1. Do you have a blog focusing on your faith? Let us know.
2. Would you like to be considered to be a regular contributor to the Beatitudes Blog? Let us know.
3. Do you have favorite faith based blogs that we should know about, link to, learn from? Let us know.
The daily news round up from Faith in Public Life delivered an interesting piece today, a call for a culture war truce issued by an evangelical and a progressive Christian.
David Gushee, the evangelical, and Rachel Laser, the progressive, offer a footing on common ground on that issue that's divided too many for too long, abortion.
Check it out here.
My major project at Protestants for the Common Good this summer is to help develop a curriculum on Faith and Global Warming for use with local churches. Right from the start, I was struck with how little I actually knew about global warming! I understood some of the basics, like: producing carbon dioxide and putting it into the atmosphere is a BAD thing. But, I really didn’t have a full appreciation for the delicate balance of creation which holds us all or the extent to which this balance is being altered by human activity. Neither did I realize the devastating impact that global warming is currently having on people around the world, especially the poor. Like many, I had a tendency to view it as a future threat, one step removed from more immediate concerns.
Today’s reading in the lectionary cycle, a few short verses away from yesterday’s reading in Matthew’s Gospel, offers interesting perspective to our debate. Jesus addresses the religious authorities of his day: “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices–mint, dill and cummin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law–justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former” (23:23). Here in this statement, works of mercy are linked closely with works of justice. To be faithful to God, justice and mercy are both necessary actions. So, as we consider this question of which is more important—which is the greatest—a merciful ministry of direct service or a prophetic ministry of social justice, perhaps we find a flaw in the question itself. In my case, as an intern with Interfaith Worker Justice, focusing on economic justice issues, perhaps it is my place to educate the religious community about the links between poverty and the plight of the low wage worker: that by enabling the worker to organize through labor unions, they are able to gain access to affordable health care, a just wage, and safe working conditions, and break free from the shackles of poverty that seek to oppress our sisters and brothers. All humans have a right to dignity. So, yes, we must feed and shelter those in need, but we must also address the root causes of poverty in our world that keep people hungry and without shelter. Perhaps this is why the next line in the Baptismal Covenant is “will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being”(305).
I hope you enjoyed the clip from the Parliament. (The link was sent in the last blog.) Brenda Bos and I have been enjoying our work here at the Council for a Parliament of the World's Religions. Sometimes pictures can tell the story more than words. If you haven't had a chance to visit the web-site, you may want to take a look at www.cpwr.org.
Advancing our efforts for social change can take on many shapes and dimensions. The Parliament is one vehicle for changing social constructions around religious difference. It's a blessing to see the commitment represented by all our organizations.
The Episcopal Church, as do other denominations, has a daily office lectionary cycle, so that the gathered Body of Christ once dispersed out into the world can join together in reading the scriptures in community with one another. A significant part of my spiritual practice for many years now has been to read scripture daily. In today’s reading from the Gospel according to Matthew, there was one line in particular that leapt from the page as I read: “the greatest among you will be your servant” (23:11). There is a lot of wonderful material written these days about the ministry of servanthood, the servant church, and the servant God. The ministry of deacon holds up this image of servant quite clearly in many of our mainline traditions. For twenty years now, I have been involved in servant ministry that brought me direct connection with others and provided me with opportunities to, as the Book of Common Prayer’s Baptismal Covenant reads, “seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself” (305). These opportunities to serve and enter into relationship with others, are for me as much opportunities to worship as coming before the altar for communion. It is in these exchanges that I experience the incarnate God in the world and feel connection with my sisters and brothers. It is a spiritual discipline to seek the face of Christ in those I am called to serve and be in community with. It is an act of worshiping the living God who is at work in the world through each of us.
...between a society where people accept modest sacrifices for a common good or a more contentious society where group selfishly protect their own benefits." (Newsweek columnist Robert J. Samuelson)
Protestants for the Common Good (PCG) was founded in 1995 out of a concern that groups from the Christian Political Right (e.g. the Christian Coalition) were portraying themselves as speaking on behalf of ALL Christians on matters of public policy. As a Christian and as a social worker, I had already begun to grapple with these issues on my own. I still remember receiving PCG’s initial mailing, sending in my small contribution, and being grateful that there was an organization ready to serve as a resource for people like me! Twelve years later, here I am, serving PCG as a Beatitudes Summer Fellow.
A few days ago, I stood in my first bread line. Glide Memorial Church, my Beatitudes Society Summer Fellowship site, serves over 2,000 meals a day, 364 days a year. Serving 700,000 meals annually requires a stream-lined operation and Glide has been placing me in all the different positions that contribute to this gargantuan endeavor. I have been placed in the dining room, the kitchen, the hallways where people wait, the line outside where people receive their meal tickets, the ticket collection area, and so on. What I did not expect was to be placed in the line itself.
I had interacted with the food line before, but I’d always had a job to do and never had the time to really take in the atmosphere, the sensory stimuli, or the faces and words and ways of waiting of the people. Now I had the time. In fact, that was all that I had. There was nothing to do but wait and look around and hope that the line would move a little quicker because I was getting hungry and I heard someone say that they would only be serving for 20 more minutes. On the other side of the street there were drug deals going down. On the wall to my left someone had scrawled, “Crack smokes you.” At one point a very thin woman in line bent over and put her hands on the ground and began shaking her whole body. A man in line blurted out, “What’s she doing?!” and seemed ready to make some fun out of this. But, before he had the chance, another woman in line shouted back at him: “She’s wigglin’” (subtext: “lay off her, she wouldn’t be doing this if she didn’t need to”). I’ve gotten used to a lot of the smells that arose from the line, but at one point the line was stopped for in one place for a while and a few minutes into the pause I realized that I could hardly breathe. That is when I looked down and noticed a large pile of feces (probably human) on the ground a foot from my shoe. I tried to be strong and not let it bother me, but by the time the line finally moved (at least 5 minutes later) I had begun wondering if I was going to pass out or have to quit the line.
sorry, but the GAP Fire above Santa Barbara has this preacher evacuated from home for the time being. Keep good thoughts for all the folks working on this fire--as well as all the wildfires raging these days-- and all of us hoping to see our homes again. Anne
This summer, we (Parliament interns and employees) were was asked to read Diana Eck’s book, Encountering God. My favorite chapters was entitled Attention to God because it best describes my process within this placement. The Council for a Parliament for the World’s Religions has been one of the richest experiences I’ve had in seminary. Meeting and speaking with people of different faiths as well as my own, has opened my eyes to a larger world. How might we begin to integrate our class work, spiritual and religious lives into the real world?
Perhaps one of the key benefits of a summer internship with the Beatitudes is that these fellowships offer a type of “work release” program for seminarians who, like me, have been buried in the library. The Parliament has become my transitional space back into the real world.
Strengthening the progressive Christian network for justice, compassion, & peace
LOGIN | PRIVACY | SITE CREDITS | CONTACT
© Copyright 2006. Some Rights reserved.
