Tuesday, April 30, 2024

Angeles Arrien: The Challenge

Photo by Molly
The Challenge

In The Wheel of Time, Carlos Casteneda said, "To be young and vital is nothing. To be old and vital is sorcery." How do we vigilantly sustain and conserve our vitality as we grow older? The Rustic Gate challenges us to learn to access our natural generative energy. Stagnation, despair, boredom, loneliness, or indifference may signal that our generative energy is blocked. These experiences are referred to as acedia, from the Greek word a-kedos, "not caring" or sour. The Chinese written word for "boredom" consists of two characters, one for heart, and the other for killing. Boredom and apathy kill the human heart, and open the door to acedia. Thomas Aquinas defined acedia as the lack of energy to look at new things, and Hildegard von Bingen recognized the impact of acedia when she talked about the soul being weakened by coldness, indifference, and neglect. When asked about his approach to life in Seasons of the Heart, Vaclav Havel, former president of the Czech Republic, said, "I am not an optimist, because I am not sure that everything ends well. Nor am I a pessimist because I am not sure everything ends badly. I just carry hope in my heart." Joy, hope, and possibility banish acedia and fuel generativity.

Matthew Fox made an important contribution to identifying the Deadly Sins of our time in his book Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh, which reveals the major barriers to creativity. He says that many are extensions or aspects of acedia: lack of passion, dissipation of energy, misdirected love, and self-imposed isolation.

Erik Erickson, in his developmental model of human nature (summarized below), notes that the later years require cultivation and expression of generativity and integrity, or the opposite states of stagnation and despair will manifest. Erickson examines these states from the perspectives of involvement, relationships, mental attitudes, physical image, and vocations --

Adult/Maturity Characteristics

Involvement
Generativity/Integrity:
Energy, Motivation, Mental growth, Other absorbed, Establishment of the next generation through altruistic and creative acts aligned with meaning and integrity
Stagnation/Despair:
Boredom, Mental Decline, Self-absorbed, Narcissist self-indulgence

Relationships
Generativity/Integrity:
Growing, Selfless, Giving, Involved in the life of the community
Stagnation/Despair:
Deterioring, Selfish, Taking

Mind
Generativity/Integrity:
Open, Flexible, Growing, Creative
Stagnation/Despair:
Closed, Rigid, Stuck

Physical
Generativity/Integrity:
Realistic body image, Balance
Stagnation/Despair:
Unrealistic body image, Imbalance

Vocation
Generativity/Integrity:
Sense of being needed, Ongoing sense of exploration and discovery, Daily contribution to life and others, Generativity, Character development
Stagnation/Despair:
Disillusionment, Boredom, No sense of contribution to others, Stagnation, Loss of memory

The Four Rivers

Many traditional societies believe that the Four Rivers of Life - Inspiration, Challenge, Surprise, and Love - sustain and support them, and connect them to great gifts. They also believe that if they fail to stay connected to these rivers, they succumb to "walking the procession of the living dead" and begin to experience soul loss, depression, stagnation, or other manifestations of acedia.

The River of Inspiration reveals where we are in touch with our creative fire and our life dream. Any time that we experience expansive or hope, or feel uplifted, we are in presence of creativity. As log as we can still be inspired, we know we are alive, refusing to join the procession of the living dead.

The River of Challenge calls us to stretch and grow beyond what is knowable or familiar. We notice who or what is asking us to leave our comfort zones and explore uncharted creative areas or interests. This river always asks us to move past any fixed notion of what we can do. If we are willing to be challenged, to become explorers again, acedia cannot come into our lives.

The River of Surprise keeps us fluid and flexible, and requires us to open to options and possibilities that we may not have considered. The Intuits have a saying about it: "There are two plans for every day - my plan and the Mystery's plan." This river reveals where we have become rigid or controlling rather than curious, flexible, and ready to trust what emerges for our consideration. The River of Surprise shows us where our attachments repress the natural flow of creativity and generosity.

