Well, I just got back from a longish bike ride. I left my house at around 2:30, I think, and rode all the way downtown. There is actually a bike path most of the way that runs parallel to the 5. Here’s a map that I put together, I think this was the route I took.

I deviated from google’s recommended path a few times, and I see now that it would’ve helped if I’d printed the whole thing out ahead of time, since I rode parallel to a street with a bike lane for quite a while. At a certain point, I walked for a few blocks because traffic was a little hairy.

I took a couple of photos on the way with my iPhone. The LA river is actually pretty beautiful along this stretch. They’ve converted lots of it back to a real river instead of just being a concrete drainage ditch. I was impressed with the number of birds and plants I saw.

This was the only picture I took of the river, and now I wish I’d stopped to snap a couple more, especially the parts with birds. I guess I’ll have to go back.

Here’s MacArthur park at the end of my ride.  I was actually pretty close to where my friend Chris is doing her internship, but I was so tired at this point that I decided to just hop the metro home.

I saw an article about a concept that I think would be really cool for a congregation to implement, it’s called a Time Bank. The idea is that people volunteer to help their neighbors and are credited with hours at the time bank. Then when they need help with something they can “withdraw” time and get help. The example they gave that really convinced me was getting or giving a ride to the airport, which is really expensive around here.

Imagine this group: an older widow, a young single construction worker, a busy accountant who travels frequently, and a couple with kids and a station wagon.

So the assets/needs of that group: cooking, sewing, lawn mowing, accounting, rides to the airport, babysitting, home repair, etc.

The accountant, for example, may not think she has any time to spare, but preparing everyone’s taxes would save them a lot of time. In return she could get rides to the airport from the couple with the station wagon, some meals prepared by the old lady to put in the freezer, her lawn mowed, etc.

The couple with kids are happy to give rides to the airport in their big station wagon or mow the lawn, so they could have the old lady or the construction worker babysit, get their taxes done by the accountant, get home repair done by the construction worker, etc.

The old lady might feel useless since her husband died, but she can cook, do mending, babysit, etc. and get her lawn mowed, her house fixed up, her taxes done, etc.

And the construction worker is happy do mow lawns and fix houses, but subsists on TV dinners and his clothes are wearing out. Well, you get the picture.

I think one piece that is really important that makes this different is that it allows the old widow to contribute her time doing the things that she’s best at instead of just having a work crew come from the church out of pity because her house is falling apart and her lawn is overgrown.

Of course, the primary benefit is that it builds community. People help each other and spend time together. It’s better than reciprocal favors because everyone gives their time to benefit the whole community so I’d hope it wouldn’t feel like a quid pro quo.

This could work by having one or two people coordinate the bank, but I like the idea of having a web app that could keep track of it all (I don’t know how to create that, in case you’re wondering).

Here’s the website I found about this, but it doesn’t look like they have any interactive features.

http://www.timebanks.org/

Jürgen Moltmann’s theology of the incarnation is one of the integral concepts underpinning his entire theology.  His perspective takes the incarnation very seriously and this leads him to some radical theological conclusions about the relationship between God and the world. His theology of the incarnation is not itself radical, but he does not abandon it as he reaches conclusions about that it means for the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.  In this paper, I will attempt to describe Moltmann’s theology of the incarnation in detail and demonstrate how it is central to his understanding of the Jesus’ crucifixion.

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Here’s a paper I wrote for my Systematic theology class about the movie Doubt. There are certainly some spoilers (If that movie could have spoilers), but I specifically don’t take sides in the question of “did he do it?”. Enjoy.

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