tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-277180878041724032024-03-17T20:02:43.176-07:00Faith & The Labor MovementThis blog seeks to explore issues around Faith and the Labor Movement historically and presently.William Langehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04322881680854644417noreply@blogger.comBlogger405125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27718087804172403.post-82393940193727069622024-03-12T09:03:00.000-07:002024-03-12T09:03:45.281-07:00<p> </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="background-color: #e3edf7; border-collapse: collapse; border-spacing: 0px; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; max-width: 600px; width: 100%;"><tbody><tr><td bgcolor="#E3EDF7" style="border-collapse: collapse; border-spacing: 0px; border: 0px; margin: 0px;"><table align="left" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="0" style="border-collapse: collapse; border-spacing: 0px; border: 0px; width: 100%;"><tbody><tr><td class="m_2798696340356557469mains" style="border-collapse: collapse; border-spacing: 0px; border: 0px; margin: 0px; min-width: 100%;"><table class="m_2798696340356557469aw-stack" role="presentation" style="border-collapse: collapse; border-spacing: 0px; border: 0px; width: 590px;"><tbody><tr><td bgcolor="#E3EDF7" class="m_2798696340356557469container" style="border-collapse: collapse; border-radius: 0px; border-spacing: 0px; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 20px; width: 550px;" valign="top" width="100%"><div><div class="m_2798696340356557469text-element m_2798696340356557469paragraph"></div></div><div><div class="m_2798696340356557469text-element m_2798696340356557469paragraph"></div></div><div><div class="m_2798696340356557469text-element m_2798696340356557469paragraph"><p style="line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>The Creation Spirituality Lineage Calling All Social and Environmental Activists, Mystic Explorers, Justice Makers, Cosmic Thinkers, Earth Keepers</i></span></p><p style="line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px; text-align: center;"> </p><p style="line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px; text-align: center;"><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l%3DJxRUe%26m%3DiMDF1slxUjwhXR2%26b%3DA03Aes6vY.YI82mOA1sJsQ&source=gmail&ust=1710345679820000&usg=AOvVaw0TsAqmHxT2_Plelao-QTVS" fg_scanned="1" href="https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=JxRUe&m=iMDF1slxUjwhXR2&b=A03Aes6vY.YI82mOA1sJsQ" rel="noopener
noreferrer" style="color: #4b7bec; word-break: break-word;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3136d2; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 18px;"><span class="il">Daily</span> <span class="il">Meditations</span> with Matthew Fox</span></a><span style="color: #3136d2; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 18px;"> </span></p></div></div><div><table align="center" cellspacing="0" role="presentation" style="border-collapse: collapse; border-spacing: 0px; border: 0px; float: none; text-align: center; width: 100%;"><tbody><tr><td align="center" style="border-collapse: collapse; border-spacing: 0px; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l%3DJxRUe%26m%3DiMDF1slxUjwhXR2%26b%3DA03Aes6vY.YI82mOA1sJsQ&source=gmail&ust=1710345679820000&usg=AOvVaw0TsAqmHxT2_Plelao-QTVS" fg_scanned="1" href="https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=JxRUe&m=iMDF1slxUjwhXR2&b=A03Aes6vY.YI82mOA1sJsQ" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="color: #4b7bec; word-break: break-word;" target="_blank"><img alt="" class="CToWUd" data-bit="iit" height="367" src="https://ci3.googleusercontent.com/meips/ADKq_NY2qzA9fHulTdrTLf_VIZEYSLPD_q2I31u1jNt5n9VWFNIlRjMF5Ljpe60LPCaqHdqcfVxb6mv9-jwLrqmlPZdUNSazRhhNPseUKWH-qJbvsEmS9utlnEz3_fqXBFiTjut9ea3Z0mN80TEF_GzLtDNwNP0Hu9XrzC94QNuw=s0-d-e1-ft#https://hostedimages-cdn.aweber-static.com/MTkxMzQ4Mw==/optimized/14482d3c9f864e1fa0779d2ada444607.jpeg" style="border: 0px; display: block; height: 367px; line-height: 16px; max-width: 100%; outline: currentcolor; padding: 0px; width: 550px;" width="550" /></a></td></tr></tbody></table></div><div><div class="m_2798696340356557469text-element m_2798696340356557469paragraph"></div></div><div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" role="presentation" style="border-collapse: collapse; border-spacing: 0px; border: 0px; width: 100%;"><tbody><tr><td style="border-collapse: collapse; border-spacing: 0px; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 10px 0px;"><table role="presentation" style="border-collapse: collapse; border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0) currentcolor currentcolor; border-image: initial; border-spacing: 0px; border-style: solid none none; border-width: 1px 0px 0px; width: 100%;"><tbody><tr><td style="border-collapse: collapse; border-spacing: 0px; border: 0px; margin: 0px;" width="100%"></td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr></tbody></table></div></td></tr></tbody></table><table class="m_2798696340356557469aw-stack" role="presentation" style="border-collapse: collapse; border-spacing: 0px; border: 0px; width: 590px;"><tbody><tr><td class="m_2798696340356557469container" style="border-collapse: collapse; border-radius: 0px; border-spacing: 0px; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; width: 590px;" valign="top" width="100%"><div><div class="m_2798696340356557469text-element m_2798696340356557469paragraph"><p style="line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 14px;"><i><strong>Watch for Matthew Fox's video <span class="il">meditation</span> -- now appearing <span class="il">every</span> Monday! </strong></i></span></p></div></div><div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" role="presentation" style="border-collapse: collapse; border-spacing: 0px; border: 0px; width: 100%;"><tbody><tr><td style="border-collapse: collapse; border-spacing: 0px; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 10px 0px;"><table role="presentation" style="border-collapse: collapse; border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0) currentcolor currentcolor; border-image: initial; border-spacing: 0px; border-style: solid none none; border-width: 1px 0px 0px; width: 100%;"><tbody><tr><td style="border-collapse: collapse; border-spacing: 0px; border: 0px; margin: 0px;" width="100%"></td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr></tbody></table></div></td></tr></tbody></table><table class="m_2798696340356557469aw-stack" role="presentation" style="border-collapse: collapse; border-spacing: 0px; border: 0px; width: 590px;"><tbody><tr><td class="m_2798696340356557469container" style="border-collapse: collapse; border-radius: 0px; border-spacing: 0px; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; width: 590px;" valign="top" width="100%"><div><div class="m_2798696340356557469text-element m_2798696340356557469paragraph"><h1 style="color: #333333; font-size: 28px; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0.5em 0px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Harriet Tubman, A Holy Worker Par Excellence</span></h1><p style="line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px; text-align: center;"> </p><p style="line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">03/12/2024</span></p></div></div><div><div class="m_2798696340356557469text-element m_2798696340356557469paragraph"></div></div></td></tr></tbody></table><table class="m_2798696340356557469aw-stack" role="presentation" style="border-collapse: collapse; border-spacing: 0px; border: 0px; width: 590px;"><tbody><tr><td class="m_2798696340356557469container" style="border-collapse: collapse; border-radius: 0px; border-spacing: 0px; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; width: 590px;" valign="top" width="100%"><div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" role="presentation" style="border-collapse: collapse; border-spacing: 0px; border: 0px; width: 100%;"><tbody><tr><td style="border-collapse: collapse; border-spacing: 0px; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 10px 0px;"><table role="presentation" style="border-collapse: collapse; border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0) currentcolor currentcolor; border-image: initial; border-spacing: 0px; border-style: solid none none; border-width: 1px 0px 0px; width: 100%;"><tbody><tr><td style="border-collapse: collapse; border-spacing: 0px; border: 0px; margin: 0px;" width="100%"></td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr></tbody></table></div><div><div class="m_2798696340356557469text-element m_2798696340356557469paragraph"><p style="line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 18px;">In yesterday’s DM we honored work as a forge of holiness. And in recent DMs we remembered black heroes and sheroes of old.</span></p><p style="line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px;"> </p></div></div></td></tr></tbody></table><table class="m_2798696340356557469aw-stack" role="presentation" style="border-collapse: collapse; border-spacing: 0px; border: 0px; width: 590px;"><tbody><tr><td class="m_2798696340356557469container" style="border-collapse: collapse; border-radius: 0px; border-spacing: 0px; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 10px 0px 0px; width: 298.562px;" valign="top" width="52.3%"><div class="m_2798696340356557469text-element m_2798696340356557469paragraph"><p style="line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 18px;">Harriet Tubman (c. 1820-1911) is one of those sheroes. Called the “Moses of her people,” she escaped from slavery and then committed herself to assisting others to escape. </span></p><p style="line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px;"> </p><p style="line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 18px;">Called a “conductor” of the Underground Railroad, she made about nine precarious trips south to free others–around 70 people in all, historians tells us. </span></p><p style="line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px;"> </p><p style="line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 18px;">On these nine very risky journeys, she assures us, she never lost a single person in the process.</span></p></div></td><td class="m_2798696340356557469container" style="border-collapse: collapse; border-radius: 0px; border-spacing: 0px; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 6px 0px 0px; width: 281.438px;" valign="top" width="47.7%"><div><table align="left" cellspacing="0" role="presentation" style="border-collapse: collapse; border-spacing: 0px; border: 0px; float: none; width: 100%;"><tbody><tr><td align="left" style="border-collapse: collapse; border-spacing: 0px; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l%3DJxRUe%26m%3DiMDF1slxUjwhXR2%26b%3DA03Aes6vY.YI82mOA1sJsQ&source=gmail&ust=1710345679820000&usg=AOvVaw0TsAqmHxT2_Plelao-QTVS" fg_scanned="1" href="https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=JxRUe&m=iMDF1slxUjwhXR2&b=A03Aes6vY.YI82mOA1sJsQ" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="color: #4b7bec; word-break: break-word;" target="_blank"><img alt="" class="CToWUd" data-bit="iit" height="363" src="https://ci3.googleusercontent.com/meips/ADKq_NZRyTQ8_8n9rkiakL-iM1O5MjyAMWQV5xuUh095_yF6ZUEljfSRsfhXr0msgLFySvjROVwYzEaNMM-Isse_YkKjoqzZSzY5Pzwhciapsb3dQ7m3oMYQ_DMJbgBzkgz1vICkw665yjcPeV5eE-NXcoRUNtoIdSeN7C3npOPK=s0-d-e1-ft#https://hostedimages-cdn.aweber-static.com/MTkxMzQ4Mw==/optimized/ffb13dede412447d8841ee3effb2ece7.jpeg" style="border: 0px; display: block; height: 363px; line-height: 16px; max-width: 100%; outline: currentcolor; padding: 0px; width: 272px;" width="272" /></a></td></tr></tbody></table></div><div><div class="m_2798696340356557469text-element m_2798696340356557469paragraph"><p style="line-height: 1; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;"><i>Harriet Tubman, 1895. Photo by Horatio Seymour Squyer, National Portrait Gallery. </i></span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l%3DJxRUe%26m%3DiMDF1slxUjwhXR2%26b%3DNrdKbCoLuIPgObThX1OKhA&source=gmail&ust=1710345679820000&usg=AOvVaw187QaJGeTYzBqIVan_n5Tz" fg_scanned="1" href="https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=JxRUe&m=iMDF1slxUjwhXR2&b=NrdKbCoLuIPgObThX1OKhA" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="color: #4b7bec; word-break: break-word;" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;"><i>Wikimedia Commons</i></span></a></p></div></div></td></tr></tbody></table><table class="m_2798696340356557469aw-stack" role="presentation" style="border-collapse: collapse; border-spacing: 0px; border: 0px; width: 590px;"><tbody><tr><td class="m_2798696340356557469container" style="border-collapse: collapse; border-radius: 0px; border-spacing: 0px; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 10px 0px 0px; width: 590px;" valign="top" width="100%"><div class="m_2798696340356557469text-element m_2798696340356557469paragraph"><p style="line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 18px;">As an enslaved child in Maryland, she was already put to work at five years of age. When 12 years old, she intervened when a master was beating a black man and in the process was hit with a metal object that rendered her with severe headaches and narcolepsy the rest of her life.</span></p><p style="line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px;"> </p><p style="line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 18px;">She served as a scout, spy, guerilla soldier and nurse for the Union Army during the Civil War and is recognized as the first African American woman to serve in the military. She would dress as an old woman and wander streets of Southern cities talking to slaves and gathering reconnaissance for the army that way. </span></p></div></td></tr></tbody></table><table class="m_2798696340356557469aw-stack" role="presentation" style="border-collapse: collapse; border-spacing: 0px; border: 0px; width: 590px;"><tbody><tr><td class="m_2798696340356557469container" style="border-collapse: collapse; border-radius: 0px; border-spacing: 0px; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; width: 265.5px;" valign="top" width="45.0%"><div><table class="m_2798696340356557469video" role="presentation" style="border-collapse: collapse; border-spacing: 0px; border: 0px; width: 100%;"><tbody><tr><td style="border-collapse: collapse; border-spacing: 0px; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 12px 0px;"><table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" role="presentation" style="border-collapse: collapse; border-spacing: 0px; border: 0px; width: 100%;"><tbody><tr><td style="border-collapse: collapse; border-spacing: 0px; border: 0px; margin: 0px;"><table align="center" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="m_2798696340356557469video-content" role="presentation" style="border-collapse: collapse; border-spacing: 0px; border: 0px; width: 255px;"><tbody><tr><td align="center" style="border-collapse: collapse; border-spacing: 0px; border: 0px; margin: 0px;" valign="top"><table align="center" cellspacing="0" role="presentation" style="border-collapse: collapse; border-spacing: 0px; border: 0px; float: none; text-align: center; width: 100%;"><tbody><tr><td align="center" style="border-collapse: collapse; border-spacing: 0px; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l%3DJxRUe%26m%3DiMDF1slxUjwhXR2%26b%3DThTHmxvWUgH2VwkQBRTrtA&source=gmail&ust=1710345679820000&usg=AOvVaw0cfAuRxMGSzcGMgDCcGIGP" fg_scanned="1" href="https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=JxRUe&m=iMDF1slxUjwhXR2&b=ThTHmxvWUgH2VwkQBRTrtA" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="color: #4b7bec; word-break: break-word;" target="_blank"><img alt="HARRIET | Official Trailer | Now Playing" class="CToWUd" data-bit="iit" height="144" src="https://ci3.googleusercontent.com/meips/ADKq_NbOGF8-2Zt30R2ieEBlSJ3cuxBrewTVwVmv02wFPVF9KarjOlu36jrxHzCu3osDbFl1kWqLJZrYDhxZ0RTsIW55869t1iHmZvH0-NWwiIAKkAGzZsIerkMnT4UP8P49Gn4pMNDshGFXOK99AQu499j2JBkIHteTf3bnIA=s0-d-e1-ft#https://hostedimages-cdn.aweber-static.com/MTkxMzQ4Mw==/original/fec7c280003d4c32a411445f44181796.png" style="border: 0px; display: block; height: 144px; line-height: 16px; max-width: 100%; outline: currentcolor; padding: 0px; width: 255px;" width="255" /></a></td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr></tbody></table></div><div><div class="m_2798696340356557469text-element m_2798696340356557469paragraph"><p style="line-height: 1; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;"><i>Trailer of the 2019 movie Harriet, starring Cynthia Erivo. </i></span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l%3DJxRUe%26m%3DiMDF1slxUjwhXR2%26b%3DfDPPznnU23MeG55pyMmqZw&source=gmail&ust=1710345679820000&usg=AOvVaw2KoyOrrLE5biJz41GOmPip" fg_scanned="1" href="https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=JxRUe&m=iMDF1slxUjwhXR2&b=fDPPznnU23MeG55pyMmqZw" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="color: #4b7bec; word-break: break-word;" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;"><i>Focus Features</i></span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;"><i>.</i></span></p></div></div></td><td class="m_2798696340356557469container" style="border-collapse: collapse; border-radius: 0px; border-spacing: 0px; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 7px 0px 0px 10px; width: 314.5px;" valign="top" width="55.0%"><div class="m_2798696340356557469text-element m_2798696340356557469paragraph"><p style="line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 18px;">As a nurse she dispensed herbal remedies to black and white soldiers alike who were dying of infection and disease.</span></p><p style="line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px;"> </p><p style="line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 18px;">She worked with the army in Union-held portions of South Carolina and participated in one of the more daring </span></p></div></td></tr></tbody></table><table class="m_2798696340356557469aw-stack" role="presentation" style="border-collapse: collapse; border-spacing: 0px; border: 0px; width: 590px;"><tbody><tr><td class="m_2798696340356557469container" style="border-collapse: collapse; border-radius: 0px; border-spacing: 0px; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 3px 0px 10px; width: 590px;" valign="top" width="100%"><div class="m_2798696340356557469text-element m_2798696340356557469paragraph"><p style="line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 18px;">raids of the Civil War–a nighttime raid at Combahee Ferry in June, 1963. </span></p><p style="line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px;"> </p><p style="line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 18px;">She helped guide Union soldiers along mine-filled waters, and then coming ashore, they rescued 700 enslaved people from plantations nearby. All the while, slave owners and Confederate soldiers were shooting at the rescue team.</span></p></div></td></tr></tbody></table><table class="m_2798696340356557469aw-stack" role="presentation" style="border-collapse: collapse; border-spacing: 0px; border: 0px; width: 590px;"><tbody><tr><td class="m_2798696340356557469container" style="border-collapse: collapse; border-radius: 0px; border-spacing: 0px; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 11px 0px 0px; width: 189.594px;" valign="top" width="34.0%"><div class="m_2798696340356557469text-element m_2798696340356557469paragraph"><p style="line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 18px;">After the war, she entered the battle for women’s suffrage, joining Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B Anthony in that quest. </span></p><p style="line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px;"> </p><p style="line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 18px;">She also cared for her aging parents and worked with a writer to develop her autobiography. </span></p></div></td><td class="m_2798696340356557469container" style="border-collapse: collapse; border-radius: 0px; border-spacing: 0px; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; width: 389.406px;" valign="top" width="66.0%"><div><table align="left" cellspacing="0" role="presentation" style="border-collapse: collapse; border-spacing: 0px; border: 0px; float: none; width: 100%;"><tbody><tr><td align="left" style="border-collapse: collapse; border-spacing: 0px; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l%3DJxRUe%26m%3DiMDF1slxUjwhXR2%26b%3DA03Aes6vY.YI82mOA1sJsQ&source=gmail&ust=1710345679820000&usg=AOvVaw0TsAqmHxT2_Plelao-QTVS" fg_scanned="1" href="https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=JxRUe&m=iMDF1slxUjwhXR2&b=A03Aes6vY.YI82mOA1sJsQ" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="color: #4b7bec; word-break: break-word;" target="_blank"><img alt="" class="CToWUd" data-bit="iit" height="266" src="https://ci3.googleusercontent.com/meips/ADKq_NaXbzMCM1nmzF1O9t9WHdBJmAeQ35naGOwu8Op2lP4xUqUvtFPzXRkCMlrtiCku8TzTlzokYfL1x75BRLC5GdPiZztv6y49Gn4FpfEiQGUYNHYc1r-PWvP3P1XdU8EgQ9tuw-xx0WjhexXXC5Br1Z1hppSILkdliDOYZO2q=s0-d-e1-ft#https://hostedimages-cdn.aweber-static.com/MTkxMzQ4Mw==/optimized/4ab58d841e0d4dbf8872935445eaa8f3.jpeg" style="border: 0px; display: block; height: 266px; line-height: 16px; max-width: 100%; outline: currentcolor; padding: 0px; width: 355px;" width="355" /></a></td></tr></tbody></table></div><div><div class="m_2798696340356557469text-element m_2798696340356557469paragraph"><p style="line-height: 1; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;"><i>Harriet Tubman Home for the Aged, Auburn, NY, U.S. National</i></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;"><i>Register of Historic Places. </i></span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l%3DJxRUe%26m%3DiMDF1slxUjwhXR2%26b%3DkBZfDFRVwqaOPupOr6pwVQ&source=gmail&ust=1710345679820000&usg=AOvVaw1CoKpBnYkdl8Wi4mGWpLeE" fg_scanned="1" href="https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=JxRUe&m=iMDF1slxUjwhXR2&b=kBZfDFRVwqaOPupOr6pwVQ" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="color: #4b7bec; word-break: break-word;" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;"><i>Wikimedia Commons.</i></span></a></p></div></div></td></tr></tbody></table><table class="m_2798696340356557469aw-stack" role="presentation" style="border-collapse: collapse; border-spacing: 0px; border: 0px; width: 590px;"><tbody><tr><td class="m_2798696340356557469container" style="border-collapse: collapse; border-radius: 0px; border-spacing: 0px; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; width: 590px;" valign="top" width="100%"><div class="m_2798696340356557469text-element m_2798696340356557469paragraph"><p style="line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px;"> </p><p style="line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 18px;">With very modest financial resources, she opened a Home for the Aged for impoverished Black people near Auburn, New York and died in that home of pneumonia in 1911.</span></p><p style="line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px;"> </p><p style="line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 18px;">We recognize in her accomplishments the same courage and bravery, vision and generosity, commitment to action for justice—in short, holiness–that we find in her sister Sojourner Truth and brother Frederick Douglass.</span></p></div></td></tr></tbody></table><table class="m_2798696340356557469aw-stack" role="presentation" style="border-collapse: collapse; border-spacing: 0px; border: 0px; width: 590px;"><tbody><tr><td class="m_2798696340356557469container" style="border-collapse: collapse; border-radius: 0px; border-spacing: 0px; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 5px 0px 0px; width: 590px;" valign="top" width="100%"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" role="presentation" style="border-collapse: collapse; border-spacing: 0px; border: 0px; width: 100%;"><tbody><tr><td style="border-collapse: collapse; border-spacing: 0px; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 10px 0px;"><table role="presentation" style="border-collapse: collapse; border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0) currentcolor currentcolor; border-image: initial; border-spacing: 0px; border-style: solid none none; border-width: 1px 0px 0px; width: 100%;"><tbody><tr><td style="border-collapse: collapse; border-spacing: 0px; border: 0px; margin: 0px;" width="100%"></td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table class="m_2798696340356557469aw-stack" role="presentation" style="border-collapse: collapse; border-spacing: 0px; border: 0px; width: 590px;"><tbody><tr><td class="m_2798696340356557469container" style="border-collapse: collapse; border-radius: 0px; border-spacing: 0px; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; width: 590px;" valign="top" width="100%"><div class="m_2798696340356557469text-element m_2798696340356557469paragraph"><p style="line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px; text-align: center;"><br /></p></div></td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr></tbody></table>William Langehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04322881680854644417noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27718087804172403.post-79796534694104578372024-02-29T09:10:00.000-08:002024-02-29T09:10:43.395-08:00 The Working Catholic: Big Tech by Bill Droel<p><br /></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 200%;">The popular use of a term
sometimes differs from its original use. Such is the case with Luddite, which
now usually refers to someone who fiercely opposes most technology. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Blood in the Machine</i> by Brain Merchant
(Little Brown, 2023) takes us back to the term’s origin: the Luddite Movement
in England from 1811 to 1816.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 200%;">Textile
workers were opposed to <u>certain types</u> of automated machines, not
wholesale opposition to all technology. They also believed that employers
deceived them about manufacturing changes. The workers damaged some factory
machines, but eventually lost their battle when military force was used against
them.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 200%;">In our
day, some tech companies warrant resistance over their treatment of employees
and consumers. Those companies include the social media--Meta (Facebook), Tik
Tok, and X (Twitter) and others. Plus, the big tech retail giant Amazon and
probably the app-based delivery/rider companies.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 200%;">The
harmful side effects of these companies derive from their operating philosophy,
as summarized by Adrienne LaFrance in “The Despots of Silicon Valley” for <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Atlantic</i> (3/24). The authoritarian
titans of tech are dangerous, she writes. They believe “that technological
progress of any kind is unreservedly and inherently good; that you should
always build it, simply because you can; that frictionless information flow is
the highest value regardless of the information’s quality; that privacy is an
archaic concept…[and that] the power [of tech experts] should be unconstrained.”
