City of...

Back from Mexico and having a cold

David — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 04:05:16 +0000

Hey folks,

I’m back, from BorderLinks and from having a cold (caught it on the plane, not in Mexico, so stop with the stereotyping!).

Will get some posts up about it soon. Awesome folks I was on the trip with will be posting reflections on the OnFire blog.

Here’s the first short reflection I wrote–to be honest more of a recording of the answer to a question I asked in a migrant shelter we visited run by a church in the town of Artas:

Tell Them (in response to the question, what do we say when we go back?)

Tell them:

what you are hearing

Tell them:

Migrants are not criminals

nor are they terrorists

Tell them:

They are people - struggling for a better life.

Tell them:

Their crime is trying to work.

Tell them:

You cannot quell this tide.

Tell them

the same thing that the migrants told us

at the other border

the Mexico-Guatemala border

before they grabbed hold of the train

when we told them that they would suffer and what could happen and the risks

They told us:

“Better to die in the struggle than die of hunger.”

Update on Goldstone Report, H.Res. 867

David — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 04:01:25 +0000

For an update on the Goldstone Report (and Congress’ vote on H.Res. 867, condemning said report), check out this post on the End the Occupation blog: “Is the ‘We Love Israel’ Consensus on Capitol Hill a Thing of the Past?”

if we don’t speak… (a belated all saints day post)

David — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 03:57:06 +0000

1,400

360

206

All Saints Sunday was last week. In church, we lit a candle and named people we were remembering that day–people who had passed away in the past year, or any time, really.

November is a strange month for me, often. But of course, there is plenty of mourning to go around. I lit my candles.

But 1,400. 360. 206. These are the number of candles that need to be lit to remember the victims–Palestinian and Israeli–of Operation Cast Lead, which started a almost a year ago now, after the ceasefire broke down on election day. And the number of candles that need to be lit to remember the Palestinians who have died from the effects of the Israeli siege of Gaza. And the number of candles that would have to be lit to remember those who have died trying to cross the desert in Arizona, just this year.

And if we start adding up the numbers, the awful numbers, from other wars and humanitarian conflicts that we are complicit in as U.S. citizens? Or that we are complicit in by our inaction and our apathy?

We start running out of candles.

We all have our own mourning to do. But light a candle, today, for the forgotten victims. And pledge to speak out on their behalf, even if you can only speak out for one, even if your voice sounds weak in comparison to the rumble of a world rampaging on like an out of control train.

And then maybe, someday, we will learn to listen to people when they speak out for themselves. Before they become victims of our silence.

“If we don’t speak when we mourn for our dead, how can we ever be asked to speak again? It’s a question that deserves its mark.”

Trip to the Border and Action for Patients, Not Profits

David — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 03:26:29 +0000

Hi folks,

I’m heading out tomorrow for a trip to the US/Mexico border. The trip is organized by OnFire, the young adult chapter of the Methodist Federation for Social Action (MFSA). Which is a fancy way of saying it was organized by my awesome housemate and co-mission intern Jen, who is working at MFSA here in DC. It’s a delegation with BorderLinks, which is an organization that arose out of the Sanctuary Movement and which provides experiential education on cross-border and migration issues.

You can read more about the trip and OnFire here, and more about BorderLinks here. Here’s MFSA’s website, just for good measure.

Before I head out, I wanted to share something with you. This following week, people across the U.S. will be taking action on behalf of health care for all people–on behalf of patients, not profits. The actions are organized by http://mobilizeforhealthcare.org. I’m proud to be connected in one way or another to many of the people involved with this effort, from Sam Pullen, who is a house mate and good friend of my co-Mission Intern Christy, to Rev. Heber Brown, who blogs at Faith in Action and is doing amazing, Spirit-filled work on behalf of peace and justice in Baltimore. To learn more and find an action near you, click here.

In a country this wealthy, in which we spend so much money feeding the Global Violence pandemic with military aid and military spending, it’s ridiculous that we don’t have the imagination and the courage to make health care a basic right for all. It’s time we stop letting fear and misunderstanding rule the debate. If you can, take action for justice this week, or support the mobilization in other ways, by clicking here. There are worse reasons to be arrested than taking on insurance companies!

