Peace Prize

I don’t think I had ever heard of World Vision until this year. The first time I heard about it was last March when they reversed their decision to recognize employees’ same-sex marriages. Then I heard a lot about it.

The next time I heard about World Vision happened shortly thereafter. I was looking for an old friend from my youth, the daughter of a missionary I had stayed with in 1964.  I stumbled upon the obituary of her father. It was written by someone I had known on that mission trip to Guatemala in 1964. I remember the conversation when the missionary, John Shackleford, had talked to Don about coming back to Guatemala and devoting his life to a camping program there. He did.

Don helped me get in touch with Pep, the daughter. Barbara and I visited her in June, and I will see her again this week on a trip to California to visit my mother.

I believe Don’s work, and much of the work of Pep and her husband, were supported by World Vision.

We all live in boxes and are unaware of much of the world outside us. It is good to occasionally have a door opened to the world outside ours.

And so it was with a greater sense of context that I received an email last week from an old friend announcing that our mutual friend, Ricardo Esquivia, and his organization, Sembrandopaz, received the International Peace Prize from World Vision.

Here is the announcement from World Vision:

Congratulations to 2014 World Vision International Peace Prize Winner, Sembrandopaz grassroots peacebuilding organisation in Colombia

Ricardo Esquivia Ballestas, the Executive Director of Sembrandopaz, said:

“The armed conflict and war have robbed millions of children the opportunity to live their childhood.

“Colombia is the only country in the Western Hemisphere that has not made it out of its armed conflict. For these reasons peace is very important for Colombia.

“We are much honored to receive this award and we will gladly accept it on behalf of all members of the community and community leaders with whom we work. It is their work what really moves us towards peace in Colombia.”

I met Ricardo on a Witness for Peace delegation to Colombia in 2002. It was an interfaith delegation, of about thirty people, representing a variety of churches. We met Ricardo in Bogota, and I was in the group that went to Sincelejo with him.

(The following are excerpts my book: NORMAL: Stories from my Life. The last section of the book is called “Activism” and this story is called “Economic Justice: Part 1. Colombia and the FTAA”)

The initial part of the delegation was a two day conference in Bogota with leaders from the various Christian denominations in Colombia. Ricardo Esquivia had put the conference together. He was a man who was respected by all. One had to respect him because of the incredible work he had done negotiation between rural pastors, the various paramilitary organizations, and the ELN and FARC. Most rural areas of Colombia were not under the control of the government, but under the control of the other armed actors. In these rural areas, the minister of the local church, usually an evangelical church, was the only authority that the armed actors could use to communicate with the population. When there was a change in power the minister would be executed for having cooperated with the opposition force.

Ricardo had personally gone to the headquarters of all of the armed actors, at considerable risk of life, and had created a code of conduct which all parties agreed was permissible for a minister, so that the minister could cooperate with the prevailing force without being seen as aiding them in their cause. It was heroic work, and saved the lives of hundreds of ministers. So when Ricardo called all of the denominations to a meeting with religious leaders of the United States, there was impressive attendance.
…

As we sat around talking, Ricardo picked up some ripe mangoes that had fallen from the tree under which we were sitting. He passed them around to our group. People didn’t know what to do with them. When one came to me, I peeled it and stuck my face into it and ate the wonderful sticky fruit that dripped down my front. I’ll never forget the smile on Ricardo’s face when he saw me eating that mango.

Years later, his son, Daniel, needed a place to stay in Boston in order to receive a scholarship for a summer course in art. My wife and I gladly volunteered to host him. He stayed with us for two summers and we helped him a bit with tuition for his masters degree at an art academy in New York. We went to Daniel’s master’s exhibit and had dinner with him, Ricardo, and Ricardo’s ex-wife. We also dined with Ricardo at Daniel’s wedding. But I know that Ricardo mainly remembers me from eating that mango.

Thoughts on life and money

About ten years ago, my eldest daughter, Anna, produced a “zine” about her thoughts on money and her life. I am reproducing it here for this month’s “Spirit of the Poor” discussion. I will convey any comments to Anna that come my way.

A note from me:
I originally wrote this as a letter to some friends and family but decided to distribute it more widely in zine form because
1) I noticed a lack of zines about race and class at the Boston Zine Library and
2) 2) I love to make easy projects into major summer endeavors. 

Enjoy this zine! Write your own and send it to me! And please be in touch
Xo anna

Dear Friends and Family,

I’ve wanted to write to you all for some time now to share with you some of my ideas and ponderings about money and privilege. I realize as I get older how important family and friends are and want to continue to build my relationships with al of you (even folks I haven’t spoken to in years!). What I’m hoping for, as much as to update you on my life, is to hear your thoughts and responses. I know many of you have spent more time than me thinking about and making decisions based on this touch and taboo subject and I am hopeful and eager to begin ongoing dialogs with any of you who are interested. Also, if you just want to write back and say hi I’d love that too.

I am going to begin by setting the stage: giving you a little overview of who I am, where I come from, and a few of the events that have impacted me and decisions that I have made in the past few years.

Then I will reflect a bit on privilege and social justice work.

Finally, in typical Anna fashion, I’ll put out a billion questions and a few conclusions (which will probably even change as I write this letter).

I grew up in Cambridge, MA, known as one of the countries most liberal, “multicultural”, and di verse cities. I grew up around kids from many different ethnicities, races and class backgrounds. This, of course, along with the multi-cultural murals throughout my town, lead me to believe that in Cambridge everyone was equal, and that I did not benefit from a racist system nor did I possess any internalized racism. (I like to think about internalized racism and classism as the ways in which our (my) very culture as people with privilege is steeped in assumptions of superiority.)

I even went so far as to believe that I had experienced racism because, being a white kid in an often majority people of color school setting, I had often experienced prejudice against me because of my white skin, (this is often referred to as reverse racism). In addition, I grew up believing my family was on the lower end of the economic spectrum because my parents were musicians, and had little yearly income, spent money thriftily, and did not value material things or wealth.

