A few weeks back, we were at Jubilee Partners Community in Comers, Georgia. (They’re mission is taking in refugees from all over the world.) While at Jubilee, I interviewed Don Mosley, 71, who is the co-founder of Jubilee. He was the Peace Corps Director in South Korea between 1967 and 1969. He’s helped start Habitat for Humanity Projects all over the world, and he is currently working with the Fuller Center for Housing, to establish clusters of low income housing in: North Korea. Mosley said he believes a key to building peace worldwide revolves around a lot more humanitarian outreach. Mosley said he has also worked closely with former President Carter on a number of humanitarian projects… An issue that is becoming alarming to Mosley is “environmental refugees.” He said this group’s numbers are starting to surpass war and other forms of political refugees. Mosley said because of climate change, there is more drought in arid regions, as well as more flooding in other regions. He also said refugee camps also become “incubators for terrorism.” That is, youth trapped in the often dead-end, abject poverty of a camp, are prime recruitment targets for terrorist groups. Mosley said he believes that one way to help stem this is that every church group in America should sponsor at least one family in a refugee camp. Note: “average Joe” T-shirt sighting in Decatur, Georgia, today… “If you’re not going to talk to your cat about catnip… who will?
death row and ‘Stations of the Cross’
For Good Friday, I went with a group for a prayer service in front of the State House in Atlanta. One t-shirt read: “Jesus was a victim of the death penalty.” The group leader this day, Calvin Kimbrough, said we were gathering in front of the State House because the legislation for Georgia’s Death Penalty law was crafted inside. (The group does a protest vigil here on the day of practically every execution.) Ed Weir has a ministry to those on death row in Georgia’s Jackson Prison. He said the first time he went there, upon entering, he was questioned by a guard — positioned high up in a 50 foot tower. “He was the receptionist,” Weir laughed (only sort of). He said once past this guard, he was led through an underground tunnel, past a series of heavy metal doors and finally into the room where the prisoner was. A prisoner who is confined to his cell for 23 hours a day. A prisoner who has little hope of ever seeing the outside again. “There is more to a person than the worst moments of their life,” Ed quoted Murphy Davis, co-founder of the Open Door Community here. Note: I also saw a very dramatic “Stations of the Cross” depiction today at the Open Door. It was a series of posters from around the world depicting each station. Some examples: For “Jesus carries his cross,” a Mayan father carries a small wooden casket on his back through the streets toward the cemetery. His son had just been killed in war-torn Guatemala… For “Simon helps Jesus,” two six-year-old South American boys push a heavy cart of rocks with the caption: “They bear each others’ burdens where children have no time for study or play…” And for “Jesus falls a third time,” there is a picture of a stick thin woman in India dying alone on the sidewalk below a shop window featuring expensive, pristine statues of Jesus. The caption: “When people ignore the true image of God in one another…” And so it will be today in ‘pristine’ churches with pristine statues across the country. People, many people, will go, will pray, will sing laments about Jesus’ death… and then give hardly a thought (much less any significant money or volunteer time) to help those dying without health care insurance; to help those dying of starvation in the Third World; to help those violently dying on the urban streets of America… It’s like we’ve bought into this ‘Hallmark Card’ version of Jesus, while the ‘true’ Jesus sleeps in the back alleys with the homeless. And we sleep in our comfortable beds next to the expensive, pristine cross on the wall. Note 2: Leo Chang comes to the Open Door Community for Holy Week from Memphis Theological Seminary every year. He goes out on the street for the week in solidarity with the homeless. Last year he was robbed at gun point. Undaunted, he’s back again this year. “I feel a call to be out here with the people who are poor,” he said to me. Note 3: The day I was homeless in the city, a group of us were discussing the Biblical scene where Jesus angrily turns over the tables in the temple. During a short talk at an Open Door service later that evening, I said if Jesus came back today to Atlanta, I believe he’d ‘turn over’ the huge Coca Cola sign shadowing Woodruff Park. They make non-nutritional beverages at a profit, while one sixth of the world doesn’t have access to clean drinking water. I said Jesus would then overturn the Georgia Pacific Lumber high rise just beyond the other end of the park. I said if GP is like so many other lumber companies these days, they rape the land without much of a second thought about environmental consciousness. Then… I said Jesus would probably come to our apartment in Cleveland, where he’d turn over the maybe a-little-too-nice kitchen table made of Georgia Pacific wood — spilling the Coca Cola can on top of the table in the process. We Americans are, indeed, complicit.
nuclear ‘omnicide’
I interviewed Ron Santoni this week. He has been a professor of philosophy for over 40 years at Denison University in Ohio. Professor Santoni, as he’s done for the past 10 years, was in Atlanta for Holy Week to help with outreach to the homeless. Professor Santoni is also involved with the group Concerned Philosophers for Peace. Professor Santoni has written extensively on any number of subjects, including war and peace. He said one of his group members coined the phraseology “omnicide” to describe what would happen to the earth if a full scale nuclear war happened. “It could well exterminate all of humankind,” said Professor Santoni. He said that nuclear weapons, of themselves, are actually immoral –whether they’re intentionally being launched, or not. By their very nature, he contends, they are “uncontrollable, unpredictable and subject to accidents.” We, too, believe this. What’s more, even if the nuclear missiles forever stay in their silos, America is, indeed, using the weapons. That is, we’re using them (at a cost of $50 billion a year) to protect ourselves, while the people Professor Santoni is helping on the streets of Atlanta continue to sleep in cardboard boxes below busy underpasses — and while Third World children continue to starve to death.
