Occupy Faith

“We live in the age of the refugee, the age of the exile.”

 -Ariel Dorfman

For the first time in Olympic history, Refugees will be represented in world competition. Every one of these 10 courageous athletes has a remarkable story of resilience and courage.  This is a glimpse of one of those gallant souls.

It needs to be noted that these 10 athletes are from countries torn apart by war and their only option was to take flight to another country. But these athletes have not become citizens of those countries that have adopted them. They continue to remain refugees who hope that one day they might be allowed return to their homelands.

Vinay Devnath reported in Storypick.com on swimmer Yusra Mardini, one of the 10 Olympic athletes from the Refugee contingent. (Yusra was a star swimmer in Damascus, Syria before civil war tore the country apart.)

Her talent was recognized early on and she was even endorsed by the Syrian Olympic Committee for being an exciting prospect to bring the medals in. When war tore the country apart Yusra kept swimming, sometimes in swimming pools with their roofs blown apart by bombings according to Devnath.

“And sometimes you would be swimming in pools where the roofs were [blown open] in three or four places.” – Yusra

There comes a time when you just cannot keep on going, and that time had come when Damascus became too unstable and Yusra’s family decided to flee the country.

She and sister Sarah trekked from Lebanon through Turkey to get to Greece. The refugees finally crowded upon a small boat to try and cross high seas to get into Greece illegally.

And then this happened.

Yusra was on a rubber boat with 20 other people that had just drifted off the coast of Turkey. The boat’s motor failed and stopped completely. The refugees now were stranded in the open sea.

Yusra jumped into the cold Aegean Sea with two other swimmers. They pushed the boat full of 20 people for over 3 hours until they reached the Greek island Lesbos.

Devnath wrote that she could not use one of her hands because it was tied to the boat. But she swam with all her strength, using her other hand and her legs.

“It was three and half hours in cold water. Your body is almost like … done. I don’t know if I can describe that.” – Yusra

Once in Berlin Yusra began to train for the Rio Olympic Games. Her trainer says she worked hard and with great dedication.

“Maybe I will build my life here in Germany, and when I am an old lady I will go back to Syria and teach people about my experience.” – Yusra

On Saturday (Aug 6, 2016), Yusra Mardini, a Syrian refugee now based in Germany, stormed to win her women’s 100-metre butterfly heat but failed to qualify for the semi-finals.

The water is warmer still.

Kristen Bell Tweeted  “A reminder of who refugees are: Syrian refugee competing in Rio pushed a sinking boat to safety for 3 hrs & saved 20”

“When an entire segment of the world is burned and reduced to a lawless battleground for thugs and mercenaries, a land where government does not exist, where the slate of history is being wiped out and hope has drowned in gallons of innocent blood, the only respite comes in the form of the open seas and what lies beyond the horizon. So ships are boarded and pain is tolerated just a little while longer.”

― Aysha Taryam

By Omar with permission 2016

“ .. if anything can, it is memory that will save humanity.

For me, hope without memory is like memory without hope.” – Elie Wiesel

 

I want to touch

the arm of Elie Wiesel

while he calls down hope

I want to feel

my children’s children’s

wonderful melody

I want to see

the eyes of Sitting Bull

before he dies the prophets fate

Before the days of Baton Rouge

before the days of hate

I want to look

upon the face of god

my unblinking desire

Before the night of darkest dread

before the winds of fire ..

“Human beings should be held accountable. Leave God alone. He has enough problems.”

– Elie Wiesel

Syrian Refugees HEADSPACE PRESS

“ .. Thoughts on Syrian Refugees ” by Permission “PO EMZ 2015” – omar

“Holy Christ!” (said I)

An image flicked on laptops
around the world.

“That’s the saddest thing I’ve ever seen!” (She whispered)

A forlorn dog
leaned against a cell wall.
Abandoned.
Alone.

“It’s breaking my heart!”
(He said and shook his head)

It’s heart was broken.

“Why?” (They cried)
Hundreds.
Thousands.
They called and they clamored
to adopt the saddest thing
“.. they’ve ever seen!”

“I’m so relieved.” (He nodded and agreed)

Another happy ending
to sooth the memory.

