Category: Social Justice

Give Peace a Chance

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So this seems like an interesting way to work for peace –

Global Orgasm for Peace

The mission of the Global Orgasm is to effect change in the energy field of the Earth through input of the largest possible surge of human energy. Now that there are two more US fleets heading for the Persian Gulf with anti- submarine equipment that can only be for use against Iran, the time to change Earth’s energy is NOW!

The intent is that the participants concentrate any thoughts during and after orgasm on peace. The combination of high- energy orgasmic energy combined with mindful intention may have a much greater effect than previous mass meditations and prayers.

The goal is to add so much concentrated and high-energy positive input into the energy field of the Earth that it will reduce the current dangerous levels of aggression and violence throughout the world.

Global Orgasm is an experiment open to everyone in the world.

WHO? All Men and Women, you and everyone you know.

WHERE? Everywhere in the world, but especially in countries with weapons of mass destruction.

WHEN? Winter Solstice Day – Friday, December 22nd, at the time of your choosing, in the place of your choosing and with as much privacy as you choose.

WHY? To effect positive change in the energy field of the Earth through input of the largest possible surge of human energy a Synchronized Global Orgasm. There are two more US fleets heading for the Persian Gulf with anti-submarine equipment that can only be for use against Iran, so the time to change Earth’s energy is NOW!

I guess the peacemakers really are blessed. 😉

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International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women

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Given recent discussions and posts, I think it apropos to have a post about the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women which falls on Nov. 25 each year. General polls across America show that the public believes that domestic abuse is a serious problem and that doesn’t even refer to the horrors the women who are sold into the sex trade have to face. Around the world, women not only face ideological sexism, but violence in all its forms. Physical, sexual, emotional, spiritual violence continue to plague women.

But where in the church do we hear much about this? Recently as I took Emma to the pediatricians I saw in the bathroom a sign about domestic abuse asking if one is afraid of someone they love. I realized that it had only been in medical situations (the pediatricians, my ob/gyn, the maternity ward) where I had ever encountered that question before. Unlike a majority of the women I regularly hang out with, I have never had to deal with abuse, but it shocked me that it has only been in “secular” medical settings that the topic has ever even come up. I can’t recall ever having heard violence against women addressed in church (besides us bringing up the sex trade with the youth group). Shouldn’t the church be leading the cause to stop oppression and violence? Shouldn’t caring for the unfortunate and showing love be a huge concern for all of us?

I have to wonder if the sexist assumptions that still haunt parts of the church (as has been demonstrated so clearly recently) has something to do with the church’s inaction in speaking out against violence against women. If women are inferior and are to submit to men, that can easily be translated into the idea that men can therefore do whatever they want to women. No matter what the theological assumptions of men being a loving, protective covering for women, it still places men in a position of power over women. Hierarchy often has the unfortunate side effect of allowing those in power to manipulate, harm, oppress, dominate, and humiliate those “below” them.

But fortunately there are some religious voices that are speaking out against the violence even if the circles I had run in haven’t always talked about it. On April 5, 2006 forty-two national religious leaders from around the country declared violence against women as intolerable and pledged their commitment to its eradication. The National Declaration by Religious Leaders to Address Violence Against Women will be distributed to every battered women’s program in the U.S. Women will see this list and determine whether their faith community supports them in seeking safety for themselves and their children. When people of faith join with other community leaders to address domestic violence, we will see ancient roadblocks turn into resources that save lives and bring healing.

The Declaration –

We proclaim with one voice as national spiritual and religious leaders that violence against women exists in all communities, including our own, and is morally, spiritually and universally intolerable.

We acknowledge that our sacred texts, traditions and values have too often been misused to perpetuate and condone abuse.

We commit ourselves to working toward the day when all women will be safe and abuse will be no more.

We draw upon our healing texts and practices to help make our families and societies whole.

Our religious and spiritual traditions compel us to work for justice and the eradication of violence against women.

We call upon people of all religious and spiritual traditions to join us.

To find out more or to sign the Declaration click here. Join your voice in prayer and action this Nov. 25 to help stop the violence against women.