My experiences leaving home and attending three different private institutions: first Idyllwild Arts Academy and then Smith and Oberlin Colleges, opened my eyes to the race and class privilege I had grown up with and never recognized. At Oberlin I remember crying at the financial aid office when they told me I was un-eligible for any aid. I only really realized my family had money when, later that afternoon, my dad told me on the phone, (and he had been telling me this since high school), “Anna, don’t worry about it, we’ll figure out a way to pay for it.” My family had always made it clear to me that taking out big loans was not a necessity. Most cannot afford to pay $25,000/year for college without going into extreme debt. At the same time, my professors and fellow classmates, specifically classes taught by and attended by people of color at Oberlin in the African-American studies and Women’s Studies departments, made me realize, that no one is exempt from engaging in, experiencing or benefiting from racism.

And in fact, that race is inextricably linked to class mobility in this country.

I began to look into the money my family had. It was very confusing to me as I’d grown up thinking not only that we didn’t have much money but also that money (and people with money) were pretty much no good. Here’ what I found out. My mother’s parents were first generation Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe. After growing up in a working class Jewish neighborhood in Brooklyn, my grandfather entered the army in WW2 and, upon discharge, benefited from the GI bill, which eventually lead him to become head of the biology department at U.C. Santa Barbara.

My father’s family, since their early migration to the US from Western Europe, were small farmers in the mid-west (and later California). My dad’s dad also benefited from the GI bill, went back to school and became an engineer, moved to an all white suburb outside of LA, and became middle class.

Later on, my grandparents inherited a bunch of stock from my great great-aunt who had married a man who started an electric company, which eventually “went public” meaning entered the stock market. The stock my grandparents inherited has now been passed down and divided among my dad’s entire family (including to my sister and I). Both sets of my grandparent’s experiences huge class mobility within their life times.

As a result; my parents both having PhD’s, all of our family friends are will educated and upward from middle class, my family owns a house worth $500,000 in Cambridge, and thus far I have inherited a bout $120,000.

These resources give me access to an unlimited amount of money, jobs, loans, grants and connections. And all of this access and money is available to me, in large part, because my family and I are white and live in a world where w are systematically rewarded simply for having white skin, a “white” way of speaking, “white” mannerisms and “white” interests.

It is not easy for a 19 year old who grew up believing money was evil to figure out what to do with $70,000. I realized that ignoring the money, something many young folks are told to do, was a privilege and that in fact the very idea that money is evil is a privilege I could afford to have because I grew up with a sense of economic security.

Most of the money I had was in stocks. Thankfully, I met an awesome person named Donna who ran a socially responsible investment business (Rainbow Solutions) to talk through my options with. Through my discussions with her I realized that my most basic beliefs and values would not allow me to conscientiously participate in the stock market at all.

Donna told me about alternative to Socially Responsible investment like share holder activisms and community investment. I decided that using the money for “community investment” would make the most sense to me. When the question of interest rates came p (there was a option of choosing a 5%, 2%, or 0%) I decided that for me to charge any interest and thereby make money off of low income folks merely because I had money to start with was totally out of line and for lack of better words, (messed) up.

In the end I looked around and saw that my own community needed investing in. My friend was in considerable debt from a high interest student loan. Loan companies have started targeting low- income families like hers with children looking to go to college offering them huge loans at exorbitant interest rates that leave folks paying off debt 30 years after graduating. I approached her about the loan and after much discussion we wrote up, signed, and notarized an agreement for me to loan her the money to pay off her debt at 0-% interest rate. She is now putting money into a bank account at whatever amount/month she works out with the intention of paying the loan back in 10 years.

So on to the activism…

Since entering college I have been engaged in a lot of activism around foreign policy, global economics, and labor rights. For most of that time I worked mainly with other privileged students and adults to support movements in Latin America, to pressure congress about international policy, to support strikes, to organize protests against war and free trade. We talked of the oppressed and the oppressors and fought desperately to place ourselves on the side of the oppressed.

It was a rarely spoken truth that most of us were rich and white, and when this was spoken it was with a sense of guilt, shame or failure. Differences between us, when there were class or race differences, were never talked about. Even in groups where fighting racism, classism and sexism were integral to the mission of the work, we were so action oriented that we were always to busy organizing other people to sit down and talk about our own race, class and gender experiences.

At some point I began attending “antioppression” tranings (trainings developed by activists for activists for activists about recognizing oppression and privilege within the movements we were a part of.) These trainings helped me realize that my identity as a rich white girl could not be separated from my activism but instead must inform and shape my acitivism (and all aspects of my life.) The message I got was that change needs to happen not just in oppressed communities but also in all communities including my own, and that I am best equipped to change my own community.

So, my community … who/what is my community? I consider you all to be party of my many communities. You are my family, biological or chosen. The young college bound or college graduates. Radical dropouts, (or folks that talked about dropping out but never did). Hippies and punks. Artists. Queer folks. White people from urban areas. People with money who aren’t proud of it. Gentrifiers who know they are gentrifiers.

And what issues do we struggle with? Well, shit, I can’t speak for you all, but here THIS is what I struggle with. Guilt. Internalized racism and chlassism that won’t leave me alone. The looming question of what to do with mhy money (and my life.) Being part of a dominating culture of silence, avoiding conflict, keeping order, and repressing emotions. Depression.

In June 2004, (a year ago), I stopped working t Jobs with Justice. I needed a breath of air from the activist world; time to really think about my class, race and gender and how from my life and experiences, to be most effective at creating change in the world. I started talking to folks from an organization called Resource Generation; a group that works with young people who self identify as privileged to help mobilize their resources and address issues that come up in communities of wealth. I am currently helping to organize an annual conference called Making Money Make Change. The conference will bring together 60 young people with wealth to talk about privilege, money, and how to better engage in and be an ally in the movement for social justice.

In this work and in every aspect of my life I continue to struggle with many questions. Some questions I have found at least temporarily satisfactory answers to, and others remain too complicated to even attempt to solve. The following are some of the conclusions I have come to. Please feel free to challenge them and be challenged by them.

CONCLUSIONS?
1. I think that for people with privilege, socially responsible investment, if that is the end result of what you choose to do with an excess of money, is an easy way to be a capitalist and feel you are doing good in the world without actually re-distributing any wealth.
2. I think that as people with privilege, it is our responsibility to challenge the notion of interest: Why do we expect that if we have money we should be able to make more money off of it? Isn’t it just a recipe for widening the wealth gap?
3. Finally, while I do think that giving away money is an extremely important part of being an activist with wealth, it also feels like just a tiny contribution to the movement for social justice, after all, many of us got this money in not so nice ways, re-distributing it is the least we can do.

And then there are those questions, perhaps the bigger questions that continue to buzz through my head.

