The Saints Cry

2011-09-11T20:02:00.000-07:00

2011-05-30T11:34:00.000-07:00

May oh eleven

Looking like she came straight from heaven

2011-02-07T01:16:00.000-08:00

Do not be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better. What if they are a little coarse, and you may get your coat soiled and torn? What if you do fail, and get fairly rolled in the dirt once or twice? Up again; you shall never be so afraid of a tumble.

-- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Regret

2010-03-01T18:07:00.000-08:00

(photo taken without permission from the post secret blog)

I was following my usual Monday morning protocol of browsing the Post Secret blog with a fresh cup of dark coffee when I came across this "secret". It's damaging one for me, for reasons only one other person knows. Every single aspect of it speaks to a decision I made 8 years ago at the fresh young age of 20. That decision undeniably would have altered the trajectory of my life. In a great way. Now 8 years later, I stumble upon this random person's secret on a website and am forced to ponder what regret means.

I hear a lot of people throw out the stock line that they don't believe in regret. I've been that person, many times over.

It's true, my decisions have led me to where I am, to my understanding of myself, of what I want and where I would like to be headed. I like that. I am a fan of where I am in my progression as a person, I'm excited to see what this life will bring.

However to say that I am not curious about what life could have looked like is not honest. To say I wouldn't go back and make a different decision (regardless of sacrificing the awareness and existence of present-day me) is not honest.

Without thinking, I would absolutely rewind 365 x 8 (sue me for not opening up my calculator on my celly) and ride out that decision. Would it change the way I think about myself, my decisions and my growth? Absolutely. But that chance has to be measured by what I could have gained in the process.

The only thing I can take from this stark realization that life could have (and probably should have) looked different is that I must live much more pragmatically. This random person's "secret" is a reminder of the amazing outcomes of seeming haphazard decisions. This "secret" means I must be aware how delicate people and opportunities are in life.

Ironically, it was that fateful decision 8 years ago that allows me to even understand the full depth of regret. I might not have never known. Scarily, I still might not have never known what I was missing. Crazy.

(note: I'm aware at how vague this post is... don't care. Check out below if you want to know who this blog is for :P)

Long Time Gone

2010-02-11T19:50:00.000-08:00

Wow, I can't even remember how long it has been since I visited The Saints Cry....let along how long it's been since I thought about writing here. It wasn't necessarily an issue of motivation, or inspiration, rather a question of validity and purpose.

I don't know exactly how many "bloggers" are out there, or the number of blogs that exist in the webisphere, but I do know that there are a lot more people who have blogs than those that take them seriously. While looking at the whole phenomenon, I've been forced to look at my own reasons for writing and discovered that this process MUST be about my desire to reflect what's going on and what I'm thinking about for myself, for me. Not because there are people out there who are reading this with any real interest on what I am thinking. To think otherwise is to mislead myself. To conjure up some grandeur and self-importance.

This place is my vent. It is my mind. It is my hope. It's a place where I can come to rant and rave, to place importance on issues that I wish were more important. To enlighten one insignificant, imaginary locale with words of blessing, wisdom and clarity. If the only soul that is affected by such words is mine? Then thank God for that place.

All that being said, I'm back. More quotes, articles, thoughts to follow.

Is it right?

2009-03-03T01:40:00.001-08:00

Cowardice asks the question: Is it safe? Expediency asks the question: Is it politic? Vanity asks the question: Is it popular? But conscience asks the question: Is it right? And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular -- but he must take it simply because conscience tells him it is right.

-- Martin Luther King Jr., from his address, "To Chart Our Course for the Future" (1968).

Iran, the Jews & Germany by Roger Cohen, New York Times

2009-03-03T01:28:00.000-08:00

(Important op-ed from the Times in regard to American perceptions of Iran. Having met several people from the country, I have been forced to address my own misconceptions and stereotypes based in the coverage the American media sadly continues to propagate.)

So a Jerusalem Post article says that I’m “hardly the first American to be misled by the existence of synagogues in totalitarian countries.”

Earl Wilson/The New York Times

Roger Cohen

Go to Columnist Page »

Op-Ed Columnist: What Iran’s Jews Say (February 23, 2009)

Times Topics: Iran | Jews and Judaism | Holocaust and the Nazi Era

Readers' Comments

Readers shared their thoughts on this article.

Read All Comments (395) »

The Atlantic Monthly’s Jeffrey Goldberg finds me “particularly credulous,” taken in by the Iranian hospitality and friendliness that “are the hallmarks of most Muslim societies.” (Thanks for that info, Jeffrey.)

A conservative Web site called American Thinker, which tries to prove its name is an oxymoron, believes I would have been fooled by the Nazis’ sham at the Theresienstadt camp.

The indignation stems from my recent column on Iranian Jews, which said that the 25,000-strong community worships in relative tranquillity; that Persian Jews have fared better than Arab Jews; that hostility toward Jews in Iran has on occasion led to trumped-up charges against them; and that those enamored of the “Mad Mullah” caricature of Iran regard any compromise with it as a rerun of Munich 1938.

This last point found confirmation in outraged correspondence from several American Jews unable to resist some analogy between Iran and Nazi Germany. I was based in Berlin for three years; Germany’s confrontation with the Holocaust inhabited me. Let’s be clear: Iran’s Islamic Republic is no Third Reich redux. Nor is it a totalitarian state.

Munich allowed Hitler’s annexation of the Sudetenland. Iran has not waged an expansionary war in more than two centuries.

Totalitarian regimes require the complete subservience of the individual to the state and tolerate only one party to which all institutions are subordinated. Iran is an un-free society with a keen, intermittently brutal apparatus of repression, but it’s far from meeting these criteria. Significant margins of liberty, even democracy, exist. Anything but mad, the mullahs have proved malleable.

Most of Iran’s population is under 30; it’s an Internet-connected generation. Access to satellite television is widespread. The BBC’s new Farsi service is all the rage.

Abdullah Momeni, a student opponent of the regime, told me, “The Internet is very important to us; in fact, it is of infinite importance.” Iranians are not cut off, like Cubans or North Koreans.

The June presidential election pitting the incumbent, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, against Mohammad Khatami (a former president who once spoke in a synagogue) will be a genuine contest as compared with the charades that pass for elections in many Arab states. No fire has burned the Majlis, or parliament, down.

If you’re thinking trains-on-time Fascist efficiency, think again. Tehran’s new telecommunications tower took 20 years to build. I was told its restaurant would open “soon.” So, it is said, will the Bushehr nuclear power plant, a project in the works for a mere 30 years. A Persian Chernobyl is more likely than some Middle Eastern nuclear Armageddon, if that’s any comfort.

For all the morality police inspecting whether women are wearing boots outside their pants (the latest no-no on the dress front) and the regime zealots of the Basiji militia, the air you breathe in Iran is not suffocating. Its streets at dusk hum with life — not a monochrome male-only form of it, or one inhabited by fear — but the vibrancy of a changing, highly educated society.

This is the Iran of subtle shades that the country’s Jews inhabit. Life is more difficult for them than for Muslims, but to suggest they inhabit a totalitarian hell is self-serving nonsense.

One Iranian exile, no lover of the Islamic Republic, wrote to me saying that my account of Iran’s Jews had brought “tears to my eyes” because “you are saying what many of us would like to hear.”

Far from the cradle of Middle Eastern Islamist zealotry, she suggested, “Iran — the supposed enemy — is the one society that has gone through its extremist fervor and is coming out the other end. It is relatively stable and socially dynamic. As my father, who continues to live there, says, ‘It is the least undemocratic country in the region outside Israel.’ ”

This notion of a “post-fervor” Iran is significant. The compromises being painfully fought out between Islam and democracy in Tehran are of seminal importance. They belie the notion of a fanatical power; they explain Jewish life.