Some videos on this topic below:

How Not to Do Mission, or What I Learned from Hanging Out with Job’s Friends

David — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 04:38:44 +0000

I led a prayer service at my home church, Baldwin Memorial United Methodist, last Wednesday. I talked about how we define mission and what we can learn about it form the book of Job–specifically, what we as the U.S. church can learn about how not to do mission from the way that Job’s friends relate to Job’s suffering.

These are my notes–it always looks a bit weird to post these because I never really speak directly from them, but if you’re interested, you get the gist.

If you’re not interested, this is a blog, so it’s pretty easy to opt out…I’ll never know.

So, since I’m a missionary and all, or at least that’s what they tell me, I figured I’d give a prayer service on mission. Or more specifically, on a question that I think we have to keep asking ourselves as a church, which is, “what is mission?”

I hope by now there’s no doubt in our minds that, in order to be the church, we have to be in mission—that is, active in ministry outside of this building. Otherwise we’re sort of a social club, and I like my clubs with a bit more rhythm, to be honest.

But the question of how we define mission, what we mean by mission, is a very important one for us. I don’t think there’s one right answer, but I think the question needs to be asked. So I thought maybe I’d share a few thoughts, a few minor insights that have been gifted to me in my time as a mission intern, and then we’ll pray together.

When I was in college, I was an international studies major. My understanding of mission and missionaries was basically as a remnant of the colonial project. Mission meant we were right and they were wrong, we were enlightened and they were savages, and we needed to convert them, in cooperation with exploitative, abusive, and imperialistic colonial regimes, if necessary—which it usually was. So I wasn’t so big on this concept of mission until I started having conversations with people, including people in this church, who were asking the question, “What is mission?” in a whole new way.

We’ve been reading Job in the lectionary, so I think I’ll talk about mission in light of the book of Job, or at least in light of a brief, snarky synopsis of the book of Job. You should know that I consider the author of the book of Job to be the greatest satirical writer in Biblical literature, so please forgive me if a bit of dark humor slips into this prayer service a bit.

Oh, Job. “Have you considered my servant Job,” God says to Satan, just before God takes the very un-Methodist step of apparently gambling away Job’s livelihood and family to score a pride point with Satan. As I said, it’s satire, I think. What sort of silly explanation for suffering would that be? Now, the early listeners to this text were people who had suffered, who were suffering. Exile. Abandonment. Destruction of homes. So, they considered God’s servant Job, and they learned that sometimes, suffering is through no fault of the ones who suffer. That sometimes, what God gives us is not an explanation of suffering but rather the sort of Divine encounter that gives us the strength to rise from the ashes of suffering.

Here in the American church, one thing I’ve noticed is that we have a really hard time accepting that we’re not always the main character in the story. When we read Job, we take God’s word at face value and we consider God’s servant Job. So, we read Job, and we ask questions like, “Why is there suffering? What does suffering mean? Is suffering my fault?”

These are powerful questions, and I don’t want to scoff at them. But if the author of the Book of Job were to get a crack at rewriting the book for a U.S. church audience, I think he’d edit the text to say, “Consider Job’s friends.” Here’s Job, right? He’s lost everything in a bizarre Divine gambling accident (seriously folks. Don’t gamble. It ruins everything). And Job’s friends come along, and in Chapter 2 we read the following: “Now when Job’s three friends heard of all these troubles that had come upon him, each of them set out from his home—Eli from Towson, Bill from Silver Spring, and Zack from Glen Burnie. They met together to go and console and comfort him. When they saw him from a distance, they did not recognize him, and they raised their voices and wept aloud; they tore their robes and threw dust in the air upon their heads. They sat with him on the ground for seven days and seven nights, and no one spoke a word to him, for they saw his suffering was great.”

So far so good! Job’s friends show up. They weep for their friends’ suffering. They make the basic step of solidarity with Job in the way they know how. And they sit with Job, for 7 days, and they don’t say a thing.

And then they have to go and ruin it.

For the next 30 CHAPTERS, Job’s friends try to convince him that it’s all his fault. I know some people who really appreciate the poetry of the book of Job. Personally, I find those 30 chapters to be a bit excruciating.

And then, God shows up, and reminds everyone, in a very God-like way, of who exactly God is. God speaks out of a whirlwind—a WHIRLWIND, folks!—and really lays it down: “Where were you when I laid the Earth’s foundations? Where were you when the morning stars sang together and all the heavenly beings shouted for joy?”

