A Matter of Time, A Matter of Love
(Gay)
Because of the reigning media frenzy regarding gay marriages, I recently pulled out last year’s Christmas card from a male friend living in Los Angeles. On it were three little boys in bright colored smiles. His two year old gazes down with delight at a new pair of twins all bundled up; three precious children setting out on a remarkable journey with their two dads, a committed gay couple together now for about six years.
Its a great photo. But of course one dad happens to be a professional photographer. These days though he takes few pictures: Leonard is a stay-at-home dad while his partner Dan works. Their children are solid proof that love, no matter how manifested, does indeed work.
Is anything lacking here? From where my camera focuses, these dads have everything required to propel their sons into healthy, fulfilled adulthood, beginning not leastwise with their rambling four bedroom home and its recently redesigned nursery room of perhaps too many toys. From where I sit these guys have got it together.
These men didn’t adopt. They arranged the births with the help of a young woman in need who played surrogate mom for them “one step removed”. One of the men is father to the children; they are physically his offspring. But to see this family you’d never guess any distinctions in parenthood. You hear a lot of fussing and gurgling in that household these days. And like any other family meeting life’s unexpected twists, they were overwhelmed when the second go-round delivered a set of twins.
Against this backdrop of domestic bliss experienced in truly generous proportions, I hear the chorus of so many Christian leaders hammering away at any idea of gay union. The facts, the evidence of so many stories like Leonard’s, argue otherwise. As Leonard himself once simply put it to me, “I’m called to live a gay life and have responded to that vocation.” Gay partners, both men and women, in our time are bravely forging a new way to fulfill the most venerated of all biblical vocations, the call to love.
So what of these other biblical calls, so-called, peppering us from so many pulpits? Well, what is seen to be biblically correct, the black-&-white defined for all time right-&-wrong, has in fact been undergoing enormous shifts --you could say like everything else connected to our vital human condition. Check the record in even my own lifetime . . .
In the South, we once preached that God’s law prohibited African-Americans worshiping in the same church as us. “Build your own churches!” we said. “God’s Law demands it!” Mercifully, in our own time that “biblical” truth was left to die a natural death so that in many christian churches today blacks and whites can be heard singing Amazing Grace in one voice.
Then there was that commandment that God never intended interracial marriages. They even came up with a fancy word for it, although I have yet to find linguistic traces for miscegenation in the bible. But ministers insisted the bible said whites and blacks couldn’t mix. Well, who stares anymore when an interracial couple passes by on the street?
Only last Sunday a charming young couple sat ahead of me at Mass, a black man with his white partner. At the sign of peace, they turned around to smile and shake my hand, and later, as they took communion I could see that at last we were coming around to accepting what marriage is really all about.
Changing truths! Do truths change? As a former nun, I’ve seen many “commandments” in my own little community of sisters find new expression in today’s world. Maybe we’re simply digging deeper to find the same basic truth: that life is about love. And that that never changes. If anything is changing, mercifully it’ll be us!
That same Sunday, after my church experience with the inter-racial couple (the expression itself is already dated), I delighted to see in the Sunday New York Times marriage announcements a photo of two men announcing their union. How brave of the Times to print it! How brave of the couple themselves! Our culture and our religion will one day follow suit. One day we won’t be the least surprised to see same sex announcements.
I smoothed out that delightful photo of Trevor, Ethan, and Garrett with their Kodak-perfect smiles that speak a thousand love words, placed it on my fireplace mantle and lit a lavender candle beside it. It burns that we may soon leave all this verbal violence far behind us. I know love will win out. It always does. It’s only a matter of time --and a few brave souls to help us move forward.
I’d like to be around when these three boys pay tributes to their dads, airing their treasured memories of how their dads read to them and took a day off for a day at the zoo together. Maybe how, when one dad caught the flu the other took his place at work and hired a nanny for them. But maybe by then they won't need to tell the stories: two dads will be just another commonplace in this great pulsing kalidescope we call life.
Yes, one day I expect gay marriages will be pretty normal. Who knows, maybe on that day the pulpit itself will at last be abandoned as last ditch defense for a belief on its way out.
