crazy compassion, or lack there of.

Have we all gone crazy? Has the world lost its compassion? Is ‘God dead’? In this brave new world these are the questions that people are asking of us. Has the world lost its compassion? In September of this year a crowd cheered for the death of another human being who theoretically couldn’t afford health insurance. Similar people are calling for the murder of illegal immigrants who cross into the United States. And on Fox News this past month Ann Coulter has brought us straight back to the age of slavery! (Please note my exclamation point. I don’t use these often.) She claims, “Our Blacks are better than their Blacks.” This, the exact propaganda rich slave owners’ declared for their right to enslave African Americans and promote racism in the United States.  

All these obscenities make it feel more like 1811, not 2011. Ann Coulter’s directly racist comment, uttered to make Herman Cain look better than Barack Obama, is an injustice to the decades of work African Americans have put forth to stop this direct racism. Furthermore, when people want to see illegal immigrants murdered because they cross over the United States border for a better life, it is a world that doesn’t reflect modern civilization, but a world in which we used to chase and murder thousands of Native Americans from what was their land. The New World invaders are now mad at the new invaders for coming into a land that they themselves took from someone else. (Invaders: a term used by many of the Right to describe illegal immigrants.)  

And let’s not leave the obscurities to politics. Just last week after the firing of coach Paterno at Penn State, many of the students rioted not for the abused children but for the firing of their legendary coach.

Where is the compassion? Herman Cain who is now dealing with sexual harassment accusations, although an unrelated topic, has taken a similar stance when addressing the situations. Cain didn’t fire back at Coulter to boast that all African American are equal and none are of lesser quality. He didn’t take any higher ground – something that not only demeans himself, but affirms Coulter’s comments.

In all of this can we claim that humans are more civilized or enlightened? People are valuing such insignificant and finite objects such as money, sports, and politics over the life of fellow humans. The basic needs of life- health, shelter and safety - have been abandoned. Maybe the world has gone crazy.

help wanted, no benefits, no pay

The Middle East is making history - erupting over freedom and economic opportunities. Egypt, among other countries, is fighting for its jobs and rights. The U.S. - who since 1776 has declared freedom and democracy - is fighting for the same thing in Wisconsin today. In Wisconsin, and soon to be other parts of the U.S., teachers will be fighting for their rights like Egyptians have been for weeks (many for years).

For years teachers have been at the bottom of the pay scale. Also for years unions have been fighting for teachers’ rights. Now, in Wisconsin the Republican Governor is trying to take on the last great union – teachers. The economy is bad and we are attacking teachers? Forget the banks. Forget the Bernie Madoff’s. Forget the housing problem that is not even close to being fixed. Forget unemployment. Forget China taking over the #1 spot in the world. Forget country after country ranking better than the U.S. in education. When did teachers become the problem for our economic woes? Why do teachers get to sacrifice when banks get a bailout? Knocking down the teacher is not going to improve our educational system.

Somehow, by a miracle, the universal healthcare law passed through the government. Our society is proving though, through the TEA Party and budget crunching Republicans that indeed we don’t want universal healthcare. As a society we would rather have a few of us pay really well for excellent healthcare while the rest don’t have any. This fight in Wisconsin is the same fight. A fight to continue to have great public education throughout the United States so good teachers can continue to teach everywhere. We can’t continue to have teachers sacrifice while the Bernie Madoff’s of the world are ruling the world. Otherwise our education is going to be great for a few of us while the rest of us don’t have any.

robot, must destroy

With the Republicans changing the term from job killing to job destroying in reference to their "refutal" to the health care law in light of the recent events in Arizona, does that mean the Democrats can change their term from the human killing to the human destroying health care repeal bill?

guns, hunger, & eisenhower

It’s December.  Which means at the end of the month the Bush era tax cuts will either expire, or be extended.  And if any Democrat wants to be reelected I am sure we will all see the tax cuts extended.  But that’s enough about what a payroll tax or estate tax would do for some, and nothing for a whole lot more. 

With all this talk about where everyone’s tax money is going, it made me ponder a quote from Dwight D. Eisenhower that I heard today: “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.”

