Category Archives: The Poor and Disenfranchised

Daily Riches: God’s Call to Evangelicals … And All Christians (Lloyd Gestoso)

Posted on by under Community & the Church, Contemplation and Activism, Jesus the Savior, Loving Well, Social Justice, The Poor and Disenfranchised

“I want the evangelical church in America to be a place of safety and hope for real people who face real problems. …Christianity is one of the largest religions in the world. Evangelical Christians are very influential in this country. Our churches are very well-positioned all over the country. We have the infrastructure built. But people who have real problems, people who have real challenges, people who need hope often are not turning to our churches. It’s partly because, since the New Deal and all the things that happened in the 1930s, all the people born after that think the government is the group that takes care of people’s needs, and the church takes care of just the spiritual. But if you look at history before the Great Depression, the church was very, very active in caring for all needs, for all people, all children. They were educating the illiterate; they were caring for the orphans; they were really seeking to care for people who were addicted to alcohol. And I think we can be that place of refuge again for people when they see the shallow and empty solutions that are available and they want something more real, something of depth, something beyond what we can see. They want to connect with a real God, to the real Almighty God. And I think sometimes our churches are caught up with what others think or with being afraid to speak out, and we’re often caught up, unfortunately, judging others … looking at each other as competitors, not as brothers and sisters, weighing whether they deserve our time or our love. And that’s really unfortunate. We really need to understand the grace of God that’s in our lives, set aside our preoccupation with deciding people’s worthiness, and really begin to see every human being with value, seeing every human being as a human soul that has crossed our paths for some purpose. That’s really why God put us on Earth: to love profoundly. And I think we are still not known for loving profoundly.” Lloyd Gestoso

“whoever loves others
has fulfilled the law.”
Romans 13:8

  Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • Do you calculate “people’s worthiness” before you decide whether to help them?
  • Does your denomination “love profoundly?” …your church? Would others use those words to describe you?
  • Is your church more likely to produce people who are “judging others” or helping others “connect with” the God who is real?

Abba, help us, whoever we are, to love profoundly.

For More: The Soul of Politics by Jim Wallis

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These “Daily Riches” are for your encouragement as you seek God and he seeks you. My goal is to share something of unique value with you daily in 400 words or less. –  Bill (Psalm 90:14)

Daily Riches: Pimping Religion, Confronting Empire – Part I (Dan Clendenin)

Posted on by under Awareness, dissent and resistance, Insiders and Outsiders, Nationalism and Patriotism, Social Justice, The Poor and Disenfranchised, truth and illusion

“Amos wrote 2,800 years ago, but his prophecy reads like today’s newspaper. He lived under king Jeroboam [whose] kingdom was characterized by territorial expansion, aggressive militarism, and unprecedented economic prosperity. Times were good. Or so people thought. The people of the day interpreted their good fortune as God’s favor. Amos says that the people were intensely and sincerely religious. But theirs was a privatized religion of personal benefit. They ignored the poor, the widow, the alien, and the orphan. …Making things worse, Israel’s religious leaders sanctioned the political and economic status quo. They pimped their religion for Jeroboam’s empire. Enter Amos. Amos preached from the pessimistic and unpatriotic fringe. He was blue collar … neither a prophet nor even the son of a prophet in the professional sense of the term. Amos was a shepherd, a farmer, and a tender of fig trees. He was a small town boy who grew up in Tekoa…. The cultured elites despised him as a redneck [and]… an unwelcome outsider. Born in the southern kingdom of Judah, God called him to thunder a prophetic word to the northern kingdom of Israel. And that’s what this rough hewn prophet did. He opposed the political powers of his day and the religious stooges who supported them. With graphic details that make you wince, Amos describes how the rich crushed the poor; the affluent with their expensive lotions, elaborate music, and vacation homes with beds of inlaid ivory; sexual debauchery in which a man and his son abused the same woman; a corrupt legal system that sold justice to the highest bidder; predatory lenders who exploited vulnerable families; and religious leaders who sanctioned it all. …To the priests who defended, legitimized, and justified Jeroboam’s corrupt kingdom, Amos delivered an uncompromising word of warning. After Amaziah the priest informed Jeroboam that Amos’s preaching was unpatriotic and seditious, he tried to run him out of town. …Then Amaziah said something that reveals how completely he had identified religious faith with political power and economic gain. It ought to send a chill up the spine of every religious leader who ever thought about sucking up to political power: ‘Don’t prophesy anymore at Bethel, because this is the king’s sanctuary and the temple of the kingdom.’ (7:13). With those words, the religious justification of political empire is complete, and faith is reduced to patriotic cheer-leading. But Amos wouldn’t be bullied. He had a word of his own for every priest who pimped religion for empire:

Amos 7:17

Moving From Head to Heart

  • Is your vision blurred by “good times?”
  • Do you hear a “religious justification of political empire” in your nation?
  • Is yours a “privatized religion of personal benefit?” Benefits upheld by injustice?

