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.
Thursday, April 12, 2007
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
"THE VIOLENCE OF LOVE", Oscar Romero
"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
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
Monday, March 26, 2007
Pull the Theological Plug
"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!!
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
San Fran is going well. We just participated in a day of "street
retreat" under a program called faithful fools. The tenderloin
district is definately a place of self discovery...selves that you
never knew existed leap forth when the wide eyed montanan slips into
the San Franciscan street community. I think it was a very positive
and growing experience for the entire group.
Check it out...
http://www.faithfulfools.org/
Here is an article about it...
http://www.acfnewsource.org/religion/street_retreat.html
Street Retreat
The Osgood File (CBS Radio Network): 9/2/02
The Osgood File (CBS Radio Network): 1/18/02
This spiritual retreat plunges participants into life on San Francisco's mean streets.
While most spiritual retreats occur in restful, peaceful locations, one religious group runs their retreat on the gritty streets of San Francisco instead. Faithful Fools, a "street retreat" started by a Franciscan sister and a Unitarian minister, puts people of all faiths into the experience of life on the mean streets. Each participant spends a day in one of San Francisco's most troubled neighborhoods, viewing life from the perspective of the homeless. The rules are simple: spend a full day by yourself on the streets with no place to go. Many street retreat participants find it challenging to find a place to sit down, not to mention a meal, or a bathroom. For some, it is the first and only time that they will eat at a soup kitchen.
Reverend Kay Jorgensen, a Unitarian minister, and Franciscan Sister Carmen Barsody started the Faithful Fools Street Retreat in 1997. Jorgensen and Barsody say that it is a fruitful opportunity for self-discovery, as well as an opportunity to put a face on homelessness. Through chance encounters and conversations, street retreat participants often discover a connection and realize a common humanity with the people on the street. Jorgensen says, "Spiritual awakening happens through the recognition that we are all human beings. We can get on with people regardless of their economic scale and find common ground."
In the past three years, more than 700 people from all over the country have come to this spiritual retreat, not for quiet contemplation or prayer, but to take an "urban plunge" into gritty reality. The one-day experience challenges many participants' judgments and stereotypes about homelessness. According to Sister Catherine, a 76-year old nun who assists the group, the experience is a profound lesson in awareness. She says that after working with the poor for years, it was eye opening for her to go on the street and see what people really face.
The day of the street retreat, the group meets at the Unitarian Church at 9 a.m. for an orientation. After discussing what they expect to find, they head out into the street. Throughout the day, they will line up at the soup kitchens at St. Anthony’s or Glide Memorial Church at noon, wander the streets, sit in the small urban parks and engage in conversations with those who make the streets their home. After five or six hours, everyone returns to the Faithful Fools' headquarters to reflect on, write down and share some of their impressions of the day. A simple meal of soup and bread ends the day.
Jorgensen and Barsody believe the street retreat experience can help people cross economic boundaries to realize a shared humanity. They want their program to inspire more people of faith to take leading roles in creating a more compassionate approach to housing, education and social programs.
CONTACTS
Reverend Kay Jorgensen: Co-Founder
Faithful Fools Street Ministry
San Francisco, CA
Phone: (415) 474-0508
Sister Carmen: Co-Founder
Faithful Fools Street Ministry
San Francisco, CA
Phone: (415) 474-0508
LINKS
This story aired on The Osgood File on the CBS Radio Network.
WCBS Newsradio 880 in New York City features an archive of transcripts of stories broadcast on The Osgood File.
The Faithful Fools Web site offers information regarding the group's ministry and program.
The First Unitarian Universalist Society of San Francisco (UUSF) offers services to members of all faiths and conducts social ministry projects, including those that care for the homeless. Reverend Kay Jorgensen is a member of the Social Justice Ministry at UUSF.
The San Francisco Food Bank coordinates with member agencies to provide food to the city's homeless population.
The University of California, San Francisco Homeless Clinic is a student-physician run medical clinic for the homeless.
