"Theology is a patient on life support waiting for the right person to come
along and pull the plug."
I really like this quote that Eric Daryl flung my way after his visit to Duke...I don't know the context - maybe E will comment with some more info -
But, i'll post it to supplement many of my conversations that I have been having around Theology these days. So to those who see "theology" and the "church" as a big mess "political" or otherwise.. I agree, pull the plug. Many theological arenas need death-by-pull in order to listen to the powerful message of life that is prying its way incarnately forth from unexpected areas of the world...sort of reminds me of the old question, "can anything good come from Nazareth!!!?"
Can anything good come from Guatemala? haiti? inner-city San Fran? Fort Benton!!!!?....eehem,,,yes!
...pull the plug, where's Nazareth today?
comment in a spirit of fecundus!!
Monday, March 26, 2007
San Francisco, Tenderloin district
San Fran is going well. We just participated in a day of "street
retreat" under a program called faithful fools. The tenderloin
district is definately a place of self discovery...selves that you
never knew existed leap forth when the wide eyed montanan slips into
the San Franciscan street community. I think it was a very positive
and growing experience for the entire group.
Check it out...
http://www.faithfulfools.org/
Here is an article about it...
http://www.acfnewsource.org/religion/street_retreat.html
Street Retreat
The Osgood File (CBS Radio Network): 9/2/02
The Osgood File (CBS Radio Network): 1/18/02
This spiritual retreat plunges participants into life on San Francisco's mean streets.
While most spiritual retreats occur in restful, peaceful locations, one religious group runs their retreat on the gritty streets of San Francisco instead. Faithful Fools, a "street retreat" started by a Franciscan sister and a Unitarian minister, puts people of all faiths into the experience of life on the mean streets. Each participant spends a day in one of San Francisco's most troubled neighborhoods, viewing life from the perspective of the homeless. The rules are simple: spend a full day by yourself on the streets with no place to go. Many street retreat participants find it challenging to find a place to sit down, not to mention a meal, or a bathroom. For some, it is the first and only time that they will eat at a soup kitchen.
Reverend Kay Jorgensen, a Unitarian minister, and Franciscan Sister Carmen Barsody started the Faithful Fools Street Retreat in 1997. Jorgensen and Barsody say that it is a fruitful opportunity for self-discovery, as well as an opportunity to put a face on homelessness. Through chance encounters and conversations, street retreat participants often discover a connection and realize a common humanity with the people on the street. Jorgensen says, "Spiritual awakening happens through the recognition that we are all human beings. We can get on with people regardless of their economic scale and find common ground."
In the past three years, more than 700 people from all over the country have come to this spiritual retreat, not for quiet contemplation or prayer, but to take an "urban plunge" into gritty reality. The one-day experience challenges many participants' judgments and stereotypes about homelessness. According to Sister Catherine, a 76-year old nun who assists the group, the experience is a profound lesson in awareness. She says that after working with the poor for years, it was eye opening for her to go on the street and see what people really face.
The day of the street retreat, the group meets at the Unitarian Church at 9 a.m. for an orientation. After discussing what they expect to find, they head out into the street. Throughout the day, they will line up at the soup kitchens at St. Anthony’s or Glide Memorial Church at noon, wander the streets, sit in the small urban parks and engage in conversations with those who make the streets their home. After five or six hours, everyone returns to the Faithful Fools' headquarters to reflect on, write down and share some of their impressions of the day. A simple meal of soup and bread ends the day.
Jorgensen and Barsody believe the street retreat experience can help people cross economic boundaries to realize a shared humanity. They want their program to inspire more people of faith to take leading roles in creating a more compassionate approach to housing, education and social programs.
CONTACTS
Reverend Kay Jorgensen: Co-Founder
Faithful Fools Street Ministry
San Francisco, CA
Phone: (415) 474-0508
Sister Carmen: Co-Founder
Faithful Fools Street Ministry
San Francisco, CA
Phone: (415) 474-0508
LINKS
This story aired on The Osgood File on the CBS Radio Network.
WCBS Newsradio 880 in New York City features an archive of transcripts of stories broadcast on The Osgood File.
The Faithful Fools Web site offers information regarding the group's ministry and program.
The First Unitarian Universalist Society of San Francisco (UUSF) offers services to members of all faiths and conducts social ministry projects, including those that care for the homeless. Reverend Kay Jorgensen is a member of the Social Justice Ministry at UUSF.
The San Francisco Food Bank coordinates with member agencies to provide food to the city's homeless population.
The University of California, San Francisco Homeless Clinic is a student-physician run medical clinic for the homeless.
The National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty Web site offers information and links to various regional homeless groups throughout the United States.
This San Francisco Chronicle article discusses the Faithful Fools Street Retreat program.
