![]() ![]()
Dear Hillary and Bernie, please start a podcast: Some holiday wishes for the people and their leaders at the end of a painful year. Christmas 2. 01. 6 has fallen upon us as we slowly heal from the most painful election in millennial history. A huge chunk of liberals, independents and even some Republicans — along with many of the 6. Hillary Clinton — are struggling to get into the holiday spirit. And rightfully so, since their candidate won the popular vote by 2. ![]() ![]() Yesterday’s feast of St. John of the Cross points to a rich vein of teaching from the spiritual master. John’s teachings is that deep union with God. John Lacey comes home one evening to discover a letter from his wife (starting with "Dear John" - hence the title) telling him that she is leaving him. White House where she belongs. In hopes of shedding light on this tragic era in American history, I’d like to offer some holiday suggestions for the many blocs of voters who will be forced to live under President Donald Trump. You know we built this country and you know racist policies have oppressed us in every social and economic category. I could use the money and it’s the right thing to do. Apologize to the many women you’ve been accused of sexually assaulting. Admit Jesus was black, as that may get you in to heaven. You can only go up from there! So I advise that you stay black, as I am an expert on blackness. And if you can, figure out a way to be more black because that’s what we have to hold onto. There will be no initiatives from the White House to support anything we do over the next for years. For Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders. You guys are funny as hell; I think you should start a podcast. Maybe you can call it Hot Sauce in Vermont or the Pantsuit Berns? All jokes aside, you guys ran amazing campaigns and I hope your leadership and insight will help the left snatch back the White House in 2. For Mexican- Americans. Trump has proven himself to be a pathological liar, so I don’t think that wall is going up. I hope you really enjoy the holidays, eat great food with family members and have a bunch of fun. And if Trump actually tries to build his wall, just know you’ll have a immense number of black, white, Asian and Native American friends ready to help you tear it down. For hardworking white people. For hardworking white people. Congratulations, hardworking white people, you played yourself! I hope you enjoy this Christmas and really live it up because nothing is going to change and you really won’t have anything to celebrate next year. Trump promised more jobs for you, then appointed Andrew Puzder to head the Labor Department, a dude who’s in love with replacing human jobs with robots. I would advise that you stop being racist because it’s a waste of time. And if you aren’t racist, then I advise that you stop supporting racists because it’s making you look racist. Stop waiting for Trump to bring back jobs and learn how to fix computers and get A+ certified or something. Tech is everything and someone is going to have to fix the robots responsible for taking your jobs. For the white liberals Keep the pumpkin spice flowing and the craft cocktails coming. Trump is in for four years, but you plenty of time to game plan for 2. In the meantime, buy your black friends some nice gifts, just in case we get kicked out of America. I’ll recommend shea butter, passport- protecting cases and those annoying airport neck pillows for those who are shipping out and skin bleaching cream and L. L. Bean gift cards for those who are going to try to stay in this country. For the Obamas. Wising you a very Merry Christmas. The last eight years were rocky, amazing, beautiful and transformative at the same time. We thank you for your service and hope you continue to do the real work after you leave office. Everyone, I hope you take this very seriously as I’ve done the research for you. And please, laugh, love — and happy holidays to all. Regardless of what your politics or ideologies are, we all need each other. Peace and blessings, from me to you. Oddly enough, it’s from one of your favorite pieces of furniture. What does the letter say? Post your response (5. Want more creative writing prompts? Consider: You might also like. Honoring Oscar Romero of El Salvador. This week, I'm in El Salvador to join the national celebration on Saturday, May 2. Archbishop Oscar Romero, the great peacemaker who was shot dead while saying Mass and preaching for peace on March 2. After 3. 5 years, 7. U. S. Catholic bishops, Pope Francis is beatifying Romero - - naming him a . For me, though, Archbishop Oscar Romero is not just the greatest bishop in Christian history, he is one of the greatest human beings in history - - right up there with the likes of Jeremiah and Isaiah, Francis and Clare, Mahatma Gandhi and Dorothy Day, Martin Luther King, Jr. Oscar Romero is the epitome of what it means to be a Christian - - a prophet of peace, justice and nonviolence. And that's precisely the problem. That's why he was killed. That's why so many church authorities ignore him, resent him, even hate him. He was just like the nonviolent Jesus. Romero vigorously denounced the U. S. His martyrdom attracted the love and devotion of millions upon millions of poor people and nonviolent activists in El Salvador and Latin America. Thirty- five years after his martyrdom, he's greater than ever. He's a living icon, an inspiration to any thinking person to speak out for peace, disrupt the unjust status quo, and do what you can, like Jesus, to help end war, poverty and injustice, even unto your dying breath. That's the greatest thing we can do with our lives, and Romero, like Gandhi and King, shows us how to do it.- -In 1. I went to live and work in a church- run refugee camp in El Salvador. I was supposed by the Jesuit priests who ran the Jesuit university. They were under daily death threat, and the war was raging all around us. My job was simply to be a nonviolent presence. When the death squads entered the came, I was to go out and great them. Perhaps they would not kidnap or kill anyone because a gringo was present. It was front line education in the art of creative nonviolence. I went back to El Salvador many, many times over the years, and organized countless demonstrations against U. S. But I was always amazed by the powerful presence of Romero among the people. We have nothing like it here in North America. I am a devoted student of Martin Luther King, Jr., but in El Salvador, the people treat Romero as a risen saint in their midst. They talk about him, pray to him, and carry on for him. His resurrection among the people is real. If the threats come to be fulfilled, from this moment I offer my blood to God for the redemption and resurrection of El Salvador. Let my blood be a seed of freedom and the sign that hope will soon be reality. When he became archbishop, the Jesuits at the UCA in San Salvador were crushed. They immediately wrote him off - - all but one, Rutilio Grande, who reached out to Romero in the weeks after his installation and urged him to learn from the poor and speak