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Adele is a money peacemaker and the author of Money As Sacrament, a book for women. It's in all bookstores. She's available for personal money coaching at 407-263-4482 Visit her website:www.moneyassacrament.com.
Sunday, July 05, 2009
Monday, May 11, 2009
In Paradisum
Sitting close in her Hospice room, I held her limp hand in mine. I sought her mostly closed eyes. Her frail, cancer-wracked body lay still, her voice limited to a few trailing whispers. I turned and looked out the large bay window hoping to catch some meaning to all this, finding only deepening sadness. Never had I been present to anyone lingering so long this side of death; never before had I faced an end with such a young mother.
It seemed just a few years ago that she was that vibrant teenager, the lively Sunday school student of mine, cheerfully questioning, always a joy to teach. She belonged to an amazing, big Italian-American family that only a couple of years ago had lost their eldest son. Now they were being called to say goodbye to their second child, their first girl, their Annmarie. No reason could explain it.
Relatives and friends flew in by the droves. Hugs, handshakes, intimate conversations abounded, life's deepest mystery hovering wordlessly under our embraces. I marveled at her engineer father's solid faith as he confronted head-on this most perplexing reality. "My daughter is completing her work here on earth." It called to mind a poignant letter the spiritual teacher, Ram Dass, sent to a family whose young daughter had been murdered, where he postulated that when we go, no matter how, we have completed our calling. Could I believe it?
The reality of death continues to baffle me, although as a young nun, I was often turned toward death's face. We were shrouded in yards of black serge. Daily we prayed the Divine Office that spoke of life's end. Not infrequently we sat silently all night in chapel near an open casket, sometimes moving to stand over the nun's body confronting our own mortality. Yet, the next morning we'd joyously intone the gregorian hymn, In Paradisum, as the body was wheeled out. May angels escort you into Paradise.
After visiting Annmarie, we lolled the next morning at our motel under a magnificent south Florida sun, balmy breezes rustling my book's pages. I looked up at a giant Washingtonian palm standing rock still while huge fronds played about each other, obeying nature's irresistible choreography. Brown fronds hanging down danced too, though they were completely spent and wrinkled, and obviously dead. The metaphor wasn't lost on me as I tried to probe the lesson to its depths.
At some point, I took liberty with what I thought Annmarie might be lovingly dictating as she moved into the unknown . . .
Mom and Dad, cry, but not too much. I'm proud of my accomplishments, my marriage, my two beautiful sons. I'm proud of you, the cruise celebrating your fiftieth anniversary. I'm ready to go. Oh I'm missing you already. Yes, Dad you were right. I say with deep satisfaction that I've led a full and rich life.
Only a few weeks after we were back, I received the email I'd been dreading. Death had released Annmarie on April 26 at 4:56 a.m. Tears took over. I rushed to share the news with Jim, but stood transfixed at the door to his studio. For on his radio, loud and clear, had burst the chorus of Gabriel Fauré's hymn, In Paradisum. I stood overwhelmed as Jim and I hugged. The tears flowed warmly as the soaring words and music flooded my heart.
Death, at least for that moment, had suddenly became beautiful.
It seemed just a few years ago that she was that vibrant teenager, the lively Sunday school student of mine, cheerfully questioning, always a joy to teach. She belonged to an amazing, big Italian-American family that only a couple of years ago had lost their eldest son. Now they were being called to say goodbye to their second child, their first girl, their Annmarie. No reason could explain it.
Relatives and friends flew in by the droves. Hugs, handshakes, intimate conversations abounded, life's deepest mystery hovering wordlessly under our embraces. I marveled at her engineer father's solid faith as he confronted head-on this most perplexing reality. "My daughter is completing her work here on earth." It called to mind a poignant letter the spiritual teacher, Ram Dass, sent to a family whose young daughter had been murdered, where he postulated that when we go, no matter how, we have completed our calling. Could I believe it?
