"Woe to you who are rich"

 

“Woe to you who are rich,” said Christ with no reservations or explanations. He did not say this so that others might multiply in his name reservations and explanations until we are given to understand that he meant the opposite.

     There exist among us, as you know, castes of thieves, the Grounds. “Castes” is not the right word, for they are only tribes of poor pariahs. However, they look upon robbery as their function in society and even have their own code of honor and sacred books! Foreigners who make a study of the peoples of India are astonished at so monstrous a custom. They are right, but let them also look at home and the world over. They will see that there is a caste of thieves everywhere and, horror of horrors, it is even the first and the most honored. It is the caste of the rich and mighty.

     The rich man will never set his hand to the plough. Not that he is afraid of hard work (he will work willingly enough at hunting and on the golf course), but because the code of honor of his caste forbids it.

     What is the function of the rich man in society? To interfere with those who go to work, wait for them at the turn of the road and hold them up for ransom.

     With the loot they amass they can give themselves up to play, or else to business and intrigue, or win fame, or wallow in debauchery, according to their tastes and opportunities.

     As for the worker, he works both for himself and for those who do nothing, and the less these do the more important they take themselves to be and the greater their weight.

                                                                      --Mahatma Gandhi, quoted by Lanza del Vasto in Gandhi to Vinoba

Tomorrow . . .

Tomorrow, a leader who is open about his authoritarian and fascist tendencies assumes power in this country. Even though there is much to criticize in the democrats and plenty of reasons not to want to vote for most of their candidates, the choice of a leader who has no respect for the rule of law is the worst decision voters could have made. And why did they make that choice? One word: inflation. Instead of blaming the billionaires who are actually responsible for inflation (as labor leader Humberto Selix used to say: “Inflation is rich people inflating their pockets with poor peoples’ wages”), voters elected a billionaire who is beholden to his billionaire cronies. America has truly sold its birthright for a bowl of soup! A bowl of soup that is only going to get more out of reach. Hopefully, future buyer’s remorse will be enough to wake people up to the terrible choice that they have made. But will it be too late? And will it be enough to drive people to call for change in a system that has been making America more and more unequal, and life harder for the poor and middle class for a whole generation?

Event

“The Holiest Words Went With the Most Hating Blow”

The moon at length approached the forest, and came slowly into it: with her first gleam the noises increased to a deafening uproar, and I began to see dim shapes about me. As she ascended and grew brighter, the noises became yet louder, and the shapes clearer. A furious battle was raging around me. Wild cries and roars of rage, shock of onset, struggle prolonged, all mingled with words articulate, surged in my ears. Curses and credos, snarls and sneers, laughter and mockery, sacred names and howls of hate, came huddling in chaotic interpenetration. Skeletons and phantoms fought in maddest confusion. Swords swept through the phantoms: they only shivered. Maces crashed on the skeletons, shattering them hideously: not one fell or ceased to fight, so long as a single joint held two bones together. Bones of men and horses lay scattered and heaped; grinding and crunching them under foot fought the skeletons. Everywhere charged the bone-gaunt white steeds; everywhere on foot or on wind-blown misty battle-horses, raged and ravened and raved the indestructible spectres; weapons and hoofs clashed and crushed; while skeleton jaws and phantom-throats swelled the deafening tumult with the war-cry of every opinion, bad or good, that had bred strife, injustice, cruelty in any world. The holiest words went with the most hating blow. Lie-distorted truths flew hurtling in the wind of javelins and bones. Every moment some one would turn against his comrades, and fight more wildly than before, THE TRUTH! THE TRUTH! still his cry.

                                                                                  --George MacDonald, Lilith

 

 Like the skeletons and phantoms of the Evil Wood that battle night after night in George MacDonald’s novel, Lilith, so many people find a way to distort Jesus’ message of universal love and peace into a message of hate and violence. And the same is often true of the messages of other prophets and religious leaders. Indeed, religion, philosophy, political ideals, and national pride have been used continually to promote animosity and prejudice toward others. "The holiest words . . . with the most hating blow." But what does Jesus actually say: “Love one another.” (John 13:34)

Non-violence

In the midst of an increasingly violent society and armed conflicts worldwide, I have never been more certain of the importance of promoting non-violence between individuals, groups, and nations. Non-violence begins with seeking justice and equality for all, and not just through symbolic actions but by overcoming the structures that promote racism and prejudice of every kind, as well as the economic inequality that leaves most of humanity, including our fellow citizens, (not to mention our beautiful earth home), struggling every day just to survive. This can--and must--be done with the tools of non-violence, which requires a daily commitment from every one who cares, and a willingness to challenge even those structures that may benefit us personally but contribute to the oppression of others. Non-violent change can be enduring change and can defeat even the most powerful weapons, so long as each of us is willing to do their part.

