The Beloved Community
(to be published March 21, 2009, Centre Daily Times)
The election and inauguration of America's first African American president made some feel, with a sense of awe, that Martin Luther King’s dream was realized. Even with the economy sliding downward, some saw God’s hand in our history and politics.
Current economic stress calls us to work to realize King’s “other dream” as well—his dream of a Beloved Community. More than 50 years ago he said, "We have before us the glorious opportunity to inject a new dimension of love into the veins of our civilization. There is still a voice crying out in terms that echo across the generations, saying, 'Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, pray for them that despitefully use you, that you may be children of your Father which is in Heaven': ...The end is reconciliation, the end is redemption, the end is the creation of the beloved community."
The Beloved Community means divine love made real in our social relations—the way we live with one another, the way we treat each other and care about each other.
Beauty for brokenness, Hope for despair
Lord, in your suffering world, This is our prayer:
Bread for the children, Justice, joy, peace
Sunrise to sunset, Your kingdom increase!
God of the poor, Friend of the weak
Give us compassion we pray
Melt our cold hearts, Let tears fall like rain
Come, change our love, From a spark to a flame...
Graham Kendrick’s beautiful hymn communicates that walls of shame and suffering may divide people from one another. One person remarked to me recently that we are extremely uncomfortable talking about our economic problems even with a pastor or other members of our faith community.
Another noted that even if we are all occupied with the current economic crisis, some are barely affected, while others suffer devastatingly: If we lose a job or a home, or suffer the threat of living in poverty, we can feel isolated: No matter what others are going through, the pain, grief, and humiliation feel like ours alone. The suffering is intensely lonely, like a grave illness. Even friends who might help cannot get through our misery.
Is there a way churches and other faith communities can create “safe spaces” for members (and others?) to share about their economic problems? Can faith communities mobilize, organize, and empower economically challenged members—and all who care—into support groups, to help themselves and others as well, especially those who have no way to pay, and in turn help meet members’ own needs for personal dignity, meaningful work, and basic sustenance? Chore services for low-income elderly; safe childcare that allows people to hold part-time jobs or attend classes; community gardening; etc., etc. Possibilities generated could be endless if we get together and put our minds to it. Continued and deepening economic difficulty calls loudly for us to create Martin Luther King’s “other dream,” the Beloved Community.
Sarah Q. Malone, an ordained minister, serves as a deacon at University Baptist and Brethren Church.
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Question Israel
Centre Daily Times
State College, Pennsylvania
To the Editor,
With all respect, love and admiration for Jewish wisdom, history and spirituality, and for my many Jewish friends, neither wisdom, nor love, nor admirable spirituality has been shown by the Israeli government's assault upon the people of Gaza. For rather than wiping out radical Hamas militancy, the Israeli bombing and invasion of Gaza is strengthening allegiance to Hamas among the Palestinian people.
It is not anti-Jewish or anti-Semitic to question and challenge the short-sighted militant nationalism of Israeli government policy, which mirrors, provokes and strengthens radical Islam in the Middle East, and anti-Semitic insanity elsewhere in the world. One can love the Jewish people and Judaism itself, and yet challenge the policies and practices of Israel!
Fortunately, the Israeli government does not represent the consensus of Jewish opinion on Middle East policy. Indeed, praise heaven, there is a strong and vocal minority, a peace movement composed of Jews within Israel, in organizations such as Rabbis for Human Rights and the Israeli Committee against Home Demolitions, as well as organizations in this country, such as the Shalom Center of Rabbi Arthur Waskow, or Jewish Voice for Peace.
One can love Israel deeply and yet challenge much of Israel's policy and practice toward Palestinians and the occupied territories. Israel should stop the insanely disproportionate violence launched against Gaza, and cease the long and murderously oppressive blockade of that territory. And the US government should cease its absurd support of such counterproductive policies.
