What Would Jesus Laugh At?

              We all have at least one of “those people” on our email lists don’t we? You know the ones.  Those folks we  worked on some project with, who have our email address saved, or who are co-members of some list serve set up for a specific activity that has morphed in to a mini social network.  These folks seem quite pleasant when you interact in that sphere of your life you share with them, even though you know (whether or not THEY know) that you have wildly differing views on issues such as politics, religion or what constitutes a joke worth forwarding to your entire address book.

                What to do when these erstwhile friends repeatedly and unthinkingly (we hope) mass forward “jokes” received from their fellow travellers, and which you find offensive or at least Not Appropriate? 

                I belong to a list serve along with a number of people with divergent points of view on all things other than our common hobby. A couple years ago, we actually had to break our list serve into two different chat groups: one for  hobby  “business”, and one for “chat”.  The people on the chat list are mostly adult women but  we have some men and some kids chatting with us as well.

One of the members of the chat list claims to be a  “Christian conservative.” She evidently finds or is sent “jokes” on a regular basis that she forwards to our list. Her most recent joke relied on negative stereotypes of Muslims and undocumented immigrants for its “punch line.” This is not the first time she has forwarded this type of thing, although several of us have asked her not to post these “jokes.” It seems as if she will not understand how harmful these “jokes” can be, especially to the minds of the kids on line with us. She's not the only person in the world to forward inappropriate stuff across the web universe, nor is she the worst offender; these joke attacks seem to be everywhere these days.

In order to counter this trend, I propose that we start a new movement on the Internet: the What Would Jesus Laugh At (WWJLA) Movement.  The premise is pretty simple.  If God created everything, that includes humor. Jesus taught that all people are created in the image and likeness of God. Jesus told us to love everyone, even our “enemies.”   

                So What Would Jesus Laugh At?

                In Matthew’s Chapter 25, Jesus talks about separating the sheep from the goats at the time of judgment. The sheep in this story are the ones who get to hang out with God forever and the goats get to wail and gnash their teeth someplace else.  I think that Jesus would laugh at the sheep’s jokes and weep at the goats' jokes. What would that look like?

                I think Jesus would laugh about silly things he and others do in the course of the day, but would laugh with his friends, not at them. Jesus would laugh at the innocent antics of kids and animals that are just plain cute.  Jesus would laugh at the foibles of the proud and self-important, at the absurdity of those who think they can outsmart God, and at the very notion that any of God’s children would think themselves better than any other of God’s children on the basis of race or creed or sex.

                But I think that Jesus would weep at meanness.  He would weep at the constant temper tantrum of “mine, not yours” that reverberates through corporate boardrooms, at Tea Party rallies and in the halls where laws are supposed to be made.  Jesus would weep at scapegoating the poor, the disabled, the mentally ill.  Jesus would weep at jokes that rely on violence for their punch line. Jesus would weep when racial, ethnic, religious and gender stereotypes are used to get a laugh. Jesus would weep at jokes that assume that any one group of humans is inherently superior to humans who do not look or think like they do.

                The What Would Jesus Laugh At (WWJLA) movement would call us to critically consider whether or not to mass forward everything that shows up in our inbox.  When we get a joke in our email, WWJLA asks us to consider whether Jesus would think that it is funny. If not, then the least we can do is  ignore it and not send it bouncing back out across the web. Better yet,  we can delete it  after we respond to the sender asking them not to send that type of message to us anymore.  After all, we don’t want to make Jesus cry.

                I realize that my little rant won’t change anything on its own. But maybe at least it can coax a “good” laugh out of those who read it. Maybe this one little thing can be a motivating spark that leads us to think about the divisive way we talk at one another, and about one another, on line and face to face.

A DEATH UNNOTICED

On the first weekend of May, 2011, the world reacted to the death of Osama bin Laden in a variety of ways. Many were openly jubilant, while many others cautioned that that kind of response to the death of any human being was not appropriate. But even those with more sober reactions to news of bin Laden’s death at the hands of US Navy Seals were more likely than not to consider his death with, if not satisfaction, relief. The story had “legs” and it consumed the media for days.


It is no wonder then, that other, less dramatic deaths missed the paper that week. Because on that same weekend, my friend John Deak was found dead. Not one word about him in the paper. No news story about the circumstances of finding this homeless man’s body, nor how he died. No obituary. Until this one.