“I’m filled with hope!” (She wiped away a tear)

A dog is saved
and satisfaction
settled down
upon the uncertain.

“Time to share the love!”
(said I .. mostly to myself)

.. and so
.. moved on
.. where thoughts
.. that filled
.. my aching mind
.. can rest
.. in quiet
.. half lies
.. while I
.. in shared certitude
.. can pause
.. on this
.. one found victory
.. with others
.. filled with faith
.. that our will
.. may still
.. bend
.. toward justice
.. in the end.

But still .. “what is the saddest thing I’ve ever seen?”

AP photo Muhammed Muheisen

A candlelight vigil is held for the victims of the Umpqua Community College mass shooting in Stewart Park, Umpqua, Ore., Oct. 1, 2015. Photo by Mike Brunker/NBC News

Woke up to another school shooting. Another campus tragedy unfolded this morning at 10:38am PST.

I turned on my computer, went to feed the cat, and came back to see the Breaking News.. “This morning on a campus in southwestern Oregon.. yet another school shooting in America.”

I was not shocked. I wake up every morning and expect to see the horror in this world spin out stories of unimaginable grief. I have internalized that we now live within this staggering pace toward our self-deconstruction of civilization. (Much-less a sense of our lost humanity).

God is not punishing us. (Even though punishment for our social justice acts-of-omission regarding the cessation of gun violence might seem justified.)
We are punishing our children.

After the ghastly evil that destroyed the lives of 20 children and 6 adult staff members at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut I have ceased to be shocked by the extent people will go to create hideous ways to undo human existence.

(A girl lights candles at a memorial in Newtown, Conn., a day after the massacre.) (Olivier Douliery/Abaca Press/MCT)

I am only shocked that anybody is left surprised that SHOOTING INNOCENT PEOPLE (children by any other name) has not stopped.

Who the living hell has stopped anything related to the subject of guns, mass shootings, or the motivations and root causes behind any part of these tragedies? No one has. No one.

President Barack Obama spoke to the nation regarding the school shooting at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Oregon.

“There’s been another mass shooting in America,” he said to start his speech.
He went on and said, “Our thoughts and prayers are not enough,”
“It’s not enough.”

What is left to say after the carnage at Sandy Hook in 2012, or the repulsive event at the Emanuel AME Church in downtown Charleston, South Carolina on June 17 this year? What is there to do when so many American citizens insist that gun ownership is their right and not their privilege?

There is no logic.
There is no common ground.
There is no justice.
There is none .. not when last October 5 children of God (including the shooter) from Pilchuck High School in Marysville, WA were added to the inexcusable toll of mass gun murder.. along with the 12 children of God shot dead at the Century 16 movie theater in Aurora, CO, and the horrific gun slaughter of 32 more children of God at Virginia Tech in 2007, and backward beyond the 12 children of God who were so methodically and unspeakably executed at Columbine on April 20, 1999.

And what of Umpqua Community College in Roseburg , OR and the 9 murdered children of God lost today? Shot with a gun.

So when we witness – on every level of media available – the inevitable coverage that is thrust at us because of “yet another senseless shooting” .. not much is left but further numbness to the obvious truth.

Guns must be eliminated as an object of power for the sake of all of God’s children.

Who has the will to do this?

Who but people of faith in a just and loving God that insists upon our intentional involvement in bringing about peace.

We know these Anti-gun violence groups such as the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, Sandy Hook Promise, Everytown for Gun Safety, Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, Common Cause , the Children’s Defense Fund, and more .. they do exist. Can they ban together and create an indivisible vigil before congress?

We know there are others. If no one has the will to lead the majority of American citizens who are firmly opposed to the rampant unchecked “right to own a gun – even if it kills me and you” gun rights activist agenda.. then we have no answer to .. “yet another senseless shooting.”

A National Town Meeting will be called. Someone must call it. An unyielding indivisible vigil must begin.

WE WILL.
Occupy Faith therefore calls for a A National Town Meeting during the week after Christmas this year to begin to address the elimination of guns as an object of power .. for the sake of all of God’s children.

Do you have the will to join us?
Write us immediately.
Dare You to Move..

