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
TIKKUN is Hebrew for mend, repair and transform
the world.
TIKKUN is also a Magazine and an international community of
people of many faiths calling for social justice and political freedom
in the context of new structures of work, caring communities, and
democratic social and economic arrangements. They seek to influence
public discourse in order to inspire compassion, generosity,
non-violence and recognition of the spiritual dimensions of life.
What follows is a reflection of some of my experiences in Berkley in
July 2005, during TIKKUN’s first Conference for Spiritual Progressives,
which I attended 3 weeks after my first trip to both sides of The Wall in Israel Palestine:
Everything that follows actually happened-but as I was writing fiction
in 2005-I wrote it all down in the following chapter through the fictional
character Jack Hunt, in KEEP HOPE ALIVE
But before I begin, please know that my Grandfather was a Polish Jew
who died before I could learn how many of my relatives might have been
gassed and fried because “good people” did nothing for too very long!
“Financed with U.S. aid at a cost of $1.5 million per mile,
the Israeli wall prevents residents from receiving health care and
emergency medical services. In other areas, the barrier separates
farmers from their olive groves which have been their families’ sole
livelihood for generations.” [Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, Page 43, Jan/Feb. 2007]
"They’re building a wall, A wall between friends, A wall that
justifies any means to their ends. A wall between Semites, rich and
poor, brothers and sisters from not so long before. Many feet thick and
twenty feet high…They’re building the wall between water and land, so we
can eat fruit and they can eat sand…A wall to keep quiet that which you
fear most so you don’t have to listen to your grandfathers
ghost…They’re building the wall to remove reality from your facts on the
ground! A wall to keep distant the terrible sound of the houses that
crumble and the children that die. A wall to keep separate the truth
from the lie…A wall made of brick but bricks can be broken, when the
people of Zion have finally awoken and said no more walls, no more
refugees, no more keeping people upon their knees…before apartheid was
ended they were building a wall."-David Rovics
Chapter 12: THE REVOLUTION HAS BEGUN...
“The Revolution starts now, when you rise above your fear and tear the walls round you down.”-Steve Earle
On
Wednesday, July 20, 2005, in Berkeley, California, Jack intuitively
sensed opportunity blowing in the wind as he rounded the corner from
Durant and Telegraph on his way to UC Berkeley’s MLK student union
building for TIKKUN’s first annual conference on spiritual activism. As
he crossed Bancroft Way, a young, beatifically-smiling latte-skinned
youth handed him an electric green slip of paper announcing:
“Compassionate Caregivers: Medical Cannabis. Two locations, 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., seven days a week.”
Jack
mused, “Now that my third anti-inflammatory has been pulled, I can’t do
narcotics in moderation, and I am not ready for joint replacement; I
wonder if maybe this is an invitation from You to move out here?”
Jack
soon forgot all about the aches in his joints--in particular, his
knees, which had been crushed in an auto accident when he was
twenty-three and then again at twenty-six. The MLK student union
building was jammed with people from all faiths, and those who were
spiritual, but not religious, who were imagining a new bottom line for
America and her true place in the global village. Jack glided up the
stairs to the second floor and deeply inhaled the energy emanating from
over thirteen hundred American citizens who had gathered in the Pauley
Ballroom in support of a new bottom line based on love, compassion,
caring, ethical and ecological sensitivity, and behavior; and motivated
by generosity, kindness, cooperation, nonviolence, and peace.
Jack
imagined a society that honored all human beings as embodiments of the
sacred, a society that enhanced one’s capacities to respond to the
earth and the universe with awe, wonder, and radical amazement. He
imagined the Kingdom of God, where men would turn their swords into
plowshares and not make war anymore.
The
invocation was offered by Father Louis Vitale, a Franciscan who
reminded Jack of one of the least of the seven dwarves, until he spoke
and revealed himself to be a man of profound wisdom, enrobed in
well-worn burlap:
“The
Holy One has called on us. In all of earth’s sixty-five-million-year
history, we are living in the most dangerous of times. The fact that a
bomb was dropped on Hiroshima and two hundred thousand lives were
vaporized within twenty minutes has not prevented man from dreaming up
more ways to fill space with weapons of mass destruction. We were not
created for militarism, but to turn our swords into plowshares. We have
arrived here today by no accident. We have been summoned by the
universe to claim the highest common ground. As the Dali Lama said, the
radicalism of our age is to be compassionate human beings. We have been
called to bring love and compassion back into the equation and assist
others to connect with the deepest parts of themselves. Now is the time
to realize, as never before, that when any of us suffer, we all suffer.
