September 2006

Henri Nouwen: The other morning, one of the Catholic Workers here was using her morning personal time to make a bunch of phone calls on behalf of a very troubled woman who showed up at the door.

As a show of support, and in case I suddenly became useful, I hung around, drinking coffee and skimming Michael O’Laughlin’s biography of Henri Nouwen. This passage jumped out at me:

The contours of Nouwen’s life were indeed interesting. Although he became a well-known spiritual writer, Nouwen did not embrace the lifestyle of a media-savvy author or pundit. In fact, he declined most of the many speaking invitations he received, and he abandoned his academic appointments, first at Yale, then at Harvard, in order to seek a more clearly spiritual way of life. His first radical step in this direction was to immerse himself in the meditative silence of a Cistercian monastery. Later, he went to the Third World to live as a missionary and worked in a shantytown near Lima, Peru.

While both of these experiences broadened his outlook and added new dimensions to his writing and teaching, Henri Nouwen did not find what he was seeking in either of these settings. He longed for some more satisfying form of life and ministry that would ground him spiritually and give him the feeling of having “arrived home.” Nouwen was searching for some place or situation that might offer him intimacy, continuity, and acceptance.

I know how he felt.
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Jackie Reis covered the library’s new lending policy in the Telegram:

Everyone who has a library card will be treated equally: They can take out two items during their first visit and up to 50 thereafter, [Head Librarian] Ms. [Penny] Johnson said. Previously, people who listed their address as a shelter could only take out two items. The library no longer keeps a list of such addresses, Ms. Johnson said.

Kevin Ksen, one of the activists who’s been pressuring the library about this for months, shares his thoughts at Indymedia:

. . . the library’s reversal will be the second significant community organizing success for Real Solutions in recent weeks. . . . This summer, after continued pressure and discussions, the City of Worcester agreed to remove all of the anti-panhandling signs installed last year around the City. Pair these two changes with the successful reversal of the City’s invitation to the FOX TV show ‘COPS’ in August and you quickly see the vitality of today’s community organizing in Worcester.

A Baylor University survey of Americans reveals four distinct views of God, the “Authoritarian God,” the “Distant God,” the “Benevolent God,” and a “Critical God.”

At last night’s Library Board meeting, they approved a new lending policy. The old policy contained restrictions on borrowing by those living in homeless shelters. That policy got the library sued.

Huge jpegs of the new policy:
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Here’s a transcription.
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In “Actions don’t seem neighborly,” a June 28, 2006 column in the Telegram & Gazette (now lost forever in their web archives), a columnist told the story of Worcester dentist Richard M. Blase and how his Liberian neighbors think he’s a racist. (The column caught my attention because it mentioned Mr. Blase had a sign from the local “not in my back yard” group KNIT Worcester.)

A reader points out that in a column today, from a different columnist, Mr. Blase defends himself. Additionally, Human Rights Commission Director Fran Manocchio (who has credibility ’round these parts), says that she met with the dentist twice and saw no evidence of racism.

The article mentions that there was an anti-racism vigil outside the houses this summer, which bothered the dentist. (I’ve been out of town, and hadn’t heard about the vigil before.)

Some would say the lesson here is, Don’t call someone a racist if you don’t know them.

That might be so, but I think the big lesson is, Respond to public attacks promptly. Dianne Williamson is such a contrarian, and so desperate for material, that you should be able to get “equal time” in the newspaper by just calling her.

You gotta speak up before things get out of hand. And if someone’s trying to hold an anti-racism vigil outside your house, and you’re really not a racist, become a co-sponsor. Chip in to buy the signs. Stand proudly on the sidewalk. Use the occasion to heal your relationship with your neighbors a bit.

(I wasn’t around, so I don’t know if the organizers of the vigil reached out to the dentist, but they sure should have.)

Anyhow, I’m looking forward to being back in Worcester, so I can follow these dramas closer to the action.

1. I am sorry that it has come to this.

   This will likely be a long war, stretching out two or three decades. Albeit low-intensity, it will be a total war, blurring the line between civilian and military lives. Racist and sectarian rhetorics will be used on both sides.

   We will again forget what it is like to live in peacetime.

   After the Cold War, we humanity have again subjected our children to this.

   (2001-09-14 13:58:34 −0700)

2. I’ve just come to the realisation that Operation Infinite Justice (and friends) is a ‘war’ that has an ambiguous, if not totally undefined and unachievable goal (‘wipe out terrorism and evil in this world’). This will be a war that can go on forever.

   Coming from an island where martial law was once imposed for decades, I know that a ‘war’ is the best way to stretch the power of a totalitarian government infinitely and restrict civil liberties with next to no democratic scrutiny, etc. (But I am certainly not the first person to notice this.)

   Now they’ve found something that’s better than the ‘War on Drugs’!

   (2001-09-20 10:51:16 −0700)

The South Bend Catholic Worker community now has a website. I’m very happy with the photo I took for it.

Paula Xenopus is now blogging her SBCW adventures at The Walnut Picker. She even blogged the hiking talk I gave Friday night. Thanks to all the Notre Dame students and Sierra Club members who showed up and packed the Catholic Worker’s living room.

You can also follow the SBCW at Flickr and Pie and Coffee.

The Catholic Peace Fellowship has (finally) posted their third podcast in the “Warcast for Catholics” series.

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Mike Griffin continues his interview with Joshua Casteel, an honorably-discarged conscientious objector to the Iraq War, and Mike Schorsch offers more thoughts on issues of war and peace in the early Church.

(I’m posting this because I’m proud of the small role I played in getting this podcast on-line.)

I had a bad dream last night.

Some links to things mentioned in the most recent Saint Kermit podcast.

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First, Jim Henderson and Mike Benedetti discuss poverty and race:

• Report: Data show one in eight Americans in poverty
• Rep. Chris “The Count” Chocola responds to the report
• Proposal: roll Mass. income tax back to 5%
• Coach Pat Williams incident
• Colorblinded: Walter Benn Michaels wants the left to stop obsessing over diversity and start worrying about economic inequality
• Massachusetts: Wages down almost 5 percent, report says
• Tom Cornell’s Labor Day sermon
• Michael Apted’s “Up” documentaries

Interview: Jean Hay Bright, running for Senate against incumbent Olympia Snowe in Maine. Jean Hay Bright has a diary at DailyKos. TIME on Olympia Snowe: “. . . she is also known as one of the most effective advocates for her constituents.”

Music: Ad Frank, “World’s Best Ex-Boyfriend”

Sports: The crew talks with Seth Mnookin about his book Feeding the Monster and the Sox.

Note: No, I am not going to blog every St Kermit from now on.