Now, since we usually read this book with the idea in mind that we’re Job, we usually read God’s response as a rebuke of Job. But I think it’s mainly a rebuke of Job’s friends. Who are you, says God, to tell my servants that their suffering is their fault? Who are you to talk to them as if you have all the answers, instead of just being with them in the midst of their suffering?

What is mission? If you ask Job’s friends, mission is about explaining to someone why they are suffering. It’s about having the answers, and making sure that people without The Answers get them.

But what if Job’s friends had just sat with Job and listened? What if they had seen their role, not as having the answers, but as encountering God as God is present, even in the midst of suffering?

In the end, it’s not the answers of Job’s friends, but their encounter with God that transforms the situation. It’s not their speaking that matters. It’s their listening.

There is a lesson here for us, as a church, about what mission means. In his small book Listening to the Groans (Upper Room Books, 2007)—named after the passage in the letter to the Romans in which Paul describes the church, Creation, and the Spirit all groaning in prayer, South African Methodist pastor Trevor Hudson says the following:

Sadly, we who call ourselves by the name of Christ are not good at listening. During World War II theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer was one of the few German Christians who resisted the tyranny of Hitler. In the midst of that national trauma, he helped build a confessing church….In [a] book called Life Together, written over sixty years ago, Bonhoeffer wrote these words: “Many people are looking for an ear that will listen. They do not find it among Christians, because these Christians are talking where they should be listening.” He goes on to say that Christians who have stopped listening to their neighbor will soon stop listening to God as well.

Hudson goes on to tell the following story, about a conversation with the founder of the Church of the Savior, an ecumenical congregation whose ministries are based right down the street from where I work in Adams Morgan in Washington DC. I quote:

One day just before I came back to South Africa I was having a cup of coffee with the pastor of this remarkable congregation, a man named Gordon Cosby. I asked him a question I sometimes ask people I respect: “If you could say one thing to me, what would it be?” He was quiet for a few moments and then he answered, “When you go back to South Africa and stand up to preach and teach, remember always that each person sits next to their own pool of tears.” I have never forgotten this image….Each one of us carries in our hearts personal wounds as well as the wounds of the nation. Each one of us groans, not only with our own painful longings, but also with the painful longings of that part of the world where we live.

What if, as a church, we started thinking of mission as listening to the groans of our community and the world around us, as Hudson suggests? What if our mission is one of listening more than one of talking? What if we’re called to sit and to listen and to mourn with those who are suffering the most in our world? What if that’s where we encounter God? What if mission consists of acts of basic solidarity with and accompaniment of the oppressed and the disenfranchised, rather than with providing “The Solution”? What if we learn hope from those we are sent to serve, and not the other way around?

Let me end with this. Listening doesn’t mean being passive. If anything, listening—listening carefully—to the groans of our world ends up making us active—and sometimes, getting us in a lot of trouble.

[At this point in the service I told a story about the village of At-Tuwani, in the South Hebron Hills of Palestine. I talked about the rather bizarre experience that At-Tuwani had when Tony Blair visited the village–armed convoy and all–and gave a speech promising electricity and a clinic before being whisked away, leaving the village, just as it was before he came, with Israeli military demolition orders on its clinic, cistern, and many of its houses. Then I contrasted that with this amazing recent action, which was able to come about because the friends of At-Tuwani–those Israelis and internationals who have bothered to come and meet and get to know the Palestinians of the South Hebron hills–listened and listened well. You can read about it from an Israeli perspective here. I’d link to the story on the Christian Peacemaker Teams website but the site is down for maintenance right now, darn!

What is mission?

It’s a lot of things. But as someone who likes to talk, let me suggest that our mission—as Christians who are used to the United States, are used to power, are used to getting our way, and are used to talking—might just be to listen, and to listen well.

Amen

From PSP: Farmers, Along with Solidarity Activists, Return to Saffa to Work

David — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 05:13:48 +0000

Find out how to support Palestinian nonviolent resistance and sustainable agriculture by reading below. For more opportunities to support Palestinian farmers, click here.

