CB in MT

Clover be good to me!

2009-06-08T00:05:00.001-07:00

I'm trying to be cool and plant a living mulch of clover-fix'n-nitrogen-till'n-in-that-organic-matter-lov'n-saweeetness.

Here's a pic.

Potatoes popp'n on that raised bed - clover on the sides.

The Beargeon Family Invades my farm!

2009-06-07T18:18:00.000-07:00

Fun times at the Bailey spread

Alysha on the slack line. Nick beating the crap out of stuff with a stick >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

And here is Nathaniel cleaning up after Nick's demolition. Alysha still slack'n.

Conservation Farming

2009-06-05T15:41:00.000-07:00

This is way cool:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6100808389636332009

Help!!! Phosphorus...how do you work?

2009-06-04T16:24:00.001-07:00

Ok, I need help. Someone explain to me what this all means:
http://books.google.com/books?id=zHIhWM5R9LcC&pg=PA163&lpg=PA163&dq=organic+phosphorus,+grow&source=bl&ots=KOE95O4qJf&sig=hCVb9pZXGOVasndbUFhzY0FQajM&hl=en&ei=L1EoSse0KZKHmQe7rICHCA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=9

...and how micro organisms/plants/animals make it naturally in a way that we can rotate organic agriculture crops and CREATE IT. So we don't have to keep hauling it in from outside conventional sources.

And, so we don't go take over Moracco someday: Read this: http://johnwphipps.blogspot.com/2009/06/another-alarm-sounding.html

And I begin to learn about organics

2009-05-30T23:24:00.000-07:00

Two pics to the right show an 8850 John Deer pulling a deal that sucks "product" out of a tank and drops it on the ground. In my case I am planting alfalfa. This is one step in an attempt at 50 acres of organics. The first step is to fix some Nitrogen with a vigorous weed competing warrior (alfalfa). This little plant will hopefully be the replacement of both fertilizer and chemical.

Thanks to my dad and uncles, I have a bit of land and a bit of equipment to attempt such an endeavor. (a lot of bits of advice are also appreciated)

Here are some other pics from the operation:
to the left i'm rolling the ground. Alfalfa likes a firm seed bed and swathers appreciate squashed (nonexistent) rocks.

To the right is the "John Dee" with plow in tow. Our conventional practice allows us to use Round up and save our stubble (organic matter). I have fallen head over heals in love with OM so it hurt me deep to plow it under. I hope fixing my own N and building the soil in an organic rotation will mend that pain.

ATTRA link about benefits of alfalfa in organics:
http://attra.ncat.org/attra-pub/alfalfa.html
Montana Organics link:
http://agr.mt.gov/organic/Program.asp

Remembering Guatemala

2009-05-30T23:06:00.000-07:00

My Guatemala experience set the pace for many of my brain waves from theology to how I see the intricate relationship of all life forms, and therefore my love and increasing infatuation with agriculture and ecosystems. I stumbled across this article about our trip recently.

http://www.cas.umt.edu/casweb/detailArticle.cfm?ID=73

The ELCA Lutheran Church sent a nationwide delegation to Nicaragua earlier this year. They explored the relationship between poverty and climate change.

More here: http://gfallsyouth.wordpress.com/

the spring green at the farm ::: sheep & barn, sky & grass

2009-05-25T21:57:00.000-07:00

Year 2 begins. Rais'n some beds.

2009-04-18T12:44:00.000-07:00

The Garden Begins! In this photo we have Gus at the tiller, Kathy (Jamye's mom) at the shovel, Jamye and Nick in the back of the truck, Alysha pulling manure out into the wheel barrel, and I think the leg sticking out in the back may be Roger.

"Reducing global warming begins with the food we eat"

2009-03-17T10:35:00.000-07:00

The Gardening season quickly approaches. We begin our second round of Community Gardening in Great Falls, mt. The picture to the right is our garden last year.

Get yer green socially conscious thumbs all shiny! This crew will fuel our food producing/eating selves with a tad'a AWARENESS:

"Reducing global warming begins with the food we eat. The Cool Foods Campaign educates the public about how food choices can affect global warming and empowers them with the resources to reduce this impact. Join our “Cool Foods” Campaign and help take a bite out of global warming by changing the way you eat."

Go here >>>> http://coolfoodscampaign.org/

GARDEN PLAN GUIDE ~
Go here >>>> http://coolfoodscampaign.org/your-tools/garden-guide/

COMPANION PLANTING ~
Go here >>>> http://www.organicgardening.com/feature/0,7518,s1-5-19-108,00.html

SEED COMPANY ~
Go here >>>> http://www.johnnyseeds.com/

CHICKEN TRACTORS ~
Go here >>>> http://home.centurytel.net/thecitychicken/tractors.html

manuren a la youth group garden

2008-05-06T14:02:00.000-07:00

Manure = "manuren" meaning "to cultivate land,"

First we must feed our soil - in return, it will feed us.

Check out "Manure Tea..."
http://www.gardengrapevine.com/TeaDistillGarden.html

And these farmers are "making power from poop"!!!
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/327785_waste16.html
This article from the San Fransisco Chronicle talks a bit about this lovely substance:

Add manure to the soil, and what was excreted waste becomes fodder again. Fungi, beneficial bacteria, invertebrates, worms and protozoa living in the soil feed on the manure (and each other). In so doing, they render a complex mix of both macro and micro nutrients ready for plant roots to absorb.

Cover crops and composted plant materials, otherwise known as "green manure," also feed the web of life in the soil, but they are not as dense with nutrients. Animal manure is a composite of the tons of plant matter that the animals consume.

"The animal ends up bio-concentrating nutrients," Meyer said. "You'd need a whole lot more leftover plant matter to put the same amounts of nutrients that animal manure provides back into the soil."

Animal manure also adds a more diverse mixture of microbes to soil than does green manure because of the contribution of the animal's own resident microbes to their manure.

"If you take really depleted soil and apply animal manure, you're inoculating that soil. So you're building the ecology of the soil. Whereas if you're only putting in green manure or plant materials, you don't have as rich or complex a biodiversity in the soil as you get with animal manure," said Jim Riddle, organic outreach coordinator at the University of Minnesota.

The carbon-based materials, or organic matter, found in both animal and plant manure improve soil function and structure. Organic matter increases the soil's "cation exchange capacity," a measure of the soil's ability to hold nutrients, and helps to keep soils loose and full of tiny air pockets.

Plant roots grow farther and quicker in porous soils, and water will enter more rapidly, reducing runoff and erosion. Finally, organic matter improves soil's drought tolerance, absorbing rain and irrigation water and holding it in reserve for plants to tap later. The water-holding capacity of soil can increase by 16,000 gallons per acre-foot for each 1 percent increase in organic matter.

Unlike manure, the typical N-P-K (nitrogen, phosphorous, potassium) fertilizer provides plants with a dose of refined macronutrients without adding any organic matter to the soil.

What are the alternatives to manure and organic manure? Synthetic fertilizer.
This is what we basically use for survival today.
Not very natural - and it is getting really expensive and seems to be contributing to global warming and polution:
Excess nitrates move quickly down through the root zone and enter groundwater, contaminating wells and flowing into coastal waters, where they promote excessive phytoplankton and algae blooms, whose subsequent decomposition robs the water and its inhabitants of dissolved oxygen. River mouths become "dead zones" devoid of life.

Worldwide, there are at least 140 coastal dead zones, ranging in size from less than a square mile to 27,000 square miles wide.

The Mississippi River drains 1.6 million tons of nitrogen per year into the Gulf of Mexico, creating a dead zone that can cover 8,000 square miles.

Oxidized forms of nitrogen contribute to the formation of smog and greenhouse gases. Because of nitrogen fertilizers, agriculture has become the largest source of nitrous oxide emissions in the United States.

Nitrous oxide is a potent greenhouse gas that can trap 300 times more radiation from the Earth than can carbon dioxide.

Like the hidden costs, the direct cost of chemical fertilizers has only recently become apparent. The process of "fixing" synthetic nitrogen from the air requires large amounts of natural gas, which is found either in dissolved crude oil, or as a gas cap above reservoirs of oil.

Transporting synthetic nitrogen is energy intensive as well; the United States imports roughly half of its nitrogen fertilizer from such countries as Venezuela, Trinidad & Tobago and Argentina. As oil supplies tighten, the price of synthetic nitrogen increases.

So what do we do?
I would suggest a good start is to dust off the old bike
and shovel some a that happen'n stuff!

Stuff!!

2008-05-03T22:35:00.000-07:00

http://www.storyofstuff.com/

Youth Group and others helping with the garden project
- check out that link.

14th St. & 5th Ave N... Our Garden Begins...

2008-05-03T20:53:00.000-07:00

"A vital point is that personal transformation is not the goal of Native ethic religion; one feels called not to transcend one's natural humanity, but to live it, and to live it in the context of a particular community and that community's particular geography." (p149)
(Tinker, George E. Lift Every Voice: Constructing Christian Theologies from the Underside)

Snow!

2008-04-20T14:05:00.000-07:00

Ahh, spring in Montana.

And alas, no Youth Group tonight.

We were going to have a discussion about politics.
A young man from the Obama Campaign was rare'n to go...give us his spiel and then hopefully have a good question and answer session.

Politics is an interesting animal. Lucky for us, in this little Lutheran group, we are not trying to persuade anyone of ANYTHING. We simply are living out our questions, encouraging personal and social honesty in order to better love self and other with integrity.

I am going to quote a passage from "A Passion for the Possible" from Reverend William Sloan Coffin that deepens our understanding as we ponder politics, love, and the LAND that we live and eat from. (Remember the little plant that are now in lou of germination....also remember the picture below a few weeks ago with the picture above!)

Here tis:

"Genuine love expands, it doesn't contract.
True patriotism can only extend minds and hearts, extend them to the point where all citizens in every land will one day vote for a vision of human unity once so eloquently described by a candidate for no less a post than that of the U.S. presidency:
'We travel together, passengers on a little spaceship, dependent on its vulnerable supplies of air and soil; all committed for our safety to its security and peace, preserved from annihilation only by the care, the work, and I will say, the Love we give our fragile craft." (Adlai Stevenson)
- Rev. William Sloan Coffin

Politics and Religion can often be narrow, shallow, and one-sided. Our vision must be inclusive and full of love and justice. That is the kind of vision that is inspired by Jesus, but often overshadowed by the stupidity of....greed, structures, fear...etc..
At the heart of things is LOVE.

I tend to think that real LOVE is best defined while staring at a compost pit.
What do you think about that??? :)

--
Awe is the beginning of Wisdom, praise precedes faith.
- Rabbi Heschel

The Youth Group entereth thee gardening projecto.

2008-04-13T22:36:00.000-07:00

2008-04-10T20:30:00.000-07:00

Pics of the gardening project.

“The whole idea of compassion is based on a keen awareness of the interdependence of all these living beings, which are all part of one another, and all involved in one another.” (Thomas Merton)

“Every moment and every event of every man's life on earth plants something in his soul.” (Thomas Merton)

“I suppose what makes me most glad is that we all recognize each other in this metaphysical space of silence and happening, and get some sense, for a moment, that we are full of paradise without knowing it” (Thomas Merton)

Another Thoughtful Letter

2008-03-16T21:35:00.001-07:00

Here is the next letter from my friend who is in Guatemala. A recent graduate from Missoula - now working with NISGUA (Network in Solidarity with the people of Guatemala) a group that is "Working for Justice in Guatemala". (GAP = Guatemala's Accompaniment Project.)

Why is accompaniment necessary? In the early 1980s, the Guatemalan military combined urban repression with a rural counter-insurgency campaign that uprooted more than a million people – many of whom fled to neighboring Mexico – and led to an estimated 200,000 dead and disappeared. According to the independent Historical Clarification Commission, these actions constituted a campaign of genocide against Guatemala’s indigenous population.

