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Your Spiritual Genius

I have been reading an inspiring book entitled Spiritual Genius by Winifred Gallagher. She looks at 10 ‘masters’ and the quest for meaning. One of the passages early on in the book has really stuck with me and yesterday I had the opportunity to present it as a ‘conversation starter’ (we don’t do sermons per se) at the Loft.

All of us use our spiritual genius some of the time. We might not recognize it as such, but we tap it whenever we “just know” that something is happening for a reason that, to paraphrase Blaise Pascal, “reason does not know.” Spiritual genius tells us that, despite the chaos and confusion around us, everything is all right, so we might as well be nice. It tells us that if we take on a worthwhile challenge, we’ll somehow find the necessary strength and help. It tells us that our true self is more that a bunch of personality traits and problems. Like a compass, spiritual genius always points us toward a reality larger than the ego and the status quo. Once we members of the meaning-seeking species find our place in the grand design, we’re able to gather up the pieces of our everyday lives, making a coherent picture out of what can seem like an impossible puzzle.

I tried something a little different by reading it like you would a passage of scripture and then circling back and going through it ‘verse by verse’. I thought I would post some of it here in the hopes of encouraging you today.

All of us use our spiritual genius some of the time. We might not recognize it as such, but we tap it whenever we “just know” that something is happening for a reason that, to paraphrase Blaise Pascal, “reason does not know.”

It is illuminating to recognize that you have spiritual genius inside of you. That is not to say that you are a spiritual genius or that you have a spiritual genius inside of you. What you have, however, is access to spiritual genius. Nov20sw1

There is a passage of scripture that talks about a “peace that surpasses understanding” and we can rest in that. By God’s spirit, we have access to a strength that transcends our ability to comprehend or master the information about the circumstances that surround us. We have stories in the gospels about a ‘power’ that is asleep in our boat in the midst of the storm. That old line ‘Hope was asleep at the back of the boat’ is a funny reminder that we are provided in the christian narrative a peace in the midst of the storm.

Spiritual genius tells us that, despite the chaos and confusion around us, everything is all right, so we might as well be nice.

I am the oldest of 4 siblings and developed a little bully streak when I was younger. I was a jock in high school (captain of the football and basketball team) and that fed my inner ‘jerk’. Pour on the gasoline of immaturity and I had a full-blown fire inside. I was prone to angry outburst and even into my early years of ministry, I would ‘vent’ in angry rants.

I repented of this whole fiery permission 7 or 8 years ago and have watched that fire crumble into a pile of little embers. Once in a while however, I am surprised that it will flare up out of nowhere. I have noticed a pattern: Every time I get angry it is a result of 1 of 2 things – either I am not getting my way or I don’t know how this chapter ends.

I have grown fond of talking about the ‘spirit of adoption’ from Romans 8:15 and Galatians 4: 4-7. This is part of your spiritual genius. When you receive the truth that you are accepted, approved and adored by God, there is peace and strength that surpasses your ability to understand your circumstance and allows you to be the full version of you … even though you don’t know how this chapter turns out.

It tells us that if we take on a worthwhile challenge, we’ll somehow find the necessary strength and help.

The walk of faith requires 2 things:

  1. That we participate in something bigger than ourself and are concerned about something other than yourself.
  2. That we step into that endeavor before we have secured all of the resources for it.

It is in that place that God meets us with that which we lack but so desperately need for the thing that we have been called to.

It tells us that our true self is more that a bunch of personality traits and problems. Like a compass, spiritual genius always points us toward a reality larger than the ego and the status quo.

Your spiritual genius begins with a confession that are more that the sum of things that can be measured. There is something about your life that is greater than what can be seen. The struggle is getting outside of the ego and not accepting the status quo. This means fighting for something that is both bigger than you and may not even profit you – it also means not accepting the ways things are as the way that will be or should be.

Once we members of the meaning-seeking species find our place in the grand design, we’re able to gather up the pieces of our everyday lives, making a coherent picture out of what can seem like an impossible puzzle.

Life is messy. It is mis-matched mixed-up collection of experiences, relationships, assumptions, attitudes and limitations.

Here is the possibility and the payoff however: IF you will bring your spiritual genius to the table, it makes us all better. When we all bring our spiritual genius to the table, each of us is better. 

You have spiritual genius in you. How do access it? On what worthy endeavor will you spend it? 

