Tag: family

Jóhannesarguðspjall 9. kafli

Það er auðvelt að festast í því sem skiptir ekki máli, sérstaklega ef það er erfitt að horfast í augu við aðalatriðin. Þannig hef ég oft lesið þessa frásögn og einblínt á kraftaverkið, hvernig Jesús breytti lífi blinda mannsins og hversu frábært það er að Jesús læknar. Á sama hátt þekki ég góða menn sem gera lítið úr frásögninni og benda í því sambandi á hversu ógeðslegt það sé að blanda saman munnvatni og drullu til að maka í augu einhvers. Continue reading Jóhannesarguðspjall 9. kafli

Rutarbók 4. kafli

Ekki aðeins gátu tengdamæðgurnar leitað hjálpar fjölskyldunnar í 3. kafla. Í 4. kaflanum heyrum við að þær áttu jarðskika sem þær höfðu ekki aðgang að, líklega vegna stöðu sinnar sem ekkjur. Til að gefa þeim kost á lífi og réttindum fer því Bóas þá leið að taka sér Rut sem eiginkonu og gefa þeim, Naomi og Rut, tækifæri til að njóta réttar síns og nýta skikann sem með réttu var þeirra. Continue reading Rutarbók 4. kafli

Rutarbók 3. kafli

Í þriðja kaflanum sjáum við nýja Naomi. Sjálfsásökunin og stoltið eða kannski öllu fremur sú tilfinning að vera einskis verð, vera ‘failure’ virðist horfin. Hún upplifir það ekki lengur sem minnkun að leita réttar síns, fara fram á þá aðstoð sem henni ber. Naomi sendir Rut á fund Bóasar og til að óska eftir að líf þeirra tengdamæðgna verði reist við. Continue reading Rutarbók 3. kafli

Rutarbók 1. kafli

Ég hyggst byrja lesturinn á bókinni um Rut, sem var bæði sönn og góð. Alla vega ef eitthvað er að marka sunnudagaskólasöngva. Bókin byrjar af krafti, enda stutt. Við höfum þjóð sem er stýrt af dómurum og er að ganga í gegnum efnahagshrun. Það er hungursneyð og fjögurra manna fjölskylda, faðir, móðirin Naomi og tveir synir pakka saman og flytja úr landi. Þetta er allt í fyrsta versinu. Continue reading Rutarbók 1. kafli

Interesting Article: America’s Biggest Brain Magnets

Newgeography.com has an interesting article addressing where college graduates are locating themselves in the US. New Orleans makes the first place, most likely more due to a shift in population after Katarina, then anything else. The real winner in the 1 million+ category is the area around “The Research Triangle” in North Carolina. It is fun to see Columbus, Ohio in 9th place and also which metro-areas are not on the list. The following paragraph caught my attention:

Conventional theory suggests that the new generation of college graduates will go to the largest, densest places, eschewing, as The Wall Street Journal put it snidely, their parent’s McMansions for small abodes in the inner city. Yet the ACS numbers indicate that, overall, college migrants tend to choose less dense places. In the two years we covered, the growth rate in urban areas with lower urban area densities (2,500 per square mile) boasted a 5% increase in college-educated residents, compared with roughly 3.5% for areas twice as dense.

See further on: America’s Biggest Brain Magnets | Newgeography.com.

Thoughts about “Lives to Offer” by Baker and Mercer

It is clear according to Dori Grinenko Baker and Joyce Ann Mercer, youth should not be a time of waiting to become. Young people are not to be subjects of our solution based church ministry. Continue reading Thoughts about “Lives to Offer” by Baker and Mercer