The National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty Web site offers information and links to various regional homeless groups throughout the United States.
This San Francisco Chronicle article discusses the Faithful Fools Street Retreat program.
ACFnewsource provides links to sites maintained by other organizations for informational purposes only. ACFnewsource has no responsibility for the accuracy of the content of any Web site to which a link is provided. The groups included on the list do not necessarily reflect the views of ACFnewsource.
retreat" under a program called faithful fools. The tenderloin
district is definately a place of self discovery...selves that you
never knew existed leap forth when the wide eyed montanan slips into
the San Franciscan street community. I think it was a very positive
and growing experience for the entire group.
Check it out...
http://www.faithfulfools.org/
Here is an article about it...
http://www.acfnewsource.org/religion/street_retreat.html
Street Retreat
The Osgood File (CBS Radio Network): 9/2/02
The Osgood File (CBS Radio Network): 1/18/02
This spiritual retreat plunges participants into life on San Francisco's mean streets.
While most spiritual retreats occur in restful, peaceful locations, one religious group runs their retreat on the gritty streets of San Francisco instead. Faithful Fools, a "street retreat" started by a Franciscan sister and a Unitarian minister, puts people of all faiths into the experience of life on the mean streets. Each participant spends a day in one of San Francisco's most troubled neighborhoods, viewing life from the perspective of the homeless. The rules are simple: spend a full day by yourself on the streets with no place to go. Many street retreat participants find it challenging to find a place to sit down, not to mention a meal, or a bathroom. For some, it is the first and only time that they will eat at a soup kitchen.
Reverend Kay Jorgensen, a Unitarian minister, and Franciscan Sister Carmen Barsody started the Faithful Fools Street Retreat in 1997. Jorgensen and Barsody say that it is a fruitful opportunity for self-discovery, as well as an opportunity to put a face on homelessness. Through chance encounters and conversations, street retreat participants often discover a connection and realize a common humanity with the people on the street. Jorgensen says, "Spiritual awakening happens through the recognition that we are all human beings. We can get on with people regardless of their economic scale and find common ground."
In the past three years, more than 700 people from all over the country have come to this spiritual retreat, not for quiet contemplation or prayer, but to take an "urban plunge" into gritty reality. The one-day experience challenges many participants' judgments and stereotypes about homelessness. According to Sister Catherine, a 76-year old nun who assists the group, the experience is a profound lesson in awareness. She says that after working with the poor for years, it was eye opening for her to go on the street and see what people really face.
The day of the street retreat, the group meets at the Unitarian Church at 9 a.m. for an orientation. After discussing what they expect to find, they head out into the street. Throughout the day, they will line up at the soup kitchens at St. Anthony’s or Glide Memorial Church at noon, wander the streets, sit in the small urban parks and engage in conversations with those who make the streets their home. After five or six hours, everyone returns to the Faithful Fools' headquarters to reflect on, write down and share some of their impressions of the day. A simple meal of soup and bread ends the day.
Jorgensen and Barsody believe the street retreat experience can help people cross economic boundaries to realize a shared humanity. They want their program to inspire more people of faith to take leading roles in creating a more compassionate approach to housing, education and social programs.
CONTACTS
Reverend Kay Jorgensen: Co-Founder
Faithful Fools Street Ministry
San Francisco, CA
Phone: (415) 474-0508
Sister Carmen: Co-Founder
Faithful Fools Street Ministry
San Francisco, CA
Phone: (415) 474-0508
LINKS
This story aired on The Osgood File on the CBS Radio Network.
WCBS Newsradio 880 in New York City features an archive of transcripts of stories broadcast on The Osgood File.
The Faithful Fools Web site offers information regarding the group's ministry and program.
The First Unitarian Universalist Society of San Francisco (UUSF) offers services to members of all faiths and conducts social ministry projects, including those that care for the homeless. Reverend Kay Jorgensen is a member of the Social Justice Ministry at UUSF.
The San Francisco Food Bank coordinates with member agencies to provide food to the city's homeless population.