In 1993, organized groups of refugees began returning home and internally displaced groups started to come out of hiding. Two years later, G.A.P. formed in response to requests from these returnees for trained international observers to accompany communities as they rebuilt after 36 years of violent civil war, which formally ended with the signing of peace accords in 1996.

What is accompaniment?NISGUA is one of many organizations around the world that employs accompaniment as a vital tool in the global struggle for the respect of human rights. In the Guatemalan context, accompaniment creates a non-violent response to the threats, harassment, and violence faced by survivors of Guatemala’s 36-year-long civil war and grassroots organizations working for justice and human rights. To this end, NISGUA’s Guatemala Accompaniment Project (G.A.P.) places long-term volunteers side-by-side with people in rural communities and with organizations in an effort to deter human rights violations. The dissuasive physical presence of these volunteers, known as accompaniers, provides a measure of security and creates space for Guatemalan communities and groups to organize in defense of their rights. Accompaniers also monitor and report on the human rights situation and alert the international community to abuses. In the U.S., ten G.A.P. Sponsoring Communities are committed to immediately responding to abuses and providing ongoing support to accompaniers.

READ MORE AT THIS LINK:

http://www.nisgua.org/get_involved/join_gap/intro.asp
_______________________________________________________________________________
LETTER:

Dear Friends and Family,

I’ve had the thought a number of times.

It’s usually when I see the incongruous flashing television screen in a one bedroom, dirt floor home, or hear the trill of a new cell phone, or any other telltale sign of the remittances sent home from family working in the states.
And I think, wouldn’t that money be better spent on Lupita’s education, or perhaps a sustainable community project? I hear it echoed, too; Adriana, a Brazilian woman working with an Ixcán NGO told me of favelas near her home in Brazil where families slept exposed to the rain, their only reasonable piece of roofing set aside to shelter their television; and of a homeless man awakened on the sidewalk by his ringing cell phone…all the ways poor people choose to spend what little money passes through their hands.
But then I realize, wait – I have all these things, and I like them, too. Am I justified in having a TV and a DVD player just because I have a nice stand to set them on and quality roofing to house them under? Are fancy fixtures reserved only for those who can make them look less conspicuous among other fancy fixtures?
When fifteen year-old Marta told me she was going to make the trek from Cuarto Pueblo up through the Sonoran Desert and ultimately to Atlanta, provided she didn’t get caught along the way, I asked her why she was leaving. I was already forming my own romantic ideas about Marta’s noble decision to migrate; that she felt obligated to find a way to pay for her mother’s medicine, that she was going to help put Yoli, her bright little sister, through school, that maybe there just wasn’t enough food to go around…
“I want to be able to buy my own stuff,” Marta answered. She wanted new jeans. She wanted cold sodas. She was born in Mexico in the refugee camps and had seen Cancun, the hotels, the refrigerators. And she wanted some.
Initially, I was disappointed and found myself wanting to tell her to stay. This wasn’t the story of a young woman risking her life to feed her family. Marta wanted cds and electricity. I wanted Marta to stay with her mother and grandmother, to know her Mayan language and how to make tortillas. But I have my refrigerator at home, my cd player, and my jeans and I don’t think I’m ready to give them up. So who am I to hope these things for Marta? I find myself pleased to see young girls speaking Q’anjobal and weaving, to hear young men explain the planting and harvesting of corn. But I am dropping in on this world, peering into these complicated and changing lives, making my judgments and hoping my hopes, all the while knowing I will return to the many comforts of my home. And I love my home.
So I have to catch myself, to ask myself if what I want for Marta is what I want for myself. And it’s not so simple, because we do come from vastly different worlds. But I have to be careful of this tendency to enjoy cultural preservation for my own sake, for my own viewing pleasures, only to slip comfortably back into my home in the U.S., where I will enjoy all the things that Marta wants too.

P.S. I am now working on a new regional team in the Ixcán, centered on natural resource issues. I will be working in communities where mainly Q´eqchi is spoken and little to no Spanish. I am studying Q’eqchi this week, trying to learn a third language using my second, which is, well, kind of hard. It is a beautiful, poetic language: ¨How are you? ¨ literally translates to ¨Do you have happiness in your heart? ¨, ¨Ma sa sa’ laach’ool laa’at?¨
I said goodbye to Cuarto Pueblo last month, after nine months there. On my last night we ate with Andrés, the carpenter I wrote about in my first letter. He told me, "Anita, now when you go home, you tell your family about what happened down here, what we lived through. But make sure you tell them that we are happy now. We are eating three meals a day of good food. We are no longer in the mountains, stuffing our babies' mouths with leaves to keep them from crying, cooking in the middle of the night so the army can't see our smoke, eating tortillas made from ground leaves...we're doing pretty good."
"No es el tiempo que anda cambiando el mundo; es la humanidad," he said to me as I was walking out of his house, something that just isn't quite as beautiful or translatable in English: "It's not time that changes our world - it is humanity."

I hope you all have happiness in your hearts.

2008-03-11T01:26:00.000-07:00

"It was as if God had said, 'I am here, but not as you have known me. This is the look of silence, and of loneliness unendurable; it too has always been mine, and now will be yours.' I was not ready for a life of sorrow, sorrow deriving from knowledge I could just as well stop at the gate."
~ Annie Dilliard, "A Field of Silence" in Teaching a Stone To Talk...

Great Falls Youth Group

2008-03-10T12:55:00.000-07:00

Check out the Youth Group blog:

http://gfallsyouth.wordpress.com/

"revusion toward anything that chooses to call itself 'Christian'"

2008-03-10T12:38:00.000-07:00

Here is a piece of an article by David James Duncan - a bit spikey as usual, but as usual quite entertaining and just simply good.
It is featured in the July/August 2005 issue of Orion Magazine.
The rest of the article can be found by clicking on the link at the bottom.
________________________

Most of the famed leaders of the new “Bible-based” American political alliances share a conviction that their causes and agendas are approved of, and directly inspired, by no less a being than God. This enviable conviction is less enviably arrived at by accepting on faith, hence as fact, that the Christian Bible pared down into American TV English is God’s “word” to humankind, that this same Bible is His only word to humankind, and that the politicized apocalyptic fundamentalists’ unprecedentedly selective slant on this Bible is the one true slant.

The position is remarkably self-insulating. Possessing little knowledge of or regard for the world’s wealth of religious, literary, spiritual and cultural traditions, fundamentalist leaders allow themselves no concept of love or compassion but their own. They can therefore honestly say that it is out of “Christian compassion” and a sort of “tough love” for others that they seek to impose on all others their tendentiously literalized God, Bible and slant.

But how tough can love be before it ceases to be love at all? Well-known variations on the theme include the various Inquisitions’ murderously tough love for “heretics,” who were defined as those defiant of the Inquisition itself; the European Catholic and American Puritan tough love for “witches,” who were defined as virtually any sexually active or humanitarian or unusually skilled single woman whose healing herbs or independence from men defied a male church hierarchy’s claim to be the source of all healing; the Conquistador’s genocidally tough love for the Incas, Aztecs, and Mayans whose gold they stole for the “glory” of a church meant to honor the perfect poverty of a life begun in a manger and ended on a cross; the missionaries’ and U.S. Cavalry’s genocidally tough love for land-rich indigenous peoples whose crime was merely to exist; and, today, the Bush team’s murderously tough love for an oil-rich Muslim world as likely to convert to Texas neocon values as Bush himself is likely to convert to Islam.

Each of these crusader groups has seen itself as fighting to make its own or some other culture “more Christian” even as it tramples the teachings of Christ into a blood-soaked earth. The result, among millions of non-fundamentalists, has been revulsion toward anything that chooses to call itself “Christian.”

http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/156/

Beer!

2008-03-09T21:41:00.000-07:00

And one from another angle...

http://inhabitatiodei.wordpress.com/2008/03/07/why-we-shouldnt-fear-pope-benedict-xvi/

Guatemala Accompaniment Project

2008-03-08T16:03:00.000-08:00

Below is a letter from a friend who is in Guatemala doing an Accompaniment project.
She was one of the students that went on the 2 week educational seminar that i talk about earlier in my blog.
Her main job is supporting those Guatemalans who lost family in the genocide in the 80's...helping them safely testify without being persecuted by those in power who may not want to remember...

More information about the program can be found at
www.nisgua.org

Dear Friends and Family,

I visited a new community last month, an organized, hopeful place called Santa Maria Tzejá.
Twenty-six years ago today, one month before the army massacred the village of Cuarto Pueblo, soldiers marched into the nearby Ixcán town of Santa Maria Tzejá. Except for one woman, whom the soldiers raped and killed, all of the forewarned villagers had fled to the surrounding jungle, leaving the town deserted. Two days later, patrolling soldiers heard a dog bark in the jungle and came upon a pregnant mother, her baby, and two young boys. They opened fire on the family, and then threw a grenade on the remains. Soon after they came upon a second huddled family; another pregnant mother, her eight children, and their grandmother. The soldiers fired on the cowering group at point blank range, killing everyone except for the six-year old son, who witnessed the massacre from behind a fallen tree.
Artemio and Elena were hiding with their family in the rainforest when the patrolling army surrounded them. The terrified family fled and the military opened fire. Elena and her young children were captured; Artemio and the eldest daughter escaped and eventually made it to the refugee camps in Mexico.
In the weeks that followed, half of the village’s nearly 120 families fled across the border and into Mexico. Unlike Cuarto Pueblo, which was destroyed and completely deserted until the refugee return in 1994, forty families from Santa Maria Tzejá came under the control of the military and remained in the village. The town became a “model village”, a militarized community in which most males between the ages of 15 and 60 were forced to join civil self-defense patrols and daily life was tightly controlled.
After the military captured Elena, she was taken to the nearby military base and tortured. She would remain in the reorganized, army-controlled community of Santa Maria Tzejá for the next twelve years. She eventually remarried, believing her husband, Artemio, to be dead. Artemio, alive and in exile with the elder daughter, also thought his wife and children had died in the attack. An anthropologist traveling between the Maya Tecún refugee camps and Santa Maria Tzejá discovered that both had survived and carried tape recordings and photographs between the divided family.
After twelve years of separation and vastly different experiences, Artemio, along with the other refugee families, made the return home. He and Elena remarried. I don’t know what became of her second husband.
Today they have a young son and daughter and run a store in the reunified town’s center. Artemio keeps bees and Elena is active in the local women’s organization. An outsider, unfamiliar with Guatemala’s recent history, might never guess that this couple lived for over a decade believing that their fractured family and community would never be whole again. And in many ways, the community is still not whole; divisions and bitterness remain between those who fled to Mexico and those who remained under military control, the community cooperative is not the core it once was, and perpetrators of the massacre enjoy the impunity that reigns in Guatemala.
And yet, more than one hundred of Santa Maria Tzejá’s youth are studying at university, the elementary and high schools are completely staffed with local teachers, and Artemio and Elena laugh. A lot.
Once, after our meetings in Guatemala City, Kim and I accompanied Artemio on a buying trip for his store. We bused to what seemed like every market in the entire capital, loitering outside of storefronts and kiosks while Artemio smelled deodorants and held nail polish hues up to the light, two big sellers in the community. I stood in the bustling crowds and black clouds of bus exhaust, watching him haggle with the vendors, and felt hopeful.

Rev. William Sloan Coffin on NPR, 1985.

2007-11-11T20:14:00.000-08:00

April 14th, 2006 NPR Broadcast.
Who died in 2006 at 81.
Chaplain of Yale during conflict of 60's.

Terry Gross on Fresh Air in 1985 interviews Coffin.

I like this point:

"As Saint Augustine once said, 'Love God and do what you like.' Which is not license, but freedom. Rules and regulations are like the stick that hold up the tomato vine. Without the stick the vine couldn't get off the ground, but it's a combination of sun and soil that strengthens and nourishes the tomato vine - and there is no life coming out of that stick. And I think it is the same with rules and regulations. They are penultimate, they are not ultimate, the point beyond themselves, don't look at us, use us to get beyond ourselves and that the integrity of love is much more important than the purity of dogma.
So, to me a true believe is one whose heart is overflowing with compassion and love for others, and who feels that rules and regulations are important, but not ultimately important."

