Author: ppadmin

¶ Lenten invocation. “I am the vessel. The draught is God’s. And God is the thirsty one.” — former United Nations General Secretary Dag Hammarskjöld in Markings, his personal journal, posthumously published, now considered a classic of spiritual devotion

¶ Oscar good news. Citizenfour, the film chronicling the decision made by National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden to expose wrongdoing to the world by leaking details of the agency's top-secret global surveillance operation to journalists, was awarded the Best Documentary Film award at Sunday night's Academy Award. "The disclosures that Edward Snowden revealed don't only expose a threat to our privacy but to our democracy itself," said Laura Poitras, the film’s director.

¶ In case this question ever crossed your mind, the US government has 17 different intelligence agencies. Here’s the annotated listing.

¶ Invocation. Hearts open to Thy Face, like the flower to the sun / Hearts open to Thy Face, come and trace / The tears that stain our face, the joy that shall displace / All sorrow by thy grace, mercy bound, mercy bound / All sorrow by thy grace, circle ‘round. —new verse to “What Wondrous Love Is This"

Artwork at right ©Julie Lonneman, used with permission.

¶ One of the young people in our congregation is spending her junior year of high school as a foreign exchange student in Oman, located on the Arabian Peninsula’s southeast corner. Her blog posts have been remarkable, but a recent one is the most articulate statements I’ve seen on the struggle for intercultural understanding. She’s given me permission to share the link for that commentary.

¶ Confession. “In an unusually frank admission, Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James Comey said that American law enforcement stands ‘at a crossroads,’ acknowledging in a speech at Georgetown University that ‘There is a disconnect between police and the communities they serve. . . . All of us in law enforcement must be honest enough to acknowledge that our history is not pretty.’” —USAToday

¶ Like good cholesterol, there’s good socialism. The first bill approved (overwhelmingly so) by the new 114th Congress renewed a federal program providing supplemental insurance covering acts of terrorism. First approved after the 11 September 2001 terrorists attacks, the current renewal will double (over a course of five years) the previous $100 million threshold.

¶ Americans Who Tell the Truth is a website that celebrates passionate folks who give a damn about justice. This link takes you directly to the portraits page. There you’ll find paintings and profiles of dozens of US citizens—some famous, some not so much—who have impacted our culture in profound ways.
        The group includes James Douglass, whose book The Non-Violent Cross: A Theology of Revolution and Peace (1968, reprinted in 2006) was my first introduction to a theology (not just a practice) rooted in nonviolence.

¶ “When NCLB (No Child Left Behind, federal legislation approved in 2001 setting measurable public education goals) first came out I thought it was a good idea. Higher standards? Accountability? NCLB sounds great on paper. But in practice? It’s a disaster.” So says Matt Buys, a friend serving on our city’s school board, in an opinion piece in our local paper.
        “I had two kids in schools when NCLB was put in place and immediately I saw my children go from loving knowledge, being naturally curious and telling me about their day at school to—and I wish I were exaggerating—lying on the couch exhausted because they had spent the day testing. . . . Creating wonder and awe, thereby inspiring creativity and a love of learning, is the most important things a teacher can do for your child.”
        In that same edition of our Sunday paper was a front page story of Dwight Mullen, political science professor at a local university, who specializes in analyzing educational disparity along racial lines. One of a score of indicators: 69% of black students nationally graduated from high school in 2012, while the rate for white students was 86%. As Dan Domenech of the American Association of School Administrators told National Public Radio in 2011, "The correlation between student achievement and Zip code is 100 percent. The quality of education you receive is entirely predictable based on where you live."
        Such statistical indicators of structural discrimination—and there are dozens in every conceivable measure of health and well-being in the US—suggest only two ways to interpret the disparities: Either African Americans (and other people of color, generally, and of low income, broadly) are cognitively deficient, morally lax or character defective. Or the deck is stacked against them. Attention to these and similar realities—with head, heart, hands and feet—is the sine qua non of biblical faith.