The University of California, San Francisco Homeless Clinic is a student-physician run medical clinic for the homeless.
The National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty Web site offers information and links to various regional homeless groups throughout the United States.
This San Francisco Chronicle article discusses the Faithful Fools Street Retreat program.
ACFnewsource provides links to sites maintained by other organizations for informational purposes only. ACFnewsource has no responsibility for the accuracy of the content of any Web site to which a link is provided. The groups included on the list do not necessarily reflect the views of ACFnewsource.
Thursday, March 22, 2007
the farm bill
Bread For the World - Check out its site. It confronts the Farm Bill.
http://www.bread.org/
Go to the section on Seeds of Change: Help Farmers. End Hunger.
Tell me what you think. Bread for the World is one approach - if you download their Acrobat reader information it will help inform a bit.
The Farm bill is big and complex, but I see it as a way to redirect money that helps Montana farming communities by taking some from the top and putting it into the pockets of small, mid, and even large farms who need it more than the monster corporate farms.
Montana is not big and corporate like much of America - but the way our communities are shrinking signals that it will go that way unless we become aware of the specifics and press for change.
Many articles that critique the Farm Bill say that the family farm does not exist anymore...I disagree!!! I live on one and am a part of it. But, I will admit that the trends even here in central Montana make it very hard to imagine that the small family farm will continue. Growing up on a farm, living the majority of your time outside close to your family, nature, simplicity...is a treasure that should be fought for.
All around the globe people groups are being forced to leave their lands and communities and go to the factories, to the cities, to a life that splits up family and leads to overall degradation of existence. How can this be reversed? Can the farm bill be part of that?
It can't hurt.
The farm bill's scope is huge - from food stamps to our developing neighbor nations.
I think it is an important and practical way to get involved in our system if you are concerned with the growing gap between the rich and poor and the hunger issue in our country and the world.
check it out.
http://www.bread.org/
Go to the section on Seeds of Change: Help Farmers. End Hunger.
Tell me what you think. Bread for the World is one approach - if you download their Acrobat reader information it will help inform a bit.
The Farm bill is big and complex, but I see it as a way to redirect money that helps Montana farming communities by taking some from the top and putting it into the pockets of small, mid, and even large farms who need it more than the monster corporate farms.
Montana is not big and corporate like much of America - but the way our communities are shrinking signals that it will go that way unless we become aware of the specifics and press for change.
Many articles that critique the Farm Bill say that the family farm does not exist anymore...I disagree!!! I live on one and am a part of it. But, I will admit that the trends even here in central Montana make it very hard to imagine that the small family farm will continue. Growing up on a farm, living the majority of your time outside close to your family, nature, simplicity...is a treasure that should be fought for.
All around the globe people groups are being forced to leave their lands and communities and go to the factories, to the cities, to a life that splits up family and leads to overall degradation of existence. How can this be reversed? Can the farm bill be part of that?
It can't hurt.
The farm bill's scope is huge - from food stamps to our developing neighbor nations.
I think it is an important and practical way to get involved in our system if you are concerned with the growing gap between the rich and poor and the hunger issue in our country and the world.
check it out.
Garden! and More!
Spring has sprung its leak early and is spewing warm winds across the central plains of Montana. Also springing farmers out of their winter hibernation finding the familiar fever of "hurry up and wait" - keeping an eye to the sky, all seeding implements revving their engines, aimed at April, the greening start-line, the month who's trigger finger awakens nature t
o Montana's own resurrected Christ, transfigured in longer days, warmer winds, pertruding green foliage, and a big flipp'n blue sky.I began to garden.
To the right reveals my efforts. Those fine piles were then spread left/westward readying a bed to tuck corn into.
A fine tomato crop.This pic is from last summer and the hope of a,
now brown earth, to be covered once again in life.
(from left to right)
The infamous Bucko, Bucko's mother Classy, and Serenade gaze at me wondering why I must continually transport their poop to different locations in the yard.
