Rod Romney: Gems of wisdom on violence and peace

The following excerpts are from a recent address by Rev. Dr. Rod Romney to an audience at the University of Idaho. To read the full text, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/ group/revrickm/message/610

Jesus said if someone strikes you on one cheek turn to him the other also. By so doing you are not inviting someone to hit you again. You are letting him know that you are basically uninjured and that you refuse to be unfairly treated. You refuse to be either a victim or a victimizer, for you know yourself to be both worthy and lovable. Thus you step out of the circle of fear into the circle of love. The way of love and gratitude is the most difficult choice you will ever make, for it goes against every instinct and against much of what you have been taught to believe. But once you understand that love calls for neither submission nor revolt, just acceptance and hope, then you begin to look for what the way of nonviolent love requires.

Walter Wink, a Christian writer, in his book, "Jesus and Nonviolence," points out the three choices we have in every conflict we face. Fight is where we choose armed revolt, violent rebellion, retaliation and revenge. Flight is the way of submission, passivity, withdrawal and surrender. The third way, which Jesus suggests, is Loving Nonviolence. This way offers a creative alternative to violence. You assert your dignity as a person, you meet the situation with ridicule or humor, you break the cycle of humiliation, and you recognize your own power in being willing to suffer and grow rather than to retaliate and wither. You thereby force your oppressors to see you in a new light by depriving them of a situation where force would be effective. Imagine what would happen if individuals and nations would turn to this third way as a method for settling disputes, instead of killing each other, as we are currently doing in Iraq.

A young man from my church in Seattle said to me once (after I had preached a sermon on nonviolence during the Persian Gulf War), "What you have presented looks impossible; you are advising us to let others run over us and destroy us." "No," I answered, "that's not what I am asking us to do. I am asking us to look for a third way, a way that would transform violence into love and seek a just peace in this world." He replied, "But that would accomplish nothing." To which I answered, "And exactly what does war accomplish, other than the incredible loss of thousands of lives and greater destruction to this planet earth?" He shook his head and walked away.

There has to be another way besides fight or flight. We need dedicated young people to find that way. Wars are usually declared by old men for two purposes: power and profit. Since these old men don't have to fight the wars they declare, they have to be fought by young men and women, who did not create them in the first place, but who are made to believe it is their sacred duty to defend their country.

What if groups of young people in our colleges and universities would covenant together to explore the viability of a third way, the way of nonviolence? Might not a new way then appear that would take us out of the endless shadow of war and away from the position of pro-death that so many in our world seem to embrace. War has now become almost obsolete, especially with the kinds of weapons that have been developed which could obliterate entire nations. If we could devote our time, energy and creative expertise toward building peace and understanding and expressing gratitude and hope, the world we would leave to our children would be a far better and safer place than it is today.
...

A few years ago, shortly after I retired, I was
invited to be a guest speaker at a church in Seattle and was given the title: If I Had Only One Sermon to Give. It was the first time since high school days, when I was told to speak on the US constitution and what it means to me, that I had been given the title for a talk I was to give. I found the idea intriguing, but for days I was unable to decide exactly what I would preach about if I had only one sermon to give. Then in the early morning hours, that time when we hover between sleeping and waking, I had a dream that a man came and stood by my bedside and gave me the three points for the sermon. Now we know that dreams are the activity of our subconscious, and we also know that wisdom we have hidden inside ourselves is often revealed in that way. Perhaps it is also a way by which God speaks to us. At any rate, here are the three points that were given to me in that dream.

(1) You are deeply loved and freely forgiven, you always have been and you always will be. (2) You are here primarily to love and to be a caretaker of yourself, of others, and the world. (3) You are one with everything that is. No one is special, because everyone is, and no one is separate because everyone and everything is connected, parts of one great cosmic family. These are the basic truths of life. Live by them and share them, and you will fulfill what you came here to do. Tat Twan Asi.

I have preached several sermons and given a number of talks since then, but I keep returning again and again to those three points. I am grateful they were given to me, and each time I remember them, I am filled with hope. But what about those strange sounding words at the end, Tat Twan Asi?

This _expression, Tat Twan Asi, is found in the Sanskrit, a Hindu sacred writing four thousand years old. It literally translates, "that thou art," and it means, "There is only God, and you are that." You are not the small self you think yourself to be. You are the limitless consciousness that is the truth in all. You are the word of God to the age in which you live. You are God's love, God's justice, God's peace. There is only God, and that thou art.

Many of us have been taught to believe that God is a being outside ourselves who will help us only if we live good and faithful lives. But what if who God is and what God wants to do depends on us, on each one of us? What if there is only as much God in this world as we are willing to express? If we believe that to be true, should we not then live more responsibly, more graciously, more tenderly, and more lovingly to all people, to all creation? Perhaps that is what the kingdom of heaven really means. When people are as loving and forgiving to one another as they want God to be them, perhaps only then will the new world be born that we have all been longing to see.