ACFnewsource provides links to sites maintained by other organizations for informational purposes only. ACFnewsource has no responsibility for the accuracy of the content of any Web site to which a link is provided. The groups included on the list do not necessarily reflect the views of ACFnewsource.
retreat" under a program called faithful fools. The tenderloin
district is definately a place of self discovery...selves that you
never knew existed leap forth when the wide eyed montanan slips into
the San Franciscan street community. I think it was a very positive
and growing experience for the entire group.
Check it out...
http://www.faithfulfools.org/
Here is an article about it...
http://www.acfnewsource.org/religion/street_retreat.html
Street Retreat
The Osgood File (CBS Radio Network): 9/2/02
The Osgood File (CBS Radio Network): 1/18/02
This spiritual retreat plunges participants into life on San Francisco's mean streets.
While most spiritual retreats occur in restful, peaceful locations, one religious group runs their retreat on the gritty streets of San Francisco instead. Faithful Fools, a "street retreat" started by a Franciscan sister and a Unitarian minister, puts people of all faiths into the experience of life on the mean streets. Each participant spends a day in one of San Francisco's most troubled neighborhoods, viewing life from the perspective of the homeless. The rules are simple: spend a full day by yourself on the streets with no place to go. Many street retreat participants find it challenging to find a place to sit down, not to mention a meal, or a bathroom. For some, it is the first and only time that they will eat at a soup kitchen.
Reverend Kay Jorgensen, a Unitarian minister, and Franciscan Sister Carmen Barsody started the Faithful Fools Street Retreat in 1997. Jorgensen and Barsody say that it is a fruitful opportunity for self-discovery, as well as an opportunity to put a face on homelessness. Through chance encounters and conversations, street retreat participants often discover a connection and realize a common humanity with the people on the street. Jorgensen says, "Spiritual awakening happens through the recognition that we are all human beings. We can get on with people regardless of their economic scale and find common ground."
In the past three years, more than 700 people from all over the country have come to this spiritual retreat, not for quiet contemplation or prayer, but to take an "urban plunge" into gritty reality. The one-day experience challenges many participants' judgments and stereotypes about homelessness. According to Sister Catherine, a 76-year old nun who assists the group, the experience is a profound lesson in awareness. She says that after working with the poor for years, it was eye opening for her to go on the street and see what people really face.
The day of the street retreat, the group meets at the Unitarian Church at 9 a.m. for an orientation. After discussing what they expect to find, they head out into the street. Throughout the day, they will line up at the soup kitchens at St. Anthony’s or Glide Memorial Church at noon, wander the streets, sit in the small urban parks and engage in conversations with those who make the streets their home. After five or six hours, everyone returns to the Faithful Fools' headquarters to reflect on, write down and share some of their impressions of the day. A simple meal of soup and bread ends the day.
Jorgensen and Barsody believe the street retreat experience can help people cross economic boundaries to realize a shared humanity. They want their program to inspire more people of faith to take leading roles in creating a more compassionate approach to housing, education and social programs.
CONTACTS
Reverend Kay Jorgensen: Co-Founder
Faithful Fools Street Ministry
San Francisco, CA
Phone: (415) 474-0508
Sister Carmen: Co-Founder
Faithful Fools Street Ministry
San Francisco, CA
Phone: (415) 474-0508
LINKS
This story aired on The Osgood File on the CBS Radio Network.
WCBS Newsradio 880 in New York City features an archive of transcripts of stories broadcast on The Osgood File.
The Faithful Fools Web site offers information regarding the group's ministry and program.
The First Unitarian Universalist Society of San Francisco (UUSF) offers services to members of all faiths and conducts social ministry projects, including those that care for the homeless. Reverend Kay Jorgensen is a member of the Social Justice Ministry at UUSF.
The San Francisco Food Bank coordinates with member agencies to provide food to the city's homeless population.
The University of California, San Francisco Homeless Clinic is a student-physician run medical clinic for the homeless.
The National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty Web site offers information and links to various regional homeless groups throughout the United States.
This San Francisco Chronicle article discusses the Faithful Fools Street Retreat program.
ACFnewsource provides links to sites maintained by other organizations for informational purposes only. ACFnewsource has no responsibility for the accuracy of the content of any Web site to which a link is provided. The groups included on the list do not necessarily reflect the views of ACFnewsource.
Thursday, March 22, 2007
the farm bill
Bread For the World - Check out its site. It confronts the Farm Bill.
http://www.bread.org/
Go to the section on Seeds of Change: Help Farmers. End Hunger.
Tell me what you think. Bread for the World is one approach - if you download their Acrobat reader information it will help inform a bit.
The Farm bill is big and complex, but I see it as a way to redirect money that helps Montana farming communities by taking some from the top and putting it into the pockets of small, mid, and even large farms who need it more than the monster corporate farms.
Montana is not big and corporate like much of America - but the way our communities are shrinking signals that it will go that way unless we become aware of the specifics and press for change.
Many articles that critique the Farm Bill say that the family farm does not exist anymore...I disagree!!! I live on one and am a part of it. But, I will admit that the trends even here in central Montana make it very hard to imagine that the small family farm will continue. Growing up on a farm, living the majority of your time outside close to your family, nature, simplicity...is a treasure that should be fought for.