State College, Pennsylvania
To the Editor,
With all respect, love and admiration for Jewish wisdom, history and spirituality, and for my many Jewish friends, neither wisdom, nor love, nor admirable spirituality has been shown by the Israeli government's assault upon the people of Gaza. For rather than wiping out radical Hamas militancy, the Israeli bombing and invasion of Gaza is strengthening allegiance to Hamas among the Palestinian people.
It is not anti-Jewish or anti-Semitic to question and challenge the short-sighted militant nationalism of Israeli government policy, which mirrors, provokes and strengthens radical Islam in the Middle East, and anti-Semitic insanity elsewhere in the world. One can love the Jewish people and Judaism itself, and yet challenge the policies and practices of Israel!
Fortunately, the Israeli government does not represent the consensus of Jewish opinion on Middle East policy. Indeed, praise heaven, there is a strong and vocal minority, a peace movement composed of Jews within Israel, in organizations such as Rabbis for Human Rights and the Israeli Committee against Home Demolitions, as well as organizations in this country, such as the Shalom Center of Rabbi Arthur Waskow, or Jewish Voice for Peace.
One can love Israel deeply and yet challenge much of Israel's policy and practice toward Palestinians and the occupied territories. Israel should stop the insanely disproportionate violence launched against Gaza, and cease the long and murderously oppressive blockade of that territory. And the US government should cease its absurd support of such counterproductive policies.
Sunday, December 21, 2008
Foolishness Finds a Way
(Published without title 12/27/08, page C3)
Growing up in Stamford, Connecticut, my closest friends were Jewish, and I learned lessons on kindness and forgiveness from Jewish friends and their families. As a young person I read Anne Frank’s diary and more—spellbinding authors like Isaac Bashevis Singer. Attending church, it was hard for me to reconcile experiences of Jewish friends who were at least as “good” as I was with what some gospel readings said about “the Jews.” That was part of why I became an atheist in my teenage years. In adulthood after I again became a Christian, the tremendous beauty, passion for justice and insight I found in authors such as Martin Buber and Abraham Joshua Heschel, confirmed Jews and Judaism as part of my own heart. Hearing of anti-Semitism strikes at me personally, and I believe deeply in the right of Israel to exist in safety.
Knowing such beauty and insight in Judaism, it is also difficult to reconcile terrible conditions I see experienced by Palestinians unlucky enough to be born in territories occupied by Israel since the 1967 war and ensuing conflicts. Israel has withdrawn from some settlements and forced out some illegal settlers, while confiscating other Palestinian lands and building more Israeli homes; some of these settlers feel that the world ignored the plight of Jews under Nazi persecution, and should not dictate to Israel now. But many Palestinian farmers and shepherds, women, the elderly, normal people returning from work, and even children walking to school, deal daily with violent harassment from Israeli settlers, degradation of constant roadblocks, searches, and occasions when Israeli soldiers turn a blind eye to settler violence or engage in harassment themselves. Some Palestinians have responded to injustice with horrendous and reprehensible violence, and life becomes even harder for most Palestinians who try hard to raise families, make a living, and exist in peace under impoverished conditions.
My friend Rick Polhamus is a member of Christian Peacemaker Teams, an ecumenical group supporting violence reduction efforts around the world. He leads CPT delegations to Palestine and Israel, and works with both Palestinian and Israeli peace groups. Recently Rick brought both Palestinian and Israeli friends to visit him at his peaceful home in Ohio. It was wonderful for him to see joy on the face of Zleikha as she stood in a snowfall, and of Abdulhadi as he engaged in a game of “egg toss” or played with Rick’s granddaughter. It is painful to Rick knowing he can go home to such peace, while his friends face constant threats and harassment in their homeland of generations.
Once he was in Palestine, trying to escort children to school in safety. They were stopped at a roadblock by a soldier. Rick reasoned with him at length to no avail. Frustrated, Rick put his hands in his pockets and there found a little stuffed toy, a unicorn. He placed it on his shoulder and started talking to it: “This is just crazy, not letting little children go to school.” Soldiers came and stared at him; “You’re crazy!” they said. Rick just continued talking to the little unicorn on his shoulder, “It’s really crazy to think that little children going to school are a threat to Israel….” The soldiers finally laughed, and let them through. “God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.” (1 Cor. 1:25)
Sarah Malone currently serves as a deacon at University Baptist and Brethren Church. To respond to this column, go to http://malonecdtcolumns.blogspot.com/2008/12/growing-up-in-stamford-connecticut-my.html and scroll to the bottom of the page. Thanks for your input!