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 200%;">LaFrance
continues: The tech giants “promise community but sow division; claim to
champion truth but spread lies; wrap themselves in concepts such as empowerment
and liberty, but surveil us relentlessly.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 200%;">Our
Congress is concerned about the side effects of big tech. Both House and Senate
routinely summon one or another tech executive to address those concerns. Those
hearings are perhaps a modest start. Collective and individual action on the
part of the public is urgently needed. A few groups are on the case. For
example, Collective Action in Tech (<a href="http://www.collectiveaction.tech/unions">www.collectiveaction.tech/unions</a>)
maintains a list of organizing efforts among employees in the big tech sector.
Mothers Unite to Stall Technology (<a href="http://www.mothersunite4kids.org/">www.mothersunite4kids.org</a>)
advises parents on the harmful effects of mobile devices and more. (Ironically,
these citizen efforts rely on tech platforms to spread their ideas.)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Citizens should keep basic principles in mind.
First, as Jacques Ellul (1912-1994) warns us, all technology individuates.
Contrary to the propaganda of the social media platforms, communication through
mobile devices puts users further apart. One’s so-called friends on Facebook
are likely not genuine friends unless honest and vulnerable face-to-face contact
also occurs. Second, as Marshall McLuhan preaches, “the medium is the message.”
That is, the content is less relevant than the hardware (the device itself, the
satellite and the earthbound transmitters and cables). Merely having a TV in
one’s home changes the household environment, no matter the content of one or
another TV show. A mobile device in one’s pocket changes one’s outlook, no
matter who is texting whom.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 200%;">These
principles and others should, by the way, cause reflection on the part of
church leaders—particularly those in liturgical denominations. For example, a
camera inside a church in itself makes the worship a little bit more
entertainment and a little less participatory liturgy. Say it this way: There
is no such thing as reality TV or reality streaming. The image from a camera
signal sent up to a satellite and back down to a TV, a computer or a mobile
device is not reality. It is a projection and it necessarily individuates. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Be honest: Do you drink coffee or surf
channels while watching TV Mass? <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">Droel is the author of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Public Friendship</i> (National Center for
the Laity, PO Box 291102, Chicago, IL 60629; $6)<o:p></o:p></span></p>William Langehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04322881680854644417noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27718087804172403.post-36066683530628348892024-02-23T12:49:00.000-08:002024-02-26T07:09:30.759-08:00 St. Francis Cathedral Basilica, Santa Fe, New Mexico <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large; line-height: 115%;"><i>with symbols of theologies of faith, expecting understanding</i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 22pt; line-height: 115%;">After meeting our London family in
Las Vegas we visited Santa Fe, New Mexico.
It was an exciting trip.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 22pt; line-height: 115%;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgN2UnifQVrwRsjw93z_i6neAXp_pABM2ZBwdeqyYmnd4Pd-qFh-vVVqd7hNB2fjd-ziF8D0K9Q6rYj7VSJV4v8CknCjWrbKJTmX4EA3_NcnMIJPCEcxmDF-oTqk_A6DK2X22OSUIIeQZ6Yj92NqsyV7_VDLInxVcClTqNsgpE762F56xZFEqCMWnNKJqo" style="font-size: medium; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img alt="" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgN2UnifQVrwRsjw93z_i6neAXp_pABM2ZBwdeqyYmnd4Pd-qFh-vVVqd7hNB2fjd-ziF8D0K9Q6rYj7VSJV4v8CknCjWrbKJTmX4EA3_NcnMIJPCEcxmDF-oTqk_A6DK2X22OSUIIeQZ6Yj92NqsyV7_VDLInxVcClTqNsgpE762F56xZFEqCMWnNKJqo=w300-h400" width="300" /></a></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium; line-height: 115%;">Our grandchildren learn about the beauty of nature by cuddling a large snake. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 22pt; line-height: 115%;"> We
learned more about the Native Americans of the Southwest and the Spanish
culture that violently dominated them. <o:p></o:p></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi5Zhm1z-PXU9_sSvRJe2vRUgvDeS6jAfBH6J9JG5Bs-IqJU7VfPmivA2ixZwljge5PAeoHzCjnE4nq0d-Xyo5pg_das7lI6A5UzsrQlZYzP4fUGkTS10oYYQChIqG6ovjQbOedVQo06dNKXpRdFRXs2_2JoJNHJs0uatjdG3fMGXy-tVzPVD-RXIcnqAY" style="font-size: medium; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img alt="" data-original-height="4000" data-original-width="3000" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi5Zhm1z-PXU9_sSvRJe2vRUgvDeS6jAfBH6J9JG5Bs-IqJU7VfPmivA2ixZwljge5PAeoHzCjnE4nq0d-Xyo5pg_das7lI6A5UzsrQlZYzP4fUGkTS10oYYQChIqG6ovjQbOedVQo06dNKXpRdFRXs2_2JoJNHJs0uatjdG3fMGXy-tVzPVD-RXIcnqAY=w300-h400" width="300" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 22pt; line-height: 115%;"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 22pt; line-height: 115%;">Our visit to the Cathedral for Mass was
enlightening for us. Archbishop Wester
presided. His homily was excellent. In my opinion, it seemed it was based on the Creation
Theology of M. D. Chenu, O.P. He opened
with a quote from Elizabeth Barrett Browning: <b> <o:p></o:p></b></span></p><p> <span style="font-size: large;"><i>Earth's crammed with heaven,</i></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><i>And every common bush afire with God,</i></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><i>But only he who sees takes off his shoes;</i></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><i>The rest sit round and pluck blackberries.</i></span></p><p><i> From <u>Aurora Leigh</u>, by Elizabeth Barrett Browning</i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 22pt; line-height: 115%;">His words were meant to spark
meditation for Lent. The question is,
did this indicate a ‘me and God Theology?’
<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 22pt; line-height: 115%;">Moses was given the duty to liberate
the Jews from slavery. In Exodus, God
speaks to Moses: “I have heard their
outcry against their slave-masters…you shall bring my people Israel out of
Egypt.” (Ex 4:7-10) <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 22pt; line-height: 115%;">Could there have been more said by
the Archbishop considering the crises we now face? It was the week of the Novalny murder.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 22pt; line-height: 115%;">The Cathedral as it is now is reminiscent
of an older adobe church, La Parroquia, (built in 1714-1717). A side chapel
contains a statue of Our Lady of the Conquista. The current building was
constructed in 1859-1886. The structure
of the building and its accoutrements present an eclectic series of theologies
including Vatican II. <o:p></o:p></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiAUi9LMAMMCf_q7pjUlaxqciDMeC76F9lS3uIbW71qpy7K2q6f9Vw6vPL-cJADn83-i4yngXOatttpEAM7toNE2U8c1y38s6Ooe1YUy_yLI_GHbSWoH4YNyh9bxpcAlkNdqQXbGAffiw9noxT9UOBb8efPGjqmB8HAgq9anbhflwVk5hYLuRZ7T6WQZLE" style="font-size: medium; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img alt="" data-original-height="4000" data-original-width="3000" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiAUi9LMAMMCf_q7pjUlaxqciDMeC76F9lS3uIbW71qpy7K2q6f9Vw6vPL-cJADn83-i4yngXOatttpEAM7toNE2U8c1y38s6Ooe1YUy_yLI_GHbSWoH4YNyh9bxpcAlkNdqQXbGAffiw9noxT9UOBb8efPGjqmB8HAgq9anbhflwVk5hYLuRZ7T6WQZLE=w300-h400" width="300" /></a></div><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 22pt; line-height: 115%;"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">A statue of Kateri Tekawitha, Native American Saint, is in front of the Saint Francis Cathedral Basilica in Santa Fe, New Mexico.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal">
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 22pt; line-height: 115%;">The people of the congregation were
very kind to us. Because of my
handicapped situation, Communion was brought to us. Some talked to us and asked where we were from.
It was indeed a Post-Vatican community. <b><o:p></o:p></b></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /></div><br /><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><br /><p></p>William Langehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04322881680854644417noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27718087804172403.post-87857903748927134762024-01-29T13:01:00.000-08:002024-01-29T13:01:13.296-08:00THE WORK OF HUMAN HANDS - CREATION<p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p>
<p><b><span style="font-size: x-large;">Hands - a gift of the Creator for creation. </span></b></p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiOq-Sz-XsSvuoXp0vfD1JGBR4TLeEmVdCTf2uWEARlPlDA1BH2ntUwd9eqSbyQQt-uTNTXKbArtIjdljuvNKERmYZqjz7fSpRkAvz71siL5QfWoj4eJDjl4LwArsZAzAeL3ODzPEtRpObMCqNxA0X-253P0p1N8L7w8P9QwXom0CAhEFbsvvDLmOx7Wuo" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="3584" data-original-width="2148" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiOq-Sz-XsSvuoXp0vfD1JGBR4TLeEmVdCTf2uWEARlPlDA1BH2ntUwd9eqSbyQQt-uTNTXKbArtIjdljuvNKERmYZqjz7fSpRkAvz71siL5QfWoj4eJDjl4LwArsZAzAeL3ODzPEtRpObMCqNxA0X-253P0p1N8L7w8P9QwXom0CAhEFbsvvDLmOx7Wuo=w240-h400" width="240" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-size: x-large;">Hands have intuitive knowledge and act with immediacy. </span></div><br /><p></p><p><span style="font-size: x-large;">"It is interesting to see how much like human hands the wings of the angels are." [Matthew Fox, regarding a painting by Hildegard of Bingen, "All Beings Celebrate Creation" in <u>Illuminations of Hildegard of Bingen</u>, p. 77.]</span></p><p><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">The photo shows the hands of new parents, Bill and Joanne Lange, and their baby daughter. Cochabamba, Bolivia, 1973.</span></p><p><br /></p>William Langehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04322881680854644417noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27718087804172403.post-48399163904118959812024-01-20T12:17:00.000-08:002024-01-20T12:18:02.611-08:00 The Working Catholic: No Contract, Yet by Bill Droel<p><br /></p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">n recent times employees for some
well-known companies have voted for a union at their store or warehouse. These
apparent employee victories do not, however, signal improved labor relations in
our country.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">It is difficult for
employees to achieve a pro-union vote. The parent company retains union-busting
lawyers and consultants who, in round one, teach executives and branch managers
how to disrupt an organizing effort by making side promises to a few quiet
workers, discrediting the leaders, telling the public that costs will increase
and more. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In round two (after a
pro-union vote) the local manager might continue to intimidate employees with
threats of layoffs and decreased benefits. Meanwhile the company challenges the
vote. When the company loses its challenge, it proceeds to appeal the decision.
More months go by.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In round three the paid negotiators
for the company move “with spectacular slowness,” reports Steven Greenhouse for
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The New Republic</i> (2/24). They pick an
out-of-state meeting place. They ridicule the thoughts of the unpaid employee
team. They take long lunches and often break-off negotiations for weeks or
months at a time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The goal is to wear
down the employee team and to discourage their fellow workers. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">It was December 2021 when
baristas at a Starbucks in Buffalo voted for the first-ever union at that
company, Starbucks Workers United (2495 Main St. #556, Buffalo, NY 14214; <a href="http://www.sbworkersunited.org/">www.sbworkersunited.org</a>). There is no
contract as yet in Buffalo. About 30% of newly formed unions have no contract
even after three years, Greenhouse details. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Why does Starbucks invest
in expensive union-busting lawyers and consultants over one, small outlet near
Lake Erie? “Because reaching a good contract will obviously provide enormous
incentives for workers in their nonunion stores to organize,” Greenhouse
explains. Yet knowing of the delays in Buffalo, baristas in 385 Starbucks shops
around the country have recently voted for a union. By the way, Starbucks can
afford its lawyers. Its cash registers ring up more than $30billion per year.
Profit is up less than Starbucks would like—an increase of about only
$2.6billion per annum. Starbucks says </span><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">its
slow profit performance is due to the raises it gives employees. (Those raises
can be interpreted as another tactic to stare off unions.)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Howard Schultz served as CEO of Starbucks for
14 years, retiring in 2000. He came back for nine more years at the helm. After
a second retirement, he came back once again for two more years, leaving the
position in April 2023. Schultz has a net worth of about $5billion. He owns
about 2% of Starbucks.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Schultz is a prominent neoliberal. He is big
on individual free choice, though free choice doesn’t seem to include choosing
a union. <span style="background: white; color: #202122;">"I was convinced
that under my leadership, employees would come to realize that I would listen
to their concerns. If they had faith in me and my motives, they wouldn't need a
union,"</span> Schultz says.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Among its presumptions, the neoliberal
“ideology holds that both parties to an employment contract hold equal power
and can easily walk away,” writes Anthony Annett for <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Commonweal</i> (1/24). The presumption assumes that “if a worker feels
mistreated, she can always quit and find another job.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Catholicism values freedom, but “the notion
that employers and employees enjoy equal power” is nonsense, Annett writes. He
provides references. For example, Pope Leo XIII (1810-1903) explains the
principle of a just wage and notes that if through necessity or fear of a worse
evil, an employee accepts harder conditions because an employer or contractor
will give no better, the worker is a victim of force and injustice. (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">On the Condition of Workers</i> #34, 1891)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Our
2024 Catholic <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Compendium of the Social
Doctrine</i> puts it thus: “The simple agreement between employee and employer
with regard to the amount of pay to be received is not sufficient for the
agreed upon salary to qualify as a just wage.” In Annett’s words, “Mutual consent
alone does not guarantee a fair contract.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">What can be done to make organizing and
negotiating at Starbucks and other places efficient and just? Some suggest that
the technicality of organizing store-by-store give way to a company-wide vote
on a union. Catholicism proposes the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">industry
council plan</i> (what in Germany is called <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">co-determinism</i>)
in which a quasi-legal body of representatives of executives, employees,
consumers and government set some sector-wide standards. Another idea is currently
banging around our Congress. The PRO Act (Protecting the Right to Organize), among
its reforms, might include a penalty for employers who unnecessarily stall negations
with a new union. The bill was first introduced and passed in the House in May
2020. Its latest version (HR #20), introduced in February 2023, awaits proper
voting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Readers of this column might sign a pledge of
solidarity on the website of </span><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Starbucks United (<a href="http://www.sbworkersunited.org/">www.sbworkersunited.org</a>).
