Travelling with Gershom

Several times in the last few weeks I have come across something exhorting us - well, me - to live more simply. Most of this advice has been prompted by the economy, but it seems to me that to be truly worthwhile any advice must be grounded in something less volatile than the Dow Jones. Ben Witherington recently posted a discussion on the economic situation that gets down to fundamentals. Witherington does not exempt Christians from contributing to our current economic woes, by living beyond our means and opting into the consumer culture (in other words, by being greedy), and he reminds us of several principles that God calls us to live by. It is good reading, and not just for Christians. It's the first and fourth principles I want to address here. That "the earth is the Lord's and all that is therein" and "the purpose of hard work is to save all we can, so we can also give all we can" are inseparable, I think. If we are good stewards of what God has g...

I am reading a wonderful book that offers a view of the Palestinian issue that few of us in the West get to see, at least not often. Sari Nusseibeh , a professor of philosophy and president of Al-Quds University in Jerusalem, has written an autobiography that spans not only his life but also delves into the history of his family, and that of the Palestinian struggle. Once Upon a Country: A Palestinian Life is an exceptionally interesting overview of the last 50 years in Israel and the occupied territories, and tells a story that is personal, political, and poignant. In the book, I have just reached the late 1980s, when tension boils over into the intifada , a mass uprising against the Israelis by farmers, students, children, and others. Over the course of the uprising, from 1987-1993, about 1,300 Palestinians and 160 Israelis were killed by the other side, and another 1,000 Palestinians were killed by other Palestinians as suspected collaborators and traitors, although not all of the...

The other night we were watching Episode 9 of Band of Brothers , the excellent HBO series based on the equally excellent book by Stephen Ambrose . Entitled "Why We Fight", the troopers of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment come across a concentration camp as they move through southern Germany, in Bavaria. It reminded me of our visit to Dachau this past summer. We spent several days in Austria in July, flying into Munich and driving south to Bad Gastein, in the Austrian Alps. We made a detour when we left Munich, spending a few hours at Dachau. We had planned this before we left Doha, thinking this was an important place to visit. We were right. I didn't know much about Dachau beyond the name and the fact that it was a concentration camp. It was, I learned, the first concentration camp, opened only weeks after Hitler became Chancellor of Germany, used initially for political enemies but very soon after some of the "undesirables". Entering the camp is ...

I am not surprised that a local clothing store is going out of business. It is called Hostyle. Seriously. Now, maybe it is intended to be "hos-tyle", which has its problems, but I really think it is "ho-style". And there are about 70 young people lined up outside its doors, being let in one at a time, to buy the marked-down goods inside. Apparently there weren't enough customers to keep the store open at regular prices, but it's now cheap enough to get them blocking the sidewalks of Water Street. To buy discounted footwear and t-shirts from Hostyle. If what we wear and where we buy it tells people something about us, then these kids are saying something they might not intend. It would be bad enough if they were paying full price, but to wait until it's as cheap as possible, well, let's just say that in the movies, the high-end call girl is usually seen more positively than the run-of-the-mill streetwalker.