When and how do I give away the money I have?

How can I give away money without gaining more power for myself in the process simply by choosing how and who to fund?

What would being a real ally look like?

How can I balance being a responsible person and being engaged in activities I love?

How can I best use my resources to make change? Is it by giving away all my money and working like everyone else? Getting a degree/profession to use? Being a full time un-paid activist and living off my wealth?

I want to know about decisions you have made based on money and privilege, jobs, life style, organizing and who those were/are influenced or based on your class or race (or gender). I respect each and every one of you and am excited to hear your thoughts, responses, stories and anything else you want to share.

For now, these are the things I plan on doing; I am going to create a giving plan to strategically give away all the money I have inherited. I am going to practice real solidarity by engaging in local struggles. I will be upfront and honest about who I am. I will try to see all situations and interactions with a race, class and gender analysis. I will continue organizing in communities of privilege. I will continue to talk about and work out my own internalized racism and classism. I will work to recognize and stop the cultural appropriation and the tokenization of people of color and poor folks. I will stop feeling guilty for the privilege I was born with that I can’t give away, take back or reverse.

Whew, I think that’s it 🙂 thanks for reading this absurdly long essay/letter/zine! Please take your time writing back! No pressure. And again, if you just want to write and say hi, that’s totally wonderful for me.

Much love to all of you
Anna Hendricks

Yesterday was wine making day

Yesterday I finished making my wine. I had put up almost 3 gallons last week, and once that fermented, I transferred it to a 3 gallon glass jug and began my second day of winemaking.

I have one vine that is on the border between my yard and my neaigbor’s yard.  The main branch travles along the split rail fence, then climbs a post and spreads out over a 6′ x 24′ arbor.

I climb a ladder with a plastic shopping bag in one arm and pick the grapes with the other hand. 

 I can usually fill the bag with the grapes betwen two joists.

The grapes go in the sink to get washed and then I seperate them from the stems and put them all in a lobster pot.

With a towel and basin next to the pot I am ready to stomp on the grapes.

 

 

I pour the stomped grapes into a collander over the plastic bucket.  I always have to put knives or spatulas through the handles of the collander to make sure it doesn’t fall into the bucket.

I put all of the pulp in a plastic bag and let the end hang over the table so that the weight of the pulp on itself squeezes the last bit of juice from the grapes into the bucket. 

11:00 p.m. I have another 4 1/2 gallons of juice.  If you look closely at the bucket you can see that the juice is at 4 1/2 gallons.  In the morning, another 1/2 gallon of juice had collected from the draining pulp.

Today I put sterilizing tablets in the tub.  Tomorow I’ll put 5 cups of suggar, some nutritional yeast, a little acid, and some wine culture and put the top on the bucket.  Soon the fermenting will make the bung bubble and pop.  When that stops in about a week, the wine is fermented.  Then I’ll transfer it to glass jugs.  I’ll fill up the one I started last week, fill another 3 gallon jug, and one more 1 gallon jug.  In about 2 months the wine will be clear enough to bottle up.  I have a root cellar where I store it.

A lot of the grapes dried up in July, so next year I will need to water more, and also do more pruning to make sure that the new leaves aren’t taking the water from the grapes.  But I should get about 35 bottles of wine by mid November, soon enough to give some away at Christmas.  Send me your address if you want a bottle.

Newell

 

The Place we call “The Land”

Thirty-three years ago my wife and I, along with three other families, bought some property in western Massachusetts. We called it “The Land”, because that’s all that there was. Now there is a house with a big screened in porch, a tool shed, a gazebo, and another cabin which I call my “Hermatige.”  There is also a garden, a small orchard, and there has always been a stream. Last week we spent several days there, the weekend of the Cummington Fair, with our daughters and their children. It is a precious place for us, and I thought I’d share some of the images with you.

The main house:

  

The tool shed was the second structure to go up, then the screened-in porch:

 

  

The outdoor shower on the side of the house has been a recent luxury.

The Gazebo provides a quiet screened-in place to think, converse, read, or write.  It also is a wonderful extra bedroom in the hot summer months.

The Hermatige was added four years ago.  It is 10′ x 12′ with a loft; about 500′ from the main house.  It has it’s own water barrel, fireplace, and outhouse.

 

But it is still the land which defines the place.  Here is the clearing with a garden and orchard with 6 fruit trees, raspberries, and a grape arbor.

 

The garden wasn’t weeded last year, but in May I was able to clear a few beds and now have butternut squash, potatoes, garlic, and a few summer squash and kale.

The stream has always been there.  I once encountered a bear at this swimming hole.

 

Nearby is the Plainfield pond where we can pick enough blueberries from the canoe to make a very full blueberry pie.

 

And the fourth weekend of every August is the CUMMINGTON FAIR.

 

Evaluation of 2014 goals posted in February

Goals

   • Build Community
   • Live simply

Further thoughts:

   • Promoting individual achievement is not a worthy goal.
   • My health care this past year has far exceeded a justifiable treatment.

Evaluation

I  Invest in Community

Family:
Wife:
Barbara continues to be a saint, and I try to let her know how much I appreciate her. I think this is going OK. I do need to do more work on sorting my papers and music.

Daughters and their families
I continue the same child-care of the granddaughters, driving to Gill to be with Vita (5) on Thursdays and being available to assist Barbara with Bridget (22 months) on Fridays. I continue the practice of creating stories with Vita, but it has been more verbal than written recently. I have begun being more intentional about scheduling time with my daughters, both Anna and Clara.

Mother
I visited my mother in April for a few days, and saw her on my road trip in June. She is 101, and other than not being able to see, is doing very well. I will see her again in September. I think every 3 months is a schedule that I will try to maintain. She is near San Diego.

Extended family
Barbara and I did make the road trip in June, visiting all west coast relatives plus other friends. But there was a new commitment in this area. My brother died in May, and I have tried to be present to his family in a new way. I write monthly letters to his three daughters and wife, and I am planning to bring them on a trip to Nicaragua in January. (more below)

Church
Choir
I do continue to sing in the choir. My voice is getting raspy, but I’ll sing as long as I can.

Deacons
I remain on the Deacons, but my attendance has been spotty. I did take on being the Deacon rep. to the personnel committee, which is another major responsibility. In this capacity, I am also entering into the discussion of relating to the homeless who sleep on our porches.