And why not freely choose another coffee shop until Starbucks acts in good
faith?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial Narrow","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Droel
edits INITIATIVES (PO Box 291102, Chicago, IL 60629), a free newsletter on
faith and work.</span><span style="font-family: "Arial Narrow","sans-serif";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><br /><p></p>William Langehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04322881680854644417noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27718087804172403.post-77421921025509450712024-01-15T14:10:00.000-08:002024-01-15T14:11:51.164-08:00On Martin Luther King Jr., His Movement & His Mentors by Dr. Matthew Fox, Ph.D.<p> <span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" style="background-color: #e3edf7; color: #333333; font-size: 18px;">Today we celebrate one of the greatest Christian saints of all time: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. </span></p><p><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" style="background-color: #e3edf7; color: #333333; font-size: 18px;">King had at least three mentors: Jesus, Howard Thurman, and Gandhi. One thing that made him great was his </span><i style="background-color: #e3edf7; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 18px;">deep ecumenism,</i><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" style="background-color: #e3edf7; color: #333333; font-size: 18px;"> insofar as he humbly learned from a Hindu saint, Mahatma Gandhi, how to apply Jesus’ teachings to battling injustice—using a method called non-violent resistance.</span></p><p><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" style="background-color: #e3edf7; color: #333333; font-size: 18px;">Under King, that resistance brought down almost a century of Jim Crow laws, lynchings, and other evil structures that perpetuated racism </span></p><p style="background-color: #e3edf7; color: #333333; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px;"><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" style="font-size: 18px;">and slavery even after the Confederacy lost its Civil War. Marching, facing firehoses, police dogs and police on horseback, filling jails, beseeching courts, politicians and presidents, ordinary citizens and church-goers of the movement MLK Jr. led, applied Gandhi’s spiritual practice that had taken down the British empire in India, without firing a shot.</span></p><p style="background-color: #e3edf7; color: #333333; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px;"><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" style="font-size: 18px;"><br /></span></p><p style="background-color: #e3edf7; color: #333333; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px;"><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" style="font-size: 18px;">Father Bede Griffiths, a wise monk and observer of India who lived fifty years in an ashram there, said this about Gandhi: He “was deeply influenced by the gospel, not only directly through the New Testament, but still more indirectly through Ruskin and Tolstoy.”</span><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" style="font-size: 18px;"> </span><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" style="font-size: 18px;"> </span></p><table class="m_-2686007182776105901aw-stack" role="presentation" style="background-color: #e3edf7; border-collapse: collapse; border-spacing: 0px; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; width: 590px;"><tbody><tr><td class="m_-2686007182776105901container" style="border-collapse: collapse; border-radius: 0px; border-spacing: 0px; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 10px; width: 290.312px;" valign="top" width="50.9%"><div class="m_-2686007182776105901text-element m_-2686007182776105901paragraph"><p style="line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px;"><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" style="font-size: 18px;"><br /></span></p><p style="line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px;"><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" style="font-size: 18px;">Through its Indian adaptation, “the social gospel of Christianity” </span></p></div></td></tr></tbody></table><table class="m_-2686007182776105901aw-stack" role="presentation" style="background-color: #e3edf7; border-collapse: collapse; border-spacing: 0px; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; width: 590px;"><tbody><tr><td class="m_-2686007182776105901container" style="border-collapse: collapse; border-radius: 0px; border-spacing: 0px; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; width: 590px;" valign="top" width="100%"><div class="m_-2686007182776105901text-element m_-2686007182776105901paragraph"><p style="line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px;"><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" style="font-size: 18px;">underwent “a most significant transformation.” Gandhi demonstrated how <i>the principles of the Sermon on the Mount can be applied to social and political life in a way which no one before him had done: he made the beatitudes a matter of practical concern in a way which few Christians have realized.</i> Or accomplished. </span></p><p style="line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px;"><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" style="font-size: 18px;"><br /></span></p><p style="line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px;"><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" style="font-size: 18px;">One Christian did realize it: MLK Jr., with a powerful team behind him, implemented and adapted Gandhi’s practice based on the Sermon on the Mount, to American history. Courage as well as vision and intergenerational moral outrage steered to a greater good, accomplished what the civil rights movement achieved. </span></p><table class="m_-2686007182776105901aw-stack" role="presentation" style="border-collapse: collapse; border-spacing: 0px; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-size: 16px; width: 590px;"><tbody><tr><td class="m_-2686007182776105901container" style="border-collapse: collapse; border-radius: 0px; border-spacing: 0px; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; width: 590px;" valign="top" width="100%"><div class="m_-2686007182776105901text-element m_-2686007182776105901paragraph"><p style="line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px;"> </p><p style="line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px;"><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" style="font-size: 18px;">The immense sacrifices of that movement—including King’s and others’ martyrdoms—are in jeopardy today, sixty years later. Racism does not just disappear, it morphs into new forms. Each generation has to step up to challenge it in its own way. </span></p></div></td></tr></tbody></table></div></td></tr></tbody></table><p style="background-color: #e3edf7; color: #333333; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px;"><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" style="font-size: 18px;"> </span></p><div class="elementor-element elementor-element-6bb747cc elementor-widget elementor-widget-theme-post-content" data-element_type="widget" data-id="6bb747cc" data-widget_type="theme-post-content.default" style="--align-content: initial; --align-items: initial; --align-self: initial; --flex-basis: initial; --flex-direction: initial; --flex-grow: initial; --flex-shrink: initial; --flex-wrap: initial; --gap: initial; --justify-content: initial; --order: initial; --swiper-navigation-size: 44px; --swiper-pagination-bullet-horizontal-gap: 6px; --swiper-pagination-bullet-size: 6px; --swiper-theme-color: #000; --widgets-spacing: 30px 30px; align-content: var(--align-content); align-items: var(--align-items); align-self: var(--align-self); background-color: white; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: var( --e-global-color-text ); flex-basis: var(--flex-basis); flex-direction: var(--flex-direction); flex-grow: var(--flex-grow); flex-shrink: var(--flex-shrink); flex-wrap: var(--flex-wrap); font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; gap: var(--gap); justify-content: var(--justify-content); line-height: 2.1em; margin-block-end: 30px; margin: 0px 0px 20px; order: var(--order); outline: 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; vertical-align: baseline; width: 792.297px;"><div class="elementor-widget-container" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: background .3s,border .3s,border-radius .3s,box-shadow .3s,transform var(--e-transform-transition-duration,.4s); vertical-align: baseline;"><p class="has-drop-cap" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0.48px; line-height: 1.85em; margin: 0px 0px 1.75em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span color="var( --e-global-color-text )" style="font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0.48px;"> </span></p><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0.48px; line-height: 1.85em; margin: 0px 0px 1.75em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><br /></p><figure class="wp-block-image alignleft size-medium" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: table; float: left; margin-bottom: 30px !important; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 20px; margin-top: 0px !important; margin: 0px 20px 30px 0px;"><img alt="" class="wp-image-45568" decoding="async" fetchpriority="high" height="213" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" src="https://dailymeditationswithmatthewfox.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Gandhi_Salt_March-300x213.jpg" srcset="https://dailymeditationswithmatthewfox.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Gandhi_Salt_March-300x213.jpg 300w, https://dailymeditationswithmatthewfox.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Gandhi_Salt_March.jpg 640w" style="border-radius: 0px; border: none; box-shadow: none; box-sizing: border-box; height: auto; max-width: 100%; vertical-align: bottom;" width="300" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption" style="box-sizing: border-box; caption-side: bottom; display: table-caption; font-size: 12px; line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0.5em;">Mahatma Gandhi (center) during his first public non-violent resistance action, the 24-day Salt March of 1930, which protested the British monopoly on salt. Source unknown. <span style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-style: inherit; font-weight: 700; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gandhi_Salt_March.jpg" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; box-shadow: none; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222e77; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.2s linear 0s; vertical-align: baseline;">Wikimedia Commons.</a></span></figcaption></figure><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0.48px; line-height: 1.85em; margin: 0px 0px 1.75em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span color="var( --e-global-color-text )" style="font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0.48px;"> </span></p><figure class="wp-block-image alignright size-medium" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: table; float: right; margin-bottom: 30px !important; margin-left: 20px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px !important; margin: 0px 0px 30px 20px;"><img alt="" class="wp-image-45573" decoding="async" height="201" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" src="https://dailymeditationswithmatthewfox.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/LBJMLKVotingRightsAct-300x201.jpg" srcset="https://dailymeditationswithmatthewfox.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/LBJMLKVotingRightsAct-300x201.jpg 300w, https://dailymeditationswithmatthewfox.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/LBJMLKVotingRightsAct-1024x686.jpg 1024w, https://dailymeditationswithmatthewfox.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/LBJMLKVotingRightsAct-768x514.jpg 768w, https://dailymeditationswithmatthewfox.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/LBJMLKVotingRightsAct-1536x1029.jpg 1536w, https://dailymeditationswithmatthewfox.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/LBJMLKVotingRightsAct-2048x1372.jpg 2048w" style="border-radius: 0px; border: none; box-shadow: none; box-sizing: border-box; height: auto; max-width: 100%; vertical-align: bottom;" width="300" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption" style="box-sizing: border-box; caption-side: bottom; display: table-caption; font-size: 12px; line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0.5em;">President Lyndon B. Johnson meets Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. at the signing of the Voting Rights Act, August 6, 1965. Photo by <span style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-style: inherit; font-weight: 700; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoichi_Okamoto" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; box-shadow: none; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222e77; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.2s linear 0s; vertical-align: baseline;">Yoichi Okamoto</a></span> (the first official presidential photographer). <span style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-style: inherit; font-weight: 700; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lyndon_Johnson_and_Martin_Luther_King,_Jr._-_Voting_Rights_Act.jpg" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; box-shadow: none; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222e77; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.2s linear 0s; vertical-align: baseline;">Wikimedia Commons.</a></span></figcaption></figure><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0.48px; line-height: 1.85em; margin: 0px 0px 1.75em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><br /></p><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0.48px; line-height: 1.85em; margin: 0px 0px 1.75em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><br /></p><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0.48px; line-height: 1.85em; margin: 0px 0px 1.75em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><br /></p><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0.48px; line-height: 1.85em; margin: 0px 0px 1.75em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><br /></p><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0.48px; line-height: 1.85em; margin: 0px 0px 1.75em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> <img alt="Matthew Fox" loading="lazy" src="https://dailymeditationswithmatthewfox.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/MF-Pred2019.png" style="border-radius: 500px; border: none; box-shadow: none; box-sizing: border-box; color: #006c7a; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; height: auto; max-width: 100%; object-fit: cover; vertical-align: middle; width: 100px;" /></p></div></div><div class="elementor-element elementor-element-828c5ca elementor-author-box--layout-image-left elementor-author-box--avatar-yes elementor-author-box--name-yes elementor-author-box--biography-yes elementor-author-box--link-no elementor-widget elementor-widget-author-box" data-element_type="widget" data-id="828c5ca" data-widget_type="author-box.default" style="--align-content: initial; --align-items: initial; --align-self: initial; --flex-basis: initial; --flex-direction: initial; --flex-grow: initial; --flex-shrink: initial; --flex-wrap: initial; --gap: initial; --justify-content: initial; --order: initial; --swiper-navigation-size: 44px; --swiper-pagination-bullet-horizontal-gap: 6px; --swiper-pagination-bullet-size: 6px; --swiper-theme-color: #000; --widgets-spacing: 30px 30px; align-content: var(--align-content); align-items: var(--align-items); align-self: var(--align-self); background-color: white; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #006c7a; flex-basis: var(--flex-basis); flex-direction: var(--flex-direction); flex-grow: var(--flex-grow); flex-shrink: var(--flex-shrink); flex-wrap: var(--flex-wrap); font-family: Montserrat, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; gap: var(--gap); justify-content: var(--justify-content); margin-block-end: 30px; margin: 0px 0px 20px; order: var(--order); outline: 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; vertical-align: baseline; width: 792.297px;"><div class="elementor-widget-container" style="border-color: rgb(224, 224, 224); border-image: initial; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 30px 0px 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 30px 0px; transition: background .3s,border .3s,border-radius .3s,box-shadow .3s,transform var(--e-transform-transition-duration,.4s); vertical-align: baseline;"><div class="elementor-author-box" style="align-items: center; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; display: flex; flex-direction: row; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><div class="elementor-author-box__text" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; flex-grow: 1; font-size: 17px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><div style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><h2 class="elementor-author-box__name" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; clear: both; color: #081359; font-family: "EB Garamond", serif; font-size: 24px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: 400; line-height: 1.2em; margin: 25px 0px 5px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Matthew Fox</h2></div><div class="elementor-author-box__bio" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: var( --e-global-color-text ); font-size: 15px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 0.8em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Rev. Matthew Fox, PhD, author, theologian, and activist priest, has been calling people of spirit and conscience into the Creation Spirituality lineage for over 50 years. His 36 books (translated into 74 languages), as well as his lectures, retreats, and innovative education models, have ignited an international movement to awaken people to be mystics and prophets, contemplative activists, who honor and defend the earth and work for justice. To learn more, visit <a href="https://www.matthewfox.org/" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; box-shadow: none; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222e77; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.2s linear 0s; vertical-align: baseline;">matthewfox.org</a></div></div></div></div></div>William Langehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04322881680854644417noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27718087804172403.post-18571212021186033522024-01-02T08:21:00.000-08:002024-01-02T08:21:03.369-08:00We Expect More in 2024<p> </p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">The habit of <i>hope</i> is fortified by the realization </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">that <i>creation continues</i> </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">despite time restriction and </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">indeterminate causes. </span></p><p><br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiAq8YxzI3YGZK5WtWey8N_mvfERvMHhaPztD7FRujUbZyHEIYkeCo14CW4XW2kNZARm-Y1f4tP9FNNG0sV4s-fJlmfZQN-jUaqd6P9pRk7BNLvnXHhpvhwpNK9sQPzh-gL-pfxH_TyU8OEbiMQ3lh_TkPC4EZQqzS-GxKMjbzr-FKa5r6GzjbGxPUCO54" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="932" data-original-width="1109" height="336" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiAq8YxzI3YGZK5WtWey8N_mvfERvMHhaPztD7FRujUbZyHEIYkeCo14CW4XW2kNZARm-Y1f4tP9FNNG0sV4s-fJlmfZQN-jUaqd6P9pRk7BNLvnXHhpvhwpNK9sQPzh-gL-pfxH_TyU8OEbiMQ3lh_TkPC4EZQqzS-GxKMjbzr-FKa5r6GzjbGxPUCO54=w400-h336" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">A blossoming winter flower - Amaryllis.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: x-large;"><i>HAPPY NEW YEAR!</i></span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><br /><p></p>William Langehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04322881680854644417noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27718087804172403.post-10349994645257798452023-12-28T09:24:00.000-08:002023-12-28T09:24:56.130-08:00 The Working Catholic: Sacramental Neighborhoods by Bill Droel<p><br /></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Robert Moses (1888-1981) was the public works czar for Metro New York. His projects included </span><span style="font-size: large;">highways, bridges, parks and more. He also spearheaded a few Upstate projects. The Power </span><span style="font-size: large;">Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York by Robert Caro (Random House, 1974) is the </span><span style="font-size: large;">definitive biography. A gripping chapter is titled “One Mile.”</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">There is a slight bend in a short section of what is now the Cross Bronx Expressway (IS</span><span style="font-size: large;">95). In December 1952 residents in East Tremont neighborhood got a letter from Moses. It gave </span><span style="font-size: large;">a vacate order of 90 days to over 5,000 people living in 1,530 units. Those residents organized </span><span style="font-size: large;">and through months and then years they proposed a straightaway route for the highway that </span><span style="font-size: large;">would require minimum displacement. They provided expert testimony, attended countless </span><span style="font-size: large;">meetings, raised money, met with many officials and persistently lobbied for their plan, but to </span><span style="font-size: large;">no avail.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Neighborhoods are sacraments (lower case s). A sacrament contains what it signifies. It </span><span style="font-size: large;">conceals what it reveals. </span><span style="font-size: large;">Modernity is premised on growth, efficiency and individual initiative. Meritocracy is its </span><span style="font-size: large;">companion. That is, the assumption that successful people deserve what they attain; struggling </span><span style="font-size: large;">people are flawed. Catholicism, by contrast, says that God is Truth (capital T) and that all the </span><span style="font-size: large;">small truths (lower case t) are avenues to and from God. Catholicism thus embraces responsible </span><span style="font-size: large;">science, reason, experimentation, striving and accomplishment. However, the Catholic </span><span style="font-size: large;">sacramental imagination differs from the modern premise in that Catholicism believes in a </span><span style="font-size: large;">cooperative, organic society in which each person has a stake and in which each person can </span><span style="font-size: large;">contribute something. Many modern elites (conservatives and liberals) overlook or are even </span><span style="font-size: large;">hostile to the organic/sacramental nature of neighborhoods. These sophisticates might include </span><span style="font-size: large;">urban planners, speculators, elected officials, financiers, block-busting realtors, some </span><span style="font-size: large;">engineers, some developers and more.