Category: Religion

Lent day 3

The caffeine headaches are fading, and I’m beginning to appreciate Lent. Giving something up for Lent is a more effective sort of New Year’s Resolution. You’re reminded of your commitment every Friday and Sunday, and your friends and family will be even more disappointed if you backslide–it’s not just a commitment to yourself, but to God!

Today there were all sorts of folks at the White House protesting on all sorts of issues. Even saw old Joe the Plumber. We’ve had a big, wonderful group in town for the 100 Days Campaign this week. People are coming from many perspectives; I recorded a roundtable yesterday to capture some of them.

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mp3 link (14MB, 29 min), other formats, podcast feed

Power Shift 2009 begins in DC today. After a full week of activism, I need a break from all that, so I won’t be connecting with PS, but I hope to run across some participants this weekend. I love that Monday the Speaker of the House is speaking, then thousands of people will head off to do civil disobedience at a coal plant. (Note that Pelosi and Reid yesterday took steps to have this plant stop using coal.)

Day 36: Ash Wednesday

Many of this week’s participants in the 100 Days Campaign to Close Guantanamo and End Torture are Catholics, so Ash Wednesday is an important day.

We wanted to connect the practice of our 100 Days vigil to our Lenten practice, so after visiting the White House sidewalk we processed to St. Matthew’s Cathedral and held a vigil during the transition between masses.

As our text we chose a line from Friday’s first reading:

This, rather, is the fasting that I wish:
releasing those bound unjustly,
untying the thongs of the yoke;
Setting free the oppressed,
breaking every yoke
(Isaiah 58:6)

A vigil like this can easily come across as a protest against the church or the churchgoers, and indeed we’ve already received one angry, eloquent e-mail from someone who understood our message and is sympathetic to the cause, but didn’t like the vigil one bit. Continue reading “Day 36: Ash Wednesday”

Lent 2009

Time to hammer out my Lenten gameplan.

Last year, my Lenten project/sacrifice was to pray and fast for an end to the Iraq War. The year before, I added a little liquid-only fasting to my routine, and the year before that I gave up soy on Fridays. (As a vegan, the usual Lenten Friday no-meat fast doesn’t require any sacrifice.)

This year, I’m going to try to give up caffeine, and spend an extra ten minutes each day in silent prayer.

If you have ideas, links, or projects to share, please add a comment. May your Lent be a powerful time!

Nine days of prayer and fasting for an end to U.S. torture

100 Days Project to Close GuantanamoI’m joining more than 60 people on January 11, 2009 — the seventh anniversary of the opening of American detention facilities at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba — in a nine-day, liquid-only fast to encourage President-Elect Barack Obama to keep his promise to shut down Guantanamo and end torture in his first days of office.

At DuPont Circle Park in Washington, DC, at 12:45 pm, leading human rights organizations, including Amnesty International, the ACLU, Center for Constitutional Rights, and 9-11 Families for Peaceful Tomorrows, will call for an end to the Bush policies, justice for the detainees, and accountability for US crimes. 100-200 demonstrators wearing orange jumpsuits and hoods will have a prisoner procession to dramatize the plight of the detainees still at Guantanamo.

The fast ends on Inauguration Day, when we begin a 100 day campaign to close the prison.

This will be my longest fast to date. I’m skeptical about “detoxification” and other health claims made for fasting, but fasting has always cured my spiritual malaise and helped me refocus my life.

What will my fast be like? I have this goofy super-health-food protein drink, vegan but not raw. My plan is to have 2 servings a day (440 calories) of this for the first week or so, then re-evaluate. I think most of the other fasters will stick to juice. (8 ounces of unsweetened orange juice is 112 calories, and apple juice is 117 calories.) I’m also going to avoid caffeine and alcohol.

If you’ll be fasting, in DC or elsewhere, let me know and we’ll link to your account on the 100 Days website.

100 Days co-organizer Matt Daloisio talks about the campaign:

Christmas Eve bus wreck

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Greyhound bus crash. Icy roads. I was released from the hospital with a tetanus shot and a bandage. The front of the bus caved in, trapping the driver. He seemed in very bad shape. I was three seats behind him. The people in the seats in front of me seemed pretty hurt, but were able to walk around afterwards.