John “Boxcar” Deak lived on the streets of Columbia for most of the past several years. His life on the street was broken up a bit by stints in the county jail, mostly for trespassing or stealing alcohol from convenience stores. He spent a winter-long sojourn at St. Francis House a couple years ago. We would have kept him with us longer but the call of the bottle was stronger than the call of a warm bed. It was more complicated than that of course, but addiction and despair are always more complicated than they seem on the surface.

John was born in 1961. He grew up in St. Louis, Missouri. I’m not sure when he landed here in Columbia, but I’ve known him for years. He would manage to stay sober for a couple weeks at a time and stay with us at St. Francis House until he fell off the wagon again. I remember giving him a blanket on the street more than once when he was too drunk to stay with us. I remember him coming in to eat at Loaves and Fishes, and I remember his simple thankfulness.

My last conversations with John took place when he was living on the street. We had a couple of brief interactions when I was serving at the soup kitchen or stopping by during day center hours (the day center is in the same location as the soup kitchen). He was trying to stay sober enough to have someplace to come in out of the weather and get something to eat, but every day was a struggle. I touched base with him by accident a couple months before he died. I had driven up Lakeview Ave, but then I realized that I couldn’t make a left turn onto Rangeline. I turned my car into the parking lot of the Motel 7 to turn around, just as John stepped out of one of the rooms. I waved to him, and for some reason, decided to get out of the car to say hello.

One of John’s street friends who “gets a check” had rented a room at the Motel 7 and invited John to stay with him. He was glad to see me and of course, in typical John fashion, apologized for having been drinking. But it was good to see that he was out of the cold weather for a few days. He looked like he had showered. His hair and beard looked like a red lion’s mane around his head and shoulders. When he stayed with us he was clean shaven and his hair was trimmed up and just reached his collar. We talked for a few minutes, and then I said I had to go. He gave me a hug and thanked me for talking to him.  I didn’t know that would be one of the last times I saw him.

John, we hardly knew you in life. The world would like to ignore you in death, but you are not forgotten. John Deak carried the heavy burden of addiction through his life until he finally laid it down for good. He was a pilgrim on life’s road, but his journey has moved beyond where we can see. In the words of Steve Earle, I hope we meet again on some bright highway. John, until I see you, fare thee well.

A tale of two sheriffs: the politics of the crosshairs.

Before last Saturday (Jan 8), when someone mentioned seeing the sheriff from Arizona on TV, they did not mean Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik. They meant Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, infamous for his anti-immigrant rhetoric and his disrespectful and occasionally dangerous treatment of inmates at the Maricopa County Jail in Phoenix.

Because of his “get tough” tactics, such as making inmates live in tents in the desert in the deadly summer months in the Valley of the Sun, he is the darling of both right wing radio and TV commentators, and "regular folks" who are “fed up” with crime and criminal behavior. Some of his programs, such as dying all the underwear pink to reduce the likelihood that inmates will steal county issued drawers upon release were goofy but did make a fiscal and political point. His fervent anti-immigrant rhetoric, however, places him far outside what most of us believe to be the mainstream of US society. And his antics have kept him in office for decades, so someone must think they work.

Compare and contrast, then, Sheriff Dupnik. He is also a long time public servant, who has actually been in office longer than Arpaio. Arpaio was first elected in 1992, while Dupnik has been the sheriff of Pima County since 1980.

Dupnik is no liberal. He is a major player in law enforcement, and a fan of the technological advances in law enforcement over the past generation. But while Dupnik garners the occasional headline for his work, he does not seem to seek the spotlight for the purpose of self aggrandizement. Dupnik is not afraid to speak his mind. He has opposed Arizona’s draconian anti-immigrant law, even in the face of threats.

Whatever civil rights pluses and minuses appear on Dupnik’s resume, his call for an end to the vitriolic and violent rhetoric that has invaded our public discourse last week showed courage and conviction. He carefully refrained from making statements that would further prejudice Mr. Loughner’s rights to trial in connection with this tragedy; he did not call for vengeance. He called for justice and for sorrow and for reflection, which are the best precursors of dialogue, which is the foundation for peaceful change.

I expect that, to the extent talking heads and policy makers engage in thoughtful reflection, they will be glad to have Sheriff Dupnik’s words to hand their virtual hats on. We don’t yet know why Mr. Loughner acted as he did, what demons or dementors played a role. We don’t know if the politics of the crosshairs had anything to do with his actions.

But we don’t know it didn’t.