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1st Chapters of Books: The New Materialism

I can not tell you how often I start a book and find myself thinking “This is going to be great!” ContentImage-63-220729-ContentImage63163974CrockettRobbins2

It doesn’t always turn out to be great… but there is almost always something in the 1st chapter that I would love to quote/riff on/incorporate.  The problem is that the rest of the book may not be very good OR it may turn into something that I am not sure I want to associate with/defend later.

I’m reading a book entitled “What Color Is Your God: Multicultural Education In The Church” right now. The subtitle is ‘examine Christ and culture in light of the changing face of the church”. The first chapter has some rockin’ quotes but I am nervous about the trajectory that the authors have set for the book.

I have also started an in-depth reading of “Religion, Politics, and the Earth – The New Materialism” by Clayton Crockett & Jeffrey W. Robbins. I have skimmed the book in prep for a series of HomeBrewed Christianity podcasts on the subject but this time I am prepping for a reading group that starts next week.

I have been thinking for a while about sharing great quotes that I find here. My hesitation is that someone will get nit-picky about not having the whole context for the content … but I think that I am just going to do it anyway.

So without further ado, here is a challenging quote from the beginning of that Crockett and Robbins book:

We are witnessing the exhaustion of contemporary culture, a devolution to consumerism, greed, mindless entertainment, and the corrupt appeal of money and military power. We encounter numerous scenarios of apocalyptic crisis and collapse both in the popular imagination and in the real world. Globally—culturally and economically—our world has become tied together to an unbelievable extent, just to the point where it is fraying and fragmenting apart.
Witness the vapidity of most popular cultural modes: the saturation of consciousness by “reality” shows, recycled commercial jingles and right-wing talk radio, and the bleeding of news into cynical infotain-ment, the dumbing-down or corporatization of education and other phenomena.3 The most invigorating buzz is usually tied to a sporting event or an advertising campaign.

I’m going to try this over the next month as a fun experiment – sharing stuff I find intriguing.

I would love to hear your thoughts on the totally out-of-context introductory section.

 

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Religion in America Update: Spring 2013

Last week 3 interesting items came across my radar screen.

  1. A new CNN poll entitled “America losing its religion”
  2. A NYTimes op-ed called “Belief Is the Least Part of Faith” by an author who specializes on Evangelicals.
  3. A God Complex Radio interview with Cameron Trimble on the Future of Church Renewal.

Each of these three caught my attention for a different reason. I want to try to connect them here and then listen to what you have to say.

In the CNN poll, it turns out that:

“More than three in four of Americans say religion is losing its influence in the United States, according to a new survey, the highest such percentage in more than 40 years.”  One-Room Schoolhouse

There are two interesting parts to that opening sentence. The first is that it is only people ‘saying it’. It doesn’t meant that religion IS losing it’s influence – only that it feels that way to 3/4 of those surveyed. The second point is that 40 years ago it felt much that same way.

The article points out two other times in recent history that the percentage was very similar. Those periods were 1969-1970 and then again in 1991-1994.

In the NY Times op-ed piece, T. M. Luhrmann, attempts to clarify a common misconception by those who do not go to church about why people go to church. She is arguing that it is not because of belief – but rather that belief comes from action (going to church/living out your faith) for those who go to church.

As interesting as her stories and finding were, the part that really caught my attention (as one who comes from an Evangelical perspective) is that :

If you can sidestep the problem of belief — and the related politics, which can be so distracting — it is easier to see that the evangelical view of the world is full of joy. God is good. The world is good. Things will be good, even if they don’t seem good now. That’s what draws people to church. It is understandably hard for secular observers to sidestep the problem of belief. But it is worth appreciating that in belief is the reach for joy, and the reason many people go to church in the first place.

In the God Complex Radio interview with Rev. Cameron Trimble was great. She is the director of the center for progressive renewal and Derek asked her about the future of the church. She had fantastic answer that are best days are not behind us. This piqued my interest because of the CNN poll.

When I think about these three items together, I come to two conclusions:

A) IF the churches best days are not behind us, then WHAT the church is in the future will be very different – almost unrecognizable – from what we have been used to for the past couple of centuries.

B) The way that we engage media, use technology, train future leaders and use resources – especially buildings – is so important because of the reason that Luhrmann said in the NY Times piece that people are even going to church. Trimble also points out in the interview that the reason people even go to church at all has changed in the last 50 years.