Abba, help us recognize those who speak for you in our day.


Daily Riches: Wisdom Through the Awful Grace of God (Simone Weil, David Benner, Pete Scazzero and Aeschylus)

Posted on by under Awareness, Desolation's Gift, Detachment and Attachment, Embracing Losses and Limits, Emotions and Spirituality, Loving Well, Spiritual Formation, Suffering and Grace, The Love of God, The Poor and Disenfranchised

“Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget

falls drop by drop upon the heart
until, in our own despair, against our will,
comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.”
Aeschylus

“Misfortunes leave wounds which bleed drop by drop even in sleep; thus little by little they train man by force and dispose him to wisdom in spite of himself. Man must learn to think of himself as a limited and dependent being; and only suffering teaches him this. …Human beings are so made that the ones who do the crushing feel nothing; it is the person crushed who feels what is happening. Unless one has placed oneself on the side of the oppressed, to feel with them, one cannot understand. …Difficult as it is really to listen to someone in affliction, it is just as difficult for him to know that compassion is listening to him. …The love of our neighbor in all its fullness simply means being able to say, ‘What are you going through?’” Simone Weil

“Suffering can be a path to awakening when we engage it with receptivity to the gifts it holds rather than simply attempt to endure it. One of those gifts is that suffering has unique capacity to help us soften and release attachments and move toward a life of non-attachment. Simone Weil said that suffering that does not detach us is wasted suffering. Don’t waste suffering. It’s always a shame to have to repeat lessons because we don’t get their point but suffering is a particularly bad lesson to be slow to get.” David Benner

“The sad reality is that most of us will not go forward until the pain of staying where we are is unbearable.”  Pete Scazzero

“Do not be like a senseless horse or mule    
that needs a bit and bridle to keep it under control.”
Psalm 32:9

 Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • Have you come to see yourself as “a limited and dependent being?”
  • Do you work to “place yourself on the side of the oppressed, to feel with them?” …to suffer with them? If not, why not, since understanding them must necessarily precede loving them well?
  • Are you waiting to make some change God wants until things become “unbearable?” Are you at risk of needing to “repeat” difficult lessons that the “awful grace of God” has been trying to teach you?

Abba, help me to heed the lessons of your sometimes awful grace.

For More: Spirituality and the Awakened Self by David Benner

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These “Daily Riches” are for your encouragement as you seek God and he seeks you. Thank you for following and sharing my blog. My goal is to share something of unique value with you daily in 400 words or less. –  Bill (Psalm 90:14)

Daily Riches: Outcasts and the Conversion of the Church (Richard Rohr, Philip Yancey and Dietrich Bonhoeffer)

Posted on by under Insiders and Outsiders, Learning Your Proper Place, Loving Well, Social Justice, The Poor and Disenfranchised, The Upside-Down Kingdom

“Those at the edge, ironically, always hold the secret for the conversion of every age and culture. They always hold the projected and denied parts of our soul. Only as the People of God receive the stranger and the leper, those who don’t play our game, do we discover not only the hidden and hated parts of our own souls, but the Lord Jesus himself. In letting go, we make room for the Other. The Church is always converted when the outcasts are re-invited into the temple.” Richard Rohr

“In a world ruled by law, grace stands as a sign or contradiction. We want fairness; the gospel gives us an innocent man nailed to a cross who cries out, ‘Father, forgive them.’ We want respectability; the gospel elevates tax collectors, prodigals, and Samaritans. We want success; the gospel reverses the terms, moving the poor and downtrodden to the head of the line and the wealthy and famous to the rear. …To follow Jesus [means] to respond as he did, against all reason to dispense grace and love to those who deserve it least. …We see ourselves as on the side of Christ by giving to the needy. The new Testament makes plain, however, that Jesus is on the side of the poor, and we serve best by elevating the downtrodden to the place of Jesus.  … the direction of charity is not condescending, but rather ascending: in serving the weak and the poor, we are privileged to serve God himself.”  Philip Yancey

“There remains an experience of incomparable value. We have for once learned to see the great events of world history from below, from the perspective of the outcasts, the suspects, the maltreated – in short, from the perspective of those who suffer. Mere waiting and looking on is not Christian behavior. Christians are called to compassion and to action.” Dietrich Bonhoeffer

“Has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith
and to inherit the kingdom he promised those who love him?”
James 2:5

 Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • If a church is “converted” by “outcasts” that it welcomes, to what degree is your church being converted?
  • How is your church doing at “dispensing grace and love to those who deserve it least?” Are such people even showing up in your church?
  • What do you do that helps you to see “from the perspective of those who suffer?” Is that something you desire? What would be the point?