That does not mean fanaticism does not exist or that terrible crimes have not been committed, like the Iran-backed bombing of the Jewish community center in Buenos Aires 15 years ago.

But the equating of Iran with terror today is simplistic. Hamas and Hezbollah have evolved into broad political movements widely seen as resisting an Israel over-ready to use crushing force. It is essential to think again about them, just as it is essential to toss out Iran caricatures.

I return to this subject because behind the Jewish issue in Iran lies a critical one — the U.S. propensity to fixate on and demonize a country through a one-dimensional lens, with a sometimes disastrous chain of results.

It’s worth recalling that hateful, ultranationalist rhetoric is no Iranian preserve. Avigdor Lieberman, Israel’s race-baiting anti-Arab firebrand, may find a place in a government led by Benjamin Netanyahu. He should not.

Nor should racist demagoguery — wherever — prompt facile allusions to the murderous Nazi master of it.

Why bombing Ashkelon is the most tragic irony

2009-01-06T15:47:00.000-08:00

Robert Fisk:

How easy it is to snap off the history of the Palestinians, to delete the narrative of their tragedy, to avoid a grotesque irony about Gaza which – in any other conflict – journalists would be writing about in their first reports: that the original, legal owners of the Israeli land on which Hamas rockets are detonating live in Gaza.

That is why Gaza exists: because the Palestinians who lived in Ashkelon and the fields around it – Askalaan in Arabic – were dispossessed from their lands in 1948 when Israel was created and ended up on the beaches of Gaza. They – or their children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren – are among the one and a half million Palestinian refugees crammed into the cesspool of Gaza, 80 per cent of whose families once lived in what is now Israel. This, historically, is the real story: most of the people of Gaza don't come from Gaza.

But watching the news shows, you'd think that history began yesterday, that a bunch of bearded anti-Semitic Islamist lunatics suddenly popped up in the slums of Gaza – a rubbish dump of destitute people of no origin – and began firing missiles into peace-loving, democratic Israel, only to meet with the righteous vengeance of the Israeli air force. The fact that the five sisters killed in Jabalya camp had grandparents who came from the very land whose more recent owners have now bombed them to death simply does not appear in the story.

Both Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres said back in the 1990s that they wished Gaza would just go away, drop into the sea, and you can see why. The existence of Gaza is a permanent reminder of those hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who lost their homes to Israel, who fled or were driven out through fear or Israeli ethnic cleansing 60 years ago, when tidal waves of refugees had washed over Europe in the aftermath of the Second World War and when a bunch of Arabs kicked out of their property didn't worry the world.

Well, the world should worry now. Crammed into the most overpopulated few square miles in the whole world are a dispossessed people who have been living in refuse and sewage and, for the past six months, in hunger and darkness, and who have been sanctioned by us, the West. Gaza was always an insurrectionary place. It took two years for Ariel Sharon's bloody "pacification", starting in 1971, to be completed, and Gaza is not going to be tamed now.

Alas for the Palestinians, their most powerful political voice – I'm talking about the late Edward Said, not the corrupt Yassir Arafat (and how the Israelis must miss him now) – is silent and their predicament largely unexplained by their deplorable, foolish spokesmen. "It's the most terrifying place I've ever been in," Said once said of Gaza. "It's a horrifyingly sad place because of the desperation and misery of the way people live. I was unprepared for camps that are much worse than anything I saw in South Africa."

Of course, it was left to Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni to admit that "sometimes also civilians pay the price," an argument she would not make, of course, if the fatality statistics were reversed. Indeed, it was instructive yesterday to hear a member of the American Enterprise Institute – faithfully parroting Israel's arguments – defending the outrageous Palestinian death toll by saying that it was "pointless to play the numbers game". Yet if more than 300 Israelis had been killed – against two dead Palestinians – be sure that the "numbers game" and the disproportionate violence would be all too relevant. The simple fact is that Palestinian deaths matter far less than Israeli deaths. True, we know that 180 of the dead were Hamas members. But what of the rest? If the UN's conservative figure of 57 civilian fatalities is correct, the death toll is still a disgrace.

To find both the US and Britain failing to condemn the Israeli onslaught while blaming Hamas is not surprising. US Middle East policy and Israeli policy are now indistinguishable and Gordon Brown is following the same dog-like devotion to the Bush administration as his predecessor.

As usual, the Arab satraps – largely paid and armed by the West – are silent, preposterously calling for an Arab summit on the crisis which will (if it even takes place), appoint an "action committee" to draw up a report which will never be written. For that is the way with the Arab world and its corrupt rulers. As for Hamas, they will, of course, enjoy the discomfiture of the Arab potentates while cynically waiting for Israel to talk to them. Which they will. Indeed, within a few months, we'll be hearing that Israel and Hamas have been having "secret talks" – just as we once did about Israel and the even more corrupt PLO. But by then, the dead will be long buried and we will be facing the next crisis since the last crisis.

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-why-bombing-ashkelon-is-the-most-tragic-irony-1216228.html

2008-12-12T16:10:00.001-08:00

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

2008-12-12T16:00:00.001-08:00

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

- Alice Walker

2008-12-12T15:58:00.002-08:00

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

2008-12-12T15:58:00.001-08:00

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...

2008-12-12T15:55:00.000-08:00

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

2008-12-12T15:53:00.000-08:00

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"

2008-12-12T15:52:00.000-08:00

"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

2008-12-12T15:49:00.000-08:00

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

2008-12-12T15:45:00.000-08:00

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.

2008-12-05T14:44:00.000-08:00

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

2008-12-05T14:41:00.000-08:00

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

2008-12-05T14:19:00.000-08:00

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

2008-12-05T14:02:00.000-08:00

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.

2008-11-28T16:12:00.000-08:00

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

G.K. Chesterton

2008-11-24T15:20:00.000-08:00

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

-- Plato

2008-11-21T12:53:00.000-08:00

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)

2008-11-21T12:37:00.000-08:00

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

2008-11-18T15:23:00.000-08:00

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

-- Oscar Wilde

2008-11-18T10:21:00.000-08:00

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

2008-11-17T14:20:00.000-08:00

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.

2008-11-17T14:05:00.000-08:00

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

-- Amelia Barr
All the Days of my Life

2008-11-13T13:07:00.000-08:00

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)

2008-11-13T13:01:00.000-08:00

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

-- Marian Wright Edelman, Families in Peril

2008-11-06T13:26:00.000-08:00

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

2008-11-06T12:36:00.000-08:00

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...

2008-11-05T14:56:00.000-08:00

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

2008-11-05T14:10:00.000-08:00

Obama Art Part V

2008-11-05T14:08:00.001-08:00

Obama Art Part IV

2008-11-05T14:06:00.000-08:00

Obama Art Part III

2008-11-05T14:02:00.000-08:00

Obama Art Part II

2008-11-05T13:08:00.000-08:00

Obama Art Part I

2008-11-05T13:07:00.000-08:00

Colin Powell reacts to the election results!

2008-11-05T11:46:00.000-08:00

Condi Rice talks about the historic election results!

2008-10-30T14:29:00.000-07:00

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

2008-10-30T14:19:00.000-07:00

Obama's Infomercial

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

2008-10-30T13:08:00.000-07:00

The Economist Weighs In

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

The Economists Endorsement for Barack Obama

2008-10-30T12:38:00.000-07:00

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. =)

2008-10-30T12:24:00.000-07:00

Colbert Report: Socialist Candidate for President?

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

2008-10-30T11:32:00.000-07:00

Haha, Apparently I'm Responsible

Pretty funny, check this out!

2008-10-30T11:11:00.000-07:00

Obama on the Daily Show last night

2008-10-29T15:59:00.000-07:00

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

2008-10-29T15:42:00.000-07:00

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."