Indigenous Peoples’ Day, 2021

 

To most indigenous thinking people, the United States is not a melting pot; it is a boiling mess. No longer do we have the clear blue skies, but acid rain, maybe soon cyanide and nuclear rain, destroying life on land and water. No longer clear cool waters, but outrageous pollution destroying all forms of water life--believe it or not folks, if we cannot drink our once clear blue waters, we are the next to go!

                                                             --Carrie and Mary Dann, Right Livelihood Award acceptance speech

Hiroshima Day

 Whenever I remember Hiroshima, the first image that comes to mind is of my four-year-old nephew, Eiji – his little body transformed into an unrecognizable melted chunk of flesh. He kept begging for water in a faint voice until his death released him from agony.

     To me, he came to represent all the innocent children of the world, threatened as they are at this very moment by nuclear weapons. Every second of every day, nuclear weapons endanger everyone we love and everything we hold dear. We must not tolerate this insanity any longer.

     Through our agony and the sheer struggle to survive – and to rebuild our lives from the ashes – we hibakusha became convinced that we must warn the world about these apocalyptic weapons. Time and again, we shared our testimonies.

      . . . Nine nations still threaten to incinerate entire cities, to destroy life on earth, to make our beautiful world uninhabitable for future generations. The development of nuclear weapons signifies not a country’s elevation to greatness, but its descent to the darkest depths of depravity. These weapons are not a necessary evil; they are the ultimate evil.

--Setsuko Thurlow, Hiroshima survivor, Nobel Prize acceptance speech on behalf of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons

World Bee Day

(A larger screen version can be found at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jn8H-qelRqU)

"Poets, slavery still goes on!"

Poets helped to condemn black slavery.  Poets, slavery still goes on!  More than two thirds of humanity are slaves to hunger, sickness, forced labor, despair.  And another third is in slavery to selfishness and fear.

                                                                                              --Dom Helder Camara, The Desert is Fertile, tr. Dinah Livingstone

No Comment Needed

An Associated Press analysis reveals that in 376 counties with the highest number of new [covid-19] cases per capita, the overwhelming majority — 93% of those counties — went for Trump, a rate above other less severely hit areas. (AP News, 11/6/20)

San Oscar Romero

Cuando se le da pan al que tiene hambre lo llaman a uno santo, pero si se pregunta por las causas de por qué el pueblo tiene hambre, lo llaman comunista, ateísta. Pero hay un ateísmo más cercano y más peligroso para nuestra Iglesia: el ateísmo del capitalismo cuando los bienes materiales se erigen en ídolos y sustituyen a Dios.

                                                                    --San Óscar Romero, Homilía, Septiembre 15 de 1978

Dripping Springs Natural Area

Here are some pictures from Dripping Springs Natural Area, part of the Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks National Monument.  This is one of the places threatened by the Trump Administration’s “review” of recently-created national monuments.  Although the comment period on the Interior Department’s “review” is over (and millions commented in favor of keeping our national monuments intact), it is still essential to keep the pressure on.  It is also important to support organizations like Earthjustice, who will be involved in opposing any attack on national monuments in court, if necessary (in addition to all the other crucial environmental justice work that they do).  There are a number of other organizations actively working to defend our public lands, from the local to the national level, and all deserve our support.

a very camouflaged horned lizard

collared lizard

west face of the organ mountains on a hazy morning

Protesting Against the Death Penalty

El Pasoans Against the Death Penalty holds demonstrations in front of the county courthouse on days when Texas executes an inmate.  Yesterday Texas carried out the first of four executions scheduled for this month.  Texas continues to lead the nation in executions and has recently executed both mentally ill and developmentally challenged persons (as well as at least one potentially innocent person), among the hundreds systematically murdered by the state.