The reality of death continues to baffle me, although as a young nun, I was often turned toward death's face. We were shrouded in yards of black serge. Daily we prayed the Divine Office that spoke of life's end. Not infrequently we sat silently all night in chapel near an open casket, sometimes moving to stand over the nun's body confronting our own mortality. Yet, the next morning we'd joyously intone the gregorian hymn, In Paradisum, as the body was wheeled out. May angels escort you into Paradise.
After visiting Annmarie, we lolled the next morning at our motel under a magnificent south Florida sun, balmy breezes rustling my book's pages. I looked up at a giant Washingtonian palm standing rock still while huge fronds played about each other, obeying nature's irresistible choreography. Brown fronds hanging down danced too, though they were completely spent and wrinkled, and obviously dead. The metaphor wasn't lost on me as I tried to probe the lesson to its depths.
At some point, I took liberty with what I thought Annmarie might be lovingly dictating as she moved into the unknown . . .
Mom and Dad, cry, but not too much. I'm proud of my accomplishments, my marriage, my two beautiful sons. I'm proud of you, the cruise celebrating your fiftieth anniversary. I'm ready to go. Oh I'm missing you already. Yes, Dad you were right. I say with deep satisfaction that I've led a full and rich life.
Only a few weeks after we were back, I received the email I'd been dreading. Death had released Annmarie on April 26 at 4:56 a.m. Tears took over. I rushed to share the news with Jim, but stood transfixed at the door to his studio. For on his radio, loud and clear, had burst the chorus of Gabriel Fauré's hymn, In Paradisum. I stood overwhelmed as Jim and I hugged. The tears flowed warmly as the soaring words and music flooded my heart.
Death, at least for that moment, had suddenly became beautiful.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Toting Tolerance
Yassim is a bright-eyed student leader who attends a high school in Brooklyn, N.Y. She’s also a devout Muslim and was much challenged by an insensitive school rule; ‘to hold elective office, you are required to attend school dances.’ Like my former high school Baptist friends, dancing was forbidden. So Yassim was forced to resign her leadership position, but definitely unwilling to let it go at that.
Her story is recounted in Moustrafa Bayoumi’s riveting survey of growing up Arab in America, How Does It Feel To Be A Problem? As he tells it, “this heavyweight fighter stuffed into a tiny, ninety-five-pound frame wearing the hijab” battled that school rule for over two years of letter writing, soul searching, and googling. Finally, a pro bono lawyer attracted to her case skillfully led the school to reverse its decision out of court. The coordinator of student affairs, a sharp, principled man, finally acknowledged the inexcusable harm done to this outstanding student. Today, amazingly, they are good friends.
I find this story one of shining perseverance as well as exemplifying hopeful possibilities for change in unbending institutional environments. Mostly I think Yassim’s youthful struggle represents the ever-enfolding story of learning to honor God’s different faces.
As far as I can remember, my convent years of being totally wrapped in religious garb never brought on anything like Yassim’s incident of hurtful prejudice. Even earlier, during my school days at Winter Park High surrounded by a bevy of Baptist friends, I rarely ran into any of the anti-Catholic taunts making the rounds during the fifties. Blessedly, some of the mindless hatreds we lived with then, e.g. the Pope is the Antichrist, burned themselves out in the wide bin of falsehoods.
More recently exist hatched versions of inhumane mindsets still making the rounds. At a Rollins College diversity workshop a few years ago, my Muslim friend Luby, shared how she found herself suddenly ostracized from public school chums after years of close classroom and extra curricular experiences. Christian companions were suddenly mouthing attitudes fresh off a minister’s pulpit: “Luby, my Bible is the only true source to finding God. I’m sorry we can’t be friends anymore.”
Luby, pondering how the winds of global conflicts had inevitably blew onto her own environment, wound up years later conducting lectures and seminars she calls Connecting Cultures, now much in demand to clients the world over. Ah, how those winds of change sometimes blow in our favor.
Some years ago, I again heard another plea for evenhandedness at a New Year’s ecumenical retreat. A Jesuit priest and a white bearded rabbi, led the evening’s session, calling us to take turns speaking from raised symbols of our particular messages. Holding up a handkerchief, one beloved Jewish friend announced, “this represents the hundreds of tears shed over religious discrimination. Christians quote Jesus saying: ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life.’ Why can’t that divisive statement read “I am A way rather than THE way?”