The River of Love shows us where we are touched and moved by life's experience. If we are not, especially in our work, we know acedia is present and our heart has begun to close. Humor, joy, laughter and love are considered medicines for the heart by some indigenous peoples. This river indicates that the work and service that we love can make us happy. Kahlil Gibran reminds us of the value of service: "Work is love made visible."

How will we use our generative energies and stay connected to the Four Rivers of Life? This is the challenge of the Rustic Gate.

- Angeles Arrien
Excerpted from The Second Half of Life:
Opening the Eight Gates of Wisdom

Amy Goodman & Denis Moynihan: Campus Crackdowns Ignite Gaza Solidarity Movement

Such a powerful article. Deepest bow to Amy Goodman and Denis Moynihan. And again and again, these student protests of today are taking me back to the Vietnam War protests of the 60s and 70s. I remember when protestors took over a building at Central Michigan University in 1969, where I was a freshman, and spending the night there. I felt very revolutionary as I first walked into the ROTC building and heard Gimme Shelter blasting out from the speakers someone had brought... And, yet, here we are 55 years later still standing up to the madness of war, with the American bombs now being sent to Israel to obliterate the whole of the Palestinian people. Madness. Sheer madness. Bless all those across our country who are courageously standing up to the genocide being funded by our government. The madness must end. It must. ― Molly

Image Credit: Left image: X/@RyanChandlerTV // Right image: X / shoebyron

By Amy Goodman & Denis Moynihan

“What starts here changes the world. It starts with you and what you do each day.” So reads an encouraging sign that greets students at the University of Texas–Austin. The university’s actions tell a different story. A photo shared on social media this week shows the sign in front of a row of state troopers in riot gear. They assembled to disperse students protesting Israel’s assault on Gaza. Police, some armed with semi-automatic rifles, some mounted on horseback, proceeded to violently arrest at least 50 people, including a journalist.

The UT protest was part of a student uprising sweeping campuses nationally, inspired by a Palestinian solidarity encampment at Columbia University in New York City. Columbia President Minouche Shafik’s mishandling of that peaceful encampment has sparked the protest movement’s momentum.

The encampment followed months of anti-war protests following Hamas’s October 7th attack on Israel and Israel’s relentless bombing and ground invasion of Gaza. As President Shafik appeared before a Republican-controlled Congressional House committee last week, where Columbia was accused of tolerating widespread anti-semitism on campus, scores of students, many of them Jewish, pitched tents and a banner reading, “Gaza Solidarity Encampment.”

Later that night, President Shafik called in the New York Police, saying the protesters were a “clear and present danger.” While the police responded, arresting over 100 students, Police Chief John Chell described the protesters as peaceful and cooperative. After authorities dismantled the initial camp, more students quickly established a new one, which remains standing as this goes to press.

Following Columbia’s violent response, student groups across the nation are launching Palestine solidarity encampments of their own, from Harvard, Tufts and Emerson in greater Boston, to Emory in Atlanta, Princeton, Cornell, UC Berkeley, Cal Poly Humboldt in northern California, and at FIT, the Fashion Institute of Technology, in midtown Manhattan, to name just a few.

At Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, students set up tents, chanting, “From Columbia to Brown, we will not let Gaza down!” It was last November when Palestinian-American Brown University student Hisham Awartani was shot with two of his friends while visiting his grandmother in Burlington, Vermont for Thanksgiving. He remains paralyzed.

It’s not surprising that Columbia was the locus of solidarity. In April 1968, students occupied buildings on campus to protest the Vietnam war as well as Columbia’s plans to build a gymnasium in the largely-Black adjoining neighborhood of Harlem (which they called “Gym Crow”). Columbia officials summoned the NYPD then, too. Over 700 people were arrested.

Democracy Now! co-host Juan Gonzalez was one of the student organizers of the 1968 Columbia occupation. He recalled those events this week, 56 years later, speaking on Democracy Now!

“The Columbia strike unfolded over several weeks. The first week was the week of the occupation, but because of the brutality of the attacks by the police — more than 150 people were hospitalized the night of April 30th — it led to a massive strike of the entire university. Over 10,000 students shut the university down for the rest of the semester.”