St. Francis and the Wolf

On this beautiful Feast of St. Francis, I think of how relevant the story of St. Francis and the wolf of Gubbio is for us today, in a world torn by war and hatred.  For the people of Gubbio, the wolf is not just a ruthless killer, he is even worse than that.  In their eyes he is irrational.  He has no personhood.  He is simply the adversary.  He has no conscience and can’t be reasoned with—he is beyond conversion, beyond redemption.  He is an inhuman monster.  Is this not the way that we, as individuals and nations, always depict our enemies?  We can hate them without guilt because they are not persons in our eyes, because we believe them to be invincibly evil (and ourselves the champions of good), which gives us the certainty that the only solution is to destroy them, brutally and without remorse.  But Francis courageously seeks out the wolf, boldly confronts him face-to-face, armed only with love and the hope of reconciliation, and calls him “brother.”  He begins by recognizing the personhood of Brother Wolf.  He enlightens him, aware that in order to do so he must begin with an understanding of who the wolf is—where the wolf is “coming from”—his hunger, his loneliness.  And then he helps the wolf to recognize a path to transformation, to the adoption of a new way of living.  He shows him the way to a new mode of being with others.  He brokers a peace between the wolf and the people of Gubbio.  So perfect is the peace he creates between the people and the wolf that they end up neighbors and friends.  They come to love and care about each other.  That is the power of active non-violence, its power to conquer fear and hatred, if one is simply courageous enough to call the snarling, bloodthirsty enemy “brother” or “sister,” and to make peace, not by destroying that enemy, but by the redemptive, the transformative, power of love.  Each of us, and most especially our leaders, the ones who give the orders to kill on a mass scale, must follow the path that Francis took—for no other path can succeed—if we truly want our cities and our world to live in peace and safety, and if we truly desire a world where we will live like brothers and sisters.

America and Its Allies: Shoot First, Think Later

So, ISIS brutally beheads innocent civilians.  In response, President Obama and his European bullies blow the heads off innocent civilians with bombs and missiles.  Both sides claim they are fighting evil.  But in reality, both are doing evil.  The fact that we have learned nothing from the failures in Iraq and Afghanistan, that we are now willing to make common cause with Assad and the Iranians, that we are giving arms to factions in Iraq that were our ‘enemies’ in the last round, guaranteeing a hundred more years of instability and hatred, shows what little moral consideration has gone into the decision to plunge us into another war.  Clearly, Obama is guided more by fears of a Democratic Party defeat in November than any reasonable ethical, strategic, or even military considerations.  The fact that we created this situation by our invasion of Iraq (again, with our sycophantic allies, especially the U.K.), and by our long, desultory involvement in the civil war that followed, is never even mentioned by the cheerleading, colluding press. The parallels to Vietnam are so obvious to anyone who knows anything about twentieth-century history.  Why are our leaders so morally bankrupt?  President Obama expressed his sorrow and outrage on national TV after the Sandy Hook massacre, and rightly so.  But what about the hundreds of children killed by drone strikes, by our training and arming of rogue armies around the world to fight our proxy wars; what about the children killed in the ongoing conflicts we started in Afghanistan and Iraq, and that we are now escalating there and in Syria.  Despite all the rhetoric about “smart bombs,” civilian casualties as a percentage of total casualties keep rising in each successive war the U.S. wages [Ahlstrom, C. and K.-A. Nordquist (1991). Casualties of conflict: report for the world campaign for the protection of victims of war. Uppsala, Department of Peace and Conflict Research, Uppsala University].  Bombing of civilians is simply murder carried out without our having to see it close up, My Lai executed from the air.

Martin Luther King Day

Of all the forms
of inequality, injustice
in health care is the
most shocking and inhumane

                                                   --Martin Luther King, Jr.

International Year of Family Farming

2014 has been proclaimed by the United Nations as the International Year of Family Farming, to highlight the contribution that family farming worldwide makes to food security, biodiversity, sustainability, and the preservation of traditional culture and the environment.  The goals of the organizers of the IYFF and other organizations like the Via Campesina and the World Farmer’s Organization is also to organize and work for the protection of family farms, and for the inputs needed to promote cooperative, ecologically healthy rural communities.  The year provides an opportunity to create greater support for awareness-raising and initiatives by popular organizations that are already addressing issues such as the impact of climate change on small producers, gender equality in rural settings, access to markets, defense of heirloom plant and animal varieties, promotion of non-usurious credit sources and increased access to crop insurance, land and water reform, protection of seasonal laborers, and the need for fair trade instead of so-called “free trade.”

     Small farmers feed billions, help to preserve traditional diets, and are the natural locus for environmentally sustainable development.  Yet family farms and rural communities are under attack worldwide, as more and more agricultural land is devoured by urban expansion; corporate farming attempts to shut small farmers out of markets; governments invest in urban development and neglect rural communities; and water privatization, GMO seeds, and international trade and financial policies make necessary inputs and resources unattainable to more and more farmers.  Family farming must be seen as the centerpiece of a healthy economy, and the empowerment of family farmers an essential tool in fighting unemployment, hunger, malnutrition, and environmental degradation worldwide.

