WAWA/WeAreWideAwake is my Public Service to America as a muckracker who has journeyed seven times to Israel Palestine since June 2005.
WAWA is dedicated to confronting media and governments that shield the whole
truth.
We who Are Wide
Awake are compelled by the "fierce urgency of Now" [Rev MLK, Jr.] to raise
awareness and promote the human dialogue about many of the crucial issues of our
day: the state of our Union and in protection of democracy, what life is like
under military occupation in Palestine, the Christian EXODUS from the Holy Land,
and spirituality-from a Theologically Liberated Christian Anarchist
POV.
"Observe good faith and justice towards all nations; cultivate peace and harmony with all...and passionate attachments for others, should be excluded; and that, in place of them, just and amicable feelings towards all should be cultivated. The nation which indulges towards another a habitual hatred or a habitual fondness is in some degree a slave...a passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils." George Washington's Farewell Address - 1796
"My aim is to agitate & disturb people. I'm not selling bread, I'm selling yeast." Unamuno
"Imagine All the People Sharing All the World." John Lennon
"If enough Christians followed the gospel, they could bring any state to its knees." Father Philip Francis Berrigan
"You can stand me up at the gates of hell, but I won't back down." Tom Petty
"If I can't dance, it's not my revolution." Emma Goldman
"We have yet to begin to IMAGINE the power and potential of the Internet." Charlie Rose, 2005
Only in Solidarity do "We have it in our power to begin the world again" Tom Paine
"Never doubt that a few, thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world: Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has." Margaret Mead
"You shall know the truth and the truth will set you free." John 8:32
DO SOMETHING!
Photo of George shown here and in web site banner courtesy of Debbie Hill, 2000.
We hold these truths to be self-evident: That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights; that, among these, are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; that, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; and, whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it. -July 4, 1776. The Declaration of Independence
September 4, 2009: Doctors, Nurses and The Great Physician
My degree is in nursing. My vocation is writing. My passion is in agitating church, state and the limp and lazy media.
I grew up Catholic and was even a 'church lady'-Sunday School teacher- up until my first of seven trips to Israel and occupied Palestine.
I never went back to the Institution because they had no interest in the so called Holy Land; which is in pieces: bantustans.
But I do love and follow the NONVIOLENT Jesus/AKA The Great Physician in the greatest struggle of our time: pursuing peace by working for justice.
He
has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of
you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with
your God? Micah 6:8
There are churches in the USA who believe that too: Every Church A Peace Church http://www.ecapc.org/ One of their founders is also a writer and a physician and a few of his 'Duty to Warn' essays are here:
The following was published first July 15, 2007 and I was led to resurrect it today:
Do You Want to be Healed?
The end always brings you back around...
On the
first day of my fifth trip to Jerusalem in July 2007, I ended up where
I was on the first day of my first trip to Jerusalem in June 2005.
After checking into my room at the American Colony; I headed down Nablus Road to the Old City once again…
The
stairway down through the Damascus Gate was packed with street vendors
hawking cheap goods from China. It was shoulder to shoulder people
until I arrived at the Via Delorosa; legendary route that Jesus walked
while carrying a wooden cross. Only a few tourists were about, but I
saw many more Israeli soldiers than the last time I was here in
November 2006.
The
shop owners were just as hungry to get me into their stores as they
were before, but I told them all, "I am not buying anything today! I am
on my way to the Pool of Bethsaida."
After many wrong turns and back tracking, I spied a Franciscan brother and inquired, "Do you speak English?"
He replied with a Cheshire grin-but no guile, "For you? Sure!"
"How do I find my way to the Pool of Bethsaida?"
"You have arrived! Go in there!" He laughed as he pointed to the left of where we were standing.
It
was different than the last and first time I had wandered into the
ancient "healing site" for renovations are in progress but once more a
most surreal sense overwhelmed me again. For nearly an hour, I was the
only human being who stood, sat and meditated at a place where I had
been 'twice' before and where Jesus asked,
"Do you want to be healed?"
In
May of 2005, just prior to my first journey to Israel Palestine I
phoned Mother Agapia Stephanopolous, a Russian Orthodox nun and the
administrator of the Orthodox School of Bethany in Jerusalem, to
schedule an appointment for Spiritual Direction and to discuss our
mutual feelings about The Wall.