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">The unnecessary curve in the Cross Bronx Expressway destroyed more than buildings. </span><span style="font-size: large;">Family life was disrupted. An effective process of assimilation was eliminated. As Caro writes, </span><span style="font-size: large;">people who loved our country “would be an alienated, hostile, a hating force within it,” at least </span><span style="font-size: large;">for a time. And maybe to the whole point of the Bronx episode, the curve also meant that </span><span style="font-size: large;">arbitrary authority can overpower reasonableness, community sensitivity and the sacred.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">This tale does not imply that no highways should be built or in other examples that </span><span style="font-size: large;">gentrification is an unqualified evil. It does mean that like with a matchstick house the </span><span style="font-size: large;">meaningless removal of one small part depletes a neighborhood and a city. And as we now </span><span style="font-size: large;">realize, on a bigger scale careless efficiency and so-called progress gravely damages an entire </span><span style="font-size: large;">layer of our environment—likely to the death of our planet.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">For about 200 years Catholicism in our country made major investments of money, </span><span style="font-size: large;">material, staff and leadership in urban neighborhoods. Not every parish shiningly served as a </span><span style="font-size: large;">sacrament which reveals God amidst streets and alleys, stores and homes, parks and social </span><span style="font-size: large;">centers. (A subsequent column will consider the complexities of race relations.) But the </span><span style="font-size: large;">investment certainly helped make Philadelphia, Buffalo, Boston, Chicago, Detroit and other </span><span style="font-size: large;">cities closer to the image of God.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">A neighborhood’s greatness arises from relationships; from its hospitality to new </span><span style="font-size: large;">arrivals, to students and workers, to the elderly and dispossessed, to young parents and to the p</span><span style="font-size: large;">oor. From an unlikely mixture of urban characters come poets, bus drivers, teachers, </span><span style="font-size: large;">restaurateurs and citizens. Neighborhoods are incubators of culture. The neighborhood is a </span><span style="font-size: large;">place where women and men come to make their way in the world. As relationships are </span><span style="font-size: large;">nurtured and respected, the neighborhood gives life to the next generation.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Droel edits INITIATIVES (PO Box 291102, Chicago, IL 60629), a newsletter on faith and work.</span></p>William Langehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04322881680854644417noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27718087804172403.post-31931222615255989662023-12-07T11:48:00.000-08:002023-12-07T12:02:44.173-08:00Info on the Middle East Crisis by by Jim DeWall<p> </p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="en-US" style="color: #6aa84f; font-family: arial; font-size: 12pt; language: en-US; mso-ansi-language: en-US; mso-arabic-font-family: Arial; mso-armenian-font-family: Arial; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-currency-font-family: Arial; mso-cyrillic-font-family: Arial; mso-default-font-family: Arial; mso-greek-font-family: Arial; mso-hebrew-font-family: Arial; mso-latin-font-family: Arial; mso-latinext-font-family: Arial;">The October 7th, 2023 Hamas attacks in Israel at an Israeli music festival that killed 1,200 Israelis and numerous Americans was a horrible occurrence that led to the months-long Israeli Hamas war. Without a clear understanding of why this occurred, most people lay the blame solely on the Hamas Islamic Jihad terrorists. Even though the Hamas terrorists are clearly to blame for this atrocity, it is smart to be aware of what led up to it. Israel and Palestine were created in 1948 in the aftermath of World War II. The Palestinian people settled in the West Bank, adjacent to Israel. Today, there are 2.75 million Palestinians living in the West Bank and 2 million Palestinians living in Gaza, which is 58 miles west of the West Bank and on the Mediterranean.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #6aa84f; font-family: arial; font-size: 12pt;"> Israel made the decision in the 1970s to begin to establish settlements in the West Bank, seizing and occupying land in Palestinian territory. By 1980, there were just a few thousand Israeli settlers living in the West Bank. By 1990, that number had grown to 90,000, by the year 2000 to 200,000, by the year 2010 to 300,000 and by the year 2020 to 400,000. Today, there are approximately 650,000 Israeli citizens who live in the West Bank on land taken from the Palestinians. There are 130 settlements or towns in the West Bank housing all the Israeli occupiers. People have been encouraged to move to the West Bank settlements by the Israeli government, which gives a tax incentive to its citizens to move there. The settlers have seized privately held Palestinian land and evicted the Palestinian residents who had been living there. The Israeli government has built freeways throughout the West Bank to connect the settlements, roadways which can only be driven on by vehicles with Israeli license plates. Many Palestinian farmers can't access their own farmland because the Israeli freeway divides the farm in half and the farmers can't cross the freeway.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #6aa84f; font-family: arial;"><span lang="en-US"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">For years, the animosity between the two peoples has led to racial hatred and constant confrontations. Many Israeli settlers, in order to expand their settlements, have seized more land and cut down Palestinian olive orchards, the only source of income for many Palestinian farmers. Over 9,000 olive trees have been cut down in the occupied West Bank by Israeli settlers since August of 2020, according to the International Red Cross, trees that take decades to grow. Since 2013, there have been 45 resolutions adopted in the United Nations condemning the Israeli occupation of the West Bank. Almost every nation in the world has approved these resolutions, with the exception of Israel, the United States and a few other nations. The United States has abstained on or vetoed all 45 resolutions in the Security Council or the General Assembly, always siding with Israel. It is not hard to understand why the 4.75 million Palestinians and the Palestinian Hamas terrorists hate the Israelis. These are some of the reasons for the terrible strife in the Middle East and why the Israeli Hamas war began.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #6aa84f; font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Jim DeWall is a writer from Colorado.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p>William Langehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04322881680854644417noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27718087804172403.post-53385557561882529342023-12-04T13:21:00.000-08:002023-12-07T12:01:22.357-08:00Is Time running Out?<p><b> </b></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Aristotle:</b></span><span style="font-size: medium;"> time is the measure of motion, not a thing in itself.</span></p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjwUjchr0eMTikTutVcj-T1T_UFCJj-5iaTqWKLLVSmY-ebYB-8MXEbYsITgiCMKol5QQElQXkli5sbshd_BkTT_ciNVAlXgpEzRuOUbgR2TNFqbck_4ceUSzAAOFXEBHH_qV5JQH_y46qDtsKF2ZXt_kkaX87hvLUR_7J4nYp5i5GeGuOJ2W-OayUkWHE" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1233" data-original-width="1037" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjwUjchr0eMTikTutVcj-T1T_UFCJj-5iaTqWKLLVSmY-ebYB-8MXEbYsITgiCMKol5QQElQXkli5sbshd_BkTT_ciNVAlXgpEzRuOUbgR2TNFqbck_4ceUSzAAOFXEBHH_qV5JQH_y46qDtsKF2ZXt_kkaX87hvLUR_7J4nYp5i5GeGuOJ2W-OayUkWHE=w337-h400" width="337" /></a></div><br />Painting by Gretchen Merkle</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 18.6667px; text-align: left;">CREATION CONTINUES EVEN WHEN NOT MEASURED BY THE NUMBERS OF TIME</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 18.6667px; text-align: left;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 18.6667px; text-align: left;"><b>Headline: </b> UN: World racing past warming limit </span><span style="text-align: left;">[Milwaukee Journal Sentinel - Tuesday, November 21, 2023]</span><span style="font-size: 18.6667px; text-align: left;"> </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 18.6667px; text-align: left;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large; text-align: left;">Is there any hope?</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 18.6667px; text-align: left;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgj9EjCN_sgFT1eiCuFAIy9hY88HOyfapOaZ8lQ6cT9lbB7MgVfcSpbLcNOXa_R9YVuWFGfgngoekzUcHncb7WILClG1GG2IVn5IxspkkWuCOoAs_oLs3nm4rKmzAe5IBNQJpi-ZB8ybP3Fo-hzJaworch90aS6czjiEvsz_12zC1dtURjci1X0yfUuyoE" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1920" data-original-width="1920" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgj9EjCN_sgFT1eiCuFAIy9hY88HOyfapOaZ8lQ6cT9lbB7MgVfcSpbLcNOXa_R9YVuWFGfgngoekzUcHncb7WILClG1GG2IVn5IxspkkWuCOoAs_oLs3nm4rKmzAe5IBNQJpi-ZB8ybP3Fo-hzJaworch90aS6czjiEvsz_12zC1dtURjci1X0yfUuyoE" width="240" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span>Statue of Julian of Norwich outside the Norwich Cathedral</span><div><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><b>Julian of Norwich: </b> "It is
necessary that sin should exist, but all will be well, and all will be well,
and every manner of thing will be well.”</span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><b>Thomas
Aquinas</b> links hope to trust because trust “furnishes a certain vigor to
hope. For this reason, it is the
opposite of fear, as is hope.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><b> </b></span><span style="font-size: 18.6667px;"><b>Matthew Fox: </b></span><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Trust and
magnanimity revitalize us with energy and enthusiasm for good and great tasks
that in turn bring about hope.</span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 14pt;">[p. 96-7, </span><u style="font-size: 14pt;">Julian of Norwich: Wisdom in a time of pandemic and beyond,</u><span style="font-size: 14pt;">
by Matthew Fox, 2020.]</span></p></div>William Langehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04322881680854644417noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27718087804172403.post-37799860622183992512023-11-27T11:00:00.000-08:002023-11-27T11:00:37.994-08:00<p> </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">The Working Catholic: Race
Relations by Bill Droel <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Efforts these days to improve race relations are of related types. There
is <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">virtue signaling</i>, as in ubiquitous
TV ads featuring a mixed-race couple or the obligatory progressive statements
from businesses and national religious denominations. There is <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">social therapy</i>, as when church-sponsored
groups examine and then admit to their racism. Thirdly, justifiable racial grievances
are expressed through marches and rallies that unfortunately lack any specific
goal.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Saul Alinsky (1909-1972), considered
the dean of community organizing, was known for his confrontational yet non-violent
tactics, his sharp-edged comments and his exaggerated personality. Alinsky was
a person of “keen sociological imagination” and “thoughtful action,” as Mark
Santow details in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Saul Alinsky and the
Dilemmas of Race</i> (University of Chicago Press, 2023).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Alinsky never wavered from a commitment to
equal dignity, regardless of race or ethnicity. Yet he was not ideological. He
did not crusade for integration per se. He believed that if people have
confidence in their own agency and in the democratic process, they will usually
make better choices and support true pluralism. The problem, as Alinsky saw it,
was the lack of power at the local level. There were too few viable mediating
institutions through which people could effectively engage others. Thus,
Alinsky dedicated his career to forming peoples’ organizations.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">In 1938 Alinsky (then 29-years old)
left his job at a university institute to, with Joseph Meegan (1912-1994),
organize Back of the Yards Neighborhood Council (</span><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><a href="http://www.bync.org/"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">www.bync.org</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">) in Chicago’s stockyards area. This is the first of Santow’s case
studies. BNYC had a promising beginning. However, BYNC feared a possible influx
of Black residents. The declining stockyards weakened the neighborhood economy.
The older housing stock might appeal to Blacks. Thus, BYNC launched a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">conservation program</i>. On the surface its
beautification theme and its opposition to panic peddling and its campaign to
upgrade infrastructure was constructive. The unspoken premise, however, was retaining
white families in the area and prohibiting integration. Those white families
and their institutions (principally churches) felt their defensiveness “was
sanctioned by public opinion, economic sense and the law.” Many of those whites,
Santow explains, did not realize how government housing programs were designed
to “resist integration [through] subsidized suburban home ownership for whites
while consigning Blacks to segregated urban neighborhoods.” (See <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Color of Law</i> by Richard Rothstein,
W.W. Norton, 2017.)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">A disappointed Alinsky avoided public
criticism of BYNC. He only slowly admitted that, in Santow’s words, his effort
“contributed to both the ability and willingness of [BYNC] to engage in racial
containment…to protect and preserve an island of segregation.” Today BYNC says
it “substituted an emphasis on community and economic development for Alinsky’s
confrontational methods.” <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">In 1940 Alinsky formed his Industrial
Areas Foundation. About 20 years later IAF returned to Chicago’s neighborhoods,
starting with Organization for Southwest Community (Santow’s second case study).
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Though OSC is overlooked in most chronicles
of Alinsky, including the website of his foundation, the section on OSC in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Saul Alinsky and the Dilemmas of Race</i> is
the most interesting. The area in 1959 was white with some upwardly mobile
Black residents around its perimeter. IAF never said that integration was a
goal of OSC. In fact, its organizers patiently and persistently solicited those
mistrustful of Blacks. But many of those active in OSC were at best ambivalent,
suspecting the goal was to move Blacks into the neighborhood. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">OSC unraveled. Member groups exited.
First, over an internal proposal to abolish term limits for officers. It was
opposed by a faction who thought the hidden reason for the proposal was the
retention of racially tolerant clergy officers. More groups quit OSC when its
leadership drafted a letter to support an Illinois State bill on open
occupancy. The measure could help neighborhood stabilization by giving Blacks
more housing choices, particularly in the suburbs. But again, some OSC groups
wanted nothing to do with racial improvements.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">To judge by the Chicago neighborhood
examples, Alinsky’s success was quite limited. Yet his moral stature, now 50 plus
years since his death, remains high. Alinsky was consistently willing to risk
failure in order to act in the real world. For Alinsky, too many people are
“dismissive of messy compromises and far too enamored of the power and
sufficiency of legislation and goodwill,” Santow concludes. Moralizing from the
sidelines about race (or other issues) is cowardly.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Alinsky was constantly evaluating: Maybe
a single neighborhood lacks enough power to deal with larger divisive forces.
In 1970 his IAF organized a metropolitan organization, Campaign Against
Pollution, soon called Citizens’ Action Program. Today the IAF has 63 county-wide
or metro-wide organizations in the United States. Each is multi-issue and, like
Alinsky, each believes that racial and ethnic relations improve as its member
groups strive for the widest public conversation possible. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Droel edits
INITIATIVES (PO Box 291102, Chicago, IL 60629), a newsletter on faith and work.<o:p></o:p></span></p>William Langehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04322881680854644417noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27718087804172403.post-50489950610447184462023-11-22T09:06:00.000-08:002023-11-22T09:11:46.493-08:00The Ideal Woman in Proverbs<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span class="indent-1-breaks"><span class="text" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span class="indent-1-breaks"><span class="text" style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Her husband, entrusting his heart to her,</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span class="indent-1-breaks"><span class="text" style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><span> has an unfailing prize.</span><br /></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span class="indent-1-breaks"><span class="text"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">She brings him good, and not evil,</span></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span class="indent-1-breaks"><span class="text"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><span> all the days of her life.</span><br /></span></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span class="indent-1-breaks"><span class="text"><span><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">She rises while it is still night,</span></span></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span class="indent-1-breaks"><span class="text"><span><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size: large;"> and distributes food to her household,</span><br /></span></span></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span class="indent-1-breaks"><span class="text"><span><span><span><span> </span></span></span></span></span></span><span style="text-align: center;">(Proverbs
31:11-15)</span></span></p></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="indent-1-breaks"><span class="text" style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">This was the
Scripture reading for Sunday, November 19, 2023; it was</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"> announced as the </span></span><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">Word of God. It seems</span><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"> that God is a ‘patriarchal</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"> monarch.’ </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span class="text"><span face=""Segoe UI", "sans-serif"" style="background: white; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></span></p></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEga0mF0YiSQEMTAZMWkHcYWz4HsvrnDvE9ctxM57LajGI8u_RaKjmF-SUuJwNXVVj3aasWd3pFzuUv3qt0Px5r9dH-ozAchbUfJ8BcPm2WCSh5gqOyE56BogD2ucHQYbwJbGfNvrsaVZ4qi_YZJLxmIcJf78YdeFFz56ICG57VYhi5asThV_rzObv4HKrA/s3629/Helen.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3629" data-original-width="2906" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEga0mF0YiSQEMTAZMWkHcYWz4HsvrnDvE9ctxM57LajGI8u_RaKjmF-SUuJwNXVVj3aasWd3pFzuUv3qt0Px5r9dH-ozAchbUfJ8BcPm2WCSh5gqOyE56BogD2ucHQYbwJbGfNvrsaVZ4qi_YZJLxmIcJf78YdeFFz56ICG57VYhi5asThV_rzObv4HKrA/w510-h640/Helen.jpg" width="510" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">My Aunt Helen did all that.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">She had a husband and two children.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">I still remember her Thanksgiving dinners, but, most of all, I remember her as a baseball player. She was the best. I can see her now, racing in to catch a short fly ball. As a hitter, she had the form of Joe DiMaggio. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">She was the working matriarch of the family. I remember her, despite her rather slight build, shoveling coal to keep a 4-apartment building warm.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">As matriarch, she directed the family with understanding and humor. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">All respected Aunt Helen and her wisdom.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p></p>William Langehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04322881680854644417noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27718087804172403.post-65094624089005712132023-11-12T08:07:00.000-08:002023-11-12T08:07:13.986-08:00The Working Catholic: Social Doctrine #16, Imagination by Bill Droel<p><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Catholics are, if you
will, vaccinated with an analogical imagination. We assume that God’s creation,
especially people, are made in God’s image and that therefore God is like creation
in some way. Now, the vaccine does not last with all Catholics. It quickly wears
off on a Catholic in an environment devoid of enchantment. And, some non-Catholics
certainly have the analogical imagination. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Gay Talese,
baptized Gaetano, (now in his mid-80s) is the son of Italian immigrants. He
reported on sports for his high school paper, then wrote for his college paper,
for an army newspaper and also filed stories for small newspapers. In the early
1950s he landed a job as a copyboy for the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">N.Y.
Times</i>, eventually getting a sports-themed column there. Magazine profiles, essays
and more followed. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Stories
and photographs of so-called newsmakers appear every day, says Talese in his
memoir, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Bartleby and Me</i> (Harper
Collins, 2023). However, he believes that the stories of ordinary people are
worth attention. Here, in his words, are some of the “non-newsworthy people” he
wrote about: “doormen, bootblacks, dog walkers, scissor grinders, the
late-night tile cleaners in the Lincoln and Holland tunnels, the clerks sitting
in subway booths, the pushboys in the Garment Center, the carriage drivers in
Central Park” and the like. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: medium;">That’s
the Catholic social outlook. The ordinariness of each common person contains a
spark of the extraordinary. Each person has dignity no matter one’s job, one’s
wealth, or the size of one’s dwelling. Dignity, says Catholicism, is not given
by one’s boss or by one’s fans or one’s friends at the country club or at the
tavern. Dignity is not an achievement. It is innate, a gift from the Creator.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Those
with a Catholic sensibility walk around with a disposition toward the divine.