Stuttir þankar um tillögur mannréttindaráðs

Ég hef verið beðin um að skrifa um tillögur mannréttindaráðs Reykjavíkur um trúar- og lífsskoðunarmál. Það eru mismunandi leiðir til að nálgast svona texta, en upphafsspurningin er hvort hér sé um að ræða altækt eða sértækt skjal. Er skjalinu ætlað að vera leiðbeinandi um hvernig skólastjórnir nálgast svona mál almennt eða er verið að ávarpa sértæk vandamál? Það sem hér fer á eftir eru pælingar mínar meðan ég horfi á House og svíkst undan að brjóta þvott og það er alls ekki ósennilegt að ég geti ekki staðið við allt sem fylgir hér að neðan. Continue reading Stuttir þankar um tillögur mannréttindaráðs

Greinargerð Mannréttindaráðs Reykjavíkurborgar

Reykjavíkurborg og trúar- og lífsskoðunarmál

Á undanförnum árum hefur markvisst verið unnið að ýmsum réttindamálum á vegum Reykjavíkurborgar. Réttindum innflytjenda hefur verið sinnt af alúð meðal annars í samstarfi við félagasamtök. Verulegur árangur hefur náðst á sviði kynjajafnréttis og réttindi samkynhneigðra hafa færst til hins betra með aukinni fræðslu. Þess hefur jafnframt verið gætt í starfi borgarinnar að fólki sé ekki mismunað vegna efnahagsstöðu, stjórnmálaskoðanna eða fötlunar. Continue reading Greinargerð Mannréttindaráðs Reykjavíkurborgar

Manneskjan og/eða kerfið

Árið eftir að ég hætti störfum sem framkvæmdastjóri ÆSKR (Æskulýðssambands kirkjunnar í Reykjavíkurprófastsdæmum), notaði ég mikið af tíma mínum í lestur og skrif um persónuleikabresti, velti upp spurningum hvað það merkti að kirkjan væri öllum opin og að allir væru velkomnir. Brennipunkturinn í vangaveltum mínum var mjög einstaklingsbundin og undir sterkum áhrifum einstaklingshyggju pietismans. Continue reading Manneskjan og/eða kerfið

Brain Theory

The term “triune brain” describes three levels of the brain; the reactive brain (brainstem), the feeling brain (limbic), and the thinking brain (neo-cortex). When anxiety arises the reactive brain takes over, and we become more instinctive in our action.

This understanding of the brain plays a role in Bowen’s Family Systems Theory, which focuses on being “less-anxious” presence (the correct phrase is “non-anxious presence,” but we are only non-anxious when we are dead), attempting to allow the thinking brain to function even when the anxiety in the surroundings is running high.

National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke offers a good overview of the brain on their website, called Brain Basics: Know Your Brain.

Relational Youth Ministry

Andrew Root’s article “Reexamining Relational Youth Ministry: Implications from the Theology of Bonhoeffer” is an excellent reminder that youth ministry should not be about creating a place of influence but a place of sharing. The question the church must ask according to Root is:

Will we seek to hire young, magnetic individuals who can use relationships as a means to an end, or will we, all of us (youth workers, volunteers, and congregation members), bravely take the initiative to walk into the center of adolescents’ deepest sufferings and joys, standing with and for them, sharing their place? In this way relationships are an end, the concrete presence of Christ in the world.

Word & World –  Summer 2006.

Ministry to shut-ins

Few years ago I wrote an educational material for the church of Iceland, in collaboration with Guðrún Eggertsdóttir and Ragnheiður Sverrisdóttir, about how congregations can structure their ministry to those that are unable to leave their home.

I have always meant to look at the in context of the structure of Stephen Ministries here in the US. And maybe one day I will.

Gospel as a threat

As I looked through my stuff, there are lot of interesting things that might as well go here on ispeculate.net. When taking a class about Urban Ministry in Detroit, I attended few lectures by Dr. James W. (Jim) Perkinson. Dr. Perkinson was in his lectures focused on the reading of the Bible as a response to the Empire. Continue reading Gospel as a threat

Effective Youth and Family Ministry

On the website of the ELCA Youth Ministry Network (Warning: it has sound), one can find various resources for youth and family ministry. On of them is “Definition of Effective Youth and Family Ministry: A Working Document (ver. 1.2).