And we do know that, whatever Jared Loughner’s story is, there are other weaker personalities and mentally unstable persons in our country who seek validation through the words they hear on the radio and the TV, and what they read on the Net. But we will never achieve a peaceful society if we build our government on campaigns stocked with violent images and rhetoric. We live in a society where our speech is even more violent than our headlines. Our country has devolved to a place where some people believe it is okay to treat other human beings as less than human. And whether Loughner’s violence was triggered by violent political rhetoric or the atmosphere in which it thrives, we must all consider that words, in Rep. Giffords’ own words, “have consequences.”

Sheriff Dupnik recognized that, and, for that, he deserves our thanks.

The Advent of Non-violence

I have been studying non-violence issues with a faith sharing group. So the other night I got to thinking about whether there were any instances of non-violence that I could point to in this season of anticipation and prepartion. I thought of the part of the Advent story that personifies gender power issues: Joseph’s discovery that Mary is pregnant (not by him) and his determination that Mary not be put to death, despite his own disappointment and anguish.

In first century Palestine, and throughout the Roman Empire, women were not seen as equal citizens to men. In fact, women were considered the property of their fathers/family until married, at which time they became the property of their husbands.

Mary and her fate existed  in a gray area: betrothed to Joseph, if she was pregnant by him, there would be no scandal, at least not much. But to be pregnant other than by her betrothed, would have made Mary an Adulteress under the Law. The penalty for adultery, at least for women, was death by stoning.

Joseph would have been within his rights as a man to hand Mary over to be stoned for her perceived transgression, but he loves her and does not want her harmed. While his pride tells him that he cannot make a life with this woman, he tries to find a way out from under the letter of the law, a third, nonviolent way of resolving this conflict.

Of course, an angel comes to Joseph in a dream, and reassures him that Mary’s condition is not the result of unfaithfulness, but rather of the ultimate faithful act: her agreement that she would carry the child of God, Jesus, and bring him into the world.

The story of Jesus’ conception and birth reveal that both of the earliest teachers of Jesus were loving, compassionate people who believed in human dignity, who believed that mercy trumped power.

Mary’s Magnificat and Joseph’s dream become springboards for the Sermon on the Mount, for the Beatitudes, for Jesus’ embrace of all people, regardless of status, rank, or scandalous associations. O come let us embrace this Holy little family as they once again seek shelter in our hearts. Let’s make room for them, and for all they come to teach us, and for the gift they bring to share: peace on earth, good will toward all.

Tinkering with the machinery of death

Recently retired Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens told Nina Totenberg of National Public Radio that he now regrets his decision to vote with the majority to re-legalize capital punishment in the 1976 decision of Gregg v. Georgia. Similarly, toward the end of his judicial career, Justice Harry Blackmun announced that he would “no longer tinker with the machinery of death.” In his biography, Justice Lewis Powell expressed regret about his part in re-legalizing the death penalty. Had these three men known in 1976 what they knew by the end of their judicial careers, the State of Missouri would not be planning to execute Roderick Nunley at a few minutes past midnight on the morning of October 20, 2010.

Nunley and his co-defendant, Michael Taylor, brutally raped and murdered a young high school student named Anne Harrison. Nunley deserves to be punished for those crimes, and in fact, he did not deny his guilt. Nunley confessed his crime to the police and even pleaded guilty in court, under the terms of a “secret plea bargain” that he would be sentenced to life in prison. If the court had followed that agreement, Nunley would never be released from custody until he died a natural death, and he would be, at best, a footnote in Missouri history. However, the trial court judge sentenced him to death without holding a hearing on whether mitigating factors existed to support a life sentence, and without a jury. After that death sentence was overturned, another judge re-sentenced him to death in a proceeding where the second judge also failed to appropriately consider mitigating factors before imposing the ultimate punishment.

I would have preferred to write this column about Anne Harrison, celebrating her life, and mourning her untimely death. When I write about the victims of violence, I would rather not spend ink on those who have inflicted pain and death on others, but in this society, we perpetrate the violence cycle by killing the killers, and so I can't remain silent about what we do to them. I would rather that we expended our resources in preventing violence from happening, and in comforting and restoring those who have been its victims. In a more just and peaceful society, that is where we would spend our precious resources, rather than refining state killing and turning it into some sort of perverse art form.


