Monthly Musings

It's that time again! Time to reflect on some of the formative pieces I read during the month of April. Here are just a few of the blogs, articles, etc. that have had me musing the past few weeks. What caught your eye this month?

Proof of Worth as a Double-Standard

Easily one of the most widely-read articles on the Washington Post during April, urban policy journalist Emily Badger takes a look at the double-standard that exists in making only some groups of government assistance recipients prove their worth prior to receiving benefits. The article looks particularly at what political scientists refer to as the 'submerged effect.'

Political scientist Suzanne Mettler has called this effect the "submerged state." Food stamps and welfare checks are incredibly visible government benefits. The mortgage interest deduction, Medicare benefits and tuition tax breaks are not — they're submerged. They come to us in round-about ways, through smaller tax bills (or larger refunds), through payments we don't have to make to doctors (thanks to Medicare), or in tuition we don't have to pay to universities (because the G.I. Bill does that for us).
[click to read full article]

---

Our Emmaus Road

Amid uncertainty about the future of the PC(USA), we walk, eyes opened by Christ, to see the dying - and living - things in our midst.  I enjoyed reading the editor's column in the current issue of Presbyterians Today, and it has me wondering: what are some of the new and exciting things that our eyes will be opened to when we stop looking only to the past?

We have polished when we should have demolished, promoted when we should have prophesied, repackaged when we should have created. I think we genuinely believed that if we just concentrated enough on the positives, we could return this church to its 1950s (supposed) glory. The problem is that what this church needs is not a rebuilt temple but an empty tomb—a void that sends us out onto an Emmaus road where we encounter an unrecognizable Christ who leads us along unfamiliar paths. [click to read full article]

---

Confirmation: 100 Things To Learn

The Bread, Not Stones blog attempts to list 100 of the most important things to be taught in our Confirmation classes. It's hard to limit to just 100! What would you add? [click to read article]

---

Behind the Rainbow

Whenever I'm involved in one of those Q&A icebreaker games (and please don't even get me started about icebreaker games...) and the question is "Who would you want to trade places with for a day?" my answer is the same every single time. Pete Souza. Never heard of him? That's because so much of his work is behind the scenes, following every move President Obama makes as the official White House photographer. Souza takes thousands of photos each week, every single one of which makes its way to the Library of Congress for archiving. In this article, he describes his thought process behind one of the more recent notable photos of the president.

So long Jamaica.

A photo posted by Pete Souza (@petesouza) on Apr 10, 2015 at 5:32am PDT

When people ask me how I do what I do, I often recite the words of Bob Dylan: “I was just doing what I could with what I had where I was.” That kind of sums up my approach to my job as the President’s photographer. [click to read full article]