Nica Companions
I continue to attend Nica Companions meetings and contribute where I can

Friends not in Boston
Personal friends who have moved away
Continuing relationships through correspondence is not always easy. Giving and receiving are so similar and I don’t always know which I’m doing, especially in my limited state, which keeps changing. What used to be giving is now receiving. I am learning how to do this and adjusting my correspondence accordingly.

Old friends
I did visit several old friends on our road trip, one I hadn’t seen in 45 years. I will visit several more when I visit my mother in September. I intend to continue correspondence with friends I visit, finding the right rhythm and media. I now have several regular correspondences which have resulted from renewing friendships from my youth.

Internet connections
It had been my hope to visit several internet friends on my road trip, but the celebration of my brother’s life interrupted that schedule. I was able to visit one new internet friend. It was very satisfying. I do have some other internet connections which I am trying to maintain.

“The Spirit of the Poor” dialogue, after some very good months, went through a time of neglect, but has started again and I will continue to give my attention to that dialogue. It is important.

My blogging is somewhat stale. I continue to look at the lectionary each week, but have decided that if I don’t have anything to say, I will not force something. But I will keep looking at the lectionary.

Dulce Nombre de Jesus
In February I wrote

 “The community of Dulce Nombre de Jesus in Nicaragua has a special place in my heart. They continue to embrace me and pray for me and let me know they are thinking of me. I owe them one more visit, perhaps with family members. I have a vision of bringing my whole family, but that is a vision.”

I have put out the invitation to my extended family, especially my brother’s family, to join me on a delegation in late January. So far, 12 other members of my family have said they would join me, with the possibility of 3 more. This is a major goal of mine for the remainder of this year – to stay healthy enough to make this happen.

II  Live Simply

Cambridge
I have been able to grow food again this year. I have a small supply of wood for the winter, but not nearly enough, but I continue to bike everywhere, and live simply.

Cummington
I was able to do some work on the garden in Cummington. I will have a potato crop, and limited squash, onions and garlic. The orchard is overgrown with weeds, but I have been able to help the grape vines reach the arbor.

Internet
I have not done anything about journaling about my attempts to live simply with decreasing physical ability. I did write something about this on a post “why I don’t have a cell phone.” Honestly, I had forgotten about this idea.

INDIVIDUAL ACHIEVEMENT
I am very close to publishing my memoire: NORMAL: stories from my life. I do believe that there is some reason to promote the book, other than celebrating my achievements. I will have to see.

HEALTH:
In February I looked pretty bad. That was because of the Chemo I was taking. My doctor took me off of that Chemo late January, and in late April started me on another Chemo. The side effects seem to be much less, but I think the effects on the cancer are also much less. That is the trade-off.
My back is pretty weak from the surgeries last summer. I still suffer neuropathy in my feet as a result of the old Chemo. And there is a condition that has yet to be explained, that I don’t have any recuperation capacity in my body. I have to keep my physical activity at a pretty low level to continue the activity. Also, I am pretty sure I cracked a rib last week, leaning out a window. But this is to be expected. The cancer is in my bones, and from time to time I have to expect that some part of the frame will not support a usual activity. My goal, right now, and my doctor’s, is to keep me fit enough to make the January trip to Nicaragua.

So that is my evaluation.
• I have work to do in knowing how to maintain friendships.
• I have to give more focused attention to my writing.
• I have to monitor my commitments at church to follow through on my involvements
• I have to try to promote my book to maximize any positive message in it.

All in all, not bad, and setting goals and evaluating before the year is out is a good idea.

Sabbath Principles, the Key to an Old Growth Society

Once again I am participating in the Spirit of the Poor synchroblog now permanently hosted by Esther Emery.  Please visit and read the other posts and join in the discussion.

I think there are two basic principles of Sabbath living. These principles are best seen in the story of God providing manna to the Hebrew people in the desert. These principles are:

• God has provided for us: there is even enough such that six days of work will yield enough sustenance for seven days of living.
• This is only true if no one hoards.

These Sabbath principals are both about individual behavior and communal living. We humans need time to rest, to reflect, to gain perspective; but our society, our world, also needs to rest. We need to rotate our crops and let our fields lie fallow. And we need rest to maintain a stable, cyclical, sustainable world.

About five years ago I tried my hand at writing songs. Here is the text of one of those songs:

A Grown-up Economy

We all began as a single cell,
That divided, grew and grew
From cell to fetus, from fetus to child
We grew, and grew,

Then adolescent, then adult
The miracle of growth at play
From one to thirty trillion cells
But then we stayed that way

Chorus:
All life honors limits to growth at adulthood
All systems honor limits to growth at maturity

What would a grown up economy look like
Intricate, stable, rich, diverse
What would an old growth society look like
Having a niche in the universe

What would a grown up economy look like?
Using only what others leave
What would an old growth society look like?
Leaving only what others use

Chorus:
All life honors limits to growth at adulthood
All systems honor limits to growth at maturity

Continuous progress no longer the answer
It’s the problem
Continuous growth no longer the answer
It’s the problem

Like reindeer on an island
Or algae in a pond
Or cancer in the body
We need another paradigm

Chorus:
All life honors limits to growth at adulthood
All systems honor limits to growth at maturity

Continuous growth, no longer the answer
Continuous growth is what we call cancer,

We all began as a single cell,
that divided, grew and grew
From one to thirty trillion cells.
But then came something new.

Chorus:
All life honors limits to growth at adulthood
All systems honor limits to growth at maturity

What would a grownup economy look like?

…

Our current paradigm is that of continuous growth – getting ahead personally, and growing the economy collectively. Anything that grows continuously: that grows exponentially (by a percentage, even if it is only 1%) will bifurcate – split apart – collapse. It is a mathematic certainty. Continuous growth is suicidal – like cancer.

We need another paradigm.
The place to start is in our imaginations. The Biblical images of Sabbath can help.

Day, on: night, off. Day, on: night, off.
Six on, one off: six on, one off.
It is cyclical. Every sixth day, harvest for two days and rest the seventh day. If you harvest for two days and don’t rest, your harvest will rot.

And let others rest. No need to get ahead, personally or collectively. Empires always need a slave class which usually comes from those of other races or women. We don’t need to be part of an empire. Empires always collapse anyway. We need a paradigm of stability and equality.