We live in a violent society, in a violent world. Yet, time after time, those who have analyzed the death penalty conclude that killing people who kill other people does not make us safer. Studies find that, in state after state, the death penalty is most often imposed on the poor, on minorities, on those who kill white people. The machinery that was supposed to limit this penalty to the worst of the worst, the most unrepentant, the most vicious, actually limits the penalty to those who kill on the basis of geography. Local prosecutors have absolute discretion whether to seek death in a murder case, and some allow personal biases or political ambition to influence their decisions. The state obtains death sentences by dehumanizing killers, by convincing juries that the defendants are not as human as the jurors themselves. When the state pits its considerable power and resources against a criminal defendant by seeking to kill the person it has cast as subhuman--monstrous even, we feed the cycle of violence.

Our society becomes more violent when we allow our government to inflict violence on others, even others who have committed horrible crimes. If we want to break the cycle of violence, we need to stop killing people because they have killed. Rape and murder  deserve condemnation, and criminals deserve to be punished for their crimes. But regardless of his crimes, Roderick Nunley a still a human being. Anne Harrison, and all other murder victims whose lives were stolen, were human beings.  None deserve to have their lives cut short, whether by individuals or by a government.

We live in a violent society, but we have the power within us to work for a more just and peaceful society. We can refuse to cooperate with the machinery of death by re-humanizing the people who commit evil acts. We can recognize that, while their actions may require that they be removed from society, those actions do not remove them from the human race.  We can demonstrate our resolve to respect the humanity in all human beings by refusing to let others kill in our names. We live in a violent society, but that can change, if we are willing to make small changes and take small stands to change it. We can break the cycle of violence, if we choose to do so.

(photo from Amnesty International)

Seeing Invisible People

Richard is definitely NOT someone that would fall into the category of the “deserving poor.” Richard is a wheelchair bound guy who lives on the street. His addictions and his history with the law disqualify him from being eligible for lots of services, although he does receive a disability check. That check is a blessing and a curse. A blessing because it means that he has some financial means and can get Medicaid to help him address his many health problems. A curse because it makes him a target of street predators—the guys who are your best friend in the world from the 1st of the month until the money runs out, which with their help is usually sometime around the 10th. With friends like that, Richard doesn’t need enemies.

Not that he has a lot of enemies. It is more that he and his wheelchair, although fixtures around downtown, are virtually invisible to most people.

I was on my way home from a meeting, approaching Broadway, our main downtown street. The light ahead was yellow, so I slowed down. As I braked, I noticed Richard on the corner on the other side of the intersection, waiting for a green light so he could cross in front of me.

My light turned red, and Richard wheeled away from the curb. Now downtown Columbia tries to be accessible to folks with disabilities, and thanks to Get About Columbia, a group promoting non-motor transportation, the curbs reduce to ramps at all the downtown intersections. However, Columbia is also obsessed with beautifying the downtown area. As part of the beautification effort, the crosswalks and the ramps leading to them are stamped in to look like brick and other bumpy substances. When Richard’s wheelchair met up with the stamped brick bumps, he stalled and fell out of his chair onto the street. A passerby hurried into the crosswalk to help him. I stayed in my car.

The light turned green.

Richard was still on the ground, so I stayed put. Unfortunately, the driver of the large SUV behind me either didn’t see Richard on the ground or didn’t care. They honked and honked. I pulled into the crosswalk on my side of the street and hit my brakes twice, in an effort to let the driver behind me know there was a reason I was stopped. The SUV driver honked again, and as the light turned yellow, served around me and headed into the intersection. Luckily, by this time, Richard was getting back into the chair and almost sitting up straight. The SUV narrowly missed the chair; if Richard had still been on the ground, he would have been lunch meat.

I called out to him, and he waved. I waited through another red light while the good Samaritan who had helped him back into the chair guided him across the street. As I drove by, I leaned out the window to ask if he was okay. He said he was, and thanked me. Then we both wheeled off in our separate directions.

Sometimes I talk about seeing the face of Christ in the distressed disguise of a homeless person, in the tradition of Dorothy Day and Mother Theresa. But tonight, I think what was really important was seeing the face of Richard where others saw nobody. Tonight I learned that to see the face of the Invisible is to really encounter the divine.

Mother Theresa Gets a Postage Stamp (This is NOT an article from the Onion)

                  Wow, Mother Theresa. She’s a saint. Does that let us off the hook and free us from any impulse to be like her? And she’s famous, she’s on a stamp. If I attach her to my letters, do I get a free ride to heaven? Mother Theresa may be a saint, but that should not be license to dismiss what she did in life.