Juan compared Columbia’s response, then and now:

“We occupied buildings. We did not allow classes to go forward in 1968. But [now] classes are going forward. The students were camped out peacefully on the lawn. So, the disproportionate nature of the response of the university, the quickness with which it responded, without even consulting or listening to the faculty, is really astounding.”

The 1968 Columbia crackdown preceded the Chicago Democratic National Convention by three months. The DNC will be in Chicago again, in just over three months.

Columbia grad student Sarah King was arrested at the initial encampment, and has since been suspended and banned from campus.

“The camp itself is very beautiful. It’s been a real place of interfaith celebration and solidarity, in support of the people of Gaza, who are now at over 200 days of genocide,” she said on Democracy Now! King, who is Jewish, responded to accusations that the protests are anti-semitic:

“The worst persecution that the Jewish students on campus are facing is from Columbia University. We were disproportionately banned by Columbia because so many of us are part of the Gaza Solidarity Encampment, trying to prevent a genocide in our name.”

On Wednesday, President Biden signed into law a $95 billion military aid package for Ukraine, Taiwan and Israel, with $26 billion designated for Israel.

“The universities across America have to realize that the young people of this country do not support the constant imperial wars that our government is either participating in or funding, and that something has to change,” Juan González concluded.

What for the University of Texas is a slogan, “What starts here changes the world,” is quickly becoming, for thousands of students across the country, a call to action, demanding peace in Gaza.

Please go here for the original article: https://www.democracynow.org/2024/4/25/campus_crackdowns_ignite_gaza_solidarity_movement

Monday, April 29, 2024

Henry Nouwen: Did I Offer Peace Today?

Photo by Molly

Did I Offer Peace Today?

Did I offer peace today? Did I bring a smile to 
someone's face? Did I say words of healing? 
Did I let go of my anger and resentment? 
Did I forgive? Did I love?' 
These are the real questions. 
I must trust that the little bit of love that 
I sow now will be many fruits, here in 
this world and the life to come.
 
― Henry Nouwen

Rosa Parks: Stand For Something

Photo by Molly

Stand For Something

Stand for something or you will fall 
for anything. Today's mighty oak 
is yesterday's nut that 
held its ground.
 
― Rosa Parks

Netanyahu Ignored Warnings of Attack

For months now, it is beyond chilling how much Netanyhu's attack on Gaza gives me flashbacks to when Bush was warned in 2001 about a coming attack, did not head the warnings, and then used 9-11 as a justification to engage in two devastating and catastrophic wars. History continues to repeat itself until enough of us recognize the poisonous patterns of lies and propaganda which lead us into war and the obliteration of whole populations and their land. This must END. ― Molly

“Many of us like to ask ourselves, 
‘What would I do if I was 
alive during slavery? 
Or the Jim Crow south? 
Or apartheid? 
What would I do if my country 
was committing genocide?’ 
The answer is, you’re doing it. 
Right now.”

― Aaron Bushnell

Creator: YAHYA HASSOUNA Credit: AFP via Getty Images
By Jim Craney

“Adolf Netanyahu goaded Hamas into this attack thus giving him the excuse to invade and occupy Gaza. The war on Gaza and its residents commenced with a fierce and relentless bombing campaign designed to make Gaza uninhabitable for its residents. The IDF has no intention of preserving the lives of Palestinians. As far as the
#IDF are concerned all Palestinians are members of #Hamas from the 1 day old baby to the 90 year old grandma or grandpa. In the eyes of these Israeli
🇮🇱 soldiers ALL Palestinians deserve to die.

Mossad, arguably the most effective and professional intelligence agency in the entire world, warned Netanyahu and his government days in advance of the attack but he Netanyahu ignored this intelligence and did nothing!

He was prepared to sacrifice the lives of unknowing and innocent Israeli citizens, kibbutzniks and young IDF soldiers for his Zionist dream/fantasy. These people were considered to be nothing more than unfortunate collateral damage in service of the plan to create Eretz Israel.

The Israeli army, a fascist neoNazi force, which is extremely well supplied,well armed and supported by America could not stop an attack by a rag tag bunch of guerrillas attacking Israel on hang gliders and donkey carts?Really, who with a modicum of intelligence believes that for a split second!!