I would love to hear your thoughts on these trends and ideas. 

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Emergent Preaching?

A good question can stimulate the brain to put together things that one had not previously connected. Stuart Harrell asked my a question about what a course on emergent “preaching” would look like. Here are some of my thought – I would love to hear yours.

GtMeadow

My cleaned up tweets are posted as bullet-points with a clarifying thought following. 

  • You would want to immediately address message and medium. It’s not just a repacking of the same old material.

What we are experiencing in a genuinely different expression of the good news. I watch lots of video clips of hip – fashionable – edgy young preachers who are still on an elevated stage using the exact same forms as the past 100 years … only they have added video clips and hair gel.

That is not what we are talking about. That is just lipstick on pig 🙂  not that I really believe that old-school preaching is a pig, I just love that phrase.

  •  #EmergentPreaching would involve scripture, culture, media, dialogue, experience & impartation to start.

The ‘problem’ with emergent thought is that it is neither reductive nor is it reproducible. It is environment specific (contextual) and organic. It interacts with its surroundings and emerges from its participants. It is a different animal from day 1.

  • I have given a LOT of thought to Emergent Preaching since my dad is a homiletics Prof. & I helped start The Loft LA recently.

One of our biggest glitches is that our ‘gatherings’ don’t translate to podcasts or video very well. We planned on being media savvy but the ‘sermon’ is broken up into conversation starters, dialogue, small groups, feedback and presentation. It’s kind of messy and we are still trying to figure out how to ‘capture’ it authentically. I think that we are going to start just throwing it out there unedited for members who missed that week in case they want to catch up.

  • the task of Emergent Preaching would deal with issues of power, voice, dialogue, participation, action, justice & cultural stuff.

This is where the medium must be addressed along with the message. HOW we do something is as important as WHAT we do.

Proclamation is a vital part of the Christian tradition. We don’t want to lose that! We address the form as well.

Why is there one person talking anyway? How is that person chosen? With what authority do they speak? These are essential questions to ask.

  • Assumptions of culture, the gospel, power, structures, and orthopraxy are vital to address in thinking about.

We are always attempting to do at least two things (this is true for every area of life). Side note: this is why saying that sex is only for procreation is ludicrous.  So it is incumbent upon us to concern ourself with present cultural realities as well as desired outcomes – because we preach an incarnational gospel that must be in-bodied (embodied) to survive.

  • One would have to pull back the curtain & examine the scaffolding (assumptions) that hold the entire project up.

This is the tough job of deconstructing a constructive theology. There is no easy way around it.

  • It would be part Liberation, Feminism, Walter Wink, masters of suspicion, biblical scholarship & philosophy.

There is just no sense in even attempting to do proclamation in the 21st century under the auspices of emergence without this. Emergent Preaching would need to be well-informed and undeniably self-aware at some level. This seems unavoidable.

  • But it would also have to be rooted in history, hermeneutics, scripture and praxis. Those are my thoughts on Emergence Preaching. 

In the end, we preach the christian gospel and not some form of god-ness or spirit-uality. We are the church after all. Accounting for history, hermeneutics, scripture and praxis is tall order. But what is the other option?

I would love to hear your thoughts on my little list and see if you had any additions. 

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Problem is that new Pope isn’t Protestant enough

It has been amazing to watch both the amount of reporting and the kind of reporting that  Pope Francis’ style has drawn. You can find stories about him in major magazines, on every news website … even the Daily Show gave some hilarious attention to the hype.

I was on an Australian radio show the day of his election – they liked the angle that I had taken on my blog focusing on the Southern hemisphere. [you can listen to the 4 minute clip at the bottom of this post at HBC] I was on after the Australian Ambassador from Argentina.

Some of my co-workers are Catholic and Pope Francis’ dealing provide us with every-other-day content for our coffee-pot conversations. Even my wife, who is generally not that interested in such things, is into it.

She asked me, on a recent road trip after several news stories, why I thought people were so into Francis.  I have three thoughts and would love to hear other’s thoughts.

  • There are still 1.6 Billion Catholics worldwide. That is 1/6 of everyone on the planet. Who is their leader matters a lot.

I know that not every Catholic listens to the Pope and that the Pope does not influence every thing … but it is still a big deal.

