Faithful Philly Forum

Under the lies/guise of protecting the culture of Islam against sexual inappropriateness, 133 women were murdered last year in Iraq. Although accusing them of being prostitutes and adulturers, the murderers are intent upon killing women with PhDs, that is professional women who oppose setting up an Islamic state. Petitions are online to try to persuade people in high places to do something. 

But this morning’s paper reported a 13 year old woman being hurt and harassed by a fellow student in her high school while another article was of a gang of girls who beat up and slashed and seriously injured two other girls whom they didn’t like, also in high school. Now one might ask what kinds of parents these young people have or what kind of perverted minds can justify murder and mutilation in the name of building a “religious” state. But it also seems  clear that when the news headlines indicate that violence (usually by men ) is an appropriate way to control those with whom we disagree or those we dislike, then our young simply take up the (war) cry and do the same. Surely it is the “sins of the fathers descending on the sons.” Yet another group of folks from various churches are meeting to talk about how to respond to this out-of-control violence that sweeps across the world and through our newspaper headlines. May we never be so complacent as to accept this as the way it has to be!

If there ever was a wake up call to the church about sex and pleasure it is now. The once bankrupt Penthouse which was bought up in 2004 by a group of investors has now bought up  $500 million dollars worth of internet sites that focus social networking. Their target market is 18-34 year old men who are wanting sexual media and online access. Other than yelling about censoring the ‘net, how will the churches respond? What does the Church offer this audience that would satisfy their need and desire for sexual intimacy? for sexual openness? for (perhaps) deeper and more meaningful sexual experiences? Telling them to come to church and meet a nice woman and then get married whereupon fireworks will happen is just not going to do it…obviously, since that has been the dominant message for centuries. If the Church has nothing to teach positively to unmarried people about sex and sexual satisfaction, then we have no right to complain when enterprizing investors use pornography and the latest technology to present sexuality in ways that are usually dehumanizing, sexist and mechanistic devoid of any relational quality in order to make their fortunes even larger. Guess who is shaping the views of our culture (and the world?) on sex? It sure isn’t the Church!  

I don’t get it. A group that names itself “Repent America” challenges the existing hate crime law that includes sexual minorities in Pennsylvania. What is the repentance about? Repent of protecting people’s lives? Repent that we might encourage lawsuits against those who resort to violence against sexual minorities just because they are sexual minorities? Are we to repent for being too compassionate or not being judgmental enough?

I know the Hebrew prophets sometimes stridently called for the need to repent and compassionately embrace the immigrants in their midst, (known as foreigners or aliens) who were being mistreated. They went on any number of tirades about the readiness of folks to go through the religious rituals but who failed to care for the widows and orphans in the community. And, the prophets went ballistic yelling about repentance of those who paid people unjust wages and exploited the workers.

Somehow I don’t think compassion is what “Repent America” is about…Oh yes, and they won the lawsuit by the way. The PA court ruled 5-1 the legislative process that was used to make this a law was indeed unconstitutional. Sometimes it is one step forward and two steps back.
http://www.equalitypa.org/news/news_view.php?news_id=51

If 20,000 clergy took to the streets in support of democracy in Iraq I find it hard to believe that the US couldn’t find the resolve to encourage such efforts to continue. The Buddhist monks in Myanmar whose number of 400,000 is equal to theat of the military have lent a moral voice and physical presence of protest signaling to the populace they have every right to demand a change in the dictatorial government. So why is it that the US and the rest of the world seem so helpless in the wake of such atrocities? I simply don’t understand how our politicians can be so exorcized about Saddam Hussein’s brutality but plead impotence in the current situation of gunning down citizens, especially unarmed, peaceful ones. Oh yes, I forgot. They don’t have any oil under their soil.

May God bless their efforts because it is clear they are getting no help from the self-declared ‘police force of the world.’