- Rev. William Sloan Coffin.

youth gathering in Montana - ecumenical gathering in Africa

2007-11-11T19:00:00.000-08:00

I just spent the weekend with my Youth Group in Lewistown, MT. A great time.

I want to key in on our final speaker Jessica Crist, the Bishop of the Montana ELCA synod. In particular her recent voyage to Africa.

She attended the Global Christian Forum, at Limuru, near Nairobi. This is said to be the most diverse gathering of Christian faith groups since NEVER.

Jessica got home on Saturday and then hustled to Lewistown to speak to the state wide gathering of Montana ELCA Lutheran youth.

She explained that at the African gathering there were 70 countries represented.

I'll input that it is crucial to have more world and local gatherings that are in communication with one another.

Below are a few quotes that I took from articles on this site...
http://www.oikoumene.org/en/events-sections/global-christian-forum.html

Global Christian Forum taking place on 6-9 November in Limuru, near Nairobi, Kenya.

The Christian traditions represented at the Global Christian Forum are: African Instituted, Anglican, Baptist, Evangelical, Disciples (Churches of Christ), Friends, Holiness, Lutheran, Mennonite, Methodist, Moravian, Old Catholic, Eastern and Oriental Orthodox, Pentecostal, Reformed, Roman Catholic, Salvation Army, Seventh-day Adventist, United and Uniting Churches.

1.
Dr. Wonsuk Ma, a Pentecostal missiologist and director of the Oxford Centre for Mission Studies.
In a keynote address delivered on the second day of the forum, Ma analyzed Christian developments in unity and mission over the last century. He affirmed that in Christian mission, the seemingly contradictory emphases on "life before death" and on "life after death" - which have separated "mainline" and "evangelical" Christians for decades - are actually complementary and in need of each other.

2.
Bishop Brian Farrell, secretary of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, addressing a 6-9 November meeting of the forum near Nairobi.

The WCC has said the Kenya forum has brought together the broadest range of Christian traditions ever gathered at a global meeting.

"The experience of all of us in these days, is that we have been able to talk to each other in honesty," said Farrell. "If we can know each other better, then we can deal with our questions."

He said, "We believe this table brings greater understanding and breaks stereotypes."
-Rev. Geoff Tunnicliffe, international director of the World Evangelical Alliance

3.
Bridges-Johns, a professor at the Theological Seminary of the Church of God in Cleveland (Tennessee)

"any new form of ecumenism must take into account the new faces, the different worldviews and new voices of non-Western Christianity". But the so-called "new ecumenism" fails to understand the reality of the "indigenous, multi-faceted forms of Christianity" outside the Western context. "Western conservatives look to the South for support, but fail to understand the worldview of Southern Christianity."

Ahhh, said well...

2007-10-20T18:31:00.000-07:00

"Our life is a faint tracing on the surface of mystery, like the idle, curved tunnels of leaf miners on the face of a leaf. We must somehow take a wider view, look at the whole landscape, really see it, and describe what’s going on here. Then we can at least wail the right question into the swaddling band of darkness, or, if it comes to that, choir the proper praise."
--Annie Dillard

Bill McKibben's "The Comforting Whilwind".

2007-10-15T22:38:00.000-07:00

A great commentary on the Old Testament story of Job.

Here is a piece, more to come.

(humility is the first response of Job as God reveals himself in the whirlwind...)

"The voice also calls us, overwhelmingly to joy. To immersion in the fantastic beauty and drama all around us. It does not call us to think, to categorize, to analyze, to evaluate. It calls us to be. The reason Job matters so much to me is because of the language - the biologically accurate, earthy, juicy, crusty, WILD, untamed poetry of God's great speech. Now, commentators - mostly urban commentators, I would wager - have insisted over the centuries that God's answer is obscure; I read recently an interview with a leading rock hard fundamentalist who believed every word in the Bible, but said that he thought the language in Job was probably "poetic." Many others have said that simply the presence of God alone is answer enough for Job. But that is absurd, if only because of the incredible strength that the artist lavishes on his words. We are to listen to God with that part of us that is most open to the POWER OF ART. Not just our ears - more than anything, the images are visual, sensual, a total contrast to the gnat-straining and wool-gathering and other academic exercises that have occupied the previous thirty chapters. Gd doesn't even deign to dismiss all that talk as vain. No - he simply embarks on a defiantly proud tour of the physical world, a world filled with untamed glory tat reflects his own...""

JOB'S CREATION CHAPTERS ARE WHERE THIS POETIC GOD SPEECH LIES - CHECK IT OUT: STARTS IN CHAPTER 38 OF JOB - especially great in Eugene Peterson's translation "The Message".

He goes on quoting some of the text and says,

"Not only are all these things mighty and inexplicable and painful, but they are unbearably beautiful to God. They are right. They should brew in us a fierce and intoxicating joy."

"WILDERNESS IS OUR TRUE HOME" - someone said that... Henry Bugbee? Eckhart? DJDuncan?...

Bill M. also says,
"This kind of untamed joy, of rapture, is not confined to our dealings with the natural world, of course. Friendship, love, sex - all are openings into this irrational and deeply moving world. None move solely according to the calculations we are taught by the economists and advertisers; all produce joy far deeper than any material acquisition."

I LOVE THIS.
JOB, REMEMBER IS BEING INTRODUCED TO THIS AWE-FILLED EXPLORATION OF THE WONDER-WILDERNESS OF CREATION FROM A PLACE OF DESTITUTE SUFFERING AND LOSS - JOB AND HIS PAIN ARE SIMPLY A PART OF THIS WILDERNESS OF LIFE...AND OF DEATH.
*AND SOMEHOW THIS MAKES GOD'S "LOVE" THAT WE HEAR ABOUT ALL THE TIME ALL THE MORE MAGNIFICENT...

EVERYONE CONVINCED?...

Youth Group Blog

2007-10-14T12:32:00.000-07:00

i made a blog for my youth group - check it out -
Do you all know any funny youtube videos that i could put up?
The one I have on are of the serious category.

http://gfallsyouth.wordpress.com/

Christianity is not about saving souls!! Christianity is not about confessing that "Jesus is Lord" in order to escape to heaven upon death!!

2007-10-06T22:58:00.000-07:00

SALVATION AND JUSTICE ARE NOW...

A few words from Marcus Borg:

Why not emphasize the afterlife as the best reason for becoming a Christian?

When the afterlife is emphasized as the primary reason [for being a Christian], it inevitably turns Christianity into a religion of requirements and rewards: [With this type of thinking] if there is an afterlife, it doesn't seem fair to most people that everybody gets to go there regardless. One must have to do or believe something [in order to experience life after death]. Suddenly we're focusing on requirements and rewards.

Secondly, when the afterlife is emphasized, it tends to divide the world into those who are saved and those who are not. An emphasis on the afterlife also directs our attention to the other world or the next world rather than to transformation within this world. I see transformation within this world to be the primary meaning of the Christian gospel. An invitation to relationship with God is what begins to transform our lives in the here and now, and as that relationship deepens, it also leads us to become concerned about the transformation of society and the world itself.

I see Christianity, and its roots in Judaism and the Hebrew Bible, as very much a this-worldly religion. There's no denial of an afterlife in my saying that. But it's a way of saying that we leave the afterlife up to God. Our task is the transformation of ourselves and of the world this side of death.
--Dr. Marcus Borg
______________________________________________

Wallace: What motivated you to write Reading the Bible Again for the First Time?
Borg: Conflict over the Bible is the single most divisive issue in the church in North America today....

Wallace: Share your views on the "lenses through which people read the Bible."
Borg: There is a "lens of literalism" where the Bible is seen as a divine product that came directly from God and therefore has a divine guarantee. Instead, read the Bible as a collection of ancient documents chronicling the experience of the people of its time, and as a metaphor with a more than factual meaning....

--Dr. Marcus Borg interview.

Pictures

2007-10-01T21:07:00.000-07:00

Below are a bunch of photos representing recent history. I haven't written for quite a while - lots has happened.

We finished harvest, fall has begun - my garden did pretty well - i think one picture is of melons and squash - the old stocks of corn are surrounding them - look down my blog to find the corn earlier in the season and much greener!
I was hired to get a youth group going in Great Falls, MT at a Lutheran ELCA chruch called "Our Saviours Lutheran Church" - I have found that I'm having as much or more fun than the kids - there are some pictures of our first meeting. Also played music at a wedding. My dear friend Gillian, who I attended preschool with got married in Glacier park. And lots of other pics (bucko, my horse had a leg injury down on the wrestling mat, i've been hanging out with the self portrait-ed girl-face (...what?), lots lots of random youth group pictures, a little 2 tone pepper raised in our garden, my dear father's might, mom with two horses and their 8 now healthy legs, - more to come

'

wild geese By Mary Oliver

2007-07-19T23:25:00.001-07:00

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about your despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting --
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

More summer 2007

2007-07-07T22:06:00.000-07:00

Pic 1: Fun with getting sheep back in the pen. Dad and Kristin "coax" it to its home.

Pic 2 &3: The 3rd annual chicken "get to know what you eat" day.

Pic 4: Clouds over our place - afternoon storms are what I live for.

Summer...

2007-07-02T21:58:00.000-07:00

Summer is going. Here is our recent haying endeavor. A success - especially from the cab watching Kristin and Jenny do all the work!

Harvest approaches in a few weeks - hail storms are skipping around the country side. Tonight there was talk of baseball sized hail! Glad it wasn't here but I'm afraid someones crops are hurting.

Second pic, captured by the catlike creative genious of Kristin Bailey, is my corn which is way past "knee high by the 4th of July" - my father says results in a fine corn crop. And that is good.

Hope all are well.

The Bible

2007-05-30T00:12:00.001-07:00

Since my pal Eric is more organized and takes the time to write this good stuff, I will simply applaud, saying "well said" copy and paste and hope you read it. The Bible. I think this is a very very important conversation. I'm so thankful for the way that Eric approached it. Realizing the historical human side of "Holy" stuff is so important. Dealing with the reality that God is woven into the tapestry of life somehow - and yet the gospel story though rooted in human history stays true to its demands...
Such a good post. So below is Eric's bit which I 100% agree with. Some stuff may be hard to understand so I'll define a few terms that I think are important to sit with and see the process of Christian theology - Heretics were often the theologians who were trying like heck to figure it out. The later were declare wrong! Poor guys. But we should be thankful for them - they gave it their best shot - and so should we, as eric says, we may be the next heretic, trying really hard to get it right.

E, mentions:
"gnostic, arian, docetic, monarchian, and modalistic"
(you may want to skip my defining attempt and just read Eric's piece)

quickly,
"gnostic"
- (a trap that is easy to fall in, pieces of this are found in all relgions) basically our souls are trapped in this material world. The material world is evil and the point of life is to escape this world. Sound familiar? "I'll fly away oh glory..."

"arian"
- dude from the 4th century who stumbled along trying to figure out Christ's relationship to God. He was claimed heretical because he didn't put Christ as one with the Father. The Trinity later came around to slam them into one monotheistic God, yet separate. One but Three.

"docetic"
- sort of gnostic. This one tripped into herecy while trying to figure out how Christ was God and man at the same time (what orthodox Christianity believes today). Docetics are unable to let Christ be a human saying that Jesus' physical body and physical death were just an illusion. (the implication is that God really didn't experience all of humanity.

"monarchian"
- contains both "modalistic" and "adoptionist" ideas. Claimed heretical by overemphasizing the singleness of God - creating a God who happened in modes (spirit, Christ) or "adopted" Jesus after he proved himself loyal. The heretical implication of these ideas are easy to see from a Trinitarian perspective.