Like I said,Adolf Netanyahu was itching for an excuse to attack Gaza while playing the perpetual Jewish victim and whining woe is me the “terrorists “ want to kill us all and wipe Israel
🇮🇱 off the map!!

This "terrible, murderous attack by terrorists, rapists and baby killers" was a repeat of the Holocaust screamed the unhinged hysterical Israeli government in order to stoke fear in its own citizens!! And give him the license to seek revenge and go to war.

This incident didn’t even come close and Netanyahu was drawing a very long bow to even mention the Holocaust in the same breath as a military incursion by a guerilla force of a few hundred men. ED JG

PLEASE READ AND SHARE: SERMON FOR GAZA BY CHRIS HEDGES

Weeping. And weeping more... This one so pierces my heart. So excellent and searing and powerful and vital!! Thank you, Chris! 

The books by Chris Hedges have also long lined my shelves. I've seen Chris speak in Portland more times than I can count. And for years I've been reading, listening to, and watching and sharing the unwavering and fierce courage, caring, integrity, and profound commitment to truth that Chris Hedges embodies. And I am changed. Deeply.

The vital voice of truth and wisdom of Chris Hedges is also never heard on corporate funded American media. Never. May we seek him out and share these profoundly important, illuminating, and radical messages again and again. Because here we have a human being who is truly a national and international treasure. 

Deepest bow to Chris Hedges of gratitude, respect, appreciation, and love ― and also to all the courageous truth-tellers and wisdom holders, activists and authors, artists and poets, and radical healers and vision keepers and lovers of life. May we be inspired. May courage, truth, integrity, and actions on behalf of a highest good for us all be contagious. 🙏💗 Molly

Staying Power - by Mr. Fish
This is a sermon I gave Sunday April 28 at a service held at the encampment for Gaza at Princeton University. The service was organized by students from Princeton Theological Seminary.

In the conflicts I covered as a reporter in Latin America, Africa, the Middle East and the Balkans, I encountered singular individuals of varying creeds, religions, races and nationalities who majestically rose up to defy the oppressor on behalf of the oppressed. Some of them are dead. Some of them are forgotten. Most of them are unknown.

These individuals, despite their vast cultural differences, had common traits—a profound commitment to the truth, incorruptibility, courage, a distrust of power, a hatred of violence and a deep empathy that was extended to people who were different from them, even to people defined by the dominant culture as the enemy. They are the most remarkable men and women I met in my 20 years as a foreign correspondent. I set my life by the standards they set.

You have heard of some, such as Vaclav Havel, whom I and other foreign reporters met most evenings, during the 1989 Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia, in the Magic Lantern Theatre in Prague. Others, no less great, you probably do not know, such as the Jesuit priest Iganacio Ellacuria, who was gunned down by the death squads in El Salvador in 1989. And then there are those “ordinary” people, although, as the writer V.S. Pritchett said, no people are ordinary, who risked their lives in wartime to shelter and protect those of an opposing religion or ethnicity being persecuted and hunted. And to some of these “ordinary” people I owe my own life.

To resist radical evil, as you are doing, is to endure a life that by the standards of the wider society is a failure. It is to defy injustice at the cost of your career, your reputation, your financial solvency and at times your life. It is to be a lifelong heretic. And, perhaps this is the most important point, it is to accept that the dominant culture, even the liberal elites, will push you to the margins and attempt to discredit not only what you do, but your character. When I returned to the newsroom at The New York Times after being booed off a commencement stage in 2003 for denouncing the invasion of Iraq and being publicly reprimanded by the paper for my stance against the war, reporters and editors I had known and worked with for 15 years lowered their heads or turned away when I was nearby. They did not want to be contaminated by the same career-killing contagion.

Ruling institutions -- the state, the press, the church, the courts, universities  -- mouth the language of morality, but they serve the structures of power, no matter how venal, which provide them with money, status and authority. All of these institutions, including the academy, are complicit through their silence or their active collaboration with radical evil. This was true during the genocide we committed against native Americans, slavery, the witch hunts during the McCarthy era, the civil rights and anti-war movements and the fight against the apartheid regime of South Africa. The most courageous are purged and turned into pariahs.