Meanwhile, as my granddad used to say to us when we lived on the farm, Ya still gotta chop wood and carry water. We still have much work to do. So let us give thanks for what has been. Let us hold in our hearts a bright and imperishable hope for what is yet to be. And let us work tirelessly to be the truth, the love, and the peace of God on this beautiful earth.

[From "Thanks for What Has Been; Hope for What Will Be," by Rev. Dr. Rodney R. Romney, delivered at University of Idaho 75th Anniversary of Christian Student Center, Moscow, Idaho; September 17, 2005]

[+] Whose Moral Values Are These Anyhow? ...

[from a sermon entitled "What Are Moral Values?]
by Rev. Dr. Robin Meyers
Mayflower Church, Oklahoma City

As some of you know, I am minister of Mayflower Congregational Church in Oklahoma City, a church in northwest Oklahoma City, and professor of Rhetoric at Oklahoma City University. But you would most likely have encountered me on the pages of the Oklahoma Gazette, where I have been a columnist for six years, and hold the record for the most number of angry letters to the editor. Tonight, I join ranks of those who are angry, because I have watched as the faith I love has been taken over by those who claim to speak for Jesus, but whose actions are anything but Christian.

We've heard a lot lately about so-called "moral values" as having swung the election to President Bush. Well, I'm a great believer in moral values, but we need to have a discussion, all over this country, about exactly what constitutes a moral value -- I mean what are we talking about? Because we don't get to make them up as we go along, especially not if we are people of faith. We have an inherited tradition of what is right and wrong, and moral is as moral does. Let me give you just a few of the reasons why I take issue with those in power who claim moral values are on their side:

When you start a war on false pretenses, and then act as if your deceptions are justified because you are doing God's will, and that your critics are either unpatriotic or lacking in faith, there are some of us who have given our lives to teaching and preaching the faith who believe that this is not only not moral, but immoral.

When you live in a country that has established international rules for waging a just war, build the United Nations on your own soil to enforce them, and then arrogantly break the very rules you set down for the rest of the world, you are doing something immoral.

When you claim that Jesus is the Lord of your life, and yet fail to acknowledge that your policies ignore his essential teaching, or turn them on their head (you know, Sermon on the Mount stuff like that we must never return violence for violence and that those who live by the sword will die by the sword), you are doing something immoral.

When you act as if the lives of Iraqi civilians are not as important as the lives of American soldiers, and refuse to even count them, you are doing something immoral.

When you find a way to avoid combat in Vietnam, and then question the patriotism of someone who volunteered to fight, and came home a hero, you are doing something immoral.

When you ignore the fundamental teachings of the gospel, which says that the way the strong treat the weak is the ultimate ethical test, by giving tax breaks to the wealthiest among us so the strong will get stronger and the weak will get weaker, you are doing something immoral.

When you wink at the torture of prisoners, and deprive so-called "enemy combatants" of the rules of the Geneva Conventions, which your own country helped to establish and insists that other countries follow, you are doing something immoral.

When you claim that the world can be divided up into the good guys and the evil doers, slice up your own nation into those who are with you, or with the terrorists -- and then launch a war which enriches your own friends and seizes control of the oil to which we are addicted, instead of helping us to kick the habit, you are doing something immoral.

When you fail to veto a single spending bill, but ask us to pay for a war with no exit strategy and no end in sight, creating an enormous deficit that hangs like a great millstone around the necks of our children, you are doing something immoral.

When you cause most of the rest of the world to hate a country that was once the most loved country in the world, and act like it doesn't matter what others think of us, only what God thinks of you, you have done something immoral.

When you use hatred of homosexuals as a wedge issue to turn out record numbers of evangelical voters, and use the Constitution as a tool of discrimination, you are doing something immoral.

When you favor the death penalty, and yet claim to be a follower of Jesus, who said an eye for an eye was the old way, not the way of the kingdom, you are doing something immoral.

When you dismantle countless environmental laws designed to protect the earth which is God's gift to us all, so that the corporations that bought you and paid for your favors will make higher profits while our children breathe dirty air and live in a toxic world, you have done something immoral. The earth belongs to the Lord, not Halliburton.

When you claim that our God is bigger than their God, and that our killing is righteous, while theirs is evil, we have begun to resemble the enemy we claim to be fighting, and that is immoral. We have met the enemy, and the enemy is us.

When you tell people that you intend to run and govern as a "compassionate conservative," using the word which is the essence of all religious faith -- compassion, and then show no compassion for anyone who disagrees with you, and no patience with those who cry to you for help, you are doing something immoral.

When you talk about Jesus constantly, who was a healer of the sick, but do nothing to make sure that anyone who is sick can go to see a doctor, even if she doesn't have a penny in her pocket, you are doing something immoral.

When you put judges on the bench who are racist, and will set women back a hundred years, and when you surround yourself with preachers who say gays ought to be killed, you are doing something immoral.

I'm tired of people thinking that because I'm a Christian, I must be a supporter of President Bush, or that because I favor civil rights and gay rights I must not be a person of faith. I'm tired of people saying that I can't support the troops but oppose the war.