Mother
Agapia is the sister of ABC News commentator, George Stephanopolous,
and she had recently and passionately informed Congress about the fact
that, “Israel is destroying the local Christian community.”
On
April 18, 2005, Robert Novak’s article “Walling off Christianity”
reported on the nun’s letter to Congress and how East Jerusalem had
been cut off from the rest of the West Bank. Mother Agapia predicted,
“It is only a matter of time before Christians and Muslims will be
unable to survive culturally and economically.”
Mother Agapia spoke bluntly about the nine yards high wall of Israeli concrete that have “shattered” the Christian communities.
She
told Novak, “I witness the strangulation of East Jerusalem, and the
deprivation of her non-Jewish residents’ religious rights every day. Even the United States seems to have been taken in by Israeli spin.”
On
my very first afternoon in Jerusalem, on June 12, 2005, the nun met me
at the Ambassador Hotel in East Jerusalem and I told her that I hadn’t
been taken in by the spin, but what could I possibly do? She had no
answer.
I
also told her of the surreal experience I had that very morning while
wandering around in the Old City. I had landed in Tel Aviv with ten
other members of the Olive Trees Foundation for Peace just a few hours
before dawn on that Sunday morn. We all checked into our rooms at the
Ambassador; they all crashed, but I was wide awake.
As
soon as the sun rose I began to explore, and after attending mass at
St.George Cathedral I wandered around the Old City, which was eerily
empty. I stumbled upon the site of the Pool of Bethsaida and
experienced déjà vu, which was more real than imaginary.
Between
2000 and 2001, I was a first year student in the Episcopal Diocese of
Orlando’s Formation Program for Spiritual Directors. I knew going into
the program I would never be hanging out a shingle as a Spiritual
Director that I was there for other reasons. I was drawn to the program
because of the curriculum; to deepen my prayer life and study the lives
of the saints. During the first year all the students attended three
weekend retreats.
On the second night of the second retreat, we had a guided meditation on the story of Jesus at the Pool of Bethsaida.
I remember it as clearly now as I experienced it then.
There
were seven of us in the class and we were instructed to close our eyes,
listen to the story and allow our imagination to lead us to respond to the character that called to us.
Our
leader prefaced the story from John 5:1-6, by telling the legend of the
angel from heaven who would descend and agitate the waters of the Pool
of Bethsaida.
Only
the first leper, blind, or invalid who made it into the water would
receive a healing. One day while Jesus was there, he walked by a man
who had been paralyzed for thirty-eight years.
Jesus asked him, “Do you want to be healed?”
The man answered he had no friends to help him get into the water first.
Jesus asked him again, “Do you want to be healed?”
Our leader then went silent, and in my imagination I was immediately upon the back of that agitating angel.
I hadn’t thought of that experience until four years later when I found myself at the site of the Pool of Bethsaida.
What
triggered the memory of that guided meditation was the recollection of
a dream I had had a few weeks after that day we call 9/11.
In
my dream I had stood at the edge of a dried up pool where crumbling
stone columns were overgrown with vines and weeds and scores of doves
and pigeons nested and flew. To my right was a large shade tree, but to
my left I saw a few square squat dwellings with large satellite dishes
attached to them. I remembered thinking the moment I woke up from that
dream what a strange place it was, but then I quickly forgot all about
it.
That
is, until the afternoon of June 12, 2005, four years later, when I
found myself standing at the edge of a dried up pool where crumbling
stone columns were overgrown with vines and weeds and scores of doves
and pigeons nested and flew. To my right was a large shade tree, but to
my left I saw a few square squat dwellings with large satellite dishes
attached to them. What a strange place I thought, how could it be that
I had seen this scene in a dream a few weeks after that day we call
9/11?
On
the afternoon of my very first day in Jerusalem, I told Mother Agapia
about my dream and what I had seen at the Pool of Bethsaida.
She
shrugged and smiled, then told me about the Jerusalem Interfaith Peace
Conference with satellite link to the world that was happening the
Sunday after the Thursday I was scheduled to return to the USA. I knew
immediately that I needed to attend and after saying goodbye to Mother
Agapia, I phoned my husband to get his OK.
On
June 26, 2006, I attended the world wide satellite linked Interfaith
Peace Conference at Jerusalem’s Notre Dame Cathedral. Dan Rather
moderated from Washington DC and the Holy Land interfaith panel were
all moderates attempting to reclaim the battlefield of ideas from
extremists on both sides.