Individually we need to be willing to live with less – less stuff, less “savings”, less “security”, less privilege. Even working toward these goals; six on, one off: six on, one off. Even trying to imagine a new paradigm; on/off: on/off. It is in the “off” night dreaming that paradigm shifts usually happen.

Sabbath principles do not say “don’t work so hard, give yourself a break, take it easy. “

There is work to be done, and it is hard work, make no mistake about it. Very hard work. But not continuous – and not alone.

 

NORMAL: stories from my life; (teaser from PART III: Travel)

Getting closer to publication.

I: ISLA VISTA: 1970

The Burning of the Bank of America
The Crazy Concert
Roland’s Trial
The Boat

II: HOUSE BUILDING

The House my father built in Glendale
The Stone House at Rumblin’s
The House at the Land
The Hermitage

III: TRAVEL

Backpacking/Boy Scouts

Sleeping bag, tarp, jacket; tin foil, fishing leader with hook, bag of raisins and nuts; pocket knife, topographical map, matches.

I have always traveled light, but this was the lightest I had ever backpacked. I would be out two nights, travel about 30 miles, but only the first and last few on a trail. I would cross three watersheds before I descended the 80 foot cliff into the box canyon which emptied into Woods Lake where I was working for my brother building a log house while Barbara was in nearby Aspen at the Music Festival. Every evening after work I had poured over the topographical map to find a way down that cliff. I focused on one crevasse toward the head of the canyon, and finally decided it was passable.

Hitch-hiking

An experienced fisherman will always catch more fish than a novice. It may look like they’re both doing the same thing, but the knowledge that the experienced fisherman has of the habits, needs, and temptations of each species of fish is translated into subtle movements that catch the fish.

It is the same with hitchhiking. One usually has about three seconds to “catch” a ride. That first second is when the driver considers the possibility of picking up a hitchhiker.

   – One always has to be visible.

The next second is when the driver gets a general impression of the hitchhiker.

   – One always has to be vigilant in one’s posture and expression and one always has to have one’s belongings readily available.

In that third second, when the driver gets a closer look, that general impression is either enhanced or negated.

By this time, the hitchhiker must have assessed the driver and communicated the appropriate message:

i) I present no danger,
ii) I will provide interesting conversation,
iii) I will keep you awake or even drive for you,
iv) I have a specific destination with a legitimate need to get there,
v) I will not bring “downer” vibes into your environment.

…

Hitchhiking was work, not only catching a ride, but maintaining relationships in the car to get maximum distance out of the ride. I usually didn’t ask people how far they were going, but did say where I was going. Over time the driver would decide how far he or she wanted to take me. I didn’t want to force that decision before I had a chance to prove my value. People who pick up hitchhikers often have needs.

The 60’s Part I

When I decided to write these travel stories, I realized that this would be the last chance to talk about my life in the 60’s, and that although I have made references to various incidents that happened in that period, I have been pretty sketchy about my comings and goings in that mythical decade. So I’ll take some time with this story to give a chronology of where I spent my time and why, and some of what was going on in my slow development toward adulthood.

…

I was not a good student. I enrolled as an engineering major because that is what my father was and what my brother had done. I did badly in two kinds of courses, the kind with arrogant young professors, and the kind that required nightly homework. Most of the required social science courses had professors of the first type, and most of the engineering prerequisites were of the second type. I stopped going to classes and flunked out after three semesters. I did not know what I wanted out of life, but I knew the track I was on would not lead me there. I didn’t know how to change course, so I balked.

The 60’s Part II

… In the fall of 1967 I returned to Santa Barbara and took up my studies again. The department had made some changes in the requirements for a master’s in composition, so all I had to do was write papers for the incompletes, take a few more courses from my composition teacher, and finish my symphony. I got a job in the student cafeteria for the week before school and earned the $75 needed for tuition. While I was working I camped out on the peninsula across the lagoon from the Student Union. It was quite comfortable, so I set up a kind of camp there. In the day I hid my sleeping bag under the roots of the big eucalyptus tree on the down-hill side, and I tied my few groceries in a net bag from Guatemala up in the tree about 20 feet. I got a job as choir director in the Methodist church in Isla Vista, conducting the small choir for the small first service. It paid $8 per week the first semester, with a raise to $10 for the second semester. It was all I needed.

I made deals with the people at the Student Union: since a cheeseburger cost 10 cents more than a hamburger, I could buy a piece of cheese for 10 cents. I priced two pieces of toast at another 10 cents because that was the additional cost to add toast to scrambled eggs. So I regularly had a 20-cent cheese sandwich. Students had a tradition of hanging their used tea bags from the branches of the small newly planted trees outside on the lawn, and hot water was free, so I always had tea with my meals. I did some dumpster diving and always had peanut butter in my net bag. I had a locker in the music building where I could keep some clothes. I showered in the gym, and I had a table in the library where I was copying out my symphony. I kept everything on the table overnight and the librarians guarded it. We never spoke about it, but they knew it was valuable and I needed the space, so I had a table all to myself.

In Europe with Barbara

… From Munich we planned on going to Czechoslovakia. Again I didn’t consult guide-books about travel. I could see that it was a pretty straight shot from Munich to Plzen to Prague. We bought a train ticket to the border. It listed several transfers. Each transfer was to a smaller train. I wouldn’t swear to it, but I think the last train had only three cars and was painted red, looking for all the world like a San Francisco cable car. The countryside was beautiful. We passed small villages and scattered homes on the opposite hillsides. We didn’t go much above five miles per hour because it was steep. Clearly this wasn’t the main route to Prague.

The train tracks ended at a little town. We were the only ones looking to go on to Czechoslovakia. Although I had flunked the eight-unit German class at UCSB, I did learn enough to pass my written language exam, so I was the German speaker and found out that we needed to walk down a small road to the border. It was about a quarter of a mile to the check-point on a bridge. No vehicle passed us. We were cordially received, had our passports stamped and were told to continue on down the road. After another quarter mile we came to a town with a large round Quonset hut which served as the town gathering place. It was packed with people sitting at rows of tables, drinking beer, smoking, and playing cards. We were there for about three hours before a bus came to take us to Plzen.

It was fall of 1971. Prague Spring had happened in 1968.