It was reported today that the Sunni residents in Azamiyah are resisting US efforts to build a 12 foot concrete wall around them to keep them safe from Shiite militants. (They are calling it “a big prison.”) Such a “defense” strategy echos the Bush regime’s plan for 400 miles of fence along the US/Mexico border to prevent “contamination” by job-seeking immigrants. And of course, it reflects the current concrete wall built through the heart of Jerusalem by Israel to “protect” the Jews from Palestinian terrorists. 

After the massacre last week in Blacksburg VA or in South Philly over the weekend(11 deaths this week), I suppose it is tempting to think about building walls to provide personal safety. In fact, I remember several years ago there was a suggestion to put a wall around UPenn to keep out the “bad elements” in West Philadelphia. Does anyone remember the Berlin Wall and how elated we were when it fell? Is there ever a success story in building walls? Where are the bridgebuilders when we need them?

I just discovered that both Newsweek and Time have put out different cover stories (that are lighter and more frivolous) for the US reading public than for everybody else in the entire world. While others are reading about the the jihadists in Afghanistan we are reading about Annie Leibovitz (Newsweek). And while the rest of the world reads about Talibanistan we in the US are treated to a cover story of thepros and cons of teaching the Bible in the classroom (Time). What’s wrong with this picture? Is it that we as citizens are naturally not globally interested or resist such difficult and unpleasant information? Or, is that there is a need to keep us unaware of what the rest of the world can easily observe about our foreign policies? As people of faith, how can we be as wise as serpents in staying aware of and critiquing the ways of the world if there is a concerted effort to keep us, not only harmless as doves, but as blind as bats!

West Philadelphia careens out of control this week with the violent behavior of some students wanting attention or wanting to express disrespect or rage at the organization. Yet, I sit here on an Ivy League campus and can’t find anyone who knows if anyone is teaching our college students conflict mediation and negotiation skills. (I think I might have found one professor. I am following up on that.) And when I ask “Who in the city is teaching children about how to address bullying and teaching peacemaking skills?” I can’t find anyone who knows of a curriculum or a program! I have located an incredible principal, Dr. Bob Lewis, who has taken one of the worst middle schools in the city, Shoemaker, and turned it around in one year. (It was highlighted by the Inquirer on Monday.) It would appear however that he has done it with his personality, enforcement of rules, support of good teachers, consistent discipline, and lots of praise. So I guess the next question is “Is anyone teaching other principals to do this?” And are there denominations or churches who are teaching peacemaking to the children? And, if not, why not??!!

Bev

This week we very quickly mobilized about 50 people on Penn’s campus to say “No” to additional troops in Iraq. We took our photo on the lawn by the mock tombstones and then went to eat our lunch. It is now on the website and we feel we have done our part by joining 1000 other groups who did the same thing. But what about the gun violence in our own streets? I think gathering for a photo is hardly going to address the problem of gangs, reduce the impact of the drug culture on crime, or save the babies who are simply in the way of the bullets of the assault weapons! I think that the former is a way we tell our congress to do what we want. But in the matter of violence, no one can really do that for us. It is our city. These are our streets how shall we take them back? How can we make this city safe for everyone? Where do we start? Or is the issue that we simply do something and it doesn’t matter what? Last sunday in worship we prayed a lot about those whose lives have been touched by violence. But what good is praying if we don’t do something to back it up ourselves? And just what would that be? The churches in the poorer neighborhoods are busy holding the hands of those who are suffering. They are the first line of defense in their caring for the victims’ families. What about the rest of us? We clearly are not doing our part because it shows no sign of stopping? Where would Jesus be? What to do? What to do?

Edited and submitted by permission of the author pastor Adan Mairena by Beverly Dale 

Yesterday we met for Bible Study - a grand number of 5. As you know I’m starting a church for the Presbytery, and if you know about starting churches the beginning is the toughest. We read Luke 1 up through Mary’s Magnificat. It was actually a funny time. One woman said “What’s up with this angel just running around telling people they’re going to have babies.” 