That heartfelt plea deeply affected me. Could Jesus, love itself, have really intended to separate us from our brother Jews and non-Christians. More recently, having seen the documentary of James Carroll’s book, Constantine’s Sword, I realize how our Christian tradition has chosen to separate itself from, and inexorably had moved even to exterminate our close Jewish neighbors.
Though I walk and deeply appreciate the traditions of Catholicism, I hold that God’s presence vibrantly lives in diverse religions: Jew, Hindu, Moslem, or Baptist. And best selling religion scholar, Karen Armstrong, has written extensively on this subject of tolerance for the other. She notes the basic truth that abides in all beliefs: LOVE. “Do not do unto others what you would not have done unto you.”
Perhaps this tolerant love happens only one person at a time. Perhaps, as Yassim shows, it can even be launched at a little high school in Brooklyn.
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Her story is recounted in Moustrafa Bayoumi’s riveting survey of growing up Arab in America, How Does It Feel To Be A Problem? As he tells it, “this heavyweight fighter stuffed into a tiny, ninety-five-pound frame wearing the hijab” battled that school rule for over two years of letter writing, soul searching, and googling. Finally, a pro bono lawyer attracted to her case skillfully led the school to reverse its decision out of court. The coordinator of student affairs, a sharp, principled man, finally acknowledged the inexcusable harm done to this outstanding student. Today, amazingly, they are good friends.
I find this story one of shining perseverance as well as exemplifying hopeful possibilities for change in unbending institutional environments. Mostly I think Yassim’s youthful struggle represents the ever-enfolding story of learning to honor God’s different faces.
As far as I can remember, my convent years of being totally wrapped in religious garb never brought on anything like Yassim’s incident of hurtful prejudice. Even earlier, during my school days at Winter Park High surrounded by a bevy of Baptist friends, I rarely ran into any of the anti-Catholic taunts making the rounds during the fifties. Blessedly, some of the mindless hatreds we lived with then, e.g. the Pope is the Antichrist, burned themselves out in the wide bin of falsehoods.
More recently exist hatched versions of inhumane mindsets still making the rounds. At a Rollins College diversity workshop a few years ago, my Muslim friend Luby, shared how she found herself suddenly ostracized from public school chums after years of close classroom and extra curricular experiences. Christian companions were suddenly mouthing attitudes fresh off a minister’s pulpit: “Luby, my Bible is the only true source to finding God. I’m sorry we can’t be friends anymore.”
Luby, pondering how the winds of global conflicts had inevitably blew onto her own environment, wound up years later conducting lectures and seminars she calls Connecting Cultures, now much in demand to clients the world over. Ah, how those winds of change sometimes blow in our favor.
Some years ago, I again heard another plea for evenhandedness at a New Year’s ecumenical retreat. A Jesuit priest and a white bearded rabbi, led the evening’s session, calling us to take turns speaking from raised symbols of our particular messages. Holding up a handkerchief, one beloved Jewish friend announced, “this represents the hundreds of tears shed over religious discrimination. Christians quote Jesus saying: ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life.’ Why can’t that divisive statement read “I am A way rather than THE way?”
That heartfelt plea deeply affected me. Could Jesus, love itself, have really intended to separate us from our brother Jews and non-Christians. More recently, having seen the documentary of James Carroll’s book, Constantine’s Sword, I realize how our Christian tradition has chosen to separate itself from, and inexorably had moved even to exterminate our close Jewish neighbors.
Though I walk and deeply appreciate the traditions of Catholicism, I hold that God’s presence vibrantly lives in diverse religions: Jew, Hindu, Moslem, or Baptist. And best selling religion scholar, Karen Armstrong, has written extensively on this subject of tolerance for the other. She notes the basic truth that abides in all beliefs: LOVE. “Do not do unto others what you would not have done unto you.”
Perhaps this tolerant love happens only one person at a time. Perhaps, as Yassim shows, it can even be launched at a little high school in Brooklyn.