First, with the rising of the Tea Party, do we let tax money go toward defense, or toward people who don’t have food or shelter?  Or, do we let those who cannot fend for themselves be susceptible to Darwin’s theory of evolution?  Second, if we can move beyond the idea of killing off the weak, is Eisenhower right?  Is the idea of ‘every gun…made’ theft from those who are hungry?  Finally, can we bring justice to Eisenhower’s idea?  Can we feed those who are hungry, warm those who are cold, and clothe those who are not?  

dogs and chickens

A few years ago when he was caught for illegal dog fighting, the world turned on Michael Vick.  He left football and went to jail.  For most people it unearthed underground dog fighting that happens everywhere in the United States.  It also reinforced the fact that 99.9% of people think that dog fighting is wrong. 

In the United States, cock fighting is also illegal.  Much like dog fighting it is inhumane and cruel to the animal.  Like dog fighting, 99.9% of people find it wrong.  However, that’s not the only inhumane thing that happens to chickens everyday and almost all of us do nothing about it.

Most Americans, every time they eat chicken, don’t know how the chicken was raised, fed, and treated from birth until mealtime.  The chickens can be injected with different hormones and fed food that fattens them rather than food that is healthy.  The chickens are kept in confined dark places with no opportunity to walk.  Many of the birds are even unable to walk.  After the chickens are finally ready to be processed and slaughtered they are transported, again in confined spaces, crammed into a semi by the hundreds. 

It’s a quick overview of the inhumane manner in which chickens are raised to be eaten.  The chickens are not raised as chickens, but are processed more like a bag of Doritos on the grocery store shelf.  Why, as a people, do we find cock fighting immoral and illegal  – where only a small number of chickens die each year - but find it okay to treat thousands of chickens each year inhumanly through the way they are raised?

It is not a question of finding cock fighting as something that is good, because it is not.  It is a question of this: why are we sitting around and letting our chickens be treated so inhumanly without considering it to be immoral?

For more information on the treatment of chickens and other animals I recommend Fast Food Nation and Food Inc (book & movie).

america the beautiful

As many border walls “we” want to build, laws to enact, and rallies at the Washington Mall “we” want to hold: this will always be my America.

land of the free, well for some of us anyway

There is a war going on. And it is not in Iraq or Afghanistan. It is going on right here in the United States. No, it is not immigration legislature. That’s not a war, it is just descendents of former poor immigrants refusing to let current immigrants into the country. Racism apparently did not end with the Civil War, Civil Rights, or with the election of a Black president. The war is actually going on in New York City and the issue is over whether to build a Muslim Center near Ground Zero.
Nearly nine years ago 9/11 happened over terrorists who were - and are still - upset over Western and Christian ideals. Just in the news recently a few doctors overseas were not allowed to continue their practice because the authorities thought they were Christians trying to proselytize. Once the powers-that-be figured out that they were not Christians, just citizens trying to be doctors, they let them continue without any problems. Forget freedom of religion.

In a country that demands freedoms to do just about everything, much of the country wants to take that same freedom from other Americans in the form of not allowing them to build a Muslim Center in New York City. In a country that prides itself above everyone else for its laws on freedom - especially freedom of speech, the right to bear arms, religion, etcetera – it is not allowing freedom of religion to its own citizens.

It is ironic – in a horrible, awful way. A country that was founded on freedom over 230 years ago, who fought for freedom, who sat on buses and had sit-ins for freedom now has many people who want to stop fighting for that right. They essentially want to eliminate the freedom of religion for some of our citizens – the very thing that we claim as a country that makes us different.

The Muslim Center is bigger than bricks and mortar. If it is not allowed to be built any claims of freedom will be a hoax, our progressions as a society will be a hoax, and bringing freedom to other countries will be a hoax. The foundations of freedom of 1776 were stained with the blood of Native Americans and Slavery, the Civil War stained with decades of Jim Crow Laws and Exclusion, the Civil Rights stained by a continued ambiguous racism. The freedom of today seems to be for some, but not all.

demanding apologies, demanding history

334 years after King Philip's War, a war which killed 3,000 natives (or 15% of the population) and was the beginning of the end of a forced expulsion of the natives from Massachusetts land, some residents of Middleboro are demanding apologies from local Native American tribes.  The demand is over a casino building plan in Middleboro.  For a few years now, the casino planners have been going back and forth on deciding whether or not to have a casino in Middleboro.  Residents are apparently fed up and don't care either way if the casino goes up or not – they just want a decision. 

Now they are demanding an apology from the local tribe responsible for the casino development.  It takes great audacity to demand an apology from a group of people that were forced off their own land.  But nevertheless, some residents have neglected and ignored the past and are demanding it. 