All around the globe people groups are being forced to leave their lands and communities and go to the factories, to the cities, to a life that splits up family and leads to overall degradation of existence. How can this be reversed? Can the farm bill be part of that?
It can't hurt.
The farm bill's scope is huge - from food stamps to our developing neighbor nations.
I think it is an important and practical way to get involved in our system if you are concerned with the growing gap between the rich and poor and the hunger issue in our country and the world.
check it out.
http://www.bread.org/
Go to the section on Seeds of Change: Help Farmers. End Hunger.
Tell me what you think. Bread for the World is one approach - if you download their Acrobat reader information it will help inform a bit.
The Farm bill is big and complex, but I see it as a way to redirect money that helps Montana farming communities by taking some from the top and putting it into the pockets of small, mid, and even large farms who need it more than the monster corporate farms.
Montana is not big and corporate like much of America - but the way our communities are shrinking signals that it will go that way unless we become aware of the specifics and press for change.
Many articles that critique the Farm Bill say that the family farm does not exist anymore...I disagree!!! I live on one and am a part of it. But, I will admit that the trends even here in central Montana make it very hard to imagine that the small family farm will continue. Growing up on a farm, living the majority of your time outside close to your family, nature, simplicity...is a treasure that should be fought for.
All around the globe people groups are being forced to leave their lands and communities and go to the factories, to the cities, to a life that splits up family and leads to overall degradation of existence. How can this be reversed? Can the farm bill be part of that?
It can't hurt.
The farm bill's scope is huge - from food stamps to our developing neighbor nations.
I think it is an important and practical way to get involved in our system if you are concerned with the growing gap between the rich and poor and the hunger issue in our country and the world.
check it out.
Garden! and More!
Spring has sprung its leak early and is spewing warm winds across the central plains of Montana. Also springing farmers out of their winter hibernation finding the familiar fever of "hurry up and wait" - keeping an eye to the sky, all seeding implements revving their engines, aimed at April, the greening start-line, the month who's trigger finger awakens nature t
o Montana's own resurrected Christ, transfigured in longer days, warmer winds, pertruding green foliage, and a big flipp'n blue sky.I began to garden.
To the right reveals my efforts. Those fine piles were then spread left/westward readying a bed to tuck corn into.
A fine tomato crop.This pic is from last summer and the hope of a,
now brown earth, to be covered once again in life.
(from left to right)
The infamous Bucko, Bucko's mother Classy, and Serenade gaze at me wondering why I must continually transport their poop to different locations in the yard.
So again today I began my search for meaning, for spring, for the gifts that make life - and I suppose I did...I shoveled poop.
Those reds and yellows, those horses come from that gift...a good recipe of decomposition...the resurrected pantheon-Christ of flowers, tomatoes, horses, and shoveling me!
Though I sweat, though my back hurt a bit - I thought about those in the past and those who are presently being kicked off their land, wondering what that kind of pain would be like, wondering how that is happening today, kicking around the ever present reality that our affluent society may slightly be an illusion, living off the backs of the "have nots" in "3rd world" countries...
"I want there to be democracy, no more inequality - I am looking for a life worth living, liberation, just like God says."
- José Pérez, 24 years old, Zapatista, captured at Oxchuc, January 4, 1994
"If I define my neighbor as the one I must go out to look for, on the highways and byways, in the factories and slums, on the farms and in the mines - then my world changes. This is what is happening with the "option for the poor," for in the gospel it is the poor person who is the neighbor par excellence....
But the poor person does not exist as an inescapable fact of destiny. His or her existence is not politically neutral, and it is not ethically innocent. The poor are a by-product of the system in which we live and for which we are responsible. They are marginalized by our social and cultural world. they are the oppressed, exploited proletariat, robbed of the fruit of their labor and despoiled of their humanity. Hence the poverty of the poor is not a call to generous relief action, but a demand that we go and build a different social order."
- Gustavo Gutiérrez, The Power of the Poor in History.
....
Paul farmer
"Rats and roaches live by competition under the law of supply and demand; it is the privilege of human beings to live under the laws of justice and mercy."
- Wendell Berry
"Our system is one of detachment: to keep silenced people from asking questions, to keep the judged from judging, to keep solitary people from joining together, and the soul from putting together its pieces."
- Eduardo Galeano, "Divorces"
Just got a new book.
By Paul Farmer
"Pathologies of Power: Health, Human Rights, And The New War On The Poor"
______
I first heard of this guy after perusing the Union Theological Seminary website and then was recommended to read this book. He says that he discovered Liberation Theology not through Latin America, but by working with and learning from the poor of Haiti.
Here is snippet from the award he just received at Union (New York City).
On Wednesday, December 6, 2006, Union Theological Seminary awarded its highest honor, the Union Medal, to Ophelia Dahl and Paul Farmer, M.D., co-founders of Partners In Health, a pioneering and innovative world health organization that has made significant public health advances in some of the most impoverished areas of the world.