From the Palestine Solidarity Project:

This Sunday, 5 Israeli activists and 3 international activists with PSP, along with other Palestinian volunteers, joined the family of Abu Jabber Soleiby to pick olives on their land in the valley just below the Bat ‘Ayn settlement. After the deployment of a large number of soldiers last week that prevented anyone from entering the area, this week the Israeli military was caught unawares and the farmers, along with the solidarity activists, were able to work in the privately-owned Palestinian fields for nearly 2 hours, picking olives from the trees remaining after several acts of vandalism by Israeli Jewish settlers that destroyed much of the agricultural land in the area.

The action on Sunday was also an opportunity for the group to assess the area and plan for the rebuilding of vitally needed structures on the Soleiby land, including fencing for the grapevines and the reconstruction of a water well. If you would like to support this rebuilding project, which will include a replanting of the entire area with hundreds of fruit trees later in the winter, please consider making a donation via our website at: http://palestinesolidarityproject.org/donate

And the snark award goes to…an Israeli newspaper, again!

David — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 23:13:54 +0000

I’ve written before that the Israeli press is much more wide-ranging in its discussion of the Israeli occupation then the U.S. press–not to mention allowing a heckuva lot more in the way of biting sarcasm.

There’s yet another example of this in the Israeli press this week, this time in the usually conservative Jerusalem Post. Here’s JPost columnist Larry Derfner on Israel’s “exclusive right to self-defense”:

“This is the Israeli notion of a fair deal: We’re entitled to do whatever the hell we want to the Palestinians because, by definition, whatever we do to them is self-defense. They, however, are not entitled to lift a finger against us because, by definition, whatever they do to us is terrorism.”

Derfner slams the reaction of his countryfolk to the Goldstone Report on war crimes in the Israeli assaults on Gaza. And he is harsh in his judgment of this belief in the exclusive right to “self-defense”:

“Here is our idea of the “laws of war”: When Israeli bulldozers rolled across the border into Gazan villages and flattened house after house so Hamas wouldn’t have them for cover after the IDF pulled out, that was self-defense. But if a Palestinian boy who’d lived in one of those houses threw a stone at one of the bulldozers, that was terrorism.”

Of course, as every snark aficionado knows, your last line is the one that matters.

So how does Derfner conclude?

“The Goldstones of the world call this hypocrisy, a double standard. How dare they! Around here, we call it moral clarity.”

Thank you, Mr. Derfner. Couldn’t have said it better than that. For that, you win the City of… Snark of the Week Award. Congratulations!

Click here to read the full article.

Puppies, Palestine, and what else is new

David — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 22:36:41 +0000

Well, well, well. Another month without blog posts. I’m getting worse and worse at this. Have had another busy month, spoke at several churches, attended the Friends of Sabeel conference in DC (and got to reconnect with Spirit-filled trouble maker Heber Brown III, whose Faith in Action blog I definitely recommend!), and attended (and much to my surprise participated in) an incredible, spirit-filled, action-for-justice-motivating worship service prepared by some of my best friends here in DC in preparation for the National Equality March. Hopefully I’ll have some pictures available soon.

Also I played with and fell madly in love with a puppy named Anja. Pictures on my Facebook page.

I am in love with this puppy

Let’s see what I’ve got for you here.

Lots of great updates on the US Campaign’s blog, click here.

Some of you will remember my friend Mousa, who was held in administrative detention (imprisonment without charge or trial) for 14 months before being release.

Well, administrative detention has claimed another Palestinian activist. Mohammad Othman, who I met in the village of Jayyous while working with a Sabeel delegation, was arrested after returning from Norway, where he was spreading the word about nonviolent resistance in the West Bank and how the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement supports such resistance. You can find out more about Mohammad’s situation, and take action, by clicking here.

Speaking of Mousa, I chatted with him the other day and he tells me that his organizations, the Palestine Solidarity Project, needs funds to help farmers in the Saffa area whose trees have been attacked and destroyed by settler groups. Click here to find out more about PSP and donate. Mousa’s village of Beit Ommar has had to once again deal with tragedy this past week, as Mehdi Sa’id Abu Ayyesh, a 17 year old who was shot in the head with live ammunition by the Israeli military in March 2009, died of his wounds. His funeral was attacked by the Israeli military, a common occurrence in Beit Ommar.

My friend Bekah, who happens to be Mousa’s partner and one of the co-founders of PSP, will be on a speaking tour in the U.S. soon. I’ll publish dates below.