No, they don’t expect a miraculous apparition at the grocery. But maybe they
initiate a friendly chat with a widower there. No, they don’t interrupt their
normal routine for a mystical occurrence in the afternoon. But they pause each
evening to reflect on the meaning that was lurking within and around the daily
comings-and-goings. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: medium;">God
resides with each person, especially those who are overlooked. Should a forum
allow for eliciting it, each person’s story reveals a piece of God’s grace to
those who have ears to hear or have eyes to read. God revealed God’s mercy and love
to shepherds, fishermen, tax collectors, widows, a thief, and pious benefactors
and the curious. God is somewhere in the story of doormen, bootblacks, dog
walkers, scissor grinders, tile cleaners, Uber drivers, mothers and curious
young men. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: medium;">If God
is with each person, the Catholic imagination says that God is offended by
oppression. This is why a Catholic imagination puts people on alert for
opportunities to advance justice and peace. Normally, justice and peace come in
small increments. There is the decision at the managers’ meeting to institute
better training for new hires and to penalize any veteran employee who hazes a
new hire. Improvement might mean bypassing Starbucks until the company respectfully
deals with its legally organized employees. Improvement might be calling three
or four neighbors to attend a community meeting. It might be the staff and
leaders at a private school or a church who pledge to immediately involve the
police in any instance of child endangerment. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: medium;">A
Catholic imagination or Catholic social outlook (to which anyone is welcome) begins
and ends with the belief that each and every person has equal, God-given
dignity (imago Dei) and that all creation deserves proper reverence.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Droel edits INITIATIVES (PO Box 291102,
Chicago, IL 60629), a free newsletter on faith and work.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></o:p></p>William Langehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04322881680854644417noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27718087804172403.post-40710507049196191972023-11-04T11:51:00.004-07:002023-11-04T11:53:31.199-07:00<p> </p><div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; margin: 0px auto; max-width: 600px; width: 600px;"><table cellpadding="0" style="width: 100%;"><tbody><tr><td align="left" style="margin: 0px;"><br /></td></tr></tbody></table></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; margin: 0px auto; max-width: 600px; width: 600px;"><table cellpadding="0" style="width: 100%;"><tbody><tr><td align="left" style="margin: 0px;"><h1 style="font-family: nyt-cheltenham, georgia, serif; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 31px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: 34px; margin: 0px 0px 10px;">Grass-roots successes</h1><div><br /></div><div><div style="color: #222222; font-size: small; margin: 0px auto; max-width: 600px; width: 600px;"><table cellpadding="0" role="presentation" style="width: 100%;"><tbody><tr id="m_2028874112403245451yiv5135986072_a11y-skip-ad-marquee" style="width: 596px;"><td align="center" style="border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(220, 220, 220); margin: 0px; padding: 19px 0px 20px; text-align: center; width: 596px;" width="100%"><div style="margin-bottom: 15px;"><a rel="noreferrer noopener" style="color: #222222;"><img alt="" class="CToWUd a6T" data-bit="iit" src="https://ci4.googleusercontent.com/proxy/jALjgdcD4KhFZ--PvnQ7H2rOA4kVyiNGE5SkCLL3STzDvW7Ux5pfBhWOQTY3cgIfJrQzH6ru5IdkdLg07KL29L-MjM1vTCFC2sVt8Wb0zfc=s0-d-e1-ft#https://static.nytimes.com/email-images/N-TheMorning%402x.png" style="cursor: pointer; outline: 0px; width: 300px;" tabindex="0" width="300" /></a></div><p style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: 12px; margin-bottom: 0px; width: 596px;">October 24, 2023</p></td></tr><tr><td height="20" style="font-size: 0px; line-height: 0; margin: 0px;" width="100%"></td></tr></tbody></table></div><div style="color: #222222; font-size: small; margin: 0px auto; max-width: 600px; width: 600px;"><table cellpadding="0" style="width: 100%;"><tbody><tr><td style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px 9px 15px 0px; vertical-align: middle; width: 45px;" valign="middle" width="45"><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://nl.nytimes.com/f/newsletter/t7WM78Wl3SVicipeQDB9iQ~~/AAAAAQA~/RgRnGiKTP0TBaHR0cHM6Ly93d3cubnl0aW1lcy5jb20vYnkvZGF2aWQtbGVvbmhhcmR0P2NhbXBhaWduX2lkPTkmZW1jPWVkaXRfbm5fMjAyMzEwMjQmaW5zdGFuY2VfaWQ9MTA1OTUwJm5sPXRoZS1tb3JuaW5nJnJlZ2lfaWQ9MTU0Njg4Mjg3JnNlZ21lbnRfaWQ9MTQ4MTM1JnRlPTEmdXNlcl9pZD04MDY3N2UyM2E4MzQzNWY3ZTMzOWIyNDQ3MWI1ZDk0YVcDbnl0QgplHZOdN2W1vUBQUhVkZWFuLm11bGxlckB5YWhvby5jb21YBAAAAAM~&source=gmail&ust=1699209383408000&usg=AOvVaw0C4BtXLLfjM-ncD7QQVnkg" href="https://nl.nytimes.com/f/newsletter/t7WM78Wl3SVicipeQDB9iQ~~/AAAAAQA~/RgRnGiKTP0TBaHR0cHM6Ly93d3cubnl0aW1lcy5jb20vYnkvZGF2aWQtbGVvbmhhcmR0P2NhbXBhaWduX2lkPTkmZW1jPWVkaXRfbm5fMjAyMzEwMjQmaW5zdGFuY2VfaWQ9MTA1OTUwJm5sPXRoZS1tb3JuaW5nJnJlZ2lfaWQ9MTU0Njg4Mjg3JnNlZ21lbnRfaWQ9MTQ4MTM1JnRlPTEmdXNlcl9pZD04MDY3N2UyM2E4MzQzNWY3ZTMzOWIyNDQ3MWI1ZDk0YVcDbnl0QgplHZOdN2W1vUBQUhVkZWFuLm11bGxlckB5YWhvby5jb21YBAAAAAM~" rel="noreferrer noopener" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank"><img alt="Author Headshot" class="CToWUd" data-bit="iit" height="45" src="https://ci6.googleusercontent.com/proxy/mwsJK2kaQgBGIj0E3OMmdp9NUYpKqhpwe5tHRSpAFpw6bNSufXTS8AYNA811yF_jgJR55MhwCfUo-NP51WFWcRMw2Pvk6Vm-4hPSEklaE7yac0Vlgm3BOcniec2foPdRLf_j-jVN8IULlhR8B31dkB8SevyksGRMCVInJt3MSRvsaJTrMqbtjkCiQXoGrRzm_mbQdpPIOfz5k1M98i66IIU_uVrb9p_eYA=s0-d-e1-ft#https://static01.nyt.com/images/2020/05/01/multimedia/David-Leonhardt-Headshot-The-Morning/David-Leonhardt-Headshot-The-Morning-blogSmallThumb-v3.png" style="border-radius: 100%; min-height: 45px; width: 45px;" width="45" /></a></td><td style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 15px; vertical-align: middle;" valign="middle"><p style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; font-weight: 600; letter-spacing: 0.2px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 3px;">By David Leonhardt</p></td></tr></tbody></table></div></div></td></tr></tbody></table></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; margin: 0px auto; max-width: 600px; width: 600px;"><table cellpadding="0" style="width: 100%;"><tbody><tr><td align="left" style="margin: 0px;"><p style="color: #333333; font-family: georgia, serif; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 17px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: 25px; margin: 0px 0px 15px;">Many Americans have come to see the political system as rigged. They worry that grass-roots political movements are powerless to overcome entrenched interests, whether those interests are self-serving politicians, large employers or dominant social media platforms. And I understand why this cynicism exists.</p></td></tr></tbody></table></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; margin: 0px auto; max-width: 600px; width: 600px;"><table cellpadding="0" style="width: 100%;"><tbody><tr><td align="left" style="margin: 0px;"><p style="color: #333333; font-family: georgia, serif; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 17px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: 25px; margin: 0px 0px 15px;">For most Americans, progress has slowed to a crawl in recent decades. Income and wealth inequality have both soared. The top 1 percent have pulled away from everyone else, while working-class Americans often struggle to afford the best health care and homes in good school districts.</p></td></tr></tbody></table></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; margin: 0px auto; max-width: 600px; width: 600px;"><table cellpadding="0" style="width: 100%;"><tbody><tr><td align="left" style="margin: 0px;"><p style="color: #333333; font-family: georgia, serif; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 17px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: 25px; margin: 0px 0px 15px;">The clearest sign of our problems is this statistic: In 1980, the U.S. had a typical life expectancy for an affluent country. Today, we have the lowest such life expectancy, worse than those of Britain, France, Germany, Canada, Japan or South Korea, as well as some less rich countries, like China or Chile. The main reason is the stagnation of life expectancy for working-class people.</p></td></tr></tbody></table></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; margin: 0px auto; max-width: 600px; width: 600px;"><table cellpadding="0" style="width: 100%;"><tbody><tr><td align="left" style="margin: 0px;"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border-spacing: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; padding: 0px; width: 100%;"><tbody><tr><td align="center" style="line-height: 1; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: center; width: 596px;" width="100%"><img class="CToWUd a6T" data-bit="iit" src="https://ci4.googleusercontent.com/proxy/-_yqWqrqausGDwo225Mj_CVkNPGGAT3lYUMhTUulGc18jnxajynEs4cLZi6FbmcHS5keAK-nfWqYZ5kkJOvB_1_2Ju37DPnxDpC42j0zk3-OofljpU2XTg15p_h2QCvoUSRZBD67yDz_U4oFpWLFv-1wQ0Il7pgS-OsSTb75=s0-d-e1-ft#https://static01.nyt.com/images/2023/10/23/briefing/oakImage-1698085102585/oakImage-1698085102585-jumbo.png" style="cursor: pointer; display: inline-block; height: auto; line-height: 0; max-width: 500px; outline: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 15px; width: 494.672px;" tabindex="0" width="500" /></td></tr><tr><td align="center" style="line-height: 12px; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 20px; padding-top: 3px; text-align: center; width: 596px;" width="100%"><span style="display: inline-block; max-width: 500px; text-align: right; width: 494.672px;"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: georgia, serif; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"></span><span style="color: #888888; font-family: georgia, serif; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; letter-spacing: 0.01em; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; padding-left: 0px;">Source: World Bank | By The New York Times</span></span></td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr></tbody></table></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; margin: 0px auto; max-width: 600px; width: 600px;"><table cellpadding="0" style="width: 100%;"><tbody><tr><td align="left" style="margin: 0px;"><p style="color: #333333; font-family: georgia, serif; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 17px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: 25px; margin: 0px 0px 15px;">For nearly a half-century, our economy has failed to deliver on the basic promise of the American dream — that living standards meaningfully improve over time for most citizens.</p></td></tr></tbody></table></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; margin: 0px auto; max-width: 600px; width: 600px;"><table cellpadding="0" style="width: 100%;"><tbody><tr><td align="left" style="margin: 0px;"><p style="color: #333333; font-family: georgia, serif; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 17px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: 25px; margin: 0px 0px 15px;">These themes will probably sound familiar to regular readers of this newsletter. The Morning often covers them because I believe that they shape so many parts of American life, including our polarized politics and angry national dialogue. I have just written a book — my first, called “<a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://nl.nytimes.com/f/a/FzMZuZ2dLRdeW0VhutwK7w~~/AAAAAQA~/RgRnGiKTP0T2aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cucGVuZ3VpbnJhbmRvbWhvdXNlLmNvbS9ib29rcy8yMTcyNjAvb3Vycy13YXMtdGhlLXNoaW5pbmctZnV0dXJlLWJ5LWRhdmlkLWxlb25oYXJkdC8_Y2FtcGFpZ25faWQ9OSZlbWM9ZWRpdF9ubl8yMDIzMTAyNCZpbnN0YW5jZV9pZD0xMDU5NTAmbmw9dGhlLW1vcm5pbmcmcmVnaV9pZD0xNTQ2ODgyODcmc2VnbWVudF9pZD0xNDgxMzUmdGU9MSZ1c2VyX2lkPTgwNjc3ZTIzYTgzNDM1ZjdlMzM5YjI0NDcxYjVkOTRhVwNueXRCCmUdk503ZbW9QFBSFWRlYW4ubXVsbGVyQHlhaG9vLmNvbVgEAAAAAw~~&source=gmail&ust=1699209383408000&usg=AOvVaw1xN-uQKB67yS943D6s_-20" href="https://nl.nytimes.com/f/a/FzMZuZ2dLRdeW0VhutwK7w~~/AAAAAQA~/RgRnGiKTP0T2aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cucGVuZ3VpbnJhbmRvbWhvdXNlLmNvbS9ib29rcy8yMTcyNjAvb3Vycy13YXMtdGhlLXNoaW5pbmctZnV0dXJlLWJ5LWRhdmlkLWxlb25oYXJkdC8_Y2FtcGFpZ25faWQ9OSZlbWM9ZWRpdF9ubl8yMDIzMTAyNCZpbnN0YW5jZV9pZD0xMDU5NTAmbmw9dGhlLW1vcm5pbmcmcmVnaV9pZD0xNTQ2ODgyODcmc2VnbWVudF9pZD0xNDgxMzUmdGU9MSZ1c2VyX2lkPTgwNjc3ZTIzYTgzNDM1ZjdlMzM5YjI0NDcxYjVkOTRhVwNueXRCCmUdk503ZbW9QFBSFWRlYW4ubXVsbGVyQHlhaG9vLmNvbVgEAAAAAw~~" rel="noreferrer noopener" style="color: #286ed0; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit;" target="_blank">Ours Was the Shining Future: The Story of the American Dream</a>” — that tries to explain how we got here.</p></td></tr></tbody></table></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; margin: 0px auto; max-width: 600px; width: 600px;"><table cellpadding="0" style="width: 100%;"><tbody><tr><td align="left" style="margin: 0px;"><p style="color: #333333; font-family: georgia, serif; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 17px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: 25px; margin: 0px 0px 15px;">(For the New York Times Audio app, I read <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://nl.nytimes.com/f/audio/ja_F1Hxd-oEOdEuKkUSUcQ~~/AAAAAQA~/RgRnGiKTP0T4aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cubnl0aW1lcy5jb20vYXVkaW8vYXBwLzIwMjMvMTAvMjAvQXVkaW9Db250YWluZXItNjUzMmI0NTguaHRtbD9jYW1wYWlnbl9pZD05JmVtYz1lZGl0X25uXzIwMjMxMDI0Jmluc3RhbmNlX2lkPTEwNTk1MCZubD10aGUtbW9ybmluZyZyZWZlcnJpbmdTb3VyY2U9c2hhcmluZyZyZWdpX2lkPTE1NDY4ODI4NyZzZWdtZW50X2lkPTE0ODEzNSZ0ZT0xJnVzZXJfaWQ9ODA2NzdlMjNhODM0MzVmN2UzMzliMjQ0NzFiNWQ5NGFXA255dEIKZR2TnTdltb1AUFIVZGVhbi5tdWxsZXJAeWFob28uY29tWAQAAAAD&source=gmail&ust=1699209383408000&usg=AOvVaw1cvBxWo2hzAUEEa7i2pVYC" href="https://nl.nytimes.com/f/audio/ja_F1Hxd-oEOdEuKkUSUcQ~~/AAAAAQA~/RgRnGiKTP0T4aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cubnl0aW1lcy5jb20vYXVkaW8vYXBwLzIwMjMvMTAvMjAvQXVkaW9Db250YWluZXItNjUzMmI0NTguaHRtbD9jYW1wYWlnbl9pZD05JmVtYz1lZGl0X25uXzIwMjMxMDI0Jmluc3RhbmNlX2lkPTEwNTk1MCZubD10aGUtbW9ybmluZyZyZWZlcnJpbmdTb3VyY2U9c2hhcmluZyZyZWdpX2lkPTE1NDY4ODI4NyZzZWdtZW50X2lkPTE0ODEzNSZ0ZT0xJnVzZXJfaWQ9ODA2NzdlMjNhODM0MzVmN2UzMzliMjQ0NzFiNWQ5NGFXA255dEIKZR2TnTdltb1AUFIVZGVhbi5tdWxsZXJAeWFob28uY29tWAQAAAAD" rel="noreferrer noopener" style="color: #286ed0; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit;" target="_blank">part of the introduction</a>, including my own family’s story.)</p></td></tr></tbody></table></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; margin: 0px auto; max-width: 600px; width: 600px;"><table cellpadding="0" style="width: 100%;"><tbody><tr><td align="left" style="margin: 0px;"><p style="color: #333333; font-family: georgia, serif; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 17px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: 25px; margin: 0px 0px 15px;">In today’s newsletter, I want to tell you why I nonetheless emerged from writing the book with hope about the country’s future: In short, the American political system helped create today’s problems, and only the American political system can solve them.</p></td></tr></tbody></table></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; margin: 0px auto; max-width: 600px; width: 600px;"><table cellpadding="0" style="width: 100%;"><tbody><tr><td align="left" style="margin: 0px;"><h2 style="font-family: nyt-cheltenham, georgia, serif; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 24px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: 31px; margin: 0px 0px 10px;">When inequality fell</h2></td></tr></tbody></table></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; margin: 0px auto; max-width: 600px; width: 600px;"><table cellpadding="0" style="width: 100%;"><tbody><tr><td align="left" style="margin: 0px;"><p style="color: #333333; font-family: georgia, serif; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 17px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: 25px; margin: 0px 0px 15px;">For all the cynicism about politics today, it is worth remembering how often grass-roots political movements in the U.S. have managed to succeed. In the 1920s and 1930s, the country had a highly unequal economy and a Supreme Court that threw out most policies to reduce inequality. But activists — like A. Philip Randolph, a preacher’s son from Jacksonville, Fla., who took on a powerful railroad company — didn’t respond by giving up on the system as hopelessly rigged.</p></td></tr></tbody></table></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; margin: 0px auto; max-width: 600px; width: 600px;"><table cellpadding="0" style="width: 100%;"><tbody><tr><td align="left" style="margin: 0px;"><p style="color: #333333; font-family: georgia, serif; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 17px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: 25px; margin: 0px 0px 15px;">They instead used the tools of democracy to create mass prosperity. They spent decades building a labor movement that, despite many short-term defeats, ultimately changed public opinion, won elections and remade federal policy to put workers and corporations on a more equal footing. The rise of the labor movement from the 1930s through the 1950s led to incomes rising even more rapidly for the poor and middle class than for the rich, and to the white-Black wage gap shrinking.</p></td></tr></tbody></table></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; margin: 0px auto; max-width: 600px; width: 600px;"><table cellpadding="0" style="width: 100%;"><tbody><tr><td align="left" style="margin: 0px;"><p style="color: #333333; font-family: georgia, serif; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 17px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: 25px; margin: 0px 0px 15px;">One big lesson I took from my research was the unparalleled role of labor unions in combating inequality (a role that more Americans <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://nl.nytimes.com/f/newsletter/J6RZrMhj3r4BfMJu8cRrxQ~~/AAAAAQA~/RgRnGiKTP0TZaHR0cHM6Ly93d3cubnl0aW1lcy5jb20vMjAyMy8wNy8xOC9icmllZmluZy9ob2xseXdvb2Qtc3RyaWtlcy5odG1sP2NhbXBhaWduX2lkPTkmZW1jPWVkaXRfbm5fMjAyMzEwMjQmaW5zdGFuY2VfaWQ9MTA1OTUwJm5sPXRoZS1tb3JuaW5nJnJlZ2lfaWQ9MTU0Njg4Mjg3JnNlZ21lbnRfaWQ9MTQ4MTM1JnRlPTEmdXNlcl9pZD04MDY3N2UyM2E4MzQzNWY3ZTMzOWIyNDQ3MWI1ZDk0YVcDbnl0QgplHZOdN2W1vUBQUhVkZWFuLm11bGxlckB5YWhvby5jb21YBAAAAAM~&source=gmail&ust=1699209383408000&usg=AOvVaw2nmj6jsgklk_2HSXHQghqJ" href="https://nl.nytimes.com/f/newsletter/J6RZrMhj3r4BfMJu8cRrxQ~~/AAAAAQA~/RgRnGiKTP0TZaHR0cHM6Ly93d3cubnl0aW1lcy5jb20vMjAyMy8wNy8xOC9icmllZmluZy9ob2xseXdvb2Qtc3RyaWtlcy5odG1sP2NhbXBhaWduX2lkPTkmZW1jPWVkaXRfbm5fMjAyMzEwMjQmaW5zdGFuY2VfaWQ9MTA1OTUwJm5sPXRoZS1tb3JuaW5nJnJlZ2lfaWQ9MTU0Njg4Mjg3JnNlZ21lbnRfaWQ9MTQ4MTM1JnRlPTEmdXNlcl9pZD04MDY3N2UyM2E4MzQzNWY3ZTMzOWIyNDQ3MWI1ZDk0YVcDbnl0QgplHZOdN2W1vUBQUhVkZWFuLm11bGxlckB5YWhvby5jb21YBAAAAAM~" rel="noreferrer noopener" style="color: #286ed0; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit;" target="_blank">seem to have recognized</a> recently).</p></td></tr></tbody></table></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; margin: 0px auto; max-width: 600px; width: 600px;"><table cellpadding="0" style="width: 100%;"><tbody><tr><td align="left" style="margin: 0px;"><p style="color: #333333; font-family: georgia, serif; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 17px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: 25px; margin: 0px 0px 15px;">There are plenty of other examples of grass-roots movements remaking American life. The civil-rights and women’s movements of the 1960s also overcame long odds, as did the disability-rights movement of the 1970s and the marriage-equality movement of the 2000s.</p></td></tr></tbody></table></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; margin: 0px auto; max-width: 600px; width: 600px;"><table cellpadding="0" style="width: 100%;"><tbody><tr><td align="left" style="margin: 0px;"><p style="color: #333333; font-family: georgia, serif; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 17px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: 25px; margin: 0px 0px 15px;">Other examples come from the political right. In the 1950s and 1960s, a group of conservatives, including Milton Friedman and Robert Bork, began trying to sell the country on the virtues of a low-tax, light-regulation economy. For years, they struggled to do so and were frustrated by their failures. Friedman kept a list of newspapers and magazines that did not even review his first major book.</p></td></tr></tbody></table></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; margin: 0px auto; max-width: 600px; width: 600px;"><table cellpadding="0" style="width: 100%;"><tbody><tr><td align="left" style="margin: 0px;"><p style="color: #333333; font-family: georgia, serif; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 17px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: 25px; margin: 0px 0px 15px;">But the conservatives kept trying — and the oil crisis that began 50 years ago last week eventually helped them succeed. A politician who embraced their ideas, Ronald Reagan, won the presidency and moved the U.S. closer to the laissez-faire ideal than almost any other country.</p></td></tr></tbody></table></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; margin: 0px auto; max-width: 600px; width: 600px;"><table cellpadding="0" style="width: 100%;"><tbody><tr><td align="left" style="margin: 0px;"><p style="color: #333333; font-family: georgia, serif; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 17px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: 25px; margin: 0px 0px 15px;">The conservatives who sold this vision promised it would lead to a new prosperity for all. They were wrong about that, of course. Since 1980, the U.S. has become a grim outlier on many indicators of human well-being. But the conservatives were right that overhauling the country’s economic policy was possible.</p></td></tr></tbody></table></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; margin: 0px auto; max-width: 600px; width: 600px;"><table cellpadding="0" style="width: 100%;"><tbody><tr><td align="left" style="margin: 0px;"><p style="color: #333333; font-family: georgia, serif; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 17px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: 25px; margin: 0px 0px 15px;">This history does not suggest that the political system is hopelessly broken. It instead suggests that the U.S. doesn’t have a broadly prosperous economy largely because the country has no mass movement organized around the goal of lifting living standards for the middle class and the poor. If such a movement existed, it might well succeed. It has before.</p></td></tr></tbody></table></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; margin: 0px auto; max-width: 600px; width: 600px;"><table cellpadding="0" style="width: 100%;"><tbody><tr><td align="left" style="margin: 0px;"><p style="color: #333333; font-family: georgia, serif; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 17px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: 25px; margin: 0px 0px 15px;">The central lesson I took from immersing myself in the past century of the American economy is that it can change, sometimes much more quickly than people expect. When it has changed in a major way, it often has been because Americans have used the political system to change it. The future can be different from the past.</p></td></tr></tbody></table></div>William Langehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04322881680854644417noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27718087804172403.post-46584013934062627672023-10-18T08:42:00.020-07:002023-11-02T12:58:32.189-07:00A SOLUTION FOR POVERTY AND CLIMATE CHANGE<p><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><i>They have made it a mournful waste, desolate it lies before me, desolate, all the land because no one takes it to heart. </i>(Jeremiah 12:11)</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;">The industrial revolution has provided great wealth for the
world, but poverty prevails and the world is being destroyed by the production
of artificial wealth. </span><span style="font-size: large;">Can the apocalyptic threats of poverty and climate change be
transformed?</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: x-large;">World War II seems to present capitalism as the answer. Fascism and communism were obvious
failures. The Capitalist answer to
poverty is development.(desarrollo) Gustavo
Gutierrez predicted that Capitalism wouldn’t work in his 1973 book, “A </span><u style="font-size: x-large;">Theology
of Liberation</u><span style="font-size: x-large;">.” Adam Smith’s </span><i style="font-size: x-large;">liberalism</i><span style="font-size: x-large;"> with the ‘invisible hand’
didn’t work; nor did Milton Friedman’s </span><i style="font-size: x-large;">neo-liberalism</i><span style="font-size: x-large;">
which was a disaster. “They [social
scientists] have reached the conclusion that the dynamics of world economics
leads simultaneously to the creation of greater wealth for the few and greater
poverty for the many.” (</span><u style="font-size: x-large;">A Theology of
Liberation</u><span style="font-size: x-large;">, p. 25)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;">Massive migration across the United States’ southern border
is an example of how development (desarrollo) doesn’t work to combat poverty. Mexican President Andrés Manuel López
Obrador said recently, “The people <span style="line-height: 115%;">don’t abandon their towns because
they want to, but rather out of necessity.”
