The Lie of a Haitian "pact"

Can anyone find primary historical texts or sources that can refute this Haitian author's claim that the purported pact with the devil is gossip and slander spread via credulous people? I applaud his reference to 1 Thessalonians 5:20-22 - "Do not despise the words of the prophets, but test everything; hold fast to what is good; refrain from every form of evil." That includes refraining from passing on unsubstantiated gossip, folks!

In the meantime, let us heed the words of the prophet Isaiah in 1:16-17:

Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean
remove the evil of your doings
from before my eyes;
cease to do evil,
learn to do good,
seek justice,
rescue the oppressed,
defend the orphan,
plead for the widow.

Article: God, Satan, and the Birth of Haiti

Check out Larry's post, too, which goes more into detail of what really IS demonic in this worldly order -- the oppression of the poor, and the ghastly disparities in wealth, power and privilege.

Breaking the Chains that Bind Women & Girls

How we need to love one another! How we need to be reconciled in Christ and being God's hands acting redemptively in love to the poor, the oppressed and the abused!

Break the Chains - a ministry of the Evangelical Covenant Church to get behind.

International Peasants Movement and Violence Against Women

It was heartening to hear an agreeing voice, tonight. Raj Patel, the economist and author of Stuffed and Starved and The Value of Nothing, referred to the International Peasants Movement during his interview on Democracy Now, today. Patel is particularly interested in "food sovereignty" and the inabilities of capital markets to price goods appropriately, accounting for a wide variety of factors - including environmental impact of production, ecological sustainability of production, cost in carbon emissions, societal costs, etc. He noted that the International Peasants Movement has principles of justice for all people underlying its advocacy. The IPM sees the equalizing of power relationships as one of the root causes behind the injustice that characterizes contemporary capitalism. One of the IPM's platforms, according to Patel, is that, "Food Sovereignty is about an end to all forms of violence against women."

Consider that statement against the backdrop of Genesis 3 and the "fall" from grace of humanity. Consider the implications of what it should mean to be restored to grace and relationship with God and each other because of Jesus Christ. Consider the deeper theological implications of heterosexual marriage "in Christ", and the marriage between Christ and his Bride, the Church.

As a Christian and an academic who studied and worked in Government & Economics, it is clear to me that "equalizing power" isn't the final remedy. Equalization of power in the world's terms is meeting force with opposing force. People get squashed and decimated in such contests of force, and the most squashed are the poorest and the most powerless (more women and children than men, too). God's power, as revealed in Christ, is all about emptying ourselves, dying to self, loving & serving others. How fascinating it seems that wise "peasants" are more clued into the dynamics of systemic injustice and gender violence than are the educated and wealthy! Wisdom certainly can't be purchased with tuition payments!

"Listen, my beloved brothers and sisters! Has God not chosen the poor in the world to be rich in faith and to be heirs in the kingdom that he has promised to those who love him? But you have dishonored the poor. Is it not the rich who oppress you? Is it not they who drag you into court? Is it not they who blaspheme the excellent name that was invoked over you? You do well if you really fulfill the royal law according to the scripture, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.'" (James 3:5-8)

License Plate Frame on Lutherans

"Lutherans: More than Good Looks and Jello"

I was driving home after dropping our daughter off at her January internship with a local shelter for homeless women and children, and I read this on the license plate frame of the car in front of me. I laughed aloud, but my laugh was tinged with incredulity.

What in the world would the point of this license plate message be? It's too lame to be a really good joke. (in my opinion!) It's not an invitation to get to know anyone better. It's not direct enough to inspire anyone to seek out a Lutheran Church to visit...

Any ideas what the frame's creator was thinking?

What would your reaction be?

Losses of Meaning

I was in a large store with our daughter, yesterday. I asked our check-out clerk how she was, and her response was "not good. not good. My baby girl ain't doing too well." She nodded her head toward someone behind me. I turned but didn't see a little girl. "Who?" I asked. "My baby girl - her cousin committed suicide on Christmas. She's right there at the next counter." (another nod) Again, I turned, and saw the young woman who was running the next check-out line was crying as she worked. Another store employee was hovering over her.

I told our clerk that I was a chaplain, and asked her if she thought I might be able to help. She immediately called to the young woman who had been relieved of her duty and was walking toward the Employees Only area, "Sarah, Sarah, come here, girl." She gave Sarah a hug, introduced me, and Sarah walked with me to a table nearby. She continued weeping quietly. My daughter went nearby to get lunch and ate at another table to give us quiet time.