I heard that when I was your age, when the Vietnam war was raging. We knew that that war was wrong, and you know that this war is wrong -- the only question is how many people are going to die before these make-believe Christians are removed from power?

This country is bankrupt. The war is morally bankrupt. The claim of this administration to be Christian is bankrupt. And the only people who can turn things around are people like you--young people who are just beginning to wake up to what is happening to them. It's your country to take back. It's your faith to take back. It's your future to take back.

Don't be afraid to speak out. Don't back down when your friends begin to tell you that the cause is righteous and that the flag should be wrapped around the cross, while the rest of us keep our mouths shut. Real Christians take chances for peace. So do real Jews, and real Muslims, and real Hindus, and real Buddhists--so do all the faith traditions of the world at their heart believe one thing: life is precious. Every human being is precious. Arrogance is the opposite of faith. Greed is the opposite of charity. And believing that one has never made a mistake is the mark of a deluded man, not a man of faith. And war -- war is the greatest failure of the human race -- and thus the greatest failure of faith.

There's an old rock and roll song, whose lyrics say it all: War, what is it good for? absolutely nothing. And what is the dream of the prophets? That we should study war no more, that we should beat our swords into plowshares and our spears into pruning hooks. Who would Jesus bomb, indeed?

How many wars does it take to know that too many people have died? What if they gave a war and nobody came? Maybe one day we will find out.

Time to march again my friends. Time to commit acts of civil disobedience. Time to sing, and to pray, and refuse to participate in the madness.

http://www.mayflowerucc.org/

[Thanks to David Enroth (Sky) for forwarding this article.]

Dalai Lama speaks out in support of religious respect for science

'The Universe in a Single Atom': Reason and Faith

 

By GEORGE JOHNSON

Published: September 18, 2005

It's been a brutal season in the culture wars with both the White House and a prominent Catholic cardinal speaking out in favor of creationist superstition, while public schools and even natural history museums shy away from teaching evolutionary science. When I picked up the Dalai Lama's new book, "The Universe in a Single Atom: The Convergence of Science and Spirituality," I feared that His Holiness, the leader of Tibetan Buddhism, was adding to the confusion between reason and faith.

Roberto Dutesco

The 14th Dalai Lama, born in northeastern Tibet on July 6, 1935.

 

THE UNIVERSE IN A SINGLE ATOM
The Convergence of Science and Spirituality.
By the Dalai Lama.
216 pp. Morgan Road Books
Forum: Book News and Reviews

It was his subtitle that bothered me. Spirituality is about the ineffable and unprovable, science about the physical world of demonstrable fact. Faced with two such contradictory enterprises, divergence would be a better goal. The last thing anyone needs is another attempt to contort biology to fit a particular religion or to use cosmology to prove the existence of God.

But this book offers something wiser: a compassionate and clearheaded account by a religious leader who not only respects science but, for the most part, embraces it. "If scientific analysis were conclusively to demonstrate certain claims in Buddhism to be false, then we must accept the findings of science and abandon those claims," he writes. No one who wants to understand the world "can ignore the basic insights of theories as key as evolution, relativity and quantum mechanics."

That is an extraordinary concession compared with the Christian apologias that dominate conferences devoted to reconciling science and religion. The "dialogues" implicitly begin with nonnegotiables - "Given that Jesus died on the cross and was bodily resurrected into heaven. . ." - then seek scientific justification for what is already assumed to be true.

The story of how someone so open-minded became the Tibetan Buddhist equivalent of the pope reads like a fairy tale. When the 13th Dalai Lama died in 1933 he was facing northeast, so a spiritual search team was sent in that direction to find his reincarnation. The quest narrowed further when a lama had a vision pointing to a certain house with unusual gutters. Inside a boy called out to the visitors, who showed him some toys and relics that would have belonged to him in his previous life. "It is mine!" he exclaimed, like any acquisitive 2-year-old, and so his reign began.

Once installed in Lhasa, the new Dalai Lama happened upon another of his forerunner's possessions, a collapsible brass telescope. When he focused it one evening on what Tibetans call "the rabbit on the moon," he saw that it consisted of shadows cast by craters. Although he knew nothing yet about astronomy, he inferred that the moon, like the earth, must be lighted by the sun. He had experienced the thrill of discovery.

Before long he was dismantling and repairing clocks and watches and tinkering with car engines and an old movie projector. As he grew older and traveled the world, he was as keen to meet with scientists and philosophers - David Bohm, Carl von Weizsäcker, Karl Popper - as with religious and political leaders. More recently his "Mind and Life" conferences have brought physicists, cosmologists, biologists and psychologists to Dharamsala, India, where he now lives in exile from the Chinese occupation of Tibet. He and his guests discuss things like the neuroscientific basis of Buddhist meditation and the similarities between Eastern concepts like the "philosophy of emptiness" and modern field theory. In "The Universe in a Single Atom" he tells how he walked the mountains around his home trying to persuade hermits to contribute to scientific understanding by meditating with electrodes on their heads.