This is just another reason why history is important and has such an impact in today's society.

two worlds collide

Two worlds of mine have recently collided.  I am almost done with a book on the history of World War II.  And even though the book does not talk much about the holocaust (as it is a book on military history), you cannot help but hate the man in the book named Hitler.  It is not even hard to hate him without reading about the holocaust.  He was a fearful leader with few - if any - morals.  His hatred does not just come out toward Jews, but toward Russians, and anything he deems a worthy scapegoat.  There is even a wartime paradox as he allies with the Japanese.

My world of hate yesterday collided with the world of resurrection – Easter.  The world of resurrection is the Kingdom of God, and if we are to live the resurrection, then the kingdom of God has come.  If I am to live the prayer of “your kingdom come” then I must live a radical and loving life.  A life that is so radical that it can even love and forgive someone as vile as Hitler.  For if God not only sent Jesus to earth, but died and rose, then that is love that is extended to everyone.

Of course it is still easy to hate Hitler.  There is no sign he felt remorse, regret, or had any actions of reconciliation in anyway.  But, two worlds have collided.  The one we live in, and the Kingdom of God.  It is a world in which Jesus sat with sinners, talked to Samaritan women at wells, and did the impossible. 

libraries and healthcare

Headline: “Government leaks to public that public libraries are a socialist idea. Libraries are shut down across the country!”

It sounds crazy, but is it? In today’s world in the U.S. the rich are buying books. It doesn’t matter if it is the hard copy first edition, the second edition soft-cover a few months later, or the $1.00 book at the used bookstore. The poor? Well - they are going to the library. And what about computers? The rich: they have one or two or three in their home. Or for the most frugal using the computer they use everyday at work. The poor? There is not a computer they are working on, because the work they are doing doesn’t involve a computer. And since the cost of computers is so high (even when they are priced in the low hundreds) that certainly the poor who are barely making ends meet what with paying for rent and food for the week can’t afford even the cheapest computer. So – where does someone go that can’t afford books or a computer? The library.

Books and computer may seem just like a form of entertainment, but they are as essential as food and health in today’s world. Well, at least if you want to pick yourself up by your bootstraps. (That is if you have any.) It’s hard to find jobs without the computer these days. You certainly can’t write a resume or cover letter without one. And books? Well, they are the foundation of education, of course. Enough said.

But the library doesn’t sound crazy. And giving access to free books and computers doesn’t sound socialist. Then why is it so crazy to also use public money for maybe the most basic need next to shelter and food – healthcare? Is health a right or a privilege?

As the world seeks to be more progressive and good, why then is it so far away from helping the most basic needs of the ones that can’t afford to help themselves? Would it not be more progressive and good to help instead of hinder and divide? Are we just regressing to a society of kings and serfs?

nickel and dimed review

I just finished Nickel and Dimed. The book is about a journalist’s sojourn into the working class. For me, it was a reminder that I am not working class. I have college degrees, networks (as small as they may be sometimes), a support system, some money saved up, a car, and a plethora of other variables. The book is a must read for anyone that doesn’t have to live in motel day-by-day or a small apartment on weekly rent.

The book was written ten years ago and you can already tell that it is outdated. There are no 9/11 experiences. When Barbara Ehrenreich wrote this book there was a labor shortage. And of course she was not dealing with a recession. Housing prices have skyrocketed since she wrote the book and I presume rent has as well. There is one other thing that has changed. Universal health care is now trying to make its way into law.

At the end of the book, Ehrenreich talks about how the poor have no longer been discovered, but just the opposite forgotten. And now people no longer feel that the poor are there because they are lazy, drug addicts, and thieves. She states that “disapproval and condescension no longer apply” and that guilt doesn’t go far enough, but it is shame in ourselves that kicks in when we think of the poor.

I don’t think shame is the right emotion here. I think she gives people far too much credit, and I think she wants people instead to feel shame. Just as with slavery, people’s minds were changed: from condescension, to guilt, to shame. Those same steps still need to be taken today for continuing class and racial barriers. Ehrenreich does not give enough credit to the social system in place of the individualistic capitalist society we live in. We still live in a society that says the individual is the key to their own success and there are no systems in place to keep people poor.

