty out-of-touch too, but am I the only person who thinks that there's a third option between shoplifting and mugging? Just a thought.

This is intriguing

By the way, that title is really hard to type when the "I" key on your laptop is sticking.

Anyways, I've developed a thing for podcasts lately because it's a way to make crocheting time productive -- I'm making a baby blanket AND learning about Roman history! -- and I've found this great podcast from HowStuffWorks called "Stuff You Should Know." Anyways, they talk about just about everything on this show (I've already learned how to survive a plane crash, negotiate a hostage crisis, and obtain squatter's rights), and one of the many things they've talked about on it is microlending. I've attached an article here, if you don't know a lot about it.

For those of you who don't like to read, though, microlending is basically nonprofit lending organizations giving out loans to people who would normally not be able to get them -- like, say, a rickshaw driver in India. The rickshaw driver gets a loan from a microlending place, he's able to hire some employees and buy new rickshaws, he makes some more money, he becomes self sufficient, and he pays back the loan NINETY-SEVEN PERCENT OF THE TIME. Ninety seven percent? That's incredible!

Anyways, I'm still learning about microlending but I'm completely intrigued. There are organizations (again, I'll attach a link) that accept donations to build up these loans for small business owners. This is probably the only charity you can donate to where you'll get your money back later. And it brings development and self-sufficiency for those loan receivers in the field, and lasting provision for workers... you know the banal phrase about giving a man a fish, right?

So I'm going to be doing some research on this. If anyone else knows anything about microfinance or has some good resources on it, I'd love to learn about this. And by the way, I'm not announcing that I'm going to throw my savings into microlending and see how this works. I'm just really interested in how this works and how much potential these organizations could have for improving social justice abroad.

Anyways, links:
The HowStuffWorks articles: http://www.howstuffworks.com/microlending.htm
And http://www.kiva.org/ The link is to Kiva, a microlending organization.

From "Unreasonablefaith.com"

"I Once Believed This

It is to my shame that I once enthusiastically agreed with these teachings. For many years I commanded my wife to not have a job and kept her home alone to “take care of the house” even though we had no children. When she did not do something I requested, I would lecture her on God’s commandments on submission. “I didn’t choose to be a man,” I’d say, “but God put me in charge and you must obey me.”

Yes, I was thoroughly brainwashed."

I would like to venture that it is not the church's fault you are a dick. That is all.

Switch-up

Okay, here's the plan. This blog isn't getting a lot of love because my life is not that interesting. If you want to see photos and blurbs from my incredibly average life, my facebook should suffice. But there's just not enough to write articles.

So here's the thing. I'm going to start pretending that people read this. Like a lot of students in the information age, I come across a lot of interesting articles -- specifically, with my interests, on popular religious issues, women's rights, and literature, and when I find something like that, I'm going to slap it up here and see if we can get a conversation going. Unlikely, considering that I think my audience is tiny, but I'm going to keep deluding myself.

So here's our kick-off. It's originally from a popular feminist blog called feministing.com, which I read almost everyday. You can ignore the conservative pundit thing if you want -- what I'm more interested in here is the incredible flippancy with which the word "rape" is treated.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCY23hWWgRI&feature=player_embedded

Also, this Method commercial, also from feministing.com. What's up with this?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_g2vTFert4&feature=player_embedded

Ellen Litkowski

So as it turns out... 2 pints of Ben and Jerry's + 1 McDonald's drive thru to hold us over on the way home + 1 unbelievably bad movie from the RedBox + 1 best friend since fourth grade = one heck of a good night, if I do say so myself. Oh, England... I'm starting to feel a little trepidation about you.

Robins at the Robinsons'

Look who moved in to the gutter by my bedroom window while I was gone! Aren't they cute? Four little robins hatched sometime last week and are now greatly enjoying themselves by waking me up every morning by peeping insanely about 3 feet from my face. Oh well, they're so adorable I'll let it slide. Watching them eat is a lot of fun, especially since they're so close to my window. But of course when they don't eat they all sit facing me with their mouths open anyways. Maybe I should get some forceps and try to sneak them some worms. 

My Dad Is Insane

Okay, before a single word gets said about Hungary, Robinson home front news gets priority. 

So this morning I was up early because my internal clock is all thrown off  (it's dinner time in Budapest right now) and my family decided to skip church in order to get our lives back in order in between Europe trips. We did some laundry and had breakfast on the balcony because it's such a beautiful day here in Zville, and about halfway through breakfast my dad tells us he needs to show us something.