Abba, may I see you and serve you in serving the maltreated of my day.

For More: Soul Survivor by Philip Yancey

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I hope you’ll follow and share my blog. I appreciate your interest!  –  Bill

 

Daily Riches: Inconspicuous Piety and the Santification of Trifles (Abraham Heschel, Teresa of Avila, William Wordsworth, and Aldous Huxley)

Posted on by under "Being" with Jesus, Being and Doing, Contemplation and Activism, dissent and resistance, Learning Your Proper Place, Social Justice, The Poor and Disenfranchised

“The path of spirituality is a knife-edge between abysses.” Aldous Huxley

“We are ready to applaud dramatic struggles once a year in Washington. For the sake of lofty principles we will spend a day or two in jail somewhere in Alabama. But that prosaic demand for housing without vermin, for adequate schools, for adequate employment – right here in the vicinity of Park Avenue in New York City – sound so trite, so drab, so banal, so devoid of magnificence. …The [Hebrew] prophets field of concern is not the mysteries of heaven, the glories of eternity, but the blights of society, the affairs of the market place. …The predominant feature of the biblical pattern of life is unassuming, unheroic, inconspicuous piety, the sanctification of trifles….” Abraham Heschel

“The best portion of a good man’s life: his little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and of love.” William Wordsworth

“Let there be no disappointment when obedience keeps you busy in outward tasks. If it sends you to the kitchen, remember that the Lord walks among the pots an pans.” Teresa of Avila

“Among my people are wicked men
who lie in wait for victims like a hunter hiding in a blind.
They continually set traps to catch people.
Like a cage filled with birds,
their homes are filled with evil plots.
And now they are great and rich.
They are fat and sleek,
and there is no limit to their wicked deeds.
They refuse to provide justice to orphans
and deny the rights of the poor.”
Jeremiah 5:23-28

 Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • When is the last time you carefully read the Prophets? Have you drunk deeply enough there to be aware of their “field of concern?”
  • Are you committed to heroic, “dramatic struggles” on behalf of the poor or others? Does that keep you from “remembering the Lord among the pots and pans?”
  • Are you engaged in spiritual practices? Is your aim something like “inconspicuous piety?” Does that keep you from activity to address “the blights of society?”
  • What, in really concrete terms, would it mean for you to practice the “sanctification of trifles?”

Abba, balance me on the path which is a knife-edge between abysses.

For More:  The Insecurity of Freedom by Abraham Heschel

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These “Daily Riches” are for your encouragement as you seek after God and he seeks after you. I hope you’ll follow and share my blog. My goal is to share something of unique value with you daily in 400 words or less. I appreciate your interest!  –  Bill (Psalm 90:14)

“I practice daily what I believe; everything else is religious talk.”

Daily Riches: Preparation for Ministry (James Martin, Brennan Manning and Tagore)

Posted on by under Asceticism, Being and Doing, Loving Well, Obscurity and Secrecy, Social Justice, Spiritual Formation, The Poor and Disenfranchised

“I slept and dreamt that life was joy.

I awoke and saw that life was service.
I acted and behold, service was joy.”
Rabindranath Tagore

“Over the past twenty-two years as a Jesuit, I have worked in a variety of what you might call service-related positions. While a novice in Boston, beside the time at the homeless shelter, I worked in a hospital for the seriously ill. Also during my novitiate, I worked with Mother Teresa’s sisters in the slums of Kingston, Jamaica, in a hospice for the sick and dying. During philosophy studies in Chicago, I worked with gang members and at a community center helping unemployed men and women find jobs. After that came my two years in Kenya with refugees. …It would take me into some of the worst slums in the world and introduced me to some people who were certainly the poorest of the poor, and yet whose great faith astonished me. Later, during my theology studies in Cambridge, Massachusetts, I worked as a prison chaplain, spending time with men and women from poor backgrounds who had sometimes committed terrible crimes … and who were desperate for someone to talk to. And since ordination I continue to do service in the form of sacramental ministry like hearing confessions, presiding at funerals, and accompanying people in difficult times. These works all brought me joy.” James Martin

“A two-year leave of absence from the Franciscans took Brennan to Spain in the late sixties. He joined … an Order committed to an uncloistered, contemplative life among the poor – a lifestyle of days spent in manual labor and nights wrapped in silence and prayer. Among his many and varied assignments, Brennan became an aguador (water carrier), transporting water to rural villages via donkey and buckboard; a mason’s assistant, shoveling mud and straw in the blazing Spanish heat; a dishwasher in France; a voluntary prisoner in a Swiss jail, his identity as a priest known only to the warden; a solitary contemplative secluded in a remote cave for six months in the Zaragoza desert.” Brennan Manning

“I tell you the truth, of all who have ever lived,
none is greater than John the Baptist.”
Matthew 11:11

 Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • My ministry preparation was almost entirely academic. Now that seems profoundly misguided and inadequate. What’s your experience?
  • Has your “book learning” been tested and enhanced by “street learning?”
  • Can you trust God to use you no matter what your journey has been?