Another woman said, “Wow, Zachariah the priest didn’t believe and Mary did.” 

We laughed and shared other good news (one woman’s cancer is not progressing, a neighborhood girl doing well in college). Then we talked about when we spontaneously sing out in praise when something wonderful happens to us. 

One woman said, “I don’t have a job but I have my health, I don’t have money but I have family.” 

On the way home I was notified that one of the neighbors of a Bible Study participant -”Rosali” was shot last night. (The names are changed.) Next thing I know I’m in this family’s living room. It’s about 10pm and the mother is giving us the blow by blow. Her 17 year old daughter, Dolores, stepped off the train in Kensington. Someone walked up and shot her boyfriend in the head. His knees buckled and he collapsed. He’s dead. Dolores was shot. A bullet went through one cheek and came out the other. Miraculously it didn’t go through her tongue although it took out lots of teeth. 

She ran and dialed 911 then called home. He brother said he could barely understand her. A cop put her in the back of the car and drove her to the hospital. She’s in ICU and has surgery today. Her mother is happy she’s alive but now worries that Dolores will never look the same, won’t be able to talk for a while because her mouth will be wired, she’ll be eating out of a straw and hosed (it will go up her nose and down through the back of her nose.) Dolores’ mother is upset that the police comes around and is trying to force Dolores to talk and find out who shot her boyfriend. “She ran. She didn’t stop and look who shot him…wouldn’t you do the same?” She says she tells the cop. He answers, “I’ll be back.” The father is distant. The other daughter, around 14 is on the couch and their younger son is on the floor playing Madden football on the Sony Play Station. 

After saying that I’m here for her and to call me for whatever I ask if we could pray. She looks at me like saying “What? Pray? I don’t think so.” Others walk through the front door. I sense that maybe I overstepped my boundaries by asking if we could pray. I look at her and say, “Right now there’s a lot going on here, I’ll keep you and your family in prayer.” She gives me an appreciative look. As we are departing, she looks at me in a different way like saying, “Yes, let’s pray.” Rosali, says “Can we pray?” We hold hands and pray. Rosali, Dolores’ mother, her brother Jorge, her younger sister and me. We were in the living room and it was decorated and ready for Christmas. On the way out she says, “Christmas ain’t gonna be the same this year.” Maybe that’s what Advent is…waiting for people to stop getting shot like animals. 

I’m driving Rosali home and I ask “Is it always this way?” “Yes, my ex-boyfriend’s sister got shot because she was with the wrong person a couple of years ago…they were after him….luckily her baby lived, she was six months pregnant. She died.” 

My Advent day yesterday was about laughter and light immediately followed by tragedy and darkness. 

En Cristo, Adan Mairena 

“There is that of God in everyone.”  I heard this often during my sojourn living and working with Friends.  My own Quaker daughter said it best, I thought, when she said “At any time, with any person, you may be looking into the face of God – listening to God speak.”  What a different reality it would be if we paid attention to that idea; if we looked for that of God in the other.  It might prevent us from freezing people into categories of otherness, separating them from us.  It might prevent what I consider a growing and terrifying divide among and within religions…simply stopping for a moment to see  divinity within the other.  Maybe we wouldn’t drop bombs on people then; or blow each other up in such a variety of ways, knowing that we are once again killing God.  Each day we are offered a chance to see the light of divinity, the real presence of God among us … each day in our dealings with one another, in our actions, our choices, our policies.  Each day we create a world in which God is vibrantly present.  Or we choose to let Her die - again.

And the killing gets easier.  The most absurd thing I have witnessed in public policy recently is a refusal to limit the number of handguns that one can purchase per year in Pennsylvania.  Why do handguns even exist?  Why do we need any, let alone more than 12 per person per year?  We know where the guns end up. Killing children.  Killing those moments of divinity. Every day we create a world with or without the beauty of God present.