Tag: Social Justice

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Morning thoughts

St. Peter’s in Rome Italy

A year ago when I snapped this picture I felt the presence of a loving force for good in my life. One year later after almost two months of quarantine and thousands of deaths I’ve begun to question that presence and the effectiveness of prayer. Daily the death toll increases and our ability to shield ourselves from its destructiveness is very limited. Some of our leaders like Governor Cuomo seem very qualified and caring but our national leadership is grossly incompetent and riddled with cronyism.

Where is God? I told a friend yesterday that I had increasing doubts of the existence of God. Where was God at Auschwitz? Twelve million people were slaughtered by the Nazis and God didn’t stop that. I do believe in good. Doing good helps me to move forward. Doing good helps others too. Is God in the good we do for each other? Maybe. Governor Cuomo is doing good. The frontline first responders are doing good. The essential workers are doing good. What motivates some to do good and others to do nothing or work against the good.

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True Colors

If you’re Roman Catholic in the United States the assumption is that you’re pro-life which in political parlance means your anti-abortion. It’s a great wedge issue exploited by Republicans. In previous years some bishops have gone so far as to insist on denying communion to candidates like John Kerry and Democrats who are pro-choice. The recent conference call cited in this article that appeared on National Catholic Reporter’s website is one more instance of this insanity. The gospels calls us to protect the poor, the marginalized, the disenfranchised. Cardinal Dolan is turning a blind eye to that and instead kissing up to policies that are counter to Catholic Social Teaching. I think the church as we know it is done. No communion for anyone due to quarantine and lock down. The only gift the church has left is its prophetic voice and Dolan just pissed on that.

“The ongoing collusion between certain U.S. bishops and President Donald Trump hit its nadir point this weekend. Or at least we have to pray it did.”

Crux’s Christopher White obtained a recording of a …
— Read on www.ncronline.org/news/opinion/grace-margins/call-president-trump-cardinal-dolan-reveals-his-true-colors

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A new direction

The word Christian is meaningless. It has become so because of all the charlatans who have taken it as a mantle. We need a new word to describe followers of Jesus. Following Jesus is much different than worshipping him. Following implies living as he did among the outcasts and dregs of society. In the United States the word Christian implies selective and exclusive adherence to so called conservative worldview. Conservative in the United States implies connection to the Republican Party which means you denigrate the poor and marginalized. Conservative here means love of wealth, power and enfranchisement. That’s not following what Jesus taught. That’s diametrically the opposed to the gospel.

The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free,

Luke 4:18

What is good news to the poor? Are you part of the good news? Are you proclaiming this message?

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Earth Day 2020

We can no longer exploit the resources of this earth—the trees, the water, and other natural resources—without any care for coming generations. Common sense tells us that unless we change, we won’t survive. This Earth Day let’s resolve to live in harmony with nature.

Dalai Lama

Maybe this pandemic has a silver lining. Maybe it forces us to realize that we can’t continue to exploit the planet. Our existential crisis has to be a point of reflection for all of us. The age of fossil fuels must end but that’s not all that we need to change. What must we change and how must we live are no longer ideals they have become essential questions.

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The Spirit of the Lord

“Jesus called his disciples to create a new transformed Earth, a kindom of equality and inclusivity, where all men and women could live together in justice, mercy, and peace. His consciousness of the whole evoked a genuine revolution in cosmic and social relations.”

— A Hunger for Wholeness: Soul, Space, and Transcendence by Ilia Delio, OSF

Contrast this spirit with what we are witnessing around us each day as those on the margins suffer most from the Covid-19 pandemic. This is just one more example of why we don’t deserve to be called a Christian nation or even a moral nation. To their credit many of our states and nation’s governors are doing their best to bridge the gap. Nonetheless folks are falling through the cracks in a nation where money is valued more than people. The paycheck protection program is one more shining example of how our leaders bail out Wall Street and stick it to Main Street. The funding is already depleted. Contrast our own national priorities with those other nations around the globe who are putting their citizens first.

Some politicians are calling for the establishment of universal basic income for all citizens. Not surprisingly some say this would incentivize the less fortunate to stay home and not seek work. These politicians have lifetime pensions which are their own universal basic income and not the $2,000 dollars a month that’s being proposed but salary and benefits in excess of $174,000 per year.

We always have lots of money to bail out Wall Street or start another war but nothing for the poor souls in our midst. These are the folks who call themselves conservative and cloak their greed in patriotism and pseudo-religious trappings.