Sarah (not her real name) told me about her cousin's suicide, her aunt's loss and pain and her own feelings of devastation, grief and anger, and questions why her cousin (only 17 years old) hadn't called her. "I've always been there for her, why didn't she call me? I thought she was doing ok. This came totally out of nowhere." We spoke for almost half an hour.

Many of her questions are impossible to answer. Why? Why didn't I see this coming? Why did she leave my auntie in agony because they'd just had an argument, and my auntie had left the house?

I've been reminded as I've prayed for Sarah, her aunt, and her whole family of the movie about Virginia Woolf, The Hours, in which Nicole Kidman and Meryl Streep had leading roles.

The Hours began with one suicide and ended with another. In the character of Mrs. Dalloway, Meryl Streep, posed a question to Richard who was suffering with AIDS, which I recall as essentially asking: "Isn't that what we live for - one another?" Richard had been bemoaning the meaninglessness of all his life and his life's work, and was feeling life was all worthless and nothing. The disjuncture between her affirmation of meaning in relationships and his loss of meaning in his work is stark.

There are usually nuggets truth behind our trite generalizations. Men do find meaning in their work and women do find meaning in their relationships. That doesn't mean, however, that loss in one area can't be softened by presence of hope in the other! Loss of either or both can cripple our hearts and darken our lives and visions of hopeful future. I've noticed that in times of deep, personal pain and self-doubt, people may frequently throw off the ties of intimate relationships because those ties feel like bondage, instead of like hope and love.

This leaves the space of heartache & emptiness, or a space suffused with faith & hope in God. Let me be really clear, here, that space suffused with faith and hope in God doesn't FEEL good to us. That space may feel more despairing than good. It may feel like we're hanging onto hope in God and to one another "for dear life"! In fact, the dearness of life itself may be in question.

But, before giving up, I hope every and anyone of us will ask ourselves the hard questions of what we leave behind. From Sarah's perspective, her anger at her cousin's apparent self-centeredness & selfishness is really hard to bear. While recognizing her cousin's despair, Sarah struggled with deep anger that her cousin checked out on the family who loved her. Only God can enter that space of heartache and despair when someone is at that point of crisis. Will we turn toward God, hope, faith and future or damn those who love us to the present hell of doubt, anger, grief and pain? The saddest part of suicide is that we fail to be God-with-us to our families and friends, and we rob them of the opportunity to be God-with-us to us, too. May we live out what it means to be the Body of Christ in our worlds, today!

Rediscovering Values, by Jim Wallis

Check out the first chapter of Wallis' new book, available by download at Sojourners website: Rediscovering Values.

All of us need to act and re-act appropriately if we truly do want the Change that was promised us by Pres. Obama. This isn't a one person play, but a drama with every one of us on the stage, acting in partnership with one another, or in opposition to each other to aggrandize ourselves. Serving, not hoarding and accumulating, is the only way out of this recession.

I believe that the answer to Wallis' question is YES! "So do Christians have a responsibility to turn over the tables of an unjust market?" (p.20)

Laws of Science and Everything Else But...

As someone who always is interested in the view of the forest, and less so in the examination of the twigs and bark of individual trees, there are times when I get a new glimpse from another angle that piques my curiosity.

Have you noticed, as I have, that the Laws of the physical sciences are increasingly acceptable to and accepted by the majority of people, at the same time that the societal mores governing personal behavioral choices of language, sexuality, courtesy, thoughtfulness, and caring words and interactions are increasingly unacceptable and probably unenforceable, unless physical harm is caused and studies are conducted to back up the obvious. (For instance, that text-messaging while driving is discourteous, at the least, because of inattention to other drivers, and dangerous to others on the road, at worst. Until danger was proven, discourtesy is insufficient grounding for laws.)

One could say that we brought the economic collapse upon ourselves, by each maximizing our individual profits and disregarding the serving of our neighbors who lost the money that began to line our pockets. The vortex of the tornado of pocket lining, of course, is Wall Street. However, various satellite vortices exist as well, in Washington DC, and in every city center near you and me. It's useless to blame one vortex as more at fault than another (Repubs blame DC and Dems blame NYC, in my experience). The hard facts remain that our vaunting of individual pursuit of happiness (i.e., money, stuff, and freedom to do whatever we choose) destroys our love for neighbor, and the trust we need to build and maintain healthy communities.