2008-10-29T15:37:00.000-07:00

Keith Olbermann on McCain

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

2008-10-29T15:12:00.000-07:00

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

2008-10-29T15:03:00.000-07:00

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.

2008-10-29T14:40:00.000-07:00

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)

2008-10-29T14:19:00.000-07:00

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

- Carl Sandburg

2008-09-19T19:40:00.000-07:00

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

2008-09-19T19:29:00.001-07:00

2008-06-24T14:56:00.000-07:00

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.

2008-06-22T16:14:00.000-07:00

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"

2008-06-07T17:31:00.000-07:00

"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

2008-06-07T17:18:00.000-07:00

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

2008-06-04T19:13:00.000-07:00

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

2008-05-16T00:47:00.000-07:00

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

2008-05-01T07:31:00.000-07:00

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.

2008-04-23T12:53:00.000-07:00

Please Pray for the Food Crisis

Last week in Haiti, we saw violence spill over between troops and citizens as they attempted to storm the Presidential grounds. The reason? Massive food shortages around the world is leaving people in already dire situations in an even more threatening place. A saw a video recently on cnn.com about the "mud pies" that people in Haiti are making, selling and eating on the street -- due to the food scarcity.

More than 100 million people are being driven into deeper poverty. ONE HUNDRED MILLION. Can you even imagine? The world press corps has labeled this troubling emergence the "silent tsunami". UN feeding programs that feed 20 Million children are being threatened.

Josette Sheeran is the executive director of the World Food Program, she said, "This is the new face of hunger -- the millions of people who were not in the urgent hunger category six months ago NOW ARE. The world's misery index is rising." Sheeran also said that food prices are at their highest levels since 1945.

25,000 people a day are dying of hunger conditions. One child dies every five, (5, FIVE) seconds from hunger related causes.

Sheeran told reporters that the price of a ton of rice has risen from $460 to $1000 in less than two months. In two months, the price of rice has more than doubled. For people living on less than a dollar a day, in places where a cup of rice consists of the majority of their meals....this is catastrophic.
The reason??
- Rising fuel prices, droughts throughout the world, demand in huge countries (China, India, etc) and the diversion of crops for biofuel production.

How can you/I/we help? In the short term -- donations to emergency aid relief organizations such as the World Food Program, OXFAM, and others. Because of the gas prices and the droughts (which limit both the production and the supply ends) there is no foreseeable end to the price rise.
Long term -- invest in organizations that center around development and self-sustainability. Organizations that work towards fresh water resources through drilling and farming techniques (such as Staff of Hope, Life Water and Living Water) offer the best opportunity for long term security. If folks can control their own resources and build towards the future, they are less susceptible to be at the hands of relief workers.

We need to act. We need to pray. In the time it has taken you to read this short post -- a couple of minutes maybe -- more than a dozen children have died from hunger and hunger related issues. At least I'm enjoying my cup of coffee.

2008-04-22T08:23:00.000-07:00

Hey Bill, Give It A Rest

As you might have noticed, I've posted a few different Hillary Clinton claims and stories on this blog...mostly because I've found them to be fairly troubling. I want to say that when the Primaries began, I was pretty partial between Barack and Hillary. I thought Barack represented the politics of the future, a buzz and excitement about the opportunities, and that Hillary was "old school" politics, but I thought both would be good in office.

At this point, I've become extremely weary of the Hillary campaign. Divisive politics, a lot of media games, posturing....it's just tired. I actually still think Hillary would do a pretty decent job as President, but her style and approach has really turned me off to her as a person. (what's more, I actually think she's "better than that", much of her posturing due to the campaign's fear of coming off "weak" or "feminine" -- a sad reflection of our society because I agree that they need to be cautious with that.)

What's adding to this is the disappointing words from former Prez Bill Clinton. A man I have had great respect for (I would say admiration if it weren't for the extramarital affairs). One thing that typically stands out in my mind about past President's is their grace -- although I'm not sure this trend will continue with George W. Even with Bush Sr and Reagan, although I'm not crazy about some of their policies, there is an aura of respect and worth that stands out as they continue(d) to make a positive impact after their time in office.

That's where Bill gets me. He has come off these past six months as ANYTHING but gracious, adding only more bitter taste to the Clinton campaign. His comments in South Carolina have been debated on their intent and impact, but it was fairly clear to me, that his comments bore some aspect of race and ethnicity. (Bill does have a good record of working for rights for minorities, but he is still NOT a minority and is in no way excluded from the ability to make insensitive comments.) NOW, he's popping off again, with some very disturbing, "politics as usual" rhetoric...I think he could start to stain his legacy even more from this kind of graceless behavior (stain pun not intended).

- Bill Clinton also weighed in last week, saying, "This is contact sport if you don't want to play keep your uniform off." (from cnn.com)

Really Bill? Politics is a contact sport? I thought we were talking about impacting our nation and the people within it. Not pushing and shoving to get to a place where we "win". Keep your uniform off? So because Obama doesn't want to be in a "full contact sport" he shouldn't "play"? Wow...that's affirming.

- On the eve of Tuesday’s critical Pennsylvania primary, former President Bill Clinton accused Barack Obama’s campaign of playing the race card against him. After the phone interview with Delaware radio station WHYY Monday night, a stray comment of his on the issue was also recorded before he hung up: “I don’t think I should take any s*** from anybody on that, do you?” (from cnn.com)

Obama played the race card on you...so when you make comments that show relatively little class and Obama voices his belief on why YOUR comments were inappropriate, he is playing the "race card". Again, wow. Could it be Mr. President, that even you, the champion of all things colored, could possibly offend? No, and definitely, you shouldn't take that "s***" from anybody on that...you Mr. Millionaire are far, far above that. Give it a rest.

- Joining wife Hillary Clinton at a campaign rally on the eve of the Pennsylvania primary, former President Bill Clinton argued that if Democratic candidates were awarded delegates the same way as Republicans, his wife would be beating Barack Obama in the race for the 2,025 delegates needed to secure the Democratic nomination.
“If we were under the Republican system, which is more like the Electoral College, she'd have a 300 delegate lead here,” Clinton told the Washington Post. “I mean, Senator McCain is already the nominee because they chose a system to produce that result, and we don't have a nominee here, because the Democrats chose a system that prevents that result.” (from cnn.com)

Correct me if I am wrong, but didn't Bill run for office under these same standards for deciding a candidate? Why has he not mentioned the need to change this system before? Not to mention the fact that I think the Electoral College system is a joke. When a majority of people, in the country, put their voice behind one candidate, should that not be the candidate? I understand the reason and the history behind the Electoral College system, but it's also a model that I have been puzzled by...why not take the individual who is desired by more Americans?

Come on Bill, you're better than this. Pull it together. Try to act, more "Presidential". Rise above the politics of division and animosity. This country needs a change, and it needs its leaders. It's time to be one.

2008-04-21T08:49:00.000-07:00

Pray for Paraguay, for Bishop Lugo

Former Bishop Is Victor Over Party Long in Power
By Monte Reel
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, April 21, 2008; Page A12

BUENOS AIRES, April 20 -- A former Roman Catholic bishop ended the 61-year rule of Paraguay's dominant political party on Sunday, promising to replace the country's reputation for corruption with one of honesty.
With more than 90 percent of polling stations reporting, Fernando Lugo, who resigned the priesthood to launch his campaign, had a margin of about 10 percentage points over Blanca Ovelar, who was outgoing President Nicanor Duarte's choice to succeed him from the Colorado Party.

"Today we proved that the little guy also is capable of prevailing," Lugo, who captured 41 percent of the vote, said during a televised rally. There is no runoff, so the candidate with the most votes wins.

Lugo, 56, has long been known for his poverty relief efforts throughout Paraguay, where more than a third of the citizens live on less than $2 a day. He becomes the first president since 1947 elected outside the Colorado Party, which until Sunday's defeat had held the presidency longer than any party in the world.