Growing up in Stamford, Connecticut, my closest friends were Jewish, and I learned lessons on kindness and forgiveness from Jewish friends and their families. As a young person I read Anne Frank’s diary and more—spellbinding authors like Isaac Bashevis Singer. Attending church, it was hard for me to reconcile experiences of Jewish friends who were at least as “good” as I was with what some gospel readings said about “the Jews.” That was part of why I became an atheist in my teenage years. In adulthood after I again became a Christian, the tremendous beauty, passion for justice and insight I found in authors such as Martin Buber and Abraham Joshua Heschel, confirmed Jews and Judaism as part of my own heart. Hearing of anti-Semitism strikes at me personally, and I believe deeply in the right of Israel to exist in safety.
Knowing such beauty and insight in Judaism, it is also difficult to reconcile terrible conditions I see experienced by Palestinians unlucky enough to be born in territories occupied by Israel since the 1967 war and ensuing conflicts. Israel has withdrawn from some settlements and forced out some illegal settlers, while confiscating other Palestinian lands and building more Israeli homes; some of these settlers feel that the world ignored the plight of Jews under Nazi persecution, and should not dictate to Israel now. But many Palestinian farmers and shepherds, women, the elderly, normal people returning from work, and even children walking to school, deal daily with violent harassment from Israeli settlers, degradation of constant roadblocks, searches, and occasions when Israeli soldiers turn a blind eye to settler violence or engage in harassment themselves. Some Palestinians have responded to injustice with horrendous and reprehensible violence, and life becomes even harder for most Palestinians who try hard to raise families, make a living, and exist in peace under impoverished conditions.
My friend Rick Polhamus is a member of Christian Peacemaker Teams, an ecumenical group supporting violence reduction efforts around the world. He leads CPT delegations to Palestine and Israel, and works with both Palestinian and Israeli peace groups. Recently Rick brought both Palestinian and Israeli friends to visit him at his peaceful home in Ohio. It was wonderful for him to see joy on the face of Zleikha as she stood in a snowfall, and of Abdulhadi as he engaged in a game of “egg toss” or played with Rick’s granddaughter. It is painful to Rick knowing he can go home to such peace, while his friends face constant threats and harassment in their homeland of generations.
Once he was in Palestine, trying to escort children to school in safety. They were stopped at a roadblock by a soldier. Rick reasoned with him at length to no avail. Frustrated, Rick put his hands in his pockets and there found a little stuffed toy, a unicorn. He placed it on his shoulder and started talking to it: “This is just crazy, not letting little children go to school.” Soldiers came and stared at him; “You’re crazy!” they said. Rick just continued talking to the little unicorn on his shoulder, “It’s really crazy to think that little children going to school are a threat to Israel….” The soldiers finally laughed, and let them through. “God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.” (1 Cor. 1:25)
Sarah Malone currently serves as a deacon at University Baptist and Brethren Church. To respond to this column, go to http://malonecdtcolumns.blogspot.com/2008/12/growing-up-in-stamford-connecticut-my.html and scroll to the bottom of the page. Thanks for your input!
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
A Scream of Outrage
(Published without title 8/23/08, page C4.)
My Lord Jesus Christ was tortured to death as an example to other criminals and rebels by the Roman empire, the only superpower of its day. Rome was "blessed by heaven” with wealth, military power, advanced technology, reason and enlightenment. Rome’s officials in Jerusalem saw Jesus as a threat to the peace and order Rome maintained through military might and economic power. One of thousands of Jews crucified as insurrectionists and criminals, his given name never entered the Roman history books. If Roman citizens ever thought of him after his arrest, most would have thought of him only an insurgent swept up by Rome’s valiant troops—another nameless insurgent in a backward land who tried to overthrow rational, orderly Roman rule.
