Met with St. Bede’s Pastor David Tokarz in Montgomery, Alabama today. He said his church has recently established a Sister Church project with a Black Baptist Church in rural Hayneville, Alabama. It started when First Baptist Church sent out a financial plea for one of it’s congregation members. A mother of three was dying of Aids and the church was trying to move the family in with a grandmother in the area so there was a continuity after the mother passed. The money was needed to build an addition onto the grandmother’s home, and St. Bede’s rallied to help.
12/26/04
In Prattville, Alabama, I met with Gene Brown, Deputy Executive Director of the National Naval Enlisted Reserve Association. He said the biggest Veteran’s issue, in his opinion, is getting more health care benefits for those who have served. His organization supports the Naval Marine Corps and Coast Guard. He said he is quite concerned about recent cuts in Federal funding to help Veterans in general, and would like to see a significant shift back.
12/22/04
We headed south to Clanton, Alabama where we talked with Sr. Marie Dina, pastoral leader of Ressurection Church here. There are many Hispanics connected with the parish that are living below the poverty line. She said, however, the answer is not: “charity.” The answer is: social justice. That is, the gospel would call us not to just throw some short-term money at the poor; but rather the ‘haves’ must work stridently to help the ‘have-nots’ get better education, more mentoring help, more help for people to develop the God given talents they have… so that much more true equality is attained. Note: Sr. Marie is so intent on helping the poor here, she goes without heat in the rectory so the savings can go to help. “I just sleep under a lot of blankets,” she smiled.
12/19/04
Several entries back I wrote about an extremely alarming news report about the Netherlands allowing the killing of some new borns with serious physical maladies. Today in Irvington, Kentucky we met Ray Meredith whose daughter (who is a doctor in St. Louis) has adopted three children from other countries with physical and emotional disabilities. As an extension, Dr. Jennifer Ladage has established and directs the Foreign Adoption Clinic and Education Services (FACES) clinic in St. Louis. A team of doctors here provide medical help for foreign adopted children who are often plagued with malnutrition, dvelopmental problems, infectious diseases… Ray told us his daughter is a Christian and her desire to help primarily eminates from her spirituality. Note: At the Green Valley Restuarant in Irving there is a plaque on the wall that says: “Momma says there is not much to see in a small town, but what you hear makes up for it.”
12/18/04
We’re in Irvington, Kentucky where I met with Pastor Todd Edmundson of Lincoln Trail Christian Church. Pastor Edmundson graduated from Milligan College in Tennessee, and he explained one of the courses there is: “Christ in Culture.” He said professor Phil Kenneson there explains that many people have bought into American cultural beliefs without examining them much against true gospel (id, post_author, post_date, post_content, post_title, post_category, post_excerpt, post_status, comment_status, ping_status, post_password, post_name,to_ping, pinged, post_modified) VALUES. As an example, in a free market economy Pastor Edmundson explained people are oriented toward: productivity, power and a consumer mentality. “The rythm of life is about making your pay check bigger,” said the pastor. Yet the gospel message exhorts us not to chase money, power and material possessions; but rather to seek to be humble and of continual service to others. One translation: The gospel message would say: It’s not about saving for the new car with the better options; but rather about making do with less and taking the additional money to help the poor.
12/14/04
Traveled south to Adams County, Ohio where I talked with Harlen Plummer. He was in the Service for 27 years, is a past Department Commander of the of the local DAV Chapter, and regularly goes to Washington to lobby for better veteran’s benefits. And the benefits he’d like to see most is: more comprehensive ones for veterans returning with MS, TB, cancer… He said some of the cancer, for instance, is being caused by “depleted uranium,” which is used to coat bullets, missiles and other armor piercing munitions. That is, the depleted uranium is radiocative and is not only a threat to the soldiers who are handling it; but to countless civilians in Iraq. At a seminar last year on this, I learned that once one of these “hot” bullets or missiles pierce, say, a tank — the tank becomes radiocative (practically forever, because of the tremendously extended half-life of the uranium). As a result, little children playing on the abandoned tanks in Iraq (as just one example) are exposed to significant doses of radiation. In turn, the cancer rate in Iraq has increased tremendously among the general populace since the first Gulf War when depleted uranium was first used, it was pointed out at the seminar. In addition, as a natural biological progression in the general populace, birth defects have also increased significantly. What a tragic irony: We are currently fighting in Iraq over “weapons of mass destruction” that weren’t there; using, of all things, insidiously slow, long-term versions of weapons of mass destruction.
