I'm Back

After many long months of working 40+ hours per week and going to graduate school full time, I have decided to give this blogging thing another try. Instead of calling the blog "Reflections on Community Development," I decided to call it "Thoughtful (or Thoughtless) Reflections." I hope that most of my posts will be rather thoughtful, but now that I don't spend every waking hour thinking about graduate school, my thoughts seem to be "thoughtless" (is that even possible?) at times. That being said, my blog posts will not all be related to community development, so I decided to change the title.

I just finished a book called "The Irresistible Revolution" by Shane Claiborne. Claiborne is from East Tennessee. Growing up in the "Bible Belt," he considered himself a traditional, white, middle class, conservative, Christian. After finishing his undergraduate degree in Sociology, he began graduate work in theology. He found himself questioning a lot of things that were going on in the Christian church around America and began to ask himself, "Does anyone really take what Jesus said seriously? Is anyone trying to live like He did?" And so began Claiborne's journey to living as an "ordinary radical." While Claiborne takes almost 400 pages to describe what this means, it seems to be fairly similar to Saint Francis' lifestyle of living among the poor with a hint of crazy protesting.

Anyhow, the book was extremely thought provoking, and while I don't necessarily agree 100% with all his theology and lifestyle choices, I respect him for his passion. It is a very quick read and I would be interested to hear any thoughts you may have on it.