(the rest of the article is at this link)
http://www.utsnyc.edu/NETCOMMUNITY/Page.aspx?&pid=263&srcid=256
You can also hear him speak at Union's fancy podcast feature...do a little perusing of the Union site and you'll find 'er.
- Wendell Berry
"Our system is one of detachment: to keep silenced people from asking questions, to keep the judged from judging, to keep solitary people from joining together, and the soul from putting together its pieces."
- Eduardo Galeano, "Divorces"
Just got a new book.
By Paul Farmer
"Pathologies of Power: Health, Human Rights, And The New War On The Poor"
______
I first heard of this guy after perusing the Union Theological Seminary website and then was recommended to read this book. He says that he discovered Liberation Theology not through Latin America, but by working with and learning from the poor of Haiti.
Here is snippet from the award he just received at Union (New York City).
OPHELIA DAHL AND PAUL FARMER, M.D.
AWARDED UNION MEDAL
Wednesday, December 6, 2006
On Wednesday, December 6, 2006, Union Theological Seminary awarded its highest honor, the Union Medal, to Ophelia Dahl and Paul Farmer, M.D., co-founders of Partners In Health, a pioneering and innovative world health organization that has made significant public health advances in some of the most impoverished areas of the world.
(the rest of the article is at this link)
http://www.utsnyc.edu/NETCOMMUNITY/Page.aspx?&pid=263&srcid=256
You can also hear him speak at Union's fancy podcast feature...do a little perusing of the Union site and you'll find 'er.
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
Guatemala, Nebaj, Wal-mart
Here I am with my Guatemalan ladies the , the 2 on my left are twins (gemelos) both 3 (Sophia and Erica), on my right is 5 year old leader of the pack (Bertha).
I lived with this family for 3 weeks while studying Spanish - it was rather disjunct as a result of a arriving on New Years day, which is HUGE in Guatemala. I wouldn't be surprised if they were still shooting off fireworks. One of the professors died when I was there as well which was very sad - so though my language study was interrupted I was able to feel very close to this group of professors in their time of sorrow.
The school is truly amazing. It is located in Quetzaltenango, commonly referred to as
Xela. (Shay-la).
Check it out at
http://www.xelapages.com/plqe/index.htm
These little tikes are found in Nebaj, Guatemala - a town in the far north of Guat. It was hit the hardest under the scoundrel Rios Montt in the early '80's during the civil war.If that sounds removed from you, I'll bring it a little closer...
Montts daughter just married our Illinois Congressman who has had an incredible amount of influence in Latin America - though the wedding has limited that.
Below is a small news bit - google this though, it is rather interesting. Especially since her father is on trial for genocide.
Illinois Rep. weds ex-dictator's daughter
- - - - - - - - - - - -
Sergio De Leon
Sergio De Leon
Nov. 20, 2004 | ANTIGUA, Guatemala (AP) -- They met during a trade mission, and despite controversy over their engagement, U.S. Rep. Jerry Weller of Illinois and the outspoken daughter of former Guatemalan dictator Efrain Rios Montt tied the knot Saturday in a civil ceremony.
About 300 people -- including Rios Montt -- attended the wedding of the Republican congressman from central Illinois and Zury Rios Sosa, a 36-year-old Guatemalan senator. Security was tight as the two exchanged wedding vows at a mansion belonging to the former dictator.
U.S. Ambassador to Guatemala John Hamilton also attended.
___________________________________________________________________
Wal-mart just can't get enough.
They just bought all the super market chains in Guatemala.
They also have the big super stores there. Step inside and you will completely forget you are in Guat.
It is strange and sad.
Wal-mart, guatemala...Wal-mart, world.
Wal-mart world...its got a ring to it.
___________________________________________________________________
Wal-mart just can't get enough.They just bought all the super market chains in Guatemala.
They also have the big super stores there. Step inside and you will completely forget you are in Guat.
It is strange and sad.
Wal-mart, guatemala...Wal-mart, world.
Wal-mart world...its got a ring to it.
Guatemala - Nisgua
I've been to Guatemala twice in the past year - onces as an educational trip through Augburg College and second on my own to learn spanish and stay connected...
Here are some Guatemala facts
Did You Know?
> Guatemala has the most unequal land distribution in the Western Hemisphere, with large landholders who comprise only 2% of the population possessing 70% of the productive lands.
> Attacks against human rights defenders in Guatemala increased between 2004 and 2005. In 2005, El Movimiento Nacional por los Derechos Humanos documented 224 attacks against human rights defenders, in comparison with 122 attacks in 2004.
> On March 30, 2006, the 11th anniversary of the signing of the indigenous accord, tens of thousands of workers, farmers and indigenous people marched in Guatemala City to demand the strengthening of indigenous rights, restriction of open pit mining licenses, and funds for the Ministry of Agriculture to purchase land for redistribution.
Go to
www.nisgua.org
for more.