(The idea that God was incarnated and fought on behalf of a goodness that was crucified by men yet ultimately triumphs to save even those who kill the God who made them - a universal sacrificial love that is more powerful that the death and suffering of this world... this is good stuff!)

BELOW IS ERIC'S BIT...

(A gnostic or docetic would say that Emmanuel, "god with us" is rather "almost with us")

"creeds and criticism (Part III) :: the Bible :: or why reading scripture apart from theology is like eating without food"

May 26th, 2007 at 10:41 pm (scripture, heresy, creeds, Jesus, history, church, truth)

Despite the contemporary desire to treat it this way, the Bible did not fall out of the sky. Christians are not “people of the book” in the same way that Muslims or Mormons are. The Bible is not eternal truth dictated word for word from the clouds to faithful scribes waiting pen in hand. Christianity’s attitude toward its book is significantly different.

As a starting point, we need to realize that the Bible wasn’t written for us. At least not primarily. Paul was not thinking of you when he wrote (or dictated) his letter to the Romans. We abuse scripture itself if we refuse to let Paul write to his friends at Rome, and recognize this as a conversation that we’ve been allowed in on. And if we start there, we had better understand what his friends would have understood from his writing before we start proof-texting individual verses out of context. That means hard work and study.

For some reason, learning about the historical process of scripture’s formation is threatening to many believers. I think that this discomfort reveals an unbalanced view of scripture (which this post is attempting to counteract…). The Bible came into existence through a real human process (involving real humans!). That is not to say that God was absent and uninvolved, nor is it to deny that the Bible is genuinely God’s word. It is only to insist that God’s word is made of real human words.

The early church dealt with a huge range of documents. As bishops and pastors dealt with matters of faith, worship, and church discipline, they came to rely on certain documents as authoritative in ways that others weren’t. The early church placed a huge importance on the teaching of the apostles – those people who had been with Jesus and had been commissioned to continue his ministry. The documents that had demonstrable apostolic connections had greater authority than those without. Early documents held more sway than later ones. The church came to the conclusion that these particular letters, gospels, and exhortations were inspired by God in ways that others weren’t. That is not to say that the other documents weren’t inspiring – or worth reading and contemplating.

The tricky thing is this: the people who were involved in the formation of the canon are the same people who brought the creeds together. One way or another, you are stuck trusting the judgment of early Christians as authoritative (whether you choose to recognize it or not).

Either you trust their judgment about the apostolicity and authenticity of the New Testament or you do not. If you do, why should you distrust their understanding of its teaching? If you do not, then this whole discussion is probably of little interest to you as a whole. This has always been the argument of the Roman Catholic church against the protestant rallying cry, “sola scriptura.”

“What do you mean, ’sola scriptura,’” they say. “There would have been no Bible apart from the church’s tradition, so there is no way to read the Bible outside the church’s reading of it.” Tradition shaped scripture, scripture guides tradition.

I am less comfortable with notions of ecclesial infallibility (the idea that the church can’t go awry) than much of the Catholic church is. For that reason, I still prefer scripture to stand above tradition. Nevertheless, the point stands - the Bible is a product of the church. And the Bible is a product of the same church that produced the creeds. Furthermore, the beliefs that shaped the canon shaped the creeds, they go together.

It is a foolish mistake to separate scripture and the creeds as if one is the “pure” word of God and the other is a historical “extra.” This attempt falls apart when we recognize that scripture does not interpret itself; nor does scripture plainly answer every question that we bring to it. We need help to read well. The lens that we bring to our reading is not irrelevant - it often determines what we get out of it.

The best example of this is the doctrine of the Trinity (though we could certainly choose others). Christians of all stripes consider belief in the Trinity as fairly basic to what it means to be Christian. But scripture never states that God is three co-equal persons co-inhering in one being.

Nevertheless, as the church wrestled with its experience of God in Jesus Christ, struggled to understand their scriptures (by which the early church meant the Old Testament), and began to read the apostolic writings we’ve come to know as the New Testament, they agreed on a few things. Something like the doctrine of the Trinity is simply the best lens for reading the whole of scripture without falling into mistakes that pit scripture against itself, or deny aspects of the church’s experience of Christ. Reading the Bible outside the creeds, outside the teaching of the church leads one to unnecessary contradictions and confusions.

In other words, if we ditch the creeds we are liable to face gnostic, arian, docetic, monarchian, and modalistic readings of scripture (more than we already do). The people that the church knows as heretics were no strangers to scripture (neither are contemporary representatives like the Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and pseudo-Christian cultic groups). It would be convenient if heretics had red eyes, breathed smoke, and broke crosses in half where ever they went. Unfortunately, heretics look mostly like well-meaning and sincere Christians. Please don’t misunderstand my language, I love heretics (I may be one for all I know!), but false teaching is dangerous. Bad theology kills people.

The creeds are indispensable because they represent the best way to read scripture as a whole. Tossing the creeds out of the church is a bit like pretending that you can use your computer without virus software or the operator’s manual. You will manage just fine until the first hiccup. At that point, it’s much easier to have the right software in place (or the necessary information at hand), than to try to learn code and reprogram the whole thing from scratch. That would be a bit unnecessary and foolish, would it not?

This post is aimed mostly at the understanding of the Bible that I think is most dangerous within the church. I’m tempted to write another post directed toward the understanding of the Bible that I find most often on the fringes of the church. There is a reductionist temptation at least as pervasive as the “God said it, that settles it” position. We “enlightened” sorts like to reduce everything down to the scientific-historical level that fits with our rational scope of control. We are always in danger of missing God’s voice and God’s presence precisely where it is clearest – simply because we are skeptically bent on de-mythologizing everything down to the lowest common denominator. But, I shouldn’t get too far down that trail tonight…

Mary Oliver

2007-05-22T22:48:00.000-07:00

Ran across this poem recently - reminded me how much I enjoy her stuff...

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When Death Comes

When death comes
like the hungry bear in autumn;
when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse

to buy me, and snaps the purse shut;
when death comes
like the measle-pox;

when death comes
like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,

I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering:
what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?

And therefore I look upon everything
as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,
and I look upon time as no more than an idea,
and I consider eternity as another possibility,

and I think of each life as a flower, as common
as a field daisy, and as singular,

and each name a comfortable music in the mouth,
tending, as all music does, toward silence,

and each body a lion of courage, and something
precious to the earth.

When it's over, I want to say: all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom; taking the world into my arms.

When it's over, I don't want to wonder
if I have made my life something particular, and real.
I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.

I don't want to end up simply having visited this world.

Mary Oliver (from the book New and Selected Poems)

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Rios Montt - http://indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1059765879

2007-05-13T00:29:00.000-07:00

I would love to hear what you think about the Catholic church article and this one on Guatemala from 2003. It gives a little more perspective on the country. Today Montt is not going for presidency, but rather congress. If he gets a seat he may weasel his way farther out of the genocide charges that are currently against him for his work in the '80's...

General Rios Montt of Guatemala: Return of the evangelical tormentor?
Posted: August 01, 2003 by:
Editors Report
Indian Country Today

The nightmare that was Guatemala in the 1980s is returning. Twenty years after hundreds of massacres were conducted against Maya communities; many of the same people who ordered and committed the violence last week took over Guatemala City. General Efrain Rios Montt is back, wanting the presidency after 20 years. A wave of fear swept over Guatemala that has not been felt in over a decade.

Just before the time of the 1980s massacres, the Maya highlands teemed with thousands of relatively harmonious agricultural villages. In the relative peace of the mid-1970s, hopeful improvements were occurring in village cooperatives where Indian farmers could be guaranteed better prices and access to credit. However, a residual non-Indian guerrilla movement was moving into the Mayan mountains, and the Guatemalan Army of the day declared a brutal, pre-emptive war on Indian people.

The rationale of the Guatemalan Army generals was to terrorize the Indian population into submission, and to massacre it at the slightest contact with the revolutionary (Marxist-led) guerrillas. As the guerrilla movement trailed through indigenous Maya mountain villages, the Army swept behind, conducting the most horrific of massacres against tens of thousands of men and women, elders and children. A holocaust-in-progress emerged, a state-operated genocidal war against Maya villagers of such terroristic proportions that the trauma of that time still hangs over the country like a veil of shame and pain.

Not so the thought of shame, however, for General Efrain Rios Montt, the main living author and perpetrator of the policy that terrorized and eradicated over 600 Maya communities. Of those years of massacre, which actually mark from 1978 (Panzos municipal massacre, Kekchi country), to the late 1980s and even beyond, the worst and most brutal season of killing came during the 1982-83 military dictatorship of the evangelical General Efrain Rios Montt.

Once denied a presidency gained legitimately at the polls (1974), General Rios Montt conducted a military coup on the Guatemalan presidency in March 1982. The U.S.-trained general, born-again with the Church of the Verb, a California-based evangelical denomination, unleashed the worst wave of killings in the country's history. Some 20,000 died at the hands of his death squads and the policy of scorched earth against Maya people, which would ultimately claim 200,000 lives, was perpetrated with brutal exactitude.

As a former coup-de-etat conspirator, Rios Montt had been barred by the Guatemalan Constitution from seeking the presidency, that is, until July 14, when a Guatemalan Supreme Court decision overturned the 1985 constitutional ban. Rios Montt's goal is now to run for the presidency in November. The current president, Alfonso Portillo, is a cohort and former prot￩g￩ of Rios Montt's, while his own son, is a senior army general. The moment is ripe for a Rios Montt return to power and, as a warning that terrified the country, last week the general unleashed his forces on the city. Death squads and well-ordered militias scoured the city, beating political opponents and journalists, causing serious social and political chaos.

In 1983, then U.S. president Ronald Reagan praised Rios Montt highly for his great work on behalf of democracy. This is part of the history, forgotten here, remembered there, of how the U.S. in years past has propped up bloody dictators. The Guatemalan army received substantial U.S. military aid throughout those years. Not only Rios Montt, but also most of the top echelon of generals in the Guatemalan military under Rios Montt were trained at the U.S. School of the Americas, then concentrated in Panama.

It is most unfortunate that it was this group precisely who coordinated the military horror sweeps in the Indian countryside. Horrendous and directed terror characterized the campaign - beheadings, live-burnings of large groups of people tied together, the forced killing of relative against relative, much rape - and evidenced a deeply inhuman psychological mandate. Even seasoned human rights observers had great difficulty sustaining intense scrutiny, as the brutality against women and children was so repugnant.

The Maya village population was not only subjected to broad sweeps by armies backed by helicopter gunships, which targeted whole villages as "enemy encampments" and marked them for annihilation. These direct attacks were reinforced by a broad network of local army-organized militias empowered to kill at random over long periods of time. Many of these militias were purposely recruited from the ranks of evangelical members, who were prone to target and brutalize traditional spiritual leaders and Catholic workers. Recently residents of just 12 Mayan villages which were massacred by Rios Montt's troops in 1982 - over 1,200 people were killed - have filed a complaint against Rios Montt in Guatemala. The general claims immunity but the eyewitness testimony in the case is heart wrenching.

Deposed by a broader military junta after nearly two years in power, Rios Montt in the ensuing 20 years has built a sizable political base among the country's radical and military right wing. The general has developed his own political party, the ultra-right National Republican Front, of which he is chairman for life. He is now the president of the Guatemalan National Congress and often speaks throughout Guatemala, part evangelical minister, part nationalistic prophet, and very much the aging caudillo hungry for his lifetime crowning shot at political power. The evangelism resonates in a country beseeched for centuries by every religious tendency in the world, from Mormon missions to Jehovah's Witnesses and on to dozens of other increasingly bizarre sects. Church of the Verb - old hippies turned military boosters via a "brother" general - actually helped justify years of horrible injustice. "God gives power to whomever he wants," Rios Montt once raved. "And he gave it to me."

