Doing what We Can

My wife, Susan, and I were sitting on our back deck after lunch earlier this week, talking about the news. What a downer of a conversation! Floods in Iowa (and almost everywhere along the upper Mississippi)! Wildfires in California! Bloodshed in Kenya! A dictator acting like a dictator in Zimbabwe! Xenophobia in South Africa!

I started singing this song made popular in 1959 by the Kingston Trio.

"They're rioting in Africa, they're starving in Spain.
There's hurricanes in Florida, and Texas needs rain.
The whole world is festering with unhappy souls,
the French hate the Germans, the Germans hate the Poles.
Italians hate Yugoslavs, South Africans the Dutch,
And I don't like anybody very much!"

And then I remembered an anonymous quote from my college yearbook, "the more things change, the more they stay the same."

Indeed the news is troubling. There's no way around this. Do we give up? Do we throw our hands in the air and say that the world's going to hell in a handbasket, and what's the use! Or, do we retreat into a cocoon of compact schedules and safe days? Do we keep our nose to the grindstone and our shoulders to the wheel and disregard everything that's not our business? Or do we respond to calls to action? Do we give to Church World Service or the Red Cross? Do we sign on in support of this or that advocacy group to speak out on issues of immigration, civil rights and liberties, war and peace, global warming (the list goes on)?

The answer to all of these questions is undoubtedly, "Yes." On any given day we may respond in any or all of these ways. At least I know that I do. Sometimes I simply shut down at the appearance of one more cry for help from a worthy cause in my email inbox. Sometimes I'll pass on information for support of various causes by means of blogs and emails. Sometimes I'll send money.

Mostly, I'm finding that I truly admire the passion and energy that activists inside and outside of churches employ in pursuit of their causese. I rejoiced to hear of the commitment of the congregation at Plymouth, Syracuse to create their own Tents of Hope in support of the victims of the genocide in Darfur, as well as in their rededication to advocate for hopeful immigrants within our midst through the New Sanctuary Movement.

Through my recently greater invovlement in InterFaith Works of Central New York I've been focusing my efforts in the Community Wide Dialogue to End Racism. I participated in a "Dialogue Circle" last fall. And, this month I volunteered as a facilitator in the CWD 3rd Grade Exchange Dialogue, involving a suburban and an inner-city elementary school. For four hours with eight 3rd graders in each school I attempted to facilitate the dialogue. I wasn't very good, but I did what I could do. I did something. It felt worthwhile.

My job involves working with so many churches that seem to care less about actually proclaiming the good news of God's love through words and deeds of justice, mercy, understanding, yes, even love. Many of our churches are showing a great deal of care for their members. Our church in Constantia that just closed down used to have a worship bulletin sized page full of people (from the church and community) for whom to pray. This is wonderful. It's a great ministry. But it's not enough. Prayers are essential. But prayer in order to be Godly must take us beyond ourselves, our own circle, our our needs, our own health. Godly prayer gives us a Godly perspective.

I subscribe to the online newsfeed from Common Global Ministries. A recent feed reminded me of the power of prayer to change our perspective and to place us humbly at the feet of the throne of grace. The Council of Churches of South Africa wrote a statement of contrition and apology for the ethnic violence among the people of South Africa that has been directed at the growing number of refugees mostly from neighboring Zimbabwe. In a letter on behalf of the Board of the Council dated June 18, Mr. Eddie McKue, General Secretary wrote:

"We are ashamed that in a nation where four out of five people profess to be Christians, we have not been more effective interpreters and practitioners of the Bible's demand that we show hospitality to strangers and welcome to outsiders. Just as the sons and daughters of Israel were aliens in the land of Egypt, so too many South Africans spent long years in exile in neighbouring lands, including your own countries. Even in times of want and duress, you demonstrated your solidarity with our struggle by making us feel at home and sharing your resources with us graciously.

Our shame is compounded when we acknowledge that we have neglected the imperatives of our culture as well as of our faith. Whatever language we speak, whatever our heritage, as Africans we share a common understanding of our interdependence as human beings. The South African concept of ubuntu – that each person becomes human through his or her relationships with others – has parallels in other societies around the continent."

He went on to talk about the need for Christians to do more than express shock and outrage. Christians have the imperative of confronting such behavior and looking for ways

"to cooperate in the search for development paradigms that promote genuine human security, the need for stronger and more structured relations between sister Christian Councils in the SADC region, the need for us to uphold the dignity of all people, the need to address the enormous inequalities that our present economic and political systems have produced."

Further, he invited ecumenical partners around the world "to join in conversation with us in order to explore these issues. We also commit ourselves to working with you as we together seek sustainable solutions that are consistent with our heritage and our faith."

Now, in my book that's Godly prayer! Yes, it came in the form of a letter, but it is prayer nonetheless. It is a confession before God of complicity in the violence by association, if nothing else, coupled with the desire to promote the Way of Peace that Jesus embodied.

In our own faith heritage as United Church of Christ people the 17th century citizens of "Plimoth Colony" called days of prayer and fasting regularly whenever they endured hardship, privation, or community wide doubt or fear.

The statement of the Council of Churches of South Africa reminded me of this heritage. And, I thought how faithful it is whenever we are able to look at our behavior -- individually and collectively -- and confess when we are wrong in the context of commiting ourselves to doing what is right and just.

For Christians it's much less a matter of patriotism than it is of faithfulness.

Blessings,

Rick Cowles