Maybe the most constructive aspect of the book is that Ehrenreich shows that even a highly successful women with a Ph.D. can’t really “make it” when she is left in the same predicament as the working poor. Ehrenreich really proves that there needs to be some changes with affordable rent, cost of food, salaries, and healthcare. Until then the rich will continue to ride on the backs of the poor. Whether they feel condescending, guilty, or shameful is up to them.

three cups of tea, education, and the urban city

I recently finished Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson. And it is a must read for everyone. The book is about one man’s journey to bring a school to a poor community in Pakistan. The book is inspiring. It gives life to the people of Pakistan, to Afghanistan, and the Middle East. It gives a hope for peace that is not through war, power, and death, but through a road less traveled.

The book gives an alternative view to the way life has been lived out since 9/11. It’s a view that involves less U.S. taxpayer money, less death, less destruction of towns and villages in Iraq and Afghanistan, and less fear of terrorism.

Just as the U.S. wages war in the Middle East, the country been raging war domestically since it’s conception. Cities such as Detroit, MI and Gary, IN, and in poorer neighborhoods in cities such as Chicago or Boston were not always poor, dangerous, and places to avoid rather than seek. All these cities have history. Many of them can trace the growth of unrest from their beginnings, to the industrial revolution, to events as recent as white flight around the middle of the twentieth century. These places of course are hit hard with violence and theft. Locals who could get out did. The working class and poor just kept on working.

The alternative is education. A radical idea never used before. Education is the same thing that many people, myself included, have thought for years would help inner cities of the United States. Of course here in the U.S., compared to such places as in Three Cups of Tea, there are actually schools – for the most part. The quality and opportunity of education, of course, are vastly different. Most urban schools are given half the money that a suburban school is given. A quick Google search will confirm this. The administration? What administration? If anyone has dealt with bad school administrations in the ‘burbs or rural area – just try a poor urban community. And what about the quality of teachers? All you have to do to figure this out is to go to a teacher’s job fair in Chicago. The lines for the suburbs are out the door. For the North Side expect to wait an hour to speak to a representative from the school. For the South or West side of Chicago: wait time - zero minutes. It’s an area so desperate for good teachers, yet no one wants to work there.

Just as thousands of miles away education is an alternative to war, violence, gangs, and a life of terrorist groups, Three Cups of Tea provides a realistic alternative for those of us eager to make a difference in the U.S.. We don’t have to sentence our cities to a life of poverty, injustice, and violence. There are peaceful options, if we are brave enough to embrace them.

it really is an audacity of hope

There is something audacious about being hopeful in politics isn’t there? When it comes to politics the glass always seems to be half-empty. When we look to Washington or to our own state capital for leadership we end up with a lot of let-downs and are left unfulfilled. Politics always seem to be influenced by money not rights, power not needs, and that guy looming behind the scenes.

So, when I read Barack Obama’s book The Audacity of Hope I was pleasantly surprised by what else – hope. Unfortunately, I’m not certain it is a hope that everyone sees. Obama talks of health care for everyone, quality of education that is available for everyone and not just to those who can afford it. It seems strange to say that everyone doesn’t want such things as health care and education for everyone, but it is true. To make those things available to everyone it may take sacrifices from the haves to the have-nots. And what Americans hate the most is giving their hard-earned change to people who are poor (aka work less hard). How do you bring hope to the hopeless and appease the rich?

In the first half of Obama’s book he talks mostly of his platform and ideas that he stood by (and stands by) before he became president. The second half of the book is not about his platform directly, it is more about him. The chapters are based on faith, race, and his family. The faith chapter is probably the most intriguing in the book. Obama describes his faith story as a kid who grew up surrounded by a family of pluralistic ideas and faith. Eventually, during Obama’s time in Chicago as a community organizer he sees a different kind of Christianity. It is a Christianity that helps the poor, one that seeks justice, and one that fights for those rights. He finally embraces the religion on the streets of Chicago.

Obama also talks much about his struggles as a Christian and as a democratic politician. What over the years now has become the standard for Christians is to be republican and to uphold prolife rights no matter what other issues they may stand for. In reading this book, Obama describes wrestling with himself in debates and with voters wondering how they can be anti-life. You can tell that Barack is struggling with being pro-choice. Yet, probably on the same streets of Chicago where he found his faith, he probably saw the injustices of back-alley abortions, the history of racism of the inner-city that set the cornerstone for those abortions, and systemic racism that sets the laws in place today that keeps women from continuing to go to those allies. It is probably ironic for many people to see that Obama wants the same education for young people (including abstinence) to help stop abortions, but he holds the same value of life as pro-lifers.