All life is interconnected, interdependent, and greatly loved by the
creator, the sustainer of the universe. We are called by love, for
love, and to love.”
Professor
Nagler, M.C. and scholar, stoked the fire of hope within Jack. “We are
not facing a spiritual crisis, but a spiritual opportunity. We offer
the power of moral ideas to a country with a lot of religion yet which
suffers from a great lack of spirituality and imagination. As William
Blake said, ‘Imagination is evidence of The Divine.’ And spirituality
is how we grow in sensitivity to ourselves, the other, and to God.
Einstein wrote, ‘Human beings are limited in time and space. We
experience ourselves in an optical delusion. We see ourselves as
separate from others. Our task must be to free ourselves from our
prison of self. Only through compassion can we begin to embrace all of
Creation.’ The bumper sticker got it right; we are spiritual beings
having a human experience.”
George
Lakoff, the author of Don’t Think of an Elephant, affirmed what Jack
already knew, that a nurturing parent raises a child as best they can
to be responsible to self and others. A nurturing parent is not
permissive or overindulgent, but models cooperation and honesty, and
understands that everything is grace, an unconditional gift from God
that one is free to accept or reject. Lakoff spoke about God as father,
mother, all-knowing, all-good, all–powerful, and the source of the free
gift of grace that will open one up to God in the world. Jack thought
of Father Matthew Fox’s recent publication, A New Reformation.
During
Pentecost week, in 2005, Father Fox traveled to Wittenburg and nailed a
new ninety-five theses to the church door, where Luther had nailed his
five hundred years before. Father Fox wrote Jack’s heart about an
interfaith collaboration and community that intuits God as
mother-father God of divine wisdom, and understands that the earth
itself is to be tended; its health is just as much a moral imperative
for us all as our human relationships. Jack had long ago rejected the
concept of a punitive father God and understood that nature is God’s
primary temple, and war the greatest abomination.
Jack’s
mind wandered to the leper kisser, Francis of Assisi, and Jack thought,
Frankie, you sang of sister moon and brother sun, and stood up to the
dry rot and rigid religious sclerosis of the church in the twelfth
century. I feel your presence here today in my bones, as much as in my
soul. Jack went deeper into the silence and in his mind, saw himself at
nine with Father Tony, the diminutive ancient Spanish priest, who had
held his hand all during his mother’s funeral and chanted softly
without ceasing, “Jesus called God Abba, and that means both daddy and
mommy. So, God is both mommy and daddy, and now your mommy is a part of
God. God is mommy and daddy: daddy and mommy divine.”
Jack
mused, “That and the daily readings are the best things I ever heard
from the Roman Church.” The heat from thirteen hundred bodies and the
noonday sun made Jack fidgety, and even though his knees were aching
most ferociously, he still craved a run, but as usual, was grateful for
a fast walk. In seconds, he had escaped the crowd in Sproul Plaza and
wandered around the rolling tree-canopied campus as endorphins flooded
his blood; he no longer was aware of the crushing of bone on bone in
his knees. He escaped in his mind to the good times before that Tuesday
in September nearly four years ago, when his wife, Julianne, had been
vaporized in a stairwell in the Twin Towers.
At
the first thought of that day when life all changed, Jack immediately
roused himself back to reality, sat down, and again became aware of the
aching in his knees. He pulled out the itinerary for the conference and
thought, I need to figure out where I want to be these next few hours.
I’d like to catch some of all these workshops and groups, but there are
just too many choices. I’ll start with “Environmental Policy,” and then
check out “Sacred Stewardship of the Earth,” and maybe move onto
“Theory and Practice of Nonviolence”--no, better yet, “Science and
Spirit.”