Here are some Guatemala facts
Did You Know?
> Guatemala has the most unequal land distribution in the Western Hemisphere, with large landholders who comprise only 2% of the population possessing 70% of the productive lands.
> Attacks against human rights defenders in Guatemala increased between 2004 and 2005. In 2005, El Movimiento Nacional por los Derechos Humanos documented 224 attacks against human rights defenders, in comparison with 122 attacks in 2004.
> On March 30, 2006, the 11th anniversary of the signing of the indigenous accord, tens of thousands of workers, farmers and indigenous people marched in Guatemala City to demand the strengthening of indigenous rights, restriction of open pit mining licenses, and funds for the Ministry of Agriculture to purchase land for redistribution.
Go to
www.nisgua.org
for more.
Saturday, March 17, 2007
John Sobrino, Liberation Theology
Father John (or Jon) Sobrino, the Jesuit priest from El Salvador, friend of Romero is in trouble...and it seems that it stems from the same old Liberation Theology root. The Catholic church, though the news is a bit unclear, is discouraging his writings on Christology.
Jesus' historical presence, his fight against the oppressor and for the poor/oppressed, and his humanity is the central amazing mind blowing marrow of the gospel message - and we continue to be unable to deal with it. It upsets our real system in real time - real people with real money are being told to quit making people poor and that is not a popular message.
Father Jon/john (what is correct?) Sobrino is yet another key figure who is under examination for essentially making Christ to human, making this world to much of the gift and eye of a creative God, whose "kingdom" is here and now not in some other-worldly soul saved wonder world.
I heard on the radio today and I think I agree, once again the Vatican is behind the times.
Here is a bit about Sobrino and Liberation Theology.
And, here is a link to a blog that keeps up with El Salvador showing the confusion with what is really happening.
http://www.luterano.blogspot.com/?SID
Jesus' historical presence, his fight against the oppressor and for the poor/oppressed, and his humanity is the central amazing mind blowing marrow of the gospel message - and we continue to be unable to deal with it. It upsets our real system in real time - real people with real money are being told to quit making people poor and that is not a popular message.
Father Jon/john (what is correct?) Sobrino is yet another key figure who is under examination for essentially making Christ to human, making this world to much of the gift and eye of a creative God, whose "kingdom" is here and now not in some other-worldly soul saved wonder world.
I heard on the radio today and I think I agree, once again the Vatican is behind the times.
Here is a bit about Sobrino and Liberation Theology.
My Century Home Page
Broadcast on Monday 29th November 1999
JOHN SOBRINO
My name is John Sobrino. I was born in the Basque country, nearly 60 years ago. At the age of 18, I became a Jesuit And a year after that, I was sent to El Salvador, in 1958. And since then I have practically lived my whole life here. The best thing that has happened to me in life is to have known Archbishop Romero. I was a close friend of his. And also I lived with a community of Jesuits who were assassinated ten years ago. I was away. I became first a Jesuit and then a priest - very simply, because I felt a call from God. It has given me an opportunity to serve others, especially to serve those very, very poor people here in El Salvador. At the age of 27, I studied theology. I was in Frankfurt, Germany. When I came back from Frankfurt, in '73, people started talking here a different language, as far as Christian faith and theology are concerned: for example, that this planet is a planet of poor, oppressed people, a planet of victims. It made no sense to me to say: "I believe in God", in the guise of Jesus of Nazareth, and not take the poor seriously. So I started doing theology along those lines. And then I realised that that was close to what people were beginning to call "liberation theology". Now, liberation theology is the type of theology which wants to look at God from the perspective of the poor of the world. It's a way of thinking about Christianity so that the will of God, the dream of God, the utopia of God, becomes true. I remember years ago, in a refugee camp in El Salvador, several times I went to say Mass. In the midst of so much tragedy, poverty and so on, all of a sudden I saw a peasant woman. And I said to myself spontaneously, when I looked at her face: "I have seen God". The depth of reality became present in the face of that woman: her dignity, her commitment to be there, her hope that maybe life would be better for her and for others; an experience of God. I think this is the origin of liberation theology. Maybe people understand better when they know what happens when communities, priests in their homilies, bishops like Romero in their pastoral letters, professors like us, act out of this instinct of liberation theology. What happened? Well, this university was bombed. A bomb exploded on our campus 25 times. The house where I live was bombed four times. Six Jesuits were killed. They were killed because they told the truth about the country. As Christians, they said: "God is against that." Why did they say that? Because they thought in a very specific way. And that specific way of thinking is called liberation theology. Liberation theology is a threat because it tells the truth about this world. And the truth is not told. Whoever tells the truth gets killed. Let's have this clear. Jesus was crucified himself. He offers us the good news: that following him life makes sense. Now following him, in situations like the Salvadorean one, might make it possible to be killed. As long as there is oppression, I hope that theologians will think of God from the point of view of the poor. As long as that happens, there will be liberation theology. E N D
And, here is a link to a blog that keeps up with El Salvador showing the confusion with what is really happening.
http://www.luterano.blogspot.com/?SID
Friday, March 16, 2007
Jim Wallis just visited Missoula.