Abba, use me.

For More: Abba’s Child by Brennan Manning

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“Daily Riches” are for your encouragement as you seek God and he seeks you. I hope you’ll share my blog. My goal is to share something of unique value with you daily in 400 words or less. –  Bill

Daily Riches: Learning from the South and East, the Black and the Brown (Jim Wallis)

Posted on by under Awareness, Loving Well, Social Justice, The Call to Change, The Poor and Disenfranchised

“What brought me to Korea was a unique ‘Global Forum for the Future of World Christianity.’ Held on Jeju Island, off the coast of South Korea, it was hosted by three of the largest megachurches in South Korea (and the world) including Myungsung Church. That means this Korean conference of evangelical and Pentecostal leaders from around the world was financially independent from American evangelicalism’s money and political ideology. …for the first time in 1,000 years, more Christians are found in the global South than the North. The center of Christianity has dramatically shifted, and that means the agenda was very different from the northern and western agendas of the older white evangelicals in America and the issues they think most important. Korea could play a particular and convening role as a bridge between the churches of the global north and south. …these global South evangelicals spent their time together wrestling with issues of global economic inequality, the realities of climate change, the imperatives of racial justice, and the need for Christians to wage peace instead of war. Since these are the issues that global evangelical and Pentecostal constituencies are facing in their own lives – and of course, the Bible addresses all of them as central issues Christians need to confront – the narrow, white American evangelical agenda had no interest in this global evangelical and Pentecostal forum. The fact is that they represent a different evangelical world. …How refreshing it was to be in the presence of leaders of faith – heads of these huge churches that represent millions – who are more interested in the needs of the poor and the call of Christ than … reducing gospel concerns to a few hot button social and sexual issues. Their wider global evangelical agenda rings true with black and brown evangelicals in America and a new generation of even white evangelicals emerging in America. Both globally and here in America, these emerging leaders give me hope.” Jim Wallis

“I am the Lord, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth,
for in these I delight”
Jeremiah 9:24

 Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • Must we choose between Western and Southern evangelical concerns? What would a “Yes, And …” approach look like?
  • Have you unintentionally or thoughtlessly adopted a parochial approach?
  • Do issues like dramatic economic inequality, perilous climate change, the need for racial justice, and supporting peace-making instead of war-making seem to you like valid Biblical concerns? ones that ought to be addressed from the pulpit?

Abba, use my brothers and sisters to the South and East, black and brown – and poor, to stretch me, and help me see with new eyes.

For More: From Times Square to Timbuktu by Wes Granberg-Michaelson

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Thanks for following “Daily Riches!” –  Bill (Psalm 90:14)

Daily Riches: Detaching Religion From Power and Money (Hans Küng and Richard Rohr)

Posted on by under Community & the Church, dissent and resistance, Downward Mobility, Ego Issues, Learning Your Proper Place, Social Justice, The Poor and Disenfranchised, The Upside-Down Kingdom
“Jesus turns with sympathy and compassion to all those to whom no one else turns; the weak, sick, neglected, social rejects. People were and are always glad to pass these sorts by. …And the devout monks of Qumran (and similarly up to a point the rabbis), faithful to their rule, excluded from the very beginning certain groups of men: ‘No madmen, or lunatic, or simpleton, or fool, no blind man, or maimed, or lame, or deaf man, and no minor, shall enter into the Community….’ Jesus does not turn away from any of these …but draws them to himself….” Hans Küng
.