Jack
absorbed what he could from each class, but could not sit still until 8
p.m. when Rev. Jim Wallis commanded his attention back in the Pauley
Ballroom. “Religion’s job is to pull out our best stuff; to help us be
our best selves. Religion in America has been used and abused to
control and manipulate millions of Christians.
“The
good news is that there are millions more who are not represented by
the Falwells and the Dobsons, and they are raising their voices and
doing something about confronting the hijacking of the Bible to further
political gain. All faith traditions battle with fundamentalism.
Religion is meant to be a bridge, not a wedge.
“The
seduction of the religious right by politicians is being challenged by
our rapidly spreading grassroots sojourners community that stands up
with a firm moral center and echoes Lincoln’s refrain: what is needed
today is reflection, penitence, humility, accountability, and that we
should all seek to be on God’s side.
“There
are over three thousand verses in the Bible referring to the poor; this
is the moral issue of our time. There are also the moral issues of
poverty, ecology, and war; it is the church’s job to address these
moral issues, too. Separation of church and state does not mean the
segregation of religion from the human dialogue?
“Our
deepest choices are between hope and compassion. Hope is not a feeling
or a state of mind, but an abiding choice you make because you have
faith. Faith is supposed to change things that look impossible to be
changed. Cynicism sees the world as it is and gives up trying to change
it. Cynicism is a buffer against commitment.
“History
testifies to the fact that all great changes came about by social
justice movements that were based on faith and religious values.
America has a proud history of progressive spiritual activism. We are
the ones we have been waiting for. We can change the nation when we
change the wind, and people of faith are called to be wind changers.”
Wallis
took a deep breath before continuing. “Let me explain exactly what an
evangelical Christian is to be about. My evangelical roots are
connected to the path laid down by evangelicals from the 19th century.
They were the first to speak out against slavery and were the first
supporters of female suffrage. In fact, the original altar call was the
call to stand up against slavery.
“In
this century, we are faced with nuclear weapons and the fact that the
arms race put the world in grave danger. The world went to sleep, and
now we have escalating proliferation, nations, and groups of angry
people with nuclear warheads. The real security threat is coming from
the gathering terrorists who are acquiring unsecured materials.” Jim
Wallis took another deep breath and ended with “Activists must be
contemplatives, and contemplatives must act. The time has come for the
Christian Right to meet the right Christians.”
After
a standing ovation for Wallis, the radiant Rabbi Lerner approached the
lectern and beamed like a lighthouse turned on, and between his smile,
said, “This is a historic event. Over thirteen hundred of you are here
now, and we had to turn people away because we ran out of room. There
is a hunger in America for deep spiritual truth, and the wisdom of the
ages is again being spoken and heard. The time has come for the new
bottom line. The new bottom line in society challenges the dominant
ethos of materialism and selfishness and replaces it with institutions
based not just on productivity, but also on cooperation, mutuality,
love, caring, ethical and ecological sensitivity, and awe and wonder at
the grandeur of creation. We spiritual progressives challenge the
misuse of God and religion by the Religious Right, just as we challenge
those liberals and progressives who have been unsympathetic, even
hostile, to spiritual and religious people.
“We
of many faiths, and the spiritual but not religious, are calling for
social justice and political freedom in the context of new structures
of work, in caring communities and democratic social and economic
arrangements. We of many faiths and those who are spiritual but not
religious are inspired by compassion, generosity, nonviolence, and
recognition of the spiritual dimension of life. We agree we desire a
society that promotes love and generosity, recognizes the unity of all
being, and understands our interdependence with all other people on the
planet. We honor, with awe, wonder, and care, all of creation. We are
extending the invitation to every church, synagogue, mosque, and ashram
to affirm the prophetic vision of God as the champion of love,
generosity, peace, social justice, and ecological sanity. We understand
we are to give our highest attention to alleviating the suffering of
the poor and powerless. We challenge the policies of governments and
political parties that do not promote these values. The new bottom line
replaces the old one based upon materialism and selfishness. The time
has come; the time is now.”
Jack
reflected, “One reason the religious right is the only voice the
mainstream media presents is that they have been the most vocal. The
other problem is that the liberal and progressive media have only heard
religion according to the right, so no wonder they tune religion out. I
wonder how to get around it; how does a new voice rise out of the
wilderness?”
