O Lord, open my eyes that I may see the needs of others; open my ears that I may hear their cries; open my heart so that they need not be without succor; let me not be afraid to defend the weak because of the anger of the strong, nor afraid to defend the poor because of the anger of the rich ... And so open my eyes and my ears that I may this coming day be able to do some work of peace for thee.  

- Alan Paton

The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.

- Alice Walker

You are a Christian only so long as you constantly pose critical questions to the society you live in ... so long as you stay unsatisfied with the status quo and keep saying that a new world is yet to come.

- Henri Nouwen

Peace does not appear so distant as it did. I hope it will come soon, and come to stay; and so come as to be worth the keeping in all future time. 

- Abraham Lincoln,
Letter to James C. Conkling, Aug. 26, 1863.

Dear President Obama...

We join people in your country and around the world in congratulating you on becoming the President-elect of the United States. Your victory has demonstrated that no person anywhere in the world should not dare to dream of wanting to change the world for a better place. We note and applaud your commitment to supporting the cause of peace and security around the world. We trust that you will also make it the mission of your presidency to combat the scourge of poverty and disease everywhere. We wish you strength and fortitude in the challenging days and years that lie ahead. We are sure you will ultimately achieve your dream, making the United States of America a full partner in a community of nations committed to peace and prosperity for all.

- Full text of a message from Nelson Mandela, the first black president of South Africa, to Senator Barack Obama

Without Love

If there is love, there is hope to have real families, real brotherhood, real equanimity, real peace. If the love within your mind is lost, if you continue to see other beings as enemies, then no matter how much knowledge or education you have, no matter how much material progress is made, only suffering and confusion will ensue.

- The Dalai Lama

"Hope"

"Hope" is the thing 
with feathers – 
That perches in the soul – 
And sings the tune 
without the words –
And never stops at all.

- Emily Dickinson

So let me tell you: I intend to protect my home. Praying -- not a curse -- only the hope that my courage will not fail my love. But if by some miracle, and all our struggle, the Earth is spared, only justice to every living thing (and everything is alive) will save humankind.  

- Alice Walker, The Impossible Will Take a Little While: A Citizen's Guide to Hope in aTime of Fear

Ultimately, we have just one moral duty: to reclaim large areas of peace in ourselves, more and more peace, and to reflect it towards others. And the more peace there is in us, the more peace there will also be in our troubled world. 

- Etty Hillesum,
died in Auschwitz in 1943 at the age of 29. From An Interrupted Life, a compilation of her diaries and letters.

I have long since come to believe that people never mean half of what they say, and that it is best to disregard their talk and judge only their actions. - Dorothy Day, The Long Loneliness

Lead me from death to life,  from falsehood to truth. Lead me from despair to hope, from fear to trust. Lead me from hate to love,  from war to peace. Let peace fill our hearts,  our world, our universe. Peace, peace, peace.

- Satish Kumar

I believe in person to person; every person is Christ for me, and since there is only one Jesus, that person is the one person in the world at that moment.  - Mother Teresa

Strength to Love

One day we will learn that the heart can never be totally right if the head is totally wrong. Only through the bringing together of head and heart – intelligence and goodness – shall man rise to a fulfillment of his true nature.

- Martin Luther King Jr., from Strength to Love, a collection of Dr. King's sermons.

I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought,
and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.

G.K. Chesterton

An imbalance between rich and poor is the oldest and most fatal ailment of all republics.

-- Plato

Dear President Obama....

Please don't let Rahm Emmanuel completely dominate the US's reaction to the Israel/Palestine situation...

I came here 25 years ago to live in the countryside and raise my family. We wanted to resettle the whole land of Israel. But now when I see how our soldiers treat Palestinians at the checkpoints, I am ashamed. I want us to get out of here. I want two states for two people. But I can’t get any money for my house and I can’t leave.

-- David Avidan, an Israeli living in the Jewish settlement of Rimonim. He is one of 280,000 Israeli settlers living on Palestinian lands in occupied West Bank territory. (200,000 more Israeli Jews live in East Jerusalem, also captured and occupied since 1967.) According to Avshalom Vilan, an Israeli Parliament member from the left wing Meretz Party, “Half the settlers beyond the barrier are ideologically motivated and do not want to move. But about 40 percent of them are ready to go for a reasonable price.” (Source: The New York Times)

It is no wonder that just the touch of another human being at a dark time can be enough to save the day.