  • Between the elaborate displays of the Vatican and the global sex-abuse scandal – both of which are hard to figure out from reading the gospels – the Catholic church has been having a rough time of it in the court of public opinion.Pope-Holy-Thursday_2509139b

Francis’ style is not just a breath of fresh air – it is substantially different. What he did on Maundy Thursday was not just a ‘break with tradition’, as reports kept repeating, but was significant. Washing & kissing prisoner’s feet instead of priest’s is not window dressing

  •  Protestants seems to be fascinated with Pope-drama like Americans are fascinated with Royals. I don’t really get either.

It’s like we are enamored with the figure-head of the thing we left so long ago. I chalk it up to some sort of fetish thing for regal gowns, bejeweled crowns and antiquated (and sometimes secret) ceremonies.

There is one problem though. Protestants seem to want the Pope to be more protestant.

Almost all of the critique or concern I heard about him is something that would be more emblematic of protestant values or approaches. He is following the church’s traditional stance on (just to name 4):

  1. Contraception
  2. Celibacy
  3. Women in ministry
  4. Homosexuality

I want to holler at people when they are disappointed in this

“Of course he is – otherwise he wouldn’t have been elected Pope”.

It feels to me like somebody saying “I like the new Miss USA … I just wish she was built like a Linebacker in football.”   Well … I hate to break it to you but that’s not going to happen. In fact, people who are built to play linebackers don’t make it to the Miss USA pageant. That is just not what the judges are looking for.

What I wish we would instead focus on is his economic dealings, immigration issues (he is the son of immigrants) and out-reach to non-Europeans. I continue to claim that just those 3 will make this a game-changer.

I would love to hear your thoughts. 

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God After Easter: Jesu Babushka

Easter turns everything upside down. The temple veil is torn in two. The sealed stone is rolled away. The dead are made alive. In darkness we have seen the light. The powers are defeated.
I have friends who are transitioning back to paycheck & mortgage N. America after 15 years of international missions. For some reason they were on my mind all day as I went through the Easter services, egg hunt, and Loft gathering.
There is something about Easter  that haunts me.

babushka_2-t

Our conceptions of God are so powerful and how they impact our life is so fascinating. I wrote a sermon about this several years ago while in the Ukraine: I call this aspect of God  ‘Jehovah Babushka’. I got it while watching an Ukrainian grandma (babushka) knead dough.
It’s like God is always punching into the dough our life – to break the crust of the outside and expose the raw stuff on the inside. Always turning us inside out to expose that which is  in need of the air in order to develop and mash that which is crusty into softness again.

The story of Jesus does this too. He welcomes in those who had been on the outside or stuck on the periphery.
He pushes out those who assumed they were center.
He brought low the arrogant and the prideful.
He lifted up the lowly and the downtrodden.

He said it’s not about sacrifice or even law anymore.
He broke the crust of the old system to expose the loving heart of god to the world.
He turned the raw goo of the disciples out to the world as his public representatives on earth.
The spirit of god crashed in at Pentecost to turn upside down the priesthood.
Now we are all ministers.
The priesthood has been turned inside out and upside down.

God calls us to season of loneliness to expose our need of people. God uses tough encounters with people to show us something about ourselves and hopefully smash our conception of God – exposing the immature and underdeveloped while breaking in through the stale and crusty images we have allowed to become cliché.

Our idolatry of God is pressed out so our true identity can be pressed in.With Jesus there is no longer a female-male divide. There is not slave – only free. Jews and Gentiles are both connected to God.
Jesus smashed those old crusty categories.
The faithfulness of Jesus (pistis christou) mashes our certainty that we are saved by having faith in Jesus and exposes the raw reality that we are called to participate in the faithfulness of Jesus and that is what brings salvation to the world.Jesu Babushka kneads all the gas out of the dough – presses all the air pockets so that the finished product is fine and consistent.
All of this, of course, is only in preparation for the chemistry (yeast and rising) transformation to kick in and the eventual baking (heat) of the oven.

Who said faith was going to be easy? Or did you think Easter was all jelly beans and pretty dresses?

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Neighbors and Wisemen for Lent

My blogging energies have all been going to Neighbors and Wisemen over at HBC.  A bunch of us are using it for a Lenten emphasis.

I thought it would be good to post a list of them here so that if anyone wants to look into any of it, it is clearly cataloged.


