Faith and Politics
If our usual response to an annoying situation is a curse, we're likely to meet emergencies with a curse. In the little events of daily living we have the opportunity to condition our reflexes, which are built up out of ordinary things.
- Madeleine L'Engle
from The Irrational Season
The rhythm of life for a kingdom dweller puts chronos in service of kairos, the cyclical in service of the directional, the calendar in service of the kingdom. ... As we submit our anarchy to a rhythm, in a sort of earthy, mystical way, all of life is lived lucidly, intentionally, and to the glory of God. Every washing becomes a baptism; every eating a Communion. Every sleeping becomes a dying; every rising a resurrection.
- Kenneth Gottman
from Ministry and Mission
Covering the Daily Digest while Duane Shank is taking a much-deserved long weekend, I read this chilling report of Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe's threats against the Catholic bishops in his country:
Once [the bishops] turn political, we regard them as no longer spiritual and our relations with them would be conducted as if we are dealing with political entities and this is quite a dangerous path they have chosen for themselves.
Covering the Daily Digest while Duane Shank is taking a much-deserved long weekend, I read this chilling report of Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe's threats against the Catholic bishops in his country:
Once [the bishops] turn political, we regard them as no longer spiritual and our relations with them would be conducted as if we are dealing with political entities and this is quite a dangerous path they have chosen for themselves.
Therefore, somehow, we have to learn to get our satisfaction and our joy in faithfulness and in our intimate relationship with Christ. Then the question of effectiveness and success, in the usual sense of those terms is not the issue. We can transcend that and get energized and nourished by faithfulness knowing we are doing what we must do to live- not what we must do to change the neighborhood. The constant struggle is the deepening of faith that enables us to really trust that somehow the [...]
For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body- Jews or Greeks, slaves or free- and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.
- 1 Corinthians 12:12-13
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Living God, you want us to have hearts that are completely simple, to the point that the complicated things in life do not bring us to a halt. Through the Holy Spirit, the spirit of the Risen Christ, you come to open a way for us, a way that is possible; on it we understand that you love us first, before we loved you.
- Brother Roger of Taize
from Life from Within
Time's Joe Klein makes some interesting observations about Arkansas Governor and Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee ("a political inconvenience, a destroyer of stereotypes"), asking whether or not "compassionate conservatism" is dead, and if poverty has a place on the Republican agenda:
In 2000, George [...]
At present, however, I am going to Jerusalem in a ministry to the saints; for Macedonia and Achaia have been pleased to share their resources with the poor among the saints at Jerusalem. They were pleased to do this, and indeed they owe it to them; for if the Gentiles have come to share in their spiritual blessings, they ought also to be of service to them in material things.
- Romans 15:25-27
At present, however, I am going to Jerusalem in a ministry to the saints; for Macedonia and Achaia have been pleased to share their resources with the poor among the saints at Jerusalem. They were pleased to do this, and indeed they owe it to them; for if the Gentiles have come to share in their spiritual blessings, they ought also to be of service to them in material things.
- Romans 15:25-27
Four years after George W. Bush landed on an aircraft carrier and declared victory in Iraq in front of a banner that said, "Mission Accomplished," spoken word artist Steven Connell asks what has and hasn't been accomplished. Steven has teamed up with Robert Greenwald (Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Prices and Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers) to produce a video promoting both a contest to decide what should go on that infamous banner, as well as reminding Americans about the [...]
If I cannot listen to all of life, then any part that I do hear will be only partial or distorted. If I am listening only in chapel, if I am listening only to my peers, if I am listening only to my profession, if I am listening only to my routine, then I have cut out the poor, the children, the needy, the holy where it is calling me to be present.
- Joan Chittister
from Alive Now! July/August 1994
Ah, you who make iniquitous decrees, who write oppressive statutes, to turn aside the needy from justice and to rob the poor of my people of their right, that widows may be your spoil, and that you may make the orphans your prey! What will you do on the day of punishment, in the calamity that will come from far away? To whom will you flee for help, and where will you leave your wealth, so as not to crouch among the prisoners or fall among the slain? For all this [God's] anger has not turned [...]
It is not what happens to us in any day that gives content to our lives, but whether or not we let its experience sink into us. ... It is one of the highest powers given to anyone. In reflection I come upon feelings that I had been too afraid to experience in the moment. In the quiet of reflection I take the risk and the time to let censored thoughts as well as feelings into consciousness, to discover what is causing the uneasiness in me.
- Elizabeth O'Connor
from Cry Pain, [...]
It is not what happens to us in any day that gives content to our lives, but whether or not we let its experience sink into us. ... It is one of the highest powers given to anyone. In reflection I come upon feelings that I had been too afraid to experience in the moment. In the quiet of reflection I take the risk and the time to let censored thoughts as well as feelings into consciousness, to discover what is causing the uneasiness in me.
- Elizabeth O'Connor
from Cry Pain, [...]
Bill Moyers Journal aired a great program Wednesday night called "Buying the War," a commentary asking how the mainstream press got Iraq and the question about WMDs so wrong in the lead-up to the 2003 invasion. You can
I know your works; you are neither cold nor hot. I wish that you were either cold or hot. So, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I am about to spit you out of my mouth. For you say, "I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing." You do not realize that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked.
- Revelation 3:15-17
Water ... has an enormous range of meanings for us as human beings. Our bodies are mostly water, and our thirst reminds us to replenish that water. We are born from the waters of the womb, and something about a pool draws us to plunge back into it and covers ourselves. But if we stay under for too long, it means death. Coming up to the surface and breathing again is almost like being reborn. ... Water washes us clean and makes us feel fresh and new again. Baptism takes - and adds to - all these [...]
Have they no knowledge, all the evildoers who eat up my people as they eat bread, and do not call upon the Lord? There they shall be in great terror, for God is with the company of the righteous. You would confound the plans of the poor, but the Lord is their refuge.
- Psalms 14:4-6
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Have they no knowledge, all the evildoers who eat up my people as they eat bread, and do not call upon the Lord? There they shall be in great terror, for God is with the company of the righteous. You would confound the plans of the poor, but the Lord is their refuge.
- Psalms 14:4-6
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