But when it comes to questions about life and its origins, this would-be man of science begins to waver. Though he professes to accept evolutionary theory, he recoils at one of its most basic tenets: that the mutations that provide the raw material for natural selection occur at random. Look deeply enough, he suggests, and the randomness will turn out to be complexity in disguise - "hidden causality," the Buddha's smile. There you have it, Eastern religion's version of intelligent design. He also opposes physical explanations for consciousness, invoking instead the existence of some kind of irreducible mind stuff, an idea rejected long ago by mainstream science. Some members of the Society for Neuroscience are understandably uneasy that he has been invited to give a lecture at their annual meeting this November. In a petition, they protested that his topic, the science of meditation, is known for "hyperbolic claims, limited research and compromised scientific rigor."

There may be a political subtext to the controversy. According to an article in Nature, many of the petitioners are Chinese. But however mixed their motivation, they make a basic philosophical point. All religion is rooted in a belief in the supernatural. Inviting a holy man to address a scientific conference may be leaving the back door ajar for ghosts.

George Johnson, the author of "Miss Leavitt's Stars," was a recipient this year of a Templeton-Cambridge Journalism Fellowship in Science and Religion.

Fwd: Let Us Pray for our President from Texas ...

by David Enroth and the Rev. Dale Turner

From: SpiritWarriorSky@aol.com
Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2005 08:50:15 EDT

I have a little book by Abraham Joshua Heschel called I Asked for Wonder given to me as a gift several years ago by my friend, Chi Dooh "Skip" Li. In it, over the years, I have stuffed my favorite columns by my father-figure, Dale Turner.

 

This morning I was praying about Dale's column about prayer because prayer is a mystery, as is God. I asked myself, "Can I say a prayer for George W. Bush?" The answer I got was, "Certainly."

 

Perhaps one or two of Dale's insights will be insightful for you today? ... Sky

---

Saturday, September 07, 1996

 

Prayer Can Drive Out Animosity And Help To Bring Inner Peace

Dale Turner

Seattle Times Columnist

 

A letter from a reader asks two questions that are often on the minds of thoughtful people: What happens when we pray for others, and, does it make any difference?

 

It would be arrogant to offer pat answers to this profound inquiry. To try to answer is to launch into water that is over our heads. But we do not learn to swim in the shallows. So it is with finite minds and limited perspectives that we search for answers to these and all other perplexing questions. But search we must.

 

In the midst of mystery, there are some things that are reasonably clear. When we pray for others, we are not inducing God's interest in those for whom we pray. God's love is ever-present with all. Nor are we encouraging God to do something God would not otherwise do. In praying for others, we give evidence to God of our interest in them.

 

We can never be sure what effect our prayers have on others, but we can assess what our prayers for others do for us. The ties of love are strengthened with those for whom we pray. When we pray for family and friends, we feel closer to them and become more caring of them.

 

Our love and caring also can be expressed in prayers for those we do not know. Years ago, a friend shared with me a personal practice of intercessory prayer that was his. "Whenever I hear a siren," he said, "I offer a prayer for those who are involved. It may be an accident, a fire or a serious illness. I do not know what is wrong, but the siren is a call for me to pray for God's comfort and guidance to those who are experiencing a problem."

 

His empathy and manner of expressing his caring made sense to me and I have tried to follow his lead.

 

There may often be times when we are strengthened and encouraged even if we do not know that others are praying for us. An officer, fresh from combat duty, asked his padre, "Why is it that sometimes when my nerves are on edge, I begin to quiet down and become as calm and collected as if I were sitting at home in the living room?"

 

"May it not be," the padre answered, "that someone is praying for you?"

 

"Of course," the officer replied, "you are right. My mother is."

 

When Jackie Robinson played in his first baseball World Series, his mother called to tell him she was praying for him. "Mother," he replied, "that is not enough. You must pray for the whole team."

 

Prayer is an arbitrator of differences. When we pray for people who dislike us or for those we dislike, we tend to become more charitable and accepting of them. It is incongruous to pray for others and still harbor feelings of resentment or estrangement. We cannot be sure whether our prayers have any effect on those with whom we differ, but we do know that our prayers can drive animosity from our own lives and bring inner peace.

 

Does God ever wait to do a good thing for someone until someone else asks? Certainly, the God who created us all does many things for each one of us without waiting for another to ask. But it is conceivable that the greatest good is the prayer itself and that God might withhold some good things until that prayer is made.

 

Dean Edward Bosworth of Oberlin College years ago suggested that the answer to this question appears clear when we consider that at least a large part of the moral purpose of a family is accomplished when the children become unselfishly interested in one another to the extent that each asks the parent that some good gift be given to a brother or sister rather than to them.

 

It may be that often we do not pray for people and causes here in our own land and in countries afar because we do not care enough for them; are so preoccupied with our own pursuits, pleasures and problems; or lack the imagination necessary to grasp what we cannot see in person.

 

In the epilogue of George Bernard Shaw's "St. Joan," the chaplain says he has been saved. "Saved by the suffering of Christ?" asks the bishop. "No," says the chaplain, "saved by seeing a young woman actually burned to death. One had to see it to feel the horror of it." Whereupon, the bishop asks a searching question; "Must then a Christ perish in torment in every age to save those who have no imagination?"