Here is a running list to all the links: 

Introduction:  Loss and Lent

Day 1:  Foreign Concepts

Day 2: Double Vision

Day 3:   Betrayed By a Kiss

Day 4:  Be Not Synced With The World

Day 5: Devotion and Distilled Friendship

Day 6: Translation Station

Day 7: Sodom’s Sin Wasn’t Sexual

Day 8: What’s In A Name?

Day 9: My Soul Is Fried

Day 10: Unlikely Allies and Not That Kind of Christian

Day 11: How Do You Know?

Day 12: The Voice of God in Others

Day 13: Poetic Language about God

Day 14: Going to College with Christians

Day 15: Living Out Faith Loud

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Liberal Question part 3: Music and Whiteness

I think a lot about issues of race, gender and class. I read about it and talk it over with people every week. I am working my way through an expensive program in order to write my dissertation about it.  I care about matters of diversity and justice a great deal. mumford_and_sons

Ever since talking to my mentor, Randy Woodley at Wild Goose West last fall I have been thinking about this a little differently. Then with the happenings of the Emergent Christianity thing in Memphis … I thought I would bring out what I have been whittling away at in my workshop.
This is something I am working on and I would love your constructive feedback. 

The problem isn’t Brian McLaren speaking at a conference.
The problem is if everyone speaking at the conference looks like McLaren.

The problem isn’t reading a book by a white guy.
The problem is only reading books by white guys.*

The problem isn’t having a man speak up front at church.
The problem is if we only hear men speak from up front at church.


You don’t even listen to podcasts! 

Here is what I want to avoid. There was some grumbling on facebook when The Culture Cast was released and it turned out that both Jordan and Christian were white guys. Ironically, almost all the grumbling came from white guys – but that is a different issue.

One female friend said “where are the women podcasters?”

I suggested that since it was a concern of hers … why didn’t she tell us some recommendations.  Why is she asking a question?

She responded that she didn’t listen to podcasts.

I was stunned.

I asked “then why do you care? What difference would it make to you?”

It would be like me complaining their aren’t enough black NASCAR drivers. I don’t watch NASCAR. I don’t even know how many black drivers there are. That reality is irrelevant to my existence.

I think that we need to care deeply about things that we are invested in. There are too many issues that matter for too much for us to get tangled in controversies vicariously.


We don’t except tokens.

We need to be careful of tokenism. Let me be clear on this: if you are group of white people who have organized a conference, already have 10 white speakers lined up and then think ‘we need some color – let’s see if we can get Randy Woodley’ … that is token.  Randy got no say in the direction and organization nor had any power or influence. You just want to put a microphone in his face and have him do his schtick.

Token is an afterthought that serves primarily to help one feel good about being able to check off a box. If Randy was on the organizing committee – trust me the no conference would look the same.

In contrast to ‘token’ let me offer 3 examples:

  • Anthony Smith is an emergent voice and influence. He was in the movement before me and helped bring me in. That is not token. That is influence. Anthony Smith is influential.
  • When Tripp and I organized the Emergent Village Theological Conversation we said “Monica Coleman is our marquee speaker, our cornerstone, our prima donna.” And we did not do anything until she agreed to be our first round draft pick. She got session 1 to start the conference to set the tone and she got session 5 to end the conference so that she had the final word. We built the conference around that structure. We then invited others to come in around her.
  • When we inherited the Phoenix Big-Tent Christianity event many of the speakers were already in place. It was great to have Richard Rohr, Marcus Borg and Brian McLaren to boost ticket sales. But we wanted to highlight some voices that people had not heard a lot before. So, for instance, we structured the actual sessions that one of the ‘marquee’ voices was asking questions of one of the ‘emerging’ voices. For many people, that was the first time they had heard of Rachel Held-Evans. I will never forget watching her debate Marcus Borg about church folks understanding of creation!


I’m with the band. 

Here is my big point:
The problem isn’t that Mumford and Sons are all white guys. We have to look at the way that bands form. It makes sense that the guys of Mumford connect and play.

The problem is if every band on the radio is white guys.

The problem isn’t that Bono is a white guy or that U2 are all white guys.

The problem is if every band on a record label is a bunch of white guys.

We have to learn to distinguish between how a band come together and how the music industry functions.

We also need to do this for church … and for christian conferences.

No conference or podcast is or can be the full expression of the kingdom on earth. It is not nor can it be heaven. It is not supposed to be. Like no band can play every type of music …

I understand our desire for diversity – I just want us to manage our expectations. Our problem isn’t with Mumford and Sons, it’s with the music industry.