PAGE 1
PAGE 1
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Hail to the Chief
Hail To The Chief
I stand with my husband in our heavy coats. We mingle easily, shoulder-to-shoulder in this sea of people. Barack’s sonorous voice breaks through on nearby speakers as he repeats the sacred words committing him to the care of the country. A deafening cheer sounds. At the final “so help me God” my explosion of tears surprise me. I am not alone: countless mittened hands around me soak up countless tears. Yes, freed at last. Freed from years of dismal crookery, from this free-fall into chronic me-ism. We are renewed, pledged to one another. Or as President Obama put it, “to work alongside you to make your farms flourish, let clean waters flow, to nourish starved bodies and feed hungry minds.”
Who could have dreamed of such a possibility! An old teary-eyed African-American nearby loudly sums it up: “I have lived to see the day!”
At last we have a leader prepared to really lead. President Barack Hussein Obama gives me back the America my immigrant father believed in, a country of limitless possibility, without torture, without spying, without fear. Constitutionally guaranteed values are about to lead once more. Who could’ve guessed they’d ever be in peril.
I stand on the threshold of an America about to remake itself - yet again. America’s “patchwork of culture and religion” will be all the stronger now. Black and white, Jew, Muslim, Christian, Hindu, nonbeliever: E Pluribus Unum. We are one again, as on stage renowned Jewish-American violinist, Itzhak Perlman joins with celebrated Chinese-American cellist, Yo-Yo Ma to revive the deep call of the Quaker hymn, “Simple Gifts.” The celebration turns mythic.
The energizing myth extended itself into instant enthusiastic communities of citizens. Riding the crowded Metro to the inauguration, I struck up a conversation with a young Jewish mother standing alongside her African-American spouse and their striking 14 year old, curly-headed “Obama” child. When my feet began turning to ice, we bonded even more as Stephanie Weisman bent over to help place tiny warmers inside my shoes. Behind, diamond in her ear, a smiling Indian woman held tight the hand of a young daughter with huge doe-eyes. To our left, a savvy young council member and champion pumpkin chunker from Teaneck New Jersey entertained us with nonstop hilarity. Suddenly he uttered something that propelled me beyond his easy humor: “My life” he said, “has been guided by kind forces.”
Having set out without a chance for tickets, on our flight, we were surprised at meeting Member of Congress John Mica. Before we landed, the legislator graciously arranged for an aide to meet us at the Sam Rayburn Building and hand us tickets. It seemed our new friend’s “kind forces” had us in mind as well.
As the inaugural poem, recited by Poet Elizabeth Alexander echoed over the loudspeaker, we began our trek home. Hoards of street walkers knotted together at a choke point around the metro station, suddenly making it impossible to move in any direction. For the first time in that crowd my husband and I became suddenly aware: if a mob incident were ever to happen, here were all the right conditions. Clinging to Jim, tempted but unwilling to panic, I edged on. The spirit of the man who had just called us to community prevailed and calm remained with us all. Jim and I found our way out. Later, I could well appreciate the press report that not a single person had been arrested, not a single one injured in that record-setting melee.
We’re home now, still digesting the momentous happening. A line I once read came to mind: “A rising tide lifts all boats, and each of us empties his or her own cup into the ocean of spirit.” We know that Obama’s promise cannot be kept without our own work. From where I write, here in Sanford, I aim to pay attention, to learn and do what I can.
I stand with my husband in our heavy coats. We mingle easily, shoulder-to-shoulder in this sea of people. Barack’s sonorous voice breaks through on nearby speakers as he repeats the sacred words committing him to the care of the country. A deafening cheer sounds. At the final “so help me God” my explosion of tears surprise me. I am not alone: countless mittened hands around me soak up countless tears. Yes, freed at last. Freed from years of dismal crookery, from this free-fall into chronic me-ism. We are renewed, pledged to one another. Or as President Obama put it, “to work alongside you to make your farms flourish, let clean waters flow, to nourish starved bodies and feed hungry minds.”
Who could have dreamed of such a possibility! An old teary-eyed African-American nearby loudly sums it up: “I have lived to see the day!”
