01Nov, 2009

Non-religious Thoughts on Edible Spirituality

Posted by Don
1

My old friend Leigh Vickery, who writes a food column in Tyler Texas interviewed me recently about all things food, including restaurants in Portland, something I don’t often get asked about, so I thought it would be fun to repost it on the blog. Thanks so much, Leigh! Bon Appetit! Do you cook? If so, what do you enjoy cooking? I don’t cook for myself very often but I cook for others on occasion. It’s a crime I don’t cook more because I have a terrific kitchen. I bought a condo from a former chef who had a restaurant architect design the layout around the kitchen. Cooking shows have been filmed in my house. But they’ve never filmed me making a peanut-butter and Jelly sandwich. Not sure why. Did your mom cook when you were growing up? Any childhood memories of dinners, cooking, holidays, etc that would be fun to share here. I grew up there in Texas and one of our great traditions, I think, is family meals. My favorite “meal tradition” took place on Christmas Eve, where the various families that make up our clan would have a progressive dinner, starting at one persons home and going deep [...]

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02Oct, 2009

On Morality and Narrative Law

Posted by Don
0

Without some form of morality, it is difficult to tell a good story. In any meaningful story, and therefore in any meaningful life, a character must have a sense of right and wrong, and that sense of right and wrong has to be universal. If his sense of right and wrong isn’t universal, he is a psychopath, and if he has no morality, his story is not going to be meaningful. Many people are moral for religious reasons, stating their morality comes from the Bible or a sacred text (which, while these books can influence morality, are not written with the intention of defining a moral code. If they are, they are terribly written and the authors couldn’t land their point.) Natural Law, then, becomes a kind of catch all conglomerate of sacred texts, an attempt to arrive at a universal code for meaningful morality in a civilized society. As a culture, America subscribes to natural law even more than Constitutional law. The foundation for constitutional law is natural law and without it, the constitution makes no sense. In some ways, I think, the constitution is a defense of natural law. But each time a debate takes place regarding a [...]

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01Sep, 2009

Jeremy Cowart is Picturing a Better World

Posted by Don
0

Earlier this year I had the privilege of spending a couple days in Washington DC with Jeremy Cowart. Jeremy is a premier photographer whose photos are seen all over the world. We had lunch at a little Thai place near Georgetown and I asked him how things were going. He was about to accept a job traveling with Brittany Spears as the official photographer for her tour, so things were good. But he also wanted something more, he wanted to give back. He had an idea, and it was a good one. Jeremy talked about the need for everybody to have a good photo of themselves. In the age of social networking, where our pictures are everywhere, a good photo is an advantage. But he also mentioned that not everybody has a camera, or somebody to take their picture, or even a way to get that picture onto a computer. He specifically mentioned single moms looking for jobs, and that of course got my attention. His idea was to call all his photographer friends and have them set up their equipment on one specific day and take pictures of anybody who needed a good photo. And then give those people [...]

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26Aug, 2009

Thinking of Deleting Your Facebook Page? Here’s Some Resolve

Posted by Don
65

I visit my Facebook page about once a month. I used to use it all the time, but now I don’t. I think they changed their format or something, and I didn’t bother figuring out how to click around. I’m thinking of getting rid of it all together because it’s just another way for me to annoy people. By that I mean it’s just another way for me to not return e-mails, or for that matter pithy comments on my wall. At one point last year I had more than five-hundred unopened messages. Not unreturned, but actually unopened. I’ve gotten that down to around 120 these days, but it’s still hard for me to make a personal connection via e-mail. I’m horrible about that stuff. But it’s scary. How will I know about important social causes? Facebook is the new Economist, you know. I like Twitter and it truly is how I keep tabs on my friends, but Facebook has become a hindrance. So, in seeking resolve, I fired some questions at my friend Anne Jackson, who deleted her facebook account several months ago and has never looked back. If you happen to be contemplating such things too, perhaps her [...]

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07Jul, 2009

Lessons in Leadership, Robert McNamara teaches the most important lesson

Posted by Don
0

I won’t follow anybody who can’t admit a mistake. I led a college group at a church once, and as part of a series I created I asked all the pastors at the church to address the college group regarding mistakes they made when they were the age of my students. The pastors agreed, save one, who, as humbly as he could, explained he hadn’t made any mistakes. As the years went on, I noticed something about this pastor, I noticed he never admitted he was wrong, about anything, and I also noticed a trail of bodies behind him. He literally fired or marginalized anybody who did not agree with him. His church succeeded to some degree, because people do follow strong, confident leadership. But it suffered too. It was, and remains, a revolving door, impressive at first, but not so impressive up close and personal. Christian leaders who can’t admit their mistakes place a wall between their congregation and God, rather than a window. They paint an image of Christ on themselves, as they feel this is their job. People like the painting of Jesus they see on the wall, but in the end, the painting isn’t the real thing, [...]

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