Grace and Peace to You.. Michael

“Everybody here has a story. New Orleans was always a place where people talked too much even if they had nothing to say.

Now everyone’s got something to say.”

― Chris Rose, 1 Dead in Attic: Post-Katrina Stories

Still standing after 10 years. I first stood in front of this house 2006.

On August 16 of this year I sent out the following plea to a large group of young people who were involved with the recovery and rebuilding efforts from the Summer of 2006 through the Summer of 2010.

I will share some of their reflections over the next few weeks and consider the TEN YEAR AFTERMATH of HURRICANE KATRINA.

The Plea..

Dear Katrina Builders and loved ones.

August 29 is the TEN-YEAR-AFTER-MARKER for the event that brought us together.

A moment in time that made us stronger as one heart and one mind. The subsequent events changed us forever after.

Today I have an urgent request. I need your remembrance and your will and your time.

Please write me your remembrance of your contribution and your hearts investment in the rebuilding effort in New Orleans. Ten years after how are you affected?

Let me know if you have the will to still effect a change.

Give me a bit of your time to send this to me. Tell me if you want to invest more of your time for change in our world today and tomorrow.

Grace and Peace be to unto You..
Michael

“I am never at ease with the knowledge that we could never do enough to put their lives right.”

Larkin with Miss Ora and Jeff

An excerpt from Jeff sent on August 20..

Michael,

I will never forget the time I spent in New Orleans, from the first muggy moment we set foot outside the airport to the last Thanksgiving that we spent there with Sister Maura and Miss Ora. I am equally haunted by the joys and the pains that I shared with the women we helped and with the other students as we realized the smallness of our position. I am never at ease with the knowledge that we could never do enough to put their lives right.

Working and living in New Orleans left a hole in me that I’m not sure I’ll ever fill. For the first time in my life, I was in direct conflict with the world in front of me. I was working on problems with no solutions; patching drywall on disasters that stemmed from systematic racism and rooted in hate. I had to confront my own frailty in the face of a crumbling house, and my own singleness in a system that would willfully exclude loving and generous people from its benefits.

I don’t know what I can do to help—and I’m certainly not as idealistic about it as I was when I was 16—but everything I do now hinges on developing a position and voice to address those individuals directly and to let them know that they’re loved, and that we acknowledge and love them as our own.

I’m stuck as a man with limited power, facing challenges that transcend any situation or place. But I know now that if I’m not using my personhood to raise as many people as possible, then I am failing my mission as a human and my calling from God—whomever or whatever that may be.

There is no humanity without recognizing that every person in the world is more similar to you than they could ever be different. There’s no looking at another person without seeing a shade of yourself there.

I’m haunted, Michael, and that will drive me forward for my entire life.

Any man’s death diminishes me,
Because I am involved in mankind,
And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls;
It tolls for thee.

God’s Peace, Jeff.

“I called out for help.. ya’ll came to my door.“

By dawn the following day I was remembering my friends down home in the south. I was certain that they were okay because they had the resources to be.

That was the morning of August 30th on Monday.

I was just as certain – as I watched with the rest of the world – that there were so very many folks who were not safe. They were never safe. They had been forgotten without resources before.

Before.

It was only the first day after and Katrina had merely begun to wipe away the muck on the glass so all could see the truth.

Clearly.

End Day One

Miss Ora passed 2012…

Remembered..

“There was a time when skepticism was an act of rebellion.

Since to a degree I both believe in evolution and have faith, I can only conclude that, as prophesied, to have faith will someday be an act of rebellion.” ― Criss Jami¹, Killosophy

Penn State student Zaniya Joe wears a piece of tape over her mouth that says “Black Lives Matter”  (Nabil K. Mark/Centre Daily Times/TNS via Getty Images)

(whites must fight) UNTIL BLACK LIVES MATTER.. is realized Part One

So many white people have grown weary of the national debate on racial matters.

Too weary..

So weary that race will continue not to mater until an abolitionist-like² spirit is born into this present generation of white folks.

Therefore for the overwhelming majority of white people – black lives will continue to not matter.

Please indulge me for one moment.