During the campaign, Lugo cast himself as an independent who had dedicated his life to the country's underclass. In the 1970s, he became a proponent of liberation theology, a school of thought within the Catholic Church that encourages political activism on behalf of the poor.

His emphasis on leveling the country's income disparities has drawn comparisons to South American socialists such as Venezuela's Hugo Chávez and Bolivia's Evo Morales. Lugo has repeatedly discouraged such comparisons, preferring to call himself a centrist who neither endorses nor condemns those neighboring leaders.

"Lugo is seen as a political outsider, and he appealed to a group of people who generally haven't been involved in the political process -- the rural poor," said Álvaro Caballero, an analyst who directed polls for the Development Information and Resource Center in Asuncion, the capital. "There's a feeling that even though Paraguay is experiencing economic growth, that hasn't been reaching the people."

The landlocked South American country's economy grew 6.4 percent last year, but it is still saddled with a reputation for contraband and corruption. Lugo's political ascent rode a wave of dissatisfaction with those labels, and he launched his campaign after leading anti-corruption rallies against Duarte.
After initial results were announced Sunday night, Lugo said he would work to change the country's image to one of efficiency and honesty, and he pleaded with Paraguay's other politicians to ensure that "never again will the political class make policies based on clientism."

About two-thirds of the country's 2.8 million registered voters cast ballots Sunday, election officials said, the highest turnout in nearly 20 years. Interest was driven by a colorful cast of candidates that promised a historic result, no matter who won.
Ovelar, a former education minister, captured about 31 percent of the vote, officials said. She had hoped to become Paraguay's first female president and the third woman elected president in a South American country in the past three years, after Chile's Michelle Bachelet and Argentina's Cristina Fernández de Kirchner.

A third candidate, Lino Oviedo, is a former general who was convicted for leading a 1996 coup attempt. He launched his campaign in October immediately after being released from jail. He got about 22 percent on Sunday, officials said.

Both Ovelar and Oveido conceded defeat Sunday night. "I'm content and happy because change was produced, even if it was not through me," Oveido said after congratulating Lugo on his victory.

Ovelar had also tried to campaign under the banner of change, promising to represent a renovated Colorado Party -- the only ruling party most Paraguayans have ever known. Gen. Alfredo Stroessner, the dictator who ruled from 1954 to 1989, was the party's most emblematic figure.

"A lot of people had come to think that the Colorado Party headquarters is the place you go for state services. That gives an idea of how ingrained the party had become," said Joel Fyke of the nonprofit Washington Office on Latin America."

2008-04-18T04:16:00.000-07:00

I promise, I am NOT trying to find these articles on Hillary...if similarly troubling articles on Obama were to cross my screen, they too would be questioned That being said...I'm really scared about the implications this article could have...

Hillary Clinton's Little-Noticed Israel Problem
Her position on Israel could mean a significant departure from longstanding U.S. policy. How come no one cares?

By Justin Elliott
April 3, 2008
MotherJones

Though Senator Barack Obama has never—neither in his Senate votes nor in his campaign literature—strayed from the conventional position of support for Israel, he has in this primary season been dogged by the issue. The flare-up last week surrounding Obama's allegedly "anti-Jewish" campaign cochairman, sparked by a piece in the conservative American Spectator magazine, was only the latest instance in which his foes have suggested that Obama has an "Israel problem." Yet even as Obama has been subjected to intense scrutiny, Senator Hillary Clinton has received virtually no attention for taking an unconventional position on Israel (albeit in a direction approved by pro-Israel hardliners). Her vow of support for Israel's claim on an "undivided Jerusalem," if enacted, would mark a major—and problematic—break with longstanding U.S. policy.

Under the heading "Standing with Israel against terrorism," Clinton's official policy paper, released last September and currently touted on her campaign website, states, "Hillary Clinton believes that Israel's right to exist in safety as a Jewish state, with defensible borders and an undivided Jerusalem as its capital, secure from violence and terrorism, must never be questioned." With the phrase "an undivided Jerusalem as its capital," Clinton seems to take a hardline position on a deeply contested facet of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and a position like this should have garnered at least passing interest from the mainstream media. So how come nobody's paying attention?

The answer may lie within the long history of empty rhetoric on Jerusalem doled out by presidential candidates. Perhaps the lack of interest can be chalked up to uncertainty in how to interpret Clinton’s position. Or it may be that right-wing pronouncements that give short shrift to the Palestinian side are simply not seen as remarkable. (An exception to the media silence on Clinton’s position was the American Prospect's Gershom Gorenberg, an Israeli.)

Clinton is toying with one of the few most important final-status issues that will have to be resolved as part of any two-state solution. Israel captured the eastern half of Jerusalem during the 1967 Arab-Israeli War. While Israel has declared the whole of an expanded Jerusalem its capital, the international community views east Jerusalem as occupied territory and the potential capital of any future Palestinian state. In recognition of the contested status of Jerusalem, the United States and other countries maintain their embassies in Tel Aviv.

"Jerusalem is not only of political, religious, and emotional significance to Palestinians. It's the cultural and economic capital of any future state of Palestine. To carve out east Jerusalem from the rest of Palestine would be to deprive of it the geographic area which traditionally has been the heart of the Palestinian economy," said Philip Wilcox, a retired U.S. Foreign Service officer who served as consul general and chief of mission in Jerusalem and is now president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace, a D.C. nonprofit. "It's an absolute deal –breaker, and there will be no peace if there isn't an agreed political division of Jerusalem."

If opposing a compromise on Jerusalem is a deal breaker, one would think there would be more importance attached to Clinton's words—especially appearing in the unequivocal construction of Israel's "right to exist" that "must never be questioned." If Clinton did, as president, endorse Israel's annexation of all of Jerusalem, it could mean nothing less than a repudiation of the concept of a two-state solution. And while her position mirrors that of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), it actually puts her at odds with some prominent Israeli officials, notably Vice Premier Haim Ramon, who have publicly spoken about the need to cede the Arab neighborhoods of Jerusalem. One explanation for this incongruity, offered by all of the half-dozen experts I spoke to on the subject, is that Clinton’s statement is nothing more than election-year rhetoric. That is, her stand may tell us more about the fraught politics of Israel/Palestine in the United States than it does about how a Hillary Clinton administration would approach the conflict.

"I think it is said in the knowledge that this is a rhetorical commitment only. And that all past presidents once coming to office have recognized that the problem of Jerusalem is one that has to be resolved through negotiations," Wilcox said. That interpretation would be in keeping with an old tradition of presidential candidates making empty promises on Jerusalem. A favorite, going back to Ronald Reagan, is to pledge to move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem. Both Bill Clinton and George W. Bush made and then broke that promise and, in so doing, had to repeatedly waive the requirements of a 1995 law—of which John McCain was one of 76 Senate cosponsors—demanding the embassy be moved.

This campaign season, none of the remaining candidates seem to have made that pledge, at least publicly. Earlier this month, however, Haaretz reported that a Clinton surrogate told a Cleveland audience that Hillary Clinton would move the embassy to Jerusalem. John McCain, for his part, was quoted on his Mideast trip last week as saying that he supported Jerusalem "as the capital of Israel"—a weaker formulation than Clinton's. His campaign did not respond to a request for comment.

So is there an electoral gain, at least perceived by the candidates and their advisers, to making these types of promises? While it's impossible to know how many American Jews would vote on the basis of Jerusalem, the most recent American Jewish Committee poll found 58 percent opposed to compromise on the status of Jerusalem as a "united city" under Israel's jurisdiction, putting them in line with Clinton. But the number of American Jewish voters is not that high. M.J. Rosenberg of the Israel Policy Forum, a dovish advocacy group in Washington, believes that voters simply aren't part of Clinton's calculus. Her Jerusalem position," he said, is "designed to appeal to money people. The single-issue donors in the Jewish community tend to be far to the right. It's throwing red meat out to some people who desperately want to eat some red meat. It's not a serious commitment."