- Frederick Buechner, Beyond Words

"We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars."

-- Oscar Wilde

Peace is not the product of terror or fear.
Peace is not the silence of cemeteries.
Peace is not the silent result of violent repression.
Peace is the generous,
tranquil contribution of all
to the good of all.
Peace is dynamism.
Peace is generosity.
It is right and it is duty.

-- Archbishop Oscar Romero

Sometimes I wish we all walked around with this sign hanging from our necks, so I wouldn't feel like the only one who has blown some really important things in his/her life.

Regret is funny, and sad, but still funny. So much is said about moving on, "whatever doesn't kill you only makes you stronger" answers to pacify those gut wrenching moments, where right and wrong stands before you and you dig deep to find you don't have the strength. At least I haven't had the strength. More times than I am comfortable with.

More than anything, the things that I have done to lose or push away those who meant and continue to mean a lot to me, hurts the most. I think I'm found at times asking what if I had just done a little more, explained a little less, been more vulnerable.... It is those questions, those "what if's" that seem to haunt long after a situation has come and passed. Who knows these things? Even more, who can afford to dwell on them? But that's the nature of kicking oneself I suppose.

I'm just looking for a way to stop the beating.

Injustice is a sixth sense, and rouses all the others.

-- Amelia Barr
All the Days of my Life

Reconciliation should be accompanied by justice, otherwise it will not last. While we all hope for peace, it shouldn't be peace at any cost but peace based on principle, on justice.

-- Corazon Aquino, political leader and President of the Philippines (1986-1992)

Justice is not cheap. Justice is not quick. It is not ever finally achieved.

-- Marian Wright Edelman, Families in Peril

Don’t tell me what you hope for. Tell me what you are doing to bring it. Then you will know both patience and justice.

-- Joan Chittister

Interesting video from The Young Turks, a YouTube news media group. In this installment they took footage from Al-Jazeera news media to show some of the comments being made by McCain-Palin supporters at a rally.

You know for months, I heard that the media was being unfair in their treatment of the election campaign, yet footage like this was hardly released. What's even more troubling was that the majority of these supporters come from the Bible Belt of America. I guess it no longer puzzles me why we have the international reputation that we do...

Great video of folks in Watts, South Los Angeles, talking about the election

Obama Art Part V

Obama Art Part IV

Obama Art Part III

Obama Art Part II

Obama Art Part I

Colin Powell reacts to the election results!

Condi Rice talks about the historic election results!

"The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any."
-- Alice Walker

Obama's Infomercial

The thirty minute commercial that ran the other day...

The Economist Weighs In

Count The Economist among the official endorsements for Obama. Here's the article:

The Economists Endorsement for Barack Obama

Obam's Economists

A List of some of his Economic policy advisors:

- Jason Furman
- Austan Goolsbee, University of Chicago tax policy expert
- Karen Kornbluh
- David Cutler, Harvard health policy expert
- Jeff Liebman, Harvard welfare expert
- Michael Froman, Citigroup executive
- Daniel Tarullo, Georgetown law professor
- David Romer, Berkeley macroeconomist
- Christina Romer, Berkeley economic historian
- Richard Thaler, University of Chicago behavioral finance expert
- Robert Rubin, former Treasury Secretary
- Larry Summers, former Treasury Secretary
- Alan Blinder, former Vice-chairman of the Federal Reserve
- Jared Bernstein, Economic Policy Institute labor economist
- James Galbraith, University of Texas macroeconomist
- Paul Volcker, Chairman of the Federal Reserve 1979-1987
- Laura Tyson, Berkeley international economist, Bill Clinton economic adviser
- Robert Reich, Berkeley public policy professor, former Secretary of Labor
- Peter Henry, Stanford international economist
- Gene Sperling, former White House economic adviser
- Heidi Hartmann, President, Institute for Women's Policy Research

Other prominent economists who support Obama:

- Brad Delong, Berkeley macroeconomist
- Joseph Stiglitz, 2001 Nobel laureate
- Edmund Phelps, 2006 Nobel laureate
- Ray Fair, Yale macroeconomist
- Dan McFadden, 2000 Nobel laureate
- Robert Solow, 1987 Nobel laureate

Prominent finance people who support Obama (not actual economists):

- William Donaldson, Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chair 2003-2005
- Arthur Levitt, SEC Chair 1993-2001
- David Ruder, SEC Chair 1987-1989
- Warren Buffet, investor, richest person in world.

