I gave a talk to the Sacred Heart Church Social Justice Committee in Oberlin, Ohio, this last week. Sacred Heart is one of 10 churches in Lorain County to sign onto the Intefaith Hospitality Network to help the homeless. I said our family had signed on too, metaphorically, by moving to the inner city of Cleveland to help. After the talk, a reporter from the Chronicle Telegram asked me more about this. I said we’ve set aside a “Christ Room” (Catholic Worker phrase) in our place to periodically help the homeless. Comical note: While stumping in downtown Oberlin, a woman noted the signage on our van, which in part reads: Back Road to the Whitehouse Tour. “Are you coming to my house?” She asked. Her name: Laura Whitehouse.
12/2/04
I gave a talk on Finding Common Ground in Politics at the Oberlin, Ohio, “Peace Potluck” tonight. During the Q & A period, people from the audience talked about their protests at the School of the Americas, their work to end the death penalty, their support of Christian Peacekeeper Teams… The energy to live out their faith was not only palpable, it was inspiring. When the subject of Iraq came up, Ed Horner suggested we follow the “Truth and Reconciliation” initiative that was so successful in South Africa in bringing about a peaceful end to Apartheid. Churches around the world twinned with churches in South Africa to provide humanitarian aid and to set up groups to teach about reconcilliation and forgiveness. It worked.
11/27/06
My daughter Sarah, 11, is reading: 25 Simple Things Kids Can Do To Save Energy (Earth Works Press). She read to me today that if every homeowner in the U.S. cut back their thermostat 6 degrees, we would save 570,000 barrels of oil a day. We’ve cut our heat back at home to 62 degrees, for Sarah’s generation’s sake. I recently told the Chronicle Telegram newspaper that I don’t want our children inheriting a world of global warming. Quip: How do “KEEP OFF THE GRASS” signs get there?
11/23/06
Thanksgiving Day: Last night our family went to a drop-in center for the homeless in Cleveland. While there, I met with Carl Cook who is the director of Project Save. It is an agency made up of former homeless people who now help those on the streets of Cleveland. Cook was homeless. He now directs the program, regularly speaks in schools and helps with a youth mentoring group. As I talked with him last night, I couldn’t help but think of the mythology of the phoenix: “Out of the ashes…” ‘Ohiocana’: A friend of mine, Paul Kapczuk, ran in Cleveland’s 25th annual, five-mile Turkey Trot. The numbers of his finishing time weren’t of particular note to Paul, however his race number was: 1620. The year, he pointed out, that the pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock. “Of all the numbers to get this day…,” Paul smiled.
11/19/06
Our family attended a prayer vigil/protest at an inner city church in Cleveland today. The protest is against the “School of the Americas” in Ft. Benning, Georgia, where it is purported that military from around the world are trained in abduction and torture techniques. The speaker was a man from Chile who was a political prisoner in that country in the 1970s. He said he was regularly tortured. He also said if it wasn’t for Amnesty International, he doubted he would have been released. Note: A couple years ago, I interviewed a Catholic high school teacher in Ocala, Florida, who was starting an Amnesty International Club at his school to raise student awareness about international atrocity.
11/18/06
I campaigned in Twinsburg, Ohio, today, passing out flyers, talking to people. One man said he lived in nearby Remindersville, Ohio. I told him to ‘remind’ everyone there that I was running. (Sorry.) ‘Ohiocana’ Note: Remindersville is reported to be the smallest village in Ohio.
11/17/06
I wrote a letter to the editor of several rural Ohio newspapers this week explaining about a “church farm” that we’d researched in Neola, Iowa, during Campaign 2000. An area farmer there left his 400-acre farm to St. Patrick’s Church. Every year farmers, and other members of St. Pat’s, pitch in to farm the land (complete with a Fall Harvest Party). The profits go to the church, and to the area needy. The profit the year we were there was approximately $73,000. In an essay for Farming Magazine, I wrote this is truly “a gift that keeps on giving.” For more on our agriculture position in general… Note: Speaking of letters to the editor… We are asking people to send supportive letters-to-the-editor of Ohio newspapers about the campaign, if you would.
11/15/06
I gave a talk to a prayer group at Immaculate Heart of Mary Church in Cuyahoga Falls last night. During the talk, I shared the following: While in the border town of Juarez, Mexico, we toured a slum that had 200,000 people living in cobbled together shacks with no running water, no electricity, little food… Kids were dying. Across the border was El Paso. It looked like heaven and hell, and El Paso isn’t even that affluent. I asked the American priest who was giving us the tour about his take on immigration policy. He pointed to Juarez. Then he pointed to El Paso. Then he pointed to the fence: “What do you think Jesus would do with the fence?” He asked. Note: For more on our position on Hispanic immigration….
11/14/06
I stumped at Donut Land in Brunswick, Ohio, yesterday. Brunswick’s Louann Keith noted that youth today are tremendously over-stimulated with cable television, with computer games… She said that growing up it wasn’t unusual for her and her friends to play a three-day running board game at someone’s home over a weekend. [Oh, where have you gone Norman Rockwell?]
11/13/06
On a campaign stop in Brecksville, Ohio, over the weekend, I talked with Rosemary and Norman Hannibal. Each year Norman celebrates his Birthday, as well as his: ‘Lifeday.’ Norman, who is extremely Pro-Life, said nine months before his Birthday every year — he celebrates this Lifeday. For years he worked at a blue collar position, but on this day he’d wear a tie that many would ask him about. In turn, it gave him the chance to explain.