But to discern whether Clinton is serious about moving the embassy or supporting an "undivided Jerusalem" as Israel's capital, one has to look at the history of her position and undertake the not-so-simple task of interpreting it.

Clinton's rhetoric dates back to when her husband was attempting to broker a compromise on the holy city. She first took the position in 1999, prior to announcing her candidacy for the U.S. Senate in New York. (It was later in the same campaign that Clinton was slammed for hugging and kissing Suha Arafat, the wife of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, at a ceremony on the West Bank, where Suha, speaking in Arabic, accused the Israeli government of using poison gas against Palestinian women and children. Hours after the event, Clinton condemned her.) "I personally consider Jerusalem the eternal and indivisible capital of Israel," she wrote in a letter to the president of Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America, echoing the exact language favored by some Israeli politicians. That stand was interpreted in the media as an obvious pander, a play for support among the hardline segment of New York's sizable Jewish community. "Israel's new friend Hillary Clinton, born-again Zionist" read the headline in her hometown paper, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. As Michael Tomasky later wrote in Hillary's Turn, his book about the 2000 campaign, "The Jerusalem question is always an issue in New York campaigns, and anyone running for dogcatcher in New York signs on to the position Hillary took."

Her position might have been New York politics as usual, but it had serious implications for her husband's administration. A spokesman for Bill Clinton's State Department immediately distanced the administration from her comments, saying that the "first lady was expressing her personal views" and that the U.S. position on Jerusalem—that it was a matter to be negotiated between the parties themselves—had "not changed."

And, yet, despite Hillary Clinton's strong words in '99 and today, there is still linguistic wiggle room that allows her to support the idea of a Palestinian capital in east Jerusalem. "Well, [Clinton's statement] is strong, but if people are determined to be a little bit creative in the way they interpret these things, ‘undivided' sometimes literally means 'don't put the barbwire back up,'" said William Quandt, a professor of politics at the University of Virginia and a longtime observer of America's role in the Arab-Israeli conflict. "In 1967 there was a divided Jerusalem," he added, referring to the period before the 1967 war when Jerusalem was physically divided, a state of affairs to which no one wants to return. Clinton's campaign did not respond to a request for clarification of her position.

Then there's the ambiguity embedded in the very term "Jerusalem." James Zogby, president of the Arab American Institute, notes that it can be construed several ways. "Is it Jerusalem as defined by its municipal boundaries in 1967? Is it what Israel unilaterally and illegally annexed that was recognized by no one, including the United States government? Is it the expanded greater Jerusalem that now includes the settlement belt?"

But no matter how Clinton defines the borders of Jerusalem or whether the policy paper is intended as empty rhetoric, her position is emblematic of her record on Israel. As others have pointed out, her campaign position paper on Israel doesn't even mention a two-state solution. She virtually never utters the word "Palestinians." Her Senate website describes her as "a leader in supporting Israel's right to build the fence"—what others call the wall—that juts deeply into the West Bank and has been widely criticized for violating the human rights of Palestinians. She personally toured the barrier in late 2005. All this, and yet somehow Barack Obama is the only candidate whose position on Israel has drawn fire.

2008-04-18T03:34:00.000-07:00

Hillary's "Instrumental" Role In Northern Ireland

Recently, Hillary Clinton has been flaunting her foreign policy experience in the bid for the Democratic nomination. Among recent claims of a life and death, sniper fire situation in Bosnia, Clinton claimed to have had an "instrumental role" in the Good Friday Agreement which brokered peace between the IRA, Sinn Fein and the British government in 1998.

Paul Bew had this to say about such ideas, "Calling her instrumental is silly....I can't think of anything to be said for the case that she had a major role." I wasn't necessarily ready to take his word as fatal until I came across Bew's credentials. "[Bew] is a prominent--perhaps the most prominent--historian of Northern Ireland. A professor at Queen's University Belfast, he last year published Ireland: The Politics of Enmity 1789-2006, a much-acclaimed work, which is part of the Oxford University Press's Modern Europe series. Bew was once an adviser to David Trimble (the former First Minister of the Northern Ireland) and he was appointed to the House of Lords in 2007, in recognition of his own contributions to the Good Friday Agreement.

Hm.

2008-04-18T03:23:00.000-07:00

So wait, is it possible to be Pro Israel AND Pro Peace?

Meet the new political group 'J Street', formed to lobby in Washington and raise funds towards a more centered US Middle East policy. The group, started by American Jews and non-Jews, was designed to be a political advocate for a two-state system in the Palestinian and Israeli conflict. Most certainly the group is a response to the influential and controversial AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee), who has wielded its power to help achieve Israeli security at the obvious detriment to Palestinians. For more on the J Street mission check out this article in MotherJones.

2008-04-18T02:55:00.000-07:00

The Vatican Owns Up

We all remember six years ago when the startling and revolting news of sexual abuse by Catholic priests started to swell throughout the country. Perhaps even more disappointing was the lack of reaction from the Vatican, and the subsequent stories that offending priests had in fact, simply been moved to new parishes.

While the Church eventually apologized and started making reparations for victims, the direct interaction between those in the higher-up of the Catholic hierarchy and the victims of these crimes had been less than redeeming. I believe however, that the Catholic Church made huge strides recently in beginning to repair its image. On his first trip as Pope to the States, Benedict XVI has been clear in addressing the issue, "No words of mine could describe the pain and harm inflicted by such abuse. . . . Nor can I adequately describe the damage that has occurred within the community of the Church." Benedict has spoken similarly about the scandal in three separate speeches here in the U.S. Even more confirming of the Vatican's commitment to resolution and reconciliation is the invitation that was extended to victims to come and speak with the Pope himself on the issue.

"...the pope met with at least five abuse victims, all middle-aged men and women from Boston. Benedict requested the meeting, said Cardinal Sean O'Malley, the Boston archbishop, who was present during the gathering. 'It was very positive -- healing, I think -- and very prayerful,' O'Malley said, describing some of the victims as being in tears. 'It was a moving experience.'"

Each of the victims had a brief private conversation with the pope. Afterward, O'Malley gave Benedict a list of more than 1,000 people victimized over the years in the Boston archdiocese and asked the pope to pray for them. National Public Radio's "All Things Considered" quoted Bernie McDaid, a victim who attended the meeting, as having told Benedict: "Holy Father, I want you to know you have a cancer in your flock and you need to correct that, and I hope you do. You need to do more."
Gary M. Bergeron, 45, a sex abuse victim from Boston who was not included in the meeting, welcomed it. "This is the first time in seven years that the leader of the Catholic Church has come out saying the behavior of the past is not acceptable anymore," he said.
Since 1950, more than 5,000 U.S. priests have been accused of abusing about 12,000 children, according to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. The church has spent about $2 billion on legal claims.

One other strong encouragement coming from Benedict was his interaction with leaders from several other religions. At the Pope John Paul II Cultural Center, Benedict addressed 200 leaders of five other faiths, saying: "In our attempt to discover points of commonality, perhaps we have shied away from the responsibility to discuss our differences with calmness and clarity. While always uniting our hearts and minds in the call for peace, we must also listen attentively to the voice of truth."
The pope also offered Passover greetings to members of the Jewish community "in a spirit of openness to the real possibilities of cooperation which we see before us as we contemplate the urgent needs of our world and as we look with compassion upon the sufferings of millions of our brothers and sisters everywhere. Naturally, our shared hope for peace in the world embraces the Middle East and the Holy Land in particular."