The
following day, Jack woke up still thinking about all he had experienced
the day before. That Thursday morning, he heard Rick Uff ord-Chase for
the first time, and was blown away by how such a young man had
accomplished so much. Rick was a founder of the Samaritans,
co-moderator of the Presbyterian Peace Fellowship, a reservist for
Christian Peacemakers Teams, and moderator of the 216th General
Assembly of the Presbyterian Church.
Rick
began with Isaiah 58: “‘Shout it out, do not hold back. Raise your
voice like a trumpet. Declare to my people 'loosen the chains of
injustice and set the oppressed free, share your food with the hungry
and provide the poor wanderer with shelter--when you see the naked,
clothe them and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and
satisfy the needs of the oppressed, your light will rise in the
darkness and your night will become like the noonday sun.’”
Then
Rick offered 1 John 4: “‘Love comes from God and everyone who loves has
been born of God and knows God, because God is love. There is no fear
in love. For perfect love drives out fear, and those who love God love
all their brothers and sisters.’”
Rick
then spoke of his experiences on the Mexican border and the sanctity of
all life. “We become holy in community; we must study and do Torah, and
we build the Church by building community. God is within everyone, and
the direct experience of working with, for, and among the poor and
oppressed is the quickest way one can experience the presence of God.”
After
a few more speakers, Jack was overfilled and restless to move about. He
wandered the campus while listening to a CD by Dave Rovics, one of the
musicians at the conference. For the rest of the day, Jack couldn’t get
“They’re Building a Wall” out of his head:
They’re
building a wall, A wall between friends, A wall that justifies any
means to their ends. Many feet thick and twenty feet high. They’re
building the wall between water and land, So we can eat fruit and they
can eat sand. A wall to keep quiet that which you fear most. They’re
building the wall to remove reality from your facts on the ground, A
wall to keep distant the terrible sound of the houses that crumble and
the children that die, A wall to keep separate the truth from the lie.
A wall made of brick but bricks can be broken When the people of Zion
have finally awoken And said no more walls, no more refugees, No more
keeping people upon their knees. And before apartheid was ended they
were building a wall.
That
evening, Bishop John Shelby Spong began by asking, “What has happened
to Christianity? I have been a student of the Bible my entire life. I
am a committed Christian and open to anyone’s opinion, but not to their
own facts. The Bible has been used to justify slavery, segregation, to
deny woman equality, and to promote war. A lot of evil happens when the
Bible is misunderstood and misused. In the name of God, men have become
murderers. We live in a world where people in power get to define those
without power. The prophets spoke the word of God in concrete
circumstances and throughout history. Hosea spoke of God as love. Amos
understood that worship and justice go together. Micah confronted
Israel with their behavior, and God again told the people what is
required: ‘Do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with your Lord.’”
On Friday morning, in Newman Hall, in the sanctuary known as Holy Spirit Catholic Church, Betsy Rose led the crowd in singing:
There’s a new world coming, There’s a new world coming, There’s a new world coming, I can hear her breathing.
Jack
marveled at all the smiling faces around him and about the fact that he
had not been in a Catholic church since his youngest sister was wed
twenty-four years ago by their brother, Father Mike.
Rev.
Dr. Welton Gaddy, leader of the Interfaith Alliance Foundation and
pastor at Northminster Baptist Church in L.A, brought the crowd to
their feet from the start. “We are people hungry to get on with the
business we are about. American politics have already been transformed
by religion and spirit, just not the one we believe and desire. We are
a deeply divided nation, and the substance of what passes for religion
looks like the stuff of politics. There is no such thing as the
American religion, for we are a country of over seventy-five faith
traditions. The proper role of religion is to link core values, to
cooperate, to respect all people, to promote peace, justice, and
compassion, and to protect the weak, poor, and the environment. Today,
politics have become a form of religion. We need freedom for and from
that kind of religion. Religion should command, inspire hope, and build
bridges between other faiths and to those with no faith at all. We will
be restless until we speak the truth to power. We will be restless
until we comfort the afflicted and disturb the comfortable. We will be
restless until we become a nation that cares for its entire people and
lives with respect towards all others in the global village. May we all
be restless, and then speak and act in peace and goodwill, in the
spirit of cooperation.”