<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: large;">“U.N. report
finds world isn’t curbing global warming.” (USA Today Network, “Way Off Track,”
September 9, 2023, p. 1NN) Poverty and
destruction of the earth are related.
The poor are suffering the most in the move toward global destruction causing
climate change. Solutions abound and
there is no one answer, but what is the criteria? How do we decide on an immediate action that is
individual and political? What do we do - options, political and personal options, are available. What is the criteria for choice?</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 115%;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiK-FXkxgEYBjhwC5s23NPCvXEf820Hyap3de8CndHYUvhpnqxBUX6a2QRcmjBeQT8Gmfhaz4qZTPNdZPMRRtTf5FBElrE435kqBzR4TwvzyoJADDcXVbmkxafAkHbvZsPEhjrMAaegCt3cqh-v9r8nInTaxBYryQQTCtO4wrxlT4rNuOzpoeml4c9_2FE/s4000/20231027_142043.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4000" data-original-width="3000" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiK-FXkxgEYBjhwC5s23NPCvXEf820Hyap3de8CndHYUvhpnqxBUX6a2QRcmjBeQT8Gmfhaz4qZTPNdZPMRRtTf5FBElrE435kqBzR4TwvzyoJADDcXVbmkxafAkHbvZsPEhjrMAaegCt3cqh-v9r8nInTaxBYryQQTCtO4wrxlT4rNuOzpoeml4c9_2FE/s320/20231027_142043.jpg" width="240" /></a></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">Are we listening to our children?</span></div><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">Gustavo
Gutierrez was influential in the historic meeting of Latin American bishops in
Medellin, producing the Medellin document of 1968</span><span style="line-height: 115%;">. </span><span style="line-height: 115%;">They agreed with Gutierrez that solutions must be judged in so far as
they move the poor from poverty. This is
referred to as the “preferential option for the Poor.” Theologian Matthew Fox suggests a
preferential (non-violent) option for the children. This is a universally accepted criterion. Who can object to loving children?<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><i> </i></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiv-agQwQm0RKwCHOHvIhkKLwXsj1NcIgcqwjUQcZMKLCOsMZ6ZkjRnk8nI4LAgzPLXpsHVIq5_dgJkDG3CKF35ohIgB7EJRw5hTN-gZk9IlaTQhsxgDEF8e3qzk7U-gcxGygq-aEKTu5DIOR6wJ2DyXnZtEv-cpzSU3U4YYnFiDFKSyLS4Nhlds-QiHeQ" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="3000" data-original-width="4000" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiv-agQwQm0RKwCHOHvIhkKLwXsj1NcIgcqwjUQcZMKLCOsMZ6ZkjRnk8nI4LAgzPLXpsHVIq5_dgJkDG3CKF35ohIgB7EJRw5hTN-gZk9IlaTQhsxgDEF8e3qzk7U-gcxGygq-aEKTu5DIOR6wJ2DyXnZtEv-cpzSU3U4YYnFiDFKSyLS4Nhlds-QiHeQ" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Bas-relief in Saint Benedict the Moor Catholic Church, Milwaukee, Wisconsin</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 18.4px;"><span style="font-size: large;">The current horror in Israel and Palestine reminds us of “A voice was heard in Ramah, sobbing and loud lamentation; Rachel weeping for her children, and she would not be consoled, since they were no more.” (Matthew 12:18)</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 18.4px;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="line-height: 18.4px;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8svX8x4aEKMG66JfdtCJuxzTu6uDhnQQRY6f5V0gF43tvJpgVGUXtWlcE1Rf2IPK7_ifRHktYctNBN_WoA2VpJ721neE1o9gs5tllchpEs6MZtfqTKt2oteF2KT_4JPBzVYerV3bXjNAWdTHjsBOaHo-HSFo3UiID9-uEskHEnhi9YMbzAmqkARaGbxM/s4000/20231026_144613.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4000" data-original-width="3000" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8svX8x4aEKMG66JfdtCJuxzTu6uDhnQQRY6f5V0gF43tvJpgVGUXtWlcE1Rf2IPK7_ifRHktYctNBN_WoA2VpJ721neE1o9gs5tllchpEs6MZtfqTKt2oteF2KT_4JPBzVYerV3bXjNAWdTHjsBOaHo-HSFo3UiID9-uEskHEnhi9YMbzAmqkARaGbxM/s320/20231026_144613.jpg" width="240" /></a></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="line-height: 18.4px;">Jesus in the Temple with the Elders - Grace Lutheran Church, Milwaukee, WI</span></div><span style="line-height: 18.4px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: 18.4px;"></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: large;">Are we
looking for what Jeremiah predicts or will we take the moral imperative of
action?</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-size: medium;">I looked at the earth, and it was waste and void; at the heavens, and their light had gone out!<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-size: medium;">I looked at the mountains, and they were trembling, and all the hills were crumbling!<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-size: medium;">I looked and behold, there was no man; even the birds of the air had flown away!<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>I looked and behold, the garden land was a dessert, with all its cities destroyed before the Lord, before his blazing wrath. </i>(Jeremiah 4:23-26)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><i> </i></p><p></p>William Langehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04322881680854644417noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27718087804172403.post-6868091083791425872023-10-05T05:55:00.002-07:002023-10-05T06:26:12.722-07:00The Working Catholic: UAW Strike by Bill Droel<p> </p>
<table align="left" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="MsoNormalTable" style="border-collapse: collapse; margin-left: -0.45pt; margin-right: -0.45pt; mso-padding-alt: 0in 0in 0in 0in; mso-table-anchor-horizontal: column; mso-table-anchor-vertical: paragraph; mso-table-left: left; mso-table-lspace: 1.8pt; mso-table-rspace: 1.8pt; mso-yfti-tbllook: 1184; width: 100%;">
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-element-anchor-horizontal: column; mso-element-anchor-vertical: paragraph; mso-element-frame-hspace: 1.8pt; mso-element-wrap: around; mso-element: frame; mso-height-rule: exactly; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: large;">Autoworkers are not only seeking
higher pay, writes Binyamin Appelbaum in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">N.Y.
Times</i> (10/2/23). “They are also, audaciously, demanding the end of the
standard 40-hour workweek.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-element-anchor-horizontal: column; mso-element-anchor-vertical: paragraph; mso-element-frame-hspace: 1.8pt; mso-element-wrap: around; mso-element: frame; mso-height-rule: exactly; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">This is not the first-time employees have sought fewer hours. In fact, our feast of St. Joseph the
Worker/International Workers Day (May First) was inspired by an 1886 Chicago
protest for shorter hours. The Federation of Trades and Labor held a May
rally in our Haymarket area (now a trendy restaurant spot). Late in the
evening someone threw dynamite. Eight workers were rounded up, including a
lay minister, a printer and others. Seven were convicted; four were hanged.
The incident gave rise to an annual, worldwide day for worker dignity.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-element-anchor-horizontal: column; mso-element-anchor-vertical: paragraph; mso-element-frame-hspace: 1.8pt; mso-element-wrap: around; mso-element: frame; mso-height-rule: exactly; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiJDjg5FX8ayGgH7NGkrWyePhLgZcNJ-cHGUuaSp89soKcsC2YVJdIh4ZDMgJZOuIAm-rK6lC0M4yEbDcDlAgLNirYSBsFpOTliCV74mt2TAUVlUUDgDj7S1-MVzeeVyhnI7xtWn1LibZUkHHjK-M7doCgX5COs2z_DX8bd-cH0ubSVntGbRO75J4vO" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center; text-indent: 0px;"><img alt="" data-original-height="744" data-original-width="820" height="362" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiJDjg5FX8ayGgH7NGkrWyePhLgZcNJ-cHGUuaSp89soKcsC2YVJdIh4ZDMgJZOuIAm-rK6lC0M4yEbDcDlAgLNirYSBsFpOTliCV74mt2TAUVlUUDgDj7S1-MVzeeVyhnI7xtWn1LibZUkHHjK-M7doCgX5COs2z_DX8bd-cH0ubSVntGbRO75J4vO=w400-h362" width="400" /></a></span></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-element-anchor-horizontal: column; mso-element-anchor-vertical: paragraph; mso-element-frame-hspace: 1.8pt; mso-element-wrap: around; mso-element: frame; mso-height-rule: exactly; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: large;">Chicago Haymarket - Struggle for the 8-hour Day</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-element-anchor-horizontal: column; mso-element-anchor-vertical: paragraph; mso-element-frame-hspace: 1.8pt; mso-element-wrap: around; mso-element: frame; mso-height-rule: exactly; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: large;">Mondelez Bakery, commonly called
Nabisco, has a large facility in my neighborhood. Two years ago members of
Bakery, Confectionary Union were on the sidewalk or in a lot across the
street, striking over pay and retirement plans. As pressing, however, was their
concern about shift length and overtime. Like other companies, Mondelez addressed
the side effects of Covid-19 by asking or requiring overtime. This remedy became
counterproductive because it created stress among the employees and added to
operating expenses.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-element-anchor-horizontal: column; mso-element-anchor-vertical: paragraph; mso-element-frame-hspace: 1.8pt; mso-element-wrap: around; mso-element: frame; mso-height-rule: exactly; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: large;">Covid-19 likewise brings
attention to the topic of onsite vs. remote working hours. It also prompts
experiments around the number of hours on the job per week. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The popular crowd-funding platform Kickstarter,
to mention one example, is experimenting with four days per week on the job. Pay
remains the same. This is not a gimmick, says Kickstarter’s CEO Aziz Hasan.<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </i><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-element-anchor-horizontal: column; mso-element-anchor-vertical: paragraph; mso-element-frame-hspace: 1.8pt; mso-element-wrap: around; mso-element: frame; mso-height-rule: exactly; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: large;">Other experiments in Sweden and
Great Britain have favorable outcomes so far. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-element-anchor-horizontal: column; mso-element-anchor-vertical: paragraph; mso-element-frame-hspace: 1.8pt; mso-element-wrap: around; mso-element: frame; mso-height-rule: exactly;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: large;">An experiment in Iceland among several
companies and backed by unions and civic groups was a success. The employees
clocked 36-hours over four weekdays. Productivity remained the same. Sick
days decreased. Customers noted better quality of service. Now, 86% of
Iceland employees are allowed a four-day week, reports <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Wall St. Journal</i> (7/31/21). <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-element-anchor-horizontal: column; mso-element-anchor-vertical: paragraph; mso-element-frame-hspace: 1.8pt; mso-element-wrap: around; mso-element: frame; mso-height-rule: exactly; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This past January Rep. Mark Takano of
California (</span><a href="http://www.takano.house.gov/"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;">www.takano.house.gov</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;">)
introduced legislation for a nation-wide 36-hour workweek. Even during our
so-called <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">labor shortage</i>, Takano’s
proposal should get consideration, concludes Appelbaum. It “would be better
for our health, better for our families and better for the employers, who
would reap the benefits of a more motivated and better rested workforce.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-element-anchor-horizontal: column; mso-element-anchor-vertical: paragraph; mso-element-frame-hspace: 1.8pt; mso-element-wrap: around; mso-element: frame; mso-height-rule: exactly; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: large;">From a Catholic perspective a
36-hour workweek has a prior requirement: the principle of a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">family wage</i>. That is, one worker per
household with one job should be paid enough to reasonably support the
family. (A family may include other workers, but that income is extra, not a
dire necessity.) Presuming a family wage is established, an employer will pay
a 36-hour per week employee at the former 40-hour rate. (Some employees who can
afford to do so might negotiate pro-rated pay for 36-hours, but not from a
distorted sense of vocation.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-element-anchor-horizontal: column; mso-element-anchor-vertical: paragraph; mso-element-frame-hspace: 1.8pt; mso-element-wrap: around; mso-element: frame; mso-height-rule: exactly; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: large;">Second, Catholicism says that a
shorter workweek is betrayed if it really means less time in the office while
bringing more work home. This caution particularly applies to salaried
employees. Further, hours gained by less time on the clock cannot be spent on
unnecessary consumption or excess time using screens. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-element-anchor-horizontal: column; mso-element-anchor-vertical: paragraph; mso-element-frame-hspace: 1.8pt; mso-element-wrap: around; mso-element: frame; mso-height-rule: exactly; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: large;">In other words, a change in
culture must accompany any change in work hours. A whole/holy life involves
employment, but also true leisure.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It
means leaving behind our culture of total labor. The true purpose of time off
is to establish “the right and claims of leisure in the face of the claims of
total labor,” writes Josef Pieper (1904-1997) in <em>Leisure: the Basis of
Culture</em> (Ignatius Press, 1952). Our culture currently needs “the
illusion of a life fulfilled.” But instead of genuine time off, it puts forth
false leisure with “cultural tricks and traps and jokes.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-element-anchor-horizontal: column; mso-element-anchor-vertical: paragraph; mso-element-frame-hspace: 1.8pt; mso-element-wrap: around; mso-element: frame; mso-height-rule: exactly;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: large;">True leisure, Pieper concludes, is
festivity or celebration. It is the point at which “effortlessness, calm and
relaxation” come together. “Have leisure and know that I am God.” –Psalm
46:11<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-element-anchor-horizontal: column; mso-element-anchor-vertical: paragraph; mso-element-frame-hspace: 1.8pt; mso-element-wrap: around; mso-element: frame; mso-height-rule: exactly;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: large;"> Whatever the outcome of the
autoworkers job action, their proposal for a shorter workweek should not be
dismissed.<br />
<br />
Droel edits INITIATIVES (PO Box 291102, Chicago, IL 60629), a newsletter on
faith and work.</span><span style="font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-element-anchor-horizontal: column; mso-element-anchor-vertical: paragraph; mso-element-frame-hspace: 1.8pt; mso-element-wrap: around; mso-element: frame; mso-height-rule: exactly;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><o:p><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-element-anchor-horizontal: column; mso-element-anchor-vertical: paragraph; mso-element-frame-hspace: 1.8pt; mso-element-wrap: around; mso-element: frame; mso-height-rule: exactly; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; mso-element-anchor-horizontal: column; mso-element-anchor-vertical: paragraph; mso-element-frame-hspace: 1.8pt; mso-element-wrap: around; mso-element: frame; mso-height-rule: exactly; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-element-anchor-horizontal: column; mso-element-anchor-vertical: paragraph; mso-element-frame-hspace: 1.8pt; mso-element-wrap: around; mso-element: frame; mso-height-rule: exactly; text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-element-anchor-horizontal: column; mso-element-anchor-vertical: paragraph; mso-element-frame-hspace: 1.8pt; mso-element-wrap: around; mso-element: frame; mso-height-rule: exactly; vertical-align: baseline;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-element-anchor-horizontal: column; mso-element-anchor-vertical: paragraph; mso-element-frame-hspace: 1.8pt; mso-element-wrap: around; mso-element: frame; mso-height-rule: exactly; vertical-align: baseline;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 11.25pt; mso-element-anchor-horizontal: column; mso-element-anchor-vertical: paragraph; mso-element-frame-hspace: 1.8pt; mso-element-wrap: around; mso-element: frame; mso-height-rule: exactly;"><span style="color: #202020; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 7.5pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
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</tr>
</tbody></table>William Langehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04322881680854644417noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27718087804172403.post-30676480742655383572023-09-25T08:09:00.002-07:002023-09-25T12:21:40.618-07:00The Danger of the "Introspective Conscience," a Matthew Fox Daily Meditation (September 7, 2023)<p><br /></p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 22.2pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgC9fFDTRqZ7Kh9aDiW3WaQflkvFl69znrQ1PPr31Vjs-rl2seqCiNrtbm-6eTUm9i7nea2ft46SMCnngLnfh51Vxy9532H2m-Hp4kFcb3uXuXhpCYDVwrjRc1cXDebMF1aClId7dp1pbDCz7IMpheZys0-6iVFVbzyl1A7J7wtDvQifpa8UsY9Pj2gZf4" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="713" data-original-width="460" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgC9fFDTRqZ7Kh9aDiW3WaQflkvFl69znrQ1PPr31Vjs-rl2seqCiNrtbm-6eTUm9i7nea2ft46SMCnngLnfh51Vxy9532H2m-Hp4kFcb3uXuXhpCYDVwrjRc1cXDebMF1aClId7dp1pbDCz7IMpheZys0-6iVFVbzyl1A7J7wtDvQifpa8UsY9Pj2gZf4" width="155" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">Saint Augustine, Father of Introspective Theology</div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 22.2pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #36475e; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; letter-spacing: .35pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Frederick Turner, in his important study of
the history of the Americas from the point of view of Native Americans, </span><i><span style="color: #36475e; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; letter-spacing: .35pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Beyond
Geography</span></i><span style="color: #36475e; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; letter-spacing: .35pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">,
points out that ours is an “introspective” and therefore dangerous