2008-04-16T09:42:00.000-07:00

Standard Operating Procedure
An important, and scary, film

Is it possible for a photograph to change the world? Photographs taken by soldiers in Abu Ghraib prison changed the war in Iraq and changed Americas image of itself. Yet, a central mystery remains. Did the notorious Abu Ghraib photographs constitute evidence of systematic abuse by the American military, or were they documenting the aberrant behavior of a few bad apples? We set out to examine the context of these photographs. Why were they taken? What was happening outside the frame? We talked directly to the soldiers who took the photographs and who were in the photographs. Who are these people? What were they thinking? Over two years of investigation, we amassed a million and a half words of interview transcript, thousands of pages of unredacted reports, and hundreds of photographs. The story of Abu Ghraib is still shrouded in moral ambiguity, but it is clear what happened there. The Abu Ghraib photographs serve as both an expose and a coverup. An expose, because the photographs offer us a glimpse of the horror of Abu Ghraib; and a coverup because they convinced journalists and readers they had seen everything, that there was no need to look further. In recent news reports, we have learned about the destruction of the Abu Zubaydah interrogation tapes. A coverup. It has been front page news. But the coverup at Abu Ghraib involved thousands of prisoners and hundreds of soldiers. We are still learning about the extent of it. Many journalists have asked about the smoking gun of Abu Ghraib. It is the wrong question. As Philip Gourevitch has commented, Abu Ghraib is the smoking gun. The underlying question that we still have not resolved, four years after the scandal: how could American values become so compromised that Abu Ghraiband the subsequent coverup could happen?

Opens in L.A. May 2
(To check out the website click here)

2008-04-08T01:20:00.000-07:00

Thoughts on Israeli Control Over Palestine

UN expert stands by Nazi comments

By Tim Franks
BBC Middle East correspondent

Falk believes that Israel has been avoiding criticism
The next UN investigator into Israel conduct in the occupied territories has stood by comments comparing Israeli actions in Gaza to those of the Nazis.
Speaking to the BBC, Professor Richard Falk said he believed that up to now Israel had been successful in avoiding the criticism that it was due.
Professor Falk is scheduled to take up his post for the UN Human Rights Council later in the year.
But Israel wants his mandate changed to probe Palestinian actions as well.
Professor Falk said he drew the comparison between the treatment of Palestinians with the Nazi record of collective atrocity, because of what he described as the massive Israeli punishment directed at the entire population of Gaza.
He said he understood that it was a provocative thing to say, but at the time, last summer, he had wanted to shake the American public from its torpor.

Israeli actions in Gaza are collective punishment, says Falk
"If this kind of situation had existed for instance in the manner in which China was dealing with Tibet or the Sudanese government was dealing with Darfur, I think there would be no reluctance to make that comparison," he said.
That reluctance was, he argued, based on the particular historical sensitivity of the Jewish people, and Israel's ability to avoid having their policies held up to international law and morality.
These and other comments from Professor Falk comments are, if anything, even harsher than the current UN investigator, John Dugard, who himself has been withering about Israel's actions.
A spokesman for the Israeli Foreign Ministry said that Israel wanted the UN investigator's mandate changed, so that he could look into human rights violations by the Palestinians as well as Israel.
If that were not to happen, the Israeli government may consider barring entry to the new UN investigator.

2008-04-07T03:27:00.000-07:00

Ugh, Another Hillary Mishap

Clinton drops hospital story from stump speech
Posted: 02:11 PM ET

Clinton campaigned in Montana Saturday.

(CNN) — Hillary Clinton’s campaign says the candidate will stop telling the story of an uninsured pregnant woman who lost the baby and died after being denied medical care, following a hospital raising questions over its accuracy.

Clinton has frequently told the emotional story of the woman from rural Ohio since late February. In the speech, Clinton said the woman made minimum wage working at a local pizza restaurant, without insurance, when she became pregnant. Clinton said the woman ran into trouble and went to a hospital in a nearby county but was denied treatment because she couldn’t afford a $100 payment.

In the speech, Clinton said the woman later was taken to the hospital by ambulance and lost the baby. The young woman was then taken by helicopter to a Columbus hospital where she died of complications.

As recently as Friday night in Grand Forks, North Dakota, Clinton said, “As I was listening to this story being told, I was just aching inside. It is so wrong, in this good, great and rich country, that a young woman and her baby would die because she didn’t have health insurance or a hundred dollars to get examined.”

But an Athens, Ohio hospital is questioning the accuracy of the story. While Clinton never named the hospital in her speech, the woman she was referring to was treated at O’Bleness Memorial Hospital in Athens. The hospital said the woman did indeed have insurance, and at least at their hospital was never turned away.

Hospital chief executive officer Rick Castrop in a statement said, “we reviewed the medical and patient accounts of the patient” after she was named in a newspaper story about Clinton’s stump speech. “There is no indication that she was ever denied medical care at any time, for any reason. We clearly reject any perception that we ever denied any care to this woman.”

2008-03-22T09:09:00.000-07:00

Oh Hillary

I don't even know what to say about this article....but it's pretty funny. She's trying anything huh?

Sniper Fire, and Holes In Clinton's Recollection
Saturday, March 22, 2008; Page A05
Washington Post

Hillary Clinton has been regaling supporters on the campaign trail with hair-raising tales of a trip she made to Bosnia in March 1996. In her retelling, she was sent to places that her husband, President Bill Clinton, could not go because they were "too dangerous." When her account was challenged by one of her traveling companions, the comedian Sinbad, she upped the ante and injected even more drama into the story. In a speech earlier this week, she talked about "landing under sniper fire" and running for safety with "our heads down."

There are numerous problems with Clinton's version of events.

THE FACTS

As a reporter who visited Bosnia soon after the December 1995 Dayton peace agreement, I can attest that the physical risks were minimal during this period, particularly at a heavily fortified U.S. air base, such as Tuzla. Contrary to the claims of Hillary Clinton and former Army secretary Togo West, Bosnia was not "too dangerous" a place for President Clinton to visit in early 1996. In fact, the first Clinton to visit the Tuzla Air Base was not Hillary, but Bill, on Jan. 13, 1996.

Had Hillary Clinton's plane come "under sniper fire" in March 1996, we would certainly have heard about it long before now. Numerous reporters, including The Washington Post's John Pomfret, covered her trip. A review of nearly 100 news accounts of her visit shows that not a single newspaper or television station reported any security threat to the first lady. "As a former AP wire-service hack, I can safely say that it would have been in my lead had anything like that happened," Pomfret said.

According to Pomfret, the Tuzla airport was "one of the safest places in Bosnia" in March 1996 and "firmly under the control" of the 1st Armored Division.

Far from running to an airport building with their heads down, Clinton and her party were greeted on the tarmac by smiling U.S. and Bosnian officials. An 8-year-old Muslim girl, Emina Bicakcic, read a poem in English. An Associated Press photograph of the greeting ceremony, below, shows a smiling Clinton bending down to receive a kiss.

"There is peace now," Emina told Clinton, according to Pomfret's report in The Post the next day, "because Mr. Clinton signed it. All this peace. I love it."

The first lady's schedule, released on Wednesday by the National Archives, confirms that she arrived in Tuzla at 8:45 a.m. and was greeted by various dignitaries, including Emina (whose name has mysteriously been redacted from the document). Footage from CBS shows Clinton walking calmly out of the back of the C-17 military transport plane that brought her from Ramstein Air Base in Germany.

Among the U.S. officials on hand to greet Clinton at the airport was Maj. Gen. William Nash, the commander of U.S. troops in Bosnia. Nash told me he was unaware of any security threat to Clinton during her eight-hour stay in Tuzla. He said, however, that Clinton had a "busy schedule" and may have got the impression that she was being hurried.

