devastation

Christina Colón 2-12-2018

Cars drive under a partially collapsed utility pole, after the island was hit by Hurricane Maria in September, in Naguabo, Puerto Rico October 20, 2017. REUTERS/Alvin Baez/File Photo

It’s been over four months now since Maria hit the island, and 1.36 million Puerto Ricans are still without power in what is being called the “longest and largest blackout in American history.” While they wait in literal darkness, my abuela sits in a memory one.

Joy Moore 6-04-2014

(Photographee.eu / Shutterstock)

THE CHILDHOOD UNDERSTANDING of the familiar tune about climbing Jacob’s ladder needs a reset. The Genesis narratives aren’t just about heaven—they yield epiphanies into the ordinary life of faith. The household of Abraham and Sarah, even in its ancient context, is atypical. In family dynamics, without the miraculous moments, epiphanies subvert our expectations of whom and what God can utilize to reveal the faithfulness of divine promises. Sometimes the testimony is evident in ordinary lives—even ours. You’ve heard it said, “Our greatest weakness is our strength.” The episodes in Jacob’s life provide sufficient demonstrations of how passions both energize and blind us: Passion or anger; leadership or arrogance; emotion or intuition; determination or stubbornness.

Despite Jacob’s inconsistencies, the second half of Genesis encompasses his story, as the son of Isaac, grandson of Abraham. Here we find an unfolding drama. Characters display human nature at its extremes: conniving relatives, loving couples; creative entrepreneurs, dishonest contractors. All, somehow, used by God to form a people with whom the Spirit so evidently abides.

Even when we go our own way, God’s purposes are not thwarted. The challenge for the church in this Pentecost season is to trust that God is planting seeds in good soil—and the seeds that won’t sprout also have a purpose in this garden. Remember that the actions of justice, grace, and faithfulness we practice at home are as much a witness to God as our public proclamations and protests.

Julie Polter 7-01-2013

(Judy Marie Stepanian / Shutterstock)

UNTIL RECENTLY, a company in New York City offered “a ride through a real New York City ‘ghetto’”—a $45 bus tour of the Bronx, reportedly patronized mainly by European and Australian tourists. One news report described the tour guide sharing lurid stories of crime and arson from the ’70s and ’80s, making insensitive comments about everything from local architectural landmarks to people waiting in line at a food pantry, and warning about the “pickpockets” in wait in a certain park. After an outcry from residents and officials, angry that the place they call home would be reduced to out-of-touch stereotypes, the tour company shut down in May.

That someone would even think of fleecing misguided tourists this way hints at the complicated, sometimes contradictory, role that cities play in our culture: In our collective imagination they represent both civilization’s pinnacle (arts, style, technology, intellectualism, innovation, industry, finance) and depravity’s depths (crime, corruption, exploitation, decadence, filth). For much of the 20th century, many people of means fled cities for the pastoral promise of the suburbs, while many a farm girl or boy dreamed of escaping to a city and tasting the bustle and thrill: “Until I saw your city lights, honey I was blind.”

And yet cities are not only symbols, but real and intricate places. Whether booming or busting, they shape and are shaped by the people in them. Both the built structures and the people of a city have stories to tell. But a fleeting tour-bus view with distorted narration can lead us down an alley with no exit.

Here are some different takes on the bright lights of the big city.

Jim Rice 2-11-2013

(spirit of america / Shutterstock)

HOW MANY NUCLEAR weapons make us "safe"?

At the height of the Cold War, both the U.S. and the Soviet Union had tens of thousands of nuclear warheads, aimed at each other's cities, towns, and military targets. Not many felt that the world was somehow made safe by this hair-trigger, apocalypse-risking standoff.

The Soviet Union is long gone, but the Cold War mentality that fueled the era's nuclear arms race seems to linger on. According to a December report by the Federation of American Scientists, the world's combined stockpile of nuclear warheads is still more than 17,000. Of these, the report continues, "some 4,300 warheads are considered operational, of which about 1,800 U.S. and Russian warheads are on high alert, ready for use on short notice."