I am a white male. I am sixty-three years old. I hold a Masters of Divinity degree. I have gone to the top ten percent of schools in the country. I grew up in the typical (WASP) white Anglo Saxon Protestant home. There was one black student in my high school. I have seen all four of my children through excellent colleges. I am a person of unearned privilege. I still believe in Liberation Theology. I embrace existential Christianity and I am an unapologetic social democrat³. I have been in the civil rights/ anti-war/ peace and justice movements for over forty years. (And as a best friend says I am a, “little pile of laundry with blue eyes“).

I confess these facts to prove my being an “expert witness” in the case that white people must fight for the reality that Black Lives Matter. In that light I make this opening statement and submit the brief that follows.

“The vast majority of my white race in America does NOT understand the BLACK LIVES MATTER movement. Without our informed camaraderie the movement will fall into our post-post modern pedestrian blindness of tolerated segregation. Period.”

Only recently did I have this shattering epiphany and wakefulness. It was Saturday Aug. 8th when Senator Bernie Sanders was campaigning in Seattle.

(pictured) Marissa Johnson speaks as Mara Jacqueline Willaford holds fist (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson)

(Sanders was pre-empted in a chaotic confrontation with a pair of Black Lives Matter protesters, who took the stage and refused to let him speak).⁴

Over coffee with a colleague I confessed my unease at the action taken by those young Black Lives Matter activists. I said, “Come on.. Bernie Sanders? I mean he’s the only one running for president who has consistently fought for civil rights and against all its’ systemic affiliations.”

My colleague agreed and added, “At the very least the action was rude. And it certainly didn’t help their cause.”

There it was. My white professor friend and his white protestant minister friend agreeing that these kids were rude to interrupt such a fine gentleman. Senator Bernie Sanders, a selfless servant to the cause of justice for all people. How could they hope, with these type of tactics, to win people over to their cause? How will their generations voice, that Black Lives Matter, ever be heard?

Indeed.

There it was. The man in the mirror was staring at me. There was my righteous white man’s face saying, “When will they ever learn?”

When will I ever learn?

If not for those few courageous young people.. I would not have learned.

If not for their willingness to be mocked by a large crowd of white people (who were supposed to be “sympathetic” to “their” cause).. I would not have been “offended.”

If not for their impassioned insistence to have their message attended to.. I would not have heard their voice.

Dear God I finally heard them.

Thank God they had the audacity to interrupt this caring white politician as he rallied his mostly white supporters. Bless them for walking the same path of uncertainty that their elders took fifty years ago during March of 1965 over bridges in Alabama.

After my friend was gone I just sat alone at our coffee hangout. I stirred the near empty cup. My new view was vivid in my mind. Then I remembered. It haunted me from so long ago. There was another group of young black students that seemed so disrespectful and offensive to yet another gathering of progressive white supporters of the cause.

In 1993 the first National Urban Peace and Justice Summit (AKA: National Gang-Peace Summit) ⁵ occurred at St. Mark’s Union Church in Kansas City, Missouri. Community activists, city leaders, and rival gang members came from across the nation hold a summit in an effort to curb youth violence in the nations mostly black ghettos. It was a success.

The next year – again at St. Mark Union – many representatives from the first summit came back together to meet with the half a dozen other summits that had spawned in major cities around the country. Other new activists came as well. One group was the so-called New Black Panther Party (started in Dallas, TX). They were just as young and just as angry as the original (Black Panther Party for Self-Defense) under Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale organized in October of 1966.

Most of the assembled white folks (and some of the black folks) were intimidated in various degrees. It was not until a circle gathering later the first day that things changed for my unease. I sat beside the pastor of St. Mark Union Rev. Sam Mann. (Sam was the white Methodist minister at the all-black St. Mark Union. A son of the deep South he became an advocate for human rights active in the fight against racism for more than four decades — despite his upbringing.)⁶

I asked him what did these young men need. It bothered me that they were not allowing anyone to finish their contributions without interruption. What did they want to hear?

(pictured: Rev. Mann and kids from St. Mark”s)

He whispered to me, “That is it. They want to be heard. They want to be heard until they are finished speaking. No matter what they say and no matter how long it takes.” Then he suggested that it would be interesting to see what they would do if, “one of you white clergy was to ask for their forgiveness.”