               The real question worth wondering about whether the U.S. Postal Service knew who she really was when it decided to give her a stamp. Did they know about the letters she sent to George Bush, Sr. and Saddam Hussein back when we were embroiled in the first Iraq war? Here’s what she wrote them in January, 1991:

            “Please choose the way of peace. ... In the short term there may be winners and losers in this war that we all dread. But that never can, nor never will justify the suffering, pain and loss of life your weapons will cause.”

Not content with afflicting the powerful in her exhortations against the war that turned out exactly as she predicted it would, Mother Theresa also occasionally afflicted the everyday middle class people of the world. Not only did she take care of homeless lepers, AIDS victims, and casteless outcasts in India, she suggested that they were not really the “poorest of the poor” but that the privileged were often more poor than the people she and her community cared for.

              She also recognized the immediate and concrete call of the Gospel in much the same way that Catholic Workers do, when it comes to actually doing the things Jesus said we should do. She said,

              “At the end of life we will not be judged by how many diplomas we have received, how much money we have made, how many great things we have done. We will be judged by 'I was hungry and you gave me to eat, I was naked and you clothed me, I was homeless and you took me in.' Hungry not only for bread - but hungry for love. Naked not only for clothing - but naked for human dignity and respect. Homeless not only for want of a room of bricks - but homeless because of rejection.”

        If the postal service had known how she really felt, would they have given her a stamp? More importantly, do they think this stamp lets them off the hook in the business of caring for the community? Stay tuned, things may get interesting.
Peace,
Ruth

Corporal Work of Mercy #6: visiting those in prison

If you don't know that the corporal works of mercy are, you weren't raised Catholic. If you don't know what they ARE, or mean, you are in the majority, regardless of faith-based upbringing.

Here's the list:
1. Feed the Hungry.
2. Give drink to the thirsty.
3. Shelter the homeless.
4. Clothe the naked.
5. Visit the sick.
6. Visit the imprisoned.
7. Bury the dead.

I always found it intriging that the level of discomfort seems to rise as one goes down the list: Feed the hungry, Give drink to the thirsty. These seem innocuous enough. Shelter the homeless. A little more challenging, but sure, that seems like something we should do. Clothe the naked. Well, hey, for us First Worlders, that isn't so bad, because we are definitely talking one of two things: (1) cleaning out our closets/dressers and sending our cast-off clothes to someplace, like Goodwill or Salvation Army or the like, where our used clothes can be recycled into outfits for poor folks, or (2) sending money to a registered charity to help out the poor orphans in a third world country.

Visit the sick. That seems to be the transitional point, for many of us, anyway. Hopitals are so depressing after all, not to mention hospices. But, as long as we think Aunt Martha is leaving us the silver tea set or the Jag, well, we can manage.

Visit those in prison. There's a concept for you, and one foreign to most middle class Americans. No wonder lots of us just gloss over that little directive on our way down the list.

Bury the dead. Ooops. Isn't it more politically correct to cremate them these days? Still, death comes to us all, and it wouldn't be civilized to just let Uncle Felix rot there in the living room. Of course we take care of him. Distasteful? In our insulated, disinfected world, yes, but still something most of us know we will have to do, in one form or another, during the course of our lives.

Which brings us back to work of mercy #6: visiting those in prison. I would venture to guess that most North Americans believe that they can go their whole lives without ever visiting someone who is in prison, and for the most part, they would be right.

As an attorney whose work involves a lot of contact with the criminal justice system, I see the inside of a lot of jails. I have friends who have seen the inside of more jails than I, who put their bodies on the line for peace, for justice, to protest the deliberate indifference to human suffering that seems so pervasive in our time. Sometimes, I have occasion to visit these friends, too.

Why, when Jesus was talking about the last judgment (its toward the end of Matthew 25 for you Bible referencing folks) did he include visiting those in prison as a way to do something for "the least of these" and therefore for him?

I think that there are several reasons, but two come to mind most readily.
First, Jesus gave this discourse in the days leading up to his own arrest and brief imprisonment. If we are going to be followers of Jesus, and not just admirers of Jesus, we must go down into the dungeons of Jerusalem with him. Walking this difficult, painful, frightening part of Christ's passion is not a place most Christians want to go, but some are able to do it.
Second, it is in prison that humans are reduced to their most basic existence: they have no liberty, and very limited capacity to exercise their free will. Many are in prison because they have made poor choices, many of these are there because their ability to make good choices has been impaired by mental illness or substance abuse. We are not talking about the cream of the crop here, we are talking about the gleanings. So if we are going to be good, upright Christians, how can these addicts and bad decision makers offer us anything we would go through the hassle of a prison visit to find out about?