Reverend Theodore Hessburgh, President Emeritus University of Notre Dame began the evening with a pledge and a summons:
“The Peace of the world begins in Jerusalem.”
Dr.
Tsvia Walden, Board of Director of the Peres Center and Geneva
Initiative stated, “There is a need for a third party in the
negotiations that could enable both sides to trust each other. There
are more people in this region interested in making concessions, they
all want peace so desperately.”
The
Coordinator of World Bank emergency services to the PA, Rania Kharma
informed the world, “We all need to be the bridges to our leaders that
justice, equality, and human rights will bring peace. Give people
justice and they will reward you with peace.”
Sheik
Imad Falouiji warned, “Religions must go back to their origins. God
commands us to love each other and live together. This Holy Land was
given to all people. This land is on fire. There is an occupation that
must be removed. The language of peace cannot succeed without justice
for all.”
The
Rt. Rev. Bishop Riah Abu Assal affirmed, “Peace is an act. Blessed are
the peacemakers not the peace talkers. Peace is possible in the Holy
Land. The root cause for the lack of peace since 1967 is the
occupation. For peace to make progress in the Middle East we need to
deal with the root cause...Religion was not meant to bring death. All
those involved in searching for peace should commit themselves to work
for justice and truth.”
Throughout the entire evening, I kept remembering what President Bush promised in his Second Inaugural Address:
“In
the long run, there is no justice without FREEDOM.There can be no human
rights without LIBERTY. All who live in tyranny and hopelessness can
know the United States will not ignore your oppression or excuse your
oppressors. When you stand for liberty, we stand with you.”
Quotable Peace and Justice Quotes: Critically Important Messages for the Christian Church
Compiled by Gary G. Kohls for Every Church A Peace Church (www.ecapc.org)
“We're
not made by God to mass kill one another, and that's backed up by the
Gospels. Lying and war are always associated. Pay attention to
war-makers when they try to defend their current war; if they’re moving
their lips they're lying.” -- Phil Berrigan
“A
church that does not provoke any crisis, preach a gospel that does not
unsettle, proclaim a word of God that does not get under anyone's skin
or a word of God that does not touch the real sin of the society in
which it is being proclaimed: what kind of gospel is that?” -- Bishop
Oscar Romero, El Salvador, April 16, 1978
"One
is called to live nonviolently, even if the change one works for seems
impossible. It may or may not be possible to turn the US around through
nonviolent revolution. But one thing favors such an attempt: the total
inability of violence to change anything for the better." -- Daniel
Berrigan
“The
prophet courageously challenges oppressive social structures of which
the church may be an integral part. The prophet is the end result of
the best in the tradition and spirituality of the church, which soon,
sadly, drives him or her out.” -- J. Milton Yinger, 1946
"The
duty of the Christian at this time is to do the one task God has
imposed upon us in this world today. The task is to work for the total
abolition of war. There can be no question that unless war is
abolished; the world will remain constantly in a state of madness…The
church [meaning all Christians] must lead the way on the road to the
abolition of war…Peace is to be preached and nonviolence is to be
explained and practiced."—Thomas Merton
"The
church that preaches the gospel in all of its fullness, except as it
applies to the great social ills of the day, is failing to preach the
gospel." -- Martin Luther
"War
is the greatest plague that can afflict humanity; it destroys
religions, it destroys states, it destroys families. Any scourge is
preferable to it." -- Martin Luther, 16th Century Just War,
Constantinian Christian monk who created a great schism in Christianity
when he tried to reform a corrupted church by endorsing violent means -
and therefore obviously failed to bring any peaceful Christ-like
transformation to the church.
"A
church that cannot take a firm stand against war is a church which does
not deserve to be believed." -- Harvey Cox, American Baptist theologian
at Harvard Divinity School
"We
have grasped the mystery of the atom and rejected the Sermon on the
Mount. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know
more about war than we do about peace - more about killing than we do
about living." -- WWII General Omar Bradley
"The test of the sincerity of one's prayer is the willingness to labor on its behalf." -- St. John Chrysostom
"He
who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to
perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is
really cooperating with it." -- Martin Luther King, Jr.
“The
church must be reminded that it is not the master or the servant of the
state, but rather the conscience of the state. It must be the guide and
the critic of the state, and never its tool. If the church does not
recapture its prophetic zeal, it will become an irrelevant social club
without moral or spiritual authority.” -- Martin Luther King, Jr.
