A group of us have been leading a "Green Sunday School" class at church for a number of weeks and last Sunday was the day for a friend and I. I did a short introduction and Brian selected a few passages (from the many choices available) to discuss in relation to consumption. Here's the intro and the passages, although I didn't transcribe the discussion itself, which was good.

I am sitting here watching the Democratic debate and recalled a thought I have had a few times in regard to this political season, especially in regard to the massive amounts of money raised and spent. It's staggering to think of all the money that has been dumped into the campaigns and then dumped into television ad buys and lawn signs (and all the rest). I am an Obama supporter, and with all this talk of change and a new kind of politics, I was kind of hoping for something new, something changed in regard to the money situation -- something beyond being able to raise a ton of it and spend it more or less in the usual manner. (Granted, Obama gets points for not accepting money from PACs and federal lobbyists).

A friend and I got quoted (barely) in the local paper after attending the biodiesel co-op meeting a few weeks ago. I was pleased that despite the brevity of the quote, they got it right -- my main interest is the fact that they are planning to produce biodiesel from waste vegetable oil (WVO) instead of virgin soybeans. Click below for the story and a link to the paper.

Laryn Kragt Bakker of Avondale said he was previously a member of a biodiesel co-op and had been searching for another one to join.

‘‘My main interest was that they’re producing their own fuel from used vegetable oil,” he said, adding he was intrigued by the production process.

‘‘I’d like to make my own biodiesel now, but I just don’t have the space for it,” said Chris Fuller of Washington, D.C. ‘‘But [I’m] definitely considering joining, especially if they’re gung-ho about producing, and it seems like they are.”

Alleia gets  baptized on Sunday...one of the things that I've come to appreciate more about infant baptism is the emphasis on covenant and on God's grace -- the belief that God works in mysterious ways and has pledged himself to his people over and over again. While there is (of course) something very beautiful about an adult being baptized, it seems to me that infant baptism strikes a blow against the individualism that is so deeply embedded in much of traditional evangelicalism and the modernist notion that Christianity is simply a concept you mentally assent to. God's grace is so big that the people he claims as his own haven't always "prayed the prayer" or don't even necessarily know his name.