At last we have a leader prepared to really lead. President Barack Hussein Obama gives me back the America my immigrant father believed in, a country of limitless possibility, without torture, without spying, without fear. Constitutionally guaranteed values are about to lead once more. Who could’ve guessed they’d ever be in peril.
I stand on the threshold of an America about to remake itself - yet again. America’s “patchwork of culture and religion” will be all the stronger now. Black and white, Jew, Muslim, Christian, Hindu, nonbeliever: E Pluribus Unum. We are one again, as on stage renowned Jewish-American violinist, Itzhak Perlman joins with celebrated Chinese-American cellist, Yo-Yo Ma to revive the deep call of the Quaker hymn, “Simple Gifts.” The celebration turns mythic.
The energizing myth extended itself into instant enthusiastic communities of citizens. Riding the crowded Metro to the inauguration, I struck up a conversation with a young Jewish mother standing alongside her African-American spouse and their striking 14 year old, curly-headed “Obama” child. When my feet began turning to ice, we bonded even more as Stephanie Weisman bent over to help place tiny warmers inside my shoes. Behind, diamond in her ear, a smiling Indian woman held tight the hand of a young daughter with huge doe-eyes. To our left, a savvy young council member and champion pumpkin chunker from Teaneck New Jersey entertained us with nonstop hilarity. Suddenly he uttered something that propelled me beyond his easy humor: “My life” he said, “has been guided by kind forces.”
Having set out without a chance for tickets, on our flight, we were surprised at meeting Member of Congress John Mica. Before we landed, the legislator graciously arranged for an aide to meet us at the Sam Rayburn Building and hand us tickets. It seemed our new friend’s “kind forces” had us in mind as well.
As the inaugural poem, recited by Poet Elizabeth Alexander echoed over the loudspeaker, we began our trek home. Hoards of street walkers knotted together at a choke point around the metro station, suddenly making it impossible to move in any direction. For the first time in that crowd my husband and I became suddenly aware: if a mob incident were ever to happen, here were all the right conditions. Clinging to Jim, tempted but unwilling to panic, I edged on. The spirit of the man who had just called us to community prevailed and calm remained with us all. Jim and I found our way out. Later, I could well appreciate the press report that not a single person had been arrested, not a single one injured in that record-setting melee.
We’re home now, still digesting the momentous happening. A line I once read came to mind: “A rising tide lifts all boats, and each of us empties his or her own cup into the ocean of spirit.” We know that Obama’s promise cannot be kept without our own work. From where I write, here in Sanford, I aim to pay attention, to learn and do what I can.
Wednesday, January 07, 2009
Gaza
When Bill Clinton was President, I worked for Mideast peace alongside Jews, Muslims and Christians in Central Florida. We labored together in the Foundation for Mideast Communication. We gathered people of ethnic diversities around tables where we could safely talk, create dialogue and understanding, destroy old myths and hatreds. Arabs heard a Jewish woman share how back in the forties, her family had saved pennies, clothing, anything to welcome the new state of Israel for Holocaust victims. A Palestinian man who had lost his home on that land, now a successful American business man, was moved to understand better what the creation of Israel meant to Jews. Within the gathering, the dialogue continued. This was but one example of how dialogue helps create understanding. Ours was a community of safety releasing enormous pent up feelings.
In those workshops, old attitudes fell away, friendships formed and remained, some even to this day. Dialogue was key. Peace was possible. The Christian Bible, the Koran, and Hebrew Scriptures all led us to dutifully embrace one another, different or not. Joyfully, our work bore fruit.
I am an offshoot of that fruit. As an Arab American, I now have Jewish and Muslim friends. We had met at those tables. We shared beliefs. We grew in the process.
It is hard to know what to write about in this recent Mideast brutality. Words like “Tragic” or “massacre” don’t even come close. American F-16 and Apache helicopters with Israeli markings have dropped over 100 tons of bombs on dozens of locations in the Israeli-occupied Gaza Strip killing over 300 civilians. I want to shout: Stop! Just stop! I can’t look at the computer image of a father weeping desperately over the body of his dead son. It hurts too much.