One of the things that have caused my support for Barack Obama is his thoughtfulness. His candidacy represents a marked departure from "Bush-like" political action mired in stubbornness and an inability to admit failed policy. With this supporting cast and Obama's ability to process and think through decisions, I find comfort. =)

Colbert Report: Socialist Candidate for President?

Stephen Colbert asks the Socialist Candidate for President why he's running against the Socialist Obama... Brilliant!

Haha, Apparently I'm Responsible

Pretty funny, check this out!

Obama on the Daily Show last night

A Compilation of Obama Tunes

"We are the one's we've been waiting for."

American Prayer by Dave Stewart



Choose to Unite



Reason to Believe by Ari Hest



Yes We Can by Will.I.Am



Change by Aron Leigh



Go Tell Mama, I'm For Obama



Politics by Ludacris



Something About The Man



We Are The Ones by Will.I.Am

Obama Addresses Why He's A Communist (lol)

From his speech today.... "They think I must be some kind of secret communist because I shared my toys in kindergarten. Because I shared my peanut butter and jelly."

Keith Olbermann on McCain

Best quote? "The Iraq you see is a figment of your imagination."

Bill Maher
You might not agree with everything he says; but you often have to admit that the man has a point. Some clips for your viewing pleasure...

What the hell is elitism anyway?



On Obama being a "Muslim"



On terrorism and the Constitution




On Sarah Palin

Powell: I Support Senator Barack Obama

This is a man with an impeccable record of service to his country; he is wise, thoughtful and sensible. What I appreciate specifically in this YouTube clip is his thoughts on members of the GOP demonizing Muslims. He articulated far better than I could have, the discomfort with generalizations and fear tactics. Worth a watch.

Rocky Time

I’ve been back in Colorado six days now. It’s funny the things that people can take advantage of, the beauty they can allow to slip through their consciousness, unfazed, unknowing, repellant to the wonder of nature and creation. There’s something spiritual in the grandeur of space, of time, in the majesty of looming peaks and complementing blues, greens, whites and browns. I forgot what it is like to be a child. I forgot what it was like to smile just because the air feels good on the face. I forgot what it was like to stop caring and worrying and scheming and plotting; to just be. This is my pursuit. To reconnect with those simple joys of being.

It’s snowing. The sun is out. The milk dusted mountain caps glimmer in the distance like a dream. Welcome back to the Rockies.



(This is the town of Crested Butte, my new home)

Someday they'll give a war and nobody will come.

- Carl Sandburg

Stolen from my good friend, Andrew Helms' blog.....

For the last x number of years I've been receiving countless pro-McCain, or more specifically anti-Obama smear emails alleging he is a Muslim (one of the bad ones), the anti-Christ, Satan or some other derivative of a spawn of Satan.

Just now for the first time did I receive a pro-Obama email. I figured I would share it.