This push from the extreme right wing in Guatemala is partly fueled by the international climate set by the war on terrorism. It is not lost on Rios Montt and the Guatemalan generals that the Bush Administration rewards police power and military action. Important Bush Administration insiders such as UN ambassador John Negroponte, John Poindexter, Eliot Abrams and Otto Reich, all tainted in the Contra war and other foreign policy adventures and misadventures, have favored good relations with General Rios Montt.

For those who wonder "why they hate us," Rios Montt, his training and his backers during the years of massacre, provide ample answer that the history of this great American nation is checkered; there is a past to critique and understand; there is much to improve upon, as there are many avenues to a more encompassing, people-supporting foreign policy.

Certainly for the tens of thousand of families who lost relatives to that horrible U.S.-sanctioned state violence of only 20 years ago, like a re-occurring nightmare the resurgence of Rios Montt is shocking. Even as the Guatemalan people last week appeared to substantially reject Rios Montt's muscle-flexing, the shadowy memory of horrendous terror that swept the capital city reminded everyone that "those years" are perhaps not yet quite over; that the evil was never quite vanquished; that the killers remain in dark corners, ready to pounce.

Listening to the Periphery

2007-05-13T00:01:00.000-07:00

I shot this article to Eric when I noticed his bit about Liberation Theology and his point of concern about the church being able to regulate Theologians. This is specifically talking about the Catholic church - and in the past few decades they have critiqued in a way that hinders the "set the captives free" nature of the gospel.

I am very concerned about the "top down" approach to theology these days - especially with the sickening complex web of injustices, lies, and suppression of the poor done by the "top" (wealthy powerful nations that USE evangelical Christian sects and the entrenched powerful Catholic positions).

Liberation Theology was born from the Catholic church as they saw the dying, starving, dehumanized reality in Latin America. Those priests involved in this movement, as they genuinely found that the God of the Christian religion desired these people to be fully human found that this necessitated social change. This was not appreciated by those in power. In Guatemala, where I've been spending some time, those in power we're coorporate and also part of the United States CIA - the US trained leaders at the School of the Americas at Fort Benning, Georgia in suppressive military tactics, supposedly to fight communism...actually it was to support US corporation success...
Website on school of the americas:
http://www.soaw.org/
Website on Guatemalan Dictators trained at Fort Benning, Georgia USA.
http://www.derechos.org/soa/guat-not.html

Below is the article I tossed to Eric:
E's blog is:
http://ericdarylmeyer.wordpress.com/about/

Pope John Paul II, the Reagan years
& Liberation Theology

JPII became pope in 1978 and in June 1979 his visited Poland. When his plane landed in Warsaw, the bells in all the country's churches began to ring out. (In 1966, Pope Paul VI was refused permission to visit Poland.). Ronald Reagan, then campaigning for President, was watching the Polish welcome on TV at Santa Barbara, California with his friend Richard Allen, a Catholic, who later became the first national security adviser.

Zbigniew Brzezinski, the Polish-born national security adviser to Jimmy Carter, had represented JPII's inauguration at St Peter in 1978. In June 1980, Carter met with JPII in June 1980 at the Vatican.
In late 1980, Brz had begun a dialogue with Cardinal J Tomko, head of the Vatican's propaganda ministry in which Poland and the infant Solidarity movement figured prominently and JPII got to know that the US was prepared to back Solidarity. In Dec 1980, Brz phoned the pope and warned him of the threat of Soviet invasion of Poland. He asked for his backing for an ultimatum threatening sanctions if USSR invaded. The Pope agreed to instruct his bishops. The Soviets retreated.

Bishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador had pleaded fruitlessly with Carter to stop the US backing of repression - 6 weeks later, he was murdered in March 1980. Vatican commissions on JPII's orders had visited Romero two times demanding that he explain his outspoken criticism of El Salvador s military rulers. After his murder, the pope appointed Fernando Saenz Lacalle as archbishop, a member of Opus Dei and a starch opponent of liberation theology. The appointment came as a slap in the face to hundreds of peasant church members and religious workers in Latin America. Progressive advancements were reversed and old inequalities were restored.

Reagan took office in Jan 1981. He retained Brz as a consultant on Poland. Brz said: "We involved the Pope directly and he did whatever was to be done to sustain an underground effort. So Solidarity wasn't crushed." Reagan, son of a working-class Irish Catholic father and protestant mother, had won the lion's share of the Catholic vote. He was drawn to other Catholic working class types, like Bill Casey who became CIA Director. Like Reagan, they believed the Marxist-Leninist vision to be spiritually evil and had to be destroyed. Reagan openly forged ties with the Pope and Vatican. By spring 1981, Casey and others were dropping in at the residence of the pope's nuncio Archbishop Pio Laghi for breakfast and consultation. And Laghi visited the White House by the 'back door' for secret meetings with Casey and later the President.

Around 1982, Casey met with the pope at the Vatican and showed him a photo (taken a spy satellite) of the Pope's welcome when he visited Poland in 1979. The photo helped seal an informal secret alliance between the Holy See and the Reagan admin. Western agencies, notably the CIA, provided regular secret briefings on developments in the USSR, Poland, Chile, Argentina, China, on liberation theology, Middle East etc.

JPII & Liberation Theology
JPII's intolerance of left leaning movements arose from the conservative traditions of the Polish church and his experience with the communist regime. Even as Archbishop of Krakow, he was one of 251 bishops who voted agasint the final draft of Gaudium et Spes, the document that sought to reform and modernise the church. (It was passed with 2331 votes in favour.) Any collective initiative for social justice was associated with Marxism and he became a natural ally with the US capitalist government.
His first visit outside Italy was to Mexico in 1979 to attend the Conference of Latin American Bishops (CELAM). He told the assembled bishops: "The idea of Christ as a political figure, a revolutionary or subversive does not tally with the Church's beliefs." As Swiss theologian Hans Kung said: "He saw too much Marxism in Liberation Theology."

In 1983, JPII publicly rebuked Fr Ernesto Cardenal for joining the Sandinista government as Minister of Culture. HE ignored the order and was defrocked. In the same year, on his visit to El Salvador, JPII made a token visit to Romero's tomb, which had become a major pilgrimage centre for Latin Catholics. He called for the end to the civil war but said no word on Romero's martyrdom.

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) issued a document in 1984 warning that liberation theologians made a "disastrous confusion between the poor of the Scripture and the proletariat of Marx... transforming the rights of the poor into a class struggle..."
In 1984, a meeting of Peruvian bishops convened to condemn the work of Fr Gustavo Gutierrez, the father of liberation theology, refused to do so. In the same year, Franciscan Fr Leonardo Boff was summoned to Rome by the CDF for his work Church - Charism & Power: Essays in Militant Ecclesiology. He was backed by Cardinals Arns and Lorscheider. Boff was silence for a year but when the CDF cracked the whip again in 1991, he quit the priesthood.
the Vatican began pressuring the progressive Brazilian prelates such as Dom Helder Camara of Olinda & Recife and Cardinal Paulo Evaristo Arns of Sao Paulo. When Camara retired at 75 in 1985, he was promptly replaced by an arch conservative, Dom Jose Sobrinho, who re-established the power of the landowners. Radical priests were disciplined and the local Justice & Peace Commission disbanded. Arns' sprawling diocese was split into 5 sections, with those inhabited by the working classes in charge of conservative bishops.

On Cardinal Pio Laghi
He was the Vatican nuncio in Argentina (1974-1980) when the military regime waged its 'dirty war' against political opponents. He was director of an anti-communist crusade. Thousands of trade unionists and community activists simply disappeared, others were tortured and executed by death squads. The Mothers who campaigned for the disappearance of their children accused Pio Laghi for direct involvement in the atrocities, charging that he even ordered the torture of priests connected with left groups. He was seen regularly at the government's torture centres and could decide on the fate of detainees. The Vatican transferred him to the US with the express mandate to combat the liberal tendencies in the North American church. Later in the 1990s returned to Italy where he was appointed to head the Vatican's Congregation of Catholic Education. In 1997, a human rights group filed formal charges against the cardinal in Rome, 75 in 1997 - covered by diplomatic immunity and by the Lateran accords.]

JPII's support for Solidarity finally bore fruit. In July 1988, Soviet President Gorbachev agreed to a role for Solidarity in the government of Poland and in December 1990, Lech Walesa became president of Poland. Reagan's second term had ended in 1989.

References
1. Sunday Times, 23 Sept 1996
2. John Paul II and the Hidden History of our time by Carl Bernstein & Marco Politi (Doubleday 1996)
Note: Bernstein was an investigative journalist in the Watergate scandal
3. The Mixed Legacy of John Paul II, N Menon, Frontline, issue 09, 23 April 2005.

religion and politics...Wallis & Dobbs...

2007-05-10T13:50:00.000-07:00

A long one. Read at will.

I believe in the separation of the church and state, not in a way that disqualifies the church, but rather in a way that qualifies it through and through, that gives it the ability to question our governments and power structures when they lose their role of being FOR the people - ALL the people.

I believe in the separation of church and state - we don't need any more God ordained dictators who are blessed to kill the evil doers of the world
(wait! we have that right now! Check out the bbc article - Bush says that God told him to invade Iraq)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2005/10_october/06/bush.shtml

But I also firmly believe that the church has the right to question the state, the state the right to question the church, the church the right to question the church, the state the right to question the state!

Below is a Jim Wallis / Lou Dobbs conversation that brings up some interesting points.

I'm with Wallis on questioning authority when the reality around the authority is unjust (border problem, Iraq war...)

And though Dobbs is critical of it, I'm also excited to hear Los Angeles Archdiocese, Cardinal Roger Mahoney say,
"Anything that tears down one group of people or one person, anything that is a negative in our community, disqualifies us from being part of the eternal city."

This type of motion in the realm of theology is good. No longer can we stand for theology and churches who sit quietly by offering heaven after death while allowing hell to exist here and now. To Eric's glee I'll quote Bonhoeffer for support - he writes from prison as a Christian who questioned the motion of the Nazi's and the Christian church that supported them:

From the Tegel Prison in 1944 Dietrich Bonhoeffer
“…During the last year or so I’ve come to know and understand more and more the profound this-worldliness of Christianity. The Christian is…simply a man, as jesus was a man… I don’t mean the shallow and banal this-worldliness of the enlightened, the busy, the comfortable, or the lascivious, but the profound this-worldliness, characterized by discipline and the constant knowledge of death and resurrection. …It is only by living completely in this world that one learns to have faith. By this worldliness I mean living unreservedly in life’s duties, problems, successes and failures, experiences and helplessness. In doing so we throw ourselves completely into the arms of God, taking seriously, not our own sufferings, but those of God in the world... How can success make us arrogant or failure lead us astray, when we share in God’s sufferings through a life of this kind?”

And,
Martin Luther King wrote from the Birmingham city jail addressing “critical churchmen” who objected to his persistent fight against racism,
“I am sure that none of you would want to rest content with the superficial kind of social analysis that deals merely with effects and does not grapple with underlying causes.”
He continues saying,
“It is unfortunate that demonstrations are taking place in Birmingham, but it is even more unfortunate that the city’s white power structure left the negro community with no alternative.”

AND THE TWO ARTICLES THAT INSPIRED THIS WHOLE MESS!...

Jesus and Lou Dobbs. By Jim Wallis

At our press conference on Monday announcing the formation of Christians for Comprehensive Immigration Reform, I remarked, "If given the choice on this issue between Jesus and Lou Dobbs, I choose my lord and savior, Jesus Christ."

As you might imagine, Lou didn’t like that very much. In his column on CNN.com, "A call to the faithful," rather than addressing the need for reforming a broken immigration system, he accuses us of being "hell-bent on ignoring the separation of church and state" as we "conflate religion and politics" by our "political adventurism." Then he suggests:

... before the faithful acquiesce in the false choice offered by the good Reverend, perhaps he and his followers should consult Romans 13 where it is written: "Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. Consequently, he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves."

