tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-72171992009-07-12T11:40:03.675+04:00<img vspace="5" src="http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h240/johanpdx/webutility/rwbborder-1.jpg"><br> <strong>Fifth-day commentaries,</strong><br>published every Thursday (mostly) at <a href="http://www.maurers.org/">www.maurers.org</a>Johanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13771067774042071617johanpdx@gmail.comBlogger297125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7217199.post-56968225176373727412009-07-09T18:38:00.009+04:002009-07-10T10:14:39.756+04:00

Generations of American admirers of Russia have tried to describe the so-called "Russian soul"--but I'm not about to join them in this effort. Instead, I've been reading 93 Untranslatable Russian Words, a book that provides some fascinating soul hints, by way of a listing of Russia words that defy the translator's skill.As the author Natalia Gogolitsyna explains, these words are not literally

Johanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13771067774042071617johanpdx@gmail.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7217199.post-13746448573770799942009-07-02T11:19:00.005+04:002009-07-02T23:41:36.673+04:00

This week, music takes priority over writing. The Waterfront Blues Festival is on! Last year at this time we were Russia bound, but this year our departure is later in the summer, so I can partake of the festival with a clear conscience.So in a few minutes, we're off to Tom McCall Waterfront Park. But not before just a few words about ... words.What's got me intrigued is the phenomenon of the No.

Johanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13771067774042071617johanpdx@gmail.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7217199.post-74456287176476286772009-06-25T15:50:00.004+04:002009-07-02T22:05:45.480+04:00

The relational gospel--two samples:It was our first morning of our long Father's Day weekend in Pacific City that we heard about the stroke that would take Tom Mullen from us later that same day. We had just seen him and his wife Nancy Faus at Reedwood Friends Church a few weeks earlier, and he was in rare form. Who would have thought we could laugh so much during a Reedwood Forum session on, of

Johanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13771067774042071617johanpdx@gmail.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7217199.post-59524114348330889252009-06-18T09:20:00.002+04:002009-06-18T21:23:33.638+04:00

A brief entry for a change. We're on the move to Pacific City, Oregon, where we'll spend a few days before returning to Portland. Still awaiting news on the quota for foreign workers in our district in Russia.My heart has been captured by events in Iran. Go elsewhere for political analysis, breathless updates, and journalistic speculation--all I can say is that, on the street, some very human

Johanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13771067774042071617johanpdx@gmail.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7217199.post-57538916604801747872009-06-11T22:32:00.016+04:002009-06-15T21:31:28.980+04:00

Lots of smart people have been busy redefining the word "war." Maybe it once referred to lethal combat between nations or sharply-defined groups, with declarations and surrenders, truces and treaties. We Quakers were taught by our elders and our books of Christian discipline that war, and preparations for war, were inconsistent with discipleship. Sane citizens of all political persuasions at

Johanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13771067774042071617johanpdx@gmail.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7217199.post-61901099394950447052009-06-04T23:43:00.011+04:002009-06-06T02:36:19.925+04:00

Today in Cairo, Barack Obama's speech did as much as one 55-minute speech from one politician could do to open up new hope for US relations with global Islam. Afterwards, plenty of disappointed commentaries from his would-be ventriloquists told us what he should have said, and even I have some regrets--but none of them/us would have had to deal with the chaos that would have engulfed him had he

Johanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13771067774042071617johanpdx@gmail.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7217199.post-30045182619202063912009-05-28T18:04:00.002+04:002009-05-29T10:17:22.805+04:00

On top of my list of all-time favorite recursive radio show names is the CBC's "Music to Listen to Jazz By," which I used to hear late at night during my university years in Canada. Today's theme is an echo of that name. Since I have no choice but to wait, why not learn more about the virtues of waiting?What are we waiting for? Generally, peace on earth. Specifically, our teachers' visas for

Johanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13771067774042071617johanpdx@gmail.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7217199.post-15807923595093078252009-05-21T15:44:00.007+04:002009-05-23T21:53:11.100+04:00

Can you buy decent bread from a Fred Meyers store in Newberg, Oregon?One of the hardest things about waiting for our next visas, aside from missing our friends and students and cats, is missing the bread we could buy right across Yalagin Street from our apartment.But we had guests over for lunch the other day and I was determined to find some decent bread. I went to the fancy bread section and

Johanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13771067774042071617johanpdx@gmail.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7217199.post-61146488293682207872009-05-14T18:39:00.007+04:002009-05-15T07:56:14.912+04:00

No results for "Ventriloquistsfor free speech." Who'd like tobe first?Is it just me, or are we flooded by political speech that tells the audiences what so-and-so intended to say or should have said or must have meant to say (thereby, presumably, deserving derision and oblivion)?One of the most precious disciplines we Friends offer the world is "plain speech." Unfortunately, that seems to rule

Johanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13771067774042071617johanpdx@gmail.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7217199.post-10221009015062550722009-05-07T23:42:00.005+04:002009-05-08T23:00:25.251+04:00

The New York Times reported today that "United States officials acknowledged Thursday for the first time that at least some of what might be 100 civilian deaths in western Afghanistan had been caused by American bombs. In Afghanistan, residents angrily protested the deaths and demanded that American forces leave the country."A little later in the story, "The United States defense secretary,

Johanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13771067774042071617johanpdx@gmail.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7217199.post-27940569155671170322009-05-02T11:38:00.000+04:002009-05-02T22:52:10.068+04:00

Friends Committee on National Legislation is asking us to write or call to urge President Obama to appoint a bipartisan commission of inquiry on allegations of torture. (Writing instructions; calling instructions.) Please prayerfully consider whether you might join this important campaign.I can think of a couple of thoughtful observers of the USA in Russia who really expect a higher standard of

Johanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13771067774042071617johanpdx@gmail.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7217199.post-8390171759170371692009-04-30T21:29:00.004+04:002009-05-01T17:41:25.877+04:00

Woodland Friends ChurchBob Adams (center), TomHancock (pastor, WoodlandFriends, right)McIntires' farm, WoodlandA Woodland morningAwaiting breakfastMore breakfastView of Kamiah fromBob Adams' hilltopI'm just checking in briefly from La Grande, Oregon, on the way home from Woodland, Idaho. I am still trying to absorb all the beauty of that little Woodland community, twelve nearly vertical miles

Johanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13771067774042071617johanpdx@gmail.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7217199.post-50998144314928723472009-04-23T19:50:00.003+04:002009-04-24T12:49:50.507+04:00

Lord, Save Us From Your Followers: Filmmaker Dan Merchant, producer and director of the film of this name, was the guest speaker for this year's Northwest Yearly Meeting pastors' conference.As part of his presentations, we saw the full movie, which presents, by turns, both the ugly and hateful face of the contemporary evangelical church in the USA, and its most extraordinarily gracious face. Dan

Johanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13771067774042071617johanpdx@gmail.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7217199.post-39614652224499829832009-04-16T15:28:00.008+04:002009-04-24T12:43:06.130+04:00

Click on photo for original interview (Russian);go here for a translation.I saw a few fragmentary references in the mainstream English-language press to a long interview with Dmitri Medvedev, conducted by Novaya Gazeta editor Dmitri Muratov and published in his newspaper yesterday. Immediate assessments seemed to cluster around the following points: Interview contained no substantial news.It's

Johanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13771067774042071617johanpdx@gmail.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7217199.post-26175814040530373842009-04-09T22:14:00.008+04:002009-04-10T01:14:41.253+04:00

A few weeks ago I wrote "I would love to see some of our churches and meetings and yearly meetings, and some of the peace and justice boards within those bodies, begin to transform themselves into laboratories of love where we can apply our creativity and resources to a more powerful vision of evangelism." (Here, toward the end.) It was great to be able to provide a couple of examples from

Johanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13771067774042071617johanpdx@gmail.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7217199.post-25306817071606899282009-04-02T18:46:00.004+04:002009-04-03T08:02:01.080+04:00

Teaching idioms. A while back I praised the book The Gift of the Stranger. In a paper I wrote for a conference at the New Humanitarian Institute, but delivered in my absence because we were back in the USA, I tried to say a bit about how this book helped shape some of my teaching.The authors challenge instructors to clarify (1) the motivation of foreign language instruction; and (2) the

Johanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13771067774042071617johanpdx@gmail.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7217199.post-36705051926566374242009-03-26T19:53:00.009+03:002009-07-10T23:50:50.577+04:00