Missoula is a hot box of social activists paralleled by a slurry of right-wing evangelicals - and just for spice a few folks whose main goal is to prove, in intricate detail, how our government was directly in charge of 9/11.
I love it here.
I'm currently in a coffee shop that 'ol Eric Meyer used to work at, next to a bar named Charlies whose fumes, joys, and sorrows are felt and smelt through the adjoining wall.
Wallis had a crowd of about 1,000. He spoke to a small group of students before the lecture and I was really quite impressed.
Saturday I helped lead a follow-up workshop. I helped come up with the liturgy. This Brueggeman part of it and I thought that I would share it.
REFORM OUR DEFORMED LIVES (Walter Brueggeman)
L: We name you by your name, harbinger of liberty:
hear our prayers for liberty.
(Reader 1) We are mindful of those caught, trapped, held, imprisoned
by systems of enslavement and abuse, by ideas and
ideologies that demean and immobilize, by unreal hopes
and ungrounded fears.
(Reader 2) We ourselves know much of un-liberty, too wounded, too obedient,
too driven, too fearful. Be our massive way of emancipation and
let us all be "free at last."
L: We name you by your name, power of peace:
hear our prayers for peace.
(Reader 1) We dare ask for the middle wall of hostility to be broken
down, between liberals and conservatives in the church,
between haves and have-nots, between victims and
perpetrators, between all sorts of colleagues in this place,
and in all those arenas besot with violence, rage, and hate.
We know we are not meant for abusiveness, but we stutter
before our vocation as peacemakers.
(Reader 2) Transform us beyond our fearfulness, our timidity, our
excessive certitude, that we may be vulnerable enough
to be peacemakers, and so
to be called your very own children.
L: We name you by your name, fountian of mercy:
hear our prayer for mercy.
(Reader 1) Our world grows weary of the battering and the vicious
cycles that devour us. We seem to have no capacity to break
those vicious cycles of anti-neighborliness and self-hate.
We turn, like our people always have, to you, single source
of newness. Waiting father, in your mercy receive us and
all our weary neighbors.
(Reader 2) Remembering mother, hold us and all our desperate friends.
Passionate lover, in your mercy cherish all our enemies.
Gift giver, in your mercy embrace a all those who are
strangers to us, who are your well-beloved
children. Make us, altogether, new.
L: Hear our prayers for liberty, for peace, for mercy.
(All) Form us in freedom and wholeness and gentleness.
Reform our deformed lives toward
obedience which is our only freedom,
praise which is our only poetry,
and love which is our only option.
(All) Our confidence matches our need, so we pray to you. Amen.
Missoula is a hot box of social activists paralleled by a slurry of right-wing evangelicals - and just for spice a few folks whose main goal is to prove, in intricate detail, how our government was directly in charge of 9/11.
I love it here.
I'm currently in a coffee shop that 'ol Eric Meyer used to work at, next to a bar named Charlies whose fumes, joys, and sorrows are felt and smelt through the adjoining wall.
Wallis had a crowd of about 1,000. He spoke to a small group of students before the lecture and I was really quite impressed.
Saturday I helped lead a follow-up workshop. I helped come up with the liturgy. This Brueggeman part of it and I thought that I would share it.
REFORM OUR DEFORMED LIVES (Walter Brueggeman)
L: We name you by your name, harbinger of liberty:
hear our prayers for liberty.
(Reader 1) We are mindful of those caught, trapped, held, imprisoned
by systems of enslavement and abuse, by ideas and
ideologies that demean and immobilize, by unreal hopes
and ungrounded fears.
(Reader 2) We ourselves know much of un-liberty, too wounded, too obedient,
too driven, too fearful. Be our massive way of emancipation and
let us all be "free at last."
L: We name you by your name, power of peace:
hear our prayers for peace.
(Reader 1) We dare ask for the middle wall of hostility to be broken
down, between liberals and conservatives in the church,
between haves and have-nots, between victims and
perpetrators, between all sorts of colleagues in this place,
and in all those arenas besot with violence, rage, and hate.
We know we are not meant for abusiveness, but we stutter
before our vocation as peacemakers.
(Reader 2) Transform us beyond our fearfulness, our timidity, our
excessive certitude, that we may be vulnerable enough
to be peacemakers, and so
to be called your very own children.
L: We name you by your name, fountian of mercy:
hear our prayer for mercy.
(Reader 1) Our world grows weary of the battering and the vicious
cycles that devour us. We seem to have no capacity to break
those vicious cycles of anti-neighborliness and self-hate.
We turn, like our people always have, to you, single source
of newness. Waiting father, in your mercy receive us and
all our weary neighbors.
(Reader 2) Remembering mother, hold us and all our desperate friends.
Passionate lover, in your mercy cherish all our enemies.