 

To pray for another is not to put the whole matter of response upon God. It is a sensitive, caring person who prays, "O God, help me help you make ours a brighter, better and more loving world."

 

More things are wrought by prayer

Than this world dreams of.

Wherefore let thy voice

Rise like a fountain for me night and day.

For what are men better than sheep or goats

That nourish a blind life within the brain

If knowing God they lift not hands of pray

Both for themselves and those who call them friend?

For so the whole round earth is in every way

Bound in gold chains about the feet of God.

- from "Morte D'Arthur" by Tennyson

Katrina and the uncomfortable truth

by Richard E. Stearns

Perhaps the most disturbing comment I have heard over the past few weeks, as I have been glued to the 24/7 Katrina media coverage, came from a man who lost his home in New Orleans and was living in a shelter. It came in response to the controversial use of the word "refugee" to describe the thousands of people displaced by Hurricane Katrina. He said: "'Refugee?' I'm not some poor African with flies on his face - we are not refugees, we're American citizens!"

There is a profound and uncomfortable truth captured in this man's angry statement. The truth that all men are not created equal; that the 2.8 billion poor who live on less than $2 a day are not valued with equal importance; that their suffering is less important; that their pain can be tolerated; that their lives are somehow less significant; and that they don't have a right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness in the same way the rest of us do.

Hurricane Katrina exposed this uncomfortable double standard to us. It is a double standard that suggests that we don't have a moral responsibility to respond to human suffering if it occurs in a different hemisphere and it is a double standard that showed us that the poor - even in America - are the most vulnerable of our citizens.

Now our hearts have gone out to our fellow citizens these past two weeks. Their pain and suffering are real and as a nation we have come together in countless ways to respond to our neighbors in need.

World Vision is responding to those needs just as we did after 9/11. I am here today in New York to urge the world leaders meeting at the United Nations this week to not forget the world's 2.8 billion poor people. They are asking us to look upon them with the same concern and sense of moral responsibility that we have demonstrated toward our own citizens.

While in the past two weeks we have been critical of the slow response to aid all the victims of Hurricane Katrina, for the poorest of the poor, there is often no response. While we have pointed to the failure of FEMA - for the poorest of the poor, there is no FEMA to fail them.

And while $62 billion has been set aside for relief and rebuilding along the Gulf Coast - the money needed to help the poorest of the poor cannot be found.

Dear friends, let us pray this week that 2005 will be the year when the world opened its eyes to the poor; that 2005 will be the year of their emancipation proclamation - because the world finally decided to eliminate extreme poverty in this generation. And let us pray that God will continue to bless our great nation because we have chosen to be a blessing to the word's poor.

[Richard E. Stearns is the president of World
Vision United States. This article is adapted from a speech made as part of an interfaith delegation of nearly 20 American religious leaders calling on the Bush Administration to join other nations in committing to end global poverty and fully embrace the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Organized in part by Sojourners, a memorial service, press conference, and afternoon of prophetic preaching on the MDGs marked the first day of a three-day vigil of prayer and fasting in Dag Hammarskjöld Plaza in New York City this week.]

What the Waters Have Revealed

by Jim Wallis

In what may be the most catastrophic natural disaster in American history, the waters of Hurricane Katrina are washing away our national denial of just how many Americans are living in poverty, our reluctance to admit the still persistent connection of race and poverty in America, and even the political power of a conservative ideology that, for decades now, has seriously eroded the idea of the common good.

The pictures from New Orleans have stunned the nation. They have exposed the stark realities of who is suffering the most, who was left behind, who was waiting in vain for help to arrive, and who is facing the most difficult challenges of recovery. The face of those stranded in New Orleans was overwhelmingly poor and black, the very old and the very young. They were the ones who could not evacuate; had no cars or money for gas; no money for bus, train, or airfare; no budget for hotels or no friends or family with room to share or spare. They were already vulnerable before this calamity, now they were totally exposed and on their own. For days, nobody came for them. And the conditions of the places they were finally herded to ("like animals," many testified) sickened the nation.

From the reporters covering the unprecedented disaster to ordinary Americans glued to their televisions watching their reports, a shocked and even outraged response was repeated, "I didn't realize how many Americans were poor." Powerful images have emerged along with the pictures. "We have now seen what is under the rock in America," said a carpenter in Washington DC. The vulnerability of the poorest children in New Orleans has been especially riveting to many Americans, especially other parents. Many say they had trouble holding back their tears when they saw mothers with their babies stranded on rooftops crying for help or jammed into dangerous and dirty places waiting for help to arrive. And the pictures may get worse as countless bodies are brought out of New Orleans. Even Homeland Security Director, Michael Chertoff, is warning that it will be horrible and gruesome. Clearly, a very high percentage of those bodies will be poor, black, elderly, and even children. The public anger may grow.