12/8/04
While at home, I do some part time handyman work to make ends meet. Today I was removing some wallpaper. And as I did, I mused a bit. There were three layers which needed to come off the wall: the outside paper, the paper backing, and the glue. As I worked, I saw this as a metaphor — for society. (Stay with me on this.) The wall I was working on was once a plain and simple wall, as our society once was plain and simple; and as the Amish, for instance, have chosen to continue to be. Then we started to layer the society with increasingly complex media entertainment systems, increasingly complex materialistic systems, increasingly complex technological systems… Each of these layers of systems, it would seem, has drawn us farther and farther away from: time with God, time with family, and time with community. Now, congruent to this metaphore, the print on the wall paper I was taking off today was rather ‘busy’ — as our society tends to be rather ‘busy’ with our almost frenetic participation (compulsive TV watching, driving everywhere, buying everything…) in the systems. So, some options: We can just slap on some more wall paper, with a somewhat less busy print (a bit less cable options, a bit less driving, a bit less shopping…); or, we can roll up our sleeves and go at intensively stripping the wall paper, the backing, and the glue off, getting to the bare wall (barest of (or no) TV watching, the barest (or no) driving, the barest of shopping, etc…) And once at the bare wall, we can either: start the whole layered wall papering process (addictive/compuslive behavior) up again; or — we could simply paint the wall white, or one of some other basic flat color. That’s what the College of Mary in Bismark, North Dakota did. On a campaign trip to North Dakota several years ago, we noticed all the walls, of all the college buildings at this particular school, were painted in a flat, and rather drab looking, sandstone color. We were told that was done by design, because: “It’s the people here who provide the color.” And wouldn’t it make more sense, spiritual sense, that people (family, community — and God, too) provide most of the “color” in our lives — not predominately the components of these inanimate systems? Note: I’m doing more handyman work tomorrow. Stay tuned.
12/6/04
We are readying to launch on a campaign tour of the Southeast to raise more awareness about the campaign and to look at rural poverty issues in Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, Georgia… It will be a 6,000 mile trip. We are trying to raise campaign donations as soon as possible for this. If you can help, please consider it: Schriner Presidential Election Committee, P.O. Box 15, Bluffton, Ohio 45817. Thank you.
12/1/04
An Associated Press article said today that a hospital in the Netherlands has recently proposed guidelines for mercy killings of terminally ill newborns (and other babies with serious physical maladies). What’s more, this hospital has already begun to carry out this form of euthanasia. This is clearly: wrong. In these cases, the baby should be allowed to live as long as possible. In addition, “Care Teams” should form around the baby and the family. A Care Team would consist of, say, extended family, neighbors, fellow church members… to work together to help the baby and the parents in as many ways as possible. And it is in this working together that the baby gets more help, people grow closer, and more love in general develops. So in the scheme of God’s permissable will (in this case, allowing the baby’s malady), there is the potential for all types of spiritual good to come about — if people are willing to stretch themselves. If we just terminate the life for the sake of our own convenience, no matter how we rationalize it otherwise (and this would not just be the parents negligence, but also all the others who could get involved with a Care Team, but don’t), haven’t we broken, not only the letter of the 5th Commandment, but also: the spirit of it? I think so.
11/25/04
I interviewed Chicago’s Carmen Kinglsey today. She was a member of Mennonite Volunteer Service in Chicago, and worked with the organization “Play for Peace.” She explained Chicago is quite segregated, white sections, black sections, hispanic sections… Play for Peace would coordinate high school students from each of these sections to work as teams that would oversee play projects in elementary schools. That is, elementary students in these various segregated zones would come together and the high school students would help coordinate “circle games,” games of tag, sports, and so on. The intent: to break down barriers. And some of it worked, said Carmen. Note: We propose a U.S. Department of Peace. And under this umbrella, we would try to promote similar intitiatives in cities across the country. Because peace, ultimately, ‘begins at home.’