IV: MAJOR COMOSITIONS

Violin Concerto
Cain: an Opera in 3 Acts
El Salvador: Requiem and Invocation
The Cell: an Opera in 5 Acts
Ascona: an Opera in 3 Acts

V: FAMILY VACATIONS

Backpacking
Car camping
Language Schools in Guatemala and Nicaragua
Spring break with the girls in Florida

VI: NICARAGUA

Delegations
Encounters
On the Staff of AKF
Transition to Entre Culturas

VII: ACTIVISM

Economic Justice: Part 1. Colombia and FTAA
Economic Justice: Part 2. FTAA and CAFTA
Environmental concerns
Immigrant Rights

First Thoughts on the Lectionary: July 20, 2014

Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43
He put before them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to someone who sowed good seed in his field; but while everybody was asleep, an enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and then went away. So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared as well. And the slaves of the householder came and said to him, ‘Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? Where, then, did these weeds come from?’ He answered, ‘An enemy has done this.’ The slaves said to him, ‘Then do you want us to go and gather them?’ But he replied, ‘No; for in gathering the weeds you would uproot the wheat along with them. Let both of them grow together until the harvest; and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, Collect the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.'” Then he left the crowds and went into the house. And his disciples approached him, saying, “Explain to us the parable of the weeds of the field.” He answered, “The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man; the field is the world, and the good seed are the children of the kingdom; the weeds are the children of the evil one, and the enemy who sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are angels. Just as the weeds are collected and burned up with fire, so will it be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will collect out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all evildoers, and they will throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Let anyone with ears listen!

Jesus had a temper. At least, Mathew thought he did.

I have been trying to write this post for six days and it is that temper – what almost feels like delight in vengeance – the image of weeping and gnashing of teeth – that has kept me from writing.

I don’t want to ignore this part of the text. I write these posts each week because I believe that actually reading the Bible and thinking about what is written there might be of use to me. But I don’t like to think about Jesus gleefully describing people being cast into eternal damnation.

. . .

My church has a sister community in Nicaragua and I have been very active in this hermanamiento. Initially, the leaders who planned our delegations were Elena, a US woman who had moved to Nicaragua in 1985, and Luis, a revered teacher, who was the national coordinator of the Christian Base Communities in Nicaragua in the ’80s. Luis always led us in a Biblical reflection at the beginning and ending of our delegations. In these reflections, with a small group, there was plenty of time to share, so the initial sharings were simple and not too long. After awhile, people got new ideas, having heard other’s impressions and thoughts. The sharing got deeper and deeper. It was a wonderful experience.

On my second trip to Nicaragua, in 1997, we reflected on last week’s gospel text in which Jesus, standing in a boat, addresses the gathered crowd and tells them the parable of the sower who sows seeds on the various kinds of soil. As we got deeper into the story, thinking about how it related to our lives and that of the Nicaraguan community we were about to visit, I remembered that the year before we had heard from the community that there would be a good sesame crop (their main cash crop). Then we heard that Hurricane Marcos had come at the end of the growing season and crushed the crop. So I said

Sometimes, even when the seed falls on good soil and grows to abundance, something like a hurricane comes and wipes out the crop.

And while I was saying this, another thought came to my mind, and I added

like a war.

Luis leaned over to Elena and said in a quiet voice,

Noel es un Padre Santo. No? (Newell is a Holy Father. Isn’t he?)

It was an incredible blessing that I will never forget. It wasn’t that I had any great insight, but what Luis felt in that moment was

He understands.
We have been battered and beaten down by the storms of nature, and by the military might of the most powerful nation on earth.  And this older white male from this powerful nation has come to us, listened to us …
And he understands.

I think this situation is similar to that of Jesus when he was standing on the boat talking to the people. He had just told the parable of the seed falling on different kinds of soil.

Emily Heitzman preached a sermon on this text last week in which she said

these early Christ-followers in Palestine know quite well that this good news Jesus (and his earliest followers) is spreading all over the place is not taking root or producing crop in many places and circles.
But Jesus offers hope. He says that even though the majority of our work produces no results, “there will be seeds that will fall on fertile soil.”  (And the yield of these seeds is enough to offset the failures.)

But then I believe Jesus, standing there on the boat, looking out at those who were looking to him for hope, felt the full weight of their situation – he felt the oppressive power of what they were up against – not just the post-Eden toil of working the earth to produce enough to eat – but the full force of human-generated evil that oppressed these people – the overwhelming power of the Roman Empire.

• He knew that they were taxed heavily to provide an indulgent life-style for Herod Antipas, as well as provide “bread and circus” for the citizens of Rome.
• He knew that the Romans had made slaves of entire towns in the region to impress upon the people their authority.
• He knew that the leaders of the Jewish religion had all sold out to the Romans: had become the tax collectors: had given up any prophetic voice in order to avoid punishment: had become the enforcers of Roman law.

Jesus thought about these things and his anger simmered within him and he gave them this parable of an evil presence which had spread weeds among the good seed so that even in good soil, there were hard times to endure. And he continued:

The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will collect out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all evildoers, and they will throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father.

And the people said

He understands.
This divine one, so pure, so wise, so good, who could only have come from God, who could have anything he wanted on this earth or in heaven, has come and lived among us and listened to us and . . .
He understands us.

There is evil in this world. If you have read much of my writing on this blog, you know some of the systemic evil that I believe inhabits our soil. But this is not the place to repeat that rant.
This is the place to say that Jesus’ flash of anger was an act of compassion. He was NOT saying to those who had gathered:

Some of you here have sin in your hearts and are goin to hell!

No – he looked out at the multitude and thought – all of you, ALL OF YOU, have suffered from the evil in the world. I want you to know that the goodness in your lives will bear fruit and it will not be chocked out and even if it seems that goodness is powerless against the evil that surrounds us, know that there will be a reckoning. Goodness will be rewarded.
The message of Christianity does not ignore the reality of our world.
Somehow, God understands what we are up against, and for me, that is a comfort.