The document as based on ten words that should describe Youth and Family Ministry, and what those words should entail.

The Document can be accessed via ELCA YMNET -> Resources -> More Resources … .

Vocabulary: Co-Dependency

“Co-Dependency” is a term used for a systematic deficiency in relationships in which a person either subordinates his or her life to another’s or uses his or her life to control or dominate another’s.

From Clinical, Clerical, and Congregational Co-Dependency by Donald R. Hands (Action Information, September/October 1990)

In his writing Rev. Hands uses a co-dependency graph, where distance, differentiation, and individuation are on one axis, and relationship, connectedness, and closeness are on the other.

  • When Y is min, and X is min – Nothing matters
  • When Y is max, and X is min – I matter, and you don’t
  • When Y is min, and X is max – You matter, I don’t
  • When Y is max, and X is max – I matter, you matter

Family Systems Approach to Premarital Work

We advocate the use of a family systems approach to premarital pastoral work, involving exploration of the families of origin of the intended spouses. Family systems theory argues that a marriage is like a merger of two corporations, each having its own stockholders; thus, adequate preparation for marriage involves coming to terms with the realities of one’s family of origin and that of one’s intended spouse. Exploratory techniques include genograms, house tours, family photo albums, and discussions of the rules and rituals in the respective families. Leaving father and mother is the central prerequisite to marriage.

via You Must Leave Before You Can Cleave: A Family Systems Approach to Premarital Pastoral Work.

This article does not fit well into the marriage culture in Iceland. Having said that, its focus on family of origin work, differentiation, and different views on relationships is valuable.

Religious Life

In her article “Creating a Spiritual World for Children to Inhabit,” Karen-Marie Yust talks about children’s formation and the role of practices, rituals, and ideas. She addresses especially how repetition enforces learning. She takes a helpful example.

An African American toddler boy who repeatedly watches cartoon videos in which the “good guys” with light-colored skin always beat the “bad guys” with dark-colored skin concludes from this observation that light-skinned people are good and dark-skinned people are bad. (A Caucasian child comes to a similar conclusion.) When he is four or five and becomes aware of his own skin color, he will likely experience a tension between his sense of himself as good and his cultural observation that dark-colored skin belongs to bad guys. His white peers will also be more likely to label him as bad when trouble erupts on the playground.

This also applies to gender-images. As part of the childhood culture those experiences that they see in “the adult world” are then “played out” or “tried on.” And here comes the connection to the Religious Life.

When adults act as if religious education is mainly a tool for children’s moral development, children quickly catch on to the irrelevance of religious culture for the grown-up world. They have no incentive for committing themselves to a particular spiritual identity on adolescence if faith is portrayed by adults as something one shed with childhood.

(The Article appeared in Family Ministry, Vol. 18, No. 4, Winter 2004)

5 Stages of Grief

In a world where everything is supposed to be doubted, and nothing is as simple as it seems it is interesting how many theories claim to be universal. One of them is E.K. Ross’s Five Stages of Grief. Surely, there is a value in recognizing the various emotional stages a grieving person goes through, and I am not saying that using Ross’s stages can not helpful. It is the universal claim in her book that is problematic. Well here comes the real reason for this post, naming the stages and give the “official Icelandic translation.”

  • Denial (isl. afneitun), or this is not really happening.
  • Anger (isl. reiði), or this is someone’s fault.
  • Bargaining (isl. samningar), or can we make a deal (with God or…)
  • Depression (isl. þunglyndi), or what is going to happen next, or I don’t care.*
  • Acceptance (isl. sátt), or this will happen, the hope of continuing is lost (a new hope emerges).

* The use of the word depression (isl. þunglyndi) is not very accurate in E.K. Ross’s writing. I would prefer using anxiety (isl. kvíði). However, I am not a psychologist.