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Scars give Mother Earth more character!

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The Chinese government has not moved closer to democracy. It has simply moved from left wing authoritarianism to right wing authoritarianism.

China’s enslave and pave policy must be reversed. Where is our government’s indignation? Where is our great freedom fighting President’s moral outrage? What is the difference between oppression in one place versus another? Or is this the way of globalization; forced consumerism for all.

Today I signed a pledge to Boycott Made in China products. I hope you join me.

Dear Bishop

March 7, 2008

and what about the violence
once they leave the womb?

Newark revisited

January 22, 2008

During the summer of 1967 I worked at a Fresh Air camp in the rural hills of New Jersey. Twenty miles to the east was rioting and rebelling in the streets of Newark.

I was asked to make an emergency trip into the Newark ghetto to return a camper whose mother or sister had been killed by gunfire.  I was to say nothing about it.  The Bonnie Brae camp truck would be our credential for safe passage I hoped.  On each corner were crowds of angry black men staring at each vehicle passing by.  Forty years later many corners are still the same.

I was living in Newark in 1968 when Doctor King was murdered. Five of us (all quite white) lived in a black neighborhood while attending Seton Hall.

Down the street from our apartment was Cookie’s Plain and Fancy.  We would stop in after class to play pool, shoot darts, and drink High Life. Cookie had a shotgun behind the bar and  James Brown on the jukebox.  On the day he bought us a round of beers we felt like honorary members of the neighborhood.

When Martin Luther King was assassinated – it all changed. We were told not to return by Cookie.  We moved to the white suburbs soon after.

Evil had its way – with all of us.

whi/te boys gone
to the moon
plantin flags & stuff
why you boys goin
to the moon
dont yall think
yall done fucked up enuf
without messing
with somebody else’s world
in the beginning
it was africa
you just wanted to see
you said
& once having seen
commenced to fucking up
open up them china gates
& let’s hunt tigers in india
you whi/te boys sho nuff likes
what ever anybody else has
all ways got to be
digging in somebody’s bag
always got to be plantin flags & stuff
whi/te boys done gone
to the moon
just like they come here
talking bout it’s a
great adventure & we is
the first ones here
& plantin flags
whi/te boys gone to the moon
whi/te boys done gone to the moon
sho hope them lil brothers up there
dont show um how
to plant corn

– Kalamu ya Salaam

Pray for Peace

December 28, 2007

The dogs of war continue to rule this world. Your place and mine. Their opportunity is hostility and ignorance. Their game is manipulation. Terror is a tool – the fear of hell, ridicule, beating, bombing, jail, locusts,  the list goes on and on. Each place has its own special box of terror.


Belief in the The Apocalypse of John posits peace as unattainable
until the second coming of Christ:

until there is worldwide conflagration and a Christ based theocracy – peace is impossible.

How can you conduct sane foreign policy when you believe in such inevitabilities?


The God Gag

December 16, 2007

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Jesus was a little baby. Christians believe He was the Son of God. (we are all Children of God)(the mystical body).

Don’t you think Jesus would have written something himself? It was such an important mission. (As is ours.) Why allow chaos and doubt – why make the path convoluted and contentious? Why not simplicity and congruency from the Prince of Peace?

Perhaps there are other princes serving themselves – magicians to our minds. Sleight of hand artists yelling threats of damnation to distract and befuddle.

Yes, there is always something fishy in this cosmos – as if gangsters take over a loving God. Power plays. Land grabs. God gags.

 

give me the money

December 7, 2007

I wear the walmart tie
know all the quotations
have the big book

(BLASPHEMY!)

we are called to act in fellowship.

(it is a SIN to miss the ceremonies!)

we are asked to think beyond our selves –

(the only way to save your sorry ass is to OBEY!)

beyond sex and possessions beyond security and agenda.

(the most important thing is to avoid HELL!)

we are asked to dive in and swim upstream,

(keep your nose in the BOOK!)

living our lives to serve others …