I don’t think Lou read our statement, where we clearly said:

We believe in the rule of law, but we also believe that we are to oppose unjust laws and systems that harm and oppress people made in God's image, especially the vulnerable (Isaiah 10:1-4, Jeremiah 7:1-7, Acts 5:29, Romans 13:1-7).

The current U.S. immigration system is broken and now is the time for a fair and compassionate solution. We think it is entirely possible to protect our borders while establishing a viable, humane, and realistic immigration system ...

Dobbs doesn’t understand that compassion is not amnesty, and that reforming an unworkable system is not simply flinging open our borders. But then, he long ago stopped being a journalist, and is now one of the leading advocates against comprehensive immigration reform.

He also doesn’t seem to understand that most people now believe that bringing our faith into public life is not undermining the separation of church and state. As I’ve said many times, where would America be if Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. had kept his faith to himself? And on this issue, given a choice between Jesus and Lou Dobbs, I’ll still choose Jesus.

------AND HERE IS LOU'S ARTICLE---------

By Lou Dobbs
CNN

NEW YORK (CNN) -- The separation of church and state in this country is narrowing. And it is the church, not the state that is encroaching. Our Constitution protects religion from the intrusion or coercion of the state. But we have precious little protection against the political adventurism of all manner of churches and religious organizations.

The leadership of the Catholic Church and many Protestant churches, as well as Jewish and even Muslim religious organizations, are driving that political adventurism as those leaders conflate religion and politics. And while there is a narrowing of the separation between church and state, there is a widening schism between the leadership of churches and religious organizations and their followers and members.

Conservative evangelical leader James Dobson recently said actor and former Sen. Fred Thompson wasn't Christian enough to be president. He instead chose to commend Newt Gingrich, who has been married three times and recently admitted to an extramarital affair. Five evangelical Christian leaders signed the "Land Letter" to President Bush in 2002 affirming a Christian theological basis to invade Iraq.

This week the head of the Los Angeles Archdiocese, Cardinal Roger Mahoney, basically threatened his faithful with denial of heaven if they don't support amnesty for illegal aliens. The good Cardinal said: "Anything that tears down one group of people or one person, anything that is a negative in our community, disqualifies us from being part of the eternal city."

The nation's religious leaders seem hell-bent on ignoring the separation of church and state when it comes to the politically charged issue of illegal immigration. A new coalition called Christians for Comprehensive Immigration Reform Wednesday will begin lobbying lawmakers with a new advertising and direct mail campaign on behalf of amnesty for illegal aliens.

The Rev. Jim Wallis of Sojourners Magazine put it this way: "If given the choice on this issue between Jesus and Lou Dobbs, I choose my Lord and savior, Jesus Christ."

But before the faithful acquiesce in the false choice offered by the good Reverend, perhaps he and his followers should consult Romans 13, where it is written: "Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. Consequently, he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves."

There is a more obvious and immediate judgment offered by the followers and members of both the Protestant and Catholic Churches. A Zogby poll last year asked churchgoers if they supported the House bill that would make illegal aliens return home and reduce future illegal immigration by securing the border and performing checks on illegal employers. Seventy-five percent of Protestants responded that was a good or very good idea, 77 percent of born-again Christians also agreed, and 66 percent of Catholics also backed tougher enforcement measures.

This schism between our church leaders and church members is just as broad and deep as that between our elected officials and their constituents across the country. Neither the state nor the church is exhibiting wisdom or fidelity to our national values in permitting the widening of that divide.

Food and, of course, Liberation.

2007-05-10T00:32:00.000-07:00

From the moment you put a piece of bread in your mouth you are part of the world. Who grew the wheat? Who made the bread? Where did it come from? You are in relationship with all who brought it to the table. We are least separate and most in common when we eat and drink.
Thomas Merton

Again I will encourage all who read this to deeply think about our interconnectedness with one another and the world of nature around us. We truly are but a breath - but a glorious breath. Our time is short here and we may as well take this life in as deep as we can - breath deep, eat deep, look deep into the eyes of others. All truly are one - naturally, not just contrived from a religious dogma. We eat therefore we are one.

In my second breath...I encourage you to check out Bread For the World and the Farm Bill. If you have concerns for people any where at anytime the Farm Bill will touch on it! It deals with food, hunger, agriculture, nutrition, and developing nations.

I planted corn today! May 9th. My grandpa always said plant on the 10th, so I guess I'm making sure it gets done in case I keel over tomorrow.

A few quotes from my theology reading of the day - from the civil rights movement:

“Black Power is the spirit of Christ himself in the black-white dialogue which makes possible the emancipation of blacks from self-hatred and frees whites from their racism. Through Black Power, blacks are becoming men of worth, and whites are forced to confront them as human beings.”

James Cone the first black Liberation Theologian:
“It means that the slave now knows that he is a man, and thus resolves to make the enslaver recognize him. I contend that such a spirit is not merely compatible with Christianity; in America in the twentieth century it is Christianity…The Church not only preaches the Word of liberation, it joins Christ in his work of liberation…”

The Incarnation is a major building block to Liberation Theology. The logic is if Emmanuel (God with us) was with us in a particular time, place, ethnicity, and socioeconomic struggle for justice and the church continues that movement then, as the Liberation Theologian James Cone wrote,
“Thinking of Christ as nonblack in the twentieth century is as theologically impossible as thinking of him as non-Jewish in the first century.” (p379)
He writes,
“If the Church is a continuation of the Incarnation, and if the Church and Christ are where the oppressed are, then Christ and his Church must totally identify with the oppressed to the extent that they too suffer for the same reasons persons are enslaved. In America, blacks are oppressed because of their blackness. It would seem, then, that emancipation could only be realized by Christ and his church becoming black.”

Despair...

2007-05-06T12:47:00.000-07:00

"When I despair...I remember that all through history, the way of truth and love has always won. There have been murderers and tyrants, and for a time they can seem invincible. But in the end they always fall. Think of it ... always."
-"Mahatma" Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, 1869-1948, Indian Spiritual and Political Leader

"The Wish to be Generous"

2007-05-05T23:33:00.000-07:00

by Wendell Berry

ALL that I serve will die, all my delights,
the flesh kindled from my flesh, garden and field,
the silent lilies standing in the woods,
the woods, the hill, the whole earth, all
will burn in man's evil, or dwindle
in its own age. Let the world bring on me
the sleep of darkness without stars, so I may know
my little light taken from me into the seed
of the beginning and the end, so I may bow
to mystery, and take my stand on the earth
like a tree in a field, passing without haste
or regret toward what will be, my life
a patient willing descent into the grass.

...

68,832 innocent civilians are suspected to have been killed in Iraq as of today.

“Change the channel”
- Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt's advice to Iraqis who see TV images of innocent civilians killed by coalition troops.
[NYT 12th April 2004]

...
We must go deeper, we must care, we must ask questions, we must live further than lunch! Skip lunch! Fast! Starve yourself! Wake freak'n up!

I get SO frustrated at the violence, the hatred, my own selfish conundrums, our surface levels of disconnect to systematic racism, economic worship, normalacy of "good morning neighbor...wave...pay bill, plant seed, wear hat, make joke, retain accent...wear underwear"...
My day of gut wrenching hatred summoned by ambivalence toward world affairs, violence, affluent blindness, attitudes of passive unwillingness to recognize our civic responsibility to each other...to poetry... (Ranting continues...) We are stagnated by tradition, by normality, by a white Jesus Christ with pretty lambs in a green grassy picture who's Hollywood west coast face is so removed from East Coast Wall Street stock market economic reality that I may back track a bit and say that a literal hell does exist - the minute Christ was put in white skin, in hollywood, worshiped in suit and tie on Sunday, forgotten as one invests in foreign oil on Monday...Hell is here and now. Not only in the physical pain that it causes the people affected by reaping that oil, but also the dead nothingness of a life whose sole purpose is to make money without even a thought as to what is happening on the other side of the world and even worse what is happening within their soul... Going to hell one ticker tape at a time!
We must support each other by setting alarm clocks - Wake up! Might as well live with our eyes open...

68,832 innocent civilians are suspected to have been killed in Iraq as of today.

“Change the channel”
- Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt's advice to Iraqis who see TV images of innocent civilians killed by coalition troops.
[NYT 12th April 2004]

Miles, 5k's, and Spring Work

2007-05-04T09:01:00.000-07:00

The 2006 corn harvest! Kristin, my sis, and me.
Below is current: Here is Father and Mother Bailey after their triumphant mile race at the Ice Breaker in Great Falls. I ran the 5k just before the mile. Spring work is kicking in. We are putting in quite a bit of Barley and a little Spring Wheat. The garden, and I will indeed say it, has the aura of fecundus about it - I've grown to love soil - i know that may be a bit odd, but I think I have created some rather fine garden soil so this year has high possibilities - hopefully evading hail and high water!
Plantings:
Potatoes on April 25th
Onions and first lettuce planting on April 26th
Carrots on May 2nd

In the midst of this we started getting our Barley in on the 3oth of April and are shutdown today due to rain.

We are one chick down! One of my lil chicks passed on yesterday - flat on his back. I don't know what happened.

Started working with the two, almost 3 years old now, horses a few days ago.

Working on getting a band together for a good friend's wedding on the 26th of May. Straying a little from the Jazz combo feel to ROCK AND ROLL!!! and POP STARDOM! I'll let you know what happens.

Theology... still reading and writing...digging in garden soil, each breath passed closer to that worm there chewing on me! "Casting" me out one day, to enrich the future of soil and potatoes, carrots, onions, barley - the awakening spring, beautiful warm and moist, speeds up life on both ends - living greener and faster = dying decomposing quicker...The kernel must die! The natural realm of sacrifice - its the gospel story if you like it or not - oh ball of worms in the compost pile emptying the tomb!!!

I'm excited to read ecology theology that comes out of Liberation Theology -
It simply drives me nuts when people use cute little metaphors about nature to make sense of God and Theology while in reality nature is out there chewing on itself and US! I have a hard time combining the two disciplines: nature and theology. Keep planting stuff I guess!!

Not much internet time these days - Cam and Janelle, thanks for saying hi - hope So Cal is treating you well. Eric and Clyn, you all are almost done! Then the real work starts huh carolyn!

It's May 4th - not only does that mean that it is International Respect for Chicken Day...and it is... but it is also Papa Bob Bailey's birthday! So I better get and enter into the festivities!

The Farm Bill/ The "Food Bill"

2007-04-24T22:45:00.000-07:00

With trepidation I said yes to a brief phone interview concerning The Farm Bill. Being misquoted on something that I think is tricky but very important brought about this hesitancy, but agreeing that there needs to be a change and that subsidies done right can be very helpful to lots of people pushed me to risk misquotation. I also think that it is important to realize that Montana is still small and mid-size farms - with a few exceptions, and the trends are obviously going bigger and bigger, but right now we still have hope for the family farm...my hope is that putting energy into changing the Farm Bills distribution of money can bolster local economies, small/midsized farms, and the food stamps program - basically getting money to folks who NEED it instead of those who have enough. I hope we can encourage the gov't to be what it is supposed to be: a safe guard within our Capitalist system to look out for the little guy - a little equality for all!

The article is from the U of M newspaper called The Kaimin.

One piece that is a bit off talks about having a hard time selling to companies. I was referring to the possibility of our last elevator in Fort Benton being shut down, being replace by a high speed shuttle loader - I know that this move will reduce our options as farmers, cut jobs at the local elevator, and further the trend of killing off local economy. I did mention the local company Montana Flour and Grains, run by two brothers, who are currently building an elevator to handle more grain, but I don't think I saw it in the article. They are mainly organic buyers, yet are doing both, and don't see much difference between organic and non-organic dry land grain...besides the market price.

Here is the link - cut and paste! because I still haven't taken the time to figure out how to make a link!
http://www.montanakaimin.com/index.php/news/news_article/farm_bill_helps_fund_us_food_production/

This Friday - Rally - Rios Montt

2007-04-18T23:24:00.000-07:00

Dear NISGUA friends,

As many of you know, Amnesty International's Program for International
Justice and Accountability has been working for a few months now on
supporting the legal efforts to hold Rios Montt et al responsible for
genocide, particularly the case being pursued in Spain.