In his book, The Road to Joy, Thomas Merton, dismayed at our involvement in the Vietnam war, wrote aptly for this current crisis in Gaza:
“In our technological world we have wonderful methods for keeping people alive and wonderful methods for killing them off, and they both go together. We rush in and save lives from tropical diseases, then we come along with napalm and burn up the people we have saved. The net result is more murder, more suffering, more inhumanity. This I know is a caricature, but is it that far from the truth?”
This is no caricature, In the Mideast, at the same time Israeli trucks were bringing in humanitarian supplies for hungry and medically denied Palestinian, their planes were bombing these civilians. Isn’t this a kind of insanity? Is this Merton’s truth repeated? We have wonderful “methods for keeping people alive and wonderful methods for killing them off?’
I am a Jewish ally. I dialogued to honor and uphold the state of Israel. I am torn that the Hamas government has yet to recognize the state of Israel. Yet, Israeli occupation of Palestinians will not encourage the duly elected leadership to recognize Israel while Gaza Palestinians sit easily angered, unable to feed families no matter how hard they work. As long as this continues, neither side will e safe. Have both forgotten the dream for a peaceful homeland?
That Jewish woman mentioned above has started a dialogue right here in Central Florida between Jewish, Muslim and Christian school children. Her project is called the Multi-faith Education Project, HYPERLINK "http://www.multifaitheducationproject.org" www.multifaitheducationproject.org. That’s the constructive kind of peacemaking for which the world cries out.
Remember Jimmy Carter was successful in bringing peace between Egypt and Israel through months of dialogue. He cared. I believe in dialogue. Rather than sending bombs and money to Israel, I encourage America to send peacemakers, young people, a kind of Mideast Peace Corp, to dialogue. We can show the world that we care, that we are so much more than simply a Department of Defense. How about a Department of Peace? It’s not a new idea.
So what can you do? No idle question. Surely there is always something whether it’s letter writing, making a phone call, or simply dialoguing with God about these unfortunate suffering civilians.
In those workshops, old attitudes fell away, friendships formed and remained, some even to this day. Dialogue was key. Peace was possible. The Christian Bible, the Koran, and Hebrew Scriptures all led us to dutifully embrace one another, different or not. Joyfully, our work bore fruit.
I am an offshoot of that fruit. As an Arab American, I now have Jewish and Muslim friends. We had met at those tables. We shared beliefs. We grew in the process.
It is hard to know what to write about in this recent Mideast brutality. Words like “Tragic” or “massacre” don’t even come close. American F-16 and Apache helicopters with Israeli markings have dropped over 100 tons of bombs on dozens of locations in the Israeli-occupied Gaza Strip killing over 300 civilians. I want to shout: Stop! Just stop! I can’t look at the computer image of a father weeping desperately over the body of his dead son. It hurts too much.
In his book, The Road to Joy, Thomas Merton, dismayed at our involvement in the Vietnam war, wrote aptly for this current crisis in Gaza:
“In our technological world we have wonderful methods for keeping people alive and wonderful methods for killing them off, and they both go together. We rush in and save lives from tropical diseases, then we come along with napalm and burn up the people we have saved. The net result is more murder, more suffering, more inhumanity. This I know is a caricature, but is it that far from the truth?”
This is no caricature, In the Mideast, at the same time Israeli trucks were bringing in humanitarian supplies for hungry and medically denied Palestinian, their planes were bombing these civilians. Isn’t this a kind of insanity? Is this Merton’s truth repeated? We have wonderful “methods for keeping people alive and wonderful methods for killing them off?’
I am a Jewish ally. I dialogued to honor and uphold the state of Israel. I am torn that the Hamas government has yet to recognize the state of Israel. Yet, Israeli occupation of Palestinians will not encourage the duly elected leadership to recognize Israel while Gaza Palestinians sit easily angered, unable to feed families no matter how hard they work. As long as this continues, neither side will e safe. Have both forgotten the dream for a peaceful homeland?