“We see in the Gospels that it’s the lame, the poor, the blind, the prostitutes, the drunkards, the tax collectors, the sinners, the outsiders, and the foreigners who tend to follow Jesus. It is those on the inside and the top who crucify him (elders, chief priests, teachers of the Law, and Roman occupiers). Shouldn’t that tell us something really important about perspective? Every viewpoint is a view from a point, and we need to critique our own perspective and privilege if we are to see truth. …Once Christianity became the established religion of the Roman Empire (313), we largely stopped reading the Bible from the side of the poor and the oppressed. We read it from the side of the political establishment and, I am sorry to say, from the priesthood side … instead of from the side of people hungry for justice and truth. No wonder Jesus said, ‘I did not come for the healthy but for the sick’ (Mark 2:17). This priority has the power to constantly detach religion from its common marriage to power, money , and self-importance.” Richard Rohr

  “If you show special attention to the man wearing fine clothes
and say, ‘Here’s a good seat for you,’
but say to the poor man, ‘You stand there”’
or ‘Sit on the floor by my feet,’
have you not discriminated among yourselves
and become judges with evil thoughts?’”
James 2:3

 Moving From Head to Heart

  • Wow, James sounds like his famous half-brother! Is there a “pecking system” in your church? Is anyone treated better than anyone else – given more honor, attention, or influence – because of wealth?
  • Will you support Jesus’ agenda to “detach religion from its common marriage to power and money?”
  • Are you able to read the Bible “from the side of the poor and the oppressed?” What is your “view from a point?”

Abba, may I learn from you a bias for the bottom.

For More: Everything Belongs by Richard Rohr

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These “Daily Riches” are for your encouragement as you seek God. I hope you’ll follow and share my blog. My goal is to share something of unique value with you daily.  –  Bill (Psalm 90:14)

 

 

Daily Riches: Today’s Need For an Alternative History (Richard Rohr)

Posted on by under dissent and resistance, Nationalism and Patriotism, Social Justice, The Poor and Disenfranchised

“The political terms right and left came from the Estates General in France. It’s interesting that now we use them as our basic political categories. On the left sat the ordinary people, and on the right sat the nobility and the clergy! (What were the clergy doing over there?!) I think you see the pattern. The right normally protects the community and the status quo. The left predictably looks for change and reform, and there is a certain need for both or we have chaos. In history you will invariably have these two movements in some form, because we didn’t have the phenomenon of the middle class until very recently. The vast majority of people in all of history have been poor, as in Jesus’ time, and would have read history as a need for change. The people who wrote the books and controlled the social institutions, however, have almost always been the comfortable people on the right. And much of history has been read and interpreted from the side of the ‘winners,’ or the right, except for the unique revelation called the Bible, which is an alternative history from the side of the enslaved, the dominated, the oppressed, and the poor, leading up to the totally scapegoated Jesus himself. …He tries to put inside and outside together, but is killed by those entrapped and privileged on the inside.” Richard Rohr

“the chief priests and the Pharisees went to Pilate.
‘Sir,’ they said, ‘we remember that while he was still alive that deceiver said,
‘After three days I will rise again.’
Matthew 27:61-63

 Moving From Head to Heart

  • According to your social and economic status today, would you typically be on the left or right? …with the privileged or powerless?
  • Accordingly, if you were to insert yourself into the Biblical story, would you be more likely with the religious and political authorities (preserving tradition and order), or with Jesus (dissenting and challenging authority)?
  • The Bible is clearly “an alternative history” from the perspective of the bottom. Have you read it that way? Does thinking about it that way change the way you see our world now?
  • Can you imagine the reception Jesus would receive if he came today as he did back then? …who would be for him and who against him? …what you would do?

Jesus, may I be found, like you, siding with the weak and poor.

For More: Yes, And... by Richard Rohr

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These “Daily Riches” are for your encouragement as you seek after God and he seeks after you. I hope you’ll follow and share my blog. My goal is to share something of unique value with you daily in 400 words or less. I appreciate your interest!  –  Bill (Psalm 90:14)

Daily Riches: A World of People Equidistance From the Heart of God (Daniel Clendenin)

Posted on by under Loving Well, Nationalism and Patriotism, Social Justice, The Poor and Disenfranchised

