Healing Israel/Palestine

A Poem on the Impossibility of Passover

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I’d always been on the liberal end of the Zionist spectrum but the more I read about the history of this 100 year conflict between Zionists and the indigenous Arab population, the more I had come to realize that we had become the ‘oppressors’, we were now the Pharaoh for another people. Once my enlightenment on the Palestinian narrative was ‘out of the box’ it was impossible to put it back in. And how could we celebrate Passover without making any mention of this?
These days I use my own Haggadah, one that both acknowledges Jewish tradition and recognizes that it is possible for the victim to become the victimizer. The poem below is an attempt to express the moral question that now surrounds and profoundly challenges our annual commemoration of the Exodus:

Christianity

Remembering Baghdad, 2003

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When God’s people hold onto the hope of reconciliation through the peculiar way of the cross, we interrupt the assumptions of a culture of violence. But the truth is that all of us—not just soldiers and police officers—are well practiced in the use of worldly power. Those of us who come from positions of privilege in society lean on the silent power of money and social norms, trusting in systems of control that have favored people who speak our language or share our skin color. At the same time, people who live with their backs against the wall resort to subversive acts of violence, carving out a space for survival by manipulating the fears those who seem to be “in control.”

Environment

Meet the New Pope

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I don’t see the Pope as a Messiah. He is a man who has suddenly assumed a position of huge political, spiritual, and moral power. Looking at his political views, there are real reasons to hope that he will be an ally on some of the most important issues, and we need allies. I am not sweeping over whether he may or may not have done as much as he could have in fighting the death-squads in Argentina, nor that he remains on the wrong side of the fight for equality in matters of gender and sexual preference. But in the fight to save the planet, and the fight against huge economic inequalities, the odds have shifted slightly towards our side. And I’m grateful enough to say a prayer of thanks for that.

Environment

Exploring the Shared Values of Vegans and Jews at Passover

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We see the liberation of animals as another social justice movement for which the Jewish community should naturally feel sympathetic. Jews and vegans share common values such as justice, fairness, equality and compassion.
While my friends and I celebrate the Jewish people’s freedom from slavery at our veder in the traditional way, we also honor the work that we are doing to move towards a day when animals are considered moral beings.

Islam

Muslim Women’s History Month: Spotlight on Benazir Bhutto

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Benazir’s contribution to the progress of Pakistan is hotly debated even after her death. But as a Muslim woman, the influence she had on other Muslim women like me was tremendous. Even as the nation became disillusioned with her towards the end of her political rule, they continued to love what she exemplified to all women everywhere. This month I salute her courage in the face of a chauvinistic society and hope that many more Muslim women will follow her lead to become the self-assured, independent and empowered women that Islam meant us to be. That is Benazir’s true legacy.

Christianity

Thoughts on St. Patrick

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So, Love freed Patrick the slave, provided food for Patrick the runaway slave and his shipmates. Love brought him back to his family in England, and then inspired him to go back to the land of his captivity to preach the good news that a relationship with transcendent Divine Love is possible for human beings and that this love requires a radical love and commitment from us toward humanity and all of creation.

Culture

Amour, Death, Song

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Perhaps that is all we are: just a song sung by the universe. Does a song – does my ego – really want to last forever? Thankfully I’ve grown a bit since I was seven, and now I think not. We – I – will end, and if the song is as sweet as ripe cherries there might be a faint wish from us or others that there be a little more. But if we live with awareness and gratitude, compassion and love, we will face the end of the song with grace, knowing that the composer and performer is not us, but forces vastly larger, more creative, and (almost) infinitely more enduring.

Christianity

The Trouble With Earthly Cities

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The confession at the heart of Tyler’s book is one that exposes how much the early 20th century Social Gospel and the late 20th century Religious Right had in common–namely, the assumption of power and privilege. At different times and in different settings, these movements had differing opinions about which way to steer history. But the purchase of each–the energy that drove the activists in both movements–was the belief that it is our job to save America.

Christianity

Weekly Sermon – No Separate Peace

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We are taking time this Lent with each of the temptations of Jesus. One Sunday, we felt after what can happen when, like Jesus, though we hunger, we wait upon the Lord to receive what is given, and do not take just what we think we need, but our soul waits in silence. Last Sunday, we searched out what can happen when, like Jesus, we see the kind of power we can have over others, but let it go, through simplicity and honor and truthfulness. We felt how the burdens of self-defense and its anxiety and anger can fall away when the gift of trust in the power God supplants our power complexes.