Praying for Haiti

I haven't felt much like posting this week. Besides only sleeping a few hours every night, working on details of a Martin Luther King Day service on Monday, I've been thinking about that line from Casablanca, Rick telling Ilsa that, "the problems of three little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world."

So, although I've been thinking about a lot of things (including whether or not I have a mission in my life), the earthquake in Haiti has been overwhelming.

The ELCA website has resources for worship and donating.

The wonderful website pretty good lutherans has links to several tributes to Seminarian Ben Larson, who was killed in Haiti this week.

I was particularly moved by these powerful words.

Someone else said to me yesterday at church that there was an earthquake of similar magnitude recently somewhere else. There, about 80 people died.

"It's not the earthquake that killed people," she said. "It's poverty."

O God, where hearts are fearful and constricted, grant courage and hope. Where anxiety is infections and widening, grant peace and reassurance. Where impossibilities close every door and window, grant imagination and resistance. Where distrust twists our thinking, grant healing and illuminaiton. Where spirits are daunted and weakened, grant soaring wings and strengthened dreams. All these things we ask in the name of Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord. Amen.
-Prayer for time of conflict, crisis, disaster, from ELW

O God, open our hearts to feel the earth quake from the oppression of poverty, and free our hearts and our hands to work to heal those things that deal death and suffering. Amen.

My Name is not "Those People"

By poet, singer, prophet, social activist Julia Dinsmore

I posted about her book My Name is Child of God...Not Those People previously.

The title poem was written after Julia's encounter with a church committee. A group of people had gone to a rather large congregation, asking them to partner with some homeless people to buy a home. The congregation's group said "No," and one of the committee members said to them, "Those people don't need homes. We give them turkeys at Thanksgiving."

Julia's poem has become very well-known, and has been recited in many different venues, often without attribution or Julia receiving any remuneration. I'm glad she's finally getting some recognition for her work.

Christ the King

So this weekend is Christ the King Sunday, time to contemplate, among other things, what Christ the King looks like. Our youth went to an event a couple of weeks ago called "Celebration of Confirmation" where they sang, worshiped, saw skits and heard about the issue of youth homelessness. Julia Dinsmore, a local poet and activist, was also there. I hear in my mind some of the words of her poem, "My Name is Not 'Those People'":

...My name is not "ignorant, Dumb or Uneducated." I

lived with an income of $621 with $169 in food

stamps. Rent is $585, that leaves $38 a month to

live on. I am such a genius at surviving that I could

balance the state budget in an hour.

....

The wind will stop before I let my children become

a statistic. Before you give in to the urge to blame

me, the blame that lets us go blind and unknowing

into the isolation that disconnects us, take another

look. Don't go away.

For I am not the problem, but the solution.

And... my name is not "Those People."

Lord, when have we see you?

picture by Kristie Bretzke, local artist