In the book you can see the joys and adversities of a politician; the money that it takes to be a senator, the miles of driving and flying and being away from family. With adversity comes joy like when a law is put into place, or when a factory is re-opened. Hope is in the midst of a failing economy, a failing health-care program for all, and the possibility of quality education for all.

the forgotten cities of columbine

On the brink of the ten year reunion of Columbine, is gun violence in the United States any better? All cases point to no – but does anyone care?

Some of the latest school shootings have happened on college campuses. And some of the latest shootings happened in Pittsburgh, PA and Binghamton, NY. Many of these shooting don’t create chaos or panic in the United States. Many are just talked about for a couple days and then left hanging – others are left to tribute. On college campuses and in schools it has created more hysteria and controversy than any other type of gun murder. Every since Columbine, school shootings seem to get all of the attention. Yet, they are not a bulk of the murders. In the documentary Bowling for Columbine, the movie addresses the ease of accessibility of bullets and guns to kids (as well as people who should be denied a gun). And five years later at Virginia Tech people are blaming again the accessibility of guns.

Gun owners, the NRA, and the like refute that guns are the problem. In a world that is built on the idea of freedom, guns will never be restricted. But as advocates look at the destruction and death that befall the United States (and the world) they can’t help but think that accessibility is a problem. And yet, it is only a tip of the iceberg. Is it not?

In Chicago last year there were 510 murders. Chicago “beat” out both the larger cities of Los Angeles and New York City in murders in 2008. It’s a staggering number, no? The number is indicative of something far beyond guns: it is an issue of poverty, health care, racism, injustice. We’re not talking about the grand suburbs like Columbine. No, when we look at the cities at the top of the murder rate they are cities like Camden, Gary, Detroit, Flint, Compton, etcetera, that have been riddled with injustice. Cities left to fend for themselves, just trying to survive each day.

They are the cities that are forgotten. The cities whose murder rates are so high that people avoid even driving through that city, who avoid driving through that part of town. It is in the forgotten that schools and children are left to fend for themselves. It is the forgotten who are left without jobs not just in a bad economy, but in a thriving economy. It is the kind of place where families, businesses, and companies are there one day and paving a yellow brick road in the ‘burbs the next.

This is what we do though. As Rob Herbert writes in his article in the NYT,

“This is the American way. Since Sept. 11, 2001, when the country’s attention
understandably turned to terrorism, nearly 120,000 Americans have been killed in
non-terror homicides, most of them committed with guns. Think about it — 120,000
dead. That’s nearly 25 times the number of Americans killed in Iraq and
Afghanistan.”

When does it stop? When do we turn back to the places that were left behind because of the social issues at hand around the United States?

reality, far from it

Blah, blah, blah. With a quick search on Google of this song by Lilly Allen the same thing kept coming up: the buzz worthy, loaded statement “social commentary”. The phrase, although true to its form, is more thrown around encourage people to disregard the lyrics than to emphasize them as truth. While some of the language may not be seen as age appropriate for younger audiences, it is not unlike much of the content throughout the rest of the album. However, we are not talking about the rest of the album, just this song, and it has a lot of good tidbits that can (and should) be taught to young and old adults alike.

The lyrics - they aren’t going to solve all of life’s problems, but they sure do point out a few. First and foremost, the opening sentence about being rich and wanting lots of money. It seems to be everyone’s goal in life. And in the fourth paragraph it talks about film stars being more popular than mothers. There is no denying that. The song also addresses greed, shopping, human rights (diamond trade), nudity, the need for speed, plastic surgery, war, and murder.

The most important message I think this song send is in its title: The Fear. It’s an odd title for a song. And it is a little confusing (at least to me) because it is a blanket statement for something else – a life that convincingly looks like the American dream, but in reality is far from it, and like the lyrics, most people ‘don’t know what’s right and what’s real anymore.’

