words on the interwebs worth your time

A few blogs I've read this week that I emailed to my husband, I thought I'd share with you as well - enjoy!

How to Annihilate your Out-Group (like Jesus did) - Dr. Kelly Flanagan at Untangled

(We love this guy - I'd very much recommend subscribing to his blog.)

from the post:  "I have good news. Great news.
Humanity is the last in-group you will ever need to join.
And the membership application is simple. Because you already belong. All you have to do is embrace it. Decide you are going to end your attempts to fix your shame with competition and victory and dominance. Realize it doesn’t work. Decide you will silence the ghosts in another way."

Walking to Church: Sometimes the Hard Thing is the Force that Makes the Beauty - Micha at Deeper Story

(Sometimes we dream of having a place with a backyard and a fence but this post made me appreciate how much time we spend at parks and friends' houses and generally roaming the streets :)

from the post:  "We moved back to San Francisco two weeks ago after being away for a little over a year. And there’s something I have been noticing in these short weeks back in urban living: This overwhelming city is beginning to feel small.
There’s something about being forced outside—outside the house, outside the (now nonexistent) backyard, outside the car—with your kids, that makes you talk to people. When there is no yard, you go to the neighborhood park and you interact with kids and parents and caregivers you never would have met otherwise. When your kids are going crazy in the afternoon and there’s nowhere for them to play, you head out for a walk in the neighborhood and see what you can find. You talk to the old lady with the cute white dog that she has crowned, “Princess of the Castro!”"


from problem to solution: practical ideas for an ethical halloween  - Kristen at Rage against the Mini-van

(We live in Australia and Halloween isn't as a big a thing as in North America, but this post is very practical concerning holidays and chocolate and how we can take steps (whether small or large) towards supporting fair-trade products.)

from the post:  "For our family, the response to learning this has been to limit our chocolate purchases to fair-trade chocolate, which is a system that ensures that workers are paid and treated fairly.  I believe that our purchases have the biggest impact on corporate change.  The chocolate companies are well aware of the human rights abuses in the farms they are buying from, but unfortunately it is the profitability that is driving the ship, not ethics."