Category Archives: Ecology, religion, justice

Upcoming event

I just received notice of this celebration of a momentous anniversary, and wanted to share it with those of you who live nearby:

Honoring Rosa Parks

On Thursday, December 1st at 7:00pm, there will be a Celebration of Justice and Freedom honoring the 50th anniversary of Rosa Parks’ December 1, 1955 refusal to give up her seat on the bus. All are welcome to join us – children, youth and adults – as we seek to be sure that our history is not forgottten and that its message of hope remains a part of our present and future.

Our speaker will be Dr. Jibreel Khazan, who was one of four students whose request to be served at a “whites only” lunch counter at Woolworth’s in Greensboro, North Carolina in 1960 sparked a national movement that ultimately led to the end of segregation. That lunch counter is now on display at the Smithsonian Institute – Dr. Khazan’s picture is in textbooks across the country. Dr. Khazan and his family have lived in New Bedford since 1965.

We will sing the songs that gave voice to our hunger for justice and freedom – and offer new music that tells this important story.

Please join us at Pilgrim United Church of Christ, located at 635 Purchase Street, on the corner of Purchase and School Streets in downtown New Bedford. There is parking behind the church, which can be accessed from either School or Pleasant Streets.

A flyer is available at www.puccnb.org/Parks%20Poster.pdf For further information, please call Pilgrim Church: 508-997-9086.

I hope to make it to this event, and perhaps I’ll see some of you there.

Walden

This week, I somehow committed myself to preaching a sermon on Henry Thoreau’s Walden. I think I’m going to connect Walden to ecotheology. Not that Walden is a work of theology (or of philosophy), but I think the book has implications for ecotheology.

Henry James wrote that Thoreau is worse than provincial, he is parochial — in other words, Thoreau is so focused on his “parish” that he isn’t even aware of the “province” or region in which he lives. James is right on the mark, although in the postmodern world being parochial may be a compliment rather than the indictment James meant it for.

Others have criticized Thoreau for being worse than parochial. Communitarians have accused Thoreau of being far too individualistic, to the point where Walden becomes a manifesto for rampant individualism. From a theological viewpoint, the communitarians might criticize Thoreau for encouraging individuals to think it is possible to do religion on your own without a religious community. You might call this “bootstrap religion” because you pull yourself up by your own religious bootstraps.

But I’m not sure it’s fair to accuse Thoreau either of excessive individualism or of parochialism. It’s hard to accuse him of excessive individualism when he devotes chapters of Walden to subjects like “Visitors” and “Former Inhabitants.” He may be shy and introverted, but he recognizes his debt to other people. And it’s hard to accuse Thoreau of being parochial when he quotes widely from religious texts from around the world, including such works as the Bhagavad Gita and the Confucian Analects. Rather than being parochial, he is expanding his conversations beyond the Protestant Chrstian tradition — which is farther afield than Henry James went.

Indeed, from a theological viewpoint Thoreau goes beyond individualism or traditional parochialism — because he expands his religious thinking beyond God and humanity to include all of the natural world. It’s a radical step he takes: he equates Nature with the transcendent. I’d say he equates God with Nature, and then goes further to imply that the divine is immanent in all beings, and even in inanimate objects such as rocks or bodies of water. So rather than taking a stance of radical individualism, Thoreau seems to extend subjectivity beyond humanity and God to all of Nature.

I don’t know how this train of thought is going to turn into a sermon, but it sure is fascinating.

Vigil

This evening, the greater New Bedford Women’s Center held a candlelight vigil here in downtown New Bedford to honor victims of domestic violence. Over a hundred people gathered in front of city hall, where mayor Frederick Kalisz and other New Bedford political figures spoke briefly. People took candles and walked from there to our church for an hour-long program arranged by The Women’s Center.

Local singer-songwriter Susan Lainey sang a couple of original songs, Pamela Macleod-Lima of the Women’s Center spoke about domestic violecne, and there was a moving tribute for all those who died of domestic violence this year in Massachusetts. For me, the most moving moment came when Mike Santos talked about his three year old grandson who died of domestic violence.