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Hell Freezes Over

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No the growing support of sexism didn’t end in Christian blogdom – that’s still going strong and getting more and more disgusting…

no I making a sports related post.

Since the extent of my sports watching would be the commercials during the super bowl, I really know very little about sports… apparently da’Bears are doing well???

Anyway Campbell’s Chunky Soup is doing it’s click for cans food drive. Here’s what’s up –

This year, one NFL team will earn a donation of Campbell’s® soup to the food bank of its choice. How much soup? We’ll get the official stats for all the players on the winning team’s official roster and donate one can for every pound the total team weighs! So far, the Green Bay Packers remain the undefeated Click for Cans champs – will they stay on top, or will they get a run for their money this year? It’s up to you!

Don’t be discouraged if your team doesn’t get the most clicks. The team that improves the most in the number of clicks from last year will also receive a donation! We’ll donate 2006 cans on behalf of the team that shows the most improvement in the number of clicks from last year.
Just click to fight hunger.

Visit Chunky.com every day to click on your favorite NFL team. The team with the most clicks and the team with the most improved clicks by midnight on December 15, 2006 will earn donations of Campbell’s® soup.

The more times you participate, the more votes your team will have. So come back every day, and let your buddies know so they can vote too!

So click here to vote for your favorite team (or whichever team weighs the most and would get the most cans…).

So there’s my sports post.

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Creation Care and Giving the Church Our Best…

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So this is a topic that keeps coming back to me. As an American, I’ve been indoctrinated to not care about our environment and to care about money a whole lot. This is echoed in the typical church in America. Creation care is just not discussed in most church settings. And while the love of money is looked down upon (as is usually a teenagers desire to wear name brands), money is still central to church life. I’ve never been a part of health and wealth churches, but I’ve been in churches where buying whatever is cheap is next to godliness. But all too often the ignored value of creation care get further ignored when the pursuit of saving money is uplifted. So in our typical churches we use cheap plastic/paper cups, cheap coffee that come from farms that hurt the environment and don’t pay the farmer a living wage, and buy cheap prepackaged food from factory farms that’s full of additives, hormones, and antibiotics. And we don’t see a problem with it at all.

Honestly its only been in the last couple of years that I’ve been realizing how much of a hypocrite I am in this area. Even after I got over the evangelical lie that caring for the environment is wrong, it still didn’t translate to my everyday life. And even now as I am more aware, I am still doing very very little. I checked out my ecological footprint and realized that if everyone lived as carelessly as I do, we would need 4.5 earths to sustain life.

At times it seems hopeless and I can come up with any number of excuses as to why I’m not doing better (there is no public transportation out here in the exurbs!!!). And there are certain comforts that I know are wrong, but refuse to give up (a big car and disposable diapers come to mind…). But I try to do what I can. Especially at church. Cause it seems more hypocritical to trash the earth at church… So we use real cups and mugs at church. We still have to wash them, but we aren’t filling up landfills needlessly each week. (I loved that at the Emergent Gathering we were all asked to bring our own cups and utensils so as to reduce waste). I only serve Fair Trade coffee. Not only can we then at least try to ensure that the people who grew it for us are getting a fair wage – it is grown in ways that are environmentally kind.

And in my own life. I realize that buying locally not only is good for our local economy, but I can support farmers that use sustainable practices and so don’t hurt the land. Also by buying locally I’m not using a ton of gas to just get my produce to me. I don’t do it across the board. I buy stuff at the grocery store too (I’m Texan and they just don’t grow avocados up here…). But we did spend the extra money and joined a CSA (community supported agriculture) Farm this past season. Each week we would get a box of whatever was in season. It was great and forced me to try new things. But I wasn’t always good about using what I got (or canning or freezing excess food). (Don’t ask the fate of the lovely Brussel sprout stalk I’m holding in the picture.) But it felt right to do it. It was a way to put my money where my mouth is and buy as a christian.