To the memory of farmer Lee Kyung Hae, who gave his life for the cause of small farmers in the struggle against the WTO and the fight against neo-liberal economic policies that kill farmers and destroy rural and small fishing communities.

Christmas

Jesus left his Father’s house to sojourn among us—as St. John’s gospel says, “To his own he came, yet his own did not accept him.” (John 1:11)  In Jesus’ incarnation, God gave us an opportunity to welcome his son, but he didn’t force us; instead, he invited us to welcome him.  He wanted us to see divinity in the poor, simple stranger.

     From the beginning of scripture, we see God’s concern for the stranger, the outsider, the immigrant.  Mosaic law says, “When an alien resides with you in your land, do not molest him.  You shall treat the alien among you no differently than the natives born among you, have the same love for yourself, for you were once aliens in the land of Egypt.” (Leviticus 19:33-34)  Again, in Exodus 22:21, “You shall not oppress or molest an alien, for you were once aliens yourselves in the land of Egypt.”

     And this brings us to the story of why the people of Israel were once aliens in the land of Egypt.  It was because of natural disaster, a famine, that Jacob and his sons left their homeland and traveled to Egypt.  Eventually, of course, they were enslaved by the native peoples, and the experience of those years of exile, of enslavement and eventual freedom, would fundamentally shape the religious outlook of the children of Israel.  The plight of Jacob and his family as victims of natural disaster is repeated today in the lives of those who are still forced to flee both human-made and natural disasters.  So many who are migrants bring with them to a new land not just hope and dreams, but scars, scars left by natural disasters, famine, floods and earthquakes, and by political persecution, by genocide, and the loss of family members and friends. 

     Jesus, like Jacob, like Ruth and Naomi, like so many others in scripture, was a refugee, a migrant, a victim of political persecution.  Jesus, who shared fully in our humanity, who experienced all the good and the bad of human life, knew what it was to be a stranger.  Think about it, no sooner is Jesus born than he and his family are forced to flee their homeland.  Jesus’ foster father, Joseph, receives word from an angel in a dream that the king is searching for his child in order to kill him.  What a thing to learn!  Being told that your child is in danger creates the most raw, black terror one can possibly imagine.  I think of what Mary and Joseph must have been going through, how they must have asked God, “How can you let this happen?  Why don’t you strike down this cruel tyrant who is killing infants and children?  You’ve put the hope of the whole world in our hands and now you’re telling us we have to protect him from a madman who has spies and armies and secret police and a terrified populace in his grip who might sell out our own child to save theirs.  How can we leave our homes, our families, and our livelihood, and cross the cruel desert with a baby?”  But God simply answers, “Take the child and flee into Egypt.”  Joseph was a carpenter; he and Mary weren’t educated persons, so I’m sure they didn’t speak Egyptian.  What could they take with them on a journey like that but the clothes on their backs?  I think of the scene of the flight into Egypt in Pasolini’s beautiful The Gospel According to St. Matthew (Il vangelo secondo Matteo).  In that film, Jesus and Mary leave their humble dwelling and take to the road, and the last shot is of the hearth, which is still burning.  Without even having a chance to extinguish the fire, Jesus, Mary, and Joseph were literally forced to run for their lives.

     Jesus and his family eventually returned to their homeland, but I’m sure that for Jesus those words of Exodus, “You shall not oppress or molest an alien, for you were once aliens yourselves in the land of Egypt,” always had a special meaning.

    Today, and every day, we can welcome Jesus into our nation, our neighborhoods, and our lives--in the persecuted, the stranger, the migrant and refugee.  Or we can once again turn him away from our door, we can refuse hospitality, by not finding it in our hearts to make room for him at our inn. 

Support Walmart Workers Who are Standing Up for Their Rights

Support Walmart workers who are demanding their rights and a better life:

http://forrespect.org/

http://makingchangeatwalmart.org/

Julius Nyerere

Mwalimu Julius Kambarage Nyerere (13 April 1922 – 14 October 1999)

"The Conscience of Africa"

We say man was created in the image of God.  I refuse to imagine a God who is miserable, poor, ignorant, superstitious, fearful, oppressed and wretched--which is the lot of the majority of those He created in His own image.                                       

                                                          --Julius K. Nyerere, Maryknoll magazine, June 1971