The Women’s Center had this statement in the printed program: “Each year, thousands of men, women, and children in this country fall victim to domestic violence. While the U. S. Department of Justice estimates that more than 90% of all domestic violence victims are female, domestic violence affects men, women, and children regardless of age, race, ethnic background, sexual orientation, income, or religious beliefs.” If you or someone you know is living in domestic violence in the greater New Bedford area, call The Women’s Center’s business phone at 508-996-3343 to get information about safety planning — or call their 24 hour helpline at 508-996-6636 if you witness domestic violence. If you’re outside the New Bedford area, find out about local hotlines and helplines in your area now, before you need to know — or call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-SAFE.

I wish you could have a better sense of what it felt like to be a part of this moving program. Unfortunately, it looks like news coverage will be light. There was one cameraman from Fox News in Providence; there may have been a reporter from the local newspaper (though I wasn’t aware of one)

Quarter of a million?

Washington, D.C.

I arrived in Washington late last night, and stayed with my friend Elizabeth, who is a lawyer, a Quaker, and a yoga teacher (not in that order). Got a call on my cell phone as we were headed over to the peace march and rally — the rest of the contingent from First Unitarian could not make it down due to a mix-up on their bus seats.

Got to the Ellipse for the rally a little before noon. An interesting group of speakers and not the usual suspects — not many aging (white) activists from the sixties, no leftover (white) hippies — instead, more people of color speaking, and a fair number of younger speakers.

The march around the White House and up and down the streets just north of the Mall was supposed to step off at 12:30. The speakers were still going strong, but Elizabeth and I wandered over towards where the march was supposed to start off. I saw a blonde woman walking quickly in the other direction, surrounded by a small coterie, who were surrounded by photographers and videographers. People around us started following here: “Cindy Sheehan! Cindy…”

The crowd kept getting thicker and thicker. Elizabeth, a long-time resident of Washington, said, “There’s a lot of people here.” I had figured there would be maybe fifty thousand people, the march organizers got a permit for a hundred thousand — but Elizabeth’s best guess was that it was more than hundred thousand, based on seeing past events in and around the Mall.

We finally wormed our way through the crowd and got to where the march was supposed to be starting, but all we saw was people just standing there on the street waiting to start walking. I began to think that the sheer numbers of people who showed up had overwhelmed the logistics of the march. We tried to skirt around the beginning of the march route, and after an hour of working our way through the crowd, and taking a wrong turn here or there, we wound up where we could see the marchers coming down the street towards us. Elizabeth has been having back problems, so she kept heading north and caught a bus home. I joined the march.

The marchers were heading along at a good clip, a steady stream of people through the streets of Washington. I looked around to see what kind of people were marching. For the large part, they were stunningly normal-looking. Yes, I saw a few college kids in dreadlocks, a few anarchists dressed in red and black, someone on stilts. But mostly I saw normal, ordinary people. Many middle-aged people, quite a few elders, quite a few younger adults — and a fair number of children and teens.

Being a minister, I noticed the people who announced their religious affiliations: Methodists for Peace, Presbyterian Peace Fellowship, Quakers for Peace and Justice, Church of the Brethren, Unitarian Universalists for Economic Justice, an Episcopalian group, Ethical Culture Society — in other words, lots of liberal Christians and other religious liberals. A fair number of Muslims, too. One tiny contingent of Buddhists.

I got to the end of the march by three thirty or so — the people Elizabeth and I had seen waiting to start marching were still standing in the same place where we had left them — the pre-march speakers were still going strong. I wandered over to where the post-march “Operation Ceasefire” concert was supposed to happen.

A band called Living Things was playing some pretty good hardcore with a peace and justice message. A far cry from the folk singers you might have heard at rallies in the late seventies, when I first demonstrated in Washington for peace (we were trying to end the Cold War and the nuclear arms race back then) — much hipper, far more upbeat. Living Things were followed by some speakers, including Maxine Waters who gave the best speech I heard all day. Although her speech was clearly a partisan Democratic speech, and al though she didn’t get into religious or moral reasons for ending the war in Iraq, it was still an excellent summary of reasons for getting out of Iraq now.