"Cowardice
asks the question - is it safe? Expediency asks the question - is it
politic? Vanity asks the question - is it popular? But conscience asks
the question - is it right? And there comes a time when one must take a
position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular; but one must
take it because it is right." -- Martin Luther King, Jr.
"True
pacifism is not unrealistic submission to an evil power...it is rather
a courageous confrontation with evil by the power of love, in the faith
that it is better to be the recipient of violence than the inflicter of
it, since the latter only multiplies the existence of violence and
bitterness in the universe, while the former may develop a sense of
shame in the opponent, and thereby bring about a transformation and
change of heart."--Martin Luther King, Jr.
"It
may well be that the greatest tragedy of this period of social change
is not the glaring noisiness of the so-called bad people, but the
silence of the so-called good people." -- Martin Luther King, Jr.
"You
assist an evil system most effectively by obeying its orders and
decrees. An evil system never deserves such allegiance. Allegiance to
it means partaking of the evil. A good person will resist an evil
system with his or her whole soul." -- Gandhi
“If
any preacher tells you that personal salvation can be achieved without
first paying attention to social justice, you may know by this sign
alone that you are listening to a false prophet.” -- Sydney Harris
"You
Christians have vested interests in unjust structures, that create
victims, to whom you then can pour out your hearts in charity." -- Karl
Marx
“War
will exist until that distant day when the conscientious objector
enjoys the same reputation and prestige that the warrior does today.”
-- John F. Kennedy
“If
you see injustice and say nothing, you have taken the side of the
oppressor." -- South African Anglican Archbishop Desmund Tutu.
"When
I feed the hungry, they call me a saint, but when I ask why people
should be hungry, they call me a communist." -- Brazilian Archbishop
Dom Helder Camara
“To sin by silence when they should protest makes cowards of men.” – Abraham Lincoln
”The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who during time of great moral crisis maintained their neutrality.” -- Dante
“Praying
for peace is like praying for a weedless garden. Nothing will happen
until you get your hands dirty.” -- John K. Stoner, co-founder of Every
Church A Peace Church
"Oh
Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our
shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of
their patriot dead; help us to drown out the thunder of guns with the
shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their
humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to turn them out
roofless with their little children to wander un-befriended the wastes
of their desolated land. We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who
is the Source of Love. Amen." -- Mark Twain (THE CHRISTIAN PATRIOT'S
[UNSPOKEN] PULPIT PRAYER TO "SUPPORT OUR TROOPS")
"A
country that has dangled the sword of nuclear holocaust over the world
for half a century and claims that someone else invented terrorism is a
country out of touch with reality." -- John K. Stoner, 2001
"To
preach to the powerful without denouncing oppression is to promise
Easter without Calvary, forgiveness without conversion, and healing
without cleansing the wound." --From What We Have Seen and Heard,
Pastoral Letter of US. Catholic Black Bishops
“The Great Christian Task Of Our Time” by Thomas Merton:
"The
church must lead the way on the road to nonviolent settlement of
difficulties and toward the gradual abolition of war as the way of
settling international or civil disputes. Christians must become active
in every possible way, mobilizing all their resources for the fight
against war. Peace is to be preached, nonviolence is to be explained as
a practical method, and not left to be mocked as an outlet for
crackpots who want to make a show of themselves. Prayer and sacrifice
must be used as the most effective spiritual weapons in the war against
war, and like all weapons, they must be used with deliberate aim: not
just with a vague aspiration for peace and security, but against
violence and war. This implies that we are also willing to sacrifice
and restrain our own instinct for violence and aggressiveness in our
relations with other people. We may never succeed in this campaign, but
whether we succeed or not, the duty is evident. It is the great
Christian task of our time. Everything else is secondary, for the
survival of the human race itself depends upon it." -- Thomas Merton
"Beginning
with Constantine, Christianity triumphed at the level of the state and
soon began persecutions (against the enemies of the state) similar to
those in which the early Christians were victims. Like so many previous
religious and political enterprises, Christianity suffered persecution
while it was weak and became the persecutor as soon as it gained
strength. "-- Rene Girard; The Scapegoat
“A
tyrant must put on the appearance of uncommon devotion to religion.
Subjects are less apprehensive of illegal treatment from a ruler whom
they consider god-fearing and pious. On the other hand, they do less
easily move against him, believing that he has the gods on his side.”