Besides the Holocaust, our world has experienced many other genocides – “a million or more Armenians under the Turks … two million Cambodians under the Khmer Rouge and Pol Pot; Kurds under Saddam Hussein; Muslims, Croats, and ethnic Albanians under the Serbs; thirty million Chinese under Mao; tens of millions under Soviet atheism; nearly a million ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus by extremist Hutus in Rwanda; and in Darfur the Fur, Zaghawa, and Massaleit peoples by Sudan’s government. The deadliest war of our generation has also been the most under-reported conflict – the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Since the start of conflicts there in 1996, five million people have perished out of a population of fifty million – a staggering 10% of the population. Over half of those deaths occurred since the war ended in July 2003. …In his book Worse Than War; Genocide, Eliminationism, and the Ongoing Assault on Humanity (2009), Daniel Goldhagen describes how 127–175 million people have been ‘eliminated’ in the last century. These people came from all regions of the world, and from all social, economic and political groups. The vast majority of them were killed in their own countries, by their fellow citizens, by willing and non-coerced murderers, and almost never with any substantial dissent. By Goldhagen’s count, ‘mass murder has deeply scarred countries home to 4.4 billion people, two-thirds of the world’s population.’ Civilian deaths and injuries outnumber military ones by a factor of nine to one. …[In Acts 3] Peter says that God is the ‘author’ of all life. He concludes his sermon by proclaiming that in Jesus ‘all peoples on earth will be blessed’ by God. This echoes the global promise first made to Abraham four thousand years ago in Genesis 12:3. This story of Jesus, says Peter, anticipates the ‘restoration of all things.’ We can say with unqualified confidence that God knows and loves every name of every person in every nation. Christians are thus geographic, cultural, national and ethnic egalitarians; for us there’s no geo-political center of the world, only a constellation of peoples equidistant from the heart of God. Proclaiming that God lavishly loves all the world, each person, and every place, the gospel doesn’t privilege any nation as exceptional. No one should think they are forgotten, and no one can claim special favor. …from a specifically Christian point of view, America is no more ‘exceptional’ in God’s eyes than any other country. While allowing for a natural and wholesome love, even pride, in your own country (‘there’s no place like home’), this geo-political egalitarianism subverts the claim of absolute allegiance to any one nation. The claims of the gospel are absolute and unconditional; the claims of the nation and state are relative and conditional. This Christian global vision requires me to care as much about every country and its people as I do my own. Christians grieve the deaths of Iraqis and Congolese as much as Americans. That implies that our politics become reoriented, non-aligned, and unpredictable by normal canons.” Daniel Clendenin

“[God] said to Abraham,
‘Through your offspring
all peoples on earth
will be blessed.'”
Acts 3:25

Moving From the Head to the Heart
  • Do you think of your nation as being especially “favored” by God? If so, what would that imply? What wouldn’t that imply?
  • Has nationalism prevented you from seeing all other people as “equidistant from the heart of God?”
  • Has you faith caused your politics be “reoriented, non-aligned, and unpredictable by normal canons?”

Abba, lead us out of illusion and into reality.

For More: Worse Than War by Daniel Goldhagen

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Thanks for following and sharing “Daily Riches.” – Bill (Psalm 90:14

Daily Riches: How We Learn Altruism (Robert Lawrence Smith)

Posted on by under Being and Doing, contemplative virtues, Loving Well, The Poor and Disenfranchised

“Like turning the other cheek, helping the stranger is a fundamentally counterintuitive act. We …are basically a self-interested species. Our instinct is to husband our resources and share them only with close family and friends – people we know well and love and who are likely to reciprocate when we ourselves are in need. Why, after all, should we care about strangers? My belief is that altruism is actually a deep-seated human instinct … a mysterious drive to express the best that is in us. When we listen for and hear the cries of the needy, the oppressed, or the sick, something inside us instinctively responds. …But we are also driven by a countervailing instinct: the fear of the unknown, of people whose cultures and values we don’t understand. This tug-of-war between our fear of strangers and our need to connect with those outside our own experience is the dynamic force that draws men and women to each other, and drives them apart. It’s what moves us to travel to foreign lands and meet foreign people, and what compels to erect Berlin Walls and adopt restrictive immigration policies. Service to others is the way we break down the walls that keep us isolated in our own lives and in our own communities. It’s how we grow as human beings. …you learn about life through interactions with others who are different from yourself, not by looking inward. Doing physical labor side by side with total strangers who needed help taught me lessons that went far beyond anything I had learned in a classroom or in [Quaker] Meeting about the commonality that transcends differences, about the kinship engendered by shared labor. I benefited as much by my efforts as the family I was trying to help. I learned that not only are we our brother’s keepers, our brother is our keeper too – the keeper of our soul.” Robert Lawrence Smith

“And Cain said … ‘Am I my brother’s keeper?’”
Genesis  4:9

 Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • Have you hoped to learn altruism from books or church?
  • Are you involved in helping people in need who are not your family or friends?
  • Have you experienced being helped by those you were helping?
  • Do you think of yourself as “your brother’s keeper?”

Abba, help me to see and care for my brother who is not my brother.

For More: A Quaker Book of Wisdom by Robert Lawrence Smith

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These “Daily Riches” are for your encouragement as you seek after God and he seeks after you. I hope you’ll follow and share my blog. My goal is to share something of unique value with you daily. I appreciate your interest!  –  Bill (Psalm 90:14)

“I practice daily what I believe; everything else is religious talk.”