All institutions, including the church, the theologian Paul Tillich once wrote, are inherently demonic. And a life dedicated to resistance has to accept that a relationship with any institution is often temporary, because sooner or later that institution is going to demand acts of silence or obedience your conscience will not allow you to make.

The theologian James Cone in his book “The Cross and the Lynching Tree” writes that for oppressed blacks the cross was a “paradoxical religious symbol because it inverts the world’s value system with the news that hope comes by way of defeat, that suffering and death do not have the last word, that the last shall be first and the first last.”

Cone continues: “That God could ‘make a way out of no way’ in Jesus’ cross was truly absurd to the intellect, yet profoundly real in the souls of black folk. Enslaved blacks who first heard the gospel message seized on the power of the cross. Christ crucified manifested God’s loving and liberating presence in the contradictions of black life—that transcendent presence in the lives of black Christians that empowered them to believe that ultimately, in God’s eschatological future, they would not be defeated by the ‘troubles of this world,’ no matter how great and painful their suffering. Believing this paradox, this absurd claim of faith, was only possible in humility and repentance. There was no place for the proud and the mighty, for people who think that God called them to rule over others. The cross was God’s critique of power—white power—with powerless love, snatching victory out of defeat.”

Reinhold Niebuhr labeled this capacity to defy the forces of repression “a sublime madness in the soul.” Niebuhr wrote that “nothing but madness will do battle with malignant power and ‘spiritual wickedness in high places.’ ” This sublime madness, as Niebuhr understood, is dangerous, but it is vital. Without it, “truth is obscured.” And Niebuhr also knew that traditional liberalism was a useless force in moments of extremity. Liberalism, Niebuhr said, “lacks the spirit of enthusiasm, not to say fanaticism, which is so necessary to move the world out of its beaten tracks. It is too intellectual and too little emotional to be an efficient force in history.”

The prophets in the Hebrew Bible had this sublime madness. The words of the Hebrew prophets, as Rabbi Abraham Heschel wrote, were “a scream in the night. While the world is at ease and asleep, the prophet feels the blast from heaven.” The prophet, because he or she saw and faced an unpleasant reality, was, as Heschel wrote, “compelled to proclaim the very opposite of what their heart expected.”

This sublime madness is the essential quality for a life of resistance. It is the acceptance that when you stand with the oppressed you will be treated like the oppressed. It is the acceptance that, although empirically all that we struggled to achieve during our lifetime may be worse, our struggle validates itself.

The radical Catholic priest Daniel Berrigan --  who was sentenced to three years in a federal prison for burning draft records during the war in Vietnam -- told me that faith is the belief that the good draws to it the good. The Buddhists call this karma. But he said for us as Christians we did not know where it went. We trusted that it went somewhere. But we did not know where. We are called to do the good, or at least the good so far as we can determinate it, and then let it go.

As Hannah Arendt wrote, the only morally reliable people are not those who say “this is wrong” or “this should not be done,” but those who say “I can’t.” They know that as Immanuel Kant wrote: “If justice perishes, human life on earth has lost its meaning.” And this means that, like Socrates, we must come to a place where it is better to suffer wrong than to do wrong. We must at once see and act, and given what it means to see, this will require the surmounting of despair, not by reason, but by faith.

I saw in the conflicts I covered the power of this faith, which lies outside any religious or philosophical creed. This faith is what Havel called in his essay “The Power of the Powerless” living in truth. Living in truth exposes the corruption, lies and deceit of the state. It is a refusal to be a part of the charade.

James Baldwin, the son of a preacher and briefly a preacher himself, said he abandoned the pulpit to preach the Gospel. The Gospel, he knew, was not heard most Sundays in Christian houses of worship.