As a direct result of Katrina and its aftermath, and for the first time in many years, the media are reporting on poverty, telling Americans that New Orleans had an overall poverty rate of 28% (84% of them African-American), and a child poverty rate of almost 50% - half of all the city's children (rates only a little higher than other major cities and actually a little lower than some others). Ironically (and some might say providentially) the annual U. S. Census poverty report came out during the Hurricane's deadly assault showing that poverty had risen for the fourth straight year with 37 million Americans stuck below the poverty line - and they were the ones most stuck in New Orleans.

Katrina has revealed what was already there in America; an invisible and mostly silent poverty that we have chosen not to talk about, let alone to take responsibility for in the richest nation on earth. This week, we all saw it; and so did the rest of the world. And it made Americans feel both compassionate and ashamed. Many political leaders and commentators, across the ideological spectrum, have acknowledged the national tragedy, not just of the horrendous storm, but of the realities the flood waters have exposed. And some have suggested that if the aftermath of Katrina finally leads the nation to demand solutions to the poverty of upwards of a third of its citizens then something good might come from this terrible disaster.

That is what we must all work toward. Rescuing those still in danger, assisting those in dire need, relocating and caring for the homeless, and beginning the process of recovery and re-building are all top priorities. But dealing with the stark and shameful social and racial realities Katrina has revealed must become our longer term but clear goal. That will require a combination of public and private initiatives, the merger of personal and social responsibility, the rebuilding of both families and communities, but also the confronting of hard questions about national priorities. Most of all it will require us to make different choices.

The critical needs of poor and low-income families must become the first priority of federal and state legislatures, not the last. And, the blatant inequalities of race in America, especially in critical areas of education, jobs, health care, and housing which have come to the surface must now be addressed. Congressional pork barrel spending which aligns with political power more than human needs must be challenged as never before.That requires a complete reversal of the political logic now operating in Washington and state capitols around the country - a new moral logic must re-shape our political habits. In the face of this natural disaster, during a time of war, with already rising deficits; new budgets cuts to vital programs like food stamps and Medicaid, and more tax cuts for the wealthy in the form of estate tax repeal and capital gains and stock dividend reductions, would now be both irresponsible and shameless.

Restoring the hope of America's poorest families, renewing our national infrastructures, protecting our environmental stability, and rethinking our most basic priorities will require nothing less than a national change of heart and direction. It calls for a transformation of political ethics and governance; moving from serving private interests to ensuring the public good. If Katrina changes our political conscience and re-invigorates among us a commitment to the common good, then even this terrible tragedy might be redeemed.

The Interdependent Web of Our Existence

by Rev. Rick Mitchell, Pd.D.

The past week has been a wrenching time, a sad and distressful spectacle of human misery, with a mind-numbing challenge to our belief and acceptance. How can this be happening in our country? While some see in the events an apocalyptic warning or punishment sent from God, I believe as do most progressive-minded people that natural disaster and destruction is not caused by God, except in the sense that all of nature is part of God's creation. What then, if anything, are we supposed to learn or take away from such a daunting experience?

I believe the supremely overriding lesson to be learned from Hurricane Katrina is that we are all interdependent in situations of threat and danger -- and mutually responsible for each other in preparing for and implementing the common welfare. This is a theme that I have been personally taught by those of other denominations and faiths in my seminary education.

Early on I had conversations on this subject, as I rather proudly informed people of our Baptist tradition of local church autonomy (which was still practiced by most of our churches at that time). And I learned that many in other churches have come to recognize interdependence rather than independence as a model of cooperation and greatest benefit for people under our care.

Such a model was needed among the various departments and agencies of local, state, and national government in the crisis in the southeastern United States. The reports of bureaucratic paper-shuffling and territorial 'turf' disputes were sickening.

We need to be ever-mindful of the sacred trust we have been given for the welfare of people in our country and in our world (and in our churches and communities). I believe this responsibility and its focus of compassionate concern is transmitted to us through the words and actions of Jesus. "Do you love me?" he asked Peter, and then said, "Feed my sheep."

The words of a beautiful song describe "respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part" (one of seven Unitarian Universalist principles) and offer meaning and hope for us to hold to in times of tragedy and trial.

"Our healing love, our hands reach out and touch the cherished body, the quivering mind
Our lives like grass, like bread, like falling rain the ordinary, our sublime
Hold true this tough spun web as hard times come and much be lost or taken away
We struggle not for things that best be gone integrity rewebs our way."

(From "The Tough-Spun Web," by Carolyn McDade, Sisters of Mercy of New Hampshire, 1986)

Living Paycheck to Paycheck Made Leaving Impossible

by Wil Haygood
The Washington Post

Sunday 04 September 2005

New Orleans - To those who wonder why so many stayed behind when push came to water's mighty shove here, those who were trapped have a simple explanation: Their nickels and dimes and dollar bills simply didn't add up to stage a quick evacuation mission.

"Me and my wife, we were living paycheck to paycheck, like most everybody else in New Orleans," Eric Dunbar, 54, said Saturday.

He was standing on wobbly, thin legs in the bowels of the semi-darkened Louis Armstrong Airport, where he had been delivered with many others after having been plucked by rescuers from a roadway.