Daily Riches: Their Lives Are Not Like Mine (Gary Haugen and Bob Dylan)

Posted on by under Awareness, Social Justice, The Poor and Disenfranchised, truth and illusion

“This world is ruled by violence, but that’s better left unsaid.” Bob Dylan

“Often I am ill-prepared for action in a dark world of injustice because I have gotten used to a little lie within my mind. I have gotten used to the idea that the fair garden that I have worked so hard to carve out myself and my family is normal. I have gradually adjusted to the idea that ‘the world’ into which Christ has sent his disciples is actually a reasonably pleasant backyard patio. [but]… The outcome in the twentieth century would be described [otherwise] …I would just call it an open-mouthed grave: an entire generation of European youth composting the World War I battlefields of Verdun and the Somme, Hitler’s six million Jews, Stalin’s twenty million Soviet citizens, Mao’s tens of millions of political enemies and peasant famine victims, Pol Pot’s two million Cambodians, the Interhamwe’s million Tutsi Rwandans, and the millions of lives wasted away during apartheid’s forty-year reign. We can easily forget that the same spirit of darkness rules our present age. …Outside the affluent West … in the Two-Thirds World where most of the children God created actually live, the Fall is being played out in ways more familiar to the biblical writers: it is manifest in a world of brutal injustice. …All those Scriptures about ‘the world,’ which seemed rather melodramatic when I heard them in my suburban church as a kid, turned out to be much more worthy of my attention than I ever knew.” Gary Haugen

‘Their feet are swift to shed blood, ruin and misery mark their ways…’ Romans 3:15

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • Does your comfortable lifestyle blind you to gross injustice in “the Two-Thirds World where most of the children God created actually live?”
  • We don’t talk about “the world” or “worldliness” much any more – and when we did it was about women wearing short skirts or men who smoked. Imagine how much bigger, darker and more important the concept is.

Abba, when I obtain a service without paying a bribe, when I’m stopped by police without being beaten or unfairly imprisoned, when the legal system works for me, when my daughter walks home from school without being kidnapped to be made a prostitute in a faraway city or work in a sweat shop – may I remember the multitudes around the world who lives are not like mine.

For More: Good News About Injustice by Gary Haugen

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These “Daily Riches” are for your encouragement as you seek after God and he seeks after you. I hope you’ll follow my blog, and share it.I appreciate your interest!  –  Bill (Psalm 90:14)

“I practice daily what I believe; everything else is religious talk.”

Daily Riches: You Are God’s Plan for Justice (Gary Haugen)

Posted on by under Contemplation and Activism, Loving Well, Social Justice, The Poor and Disenfranchised

“Our engagement with the work of justice is no more and no less than an extension of our desire to follow our God and Savior. …if our leaders … teach us about the God of justice, we can, and will follow him in the struggle against injustice…. They will lead us in the authority of the Word of God to know God’s passion for justice, Christ’s compassion for the oppressed, God’s holy condemnation of the sinful abuse of power and his deep desire to rescue the vulnerable. … [they] will show us that God’s plan for seeking justice in the world is to use his people to work acts of love and rescue. …equip us with a hope that will withstand the inevitable trials and suffering that accompany obedience to Christ. [and] …prepare us to be witnesses for Christ’s love and holiness in a hurting world of oppression. Or – they won’t. Some teachers will be so shocked by the unfamiliarity of this God of justice, that they will, like the Pharisees of Jesus’ day, return to … worship of a different God – their familiar God of tithes and sacrifices – and neglect the God of the Bible, the God of justice…. Jesus call the teachers and guides of his own people back to their Scriptures, to rediscover this God who had become unknown to them. At least one teacher came secretly to Jesus in the night to learn more (John 3:1-17), but most teachers simply grew angry at the suggestion that they had veered from the God of the Scriptures. They closed their ears to the voice of Christ.” Gary Haugen

“Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:
to loose the chains of injustice
    and untie the cords of the yoke,
to set the oppressed free
    and break every yoke?
Is it not to share your food with the hungry
    and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter –
when you see the naked, to clothe them,
    and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?”
Isaiah 58:6,7

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • It’s possible to be very religious and “close your ears to the voice of Christ.” Could you be missing that voice? Could your pastor?
  • Is Isaiah’s theme familiar to you? …in your church?
  • Do you believe God wants you to “work acts of love and rescue?”

Abba, help me see you as you really are.

For More: Good News About Injustice by Gary Haugen

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These “Daily Riches” are for your encouragement as you seek after God and he seeks after you. I hope you’ll follow my blog, and share it. My goal is to share something of unique value with you daily in 400 words or less. I appreciate your interest!  –  Bill (Psalm 90:14)

Daily Riches: A Theology of Love and Speaking Truth to Power (Thomas Merton and Martin Luther King, Jr.)