‘These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.

Matthew 15:8
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Hope for today

I just finished reading Ilia Delio’s book which I reviewed previously and there are a treasure trove of ideas and quotes in the book but one that stood out for me is the following.

“On the whole, I find that younger generations want to help make the world a better place. Many Gen Z-ers express a desire for a just and sustainable world and are concerned about world poverty and hunger. They have an inclination toward catholicity without realizing it, expressed for them as a desire for inclusive, ecological, and planetary life. These concerns are not necessarily driven by institutional religion but by an inner sense of belonging to a whole.”

— Birth of a Dancing Star: My Journey from Cradle Catholic to Cyborg Christian by Ilia Delio

Young people aren’t burdened by the tired old labels that boomers are. What concerns them is creation and the care of it. They’ve frequently been referred to as the nones because they have no religion but they do have this inner sense of belonging to the whole. They see the world as interdependent.

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All creation bears the footprint

Francis contemplated the footprints of God impressed on the things of creation, and he found God wherever he went in the world. As he experienced divine love within himself, so too he saw that same love throughout creation—in birds, trees, clouds, rabbits, even wolves. The world was the self-revealed gift of God, created to lead humans to what it signified, a deep, personal unity in love. Contemplation of the world was indistinguishable from the contemplation of God.”

— Making All Things New: Catholicity, Cosmology, Consciousness by Ilia Delio

Francis saw no dichotomy but saw the world as one. For too long Western philosophy and religion as seen the exploitation of the planet somehow disconnected from our spirituality. I don’t think that can continue in the post pandemic world. This is our common home and if we expect to live long and prosper we must take care of it along with each other.

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The new reality of the nones

“I find a tremendous yearning among Nones and the millennial generation (born between 1982 and the early 2000s) for a more just and unified world. Many of the millennial generation are wholemakers involved in greening the earth, immigration reform, peace and nonviolence, economic justice, and environmental sustainability. They seek authentic community life, ways of meditation, and alternative gift economies; they believe that institutional religion is out of touch with the world. Like transhumanists, the Nones long for religious ideals without the institution.”

— Making All Things New: Catholicity, Cosmology, Consciousness by Ilia Delio
http://a.co/j9EYNyA

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Share your bread with the hungry

Helping others is getting a bad name in our country. You probably are thinking, “What the hell are you talking about?” But, really have you listened to the discourse on the news? The latest scary news is that if certain politicians are elected we’ll be subject to socialism.

I have to laugh when folks I know start railing about socialism. The roads we drive on are all publicly financed. Most of us have toilets that connect to sewer systems that are publicly financed. Many people fly around the country or the world and the runways and air traffic control itself is publicly financed. Income redistribution is occurring and has occurred for quite some time for the common good.

Media outlets, politicians and others would have you believe that socialism and totalitarian communism are the same thing. They’re not. Many countries including our own have limited forms of socialism that ensure that the most vulnerable are protected. We have Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, public schools and more that are financed by levying taxes. What’s changed in the past forty years is that the lions share of that burden has fallen on the middle class. The top earners and big business pay little or no taxes while enjoying all of the benefits that I’ve mentioned while the rest of us pick up the tab.

The media and politicians are quick to ask ‘how can we afford X social program?’, but never ask those same questions when starting another military intervention.  Over the weekend I had the chance to help bring some peace and love to our world and it involved self sacrifice and self giving to others and with others. I’ve found that I’m most content when I’m helping others. I’m not sure about others but helping is in my DNA and it elevates my spirit in more ways than one. Yesterday’s first reading at Mass iis one of my favorites and it connects with what I’ve been sharing. Sharing what you have with others is good for me and good for our world. Peace 🙂

Thus says the LORD:
Share your bread with the hungry,
shelter the oppressed and the homeless;
clothe the naked when you see them,
and do not turn your back on your own.
Then your light shall break forth like the dawn,
and your wound shall quickly be healed;
your vindication shall go before you,
and the glory of the LORD shall be your rear guard.
Then you shall call, and the LORD will answer,
you shall cry for help, and he will say: Here I am!
If you remove from your midst
oppression, false accusation and malicious speech;
if you bestow your bread on the hungry
and satisfy the afflicted;
then light shall rise for you in the darkness,
and the gloom shall become for you like midday. – Isaiah 58: 7-10