a ‘chasm’
I was ‘homeless’ in Atlanta today… I went out with a group of guys from the Open Door Community early this morning to stand in solidarity with the some 10,000 homeless people. We took no money, no food… and headed off to walk the streets of downtown Atlanta all day going to places where the homeless hang out. Our first stop was a downtown park in the shadows of sparkling high rise office buildings. Here I observed a number of homeless people being rousted for sleeping on the grass. Other homeless shuffled about trying to stay awake after, for many, a few (if any) hours of sleep under some church ground bushes, or makeshift tent camps below underpasses, or… For lunch we went to Our Lady of Lourdes Soup Kitchen where I got in a conversation with one of the fellow Open Door group members. We discussed college degrees. I had a degree in journalism. He got a Fulbright Scholarship to study philosophy in France and is a professor at a university in Ohio. Across the table from us was an African American homeless man with a mental problem. He spoke to himself in what could be described as gibberish throughout the meal. As the professor and I talked, I would periodically glance over at the other man thinking to myself what a tremendous social disparity (read: injustice) between our side of the table and his. Some might even refer to it in what could best be described (in Biblical terms) as a “chasm.” In the afternoon we walked about a rather rough area of the city, homeless people dotted the street corners. In mid-afternoon, we went to a worship service at the Common Ground drop-in center, an Episcopal Church outreach in the city. Today was Holy Thursday and there was the traditional washing of the feet. In this particular “church,” you couldn’t help but notice the tremendously dirty feet, gnarled toes, callouses… from all the walking and standing the homeless do each day. Part of Psalm 22 was read during the service. One line was “the poor will be satisfied.” I couldn’t help but think that the poor in Atlanta won’t be satisfied until us folks on this side of the “chasm” start sacrificing tremendously and using the money to set up solid, multi-tiered programs to not only get the homeless off the street, but into adequate housing, into quality mental health and job counseling, and into eduction programs to help them develop their God given talents… Anything other than this is a band aid approach to something that needs major surgery.
little children used as mine sweeps…
The week before last we were at Jubilee Partners looking at refugee issues. (Jubilee is a Christian community that takes in refugees from all over the world.) Besides the refugees, Jubilee has full time staff and volunteers. One of the regular volunteers is Ted Gaylord and his wife from Senaca Lake, New York. They are retired high school teachers who are active with social justice projects in their church and come to Jubilee each year for several months. Mr. Gaylord said to me that he has heard many heart wrenching refugee stories since he’s been coming here. For instance, he’s heard stories of little children being forced to walk out in front of rebel troops in the jungle — as “mine sweeps.” He’s heard first person accounts about the genocide in Rwanda, the genocide in the Sudan… Mr. Gaylord said being cloistered in a small white town in upstate New York can be quite a narrow experience. And volunteering at Jubilee has broadened his world view considerably.
retreats for the homeless…
I interviewed Don Beisswenger who is a retired professor of theology at Vanderbilt University. He now lives in Nashville, Tennessee, and is extremely active with various projects to help the homeless (and others on the margins) in that city. He said he taught about “practical theology” at Vanderbilt which, in part, means connecting the gospel message with the present in quite tangible ways. And Jesus was forever talking about helping the poor and so, well, that’s what professor Beisswenger does. Besides his extensive work in the city, professor Beisswenger also established the Penual Retreat Center in nearby rural Ashland City, Tennessee. It’s a retreat center, with a twist. He offers free getaways for the homeless — who are often perpetually trapped in the city. What’s more, if they want, the homeless can also work around the retreat center grounds during their stay — for pay. Note: Professor Beisswenger added that the prevailing climate in society is one of “charity” toward the poor. And he finds that tremendously one dimensional. That is, he said we should be looking at the systems that are keeping the poor, poor.
carrying his cross, literally
Our Jonathan and I came across a most fascinating man today in Atlanta. He had decided to ‘pick up his cross and follow Jesus,’ literally. On his shoulder was a heavy, 15 ft. long wooden cross, with a small wheel at it’s base. Josh Sarhan, 33, had left his home in Rogers, Arkansas, 37 days prior. Each day he walks, on average, some 15 miles. He witnesses to people about Jesus. Sarhan laments about the current state of the nation, saying we’ve become so tremendously “secular” and have pushed God out of so much of every day life. We have, in essence, become “a house divided.” (And he wasn’t talking about partisanship in the Congress.) Sarhan, who was involved with a Christian fellowship group in Arkansas, said he plans to walk 9,500 miles through the country in total. He said he left with no money, yet almost every time he stops at a restaurant someone will pay for the food (often anonymously). Or shortly after he pays for the food, someone comes up to him on the street and gives him money out of the blue. He also left with camping gear “…but I’ve never had to use it,” he smiled. Sarhan said each night someone either puts him up in their home, or give him money for a motel. “God always provides, it’s been amazing,” he added. Jonathan and I signed his cross. It’s filled with the signatures, and remarks, of those he’s met along the way.