Some persons swept up thus could indeed fit the role of terrorists—sicarii (dagger assassins), Zealots, and brigands robbing anyone they could to support themselves; others may have been victims of a neighbor’s enmity or grudge, or mistaken identity. Crucifixion was their common fate—a means of extended social degradation and torture as well as execution. Death came usually after a day or two—from physiological shock, blood loss, dehydration, exhaustion, and asphyxiation, for exhalation is impossible when hanging by the arms. If a victim cannot raise his body up by pulling with the arms or pushing with the feet, he can no longer breathe. Sometimes guards would delight in crucifying their victims in humiliating positions to further degrade them.
A few years ago, my fellow Christians saw pictures of captured Iraqi insurgents tortured at Abu Ghraib prison—naked men, bodies marked with blood and filth, hoods over their heads, arms extended. How many of my fellow Christians closed their hearts to the resemblance of those “terrorists” to their own Lord and Savior Jesus Christ on the cross? Was it not Jesus Christ who said, “Love your enemy,” and “Inasmuch as ye have done it to the least of these my brothers, ye have done it unto me…”?“But only a few ‘bad apples’ did those kinds of things,” some fellow Christians said. Indeed the Secretary of Defense said so. But then it was revealed that he himself and others in the U.S. government gave license and encouragement to these kinds of activities, and the same torture techniques used upon American POWs in Korea were passed verbatim to guards at Guantanamo to use on prisoners there—despite American former POWs saying they had confessed to lies just to get the torture to stop.
When I was young I read 1984 and Darkness at Noon, about terrible imprisonment and tortures under totalitarian regimes, and I felt safe and relieved to be living in America. “That will never happen here; nothing will ever make my government do those things.” The child within me is screaming in outrage that my government has descended to such depths. Where are the screams from my fellow Christians? Don’t you remember Pastor Niemoller after Nazi Germany? “First they came for the Communists and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist; then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist; then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew; … …and then, they came for me, and there was no one left to speak up…”?
Sarah Malone is an ordained minister currently serving as a deacon at University Baptist & Brethren Church; she is a member of the Central Pennsylvania Torture Awareness Committee.
Christians and Immigration
(Published under title "Country's Hypocrisy Shown by Its Immigration Views," 4/12/08, page B5.)
Where did your ancestors come from? Europe? Africa? South America? Asia? What brought them here? Poverty or famine and a hope for a better life? A homeland overrun by war? Trouble with the law or the military draft back home? Religious or ethnic persecution? A quest for riches? Were they brought here in chains or as indentured servants? My own ancestors include impoverished Irish, Danes seeking work and a new start, Germans and French fleeing religious persecution, Scots fleeing the law, English who sold themselves into years of slavery for a chance at a better life. Very few of our ancestors fit today’s image of “most desirable” immigrants to this country.
The Bible’s story of the Hebrew people repeatedly stresses God’s command to welcome the stranger and be kind to the alien among them, and to remember that they were once aliens and strangers themselves in the land of Egypt (Ex. 22:21, 23: 9; Lev. 19:34; Deut. 10:19; Is. 52:4; etc.). God asks each generation to remember their ancestors’ experience as if it were their own—being strangers, fleeing hardship, living as aliens in a foreign land.
The University Baptist & Brethren Church held a four-part discussion forum this winter entitled: “Welcoming the Stranger: Christians and Immigration.” We learned how biblical tradition and historical experience have shaped the church as a sanctuary for the persecuted; that the face of America has changed and become more “many-cultural,” but that many who bring a new language or appearance face hostility.
Myths about immigration were exploded: Social Security records reveal that immigrants, even undocumented ones, pay billions of dollars in taxes every year; Urban Institute and Brookings Institution studies show that immigrants contribute far more in taxes than they get in social services, and that immigrant entrepreneurs create billions of dollars in sales and tens of thousands of jobs in this country. Most immigrants arrive at working age—so that our country spends nothing on their education—and fill jobs with gaps in the supply of native-born workers, at both the high and low ends of the skill spectrum.