This is not to say that the church does not exist. This is not to say that I reject the church. On the contrary. The church today is not located in the cavernous, and largely empty houses of worship, but here, with you, with those who demand justice, those whose unofficial credo is the Beatitudes:

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are they who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they shall possess the earth. Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for justice, for they shall be satisfied. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons and daughters of God. Blessed are they who suffer persecution for justice sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Jesus, if he lived in contemporary society, would be undocumented. He was not a Roman citizen. He lived without rights, under Roman occupation. Jesus was a person of color. The Romans were white. And the Romans, who peddled their own version of white supremacy, nailed people of color to crosses almost as often as we finish them off with lethal injections, gun them down in the streets, lock them up in cages or slaughter them in Gaza. The Romans killed Jesus as an insurrectionist, a revolutionary. They feared the radicalism of the Christian Gospel. And they were right to fear it. The Roman state saw Jesus the way the American state saw Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. Then, like now, prophets were killed.

The Bible unequivocally condemns the powerful. It is not a self-help manual to become rich. It does not bless America or any other nation. It was written for the powerless, for those James Cone calls the crucified of the earth. It was written to give a voice to, and affirm the dignity of, those being crushed by malignant power and empire.

There is nothing easy about faith. It demands we smash the idols that enslave us. It demands we die to the world. It demands self-sacrifice. It demands resistance. It calls us to see ourselves in the wretched of the earth. It separates us from all that is familiar. It knows that once we feel the suffering of others, we will act.

“But what of the price of peace?” Berrigan asks in his book “No Bars to Manhood.”

“I think of the good, decent, peace-loving people I have known by the thousands, and I wonder. How many of them are so afflicted with the wasting disease of normalcy that, even as they declare for the peace, their hands reach out with an instinctive spasm … in the direction of their comforts, their home, their security, their income, their future, their plans—that five-year plan of studies, that ten-year plan of professional status, that twenty-year plan of family growth and unity, that fifty-year plan of decent life and honorable natural demise. “Of course, let us have the peace,” we cry, “but at the same time let us have normalcy, let us lose nothing, let our lives stand intact, let us know neither prison nor ill repute nor disruption of ties.” And because we must encompass this and protect that, and because at all costs—at all costs—our hopes must march on schedule, and because it is unheard of that in the name of peace a sword should fall, disjoining that fine and cunning web that our lives have woven, because it is unheard of that good men should suffer injustice or families be sundered or good repute be lost—because of this we cry peace and cry peace, and there is no peace. There is no peace because there are no peacemakers. There are no makers of peace because the making of peace is at least as costly as the making of war—at least as exigent, at least as disruptive, at least as liable to bring disgrace and prison and death in its wake.”

Bearing the cross is not about the pursuit of happiness. It does not embrace the illusion of inevitable human progress. It is not about achieving status, wealth, celebrity or power. It entails sacrifice. It is about our neighbor. The organs of state security monitor and harass you. They amass huge files on your activities. They disrupt your life.

Why am I here today with you? I am here because I have tried, however imperfectly, to live by the radical message of the Gospel. I am here because I know that it is not what we say or profess but what we do. I am here because I have seen that it is possible to be a Jew, a Buddhist, a Muslim, a Christian, a Hindu or an atheist and carry the cross. The words are different but the self-sacrifice and thirst for justice are the same.