So why am I thinking about this right now and writing a very rambling post about it? Well over at tallskinnykiwi Andrew Jones had a good post about church potlucks and bringing the best (and not just what’s cheap and easy) to church. Why do we reserve the best for ourselves at home and don’t share it with the church? Or why in food drives do we give mac n’ cheese, old candy, and other stuff we don’t want and/or that’s cheap? If we value the earth, sustainable and humane practices, and healthy food (without poisons in it)why do we still just go with what’s cheap when we go to church? And VC people this has nothing to do with the great food you bring to our dinners… this is me seeing what a hypocrite I am. And trying to convince myself to not buy the cheap turkey at Jewel (or worse Walmart) and actually go to the local turkey farm and get a free range, but more expensive turkey for our church Thanksgiving dinner.

So just thinking out loud here, and trying to change…

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Racism in the Burbs?

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So at Via Christus this past week we ran a food drive for our county’s food pantry. We advertised our plans and last weekend dropped off nearly 1500 grocery bags with notes explaining the food drive on them. People who were interested could fill the bag with food items and leave it on their doorstep by 10AM Saturday. The note also asked anyone who was interested in helping collect the bags to please contact the church. We had a couple of Mormon missionaries volunteer to help and a father called and said he would like to help with his son so he could teach his son about community service. Many hands make light work, so we were grateful for the interest.

On Saturday we set out in about a dozen groups to collect the bags. We had to drive slowly through the neighborhoods with our hazards on looking at porches to see if people had left out a bag with our bright neon sign on it. If we saw a bag we would jump out to get it. We all looked a bit strange doing this, but we had advertised it, and there were a bunch of us out doing it. Even so one of the groups, and only one, were stopped and questioned by the police. It was the father/son group – the father and son who also happened to be African-American. The father who had brought his son to help teach him about community service and instead had to talk to him about why they out of all the groups were stopped by the police. I don’t know if the police were doing racial profiling (consciously or unconsciously), but its just very very interesting.

I don’t know if we will ever see this man and his son again. They volunteered to help us help the needy in our area and I am so sad they they had this negative experience because of their offer to help.

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Invisible Children

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Just wanted to do my part to help inform people about this… There are further links and action steps at the end of the article.

“On April 29th, thousands of people across the country will take a new approach to ending a devastating war abroad – they’ll take it lying down. Invisible Children Inc., an organization committed to ending the war in Northern Uganda where children are forced to fight as soldiers, has organized a Global Night Commute in 136 cities across the country.

On this night, thousands will commute to their cities’ designated location and sleep outside on behalf of the invisible children of Northern Uganda. This event is a plea to the U.S. government to help put an end to this horrific 20-year-long war.

“It’s a moral outrage to see thousands of children that have been abducted, that have been maltreated. They are going through the most horrendous torture by the rebel movement and that same group is now being neglected by the whole international community,” said Jan Egeland, the United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs. “I cannot find any other part of the world having an emergency on the scale of Uganda with so little international attention.”

The event promises a wide variety of people from celebrities and legislators to activists and authors. Actress Kristen Bell, from the hit show “Veronica Mars” heard about Invisible Children through co-star Ryan Hansen.

“Invisible Children is not only an inspiring movement, but it has forced me to act,” said Kristen Bell. “On April 29th you’ll find me in the streets Night Commuting.”

The start of Invisible Children came in 2003 when three naive filmmakers, from Southern California, flew to Africa in search of a story that would change the world. What they found was a situation in Northern Uganda that disgusted and inspired them. They documented their findings of a 20-year-long war where children are the weapons, and the victims. The result was a film called, “Invisible Children: Rough Cut.” After seeing the impact of their film worldwide, they formed the non-profit Invisible Children Inc.

The organization is dedicated to ending the war in Northern Uganda where children are abducted and forced to fight with the rebel army as child soldiers. For fear of being hunted by the LRA (Lord’s Resistance Army), these children commute on foot every night to find safe places to sleep in their town centers. To date, more than 30,000 children have been abducted and forced into war. That’s why Invisible Children is calling on the world to take a stand.

“The Global Night Commute is an opportunity for Americans to rally with one voice,” said Jason Russell, one of the filmmakers and founders of Invisible Children. “We are asking people to lie down and close their eyes with us for one night, so that we can open the world’s eyes to this unseen war.”