Gift giver, in your mercy embrace a all those who are
strangers to us, who are your well-beloved
children. Make us, altogether, new.
L: Hear our prayers for liberty, for peace, for mercy.
(All) Form us in freedom and wholeness and gentleness.
Reform our deformed lives toward
obedience which is our only freedom,
praise which is our only poetry,
and love which is our only option.
(All) Our confidence matches our need, so we pray to you. Amen.
Quotes: Liberation Theology
I just gave a presentation to a mixed group of clergy and professors from the University of Montana in Missoula. I've been inspired by its roots and the writings that are continuing to come as a result. Here are pieces from what I have gleaned. (more to come)
Quotes: Liberation Theology presentation.
(From these guys: Gustavo Gutiérrez, Leonardo and Clodovis Boff, Lesslie Newbigin, and
Thomas Merton)
(Notice they are all guys, but! feminist liberation theology leaps from out of this tradition)
1.
“…much of the education offered in the past by mission schools and colleges has been designed to hide from it’s victims the real nature of the forces that control them and to condition them to accept their own powerlessness.” (Leslie Newbigin, The Open Secret pg. 94)
2.
“In Latin America the awareness is spreading – even among Christians – that Christianity has contributed to producing the cultural alienation that is seen today. The Christian religion has served, and continues to serve, as an ideology justifying the domination of the powerful. In Latin America Christianity has been a religion at the service of the system. Its rites, temples, and works have contributed to channeling popular dissatisfaction toward another world totally disconnected from this one. Thus Christianity has checked popular protest against an unjust and oppressive system”
(Juventud y cristianismo en America Latina, final document of the seminar on the problesmof youth organized by the Department of Education of CELAM (Bogota: Indo-American Press Service 1969), p. 22)
3.
“Blessed are you poor for yours is the Kingdom of God” does not mean, it seems to us: “Accept your poverty because later this injustice will be compensated for in the Kingdom of God.”
If we believe that the Kingdom of God is a gift which is received in history, and if we believe, as the eschatological promises – so charged with human and historical content – indicate to us, that the Kingdom of God necessarily implies the reestablishment of justice in this world, then we must believe that Christ says that the poor are blessed because the Kingdom of God has begun: “The time has come; the Kingdom of God is upon you” (Mark 1:15).
In other words, the elimination of the exploitation and poverty that prevent the poor from being fully human has begun; a Kingdom of justice which goes even beyond what they could have hoped for has begun. They are blessed because the coming of the Kingdom will put an end to their poverty by creating a world of fellowship. They are blessed because the Messiah will open the eyes of the blind and will give bread to the hungry. Situated in a prophetic perspective, the text in Luke uses the term poor in the tradition of the first major line of thought we have studied: poverty is an evil and therefore incompatible with the Kingdom of God, which has come in its fullness into history and embraces the totality of human existence.” (p. 171, A Theology of Liberation Gustavo Gutierrez
4.
“The end of the 1960’s…Development and underdevelopment are two sides of the same coin… The poverty of Third World countries was the price to be paid for the First World to be able to enjoy the fruits of overabundance.” (p68 Lonardo and Clodovis Boff Introducing Liberation Theology)
5.
“We must pay special attention to the words we use. The term poor might seem not only vague and churchy, but also somewhat sentimental and aseptic. The “poor” person today is the oppressed one, the one marginated from society, the member of the proletariat struggling for the most basic rights; the exploited and plundered social class, the country struggling for its liberation. In today’s world the solidarity and protest of which we are speaking have an evident and inevitable “political” character insofar as they imply liberation. To be with the oppressed is to be against the oppressor. In our times and on our continent to be in solidarity with the “poor,” understood in this way, means to run personal risks – even to put one’s life in danger. Many Christians – and non-Christians – who are committed to the Latin American revolutionary process are running these risks.”
And
“Only by rejecting poverty and by making itself poor in order to protest against it can the Church preach something that is uniquely its own: ‘spiritual poverty,’ that is, the openness of humankind and history to the future promised by God…And only in this way will it (the church) be able to preach the word which liberates, the word of genuine fellowship.”
(GG 173)
6.
Toward a theology of Love
“A theology of love cannot afford to be sentimental. It cannot afford to preach edifying generalities about charity, while identifying ‘peace’ with mere established power and legalized violence against the oppressed. A theology of love cannot be allowed merely to serve the interests of therich and powerful, justifying their wars, their violence and their bombs, while exhorting the poor and underprivileged to practice patience, meekness, longsuffering and to solve their problems, if at all, non-violently.
The theology of love must seek to deal realistically with the evil and injustice in the world, and not merely to compromise with them. Such a theology will have to take note of the ambiguous realities of politics, without embracing the specious myth of a “realism” that merely justifies force in the service of established power. Theology does not exist merely to appease the already too untroubled conscience of the powerful and the established. A theology of love may also conceivably turn out to be a theology of revolution. In any case it is a theology of resistance, a refusal of the evil that reduces a brother to homicidal desperation.”