Jack’s
mind wandered back to what he had read in Subversive Orthodoxy:
Outlaws, Revolutionaries, and Other Christians in Disguise, as soon as
he noted the author Robert Inchausti was on the morning’s program.
Inchausti had written, “To change the world we must become receptacles
of God’s love, understanding and goodwill. We must have faith, not
merely of the mind, but of the heart that surrenders the whole man to
the divine inflow; moral action links personal salvation directly to
social responsibility. Victory is not the goal, doing God’s will is.”
Jack
reflected everyday on what God wanted from him, and spent most of the
time in the dark. He left his ruminating behind when Robert Inchausti
stood at the podium and proclaimed, “This country was built by
spiritual progressives. Spiritual progressives are the center and we
are not a mushy middle. The new bottom line is not new at all; it was
already articulated by the Puritans. The Puritans were about charity,
not power, and that is the true American tradition. We radical
spiritual activists are the heart of the American tradition. Of course
we know there will always be the poor among us, but our call always has
been to respond.”
At
the break, Jack was the first one out of Newman Hall, and he strode
directly to UC Botanical Garden to be with over three thousand
California-native plants and sublime silence. On his way back for the
afternoon session, he met a rabbi from Australia and a pastor from
England, who had traveled to America specifically to attend the
conference. Jack marveled at the possibilities of what might happen on
the other side of the world when these men shared what they had
experienced.
Jack
parted ways with them and headed back to Newman Hall to hear Father Fox
speak about the New Reformation. And Jack thought, Everyday, I am
crossing paths with so many incredible people. Last month I sat in
Reverend Ateek’s Sabeel office in Jerusalem, and the other night I sat
next to Abla, his sister-in-law, at a meeting of MEPAC. There, I met a
community of tireless workers in the political realm keeping the issue
of peace and justice in Israel and Palestine on the front burner. The
next day, I was in the office of this riot of a woman who founded
MECA--funny, crusty, and salty, with a most compassionate heart. For
seventeen years, MECA has been bearing witness to the West Bank and
Gaza. Then there’s Doug, the guy from that last work group; I have
never known anyone like him. Talk about connecting with one’s feminine
side! It has got to be holy wisdom, the feminine divinity that led him
to photograph the neighborhood gardens in his town and display them on
Main Street, to bring the folks around and build community. Then he
takes up dancing and singing--his wife must be wondering who she is now
sleeping with.
It
was apparent to Jack when he returned to Newman Hall that the fire
department’s maximum allowed crowd size was being ignored. In the
center of the sanctuary of Holy Spirit Catholic Church, Father Fox
proclaimed,
“Forget original sin; remember original blessing. There are
two Christianities in our midst. One worships a punitive father and
seeks obedience at all costs. It is patriarchal, demonizes woman, the
earth, science, gays, lesbians, and deep thought. It builds on fear and
it supports empire-builders. Its theology includes a punitive father in
the sky and teaches original sin.
“The
other Christianity recognizes the original blessing that all beings
derive from. We recognize awe, not sin, not guilt, as the starting
point of true religion. We recognize a divinity who is source of all
things and is as much mother as father, as much female as male. We
honor creation and diversity. When God created everything, He
pronounced it all good. We are here to make love to life. Yes, we are
here to make love to life.
“Delight
in creation and take your dreams into our politics and institutions. We
live in the midst of a suicidal economy, motivated by love of money. We
have reached a dead end. What we need to turn it around are hearts in
love with life. How do we do it?
“We
first must move from domination to partnership, and we begin by
educating our young in awe and wonder, not how to take tests. Awe leads
to reverence, which leads to gratitude, which will reinvent our
species. This is the task of our generation: to regain awe. The three
R’s need to be balanced by the ten C’s: contemplation, creativity,
chaos, compassion, courage, critical consciousness, community,
celebration, ceremony, and character.
“In
community, people remain united, despite everything that divides them.
In capitalist society, people are isolated, separated, despite
everything that should hold them together. We are in the midst of an
epic struggle between community and capitalistic society. We need a new
narrative. It is the economy of materialism; it is the virus of
affluenza that has weakened family life.”
"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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