And if all this isn’t bad enough…
We’re in Atlanta, Georgia, to look at urban poverty issues… Today we attended a presentation by Kevin Moran, a long-time social justice advocate. He, tongue in cheek, said the following were some Atlanta “Chamber of Commerce” figures. For instance, the fastest growing group of homeless people in Atlanta are: children under the age of nine. And Atlanta is the poorest city in the country for children. As an example, 48% of the children in Atlanta living below the poverty level — live in families with annual incomes of less than $15,000 a year. Moran also noted that the minimum wage in Georgia is $5.85 and hour, which yields $12,168 a year, before taxes. He said juxtapose this against the average two-bedroom apartment in the city, which would rent for $834 a month. Moran said when you do the math, you’d have to earn $16 an hour to afford one of these average apartments. Translated, all kinds of people here are living in tremendously substandard housing, or on the streets. Moran also noted that 40% of the homeless here are veterans. And if all this isn’t bad enough, Moran noted that the Georgia governor has recently proposed a 3% cut to social services statewide in order to work toward a balanced budget. Moran went to the capitol building, with a group of others yesterday, to adamantly protest this move. Note: Moran added that although we’re the wealthiest nation in the world, we have a wider gap between rich and poor than any other country. Note 2: A man in the audience said he grew up Black in one of the poorer areas of Atlanta. He said the only way out of his neighborhood for many kids was joining the military. So basically, he said, to escape the poverty cycle he had to get involved with killing, or be killed himself. He, ultimately, was sent on a tour of duty: to Vietnam.
shadowy stuff in Central America
I interviewed a man in Atlanta who was with the Special Forces. (He requested anonymity.) He said he was sent to a country in Central America during the Reagan era. He was there to train rebel troops in “jungle warfare.” He, and other Americans, were also there to run support on military operations. At one point, he was sent to scout a rural village for possible insurgence. After three days of observing, he determined there was no suspicious activity in the village. “They were just farmers and their families,” he said. However he continued that counter to his report, his commanding officer ordered the troops into the village. This, he said, would have meant the killing of many innocent civilians. He refused. The commander held a gun to his head. He still bravely refused. Eventually the commander backed off, and the operation didn’t go forward. This retired Special Forces operative told me he believed, on one level, that the commander would have written up the raid as a valiant victory to further his military career. On yet another level, he said he wouldn’t have been surprised if, in a shadowy way behind the scenes, that this was also tied to a covert “land grab” by corporate farming concerns in the country… Today is the anniversary of the death of Bishop Oscar Romero in El Salvador. He was killed in 1990 by foreign troops trained at the School of the Americas in Ft. Benning, Georgia… Our administration would work to close the School of the Americas, as it would work to avoid those ‘shadowy’ military operations in other countries to “protect of our interests.” Note: Today our family volunteered at a meal for the poor at an outreach in Atlanta. One of the guys I talked to is a ‘modern day hobo.’ Like in the days of old, he hops freight trains and takes them all over the country. Even though he romanticized the travel to a degree, reading between the lines (or between the tracks in this case), he seemed quite a restless soul.
a spiritual ‘no brainer’
We’re back in Atlanta, Georgia, continuing to look at urban poverty issues… Today I sat in on an excellent presentation by Nelia Kimbrough, a long-time social justice advocate in this city. (Ms. Kimbrough is on the staff at The Open Door Community here.) She described an insidiously steady progression of discrimination against the poor in Atlanta. She said while this was happening in phases (closing of homeless shelters, demolishing of low-income housing… it began happening in an accelerated fashion prior to the Olympics being held here in 1996. At one point, the city even offered one-way Greyhound bus tickets to anywhere in the country — to the homeless. Now there are only two winter homeless shelters in all of Atlanta and one of them (that houses 700 homeless) is on the verge of closing. Ms. Kimbrough pointed to a recent edition of The Atlanta Progessive News. An investigative piece in the paper chronicles alleged behind-the-scenes links between the Central Atlanta Progress, which represents business interests in the downtown area, and putting pressure on the shelter to close. Ms. Kimbrough said this is yet another saga of power and greed trying to trump basic human rights… Later today, I got in a conversation with a homeless man. I asked him if he knew about the possibility of the shelter closing and he said he did. I asked him if he knew much about the Central Atlanta Progress putting pressure on the shelter. He said he was just vaguely aware of the group, then paused. “Don’t they realize we’re people just like they’re people?” He mused. And more than even that… If you’re Christian, for instance, don’t we realize that our salvation hinges on how we treat these homeless people, and others on the margins of society? It’s kind of like a spiritual no brainer, if one is versed in :the gospel message.