The fear
I want to be rich and I want lots of money
I don’t care about clever I don’t care about funny

I want loads of clothes and [many] loads of diamonds

I heard people die while they are trying to find them

I’ll take my clothes off and it will be shameless

‘Cuz everyone knows that’s how you get famous

I’ll look at the sun and I’ll look in the mirror

I’m on the right track yeah I’m on to a winner

I don’t know what’s right and what’s real anymore

I don’t know how I’m meant to feel anymore

When we think it will all become clear

‘Cuz I’m being taken over by The Fear

Life’s about film stars and less about mothers

It’s all about fast cars and passing each other

But it doesn’t matter cause I’m packing plastic

And that’s what makes my life so ******* fantastic

And I am a weapon of massive consumption

And its not my fault it’s how I’m programmed to function

I’ll look at the sun and I’ll look in the mirror

I’m on the right track yeah I’m on to a winner

I don’t know what’s right and what’s real anymore

I don’t know how I’m meant to feel anymore

When we think it will all become clear

‘Cuz I’m being taken over by The Fear

Forget about guns and forget ammunition Cause

I’m killing them all on my own little mission

Now I’m not a saint but I’m not a sinner

Now everything is cool as long as I’m getting thinner

I don’t know what’s right and what’s real anymore

I don’t know how I’m meant to feel anymore

When we think it will all become clear

‘Cause I’m being taken over by fear.

earth hour: turn out your lights

So, Earth Hour is tomorrow. It starts at 8:30 PM local time. What do you need to do? Turn off all your non-essential lights.

You’re thinking to yourself “But what am I going to do. I can’t see anything.” Although the Earth Hour website says it is okay to have your television or computer on I say turn them off, too. The point of Earth Hour is not to lower carbon footprints, as the website states, but to alert “those in a place of power that we as individuals and communities demand action [for climate change].” Well, although I get the symbolic emphasis of thousands and millions of people with their lights out, if the lights go out and there is still the television, a computer, video game, etc. still going on is it really showing anyone that you demand action for climate change? I say turn it all off.

What am I going to do for this hour?

Flash light tag
Candle lit dinner
Read by the fire or candle
Talk with your family or if you are by yourself, talk to yourself
Go to bed, get some extra sleep
Reenact colonial times by doing everything by candlelight
Write a letter
Make up a game in the dark
Look at the stars
Take an hour to be in silence

i could have done more

Someone at my office got laid off this week. In my own department no less. It is the first layoff where I work. I guess an impressive feat in an economy that is making every company struggle. It’s the first, but it won’t be the last. Intellectually I get it. It had to be done. The budget just cannot support the amount of people in the office. But my heart doesn’t get it - at all. Not surprisingly a movie comes to mind. This time it’s a movie based on a true story – Schindler’s List. If you don’t know anything about Schindler’s List or Oskar Schindler I recommend looking it up.

Toward the end of the movie Oskar, who saved nearly 1,200 people cried out: “I could have done more.” He takes off a pin on his suit coat and says “I could have sold this and saved another life”, and so on. In the end no one gets mad at Schindler for not doing more. He amazingly did more than anyone could ever imagine. He turned his business and his life upside down not for himself, his 401K, his stocks, but for people.

As an industrialist in Germany during the war, I am sure Schindler could have made thousands of dollars. Instead he sacrificed profits for life. Are companies doing this today? Are companies, top CEO’s, Presidents, and the like sacrificing profits for life? Are top bank officials from places like Citi giving up their half-million dollar bonuses to keep employees at their company? Are smaller companies doing the same? Are there any top executives taking pay cuts for the good of the company? Are we doing all we can be doing? Are we sacrificing for the sake of stocks and profits, or for lives and relationships?

in the midst of a crisis

In them midst of economic crisis there is something strange going on with the Church of the Brethren. Everyday now it seems like thousands of people are losing their jobs. Billion dollar companies are asking to be bailed out. People are losing their jobs, their money, their houses, their lives. Even in the midst of this we hear the stories about CEOs receiving million dollar bonuses with their companies imploding beneath them. There are the crooks on Wall Street swindling away millions of dollars from people and walking away ‘scott free’. What we don’t hear are the stories of giving.

And giving is what congregations of the Church of the Brethren are doing. With people and businesses beginning to think about how to save money and to cut costs, the Church of the Brethren at the beginning of 2009 began a matching grant opportunity for domestic hunger. Through support of two of the Church of the Brethren programs, Global Food Crisis Fund and Emergency Disaster Fund, allocated $50,000 to be matched towards food banks and pantries. Congregations could match up to $500.

Within the first four weeks of the grant the $50,000 has already been matched by over one hundred Church of the Brethren congregations. Congregations have come from large churches along with small churches. Youth groups have gotten involved. It has inspired churches to go beyond their limit for the love of others. Youth have encouraged their church by not leaving the church until $500 was raised to give to their local food bank. In total, congregations in twenty-one states have given over $75,000 with $50,000 that has been matched for a total of over $115,000.