Posted on by under Contemplation and Activism, Nationalism and Patriotism, Social Justice, The Poor and Disenfranchised

“A theology of love cannot afford to be sentimental. It cannot afford to preach edifying generalities about charity, while identifying ‘peace’ with mere established power and legalized violence against the oppressed. A theology of love cannot be allowed merely to serve the interests of the rich and powerful, justifying their wars, their violence, and their bombs, while exhorting the poor and underprivileged to practice patience, meekness, long-suffering and to solve their problems, if at all, nonviolently. The theology of love must seek to deal drastically with evil and injustice in the world, and not merely to compromise with them. …Theology does not exist merely to appease the already too untroubled conscience of the powerful and the established. A theology of love may also conceivably turn out to be a theology of revolution. In any case, it is a theology of resistance, a refusal of the evil that reduces a brother to homicidal desperation.” Thomas Merton

“In the terrible midnight of war men have knocked on the door of the church to ask for the bread of peace, but the church has often disappointed them. What more pathetically reveals the irrelevancy of the church in present-day world affairs than its witness regarding war? In a world gone mad with arms buildups, chauvinistic passions, and imperialistic exploitation, the church has either endorsed these activities or remained appallingly silent. … A weary world, pleading desperately for peace, has often found the church morally sanctioning war. … And those who have gone to the church to seek the bread of economic justice have been left in the frustrating midnight of economic deprivation. In many instances the church has so aligned itself with the privileged classes and so defended the status quo that it has been unwilling to answer the knock at midnight.” Martin Luther King, Jr.

“a person who seeks to honor the one who sent him
speaks truth, not lies.”
Jesus in John 7:18

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • Is your theology of love a “theology of resistance?”
  • Is your church “aligned with the privileged classes and the status quo?”
  • Where in our day, might the church be guilty of appeasing “the already too untroubled?”
  • Do you think these are valuable questions for Christians? for pastors? If not, why not?

Abba, keep us from conforming to this world, or allowing others to do so in peace.

For More: Faith and Violence by Thomas Merton

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These “Daily Riches” are for your encouragement as you seek after God and he seeks after you. I hope you’ll follow my blog, and share it. My goal is to share something of unique value with you daily in 400 words or less. I appreciate your interest!  –  Bill (Psalm 90:14)

“I practice daily what I believe; everything else is religious talk.”

Daily Riches: When Politicians and Clergy Conspire Against Justice (Gary Haugen)

Posted on by under Loving Well, Nationalism and Patriotism, Social Justice, The Poor and Disenfranchised

“If we are struggling against injustice we are dealing with people of power or authority who abuse that power and lie about it. …We are talking about the most exalted and esteemed people of power and authority in the society – these are the liars we are dealing with when we confront the deepest injustice. Therefore those of us who have been raised with a respect for authority and a Romans 13 deference to government officials must, if we are going to seek biblical justice, accustom ourselves to the unsettling reality that those who have power and authority are not only capable of abusing that power but are capable of going to great lengths to lie about it. We are not called to gratuitous disrespect for those in authority, quite the contrary. We are to render to them their due, pray for them, and submit to their authority as they exercise it in accordance with God’s will. But at all times, rulers and authorities remain fallen creatures capable of great and dark sin. …Remember that injustice is the abuse of power by the strong over the weak. …Protecting those who are vulnerable usually means bringing a countervailing power to bear on their behalf. …Incidents of injustice are not just something that happen in an unfair world. God is appalled by them and calls us to seek justice.” Gary Haugen

“Your princes plot conspiracies just as lions stalk their prey.
They devour innocent people, seizing treasures and extorting wealth.
They make many widows in the land.
Your priests have violated my instructions and defiled my holy things.
…Your leaders are like wolves who tear apart their victims.
They actually destroy people’s lives for money!
And your prophets cover up for them by announcing false visions
and making lying predictions.
They say, ‘My message is from the Sovereign Lord,’
when the Lord hasn’t spoken a single word to them.
Even common people oppress the poor, rob the needy,
and deprive foreigners of justice.
‘I looked for someone who might rebuild the wall of righteousness that guards the land
… but I found no one. So now … I will heap on their heads
the full penalty for all their sins.
I, the Sovereign Lord, have spoken!’”
Ezekiel 25:25-31

Moving From Head to Heart

  • When you look around, do you see political and religious leaders abusing their power?
  • What do you think God feels about this happening in his world?
  • What, if anything, do you think God wants you to do about it?

Abba, help us bring a countervailing power to bear on behalf of the vulnerable.

For More: Good News About Injustice by Gary Haugen
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These “Daily Riches” are for your encouragement as you seek after God and he seeks after you. –  Bill (Psalm 90:14)