I'm a little confused. Let me see if I have this straight.....
* If you grow up in Hawaii and are raised by your grandparents, you're
'exotic, different.'
* Grow up in Alaska eating mooseburgers, a quintessential American
story.
* If your name is Barack you're a radical, unpatriotic Muslim.
* Name your kids Willow, Trig and Track, you're a maverick.
* Graduate from Harvard law School and you are unstable.
* Attend 5 different small colleges before graduating, you're well
grounded.
* If you spend 3 years as a brilliant community organizer, become the
first black President of the Harvard Law Review, create a voter
registration drive that registers 150,000 new voters, spend 12 years
as a Constitutional Law professor, spend 8 years as a State Senator
representing a district with over 750,000 people, become chairman of
the state Senate's Health and Human Services committee, spend 4 years
in the United States Senate representing a state of 13 million people
while sponsoring 131 bills and serving on the Foreign Affairs,
Environment and Public Works and Veteran's Affairs committees, you
don't have any real leadership experience.
* If your total resume is: local weather girl, 4 years on the city
council and 6 years as the mayor of a town with less than 7,000
people, 20 months as the governor of a state with only 650,000 people,
then you're qualified to become the country's second highest ranking
executive.
* If you have been married to the same woman for 19 years while
raising 2 beautiful daughters, all within Protestant churches, you're
not a real Christian.
* If you cheated on your first wife with a rich heiress, and left your
disfigured wife and married the heiress the next month, you're a
Christian.
* If you teach responsible, age appropriate sex education, including
the proper use of birth control, you are eroding the fiber of society.
* If, while governor, you staunchly advocate abstinence only, with no
other option in sex education in your state's school system while your
unwed teen daughter ends up pregnant, you're very responsible.
* If your wife is a Harvard graduate lawyer who gave up a position in
a prestigious law firm to work for the betterment of her inner city
community, then gave that up to raise a family, your family's values
don't represent America 's.
* If you're husband is nicknamed 'First Dude', with at least one DUI
conviction and no college education, who didn't register to vote until
age 25 and once was a member of a group that advocated the secession
of Alaska from the USA, your family is extremely admirable and you are know as putting country first.

OK, much clearer now.

NoiseTrade Widget

This made me smile.

Thank God For George W. Bush


In the late summer of 2004, a seminary colleague and I pondered the possibility of another four years of Bush 43. The polls were very close, and it seemed highly possible that we could be faced with four more years of G.W. Bush, coupled with both houses of Congress under the Republicans. My colleague observed ruefully, "Perhaps unified Republican rule would be the best education for the people to see just how much they don't want it." Before I could respond, he added, "Though, I really don't know if we can afford four more years of Bush and a Republican Congress." It turns out he was right -- on both accounts.

One could easily bewail the manifold profligracy of the last incarnation of conservative rule, and what it will cost to recover from it. However, I focus my attention here on the extent to which Congress in general and the Bush presidency in particular have served to fuel an exodus from Bushian conservatism. It was Immanuel Kant who once wrote that David Hume awakened him from his dogmatic slumbers, and in like fashion I rejoice -- indeed, give thanks to God -- for the extent to which many Christians have been awakened from the dogmatic slumbers of narrow moralism to a broader moral agenda, one more consistent with the one whose name we bear when we call ourselves Christians. So, I find myself in an odd place as a progressive follower of Jesus, giving thanks to God for a man generally viewed as the enemy of progressive Christianity -- G.W. Bush.

My thanks, though, would remain too abstract without some attempt to be more specific, and I readily grant that, at best, I am trying to find a silver lining in an otherwise profoundly dark cloud. Yet, it is hard to imagine any one thing that has contributed more to the transition of so many young Christians away from the narrow agenda of many of Bush's right-wing Christian enablers than a presidency that stands in such contrast with the values of Jesus. My good friend and Sojourners colleague Jim Wallis likes to express his puzzlement over how Jesus came to be seen as "pro-war, pro-rich, and pro-American." It is now obvious that under the excesses of GWB, many more have come to be similarly puzzled. What could stand more in opposition to our Lord's injunction to be peacemakers than the Bush doctrine of "pre-emptive war" -- unless it be his willingness to put the development and use of nuclear weapons back on the table? What could stand more in contrast to the values expressed by Jesus in the second half of Matthew 25 than the Bush penchant for tax cuts for the rich, tax cuts paid for on the backs of "the least of these"? What could be more opposed to the God-given obligation to steward the environment than "clean air" rules that worsen air quality, "clean water" rules that worsen water quality, the utter inattention to our dependence on non-renewable energy sources, and the propagandized denial of climate change? Finally, could there be any stronger expression of hubris vis-à-vis the rightful concerns of our global partners than Bushian unilateralism?

On the one hand, George W. Bush will leave a somber legacy, from which it will take years of our best thinking and acting to recover. We rightly bewail this legacy and, sadly, must to some extent own our complicity for allowing his "all fear, all the time" mantra to bewitch us. On the other hand, just as our deepest appreciation of the light often comes in the midst of the darkest hour, perhaps it took the darkness of Bushian conservatism to help us see its bankruptcy on Christian grounds. If this be the case, then maybe there will be one positive, lasting legacy of this administration: Perhaps, for a generation, we will not allow ourselves so easily to be distracted from the simple message of Jesus -- "Blessed are the peacemakers, care for the least of these, think first of the interest of others, love your enemies ...." May it be so.