Sinbad, who provided entertainment on the trip along with singer Sheryl Crow, said the "scariest" part was deciding where to eat. As he told Mary Ann Akers of washingtonpost.com, "I think the only 'red phone' moment was 'Do we eat here or at the next place?' " He questioned the premise behind the Clinton version of events. "What kind of president would say 'Hey, man, I can't go 'cause I might get shot, so I'm going to send my wife. Oh, and take a guitar player and a comedian with you'?"

Replying to Sinbad earlier this week, Clinton dismissed him as "a comedian." Her campaign referred me to Togo West, who was also on the trip and is a staunch Clinton supporter. West could not remember "sniper fire" himself but said there was no reason to doubt the first lady's version of events. "Everybody's perceptions are different," he told me.

Clinton made no mention of "sniper fire" in her autobiography "Living History," published in 2003, although she did say there were "reports of snipers" in the hills around the airport.

THE PINOCCHIO TEST

Clinton's tale of landing at the Tuzla airport "under sniper fire" and then running for cover is simply not credible. Photographs and video of the arrival ceremony, combined with contemporaneous news reports, tell a very different story. Four Pinocchios.

ONE PINOCCHIO: Some shading of the facts. TWO PINOCCHIOS: Significant omissions or exaggerations. THREE PINOCCHIOS: Significant factual errors. FOUR PINOCCHIOS: Real whoppers. THE GEPPETTO CHECK MARK: Statements and claims contain the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

2008-03-08T11:08:00.000-08:00

"Most of us have to taste our need in a fierce sort of way before our hungers jar us into turning our lives over to God.... In the Divine Arms we become less demanding and more like the One who holds us. Then we experience new hungers. We hunger and thirst for justice, for goodness and holiness. We hunger for what is right. We hunger to be saints. Most of us are not nearly hungry enough for the things that really matter. That’s why it is so good for us to feel a gnawing in our guts."

~~ Macrina Wiederkehr
A Tree Full of Angels

2008-03-05T14:27:00.000-08:00

"Inherent in a fast is a feast. When we fast from food, we feast on prayer and God’s bountiful love. When we fast from divisive patterns of relating with others, we feast on the amazing awareness that each face we see is the face of Christ. When we fast from building social, economic, and political walls, we feast on our universal oneness with the One."

~~ Marilyn Brown Oden
Wilderness Wanderings

2008-03-03T13:16:00.000-08:00

"Abuse of power for the individual is motivated by fear and by the resulting desire to control the power of life. This fear and arrogance are then used to create societies in which structures of domination create special possibilities for the privileged at the expense of shared power for all persons. The power that is intended by God for everyone who lives is used to destroy relationships in exchange for control. Rather than live in insecurity, some persons choose to create structures that dominate and control others for personal gratification and false security."

~~ James Newton Poling
The Abuse of Power

2008-02-29T17:37:00.000-08:00

"Our freedom in the gospel, however, does not mean license; it means opportunity."

~~ Richard Foster
Celebration of Discipline

2008-02-28T15:17:00.000-08:00

Anyone who has heard some of the "facts" on Barack Obama and his faith need to read this short piece by Jim Wallis. It's really unfortunate that the politics of fear are continuing to spread into this political election, that the "right" is trying to paint one of our Christian brothers in such a light. Wallis says it best, regardless of your politics or your views, we must stand up for our brothers and sisters in Christ. Help spread the word!

Defending the Facts on Obama's Faith
by Jim Wallis

I don't endorse political candidates, but I will defend them when it becomes necessary. On this, I agree with my friend Richard Land, the conservative Southern Baptist leader who is often identified with the Religious Right. Richard and I agree that faith has a place in politics and, when we agree on fundamental moral questions, have worked together. Richard says, "I have defended various candidates from time to time when I've felt that they have been unfairly or inaccurately criticized. At other times, I have been asked by the media for my assessment of a particular candidate's chances or weaknesses and strengths. Neither defense nor assessment should be confused with endorsement. As a matter of policy, I have not endorsed, do not endorse and will not endorse candidates."

So I am going to defend my friend, Barack Obama, from an increasing number of ridiculous and scurrilous attacks on the Internet and in the media. The latest incident occurred when a loud-mouth radio talk show host in Cincinnati let loose with a barrage of disparaging remarks against Senator Obama and kept using his middle name—Barack HUSSEIN Obama—over and over, seemingly to tie into the Internet accusations that Obama is really a Muslim who, as a child, attended a Muslim "madrassa" school in Indonesia that taught Islamic fundamentalism, etc. As a Chicago Tribune blog piece commented, "Anyone who uses Obama's middle name repeatedly, like Cincinnati radio host Bill Cunningham the other day, knows what he or she is doing and what feelings they are trying to evoke. There's simply nothing innocent about it."

The occasion for the shock jock's diatribe was his introduction of Senator John McCain at a rally. To his great credit, McCain denounced the remarks when he heard about them, disassociated himself from this kind of attack, and reaffirmed that his campaign would be conducted on higher ground. Good for you, John McCain. So of course, the local loud-mouth, Bill Cunningham, quickly withdrew his support from McCain and now is denouncing him too; which, of course, was quickly picked up by his mentor, the national radio loud-mouth Rush Limbaugh (whom the local Cunningham seems to desperately "wannabe"). And, of course, Rush is now denouncing both Obama and McCain.

I watched last night as other cable news shows told this story and subtly tried to add more fuel to the fire. Lou Dobbs downplayed the Cincinnati outburst as unimportant and suggested it was no different that telling the world that John McCain's middle name is "Sydney." Sure Lou; and it was interesting that Dobbs followed with more innuendos and rolled eyes over the moment in the Tuesday Democratic debate when Obama was asked about Louis Farrakhan, about suspicions that Barack's home Trinity Church on the south side of Chicago was "black nationalist," and about why Obama's pastor, Jeremiah Wright, wouldn't come on Lou's show to discuss his alleged sympathies for Farrakhan, etc. It is certainly no mystery why Pastor Wright didn't cancel his retirement celebrations and drop everything to come on Lou's show. Would anyone?

An Associated Press story entitled, " Obama Fights False Links to Islam," commented on the new flare-up, "For Barack Obama, it is an ember that he has doused time and again, only to see it flicker anew: links to Islam fanned by false rumors, innuendo, and association."

During the Democratic debate, Obama again "denounced and rejected" the ugly anti-Semitic comments that Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan has often made, as he had done many times before. Farrakhan hadn't actually endorsed Obama, but recently said, "This young man is the hope of the entire world that America will change and be made better." Asked on Tuesday night about whether he would accept Farrakhan's support, Obama said: "I live in Chicago. He lives in Chicago. I've been very clear, in terms of me believing that what he has said is reprehensible and inappropriate. And I have consistently distanced myself from him."

So let's set the record straight. I have known Barack Obama for more than 10 years, and we have been talking about his Christian faith for a decade. Like me and many other Christians, he agrees with the need to reach out to Muslims around the world, especially if we are ever to defeat Islamic fundamentalism. But he is not a Muslim, never has been, never attended a Muslim madrassa, and does not attend a black "separatist" church. Rather, he has told me the story of his coming from an agnostic household, becoming a community organizer on Chicago's South Side who worked with the churches, and how he began attending one of them. Trinity Church is one of the most prominent and respected churches in Chicago and the nation, and its pastor, Jeremiah Wright, is one of the leading revival preachers in the black church. Ebony magazine once named him one of the U.S.'s 15 best Black preachers. The church says it is "unashamedly black and unapologetically Christian," like any good black church would, but is decidedly not "separatist," as its white members and friends would attest.

And one Sunday, as Obama has related to me and written in his book, The Audacity of Hope, the young community organizer walked down the aisle and gave his life to Christ in a very personal and very real Christian conversion experience. We have talked about our faith and its relationship to politics many times since. And after he gave his speech at a Sojourners/Call to Renewal conference in June of 2006, E.J. Dionne said that it may have been "the most important pronouncement by a Democrat on faith and politics since John F. Kennedy's Houston speech in 1960 declaring his independence from the Vatican."