NORMAL: stories from my life; (teaser from PART II: House Building)

My release date is still at least month out. The formatting is being held up by a design issue. Outskirts is the publisher and I will be sure and let everyone know when and how to get a copy.  But in the mean time, here’s the table of contents, and teasers from the secong section of stories:

I: Isla Vista 1970

                The Burning of the Bank of America

                The Crazy Concert

                Roland’s Trial

                The Boat

II: HOUSE BUILDING               

The House my father built in Glendale

… On one of our trips from Boston to California, Barbara and I stopped by a former neighbor’s home in Pennsylvania. They told us about their first encounter with my father. They lived next door to the vacant lot that had been overgrown with weeds for years. They had used the back of the lot for their vegetable garden. Shortly after the For Sale sign came down, they saw a man with a rented horse and plow come and till the land to get rid of all the weeds. They watched through their kitchen window as my father approached their garden. He stopped, then carefully plowed around the garden, making sure he didn’t damage any of the plants. Betty and Tom were so impressed that they went out and struck up a conversation. George told them his story: that he only had enough money to buy the land, and that no bank would give him a loan to build the house himself. Betty remembered that her aunt had just retired and was looking for a place to invest her money. Within a month and without a meeting, $10,000 was wired to my parents’ bank account.             

 The Stone House at Rumblin’s

 

There is only one ocean worthy of that name, the Pacific. Sunsets over the Pacific, whether in Santa Barbara, Maui, or Nicaragua, are the most beautiful sights this world has to offer. When driving across the country from the east, it is the bluffs of the Southwest that tell you you have crossed the continent. The great Southwest is a small token that the Pacific has bestowed on our land, a gift built up over time with the ebb and flow of the sea: mud pie after mud pie, patted, squashed, and baked hard by the sun; repeated until desired thickness, one to two thousand feet, varying the layers for texture and color.

When crossing the Rockies of Colorado, the Uncompahgre plateau rising out of the Grand Valley is where one first encounters the ancient shore; an edge piece of this layer cake, seventy-five miles wide and twenty-five miles across with the back side tilted up a few thousand feet, sloping down like the top of one’s foot, with canyons like the spaces between the toes, where the runoff meets that of the Rockies on the other side of the valley, finding its way to the Colorado River, the winding path that still links this region to the sea. Half-way up the mesa, very little of the top crust remains, but enough to preserve a straight line horizon from most anywhere. A thick layer of rim-rock, maybe two hundred feet down, supports the shelves on the side of each canyon, and closer to the center is majestically exposed, forming the steep walls as the canyons descend several hundred feet to the creeks which have done the excavating.

 

                The House at the Land

… The five-year plan under way, I had to face the State, the guardian of “safety standards.” Safety is a word that carries with it a moral imperative. Standards is the innocuous word that actually means cultural norms, however decadent. Used together, the morality associated with safety is used to enforce a lifestyle that is unsustainable. Just because many people use an obscene amount of electrical appliances in their kitchen, and using these without adequate wiring would be unsafe, we are all forced to include this obscenity in our homes. I have no problem with the building code itself; I just don’t want to be required to conform to it. If people want to have the assurance that the home they buy conforms to this kind of “safety standard,” then put a label on the property that says “This house has been designated as safe for immoral idiots.” Most houses don’t conform to the code anyway, but are “grandfathered in.” I would prefer to live in a house that has been “granddaughtered in,” a home whose “standards” come from awareness of the limited resources we will have in the future.

 

I was born with gifts and abilities that might have allowed me to pursue a variety of professional careers. I was also born with the unwillingness to live my life limited by the expectations placed on people in these careers. But from time to time I have focused my energies on a particular field to the extent that I was able to pull off an impersonation of one or another of these professions. In high school I had flirted with the idea of becoming an architect. So I found a book that described the required sequence of plans, got large “standard” vellum and drew up a set of plans using a #2 pencil for the drawings and a #3 pencil for the lettering, all in capitals at a 23-degree slant between slightly visible guidelines; plot plan, foundation plan, elevations, framing details, including calculations for points of maximum stress. I rolled the plans up in a standard 2½-inch diameter roll with a standard rubber band around them. Lt. Colonel James Beplatt, the building inspector, unrolled the plans on his table, casually flipped through them and gave us the building permit. I’m pretty sure that was the only time he looked at them.

 

                The Hermitage

There are two ways to dig a foundation in the hills of Massachusetts: with a backhoe, or with a spoon. I used a spoon, and clippers, and when I had cleared away enough dirt and stones, occasionally I would cut a larger root with a tree saw. The lower edge of the boreal forest gives the appearance of a lush rain forest; every inch of the canopy is full of leaves and there are layers of growth beneath. But all of this life is supported by about two inches of soil covering the surface of rocks and boulders, which are on top of larger rocks and boulders. All of the roots weave their way around each other through this soil and tuck themselves in and around this pile of rocks.

 

III: Travel

                Backpacking/Boy Scouts

                Hitch-hiking

                The 60’s Part I

                The 60’s Part Ii

                In Europe with Barbara

 

IV: Major Compositions

                Violin Concerto

                Cain: an Opera in 3 Acts

                El Salvador: Requiem and Invocation

                The Cell: an Opera in 5 Acts

                Ascona: an Opera in 3 Acts

 

V: Family Vacations

                Backpacking

                Car camping

               Language Schools in Guatemala and Nicaragua

                Spring break with the girls in Florida

 

VI: Nicaragua

                Delegations      

                Encounters

                On the Staff of AKF

                Transition to Entre Culturas

 

VII: Activism

                Economic Justice: Part 1. Colombia and FTAA

                Economic Justice: Part 2. FTAA and CAFTA

                Environmental concerns

                Immigrant Rights

 

First Thoughts on the Lectionary: July 13, 2014

Genesis 25:19-34
These are the descendants of Isaac, Abraham’s son: Abraham was the father of Isaac, and Isaac was forty years old when he married Rebekah, daughter of Bethuel the Aramean of Paddan-aram, sister of Laban the Aramean. Isaac prayed to the LORD for his wife, because she was barren; and the LORD granted his prayer, and his wife Rebekah conceived. The children struggled together within her; and she said, “If it is to be this way, why do I live?” So she went to inquire of the LORD. And the LORD said to her, “Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples born of you shall be divided; the one shall be stronger than the other, the elder shall serve the younger.” When her time to give birth was at hand, there were twins in her womb. The first came out red, all his body like a hairy mantle; so they named him Esau. Afterward his brother came out, with his hand gripping Esau’s heel; so he was named Jacob. Isaac was sixty years old when she bore them. When the boys grew up, Esau was a skillful hunter, a man of the field, while Jacob was a quiet man, living in tents. Isaac loved Esau, because he was fond of game; but Rebekah loved Jacob. Once when Jacob was cooking a stew, Esau came in from the field, and he was famished. Esau said to Jacob, “Let me eat some of that red stuff, for I am famished!” (Therefore he was called Edom.) Jacob said, “First sell me your birthright.” Esau said, “I am about to die; of what use is a birthright to me?” Jacob said, “Swear to me first.” So he swore to him, and sold his birthright to Jacob. Then Jacob gave Esau bread and lentil stew, and he ate and drank, and rose and went his way. Thus Esau despised his birthright.