on their behalf. Grande himself was a giant for social justice. He organized the rural poor in Aguilares, and paid for it with his life on March 1. Standing over Grande's dead body that night, Romero was transformed into one of the world's great champions for the poor and oppressed. From then on, he stood with the poor, and denounced every act of violence, injustice and war. He became a fiery prophet of justice and peace, . With the force of Martin Luther King, Jr., Romero defended Grande, demanded social and economic justice for the poor, and called everyone to take up Grande's prophetic work. To protest the government's participation in the murders, Romero closed the parish school for three days and cancelled all masses in the country the following week, except for one special mass in the Cathedral. That act alone would have put Romero in the annals of history. Imagine if every Mass in the U. S. Over one hundred thousand people attended the Cathedral Mass that Sunday and heard Romero's bold call for justice, disarmament and peace. Grande's life and death bore good fruit in the heart and soul of Romero. Suddenly, the nation had a towering figure in its midst. Within months, priests, catechists and church workers were regularly targeted and assassinated, so Romero spoke out even more forcefully. He even criticized the president, which no Salvadoran bishop had ever done before, and few in the hemisphere ever did. As the U. S.- backed government death squads attacked villages and churches and massacred campesinos, Romero's truth- telling became a veritable subversive campaign of nonviolent civil disobedience. Soon Romero was greeted with applause everywhere he went. Thousands wrote to him regularly, telling their stories, thanking him for his prophetic voice and sharing their new found courage. His Sunday homilies were broadcast nationwide on live radio. The country came to a standstill as he spoke. Everyone listened, even the death squads. As Romero's stature grew and his leadership for justice and peace deepened, his simple faith and pious devotion remained steady, and gave him a foundation from which he could take on the forces of death. To protest the government's silence in the face of recent massacres, he refused to attend the inauguration of the new Salvadoran president. The church, he announced, is . First, on Easter Monday, 1. San Salvador to welcome any and all displaced victims of violence. Hundreds of homeless, hungry and brutalized people moved into the seminary, transforming the quiet religious retreat into a crowded, noisy shelter, make- shift hospital, and playground. We have never experienced such an action by our church leaders.)Next, he halted construction on the new Cathedral in San Salvador. When the war is over, the hungry are fed, and the children are educated, then we can resume building our cathedral, he said. Both historic moves stunned the other bishops, cast judgment on the Salvadoran government, and lifted the peoples' spirits. Meanwhile, Romero's preaching reached biblical heights. The counsel of the Gospel to turn the other cheek to an unjust aggressor, far from being passive or cowardly. The Christian always prefers peace to war. During his busy days, he traveled the country, met with hundreds of poor Salvadorans, presided at Mass, and met with local community leaders. He assisted everyone he could. Later, he said that one of his primary duties as archbishop had become not just challenging the U. S.- backed government and its death squads, but claiming the dead bodies of their victims, including priests, nuns and catechists. On one of my visits, a Salvadoran told me how Romero would drive out to city garbage dumps to look among the trash for the discarded, tortured victims of the death squads on behalf of grieving relatives. People lined up at his office to ask for help and protection, to complain about harassment and death threats, and to find some support and guidance in their time of grief and struggle. Romero received and listened to everyone. His compassionate ear fueled his prophetic voice. By late 1. 97. 9 and early 1. Sunday sermons issued his strongest calls yet for conversion to justice and an end to the massacres. You cannot find God on the path of torture. God is found on the way of justice, conversion and truth. He wrote a long public letter to Carter, asking the United States to cancel all military aid. Carter ignored Romero's plea, and sent the aid. So did the death threats against Romero. He made a private retreat, prepared for his death, discovered an even deeper peace, and mounted the pulpit. During his March 2. Sunday sermon, Romero let loose and issued one of the greatest appeals for peace and disarmament in church history: I would like to make an appeal in a special way to the men of the army, to the police, to those in the barracks. Brothers, you are part of our own people. You kill your own campesino brothers and sisters. And before an order to kill that a man may give, the law of God must prevail that says: Thou shalt not kill! No soldier is obliged to obey an order against the law of God. No one has to fulfill an immoral law. It is time to recover your consciences and to obey your consciences rather than the orders of sin. The church, defender of the rights of God, of the law of God, of human dignity, the dignity of the person, cannot remain silent before such abomination. We want the government to take seriously that reforms are worth nothing when they come about stained with so much blood. In the name of God, and in the name of this suffering people whose laments rise to heaven each day more tumultuously, I beg you, I ask you, I order you in the name of God: Stop the repression! The next day, March 2. Romero presided over a small evening mass in the chapel of the hospital compound where he lived, in honor of a beloved woman who had died a year before. He read from John's Gospel: . But if it dies, it bears much fruit . Then he preached about the need to give our lives for others as Christ did. Just as he concluded, he was shot in the heart by a man standing in the back of the church. He fell behind the altar and collapsed at the foot of a huge crucifix depicting a bloody and bruised Christ. Romero's vestments, and the floor around him, were covered in blood. He gasped for breath and died in minutes. I remember exactly where I was when I heard the news - - in my fraternity room at Duke University. I had just turned on the TV to watch the evening news. Only the month before, I had decided to apply to a seminary, to try to spend my life following Jesus. The shocking report of the death of this brave archbishop stunned me, inspired me and encouraged me to go through with my decision. Later that night, a peace vigil and prayer service was held on campus. Paul Farmer, living next door to me, marks his conversion from that event. Both of us were touched and changed by Romero's gift. Romero's funeral became the largest demonstration in Salvadoran history, some say in the history of Latin America.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. Archives
September 2017
Categories |