I was so humbled I did not need to ask “forgiveness for what?” I was almost too afraid and certainly too ashamed to ask Sam, “Should I?”

So I stood with my hand raised like I was back in 2nd grade. I suppose I looked so ridiculous in my clergy collar, blue jeans, cowboy boots and sixties hair cut (little pile of laundry with blue eyes) that they were embarrassed for me. I ask them if they would please accept a plea to forgive the Church, my ancestors, and me for our actions over so many years. I told them that I wanted to hear their voice today.

One young man answered that it was easier for him to forgive me than it would be for me to give their voice access into the white church.

Even though this group, the New Black Panther Party, was disavowed and shunned by the original founders of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense – and declared a “hate group” by the Southern Poverty Law Center – the young man’s’ reply was (and absolutely is) just as valid a statement. And the action of confession from people of white skin is still critical for reconciliation to be authentic.

Are we too weary to listen?

My epiphany that was jump started by the Sanders campaign incident in Seattle came into a clearer focus at the Senators next event in Los Angeles.

Rory Carroll of the Guardian reported from LA last week that, “Instead of protesters upstaging him – something that has sabotaged two previous events – the 73-year-old senator from Vermont had African American allies on stage to introduce him and reassure the Black Lives Matter movement, and others, that he may be an old white guy, but he was their old white guy.”

Carroll went on to recount that, “Before Sanders took the stage,.. some supporters had worried about Saturday’s fiasco in Seattle, when two women who said they represented Black Lives Matter seized the mic and demanded Sanders do more about police violence. It left nagging questions. Was he out of touch? Was Vermont too vanilla for a diverse nation? Would protesters again leave him mute?”

Instead a young African American, Symone Sanders, appeared and introduced herself as the campaign’s newly appointed national press secretary. (Omaha native, Black Lives Matter supporter, criminal justice advocate, and communications specialist Symone D. Sanders was named national press secretary for Bernie Sanders.)

Another African American, Dante Harris, the leader of a local flight attendants’ union, helped warm up the crowd. “Workers’ lives matter! Black lives matter! The truth matters!”

Senator Bernie Sanders is – of course – a professional politician, but I believe he has been consistent in progressive actions over his career as an elected official.

In that light he is not displaying hypocrisy when he declared at the LA rally, “There’s no president that will fight harder to end institutional racism.”

What becomes troublesome for the singularity of Black Lives Matter was what Harris intoned before Sanders took the stage – when he said, “Workers’ lives matter! Black lives matter! The truth matters!”

I submit that black and white companions in the Black Lives Matter Movement must focus on just that for now until it is a reality.

UNTIL BLACK LIVES MATTER

Grace and Peace be Unto You .. Michael O Harrington

NOTES Part One:

• 1.) Born May 29, 1987, Criss Jami is the lead singer of the rock band Venus in Arms based in Washington, D.C. He is also a poet, essayist, existentialist philosopher, and the founder and designer of Killosopher Apparel. He studied philosophy at George Mason University.
  2.) Dictionary.com 1. (especially prior to the Civil War) a person who advocated or supported the abolition of slavery in the U.S. 2. a person who favors the abolition of any law or practice deemed harmful to society:
  3.) Heywood, Andrew (April 10, 2010). Political Ideologies: An Introduction, 5th edition. Palgrave Macmillan. p. 127. ISBN 978-0230367258. “Social democracy is an ideological stance that supports a broad balance between market capitalism, on the one hand, and state intervention, on the other hand. Being based on a compromise between the market and the state, social democracy lacks a systematic underlying theory and is, arguably, inherently vague. It is nevertheless associated with the following views: (1) capitalism is the only reliable means of generating wealth, but it is a morally defective means of distributing wealth because of its tendency towards poverty and inequality; (2) the defects of the capitalist system can be rectified through economic and social intervention, the state being the custodian of the public interest”
  4.)Please see
  http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/black-lives-matter-protesters-shut-down-bernie-sanders-rally/
  5.) http://www.cleveland.com/specialreports/index.ssf/2013/03/stop_the_killing_gang_summit_h.html
  6.) http://www.depauw.edu/news-media/latest-news/details/11350/ http://www.indianapolisrecorder.com/religion/article_f662d409-bce9-5f5f-b6ba-b51a143ccb92.html

PART TWO to be continued..