He offered a mini-tutorial in the economic reality of his life.

"I don't own a car. Me and my wife, we travel by bus, public transportation. The most money I ever have on me is $400. And that goes to pay the rent. And that $400 is between me and my wife." Her name is Dorth Dunbar; she was trying to get some rest after days of peril.

Dunbar estimated his annual income to be about $20,000, which comes from doing graphic design work when he can get it. Before the storm, when he and his wife estimated how much money they needed to flee the city, he was saddened by the reality that he could not come up with anywhere near the several thousand dollars he might need for a rental car and airfare.

"If I took my wife out to dinner, it was once a month," he said, sounding as if even those modest good times had come to an abrupt end. "We'd go to Piccadilly's. Never any movies. Really, it's a simple life. I go to work, come home, talk to my wife, go to bed, then back to work again. A basic existence."

He was rolling two quarters around in his hand, short 50 cents to make a long-distance call to his son. As his eyes began to water, he repeated himself: "Just a basic existence."

The two smooth-faced boys on the floor, sitting on their backpacks, looked more energetic than most. Corey Wise, 17, and Jermaine Wise, 18, were once residents of New Orleans's 17th Ward.

"Our family was already in a financially depressive situation before the hurricane," Jermaine said.

He calculated where the family - their mother, Marie, is divorced - stood financially before the wind, water and destruction.

"We had $300 between us," he said, nodding toward his brother. "Mom had about $225 worth of savings. That was our emergency savings for anything. And that was a blessing."

Their home was in a New Orleans neighborhood called Holly Grove.

"A lot of drugs and violence in our neighborhood," Corey said.

"It's hard to just get up and go when you don't have anything," Jermaine said. "Besides, everything we know is in New Orleans."

They went on their way in tandem in search of their mother, somewhere upstairs in the terminal.

A 47-year-old grandmother was rocking a grandchild.

"These people look at us and wonder why we stayed behind," said Carmita Stephens. "Well, would they leave their grandparents and children behind? Look around and say, 'See you later'?" She gave a roll of the eyes behind the raised voice.

"We had one vehicle. A truck. I wanted my family to be together. They all couldn't fit in the truck. We had to decide on leaving family members - or staying."

She shifted the grandchild in her arms. "I'm living paycheck to paycheck. My mother passed away this year. I was helping take care of her. My real job was as a private-duty caregiver. I had one patient. He died two weeks after my mother passed, on May 6." She calculated that the family made a little more than $2,500 a month - but that included help from her son Jamel's job. "He's missing now," she added. "So is Eric Stephens, my husband."

They were soon to be Texas-bound. "And I don't even like Texas," she said.

All morning, they kept arriving, walking as if through a morbid dream.

"I got $3.00 on me now," said John West, 39, formerly a resident of the Sixth Ward here. "I'm serious."

He said he has never had a savings account in his life. "I make $340 a month," he said. "I stay with my mother. I give her about $150 of that. His income is from a disability check. His hands got badly burned in a 1993 fire. "I lost a little nephew, but I saved two kids," he said.

West said he has never owned a credit card - not even before the fire. He said he figures $500 was the most money he could have come up with on such short notice, with the hurricane bearing down.

"And that would have come from my daddy. But he's always been skeptical about giving me any money. And his people got money! He could have given me $1,000, and it wouldn't have hurt him."

So he did not even ask, instead lowering his economic aim by simply wishing he could get his $340 monthly check.

"My mother and father don't even know if I'm alive or dead."

There were a few lucky souls yesterday sitting at the Shoney's restaurant on State Highway 30 in Gonzales. Karen Lavalais, 37, and a friend, Patricia Jones, 39, and various relatives.

"I only work part time at a janitorial service," Jones said. "I make $6.00 an hour. If I didn't have my mama, I'd be one of those victims still trapped in New Orleans."

She works 17 hours a week.

"I had $80 when I got out of New Orleans," Jones said. "And I wouldn't have had that if payday hadn't been that Friday. Eighty dollars with two children."

Lavalais, who formerly lived in the 10th Ward, said that when the hurricane struck she had a total of $94 in the bank, which constituted her life savings.

"And I couldn't even get to that," she said. "So thank goodness I had some gas in my car."

[+] What Happens to a Race Deferred [truthout.org]

What Happens to a Race Deferred
By Jason DeParle
The New York Times

Sunday 04 September 2005

The white people got out. Most of them, anyway. If television and newspaper images can be deemed a statistical sample, it was mostly black people who were left behind. Poor black people, growing more hungry, sick and frightened by the hour as faraway officials counseled patience and warned that rescues take time.

What a shocked world saw exposed in New Orleans last week wasn't just a broken levee. It was a cleavage of race and class, at once familiar and startlingly new, laid bare in a setting where they suddenly amounted to matters of life and death. Hydrology joined sociology throughout the story line, from the settling of the flood-prone city, where well-to-do white people lived on the high ground, to its frantic abandonment.