Maxine Waters was followed by a young woman from Louisiana Peace network — I missed her name — but she made the obvious link between what happened in New Orleans, and the fact that we’ve committed too much money and personnel to Iraq. Two dynamic African American women in a row. For me they were the highlight of the whole event. One of the organizers of the event came on next and announced three hundred thousand people at the march and rally. Then Joan Baez came onstage. It sounded like she hadn’t warmed up her voice — her famous vibrato was not happening, her intonation was way off, her voice cracked — it was past four, so I decided to leave.

So how many people were actually there? The New York Times did its usual weak coverage of Washington political rallies including their trademark statement, “The National Park Service no longer gives estimates of crowd size.” A good reporter could have gotten a crowd estimate from another source — with modern satellite images, no doubt someone has come up with a pretty accurate estimate of how many people were there — but the New York Times wasn’t interested. We’re on our own to come up with a guess. I’d guess more than the hundred thousand that had been planned for, but less than the three hundred claimed — somewhere in that range. A lot of people. A lot of people who are praying for true peace now.

Update 9/26:

The Washington Post had good solid coverage of the march in a cover story yesterday. Reporter Petula Dvorak wrote in part:

Protest organizers estimated that 300,000 people participated, triple their original target. D.C. Police Chief Charles H. Ramsey, who walked the march route, said the protesters achieved the goal of 100,000 and probably exceeded it. Asked whether at least 150,000 showed up, the chief said, ‘That’s as good a guess as any. It’s their protest, not mine. It was peaceful — that’s all I care about….’

There were more Americans at the march than we have sent to Iraq. Dvorak goes on to report that,

Roughly 147,000 U.S. troops are in Iraq. Since the war began in March 2003, 1,911 U.S. members of the military have been killed and 14,641 have been wounded.

Peace march

Getting ready to head off to the peace march in Washington, D.C., tomorrow. A small group of people from this congregation are heading down to witness for peace.

When I was trying to decide whether or not to go down, I called my friend Elizabeth, who lives in DC. I asked her if this peace march was worth going to — Elizabeth has connections with the world of political activism, and since I can’t afford to head down to Washington every five minutes, I’m cautious about which actions of public witness I’ll get involved in. It’s not like I have a lot of money to throw around, and of course I could give that money to a charitable organization.

I called her, explained that I was thinking of heading down, and asked, “So is it worth my while to go?”

“I’m going,” said Elizabeth decisively. “It may not be all that well organized. But this war has gone on too long, and we’ve got to do something.”

As she often does, she helped me clarify my thoughts. From a religious point of view, I am willing to say there is a possibility of a just war, but there is no possibility any longer that this is a just war. We are sending our servcemen and servicewomen into risk of serious bodily harm, no doubt about it. But when a war can no longer be considered just, we are also sending them into risk of serious moral harm, causing them to make impossible moral choices. For they cannot say that at least their actions are in service of a just war.

If the war in Iraq can no longer be considered a just war, the implications for our country are serious. To use traditional language, even a just war requires repentance and penance by religious persons — but war that is neutral in terms of justice or even unjust will require even more repentance and penance. At this point, much of this country is not even ready to engage in repentance and penance for a just war, let alone a war that cannot be considered just. I am beginning to think of my upcoming trip to Washington in terms of a pilgrimage and a beginning act of repentance. Or if you prefer less tradititional religious language, I might say that this is a first step towards the healing of the web of relationships that has been damaged by the war.

Yikes. Who knew I felt so strongly about all this?

In any case, don’t know if I will be able to post to this blog while I’m in Washington, but I should be able to post again no later than Monday.

Candlelight vigil

First Unitarian hosted a candlelight vigil this evening, sponsored by the Religious Coalition for the Freedom to Marry (RCFM). The Traviglini/Lees amendment is being voted on tomorrow by the state legislature, and there were eight such candlelight vigils around the state to show that there are lots of religious people in Massachusetts who support equal marriage rights. Over a thousand people showed up at the Boston vigil.

We got a late start planning our vigil here in New Bedford. We had managed to get the word out to a few sympathetic local religious groups, and I was hoping for at least fifty people. But yesterday (Monday), there were reports in the media that the amendment was not going to pass — after those reports I fielded one phone call from someone who wanted to know whether or not they should even show up, and I’m sure there were people who just decided to not come.