As a media-based company, the filmmakers will create a music video ‘mocumentary’ to encourage people to attend the Global Night Commute. This video will be sent out via Pod cast, a couple weeks before the event. With this video, the filmmakers are pushing the envelope on how aid is perceived in the world. They are grabbing the attention of a younger generation with media that is both funny and touching. This music video is the biggest production to date for the non-profit.

About Invisible Children Inc.

Invisible Children Inc., established in 2004, is a non-profit organization dedicated to providing financial resources to invisible children by documenting their true, untold stories in a creative and relevant way, resulting in positive change. Invisible Children Inc. was formed after the release of the film “Invisible Children: Rough Cut”, which documents a war in Northern Uganda in which children are abducted by a rebel army and forced to fight as child soldiers. The filmmakers for “Invisible Children: Rough Cut”, Jason Russell, Bobby Bailey and Laren Poole, are also the founders of Invisible Children Inc. Currently Invisible Children Inc. employs over 150 people in the war-torn area of Northern Uganda and is putting 300 kids through school, with plans to see that number grow into the thousands. The organization is based in San Diego, California.”

For more information about the Invisible Children film and project click here .
For further information about Uganda and easy action steps you can take visit World Vision’s site here

Another world is possible.

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Just Food and Movies

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So I’ve been involved in a discussion on The Ooze about just food (as in food is not just (merely) food, but has health, environmental, poliical, and ethical (justice) aspects as well). There is a lot I could say on the topic, but I wanted to post here a few links to fun videos that address the topic. Some of you who read this are already familiar with The Meatrix which exposes the myth of the family farm and educates about the dangers of the factory farm. Its hilarious, yet scarily serious at the same time. I also recommend The Meatrix 2: Revolting which does for dairy what the original did for meat. And to address the health and environmental need for organic food there is Store Wars. These are entertaining and provide an introduction the the conversation about food issues. Enjoy.

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Bono at the National Prayer Breakfast

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The comments Bono gave at the recent Nation Prayer Breakfast plead our government to acknowledge the biblical call to justice. Many,including Bono himself, have questioned his right to make such a call. But too often those of us who live in a country of wealth and democracy forget that millions in this world have no voice – they need as loud as a voice as possible to speak for them. And in this day and age a rock star fits the bill. I appreciated his reminder that a country can make laws but that God’s law is higher. I highly recommend reading the prepared (apparently there was some ad-libbing) transcript of what he said here .

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Hurricane Thoughts

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Watching the news over the last few days has been overwhelming. The horror of what these people are going through is unimaginable. What is most sad is how little is being done. People are dying because there is no way out, they don’t have food or water, and the hospitals can’t care for the sick. This is America – we have the resources to do more. Instead if you even suggest that enough isn’t being done your allegience to the country (actually to Bush) is questioned and its the questioning and not the real issue that is given attention. Why does it have to be political??? I understand that there are dangers to be considered, but helping people is dangerous, its hard. All of our lives are affected. What really gets me are the people who are complaining about gas prices and not being able to drive through the area over the holiday weekend. How selfish can you get!? If this is really America – the “its all about me and my needs” crowd, then no wonder so little has been done. And the blogs where I have read such sentiments are written by Christians – people who are supposed to follow the whole “whatever you did to the least of these my brothers, you did to me” idea.

Its hard to know what to do. Donating money and praying at this point seem to be the only options. Here are links to World Vision and World Relief if you are looking for a way to donate. Sorry this was more of a rant – but its all a bit emotional overload…

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We Need Giant Leaps – Not Baby Steps

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In light of the bombing in London there actually was very little media time given to the G8 summit. This release from the Make Poverty History site sums up some of the basic issues addressed there. While the world leaders seem to be moving towards moving in the right direction all they are doing is taking baby steps. Meanwhile millions suffer needlessly.

Interestingly Bill Clinton has started the Clinton Global Initiative to see what the private sector can do about some of the problems around the world. He is planning a summit event for this fall. Read about it here

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