The pictures of the suffering vied with reports of marauding, of gunshots fired at rescue vehicles and armed bands taking over the streets. The city of quaint eccentricity - of King Cakes, Mardi Gras beads and nice neighbors named Tookie - had taken a Conradian turn.

In the middle of the delayed rescue, the New Orleans mayor, C. Ray Nagin, a local boy made good from a poor, black ward, burst into tears of frustration as he denounced slow moving federal officials and called for martial law.

Even people who had spent a lifetime studying race and class found themselves slack-jawed.

"This is a pretty graphic illustration of who gets left behind in this society - in a literal way," said Christopher Jencks, a sociologist glued to the televised images from his office at Harvard. Surprised to have found himself surprised, Mr. Jencks took to thinking out loud. "Maybe it's just an in-the-face version of something I already knew," he said. "All the people who don't get out, or don't have the resources, or don't believe the warning are African-American."

"It's not that it's at odds with the way I see American society," Mr. Jencks said. "But it's at odds with the way I want to see American society."

Last week it was how others saw American society, too, in images beamed across the globe. Were it not for the distinctive outlines of the Superdome, the pictures of hovering rescue helicopters might have carried a Somalian dateline. The Sri Lankan ambassador offered to help raise foreign aid.

Anyone who knew New Orleans knew that danger lurked behind the festive front. Let the good times roll, the tourists on Bourbon Street were told. Yet in every season, someone who rolled a few blocks in the wrong direction wound up in the city morgue.

Unusually poor (27.4 percent below the poverty line in 2000), disproportionately black (over two-thirds), the Big Easy is also disproportionately murderous - with a rate that was for years among the country's highest.

Once one of the most mixed societies, in recent decades, the city has become unusually segregated, and the white middle class is all but gone, moved north across Lake Pontchartrain or west to Jefferson Parish - home of David Duke, the one-time Klansman who ran for governor in 1991 and won more than half of the state's white vote.

Shortly after I arrived in town two decades ago as a fledgling reporter, I was dispatched to cover a cheerleading tryout, and I asked a grinning, half-drunk accountant where he was from, city or suburb. "White people don't live in New Orleans," he answered with a where-have-you-been disdain.

For those who loved it, its glories as well as its flaws, last week brought only heartbreak. So much of New Orleans, from its music and its food to its architecture, had shown a rainbow society at its best, even as everyone knew it was more complicated than that.

"New Orleans, first of all, is both in reality and in rhetoric an extraordinarily successful multicultural society," said Philip Carter, a developer and retired journalist whose roots in the city extend back more at least four generations. "But it is also a multicultural society riven by race and class, and all this has been exposed by these stormy days. The people of our community are pitted against each other across the barricades of race and class that six months from now may be last remaining levees in New Orleans."

No one was immune, of course. With 80 percent of the city under water, tragedy swallowed the privilege and poor, and traveled spread across racial lines.

But the divides in the city were evident in things as simple as access to a car. The 35 percent of black households that didn't have one, compared with just 15 percent among whites.

"The evacuation plan was really based on people driving out," said Craig E. Colten, a geologist at Louisiana State University and an expert on the city's vulnerable topography. "They didn't have buses. They didn't have trains."

As if to punctuate the divide, the water especially devastated the Ninth Ward, among city's poorest and lowest lying.

"Out West, there is a saying that water flows to money," Mr. Colten said. "But in New Orleans, water flows away from money. Those with resources who control where the drainage goes have always chosen to live on the high ground. So the people in the low areas were hardest hit."

Outrage grew as the week wore on, among black politicians who saw the tragedy as a reflection of a broader neglect of American cities, and in the blogosphere.

"The real reason no one is helping is because of the color of these people!" wrote "myfan88" on the Flickr blog. "This is Hotel Rwanda all over again."

"Is this what the pioneers of the civil rights movement fought to achieve, a society where many black people are as trapped and isolated by their poverty as they were by legal segregation laws?" wrote Mark Naison, director of the urban studies program at Fordham, on another blog.

One question that could not be answered last week was whether, put to a similar test, other cities would fracture along the same lines.

At one level, everything about New Orleans appears sui generis, not least its location below sea level. Many New Orleanians don't just accept the jokes about living in a Banana Republic. They spread them.

But in a quieter catastrophe, the 1995 heat wave that killed hundreds of Chicagoans, blacks in comparable age groups as whites died at higher rates - in part because they tended to live in greater social isolation, in depopulated parts of town. As in New Orleans, space intertwined with race.

And the violence? Similarly shocking scenes had erupted in Los Angeles in 1992, after the acquittal of white police officers charged with beating a black man, Rodney King. Newark, Detroit, Washington - all burned in the race riots of the 1960's. It was for residents of any major city, watching the mayhem, to feel certain their community would be immune.

With months still to go just to pump out the water that covers the city, no one can be sure how the social fault lines will rearrange. But with white flight a defining element of New Orleans in the recent past, there was already the fear in the air this week that the breached levee would leave a separated society further apart.

"Maybe we can build the levees back," said Mr. Carter. "But that sense of extreme division by class and race is going to long survive the physical reconstruction of New Orleans."

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