The grant has been so successful and churches continue to send in requests that the Global Food Crisis Fund and Emergency Disaster Fund are working on creating another grant for $50,000 to continue to support local food banks and pantries.

The Church of the Brethren who has over a three-hundred year history continues to be a church rooted and devoted to peace in the United States and around the world. Although most of the denomination’s churches exist in Pennsylvania and Virginia, there are many spotted through the country.

For more info go to: www.brethren.org

the quarter problem: white privilege and the search for missio dei

I learned about the quarter problem today while at work. It’s a problem that plagues many of in the United States. In fact I find myself having the problem as well, and I bet you do too.

I’ve done one international mission trip in my life. I don’t intend to do another. The mission trip was great, don’t get me wrong. The trip was to one of the most beautiful best-kept secrets in Europe – Prague. I remember raising money to go on the two week expedition. Our church was going to help at a family and women’s shelter in Prague. We stayed onsite and during the two weeks there completed numerous projects. Many of the projects involved painting, construction, and renovation. We also did a couple of programs for the families that stayed at the shelter. The second part of the trip involved much sightseeing in Prague and visiting a castle forty-five minutes away. In the end I felt that the mission trip was more of a trip than a mission anything. After the two weeks we left Prague and went back to our normal lives.

Back to the quarter problem. The problem was described like this: My co-worker (let’s call him John) had a friend (let’s call him Jerry) while in seminary. Jerry described that he didn’t know what it felt like to be poor or homeless. So, he decided to leave his cushy apartment with all it’s things and heat, take a train downtown and live on the street for a couple of months. After a couple months on the street Jerry was talking with John and was describing the quarter problem to John. Jerry kept bringing up that he had this quarter problem.

John finally asked Jerry about the quarter problem. Jerry told John that although he was living on the street, at any moment he could pick up a quarter and go back to the life that he had before. He could go back to his warm apartment with its amenities. He could put on a suit, with his educational background, support system, and most importantly, his network and go back to his job. Jerry, although he was living on the street for two months, was not living on the street. He, unlike others, could pick up a quarter and go back to the life he had. He truly did not know what it was like to be homeless living on the streets, to be without an apartment, without support, without a network. Jerry’s invisible knapsack would always be full. And the people that he tried to know about on the street would always have an empty knapsack.

In the same way I learned in short-term missions that I have the quarter problem. After two weeks I can walk away. It’s an amazing idea to go to other countries and help the helpless. But like many of the depleted inner-cities of the Unites States it isn’t about problems, but about the assets in that community. That is why in most situations outside consultants that come into poor communities fail. And also why local asset based community development flourishes in poor communities.

In much of the same way we are saying, “Oh, those poor fill-in-the-blank! They need my help.” In a world where Malaria is easily treatable in Africa, where AIDS rips through the old and young alike, and poverty is poverty, people do need help. However, when I think about going over for a week to help out my fellow brothers and sisters, I have to ask: are they capable of doing the same job that I would go over for? Can they not build the same building? Can they not dig the same well for water? Could my money, my wealth, be put to better use? Are we forgetting about their assets? Is this real community when hierarchy is created between two different people? Is this really community when a power is asserted upon another? In the end there is a quarter problem. In the end I can choose to do or not do, I can choose to listen or not listen, I can choose to be in community or to not be.

today I march

If I was to aspire to follow after another human besides Jesus Christ it would MLK Jr. He’s a man that inspired a generation to rise up, to seek justice, to seek equality, to seek hope. On this day we cannot walk alone, we shall march ahead, and we cannot turn back1.

Tomorrow, an African American will be sworn into office as the President of the United States. There is no doubt that there have been great movements in equality since 1968, since 1900, since 1619. But there is no doubt that the dreams King hoped for us are not achieved yet. There is no doubt that the way of life that Jesus calls us to seek, and the people we are called to be, have not come into existence yet.

As a war wanders from Iraq into Afghanistan, I can’t help but think about the urban war that is going on in America: the inequality in education, housing, health care, and jobs. On these cold days the homeless seek warmth that the world is unable to give them. In Africa and other parts of the world diseases that are easily treatable cripple towns. We live in a land that does not seek a ‘beautiful symphony of brotherhood2.’ No, we live in a land of American dreams. But, the inequality of this dream is not Jesus’ dream, not King’s dream, and it is certainly not my dream. Nor do I think it is your dream. Today – march the march of freedom, march the march of equality, march the march of justice.

Be inspired today….


Be inspired tomorrow…