It turns out that I have learned a lot from men and women in prison over the years. I re-learned to play chess visiting a young man facing a capital murder charge in Kansas in the mid 1990's. I learned about gracious victory from the woman who knitted through her trial and after a favorable verdict, sent me roses. I learned about grace in defeat from many clients who have sent me hand-drawn cards over the years. I have shared the ups and downs of incarceration with many who will not ever really understand why a big chunk of their life was stolen, and yet find a way to remain human in the face of inhuman suffering.
I also am privileged to have friends who have chosen to walk with the prisoners because they were compelled to acts of civil disobedience in an effort to bring our society's attention to injustices great and small.
Each person I have met within prisons or jails throughout the United States has given me something, an insight, a laugh, a reason for outrage, whatever. But to see them in orange or black and white stripes, or some other unflattering ensemble, is to see Christ. Because no matter why they are in jail, and no matter what they have done, none of them is as bad as their worst act. And they are all human beings, created in the image and likeness of God. So I can't very well let them sit there and rot, with no human contact, now, can I?

I am one of the humans charged with the duty to tell the stories of the imprisoned; I am obliged to work to show others that these are not caged animals, these are people. They may fight demons you and I will never meet; they forfeit things we take for granted: basic everyday things, like being able to choose whether to go for a walk around the block, or what they will wear or what and when they will eat, even when they can sleep or shower. But they, like us, are human beings with the needs and wants of humans in our society. I have been honored to call many of those who have lived parts of their lives behind bars my friends.

Maybe for some, I hope that friendship will help them stay out of prison when their time is up. For others, especially those who feel called to jail themselves for justice, I hope they will let me know their visiting schedule.

Peace and all good things,
Ruth

"It is in the shelter of each other that the people live."-- Irish proverb

Homeless.
What does the word conjure for you? I have been in the Catholic Worker so long that I do not trust that the visions that spring into my mind are anything like those of people who do not share their daily lives with homeless men and women.

For some, “homeless” means “shiftless” or “lazy” or “addict” or “crazy” and some of those terms can be applied to some of the people I know from the street. But not all.

There are as many reasons a person becomes homeless as there are homeless people on the streets, but there are common themes. Some type of trauma in their background is practically a given, and some part of their circumstances or their psyche processed that trauma in a manner that caused them to end up on the streets.

Sometimes it was the trauma of war, sometimes the trauma of an abusive home. Sometimes it was the trauma of losing a beloved caregiver, or the trauma of being treated badly by people who did not understand what it is like to be mentally ill. It could even be the trauma of losing the job that allowed one to live in dignity, paycheck to paycheck. But trauma weakened the resolve and eliminated the resources, until housing was no longer an option.

I know a lot of mentally ill street folks, including many who use alcohol or drugs to escape from their reality for a while. I also know a lot of folks who are on the streets because they lost a job, or made a string of bad choices about money or relationships, or who started out on uneven ground and never got to that level playing field that America is supposed to be all about. But the saddest homeless folks I know are the ones who do not seek out the companionship of others, who live the life of the truly lonely. Because being homeless does not necessarily mean friendless.

I see the community of the street more frequently than some people do. I see it at the soup kitchen and at St. Francis House, and even downtown on 9th Street where the panhandlers ply their trade from time to time. I have known people who choose to live in homeless camps because that is one of the only choices left available to them and they prefer the freedom of nature to the rules of the shelters.

I know people who came to our house of hospitality for shelter, and found a home there. Some have stayed; others return to visit, to help out, to enjoy community. They can do that with us because we don’t treat them like clients in an agency. We are not an agency, we are a community, and we are open to the possibility that each new person who walks through the door has something to share with us that will make our lives richer or more meaningful, or just give us another story to share. We provide the building, but it is in the community that gathers, from the house or the kitchen and the street, that creates the shelter where we live among one another.

It is already in your hearts...