These men and women, who may not profess what I profess or believe what I believe, are my brothers and sisters. And I stand with them honoring and respecting our differences and finding hope and strength and love in our common commitment. At times like these I hear the voices of the saints who went before us. The suffragist Susan B. Anthony, who announced that resistance to tyranny is obedience to God, and the suffragist Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who said, “The moment we begin to fear the opinions of others and hesitate to tell the truth that is in us, and from motives of policy are silent when we should speak, the divine floods of light and life no longer flow into our souls.” Or Henry David Thoreau, who told us we should be men and women first and subjects afterward, that we should cultivate a respect not for the law but for what is right. And Frederick Douglass, who warned us: “Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.” And the great 19th century populist Mary Elizabeth Lease, who thundered: “Wall Street owns the country. It is no longer a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, but a government of Wall Street, by Wall Street, and for Wall Street. The great common people of this country are slaves, and monopoly is the master.” And General Smedley Bulter, who said that after 33 years and four months in the Marine Corps he had come to understand that he had been nothing more than a gangster for capitalism, making Mexico safe for American oil interests, making Haiti and Cuba safe for banks and pacifying the Dominican Republic for sugar companies. War, he said, is a racket in which subjugated countries are exploited by the financial elites and Wall Street while the citizens foot the bill and sacrifice their young men and women on the battlefield for corporate greed. Or Eugene V. Debs, the socialist presidential candidate, who in 1912 pulled almost a million votes, or 6 percent, and who was sent to prison by Woodrow Wilson for opposing the First World War, and who told the world: “While there is a lower class, I am in it, and while there is a criminal element I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free.” And Rabbi Heschel, who when he was criticized for marching with Martin Luther King on the Sabbath in Selma answered: “I pray with my feet” and who quoted Samuel Johnson, who said: “The opposite of good is not evil. The opposite of good is indifference.” And Rosa Parks, who defied the segregated bus system and said “the only tired I was, was tired of giving in.” And Philip Berrigan, who said: “If enough Christians follow the Gospel, they can bring any state to its knees.” And Martin Luther King, who said: “On some positions, cowardice asks the question, ‘Is it safe?’ Expediency asks the question, ‘Is it politic?’ Vanity asks the question, ‘Is it popular?’ And there comes a time when a true follower of Jesus Christ must take a stand that’s neither safe nor politic nor popular but he must take a stand because it is right.”

Where were you when they crucified my Lord?

Were you there to halt the genocide of Native Americans? Were you there when Sitting Bull died on the cross? Were you there to halt the enslavement of African-Americans? Were you there to halt the mobs that terrorized black men, women and even children with lynching during Jim Crow? Were you there when they persecuted union organizers and Joe Hill died on the cross? Were you there to halt the incarceration of Japanese-Americans in World War II? Were you there to halt Bull Connor’s dogs as they were unleashed on civil rights marchers in Birmingham? Were you there when Martin Luther King died upon the cross? Were you there when Malcolm X died on the cross? Were you there to halt the hate crimes, discrimination and violence against gays, lesbians, bisexuals, queers and those who are transgender? Were you there when Matthew Shepard died on the cross? Were you there to halt the abuse and at times enslavement of workers in the farmlands of this country? Were you there to halt the murder of hundreds of thousands of innocent Vietnamese during the war in Vietnam or hundreds of thousands of Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan? Were you there to halt the genocide in Gaza? Were you there when they crucified Refaat Alareer on the cross?

Where were you when they crucified my Lord?

I know where I was.

Here.

With you.

Amen.

___________

Please go here for the original: https://chrishedges.substack.com/p/sermon-for-gaza

Sunday, April 28, 2024

Chelan Harkin: God Did It

Deepest bow of gratitude, love, and appreciation for Chelan Harkin and all that flows through her ― which she offers to us individually and collectively. I have all three of her poetry books. Highly recommended. And now I have preordered and eagerly await the publication of her forth book. My husband and I also often read one or two of Chelan's poems together, sometimes daily. We read God Did It this morning. And loved it. 

I believe that Chelan Harkin's depth of consciousness and love, her journey of deep struggle and healing and awakening, the ways that she illuminates and challenges the great longtime harms and illusions of the status quo, and her wisdom and vision for a transformed world is a gift to us all. 💗

Blessed be. 🙏 Molly

Photo by Molly

GOD DID IT

The light of God
is the only revolutionary.

It's the light in each other
that's been too bright to see.
To look at it directly
would burn down
our separation.

It's the light
that overthrows
hierarchy.

It tosses our small identity
into the sea that cannot be separated
from all.

As Her revolution builds
in our hearts,
humanity evolves.

She is the Great Subversive One
who will speak up
for that which is true
even amidst those armed
with the harshest dedication
to falsehoods.

She is the lead abolitionist.

She is at the front
of feminist marches,
She is the origin of any cause
that brings consciousness
forward.

If any religious dogmatists
or puffed-up men
get mad at me
for the great mercy
of my disruptive poetry
She has told me
to use Her
as my scapegoat.

So I look at them
unflinchingly
with a wry smile
and say,

"Don't blame me.
God did it."

― Chelan Harkin
From Wild Grace