The answer isn’t “add a black guy”.  That is not how bands work.
Can you imagine somebody saying “why doesn’t Boys 2 Men have a women in it?” or “why doesn’t Destiny’s Child get Ricky Martin to join?”

The problem then isn’t with any church, podcast, organization, conference or person. Our concern is with how that all comes together in a less-diverse way than we would hope for and desperately need. 

The answer then is not to ‘add a women and stir’ or to ‘get some color’. That is what we call token – and it is insulting to everyone involved.

The need is to examine the bigger picture. This includes how things are planned, who makes decisions, and in what ways can people access resources.

Here is a timely example: Tripp and I are singers and songwriters. Our friends Callid Keefe-Perry and Steve Knight are as concerned about the impact of technology on the church as we are. We have talking about  it whenever we are together. We started this when we lived in 4 different parts of the country. Tomorrow, Steve Night is in town and we are going to record a podcast about the subject.

That is not a problem. We are Mumford, or U2, or The Stones, or the Beatles … we are just a band.
It is not a problem that we sing together – or in this case talk together. The problem comes if we are the only ones you hear.

Just to be clear: 1) I am using this an analogy. 2) I am using the music industry as a positive example.

 

___________________

*If you find yourself in this situation, here are some books suggestions

Quest for the Living God by Elizabeth Johnson

Christ the Key by Catherine Tanner

Teaching Community by bell hooks

Shalom and the Community of Creation by Randy Woodley

Many Colors or The Next Evangelicalism by Soong Chan-Rah

Triune Atonement: Christ’s Healing for Sinners, Victims, and the Whole Creation by Andrew Sung Park

 

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Liberal Question part 2: Jesus Creed

I had the honor of guest blogging for Scot McKnight a couple of weeks ago. It was a good opportunity to try something out with a different crowd. It was  instigated by last weeks post in response to Roger Olsen and Scot McKnight.Facade of St. Vitus Cathedral

It was a fantastic conversation and I learned several things that I will take with me into future engagements. Here are some observations:

  • I learned to clarify the difference between people in the pew and theologians.

I go to a mainline school and work at a mainline church. I have an amalgamation in my mind of the ‘average liberal’.  But if you are in the conservative camp, your main engagement and concern is with Liberal theologians who have a high profile.

If was starting the post over, I would address this up front and make an early distinction. I think that would have helped.

  • I learned not to use the word ‘versus’ if you don’t mean adversarial.

Neither Scot nor I think liberal is necessarily  a bad thing. Roger Olsen does. But some of the readers at JesusCreed think in adversarial binaries. I was not trying to say that progressives are good and liberals are bad. I was simply trying to distinguish the two – not pit them against each other. The argument culture is so strong – especially in conservative circles – that I should have preempted that.

  •  I learned that those in systematic approaches struggle to recognize non-systematic approaches.

This is an obvious and inherent problem. If you value systematic approaches, of corse you will criticize something as ‘not systematic’ and think that stands alone are a critique. I was trying to point out that conservative, liberal, evangelical, emergent, and progressive are not 5 categories of the same thing. Some are positions. Some are loyalties. Some are approaches.

Here is what I ended up with: 

Since my Cobb quick-definition was not working for folks I thought I would ‘shift’ the emphasis and see if this language worked better:

Liberal – a constellation of loyalties inherited from the Enlightenment that is settled/assumed.

Progressive – an approach that integrates such influences as Feminist, Liberation and Post-Colonial critiques explicitly.

I’m open to help refining this – ESPECIALLY  if you are a self-proclaimed  liberal or progressive

My favorite response came from TJJ and it has me smiling ear to ear.

Qualities of a progressive ………as viewed by an evangelical……….

A. See more “grey” in their approach to scripture issues: inspiration, inerrancy, revelation.
B. Allow for more of a continuum on doctrinal/theological issues: hell, salvation, sin, depravity, exclusiveness of Gospel, etc.
C. More open ended on social issues : gay marriage, illegal immigration.
D. Trends more democratic/progressive politically
E. White, college degree and often more, affluent, alcohol, NPR, Toyota/Honda, MSNBC/CNN

Oh my. That is good.

At first read you may say “yeah – of course”.

But look at it again. It’s actually pretty helpful to see it all in one place.

I would love to hear your thoughts on any part of this whole episode. 

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