"For this command that I enjoin on you today is not too mysterious and remote for you.
It is not up in the sky, that you should say, 'Who will go up in the sky to get it for us
and tell us of it, that we may carry it out?'
Nor is it across the sea, that you should say, 'Who will cross the sea to get it for us
and tell us of it, that we may carry it out?'
No, it is something very near to you, already in your mouths and in your hearts;
you have only to carry it out."  Deut. 30:11-1
When I see some diatribe about how "social justice" is code for some type of political system, or hear a claim that creating a socially just society is anathema to the message Jesus of Nazareth preached, I want to cringe.
But I want to cringe, too, at the idea that doing social justice, living the sermon on the mount or the works of mercy is just "too hard" or just "not practical".
It's not really rocket science, this social justice thing, you know?
And really, the words of the Old Testament reading above says it better than I can.  Treating other human beings with dignity and respect is at the base of social teaching. The great comandments are not about pie in the sky or a super society buried beneath the waves of the sea. It is as simple as it is profound: Love God above all other things, and love our neighbor as we love ourselves.
I think sometimes that we in the first world, and especially we in the United States, are addicted to the cop out.
We are more than willing to abdicate our responsibility to our sisters and brothers. We prefer to believe that there is a program for helping the truly needy, the "deserving poor" whether it is a government program, an NGO or some private philanthropic endeavor. We believe we can cast our cash at these nonpersonal entitites and they will do our caring for us. We corporatize our charitable acts, because we  are a nation of corporations. We believe that if a group is a "non profit corporation" that they will accomplish the actions described in their mission statement, and will be "financially accountable" to those whose donations pad their bottom lines. After all, we are familiar with the bottom line, we are familiar with the ability to large corporate entities to do things that individuals cannot do on their own. 
Meanwhile, we are free to do what is most convenient for us.
Personalism, as practiced by Catholic Workers and others, is a reaction and response to this depersonalization of the "needy" who we "help" with our financial donations. 
A Catholic Worker community, ideally, does not spend resources developing strategies to maximize the bottom line. A Catholic Worker community, ideally, begs alms and seeks the face of Christ in everyone who walks through the door.
Catholic Workers, and their ilk have learned that the acts we will be called to account for at the last judgment are not about the beauty and grandiosity of a strategic plan, or the number of prayer partners supporting out ministries. We will be asked whether we did things for Christ, in whatever distressed disguise he wore for us in our lifetimes. Did we feed the hungry? Shelter the homeless, visit the imprisoned, bury the dead with dignity, welcome the stranger? Were these simple acts of love and justice in our hearts, and if so, did they manifest in our works?
Anybody can do social justice. We just need to decide to listen to the Holy Spirit dwelling in our hearts and decide to take literally the example Christ gave us.

As a Catholic, I am lucky to be a part of a faith tradition that recognizes that all of creation is a gift from God, and that we, as children of God, have a responsibility to care for the earth and all of its creatures.In these days after the BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, we remind our fellow citizens, and the corporations who exert power and control over our natural resources, of this God-given mandate to respect and care for all of creation.

Modern humanity in its attitude of domination and disregard for the integrity and interconnectedness of life on this planet has become a threat to our survival. As a society we must stop the steady erosion our air, water and earth. We are at a point where our human actions threaten our planet and the other creatures who share the earth with us, in ways that were not possible 50 or 60 years ago. For the first time in history, human beings are capable of causing violent and irreversible destruction to the major life systems of the world.
The solution to these problems caused by humans can also be implemented by humans. We must recognize that humanity’s exploitation and abuse of nature is intimately related to the way we treat our fellow citizens of the earth. A solution to our environmental problems is therefore interconnected to our ability to find solutions to the problems of social oppression, inequality and injustice.

I believe that peace, justice and the integrity of creation are profoundly connected. Unless we can maintain and restore the ecological health of the planet, the poor cannot be fed, the sick cannot be healed, and the inalienable human rights that belong to all people will be violated with impunity.

As the UN World Charter on Nature states, “every form of life is unique, regardless of its worth to humans.” We must take steps to ensure the continued integrity of our ecosystems, in order to protect these unique lives and life forms, and we must put the rights of living breathing human beings above the interests of profit driven corporations.

The Peace Pole

I first learned about Peace Poles when I was visiting Catholic Worker communities on the East Coast back in 2004. When I stayed at Viva House in Baltimore, we visited Jonah House and learned about peace poles in some detail. When my traveling companion and I returned home I could see that my barren front yard really needed a peace pole planted in it.
If you want to learn about them, you can visit this site:
www.peacepoleproject.org

Peace