Clean up the block!!!

Pitch-in Kingston missed us...

So it's up to the House Famous and Friends to clean up the Fruit Basket!

There's lots of garbage and dirt on the street that needs tidying, so bring out your gloves, garbage bags, rakes, etc to NeXt Church this sunday, May 4th and help us clean up the neighbourhood! We'll get together after church, eat a quick lunch, and hit the streets by about 1:30pm.

If you're late, come looking for scruffy folk with garbage bags in the York, Colborne, Raglan, Barrie, Main area of that tangled mess of streets we like to call home!

I went to my first AA meeting tonight. I'm not alcoholic, but I almost wish I was (maybe not...) as I spent an hour with a room packed with people dedicated to honesty and truth. I had to confront myself with ways I haven't been honest with myself and it was powerful... It's no wonder so many people have found sobriety through this organization. There's something really raw and beautiful about introducing yourself as an alcoholic (sinner?) - that's gotta be helpful towards living an honest life before God. We Christians could learn alot from alcoholics!

...your progress and joy in the faith.

Things are looking busy at The House Famous. It seems that the 4 of us are now wrapping up the first leg of this journey as we'll be having 3 more members join us in this thing called community. As of May 1st, we will have not one but two houses to call our home! We have taken the other half of our house, 51 York, and we're expanding this house of hospitality...for better or worse :D.
In addition to these things, our summer is shaping up to be a big change for all of us. I (Brendan) will be going to the Dominican Republic for a little less than 2 months, and Jay will be at Camp IAWAH for the whole summer. I think our goal is try and keep giving this house to God, and to try not to get in the way of His plan for us. Ever onward!

Change is not easy for me, but I take comfort in knowing God calls us to change and to progress in our faith with Him.
May this progress bring joy as we march on...

the more you consume the less you live

So, I've been reading alot of Adbusters lately, as well as a book by John Piper called "Don't Waste your Life"; so those are some of my immediate influences for my thoughts lately about consumerism and life. But mainly I'm becoming increasingly convinced that our society and our economy and our media have developed and shaped an entire cultural system bent on "stuff". Getting stuff, selling stuff, buying stuff, owning stuff. Stuff is marketed as the answer to any problem. Stuff is style, stuff is comfort, stuff is spirituality. Owning things is important, not just to your comfort, but to your status as a human being. Lets face it, people who don't own things, who live on the street or in shelters are considered "lesser": they haven't got their lives together enought to have a house and fill it with stuff. Ownership and the power of being able to buy and sell things is becoming the most defining feature of North American society: did you know you can buy and sell your 'friends' on Facebook? Now, thanks to such fantastic 'social applications' as Frends For Sale, you can put an actual dollar amount on the value of a human being, "own" that person and then raise or lower their value depending on when you put them on sale (all with virtual money). Wow.

If this is not a huge warning signal on how sickly obsessed the world has become with money, consumerism and junk, I don't know what is. We are so obsessed and addicted to our stuff that economists, world leaders and corporations are refusing to recognize the destructive impact of our spending on the environment: modern economic theory takes almost no account of 'externalities', or the fact that the world is not an endless source of raw ecological resources.

What will your life count for? At the end will you be able to put your most important things into boxes or into beautiful memories? Will your heart be set on comfort and style, or justice and truth?

Enough is enough; no more stuff. Or as a truly radical man once said "If you want to give it all you've got, go sell your possessions; give everything to the poor. All your wealth will then be in heaven. Then come follow Me." It's the only way to break the addiction.