Finally, a couple of videos to share.

First off, here’s Father Miguel d’Escoto, outgoing president of the UN General Assembly and Nicaraguan liberation theologian, talking to Paul Jay of The Real News about the UN and Palestine. It’s worth watching, as is another segment in which he talks about the UN’s response to poverty and the need to reform the United Nations:

And here’s one of the winning entries from the Ctrl.Alt.Shift film competition, “No Way Through,” which puts the situation in the West Bank in perspective by imagining what it would be like to try to get an ambulance in London if it was filled with checkpoints and cut in half by the apartheid wall. Check it out, and see the rest of the competition winners by clicking here (warning: this is a little bit graphic):

Ctrl.Alt.Shift Film Competition Winner: No Way Through from Ctrl.Alt.Shift on Vimeo.

That’s all for now. A couple of posts have been bumping around in my mind, we’ll see if I can get them out on paper anytime soon. Peace.

Host Bekah from Palestine Solidarity Project

David — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 22:40:05 +0000

Interested in hosting a speaker from the Palestine Solidarity Project?

Information below:

PSP is about to begin its annual speaking tour of the United States. We are still filling some time slots for the tour, and are interested in expanding it to other regions of the country. If you are interested in hosting our speaker, Bekah Wolf, International Coordinator and co-Founder of PSP, and arranging an event at your university, church, mosque, synagogue, or community center (particularly if you are on the East Coast), please email us at: palestineproject@gmail.com ASAP!

Bekah is available in the Northeast from Oct. 17-Nov. 4; in the Midwest from Nov. 6-18; again in the Northeast from Nov. 18-23; in Northern California and the Pacific Northwest from Nov. 29-Dec.5 and in the Southwest from Dec. 6-Dec. 15.

We also hope to extend the tour to other regions into January so if you live somewhere that isn’t listed, or the dates for your region are not possible for you and your group, please contact us anyway!

Exact dates and locations for events will be available soon.

Thank you for your support in making this tour a success. A brief bio and description of Bekah’s talk is below:

Beyond the Rhetoric: What everyone needs to know about the current realities of the Israeli Occupation and prospects for a just resolution in Palestine

While the White House is paying increasing attention to a ‘Middle East Peace Process’, and Israeli politicians are using every delay tactic in their arsenal, the reality of the on-going Israeli Occupation has been all but lost in sound bites and empty propaganda. Bekah Wolf, who has lived the last 3 years in the Occupied West Bank and is the International Coordinator for the Palestine Solidarity Project, is going on her third nationwide speaking tour, bringing an eyewitness’ account, along with a critical analysis of the realities of Israeli occupation in 2009 and what they mean in an international context, especially with regards to the recent UN fact-finding mission headed by international jurist Richard Goldstone, the prospects for renewed three-party negotiations, and the upsurge in the international Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions campaigns.
________________

Bekah Wolf is an American with Israeli citizenship who has worked in the Occupied Palestinian Territories since 2003. She is the international coordinator for the Palestine Solidarity Project, a Palestinian organization dedicated to organizing and supporting popular, unarmed resistance to the occupation based in the village of Beit Ommar. She is speaking on behalf of the PSP committee, a group of Palestinian men and women (all of whom were prevented from traveling to the United States to speak themselves), including her husband and recent political prisoner, Mousa Abu Maria. For more information about PSP, please see our website: http://palestinesolidarityproject.org

–~–~———~–~—-~————~——-~–~—-~
Free Palestine!

Visit the website for more information and updated articles from the ground in Palestine:
http://palestinesolidarityproject.org

Take Action to Support Goldstone Report on Gaza

David — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 18:14:51 +0000

Hi folks,

I’m headed out on vacation but quick before I leave: “Last week, the UN Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict, headed by Justice Richard Goldstone, a former member of the South African Constitutional Court and former Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, released a 575-page report documenting violations of human rights and international law, war crimes, and possible crimes against humanity committed before, during, and after Israel’s December 2008-January 2009 assault on the occupied Gaza Strip.”

You can read more about the report, get resources, and TAKE ACTION to support the recommendations of the Goldstone Report by clicking here.

You can see interviews with Richard Goldstone, read commentary, and get resources at the US Campaign’s blog: http://endtheoccupationblog.blogspot.com

Here’s one to get you started:

Please take action by clicking here.