Now, my dad is an outdoorsy guy and he's always showing us something. Normally he finds something around the property like some snakeskins or a bluebird nest and we all have to go tromping out in the woods to go look at it. So when breakfast was interrupted so Dad could show us something, I figured we had a bit of a walk ahead of us. We didn't. Dad led us outdoors, straight into the garage... where an enormous Harley Davidson motorcycle was parked.

Evidently while the Robinson women were away and unable to counsel him against it, my dad pounced on the opportunity to get his motorcycle license and a motorcycle to go with it. In true Dan Robinson fashion he "sought the advice of some godly men" (thanks for your wisdom and leadership, Zionsville Fellowship elders) before getting it, and wants to use it to come visit Bloomington this fall when he gets out of work. Which of course invites the question why he can't just come visit us in his car, but who am I to judge?

I think when I get passed the shock of my dad taking his life into his hands on the interstate, though, I'm going to get a license of my own. :)

This little anecdote is why we need women elders at ZF, by the way. 

In Lieu of Some Hungary Posts

So I had this great idea of posting some humor articles about ELF -- the European Leadership Forum-- in Eger, Hungary, but my plan got snarled in a few ways. One, because Hungarian keyboards look like someone ripped off all the keys and rearranged them (definitely not QWERTY... this is something totally different) and two, working fourteen hour days makes you a lot less funny. So here's how we're going to do this. Over the next few days I'm going to write those articles as if I was blogging as I was going, and you're going to read them sequentially and thus play along that I'm still in Eger, while I am actually sitting on the floor of my bedroom in Zville. Sounds good? Okay, I'll get cracking on those articles. 

Food Service Blues

Most college students have pretty lame jobs, but I think there's something about working in food service that makes you wish there were less people on earth. My The-USA-should-totally-test-a-nuke-in-Zionsville job is at Carter's Ice Cream, a soda fountain that normally makes for a pretty enjoyable and colorful place to work until total nutcases and screaming kids decide they want sundaes. I have a number of stories from my two years there, but we had a customer today who was particularly noteworthy. 

During a busy period an elderly lady comes in asking for a double waffle cone, which is roughly the size of your head. So I dip it up, she pays, and just as she's getting ready to leave she hands me the cone, tells me she has to go to the bathroom, and that I need to hold it for her. I can't set the thing down because it's enormous and cone-shaped, and after five minutes it starts to melt on me, so I stick my hand in the freezer and tell my manager that I'm going to need a moment. Thirty minutes later, the lady comes out of the bathroom. I was starting to think she'd had a heart attack and died in there, but obviously I couldn't check because I was stuck holding her stupid ice cream cone in the open freezer while my ticked-off manager handled the whole crowd by herself. So that was my morning.

Shhh.... neurotic people sleeping.

Okay, I am just way too proud of this to keep it to myself. My room normally looks disgusting so I've spent the last few days getting rid of junk, organizing what's left, and alphabetizing the bookshelf. What you're looking at is my newly cleaned writing desk with theology books A-L by author. On the shelf is narratives and prose, anthologies, resource books, and creative writing manuals, and on the white shelves in the wall are theology books by authors M-Z. And nothing on the floor! (if you ignore the blue hairdryer.) It's the perfect bedroom/home office for... someone who's leaving in six days. Oh well, it's the thought that counts.

Where to get your Laura fix while I'm abroad :)

So I pretty much created this blog a few months ago so I could do something with all the thoughts I have in a day but don't necessarily get to say out loud. But since then I found out that I'm spending an extended period of time in English L'Abri, where internet access is a precious commodity, so I had to find a way to send a large number of people a regular update of my life in not very much time. So, here we go: everyone who wants to know how England is going, just check this somewhat regularly and I'll try to keep you guys informed.

Basically I'm only in Zionsville long enough to unpack my college suitcases before I have to repack them for Hungary. Mom, Sar, and I leave on the 20th, then get back on the 30th, and after that I've got twenty-eight days in the soda fountain before I can get back on a plane and go back to Europe. Then I come back, unpack, repack, and go right back to school again. All this packing is making me wish that human beings required less clothes. Can't we just all agree to run around wrapped up in bathrobes or something? I feel like that would make everyone's lives a lot easier. 

So that's the plan. Anyone who wants to get the inside scoop of my journeys to, from, and in Europe, you know where to look.