A few days ago I was talking with a group about the importance of the Protestant-Eastern Orthodox dialogue, identifying us Friends with Protestants. Someone in the group said that Friends in her country, particularly when relating to the ecumenical movement, asserted that we Quakers were not Protestants but entirely a separate movement.I don't agree, and will continue to identify Friends with

Johanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13771067774042071617johanpdx@gmail.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7217199.post-68394019279585901342009-03-19T21:47:00.011+03:002009-03-20T16:21:11.634+03:00

I've only been in Newberg, Oregon, for five days and already I'm impatient to return home. As therapy, I decided on an exercise: to list ten reasons I want to be in Russia instead of back in new-visa limbo. Maybe this exercise is also a good rehearsal for my responses to a question we get all the time from both Americans and Russians--although their reasons for asking may differ): why do I want

Johanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13771067774042071617johanpdx@gmail.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7217199.post-45112698194800782612009-03-12T20:49:00.004+03:002009-03-13T04:10:30.320+03:00

Ten years ago, in the March 1998 issue of Quaker Life, I wrote about "the American sin," for which status (in view of a cluster of events at the time) I nominated impatience.I remembered that editorial as I was reading Tom Engelhardt's pithy article, "Addicted to force, addicted to failure," on his "Tomgram" Web site, and I couldn't help thinking about whether there was a lethal connection

Johanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13771067774042071617johanpdx@gmail.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7217199.post-36635725821884142022009-03-05T23:24:00.008+03:002009-03-07T04:35:13.013+03:00

We're back from Prague. Along with gifts and books, we imported colds--genuine, hard-to-shake colds that are, thank goodness, slowly losing their grips on our noses and sinuses.... Unfortunately, my head has been too thick to remember all the interesting home remedies we've been hearing about over the last week or so.The worldwide economic crisis has affected Russian humor from the very start of

Johanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13771067774042071617johanpdx@gmail.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7217199.post-60832904534628016382009-02-26T23:10:00.002+03:002009-02-27T13:18:31.316+03:00

For some reason, I've been itching to revise the diagram I used a couple of years ago to illustrate the urgent organizational importance of asking "why." I suggested then that if organizations didn't remember to keep that question central, they'd get fatally diverted over the "how" and "what" questions, the favorite terms of the eternal struggle between technocrats and spiritualizers.One of the

Johanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13771067774042071617johanpdx@gmail.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7217199.post-29564521810489504372009-02-19T18:52:00.009+03:002009-02-20T02:29:24.294+03:00

A Marty Marty Center "Sightings" essay, "Hyper-Muscular Christianity," by Joseph Laycock, got me to thinking about evangelical machismo again. I've been hearing noises about Mark Driscoll and Seattle's Mars Hill Church for a long time, but until I read Laycock's essay, I hadn't heard of Justin Fatica's Hard as Nails ministry.I continue to have mixed feelings about the phenomenon summarized by

Johanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13771067774042071617johanpdx@gmail.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7217199.post-33278299798545328032009-02-12T22:04:00.003+03:002009-02-13T03:28:37.414+03:00

For four very interesting years I worked closely with Crane MetaMarketing Ltd. as a writer and editor for educational and nonprofit marketing programs. Working with such wonderful clients as Calvin and Houghton colleges, the Washington Christian Academy, and similar institutions, I became convinced that marketing, properly understood, is as appropriate for Christian concerns as it is for those in

Johanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13771067774042071617johanpdx@gmail.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7217199.post-37004597720856015572009-02-05T23:43:00.007+03:002009-02-06T21:22:28.541+03:00

In the last couple of days, we've had a flood of news related to politics and religion. I only have a few minutes for this week's post, so I'll let the sources and other commentators carry most of the burden. But before turning to them, I wanted to play once more with my old fantasy question: what if Christians really made an effort to collaborate globally on the seeds of war and other crises?

Johanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13771067774042071617johanpdx@gmail.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7217199.post-65470588749876698462009-01-29T23:10:00.013+03:002009-01-30T01:26:31.147+03:00

Congratulations to the New Humanitarian Institute's design faculty dean Tatiana Nikolaevna Vilde on the occasion of the opening of her beautiful exhibition at the Paustovsky Central Library in Elektrostal last Thursday. Several Institute people were among the crowd at the opening, along with other local artists and art lovers, the local press, and representatives of the artists fellowship of

Johanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13771067774042071617johanpdx@gmail.com1