At 5:45 p.m., fifteen minutes before the vigil was supposed to begin, I went out to unlock the front gates, and I saw city workers blocking off Union Street and County Street in front of the church property. Now, RCFM had pulled a permit for us to use the sidewalk, but we had not expected to have the streets blocked off — in fact the whole point for having the vigil on the sidewalk was to make sure people saw us. I didn’t pull the permit, so maybe there was confusion and we got a permit for a street demonstration or something — or maybe it’s just a standard public safety measure — or maybe someone thought we were too controversial and wanted to protect us. Who knows. But traffic sure got backed up, and if you got stuck in traffic because of our little candlelight vigil, you have my sincere apologies — it wasn’t supposed to be that way!

With traffic getting backed up, nearly everyone was late to the vigil, including the field coordinator for RCFM. But we got going at 6:15.

Rev. Ann Fox, minister of the Fairhaven Unitarian Universalist church, gave the opening words. Mark Montigny, our state senator, spoke about his support for equal marriage rights. He said he sees no reason to mess with our “beautiful state constitution,” which has upheld human rights for centuries. Tony Cabral, another one of our legislators, showed up unexpectedly, and he told us that the fight to preserve equal marriage rights has just begun, for even though it’s likely the Traviglini/Lees amendment will go down tomorrow, the next step will be a voter referendum that will be heavily financed by rich interest groups from outside Massachusetts. John Bullard, former mayor of New Bedford, spoke next, telling us that equal marriage rights is one of the inalienable rights, a part of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Of the nine mayoral candidates here in New Bedford, only Matt Morrisey showed up to voice his support for equal marriage rights, saying that he felt all New Bedford citizens deserved the right to marriage. Amy Mello, field coordinator for RCFM, finally made it by about 6:30, and she filled us in about what RCFM is doing (and to find out more about RCFM, visit www.rcfm.org).

By the time everyone who wanted to got to talk, it was 6:40, and dark enough to light the candles and stand out on the corner of Union and County Streets. I should say, the blocked-off and eerily quiet corner of Union and County Streets. We had about 35 people by that time, far fewer than I had expected, but a nice group — Catholics, Congregationalists, Episcopalians, Jews, Pagans, Unitarian Universalists, and maybe some others that I missed — ages from 13 to 70’s — women and men, gay and straight.

Right at seven o’clock, we put out our candles (we wanted to be good citizens, and end right on time so the city could open up the roads again). Rev. Karen McArthur, the pastor at Pilgrim Congregational Church, offered the closing words, pointing out that while some states still had laws prohibiting interracial marriages up into the 1960’s, Massachusetts ended those laws in the 1840’s. Massachusetts, said Karen, has often been at the forefront of equal rights issues.

It wasn’t the most organized candlelight vigil I’ve ever been to (you could say that it was an improvisational event rather than strictly choreographed). But I felt it was well worth my while. We may not have made much of a public statement, but the fact that people from so many different faith traditions got together to support equal marriage rights made it worth my while. And it was good to have politicians, an ex-politician, and an aspiring politician with us. Seems like there is hope for equal marriage rights in this state.

By the way, no one from the press showed up (and yes, RCFM did send out press releases). So this blog entry may be the only report you will read of this event.

From Buttonwood Park to New Orleans

I was out for a short stroll this evening, and I ran into a couple of people I know.

“We’re off to meet Fred Kalisz,” they said. It’s election season, and with nine mayoral candidates in New Bedford, this is the time of year when the candidates are all trying to meet the voters. “And after that, we have two or three more candidate meetings to go to,” they added.

That made me curious. Not many people would go to three meet-the-candidate events in one evening. It turned out that they are active in the “Friends of Buttonwood Park.” (For out-of-town readers, Buttonwood Park is a beautiful park just west of the downtown.) It’s an Olmsted-designed park, but it is not quite what it once was. Thus the “Friends of Buttonwood Park,” a non-profit citizen’s advocacy group, was formed to try to restore some of Buttonwood’s fading beauty.