‘We need co-conspirators, not allies’: how white Americans can fight racism’

“With the end of empire, we are coming to an end of the epoch of Rights. We have entered the epoch of Responsibilities which requires new, more socially-minded human beings and new, more participatory and place-based concepts of citizenship and democracy.” – Grace Lee Boggs

Some 26 Greenpeace USA activists helped form the 40-hour blockade that stopped Shell’s icebreaker from leaving port.
Then they came down from the St. Johns Bridge in Portland, Oregon.

An activist looks towards the rising sun as she hangs from the St. Johns bridge as part of a protest to block the Royal Dutch Shell PLC icebreaker Fennica from leaving for Alaska in Portland, Ore., Thursday, July 30, 2015. The icebreaker, which is a vital part of Shell’s exploration and spill-response plan off Alaska’s northwest coast, stopped short of the hanging blockade, turned around and sailed back to a dock at the Port of Portland. (AP Photo/Don Ryan)

The climbers who caused Royal Dutch Shell’s icebreaker, the Fennica, to turn around and return to port after a spectacular face-off was reported on live around the world.

Annie Leonard the Executive Director of Greenpeace USA said:

“We are incredibly proud of these climbers and truly humbled by what they have achieved here in Portland.

“The last two days have been a very emotional experience for all of us at Greenpeace, as well as all those who supported this action around the country and the world. Between the kayativists, the streamers, and the blue sky we have seen something new emerge, a sign that we can stand up to one of the most powerful companies in the world if we work together.

“This was a historic achievement not just because it blocked Shell’s icebreaker from reaching the Arctic, but because it helped spark an even bigger movement of people to raise their voices for something they believe in.

“Drilling for oil in the Arctic Ocean would be a terrible mistake, and we call on President Obama to join the millions of people who are speaking with one voice to say it loud and clear: ShellNo.”

 

The controversial oil ship, the Fennica, managed to sail past a group of Greenpeace  protesters after police and Coast Guard officers forced the activists from the area.

The protestors were hanging from a bridge in Portland, Oregon.

Streamers float in the wind under the St. Johns Bridge In as activists climbed under the bridge in an attempt to prevent the Shell leased icebreaker, MSV Fennica from joining the rest of Shell’s Artctic drilling fleet. T According to the latest federal permit, the Fennica must be at Shell’s drill site before Shell can reapply for federal approval to drill deep enough for oil in the Chukchi Sea.

Protesters gathered to block a Royal Dutch Shell icebreaking vessel.

The ship was leaving port to head to an oil drilling site in the Arctic.

Some suspended themselves from the St. Johns Bridge.

Some formed a line of kayaks along the Willamette River to block the ship from leaving.

But the Fennica, slipped through a gap in the dangling protesters.
For six hours the “kayaktivists” and climbers held fast.
A judge fined Greenpeace USA $2,500 for every hour that protesters blocked the Fennica from passing .

Portland police and Coast Guard officers forced the activists from the area.

Some dangled 40 hours in hope to block the Fennica from returning to sea.

They suspended themselves from one famous bridge.

For a brief moment they blocked the essential support vessel from traveling north.
The Fennica moved closer, the airborne protesters, joined by kayakers below, held their airspace.

The Fennica turned about and went back to its dock.

With armed authority the Fennica came again.

Kayaktivists moved toward the center of the river as the ship began its final trip.

Members of the Portland Fire Bureau’s technical rescue rope team built their own rope system.
… to force the climbers down.

Authorities in boats and personal watercraft finally cleared the narrow pathway for the Fennica.

She passed beneath the St. John Bridge to open water.

There was still someone hanging from a bridge.

I occupy my Faith with the action of changing the world.
My Faith is occupied with the action in changing the world.

My state of being is occupied by Faith.
Faith occupies my state of being.

My time is occupied by Faith.
Faith occupies my time.

Faith possess me.
I am possessed by Faith.

My position and my function is my Faith.
My Faith is my function and my position.

I reside in and I own my Faith.
My Faith resides in me and owns me.

(So… what is my Faith?)