President Obama, for his part, has laid out what he called his "vision of a world without nuclear weapons." In a speech last March in Seoul, South Korea, Obama said the goal of a nuclear-free world "would not be reached quickly, perhaps not in my lifetime," but that it must begin "with concrete steps." He continued, the "massive nuclear arsenal we inherited from the Cold War is poorly suited for today's threats," and "we can already say with confidence that we have more nuclear weapons than we need." (That could be considered a gross understatement, since the next leading nuclear threat—China—has only about 50 warheads on ICBMs that could reach the U.S.)

Steve Clemens 8-31-2011

Rose Berger from Sojourners magazine spoke to the hundreds of us gathered in Lafayette Park just before we processed to the fence surrounding the White House. She mentioned the irony of building a monument to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. by the powerful political forces who disregarded or dismissed his message during his lifetime -- we only honor him after he is safely dead. How ironic also that the dedication of the monument was postponed by the most recent example of significant climate change. Will evidence of climate change begin to also signal political change?

Rose called on us to take up the banner of the Living Spirit of Dr. King within ourselves and allow it to inspire us as we risked arrest by calling on President Obama to take a clear stand to help protect our environment and begin to make a U-turn from the climate change path we are traveling as a nation and culture. We are part of a two-week vigil and civil disobedience action calling the president to deny permission for building the proposed Keystone XL Pipeline from the environmentally devastating tar sands/oil shale development in Alberta, Canada to refineries in Texas.

Marie Dennis 8-24-2011

For the past 30 years, through my work with Maryknoll and Pax Christi International, I've come to know grassroots communities around the world in situations of war and poverty. My mission focus base been largely international, but people, were in the "center of my screen." The environment, I thought, would have to wait.

A few weeks ago, I went with two of my grandchildren, Lauren (10) and Bobby (9), to see the documentary Hubble, which is about NASA's final shuttle expedition to repair a a broken part of the Hubble telescope. We watched in awe at the spectacular photos of the expanding universe. What an amazing sense these photos give of our own location as humans who are part of a larger earth community, who are part of a cosmos with which our own future is inextricably linked.

Andrew Simpson 4-19-2011

One year after the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill, life has not returned to normal in the Gulf.

Anjali Cadambi 4-11-2011

Reverend Billy and the Church of Earthalujah! has pulled it off again, this time in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania.

Debra Dean Murphy 3-16-2011
As Americans were complaining about all the snow this winter, arguing about the http://thehill.com/blogs/on-the-money/budget/147615-senate-republicans-i..." ta
Rose Marie Berger 3-15-2011
The U.S. Navy reported today that it had detected low levels of airborne radiation at the Yokosuka and Atsugi bases, about 200 miles to the north of the Japan's Fukushima nuclear reactors.
Christine Sine 3-14-2011

The earthquake and tsunami in Japan has left many of us reeling, particularly as it came so soon after the earthquake in Christchurch, New Zealand. We are overwhelmed by the devastation and the helplessness we all feel to respond. So how do we pray for those who are suffering and for those who have died? It is not easy and anything that we can say seems inadequate. Here is what came to my mind this afternoon as I was praying for the people of Japan and remembered again those in Christchurch, and Libya, Yemen, the Ivory Coast, and the many other places of unrest in our world

the Web Editors 3-14-2011
Lord, we pray that you bless our president and members of Congress with wisdom and right judgment.
Brian McLaren 9-29-2010
What a great year for books. I've been enjoying some new ones and some old ones lately. Here are a few in various categories.

Jim Wallis 7-07-2010
Editor's note: Jim Wallis is on a tour of the Gulf Coast with an interfaith group of leaders sponsored by the Sierra Club.
Arthur Waskow 5-05-2010
An oil rig exploded into fire, and a huge oil spill -- perhaps the biggest in history -- is spreading across the Gulf of Mexico and will soon wreak both ecological and economic devastation on the
Martha St. Jean 2-15-2010
One month later rain pours into the streets of Port-au-Prince.
Jacqueline Klamer 2-12-2010
Three days after a 7.0 earthquake rocked their city, hundreds of Haitians returned to work at SPIA, one of the largest pasta production companies in the country.
Juliana Schnur 1-22-2010
While the recent crisis in Haiti has spurred many Americans to action -- through donations, public service, humanitarian aid, etc.
Minyon Moore 1-21-2010
We landed in Haiti about five hours ago. It has been approximately a week after the major earthquake struck this country.