So again today I began my search for meaning, for spring, for the gifts that make life - and I suppose I did...I shoveled poop.
Those reds and yellows, those horses come from that gift...a good recipe of decomposition...the resurrected pantheon-Christ of flowers, tomatoes, horses, and shoveling me!
Though I sweat, though my back hurt a bit - I thought about those in the past and those who are presently being kicked off their land, wondering what that kind of pain would be like, wondering how that is happening today, kicking around the ever present reality that our affluent society may slightly be an illusion, living off the backs of the "have nots" in "3rd world" countries...
"I want there to be democracy, no more inequality - I am looking for a life worth living, liberation, just like God says."
- José Pérez, 24 years old, Zapatista, captured at Oxchuc, January 4, 1994
"If I define my neighbor as the one I must go out to look for, on the highways and byways, in the factories and slums, on the farms and in the mines - then my world changes. This is what is happening with the "option for the poor," for in the gospel it is the poor person who is the neighbor par excellence....
But the poor person does not exist as an inescapable fact of destiny. His or her existence is not politically neutral, and it is not ethically innocent. The poor are a by-product of the system in which we live and for which we are responsible. They are marginalized by our social and cultural world. they are the oppressed, exploited proletariat, robbed of the fruit of their labor and despoiled of their humanity. Hence the poverty of the poor is not a call to generous relief action, but a demand that we go and build a different social order."
- Gustavo Gutiérrez, The Power of the Poor in History.
....
Paul farmer
"Rats and roaches live by competition under the law of supply and demand; it is the privilege of human beings to live under the laws of justice and mercy."
- Wendell Berry
"Our system is one of detachment: to keep silenced people from asking questions, to keep the judged from judging, to keep solitary people from joining together, and the soul from putting together its pieces."
- Eduardo Galeano, "Divorces"
Just got a new book.
By Paul Farmer
"Pathologies of Power: Health, Human Rights, And The New War On The Poor"
______
I first heard of this guy after perusing the Union Theological Seminary website and then was recommended to read this book. He says that he discovered Liberation Theology not through Latin America, but by working with and learning from the poor of Haiti.
Here is snippet from the award he just received at Union (New York City).
On Wednesday, December 6, 2006, Union Theological Seminary awarded its highest honor, the Union Medal, to Ophelia Dahl and Paul Farmer, M.D., co-founders of Partners In Health, a pioneering and innovative world health organization that has made significant public health advances in some of the most impoverished areas of the world.
(the rest of the article is at this link)
http://www.utsnyc.edu/NETCOMMUNITY/Page.aspx?&pid=263&srcid=256
You can also hear him speak at Union's fancy podcast feature...do a little perusing of the Union site and you'll find 'er.
- Wendell Berry
"Our system is one of detachment: to keep silenced people from asking questions, to keep the judged from judging, to keep solitary people from joining together, and the soul from putting together its pieces."
- Eduardo Galeano, "Divorces"
Just got a new book.
By Paul Farmer
"Pathologies of Power: Health, Human Rights, And The New War On The Poor"
______
I first heard of this guy after perusing the Union Theological Seminary website and then was recommended to read this book. He says that he discovered Liberation Theology not through Latin America, but by working with and learning from the poor of Haiti.
Here is snippet from the award he just received at Union (New York City).
OPHELIA DAHL AND PAUL FARMER, M.D.
AWARDED UNION MEDAL
Wednesday, December 6, 2006
On Wednesday, December 6, 2006, Union Theological Seminary awarded its highest honor, the Union Medal, to Ophelia Dahl and Paul Farmer, M.D., co-founders of Partners In Health, a pioneering and innovative world health organization that has made significant public health advances in some of the most impoverished areas of the world.
(the rest of the article is at this link)
http://www.utsnyc.edu/NETCOMMUNITY/Page.aspx?&pid=263&srcid=256
You can also hear him speak at Union's fancy podcast feature...do a little perusing of the Union site and you'll find 'er.
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