The city has not been entirely responsive to this citizen’s group. Cities often seem designed for efficiency, not for higher purposes. Don’t plant more trees in the park because then you have to rake more leaves which costs more money. Yet Buttonwood Park was explicitly founded, not for the sake of convenience in raking leaves, but for the pleasure of workers who live in the city and need a place to go to restore their souls.

I didn’t think of it at the time, but I will have to tell these members of the “Friends of Buttonwood Park” about the concept of “ecojustice.” Ecojustice is shorthand both for economic justice and for ecological justice. For, you see, economic justice and ecological justice are so interwoven you really can’t separate them out. For example — we never hear about the problem of too many trees in the suburbs, and the wealthier the suburb, the more the trees, and the more leaves there are to rake. But you’d be crazy to complain about too many trees in a wealthy suburb. Yet for those who find it difficult to escape from the city, or who are bound to the city for most of the week because of their work schedule, trees somehow become an inefficient nuisance. Funny how that works.

You can think about the recent tragedy in New Orleans in terms of ecojustice, too. Notice how the poorest neighborhoods wind up in areas that are prone to ecological disasters like flooding (and toxic waste dumps, and major sources of air polution, and so on)? Funny how that works. Looks like economic and ecological justice really are linked.

Organizing

Just got a call from the Religious Coalition for Freedom to Marry, to discuss the candlelight vigil that will happen out in front of First Unitarian on Tuesday (Sept. 13, 6-7 p.m.). Looks like Mark Montigny, the state senator for this area, will be speaking, but that’s not quite definite yet. It’ll be nice if he’s there, but it doesn’t matter as much as getting people to come down, light a candle, and stand in public witness for marriage equality.

And I’ve been spending so much time thinking about Hurricane Katrina that I’ve let other issues slip from my mind. I should be thinking about Hurricane Katrina — but can’t lose sight of the ongoing issues — marriage equality, peace abroad and in our streets, economic justice, everything we keep working for and hoping for.

And in amongst all the organizing, you have to reserve some time for personal renewal — which I’ve been neglecting recently — time to go for a nice, long walk.

More on Katrina

(1) My older sister wrote the following on her blog:

I try what I am now calling my “Connecticut Theory” on a friend: “If this were Connecticut, not New Orleans, our president would have cut short his vacation on Saturday, not Tuesday; if this were Connecticut, our government would have sent troops and supplies and help before the hurricane, not five days after it; if this were Connecticut, everyone would have gotten out, not only those who could; if this were Connecticut, the rhetoric emanating from the White House would match the reality unfolding on the ground.” My friend just nods, both of us perhaps remembering Bush’s infamous line in Fahrenheit 911 to the wealthy white patrons at a fundraising dinner: “You are my base.”

(2) Rev. William Sinkford, president of the Unitarian Universalist Association, has expressed anger at the response to the people trapped in New Orleans. You can read his comments on the online magazine, uuworld.org. Most importantly, you’ll also find many links to ways you can help with relief efforts.

(3) Just heard from someone here in New Bedford who works for a non-profit agency that is helping the evacuees who have now been flown in to Otis Air Force Base, and is feeling some stress. It’s a huge effort just to care for the few evacuees who have come to Massachusetts.

(4) Here at First Unitarian, we’ve been getting some information about what’s needed at Otis Air Force Base. The following emergency supplies are needed at Otis as of Sept. 8, according to Rev. Bob Murphy:

NEW clothing, diapers and “baby wipes,” bottled water, and toilet (personal hygiene) items. Clothing for all age groups is needed. New underwear, especially, is requested… Supplies for Otis can be taken to the Falmouth Service Center, which is located at 611 Gifford Street in Falmouth. TELEPHONE: 548-2794… The Service Center is open on weekdays, during the day, to receive deliveries. When you bring supplies to the Service Center, let the volunteers know that “these things are for the people at Otis.” (The Service Center has collections for several community projects.)

(5) Bob Murphy also says that if you’re looking to volunteer at Otis, you should contact the American Red Cross — call their Hyannis office at 508-775-1540.

Please remember that if you volunteer at Otis, you will be going on a military base during wartime, so be sure you have proper ID, and be respectful of the already stressed military personnel at the base.