This Friday, April 20, people in Denver, Chicago, Houston, and New York City
are planning rallies outside Guatemalan consulates. Below is a press release
from Amnesty International followed by the times and locations of the
rallies. More info from Amnesty International is at:
http://www.amnestyusa.org/international_justice/

In Solidarity,
Andrew de Sousa, NISGUA

--------

Contact: Suzanne Trimel, 212/633-4150
Monday, April 16, 2007

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL ACTIVISTS SET FOR U.S. RALLIES ON APRIL 20 TO PRESS
CASE AGAINST RIOS MONTT IN GUATEMALA

(New York) - In 18 cities across the United States on Friday, April 20,
Amnesty International USA activists will hold rallies and other protests to
press the Guatemalan government to bring former General Efraín Ríos Montt to
trial on genocide, torture and other human rights abuses or extradite him to
Spain to face the charges.

Thousands of activists are expected to turn out for rallies outside
Guatemala's consulates in Miami, Chicago, Houston, Denver, Los Angeles, San
Francisco and New York City. Delegations of AIUSA leaders and volunteers
will meet officially with Guatemalan diplomats at the embassy in Washington,
D.C., and at the consulate in New York City to press their call for action
in the Rios Montt case.

The National Day of Action for Guatemala is part of an international
campaign to bring Ríos Montt and his co-defendants to justice. The campaign
emerged in support of the efforts of a group of survivors from Guatemala,
led by Nobel laureate and current presidential candidate Rigoberta Menchú,
to file a suit against Ríos Montt in Spain.

In July 2006, Spain's National Court issued international warrants for the
arrest of Ríos Montt and several other former senior officials, charging
them with genocide, torture, terrorism and illegal detention.

According to Vienna Colucci, Director of AIUSA's Program for International
Justice and Accountability, "As Guatemala's courts review Spain's request
for Ríos Montt's extradition, the complainants, lawyers, judges, witnesses
and local human rights organizations involved in bringing the suit are
coming under mounting pressure and intimidation. The U.S. rallies are aimed
at demonstrating that the world is watching what is unfolding in Guatemala."

>From 1982 to 1983, Ríos Montt headed the Guatemalan military government,
which carried out a scorched earth campaign of murders, torture and other
human rights abuses that were the most extensive in Guatemala's 36-year
internal armed conflict. Ríos Montt remains a powerful force in Guatemalan
politics today. In January, he announced his plan to run for Congress,
asserting that a Congressional seat would provide him with parliamentary
immunity from prosecution.

Film screenings, talks and discussions by Guatemalan survivors and other
events will take place in Milwaukee and Stevens Point, WI; Detroit; St.
Louis; Albuquerque, NM; Portland, OR; Seattle; Minneapolis; Oklahoma City;
and Lexington, KY.

WHO: Hundreds of activists and supporters of Amnesty International USA
WHAT: National Day of Action for Guatemala, demanding legal action in the
case of former Gen. Ríos Montt
WHERE: Rallies and other protests at seven Guatemalan consulates and the
embassy in Washington, DC
WHEN: Friday, April 20, 2007

# # #

Houston: meeting w/ consulate at 9.30am; rally 9.30-10.30am at 3013 Fountain
View Dr
Chicago: meeting w/ consulate at 12pm; rally at 11.30am at 203 N. Wabash
Avenue
Denver: meeting w/ consulate at 4pm; rally at 12pm at 820 16th Street
NYC: rally at consulate, 1,000 expected (part of the Get On The Bus effort -
www.gotb.org )

Consulate meetings (no rallies) are being planned in Washington DC, Miami,
San Francisco, Los Angeles.

Kim Fabricius

2007-04-16T00:01:00.000-07:00

"Strictly speaking, all believers are theologians, because all believers, willy-nilly, think about God."

(I would add that even if you are an "unbeliever" you are a theologian...maybe even more so that many "believers".)

"It is the theologian’s job to help us.........die better"

(that's what I say 10 times in the morning upon rising)

“Christians would rather die than think – and most of them do.”

"Ultimately, of course, theologians do not know what they are talking about. So they should ...... not talk too much."

(O.k. so I realize I am humoring myself by splicing these a bit - they are all in full at the bottom of this post)

Here is one I am not mess'n with and I really like...

"I often think that books of theology should contain occasional blank pages, to signal the reader to pause, in silence and wonder."

...

Well Eric - you are probably the only one who reads my blog! And if that is true, it is worth having it. In the event that someone mistakenly trips into our plasterings than whoot-a-whoot-a!

Eric, thanks for your comment and I will harp on in joy and possibly in the spirit of "willy nilly" and the pursuit of "to die better".

Sarcasm aside (not to far) I will say that I deeply agree that bad theology has driven our human history head on into some poor displays of pure evil...and is currently doing the same and is of utmost importance to be privy - fighting for the good standing up to the bad.

With that said, as a result of your comment, I looked up Mr. Kim Fabricius finding myself to have two thoughts.
One, wow what a guy.
Two, self declared brainy theologians strangely evoke the image of a dusty walled-in library cubicle that somehow is like time and eternity: square, dusty, caffeinated and if you step into it you will surely never die, but will have the ever present notion of bad gas.
(I say this in with the deepest respect.)

So I post a bit about him below and post up front the comment that Eric left - I post because I really do appreciate what he has to say.
I especially chuckled that he was "blasted into faith reading Karl Barth's Commentary on Romans." Blasted!

Also want to point out that he is into baseball and cappuccino and then baseball again!!!...the second baseball, rather than a mistake is simply important to note because he is most likely hopped up on caffeine at this point breaking free of his academic theological cubicle skin becoming one wild-swing'n-willy-nilly-who-ya-daddy- who dies with the best theology wins!!!!!
But then it goes on to say that he is in to cats... and then baseball again!! I'm not sure how to interpret this one.

Cats have never given me a hankering for baseball.

With that said, here is the bio...

Kim is a minister at Bethel United Reformed Church in Swansea, Wales, and he’s United Reformed chaplain to Swansea University. He was born in New York in 1948, and, after spending most of the 70s wasting his youth (which he reckons is better than having done nothing with it), he was blasted into faith reading Karl Barth’s Commentary on Romans. This led him pretty directly into ministry, which Kim describes as “that wonderful vocation provided by the good Lord for displaced Christian intellectuals who are useless at proper work.”

He studied English literature at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut, and then took an MA (Theology) at Oxford University in 1981. He’s married to Angie, and they have two kids in their late twenties, Karl and Katie.

Kim’s favourite theologians are Barth, Bonhoeffer, Yoder, Hauerwas, John Webster, and Rowan Williams; and his interests include running, baseball, rugby union, cappuccino, baseball, Indian food, cats, and baseball. He often contributes posts to Faith & Theology, including the ever-popular “ten propositions” series, listed below:

...6. Theology (with Aquinas, Calvin, Barth) is thus a very spiritual matter, and a very practical, very ethical matter. In fact the theologian, as a student of the humanity of God, is the quintessential humanist. She will have in her sights not only God but also the good, God in his perfections and humanity in its perfectibility, i.e. she will be concerned with human flourishing. And as humans can only flourish in community – in the polis – a question that one should always ask about a theologian is: How does her theology politic?

7. All good theology is always contextual theology. Which is not to say that the context sets the agenda of the theologian, because contexts never come neat, they are not self-interpreting: the theologian must be an exegete not only of the text but also of the context. Rather it is to say that the theologian works at the interface of text and context, and seeks to address specific text to specific context. The letters of Paul – all occasional, none systematic – are the paradigm for the theologian.

9. Strictly speaking, all believers are theologians, because all believers, willy-nilly, think about God. The only question is whether we think well or poorly. It is not the theologian’s job to think about God for us, it is the theologian’s job to help us think about God better, so that we may believe, pray, live and die better. Dorothy Sayers said that “Christians would rather die than think – and most of them do.” The theologian is out to make Ms Sayers a liar.

10. Ultimately, of course, theologians do not know what they are talking about. So they should exercise meticulous word-care – and not talk too much. I often think that books of theology should contain occasional blank pages, to signal the reader to pause, in silence and wonder. There will be no theology in the eschaton. Before the divine doxa, we will confess, with St Thomas, “All my work is like straw.” Karl Barth famously said that when he gets to heaven he will seek out Mozart before Calvin. Quite right – and presumably he spoke to Calvin only to compare errors. Me – I’ll be heading for the choir of angels, to find Sandy Koufax, to see how he made the baseball sing.

Latin American News Review

2007-04-14T00:10:00.001-07:00

check out this site -

http://lanr.blogspot.com/

I haven't figured out how to make links - so you'll have to do it the hard way.

Editorial I wrote on Guatemala last summer:

2007-04-13T23:40:00.000-07:00

After my trip to Guatemala last summer I wrote a bit. It was published in Fort Benton's widely read paper "The River Press".

Tacy, I believe you are a Wendell Berry fan - I quote him and he uses fecundity, the word of the month, a good one for those who are fond of spring.

Those of you who live or are privy to Guatemala, let me know if I'm fouled up on any of my facts.

Here tis.

During the summer celebration, I attended the reconciliation event on the levee across from Rita and Stu Elliot’s. The cavalry, sitting a-top a group of tired horses, spoken words from both Native American and white man, and the art of a young representative of the Nez Perce tribe were all participants in the ceremony of further reconciliation and trail dedication.
I had just returned from an educational trip to Guatemala through the University of Montana and Augsburg College. We focused on the interconnectedness and inseparability of social and environmental justice. As a result my experience on the Fort Benton levee was heightened – for reconciliation in all of the Americas, with all the truly “native” people, is deeply needed.
Thousands in Guatemala have been killed, have lost their land, and live in fear. This was a result of a 36-year civil war, started by the United States government who had economic interest in a banana company.
If you hunker down in a college classroom the word “post modernity” is sure to sneak up on you. What is it? Well, to return the favor, I will sneak up on it by defining its predecessor, modernity. Modernity, in my own words, is the era in which the conquering European (carrying Christianity in tote) made a lot of mistakes by employing the world view, “we are better than you and are going to take your land and tell you how to be, because you’re wrong and were right”. The Post Modern man/woman has realized that there are a whole lot of other (valid) cultures and (valid) ways of life that look very different from the pale-faced blokes from Europe – (Praise the Lord!) And yes, this even goes for the understanding and expression of God.
I am presently staring out my window at our peas and their pods in our garden – the lack of rain has us with some dry peas and a surprisingly early completion to harvest. My family, myself, and all of us surrounding Fort Benton, exist on this land that was at one time freely roamed by a different people with different ways, who are no longer able to roam because one nation conquered another. I am thankful for the freedoms we have to work hard, to raise peas, wheat, and whatever else we may choose. But I question, what should I do with a freedom that comes at the expense of the freedom of others?
Globalization, the interconnectedness of life in this age of technology, and the corporations that financially take advantage of this continues the age-old injustices, sucking those, without the competitive capital edge, dry – the rich becoming richer and the poor becoming poorer. There are 12.7 million people in Guatemala and 6% of those own all the land. Land is continually taken from the indigenous and given to the racially upper class, the Spanish. They also have no representation in their government.
The European expansion, Guatemala, and corporate power may seem distant to our Fort Benton farming community but it is not. The world population is rapidly increasing and becoming more and more connected, yet Fort Benton and towns of the like are shrinking. The family farm is few and far between, and it doesn’t matter because Walmart will sell it cheaper...
A favorite writer of mine Wendell Berry says,
"I would argue that, at least for us in the United States, the conclusion that ‘there are too many people” is premature, not because I know that there are not too many people, but because I do not think we are prepared to come to such a conclusion. I grant that questions about population size need to be asked, but they are not the first questions that need to be asked. The “population problem,” initially, should be examined as a problem, not of quantity, but of pattern. Before we conclude that we have too many people, we must ask if we have people who are misused, people who are misplaced, or people who are abusing the places they have….I would argue that it is not human fecundity that is overcrowding the world so much as technological multipliers of the power of individual humans. The worst disease of the world now is probably the ideology of technological heroism, according to which more and more people willingly cause large-scale effects that they do not foresee and that they cannot control.” (Home Economics, p149-50).
Guatemala and Fort Benton are two peas in a pod, both part of the Americas, both connected to new and old “natives”, and both feeling the effects of unjust patterns. The new frontiersman is the CEO, saddling up the next airplane to gallop at 700 mph into the world’s developing nations to reap cheap labor and natural resources at minimal cost. The “place” and people of Fort Benton and the “place” and people of Guatemala are not the priority – profit is.
I hope we can face injustices of the past and present, realize their magnitude and find the energy to alter our personal and societal paths. I was able to meet some of these poor and oppressed people and I suppose that gets a guy to write articles like this.