Many Americans believe that big, bad problems occur when foreigners come into this country. Yet the affordable price of fresh food in our grocery stores often relies upon foreign workers who live in fear of being deported and so do not protest very low wages and unsafe, unhealthy and unjust working conditions. Isn’t it hypocritical of us not to develop an immigration policy that is both firm and fair, that remembers that we were aliens once too, and that lets the workers who put food on our tables—and who sometimes build, or care for our homes, and our children as well—live in dignity and security?
But immigration policy in this country is today being foolishly shaped—not by religious or biblical principles, but by fear and hostility. There is talk of building a wall on our southern border to keep out illegal immigrants. Are we then to live in a privileged gated community nation with “the tired, the poor, the huddled masses” outside its walls? Jesus told a story about a poor man who lived all his life just outside the gate of a rich man (Luke 16: 19-31). The poor man ended up in heaven; the rich man ended up in hell, pleading for another chance. We have our chance now.
Sarah Malone is an ordained Church of the Brethren minister currently serving as a Deacon at University Baptist & Brethren Church.
Where did your ancestors come from? Europe? Africa? South America? Asia? What brought them here? Poverty or famine and a hope for a better life? A homeland overrun by war? Trouble with the law or the military draft back home? Religious or ethnic persecution? A quest for riches? Were they brought here in chains or as indentured servants? My own ancestors include impoverished Irish, Danes seeking work and a new start, Germans and French fleeing religious persecution, Scots fleeing the law, English who sold themselves into years of slavery for a chance at a better life. Very few of our ancestors fit today’s image of “most desirable” immigrants to this country.
The Bible’s story of the Hebrew people repeatedly stresses God’s command to welcome the stranger and be kind to the alien among them, and to remember that they were once aliens and strangers themselves in the land of Egypt (Ex. 22:21, 23: 9; Lev. 19:34; Deut. 10:19; Is. 52:4; etc.). God asks each generation to remember their ancestors’ experience as if it were their own—being strangers, fleeing hardship, living as aliens in a foreign land.
The University Baptist & Brethren Church held a four-part discussion forum this winter entitled: “Welcoming the Stranger: Christians and Immigration.” We learned how biblical tradition and historical experience have shaped the church as a sanctuary for the persecuted; that the face of America has changed and become more “many-cultural,” but that many who bring a new language or appearance face hostility.
Myths about immigration were exploded: Social Security records reveal that immigrants, even undocumented ones, pay billions of dollars in taxes every year; Urban Institute and Brookings Institution studies show that immigrants contribute far more in taxes than they get in social services, and that immigrant entrepreneurs create billions of dollars in sales and tens of thousands of jobs in this country. Most immigrants arrive at working age—so that our country spends nothing on their education—and fill jobs with gaps in the supply of native-born workers, at both the high and low ends of the skill spectrum.
Many Americans believe that big, bad problems occur when foreigners come into this country. Yet the affordable price of fresh food in our grocery stores often relies upon foreign workers who live in fear of being deported and so do not protest very low wages and unsafe, unhealthy and unjust working conditions. Isn’t it hypocritical of us not to develop an immigration policy that is both firm and fair, that remembers that we were aliens once too, and that lets the workers who put food on our tables—and who sometimes build, or care for our homes, and our children as well—live in dignity and security?
But immigration policy in this country is today being foolishly shaped—not by religious or biblical principles, but by fear and hostility. There is talk of building a wall on our southern border to keep out illegal immigrants. Are we then to live in a privileged gated community nation with “the tired, the poor, the huddled masses” outside its walls? Jesus told a story about a poor man who lived all his life just outside the gate of a rich man (Luke 16: 19-31). The poor man ended up in heaven; the rich man ended up in hell, pleading for another chance. We have our chance now.
Sarah Malone is an ordained Church of the Brethren minister currently serving as a Deacon at University Baptist & Brethren Church.
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