civilization. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 22.2pt; margin-bottom: 21.0pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #36475e; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; letter-spacing: .35pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">By
“introspective” he means overly focused on ourselves and living without cosmos,
without myth, without ritual worthy of the name. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 22.2pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="color: #36475e; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; letter-spacing: .35pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">No
wonder we find ourselves cosmically sad, cosmically lonely, cosmically
destructive in our militarist vision of creating weapons to rain death on the
rest of creation. And busy destroying Mother Earth as we know
her. With a whole political party </span><span style="color: #36475e; font-family: Arial, "sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; letter-spacing: 0.35pt;">content
with denying climate change.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 22.2pt; margin-bottom: 21.0pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #36475e; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; letter-spacing: .35pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 22.2pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;"><i><span style="color: #36475e; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; letter-spacing: .35pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Inner</span></i><span style="color: #36475e; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; letter-spacing: .35pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> journeys are
essential to get to our true selves. But an </span><span style="color: #36475e; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 18px; letter-spacing: 0.466667px;">exclusively inward</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; letter-spacing: 0.35pt;"> one can look only
at oneself or one’s culture and ignore the rest of the world. There
lies the death of cosmic spirituality and with it the death of Mother
Earth. The world does not need more inward journeys; but there are
no limits to the </span></span><i><span style="color: #36475e; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; letter-spacing: .35pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">inner</span></i><span style="color: #36475e; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; letter-spacing: .35pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> journeys we can and ought to make.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 22.2pt; margin-bottom: 21.0pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #36475e; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; letter-spacing: .35pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Where
does this inward compulsion come from? Biblical scholar Krister
Stendahl recognizes St. Augustine as the instigator of the “introspective
conscience” of the West and feels the reading of the Bible has been distorted
in the process.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 22.2pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #36475e; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; letter-spacing: .35pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Augustine was a genius in writing what was
probably the first autobiography of the West, but he remains oblivious of the
sense of </span><i><span style="color: #36475e; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; letter-spacing: .35pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">theosis</span></i><span style="color: #36475e; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; letter-spacing: .35pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">, the divinizing of the cosmos, that
Eastern Christianity put forward as the very meaning of
salvation. Russian Orthodox theologian Nicolas Berdyaev writes:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 22.2pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;"><i><span style="color: #36475e; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; letter-spacing: .35pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The central idea of the
Eastern fathers was that of theosis, the divinization of all creatures,
the transfiguration of the world, the idea of the cosmos, and not the idea of
personal salvation.</span></i><span style="color: #36475e; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; letter-spacing: .35pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 22.2pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #36475e; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; letter-spacing: .35pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">How different would history have been if
Europeans landing on the shores of Turtle Island had held </span><i><span style="color: #36475e; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; letter-spacing: .35pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">that </span></i><span style="color: #36475e; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; letter-spacing: .35pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">understanding of
religion? </span></p>William Langehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04322881680854644417noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27718087804172403.post-80673008926710345232023-09-13T08:06:00.000-07:002023-09-13T08:06:02.210-07:00Is it a Matter of Innate Trust?<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;">It seems to be an impossible task. People and institutions are attempting to address and solve the problem of Climate Change. But it seems we are going nowhere. “U.N. report finds world isn’t curbing global warming.” (USA Today Network, “Way Off Track,” September 9, 2023, p. 1NN) </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiieTdJxggSc3Q2lgZW9lp67oYm_Sb46ntPb71u-XpuLkSl30e1rcBut7sSbcK1R0P8KA7tBQBXBdwE0oYI6FCP4kfC4w0MVz0bPsnwkX69Oxav0RHlqgPKZZwDW4auA_rCQPhqGKq45mPT1gcUb87gfy7wIj8LJNIm-xm7hJvTVAWZ5sdq7d1k_l5t6WU" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="571" data-original-width="978" height="187" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiieTdJxggSc3Q2lgZW9lp67oYm_Sb46ntPb71u-XpuLkSl30e1rcBut7sSbcK1R0P8KA7tBQBXBdwE0oYI6FCP4kfC4w0MVz0bPsnwkX69Oxav0RHlqgPKZZwDW4auA_rCQPhqGKq45mPT1gcUb87gfy7wIj8LJNIm-xm7hJvTVAWZ5sdq7d1k_l5t6WU" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Years ago we
were visiting our family in San Francisco and on a Sunday morning, we woke up
to the news of the Tsunami that hit Japan.
(March 11, 2011) We went to Mass
that morning expecting to hear about the plight of the people in Japan and the
need for help. The homilist said
nothing. After Mass I asked the Superior
of the religious order that serves the church why nothing was said about the
Tsunami. He explained that the homilist
was older and probably wasn’t aware of what had happened, but he himself did
call their community’s house in Japan and learned that the priests were all ok. I was stunned. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></p>
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjWy1hr-FX2P15Sxn3vDQasi0ISvjS2H34TT67MDD38Knm-g3qsesjSpvIjrcVq90Wvi_sh7Mma3WNYqCpJdH5IXLcnzb-RDL-PBCKK2bJU_Y_rnV7BIKwIF25lN9frjyIe575qb2h4rRoSYZmbZWrsm0XT5HHLlSBSFvp_diGu4Dsk3HiRoSVM3sHpjNQ" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="647" data-original-width="979" height="211" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjWy1hr-FX2P15Sxn3vDQasi0ISvjS2H34TT67MDD38Knm-g3qsesjSpvIjrcVq90Wvi_sh7Mma3WNYqCpJdH5IXLcnzb-RDL-PBCKK2bJU_Y_rnV7BIKwIF25lN9frjyIe575qb2h4rRoSYZmbZWrsm0XT5HHLlSBSFvp_diGu4Dsk3HiRoSVM3sHpjNQ" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="line-height: 21.4667px;"><span style="font-size: large;">On Monday our grade school age grandson whose father is of Japanese descent, reported that his teacher asked the class about the Tsunami. Are you afraid, she asked? I questioned our grandson, were you afraid? No, he said. If it happens here, the water is only going to come up to my knees, but I am worried about the people in Japan. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="line-height: 21.4667px;"><span style="font-size: large;">Was our grandson telling us what Julian of Norwich said in the 14<sup>th</sup> Century? Despite war, plague, and persecution, Julian said, ‘All is well and will be well.’<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="line-height: 21.4667px;"><span style="font-size: large;">Is this the answer to our anxiety about Climate Change? </span></span></p></div><br /><br /><p></p>William Langehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04322881680854644417noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27718087804172403.post-43324012407139643142023-09-04T14:57:00.000-07:002023-09-04T14:57:28.717-07:00The Working Catholic: Sacraments by Bill Droel<p> </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">The Christian
denominations vary in their list of official sacraments. But restricting God’s
instruments of grace to any official list is misguided, writes Fr. Robert
Lauder in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Tablet</i> of Brooklyn. He
directs his readers to Bernard Cooke (1922-2013), particularly his <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Sacraments and Sacramentality</i> (Twenty
Third Publication, 1983). <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">The word “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">sacrament</i> must be understood in a much
broader sense,” writes Cooke.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Properly
understood, “the most basic sacrament of God’s saving presence to human life is
the sacrament of human love and friendship… Our experience of being truly
personal with and for one another is sacramental… The human friendships we
enjoy embody God’s love for us.” Some knowledge of and experience of the divine
is gained through personal relationships, Cooke continues.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Marriage is a
prime example. It is an intense relationship between two people with God in the
mix. Please understand, this does not mean that a couple is constantly aware of
God. Nor is a sacramental marriage coated in frosting. There is discord and
disappointment in the crucible of every marriage. Mutual revelation too. And
hilarity and quiet joy. And, of course, marriage is the sacramentality of sex. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A sacramental moment occurs as two friends
meet every Monday morning at the diner or as four women meet after work on
Friday for drinks. God is not explicitly mentioned. The conversations go here
and there from the superficial to deeply personal. But love is lurking within
every genuine friendship.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">The sacrament of
friendship is easily lost in our culture in which relationships are
utilitarian. Companies and business managers too often think of employees only
as an item on the expense ledger. Employees have little loyalty to a jobsite, moving-on
with but a muffled goodbye. Our dominant culture likewise encourages
utilitarian marriages negotiated on a quid pro quo basis. “I did this for you,
so you should do this for me.” Or, “I disclosed my innermost feelings, so now
it is your turn to do the same.” Real friendship, by contrast, is a free gift
that expects nothing in return, though it is often richly rewarded. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Like all
sacraments, friendship is public. This necessary public dimension is seen in
marriage, symbolized by the honor extended to the guests at the wedding
reception. There is a public function to casual friendships among drinking
buddies, in accidental friendships among neighbors, and in the friendships
within extended families and more. All of these relationships build-up our
social fabric and pose a counter-narrative to individualism. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Plus, there is a
type of friendship that is primarily public, what Aristotle termed <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">philia</i>. Public friendship is different
from liking someone or sharing an interest in sports or a hobby. Its
sacramental component is a care for another person’s well-being and character.
Therefore, public friendship is concerned about the environment or institutions
that shape people. Ultimately, it cares about the public good. It is civic
affection, camaraderie, trust or civic happiness. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">The opposite of
public friendship is, again, transactional utilitarianism. There are far too
many people afflicted by agnosia—the inability to recognize the human in the
person in front of them. They go about their business and miss the meaning
embedded in the day. Public friendship is the result of a culture of encounter.
There is no “art of the deal” associated with it. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">At times the
issues of the day seem most important. Or the material to be covered in that
afternoon’s class. Or the arrangement of the decorations in the meeting hall.
Or the diagnosis of the problem with the faulty heater in late November. Yet, all
of these things come-and-go. What endures is friendship. Friendship is prior to
the issues, the charts, the tangle of wires under the desk, the staff shortage
for the evening shift, the stack of papers or the traffic congestion on the
expressway. Be open to the sacramental grace within friendship and all these
things will be given you besides. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Public Friendship</span></i><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">
by Bill Droel is obtained from National Center for the Laity (PO Box 291102,
Chicago, IL 60629; $5). <o:p></o:p></span></p>William Langehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04322881680854644417noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27718087804172403.post-33765744578530435202023-08-15T06:20:00.001-07:002023-08-15T06:20:17.276-07:00The Working Catholic: Social Doctrine #14 by Bill Droel<p><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="color: #202122; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The term <i>social justice</i> is regularly used but rarely defined. It often means
a government program is on the way. “Social justice requires an increase in the
Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (food stamps).” It can mean a general
concern. “The status of women is a matter of social justice.” It can describe
an event. “We went to a social justice conference.” Or describe a personality
type. “She’s a social justice warrior.” In many circles it is simply
substituted for the word <i>charity</i>.
“Our parish food pantry is a social justice effort.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><i><span style="color: #202122; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Social justice</span></i><span style="color: #202122; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> actually has a Catholic pedigree and
refers to a type under the general term <i>justice</i>.
There is criminal justice, distributive justice (the duty of government),
individual justice or commutative justice (fair exchange either implied or in a
contract) and social justice (and more). <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="color: #202122; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Fr. Luigi Taparelli, SJ (1793-1862) of
Italy coined the term social justice in 1845. He was rightly worried about individualistic
tendencies that characterize modernity--all the more extreme in our day.
Taparelli favored an organic society in which many interdependent parts added
up to more than their sum. Such a society needs healthy intermediate
institutions that give individuals wider agency and also buffer individuals
from big forces—families, parishes, workplace units, professional associations,
ethnic clubs and more. This dynamic is called subsidiarity in Catholicism.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="color: #202122; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">By about 1900 Catholic philosophers
were equating social justice with what St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) calls <i>legal justice</i>. Now, for Aquinas legal
justice does not refer to what is approximated on TV shows like <i>Chicago P.D.</i> and <i>Judge Judy</i>. He means that by divine law all the parts of an organic
society must be directed toward the common good, not entirely to one
individual’s good. The 20<sup>th</sup> century Ctholic philosophers thought the
term social justice was better than legal justice because many people think the
word <i>legal</i> only means what is
expressly prohibited or commanded. Such people stay within minimum behavior but
consider social obligations to be strictly optional. In fact, they often expect
some recognition when they help out in the community.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="color: #202122; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The academic conversation continued,
treating both process and outcome. Process: How does social justice come about?
Outcome: What does a social justice society look like?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="color: #202122; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Fr. William Ferree, SM (1905-1985) of
Ohio greatly clarified the topic—in my opinion. First in a dissertation and
then in an influential 1948 booklet, <i>Introduction
to Social Justice</i>, Ferree said the unique act of social justice is
organization and its outcome is improved policies or institutions. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="color: #202122; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">This means that social justice is a
virtue. It is something that is done, not a fond wish. It is more than calling
out a problem. Like all virtues, it must be done habitually.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="color: #202122; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">This means that social justice is a
collective virtue. An individual can be generous, but cannot alone practice
social justice. Like-minded people must get together. Thus, mixed motives are
always involved. Each participant gets something out of the effort; the group also
benefits in some way; but the greater good is a primary object of the practice.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="color: #202122; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">This means that the aims of social
justice must stay in the practical realm, though the initial ambition can reach
beyond what will be achieved. Compromise is a necessary part of social justice.