Damn Theologians

2007-04-13T22:00:00.000-07:00

In response to my "damn theologian" comment...

I'll comment on my own blog to say that theologians we all are - but self proclaimed buggers I'll say are taking a huge risk, especially systematic ones - like anyone with enough ball who gets out there and stands for something they have come to believe in, they are the easiest to critique - and for that I will say they should be those whom we most honor.

I say this toward the theologian who is both honest and organized with the workings out of their belief, owning it for themselves not simply repeating what they have been told, putting it out there for all to point at, able to participate in healthy critical conversation that, instead of being a head ache, is intrinsic to this working belief.

I am thankful for these people who have decided to face the theology that has been handed to them their entire lives, and quite possibly decide they don't believe any of it, but find the time and space in themselves to work things out and find the good and true for themselves, often coming back to pieces of that traditional theology or finding that it is just a heck of a stab at something that language utterly fails to completely express, allowing it to set fire to their eyes, opening themselves to the wonder of the reality around them, even finding the space for doubt and despair.

The opposite I suppose is the act of deeply pocketing ones disbelief and cynicism and actually falling prey, being a victim of, the very theology that you internally disagree with, having no defense against it, resulting in being formed by it - ceasing to wonder, ceasing to see, ceasing to live.

I don't believe in a literal hell, but I do believe in hell and I think it exists now as we cease to wonder, see, and live - a result of submitting to the status quo - drying up our inner creative, questioning, gift of a human being selves, like the "theologian", go down the path of open eyed wondering certitude that brings both life, and criticism - in Jesus' case crucifixion, in Martin Luther Kings case assassination. But what incredible LIFE came as a result of their honesty. In both these cases fundamental to "open eyed wondering" naturally included those who were outcasts, oppressed, and nobodies in society - "wonder" is real only when all of reality is real which includes suffering. And isn't it funny that when the examples of history really stand up for this honesty, this life, "loving thy neighbor" (all of them), that trouble is right around the corner.

"damn theologians"...as one who doesn't believe in a literal hell, we can rest assure that no one is going to burn in a pit after they die, whew! finally someone said it! - so rather I say damn theologian as simply a playful conversation starter!

This turned out a little longer than I planned - a bit of unorganized rant it is - if you stumble through it I hope you are able to find what I am trying to express.

The News - Big Time?...Halliburton!...Big Time!

2007-04-12T23:54:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure why I'm posting this. Maybe it is simply good gossip. But I don't think so.
Using the shallow definition of "politician", I will say that the politicians love that this happened.
Personally I think Cheney is a mess of untruths politically and personally - that mess though carries a lot of weight and has been the foundation that has lied to the world resulting in the Iraq war - So I think any news that cracks into this person and de-thrones him/her is good. He needs to be relinquished of his position of authority.
I think using profanity is fine - but I think it is more than just profanity in this case - he messed up and dropping the F bomber is the best he has in defense. He has really really really messed up and needs to be held accountable. Swear all you want cheney - but it won't make up for innocent lives sold for capital gain. (Can I say that?)

Cheney Dismisses Critic With Obscenity
Clash With Leahy About Halliburton

By Helen Dewar and Dana Milbank
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, June 25, 2004; Page A04

A brief argument between Vice President Cheney and a senior Democratic senator led Cheney to utter a big-time obscenity on the Senate floor this week.

On Tuesday, Cheney, serving in his role as president of the Senate, appeared in the chamber for a photo session. A chance meeting with Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (Vt.), the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, became an argument about Cheney's ties to Halliburton Co., an international energy services corporation, and President Bush's judicial nominees. The exchange ended when Cheney offered some crass advice.

"Fuck yourself," said the man who is a heartbeat from the presidency.

Leahy's spokesman, David Carle, yesterday confirmed the brief but fierce exchange. "The vice president seemed to be taking personally the criticism that Senator Leahy and others have leveled against Halliburton's sole-source contracts in Iraq," Carle said.

As it happens, the exchange occurred on the same day the Senate passed legislation described as the "Defense of Decency Act" by 99 to 1.

Cheney's office did not deny that the phrase was uttered. His spokesman, Kevin S. Kellems, would say only that this language is not typical of the vice presidential vocabulary. "Reserving the right to revise and extend my remarks, that doesn't sound like language the vice president would use," Kellems said, "but there was a frank exchange of views."

Gleeful Democrats pointed out that the White House has not always been so forgiving of obscenity. In December, Democratic presidential candidate John F. Kerry was quoted using the same word in describing Bush's Iraq policy as botched. The president's chief of staff reacted with indignation.

"That's beneath John Kerry," Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr. said. "I'm very disappointed that he would use that kind of language. I'm hoping that he's apologizing at least to himself, because that's not the John Kerry that I know."

This was not the first foray into French by Cheney and his boss. During the 2000 campaign, Bush pointed out a New York Times reporter to Cheney and said, without knowing the microphone was picking it up, "major-league [expletive]." Cheney's response -- "Big Time" -- has become his official presidential nickname.

Then there was that famous Talk magazine interview of Bush by Tucker Carlson in 1999, in which the future president repeatedly used the F-word.

Tuesday's exchange began when Leahy crossed the aisle at the photo session and joked to Cheney about being on the Republican side, according to Carle. Then Cheney, according to Carle, "lashed into" Leahy for remarks he made Monday criticizing Iraq contracts won without competitive bidding by Halliburton, Cheney's former employer.

Leahy, Carle said, retorted that Democrats "have not appreciated White House collusion in smears" that Democrats were anti-Catholic for blocking judicial nominees such as William H. Pryor Jr. Democrats demanded that Bush disavow the allegations by conservative groups, but the White House did not.

The Democratic National Committee has declared this to be "Halliburton Week" to portray administration ties to the controversial company. "Sounds like it's making somebody a little testy," Kerry spokesman Chad Clanton said.

Republicans did their best to defend the vice president. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah), while pointing out that he was unaware of the incident, described Cheney as "very honest" and said: "I don't blame anyone for standing up for his integrity."

There is no rule against obscene language by a vice president on the Senate floor. The senators were present for a group picture and not in session, so Rule 19 of the Senate rules -- which prohibits vulgar statements "unbecoming a senator" -- does not apply, according to a Senate official. Even if the Senate were in session, the vice president, though constitutionally the president of the Senate, is an executive branch official and therefore free to use whatever language he likes.

© 2004 The Washington Post Company

To all you city slick'n sluckers!

2007-04-12T21:38:00.000-07:00

So, did you know that baby chicks are delivered through the United States Postal Service!

My uncle Ron and I have, like the vanguard-ians that we are, ordered and received our baby chicks (25 a piece this year), carrying on a dying tradition that my Grandpa Bailey lived for.
At quarter to six this past Tuesday morning the local mail man called my Uncle saying that he had a truck full of peepers. These 'lil fellers had been born two days before, shoved in a box and mailed to Fort Benton Montana! And they all survived...amazing, peeping their tunes to the letters and packages.

I admit that i am a bit more of an idealist than a realist... shouting from the hill tops that I think all should turn back to the small farm - then I myself feel confined to the little lives that my idealism has made me responsible to.

Instead of letting a huge corporation sling slices of chicken from cage to MacDonald drive-thru for me to buy and eat with such minimal time that my engine doesn't even need to be shut off...I must feed the dang little things everyday, slowly and meticulously caring for them. Water too!

I must be there for them every single day!

Within that I feel there are so many deeply GOOD things that cannot be gained by shooting through the fast food drive through - this of course goes way beyond health to the roots of our humanity
(I hope someone is laughing at how lofty I can even make raising a chicken - but laugh on! And be a shallow-fast-food-eating-lifeless-ninny!).

My wing flapping idealism knows that being linked to the disciplines that come with life, the constraints that come with the mailed box of chick, are part of that which our society is loosing and is being injured in the process.

So, in my idealism, I will proudly proclaim (I think my uncle Ron would agree) that our world would be a better place if more people participated in the process of life, the process of raising animals - and know that that is where their food comes from.
Essentially if more people were connected to their own food, kicking the feet out from under their idealism with the necessary scoop of the chicken poop, I think a lot of our world problems would simply go belly-up.

This especially for those damn theologians out there!

(PS: Theologian Eric Meyer and I are having back room theological email debates...soon to be posted - i'm sure you are all sweating with suspense!)

So, spring has sprung again!
After my last spring sprunging email it snowed a foot! Good 'ol montana.

But I took the long way from Great Falls to Fort Benton this evening as the sun was setting - this path goes through the town of Highwood skirting the Highwood Mountians, and I'll say again that spring is kick'n in. It is one of my favorite drives - things are greening up and the mountians themselves are still covered in snow - lots of wild life and absolutely no cars - not one in 60 miles.

"THE VIOLENCE OF LOVE", Oscar Romero

2007-04-10T16:59:00.000-07:00

"The violence we preach is not
the violence of the sword,
the violence of hatred.
It is the violence of love,
of brotherhood,
the violence that wills to beat weapons
into sickles for work."

OSCAR ROMERO, NOVEMBER 27, 1977

This is the mission entrusted to the church,
a hard mission:
to uproot sins from history,
to uproot sins from the economy,
to uproot sins wherever they are.
What a hard task!
It has to meet conflicts amid so much selfishness,
so much pride,
so much vanity,
so many who have enthroned the reign of sin among us.

The church must suffer for speaking the truth,
for pointing out sin,
for uprooting sin.
No one wants to have a sore spot touched,
and therefore a society with so many sores twitches
when someone has the courage to touch it
and say: "You have to treat that.
You have to get rid of that.
Believe in Christ.
Be converted.

JANUARY 15, 1978

(and one more that Bush, Cheney, and their puppeteer followers should understand)

A society's or political community's reason for being
is not the security of the state
but the human person.
Christ said, "Man is not for the sabbath;
the sabbath is for man."
He puts human beings as the objective
of all laws and all institutions.
Humans are not for the state;
the state is for them.

JANUARY 15, 1978

Pull the Theological Plug

2007-03-26T20:04:00.000-07:00

"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!!

San Francisco, Tenderloin district

2007-03-26T19:22:00.000-07:00

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.

the farm bill

2007-03-22T23:41:00.000-07:00

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.

Garden! and More!

2007-03-22T22:05:00.000-07:00

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 to 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

2007-03-22T21:15:00.000-07:00

"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).

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.

my face

2007-03-21T00:05:00.000-07:00

...just in case any of this gets to serious...

Guatemala, Nebaj, Wal-mart

2007-03-20T23:20:00.000-07:00

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

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.

Guatemala - Nisgua

2007-03-20T23:16:00.000-07:00

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.

John Sobrino, Liberation Theology

2007-03-17T16:39:00.000-07:00

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.

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

2007-03-16T19:08:00.000-07:00

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.

Quotes: Liberation Theology

2007-03-16T18:59:00.000-07:00

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

I submit...

2007-03-16T16:43:00.000-07:00

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.