-- Aristotle
"Military
power is as corrupting to the man who possesses it as it is pitiless to
its victims. Violence is just as devastating to the soul of the
perpetrator as it is to the body and souls of those who are victims of
it" -- American Friends (Quakers) Service Committee
"No one has a right to sit down and feel helpless, there's too much to do." -- Dorothy Day
"Where
there is mercy, there is the Christ. And where there is cruelty, there
is the satanic." -- Father Emmanuel Charles McCarthy
"To care for a thing as if it were a thing is reality, To care for a thing as if it was a person is illusion To care for a person as if he or she was a thing is violence, To care for a person as if he or she was a person is justice, And to care for a person as if he or she was yourself is love." -- Fr. Emmanuel Charles McCarthy
"The
most profoundly creative way to overcome enemies is to make them our
friends. But this involves a series of painful acts, a constant
decision never to achieve our goals by destroying or humiliating
others." -- Dom Paulo Cardinal Arns
"The
gospel that Jesus preached is radically different than the gospel that
the churches preach, and that reality has woefully impoverished the
church’s sense of missional identity.” -- From the Missional Church ed.
by Darrel L. Guder, 1998
"It
will be a great day when our schools get all the money they need and
the air force has to hold a bake sale to buy a bomber." -- Women’s
International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF)
"Every
gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies,
in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed,
those who are cold and not clothed. This world in arms is not spending
money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of
its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at
all in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is
humanity hanging from a cross of iron." -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
"Why,
of course the people don't want war. Why should some poor slob on a
farm want to risk his life in a war when the best he can get out of it
is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally, the common people
don't want war, neither in Russia, nor England, nor for that matter,
Germany. That is understood, but after all it is the leaders of the
country who determine the policy and it is always a simpler matter to
drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or fascist
dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no
voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders.
That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked,
and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the
country to danger. It works the same in any country." -- Herman
Goering. Long time Nazi, Reichmarshall, and heir-apparent to Hitler.
Statement made while imprisoned at Nuremberg after WWII.
“I
believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty
Creator; by defending myself against the Jews, I am fighting for the
Lord.” -- Adolf Hitler
"Now
I want you to remember that no bastard ever won a war by dying for his
country. You win it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his
country.”—WWII General George Patton, 1944
“My
God, I actually pity those poor bastards we’re going up against. My
God, I do. We're not just going to shoot the bastards, we're going to
cut out their living guts and use them to grease the treads of our
tanks. We're going to murder those lousy Hun bastards by the bushel.
Now some of you boys, I know, are wondering whether or not you'll
chicken out under fire. Don't worry about it. I can assure you that
you'll all do your duty. The Nazis are the enemy. Wade into them. Spill
their blood. Shoot them in the belly. When you put your hand into a
bunch of goo, that a moment before was your best friend’s face, you’ll
know what to do.”--General George Patton Read
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"HOPE has two children.The first is ANGER at the way things are. The second is COURAGE to DO SOMETHING about it."-St. Augustine
"He who is not angry when there is just cause for anger is immoral. Why? Because anger looks to the good of justice. And if you can live amid injustice without anger, you are immoral as well as unjust." - Aquinas
Everyone has the right to freedom of
opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions
without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and
ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.
" In the final analysis, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway."-Mother Teresa
“You cannot talk like sane men around a peace table while the atomic bomb itself is ticking beneath it. Do not treat the atomic bomb as a weapon of offense; do not treat it as an instrument of the police. Treat the bomb for what it is: the visible insanity of a civilization that has ceased...to obey the laws of life.”- Lewis Mumford, 1946
The age of warrior kings and of warrior presidents has passed. The nuclear age calls for a different kind of leadership....a leadership of intellect, judgment, tolerance and rationality, a leadership committed to human values, to world peace, and to the improvement of the human condition. The attributes upon which we must draw are the human attributes of compassion and common sense, of intellect and creative imagination, and of empathy and understanding between cultures." - William Fulbright
“Any nation that year after year continues to raise the Defense budget while cutting social programs to the neediest is a nation approaching spiritual death.” - Rev. MLK
Establishment of Israel
"On the day of the termination of the British mandate and on the strength of the United Nations General Assembly declare The State of Israel will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel: it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion it will guarantee freedom of religion [and] conscience and will be faithful to the Charter of the United Nations." - May 14, 1948. The Declaration of the Establishment of Israel
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