It is not a virtue for purists or utopians.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="color: #202122; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">This means, to paraphrase a great
polka song: In heaven there is no social justice; that’s why we do it here. In
heaven there is perfect love, but in our messy here-and-now domain things are
incremental. There’s need for social justice today and more need tomorrow. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="color: #202122; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">This means that social justice is for
insiders. Protest is often necessary to get inside, but marches and rallies are
not in themselves social justice.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="color: #202122; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">This means that social justice is not
charity, though charity might precede or accompany social justice. Charity in
itself does not change policies, though people involved in charity often turn
to lobbying (social justice) in order to make charity more efficient or even
less necessary. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="color: #202122; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Social justice is a specific activity
done by a group within an institution to improve a policy or, if necessary, to
start an alternative institution. With a better appreciation for the definition
of social justice more might be accomplished. As Elvis sang in 1968, “A little
less conversation, a little more action.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #202122; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Ferree’s booklet ($6) and Droel’s
booklet, <i>What Is Social Justice</i> ($5)
can be obtained from National Center for the Laity (PO Box 291102, Chicago, IL
60629). <o:p></o:p></span></p><p>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>William Langehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04322881680854644417noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27718087804172403.post-20326595619093027632023-08-09T07:42:00.000-07:002023-08-09T07:42:16.263-07:00The Working Catholic: Child Labor by Bill Droel<p> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 200%;">It is a fallacy to believe that if teenage members of a
family spend more time on a job, the family will necessarily gain upwardly
mobility. Nor is it true that our economy prospers when young people neglect
their studies for the sake of income. Yes, employment trains teenagers and
young adults in public disciplines plus gives them some outlook on social
psychology. However, excess hours on the clock are not beneficial. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 200%;">The current though relative labor
shortage does not justify what <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">N.Y. Times</i>
reporter Hannah Drier brought to light about child labor in articles from late
February 2023 until early May 2023. Several companies are using children in
restricted jobs for excessive hours and sometimes failing to pay them
justly—835 companies last fiscal year, according to the U.S. Department of
Labor. Packers Sanitation Services based in Kieler, WI, as one example, had 102
teenagers on overnight shifts cleaning back saws, brisket saws and head
splitters in meat processing plants. Packers, which is owned by Blackstone
investments, was fined $15million. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 200%;">Drier found children illegally
employed in retail, construction and manufacturing plus in sawmills, in an
industrial laundry and in a slaughterhouse. Some were on the overnight shift
and underpaid. Hearthside Food Solutions based in Downers Grove, IL contracts
with popular brands to package food. Drier found many children at its Michigan
facilities. Hearthside blames its staffing agency.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There are many ways to address a labor
shortage, reports John Miller in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Dollars
& Sense</i> (6/23). Raise wages and improve workplace conditions, though
“both would drive up costs.” Immigration reform would also put more adults into
the job pool legally. A few columnists and several trade associations favor
another remedy: child labor.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 200%;">“Ten states, six in the Midwest, have
considered proposals” to loosen child labor restrictions, Miller details. A
1938 law (the Fair Labor and Standards Act) specifies conditions for employing
teenagers after school, on weekends and holidays for reasonable hours in
non-hazardous settings like cashier, caddy, hostess, usher, lifeguard, school
janitor, delivery person, clerical and the like with leeway on family farms and
in family shops. Despite these reasonable guidelines the pro-family governor of
Arkansas recently signed legislation to eliminate a simple permit that required
a child’s age verification, parental approval and a non-hazardous situation for
employment. The <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">N.Y. Times</i> comments:
The new law “is not to protect those children from exploitation but instead to
make it legal.” Iowa is likely next. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 200%;">The full story, as Drier writes,
includes the plight of unaccompanied migrant children of whom about 130,000
came into the U.S. in the past 12 months. These fearful young people are easily
exploited. Some are put in dangerous jobs. Most are underpaid and some are
cheated out of their pay entirely. Not all these young adults come to the U.S.
with full knowledge and will. Some are trafficked by cartels and then sold to
construction subcontractors or to agricultural entities. Some are forced into
prostitution or thievery. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 200%;">What is our federal government doing
to protect children? Well, the administration of President Joseph Biden is
eager to clear out shelters near our border. Day labor agencies and even traffickers,
posing as hosts, have moved some of these migrant children into dangerous and
exhausting jobs. The Department of Labor, Miller mentions, is “severely
understaffed.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 200%;">A retired Department of Labor
official provides <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Working Catholic</i>
with details. He was stationed in Chicago for ten years and then 18 more in
Florida. There is “an immediately apparent difference” between southern states
that have a so-called <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">right to work</i>
law and those states with viable unions. Further, many northern states have
local laws pertaining to child labor and sometimes fund apprentice training
programs. “Active union presence serves to minimize child labor violations,” he
says. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 200%;">“Violations are typically not easy to
see,” his narrative continues. Investigations occur after-the-fact and “must be
developed from employer records, which is not easy. The Department of Labor is
a civil enforcement arm, not criminal. Thus, the documented cases must then be
adjudicated by the Department of Justice.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 200%;">What can law-abiding businesses and citizens
do? Use union labor. If not, stipulate in writing that a contractor all not
allow its subcontractors to use child labor. Second, support a local worker
center. Arise (<a href="http://www.arisechicago.org/">www.arisechicago.org</a>),
a sophisticated worker center here in Chicago, takes up cases of wage theft and
other labor violations. Escucha Mi Voz (<a href="http://www.escuchamivozia.org/">www.escuchamivozia.org</a>)
is a Catholic-based worker center. It helps people from ten language groups.
Child labor in meatpacking is one of its concerns. Women religious, as on many
issues, are leaders in anti-trafficking. They publish an informative
newsletter, detail some action steps and supply reflection material. Their
website is <a href="http://www.sistersagainsttrafficking.org/">www.sistersagainsttrafficking.org</a>.
Human Rights Watch (<a href="http://www.hrw.org/">www.hrw.org</a>) is based in
New York City. It conducts research and reports on the topic.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">Bill Droel (National Center
for the Laity, PO Box 291102, Chicago, IL 60629) is eager for any reports on
child labor. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>William Langehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04322881680854644417noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27718087804172403.post-75506778876339528962023-07-21T09:59:00.000-07:002023-07-21T09:59:02.754-07:00The Working Catholic: Immigration by Bill Droel<p> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial Narrow","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">The
immigrant “can sense that the United States is of two minds,” writes Hector
Tobar of the University of California in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Our
Migrant Souls: A Meditation</i> (Farrar, Straus, 2023). “Like the indentured
servants, the Poles, the Germans and the Chinese people of other centuries, she
knows there are factory owners and affluent families on the other side of the
fence or the ocean who really want her to make it across… She knows that she
has something that is prized on the other side.” At the same time the “walls,
barbed wire and restrictive immigration laws announce they hate her kind.” <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial Narrow","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">A country by definition must have
borders. A phrase like <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">open borders</i>,
if taken literally, erases the existence of nation states. The trick is to
maintain an orderly system so that tourists, students, temporary workers,
immigrants and refugees can safely enter a country and by their labor,
knowledge and consumption they can contribute to their surroundings. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial Narrow","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">The current number of foreign-born
people living in our country is the highest it has been in about 100 years;
45million by one estimate, reports Idrees Kahloon in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The New Yorker</i> (6/12/23). Many are immigrants who have become full-fledged
legal U.S. citizens (about 970,000 within the past 12 months). Other
foreign-born residents are guest workers (in Silicon Valley, in hospitals, in
vineyards and on farms) and students (in technical fields, medical research and
business) and others are immigrant/refugees--those who are in the legal process
and those who have drifted into society without status. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial Narrow","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">The current influx actually began over
60 years ago when Congress changed its immigration limit and its general ban on
those from Asia, details Dexter Filkins, also writing in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The New Yorker</i> (6/19/23). Our society’s need for more skilled and
manual laborers attracts foreigners. More arrive under our policy of family
preference or chain migration by which one immigrant can assist family members.
Several factors push families toward the U.S., including drug violence, natural
disasters, a bad economy at home, oppressive politics, the profitable smuggling/trafficking
business (coyote cartels) and more. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial Narrow","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Arrivals in the U.S., as Hector Tobar
describes, have always encountered nativism. Some current U.S. residents say
that their life would be better if immigrants were not unfairly given social
services. Some residents also say that their own ancestors had to learn English,
but that today’s arrivals don’t do so. They also say that new arrivals take
away jobs that longer-standing residents would like to have.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial Narrow","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Data can counter these points, but the objections are not really about
what they are about. The concern about jobs, for example, is only valid for a
limited time in a specific place where “cheap labor can hold down wages for
some workers,” says Filkins. However, the demand for employees in our country
far exceeds the current supply. In the bigger picture immigration has no effect
on jobs or wages. It is employment sectors that set wage scales and it is free
trade and tax policies that send jobs overseas. Yet no one opposed to today’s immigrants
is persuaded by the facts. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial Narrow","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Migrants and refugees crossing our
country’s southern border are resented more than well-educated technicians and
doctors and trades people arriving from Asia or Eastern Europe, though each
foreigner encounters nativism. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial Narrow","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">“Determining the exact number [of
refugees is] remarkably difficult,” Filkins explains. There are possibly
11million undocumented people in the U.S. today; not all of whom intend to stay
or will be allowed to stay. Even now our government does not know how many
migrants it has sent back. The legal process for entry is backlogged and
caught-up in conflicting court rulings. There are over two million pending
cases just for those who claim refugee status. They are legally entitled to
wait in the U.S. for a hearing on their case, but they have no right to a
public defender. The wait time for the initial hearing is now five years. If
the decision is unfavorable to the refugee, they can appeal. The wait time for
that appeal hearing is another five years.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial Narrow","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Reform of our dysfunctional immigration/migration
system is, as any objective observer realizes, slow-going. A policy of
exclusion, Filkins explains, is impractical. No matter how big a wall is built,
people are not deterred from fleeing misery and staking their hope on our
beautiful country. Total exclusion also damages the U.S. economy plus betrays
the story of our country and it is inhumane. Three parts must come together simultaneously
for acceptable reform. 1.) Tougher boarder security. 2.) More funding for local
police in states like Texas and Arizona plus in cities that welcome migrants; more
social services and processing assistance; more immigration judges. 3.) Better
legal opportunities for immigrants, enforced fairly. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial Narrow","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">At the moment both Republican and
Democrat leaders tolerate the frustrating chaos because they can blame one
another. Additionally, Democrats and Republicans share the ambivalence of our
citizenry. They want more immigration because it bolsters U.S. productivity.
They want less immigration because more of it fuels resentment and politicians
get the blame. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial Narrow","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">A final consideration: No matter the
administrative chaos and the political muddle of the moment, there is an
ethical obligation to assist the immigrants/migrants among us. To be continued…<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial Narrow","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">Droel serves the board of
National Center for the Laity (PO Box 291102, Chicago, IL 60629)</span></p>William Langehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04322881680854644417noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27718087804172403.post-59560972035020616532023-07-15T16:04:00.001-07:002023-07-15T16:04:33.629-07:00 God, Make Me a Channel of Disturbance: The “Reverse St. Francis Prayer”<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSZN6p06xVufrgXH6y0EmQpainZLFxf0Cl7QjI58h5kNE1e6vyljnwGohgDeBI-eJvh50vR2ESUspb9wWixdPaaGQUYA7B8PSXfh0gbdWwM_sQ4dWBVuISSBR4dyM-ivEMtkkisOJZXi2j0EgoGfqZu-l8jn8RzawbHaKogsoRqDVFyjyff9CMAtPBnuM/s816/Protest%20in%20front%20of%20ICE%20-%20March%201,%202018.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><img border="0" data-original-height="459" data-original-width="816" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSZN6p06xVufrgXH6y0EmQpainZLFxf0Cl7QjI58h5kNE1e6vyljnwGohgDeBI-eJvh50vR2ESUspb9wWixdPaaGQUYA7B8PSXfh0gbdWwM_sQ4dWBVuISSBR4dyM-ivEMtkkisOJZXi2j0EgoGfqZu-l8jn8RzawbHaKogsoRqDVFyjyff9CMAtPBnuM/w400-h225/Protest%20in%20front%20of%20ICE%20-%20March%201,%202018.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Faith Community Jericho Wal</b>k <b>to support immigrants</b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">at the Milwaukee ICE office (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> every Thursday, 9:00 a.m. </span></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div></div><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<p class="Default"><br /></p>
<p class="Default"><span style="font-size: large;">God, make me a channel of
disturbance. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="Default"><span style="font-size: large;">Where there is apathy, let me
provoke. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="Default"><span style="font-size: large;">Where there is compliance, let
me bring questioning. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="Default"><span style="font-size: large;">Where there is silence, may I
be a voice. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="Default"><span style="font-size: large;">Where there is too much comfort
and too little action, <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="Default"><span style="font-size: large;">grant disruption. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="Default"><span style="font-size: large;">Where there are doors closed
and hearts locked, <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="Default"><span style="font-size: large;">grant the willingness to
listen. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="Default"><span style="font-size: large;">When laws dictate and pain is
overlooked . . . <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="Default"><span style="font-size: large;">When tradition speaks louder
than need . . . <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="Default"><span style="font-size: large;">Grant that I may seek rather to
do justice than to talk about it. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="Default"><span style="font-size: large;">Disturb us, O God, <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="Default"><span style="font-size: large;">to be with, as well as for, the
alienated; <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="Default"><span style="font-size: large;">to love the unlovable as well
as the lovely. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: large;">God, make me
a channel of disturbance.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: large;">[author unknown]</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></span></p></div><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><br /><p></p>William Langehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04322881680854644417noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27718087804172403.post-57128045594499519972023-07-11T08:14:00.000-07:002023-07-11T08:14:21.144-07:00"The Silliness -- and Clear and Present Danger -- of Today's SCOTUS: from the Daily Meditations by Matthew Fox (July 7, 2023)<p> <span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">We are meditating on justice as a spiritual virtue and we are examining
a particularly stunning action of the recent Supreme Court. This
court just passed a law saying it’s okay for a gay-hating religious believer
who is a businessperson to deny a gay couple her service. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">But it turns out that the person named in the lawsuit, Stewart, never asked the plainiff for her services as a web-designer because he is not getting married and furthermore he is not gay. He has stepped up ad said he never approached her since he himself is a </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18px;">web designer and would not need her services, </span><i style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">and</i><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"> because he has been happily married to a woman for 15 years.</span></p><p><table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="MsoNormalTable" style="border-collapse: collapse; mso-yfti-tbllook: 1184; width: 100%;">
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<p class="p1" style="margin: 0in;"> </p></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"> Says one
commentator:</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"></span></p><table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="MsoNormalTable" style="border-collapse: collapse; mso-yfti-tbllook: 1184; width: 100%;"><tbody><tr><td style="padding: 0in 3.75pt 0in 0in; width: 40.5%;" valign="top" width="40%">
<p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="p1" style="margin: 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">Smith is so motivated by hatred of LGBTQ+ people
that she invented an imaginary grievance, lied about it repeatedly through the
various tiers of the court system, and eventually got license to deny service
to a gay couple who doesn’t, technically, exist</span></i><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">.*</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="p1" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">Thus the Supreme
Court, all decked out in its black finery and aristocratic self-importance,
bathed in its solemnity and righteous black robes, took on this case without
checking on whether the party involved was real or not. Is this a
Mickey Mouse supreme court or what? <br /><br /></span><table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="MsoNormalTable" style="border-collapse: collapse; mso-yfti-tbllook: 1184; width: 100%;">
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<p class="p1" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">Silliness, corruption, aristocracy (“let them
eat cake”) <i>and</i> stupidity reign.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="p1" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="p1" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">Six judges got suckered into legalizing a
more-than-stupid precedent in their eagerness to support homophobia and
religious prejudice. Smith’s lawyers, </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;"><o:p></o:p></span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">demonstrating no shame (fascism rarely demonstrates either shame
or a sense of humor), shrugged their shoulders: “No one should have to wait to
be punished by the government to challenge an unjust law,” said one. </span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="p1" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">The conclusion? It’s okay to invent a grievance and
make up adversaries and go to certain courts and win. Is this
Supreme Court now a game, a political puppet show? And those
pulling the strings of six puppets? I think we know. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="p1" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">What follows is
neither humorous nor silly. It is a dangerous “license to
hate.” Can an atheist businessman refuse to serve Christians? Can a liberal refuse to serve republicans, a Muslim refuse to serve Jews--or vice versa? Can a gay busnessman refuse to serve (homophobic Christians?) A slippery legal slope indeed.<br /><br />Said one legal scholar: "This ruling blows a gaping hole in priior protections from discrimination" including race and religion and offers a "green light" to any business owners wanting to refuse service. Where's the justice in a court like this?<br /></span><table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="MsoNormalTable" style="border-collapse: collapse; mso-yfti-tbllook: 1184; width: 100%;"><tbody><tr><td style="padding: 11.25pt 7.5pt 0in 0in; width: 39.3%;" valign="top" width="39%">
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<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=JxRUe&m=gEdzoniGKDwhXR2&b=CXOafPbEK9DcXMpxiWD3lw"><span style="color: blue; font-size: 9pt; text-decoration-line: none;"><!--[if gte vml 1]><v:shapetype
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</tbody></table>William Langehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04322881680854644417noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27718087804172403.post-19760644738824896282023-07-05T07:39:00.000-07:002023-07-05T07:39:16.240-07:00The Working Catholic: Experience Counts by Bill Droel<p> <span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Catholic philosophers of
the mid-20</span><sup>th</sup><span style="font-size: x-large;"> century (the Personalists) improved upon an older
top-down notion of truth. Yes, truth comes from God. However, revelation does
not come entirely from above. God’s truth (the Incarnation) is for all time
embedded in human experience. The newer approach appreciates that God’s truth
arises from and corresponds to real, important questions within our daily
lives.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">For many
years Catholicism assumed that God’s truth came down from on high. Then, under
the guidance of the Holy Spirit, it was interpreted and proclaimed by way of
the Church, through our bishops. This approach rightly meant that standards
were fixed. However, the certitude of its interpretation presumed that a few
people could know the full, static will of God. The interpretation sometimes
delved into quite arcane matters, using technical terms and distinctions
foreign to common people. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Our
society currently adheres to an opposite view of truth. It is called
utilitarian relativism or cost-benefit analysis. Truth in our society depends
on the perception of an individual or on a circle of executives or a team of
news editors or a vocal group of students or some trend among celebrities. Standards
depend on the situation and the estimated outcome. For all its popularity, relativism
is unsustainable. It favors opportunists who play the short-term game. It
leaves too much to individual interpretation. It can easily define deviancy
down. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">The
mid-20<sup>th</sup> century philosophers who improved our understanding of
God’s revelation did not endorse relativism in any way. The new bottom-up
approach does not mean that truth is derived from feelings or even from a thoroughly
audited vote or any other type of soft relativism.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Faithful to Scripture, the bottom-up approach
compliments the responsibility of bishops to teach the truth.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In summary, Christianity’s former bias toward
abstractions, prototypes, blueprints, static policies, previous absolute
formulae, cookie-cutter solutions, standard procedures, preset rules, protocol,
agency policy and old-time programs now must consider real life experience. The
new approach warns church leaders to abandon their older, tiresome habit of
answering questions that no one asks. The new approach celebrates creativity,
research, expansion, complexity, dynamism and, what Pope Francis calls “a
culture of encounter,” one-to-one and group-to-group dialogue across
neighborhoods, cities, ethnicities, ages and genders. An accumulation of
experience combined with sustained reflection improves our understanding of
God’s truth, says the newer approach. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">A
substantial number of baptized Catholics now reject the church. Among other
reasons, many do so because the church’s presentation of God’s truth does not
resonate with them. To repeat: This is not to say that the content of the older
presentation is wrong. The disconnection is because church leaders often insist
on a method and terminology that is foreign to young adults. For their part,
young adults don’t bother to construct an alternative spiritual method and language
for our time. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">A
starting place, in my opinion, is the discovery of God’s truth as contained in
music, drama, science, engineering, sex, commerce and other so-called worldly
activities. Thomas a Kempis (1380-1471) is the author of the still popular <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Imitation of Christ</i>. Though parts of
this book might be helpful, its bias (and that of several contemporary
Christian teachers) must be rejected. God “instructs [us] to despise earthly
things, to loath present things,” <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Imitation
of Christ</i> advises. No. God from all eternity has been at ease with human
joy and striving. God’s church cannot therefore be aloof from or opposed to the
world. The secular is sacred in a real sense.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">A church
that relates to the deep concerns of young adults cannot be equated only with clergy
and other church employees. The church is all of us who go about doing our best
on the job, in the community and for our family. The church is those of us who
want to have a meaningful life; to put our questions into a context. The church
is two friends who meet at the diner and share their sorrow, frustration, joy
and insight. Our own experience contains some of God’s truth. How do we process
that experience? Where do we find regular forums in which faith in daily life
is explored? What language is there for us to take our isolated incidents and
frame them into meaningful experience? Where are the storytellers to help us? <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">To be
continued…<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Droel edits INITIATIVES (PO Box 291102, Chicago, IL 60629), a newsletter
about faith and work.</span></p>William Langehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04322881680854644417noreply@blogger.com0