What is the Bible and how should we use it?

When we read that Jacob tricked Esau out of his birthright, should we think: “This how we are supposed to behave – we are supposed to be deceitful in order to get what we want.”

This interpretation of the text comes from a presupposition that the Bible is a simple moral guide of how we are to behave.

Where did we get that idea?

My experience reading the Bible has taught me that the Bible is in part a history, but also in part, a history of people seeking, (and most often failing) to be in relation with the sacred, the divine, the presence of God.  And these parts are inseperably interspersed in the text.

Most of us have come to realize that history is written by the victors of wars, not by the righteous. So this mixture of a history of a particular people, interspersed with their search for the sacred – their attempt to be guided by the divine, requires of us, who seek guidance and inspiration from this text, great patience, perspective, and something like prayer in order for this reading to be of value to us in our world. I believe it is a worthwhile effort, and that is why I continue writing this series, First Thoughts on the Lectionary.

Let’s first look at what we know about the writing of history. History is written by those in power to explain how the world came to be the way it is. It will always have a tendency to claim that the path that led to “what is” was inevitable and good. In our western culture, progress is the word that insidiously conveys all of this meaning onto what we read as history. Let me repeat the simple statement:

History is written by the winners, not the righteous.

We should not expect anything different from the writers of the Bible. The story in Genesis in today’s lectionary is about the birth of the twins, Esau and Jacob. It was the 5th century scribes of the Second Temple Period of Israel, descendants of David of the house of Judah, son of Jacob, who wrote, or more accurately, collected and collated oral and written tradition and put together in composite form, this story of the birth of Jacob, their ancestor, as a way to explain the world they knew.

Still looking at history, and at this text, there are other elements in the text that help us, living in the 21st century and attempting to make sense of our world, get some perspective on our lives. We read that Esau was a hunter, and Jacob lived in tents, and took care of domesticated animals. We read of the powerful custom of “birthrights.”

At this point I’m going to digress. I just did some reading in Genesis and I burst out laughing at one of the stories. Jacob went to live with Laban, his father-in-law. He gained wealth and left in the middle of night to consolidate his wealth. Unbeknownst to Jacob, one of his wives, Rachel, stole some idols from her father as she left. At a confrontation, Jacob, protesting his innocence in the case of the stolen idols, says to his father-in-law, “go ahead and search my belongings.” Rachel escapes being caught by sitting on the idols and telling her father she can’t get up because she is having her period.” You can’t make this stuff up!!

So where were we?

I want to parse out from the text, the part that is about justifying the winners. Let’s look at who the winners and losers were, culturally as well as militarily. In today’s story, it is the shepherd that wins over the hunter. In the Cain and Abel story, generally considered a later text, it is the farmer (Cain) who wins (survives) over the shepherd (Abel). In our contemporary experience, it is the urban culture and corporate farms that win over the family farms.

                                                                                                               winners
Hunters/Gatherers    vs     Domestic herders                       Domestic herders
Domestic herders        vs     Farmers                                      Farmers
Family farmers            vs     Urbanites/Corporate farms     Urbanites/Corparate farms

So in the histories, it is the domesticated animal keepers and farmers who are honored and the hunters who are vilified. We know this all too well in the way the European colonists treated the indigenous inhabitants of the Americas and Africa, calling the people “savages.” I am saying that we probably have things to learn from these hunter/gatherers. Just because their way of life has been wiped out, and recorded in the Bible, does not mean we can’t learn from their seeking out of the sacred.

This post is getting far too long. I didn’t know where I was going with it when I began, and it has been a wonderful experience thinking about this Genesis text and our world and our search for value and divine inspiration. So let me turn to the elements of the sacred, issues of values, the seeking of God’s inspiration.

Where do I see signs of this help?

Rebekah prays to God, asking the question we frequently ask, “Why am I suffering?” And the answer is given, that God, with this suffering, is breaking an earthly convention – in this case, the convention that the birthright and the blessing always goes to the eldest son. I am reminded of a quote from John Dominic Corssan , something to the effect that divine revelation is the radicality of God breaking the norms of civilization. This is a human story, as well as a mythic story of nations.

The other value I glean from this story is, perhaps, the opposite. I have often wondered why this idea of a birthright is so important in civilizations as they have developed over millennia. This concept was still dominant in western culture until a century or two ago. This idea that the eldest son should be preferred seems so strange to our Protestant value, which holds that everyone is equal before God.

I have travelled to a small village in Nicaragua in recent years, maybe 20 times. When I first went, I thought “this village is timeless. It is like the Nazareth in which Jesus grew up.” In many ways it was – except the village was founded less than 100 years old. I know Aquileo, whose great-grandchildren populate the village. Aquileo’s great-grandfather founded the village. Aquileo had 18 children. Those children are now raising their grandchildren because the generation of Aquileo’s grandchildren are in El Salvador, Cost Rica, Spain, and the US. A community cannot continue the practice of dividing the land equally among offspring for very long before the community is seriously compromised. I think there is some reevaluation that is needed in our Protestant values. I believe in equality before God. But I have to question the assumption that this means that equality gets expressed in material benefits. I believe Rabi Herschel once said that a human-based ethic which leads to the extinction of the species is non-sensical. Population explosion in our world may well lead to the extinction of the human species, and this “human right” that all deserve equal material benefits is part of the dynamic which is propelling us over that cliff. One way to express this is that individual rights have been elevated over the community.

                                                                                               winner
Community values    vs     Individual values         Individual values

By way of conclusion,

– I think we must diligently resist the notion that historical winners, be they political or cultural, won because they were righteous – because God favored them.

– I believe God is always available to us and was available to those who were responsible for assembling and writing the Bible, and available to those of whom the Bible speaks: winners and losers.

– I believe that reading the Bible requires thinking, feeling, praying, acting on ones convictions – doing all these things in relation to the text, and that this is a fruitful activity as we seek the divine in our world.

– I believe in this process, not necessarily in any of these conclusions. I would appreciate any thoughts any readers may have, on any part of this post.

Newell