Like his politics or not, support his candidacy or not - but don't disparage Barack Obama's faith, his church, his minister, or his credibility as an articulate Christian layman who feels a vocation in politics. Those falsehoods are simply vicious lies and should be denounced by people of faith from across the political spectrum.

2008-02-28T14:26:00.000-08:00

"In most turning points in life, God’s grace is made known to us not through an intentional relationship with a spiritual guide but through the working of everyday relationships that are a means of grace we might not recognize if we did not ask: How was God at work in this relationship?"

~~ Sondra Higgins Matthaei
Faith Matters

2008-02-27T14:27:00.000-08:00

"Power is of God, but like all God’s gifts, humankind has the freedom to misuse power. When this happens, it becomes corrupt, and it violates and dehumanizes others. Powerlessness limits human development and denies persons their promised fulfillment.... We have each been given the power to do what we can do, but are we willing to claim it? To accept it? Or is it safer to ignore or rationalize it away? Is claiming this kind of power worth the cost of change or the risk of rejection?

~~ Helen Bruch Pearson
Do What You Have the Power to Do

2008-02-25T12:33:00.000-08:00

"The responsibility for war rests not only with those who directly cause war, but also with those who do not do everything in their power to prevent it."

~~ Pope John Paul II
Catholic Relief Services: the Beginning Years by Eileen Egan (NY: Catholic Relief Services, 1988), pp. 155-156

2008-02-25T12:24:00.000-08:00

"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

2008-02-25T11:46:00.001-08:00

"Do not lose by saving, but gather in by scattering. Give to the poor, and you give to yourself. You will not be allowed to keep what you have refused to give others."

~~ Saint Peter Chrysologus
Sermon 43

2008-02-19T10:51:00.000-08:00

Alone in a Crowded World

"Who has not, at some time, been lonely in the midst of a social event? The feeling of our separation from the rest of life is most acute when we are surrounded by it in noise and talk. We realize then much more than in moments of solitude how strange we are to each other, how estranged life is from life.... The walls of distance, in time and space, have been removed by technical progress; but the walls of estrangement between heart and heart have been incredibly strengthened."

~~ Paul Tillich
The Shaking of the Foundations

This thought from Paul Tillich has had me thinking for some time. Right now, I sit in my Young Life office, I stare out the window at Burbank High School. I watch kids walk in and out, walk down the sidewalk, past my car, by my window...and I wonder, "do they feel like me?" That somehow, despite (or perhaps because) all of the people, the commotion, the noise, the "things" that I have going on in my life, I still feel alone. I find myself longing for those few rare relationships, those "soulmates" that God has given me...that I would be ok if I simply had the time, energy, ability to express what's going on in my life and in my heart. As I'm writing, I'm struck by how many people there are that I could actually do this with, but I immerse myself in being busy and wind up being so tired that it seems like work and it seems like a risk to expose some of those private and fragile thoughts. This must add to that feeling of being "alone".

I lift my eyes up in times like this, and I ask "where are you." Less of a question, more of a demand. "God, make your presence known to me when I need it." Not because I am seeking His will, not because I am finding time in His presence, but because I have a need, because I feel alone.

It is times like today, where I need to just stop, and be silent, to thank the Lord for those people who are blessings in my life. To reach out to others, and seek to find their loneliness and their hearts. How can I expect my own cup to be filled, if I do not pour out what little I have?

2008-02-17T09:05:00.000-08:00

"God’s love sets me free to enter into community with other people—even when the community is a very limited one and is not the total communion that my heart desires. Only when I live in communion with God can I live in a community that is not perfect. Only then can I love the other person and create a space in which we might be quite distant or very close, but we can still allow something new to be born—a child, friendship, joy, community, a space where strangers and guests can be received."

~~ Henri Nouwen

2008-02-09T10:32:00.001-08:00

"At a certain point in the spiritual journey God will draw a person from the beginning stage to a more advanced stage.... Such souls will likely experience what is called 'the dark night of the soul.' The 'dark night' is when those persons lose all the pleasure that they once experienced in their devotional life. This happens because God wants to purify them and move them on to greater heights."

~~ John of the Cross
The Dark Night of the Soul

2008-02-09T10:32:00.000-08:00

"Now is the accepted time, not tomorrow, not some more convenient season. It is today that our best work can be done and not some future day or future year. It is today that we fit ourselves for the greater usefulness of tomorrow. Today is the seed time, now are the hours of work, and tomorrow comes the harvest and the playtime."

~~ W.E.B. DuBois

2008-02-01T14:09:00.003-08:00

The Lord God helps me;
therefore I have not been disgraced;
therefore I have set my face like flint,
and I know that I shall not be put to shame;
he who vindicates me is near.
Who will contend with me?
Let us stand up together.
Who are my adversaries?
Let them confront me.
It is the Lord God who helps me;
who will declare me guilty?
All of them will wear out like a garment;
the moth will eat them up.

~~ Isaiah 50:7-9

2008-02-01T14:09:00.002-08:00

"A man prayed, and at first he thought that prayer was talking. But he became more and more quiet until in the end he realized that prayer is listening."

~~ Søren Kierkegaard
Christian Discourses

2008-02-01T14:09:00.001-08:00

"Contemporary American churches in particular do not require following Christ in his example, spirit, and teachings as a condition of membership — either of entering into or continuing in fellowship of a denomination or a local church.... Most problems in contemporary churches can be explained by the fact that members have not yet decided to follow Christ."

~~ Dallas Willard
The Spirit of the Disciplines

2008-02-01T14:09:00.000-08:00

"The Christian way is different: harder, and easier. Christ says, 'Give me all. I don’t want so much of your time and so much of your money and so much of your work: I want you.... Hand over the whole natural self, all the desires which you think innocent as well as the ones you think wicked—the whole outfit. I will give you a new self instead. In fact, I will give you Myself: my own will shall become yours.' Both harder and easier than what we are all trying to do."

~~ C.S Lewis
Mere Christianity

2008-01-31T12:33:00.007-08:00

"What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans, and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty and democracy?" ~~ M K Gandhi

2008-01-31T12:33:00.006-08:00

WAR

"War makes the victor stupid and the vanquished vengeful." ~~ Friedrich Nietzsche

2008-01-31T12:33:00.005-08:00

"The poverty of our century is unlike that of any other. It is not, as poverty was before, the result of natural scarcity, but of a set of priorities imposed upon the rest of the world by the rich. Consequently, the modern poor are not pitied...but written off as trash. The twentieth-century consumer economy has produced the first culture for which a beggar is a reminder of nothing." ~~ John Berger

2008-01-31T12:33:00.004-08:00

"In forgiving, people are not being asked to forget. On the contrary, it is important to remember, so that we should not let such atrocities happen again. Forgiveness does not mean condoning what has been done. It means taking what happened seriously...drawing out the sting in the memory that threatens our entire existence." ~~ Bishop Desmond Tutu

2008-01-31T12:33:00.003-08:00

"So long as governments set the example of killing their enemies, private citizens will occasionally kill theirs." ~~ Elbert Hubbard

2008-01-31T12:33:00.002-08:00

"Murder and capital punishment are not opposites that cancel one another, but similars that breed their kind." ~~ George Bernard Shaw

2008-01-31T12:33:00.001-08:00

"Irregardless of the effect of the cuts, the cuts are illegal ... because they are designed to punish civilians for the acts of militants."

- Sari Bashi, director of the Israeli human rights group Gisha, responding to plans by the Israeli Defense Ministry to cut electricity and fuel supplies to Gaza, which defended its actions with the assertion, "The minister of defense has wide discretion in regard to fighting, including waging economic warfare." (Source: The Washington Post)