Chuck Gutenson is the chief operating officer for Sojourners.

An Increase for Hate Groups

A Washington Post article recently reports that since Senator Obama has been declared the winner of the Democratic Primary, most hate group web sites have seen a huge growth in traffic and increased applications for membership and activity. In a separate article in the same newspaper, the Post says that some 3 out of 10 United States citizens admit to having a "race bias".

Here's the links for the two articles:
"Hate Groups Newest Target"
"3 in 10 Americans Admit to Race Bias"

"Moral courage is a rarer commodity than bravery in battle or great intelligence. Yet it is the one essential, vital quality of those who seek to change a world which yields most painfully to change."

Bobby Kennedy
Speech in Capetown, South Africa
June 6, 1966

Power understood as the ability to accomplish desired ends is present in human relationships no matter how particular communities or societies are organized. Nevertheless, Christian communities recognize that the source of power in their life is the love of Christ which inspires and directs them. This is a style of power not of coercion but of empowerment of others.... It also connects to those at the margins of society who search for word of God’s love and justice.

Letty M. Russell
Church in the Round

The world is overcome not through destruction, but through reconciliation. Not ideals, nor programs, nor conscience, nor duty, nor responsibility, nor virtue, but only God's perfect love can encounter reality and overcome it. Nor is it some universal idea of love, but rather the love of God in Jesus Christ, a love genuinely lived, that does this.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Meditations on the Cross

Nothing is so important as human life, as the human person. Above all, the person of the poor and the oppressed... Jesus says that whatever is done to them he takes as done to him. That bloodshed, those deaths are beyond all politics: They touch the very heart of God.

~~ Oscar Romero
March 16, 1980

Suspend the Gas Tax? More Political Pandering from Hillary Clinton

As the price for a gallon of gas continues to climb, (around $3.90 in Los Angeles, and the national average $3.60) Hillary Clinton and John McCain have come up with revolutionary plans of suspending the gas tax. Basically every gallon of gas is taxed by the government (around 18%).

Both McCain and Clinton are celebrating the move to help "average" Americans this summer...But here is what the two politicians are NOT telling you.

1) That this suspended tax cut will save the "average" American somewhere between $25 and $60 as a result.
Wow, I don't know about you, but really as I've seen the cost to fill up my tank almost double the past two years...that $25 to $60 range will save me jack. Awesome, so glad that they are worried about helping me out so much.

2) In order to suspend the gas tax, they would have to pass the notion through Congress and get Presidential support.
So the summer seems like it's pretty fast approaching, and actually I don't see much sign of Bush support on the whole idea. Awesome.

DON'T WORRY THOUGH at least Hillary is pointing out Barack Obama's lack of compassion towards "average" Americans like you and I....She is (once again) proving her connection with small-town, every day people by working hard to ensure real change here in America.

Hillary actually released new ads this week blasting Obama for saying "No" to helping average Americans...(for good measure, her campaign threw in images of her with black factory workers, people she can obviously strongly connect with).

Obama dismisses the ad as a gimmick (why in the world would he think that? "Lets find some short term, quick fix, so that we can say we did something, even though we're not really doing anything..."

NY Times columnist Thomas Friedman called the Clinton/McCain plan, "Shameful pandering." While it would cut drivers a little break, Illinois recenly tried a gas tax and it saved everday citizens barely anything, with gas companies seeing an opportunity to fill the void with the potential of more profit.

Not to mention, this amazing plan would also "deprive the government of $10 billion of revenue used to maintain highways." Clinton said she would make up the money lost, by taxing the likes of Exxon Mobile and others.

Because of gridlock on Capitol Hill, Hillary Clinton is unlikely to be able to pass this idea anyway.

Awesome, I'm glad Hillary is using her platform to connect with real people and to help make real change.

Seems like politics as usual. A lot of smelly stuff, you don't want on your shoes.