Say a prayer for everyone travelling this week, that they will stay safe.

Still haven’t made it to my family after spending 24 hours on what should have been a 10-hour trip. With luck, I’ll be there for Christmas lunch.

The Christmas Miracle, for me, is that this delay meant I connected with a friend at the Philly bus station, and we spent the long ride across PA together.

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Weary travelers. I think this is the Plainfield Rest Area on the PA Turnpike.

Some Christmas stuff

This year I somehow finished most of my Christmas chores in late November. Then things got super-busy, and the last few tasks, like writing this pre-Christmas blog post, got pushed till the last minute.

Civil disobedience through oil and gas bids
Adam sent along this inspiring story of Tim DeChristopher, who de-railed “an oil- and gas-lease sale that caught the attention of Congress and the incoming Obama administration.”

Holiday giving?
If you’re thinking of donating money to an interesting cause, and you’ve already helped your church and local Catholic Worker house, you might consider Worcester’s EMPOWER. This group has been working to start a local biodiesel cooperative, converting waste restaurant fryer oil into home heating oil. They’re raising a few more funds so they can finish crossing the Ts and dotting the Is and begin production. You can learn more about them through EPOCA (their fiscal sponsor), or I’d be happy to put you in touch with the right people.

If you’re looking for a present for post-Christmas giving, you could do worse than the Snow Ghost Community Show DVD box set, available for a $50 donation to WCCA TV13, Worcester’s cable access station (and my sometime employer). Get your copy at WCCA’s office or HBML. I’m slowly uploading the images to the Archive for your DVD-burning pleasure.
Continue reading “Some Christmas stuff”

St. Peter’s ministry fair and other items

St. Peter’s ministry fair

People will be tabling about parish ministries after every mass this weekend at St. Peter’s parish in Worcester.

I’ve avoided getting involved in parish ministry in Worcester because I move so much. But I’ve lived in the Greater St. Peter’s Area continuously for the past 11 months, and plan to be here until at least January, so I think it’s time to take the plunge and investigate becoming a lector. (Thanks to TN for a short conversation which convinced me I should get more involved in this way.)

On a related note, from last week’s bulletin:

* Special Notice: The Diocese of Worcester has mandated that every person who is involved in any kind of parish ministry – whether volunteer or paid – must complete a C.O.R.I. form and must participate in a Child Abuse Awareness training program.

I hate filling out government forms as much as anybody, and I have more than enough opportunities to serve the Lord in my daily life that don’t involve paperwork. I can understand a policy like this, but boy it’s annoying.
Continue reading “St. Peter’s ministry fair and other items”

Different kinds of non-resistance

From the first chapter of Christian Non-Resistance by Adin Ballou (1846).

What is Christian Non-Resistance? It is that original peculiar kind of non-resistance, which was enjoined and exemplified by Jesus Christ, according to the Scriptures of the New Testament. Are there other kinds of non-resistance? Yes.

  1. Philosophical non-resistance of various hue, which sets at nought divine revelation, disregards the authority of Jesus Christ as a divine teacher, excludes all strictly religious considerations, and deduces its conclusions from the light of nature, the supposed fitness of things and the expediency of consequences.
  2. Sentimental non-resistance, also of various hue; which is held to be the spontaneous dictate of man’s higher sentiments in the advanced stages of their development, transcending all special divine revelations, positive instructions, ratiocination and considerations of expediency.
  3. Necessitous non-resistance, commonly expressed in the phrase “passive obedience and non-resistance,” imperiously preached by despots to their subjects, as their indispensable duty and highest virtue; also recommended by worldly prudence to the victims of oppression when unable to offer successful resistance to their injurers.

With this last mentioned kind Christian Non-Resistance has nothing in common. With philosophical and sentimental non-resistance it holds much in common; being, in fact the divine original of which they are human adulterations, and embracing all the good of both without the evils of either. This treatise is an illustration and defense of Christian Non-Violence, properly so designated.