- Thomas Merton
Quotes: Liberation Theology presentation.
(From these guys: Gustavo Gutiérrez, Leonardo and Clodovis Boff, Lesslie Newbigin, and
Thomas Merton)
(Notice they are all guys, but! feminist liberation theology leaps from out of this tradition)
1.
“…much of the education offered in the past by mission schools and colleges has been designed to hide from it’s victims the real nature of the forces that control them and to condition them to accept their own powerlessness.” (Leslie Newbigin, The Open Secret pg. 94)
2.
“In Latin America the awareness is spreading – even among Christians – that Christianity has contributed to producing the cultural alienation that is seen today. The Christian religion has served, and continues to serve, as an ideology justifying the domination of the powerful. In Latin America Christianity has been a religion at the service of the system. Its rites, temples, and works have contributed to channeling popular dissatisfaction toward another world totally disconnected from this one. Thus Christianity has checked popular protest against an unjust and oppressive system”
(Juventud y cristianismo en America Latina, final document of the seminar on the problesmof youth organized by the Department of Education of CELAM (Bogota: Indo-American Press Service 1969), p. 22)
3.
“Blessed are you poor for yours is the Kingdom of God” does not mean, it seems to us: “Accept your poverty because later this injustice will be compensated for in the Kingdom of God.”
If we believe that the Kingdom of God is a gift which is received in history, and if we believe, as the eschatological promises – so charged with human and historical content – indicate to us, that the Kingdom of God necessarily implies the reestablishment of justice in this world, then we must believe that Christ says that the poor are blessed because the Kingdom of God has begun: “The time has come; the Kingdom of God is upon you” (Mark 1:15).
In other words, the elimination of the exploitation and poverty that prevent the poor from being fully human has begun; a Kingdom of justice which goes even beyond what they could have hoped for has begun. They are blessed because the coming of the Kingdom will put an end to their poverty by creating a world of fellowship. They are blessed because the Messiah will open the eyes of the blind and will give bread to the hungry. Situated in a prophetic perspective, the text in Luke uses the term poor in the tradition of the first major line of thought we have studied: poverty is an evil and therefore incompatible with the Kingdom of God, which has come in its fullness into history and embraces the totality of human existence.” (p. 171, A Theology of Liberation Gustavo Gutierrez
4.
“The end of the 1960’s…Development and underdevelopment are two sides of the same coin… The poverty of Third World countries was the price to be paid for the First World to be able to enjoy the fruits of overabundance.” (p68 Lonardo and Clodovis Boff Introducing Liberation Theology)
5.
“We must pay special attention to the words we use. The term poor might seem not only vague and churchy, but also somewhat sentimental and aseptic. The “poor” person today is the oppressed one, the one marginated from society, the member of the proletariat struggling for the most basic rights; the exploited and plundered social class, the country struggling for its liberation. In today’s world the solidarity and protest of which we are speaking have an evident and inevitable “political” character insofar as they imply liberation. To be with the oppressed is to be against the oppressor. In our times and on our continent to be in solidarity with the “poor,” understood in this way, means to run personal risks – even to put one’s life in danger. Many Christians – and non-Christians – who are committed to the Latin American revolutionary process are running these risks.”
And
“Only by rejecting poverty and by making itself poor in order to protest against it can the Church preach something that is uniquely its own: ‘spiritual poverty,’ that is, the openness of humankind and history to the future promised by God…And only in this way will it (the church) be able to preach the word which liberates, the word of genuine fellowship.”
(GG 173)
6.
Toward a theology of Love
“A theology of love cannot afford to be sentimental. It cannot afford to preach edifying generalities about charity, while identifying ‘peace’ with mere established power and legalized violence against the oppressed. A theology of love cannot be allowed merely to serve the interests of therich and powerful, justifying their wars, their violence and their bombs, while exhorting the poor and underprivileged to practice patience, meekness, longsuffering and to solve their problems, if at all, non-violently.
The theology of love must seek to deal realistically with the evil and injustice in the world, and not merely to compromise with them. Such a theology will have to take note of the ambiguous realities of politics, without embracing the specious myth of a “realism” that merely justifies force in the service of established power. Theology does not exist merely to appease the already too untroubled conscience of the powerful and the established. A theology of love may also conceivably turn out to be a theology of revolution. In any case it is a theology of resistance, a refusal of the evil that reduces a brother to homicidal desperation.”
- Thomas Merton
I submit...
i hovered and hovered - a solitary orb - a carbonated bubble on the side of a can, alone and longing to be with the ever shaken spewing world of information sharing super-stars.
My friends! My hippie naturalists, you used to refuse to comb your hair! Trim your beard! Showering only occasionally!
Now, pinned like a protective armchair covering to your electrical outletted hub of amistad - your blogs...
And I suppose I see the lesser of two evils - disconnect or connect. I choose connect.
So I submit. It really is a good way to keep up with the world.
And to encourage from a far, our same "showering only occasionally" type of values.
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