That Jewish woman mentioned above has started a dialogue right here in Central Florida between Jewish, Muslim and Christian school children. Her project is called the Multi-faith Education Project, HYPERLINK "http://www.multifaitheducationproject.org" www.multifaitheducationproject.org. That’s the constructive kind of peacemaking for which the world cries out.
Remember Jimmy Carter was successful in bringing peace between Egypt and Israel through months of dialogue. He cared. I believe in dialogue. Rather than sending bombs and money to Israel, I encourage America to send peacemakers, young people, a kind of Mideast Peace Corp, to dialogue. We can show the world that we care, that we are so much more than simply a Department of Defense. How about a Department of Peace? It’s not a new idea.
So what can you do? No idle question. Surely there is always something whether it’s letter writing, making a phone call, or simply dialoguing with God about these unfortunate suffering civilians.
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Shamed an aspiring entreprenaur
I write what I've heard. A lovely young woman approached me after a talk on money as sacrament. This is what she said: "I had a Catholic upbringing. I can't help but feel guilty as my vitamin business is now making lots of money." We talked further and I heard how her business had grown but anxiety had grown with it. "Being rich means I'm not following the poor Christ." Susan felt isolated, unworthy of an abundant income, and conflicted. Is there not a better way our churches can preach the good gospel about earning money? About having money and the good we can do with it?
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Testimonial for Money As Sacrament
Dear reader,
I received this email from a woman who gave me permission to share parts of it. Since I'm still speaking and writing about money issues, I felt her words might encourage you, my reader, to order Money As Sacrament. Like S., I know you won't be sorry.
This is, in part, what S.had to say:
"I want to thank you for writing Money As Sacrament. It was an answer to my prayer. I have been on a spiritual path for many years, probably all my life, although the early years too, in the form of religion - Lutheran and Pentecostal - because my Dad was and now is a retired minister. .... (then)there was a drastic transformation from religion to spirituality which stated in 1990 and now, I feel closer to God than ever before.
... Though unique circumstances, this amazing book became a major turning point of my journey. I am one of six kids and having a minister father and being born in a third world country like Guyana, money was scarce. We grew up in Canada, but still, I felt like Dad was protecting us from the 'evil' of money. ....
I firmly believe God wanted me to change the way I saw and thought of money, stuff I didn't even know I had in me. ... Your book brought all of this to the surface and I was forced to look at myself and tell my own money story, which I did in my journal.
.... So Adele, thank you so much for this book. I will always cherish this time in my life when the transformation was made inside of me. ..... my mantra is now 'money is my friend, and my friend will always be faithful to me.' I own money. Money doesn't own me. I am not scared to be rich anymore and I do not have to make excuses for my wealth. This is good.
With eternal thanks and gratitude,
S.M.
I received this email from a woman who gave me permission to share parts of it. Since I'm still speaking and writing about money issues, I felt her words might encourage you, my reader, to order Money As Sacrament. Like S., I know you won't be sorry.
This is, in part, what S.had to say:
"I want to thank you for writing Money As Sacrament. It was an answer to my prayer. I have been on a spiritual path for many years, probably all my life, although the early years too, in the form of religion - Lutheran and Pentecostal - because my Dad was and now is a retired minister. .... (then)there was a drastic transformation from religion to spirituality which stated in 1990 and now, I feel closer to God than ever before.
... Though unique circumstances, this amazing book became a major turning point of my journey. I am one of six kids and having a minister father and being born in a third world country like Guyana, money was scarce. We grew up in Canada, but still, I felt like Dad was protecting us from the 'evil' of money. ....
I firmly believe God wanted me to change the way I saw and thought of money, stuff I didn't even know I had in me. ... Your book brought all of this to the surface and I was forced to look at myself and tell my own money story, which I did in my journal.
.... So Adele, thank you so much for this book. I will always cherish this time in my life when the transformation was made inside of me. ..... my mantra is now 'money is my friend, and my friend will always be faithful to me.' I own money. Money doesn't own me. I am not scared to be rich anymore and I do not have to make excuses for my wealth. This is good.
With eternal thanks and gratitude,
S.M.
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